[Paul Moody]: If you’ve been out driving around recently, you’ve probably seen some of the same signs that I’ve seen going around Spokane Valley through town, going down the commercial areas of town. I drive by a restaurant, I drive by a fast food location, I drive by a hotel, I drive by whatever it might be. There’s a very common sign that I see out on billboards all over the place. Any idea what that is?

[Congregation]: “Help wanted.”

[Paul Moody]: “Help wanted.” Yes, “Help Wanted,” “Now Hiring,” right? Some version of that, pretty much everywhere you go, you know. I can start at McDonald’s for $15 an hour in Spokane, you can believe it. My first job was at Burger King when I was 15 for $3.25 an hour. And I remember the older lady that worked there, kind of grumbling that she started at 70 cents an hour. And I started at, you know... I mean, she’d been there a number of years and obviously worked her way up a little bit, but not a lot above that.

So, I think, wow, $15 an hour as long as you don’t have to eat a $9 hamburger on break, you could be in pretty good shape. But “Now Hiring,” right? There’s opportunities for jobs, employment all over the place, many to be had. Additionally, many workers are looking to switch occupations, to switch employers. I read an article this week that said, “Now is the prime time for people if they want to essentially jump ship with the company that they’re with and relocate to a different employer.” And it’s prime. It’s a prime market if you’re in the market looking for a job.

And what’s interesting is the Bible gives us day-to-day wisdom for living life. You know, sometimes people might wonder, “Well, you know, what’s in this Book that really affects me today and day-to-day?” And I’ll just say there are so many things that are principles for making life work. And employment is one of those principles, and the Bible has quite a bit to say about it.

Today, I want to ask and answer the question, what do employers want and need? What do employers want and need? It might seem like a little bit of a, you know, odd topic to necessarily bring up in a sermon, but we have college students that are in Spokane, converging on Spokane. We have young people that are going through school and working towards graduation and thinking about future, thinking about jobs. And again, there’s biblical basis to go from in these matters.

So, what do employers want and need? As you know, for a number of years up until 2017, I was self-employed, ran my own landscape business for 22 years. And many of those years, I had the opportunity to have employees, some good, some not so good. And through the process, I essentially began to watch people, you know, watch work habits, watch attitudes, kind of watch how people functioned and worked together, watch their overall demeanor, and I began to see traits in people that I identified as what made good employees or not good employees, at least in the, you know, sliver of the business world that I worked in with my landscape business.

So today, I want to consider the questions, what do employers want and need? As well as what are...? This could be sort of a subtitle. What are valuable qualities in an employee? What do employers have to say? What are they looking for? But even more importantly than that, what does the Bible say about being a good employee? What are bosses, employers, businesses looking for?

There’s a number of individuals again, in our midst, either they’re preparing for future employment, they’re getting an academic education, they’re in college, they’re in high school. Maybe they’ve gone on beyond the four-year degree, now they’re getting their masters, they’re improving their skill sets, and much of their learning through that educational process is a set of skills to be marketable to an employer. You know, it may be medical, it may be a trade, that they would work with their hands in a business trade of some sort, but again, they’re learning skills.

And I think we all recognize that there’s learned technical skills that are important to employers. Like if you’re going to hire someone into your particular business, you’re looking for someone with the technical skills that match up with what your business is, right? If you’re looking to hire a nurse, you’re not going to necessarily hire someone whose profession is auto mechanics. But there are places where those people would go work.

So, there’s technical skill sets that you prepare for to be marketable to employers. And those skill sets are called hard skills. Those are learned skill sets. Skill sets that you become educated in through classes, through schooling, through even on-the-job training, they’re called hard skills. You know, if electrician is going to wire a house, the ability to run the wire up to code to, you know, put it together in a functional way that the house doesn’t catch on fire and burn down, that is a hard skill that is worked and sought after.

Employers with hard skills and technical updates in whatever field they work in can vary from job to job. Honestly, they do. If you’re a computer technician again, your hard skills are going to be different than in medical, or electrical, or plumbing, or dentistry, or as a nurse, as a doctor, landscaping, writing. These are all hard skill sets of a variety that people develop and then they move into specific fields that, you know, align with those hard skills. Again, they vary widely from person to person. So, you’re not going to take someone who has a hard skill, again, for a doctor and make them an electrician. They line up with their field.

