Monday Morning Faith: Making Work Matter (Gen. 1-3) September 28, 2014 Chris Altrock

We’re very glad that you are here today.

We know that “here” is just one of the many places you spend your time. That’s why we’re focusing the series that begins today on “Monday Morning Faith.” We want to equip you to live out your faith in all the places you spend time in, not just this place.

Today, we want to focus on equipping you to live out your faith at work. Why? Because work is the place where many of us spend most of our time. When Americans are asked to list where they spend time, here’s what they say:

• Church-6% of our time
• With Friends-7% of our time
• Personal Time-16% of our time
• With Family-35% of our time
• Work-36% of our time

It’s probably not a surprise that many spend the bulk of their time at work. Work is a big part of life.

If you’re student, the same is true for you. Going to school is basically your work. And, some of you have part-time jobs. And, most of you are planning to move into a career—that’s why you’re in school. Work is a big part of your life as well.

But one challenge that many of us face is that work is not always fulfilling.  The comic strip “Dilbert” is a tribute to the frustration of the workplace: (see http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-01-25/]) Work is sometimes more frustrating than it is fulfilling.

Does the Bible speak to any of this? It does. Proverbs is a book which teaches a great deal about work. But so does Genesis. Let’s go back to the beginning and hear some foundational words about work.

The first book in the Bible makes this claim about God: God goes to work. The first thing we see God doing in Genesis is going to work. Listen to the way in which Genesis summarizes the first-ever work-week:

“¹ Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. ² And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. ³ So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” (Gen. 2:1-3 ESV)

In the six days of creation God is going to work. He fashions a sun and lights it. He crafts an alligator and sets it swimming. He splashes bright colors on flowers. He forms a human being. The Bible opens with God going to work.

Perhaps this is why Jesus spent so much time going to work. We often think of Jesus as a minister. We think of that as his work. But before he was a full-time preacher, Jesus had a regular job. And, he spent more time in that regular job than he ever did in ministry.

In Mark’s Gospel, Mark says that before Jesus started ministry he was a “carpenter” (Mk. 6:3). Probably from the time he was 12 or 13 until he began his public ministry at 30, Jesus was a carpenter.

The word Mark uses is “tekton.” (Everyone say “tekton”). That word means more than just a carpenter. It means artisan or craftsman. Jesus probably worked with wood, but also with stone, metal and other materials.

And, he likely worked in more than just a small wood shop in his home in Nazareth. Rhodes College professor Richard Batey, among others, proposes that Jesus and his father probably labored in the nearby city of Sepphoris.[1] Sepphoris was only about an hour’s walk from Nazareth. And it was an important city. When Jesus was about 3, Herod Antipas chose Sepphoris as his new capital.  For more than three decades while Jesus grew up a building boom swept through Sepphoris as it became the largest and most influential city in its region. It’s very likely that Jesus and Joseph worked as artisans and craftsmen in the city during this building boom. Joining wood beams together. Crafting stone walls. Working metal into beautiful shapes.

Jesus spent more time as a metal worker than as a minister. He spent more time as a craftsman than as a clergy. He spent more time as a professional than as a pastor. Don’t think that Jesus can’t relate to what it’s like to work, that Jesus can’t understand what your life is like on the job–because he can. He spent years on the job. He didn’t have to. God could have arranged things where Jesus never worked. But God chose to have Jesus have a job. Perhaps that tells us something of the value of work. God goes to work in Genesis. So does Jesus in the Gospels.

And, according to Genesis, we go to work.  We are made to go to work. If the first picture Genesis gives of God is of God going to work, the first picture it gives of us is of humans going to work:

⁵ When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, ⁶ and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— ⁷ then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. ⁸ And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed…¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Gen. 2:5-8, 15 ESV).

The first picture the Bible gives of humans is of humans working. God makes us to work the ground and places us in Eden to work it. We are made to work. God didn’t have to arrange things that way. He could have made Eden where we didn’t have to do anything. Instead, he created Eden as a place where we work. We are made to go to work.

