Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Genesis 2:1-2; 3:15, Exodus 23:12; Colossians 3:23-24; 1 Corinthians 10:31

Theme: In a culture that increasingly “expects” the nanny state to take care of them, what should Christians think about work?

Date: 09/01/2019 File Name: Docrtine_of_Work_01.wpd Sermon ID: 27

For most Americans, Labor Day is little more than a three-day weekend that is considered the “unofficial end of summer,” but more importantly as a “super-sales weekend” where retailers attempt to clear their summer merchandise.

That’s what Labor Day has become.

It is meant as a holiday to honor the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the development, growth, and well-being of the country.

That’s every American who has ever earned a paycheck.

Somewhat in honor of the holiday, I want to preach a three-Sunday sermon series on what the bible has to say about work, and how Christians are to view it.

Dorothy Sayers, an British essayist, novelist, and playwright who lived in the first half of the 20th century, had some important things to say about work.

In an essay entitled “Why Work?” she lamented that so many Christians have abandoned, (or sadly, never been taught) the doctrine of a biblical work ethic.

She wrote, "The modern doctrine of work, which has replaced the old biblical doctrine of work, is that labor is that which you do for a living.

Work is that through which you make money so you can do what you really want to do.

... The habit of thinking about work as something one does to [only] make money is so ingrained in us that we can scarcely imagine what a revolutionary change it would be to think about it instead in terms of the work done."

Now I ask you, isn’t that how most American think of work?

Work is something we do in between weekends, and we do it so we can afford to do the things on the weekends that we would like to do all the time.

Sayers tells us that, from a biblical perspective, work is something far different.

Work, she writes, “ ... is the gracious expression of creative energy in the service of others.”

With that definition to guide us I’d like to 1) walk you through some of the biblical texts about work, 2) lay out the biblical principles of work, and finally 3) talk about the cultural challenge we face of being industrious in an entitlement culture.

I. THE BIBLICAL TEXT

“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.”

(Genesis 2:1–2, NIV)

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”

(Genesis 2:15, NIV)

“Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.”

(Exodus 23:12, NIV)

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.

It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

(Colossians 3:23–24, NIV)

1. from these texts and others, Christians understand labor as a responsibility

a. we discover in Genesis 2:15 that God put Adam in the Garden to work it and take care of it

b. in Exodus 23:12 we’re told that our labor is for six days, and after that comes a day of leisure and rest and restoration

2. what we sometimes forget is that labor is also a gift from which we reap blessings

a. God created us able to work ... to manipulate things, to cultivate the ground, to manage herds, and to invent microprocessors

b. furthermore, labor is a gift in that we can often find satisfaction in our labors ...

1) the farmer sees the result of his labors in the harvest at the end of the season

2) the carpenter sees the result of his labors in the beauty of his cabinet

3) the teacher sees the result of her labors in the education of students

4) the doctor is fulfilled in the recovering patient

5) the pastor is satisfied in the changed lives of his parishioners

3. still, many people have difficulty seeing labor — especially their own labor — as a gift

A. GOD AT WORK SETS THE EXAMPLE FOR US

1. Genesis 2:2 tells us that God had finished the work he had been doing

a. God is a worker

1) most of us don’t think of God this way, but that is how He initially reveals Himself in the Scriptures

b.

God is not idle — He is active in the universe He creates

1) and even though we’re told that God rested on the seventh day, it means that God rested from His creative work, but not His sustaining work

2. God is not sitting on His throne merely admiring the handiwork of His cosmos

a. this was the Deist view of God—that He is like some great supernatural watchmaker who created the universe, wound it up and now simply watches it tick by

b. the Biblical view is that God Created and continues to actively Sustain the created order

c. this is the truth behind one of the great Christological passages of the New Testament

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

(Colossians 1:15–17, NIV)

1) Jesus holds the material universe together — not only did Jesus create the universe, He also sustains it — He maintains the delicate balance necessary to life's existence

4. the point? the Godhead is still at work in the universe He created

a. this leaves mankind an example to follow

B. MAN WAS CREATED TO WORK AND EMULATE GOD IN SO DOING

1. work is forever rooted in God's design for human life because we are God’s co-workers

a. our vocations are an avenue that allow us to contribute to the common good and as a means of providing for ourselves, our families, and those we can bless with our productivity and generosity

2. God, therefore, invests work with intrinsic value and honor

a. the Church errors — and we error — when we divide life into two disconnected parts — the “sacred” and the “secular”

1) we have been fooled into thinking that there is “God” and the “spiritual dimension of our life”

a) this is what we do on Sunday and, perhaps if there is time, on Wednesday evenings

2) then there is “Us” and the “secular dimension of our lives”, including work and everything else and the two have nothing to do with each other

a) God stays in His corner of the universe while I go to work and live my life, and God is invited into “my” universe only when He is needed

b. this is not how God intended for us to live

1) from the Biblical point of view there is no such area of life as the “secular” because everything in the Christian’s life is about the “sacred”

ILLUS.

About this, Dorothy Sayers writes, “In nothing has the Church so lost Her hold on reality as in Her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation.

She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, ... How can any one remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life?

The Church’s approach to a carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays.

What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.”

3. one problem with this secular/sacred dichotomy of life is that it sets us up for disappointment

a. if you leave God out of the picture, or if you sideline Him you'll have to get your sense of importance, fulfillment and reward from someplace else

1) for most Americans, that someplace else is our work or vocation

ILLUS.

Think about it.

One of the first things you find out about a person when you meet them is what they do.

Our identity as human beings is closely tied to the job that employs us.

b. in this secular/sacred dichotomy, work becomes the answer to the question, "Who am I, and why am I important?"

1) that is a very shaky foundation — because what happens if you lose your job, or you’re just not very good at it?

2) you're suddenly a "nobody," you lose your identity, and you’re unimportant

4. a second problem is that a purely secular view of work can make an idol of career — career becomes the number one priority in your life, and God gets left out

a. this is particularly unacceptable for Christians, because God calls us to make Him the center of our life

b.

God wants us to have a biblical worldview that weaves Him into every aspect of our lives, including work

c.

He wants to be invited into our work; He wants to be Lord of our work

C. SIN DISTORTED OUR WORKING PARTNERSHIP WITH GOD

1. Adam and Eve became self-centered, and desired to take charge of their own lives

a. the result of the Fall is seen in Genesis 3:17 — work would now involve painful toil

b. toiling for God and with God was always part of the plan, but sin would now complicate the effort

2. our work would no longer be completely efficient but would involve thorns and thistles

ILLUS.

These thorns and thistles can be real — as any farmer, or landscaper, or gardener could tell you.

Thorns and thistles also come disguised in people.

Ever have a co-worker who was the proverbial “burr under your saddle” or “a thorn in you your side”?