Hope City Church

Why Your Job is More Than a Paycheck | Phil Kniesel

• Phil Kniesel • Season 2025 • Episode 3

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Discover how to approach your work with purpose and faith. Pastor Phil explores biblical principles on work, showing how God designed it as an act of worship. Learn to see your job as a calling, not just a paycheck, and gain a renewed sense of mission and meaning in your career.

Join the conversation with Pastor Ken in our new podcast Faith For Real Life as he digs into into what professional health looks like with Pastor Phil. 

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Phil Kniesel:

Your primary calling is to be faithful to God. Determining what career path you are to take is secondary to this. Hey, this is Phil Kniesel, lead pastor at Hope City Church. Thanks for tuning into our podcast. My prayer is that this helps and encourages you, gives you some practical ways to live out your faith, and ultimately fills you with hope. Enjoy the message. Back in 2006, there was a show that premiered entitled the worst jobs in history. And maybe you saw that, maybe you didn't, but it featured literally the worst jobs. And some of the jobs that were on this show were things like a fuller, which by the way, I had to look up, I didn't even know what that was. And that is removing impurities from cloth and shrinking it through friction and pressure. Other jobs featured on the show were an executioner, uh, not a great job, a leech collector, a plague burier, a rat catcher, a leather tanner, and a gong farmer. You'll have to Google that one, okay? Because I didn't know what that was either. I've had some pretty bad jobs myself. While in college, my summer jobs consisted of cleaning up after fires and floods in houses and buildings, not to mention sewer backups. And I can tell you, there were many days where I was thinking, why is God punishing me like this? When I first started pastoring, I took a job at a church in a small town that paid me seven grand a year. I honestly, I would have done it for free, but to make ends meet, I took a job on a farm building grain elevators. If you know me, I'm a total city guy and working on a farm, let alone building grain elevators was a massive stretch and I would get up at 5 a. m. every day, drive to the farm. I worked till like 5 or 6 at night and honestly, it was tough. I didn't like it. I wanted out. It was a means to provision for me. And I'm sure many of you have a story about a job that you couldn't wait to get out of. After COVID hit, Fortune Magazine wrote an article entitled, The Great CEO Exodus of 2020. And this is what it said. The CEO of Disney stepped down. The CEO of Hulu. The one from IBM, the one from LinkedIn, and the list goes on. The CEO from Uber Eats, MGM, Nestle, Volkswagen, MasterCard, T Mobile, Victoria's Secret, and Harley Davidson. They all quit. They all wanted out of their jobs. And maybe you can relate. It's not all bad news. There is a silver lining on January 4th of this month. Stats Canada reported that 80 percent of employees ages 15 to 69 rated their, their level of work satisfaction at 7. 7 out of 10 with 10 being the highest. They also said this, this kind of made me laugh. Male distribution workers are among the least satisfied. I was like, yeah, we just experienced that, right? According to those stats, most of us mostly like our jobs, or at least we feel this sense of satisfaction from our work. But is satisfaction the only indicator of a good career? For some, work is just a way to make money and life starts at five o'clock on Friday. For some, work lacks meaning and purpose. Maybe you've been jumping from job to job and you just can't seem to find the one that makes you happy. Maybe you've got coworkers or a boss who's really tough to deal with. Our job can pose a whole slew of challenges. It can stress us, it can push us to the limits, it can break us. There are issues related to balancing work and family. There are workplace ethics fitting in with company culture. Dealing with toxic cultures and more. And when it comes to our lives and work, there's a long list to well Work with so with all these things to juggle and manage. Is there another way? We should think about our jobs. We're in a series entitled New Year, New You, where we are exploring what the Bible has to say about five key areas of our health. Spiritual, financial, professional, mental, and physical. And with each topic, we're doing this deep dive into the most talked about steps the Bible gives in essentially finding one way to grow in this area. And today I want to talk about our professional health. It's set on average that we will spend 90, 000 hours of our life at our jobs. So this is kind of a big deal to get right. And do you ever wonder what the Bible has to say when it comes to your job? When it comes to professional health and wholeness? It has a lot to say, 859 verses to be exact. It talks about having a stellar work ethic, about being honest and fair, about working with integrity. Right from the beginning, work was part of God's original design. In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, after God created male and female, Adam and Eve, we read this. