Welcome to Sunday Sermon Share Day for 9/22/13
Today’s sermon comes from Destiny Metropolitan Worship Church in Marietta, Georgia.
Today’s Subject is: Mine Your Business
Today’s Scripture selections from are:
Genesis 37:3-4 (NLT)
Genesis 37: 18-24 (ESV)
Genesis 39:1-6 (NLT)
Genesis 39:7-10 (CEB)
Highlights from Today’s Sermon:
Work: The expenditure of energy (manual, mental, or both) in the service of others, which brings fulfillment to the worker, benefit to the community, and glory to God.
(Stott, p. 162). J. Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today (Basingstoke, U.K.: Marshalls, 1984)
It’s not “Mind your business” it’s “Mine your business”, meaning to dig deep to zoom in on what God has planned for you. This series is connecting elements of Joseph’s life with our lives in the workplace. You must answer questions 1 and 2 for yourself.
As I mine my business, I must determine…
1. Where is my pit (fall)?
What are the trappings, snares, lures and pits in your life?
The pit is the passport to the next place.
Don’t ever despise your situation
You can’t change your circumstances but you can change elements within your circumstances
Joseph was thrown in a pit that was made to collect rain water but thankfully the 30 foot pit had no water in it. Had it, can you imagine how things would have changed drastically and immediately for him? Joseph was thrown into the pit by his brothers, by the ones he loved and trusted most. He probably was clueless how much they despised him. He probably didn’t know until he was at the bottom of the pit. Sit back and think about how he must have felt sitting down there. What do you think he was doing and thinking?
He naively and blindly walked to the very people who would betray him. How many of us have done that? But Joseph didn’t give up and he didn’t give in to the darkness, turn cold or be hardened by his situation.
God is wise enough to coordinate our blessings with our weaknesses
When you are new at a job (or an intern) and share your corporate aspirations, you may share with the wrong person, or too early, God still finds a way to work that into your blessings.
When people think they are stripping something from you, they aren’t taking your favor from you.
Your favor is wrapped up in your skill sets,
Favor is God’s approval on your life at that time, and it doesn’t have to look favorable to others.
We have a picture in our minds of what success looks like and we fixate on that, and allow others to paint what success should look like for us, instead of knowing and seeing God’s picture of success for us—and allowing Him to take us there.
You don’t play the blame game when you know you have a dream.
Joseph was called a dreamer. In the marketplace we call dreamers visionaries and entrepreneurs. Not everyone is an entrepreneur. When you “mine your business”
When you fake like you are an entrepreneur (or someone else) you will lose your shirt, credit, and business. Some people are meant to work for others, to be managers, shift leaders, and hold other positions within someone else’s company.
Not everyone is made to be the entrepreneur. If you don’t have people skills, networking skills, business skills, aren’t a risk taker, a visionary, a dreamer, aren’t good with decision making or handling money, can’t handle rejection, and not good at leading others—-you aren’t an entrepreneur. Stay in your lane.
You can have other amazing skills, but they should be applied to the areas and positions that God has lined up for you, and that is most likely in someone else’s business, not your own.
An asset to have is that someone will always tell you the truth and you are strong enough to take in what they say.
2. Who is my Potiphar?
Headhunters looking for talent. Joseph was purchased by Potiphar to work. Just like today every time you go work for someone you are basically purchased. You negotiate a salary to work and you do the work as contracted.
Joseph is sold into slavery, purchased by Potiphar, Potiphar looks at Joseph’s skill sets (whatever those were), and starts off in an entry-level position.
Entry-level is not a curse. You may have a degree but you don’t have the workforce experience. Entry-level is a blessing. If you don’t have a degree and no experience, then you should embrace the entry-level job.
Your attitude along with your achievements and accomplishments will get you noticed. What you say and what you do is conflicting when you say “I’m blessed and highly favored” yet you don’t work that way.
What are the areas that others spurns, runs from, and doesn’t want to do? You are in a position to do them and thrive.
Joseph did what others didn’t want to and Potiphar took notice, and praised Joseph for his hard work. This is called a Performance Management Review in the workforce.
