Jesus Christ. Sermon text for today is John 15. I'm going to read verses 1 to 3, although we'll kind of work our way through the whole chapter as we go through the sermon today. And the sermon is about work again. And it's about the advent of Christ, Christmas and the reversal of the curse, the great reversal that's occurred and how all the problems we've talked about for the last four sermons relative to work are all reversed by Jesus. And so things are much different. this side of his advent. So this is really sort of a sermon about the implications of Christmas for our work and particularly the problems that plague our work. So John 15, 1 to 3, which is almost this kind of a summary of what will happen in the rest of the chapter. Please stand for the reading of God's Word. I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this text. We thank you for the tremendous joy of the season and the rightfulness of all that. This is indeed the most wonderful time of the world, beginning as it does the narrative of our Savior, culminating in his ascension at your right hand. Bless us, Lord God, as we think through the incarnation of our Savior, his coming, and the reversal of barrenness and reversal of pointlessness to our work, the destruction of our selfishness and the destruction of our idols. Bless us, Lord God, that we may have great hope today that we rejoice in the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ as it relates to our work. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Please be seated. So that's what we're going to talk about. We've talked about work. First, that work becomes fruitless. Then we talked about work that it becomes pointless from Ecclesiastes. Then we talked about work and how it works. It kind of creates or reveals our selfishness. Work can become very selfish. And then finally, we talked about work revealing our idols. And so those four aspects of the fall of man and its results on the work that is so great that God has given us to image his work. in the world, these four things are reversed definitively at the coming of Jesus. Now they're not totally gone, we know that. We've been saying that these four things are, you know, things that are common in our lives. But there is a great difference, this side of the cross in everything, this side of the coming of Jesus Christ in Christmas. And certainly that's true of work. And I think that the text before us, as well as other texts we'll look at, point us to a great reversal in those four problems, not completely removing them until the coming of our Savior at the end of time, but significantly changing them for our work. So this should give us great Christmas joy. Now, I'm pushing Christmas a little bit. Advent's about waiting, and we never do all that good in this church waiting for Christmas. We want to sing Christmas songs right after Thanksgiving. That's a good instinct, and we're doing some Christmas songs. You probably have not noticed, but some of you might notice, that several Christmases now during Advent will do Psalm 96 and we'll do Psalm 97 and then on the Sunday closest to Christmas will do Psalm 98. Psalm 98 is the center of that particular fourth book of the Psalms and it's about the Advent and 96 as he's coming, 97 as he's coming, 98 as he's here and you know joy of the world. Isaac Watts rendition of Psalm 98. And we even pushed that a little today. We got Psalm 97, which is very appropriate talking about idols, but we actually already sang Psalm 98. So we sort of pushed the season. That's okay. And I'm not actually preaching next Sunday, which would be a Christmas sermon, I suppose. or the following Sunday. Next Sunday, Elder Wilson, Pastor Wilson, will be preaching and then Sunday after that, Gordon Murray, our associate pastor candidate for Scotland. So this is sort of my sermon to talk about Christmas, the advent of Christ, as it relates to our work and about this great reversal. So that's what we'll do. There's going to be just four points. He reverses barrenness. And so he brings fruitfulness to our work in an increased sense this side of his coming. Secondly, he gives us new meaning and purpose for our work. The pointlessness of it is not completely gone, as we feel that way sometimes, but there are texts that point us in the direction of how really that's been changed too at the coming of Christ. And then third, we'll see that Jesus has come to destroy the central idol we have, which is our selfishness and our pride. And so the advent of Christ really puts to death increasingly our selfishness that ends up messing up our work. And then finally, as we as we just read in Psalm 96, he comes to destroy the idols. And we'll talk about that if he came 2000 years ago to accomplish that. Well, certainly that's happened. And so the idols that frequently plague our work are destroyed by Christ, and I think John 15 kind of can be seen as alluding to each of these four great reversals. Now, the first reversal is fruitfulness. And of course, John 15 is all about fruitfulness, right? I mean, we just read kind of a summary, you know, that we're to abide in Christ and we'll have fruit as a result of that. That fruit will become even more fruitful as he cleanses us. You know, it's kind of odd. You look at verse three of the text and you think you're already clean because of the word. What's that got to do with the vine? Well, unfortunately, our translations don't let us see this. But in verse two, it says that every branch that bears fruit, he prunes. But it really could be translated. He cleans. He cleans up. He cuts off any suckers that are going to produce more fruitlessness as opposed to fruit. So he cleans us in sanctification, but he's definitively cleansed us by his word is what verse three is telling us. That's how he puts us into the vine. So that's how those two link up. And if we