But there’s also another skill set that is more universal, and those are called soft skills. And that’s the main focus of what I want to talk about today, soft skills. Because you see, soft skills are what employers highly value as well. They’re skills that apply across the board no matter what your profession is. So, you know, my soft skills, your soft skills are going to be applicable to whatever our employment is, even if our hard skills vary, okay?

The Collins English Dictionary defines soft skills as, “Desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge. They include common sense, the ability to deal with people in a positive, flexible attitude.”

And so, when we consider these qualities, we find that both soft skills and hard skills working together is what employers want and need in their employees, okay? You may have a hard skill set that fills the bill, but they also want to know if you have the soft skill set. And if you have the soft skill set, they want to know if you have the hard skill set. But again, one is trained and educated in a little... the other ones come about in a little different way.

Soft skills are defined as a combination of interpersonal people skills, this is according to Wikipedia. You don’t have to try to write all these down, but you’ll grasp the concept here. “It’s a combination of interpersonal people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attributes, and emotional intelligence quotient among other things, that enable people to effectively navigate their environment to work well with others, to perform well, and to achieve their goals with complementing hard skills.” Again, that’s from Wikipedia.

And so, when I was running my business, whenever I was interviewing someone for hire, I was interested in their hard skills, but I was most interested in their soft skills, okay? What was their character like? What was their work ethic? How could they get along with someone else? How would they relate with my customers? What was their personality like? Because you see, at least in my business, it wasn’t rocket science, okay? Pretty much what I brought them in to do, I could teach them on the job in terms of the hard skill set. But if the soft skill set wasn’t in place, that really made a difference between an employee that was good and desirable and one who was not.

Employers look for positive character traits in people they interview, okay? And they want motivated people who are self-starters, who are dependable, who are hardworking, people who are good to their word, and people of character. And again, those are soft skills that can’t necessarily be educated in the classroom the same way that the hard skills are.

So, if I found those qualities in an individual that I hired, I knew I can train them along the way. They were generally a good employee. They worked well with my customers and one another and they were actually people that were profitable to the business.

Now, it’s interesting if you go online and you Google, what employers want or, you know, qualities of good employees, anything along those lines. You’ll generally come up with running lists. And what’s interesting is a lot of these top 10 lists, what you’re going to find is that the top five employee qualities that they look for are almost always exclusively soft skills, okay? One through five. Soft skills are things like teamwork, adaptability, organizational abilities, and conflict resolution.

And when you get actually down then to the hard skills, which are the technical knowledge related to the job, they often showed up somewhere between sixth and eighth place on this running list. So, many employers recognize that, “Look, I need somebody of character with the skill set to do the job.” But, you know, character and certain work-related attributes of character needed to come first.

In 2014, there was a national survey that was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of careerbuilder.com. And from February 10th through March 4th, they surveyed a little over 21 hiring managers and human resource professionals across various companies across the board. And the survey found out that companies are looking for the best of both worlds when it comes to skill sets. Companies want someone who is not only proficient at a particular function, but also has the right personality, and is a good fit for the job. So, they’re going to be looking for both.

According to Rosemary Hefner, Vice President of Human Resources at CareerBuilder, she says, “Employers want to know how quickly you can adapt and solve problems, whether you can be relied on to follow through, and how effectively you can lead and motivate others.”

Again, we’re coming to character and the point that we’re ultimately going to be coming to is that if you pull out all these lists of soft skills and you go through them, you’re going to find out that they match up with biblical principles that God wants His people to learn and to grow in. They’re character principles and traits that are relevant to our Christian lives. And so, it shouldn’t be something that’s completely foreign to us, but it must be something that we focus ourselves in on developing.

Do employers want good, solid, hard-skilled employees? Absolutely. You want somebody who is proficient and trained at the job and at the top of their game. You know, if I said, “Okay, hire me for an IT tech, I learned how to program Commodore 64s in 1983,” okay, that doesn’t necessarily qualify me for what someone’s looking for. So, you need to be up on your skill set, you need to constantly refresh and update, continue your education in those things. Employers do want those, but they also want employees who possess the soft skills necessary to make them effective at implementing the hard skills and implementing them in a way that brings profit and brings a good atmosphere to the business.

