PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 50 – How Can We Change The World? - Part 16

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Podcast 50 - How Can We Change the World- Part 16

Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. Can you believe it? This is our podcast number 50, we’re halfway to 100!

We’re still on point number 15, SERVING THE LORD WILLINGLY. Well ladies, willingly is only one of the ways we can serve the Lord. I have found 25 different ways that the Bible tells us to serve the Lord. Twenty-five different descriptions!

I think it would be fun to look at those today, don’t you? Well, I don’t think we’ll get through them all. I love to always find out every little thing I can about a subject in the Word of God. So when it says to serve the Lord, I want to know— how does God want me to serve Him?

We know that we won’t change the world by doing anything passively or ordinarily. We’ve got to go a little bit over the top, we’ve got to go over the ordinary, more than the average.

Let’s start looking at these descriptions, shall we? I’m going to put them in sort of alphabetical order.

The first one is . . .

ABOUNDINGLY

and it’s in 1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” That is such a wonderful promise for you as a mother. It’s a promise, but there’s also a challenge there.

Isn’t it wonderful when we get Scriptures when there’s a challenge to us, but there’s a promise that goes with it? It’s great to look out for those! It’s also important to not take promises on their own without checking out if there is a challenge that comes before it. Because often we won’t get the promise unless we fulfill the first part.

This verse is talking about working for the Lord. How are we to do it? Always abounding. Abounding, what is that word? The Greek word means “to be excessive, over the top, going beyond what is necessary, superabundant.” Now, that sounds like a fun way to live, doesn’t it?

Are you living this way in your home? It’s very easy to live boringly. I think it’s so sad when we live in our homes in a boring manner. This is what many mothers do. They get in the rut of getting up in the morning, “Okay, I’ve got to make breakfast, I’ve got to do this, and I’ve got to do that.” They go through the routine of the day with their “hang down” mouth and their grumpy face and it’s such a boring day. It’s so sad. You don’t have to be like that. It all depends on our attitude and what we want to do. Because, ladies, we have the power to make our homes what we want them to be.

Now if your home is a boring place, that is showing that there is something wrong with your attitude. Who is making it a boring place? Nobody else but you! You see, we make our homes what we want them to be.

Dear, precious mother, if you want a joyful home, well make a joyful home! It starts with you being joyful, but you can do it! If you want an exciting home, well make it exciting! Think of exciting things to do. If you want a home that’s filled with peace, be a peacemaker. We make the environment that we want to have.

It’s interesting, as we have found out so many times, everything in the Word, everything in God is not normal. It’s over the top. That’s one of the meanings of this word, abounding. It means to be over the top, more than is necessary, being excessive, superabundant.

Can I encourage you to just get out of the normal, the boring, and the status quo? Come on now, spend a little time as you’re going off to sleep tonight, thinking, “Now, Lord Jesus, what could I do tomorrow that could make my home more exciting? What could I do to bring more joy into our home? What could I do to make our marriage more exciting? Show me, help me to think of new and creative ideas that are beyond the normal status quo. Bring these ideas to my mind. I ask You in the name of Jesus.”

So pray and ask God to show you so that in your marriage you’re going to think of new, different, lovely, sweet, exciting, and creative things to do to your husband to blow him away. You’re going to think of ideas to do with your children that take them from the normal and the boring into a whole new realm. And it starts with your attitude.

Of course, you can’t do that unless you change your attitude yourself and you’re going to have an abounding attitude in your spirit. You can take the most mundane, ordinary bit of work you have to do and make it a joy, make it fun. Teach your children how to do that. You’re training them how to work and of course they’re going to realize that work takes work. Sometimes work is hard.

But even hard work can be fun. Work can be fun because work is good. Did you know that? Work is good. Work is therapeutic. God gave us work for the blessing of our bodies, and the blessing of our souls, and the blessing of our minds.

When I was a young child, I had the idea that work came in after the fall of man and that’s when we had to work with the sweat of our brow. Because, when I was a child, I didn’t like work. But I realized as time went on that, No. God established the principle of work before man sinned. As soon as God put him in the garden, God told him to dress it and to keep it. The word “dress” means “to work, to work with the sweat pouring down your brow, to work hard.”