look at it that way, then fruitfulness, which is the major theme here, is connected to the word of God and our abiding in Christ, which is our purpose and meaning to our work. And the end result of that is that we're not selfish, because he's always pruning us. He's teaching us to get rid of selfishness through our sanctification process. And we'll see more explicit comments about that later in the chapter. And then finally, he's destroying these idols through the sanctification process as well. So his word is central to these things. And so the text is kind of a summary of it here. Now, Jesus is a worker. We know that in John chapter 4, you've heard me talk about this quite a bit, and we'll be reading a section of John 4 for our commissioning scripture today. You know, Jesus is talking to the woman at the well in Samaria, and he's bringing her to faith. And through her, and then through her coming and bringing her kinsmen, he brings the whole village to faith. And the great area at the end of that operatic description of what Jesus is doing is these men come and declare him to be the Savior of the world. So early in the Gospel of John, we have this image that Jesus has come not just to save the Jews, but the world. And the Samaritan village is a picture of that. And it's kind of funny as well. When we read this at the end, you'll see the juxtaposition. But you get this woman going off convicted of her sin, the word of Christ bringing her into the vine. She brings others who believe because of her word, but then they believe because they hear the word of Christ. So that's kind of the beginning and end. And in the middle, the disciples come and find him. They think he needs some food. And so their concern is not really what's happening in terms of his ministry. and the work he's doing their concern is more than he has food to eat and probably them as well. And he tells them that his food is to do the will of his father in heaven and to complete his work, his work. And it's the normal word for work there. Ergonomics comes from this Greek word ergo, which is our work. So Jesus said that, you know, he's not here primarily as consumer. He's here primarily as worker guy. And his identity is to do the father's work and to do the work that's been assigned to him and that he's been called to do and to finish that work. So as we look at the gospel of John, really, he's telling us here in summation form what the whole gospel is about. It's about work. It's about Jesus doing the work of the father. And that is his food. and so and so Jesus is this worker and he's a worker who will complete work that's been assigned to him. OK, and that's who our Savior is. So we have this revelation. in the Gospels, then all these things we've learned from the Old Testament about work and its difficulties, we expect something really quite different to happen now because Jesus has come as the model of the worker. And we can look at him as an example. But beyond that, his work cleanses us definitively through his word and changes us and moves the world ahead. It begins to put the world to rights through making work profitable and fruitful, through making work have meaning and sense, through driving out our selfishness and getting rid of our idols. That's what Christmas is about. I mean, from one perspective, Christmas is about the reclamation of work, proper work, joyful work, work that's deeply satisfying, work that is deeply fruitful as we abide in Christ and his words. So Jesus, is this worker. And the first thing that the text begins to tell us, and I've already alluded to this, is this reversal of fruitlessness in our work. Now, the great message of the Christmas narrative is, part of it at least, is this idea of a great reversal, and that's tied to a reversal of barrenness. And what do I mean by that? Well, in Luke, the text, one of the texts that, you know, many of us will be reading and thinking about the next few weeks, and I've already done it some this week in the Gospel of Luke. We have this wonderful account of the angel coming to Mary and announcing that she will bear the savior of the world and his name will be Jesus savior. And then she preparation for this is that Elizabeth will also bear a child John will be the forerunner of Jesus and then, as they get together with two lives in the womb, John leaps in the womb of Elizabeth for joy at the advent of his savior in Mary's womb. And then Mary, they have a conversation and then Mary sings, recites, whatever, what's become known in church history as the Magnificat. It's Latin. It's the very first word in the Latin version of it. My soul magnifies the Lord, right? So if you want to turn to Luke chapter one, we're going to read that Magnificat. This is throughout church history. The Magnificat is seen as the great reversal. So things are changed. The world will never be the same. This side of the incarnation of Jesus that's been accomplished. Mary speaks of this in past tense. So, you know, it has been accomplished through her becoming fruitful in her womb with the Savior. This is what she then sings of in the Magnificat. And let me get to it. Mary said, verse 46 of Luke chapter 1. Is that right? Is it one? Yeah. OK. I knew that I just need to make sure you're engaged. OK, Luke chapter one, verse 46, Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God, my savior. My soul does magnify the Lord. We know this is a chant form. Hopefully we may be singing it in a couple of weeks or maybe next week. My spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior, for he has regarded the lowest state of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed for he who is mighty has done great things for me and mighty and holy rather is his name and his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. So these last few verses are the basis for calling this the