So, if that’s the case, why is work sometimes so frustrating? In their book The Gospel at Work Greg Gilbert and Sebastian Traeger answer that question: Work turns from fulfilling to frustrating when we are idle in our work or we make an idol of our work.

Sometimes we made an idol of work. We overestimate its importance. We place too much focus on it. And as a result, it takes over and destroys our lives.

Bob Goff writes that “One evening after having gone overseas to save the whole world (or so I thought), I pulled back into our driveway. Sweet Maria [my wife] had put a Help Wanted sign in the window. I sat in the car and cried.”[2] Sometimes we overestimate the importance of work. We place it above all else. And when we make an idol of work, it becomes a great source of frustration.

This is why, in Genesis, the picture of work is followed by the picture of Sabbath. God established the Sabbath as a way of helping us to not make an idol of work. God was to be worshiped. Not work. And some of you need to be honest about the way in which you’ve made work an idol. It’s taking over your life. It’s hurting family and friends. And it’s time to stop.

But sometimes work turns from fulfilling to frustrating because we are idle in our work. That is, we underestimate the importance of our work. We place too little emphasis on it. I’ve heard people say, “I’m just an accountant. I’m just a janitor.” In fact, I’ve heard some talk about church work as if it were of far greater importance than their own work. Many are idle in their work in that they underestimate the importance of their own work. After all, who wants to keep doing work that seems to have no value?

So, how do we avoid those two extremes? Genesis raises one important way to do this. Do you remember how Genesis talked about our work? The word “work” in Genesis literally means “to serve.”

• It’s the same word used in the book called Numbers which describes how individuals were set apart to “serve” in the Tent of Meeting, an early version of the Temple (e.g., Num. 4:37, 41).
• This is the same word used throughout a book called Deuteronomy which describes how we have a choice to either “serve” God or “serve” false gods (e.g., Deut. 13:5,7).
• This word is used in a significant passage in Joshua, where it is translated “serve”: ¹⁵ And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Josh. 24:15 ESV)

This is the word used in Genesis to describe the “work” of humans in the Garden. Like priests who served God in the Tent of Meeting, humans serve in the Garden. As Israelites were charged to choose which gods to “serve,” humans served in the Garden. In Genesis, to work is also to serve.

That one word raises one question which has the power to help us avoid the two errors I mentioned regarding work. That one word raises this question: When I go to work, who am I serving? Every day you go to the office, the classroom, or the warehouse, that is the most important question to ask. When I go to work, who am I serving?

Because if you at work serving yourself, you’re going to make work an idol. If work is all about you getting prestige or applause or money, it’s going to become an idol.

And, if work is only about serving a boss or board, you’re going to go idle. You’re going to eventually burn out or quit because no boss or board is worth what you have to put up with in order to keep working. If you only serve yourself or your boss or board, your work will remain frustrating.

But if you are at work serving God, that will make all the difference. If you type reports out of a desire to serve God, grade assignments out of a desire to serve God, or clean dishes out of a desire to serve God, that will transform your work. Because we were not made simply to work. We were made to serve God. And work is part of the way we serve God.

That one question, asked and answered correctly, can transform even the worst work. That’s why Paul could write this to slaves whose work was brutal: “²³ Whatever you do, work…as for the Lord and not for men, ²⁴ knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” (Col 3:23-24 ESV) Even a slave, doing work in the worst circumstances, could transform that work by remembering who he was serving. He was serving God. And that knowledge could transform that work.

We are made to go to work, because work is how we serve God. God placed humans in the garden not just to keep them busy. But so they could join his ongoing work. And everything they did in that work was a way of serving God and contributing to God’s work on the planet.

And same is true for you. You were made to go to work, because work is how you serve God. Too many people think that if they aren’t a preacher or minister or a small group leader or a Sunday School teacher or feeding the hungry or mentoring a child they aren’t serving God. But the truth is that when you go to work, that is one of the primary ways you serve God. You are contributing to what God’s doing globally. Whether your work is as a janitor, an accountant, a driver or a CEO, your work enables you to join God’s work in unique ways. It’s how you serve God.