Goodness me, that was even before sin came in. It in this ideal environment where everything was beautiful, glorious, and wonderful. And they had to work? Yes, yes, because work does good to your body. You’ll have a good night’s sleep. You’ll be healthier for hard work. Work does good for your soul.

There’s something about working. It’s therapeutic and if you learn to do it with the right attitude and with joy, you realize that every single job you do, whether little or mundane or difficult, even slimy and horrible is still sacred. Because Jesus lives in you and when Christ lives in you everything you do, or touch is sacred.

It’s good for your mental abilities. When you work at something you get more ideas of how to do the thing better or more ideas come to you all the time. If you’re just sitting, panning out, you don’t really get any great ideas so much as when you’re working and thinking. It is a blessing.

So working, you’re going to learn how to do it yourself with this great, abounding, exciting, fun, joyful, amazing attitude. Then your children will see, “Oh, so work’s fun. This is what work is? I want to work!”

We’re training our children for work all the way through their lives because we’re preparing them to be young men and women who know how to work hard. Young women who know and are prepared to run a home, who can get in there and know how to cook a meal, how to clean a home, and how to get stuck in and manage a home. Oh, there are so many beautiful, beautiful girls who know how to do this. I have been in many wonderful, godly homes and the young people growing up and the middling and older teens, oh, just beautiful girls.

I remember, actually we will have been, by the time you hear this podcast to our Above Rubies retreat in Panama Beach in Florida. As I speak, I will be going down there tomorrow. My husband and I will be speaking there. The family who put on this retreat, Daniel and Alison Hartman, lovely, lovely family and a few weeks ago we were actually staying at their home.  It was such a blessing to stay with them and their ten children. Not only were we staying with them, but the Alison family, Serene and Sam and about ten of their children.

So there was a big, big crowd of us in that home, but we all just fitted in so gloriously. For the evening meals they asked more people and we sat down for these great meals, and the adults never did anything. The young people, they just got in, they cooked these wonderful big meals to feed all these people. They cleaned up afterwards and left everything glorious and shining. Oh, it was just with joy and singing and delight. It was just so glorious to behold.

And then you can go to other homes where there are young people and they are even in their late teens and early twenties and they don’t know how to cook. They don’t know how to clean up. They don’t even do the dishes. They’re not even being prepared for life!

Then our young men, oh my, we want to see young men who know how to work hard. They are the young men who will get jobs. I’m a great believer that hopefully God will bless these young men while they are young with the one that God has chosen for them. That doesn’t always happen, sometimes they don’t meet that one till later. But it’s such a blessing when they meet them when they’re young, and they can get married young and get into life together when they’re young. And they take on responsibility.

I was talking with a young married man last night and he is doing very well and studying to be a doctor. They’re living in a home that they’ve bought, they have two cars and they’ve now got two little children. They are doing so well. And I said to him, “You know, I think that if you weren’t married, you wouldn’t be living in this home and I don’t think that you would have all that you’ve got now.”

He said, “You know, that’s true. I’d be living in my parent’s basement, eating fast foods.”

And you know, that’s true because he would have no real purpose to live for. Statistics tell us that married men do better financially that single men because they have a wife and a family to care for. He can’t be just a young single guy, maybe he has a car, but it doesn’t even work. Goodness me, no! If he’s married, if he’s got children, he better have a car that’s going and it’s on the road, because what if something happens to his little baby or his little child? He’s got to be ready to run and do something!

So there comes this need for rising into maturity and to provide for the family. It makes a man of them, even when they are young. But you see, these kinds of young men have to be trained, and prepared, and taught how to work hard so they are ready for life. There are too many young men today still living with their parents. I beg your pardon? It’s time for them to get out and establish a life on their own, unless they are working in a family business, of course. Sometimes that happens also and that can be very good, too.

But we are going to be those who love work and train and teach our children how to love work. And we will abound in working in our homes because this is how we are serving the Lord. If God gives us children, this is our work, our work for the Lord.

