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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jacob Eagan

The Life Work

Father, we come before you this morning recognizing our dependence upon you, our need for your Holy Spirit.

And Father, as we see those around us in this world full of sin, needing you, needing your Holy Spirit, needing your comfort.

I ask that during this time we will see a broader view of what we can do to be able to reach the lives of those around us for your gospel.

Please fill us with your spirit in this time.

Before I get started, I figured you'd like to know a little bit about me, who I am, where I came from.

And I was born and raised in southwestern Michigan, about 7, 8 miles from Andrews University.

And ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I liked the outdoors.

Anything that had to do with the outdoors, whether it was catching butterflies, I had a big insect collection, or studying God's beautiful nature.

And then as I got a little older, I wanted to go into ornithology, study of birds, and came around to the high school years and I got a really big passion, a really big passion for agriculture, and wanted to start up my own organic small-scale farm.

But I didn't feel like that's where God was calling me.

I felt like He was calling me to something more direct, more directly involved in his ministry.

And I struggled for several years trying to figure out what that would look like because I had a big passion for agriculture.

And Praise the Lord, he gave me clarity as time went on and I started to see, you know, my dream job would be to work at an orphanage or primary school and help with their agriculture program.

And I was interested in children as well, but I didn't like the idea of just teaching.

And so, as God often does, he combines our dreams with reality and how we can work for him.

And so, I just came back from 6 months as an SM in Tanzania, Central Tanzania.

If you have Tanzania here, Dara Salaam, the coastal city and the capital cities up here, and I was about dead in the middle, about 11 hours from the coast, at a place called Kibidula.

And it's 1 of the biggest outpost centers international outposts that they have.

They have a print shop going, they have a lievangelism course that's 5 months long where they take nationals, put them through it, and then send them out.

They have a primary school with about 150 some students and then they also have a small health lifestyle center there as well.

And what I was doing the first part of my months there I was just helping with with different things around that needed to be done, more practical work.

And then I moved up to the primary school and assisted and kind of headed up getting a primary school agricultural program going for them with school gardens.

And the students have about an hour a day where they're out working in the gardens with the teachers, local teachers.

And I was really blessed, really blessed as I worked there.

And God was able to lead so that I'm actually going back to continue managing what I was getting started there and I'll be flying back there September 5.

So what I'm wanting to talk about today is our life work And it's something that I've been learning as a journey over the last few years, and especially since I've been at Kibidula in Tanzania, and even coming home, studying more on what does God have for each 1 of our lives.

And before I delve into this topic, I wanna make it clear, I don't think that God has a different life work for each 1 of us.

I think God has the same exact life work for each 1 of us on this earth.

So then the question is, what is that life work?

A rich man was determined to give his mother a birthday present.

He really loved his mother and he had a lot of money and he thought, what could I do to get my mother, what gift could I give her that would really be something that she could appreciate?

Well, he found this bird online somewhere and he discovered that it had a vocabulary of like 4, 000 words, It could speak in numerous languages and sing 3 operatic arias.

He was like, oh man, this thing, I really want to get this bird for my mom because my mom loves this, she loves nature and she likes languages and this combination would just be amazing.

The next day he phoned his mom, Hey mom, did you get the bird?

And she's like, oh man, it was delicious.

So my friends, it's the same way with the gospel and with our life work.

We can go about thinking that our life work is 1 thing and just scratching the surface and we could be shortchanging ourselves so much of what God is really wanting for our lives and being able to see the true beauty and purpose of the gospel.

So the question is if our life work isn't specifically our career, what is it?

Well, if you look at the definition of life work in Webster's, it says, the entire or principal work of one's lifetime, or also a work extending over a lifetime.

So automatically, that kind of rules out a life work, I mean a career, because career, you have the bookends of a lot of education at the beginning, your career, and then a lot of retirement.

So it has to be something more broad than that.

And I want to submit to you that a life work is something much broader than a money-making career.

It has to do with the overarching goal of someone's life.

It's what drives us to our knees in prayer.

It's the reason why we get out of bed in the morning.

And it's what gives us satisfaction in life.

I know many people, of many people, who have risked their lives in extreme sports.

I know of many people who have risked their lives in extreme sports.

I know of many people who have given their lives up for drugs.

Some spend it in an all-consuming career.

Every 1 of us has something that we're living for.

You can put in your place what you are living for, but each 1 of us has something that we are living for.

So what is this all-consuming life work that God has given us to fulfill?

Well, I want to say that it's the same as Christ's life work was on this earth.

Let's turn to Isaiah 61, Isaiah 61 verse 1.

It says, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness that they may be called, trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

It was to honor and glorify his father in his life by spending his energies on those who he came to save, which is ultimately every single 1 of us here in this room, and in the surrounding communities, and in the extended world.

Is it to be the best in your area of specialty?

These are all goals that are wonderful to pursue, but if it's our all- consuming thought, my friends, we have missed the point.

In John 6 verse 27, John 6 verse 27, it says this, do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him.

My friends, we need a broader life focus.

A career is extremely important, but it has to be a catalyst, not a barricade, in our mission of honoring God in spreading his good news.

When our career dwarfs our life work, there becomes a problem.

Jim Elliott, 1 of my favorite missionaries in his story, said this once.

He said, he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.

And like we just read in John, We're not supposed to labor for those things which we can't keep.

Ultimately, anything that we do on this earth for material goods, we're going to lose.

Are we going to focus on living for Christ and his glory?

Jim Elliott was born in Portland, Oregon.

His father was a preacher, his mom was a chiropractor.

And he went to college and he got his BA degree and also an AUG degree.

It was a self-appointed degree approved unto God.

He had a really good sense of humor and he was like, yes, I'm pursuing my AUG degree.

During college, he'd get up early in the morning for Bible study and prayer, and he loved to sing.

He was interested in poetry, and he was also very purposeful about Bible memorization.

And even in the meal lines, he would sit or stand in the lines and be looking at his little flashcards there, memorizing scripture.

And it was here at the college that the ground was laid for later his faith.

A week before graduation, he talked to his future wife and let her know that he was interested in her.

And about 3 months later, they started writing back and forth.

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The Life Work

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