Rise

One Life. One Way. One Master

Rachel Gardner, Jason and Rachel Gardner, Jason Gardner

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781844745043
• eBook ISBN: 9781844748174
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Lively, interactive and gutsy Christian wisdom for teens.
The truth that Christians live by is that the best life possible is one that's lived in the presence of God; a life that is up close and personal with the mighty creator who made everything. Becoming a Christian isn't just about being saved from something but for something. The moment you say 'yes' to Jesus, you start out on the greatest adventure of your life and you discover something utterly priceless; a life lived side by side with God forever.
Are you ready to RISE to that challenge?

ten:
the REWARD

Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your own weakness.

Mother Theresa

So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.

(2 Corinthians 4:16–18, The Message)

What’s your reward?

I (Jason) remember one summer in the mid-1990s heading out with the development and relief agency Tearfund to the Dominican Republic, a country in the Caribbean that shares an island with Haiti. As you know from the awful disaster in Haiti in early 2010, the area is constantly at risk from devastating earthquakes. Our team’s mission was to help build a school that would be able to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes.

It required a lot of work, particularly as it was too expensive to hire big machinery like diggers and dumper trucks. We helped locals do a lot of the work by hand, creating foundations and pillars out of concrete reinforced with steel bars – all guided by a very wise, very funny (but very shouty) retired structural engineer from Texas.

One of our daily jobs was to empty rainwater from the holes we’d dug for foundations so that they’d be dry enough for us to pour in concrete. The problem was that, without fail, every afternoon there’d be a tropical storm that would refill all the holes we’d just cleared!

The work wasn’t easy: the pump could get rid of the water quickly but it regularly broke down, so we had to form a human chain with buckets to clear the water out. Added to this was the fact that next to the site was an open sewer! Every time it rained, the sewer would overflow and spill water into the foundation holes. So we were draining sewage mixed with rainwater. Nice!

It was hard work but good work. Have you ever experienced that kind of work, either through volunteering or when you were part of a mission team? It’s one of those jobs where you realize that the work itself is the reward.

Every day we played with the children of the neighbourhood for whom this school would make such a difference. Not only would it provide them with an education, but in times of extreme weather or earthquake it would provide much better protection than their existing homes. Knowing this was the goal of our labours meant that we didn’t even think to complain about our workload: it was a real privilege working for those children and the town.

After a very busy four weeks we got a couple of days off. These were some of the best days of my life – we went white water rafting in the landscape where they filmed Jurassic Park and sunbathed on white sandy beaches. It was heaven. Building the school was rewarding work, but our strenuous efforts made our enjoyment of the couple of days off that much sweeter.

Working for Jesus is the reward

We live in a world that often sees work as a curse – something we’ve got to do to pay the bills or buy the things we like. But that’s not how the Bible sees it. Being able to improve our world and one another’s lives through the work we do is all part of God’s plan for us. The Bible also tells us that, as God is Master of the universe, all the work we get involved in throughout our lives is done for him and to be a blessing to our community. He knows that working at something makes us appreciate life all the more. Seeing how little those children had and how much effort it took to build their school made me so much more thankful for everyday things we so often take for granted in the UK.

Have you ever been camping and ended up on the cooking team? You peel spuds for hours, wash up every pan and piece of cutlery going and eventually get to eat what you were so involved in making. And even though you are eating off a paper plate miles from home and it is raining, you have never tasted food so good! Somehow the hard work you put in to make dinner happen increases your own enjoyment. Strange but true.

So work is good, whether it is cleaning a shop floor or performing brain surgery. Work is a godly thing. This doesn’t mean that all types of jobs or careers bring glory to God – that’s something we need wisdom and common sense to work out. But the concept of work is a God design that we should honour, and work can be its own reward.

Jesus gives a strange picture of this in Matthew’s Gospel. In one of those great invitation moments Jesus talks about what he’s got to offer:

‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’

(Matthew 11:28)

Why is this strange? Because Jesus is saying that working for him brings rest. Surely work is the opposite of rest? The image is of being yoked to Jesus. A yoke was a cattle harness, something used to hold two oxen together so that they would walk in a straight line when ploughing a field. The farmer would walk behind guiding and directing the oxen and making sure they were ploughing effectively.

So why can work bring rest? How can it be its own reward?

Often how much you enjoy work – be it study, stacking shelves or ploughing a field – depends on several things: what’s the reward, who you’re doing it for, and what it’s accomplishing.

What reward?

First up the reward.

In the book of Genesis Jacob (who becomes Israel) goes to work for his uncle (Genesis 29). He spots his gorgeous half-cousin Rachel and straight off says, ‘I’d like to marry her.’ In those days they didn’t hang around when it came to saying who they’d like to marry, but they did have to pay a price – a dowry. A dowry is still required in some countries such as India today where the bride’s parents have to give money to the groom’s family. So Laban, Jacob’s uncle, says to Jacob, ‘That’s fine – as long as you work for Rachel for seven years, then you can marry her.’

Harsh!

But Jacob didn’t flinch; he just got on with it. The Bible says that even though he had to work all that time, seven years seemed like a day because his love for Rachel was so strong. Makes even Edward’s dedication to Bella fade into insignificance, doesn’t it!

I wonder if at any point during the seven years Jacob felt like giving up? I wonder if there were times when seven days felt like a year!