great reversal. God's covenant promises established in the garden right after the fall, right? When he promises that the seed of the woman will crushed the head of the serpent. This is what's been fulfilled and it has a practical effect immediately in the world and what's being worked out now is that he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. all humanity that exalts its own mind its own thoughts and who did that Adam and Eve. We think the fruit is good to eat. There are scattered in their pride and so he exalts those who are going to use their thought systems are going to use their intellect in submission to God. So, people that are going to use their intellect for some other purpose, through history God holds them down, lets them prosper for a season, holds them down and exalts those who are humble and train their thoughts to think God's thoughts after Him. So the intellectual capacity of man is affected. Secondly, he has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the poor. This was why this text has at various times in the history of the last 2,000 years been prohibited from being sung or recited in public. Rulers don't like it. wicked rulers, particularly because it says that the course of history now is that rulers who rule for themselves and not for King Jesus are going to be put down in history and those who rule for God will be exalted. So it's the great reversal of people in the intellectual capacity of all of us in our ruling capacity, right? And this doesn't just apply to rulers in the civil state. rules of business rules of families rules of churches that rule for themselves and rather under King Jesus. History is a process of God judging them. What we just sang about in Psalm 97, as we sang about last week in Psalm 96, as we sang about in Psalm 98, is God is coming to judge the world. He's changing things. And He's going to bring down some people and exalt some other people. And He exalts those who rule for Him. And then finally, it says in the third movement, he has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent empty away. Now, it doesn't mean that if you're rich, you're bad. But the rich who use their riches not for King Jesus and his kingdom, but rather for themselves, who want their money for themselves, you see. History is a process of those people being, their riches taken away through various interesting mechanisms and given to those who will use the resources properly for the kingdom. So man in all of his capacities, in his intellectual capacity, in his ruling capacity over whatever dominion you have, that you rule over, and in his consecration of everything that God has given to him. We could say prophet, priest, and king, right? A prophet intellectual, a king ruling, a priest consecrates things. These three aspects have been reversed with the coming of Jesus, and those who are true prophets, priests, and kings being united to him, we now begin to exercise more and more control over the created order. So the point here is that the coming of Jesus affects a real change in the history of the world, and it has affected a real change. We don't have time to go into it, but it's rather obvious if you think about how cultures have worked. Now, here's the point of going to this text. One, it's a great reversal, but secondly, it's a great reversal, and it's set in this beautiful story narrative of two women who we can say are fruitless. They're barren. Well, not quite. Elizabeth is definitely barren. The text tells us that, right? Mary isn't barren, but she's a virgin. She's worse than barren. There's no possible way she can conceive a son, right? Apart from a man in her virginity. And yet she does, because the angel says with God, nothing's impossible. By the way, doesn't that immediately crush the idol of scientism in our day and age? It's why people hate the virgin birth. Science is great, but the idol of scientism is horrible. It says the only things that can be really real or proven or whatever are things that we can see today. Ongoing natural processes. And Christmas is the great rock thrown against the goofy idol of scientism. You know, we're all affected by that scientism idol. I mean, if you listen to the news, you're always hearing stats and research and proving this and proving that. And you know, science is great. It came out of Christian thinking. It came out of men who were going to use their intellect to look at how God had created the world and understand it. But scientism that exalts that, well, I've probably railed against that icon enough. But the point here is, is with God, nothing is impossible. So Mary bears a son. And so it's a reversal of ultimate barrenness. And it's a double witness to that fruitfulness that Jesus brings in his advent, in his incarnation, because Elizabeth is also barren, and yet she conceives as well. So you've got these two barren and very barren people coming together who can't have fruitfulness of children, and they're fruiting. They're having fruitfulness. They're having boys, right? So, you know, God comes And the Great Reversal is set in this context of telling us that while the world has primarily suffered in different ways under fruitlessness in our work, in our childbearing and whatever it is, now things have changed. Now, look, I know there are still women that can't bear children. That's fine. And I know that back then not everybody was barren. I understand that. But the narrative here is one that wants us to see the change that's happened in kind of a definitive way, that Jesus comes to make the world fruit out, so to speak, right? You know, one of those great Psalms where God walks along and things just grow as He passes by them, right? That's the way it is when Jesus comes, the world begins to fruit out. It gets fruitful in various directions. And so while our work can be fruitless at times, it