Potiphar promoted Joseph. But Joseph is now getting the same pay for more work and responsibilities. Do you see yourself being prepared for a better position tomorrow? Or do you say, “Why am I getting more work dumped on me? Why am I doing someone else’s job?” Do you see this as a blessing or like you are being taken advantage of?
Wider responsibility always precedes higher promotion. You have to be trusted with more before you get more. You’re being stretched and prepared for what God has in store for you.
Who is your Potiphar? You don’t even have to like them. Who is God using to help prepare you?
You can evangelize but if your work ethic isn’t there then it isn’t evangelistic.
We may be Potiphar for someone else. Are you comfortable and confident in helping build someone else up to eventually take over your position?
You have to remember what it meant and how it is to be a Joseph even when you become a Potiphar. Many people forget where they came from once they get where they want to go.
Joseph was successful in serving. That’s how we should measure success on the job. It goes deeper than the completion of tasks, but making tangible changes in the lives of others. Do you recognize those you are supposed to serve? We are all in customer service. We are all supposed to be serving others. If you mistreat others because they mistreat you then you can miss the resources that God has specifically prepared for you. Customer service should be a part of your portfolio. Treating others with respect and dignity, acknowledging them for who they are—never walking by them without doing so. The same people you walk by as you are going up the ladder may be the same people you need when you are humbly coming down the ladder.
Systems of evil are devised by people.
Kindness is a fruit of the spirit: a behavior that helps people get the job done. If you are rude you justify it by what you experienced in life. You anticipate a negative response before they give it to you, and then you have a trail of carnage in your life, and you are wondering why you don’t have an abundance of resources in your life—-it’s because of YOU!
You can’t go to work and think you can just do your job without having to interact and work closely with others.
Some of you are working for people who trust you so much that they don’t follow up behind you. You take advantage of it thinking they aren’t interested or disconnected, so you do things with that thinking, and what happens you end up retarding your growth and limiting your blessings—because just because the person isn’t paying attention, God is!
If you hang around people with twisted thinking who say, “you do everything, what does your boss do?” shut it down. Don’t buy into that nonsense. Be Kingdom material and know your place and role. Pay attention to God’s structure.
Joseph is being offered a bonus by someone not his boss. His boss’s wife is trying to get him to sleep with her and be with her. But he knew better. He knew it was wrong and was a sin against God. He knew that Potiphar entrusted him and gave him access to everything, but was clear that his wife was off limits.
The wife continued and persisted daily, and with different approaches, but Joseph kept shutting her down. Joseph knew he was blessed before she approached him. Joseph not only refused to sleep with her he refused to be around her. Joseph wouldn’t compromise his integrity by entertaining her. Workplace flirting falls into the madness, because you can’t justify it and say, “but I didn’t cheat…I’m like Joseph”—don’t even entertain it. What if Joseph gave in on day 2, where would he have been by day 5?
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Now this part you hear from me every Sunday: Be sure to share highlights from sermons at your church or place of worship here on my blog. Feel free to also visit and contribute to our community chat room where we can have healthy, positive, dialogue on the sermon I shared today, Breaking Bread daily posts, or issues impacting the Christian community.
Remember there is absolutely no preaching, passing judgment, converting, recruiting, or focus on any specific church or religious leader. Those are the rules. We’re here to share words of love and peace inspired by the Word of the Bible. We’re here to uplift and never tear down. If you can roll with that, then you can roll with me and the Breaking Bread family! Visit the chat room here:
http://chatroll.com/embed/chat/breaking-bread-with-natasha?id=lCL-CHvZOne&platform=wordpress-com
Have an amazing week family. Take the time to honor the women, wives, and mothers in your life. Take the time to shower love and encouragement on the married couples you know.
Love always,
Natasha
Copyright 2013. Natasha Foreman Bryant. Some Rights Reserved. All Prayers and Reflections are Copyright Protected by Natasha Foreman Bryant unless otherwise noted. breakingbreadwithnatasha.com
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