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, and over every living creature that moves along the ground. So as part of his creation mandate, God introduces work. Humanity is made in the image of God and God is a worker as revealed in his creation. So God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. That just means keep it under control, have dominion over creation. And so right from the start, work is portrayed as both purposeful and collaborative. It's a partnership with God. When sin entered the picture, frustration also entered work. Sin, it corrupts, uh, humanity's relationship with God, with each other. And with creation, making work toilsome. And we read this after Adam and Eve sinned. It says this, Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground. Since from it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return. And so the brokenness of work today seen in things like exploitation, idleness, or burnout is a result of this curse. The idea of work is then reaffirmed as a vital part of God's plan for his people all throughout the Bible. When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, they included a rhythm of work and rest. Six days were given for labor, mirroring God's work in creation, while the Sabbath, or the seventh day, was rest, a reminder of our dependence on Him. Solomon, he's an Old Testament writer, and he said this, A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God. For without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? Proverbs, it's a wisdom book in the Old Testament, it says this, All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. Various other Proverbs commend diligence and warn against laziness. God wants us to work. It's how he designed us to do life. There's this deep fulfillment and satisfaction when we are working. I mean, even in the life of Jesus, we see the dignity of labor as he worked as a carpenter before he began his ministry. Paul, a New Testament author, builds on this when he says this, For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Good works entails spiritual, relational, and vocational work that reflects kingdom values. So the Bible, it does talk a lot about work. But you want to know one thing scripture says about stepping into a greater level of professional health and wellness? It's to see your job as your calling. And it's not actually about what you do. The Bible has a bigger calling. The ultimate calling on our lives when it comes to our professions can be summed up with something else that Paul wrote to Christians. He said it this way, Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. You want a light verse right there, man? That's it. Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. So that means for those of you who are retired or in school and thought you had an out today, you don't. Because this is for everyone. Paul actually expands on this idea to Christians in Colossus. He says this, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. I love, I love those verses. They have been formational for my life. In fact, a number of years ago, I got a great artist and an individual in our church to paint that verse for me on a skateboard which hangs on my office wall. Skateboard because I grew up skateboarding and I love the sport. And this verse is important to me because it drives me in what I do and what I believe my life needs to be about. And so every day when I come into my office, it's a reminder to me about the overall calling on my life. I'm doing what I do for the Lord. And I want you to reflect or think about the first three words there. Whatever you do. You know what, whatever means, right? It means anything, everything, and all things. It means in absolutely everything you put your hand to, good, bad, hard, easy, all that you do, you do it for the glory of God. You do it as working for the Lord. The primary nature of your calling is not about what you do at any juncture in your career, but how you do whatever it is you do. Our jobs are our calling, but the calling is not job specific. It's God specific, meaning whatever it is you are doing, you're doing it as unto the Lord. Now that word vocation, it comes from the Latin word vocatio, which means summon or invitation. And so there's this idea that God has invited you or summoned you to invest your life into work. Whatever that work may be, and it's for him. James Emery White has influenced a bit of what I'm talking about today. And to this idea of calling, he says, It's not simply an occupation, but an offering. Not just work, but worship. Not merely a paycheck, but a prayer. Not just going into the marketplace, but going and taking your post on mission. And looking at your job this way is for most people, an entirely different way of thinking because most of us tend to compartmentalize our lives. We have our spiritual life over here, and we do, we do that on the weekend. We do that in our small group, and then we have our work life over here. And let's be honest, the two never really intermingle. Meaning, most of us don't wake up on Monday morning and go to work thinking, Wow, I'm about to give a gift to God through my work. Or we go to work thinking, I'm about to be a gift from God to others. Nah, we go to work thinking, Is it Friday yet? And then if we do think spiritually about