From Lucas Johnson’s sermon about Work and Success

I spent my formative years working alongside my dad and both grandfathers—manual labor that taught me life lessons I’d never forget. My dad inadvertently taught me I never wanted to be a plumber after we crawled under my aunt’s double-wide to fix a bathtub leak. Picture this: a dirty bathwater bubble trapped in vinyl underneath the trailer that we had to pop. I was convinced I’d drown in that mess, and I knew right then that wasn’t how I wanted to make a living.

My grandfathers taught me about delegation and creative problem-solving—though their methods were… questionable. One had us struggling to move massive tree trunk chunks before casually mentioning his wood splitter could stand upright. The other had me pulling a John Deere horse plow through gravel while he pondered, “How would Abraham Lincoln have done this?”

These experiences shaped how I viewed work, and if you’re from a rural area, you probably have similar stories. Many of us grew up learning that how someone worked defined who they were—their morality, their character, maybe even their eternal destiny.

Continue reading → From Plumbing Disasters to Purpose: A Biblical View of Work and Success