Labor Day 2018

Labor Day 2018

September 2, 2018

Colossians 3:23-34

I have a theological dilemma on my hands and frankly I don’t know how to solve it. It all arises from an amazingly popular song. Experts are torn about what the words really, really are. Now, I’m going to play a snippet of the song for you and you need to tell me what the song is saying.

Don’t shout it out, because some may disagree with you. Once you hear the song, you will immediately know what it is. Here we go ~

VIDEO of SEVEN DWARFS

Now, most people believe the dwarfs are singing, “Hi - ho, hi - ho, it’s off to work we go.”

But there are others who say the dwarfs are really singing “Hi - ho, hi - ho, it’s home from work we go.”

The 2nd option actually seems more realistic. Because it looks like they are ending their day from work and are happy to be going home. You see, this is the stuff I do, to get the most accurate sermons for you. I simply don’t know which is which and when I listen closely, I still can’t figure it out.

Anyways . . . that’s my introduction for today’s message. It’s Labor Day weekend. It’s a weekend so many people celebrate. Mostly kids look forward to the day because there is no school. Some offices are closed, but lots of others are working tomorrow just like another day at work . . . and you may be singing “Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work I go.” Some go to work singing “I OWE, I OWE, I have to go to work.”

You know, when we think about Labor Day, it’s a major holiday, it’s the changing of the seasons in a sense. It kind of marks when summer ends and Fall begins. It’s when we can no longer wear our white colored outfits and the darker clothes come out.

Even though we celebrate Labor Day, nobody got me a Labor Day card.

We don’t decorate the house like we do for other season and holidays

We don’t have a Labor Day tree and we don’t give Labor Day gifts.

Lots of people don’t go to church today because they are enjoying the weekend away.

Yet, Labor Day is an important day for us to be reminded about work. About what work means to us and what it should mean in our relationship with Christ.

The first time we hear the word work in the Bible comes with God doing the work. We’re going to take a progression and end with who we are supposed to be with the work we do.

In Genesis 2:1-3, we read ~

1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2 And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done,

and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.

3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation. — Genesis 2:1-3

Now, when many of us look at work, we look at it as a necessary evil. But that’s not how work was supposed to be. I believe when God was creating the heavens and the earth, when He was dividing the sky from the land and the waters from the mountains . . . and when God was creating the animals . . . I believe God was having a blast! It was not the drudgery of work that we think of. It was fun, it was exciting, it was passion and action filled. I believe there was holy laughter and excitement between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The original plan was for us to work the land. We see that a few verses later in Genesis 2:15 ~

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. – Genesis 2:15

The word we read in Genesis 2:15 is not the same word for work we saw when God was working. This is actually a softer word for work. Other Bible versions don’t say to work the land, they say phrases like tend to the land or cultivate the land.

You see, the point of working was not to be a pain in our lives. It was not to be a punishment or make us suffer. That’s how it was intended. But then sin entered the world and everything changed, including work.

Now we see what God said to Adam about work in Genesis 3 ~

17 And to Adam, God said . . . cursed is the ground because of you; in PAIN you shall eat of it all the days of your life;