our jobs, a more common thought pattern is seeing our spiritual lives at work in terms of emotional survival. We pray, God, help me make it through. Help me through this situation. Help me through these ethical issues. And listen, that's good. And God does help and guide in those areas. We should ask Him for that. But to see our jobs as a sacred act of worship, something that is meant to be given to God, is a concept not a lot of people think about. Well, that's That's easy for you, Pastor Phil. Come on, you work at a church, you run the church, and you can be spiritual about all things. You don't get my world. I work around guys who cuss every second word. And I'm like, well, have you met our young adult pastors? I'm just kidding. Love you, young adult pastors. You know, I think it's easy to compartmentalize our life, to have spiritual life over here, and our work life over here. But here's the truth. We don't have a spiritual life, and we don't have a work life. There's just one life. And as followers of Jesus, that life is meant to be lived spiritually, which includes our work. It's in all that we do. Earlier in the same passage or chapter of Colossians, Paul says these words, And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Notice the repeat language that we have there again. It says, whatever you do, do it all for God. Another translation says it this way. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus. The heart of your calling is not to something, but to someone. When we work, we don't just do it for our employer, we do it for God. And it was a different day and age when Paul wrote this letter to the Colossians. He was addressing slaves and masters in these verses. Essentially, the lowest of the low jobs. No one wanted or hoped for that. And he's saying to those people, Hey, you're called not to your work. But your work is calling you to do what you do for God, Henry now and said this, we may know how to fold our hands in prayer, but we need to learn how to make the work of our hands into a prayer. Whatever you do, do it for God. Do it for the glory of God. Do it as a representative of the Lord. And so whether you're a welder. A paramedic, a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a lawyer, an accountant, advisor, service worker, or more. All roles, all jobs, all tasks, all vocations are to be offered as worship to the Lord. Meaning it should be performed with excellence, integrity, and heartfelt devotion. Your work is more than a means to an end. It's to bring glory to God in all you do. But we've kind of flipped the script. Instead of making our sense of vocation all about God, we've made it all about ourselves. Our work is more about pleasing ourselves than it is about pleasing God. And James Emery White says the goal is not God's glory, but finding a job that will pay us to do what we would most enjoy in a setting we find most comfortable. And when all of that comes together, we consider ourselves to have found our calling, and until it does, we keep looking. And really, at times, we can almost over spiritualize this in terms of pursuing something that God has made us to be. And thinking this way views our jobs as something that should first and foremost fulfill us, be about us, and dare I say, even worship us. Now, I'm not saying, don't enjoy your job. But the primary sense of calling is that it's not for us at all. It's for God's glory. And yes, God has gifted every single one of you in unique ways. He has orchestrated passions and personalities and gifts inside of you. And where he leads you in your career is important and it matters. But the higher goal should always remain. Whatever you do becomes an offering of worship to him. Because really, it's not about you. The job doesn't bring that to us. We bring that to the job. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters. Did you know that in all of scripture, there isn't a single case where someone went on a journey of self discovery to find and follow God's vocational call in their life? There isn't one place where considering their personality, gifting, or experience, someone went on the hunt to find their fit. What the Bible does show us is people who were invited to do something, selected to do something, or presented with an opportunity. You don't find someone saying, I'm doing this because it's going to make me happy. This will satisfy me. Now, listen, going for that is not wrong. I hope you're happy at your jobs. 80 percent of you are at least satisfied like the survey said at the beginning. But if you want a good example from the Bible, what we have are people who simply lived their life in faithfulness and responded to what God brought their way. Your primary calling is to be faithful to God. Determining what career path you are to take is secondary to this. It's not about what you do at any juncture in your career, but how you do whatever it is you do. So whatever you do and whatever job you take your, you got to remember your calling is to be a Christian who engages their work as an act of worship because you're not working for people. You're ultimately working for God work as unto the Lord. So that means God is your boss. God is your CEO. God is the one who is watching all the time. And listen, Hope City, listen