So, for us today, the question becomes, how do we measure up when it comes to the soft skills that employers need? Again, that’s the focus primarily of what I’m talking about today are soft skills and our character traits. And again, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that many of the soft skills that we should be perfecting for an employer actually line up with character attributes that are given to us in Scripture. Things that Jesus Christ displayed, attributes that God would have us display as Christians. This is the part of our normal daily lives.

So, let’s look at the Bible, okay? Let’s consider some of the soft skills that make for good employees and good Christians. These aren’t exclusive. These are tied together. Before we do that, let’s put first things first, Luke 14:25. We need to understand what priority needs to be in place if we’re going to be someone who is serviceable in the way that God would have us be to an employer and to God. Luke 14:25. Okay, what comes first? Luke 14:25. It says, “Now great multitudes went with Him,” people following Jesus Christ. “And He turned and He said to them, ‘If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and yes, his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.’”

So, we might be wondering, what is Jesus Christ saying here? And what does this even have to do with being a good employee? You know, I turned to this, this is generally the first scripture I go to in baptism counseling. But what does it have to do with being a good employee? Well, it’s about priorities.

The word “hate” here, I think we understand is a comparative word and it means to love less by comparison. So, Jesus is saying, “If you’re going to be My disciple, there can be nothing that you love more than me, nothing more than My Father, okay? Not spouse, not children, not even the job.” It becomes about priorities and what it is that comes first in our lives. All of those things need to be in the right order if they’re going to function as God intends.

Our marriage is a good example. If you’re in a marriage, you have a man who puts God first and a woman who puts God first, then your marriage will be blessed because God is first, all right? And the principles of putting God first is what will flow out in your marriage. It’s the same with the job. If you put God first in priority and the principles that He gives us to live by it will be a benefit not only to us but to our employers as well. The way of life that we find in the Word of God leads to many of the same soft skills that employers want and need.

So, I’ve picked out four. I went online and looked at various lists of important skills. I picked out four. You can go pick out other ones. There’s plenty, and you can match them up with scriptures as well. But for the remainder on the message, I want to look at four soft skills from a Biblical perspective and consider how they will not only better us as the people of God but be of benefit to those who seek to employ us. We’re doing them a benefit, but, you know, they’re doing us a benefit as well, and we want it to be a good and working relationship.

Soft skill number one, employers want employees who demonstrate dependability. Dependability. You know, show up when you say you’re going to show up, right? Over the years of running my landscape business, I picked up so many jobs from people who were dissatisfied with the last landscape company. They said they would be here on Wednesday of the week and they never showed, and they never called. And they showed up the following week and, you know, the grass is twice as high, and the bushes need trimmed, and they said, “Wow, this is kind of out of hand. We’re going to have to charge you double for as much as it is,” but they never showed the previous week. And I heard that story over and over. And, in fact, a lot of the jobs that I picked up came as a matter of we’re looking for someone dependable. Pretty simple concept, pretty basic, but it’s essential as well.

Believe me when I tell you that referrals carry so much more weight than advertisement. And I found that out in business as well. You could run an ad, landscape maintenance, run it on Craigslist. Your phone will ring off the hook and you’ll show up and be the 23rd guy in line giving the bid to someone who’s looking for the lowest bidder. And believe me, you don’t want to be the lowest bidder. You can’t survive as the lowest bidder.

So sometimes you pick up some jobs from that that lead to things but to be a referral. I always found that was wonderful. And it went something like this. A few little old ladies sitting around playing Yahtzee. I know some like that. Look at the camera here. You know who you are. Sit around playing Yahtzee, talking, and one lady says, “You know, my landscape guy is so unreliable, never shows up, or when he does, it’s the wrong day. My sprinklers have been running that morning, the grass is wet when he mows,” you know these things. And the other one says, “Well, mine is reliable. They’re there when they say they’re going to be. They dress well. They do a good job.” And the one lady says to the other, “Give me their phone number,” right? “I want their phone number.” The phone rings and the conversation isn’t usually, “I’m looking for the lowest bidder,” it’s, “You take care of my friend and I want you to take care of me as well.”

And so, I found over the years that when you show up in that circumstance, you can basically name your price. If it is reasonable, you’ll generally have the job. And so, referrals because of dependability, for me, sold it any day of the week. And I came to the point in the last 10 years of business I never advertised. It was just word of mouth and referral, and it was good jobs.

