Gathering Recap - 11/05/2023 - Proverbs 6:6-11 - Work and Money

Call to worship:

Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me,
    for I am poor and needy.
2 Preserve my life, for I am godly;
    save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God.
3 Be gracious to me, O Lord,
    for to you do I cry all the day.
4 Gladden the soul of your servant,
    for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
    abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.

Psalm 86:1-5

Gathering Video

Questions for reflection:

How does the biblical story help us to understand work?

In what ways does the good news of the gospel shape our work and money?

What does mission and generosity look like in your life today?

Corporate Prayer:

Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever, amen.

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Notes//Quotes//Slides:

Kim J reading -

Prov 6:6-11, 3:9-10, 23:4-5

Gen 2:15-17,

Gen 1:27-28

Prov 10:4

Prov 15:6

Prov 22:1-2,

Prov 23:5

“The works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks, but that all works are measured before God by faith alone… Indeed, the menial housework of a manservant or maidservant is often more acceptable to God than all the fastings and other works of a monk or priest, because the monk or priest lacks faith.” Martin Luther

Col 3:17, Col 3:25

Our work can be a calling only if it is reimagined as a mission of service to something beyond merely our own interests. Thinking of work mainly as a means of self-fulfillment and self-realization slowly crushes a person. - Tim Keller and Katherine Alsdorf

“The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly—but what us is all that if in the very center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? No crooked table legs or ill fitting drawers ever, I dare swear, came out of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, couple anyone believe that they were made by the same hand that made heaven and earth. - Dorthy Sayers

1 Cor 15:57-58,

Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavours, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavour, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God's calling, can matter forever. - Tim Keller