WHY WORK MATTERS
Overall, work is significant to God for at least three reasons:
• Our work gets ‘God-like’ work done as we follow God’s
example in the creation story as he works to make an
environment in which people can flourish– making provision, serving
humankind, bringing order, creating beauty. We see something of this, for
example, in the truck driver being one of a long chain of people bringing
food to our tables; the police officer bringing order to our streets; and the
teacher enabling her students to flourish in their understanding.
• We are significant to God: the work we do is part of our life lived in
relationship with him, and work is what God has given us to do (a chance to
use our gifts to his glory).For example the project manager uses his Godgiven skills to bring the work in on time and budget, and does it as part of
his daily offering of worship to God.
• Work is strategic: it is a key context in which God’s plan to reconcile all
things to himself through the work of the cross can take place. The gospel
is good news for our work itself, those we work with and the systems and
structures in which we work. For example, the estate agent who helps
people to find homes, not just to buy houses; the salesman who builds
honest and transparent relationships with his customers; the manager who
champions godly values within her team; and the guy on the check-out who
is able to share a message of hope in Jesus with the guy on the next till. All
of this is because we see work as part of our worship, serving Christ in all
we do (Colossians 3:23).
We can worship God both when we gather together as a church community
on Sunday or in home groups, and when we are scattered among others in
our workplaces during the rest of the week. Worship is both a corporate act of
adoration and a daily act of service as we offer ourselves to God as a ‘living
sacrifice’ (Romans 12:1).
As we go to work, we go as sons and daughters of our heavenly Father. We both
represent him as ambassadors and can be confident in his provision for us as we
seek to honour him in the work we do. God can use our work to disciple us as well,
shaping us through everyday challenges faced faithfully with him.
Work is also a great context in which to participate in God’s mission. There are so
many ‘warm’ relationships: people amongst whom we work to bless and minister
to in many ways. And there is so much opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of
working in the ways God intends, for example bringing godly values to bear on the
decisions we make, ‘loving our neighbour’ in a workplace context, or helping others
to flourish through the products and services we offer.
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So an undivided ‘whole-life’ view opens up all of life as an opportunity for Christians
to love and serve God and others, and our work is a major part of that.
WHAT DOES SCRIPTURE SAY MORE BROADLY ABOUT WORK?
Alongside the great opportunities we have as Christians to serve in the workplace,
we can see that work has come to dominate 21st century life in wider Western
society, in some cases bringing with it an unhealthy focus. It’s easy to be caught
up in the highly pressurised and performance/reward driven environment of today’s
workplace and to lose sight of the tremendous opportunities work brings to serve
others. Scripture brings a vital perspective to all of life, and to our work, helping us to
steer a healthier path as we learn to read God’s word with fresh eyes. As we look at
what scripture says about work, we need to be careful not to try to apply the Bible to
our working life, but to apply our working life to the Bible i.e. not to be conformed to
the pattern of this world but to let scripture transform our thinking (Romans 12:1,2).
No one chapter in the Bible gives us a complete picture of work, rather the picture
is laid out across the whole of scripture in the various ‘acts’ of the Bible: moving
through the story the Bible tells in Creation, Corruption, Covenant, Cross, Church
and Consummation.
CREATION - GOD’S ORIGINAL INTENT FOR WORK
Genesis 1 and 2
God shows himself to be a worker in the act of creation, laying out a pattern for
good work
• Creating a context for human flourishing
• Bringing order out of chaos – first forming water, sky and earth then filling
what he had formed with fish, birds and animals in order
• Making provision for all, creating beauty and reflecting on its goodness
• Establishing a Sabbath rhythm
• Giving the ‘cultural mandate’ to men and women together to take his good
work and extend it over all the earth by cultivating what had been created
So, for example, Genesis 1:27,28 - humans created to rule over, govern and fill
the earth both in terms of household (be fruitful and multiply: bearing and raising
children) and creation (rule over every living creature; cultivate the land).
Genesis 2:4 - creation in the sense of plants and shrubs had to wait for water but
also for people to cultivate the ground – so work is closely linked to the well-being
and sustainability of creation.
Genesis 2:15 – humans were placed in God’s ‘garden’ specifically to work it and
take care of it, made and working in God’s image.
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Genesis 2:19,20 - a cameo scene in which God shows how much he is interested
in Adam’s work, coming to see what he would name the animals. Our work matters
to God because it is God’s creation that we are responsible for, and he cares
about us and what we do.
So work in God’s original intent was both service and worship to God as his
delegated representatives overseeing his creation; taking God’s raw materials and
turning them into products that promote human flourishing (as Martin Luther said
“If the wool is on the sheep, it makes no garment”); providing services that bless
others; all the while having regard for the care of creation.
Work was given to us in the context of community. It is the mode through which
we act to benefit others, and we receive the benefit of others’ work, their gifts and
abilities.
CORRUPTION - THE IMPACT OF SIN
Genesis 3
Disobedience to God’s instruction (Genesis 2:16, 3:1-6) damaged a number of
relationships, between: woman and childbirth; people and work; people and God;
people and creation; creation and God.
So work became toilsome and hampered by ‘thorns and thistles’: service is tainted
by self-serving; fruitfulness is frustrated by futility.