Much of my ability to be dependable though as a company depended on having dependable employees because I couldn’t do all the work myself nor would I want to. So now you have people that you’re kind of putting your reputation, your name on the line, your business on the line that they will be dependable. And so that was, frankly, the search, and that was the struggle at times as well to find dependable employees. But if they weren’t dependable, my company wasn’t dependable. That’s what employers want, it’s people with basic dependability, character, work ethic that will do what they say they’re going to do.

According to an article from americasjobexchange.com titled, “What Do Employers Want From Their Employees?” Under the heading of “Dependability,” it says “Certain core expectations are required for all jobs, but dependability is probably at the top of the list. Employees show dependability by taking personal ownership in all aspects of their job, including being on time,” okay.

How big are these? These are character issues, ultimately, okay? Being on time. You say, “I’m contracted to work for you from, you know, 9:00 to 5:00 or 8:00 to 5:00,” whatever it is. If you start at 8:00, be there at 7:50, not 8:05, okay? Be there on time. “Dressing and working in a professional manner.” Mr. Armstrong used to say, “Dress for success,” right? “Pull your pants up, tighten your belt, sharpen up your look a little bit, and put on a professional image.” It’s amazing how far that goes. “And demonstrating a high level of commitment.” Again, this is all under “Dependability.” “Managers like dependable employees because they set and they maintain clear expectations.”

An employer was once interviewing a job applicant. And he said to the applicant “For this job, we want a responsible man.” And the applicant replied, “Then you’ve got the right man in me, sir. Wherever I’ve worked, whenever anything went wrong, they always said, I’m responsible.” Responsible man or woman, that is what an employer wants. They want people who are dependable.

What does the Bible say on this point? Again, all these skills that you could look up and find. There are scriptural basis for these things. Proverbs 22:9. It’s interesting having lived on both sides of the coin of employee-employer relationships of what you see, what you come to understand as important. Proverbs 22:29 says, “Do you see a man who excels in his work?” Marginal reference says, “A man who is prompt in his business.” It says, “He will stand before kings, he will not stand before unknown or obscure men.”

So, dependability and diligence pays off in ways that opens doors of opportunity for you that would not necessarily be opened up otherwise. You’ll get noticed because of your ethic, how you work, your character by which you perform your duties, and you’ll get noticed by others as well. Again, “A man who excels in his work, he will stand before kings, he’ll not stand before unknown men.” This is a man or a woman of reputation and people will notice.

Sometimes it might not seem like a big deal just to be a little bit late here or a little late there or let the little things slide through the cracks. And sometimes maybe we think the little things really don’t make a big difference. But they do. Again, it comes back to character and it comes back to how much can your employer trust you with the big things that really do matter. If they know you’re dependable in the little things, they know you’ll be dependable in the big things as well.

Notice the words of Jesus Christ in Luke 16:10. You know, what do we do with the details, especially when we think no one’s looking? Luke 16:10. This goes to character. Jesus says, “He who is faithful in what is least,” okay, “is faithful also in much. And he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.”

So, if your boss can’t even depend on you for the little things, if he sees that about you or me, is that okay? They tend to, you know, pick up the edge of the carpet and sweep it under the carpet and throw the carpet back down. If we can’t be dependable in the little things and he knows that, why in the world would he risk trusting us in the big things?

I’ve known so many people over the years who slacked off at the job because it really wasn’t the job they wanted, okay? It was just kind of filling the time and providing a paycheck, but it really wasn’t the job that they were after. Maybe they started out in the basement of the company and they really wanted to be on the upper floors, right? And they just thought, “Well, if I have the space on the upper floor in the office, they’d really see what I’m capable of doing, but I’m stuck down here in the basement,” so they only half-heartedly did what was given to them because it wasn’t really where they wanted to be.

And again, the question comes back to, why would a boss take someone with that attitude and move them into a position that really mattered if they didn’t see that they were diligent and committed to doing the best work wherever they were placed?

It’s a biblical principle, “He who is faithful in what is least is faithful in much,” so be your attitude and your character. And God is looking and ultimately, this is character for the Kingdom of God because the things that God’s given us in this life to do in terms of job, and family, and congregation, and how we interact, these things are being assessed ultimately for eternal life when we will be given much based upon how we functioned even in what could be considered the least.

