We Work for God
Introduction
We are back to our series, Be Courageous! Living as God’s People in God’s World. Who are we, and what is our mission as God’s people? It has been some time, so perhaps we should do a quick review of what we learned. God’s people are a people who know the story they are part of, that is, God’s story. We are a people who care for God’s creation. We are called to be a blessing to the nations. We are a people who walk in God’s way. We are redeemed for redemptive living. We represent God to the world, and attract others to God. We are a people who know the one living God and Savior, and we bear witness to the living God. We proclaim the gospel of Christ. We are sent, and we send others, to be and do all these.
In the next few sermons we will learn that God’s people are a people who live and work in the public square. Most of us live and work in the ordinary, everyday world. We make a living, raise families, pay taxes. We go to school or college. We are involved in the community contributing to society and culture. Some run for public office. We participate in politics, in the arts. We play sports, some professionally, others just for fun and recreation. Everyone try to get along and do their bit. This is the public square. This is where we are called to live and work as God’s people.
But Christians have been struggling with a problem for ages and in all cultures. We tend to dichotomize, compartmentalize, separate, the Christian life from the rest of life. We distinguish between the spiritual life and the secular life. The Christian life deals with all the spiritual things and the church activities we do. The rest of life, well, that belongs to the secular world, and there we move Jesus into the background or put him on a bookshelf. I call this bookshelf Christianity or the bookshelf Jesus. We take Jesus from the bookshelf for Sundays, for the churchy things we do, for my personal devotions, or when I need him for a crisis. For the rest of my life and time, he sits on the bookshelf, and is not really functioning as Lord of my life. Wright, explains this in the following way, “Heaven rules on Sundays. The market rules from Monday to Friday.” And Saturdays? “Saturdays is the day off for gods and humans.”
The Bible, God, does not make this distinction. There is no secular world. There is no secular work. It all belongs to God. God rules over, and have plans for our social, economic, political, and cultural lives. All of life is spiritual. The work we are doing is God’s work. God created work. God audits work. God governs work. God redeems work. We work for God.
1. God Created Work
We work for God because God created work. Genesis 1:26-28 — “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Genesis 2:15 — The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
Ephesians 2:10 — “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
God is the Worker. He planned, created, rules over, and sustains this world, his creation. God created us in his image, and therefore, to be workers. He appointed us as rulers, stewards, managers, to work in his creation. Work matters to God, is important for God. Work is God’s intention for us. Work is an essential part of who we are as human beings. We are workers, like God, the Worker. All that we are and do, in all areas of life, we are and do for God. He prepared these works for us to do.
Work is not a curse because of the fall of man and sin. Work was part of God’s original creation. However, sin affected, polluted, distorted work. Because of sin work is now hard, painful, and not always enjoyable. But, we are still called to work for God. Work is our way of taking care of God’s creation. No matter what work you are doing, you are working in and with God’s creation, with products made from creation, or with objects from creation. We have a responsibility to seek God’s kingdom in that work, to work according to the ways of the Lord, to work with justice, righteousness, love, joy, and peace.
Our work is a means of glorifying God by participating in God’s purposes for creation. Thus, work is not a necessary evil. Work is not only a place for witnessing. That work you are doing, God created that work for you. How will this truth change you how you work? We should remind ourselves every day, that this work is God’s work, and for God’s glory.
2. God Audits Work
We work for God because God audits work. God sees, hears, and watches all our work. Psalm 33:12-15 — “From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth—he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do.” God observes, examines, assesses, appraises our work. God cares very much about what happens in the public square. See what the Lord says in Jeremiah 7:1-11 — “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!’ If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.
The Lord sees all. Amos 5:12 — “For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.” Amos 8:4-7 — “Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land … skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat … I will never forget anything they have done.”
God demands justice, righteousness, integrity, love, peace, grace, forgiveness, holiness, in all areas of life, including our work. What does it mean, and how will it change our work, when we live by the truth that we are accountable to God in our everyday work? We must submit our work to his will, his ways. Jesus is Lord, also of our work.
3. God Governs Work
We work for God because God governs our work. We plan. We make decisions, and take action. We work, and we are responsible for our actions. But ultimately God is in control over the final outcomes. Jospeh told his brothers in Genesis 50:19-20 — “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” God is at work not only in the church, religion, or spiritual areas of life. The sovereign God rules over, and is at work also in the public square, in politics, economics, the arts, and sports. When Daniel explained Nebuchadnezzar’s dream he said, “Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes. The command to leave the stump of the tree with its roots means that your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge that Heaven rules.”
What difference does it make to our everyday work when we acknowledge that God is in sovereign control even of our work? When we live by the fact that Heaven rules everyday, all the time, everywhere, and not just on Sundays?
4. God Redeems Work
We work for God because God redeems our work. Another misunderstanding is that work is only temporary. We work now in this life and world only to survive, and to pass the time. One day in heaven, in the new creation, there will be no work, just one long, eternal party. Surprise! We are going to work in the new creation.
In the final judgment God will purge, remove, and purify his creation from all wickedness, evil and opposition to God, forever. God will redeem all his creation. In Jesus Christ God reconciled “to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Col 1:20). “Creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21) Isaiah 65 and Revelation paint the glorious picture of the new creation. And it includes the whole of life. We will continue to work in the new creation, but there will be no decay. We will not become tired. Work will be satisfying, fulfilling, and enjoyable. There will be peace, justice. There will be harmony and safety. We will live in close and joyful fellowship with God.
All of life, the whole of creation will be redeemed, purified, and restored. And that includes all we have made with what God has made. Our work, our creations using God’s creation, our products, will be redeemed. Look at what Revelation 21: “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
The splendor, glory, and honor of the rulers and nations — all the human accomplishments in the old creation, all that we have produced and created through our work — science, technology, arts, crafts, cultures — all these, our work, will be redeemed, purified, sanctified, blessed, and brought into the new creation. And we will have eternity to enjoy it, to continue to work in the new creation in ways we cannot dream of or understand now.
Does this change your attitude and perspective of work? The work we are doing now is contributing to that which God will redeem, and include in the new creation. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:58 — “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” The work of the Lord includes all our work. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23). All our work has value and eternal significance. All our work is God’s work. We work for God.