is nowhere near as fruitless as it used to be. And our anticipation is that God is establishing through through our work. Now, this side of the coming of Jesus, our Christmas joy should focus on the fact that the great reversal is a reversal in our work. and we should expect our work to be more fruitful this side of the cross. Sometimes we're not going to understand the fruit, but that's, I think, the great narrative here. We could go on and talk about barrenness in the Old Testament, right? Abram's wife, Isaac's wife, Jacob's wife, barren, barren, barren, and then a miraculous thing happens and children are born. It's preparation for the coming of Jesus, for the celebration of Christmas that will move the world definitively from barrenness to fruitfulness. And folks, that is a tremendous statement of Christmas and gospel joy for you when you go about doing your labors tomorrow. Oh, we'll still experience some fruitlessness. Some birds won't come to fruition, whether it's a business venture or an actual conception and bearing of children. But everything has changed. Mostly we will be fruitful in our work, and God is accomplishing that. So we have great hope for our work because of this reversal of barrenness. Now, the text goes on in John 15. So it starts by talking about the abundant fruit that we're going to have. That's a promise of Christ, the worker. He's telling us that as we go about our lives, and our lives are a lot about work, we're going to have great fruitfulness. We're going to have fruit. We're going to have a lot of fruit. So he promises us that in John 15. Secondly, I think we can read in this text as well a reversal of the kind of pointlessness that our work can often feel like. Now, I understand Ecclesiastes. I preach from Ecclesiastes. There's great gospel news in Ecclesiastes, and it's frequently misunderstood. Having said that, we never want to get into a position of not understanding the great reversal that happens at the coming of Jesus. And there's a sense in which the New Testament texts that talk about our work now are different in substance, in variety, and in the magnitude of those statements, relative to what we do in everything that we do, including our vocations, being done with purpose and meaning. So that's what this point is here, is that really, yes, we can still experience Ecclesiastes kind of meaninglessness to our work, particularly when we're not thinking correctly about it. But even when we are, we can sort of experience that. But I want to say that Christmas means that definitively the Great Reversal has happened here as well. And there is now new meaning and purpose that is available in the context of our work. Part of that is because of what Keller refers to as the work under the work. That underneath our work, what we're really trying to do in our flesh is to justify ourselves, to give ourselves identity, to make ourselves a name, to make ourselves acceptable to God and maybe to other people. That's what he refers to as the work under the work. And part of the reason why we have new meaning and purpose this side of the cross is it's certainly true that men were justified freely by the grace of God in the Old Testament. But this side of the coming of Jesus and the narratives in the gospels that show us his incarnation as a man to identify with us and to save us, and that show us his suffering on the cross for us, and show us the resurrection, and show us the ascension, surely we have a better apprehension of justification by faith this side of the cross, this side of the gospel messages. And so, in the work under the work, We have a deep sense of purpose to what we're doing, because we're not struggling with that desire to create our own identity and our own salvation from our work. So that's certainly part of it. But let me read from John 15 here. Jesus says in verse 4, Abide in me and I in you. And as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. Okay, now that's purpose and meaning. He tells us that we're going to have fruitfulness as a regular picture of who we are and what we do. And he tells us that this flows from our abiding in him. Now, union with Christ, abiding in Christ, is, you know, again, Old Testament, yes, you're related to Yahweh, etc. New Testament, much more fleshed out image of what Jesus has accomplished. And the Holy Spirit comes in some sort of magnified way, this side of the cross. And we now have this very explicit teaching about abiding in the person of Jesus. He has come now. The second person of the Trinity has taken on humanity. And we are connected to him and his humanity. We abide in him. That's meaning and purpose in life. And so even when our work seems to be pointless, the same thing over and over and over, as we focus upon what Jesus tells us here, that the secret to fruitfulness is abiding, we also have this reversal of pointlessness in our work. We have meaning and purpose to our work. It's to abide in Christ. Now that's the deep meaning of our work. The meaning under the meaning. Now we go about doing tasks, and there's meaning to those tasks, and there's things we do in processes, etc. But the big picture is that Jesus has reversed pointlessness by revealing to us, empowering us, for a new sense of abiding in him that he talks about in John 15 as the basis, or connected at least, to our fruitfulness. And he tells us in verse 5, we will bear much fruit. So this kind of meaning under the meaning, purpose under the purpose, results in much fruitfulness as well. So we have this reversal of pointlessness and the reversal of fruitlessness. Verse 7 says, If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will see, or you will rather be, my disciples. As the Father loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. So this deep meaning and purpose is abiding in Christ, not as some kind of, you