Amen. Thank you for tuning us in. I'm Darrell Bailey, Servants for Christ. As we get into the grind of our nine to five, has it got you down? Well, you know what? I want to wish all of you a happy Labor Day. As I take your Bibles over to Genesis chapter one, verses 27 and 28, Genesis chapter two, verses eight and nine, and verses 15, 16, and 17 of Genesis chapter two. here, September the 3rd, 2023. It's the 17th of Elul, 5783 of the Hebrew calendar. Here is we look and realize that each and every one of us as we go through life, that all of us have something to learn about the grind of the nine to five that gets every one of us down and out. And so can you imagine as we go through that, All of us are tumbling out of bed and we stumble on to the kitchen, pour ourself a cup of ambition, yawn and stretch and try to come to life. And all of a sudden, as we jump in the shower and the blood starts pumping as Dolly Parton begins to tell us all about it. Well, folks, it's a job from nine to five. So what do we do about it? You know, when we look and begin to realize that each of us have something that we're going to have to do to get through this place. On behalf of Bethel Crossroads Baptist Church, happy Labor Day to each and every one of you. Come and join us, 450 Iron Hill Road, Taylorsville, Georgia, 30178. Morning worship at 11, Sunday school at 10 o'clock. Come on and be with us as we wish all of y'all a happy Labor Day. And now, we look at work as a gift from God and not a curse. Because the assignment to work the Garden of Eden and watch over it was placed into all of our hands. And so, for most, Labor Day is the official end of summer. And the pools have closed, school has started, soon the leaves will fall, and not long after that, hopefully, maybe some snow. But Labor Day started out with a much different meaning. The Central Labor Union of New York City observed the first Labor Day holiday on Tuesday, September the 5th, 1882. And it was the celebration of working people, laboring men and women, that took the day off to march through the city streets and parades and then gather in parks for picnics. Two years later, the holiday moved to the first Monday in September, and the idea spread quickly to most other industrial cities in the nation. At first, the city ordinances announced the holiday. New York and the other states soon followed, and in 1894, Congress made the day a legal holiday. In 1956, the post office issued the first Labor Day commemorative stamp, and the image on the stamp symbolized the day. It pictured a large, muscular man carrying a sledgehammer, a pick, a hoe, and an axe over his shoulder, and his wife sat nearby showing a small child how to read, and the words of the poet Carlisle in the lower left announced, labor is life. You know, Most of us never have heard that model, that labor is life. But instead, we heard our parents tell us when we complained about a chore that we didn't like, having to milk the cow, having to take the trash out, man, trying to pick up and clean up behind ourselves in our rooms, a man. And so, you know what? As we look and realize that as we complained about the chores that we didn't like, You're not supposed to like it. That's why they call it work. Labor is drudgery. Sounds more like that to many of us. But Lord, with these millennials, God help us. Some of our great beards can remember the old television series from the late 50s and early 60s, The Many Loves of Dobby Gillis. Some of you've seen reruns on the cable. Remember the teenager Dobby's good buddy Mater G. Gribbs and actor Bob Denver from Gilligan's Island played in the better part of the role as Dobby Gillis. Gilligan played the part of a beatnik teenager who didn't want to do anything but loaf around and do absolutely nothing. Anytime someone suggested that he find a job Maynard would react and all of a sudden many of us treat it like a necessity of evil in order to earn a paycheck. You get back from the fast food place and you got half your order or you don't even have your order right. God, help us today. While many of us have jobs that we enjoy, others of us have jobs that are hard, tedious, even downright boring. And if, in that case, we dread going to work, even when we get home, we tackle a lot of our responsibilities with a sense of drudgery. And the Bible does not stress the difficulty that can come with work, but that was not God's original intent. Work is a good thing, and God's plan is for us to approach any task with responsibility and joy. Genesis 1 tells us of God's work and creation. Genesis 2 focuses on the aspect of that creation, God's creation of man. The culmination, God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden and the midst of this perfect setting, Adam was given the assignment to work the garden and to watch over it. And with that task came the freedom to enjoy the garden and the fruit of the work. And so, every one of us, the knowledge of good and evil, how that tree of knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2.9 that it represented, some have suggested that it refers to the sexual knowledge, others speculate the reference to all the knowledge to eat of the fruit of the tree would make one omniscient like God. But I'm going to tell you today, every one of us, when we look and realize that God intended work, for a great thing. And so every one of us, when we look at working nine to five, we're reminded of how good that the Lord is to each and every one of us today. God has blessed us with a tremendous amount today. And so when we begin to look at Adam and Eve, they were called to rule creation. all the birds, no