From Work to the Gospel

What’s good about work, what’s bad about work, and what does the Gospel have to do with any of it?

[Discuss with person next to you]

What we’re going to do tonight is think about work in the light of our 4 big Gospel moments: Creation, Fall, Salvation and New Creation. We’ll re-arrange them on the screen as headings, and we’ll come up with a main point and an application under each one.

Creation

Let’s start with creation. Open up to Genesis 1. Think about the very first sentence of the Bible. It starts saying, “In the beginning God …” – what? God worked. He created. He created the heavens and the earth. He separated things out. He made things. And then he rested. Genesis 1 tells us that God himself is a worker, and he set up a pattern of work and rest, right at the very start of our world.

And God cares about his work. He gives things names, and looks at them and decides that they are good. And at the end it seems that God takes pleasure in his work, just like we all do when a job is well done. When it’s finished, he says that it’s ‘very good.’ God is a worker. And he gives humanity work to do as well. Work is part of God’s original plan for us. We’ve been designed for work – the work of subduing the earth and ruling over the animal world. God has designed us to work as his deputies, taking care of his world. And this work is explicitly given as a blessing. Genesis 1v28 says

And Gen 2v15:

Did you hear what it said at the end of that verse? We’re to work it and take care of it. In ruling as God’s deputies, we’re not to rule like tyrants, but to rule with love and care.

One thing this means is that work matters to God – he cares about the work you do. He intended work be a good thing – he invented it, and wanted it to be a blessing. And he cares how we do it. Your work is important to God. And so it matters to him that you do it well. It pleases him when you do it well. Whether that’s tilling the ground like Adam, or serving customers in a shop, or organising a business deal, or keeping the accounts straight, or making a home and raising children – whatever our work, whether it’s paid-work or not, it pleases God when we do it well. In fact, some unpaid work, like raising a family, or caring for dependant relatives – some unpaid work is among the most important work there is.

Work matters to God. It’s worth saying that in our culture, for there are some trends to avoid work altogether, as if it was a nuisance and didn’t matter. At the younger end of the age range, that can involve fairly blatant shirking. Doing as little work as possible, getting by on handouts and loans. Living a life that’s all about pleasure and leisure.

Further up the age range, the shirking becomes a bit more sophisticated. Early retirement is a possible example. Part of the drive behind that in our culture is the same addiction to leisure and pleasure.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that paid employment is the only thing that counts. Not by any means. Being productive is the important thing. A hard-working housewife, or an unemployed voluntary worker, or a productive early retiree – each of those people may well be more industrious than many well-paid slackers in formal jobs.

But if work is part of God’s design for us, if God intends us to live productive lives, then it’s irresponsible of us to shirk that, whether we’re younger, or middle aged, or older. We don’t retire from being created by God. We don’t retire from serving him in this world.

Fall

Work is part of God’s original plan for us, and work matters to God. But nothing’s ever clear cut in our now-Fallen world. Things aren’t the way they were meant to be, and work itself is affected – I guess that’s part of why we often want to shirk it. Work is out of joint, and under curse. When humanity rebelled against God, the character of work changed. Gen 3v19 tells us,

But this doesn’t change the command to work, and it doesn’t change the value of work. But it does mean work won’t be a straightforward pleasure any more. It will be laced through with toil. But it’s still what God intends for us. In 3v23, when God banishes Adam from the Garden, he doesn’t just banish him aimlessly, but banishes him with a purpose:

The command to work is still there, but obeying the command won’t be a straightforward delight any more. That doesn’t mean that the satisfaction in work has been destroyed – I’m sure we can all think of some occasions when we’ve experienced that pleasure of a job well done. Satisfaction in work hasn’t been destroyed. But the Fall does mean that toil and dissatisfaction will be layered in as well. It’s like the judgement of pain in childbearing. That doesn’t mean there will be no joy in having children. But it does mean that pain and sorrow will be laced in amongst the joy. Work will be frustrating as well as fulfilling. It will present us will opportunities for obedience, and temptations towards disobedience.

Ecclesiastes catches this double-edged nature of work in a Fallen world. Listen to these two verses, first from 5v18:

(TNIV)

It’s toilsome labour, but we can still find satisfaction in it. But at the same time, work, in and of itself, does not have ultimate value. Ecclesiastes 2v10:

If we look for meaning or significance in our work, we will come away with empty hearts. Our significance lies in our relationship with our Creator, the One who created work. There’s no meaning under the sun apart from him.

And that reminds us of another big danger of work in a fallen world. Work mustn’t become an idol. This is the opposite problem to the shirking one. This is when work becomes the centre of our world. And it’s very insidious, because so often we define each other in terms of what we do. It’s one of the first questions when you meet a new person, isn’t it – what do you do?

That needn’t necessarily be wrong. After all, work probably takes up about half our waking life, so it makes sense to talk about. But – if you were at a party, and you asked someone what they did, you could imagine them saying, “Oh, I’m just a housewife” or “Oh, I’m just a cleaner.” I really can’t imagine anyone saying, “Oh, I’m just the chairman of Microsoft,” “Oh, I’m just a Cabinet Minister” “Oh, I’m just an Archbishop”. We link work with status and importance and significance. And that makes it a prime candidate to become an idol.