to me. Christians should be the best employees and employers out there because of this. Because it's bigger than selling stuff. It's bigger than building stuff. It's bigger than planning things. It's bigger than helping. What we do is an act of worship to God. Now, this doesn't mean, however, that you need to stay glued where you may be. I'm just saying you need to be guarded against ongoing restlessness because we can spend our whole lives trying to find the right fit, the right place only to wake up one day and realize our entire lives have been used up in the search and we missed out on the very things God wanted us to do in and through where we were at. And so listen to me, wherever you are planted right now, treat it as your home, not a rental apartment. That means you're all in for where you're at for the time that you are there. If things change, fine, but then be all in there. Our calling isn't about what we do as much as it is about how we do it. It's not about where we go as much as what we do where we are now. And consider this, friends. Maybe you are where you are right now because God wants to use you there. You're called to live for Christ now rather than waiting for that job that you feel is right for you so that you can live for Christ later. You are called to infuse your workplace with meaning and significance. Do not miss your moment. Do not miss your opportunity. No matter where you may be in your vocation, what God wants most for you to do is to offer your work as worship to Him. I want us to go back to the letter of Colossians here that Paul wrote because I know an idea like this can feel somewhat daunting, maybe a little difficult to live out. But Paul actually tells us how it's possible to do whatever you do for the glory of God. It's the beginning of Colossians chapter three. This is what he says. Since then, you have been raised with Christ, meaning since you made the decision to follow Jesus, set your hearts on things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. You want to know how it's possible to do whatever you do for the glory of God? You set your heart on things above and you set your mind on things above. And you know what that means? Well, it for sure doesn't mean that Christians are to live in some kind of mystical fog or some spiritual unreality that neglects an earthly reality. It means as Jesus followers, we are not to be concerned only with the trivialities of the temporal. We are called to be preoccupied with the things that get top billing in heaven. Heavenly values are to capture our imaginations, emotions, thoughts, feelings, ideas, and actions. We are to see everything, including our vocations, against the backdrop of eternity. We set our hearts on things above. We set our minds on things above. And that means your job is as much about how you live and for what purpose as about what you are doing in terms of your occupation. When you are preoccupied with things of eternal value, you have an expectation that goes along with your calling. You live like you are on mission and that mission is to do whatever you do Christianly and for Christ. Hope City, you are called to bring the presence of Jesus to your workplace. You are called to influence your coworkers in a way that they see evidence of Jesus in your life. It's doing what you do Christianly. It's letting the world know and feel the weight of who you are. Your work is not just a job. It's not just a paycheck. It's your post. It's your calling. It's your mission. It's your place that God has situated for you to influence the world. And I want to commend many of you because you already do this. I met two weeks ago, two Sundays ago, I met an individual in the lobby who told me they're here because their co worker told them, man, you should try church. And I hear this story over and over and over. Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. There's a story from the Middle Ages period that I think sums this up well. There was once a traveler that came from Italy to the French town of Chartres and he wanted to see the great church that was being built. It's, it's an incredible cathedral, by the way. Here's a picture of it. You'll see it right now. It's coming up. The traveler arrived near the end of the day and went to the site just as the workers were leaving for home. And he asked one guy that was covered in dust. Hey, what do you do around here? And the man replied, he was a stonemason. He spent his days carving rocks. Another man, when asked, said he was a glass blower who spent his days making slabs of coloured glass. Still another workman replied that he was a blacksmith who pounded iron for a living. This traveller, wandering into the church, came upon an elderly woman. Armed with only a broom who was sweeping up chips and shavings from the day's work. And he asked her, what are you doing? The woman paused. She leaned on her broom and looking up toward the high arches said this, Me, I'm building a great cathedral for the glory of the almighty God. That was a woman who had a deep understanding of vocation. Your calling is not about what you do, but how you do whatever it is you do. It's not job specific. It's God specific. Meaning whatever it is that you are doing, you do it for the Lord. And so Hope City, my prayer