know, just emotional state, but by letting his word mediate all things to us, abiding in him by abiding in his commandments. And as we abide in his word, all 66 books as they relate through an understanding of the cross to our work, for instance, then we abide in Christ. We have deep meaning and purpose to our work, and that produces much fruitfulness. And this glorifies God. This glorifies God is what he says. By this God is glorified. And so the deep meaning and purpose of our life is to glorify God. And we understand that in a fuller sense. And it's happening in a fuller sense, this side of the great reversal through the incarnation, through the Christmas story that God gives to us. And then he says in this section, in verse 11, these things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full. So this kind of meaning and purpose produces joy at the base of our lives, even in the task that seems repetitive at our work. We're not sure what good it does. Underneath it all, we have this deep sense of abiding in Christ, knowing His Word, and having joy in all of these tasks. because we're now connected and abide in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, I believe that the Christmas message tells us that fruitfulness has come in a greater sense, and that our meaninglessness and seeming pointlessness of work is resolved in a definitive sense and will increasingly be resolved as we move forward by meditating upon our abiding in Christ as the deep meaning beneath the meeting, and that this is a joyful occurrence. This brings joy to what otherwise would be seen as meaningless, pointless tasks. Now, I know all this was pointed to in the Old Testament, but that's the point, isn't it? It was pointed to. Now it's a reality. Now things have changed. Jesus, in a historical event, became incarnate in the flesh. suffered and died for our sins, was raised from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father to create this situation for us. I mean, I think this is exceedingly important to us that we can now have passion for our work, meaning and purpose rather than the frequent pointlessness that Ecclesiastes points us to. In John 17, 19, we have this interesting verse. For their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. This is, you know, the great prayer in John 17. And Jesus says in the ESV version, I consecrate myself. But the King James New King James is a better version of translating this. This is what it says. And for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth. Now, ESV changes that. It wants to change it to consecrate. And, you know, if they want to do that, OK, but then they should do it to the second use of the term relative to us, because it's the exact same word in this verse. OK, listen again and I'll point out what I'm talking about. For their sakes, I sanctify myself or consecrate myself that day. That's you and I also may be sanctified or consecrated by the truth. So, Jesus is drawing a relationship between his sanctification and ours, or his consecration and ours. Now, we normally think of sanctification as becoming less sinful, and that's why they change this to consecrate with Jesus, because he doesn't go through a sanctification process in that sense. But the word sanctify has as its root meaning the idea of being set apart to a task, right? So, you know, next Sunday or whenever it is, or today, we took three of these candles and we sanctified them to be the three candles of Advent for us this morning. So they're set apart for a task. And so we also are sanctified or set apart for a task. And Jesus says that our sanctification, our being set apart for the work and calling that God has given us to do, is related to his sanctification. Now how was Jesus sanctified or consecrated? In what extent was he? We would say that Jesus was passionately committed in his work. He was consecrated and sanctified, set apart passionately to accomplish our salvation and our eternal redemption and the renovation of our work. and the well-being of the world that he had created. Jesus was passionate about his work and they were told that here when we see that he was totally consecrated, this was the gig for them, was that we would be saved and brought to fruitfulness and purpose in our lives. Now the point is that Jesus isn't just a worker. He's a consecrated worker. He is a passionate worker who loves us so deeply that his work is totally given to accomplishing our salvation. And back to John 4, even if he doesn't eat, you know, he doesn't care because he's doing passionately the work of saving you, reaching you, sanctifying you, transforming his world. That's the sort of worker that Jesus is. Jesus has no problem with pointlessness in his work. He has great meaning and purpose and passion to all that he does. And John 17 tells us that's to be the same with us. Jesus does this. So this is the way we would approach our work. That we would see ourselves consecrated to whatever task God calls us to do. That we would approach it with the same passion, with the same devotion, with the same singleness of mind that Jesus did in His work, you see. So the New Testament tells us, I think very clearly, that work has changed some. Because we have Jesus who has accomplished this, and He's done it for the very purpose that we might have that kind of passionate sanctification, consecration to the tasks and the work that we're called to do. And I'll tell you, that drives out pointlessness and meaninglessness in the context of our work, right? No matter how meaningful it might get, or you may not understand why this leads to that, or what we're supposed to do this for. You kids don't know it. You never know what your parents are telling you to do and why they're telling you to do it. It doesn't make any difference because we're to have every task, we're to approach it with