Just imagine for a moment that your current work was taken away from you. Maybe it wasn’t needed any more, or maybe you couldn’t do it any more. Now that would probably be a big upheaval, and might have all sort of consequences for finances and for relationships. But here’s the question: Would it feel like the bottom had totally dropped out of your world? We can cope with all sorts of trauma in life, and come out battered but with our heads above water. But if our idols get destroyed, then our sense of meaning and significance and purpose gets destroyed too. When your idol gets destroyed, the bottom totally drops out of your world.

We mustn’t let work become an idol. One way to curb it, is by following the patterns of work and rest that God has outlined in the Bible. Do you normally have a day off? That’s another good test, especially for the work we do for money. If you feel like your work won’t necessarily allow you to have time off, then maybe that work is getting too strong a hold on you. Maybe it’s on the way to idol-hood.

Here’s another, similar test question: do your responsibilities to work have a habit of trumping your responsibilities to your family or your friends, or your brothers and sisters in Christ? Because, again, that’s a danger sign of creeping idolatry. Idols want to have first claim on your heart. Don’t let them.

Salvation

So we’ve had Creation and Fall. Now Salvation. The first thing I’m going to say here, is that our primary calling is to be a slave of Jesus Christ. Now that’s a pretty strong way to say it, isn’t it? But it’s language the NT uses. It’s not the only language – Jesus calls us friends as well – so that’s true, and that maybe feels more comfortable. But we’re not buddy-buddy casual mates with Jesus. He’s the Lord of the Universe. We are his slaves, who he has also died for, to make his friends and family.

Let me read you a verse where that language gets used. Ephesians 6v5:

That reinforces the identity point. We’re not defined by our earthly masters, but by our heavenly master. Our value doesn’t come from our work, but from our Lord Jesus. Our work isn’t our primary calling. Being a slave of Christ is. That’s what salvation is about – being set free to serve our Lord.

It’s important to get the order right. Salvation sets us free to serve, but our service doesn’t save us. In fact, our work doesn’t help save us at all. Salvation is a gift, not a reward. That was the point of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 20 – the one from our dramatised reading earlier. I don’t know about you, but I still feel the shock of what Jesus is saying. It’s outrageous really. The people who’s worked all day get a full day’s wages, and the people who’ve only worked for an hour – they get a full day’s wages too! That’s not fair – they haven’t earned it, we want to say. But Jesus says, “What’s your problem? Are you upset because I’m generous?” God doesn’t save us because of any effort of ours. But when he saves us, he does expect us to then make an effort. God sets us free to serve him. And that service includes all of our lives. So it includes our work too. That means the workplace is a context for spiritual growth, for ministry and for evangelism. In a way, that’s just common sense. We probably spend half our waking life at our workplace, or commuting to and from it. So if we’re not serving God at our workplace, that’s a whole swathe of life where we’re not serving him at all. If we’re not growing spiritually at our workplace, then that’s a whole swathe of life where we’re not growing spiritually at all.

The Bible calls us to grow in godliness: qualities like patience, kindness, honesty, gentleness, self-control, love, and forgiveness. Do your colleagues think of you as growing in those qualities? Patient, honest, forgiving. I’m sure we all mess up in lots of ways – that’s what Jesus came to die for, after all – we’d be denying the Gospel if we tried to pretend we had godliness all sorted out. But we can still ask the question: What direction am I growing in? Am I growing spiritually at work?

(:God calls us to minister 24/7:)Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that spiritual growth and ministry only happens at church. That’s not true. Ministry just means service. God calls us to be his ministers 24/7, all through the week. We’re God’s servants at the office, just as much as at home, just as much as at church. One of the reasons we gather together as Christians like this, is so that we can be equipped to serve God better throughout the rest of the week.

At this point, let me give a little plug for a book that’s really good at taking this further. It’s by Mark Greene and it’s called “Thank God it’s Monday”. Let me read you a chunk from it.

[Read ‘Thank God it’s Monday’, p49-51]

There’s lots of good stuff in here: examples and stories, biblical truth and practical advice. If you can get it, read it.

So, Creation, Fall and Salvation: Work is part of God's original plan for us and Work matters to God – he cares about the work you do. Work is out of joint, and under curse and it mustn't become an idol. Our primary calling is to be a slave of Jesus Christ and that makes the workplace a context for spiritual growth, for ministry and for evangelism

New Creation

Finally, New Creation. A day is coming when there’ll be no more curse. All the things that make work in this world frustrating and unfulfilling will be gone. Everything that went wrong in Genesis 3 will be put right. Does that mean there’ll be work in heaven? Well, the Bible doesn’t use exactly that language. But we will be serving God, and it will be fulfilling and productive and meaningful. It won’t be us idly floating on clouds, bored and unproductive and meaningless. In the New Creation everything will be put right – and that includes work. We don’t have to find our meaning and significance in our life here and now. God has freed us from that, by giving us significance in his Son, Jesus. One final implication: That day is coming, so make the most of opportunities now. Our time now, to work in this world, with all it’s frustrations and fulfilments – our time is limited. And a day is coming when it will run out. We don’t know what will happen first for us – whether Jesus will return, or whether our individual life will come to an end. Either way, we’ve only got a certain amount of time left. And God calls us to be faithful with that time. Like I said, it’s not that we aim to be faithful so as to try and deserve heaven. It’s not that, it’s completely the other way around. God has saved us so that we can be faithful. He’s set us free already so that we can serve him.

And if we’re going to serve God faithfully, if we going to grow spiritually, if we’re going to point others to Christ – then we need to make the most of the time and opportunities we have now. And our workplace is likely to be one of the biggest opportunities we have.

Let’s pray now, and ask for God’s help to work faithfully.