Work Series

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Work

Selected Scriptures

If you were with us last Sunday, you would know we covered the topic of rest. We saw that rest is not passive but purposeful activities. And the activities included repairing from and preparing for the demands of work. Ultimate rest, we saw, involved trusting God's goodness.

Today we will look at the complement to rest, and that is work. What is work?

Some say, “Choose something you enjoy doing and you will never work another day in your life.” Others say, “It is not real work unless you would rather be doing something else.” A dictionary definition of work is, “Physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something.”

Work is more than a job. It takes work to express faith. It takes work to develop godly character. It takes work to build a loving family. It takes work to bear fruit in ministry.

This morning, we'll mostly talk about what we do for a living when we refer to work. Work employs time, energy, talents and resources to provide services and goods. Work that adds value to people and properties.

If we were to direct the question, "Why work?" to a general population, here are some responses: I need the money. I owe, I owe, off to work I go. To pay off the mortgage, the college loans, the credit cards. To pay for my living expenses and lifestyle.

Or, I like what I do. These are the fortunate. You find your work meaningful, rewarding and enjoyable. You feel useful. You like the people you work with. You get your identity and fulfillment from your work.

What if we were to direct the question, "Why work?" to God? How would He answer? Would He say, "I designed for you to work as a punishment for sin"? Or would He say, "I designed for you to work as a gift of love"?

Justin Holcomb, in his book, What do you do for a Living?, noted: "If you have a job, you probably spend most of your waking hours working, getting ready for work, or commuting to and from your workplace. The activities you do most often are the ones you do at your job. The people who take up most of your time and attention are probably not your family and friends, but your boss, your clients, or your coworkers."

Since your job consumes much of your awake hours, thinking correctly about work is important. And there is no better place to go than to the Bible. The Bible records God’s work called creation, salvation, redemption. The Bible also records the origin and role of work in human lives. Let's look together.

First, the Bible tells us human work reflects God's image.

Genesis 1:31 records the creation of the world, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day."

God is Creator. He is a Worker who creates. He is unique in that He created all thing out of nothing. Here's what else that may surprise us.

God has not stopped working since creation. He took a day off on the seventh day of creation, but God is actively working since. Jesus said in John 5:17, “My Father [in Heaven] is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”

What is God doing today? The Bible, in John 16:8-11, tells us God's Spirit is working in the hearts of men and women to bring them back to Himself. First, to convict us of our wrong against God. Second, to convince us of our need for forgiveness through Jesus' death on the cross.

We reflect God's image as a Worker who creates. Imagine putting our pet hamster or dog in an open field. A year or two years later, we still have an open field. But put people in an open field, and a year or two years later, we may have a garden, an orchard, an apartment complex, a shopping mall or a church.

You might argue that ants and bees work. To survive. But humans work to create, to continue shaping God's original creation. Mankind has turned sand into computer chip, mined ore to build automobiles.

Genesis 1:26 reads, Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” When God said He made humankind in His image, he elaborated that image was the image of a worker.