4/3/24 - 2036: An Identity Reevaluation

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration for the faith and work movement.

Martha: And we are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg, and our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your world? Let's find out right now.

Jim: I'd like to find out what it looks like in your workplace, Martha. Do you know how many times we've heard - I bet you probably do know this, maybe you've never calculated how many times we've heard - I just want my work to matter. I want my work to have meaning and significance. I'm thinking about quitting my job and going into the ministry or going to work in a ministry. We've heard this so many times we could write a book about it. Oh, yeah, we did write a book about this! Your workplace is your mission field and in the mission field that you've been assigned, in that mission field you may be the only Jesus your coworkers, employees, bosses, clients, vendors may ever meet.

The job that you hold and the work that you do and the people that you work with, none of that is by chance. The people that you work with, they need to meet Jesus and you may be their only chance. Is it really true? You may ask, is my workplace really my mission field? Is it really my assigned place of ministry? What does that look like? You may be asking, how do I get started? Today we're going to talk about identity, the kingdom, and the iWork4Him Nation. All that in the next 15 minutes, fast and furious. We're going to cover all three. Hang on!

Martha, this show - we're doing the show because we run into so many people all the time that are frustrated. They just want their work to mean something. And I think it really ties down to identity.

Martha: It really does. We struggled with it ourselves, Jim, thinking that there was a difference between who we were in Christ and our work, who we were in Christ and the job that we were holding, who we were in Christ and what we went to school to learn.

And we, we didn't understand that our identity in Christ included who God created us to be. The very gifts, talents, and abilities that he'd given us were on purpose, right? Not just to make money so that we could do something on the weekends, but so that we could be Christ in our workplace.

Jim: Almost everybody listening and certainly the two of us grew up in a church where it was intimated, maybe not outright said this way, but it was intimated that the highest calling in the kingdom of God is to become a pastor. Or to go to the foreign mission field, but the rest of you, you're staying home. You're there to support the pastor and the missionary with your cash. So make a lot of money and give it to the church. And maybe you'll serve in a building committee one day, but that's just so wrong. It's false theology. And it's just a bummer because everyone of you listening has a unique set of gifts, talents, and abilities, a set designed by God, talents given to you by God.

And as a very good friend of mine used to say, on loan from God, because one day you'll give them back as you'll be done with them. So what do we do with that information? It's important to understand our identity. We are exactly who we were made to be. And once we meet Jesus, now we have the talents that we need to be given in order to be able to succeed in really living on our faith vibrantly wherever we go. And we don't just need to do that within the four walls of the church or on the foreign mission field. Every workplace in America needs somebody like you to live out their faith.

Martha: I think it's always dangerous, Jim, when we have these conversations that people that are jumping in that don't have the context of what we're talking about, think that we are bashing pastors and missionaries and saying that they're not important. They are important because there are different ways of reaching people with the gospel, but we know for a fact that the people that we encounter in our day to day work are different people than the pastors and the missionaries are going to encounter.

So who's reaching them? And that's really this conversation, is each of us are on ministry. We are in ministry, in our assignments. In fact, we like to say we're fully funded missionaries in the sense that when you work somewhere, you're getting paid to be who you are in your workplace. You're being funded not to waste your time and not do your job, do your job with excellence. We'll talk all about that at the end of the show, so stay tuned for that. But to be a great employee, but while you're doing that, shine the light of Jesus. It's that simple.

Jim: And I want to talk about that because a lot of people think if I'm living out my faith at work, does that mean like I'm a walking Billy Graham everywhere I go? No, it's so much more than that. The gospel is so much more than just the words. What is the gospel? What is the good news? The good news is that Jesus came to the planet to fix all the garbage that Adam and Eve started in the garden. We got to remember the garden was there for Adam and Eve to both physically and spiritually flourish - on earth, cultivating the earth, maximizing the resources of the earth and utilizing that to create a living and to bless their community, and to bless the world with innovation and all those kinds of things. Jesus came back to restore all that because that was all broken.

