Sermon Tone Analysis

“Work as Worship” // Genesis 2:15– 17; Colossians 3:23–24 // God and the Rest of the Week #2

Introduction:

Big idea behind this series: Most Christians think of worship as something they do inside the church.

· And getting really committed to Jesus means getting busy at the church: volunteering at the church nursery, attending small group; going on a mission trip, serving at the soup kitchen…

· Three to thrive: too busy to sin

Our jobs (your jobs—secular jobs: Me, I’m a PROFESSIONAL CHRISTIAN), this kind of thinking believes, are necessities that must be endured to put bread on the table.

If God has any interest in our jobs, it’s just that we don’t cheat and tithe off of our salaries.

And when we think about people who try to bring God into the workplace, all kinds of disturbing images come to mind:

Opening a coffee shop called “He Brews” or “holy grounds.”

Forcing awkward moments into sales calls:

Now that I’ve sold you life insurance… how about insurance for life after death?

I’ve got your name on our mailing list, but the more important question is, “Is your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life?

Well, believe it or not, the Bible actually has a lot to say about our work… In fact, in Genesis 2, at the first mention of work in the Bible, the Hebrew word God uses for it is “abad,” which shares the same root word as worship.1

Adam worshipped God in the Garden not just by reading the Bible and praying and staying away from a few bad apples; he worshipped God by doing the work God put him in the garden to do, too.

The majority of the parables that Jesus told had a workplace context.

And of the forty miracles recorded in the book of Acts, thirty-­‐nine of them occurred outside of a church setting.

It is apparent that the God of the Bible is as concerned with displaying his power outside the walls of the church as he is within it.

Kuyper: not one square inch of the entire cosmos over which Jesus not emphatically declare “mine.”

I. ‘WORSHIPFUL’ WORK FULFILLS GOD’S PURPOSES IN CREATION

Gen. 2:15: God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, with the assignment “to work the ground and keep it.”

This was before the curse—so work was not a punishment inflicted on Adam for his sin.

It was a part of God’s original design.

The word for work literally means “to prepare” or “to develop.”

God made Adam to be a gardener.

A gardener is not a park ranger who just guards the garden.

God put Adam there to develop it.

He was to take the raw materials of the earth and develop them for the glory of God and the benefit of humans.

He made man in his image, and as God was a creator,2 he put Adam in the Garden to be a co-­‐creator…

Do you remember the word God used for his creation?

“Good.”

Good is good, but good is not perfect

Perfect means cannot be improved upon.

God created the world raw, in a “good” state, so that we could develop it and cultivate it for his glory and others’ good.

o Here’s a way to understand it: when you see my wife, she’s perfect.

Her dress; her make-­‐up, her hair.

She cannot be improved upon.

o When she first wakes up in the morning and gets out of bed, she’s good.

We’re not park rangers, we’re gardeners: We take the raw materials of the earth and develop them for God’s glory and the benefit of humans.

Contractors take the raw materials of sand and cement and use them to create buildings.

Artists take the raw materials of color or music and arrange them into art.

Lawyers take principles of justice and codify them into laws that benefit society.

This is key: as we do this, in a way, God is himself at work creating through us.

The Reformer Martin Luther took Psalm 147:13-14, which says, “For God strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you.

14 He makes peace in your borders; he fills you with the finest o the wheat.”

and he asked: How exactly does God do those things?

How does he strengthen the bars of the city?

By city planners an

architects; by politicians who pass good laws to protect the city.

How does he bless our children within our midst?

Through the work of teachers and pediatricians.

How does he make peace in our borders?

By means of good lawyers and policeman.

How does he fill us with the finest of wheat?

By farmers and factory workers and restaurant owners.

Our professions, Luther said, are like the “masks” God wears in caring for the world.

· He said this: “When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to ‘give us this day our daily bread.’

And he does give us our daily bread.

He does it by means of the farmer who planted and harvested the grain, the baker who made the flour into bread, the person who prepared our meal.”

All these are in play when God answers our prayer for daily bread.

You see, some of you, in your work, feel this almost divine satisfaction (maybe not even a Christian)… but a sense of satisfaction.

Like you are doing what you were born to do!

· The word “vocation” comes from the Latin word “voca,” which means “to call.”

It’s how God designed you and called you to serve in the world.

It reminds me of that scene in Chariots of Fire, where the Christian Olympic star, Eric Liddell, in his preparation for the 1924 Olympics, is confronted by his sister who thinks he should be a missionary to China.

Liddell responds, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast.

And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”

Many businesspeople feel that.

They are doing something they love and feel like, “This is what I was made for.”

When I do it, I feel God’s pleasure.

It’s like I feel, even, the Spirit of God at work in me in this.

Now, one word of clarification: one of the curses of the fall was that work became toilsome.

God cursed the ground and said that thorns and thistles would frustrate our efforts.

Work at that point became a compulsory act of survival.

For many of you, maybe your work is partially fulfilling, but it also toilsome and draining.

For others of you, maybe you hate your job entirely and you only do it to survive.

Those effects are part of the sad result of the curse.

And you may have to work for a while in that kind of condition…

One guy I was reading said: “Our generation insists that work be fulfilling and fruitful.

That it fully fit our talents and our dreams… and that we be paid exorbitantly for it.”3

This sounds great, but this is not the world we live in.

It’s the world Adam and Eve used to live in.

So what do you do if you are in that type of job?

· You can still do it faithfully as an act of service… it is still helping someone and there can be a certain pleasure in that.

And wait for heaven to be fully fulfilled.

And consider that there might be a distinction between your job and the pursuit of the calling God has placed in you.

The Apostle Paul’s calling, for example, was to be an apostle to the Gentiles, but he also made tents.

Making tents was a part of Paul’s calling, but not the heart of his calling.4

Some people do other things to free them to do the main thing.

Myself for instance, I enjoy my job and owning my company, but I love being a pastor and showing who God is to those he places in my path, and God using my company to give others an opportunity they may not have otherwise.

If you are one of those rare people that finds a career that fits your calling from the beginning—that is a blessing and not a right

II. ‘WORSHIPFUL’ WORK PURSUES THE HIGHEST STANDARDS OF EXCELLENCE

If our work is done “unto God,” it should be done according to the highest standards of excellence: as an offering to God!

Paul says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.

You are serving the Lord Christ.

(Colossians 3:23–24)

You have a higher boss than our employer; we work for a greater reward than our salary.

In everything we do, Paul says, we do it unto God, which means we do it as a statement about the worthiness of our God.

C. S. Lewis once noted how valleys undiscovered by human eyes are still filled with beautiful flowers.

For whom did God create that beauty, if no human eyes would ever see it?

Lewis’ answer was that God does some things only for his own pleasure.