Christ our Anchor Anglican Mission

Welcome to AnchorCast, a weekly podcast of homilies and sermons from Christ our anchor Anglican Mission in Nashville, Tennessee.

Let us pray.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.

Amen.

Wow, that’s kind of a hard act to follow.

I don’t, I don’t, uh, I’m not a, I’m not a cute, cute child.

So you’re just going to have to deal with me.

Uh, no, it’s funny.

I was actually planning on skipping the homily today because I got busy at work, but then I was like, well, that’s kind of the whole thing that we’re doing.

So it probably makes sense to talk about that, right?

Has nothing to do with the gospel readings other than that.

It’s good to work like God created us to work from the beginning, uh, in the garden and doing work, you know, doing work well and completing a job naturally makes us feel good.

And God takes delight in the work we do when we are doing good work.

God sees the things that we make with our hands.

They’re very creative things.

We’ve done the, the buildings, the wires, the machines, the gardens, the computer programs, all of these things, and he takes delight in them because he created us in his image to do that.

And it makes him so happy to see his beloved children do these super interesting things that weren’t even an intended part at the beginning, but have, have become just part of the outflowing of his love when used correctly, right?

Uh, sin still exists.

Um, work isn’t the same as it was in the garden because it’s, it’s hard.

It makes us sweat.

It’s not always productive.

Our crops die, jobs fail, bad things happen.

Um, but just because of the sin component doesn’t mean we should let go of the work component.

Um, work is still good.

God still takes delight in it.

And when he returns again and ushers in the new creation, we’re not just going to be sitting around like a cruise ship.

We will continue to work in his beautiful creation.

We will have the opportunity to grow beautiful gardens, to build beautiful mansions, and to be creative and grow and onward and onward.

But without the downsides of work, without the sweat, without the pain, without the failure, without the, the fear of failing, um, it will be good work and only good work that glorifies God.

So that’s what I will leave us with this week.

Um, you know, Thomas had doubt, but saw the Lord and believed.

Um, and I think we can do the same by believing in the creation that God has made, trusting that he will return and make it again.

And that the work we do, all of our labor, it isn’t in vain.

It’s still part of God’s creation.

It’s still part of his plan.

It’s still beloved by him.

And it will be redeemed by him, everything.

Uh, so we can take joy in that, in knowing that we serve a God that doesn’t see the things we do as worthless, but doesn’t see, you know, pushing around papers and filling out forms and HR meetings.

Like he knows those are boring, but he takes delight when we do a job well, when we do it with integrity and we do it to his glory, the name of God, the father of a son and the Holy ghost.

Amen.

Christ Our Anchor is an Anglican mission in East Nashville that meets on Wednesday evenings for prayer and fellowship.

And join us on Wednesday evenings at 5 30, as we live into what Jesus has called his church to be.

Everyone is welcome.