The Gospel & the Other Six Days

The Gospel and the Other Six Days

 

“The Christian and Work”

 

December 12, 2020

Larry R Evans

 

Introduction

 

Isn’t it ironic that this week’s study is about “work?” Could the timing be worse? It comes at a time when many have lost jobs due to the pandemic? The world is shackled with fear and anxiety. Really, how should we live during such times as this? How can we live with any kind of purpose if we live with such uncertainty?

 

Do we work only for financial security? Is work a curse that was added as a punishment for sin? Will work end with the Second Coming? Is “work” and “employment” the same thing? Does fear have to be our default response to dire circumstances? Should being unemployed, or barely existing from month to month, rob us of our dignity?  

 

Over the years we’ve spent a fair amount of time reflecting on the significance of the Sabbath as a day of rest. Today, we will be looking at the work done during the other six days. We will do by looking through a biblical prism at three interrelated terms: Mission, Vocation, and Work. 

 

As a foundational text, let’s begin by reading John 5:16-18. Note how Jesus nearly got killed for challenging some long-held assumptions about “work” and, of course, the Sabbath. 

So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason, they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

To understand “work” we first need to ask what it was that God intended to accomplish by creating a new world. Another question is raised, however, “If He could accomplish everything listed in Genesis 1 and 2, why did He need some helpers to “fill the earth and subdue the earth” and then rule over” the other creations (Gen. 1:28)?  Was the “work” given to us simply to maintain what He got started? We begin by looking at God’s purpose and asking ourselves, “Whose mission is it?”

 

Mission – Whose Mission?

 

The Bible begins with God on a mission. He begins by creating the heavens and the earth. It is not until after the earth was created and filled that Adam and Eve were created. What a day that was! Unlike anything created before them, they were created in the image of God. (Gen. 1:27) but even then, the week was not complete. To read all that God created in Genesis 1 and 2 without the Sabbath (Gen. 2:2-3) as the capstone is to miss His mission and our purpose for living. The link between the two is vital for our understanding of God’s mission.

 

God’s dream, however, was interrupted by sin. He was forced to make some adjustments, but He did not abandon His mission. The first eleven chapters of Genesis reveal how He adjusted His approach to accomplish His mission. Instead of man scattering and filling the earth, they pulled together and gathered around a place called Babel. It was then that God revealed His backup plan. He called Abraham and He promised him three things:  a presence, a people, and an influence that would be a blessing to the nations. (Genesis 12:1-3). Clearly God had a mission! 

 

The advancement of this promise along with His concern for His chosen people is the theme of the Pentateuch.It has been said that when the world is off center, it takes a lever with a fulcrum outside the world to move it. That lever was a wooden cross. Here we have a critical insight. The God who sends is also the God who simultaneously was sent. The excitement of the New Testament and events around Pentecost formed a renewal of promise given to Abraham. A people movement called “the Way” or the Church was formed. It is imperative for our understanding of both “mission” and “work” to remember that the church is born out of mission. The Church does not create mission. Secondly, we need to recognize that we are part of God’s mission and we gain purpose, certainty, and confidence because of our role in God’s mission. In other words, we see God’s mission beginning in the first two chapters of Genesis—not in the “Gospel Commission” of Matthew 28:18,19.  It is the same mission in Genesis 1 and 2 that resulted in the “cross of Jesus” in gospels of the New Testament. The climax of God’s mission is not the cross but rather is found in and finding   the last two chapters of Revelation. In both places, the Genesis beginning and the Revelation ending, the focus is the same—a special and evolving communion with God. Without this bigger picture, we will not understand either expectation or the promise of our daily lives including our daily work. 

 

What does this have to with work? We need to add an additional piece to the puzzle before answering this important question. What is a vocation?

 

Vocation—Whose Calling?

 

Wikipedia suggests a secular definition for vocation: “a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation.”

 

Today the word often means simply a job, but that was not the original meaning. A job is a vocation only if someone else calls you to do it and you do it for them rather than for yourself. Our work can be a calling only if it is reimagined as a mission of service to something beyond merely our own interests. We are not suggesting that your “job” is your vocation although there can certainly be an overlap, but they are not equal with each other. As we shall see a bit later, thinking of work mainly as a means of self-fulfillment and self-realization slowly crushes a person and‚ undermines society itself. Christianity is unique here and has much to offer the world. Vocation, from a biblical perspective, has at least three major characteristics. It is interesting that all three principles of a Godly vocation are found in Genesis—the early phases of God’s developing mission on earth. Vocation can be seen active throughout both the Old and New Testaments. Elements of having a vocation are:

 

1.    Receiving the Call to Belong and Commune with God (Gen. 28:15)

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

2.    Being Part of God’s Community (Gen. 12:3). 
I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you
Doing God’s Work as Stewards (Gen. 17:8)

The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.

The Church must be equipped to serve in the world precisely because it does not belong to the world. If we start with the world the church will lose its mission. If we start with God, the church cannot refrain from giving its life for the world. – R., Paul Stevens in The Other Six Days, p173.

If we keep the understanding that we participate in God’s mission and “not the other way around, then we will understand that our mission work is not to get people to ‘come to church’ but to go with the Son of Man into the world.” (Stevens, p.210)

 

Work as Employment—Whose Work?

 

Work in the Bible has dignity because it is something God does, and we do it in God’s place as his representatives. In Genesis, only man is set apart and given a job description. Man and woman, Adam and Eve, are called to “subdue” and “have dominion” or rule the earth. We must also note that even God’s own work in Genesis 1 and 2 is “manual” labor, as he shapes us out of the dust of the earth, deliberately putting the breath of life in a physical body, and as he plants a garden (Gen. 2:8).

It has been asked, “If God came into the world, what would he be like? For the ancient Greeks, he might have been a philosopher-king. The ancient Romans might have looked for a just and noble statesman. But how does the God of the Hebrews come into the world? As a carpenter. (Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavor, p.40, Kindle)

With God’s mission to bring men and women more into His image so they may reach their personal fulfillment, it is clear that we should follow Paul’s counsel in the way we approach our life’s work: 1 Cor 10:31, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” We seen, then, that even our secular work is an extension of God’s mission if in doing it we bring glory to Him.

 

Conclusion:

Links Between the Gospel and Work

 

We’ve taken time to see our secular work in the context of God’s mission and the meaning our vocational calling to be part of that mission.  Being part of that bigger picture, God’s mission changes everything. It holds purpose, possibilities, and meaning for our lives. The three components of our vocation will have a definite influence on the way we approach even our employment of secular work. In reality, can there really be “secular employment” when we sense a vocational calling from God! We close this brief review of the context of “work” by being reminded of how our work should be influenced by God’s mission as revealed in His gospel. 

 

1.     The gospel assures us that God cares about everything we do including our work. He listens to our prayers.

 

2.    The gospel reminds us about the work we do and the outcomes of the work we do whether it be in the products we develop or the people we meet or the decisions that we make.

 

3.    The gospel is good news. As one author put it so well, “Cheer up: You’re a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine, and you’re more love than you ever dared hope.” This changes the way we approach each workday.

 

4.    The gospel gives meaning to our work as Christians. We treat those with whom we work with a sense of dignity even if at times we may disagree. Through our presence we strive to create an environment of grace, truth, hope, and love—after all we are stewards of God’s own mission.

 

5.    The gospel does its work within us by creating a desire to express our relationship with God in ways that directs and inspires others with whom we work that they too will want to know more about Jesus.

 

Our daily work can be a calling only when we work and serve others out of a communion with Him. His mission then becomes our mission. The way we work, in whatever role we may have, will then reflect the One who has never ceased calling us.