doubt, look down as I'm putting everything in order, creatures, creation, earth, and eve, fish, sea, and sky. Boy, I'm going to tell you, our youngsters were working underage kids at one time. The facts about Labor Day and some of the things that we deal with on a daily basis. And so all of us, when we begin to look at ourselves and realize that we have a tremendous responsibility. And so through those facts, that we begin to look and realize that the first Labor Day parade was held in New York City in 1882. For more than 125 years, Americans have celebrated Labor Day on the first Monday of every September. But as we look at all of the time frame, We know that if you were a factory worker in the 1880s, you were probably tolling away at your job for an average of 60 hours a week. And it wasn't unheard of textile laborers in New York to make only 75 cents a day. which was a sum even for that time, because to bring attention to these unfair working conditions, labor organizers coordinated the first Labor Day parade on Tuesday, September the 5th, 1882. Close to 10,000 people attended the parade. According to the New York Times article published on September the 6th, 1882, marchers carried signs bearing slogans like, eight hours for a legal day's work and less hours and more pay, and the New York Times called the demonstration pleasant and orderly, and although it noted that the parade organizers expected close to 30,000 to 40,000 laborers to show up and support the march. And so, The origin of Labor Day are still disputed to this time. Historians credit Peter J. McGuire, co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, as the first to propose a holiday celebrating workers. But according to the modern day American Federation of Labor, McGuire brought up the idea in 1882 meeting of the New York Central Labor Union saying workers should lead a parade to publicly show the strength and the esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations. But researchers from the New Jersey Historical Society suggest that the true founder may have been someone else with a very similar name, Matthew McGuire, a machinist from New York. New Jersey, who led several strikes in the 1870s and by 1882 had become the Secretary of the New York Central Labor Union. In the 1894 editorial about the holiday, which President Grover Cleveland had just signed into law, a New Jersey newspaper said the honor should go to McGuire, the undisputed author of Labor Day, as a holiday. And so some historians suggest that the Labor Day organizers may have deliberately tried to cloud McGuire's association with Labor Day's origins, concerned that the holiday might become associated with a radical politics, but he was a member of the Socialist Labor Party. And so when we look further, we see there's a reason Americans celebrate Labor Day over May Day. And I'm glad on May the 1st, 1886, 35,000 workers went on strike in Chicago as part of the larger organized labor protest across the country. For the first two days, the protests and demonstrations were peaceful. But by May the 3rd, violence broke out between laborers and police during a protest at Chicago's McCormick Reaper Works factory, leaving several workers wounded or dead. And the incident encouraged the labor leaders to call for another protest the following day in Haymarket Square, where violence broke out again after police attempted to disband the crowd. And so as we look, the police retaliated because anonymous individual threw a bomb at the police, killing one officer on the scene. And when all was said and done, seven officers and at least one civilian were killed and all the chaos and plenty more in the crowd were injured. Following the riot, police arrested eight leaders On the charges of conspiracy, seven of the eight were convicted of murder sentenced to death. And despite the fact that the six defendants weren't even in Haymarket Square at the time the bomb was thrown at the second International Socialist Conference in 1889, members voted to celebrate May the first as an International Workers Day, often referred to as May Day. to the commemorative Haymarket Affair. President Cleveland wanted to avoid the socialist and anarchist connotations of May Day, so they established a holiday to celebrate America's workers. They chose the first Monday in September, calling back the previous traditions from New York City labor movement. How about that news, huh? And so, the fourth thing, Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day an official holiday. And so in 1887, Oregon became the first state to celebrate Labor Day as a legal holiday. And in 1894, the rest of the United States followed suit when President Grover Cleveland signed the holiday into the law and political pressure created by the suppression of the Pullman strike, Cleveland aware he needed to appease the labor movement, and he pressed for national recognition of the first Monday in September as that Labor Day. As we move along, we see that fifthly, Canada's Labor Day is also celebrated on the first Monday of September. Prime Minister John Thompson signed the Labor Day into law in 1894, the same year Cleveland declared it as a national holiday. In the U.S., many labor unions that held successful events in the U.S. like the Knights of Labor also had branches in Canada, and Thompson was similarly motivated by mounting political pressure from labor activists who organized several strikes to demand a nine-hour working day. And so we move on to our sixth fact, and that is. that people once tried to make Labor Sunday a thing. Because in 1909, the American Federation of Labor declared this