If you’re a broom pusher, be the best broom pusher that there is, all right? If you’re a dishwasher, if you’re a copy boy, if you’re a copy girl, if you’re the assistant to the assistant’s assistant, which means you make the coffee, right? Make the best coffee that the boss has ever tasted, and it’ll be noticed. Be reliable and do your best in whatever you’re given to do, and you’ll be noticed in a positive way. Slack off, cut corners, you’ll be noticed in that way as well. And perhaps they’ll even have removed from you what little responsibility you do have.

Employers build successful companies on people who are dependable. They don’t build their organization on disorganization, okay? So, we must seek to do our best, be those can be trusted. If you say you’re going to do something, then do it. If your employer has employed you for eight to 10 hours of work a day, give it to them. There’s questions that arise now with everybody working remotely. Sometimes the employer wonders what’s really going on. And honestly, it’s true in my job as well, right? There’s a degree of trust between myself and you, myself and the home office, that I’m not out fishing 40 hours a week and downloading sermon notes from somewhere and working for an hour and a half, right?

Believe me, I could have a full week without ever giving a sermon. But the point is, what are people doing remotely? You know. Employers want to...at least they hope their people are reliable, dependable doing what they should do because anything short of that is robbery. And to be dependable is a matter of character. And it’s what God is looking for us in terms of eternal life. Are we dependable to be in His kingdom and to serve in His family? And the opportunities that He gives us to prove ourselves oftentimes look like 8:00 to 5:00, right? What are you doing during those hours? God is watching, too.

Soft skill number two. Employers want employees who are self-motivated. In other words, employees who don’t need someone else to light a fire under them to get them going. As an employer, I always appreciated people who looked around, determined what needed to be done, and went and did it. And that was always so much more of a profitable employee than someone who just kind of stood there waiting for you to tell them to do something, and you’d say, “Well, pick that up over here and set it down over there” and then they kind of just, you know, waited until maybe you told them to do something else. You got to do that at the beginning, right? Until somebody learns the routine. But we need to be people who are self-motivated who do the job that’s expected but also look for what other areas we can continue to serve so that we can be indispensable employees because dispensable employees are a dime a dozen, right? And you want to stand apart from the pack.

“One of the most tactful men I ever met or I ever saw,” says one employee, “was the man who sacked me from my very first job. He called me into his office and he said, ‘Young man, I don’t know how we’re ever going to get along without you, but starting on Monday, we’re going to try.’” So that was a man of tact.

Proverbs shows us the consequences of those who aren’t self-motivated. Proverbs 24:30. Words of Solomon, wisdom recorded for us. Verse 30, it says, “I went by the field of the lazy man and by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding; and there it was, all overgrown with thorns; its surface was covered with nettles; its stone wall was broken down. And when I saw it, I considered it well; I looked on it and I received instruction.” And here’s what he learned. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest; so shall your poverty come upon you like a prowler, and your need like an armed man.”

Laziness is not a trait that will serve you well in this life. In fact, we probably all notice that physically, you have to keep going just to hold even ground, you know. Have you ever been out working and you’re tired, but you still have more to do and you say, “I can’t sit down and rest I’ll never get going again?” Right? The body stiffens up and you’re done. You know, really, in this life, we have to keep moving constantly just to hold even ground. You go to sleep, and the weeds will grow up all around you before you even notice. And it’s just simply a principle of this life.

Proverbs 12:24 says, “The hand of the diligent will rule.” Well, that sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? You want to rule? “The hand of the diligent will rule but the lazy man will be put to forced labor.” Well, that doesn’t sound too pleasant. But we have a contrast here between two attitudes. You have the diligent man who is self-motivated, and it says, “He will rule.” He’ll actually move into a position where he has authority, where he has a degree of responsibility. He’ll be a manager. He’ll be a supervisor. Maybe he’ll be a business owner, whatever that might look like. He knows how to get things done without having someone look over his shoulder, having to prod him at every step along the way.

