Faith and Work

Too often we view our faith as just one facet of our life. But our faith is not one facet among many, our faith impacts all facets of life. Our identity as followers of Christ impacts our work, family, marriage, relationships, etc.

God’s Story and Our Story

All of scripture is one big story. In the first three chapters of the Bible, we learn that God created the heavens and the earth and that his creation was very good. Through Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden, we see our failed trust in God’s good word for our life and how sin messed up God’s good creation in the fall. The remainder of the scripture is the story of God’s redemption—that is how God works to fix what we messed up. God accomplishes this by sending Christ to die on the cross as the sacrifice for our sin and rebellion, taking the wrath for that rebellion on himself, so God can begin to restore the brokenness. The Bible also tells us that one day, God’s restoration will be perfectly complete, and we will dwell in a new heaven and new earth where everything is back as it should be.

Our stories and our understanding of our work follows the same progression:

Creation: God created us to work and keep the Garden and it was good.

Fall: When Adam and Eve sinned against God, it disrupted what was good. Thorns and thistles grew in the garden.

Redemption: God is now at work reversing the effects of sin and restoring goodness to the world through our work.

Consummation: One day, God will fully complete his work of redemption, and the goodness of our work will be restored.

Creation

No Sacred – Secular Divide. The Bible says we were created by God to work! Exod. 34:21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest.” All our work, at home or at the office, is a calling from God. Even our word for work, vocation, comes from the Latin word “vocare,’ Which means calling. God calls us into our work.

We were made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-28), that means we are called to reflect him toward the world. God worked and created, we too work and create. In Genesis one we learn the earth was without “form and void” and the earth was “tohu” (without form, wilderness) and “bohu” (void, empty).

Our two God-given tasks are to “create/provide” for the “bohu” (emptiness) and “order/rule” the “tohu” (without form) And that’s exactly what God calls Adam and Eve to do.

Gen. 2:15 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work (create/provide) it and keep (order/rule) it.”

Create and Provide

“Working” the garden involved cultivating plants, growing plants, and using those plants to eat. We are to create and provide in a way that reflects God’s creation and provision. We are also called to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” We are to cultivate God’s creation to fill the earth.

Order and Rule

“Keeping” the garden involved, putting order in place, and guarding over the garden. Cutting back weeds and cultivating soil to make a place for growth. Even using animals and other resources to help create a situation set up for growth. God also commands us to “subdue [the earth] and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth,” putting order to the chaos as God does. We are “vice regents,” we are representatives of God’s rule, putting his creation in order and managing it well.

The word “economics” comes from the Greek word “oikonomia” meaning “household management,” i.e., stewardship. God designed us to work. Creating and ruling, that is part of who God designed us to be.

Ps. 147:13 “For he strengthens the bars of your gates.”  How did God strengthen Israel's city gates? Through the work of carpenters and blacksmiths and engineers!

Fall

But something happened to the goodness of work. Our rebellion against God, our sin, caused work to be disrupted and distorted. It was cursed, and now our work in the garden is not as it should be

Thorns, Thistles, & Idolatry

Gen. 3:17-19 “...cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

In our work we will experience frustrations and fruitlessness and Work also becomes an idol for us.

Gen. 11:4 “Then they said, ’Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.’”

“…let us make a name for ourselves…” We have made work into a place to get something  (something, in reality, we can only get from God) rather than a place to give something (give out of what God has given us).

Redemption

But the story does not end with the fall. God is at work to reverse the effects of the fall. He has decided to do that through his church. He brings people into his family to renew them so they can go out and bring restoration. His people, doing his work all witness to what it will look like for his “kingdom to come.” We are to bring glimpses of a restored kingdom under the true king to this broken world.

Reversing sin & restoring goodness

Jer. 29:4-7 “build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce…seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

2 Cor. 5:20 “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

Our work is meant to bring goodness/welfare to our cities. This goodness we bring witnesses to the kingdom of God. The unique way we live, the ways we work are to reveal the goodness of God. Israel failed in this task and let their distinctiveness lead to separation. We should live distinctive lives that lead to attraction to God’s kingdom to come.

Matt 5:13-14 “You are the salt of the earth…you are the light of the world.” Salt preserves the world from decay, while light shines and reveals goodness and truth. We are called to reverse the tide of sin, preserving it from further decay and advancing it toward God’s kingdom.

Freedom from Idolatry, Given a new identity

Eph. 6:6 “...not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” We are freed from the slavery of “needing” things from others and our jobs. All we need we recieve from God. Because we have all we need from our good father in heaven, we are freed to serve God with our work. Work is no longer a place to get our identity from but rather a place to give to others.

Consummation

God will recreate heaven and earth. They will no longer be separated, but there will be a new heaven and new earth free from sin. Rest will come from things being “as they should be.” So rest doesn’t come from eliminating work. No, heaven is a city full of workers! Instead, rest comes from from the freedom from thorns, thistles and idolatry.

Heb. 4:3-4 “For we who have believed enter that rest, as … God rested on the seventh day.’ True rest comes from being able to live the way God created us to live, at work in the land which he gave us to steward over. Work will become as it was designed to be; perfectly fulfilling and for his glory.

Conclusion

We need to reorient our understanding of work. We were made by God to work! God cares about what we do outside of Sunday morning worship. We have a mission from God, we are working to help push back sin and reveal God’s kingdom—a kingdom free from frustrated work.