ILLUS TRATIONS
How do thorns, thistles and sweat manifest themselves in today’s
working life?
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The frustration of a project that fails or runs over
The stress of long hours demanded by productivity targets
The failure of a family business during recession
ECCLESIASTES AND THE FUTILIT Y OF LIFE
This is especially evident in the book of Ecclesiastes as it expresses the frustration
of our fallen condition. In Ecclesiastes 2:17-26, the somewhat jaded author
recognises that work is given by God, but also the temporary and fleeting nature
of what is accomplished when death intervenes, the pressures of work that occupy
our waking and sleeping thoughts, and despairs at the meaninglessness of it all!
And yet, this is not the end of the story: as scripture often says ‘But God’ …
Ecclesiastes is set at one stage of the overarching story of God’s salvation of our
fallen-ness and its impact on creation. But as we look forward towards the end of
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the story, we can make sense of the ‘in-between’ times in which we currently live.
We find meaning in the work we do when we do it ultimately for God, in his image
and strength and to his glory.
G O D ’ S P L A N F O R S A LVAT I O N …
We were created as workers in God’s image, so work is an essential part of our
humanity now, just as it is essential for creation and for society. And so, we are
redeemed as workers as well. God’s plan for salvation includes all that it means to
be human, including work.
COVENANT - GOD CALLS A PEOPLE AND RE-MAKES A CULTURE
The calling of God’s people Israel, their enslavement and escape from Egypt,
the establishment of Israel in the ‘promised land’, the giving of the law and their
subsequent disobedience and exile all foreshadow God’s ultimate act of salvation
through the work of Jesus on the cross.
Woven within the story of Israel, we can see God’s salvation plan, which includes
work from the start. As God uses Moses to lead his people out of slavery in Egypt,
he establishes a new culture for them through various instructions recorded in
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These cover not only how to worship
God appropriately for that time, and how to live well in community, but also how to
work well, with regard for Sabbath rest, holidays (festivals), timely and fair pay and
conditions for workers, and dealing fairly with customers to name a few. All of this
within the context of a just economic system laid out in the principles of Jubilee.
ILLUS TRATIONS
Does the culture we see God initiating throuh Old Testament law have
anything to say to how we work today?
• Many of the scandals headlined over the past few years
have come from dishonest (and sometimes illegal) dealing
with customers e.g., phone tapping, LIBOR rigging, the misselling of payment protection insurance
• While working conditions overall have improved in the UK
in recent times, levels of demand on employees to ‘produce
more for less’ or to work long hours has risen
CONSUMMATION – CREATION RENEWED
Looking forward to the new creation, in which Heaven comes down to earth, Paul
describes a real physical experience of resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:35-58. Our
current physical experience of creation is renewed in a physical new creation, and
as part of the new creation Isaiah paints a picture of redeemed work (Isaiah 65:1725).
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This is not just a picture of ‘spiritual effort’ but includes real physical work such as
building houses and cultivating vineyards and reverses the curse of sin recorded in
Genesis 3, restoring the enjoyment of the work of our hands and banishing work’s
frustration. It’s a picture of people fully human without sin’s pollution and corruption
and part of that restored picture is restored work.
Revelation 21 pictures a redeemed, renewed creation rather than one that is
rubbed out and replaced. The destination is earth not heaven, but in some way,
heaven joins with earth with God once again dwelling with us in his Holy City. The
nations of the earth are pictured bringing into the City their glory and honour. This
is not the most important people, but rather all that is best, all that is good and
redeemable from the civilisations and cultures that have been produced by millions
of people over thousands of years.
CROSS AND CHURCH - WORK IN THE CURRENT AGE
Our work in the current age can have meaning, purpose and hope because of the
hope of salvation that we see envisaged in the new creation. The futility of work in
a fallen world expressed by Ecclesiastes is not the whole story. God is reconciling
all things to himself through Christ’s work on the cross (Colossians 1:20). ‘All
things’ means not less than the salvation of individual souls, but beyond that a
cosmic salvation including all of creation and our work in connection with that
creation.
Paul in Colossians 3:22 – 4:1 and Ephesians 6:5-9 includes work done within the
master / slave / household-servant regime of the 1st century Roman Empire. In
fact, he says ‘Whatever you do, do it with all your heart as working for the Lord not
men’: so our work when done for the Lord is not in vain.
As followers of Jesus, entrusted with the gospel message, this must include
evangelism. Alongside that, our work is also a means to get godly work done and
to live faithfully as the people of God, demonstrating how work can be done to the
glory of God and in ways that benefit those around us.
Our work in these times is also governed ethically by the new creation. If
corruption and lawlessness don’t feature in the new creation, neither should they
in the work of our hands today. More positively, we can work to make what will be
true in the new creation as true as possible now. This is the invitation we receive
as followers of Christ to pray and work to see his ‘Kingdom come’, to see on earth
his will be done as it is heaven (Matthew 6:10).
We are to put off the old humanity and put on the new humanity (Colossians
3:5-14), working to show the world a new way of being human, towards being
fully restored in Jesus Christ. In the work we do itself, with the people we work
alongside and the institutions in which we work we are called to work with God as
agents of transformation in society as we ourselves are being transformed through
the work of the Holy Spirit within us.
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