weekly sermon

    8-31-08

The Rewards Of Labor

This weeks message will be a bit unorthodox in accordance with my normal messages. First let us look at the passages then we will talk a bit about, first, what they have in common, what they have to say, and what they mean to us.

Proverbs 12:14, "A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of [his] mouth: and the recompence of a man's hands shall be rendered unto him."

The NIV version says "From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him."

Exodus 5:2-5, "And Pharaoh said, Who [is] the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go. (3)And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword. (4)And the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works? get you unto your burdens. (5)And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now [are] many, and ye make them rest from their burdens."

And finally Matthew 11:28-30, "Come unto me, all [ye] that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (29)Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. (30)For my yoke [is] easy, and my burden is light."

This weekend, as we all know is Labor Day weekend, so it is only fitting that this weekends message would be about "labor". What is it that each passage has in common? Every passage is dealing with labor. Each passage also talks about rewards for labor and they also talk about rest for the laborers.

If we look at the first passage posted, in Proverbs, we see that the work a man does with his hands will be rewarded. This weekend is just one part of the reward we receive for doing the works which we have chosen.

If we look at the passages in Exodus we see that Moses and Aaron has met with Pharaoh, on the command of God, to let the people of Israel go. To give you a little background here, the people of Israel were slaves to Pharaoh and were kept for the purpose of doing Pharaoh's bidding. If we look closely we see that this could be considered their labor day weekend. Moses has asked Pharaoh to allow the people of Israel to journey into the desert for three days to make sacrifices unto God.

We grow into adults, we find a job, make that job our career, and one of the rewards for working at our jobs is a break called "Labor Day". Notice that Moses was asking Pharaoh to allow the people rest from their burdens. Notice, also, that "Labor Day" is a three day weekend, the same amount of time that Moses asked Pharaoh to allow the people to be able to journey into the desert to make their sacrifices.

Now let us venture off course for a moment. Labor does not only encompass those with positions at a company, but every person. Every person has one type of labor or another. There are stay at home mothers that do not work for a company, but they labor, probably harder than most working class people. This is one example showing that all people labor in one way or another. With all of that being said, let us take a look at the last section of passage that is shown.

In Matthew, Jesus is making us an offer, "Come unto me, all [ye] that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke [is] easy, and my burden is light." The word labour here is from the Greek "Kopiao" meaning to work hard or to toil. The heavy laden are those that carry a load or burden around with them, whether this burden be physical or mental.

Let us, on this commercialized holiday, stop and look at our labors in a different light. Do we have something that is weighing heavy on our heart? Do we have someone or something on our minds that has caused us stress? Let us search deep in our hearts for those heavy loads we have carried around with us.

Our Saviour came to us and gave us a command to which we should really pay heed. Jesus says here that He is meek and lowly in heart. He states that we should take His yoke and learn of Him. To learn of Him means that we should study about Him and follow His steps.

This is where the hardest part for most people comes into play. To ask people to let go unconditionally and give all their cares, worries, problems, situations, or even happy times to Jesus, is a very hard request. If one would actually let go of all and give it to Him, they would see just how simple it is to allow God to handle all their situations. It states here that the yoke is easy and the burden is light. If for any reason whatsoever I came to you with a new invention that would make your job much easier, would you turn me down? Here it is, Jesus is now showing you that invention. The yoke is the invention to make the burden light. He states that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Why would we not want an easy road to travel while we carry a light load?

Now let me express, from this same passage, the best part. Let us first believe that we have now let go of everything and given it to God. We have taken His yoke, that is easy, and found that His burden is light. We have done this and we have an easy job with a very light burden. Having this easy job and light burden would make life easy on us, correct? Now let us see the best part. Even though we have this easy job, it states that we will find rest for our souls.

Let us relish in this Labor Day weekend and reflect on the hard jobs we have had to perform to receive this reward. Here we see that to have an easy job with a light burden, we can still receive the ultimate "labor day" weekend. If we give our all to Christ and allow Him to take charge of all our situations, our souls will find rest in Him.

Have you given your all to Christ? If not then give it a try and see how easy it is to give it all to Him and how easy the rest will come to your soul for that work. If you have never given your soul to Christ for that simple rest, then all you need to do is say a simple prayer with me.

Say this simple prayer with me, Dear Lord, I want you to be the Lord over my life, forgive me of my sins, and give me the gift of everlasting life. Amen.

If you have said this simple prayer, then we believe that you have received salvation. We would love to rejoice with you, so please drop us a note, in our link, to let us know and confess Jesus before man, so that we may send you a few things that we hope will help you in your new Christian walk.
 

With Love in Christ,

Pastor Stone