This is Labor Day weekend the official end of summer… Labor Day is an annual celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers. It is observed the first Monday in September. Before it was a federal holiday, Labor Day was recognized by labor activists and individual states. 

By 1894, 23 states had adopted the holiday, and finally on June 28, of the same year Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September every year a legal holiday. President Grover Cleveland signed it into a law. The holiday is rooted in the efforts of labor activists pushing for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity, and for workers’ rights and well-being.

If the church were to have a national holiday to recognize the many contributions of Christian workers would you be recognized? Would you even be on the list to be considered? I. Do You know you should Labor for the Lord?

  My outline is three questions: II. Do You know what is your Labor for the Lord?

  III. Do you make excuses not Laboring for the Lord?

The Apostle Paul express to the church at Corinth. …My beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work (er’gon) of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.  1Co 15:58

I. Do You know you should Labor for the Lord?

1. Paul stressed in I Co. 3:9 that we are laborers together with God. Does that include you? Look at our passage in verse 11-12; the word “perfecting” comes from a Greek root word that means “complete furnishing, “fully grown’ or equipping’. God gave these spiritual leaders to teach and mature His saints to do the work / labor of the ministry. Leadership is to equip and the saints who are to do the work of ministry. You say, that doesn’t mean me.

2. Let’s clarify “saint”. Every saint and if you are “born again” you are a saint and you need to seek out what is your labor of love…your gift and use it. Indifference toward your “abounding in the work” as a member can harm your church and weaken its’ influence. Remember the wheel illustration?

The church is like a PC it needs all its members to be plugged in. Every believer has at least one spiritual gift, talent or endowment. This is not a ready-made ability but a supernatural enablement that must be developed. You developed it by working it out not by staying out. This is not happening in many churches because we do not have our priority right. We need to have are priorities in order. We must know Christ deserves the preeminence in all His children’s live. Why, we were bought with a price.

  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

  I Corinthians 6:20 Are you saved?

I heard the story of a guy who went to a Knick’s game. The tickets he got were terrible, upper level way in the back, so he could hardly see a thing. He noticed that there was an empty seat court side right in the center so he made his way down to the empty seat. When he arrived there, he asked the man sitting next to it “Is this seat taken?” The man replied, “This was my wife’s seat but she passed away. She was a big Knicks fan.” The man replied,

“I am so sorry to hear of your loss. Still hoping to use the seat he said, “May I ask why you didn’t give the ticket to a friend or a relative?” The man replied, “Well I would have, but they are all at her funeral right now.” Well, that is a guy with some really messed up priorities… How about our priorities? As Christians do we give our Lord priority in our lives? He deserves the preeminence from his children. Romans 12:1

II. Do You know what is your Labor for the Lord?

1. God has a plan for each of our lives, and finding that purpose is the only way our lives will ever have real meaning and significance. Nothing can make the Christian life more exciting and fulfilling than discovering God’s very important purpose for our lives. God has always had a purpose for you.

By the way you don’t get to pick and choose it…I Co. 12:11

It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.

To prepare you for His purpose God has allowed you to have certain experiences. These include vocational, educational, cultural, family, and sometimes even painful experiences. God desires us to be good stewards even of our pain. Sometimes our greatest opportunities for ministry come as a result of our pain, failure, or mistakes. — Romans 8:28

2. To prepare you for His purpose God has given each believer special endowments of the Holy Spirit.  We call these spiritual gifts. These are enabling Christians to serve the church of Christ. In the spiritual body of Christ believers have gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us (Romans 12:6a). Every believer has at least one spiritual gift, which is not a ready-made ability but a supernatural enablement that must be developed.

3. You need to seek out this gift and use it. Spiritual indifference to the duties of members will kill your church. James 1:22 describes it for us… But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. The church needs all the special endowments to make up the congregation.

Illustration:

One time a preacher had a mini lesson with the children before the sermon. He called them up front and he spoke about the ingredients required to make up a good church. He began by using a chocolate chip cookie as an example. He explained to the children that baking a chocolate chip cookie required ingredients such as sugar, flour, eggs, salt and of course the chocolate chips. Holding the cookie high, he asked:

If I took the chocolate chips out of this cookie, what would I have?” A 6 year old little girl raised her hand, she said. “Six less grams of fat”.
That may be true but in the analogy the facts are it takes all those ingredients to make a chocolate chip cookie. Just like this cookie a church needs all the special ingredients / gifts to make up the congregation.

III. Do you make excuses for not Laboring for the Lord?

1. Many Christians live with the feeling that they are not appreciated, and forgotten by God. So, they drop-out. It weakens the church.

Woe is me, no one see what I do around here. Well you have your reward then. Read with me Matthew 6:1-5.

2. We should be encouraged that our Father sees all we do and labor for Him.

For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. Hebrews 6:10

3. We are not promised reward here in this life but hereafter. Illustration:

Just over a hundred & 30 years ago, artist Vincent Van Gogh was feeling rejected and forgotten so he shot himself. He left behind hundreds of drawings and paintings no one wanted or so he though. He believed that he was a total failure as an artist. The artist lived his entire life in poverty and sold only one painting. By about 1885, he had developed the techniques that would mark his genius. Thinking that he should get away from Paris, Vincent moved to the south of France. In seventy days, he executed seventy paintings, most of them of the highest quality. Then he entered the period of mental and emotional distress that resulted in his shooting himself with a borrowed revolver on July 29, 1890 at 37 years old. Today he is one of the most famous artists in the world. In 1990 a paintings sold for $148.6 million and 1998 over $82 million dollars in Europe.

You can image if he returned to the world today that he would be shocked to learn that his genius was acknowledged and to find himself a famous artist whose total wealth would be in the billions of dollars. But during his own time, he never received from others any inkling of his talents. Vincent van Gogh was totally ignored, forgotten by everyone during his lifetime.

2. There have been millions of people who have served the Lord” – the majority of them are unknown people that history didn’t remember. God does not forget those that labor in His vineyard and his army. Sometimes our fear that God forgot our work and labor of love comes from relying on the attention and applause of people. It is true that some people may forget your work and labor of love, but God never will.

3. God will not forget the work and labor of love we have shown in God’s name as we minister to the saints (6:10. We must remember that the good works we do are for the sake of Christ, not for the praise offered by others. Maybe everybody else has forgotten the service you have given, the sacrifice you have made and the hours you invested. But God has not! Our feelings may be hurt and our hearts broken. But God has promise he will never forget.

3. God requires no other proof of the good we have done. He will never forget. He is a righteous God who will reward us someday accordingly and we will reap. Galatians 6:9- What other excuses are you using holding out on reasonable labor for the Lord. I think sometimes we are too busy looking at others. Net week we will address that excuse.

Conclusion: If you struggle to be a servant, your heart may have shifted away from the heart of God. Ask Jesus to unveil your gift and teach you selflessness and to give you the strength to follow His example.