The lazy man, on the other hand, it says, “Will be put to forced labor,” meaning he’s always going to be under somebody else’s hand and instruction. “Unload this truck and stack it over there. Pick this up and move it over there.” I’m not putting down those kinds of jobs. I’m just saying. The Bible has principles for being a valuable employee that actually opens the door to excelling in various ways that can lift you out of maybe what would always just be minimum wage. Again, I said minimum wage at McDonald’s and Arby’s this last week I saw was $15 an hour. So, I started...I didn’t have any open schedule I thought, “Well, graveyard shift, well, maybe not.”

Again, employees want and need diligent people. And some of the most indispensable employees are those who learn to look around, identify what needs to be done, and then do it. And it’s actually a skill set. It’s a soft skill. It’s the ability you just consider, what is it that I can do that betters the place simply because I am here? Not because it’s what I’m ordered to do moment by moment.

Back to the americasjobexchange.com. It says, “While the role of every manager is to motivate their employees, they appreciate and seek ones that create their own motivation.” Says, “It makes a huge difference to have an employee that has an inner drive and organization to their work versus one who needs constant guidance to perform day-to-day activities. Employers look for employees that have a level of self-motivation and will not require a high level of ‘hand holding,’ as well as the ability to tackle the expected obstacles that arise in day-to-day business.”

Again, employers want and need people who are self-motivated who take the initiative, and who deliver above and beyond the minimum requirement. “This is the only set I had to do but I went beyond and I did this.” These are the kind of things that get noticed because the minimum requirement may be the minimum requirement for the job, but the question is, is fulfilling the minimum requirement good enough?

What did Jesus Christ say? Luke 17:7. This used to just really be an interesting concept to me. Luke 17:7. Thinking about the bare minimum. “And which of you having a servant plowing or tending sheep will not say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once, sit down, and eat?’ But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, gird yourself and serve me until I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink?’”

Verse 9, “Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.” Jesus said. “So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’”

Like I said, this is always going to be an interesting concept to me, unprofitable servants. Jesus said an unprofitable servant is one who does just exactly what he is told. Unprofitable servant is one who meets the minimum requirement that is expected and nothing more.

But what’s a profitable servant, then? Well, a profitable servant is one who is profitable to his employer, right? And brings those things to his master that are profitable. He goes above and beyond the basic requirements to fulfill more than what is expected. By performing above and beyond the expected requirement, you make yourself an employee that your boss will value. You’re going to be somebody who stands out as an employee he doesn’t want to lose.

And how does that benefit us? What if you want the Sabbath off? What if you want the Feast of Tabernacles off, and you’re just a run-of-the-mill, do the minimum requirement, nothing special about you, employee? How’s the boss going to respond? Can respond in a couple of different ways. But if you go above and beyond, you become an indispensable employee, you become someone that the boss doesn’t want to do without. He still has an option to respond in a couple of different ways, but from my perspective, he would be more likely to respond in a way that’s favorable to your request because he values you as an employee. Wants to keep you happy because you keep him happy. You are a profitable servant in that sense.

Soft skill number three. Employers want and need employees who are team players. So how are you at getting along with others? How are you at working with others? Can you play nicely in the corporate sandbox or are you the playground bully? You have a team, you have co-workers, people you have to engage in on daily basis. What’s your personality traits? Employers are looking for those who are team players.

Back to the americasjobexchange.com article. They say “No one can achieve ‘greatness’ in an organization completely alone, and remarkable employees know that this is true. They are the consummate team player who can highlight their own successes, as well as praise others for theirs. These employees recognize that success is better achieved through teamwork, always.”

Some people are good in teams and some are not. But oftentimes, there’s a concept of synergy, right? We’ve heard of synergy. That’s when you bring individuals together that can accomplish more working together than the same number of individuals can accomplish working separately. So, you take two horses, one can pull 1,000 pounds on their own, the other can pull 1,000 pounds on their own, but you harness them together and the two pulling together can pull 3,000 pounds together. And that’s the concept of synergy and teamwork.

Many work environments are based on employees who can function as a team because the projects to be accomplished are often beyond the scope of one person’s abilities. And it really doesn’t work well to be an island unto yourself. Doesn’t work well in the work environment, and it doesn’t work well in the Church environment as well.