consecration knowing we're doing it for Christ. We're abiding in Him as we obey our parents, right? We're abiding in Him and we have deep joy in our passionate calling to do whatever work He's called us to do tomorrow. So I think that Christmas, in part, is about this great reversal of fruitfulness, but also the great reversal of meaningfulness, passion, and service in the context of our work. We were watching last night. We had a really nice time. We had a delayed St. Nicholas Day celebration. We had to put it off for a week, so we did it yesterday, and then after that we had a birthday party for Mark at our house, and then after that some of the family were there and we watched It's a Wonderful Life. Haven't seen it for a while. But you know, that's what it's about, right? George Bailey doesn't get it, but God has given him a series of tasks that he just cannot fathom the significance of them. And he's kind of grumbly throughout the movie, right? It's amazing if you watch it. I haven't watched it for years. Watch it and see how kind of grumbly and unthankful the guy is. More often than not, it's amazing. It's a great depiction of who we are, right? But the point is, of course, of the movie is that everything he did had tremendous value and significance in the life of the world. And, you know, maybe it's overdone a bit, but it's true. Jesus has given you a set of things to do, and they're not the set of things we would necessarily choose to do ourselves, sometimes they are. They're not things we can understand how they relate to this, that, or the other thing, or how a city is righteous and happy rather than evil and dark. We can't see that stuff, but the movie properly represents exactly this point I'm trying to make. that in all of our work, no matter how grumpy it might make us, or how unthankful, or how seemingly routine, or boring as old Bedford Falls was, God is accomplishing wonderful things in the world. He is bringing the world to transformational beauty and righteousness. He's establishing these things. through the passion of Jesus being coming, then the passion of us to abide in him and his word and to go about our work, hopefully with faith, knowing that God is accomplishing in every task he gives us to do his will in the world. And that will is the great reversal of the curse. And it's becoming a blessing and reward. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. It is a wonderful life, and it's a beautiful world, and it's what Christmas, I think, should cause us to rejoice in, is in this kind of reversal. And I think in that context then, with these things I'm saying, with this deep meaning, when you read verses like Colossians 3, whatever you do, do it heartily to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you'll receive the reward of the inheritance. for you serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's a statement that says something that's possible for you to do tomorrow. God doesn't give you a command that's too high or too difficult or whatever. This is what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to approach the work that I think pre-coming of Jesus was more marked with meaninglessness and pointlessness. And this side of the cross can still appear that way at times and can be a problem in our work. But he says that what we're supposed to do then is whatever you do tomorrow in the most meaninglessness, pointless sort of work you're called to do, whatever you do, do it heartily with the passion of Christ. consecrate yourselves to the task, have the passion of Jesus because you're working for him as to the Lord and not to men. Now you obey men of course, you serve men, but ultimately what we're doing is we have this deep meaning and purpose to our vocations that's declared this side of the cross to be absolutely comprehensive in verses like Colossians 3, right? I mean, it's just a wonderful thing. There are intimations of this in the Old Testament. We can look at some verses in the Psalms or in this or that account where language that's sort of halfway there is found. But these statements don't really, you know, penetrate the Old Testament text. They don't pepper it throughout the way they do in the New Testament about our lives. First Corinthians 10 31. Therefore, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. It gives us meaning and purpose. The reversal has come in that area as well. First Peter four, ten and eleven, as each one has received a gift minister to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. No reason to restrict that just to church spiritual gifting. We've been given a gift to serve the world with. use it well as to God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies them in all things, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. This passion in our work glorifies God, deep meaning and purpose to our vocations. First Peter 2.12, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works, which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. Meaning and purpose. Don't complain, don't grumble. They're going to make, they're going to persecute you. Jesus says that in John 15 as well. Don't worry about it. Do what's right. Passionately serve Jesus. And even the Gentiles, even those people that want to strike out at you, many of them will come to glorify God by observing your good works, meaning pointless work. They see you doing it. And somehow this ends up with God, even in the hearts of some of them, glorifying him as they observe your conduct. Ephesians 6, 5 to 8. bondservants be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flash with fear and trembling and sincerity of heart as to Christ again right this thing is just you know they populate the New Testament these kind of calls to see our work with that kind of meaning and purpose. Yes, work can become fruitless from one