Sunday before Labor Day, Labor Sunday, an opportunity to reflect on the spiritual and educational parts of the labor movement. And it never really took off among the general public, but some churches and religious organizations acknowledge the holiday during Sunday services. And then we see that there is no good reason why we shouldn't wear white after Labor Day. And so, you can ignore that age-old myth that you shouldn't wear white after Labor Day. There's nothing wrong with it. Most fashion mongols say that the rule has always been rather arbitrary. Instead, you should wear what's appropriate. The Emily Post Institute says, for the weather, the season, or for the occasion. And so, Last but not least, we see Labor Day is a dangerous day to be on the road because of so many people traveling during Labor Day weekend. Over 95 million are predicted to travel. Roads tend to be much more crowded, and because of that, they're more dangerous. According to the data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the U.S. saw an average of 308 fatal car accidents per year during Labor Day weekends from 2011 to 2015. That's second only to the average number of fatal accidents during Memorial Day weekend, approximately 312 per year. And so, every one of us, when we look at ourselves and begin to realize that as we go through that there's a lot of messy jobs out there. Maybe you could be doing a lot of these things as some people do. An armpit sniffer could be one of the messy jobs that you could be doing out there. $39,000 a year. Maybe a port-a-potty cleaner, $50,000. Maybe a pet food taster for $40,000 a year. Wow! Hazmat diver, $150,000 a year. A crime scene cleaner, $600 an hour. Wow! A poison taster. A roadkill collector, $25,000 a year. Frog pickler, A fake astronaut or a deer urine farmer, 93,000 that has a little cup, runs around these deers in the fence and gathers their urine. Oh my goodness, you better be thankful for that 9 to 5 you got. Or professional patient, $15 an hour. And so, when we look at our folks of 9 to 5, the Bible says, so God created man in his image. in his own image, in the image of God, created he him. Male and female, he created he them. And so you know what? When we look, God gave the man and woman an assignment to care for the place that they've been given to reside. And that assignment is filled with a privilege and a responsibility. And it introduces us to the concept of work, not as a curse, but as an opportunity to serve God and to join in him with the fulfillment of his plan and purpose. And so what actions of God that we see that are unique in our relationship between God and human beings, because here we go on and he tells us, he says, And God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And so when we look and we begin to realize that the creative work of God was complete, the caring work of man and the woman was to begin. To be blessed by God is to be a beneficiary of his good favor. And so I'm glad that he blessed us with the presence and with each other. And with addition, he blessed us with food and a place to reside. He announced them good. And however, only the human creatures did he speak directly. God said unto them, God speaking directly to them, signaled the deep relationship that he had with a man and with a woman. Amen. And so the emphasis in Genesis 128 is on the details of the calling given to Adam and Eve, and in that call we see something of their relationship to the rest of the created order, their privilege, their authority, and their responsibility. The human beings were created as a male and female. And while other elements of creation were given the capacity for reproduction, the man and the woman would be able to exercise their reproductive ability, not just by animal instinct, but in the freedom of moral choice that belonged to them by having been created in the image and the likeness of God. Amen? Their sexual identity was ordained of God and their compatibility for sexual function was part of the working out of God's plan and will for procreation. And the male and the female were commissioned to be fruitful and multiply and replenish a man. The charge to subdue was a word to bring or to keep under control. And so I'm glad. It suggests that the work of subduing was not complete, that would be ongoing, and it was a word of empowerment, both that it should not be thought of as an empowerment without restraint, but the human creature were called on to have dominion over the other living creatures upon the earth, including the fish that live under the seas, the fowl that fill the skies, and every living thing and creatures that crawls on the earth. The dominion may be rendered as a rule. can be understood as to care for, to manage, taken together, to do, and dominion that gives us the challenge and the privilege, not as a license. But I'm glad that the work was not to be purely for human benefit. The purpose was to enable the rest of creation to achieve its fullest potential. And so we see here the pictures that it gives us of of a lasting truth as human beings. We have a unique relationship with God that he blesses us, communicates directly with us. He's called us to serve as his agents and exercising that responsibility for creation in a way that honors him as our creator. And so here we see it goes on that the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And so what picture comes to your mind when you hear the word garden? Why? That the Lord here in this way that he begins to give us a great privilege because there were two trees that were in the midst of the garden, amen. And so here we begin to look and