So our work is not just so that we can go be a Billy Graham at work. Our work is so that we can go take the gifts, talents, and abilities that God has given us uniquely and put those into action to be a blessing to - if you're the business owner, blessing to you and your family, a blessing to the employees that you work with, a blessing to the vendors, a blessing to the clients and a blessing to your community.

It's the gospel, but it's so much more than what you think about just preaching the gospel. It's living the gospel in the freedom and sharing it everywhere you go.

Martha: Jim, let me ask you this question.

Jim: Yes, Martha?

Martha: You wanted to make sure we nailed, we drilled into the conversation of identity. Why is that? Why is that such an important thing to talk about?

Jim: Because until you see that you have been placed exactly where you are working on purpose, for a purpose, you're going to be inadequate in living out your faith there. Because you're thinking, I just want to go somewhere where my faith matters. Your identity is in Christ. God designed you, in your DNA came natural gifts, talents, abilities, personality, traits, all this stuff's hardwired. And then since you were born, you've had lots of things from this world shape who you are. But then when you became a believer, you were endowed with spiritual supernatural giftings that Jesus said we would use in order to do things the same as he did or even greater.

Martha: So there was a resource that really helped us to drill into this really this conversation of the workplace. And it's been a while since we've talked about that resource, Jim.

Jim: Identityanddestiny. com. Now recently, the Nehemiah project has adopted identityanddestiny. com underneath their umbrella, but Nehemiah project is another great organization for biblical leadership within biblical entrepreneurship. Identityanddestiny. com and that's the word and. Check it out. Get the book. You can do it online, but I say get the book. It's a study.

Martha: We'll put that in the show notes so that everybody can find it easily.

Jim: We went through this in 2013. It changed our lives. It gave us clarity on what God wanted us to do. It will do that for you too. It will help you figure out who did God create you to be, what did he create you to be doing, and what's your next assignment?

As we're talking about our next assignment, let's talk about SaferNet.

SaferNet's an organization that's come alongside iWork4Him, not only to sponsor our podcasts and be a part of our organization, but they're a kingdom company. They're a company that's focused on bringing the best of the best in cybersecurity through a VPN, through antivirus, through website filters to protect you and yours, whether that's you and your employees or you and your family from the evil people outside that are trying to use the internet in order to impact your life.

Whether it's tracking what you're doing or whether it's copying what you're doing or stealing what you're doing, SaferNet is there to help protect you. And SaferNet is run by an incredible kingdom guy named Brad Hawkins, who's become a friend of our ministry over the last 18 months. And we're so grateful for Brad, but I'm telling you, SaferNet, their software that we've got on all of our devices, it's changed the way we do our computing because we're no longer concerned when we're on the road because SaferNet is keeping us protected.

We recommend that you check it out. SaferNet. Com safer net dot com. Check it out and if you sign up make sure you tell them iWork4Him sent you!

Martha: Okay, so you said this was going to be super fast. We have touched the first topic. Two more to go! Let's talk about the kingdom. What is the gospel versus the kingdom?

Jim: Yeah, the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ. He came to restore that which was broken in the garden, but he said he talked more about the kingdom than the church. I believe the number is somewhere in the 90s of he talked about the kingdom and somewhere in the five to 10 about the church. The kingdom is - I describe it this way, and we've said this way on the show many times.

As a Jesus follower, because of becoming a Jesus follower, everything about you is changing. It's called the sanctification process, just means that everything about you is becoming made more like Jesus. So everything about you should be changing. If it's not, you need to be working a lot deeper and following your Lord Jesus.

And everyone around you should be benefiting from your faith, whether they believe in Jesus or not. And that's the kingdom. The kingdom is Jesus living in you, vibrantly flowing out of you to do the work that you do, to interact with the people that you work with, whether it's in your community, in your office, in your church, or in your neighborhood, and you're blessing other people through the good that you do.

It's not just preaching the gospel, it's showing the gospel applies to all of life. Remember, Jesus came to set the captives free. Those people that live on this planet who don't know Jesus are enslaved to Satan. We are servants of the Most High God, made possible because of what Jesus did on the cross.

Martha: So why is the kingdom an important conversation as we're talking about our faith and our work?