It’s true for us too that, even though we know that ‘good things come to those who wait’, it is so tempting just to settle for nice things now. Remember the doughnut experiment? Young children being offered one doughnut now or five in twenty minutes’ time? Most children in that experiment went for the one doughnut – happiness now. A significant number held out for the five though. Those kids who can grasp the idea that it is better to wait for a greater reward are more able to resist the instant nice nibble!

But what if you don’t believe that there is a great reward in life other than what you can get for yourself now?

In the UK there are many people who work eighteen hours a day. They pretty much live in their offices and don’t have a life outside work. Why? If it is just so that they can earn mega bucks to buy their mansions, second homes, cars, yachts, the works, then they are going to end up disappointed because it’s all stuff they will need to leave behind when they die.

No matter how much you earn and own, you can’t take it with you.

Jesus tells his disciples to work for a reward that will last for ever. It’s a reward that we can experience now and in the future.

Jesus urges us, his disciples, to dedicate our hours to serving and seeking God’s will because it will build up, like money in a high-interest savings account, to amazing eternal riches.

Our work (serving God with all our heart and lives) and our reward (serving God with all our heart and lives) are one and the same. The work is the reward – and it’s the most valuable treasure this world will ever know.

This is part of our motivation to keep on doing God’s will, because we know we’re working for the fantastic reward of knowing God more and more as the days and years go by – and we can take it with us when we die. Recognizing the reward that awaits us can make our work seem light and easy. Rachel was Jacob’s great reward, and all his years of hard work paled into insignificance every time he saw her.

A beautiful Christian man called Polycarp who was the Bishop of Smyrna in the 2nd century was arrested and in danger of being martyred (killed just for being a Christian). He had one chance of survival as those who arrested him told him, ‘Turn your back on Jesus and we will spare your life.’ The old bishop replied, ‘Eighty and six years have I served my master, how can I turn my back on him now?’

For Polycarp, his love of serving Jesus was so powerful that even the prospect of dying couldn’t put him off. He was burnt at the stake, but that didn’t finish him off so they took him down and stabbed him to death. Eighty-six years of serving Jesus and, as Polycarp will tell you himself one day, every single second was worthwhile.

Which boss?

There’s another reason why even the dullest work can seem wonderful – when you are working for someone you really like and respect. Think back to those children in the Dominican Republic. It was hard work and we Brits struggled to work in the heat of the Caribbean sun, but it was a pleasure working for the people of that town, because we knew that we were serving God.

The book of Genesis is clear that God created us to serve him and work with him in caring for the earth. In fact, God puts humankind in charge – what a privilege! Just like the angels, we were created to be servants of the Most High, an Old Testament name for God, and to be guardians over the earth and its creatures.

So the work is the reward when you are serving the right boss.

Have you ever had a job or been part of a team in school where you just didn’t get on with the person in charge? It’s really hard to enjoy your work when you don’t respect the boss. So it’s no surprise that people will take pay cuts and move towns or countries to work for inspiring and motiv­ational leaders. It matters who the boss is.

Did you know that the team who serve POTUS (President Of The United States) don’t get paid that much money? They may have been lawyers who were earning millions of dollars a year, but they are willing to take a massive pay cut to work at the White House – such is the honour of serving the President.

Your job in serving Jesus is much better than that. It is one of high privilege. Barak Obama’s presidency will last eight years at most; Jesus’ reign over the universe will last for eternity. When you wake up every day remember that you serve as part of a royal household, not just as a simple servant, but as a royal prince or princess. As the apostle Peter says in his letter:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

(1 Peter 2:9)

In Jesus’ and Peter’s day the priesthood was charged with serving God in his temple. A lot of people today who study the Bible agree that the temple was really a remake of God’s divine throne room in heaven. The temple even had a throne at the centre called the ‘mercy seat’ – it was a strong picture of how God’s rule was at the heart of the Israelite nation. So the priests were a bit like the earthly version of the angels who serve God in his real throne room. Peter is saying that we now have that duty: we’re all priests! We’re all like ‘special aides’ to the president.

It’s an amazing work we do and one that demands the respect it deserves. Imagine working for President Obama but not obeying him, not completing any of the tasks he gave you to do, taking ‘sick’ days all the time. You wouldn’t have a job for long, but worse than that, you would have missed out on one of the most significant opportunities in your life.

We need to respect the job God has given us, but we should also take extreme joy in the privilege of serving the one and only master of the universe. There’s a great phrase that the POTUS team use: ‘I serve at the pleasure of the President.’ Use this phrase first thing in the morning, every morning: ‘Today I serve at the pleasure of Jesus Christ.’

What does this accomplish?

There’s another reason why work is the reward: it’s through what it accomplishes.

Everything we get involved with in life will have an impact on us. Either for good or bad. Practising a musical instrument, perfecting a dance move, training with a sports team at the weekend, smoking our way through our teenage years, all these things will accomplish something in us. Our experiences and the choices we make all have the power to transform us.

What things do you want to accomplish in your life?

Who and what are you choosing to be transformed by?

As we commit to working for God we’re slowly be...

Table of contents

• rise
• Dedication
• CHAPTERS
• Meet the authors
• Foreword
• one: the BEGINNING
• two: the PLAN
• three: the MYSTERY
• four: the LIE
• five: the INVITATION
• six: the JOURNEY
• seven: the COST
• eight: the ESCAPE
• nine: the MISSION
• ten: the REWARD
• extra: the WORKOUT
• Notes