I (Jordan) don’t think I have ever heard of a more Jesus-like person than Fred Rogers. He was like a biographer said, “Mother Teresa in a vest.” 73 But if Rogers were here today, I am convinced that he would remind us of two things. First, Jesus – not Fred – is the hero of this story. Secondly, the same Holy Spirit that has the extraordinary life of Roger’s empowerment now lives in you and me. So we modern Christians can glorify God through our work in almost the same way as Rogers did. How?
1. Only Christians glorify God by hugging Their position in God’s ‘royal priesthood’. Before Christ, priests and Pharisees had a lock on which calls ‘the work of the Lord’. But when Jesus, the great high priest, came to earth, he spent the vast majority of his life not working as a religious professional but as a carpenter.
That truth helps us to understand what the apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 2: 9 when he claimed that every follower of Christ is now a member of God’s “royal priesthood.” It is no longer just literal priests who represent God in the world and serve as pipes for his goodness. It is every carpenter, entrepreneur and barista – every Christian who does a really good job.
How can that be true? Because God is now in every Christian because of the power of His Holy Spirit. So, to quote the great preacher Charles Spurgeon, for the believer: “Nothing is secular – everything is holy”, including your work as a purely Christian.74
No one embraced their position in God’s royal priesthood more enthusiastically than Fred Rogers, who believed that he could do God’s work from behind a pulpit or a doll – a conviction that he literally took to his grave in the form of his “clergy.”
But Fred was not only encouraged by the holy label of his seemingly “secular” work. He glorified God by allowing that truth to shape his calling. He worked hard on the “good works that God prepared in advance” to do (Ephesians 2:10), although, given the considerable wealth of his family, he never had to work a day in his life. He used his platform to tell artistic similarities of the Kingdom of God. And he worked as a priestly ‘repairer of creation’, who was interspersed with the medium of television, was alternated.
Fred said that “deep in each of us is a spark of the divine waiting to be used to illuminate a dark place.” 75 That is true for you, believer. Just like Fred Rogers, you can glorify God in the ‘dark place’ that you work by embracing your position in the ‘royal priesthood’ and seeing your work as a primary place that God has called to ‘shine your light for others’ (Matthew 5:16).
Now take the time to thank God that He has prepared you in the ‘Royal Priesthood’ and ask him to show you how specific he calls you to represent him more faithfully at your workplace.
2. Only Christians glorify God by making Time to experience their loved one. Fred Rogers lived a hugely productive life. In the course of the thirty seasons of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Fred personally wrote nine hundred scripts, two hundred songs and thirteen operas. Even more impressive was how much time he spent personally with compassion to thousands of people from the camera of the camera.
But this is what is most remarkable about Fred’s productivity: he has achieved more than most people ever dream while too Spending more time with his heavenly Father than most people ever dare.
He started prayer every morning. During lunch he slid away to the silence of his office to meditate. When the studio arrived, he often spent another hour with a nap or praying for dinner.
As one of his friends said, Fred “fiercely guarded his time of silence and reflection.” 76 And in this he reflected his savior who “often withdrew into lonely places and prayers” (Luke 5:16).
Just like Jesus, Fred was not interested in silence because of silence. “It was not only the absence of noise he argued,” said a good friend of Fred’s, “but silence that reflects on the goodness of God.” 77
In other words, the spiritual discipline of loneliness was a means for a goal for Fred Rogers: regularly experienced the extraordinary love that God had for him. A sign in Fred’s office explicitly reminded him of that love. It was a Hebrew printing company of songs from songs 2:16: “My Beloved is mine and I am his.”
It is precisely because Fred spent so much time thinking about his status as a ‘loved’ child of God that he was able to share love so freely with God’s other children. “He didn’t need anything from you or from me,” one of his colleagues reflected.78 because his feeling of loved one led him to “the freedom of self -recovery.” 79
The same can be true for you and me, believer. Just like Fred, we will glorify God by making the time to stay in Him and experience the loved one who frees us to love our neighbors completely as ourselves (see John 15: 1-8).
That could look like yourself of a “silent time” for work, remembering, reminiscent to meditate about God’s love during your day, or to hang a visual memory of God’s love in your office. Whatever works for you works. But we must, if we like to be able to glorify God more in our work.
3. Only Christians glorify God by working at a pace that enables them to expand God’s love for others. It was not just a feeling of loved one that led Fred to show extraterrestrial kindness to others. It was also his extraordinary lack of rush.
When the biographer of Fred, Max King, was asked to summarize the message of Fred’s life in a single sense, he said, “Vertraag, be friendly.” For Fred, those things were ‘directly related’. 80 Because he understood that you and I have to ‘slow down’ to be ‘friendly’ and show God’s love to those with whom we work. That is why Fred insisted everyone who would listen to put their “dominant energies to develop a healthy design for life.” 81
Here too, Jesus served as the perfect model for Fred. As Pastor John Mark Comer has noticed: “If there is something that you record by reading the four gospels, it is that Jesus was rarely in a hurry.” 82 Even when the life of a child was in balance, Jesus moved at a pace that allowed him to participate in the suffering of one daughter on the way to another (see Mark 5: 21-43).
You and I will glorify God when we model the lack of haste of Jesus, so that we can extend God’s love to those with whom we work. And Fred Rogers shows us how we can do that in a more modern context.
First, Budget tons of margin in your agenda. If you think it takes thirty minutes to reach a meeting, forty -five. It is precisely this kind of margin with which Fred could see and keep the pain in the life of his colleagues, such as the time he pressed on the stop button in the elevator to bless a fellow producer.
Second, decide to be with who you are. Fred not only hurried, but also, when someone came in his presence, he offered them the gift that he was not in a hurry. There was no control over his watch. No look at e -mail on his desk. When Fred was with someone, the regular time stopped, “Fred Time”, and “urgency seemed to disappear”, because Fred gave the other person the feeling that they were the image carrier of God.
Finally, If you are not rushed, choose the important above the urgent. Fred became more human for me when I heard his son say that there were days that Fred ‘ran home from work to sit down [his family] For dinner. ’84 As his biographer explains, even when Fred did not have enough margin in his calendar, “Never – never – never let the urgency of work or life hinder his focus on what he saw as fundamental human values: integrity, respect, responsibility … and of course … kindness.” 85 will be glorified when the same is said of you and me.
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73. Hollingsworth, Easy Faith20.
74. Charles Spurgeon, “Everything for Jesus!” (Sermon, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, November 29, 1874), http://www.spurgeongems.org/ sermon/ chs1205.pdf.
75. Fred Rogers, Latrobe High School Baccalaureate Speech, Latrobe, PA, 2 June 1996.
76. Hollingsworth, Easy Faith5.
77. Ibid., 7.
78. Koning, Good neighbor348.
79. Timothy Keller, The freedom of self -presidence: the Path to true Christian joy (Chorley, England: 10 Publishing,
2012), 32.
80. King, “Maxwell King.”
81. Fred Rogers, Speech, Thiel College, Greenville, PA, November 13, 1969.
82. John Mark Comer, The ruthless elimination of haste: how you can stay alive emotionally healthy and spiritually The chaos of the modern world (Colorado Springs, Co: Waterbrook, 2019), 89.
83. Koning, Good neighbor7.
84. Ibid., 295.
85. Ibid., 9.
***
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