Now for the next one . . .

2. AS TO THE LORD, AND NOT UNTO MEN

It tells us that in Ephesians 6, to work as unto the Lord. Then Colossians 3:23 says: ”And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.”

The J. B. Phillips translation of that Scripture says: “You are actually employed by Christ.”

This is true when we are in our homes mothering our children, working hard in our home. We’re not doing it for anybody else but the Lord. Well, we are— we’re doing it for our husbands, we’re doing it for our children. Actually, we’re doing it for ourselves, too, because it’s such a joy to live in a well-managed home, isn’t it? Who wants to live in a shambles? Nobody can enjoy life like that. But ultimately, we’re doing it as unto the Lord.

So even if we’re not getting any reward, even if no body’s saying, “Oh, you’re doing such a great job,” even if we think everybody’s just taking us for granted, well, who cares? We are doing this as unto the Lord and we will receive a reward. Do you notice that? In fact, in this Scripture it says that “KNOWING that we will receive the reward” because God is looking.

Maybe your husband forgets to say anything encouraging to you. Maybe you feel as though you’re just hidden away, on the back benches, just being taken for granted. But God is watching, and you will receive your reward.

In our first Scripture, 1 Corinthians 15:58, that Scripture also talked about the reward when it says that we are “. . .always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor [your work] is not in vain. . .”

Mother, your work is not in vain for the Lord. Your work as a mother is an eternal work.  You are mothering eternal souls. Your work is going into the eternal realm. And you will receive your eternal reward.

No. 3 DILIGENTLY

Proverbs 12:27 says: “. . . But diligence is man’s precious possession.” 

In Jeremiah 48:10 RSV it says: “. . . Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord with slackness. . ..” Now, that’s a challenge, isn’t it?

Romans 12:11 in the J. B. Phillips translation says: “Let us not allow slackness to spoil our work. . ..” And in that same verse the Good News version says: “Work hard and do not be lazy.”

The Proverbs 31 chapter tells us about that too. It says that this woman is never lazy. She works hard.

And so, that’s another description of how we work for the Lord in our homes—diligently.

No. 4. FAITHFULLY

In Matthew 25 it says he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in that which is much. We have to learn to be faithful in the little things of life, don’t we?  And in the little things of the home. Sometimes we think our work in the home is not really very powerful, we’re not doing much. But ladies, we are doing a great thing.

My Facebook post for this morning I headed up, “SIGNS AND WONDERS MINISTRY.” I was talking about how that in our homes, we are a missionary for the Lord.

Sometimes you may think, “Oh, goodness, what am I doing here, hidden in my home? If only I could be a missionary out in a foreign field, really doing something out there!”

But dear mother, you are serving the Lord as much in your home as out there. You are training disciples! What did Jesus do during His time on earth? He trained disciples. He trained 12 disciples who turned the world upside down.

Just think of the future of these disciples you are training and what impact they will have upon the world as you pray for them, as you minister to them, as you put God’s Word into them, and as you seek to put God’s character into their lives! You are a missionary training disciples.

But there are many things you are, of course, as a mother, but the other one I mentioned in my post was: you are involved in a signs and wonders ministry.

Now many people think, “Oh wow, that’s pretty amazing if you can pray and see signs and wonders. I’d love to be able to see signs and wonders in my ministry for the Lord.”

Well, dear mother, please get this truth. You ARE involved in a signs and wonders ministry. The Bible tells us that in Isaiah 8:18: “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for SIGNS AND WONDERS in Israel from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.”

Each one of your children are a gift to you from the Lord of Hosts, and He has given these precious children to you for signs and wonders in the world. How does God bring forth signs and wonders? Well, yes, He does it in creation, that’s true, but He loves to do it through His people. His people are His greatest signs and wonders.

Every new creation is a sign and a wonder from the Lord. It’s a miracle. Both those words actually mean “miracle.” They mean “a revealing, a showing forth.” Each new child that is born into the world is a new and fresh image of God who has the potential to reveal something of God in this world. To reveal His love, His salvation, His truth, His joy, and all the character of God, and to bring God to people in this world.

