Let's Go to Work, Part I - Touré Roberts

3:39 for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Lastly, John chapter 9 and verse 4, Jesus is speaking and he says, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming when no man can work. Let's go to work. Father, we thank you so much for your word. It is a lamp unto our feet. It is a light into our path. In the beginning was your word, and your word was with you, and your word was you. God, we recognize that we don't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of your mouth.

4:35 God, I thank you for the rich and radical love you have for your sons and daughters. God, those here present, those watching via live stream, those who will watch later. And I pray, God, that you would love your people through me, through the words that you give me to feed them. And speaking of those words, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. God, I thank you and claim and possess the spirit of wisdom and revelation and insight and knowledge and prophecy and full use of heaven's resources to be a blessing to every man, woman, boy or girl under the sound of my voice in this moment. And God, I pray, God, that there would be multiple levels of revelation and awakening, that everything that you've given us to use, that we would use them. I thank you, God, for the breakthroughs that will take place. I thank you literally for the radical shifts in circumstances, in futures, in destinies, and callings as a result of what we will unpack today. We love you, and we thank you, and we claim it done. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. God bless you. Please be seated. Greet somebody. Say something very kind to your neighbor as you make your way down.

5:53 Hallelujah. I am... I am serious about my spiritual intake, my disciplines, as I know many of you are as well. Because I am multifaceted, I read from a lot of different places in the scripture. As a businessman, I literally have a business Bible, and I read from the business Bible, because I want to feed and satisfy that part of me. and I read from other places and other sources and books, but I also am really, as I am growing and evolving in my understanding of work and business, I have to balance that with a real close connection, like my wife talked about, of companionship with Jesus. Because if you get too into business and you make business your companion and you don't spend as much time with Jesus, you can be swept away not understanding what prophet really is and what prophet is about.

6:59 Are you tracking with me? So I've been digging into Jesus and just reading chapters upon chapters in the gospel. And I have just this past week, I was moving in Matthew chapters five through eight. And one of the things that I noticed right away, and of course, that is the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus has his fame has grown now, he takes his position and he begins to teach. and if you listen to what he is saying, he is saying things that are very counter.

7:30 He says things like, blessed are those who mourn. And you and I would never really put those two things together, blessing and mourning. We would never do that, right? He would say things like, bless your enemy. That's not normal. He would talk about all kinds of things. He would say, you heard it said, this is what you think, but this is what it really is. You know, he said things like, you've heard that it was said that if you sleep with a woman or you sleep with somebody that's not yours, that's adultery. He said, but I say unto you, even if you look. So he's challenging how we think. And a lot of times we are quick as believers to believe that our role is to challenge culture. And I'm not arguing with that, But Jesus came and he did not simply challenge culture, he challenged religion.

8:26 even the culture of religion, and sometimes the rigidity of religion, and sometimes how you can make a monument out of a moment. So he's challenging, he's confronting, and he is challenging everything.

8:52 And help me to understand that the kingdom is a counter-kingdom. In other words, if you and I are going to be productive in the kingdom, we have to be open to have, watch this, our ways of thinking challenged. So he challenged the way that we look at things. And what he's doing is he's not challenging to be cantankerous. He's not trying to be, you know, kind of like how people are right now. Some people just fight you just to fight you. I mean, it's almost like, I just want to argue with you. I don't even have a good argument, but I want to draw you into a fight, and I don't know where that spirit came from.

9:32 This is not what I'm talking about. Jesus is challenging, watch this, to bring us to original intention. Are you hearing me? because we can sway and stray so far of the original design that Jesus has to come and he has to disrupt us and we think that there's something wrong with him when really we have just strayed from the design. Oh, you gotta let me teach today. Right? So he challenged the way that we look at things and when you think about revival and everybody's talking about revival and everybody's praying about revival and that's wonderful. I think that we are in revival, But let me tell you something about revival. Revival is not God doing a new thing. that's not what revival is revival is God reorienting his people to an original thing did you catch that it's not him doing a new thing he's getting us back to the design and it feels like a new thing because powerful things start happening and things we haven't seen in a long time we start seeing miracles signs and wonders we start seeing mass salvations and mass healing and mass breakthroughs and all sorts of things.