realize that he tells us that out of the ground made the Lord to grow every tree that is pleasant to sight and good for foods and the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And so the vocation and the responsibility to love God, who in power spoke the world and its life into existence, is pictured as one who works with his hands, both that he formed man of the dust of the ground and that he planted a garden. And I'm glad that as he planted, it's understood that he established us. Eastward gives us a sense of direction, but neither that nor the name Eden tells us the precise location of this garden. And so every one of us, when we look, the Lord God was a source of that provision. And so in the King James, the Bible says, Lord God. And I'm glad in small caps is the rendering of the Hebrew Yahweh that renders God Elohim. And it's used in the Old Testament to refer to gods in the ordinary sense, but also used to refer to the Supreme, one true God that is revealed Himself personally by His covenant name, Yahweh, thus the Lord God or Yahweh God. And so clearly God is the cause of the growth, the resulting in what man needed and more the trees that were pleasant to the sight and pleasing that the Lord created within the man and appreciation for the things of beauty. And he provided for that desire and the trees also good for food, nutritionally valuable. And from the beginning, food was necessary for man's existence that the Lord provided food source. And so. We see also that he gives us again out of this that he tells us of the work in nine to five. And the Lord God took the man, put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it, to keep it. And I'm glad that it introduces us the purpose that the Lord had for putting the man in the garden, the man's placement, that the Lord had been at work and in the garden he began to share his work with a man. And that work assignment was pre-fall, was not a curse, but a privilege. and with responsibility. Man's vocation exclude a specific task. The garden needed care. The man was called to be responsible to dress it and to keep it. Amen. And so I'm glad man was given that opportunity to serve the Lord by being attentive to the beautiful garden which he resided in and also part of man's moral development that he intended for humankind to engage in production, beneficial work as honoring and serving him. Hallelujah. And so we see, and the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now, every one of us, as we go through the grind, I'm glad that the Lord God took the man and he put in him the garden of Eden to work and keep it. In verse 15 of Genesis chapter 2. We see that in Genesis chapter two, we read that God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but many people think that one of the perks of the paradise was basically the absence of work. But you read in Genesis chapter two carefully, you discover that the work was a part of God's original plan. And so the grind of the nine to five, it might get you down some days, but work is a gift from God, not a curse. One of the first things that we see is that work is good. If your job's getting you down, you might want to think about some of the messy jobs, as we talked about, that are out there earlier that do all of the things. Many of us struggle with the difficulty of being able to all the dullness of our work and I've had some jobs that were wonderful. I shot a bow for Muzzy Products for about 12 years. Probably the best job that I'll ever have in my life working for the Masakis. What a wonderful people to work for. I work with some of the greatest people that I could ever work with in my life and I miss every one of them every single day. Ever since the military, when I got out, I worked at Atlantic Steel. I did a summer retirement up on 14th Street, Atlantic Steel. And then I worked with Sekisui Juicy later on. I worked down in Cartersville, where I took a half cut and paid when I come out of Atlanta at Maybank. And I met a lot of wonderful people there. And boy, I want to tell you, out of all of these jobs that I've worked at, work is good. And I'm glad that as we try to enjoy those jobs. In Genesis 1, 2, and 3, we find several truths about work. These truths can be applied to both paid and unpaid work. Work was a part of God's original plan for humanity. But God put Adam in the garden to work it, to keep it. And work is a part of God's plan for the future. Isaiah 2, verse 4 says, they shall beat their swords in the plowshares. Work brings personal fulfillment to me. We were made in God's image in Genesis chapter one, verses 26 and 27. And work gives us the opportunity to imitate God by being creative, by enjoying the fruit of our labor, by doing good for others. Work became difficulty after the fall. And after Adam's sin, God said to him, cursed is the ground because of you in pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles, It shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face. You shall eat bread till you return to the ground." In Genesis chapter 3 verses 17, 18, and 19. Work is not to be devalued by laziness or overvalued by workaholism. God's seven days of creation show us the importance of both work and rest in Genesis chapter 2 verses 1, 2, and 3. Exodus chapter 20 verses 8, 9, 10, and 11. And so the grind of the nine to five might have you down, but work is a gift from God, not a curse. And so each and every one of us, when we look and we begin to realize that, uh, for 9-5, for service, for devotion, you might think that you would deserve a big fat promotion. You want to move ahead, but the boss won't seem to let you. I swear sometimes that man's out to get me. That's some of the lyrics of Dolly Parton, a gifted artist of this 9-5. I'm going to tell you, not only as work is good, but we also see that worshiping as we work as well. Because I'm glad when we look and begin to realize that how good the Lord is to us, that not only is work good, but worshiping as we work, we should not view work as merely a means to an end, but working for the weekend provided for many families. Every type of work should be viewed as an act of worship. Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God, as Paul said in 4 Corinthians 10 31, Colossians 3 17. All work is spiritual. And so the vocation comes from the Latin word meaning a calling. And so, God created us to work and we're to work to glorify Him. We exist to glorify God. Whom I created for my glory, Isaiah said in Isaiah 43, 7. God deserves to be glorified because of His work on our behalf. Creation, providence, redemption, amen? And so we are to work from our acceptance in Christ, not for our acceptance, but Paul said in Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10. And so, we look at life. And we're all reminded that not only work is good, worshiping as we work, but also that we are to glorify God in our work. When you show up at your job, you're there for the glory of God. How can we glorify God in our work? That's the question. Well, there are at least three ways that we can glorify God in our work, amen? And so, one of the first things that we can glorify God in our work at is, first of all, we can glorify God by doing excellent work. God is not glorified when we don't do our best. I know a lot of half-steppers and they just barely do enough to get by. Boy, it just outrages me to see somebody carry on like that. But you know what? Some people, they continuously arrive late to work. The Apostle Paul said to slaves without condoning slavery, whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. You're serving the Lord. Paul said in Colossians 3 verses 23 and 24, Paul himself was not afraid. He was a tent maker. And so, he was not afraid of hard work. He made tents to support himself in Acts chapter 18 verse 3. And he said, we work hard with our hands in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 12. And so, we see secondly, not only glorifying God in our work, that we can glorify God by doing excellent work, but also we see that we can glorify God by doing ethical work. And when we look at that, God is not glorified when we do dishonest work, stealing money from the company. Paul writes, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands. And Paul said in Philippians 4, chapter 4, verse 28, every one of us as we go through life today, We need to glorify God by doing excellent work. We can glorify God by doing ethical work, but last but not least, amen. Thirdly, we can glorify God by doing evangelistic work, because if we're not doing excellent and ethical work, effectively sharing the gospel with our coworkers will be almost impossible. How we do our work is a part of evangelism. You are, as Eugene Jenkins always said, and he just passed away recently, your Bible is the only thing that some people read. He was known for saying that more than anything that anyone else ever said. What a wonderful man he was. And so, Jesus is the laborer. It's interesting to find out about the not so glamorous jobs of famous people. Bill Cosby shined shoes and worked as a stock boy at a supermarket. Beyonce knows, swept up hair in her mother's salon. Mick Jagger worked as an ice cream salesman and as a porter at a hospital. Warren Buffett worked at his father's grocery store and at JCPenney. Jimmy Stewart painted lines on robes and spent two summers as a magician's assistant. Brad Pitt dressed as a giant chicken to promote a restaurant and the not so glamorous jobs of 23 famous people. But Jesus didn't start his public ministry until he was about 30 years old. What did he do all of those years before he became a teacher? He was a carpenter. Amen? He was a carpenter. Is this not the carpenter? In Mark chapter 6 verse 3, Jesus knew what it was like to do difficult work. Jesus was the laborer himself. The creator of the universe was a carpenter. Jesus prayed to the father, I glorified you on earth having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. In John chapter 17 verse 4, amen. in all of his work, whether it was his work as a carpenter, his work as a teacher, or his work as a Savior, dying for the sins of the world on the cross of Calvary that glorified our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May we, as Christ followers, see that we were created by God to work, and may we glorify God in our work. Amen? And so, as we get ready to close out, I want you to pray this prayer with me, a prayer of commitment of the work to nine to five. You know what? Every one of us, as Dolly Parton said, what a way to make a living. Barely getting by, it's all taken and no giving. You know what? They just use your mind and you never get the credit. It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it. Some of the lyrics, a talented Dolly Parton knew about working, knew about writing music. I want you to pray this prayer with me for this up and coming Labor Day and mean it with all of your heart as we close out. Dear Lord, thank you for the trust that you place in me by calling me to serve you. Help me to embrace the work that you've given me as a gift, even on those days when I'm weary and filled with stress by it. Amen. Thank you for tuning us in. Nine to five. Don't let it get to you. Glorify God in all that you do. May God bless you.