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\\ (use browser's print feature to print out this page) \\ \\ *Take This Job and Love It!* by Joel Smith \\ \\ Genesis 2:15-15 \\ \\ Today’s Message: Take This Job and Love It! \\ Wellspring Community Church 09.01.02 \\ \\ Big Idea: Thank God it’s Monday!

\\ \\ Have you ever heard this popular saying?

“No one on his deathbed ever says, ‘I wish I had spent more time at the office.’”

This modern proverb is on its way to becoming a classic.

In fact, only one thing keeps it from achieving timeless status as a Great Truth of Life.

\\ It’s not true.

\\ In point of fact, many people on their deathbeds do regret not having spent more time at the office.

Albert Einstein’s last words to his son were: “If only I had more mathematics!”

The French composer Ravel’s final utterance was: “I still had so much music to write!”

American engineer and inventor James Eads departed this world with: “I cannot die!

I have not finished my work!” Charles Darwin voiced only one regret as he lay dying: “I am only sorry that I haven’t the strength to go on with my research.”

\\ \\ Tim Downs, Finding Common Ground (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 165.

\\ \\ Is that the way you feel about your work or is your job merely something to endure so that you can pay the bills?

Let me state, right up front, that God has uniquely shaped you for a particular vocation.

He never intended that we finish up the work week and say “Thank God it’s Friday!”

As people of faith we are to take God to work with us to that we can actually say “Thank God it’s Monday!” \\ \\ Let’s be honest, though, for many of us work is a four-letter word.

It’s something we’d just assume avoid.

I think it’s because we don’t have a proper perspective on work.

\\ \\ IS WORK JUST A FOUR-LETTER WORD? \\ \\ The first thing that you must understand is that … \\ \\ God is a worker.

\\ \\ Notice Jesus’ words: \\ \\ But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”

John 5:17 \\ \\ God works.

Obviously he doesn’t have to bring home a paycheck, but he works nonetheless.

The Bible reveals that there are two big reasons why God works.

First, God’s work reveals who he is.

Look at Romans 1:20.

\\ \\ From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made.

They can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature.

So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.

Romans 1:20 (NLT) \\ \\ The invisible, spiritual God shows us who he is through his creation.

We are finite, physical creatures and the only way we can even begin to comprehend God is through the work of his hands.

\\ \\ I think there’s a second, less theological sounding reason.

It appears that God’s work brings him satisfaction.

In the Genesis account of creation, God makes the heavens and the earth in six days.

When all was said and done God stepped back and commented on it all.

\\ \\ Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.

Genesis 1:31 \\ \\ God himself made this pronouncement.

So we see that God’s work both expresses who he is and brings him satisfaction.

\\ \\ Here’s another fact that you need to know about work.

It shouldn’t be a just a four-letter word to us because … \\ \\ God created humanity to work.

\\ \\ It’s a part of our very nature.

Notice how we were created.

\\ \\ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:27 \\ \\ If we’re made in God’s image we can only conclude that we were created to work.

If that implication isn’t strong enough, let’s look at the first thing God gave the original man to do.

\\ \\ The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.

…Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.

Genesis 2:8, 15 \\ \\ God put him to work.

We can only conclude that originally humanity’s work had the same purposes as God’s work: expression of self and to bring a sense of satisfaction.

\\ \\ Just like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, your work means fulfilling your God-given design to make an impact on the world around you. \\ \\ In the beginning, God gave us work and it was a good thing.

But an event occurred that threw a wrench into the plan.

\\ \\ Our work was frustrated by the Fall.

\\ \\ Humanity rebelled against God.

He created the first man and woman as sinless beings.

He gave them only one command, “Don’t eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

Satan disguised as a serpent enticed them to break that one rule.

They ate and their sinless status was broken.

As their heirs all humanity is in infected with sin because of the Fall.

\\ \\ After this event, God revealed to the man that his sin had affected his relationship to God, his relationship to his wife, and even his work.

\\ \\ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you will return.”

Genesis 3:17-19 (NIV) \\ \\ Because of sin, rebellion against God, the purpose of work was altered.

Rather than work as a means of self-expression and to bring satisfaction our labor meant providing food and other necessities to live.

God didn’t do this to us.

In the Garden of Eden, food and shelter was provided.

Clothing was optional.

Adam and Even worked for the pleasure of it.

That all ended with the Fall.

\\ \\ Today we perpetuate what began way back then.

\\ \\ Our work continues to be frustrated by faulty perspectives.

\\ \\ If you’re into bumper-sticker philosophy, you’ve probably seen the axiom, “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.”

For a vast portion of the workforce, that’s the best reason they can muster for going to the job each day.

According to one poll, only 43 percent of American office workers are satisfied with their jobs.

In Japan, the figure dips to 17 percent.

\\ \\ Our Daily Bread, September 5, 1994 \\ \\ We tend to view work merely as a means to make a living.

Today this mindset dominates in America.

Work equals money.

This faulty perspective was nearly cemented in place by the Industrial Revolution.

In particular, the advances of Henry Ford brought our modern mindset into being.

\\ \\ Ford’s assembly line shortened the time needed to construct an automobile from 12.5 hours to just 1.5 hours, but this technical efficiency came at a high human price.

As worker boredom increased so did absenteeism.

As production quotas continually increased, workers began to suffer stress-related ailments, and the incidence of alcoholism increased.

In a short time, Ford found it difficult to keep enough workers on his assembly lines to meet the production schedule.

\\ What went wrong?

… on an assembly line man was separated from his work.

Once, work was the deepest expression of who a person was; now, there was nothing of the person in his work – he had become little more than an extension of the machine he operated.

\\ Laborers often had little idea what their monotonous task contributed to the final product – in fact, from where most of them stood, they couldn’t even see the end of the assembly line.

Once, a worker might have felt esteemed as a respected craftsman in a field that required years of training and experience.

Now, almost anyone could do almost any job.

For the sake of productivity, something terrible had been sacrificed – the meaning of work.

\\ Ford’s solution to the lack of worker motivation was to more than double the average salary, from $2.34 for a nine-hour day to $5 for an eight-hour day.

Ford’s audacious offer more than solved his manpower problem.

It made employment in his factory a sought-after prize.

But even as he solved one problem, he created another.

Ford’s workers, through their boredom, stress, alcoholism, and absenteeism, were expressing their struggle with a single question: What does my work mean?

Ford’s answer: Work means money.

And though the Model T has long since disappeared, Ford’s simplistic answer to the meaning of work still torments many of us today.

\\ \\ Tim Downs, Finding Common Ground (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 167-168.

\\ \\ Another faulty perception that people ascribe to work is that it becomes the place where we find love, acceptance, and affirmation.