Jim: One day, we're going to live in the perfect kingdom, the new heaven, the new earth that Jesus said, he goes to prepare a place for us - that place. But in the meantime, He said, let us pray, Father, let your kingdom come, let your will be done, because each believer on the planet, which now there's somewhere over 2 billion of us on this planet, a little more than 25%, maybe it's close to 30, each one of us letting the kingdom of God inside of us, the temple of God living inside of us, vibrantly impact everybody around us through our work, through our words, through our actions. And obviously because of the difference of Christ living in us, people are going to go, but Martha, you just seem different.

You just, there's a peace about you. I want that. That opens up the conversation for the rest of the story. Our transformed lives are an obvious impact of Jesus. But we need to also connect the dots for people as well and tell them hey, it's not because I'm such a great person because i'm not. It's because of Jesus.

Martha: You know, I love it when we have this conversation with different business owners or people that have developed a product or a service that helps other people because often they're developing something and sharing with us how it's based on kingdom principles, but yet they don't keep it just for the Christians.

This is a concept a lot of people haven't even thought about. Is it like I've created this really great thing and I only want Christians to use it, versus all of the world can benefit from what God showed me and revealed to me, an equation that works right, or a process, or a product, whatever it might be. And I love that because you're sharing kingdom principles with the world for all of their benefit, and it's just a different way, Jim, a lot of people don't think that way.

Jim: For instance, we were sitting in Austin, Texas, six, seven, eight years ago maybe, sitting down with a guy named Tony Dale and his company is Sedera, S E D E R A Health. And he goes, Jim, this Christian healthcare sharing has been around for 30 or 40 years. Martha and I have used Samaritan Ministries for a number of years, and we recommend you check them out, especially if you're self employed. It's a great organization. Make sure you tell em iWork4Him sent you, cause he might send us a little spiff for saying that.

But, whatever, Tony said, Hey, Christian healthcare sharing, it works. It's a kingdom principle. It's everybody coming together, sharing with everybody else to help meet their needs. That's a kingdom principle. That's demonstrated in Acts 2. If you look at Acts 2, everybody was sharing and nobody had a need.

So Tony says if it's a kingdom principle, it should work for everybody. So I'm going to make healthcare sharing available to everybody. And he started making it a line item when people are choosing within their cafeteria plan for health insurance, they could choose to be healthcare sharing and be a part of a Christian health, be part of a health sharing network that's run by Christians. And it's been wildly successful.

Martha: When you take that idea and you apply it in all of our life, it's one of the journeys that we're on right now. And that is, saying, okay, Lord, we want to be consumers of kingdom products. We want to allow our dollars... We've had shows about this before, Jim, where we've talked about your dollars vote, right?

So where you put the money that you've earned to help support other businesses, that it be a way that provides for more kingdom responsibly things that are out there. So I say all that to say that we have been digging into our own personal lives and saying, what are we being consumers of that we need to shift so that we are putting our dollars towards kingdom ideas rather than the things that are funding the enemy? Going against everything that we believe.

So I'll put a link in to the show notes about shows that we've talked about that in the past, but a couple of those, Jim, that we've recently made decisions on is Patriot Mobile. Taking our mobile services and signing up with a company that is based on faith, family, and freedom and doing it with excellence, which again, we'll talk about at the end of the show, but Patriot Mobile, you can go to patriotmobile. com forward slash iWork4Him. And there you can learn more.

We have had friends signing up all throughout this month with just this idea that I'm already buying, have a cell phone service. All of us probably have it. And what are we doing with that? And what are we supporting? And that same idea goes for our payment processing.

So ePaymints is a solution that we have discovered that is being run with kingdom principles. And again, we just keep uncovering this, Jim, and finding out, okay, how can we make decisions, economic decisions, that are more in line with our values? And we want to share that with you, the listener.

And ePaymints online e pay M I N T S dot com. It's important to know the two largest processors of payments, online payments, are not at all in favor of anything having to do with Jesus. In fact, they fund things that are anti Christian, anti moral, anti biblical, anti life all day long.