Each new child is unique and a miracle. Every single person born on this planet is a miracle. There’s never been another person like them and there never will be again. They are a unique creation, a powerful creation, an eternal soul, and filled with gifts and talents from God Himself.

No wonder abortion is such an evil, evil treacherous sin. Isn’t it terrible that we are living in a generation and a society where women now murder their own flesh and blood, and where they can do it by law? This generation will be known as a murderous generation and we live in it. And yet we get used to it. We don’t even become aware, or we are not shuddering or abhorring the sin of this generation that we live in. Because when a little child is murdered in the womb, it is a ”sign and wonder” from God that we are eliminating.

Dear lovely mother, your precious children, your little ones, your middling ones, your older ones, they are all signs and wonders and you are the one chosen to prepare these signs and wonders for the revelation of God in the world. You are involved in a signs and wonders ministry. Wow, that is pretty unbelievable!

Let’s be faithful in our task. You may think it’s a little task, but actually it’s a HUGE task. Let’s be faithful in it because it’s so powerful.

No. 5. FERVENTLY

Romans 12:11: “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.” We’re to serve the Lord fervently.  The Living Bible says: “Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically.”  The CJB says: “Serve the Lord with spiritual fervor.”

Now, that’s more than the ordinary, isn’t it? When you’ve got a bit of fervor about you, you are getting a bit beyond the average or the normal, and that’s how we’re to be.

No. 5. FOR THE GLORY OF GOD

1 Corinthians 10:13: “. . .whatsoever ye do [that means your mothering], do all to the glory of God.” To the glory of God.

You wake up in the morning and you begin your day and you have these children around you. You’re teaching them at home. You’re in your home and you’re going to do it all for the glory of God.  And if you have this attitude, the glory of God will fill your home.

I think perhaps this may be one of the greatest reasons of our adjectives about working for the Lord, is doing it for His glory, so HE will get the glory.

No. 7. HARMONIOUSLY

That means to do it working together. In 1 Corinthians 3:9, Paul is writing to the Corinthians and he says: “For we are laborers together with God. . ..”

2 Corinthians 6:1 says we are   It’s a big thing to learn to work with others, isn’t it? Sometimes we’d rather do it on our own and that also gets back to teaching our children how to work. Teaching them how to do the dishes, teaching them how to cook. Many mothers will say, “Oh, I can do it better than you.” I find I feel like that myself sometimes.

Of course, I’m in a different season now. My children are all grown, but I have loads of people in our home and young people living in our home and they will often do the dishes for me. They are all so wonderful and so faithful in doing them. I notice how slower they are than I am, and I can do it much more quickly.

I think, “Oh, my, they’re having to take so much time out of their time to do these dishes, because they’re doing them slowly. I could do them three times as quickly.” But anyway, they are doing them, so they are being faithful.

But when you’re teaching your children, they are going to do it wrongly and it’s not going to be quite as good as you want it. But you’ve got to keep teaching them and working with them and learning to work harmoniously with them until they get it. So that’s an important point about working too.

No. 8. HEARTILY

With all your heart. In Nehemiah 4:6 they’re rebuilding the walls and it says here the people had a heart and soul (the word mind here means heart and soul) to work. Ephesians 6:6 says: “. . .Doing the will of God from the heart.”

When you do it from your heart, it then affects your actions. So you’ve got to get the right attitude in your heart first. If we’re putting our heart in it, then our body will get into it. Sometimes our body doesn’t get into it much because our heart’s not in it.

Colossians 3:23: “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily. . ..”

No. 9: HUMBLY

Now we see some examples here of Jesus. I think I talked about this in the last podcast, didn’t I? Matthew 20:28: “. . .The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life. . ..”

Jesus said in Luke 22:27: “. . .I am among you as he that serveth.”

I wonder if we could say those words. “I am among you, people in my home, I am among you as one who serves.”

And then we see that beautiful example of Jesus in John chapter 13, where Jesus, the Son of God, rose up and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself and He began to wash His disciples’ feet. He served them.