10:44 And so it looks new, but it ain't new. It is a return to the original design. I'm thinking about the early 1900s and Azusa Street and William Seymour, which was, many believe, was traced back to the move of modern Pentecostalism. Well, here's the thing. They were flocking in And it seemed like it was new But it wasn't new He was just tapping into the spirit Of the book of Acts And so William Seymour was a reformer, and Jesus, as I mentioned, he was a reformer, and when you are a reformer, life gets dangerous for you because of the reality of change aversion. When you are a reformer, watch this, you're called to disrupt systems, not to disrupt systems for the sake of disrupting systems, but you have to understand that God has started.

11:52 He created systems. And if we go beyond the systems that God created, when the truth comes, it's going to disrupt the system. But people watch this like darkness better than light. People would rather not have the truth so that they can stay comfortable and will fight you and kill you like they did with the prophets because they wanted to stay even if they were blind, even if they were in error. Error was so comfortable. And so when you really follow Jesus, it makes you a reformer, and it brings you into dangerous territory.

12:39 Can I be a little vulnerable and transparent with you today? We're going to unpack this today. I've got to tell you about my wrestlings with this teaching that you're going to get today. my wrestling with this teacher is that this teaching is that god has been speaking to me a lot for over a decade about the role of work and business watch this not as a side part of advancing the kingdom but an extremely integral part of our assignment and our work in advancing the kingdom. Now, we've talked about ministry and marketplace for decades, but we always put ministry and marketplace over in the corner. We have a ministry and marketplace ministry. What if the whole kingdom was a ministry and marketplace kingdom? Oh, yeah, I'm about to get up in that thinking.

13:33 We put it over here. We say, that's a part of it. But what if it was more of a part of it than we think? and because we haven't leaned into it, we find ourselves in a situation, watch this, where you and I who are covenanted sons of daughters with promises over our lives are struggling the same way people who don't have a covenant are. Stay with me. This integral part of advancing the kingdom in these times through work and business has been the loudest voice. It has been the loudest unction in my spirit for a long time. And I'll be honest with you, I've been wrestling with it because, let me just be honest with you, there's a lot of tension between faith and works.

14:33 there's a lot of tension between church and business and and to be honest with you i was a little intimidated because i was concerned that that you might misunderstand me or miscategorize me and say oh he he won them prosperity gospel preachers I'm just being vulnerable so I've seen it worked it lived the principles seen it work confirmed all over the place but if I'm honest I've been tiptoeing around with it a little bit because I was worried about what they might say, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but I got delivered. I got delivered from it.

15:35 And I'm going to tell you, there were two things that delivered me from that trepidation. One of them is something that it says about Jesus. It says, he made himself of no reputation. Now, one way to look at that means that he, of course, he made himself of no reputation. he didn't, you know, that's the context of that is him being in the form of God, thought of not robbery, do we equal with God, made himself no reputation. But that also means, can be interpreted to mean that he didn't put his reputation before the assignment. Oh, you gotta catch what I'm saying. You gotta catch what I'm saying. If you're truly gonna follow the Lord, then yes, let me tell you something. I do vociferously guard my reputation. That's why I don't flow with some people. I don't hang with some people. You won't put me in no trick bag You're not gonna see me over in the corner. You're not gonna see no I'm protected. Don't get me wrong now. I'm careful

16:38 Sometimes I won't let you bring me into the room Even though it's a room that I want to go into because sometimes it's about who brings you into the room and not you being in the room So sometimes Bishop I will wait To go into the room because if you bring me in then they're gonna associate you with me and that will begin to mess with my reputation. So say, I got, ah, ah, ah, ah. Sheba wrote her. I want to introduce you to somebody. No, that's okay. The issue is not to somebody. The issue is you. Can I have a real conversation? So what I'm getting at is I do believe in ensuring that your good is not evil spoken of to the best of your ability. But there will come sometimes and some moments where even though you have protected your reputation as much as you can, you cannot allow you trying to preserve what people say about you to keep you from doing what God has called you to do. Every once in a while you gotta say, you know what, come what may, I've got to obey God.