for you is that you wake up tomorrow morning with a new sense of purpose and a new sense of mission on your job. My prayer for you is that you go into your work understanding why it is you do what you do. My prayer for you is that you see it as your calling to worship God in and through everything. And whatever you do, may you work at it with all your heart. Is working for the Lord. I'm going to ask you to stand if you are able to. I'm going to close in prayer for you today. God, I'm grateful for the very practical ways that your word goes. Guides our life for many of us work is just a part of our lives. It's what we do. And so help us to be individuals that bring glory and honor to you in everything we do. And that includes our vocations. I pray for my friends here today that as they go into this week, they have a new sense of purpose, a new sense of mission, a new sense of calling when it comes to their job, their vocation. I pray that they see it as an opportunity to let Jesus work in and through them. And I know that there are complexities involved with many workplaces. But today, God, may they just understand that you have called them for this season, at this time, to be your light and to be your witness. And so I pray that over and for them. May they go with this attitude. May they live in this posture. A posture that says, God, work through me. God, use me. In all that I do, I want to worship you. And I pray that over all of us, God, for our students, for those who are retired in everything we do. May we bring glory and honor to you, Christ. May that be the heartbeat of our life as Jesus followers. May that be the thing that drives us and propels us. And so we give it to you for your glory and for your honor. And I know in a room like this, Lord, there are individuals who are looking for employment. And so I pray even today that you open a door where it seems like there isn't one to be opened. I pray that you I pray that you make a way where there doesn't seem to be a way I pray that you strengthen trust and dependence and may they look to you and God may they see a breakthrough in the days And weeks ahead for you to just do what only you can do and so just do that for them I pray god, maybe you're joining us today and You're here and you don't know jesus personally Um I'm glad you're in church. I'm glad you're with us online, at a campus, here at Millwoods. Friend, I want to tell you that Jesus went to the cross to die for your sins. He rose to offer you life, both now and forevermore. And the Bible says all you have to do is believe and receive this gift to begin a journey with Him, to begin a relationship with Him, to begin life with Him. And if that's something that you feel inclined to do, or you just feel a tugging on your heart today to step into making that decision, which I believe is the best decision you can make in your life, I'm going to pray a prayer that just helps you put into words the beginning of this journey. And I would love for you to pray along with me just to have a little bit of time for you to make this decision. So let's pray. Jesus, today I see my need for you, and I thank you for going to the cross, for dying for my sins. Thank you for the forgiveness that brings for rising and offer me life Both now and forevermore. And so today I believe in who you are. I put my faith in you I put my trust in you and I desire to make you Lord and leader of my life So help me to follow you in and through all ways and in through all things I'm just looking forward to this journey of getting to know you in a better way Jesus And I'm grateful that I get to do that today In God, I pray over every individual, every couple and every family. I ask that as they go into this week. First and foremost, may they understand that they serve a good God, who is their strength, their source of comfort, their guide. Holy Spirit, I pray that you just speak to them, work in and through them, through every day. But God, I pray for my friends, that as they go into this week, they may be individuals who commit to saying, In all that I do, I want to bring glory to God. My whole life may be lived as worship to the Lord. I pray for the workplaces represented. God, that this week there's transformation there because Hope City people went in there and lived for Jesus. And so God, I just pray for us new sense of empowerment, a new sense of mission, a new sense of purpose over their lives for your glory, for your honor. And I pray this in the powerful name of Jesus. Amen. If you prayed that prayer of surrendering your life to Jesus, maybe for the first time, can I just ask you to scan the QR code that's on the screen? Or it's also on the seat back in front of you. We'd love to get a digital booklet inside your hand that just talks about knowing and following Jesus. And it's also our way as a church to get to know you. If you want prayer about everything or anything, everything, we're gonna have a prayer team available down at your front left after the service. They would love to pray over and for you. Hope City know this, I love you lots, I'm praying for you, and I'm cheering you on. As you go out these doors today, this week, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Thank you for being in church today. God bless you guys.