And they actually cancel people that have the kingdom approach sometimes too. So if you're putting all your eggs in that basket, number one, supporting things that you actually don't believe in and then being vulnerable to possibly being canceled by them, you're setting yourself up for a lot of dilemmas.

Jim: So let's stop looking at the notes. All right, we're gone 16 and a half minutes. We said 15. It's because you've been long winded.

 (laughter)

Jim: Okay. All right, so here's the deal. So in 2006, when iWork4Him was really launched in my heart before we launched on the air in 2013, God revealed five steps for me on how to activate my workplace ministry, , my workplace mission fields to start living out my faith there. We now call that the, iWork4Him Nation Covenant and it is on our website. Martha, where do they find that on the website?

Martha: Under join the nation iWork4Him. com.

Jim: It's not a club. We're not asking for a fee. But if we had, we'd have a lot more money in the bank for iWork4Him! Should have done that.

Martha: No, but if you sign up i'll send you a bumper sticker.

Jim: Yeah, and really, how about this? The first person that signs up to join the nation after this podcast comes out, we'll give you a free iWork4Him book.

Martha: Oh, very nice. I'm going to hold one up for those that are watching on video. This is what it looks like if you'd never seen it before. We want you to want to sign up for that iWork4Him nation. So don't do it just for the book.

Jim: Here's what the steps are when you walk into the office tomorrow morning, actually on your way to the office tomorrow morning or on your construction site or on the way to your, wherever you're going to work... Your grocery store. Maybe you work at the grocery store. I don't know where you work. Start praying for the people that you work with every day by name. By name, every day. Lord. I don't know how you want me to pray for Bob, but I work with Bob and I ask that you'd reveal yourself to Bob and help me to be a just a great example to Bob, and you just start praying for all the people that you know and watch what God does.

But the second step is, we suggest that you...

Martha: serve. Go above and beyond what your job calls you to do and serve those that you work with. And, it really aligns with the prayer because you start praying for them. You might see where they're falling short or where they're struggling and you can, walk alongside them and say, Hey, can I help you with this? Can I maybe stay late tonight and help you get that project done? Cause I know it's hanging over your head, whatever that might be. Find a way to serve those that's loving your neighbor.

Jim: And then look for ways to befriend the people that you work with. And here's what we recommend. We all have work friends, people that we work with all day long. We know a little bit about them, but we don't really know them. We encourage you to get to know people that you work with outside of the office, whether that's go out for some dinner after work or have lunch together intentionally, or if it's appropriate, invite people to your home to have a meal. Cause that's the most powerful place of conversation is around the kitchen table.

It is absolutely a, it's like a portal to God when you're sitting at the kitchen table because conversations happen at the kitchen table that don't happen anywhere else, especially with the cell phones off. So befriend those that you work with. You're praying with them, you're serving them over and above what your job requires, you're befriending them. You're truly trying to become friends with them because again, remember we talked earlier about everyone around you should be benefiting from your faith whether they believe in Jesus or not. That's part of this friendship thing. But all along, we're telling you to look for ways to pray.

Martha: One of the things, as you get to know people, as you get to know what they're dealing with in life and what's going on around them, when you see either their countenance change or they truly just have built a friendship with you and they come to you and say, Hey, I'm going to have this conversation tonight with somebody. I'm really stressed out about it. Instead of just going, Oh man, I'm really sorry about that or whatever. You say, Hey, can I pray with you about that? Can we pray right now for God to give you whatever the words to say, the peace for the situation, whatever it might be that they were communicating. Stop right then and say a prayer with them. It is powerful.

Jim: And you ask permission. You say, can I pray with you about that right now? Because when you've asked that question, we've never had anybody tell us no, never. But the bottom line is, the fifth step, everything about you needs to define, be defined by excellence. Your work needs to be excellent.

Your attitude needs to be excellent. When you show up for work, it needs to be excellent. When you leave for work, it needs to be excellent. You need to be defined by the excellence that your heavenly father has put inside of you. That allows those other things to really make a powerful impact. Your excellence defines you.

So the bottom line is, don't quit your job and go into ministry. Shift your mind. Not your job. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.