How, exactly, do we serve God through work? In their book God at Work, The Yale Center for Faith and Culture summarizes four biblical answers to that question.[3] I’m going to summarize their four answers by turning them into an acronym, W.O.R.K. We serve God at work by focusing on W.O.R.K: wholeness, outreach, righteousness and kingdom.

First, the word “wholeness” to refer to a biblical pursuit of being whole, of maturing and of growing up. Our real work in life is to become spiritually mature, to become spiritually whole. And work helps us do that. Work presents challenges and circumstances which lead us to rely more upon God, which lead us to pray more deeply, which develop spiritual traits within us like patience and perseverance. If you want to grow in your own character, you can do that by getting up and going to work. The workplace is a powerful place of spiritual formation. We serve God by allowing God to shape us through our trials and challenges at work.

I’ve shared with you before the results of a national survey asking Christians to name a time they grew the most spiritually. The majority ended up naming a time of difficulty. We grow the most through challenges. And work presents that opportunity. We become more whole through work, especially hard work. There’s little doubt in my mind that my hard work of helping lead Highland through a difficult relocation process helped me to become more whole as a follower of Jesus. It forced me to mature in ways I would not have matured without that work experience. You serve God at work by simply letting God use work and its challenges to mature you and make you whole.

Second, we serve God at work by focusing on outreach. The workplace is a rich field for evangelism. I was recently talking to Highlander Suzanne Pike. Part of her work is running a Christian Community Tutorial for students who are home-schooled. The students come to our Youth Mission and receive tutoring in specific subjects. It’s a Christian tutorial and yet even in a Christian tutorial there have been opportunities for outreach. Suzanne shared with me how God has led some Muslim families to the tutorial. These are families she never would have had the opportunity to share Jesus with if it had not been for her work. The same may be true for you. Your workplace is the place your coworkers spend most of their time. You spend more time with those coworkers than their families do. If anyone is in a position to influence them spiritually, you are. You can reach people in your office, classroom or warehouse that no minister will ever reach. You serve God at work by focusing on outreach.

Third, we serve God at work by doing work in a righteous way. There is a strong biblical interest in doing work righteously. When we are honest and do work with integrity and fairness, we are serving God in the workplace. Martin Luther was once approached by a working man who wanted to know how he could serve God. Luther asked him, “What is your work now?” The man said, “I’m a shoemaker.” Much to the cobbler’s surprise, Luther replied, “Then make good shoes and sell them at a fair price.” Luther didn’t tell the man to make “Christian shoes.” He didn’t tell the man to become a monk. As Christians, we serve God when we do our work with excellence and honesty and integrity. By working righteously, we serve God.

Finally, the word “kingdom” refers to recognizing how our work is part of the larger kingdom work of God. Author and preacher Tony Campolo said that when his wife, Peggy, was at home fulltime with their children and someone would ask, “And what is it that you do?” she would respond in this way: “I am socializing two Homo sapiens into the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they might be instruments for the transformation of the social order into the kind of eschatological utopia that God willed from the beginning of creation.” Then Peggy would ask the other person, “And what do you do?”[4] In other words, you’re not just a stay at home mom. You’re investing in the shaping of two individuals who will be instruments of God on this earth. She saw how her work was part of the larger kingdom work of God.

The same is true for any honest work you find yourself in. The kingdom comes when a lawyer gets long-delayed justice for a client; when a bus driver delivers a busload of children safely to school where they can take one more step toward their God-given calling in life; when a nurse administers medicine that allows a patient’s body to heal and resume activity in the kingdom; and when an IT employee rids the virus from the company computer allowing the company to once again produce and deliver bread that feeds hungry people. We serve God at work by learning to recognize how our work is part of the kingdom work of God.

Here, then, is what I want you to do this week: Choose and improve one element of your W.O.R.K.: wholeness, outreach, righteousness or kingdom. What do you need to focus most on this week to better serve God at work? Embracing challenge at work as an opportunity to become more whole and mature? Taking advantage of an opportunity to do outreach to some fellow workers? Keeping yourself doing some aspect of your work with righteousness rather than giving in to the temptation to do something unethical? Or working harder to see how what you do is a part of what God’s doing in bringing his kingdom? Choose one and focus on it this week.