Then He said to them in John 13:16, 17: “. . .The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”

Paul’s example in 1 Corinthians 9:19 he says: “. . .I made myself servant unto all. . ..”

Wow, that was His spirit. That was his habit of life, to serve.

And then we read about the woman in 1 Timothy 5:10. I love this, I think I’ve shared it with you before, but it’s one we need to be reminded of as women because it gives a description of the lifestyle that God intends for women.

It’s talking about widows in this passage. Paul said to Timothy in this passage that if children or grandchildren have widows in their family, they have the responsibility to look after them. However, if they have no children and no grandchildren, then it becomes the church’s responsibility to care for them and watch over them.

But there are a few requisites. One, they had to be 60 years of age and over, and of course they have no living relatives to look after them. And then they had to have lived a certain lifestyle.

And this was the lifestyle: “And have a reputation for good deeds. . ..”

Now, what were these good deeds, good works? The first one “. . .a woman who brought up her children well. . ..” Now, that was the first thing on the list, did you notice that? God always puts first things first. This is a woman who embraced motherhood. She brought up her children.

That word in Greek is teknotropheō. Two words, teknon means child and tropheō, the verb, and there’s another one, trophe, it means, nourishment. The word means “to nourish, to nurse a babe at the breast and to nourish children with food.” That gives a beautiful description of a mother. She begins her motherhood nursing her baby and then she continues to feed her children. She’s always feeding them, always making meals.

Many mothers think, “Help! I don’t have to make another meal now, do I? How many is it that I’ve now cooked . . . is it up to ten thousand? I don’t know!”

But, no, we have to realize this is a glorious and beautiful serving ministry in our home. It is part of our motherhood. This woman, she embraced bringing up children, feeding them, nourishing them.

She also “. . .received strangers in her home, performed humble duties for other Christians, helped people in trouble, and devoted herself to doing good.”

She became a servant, she served in her home and then she served those who had needs, who were poor, needy, and in trouble. This was the lifestyle of the woman who God wanted to bless as she got older and had no one else to provide for her.

Then we read in 1 Peter 5:5 in the Williams Translation: “You must all put on the same servant’s apron of humility to one another.” I love that. The servant’s apron of humility.

I’m one of those ladies who loves to wear aprons. Aprons are not very modern. We don’t see a lot of mothers wearing aprons. Maybe because they don’t do a lot of work in the home. Some of them hardly cook in the home. But I find when I get into the kitchen, I need an apron on. When I’m wearing an apron, I even like to wipe my hands on my apron. So my aprons get very dirty and very stained. But they’re well used aprons. In fact, really, if I don’t wear an apron, I will get my clothes quite marked, and so I love to do that.

But this Scripture says that the apron that we must put on is the servant’s apron of humility. If we’re serving, we’ll have a humble attitude, won’t we? So let’s put on our apron of serving and our apron of humility each day. Even if you’re not wearing a literal apron, put on your apron of serving and humility.

No. 10: IN THE FEAR OF THE LORD

We’re to “Serve the Lord with fear. . .” (Psalm 2:11).

Hebrews 12:28 says: “. . . serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” We are to serve also in the fear of the Lord knowing that everything we do is being done in the presence of the Lord and we are going to give an answer to every deed done in our bodies, the Bible says. So everything we do is in preparation for eternity, for the real world. So we are wanting to do it in the fear of the Lord, walking in the fear of the Lord.

I think this is something that is missing from the church today, is the awe of walking in the fear of the Lord. This is also how we need to serve Him.

Well, time has gone, so let’s pray:

“Dear Father, we thank You that Your Word is filled with so many admonitions showing us the way in which we are to walk and the way we are to live. We think of all these adjectives of how we are to serve You, Lord. We pray that You will save us from serving just boringly but serving You with all our hearts and souls. Serving You diligently, serving You to bring glory to Your name. Serving You, Lord, knowing that You are the One Who we serve. Not really anyone else. We’re doing it for You.

“I pray Your blessing on every mother and daughter and grandmother and all the little ones, every one in each family who are listening, bless them. Please strengthen their marriages, strengthen their homes, and fill them with the joy of the Lord as they serve You. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”