Don't Be Casual in God's House If You Aren't Casual at Work

Sermon outline

We are made in the image of a God who builds, so every believer must choose to be a builder rather than a destroyer, and that takes discipline, sacrifice, competency in the Word and a seriousness about the things of God that we already show at work.

1. What will you leave behind?

   Living only to please yourself, or living in self-pity, are both forms of pride because everything revolves around you. The real question is whether the people around you will live godly because you lived godly. If your grandfather and father were terrible men, you can be the one who says no, puts himself under the Word and breaks the cycle so your children walk in victory.

   Illustration: Will they say his voice runs through my head every time I face something, because I saw how he responded to adversity? Or will they say, he's gone, now we can move on?

   “Our focus must never be on ourselves. Our focus must always be on the next generation.”

2. Imitate God: He is a builder

   Be imitators of God, because He is a builder, a maker, a designer, an architect and an engineer, and we must engineer godliness into our homes. There is no cut and paste from how our fathers did it. What we build rests on three things: our beliefs, our values and our practices, and our practices decide the condition of the next generation.

   “We as children of God must take the chaos of family and engineer godliness into our environment.”

   • Ephesians 5:1-2

3. A builder or a destroyer

   Anything that is not building is destroying, and idleness is the spirit of the devourer. Our attitude, murmuring, lying and secret sins decide which we are. Some engineer evil in the home, turning one family member against another so they can carry on sinning, and when a spouse turns the children against the other parent, chaos is sown into the family.

   Illustration: Nobody teaches a child to lie: the sweet is already in the mouth and the answer is, I didn't do it. A teenager told no by dad goes to mum and says dad said yes. That is fine in a child under correction, but not in an adult who manipulates the home.

   “A builder takes the little that he has and he builds forward.”

   • Proverbs 22:6

4. Sin needs no motivation; godliness needs discipline

   Nobody has to push a smoker to buy cigarettes, but doing right takes discipline because the way to life is narrow. Getting yourself to the house of the Lord when you do not feel like it requires sacrifice and dying to yourself. People keep going to a job that pays them little, yet say they tried the God thing and it did not work. Put up guardrails, and stop comparing yourself with another sinner.

   Illustration: Someone on a small wage never says, I tried this job thing. They keep going back. Only with God do people say, I tried it and it does not work.

   “The key to godliness and the key to the blessing of the Lord, and the key to really overcoming the things of life is sacrifice.”

   • Matthew 7:14

5. Build in His name, and it will take faith

   Everybody has the same twenty four hours; the question is what you give your time to. God empowers those who build in His name with time, strength, provision and gifts, and His favour depends on whether He can trust us. Whatever God asks of you is bigger than you, which is why it takes faith, and why the first one in a family to break through becomes permission for the next generation.

   Illustration: Noah built the ark for what may have been close to a hundred years with no construction company and no tender process, while the neighbours complained about the sawdust in their lounges and told him there was no flood coming. When the flood came, the man was ready.

   “When they look at you and they said, if you can do it, surely I can do it.”

   • Psalm 90:10
   • Joel 2:25
   • Romans 10:17
   • John 14:13-14
   • Philippians 4:19
   • Hebrews 11:6
   • Genesis 6

6. Competency in the Word

   To get a firearm licence you must pass a competency test that walks you through real crises. Life needs the same competency in the Word: knowing what the Word says you must do before trouble comes, because trouble is guaranteed. The men of Scripture were still men whose decisions were good or bad. You can control the outcome of a decision but not its consequence, as David found years after Uriah's wife, yet he never changed his response to God.

   Illustration: His father, a policeman, taught him to shoot from nine years old. At the competency course, newly married with two small children, he had to think through a hijacking at a traffic light with his wife and children in the car.

   “If we need competency to get a firearm license, we need competency in the word of God.”

   • Psalm 23:5
   • 2 Samuel 11
   • Psalm 68:19

7. Don't lose your identity

   Anxiety, depression and frustration point to a loss of identity. Christ died to restore the identity that was lost, so the answer is to take stock, repent and die to yourself. The devil comes to steal, to kill and to destroy, and the first thing he steals is your identity; after that he can destroy you through your emotions, your mind, your health or your vices. Don't be casual with your Christianity.

   “Christ already died for that identity. It's just that the identity was lost to you.”

   • John 10:10

8. Don't be casual in the house of the Lord

   At work there is protocol and order: phones go in the locker until lunch. Bring the same seriousness to the corporate gathering, which is a holy thing, instead of scrolling WhatsApp statuses and reels during the service, because what you are praying for may be spoken while you are not listening. When God moves, He is subject to Himself and not to our lunch bookings. Be intentional, because God is intentional.

   Illustration: The previous Sunday the service ran from just after ten to just before twelve because God touched, healed and delivered. He gets up and bathes before the early morning online prayer meeting rather than joining from bed with the camera off, and parents who dress up for a school meeting can show God the same care.

   “Let's not be casual in the house of the Lord if you're not casual in the workplace.”

In this message