17:51 Are you tracking with me? But that's not the only reason. That's not the only reason I got delivered. I got a revelation about not making yourself a reputation, not being so over-concerned with your reputation that you flow in disobedience. But the other reason, and this is important, is I realize that the time is at hand. So while I'm over here trying to navigate my feelings and trying to be overly concerned about what you might think about me, time is ticking. Jesus was focused and he said I must work while it's day because nighttime comes when no man can work and I got convicted and I got delivered because this is a right now word and I am seeing the need of this revelation now more than ever.

18:58 Can we walk and talk together just a little bit? And so I want to unpack some things that I recently discovered in Ephesians 2 and 10. I didn't even, I never saw this here. And maybe, I'm just new, maybe y'all been knowing all your life. I don't know, you know, hey. For me, I just saw it, and it blessed me. So let's look at it real quick. We're going to unpack Ephesians chapter 2 and 10.

19:30 And it's what the scripture says for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. I see four things here, four elements and components to this verse. The first is design. The second is work. The third is the reality of predestination or preordination, I should say, preordained. And then I also see a call to action in there. You know, and the call to action is ultimately we should walk in them. So there's something, Paul is communicating something to us. He's communicating identity or design. He's telling us he's going to introduce work in a way that might be different than we thought. He's telling us that it was prepared beforehand, and then he says we should walk in them. So those are all those elements. But let me first talk about design, because everything that God creates has a design. God is not a random creator. He is not a sporadic creator. Everything that he does creates, all of it has a design. So right here, we're going to understand a little bit more about our design than perhaps we consider. So let's get into it.

20:41 So that word workmanship, when he says, for we are his workmanship, we're God's workmanship, that when you break that down to the Greek, it is at its root is the Greek word poio. And it means to make, to do, to produce, or to create. And so when you break it down to its noun form literally means something that has been made or crafted. And what's interesting is that is also the root of our English words for poem and poetry. That's important. That's important. So in essence, what we come to understand about what he's saying is that we are, you and I, are God's poetic creation. We are not mass produced, but we are authored with intentionality, with, watch this, intentional rhythm. When we think about a poem, intentional rhythm, beauty, and meaning. Stay with me. This is important. So we are literally God's poem, each and every one of us. And a poem, watch this, when you think about a poem, where are my songwriters? Anybody write songs in here? When you think about a poem, when you think about a song, somebody say, hey, about to sing. I love it. I love it. I'm going to get to you in a minute. When you think about a poem, when you think about a song, it's not random language. Think about it. It's, first of all, it's intentional. That means that every word is placed in a song with purpose, right? In our writing sessions, we could be hung up on one word for two hours because it has to be just right, right? So every word is placed with purpose. You can catch it in a second. It is also rhythmic.

22:36 You think about a song, it's rhythmic. It's not just words thrown together, but there's a rhythm to it. There are melodies and sounds and all those things that go into it. And these rhythms carry what timing cadence and flow look at how intricately designed you are and I was thinking about you as it relates to this and you you are not a word you are many words I gotta say this right there there are maybe I can just say it the way I wrote it and then we just unpack it there are many divinely placed and divinely designed and divinely timed words that create the masterpiece of you. You are his poem. You are a sum total of thoughts and words. And when all of those thoughts and words have been played and fully expressed, then the masterpiece of you will be realized.

23:43 This is why you cannot quit in the middle of your song. Because some of you are ready to give up, not realizing that you are right at the bridge. There are some songs that don't go to another level until you hit the bridge. The song is just okay, it's cool, but when you hit that bridge, something begins to happen. something begins to shift the song goes to another level you cannot give up before you grow up because your song is still speaking you haven't seen or heard every lyric your life is getting ready to speak unlike ever before and I'm just crazy enough to believe that the prophetic words that will come out today are going to activate you going to shift some of you into the the bridge of your song so stick with it because you're his poem hallelujah and you haven't heard all of what he wrote you haven't heard all of what he wrote yet in the book knowing I have a chapter called the unfolding of knowing life unfolds god knows what is unfolding and as you walk in sync with him you get better at knowing but your life is still unfolding knowing is still unfolding in your life i don't care how young you are i don't care if you are 97 and a half your life is still unfolding if you are breathing that means that there's still some lyrics that have not been expressed yet. Are we together?