perspective today. Yes, work can seem meaningless. But what has happened with the coming of Jesus is things have definitively changed. And our work is blessed now with fruitfulness in ways that it never was before. And our work has a deep meaning and purpose of serving Christ and accomplishing the salvation of the world through the tiny little things that we do in our Bedford Falls. You know, this is the message of Christmas to us, that God has accomplished this on this side of the coming of Jesus. These statements, you know, populate the New Testament to tell us this is what the reality is now. The great reversal has been effected and so things have changed. Overcoming selfishness. John 15 goes on to talk about this, that they're going to be persecuted. If you're interested in yourself, this isn't the gig, he says. The world's going to persecute you the same way they persecuted me. He goes on and on about this later in John 15. And so what is this doing? What is this pruning doing that we talked about earlier? It's pruning us of selfishness, right? And he says it very explicitly in verse 12 of John 15. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love is no man than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. So he tells us in John 15, that part of this message that he gives to them about the vine, is that we're to be cured from our selfishness by laying down our lives for other people. Now, it says at the heart of the Pentateuch, right? You've heard these sayings. The middle of Leviticus, middle of chapter 17, it says to love your neighbor as yourself. It's there in the Old Testament. But it's there as kind of a thing pointing to when this will really burst forth, this side of the coming of Jesus Christ, this side of the historic and real great reversal that he's effected, this side of Christmas. It happens now in an overwhelming way, and we have all these statements now about laying down our lives for other people, loving other people. Jesus is crushing our selfishness in these instructions, and He's telling us that the new world that He's bringing into being through His work, His passionate work for us, that in that new world, love and a lack of selfishness will be the predominant theme now. This will be what the world is. We're told more and more. So the selfishness that can be just at the heart of our work in our sinfulness, Jesus has come to reverse. And he calls us over and over again in this text, as well as in many others that probably no doubt come to many of your minds right now. He tells us about this, right? He tells us that we can rest in this. He says, you didn't choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. So Jesus in this section of John tells us that the end of selfishness and a call to serve other people in our work is, is, is, has at its core the fact that we're not taking care of ourselves. He, we didn't choose him. He chose us. So we can rest in that. Otherwise, you know, when you try to give people things, it's, it's threatening to yourself. But Jesus says we can have deep rest in knowing that he chose us and he is choosing us to bear fruit. That's established. And to do that, he says, we are to love other people rather than ourselves. We are to put to death the selfishness that so easily will mar and distort our work if we don't, if we let it, if we continue to go about. doing that. So if we wanted to take the time, maybe you could read John 15 in total. But this section then talks about persecution. And so what we see here is God telling us that abiding in Christ and fruitfulness is related to a lack of selfishness and a willingness to suffer persecution for our Savior, because he was persecuted as well. Now, you know, we have this message over and over again, right? Romans five, you know, well, some people will get on their lives for their friends. But Jesus laid down his life for us while we were his enemies, while we were sinners. And then it says later as his enemies. So the great example that Jesus gives to us, the historical reality is his love for us when we were opposed to him. And this is the sort of love and selflessness that he calls us to exercise as well. So again, in Romans 5, various other texts, 1 John, etc., over and over again in the New Testament, we're told to love other people, right? Yes, they're in the Old Testament. But this side of Christmas, this side of the advent of Christ, it becomes a major theme now about what our lives are supposed to look like. It's a reversal of the selfishness that so easily mars our work. Finally, it's the reversal of idolatry is seen, I think. That was the last thing we talked about in terms of some of these problems. And I'll jump right to the bottom of the text here now. He says in verse 26 of John 15, but when the helper comes whom I shall send to you from the father, the spirit of truth, who proceeds from the father, he will testify of me. And you will also bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. So this deep meaning, bearing witness of Christ and everything that we do, but the spirit of truth. What's it got to do with idolatry? Well, I didn't get to this text last week. I had it in my notes, but a significant text on idolatry and other gods is in Habakkuk two eighteen. We read this. What profit is the is the image that its maker should carve it, the molded image a teacher of lies, that the maker of its mold should trust in it." So idols are described in Habakkuk as being speakers of lies. Now that's where idolatry, false gods, that's where they originate at in the garden is with a lie. Idols, false gods, are lies. And so directly connected to idolatry is the idea of lies. Talk last week about questions you can ask yourself to discern your idols at work. One big question, do it this week. Think about your life. Think about lies in your life, deceptions. And then