"The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes because God is interested in good craftsmanship.” – Martin Luther
If you ask the average Christian if they view their work as sacred, they probably laugh and say “no” unless they work on a church or mission staff. This is an important example of how the thinking of Christians has been shaped by a secular worldview vs. a Biblical worldview. In this blog, I want to bring the light of scripture to bear on how we view work and hopefully help you find encouragement in your work.
First a definition from Oxford: Work: activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.
To start our tour of scripture we need to go back to Genesis 1. God Created. God created many things, but people are the pinnacle of his creation. It is people that he created ‘in His image’ (Gen 1:27). Then God rested from his work. At this point, we have a perfect sinless world and two people made in the image of God awaiting their next instruction. Those instructions:
1) Be fruitful and multiply.
2) Fill the earth and subdue it.
3) Rule over the animals.
4) Tend the garden.
All of these are creative tasks in various ways. Each of these forms of work reflects the creative nature of God in each person. It is really important to get this on the basis of our thinking about work: Work is the main way we reflect the image of God that is intrinsic to each of us. We find fulfillment in our purpose with work and that brings joy to us. We are created for it:
“For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.” Eph (2:10)
Now, at this point in the Biblical narrative, a hard turn gets taken when Adam sins. Where work was all fun and wonderful, the ground gets cursed (notice work did not get cursed) when God says to Adam: “cursed is the ground thanks to you; in painful toil, you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grain of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat food until you return to the ground” Gen 3:17b-19:a
Basically, this thing called work, which is intrinsic to our purpose and design will now have resistance. The easy joy that came from work will now need to be fought for.
And here we are today. From Adam on, we have dealt with the blessings of work and the curses that frustrate us. For the vast majority of my career, I have enjoyed solving hard problems and I have received great joy from it. But wow, there have been some serious frustrations and problems on top of problems. There have been difficult co-workers and difficult direct reports. In those moments I remember a few other things to keep my heart focused on the joy of working.
1) All work is sacred work if we are doing it to the glory and honor of God (Col 3:17)
2) All work I do, I am doing it for God and he is my manager (Eph 6:5-9)
3) The work I do, God has prepared in advance for me to do (Eph 2:10)
4) Even in adverse working circumstances, it glorifies God for me to do good and suffer the condition (1 Peter 2:18-25)
5) My work should reflect qualities that give God glory (Titus 2:9-10)
Here I want to stop and note that God rested from work. In fact, this whole idea of the Sabbath came from creation. On the 7th day, God rested. This whole idea of the Sabbath is as much part of our fiber as work is. This happened fully outside the law, the law just codified it. Our very cells embodied it way before it was written down though. Again, we reflect the image of God. God is both a creator and one who rests. If we are not taking the time to rest, we are using our body in a way inconsistent with its design and intent. It is going to hurt us when we abuse our bodies. This idea of rest is woven all through scripture and it needs to be heeded. Working 7 days a week is not honoring God with our bodies or time. A related point here is that the Apostle Paul says that if we are married our interests will be divided between work and spouse. It is expected that we will set an example of Christlikeness in our marriages. That takes serious time. If your marriage is suffering because of time at work, it is the time at work that needs to change, not the marriage.
Jesus said the greatest laws are to Love God and Love Neighbor. The more one studies Jesus teaching the more one realizes that these two laws are inseparable. You can’t do one without the other. What that means is that our work is *always* done in love. Love of God and love of neighbor. That rock in the pond of work ripples far and deep. Pastor John Mark Comer, in his book “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry,” points out that hurry is almost always not loving, nor does it draw out agape love in us. So much of our work is about getting one task completed so we can move on to the next, shipping products, getting deliverables done, and meeting schedules. There can be profound pressure to not do our work in love in most corporate work environments. We have responsibilities as business leaders to make sure we are creating work environments where people can work in love toward God and their neighbor. We have responsibilities as workers to not over-commit and to be honest about how long things will take to do.
A few final thoughts on work. The Apostle Paul was primarily an itinerate evangelist. He got some support from the Church for that, but he also worked as a tent maker to make money to support his ministry. Both evangelism and tent-making were done to the glory of God and were sacred works. Each had a place in God’s overall plan. Most of us have multiple jobs. Some pay the bills, some may cost us to do, and others are just serving others. All of it is work to the glory of God. This includes changing diapers and mowing lawns all the way up to highly esteemed jobs like pastor or president. My point being there is a huge spectrum of work and we all do a wide variety of it (based on the definition cited) and it all is to be done for the Glory of God because it is his work that He gave us. Remember, Jesus became a washer of feet to demonstrate how we are to serve one another.
After we pass from this life and when the new heavens and new earth are created, there will be work there. It will be unhindered because the curse on the ground will be no more. Scripture tells us in Rev 22:3 that we will service Jesus on the new earth. We will manifest more fully and more purely the image of God that we were created in. Work will be restored to the pure intent it has always held since before the creation of the world.
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