25:40 And so I'm talking about design. I'm talking about how God made you. You're not an accident. You're God's artistry. Are you listening to me this morning? You're not an accident. You're artistry, every experience, every struggle that made you stronger, every scar is a line in his poem.

26:07 There's nothing you faced that he didn't write. And if he wrote it, that means when it's all said and done, it's going to be good, baby, good. He's going to use it all. He's going to use it all. And if you are written by God, you are a success story unfolding. That's what you are. So that means that family and the kingdom and the spirit and the plan of God, success isn't our dream, it's our design. I was designed to succeed. Are you tracking? We got a lot of ground to cover. Stay with me.

26:58 So that's design. Now, this is what got me. This is what got me. That word works. So it says that we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in, and that word works. Let me tell you what I thought it meant. I thought it meant good deeds. I thought it meant what we did yesterday, feeding 2,500 people here at this campus yesterday, 1,000 at our other campus in Fort Worth, and those are wonderful deeds. That's wonderful things. And so because I hadn't studied that word in its original language, That's what I thought it meant, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. But I was curious.

27:50 I wanted to dig deeper into that word, and I was wrong. That's not about good deeds, although if you understand that word, you will be able to do good deeds, but that ain't what that word means. Can we talk about it? It's the Greek word ergon, and it means to toil as an effort, watch this, or an occupation. and the implication is it's an act, it's a deed, it's doing something, it's labor. But when you dig down in there, here are the ideas associated with that word, business.

28:25 And I'm not going to over-spiritualize it, not like business, no, business, literally, business. Look it up. Employment. That which one is occupied. That, watch this, that which one undertakes to do. Enterprise. Watch this. Any product, anything accomplished by hand, art, industry, or mind. So when I look at that word, we're not talking about good deeds there. We're literally talking about enterprise. And it makes sense to me because when I look at God and I look at how he created and I look at how God formed things, I recognize that God is a businessman.

29:18 If you think about what a businessman does and how he operates and how he functions, watch this he sows and he expects to reap where he sowed he sets up systems and structure if you look at all of Genesis is an entrepreneur he's setting up systems and structures watch this so that once he sits down on the seventh day he doesn't have to get back and work again because the systems and the structures Thank you. create perpetual profit.

29:54 And that's why, and we're created in God's image. And so what does he say to us? He says, be fruitful and multiply. Why? Because I designed you in my image. You are like me. You are supposed to perpetually be fruitful, being fruitful and multiply. You're wired. for perpetual increase. Can I talk to you like this today? I'm going to challenge your thinking.

30:20 Literally, that word, ergon, is not about doing a good deed, although we should. It's about enterprise. It's about business. Literally, a product. What I love about art is in there.

30:40 Hello, somebody? literature products of the mind and now what do we see we see thought leaders people literally who are generating income because of their thoughts, because of their thinking. And we have, watch this, in Christ, premium thoughts.

31:04 Stay with me. You're going to get it today. Just turn to somebody. Say, let's get to work. Now, it's powerful. So we've got an understanding. Study it out. We've got an understanding of our design. We have an understanding that in that design, we are created to work to do business. You know what's interesting? I was looking at that article from the news that I showed you up top, and it said something that I disagree with. It said that you have to have a salary. of 100,000. 107,000 think the number was. A salary, watch this. That means that the mentality of working for someone is a prevailing thought, so much so that the news, there are a number of ways to provide for you and your family, but they're talking about a salary.

32:12 Now, I'm not saying that a salary is bad at all, but I'm saying that if that's all you got going, there might be something that you're missing out on because I'm not convinced that we can put our trust in somebody else's business, baby, it's time for you to bet on you. Fill the Holy Ghost. and the Bible says the Bible says that it has been prepared for you beforehand and all you got to do is walk in them prepared for you beforehand means that your work is preordained to succeed why would God design us for failure why would he design us for lack why would he design us in his image for just