Bible shows the value of teamwork among God’s people and the world around us. Ecclesiastes 4:9. Again words of wisdom for life. This topic just highlights one example of the Bible where you say, “What is the relevance of this Word to me today in my day-to-day life?” They’re words for living, making life work. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, “Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. Again, if to lie down together, they will be warm; but how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Whether it is in the Church or on the job, these principles work. Teamwork, coming together, growing bonds of relationship to a common goal, they work.

Proverbs 27:17 states “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friends.” It’s a universal principle, again, whenever it’s applied and properly applied. If I’m called to work on a team, I have ideas, but other people have ideas as well. And as I sit listening to their ideas, they spawn ideas within me. And again, it’s that synergy of coming together and working together so that what is produced is a collaboration of the best of what everyone has to offer. But it takes the character trait of being able to work with others and work in teams. It’s a physical principle and it’s a spiritual principle as well.

Proverbs 11:14. It says, “Where there is no counsel, the people fail, but in the multitude of counselors, there is safety.” Your employer may not be someone who reads the Bible, but there are certain matters of cause and effect that they’re going to recognize. And your boss wants to know that the outcome of what you’ve produced, what others have produced as well is the result of minds coming together and taking the best of ideas and sharpening one another and producing something that the boss, the employer, knows is a real solution. Your ability to work well on the team is a soft skill that employers want and need.

I had a temporary employee one time that was filling in because one of my regular guys was going on vacation for two weeks. So, he recommended a friend that was between jobs. So, this guy came and worked for two weeks. And we’d be out driving around in the truck and this guy would say... it seemed to me repeatedly. He’d say, “See that company over there? I used to work for them. You know what their problem was...?” Right? “See that guy over there? I used to work for him. You know what his problem was?” You know. “This business here... you know. I used to work at that house. You know what that owner’s problem was?”

This guy worked for me for two weeks. It was about two hours. I would say that I figured out there was a problem and it wasn’t generally with the previous employers or the previous customers, by and large. The problem was this individual really wasn’t a team player. And over the years, he rarely had a job, rarely stayed anywhere very long.

Your ability to be a team player is a soft skill your potential employers will look for. And I’ll just say when you’re filling out job applications, if you’re a young person, you’re coming out of school, you say, “What kind of experience do I really have to put on here?” Think about your life and things that you have done to engage the soft skills and put them in your resume.

And I’ll give you an example. If you were a counselor at a United Youth Camp and tell your potential employer that you have worked on a staff of 15 counselors supervising and organizing daily activities of 20 campers under your supervision. May not seem like much, but it is, you know. Those are the kind of things I always looked for.

I didn’t require a college degree, obviously, for working in landscape, but what would catch my attention is when I would look at somebody’s resume and see that they had actually completed something, you know. They started out and maybe I had one year of this college but didn’t finish the degree. That didn’t disqualify them, but I was always impressed by somebody who got the two-year degree or got the four-year degree or got the technical degree because it showed to me this is somebody that followed through.

And if somebody didn’t quite hit that standard, I would ask them. Maybe something happened in their life they had to go to work, parent died. You don’t know the circumstance, but again, there are certain things of character that employers look for on the resume. So, whatever you have that are soft skills in these areas of experience, put them down. They will get noticed.

Soft skill number four. Employers want and need people who can work well under pressure. Job-related pressures can come in a number of different shapes and sizes, and how we deal with them is important to employers. And they want to know you’re not going to crumble under the pressure.

I got an email this week from Ghana. I’ll be in Ghana for the Feast. And Henry Aikens put together the speaking schedule for the Feast in Ghana. And they like it when I’m there. I haven’t been there in the last couple of years, right? I was supposed to be there last year. COVID. Year before it was my... I go there for three years, take a year off. So, I got a bonus, I guess, you know, two years off here with the family. I’m going back this year to Ghana for the Feast. And I received the schedule. So, the time of the Feast that I’ll be there and the Sabbath afterwards my schedule is five sermons and a Bible study.

Now I can pull from material that I have, resource that I’ve put together, and I can develop new as well, but it takes work. And yet, in the meantime, we’re coming up on Holy Days here. There’s things going on here. There’s times in all of our jobs where the pressure kind of ratchets up a little bit. But the benefit is it rarely stays that level, okay? I’m thinking sprints. Sometimes your job is a sprint for two weeks and then you catch your breath, you get over that, you know. You can’t run a marathon at a sprint pace, but you can sprint for a period of time.