think, why am I doing that? What idol is driving me to speak lies about this, that, or the other thing? You say, well, I don't lie. Well, here's just a simple little list from Wikipedia about lies and deception. Not many of us are going to tell outright whoppers. Some of our kids will. But we don't do that. But let me read these other definitions. First of all, why these are five primary forms of deception. First lies, making up information or giving information that is the opposite or very different from the truth. So that's clearly a second one, though, is equivocation. make an indirect ambiguous or contradictory statement equivocation. You can use the same term, but have different meanings. This is exactly what Satan did, right? You shall not truly die using a word die, but using it with different meaning. So somebody asked us a question, our wife, our husband, a coworker, a boss, somebody reporting to us. And we use language that won't alert them to the fact that we're lying, but it really is a lie, because we're using a term the way they're not using it. And we're doing that so we'll deceive them. We don't really want to answer the question. Or we don't want to answer it truthfully. So we'll use equivocation. We'll use terminology that is intended to confuse. This is very common. A lot of the confusion that happens in workplaces, by the way, that gets in the way of fruitfulness and meaningfulness, is deception. It's not there because people have an intellectual problem. Sometimes it is. But more often than not, when you encounter confusion in the workplace, sins at work. You know, man's problem is primarily ethical. And in his ethical rebellion, in his attempt to have his own idols, whatever it might be that he wants more than God, he will use confusing speech because he doesn't want clarity to be known. Third, concealments, omitting information that is important or relevant to the given context, or engaging in behavior that helps hide relevant information. So, you know, understand, tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If somebody asks us a question, we can give them partial truth to cover our behinds, to cover our idols, so that we can serve our idols. So we can use equivocation terms, outright lies, we can use a lack of information to deceive other people. Fourth, exaggerations, overstatement, or stretching the truth to a degree. Either minimizing something that is shouldn't be minimum minimized or maximizing something that really isn't that great a deal that you did. And these are methods of deception. When we lie, we're serving idols, understatements, minimization or downplaying aspects of the truth. So these are different forms of deception. And the point is, here's the point we read in Psalm 96. that were in so many seven rather than we sang earlier that Jesus has come to destroy the ideals to crush. We know this is true. Lots of history in the Old Testament points to Jesus coming to do just that. And he tells us here in John 15 that related to fruitfulness and related to meaningfulness and purpose and related to a lack of selfishness. is what? The spirit who dwells in the midst of us and his characterization that Jesus gives him at the culmination of this talk on what we can say is the reversal of the difficult effects of work, of the curse. The culmination is that we now have the spirit of God operating in our being and that is a spirit of truth. Truth. Jesus is the way, meaning, and purpose in life. He is the truth, right? The absence of idolatry. And He is the life. He is the fruitfulness. And we have to see that one of the great things that's happened with the coming of Jesus is the destruction of idols by the coming of Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life, and the giving of His Spirit, who is the truth. And so when we believe and trust in God, when we have the deep sense that He has accepted us through the work of Jesus, we've got to earn it ourselves. When we have a deep rest in that, we can speak truth, even though it hurts us, even though it's bad for our reputation, even though it may get us in trouble here or there or somewhere. And if we don't do that, you see, then we're not appropriating the great reversal of Jesus coming to destroy the idols that so often hinder our work because the idols are speakers of lies. And when we speak lies, usually more often than not, maybe all the time, it's because we're serving something other than the Lord Jesus Christ in the context of our work. Christmas is a wonderful time. I hope that, you know, this week and as you think about Christmas and you think about, you know, fruitfulness and meaning and purpose and selflessness, the self-sacrifice that Jesus brings for us and calls us to. And as you think about how Jesus has destroyed idols, think about the history. Jesus is destroying idols and he's going to destroy whatever modern idols exist as well. And may that add to your Christmas joy. May you see that from one perspective, Christmas is all about work. Christmas is all about the reclamation of work. Christmas is all about Jesus taking these very real problems that inhabit our workplaces and changing them definitively once for all. May the Lord God grant us this week to embrace work through the eyes of the gospel, the good news of what Jesus has accomplished. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the great meaning and purpose we have to be your witnesses, to bear witness to you in everything that we do. And that gives meaning and purpose to everything. And that is the great fruit that our lives are to have. Bless us, Lord God, this week as we seek to apply the gospel, the great Christmas joy of the reversal of these things that can be so difficult in our workplaces. Bless us, Father, this week. as we rejoice with Christmas hope. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.