How do you respond under pressure? Job pressures often involve things like hitting targets, working towards deadlines, managing a lot of different tasks all at once, multitasking, or dealing with difficult clients or co-workers. When a person is under such pressure, they begin to experience usually one or two things, or they can experience one or two things, fight or flight. We don’t really want to go after either one, fight or flight, in an excessive way.

As a result, they may react in a way that’s too aggressive towards people. Maybe you’ve run into people like that or worked with them, there’s pressure on the job, there’s a deadline. This project has to get done. And right at a critical moment, somebody just blows their lid, you know. This pressure just blew their mind and kind of cut loose on everybody around them. It happens. Fight or flight. The other option is sometimes people may simply run away from the issue. And neither response is what is useful to an employer.

Employers want people who can work at their best and be productive, even under pressure. And again, we all experience that. It comes. Working under pressure is about maintaining a sense of calm, peace. Sometimes you do feel the blood pressure going up, you know. There’s times where there have been serious... like you get up in the morning and the hands are shaking because, you know, you worked till midnight and you’re up and the plate’s full. But again, it’s for a time, but how do you respond in those things? It is about a mindset.

So, here’s a mindset I would say we should have under pressure. Make pressure a positive challenge to be overcome, as opposed to a negative fear, okay? Make pressure as a positive challenge to be overcome as opposed to a negative fear. Because if it’s a negative fear, you’re going to run away, you’re going to throw up your hands, you’re going to respond negatively, you might deny it, you might ignore it, but if you turn the pressure into a positive challenge, you’re going to meet it head-on with a desire to overcome and succeed.

Like, here’s the project the boss has put before us. There’s the peak of the mountain, right? I’m at the trailhead, there’s the peak, how do I get from here to there? You have the goal, but you have to have the determination to get there. Seek it as a challenge, not as a fear, and it will be one that you will take on with at least a degree of positive attitude.

Proverbs 24:10, says “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.” A little challenge, a little adversity, a little oppression. “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.” Let’s be people whose strength does not fail in the face of trial and challenge. It’s a character trait that we must be taking on as Christians and it is also what employers want and need.

Philippians 4:6. Those are the words of the apostle Paul. Philippians 4:6. Paul says... excuse me, I’m going to get in the right book. Philippians 4:6-7, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” You want to learn to deal with pressure? Then learn to lay it at God’s feet in conjunction with doing all that you can do to fulfill what must be done. But learn to lay it at God’s feet and receive the peace that comes from Him.

Verse 13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Again, if you want to learn to cope with pressure, then recognize what the source of your true strength is. It’s not fully in yourself. It could be partly in yourself because when you’re under pressure, remind yourself, “Okay, I have been trained in this. I have this skill. I can do this job.” Obviously, if you’re over the head in something that you have no idea even what you’re doing, that is a problem. But when you’re just job-related pressure, here’s a project you need to get it done, do your part, be confident in the training you do have, and rely on God and Christ and the peace They provide to help you through that as well.

Final passage today, John 14:27. As you’re going there, I just might remind you, “God’s not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7) When you’re under pressure, pressure is pressure, but God gives us what we need not to crack in His service. John 14:27, Jesus words, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

Christ is saying don’t crumble under the pressure because we know when He said this right before the crucifixion, He knew the agony that lay ahead, He knew what He was going to go through and He says, “I’m at peace and I’m giving this peace to you as well.” And what we come to understand is that the peace of God and Christ is not dependent on the conditions on the ground around us, but rather the relationship we have with them and what it is that they give us by the Spirit.

Submit your life to God, submit yourself to His will, put God first, do what you can do to the best of your ability, and put the rest in God’s hands. If you can learn to do those things, your ability to deal with pressure will be affected in a positive way. Again, as a challenge that can be achieved, as opposed to a fear that will destroy you.

So, question, brethren, what do employers want and need? Well, they want employees with soft skill sets and hard skill sets blended together to form an individual that knows what they are doing and has the character traits to back it up in a way that is productive and works well.

When it is God who gives us the ability, then it’s a blessing, and that’s what His Word shows us. And it’s God who gives us the ability to work and to produce. Make Him the first priority in your life. And then whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, and in doing those things, you will be the individual that your employer wants and needs.