We will never complete our task of incorporating the Great Commission and the Great Commandment into our lives.  We will always be able to improve.  There will always be parts of our work that needs to be more intimately engaged with our basic Christian lives.  But let’s leave the topic of our general calling to be entirely devoted Christian as we work as a never ending work in progress.  Moving from the general to the more specific, there are three passages of scripture of interest, where God influences someone’s work.  For the next three sections we will examine these passages for how they can instruct us on our question of what is God’s will for my work.  The three passages are Genesis 2: 1 – 15 (concentrating on verse 15), Exodus 31: 1 – 11 and 1 Samuel 10: 1 – 8 (concentrating on verse 7).

Adam’s Service in the Garden

The first is a one that we have examined before.

Gen 2:15 The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it.

 Prior to Genesis 2:15 we read that God has created the Heavens and the Earth, planted a garden and formed Adam.  Then in this verse, God takes and places Adam in the garden and assigns Adam the task of working it and watching over it.  Adam is given a specific place prepared by God to work and specific assignments commanded by God to do.  Adam is called by God to be the farmer, caretaker and/or gardener of Eden.  Is this a sacred or secular job?  Today gardening tends to be viewed as a mostly secular occupation.  But Adam is not just gardening but is taking care of God’s creation and following God’s direct commands.  So it can easily be viewed as a sacred assignment.  So did God call Adam to a sacred or a secular job?  I am coming to the conclusion that the distinction between the sacred and secular within God’s creation (and especially within the workplace) is artificial.  Adam’s sacred call as the first human to work in the garden of Eden should cause us to question our sacred and secular dichotomy.

Looking a little closer at the passage we come across the word “work”.  This is the word that got me thinking about all this in the first place.  It may be translated dress, cultivate, tend or take care of but it is just a very generic version of the word work.  That word “work” is actually the Hebrew word ‛âbad.  It can mean many types of work.  It is often translated into different words based on context of the sentence.  The translation of the Bible sponsored by King James back in the 1600’s actually translated this word in this instance “to till” or “to dress” because that’s the type of work you do in a garden.  This word ‛âbad is used often in the Hebrew Torah.  In fact it is used 294 times.  The vast majority of these are translated “serve” because the context that the word occurs.  Many of them are in reference to the Israelites’ service to God.  Look at these quotes just from the 5^th book of the Hebrew Torah Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 6:13 Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.

Deuteronomy 10:12 And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

Deuteronomy 10:20 Fear the LORD your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name.

Deuteronomy 11:13 So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul-

Deuteronomy 13:4 It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.

This is used to point out the fact that there is no linguistic difference in the ancient Hebrew Torah between tending a garden and service to God.  God’s interaction with Adam gives scriptural precedent for God to specifically place someone in a God determined and God provided context and directly command that person to do specific work.  Working within God’s created context in obedience to God’s direct command our work is service to God.  It does not matter if the actual nature of the work may be seen as secular.  It is sacred.

But many of us will never have that Adam experience of being directly commanded by God.   I have found this lack considerably frustrating.  I remember as a college student praying.  I was asking God to tell me what it is that I was supposed to do with my life.  I did not get a direct answer.  I was completely committed to follow God’s command wherever I was instructed me to go.  But I was not placed in my garden and told to work it by God.  Where does that leave me?  Did I not listen hard enough?  Was I not actually willing to hear God’s voice?  Was I expecting too much from God?  Was I not important enough for God to speak directly to?

Have you ever had a situation like Adam where it was very clear from God what you were supposed to be doing and/or where you were supposed to be doing it?

 If yes, how did you hear that instruction from God?

 If no, has God’s direct silence on what you are supposed to do with your life been frustrating?

 Would you feel confined or restricted if god told you exactly what to do and where to do it?

In the next section we are going to deal with God’s influence over Bezalel, Oholiab and all the craftsmen of Israel found in Exodus 31.

If there are many available and good options for us, how do we decide what to specifically to do?

Does God care what type of work we do?

Should we seek God’s guidance in our career and job choices?

What does that guidance look like?

These are important questions today because of our occupational mobility, which is a relatively recent development brought by the Industrial revolution.  Historically occupations were not a matter of personal decisions.  You did what your father did before you.  The sons of carpenters were carpenters.  The sons of farmers were farmers.  Boys went into the family business.  It was not just an expectation.  It was merely a fact.  Today some people experience pressure from their parents to choose the same line of work that they have chosen.  Fathers still want and encourage their sons to take over the family business.  This is not what I’m talking about.  In previous times there really were not options for occupations.  It was occupationally static for all males.  I have been intentionally sexist in my description because there were even fewer choices for women.

Some rare moments the community would call on a specifically gifted individual into a different line of service.  Every once and a awhile a father would arrange special training for a son in a different occupation.  Some people would be chosen by the elders to go into religion.  But these were still not matters of personal decisions.  The individual never had to wrestle with the question of what should I do.

Scripture is written in this context of static occupations.  Farmers remained farmers and slaves typically remained slaves.  Soldiers were soldiers.  Tax collectors stayed as tax collectors.  The best Christian theological development on work can be seen in the idea of vocation.  However; most of the thinking was initiated John Calvin and finalized while Europe was in the feudal system.  The feudal system is still a context of basically static occupations.  Allow me to summarize traditional Christian medieval thinking on work.  A omnipotent and omniscient God has divinely ordered the entire world down to the minutia of detail.  This order includes your station in His created realm.  Where God has placed you is exactly where God wants you.  To question your occupation is to question the very plan of God.  Things have changed.

So what guidance can we find from God for the occupational context in which we find ourselves?

Every Christian’s General Calling

Every part of every Christian’s life is challenged by the basics of their faith.  Every Christian’s occupation must also come under the influence of their Christianity.  You must work as a Christian should work.  An in-depth look at what it means to be a Christian is a  grand topic that is outside of this particular endeavor.  For the interest of time (with the hope that I’m not being too cliché) I will summarize the Christian faith by the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

 ³⁷ He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the greatest and most important command. ³⁹ The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

Everything we do must fall within the parameters of a healthy worshipful loving relationship with God.  And nothing we do should interfere with our love of others.

What are some jobs that might get in the way of you loving God? Why?

What some jobs that might get in the way of you loving others? How?

Have you ever had a job that seemed to interfere with your Christian walk?

¹⁸ Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Nothing we do should interfere with our assigned task from Jesus of making disciples.  We should also look for an occupation that actually aids in completing this task.

Can you think of some ways a job that could help you fulfill the Great Commission?

Can you think of some ways a job could interfere with you fulfilling the Great Commission?

Have you ever rationalized a job to make it fit into your Christian faith when it was actually interfering with your fulfillment of the Great Commandment or the Great Commission?

Next we are going to look at some specific times God spoke to people about their work.  Maybe seeing how God revealed to them what they were supposed to do can be informative for us in figuring out what we ought to do.

As the Campus Minister at Drexel, the number one thing I talk to students (and even faculty and staff) about is work.  Work is the central theme of a Drexel education.  Most students go to Drexel because of the job they will be able to get afterwards.  While they are there the typical Drexel will have 3 different internships (co-ops).  Students seem to spend their lives either at work or in the process of getting work.  This context has forced me to think through how Christianity relates to the idea of work.    First, I want to give acknowledgement David Bushman, the Baptist Campus Minister at Princeton, whose dissertation actually prompted many of these thoughts.

Genesis 1:26 – 28

²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

²⁷ So God created man in His own image;
He created him in the image of God;
He created them male and female.

²⁸ God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

If you look at this passage there are two main ideas in the creation of humanity.  We were created in the image of God and we were given tasks and assignments to accomplish (work).  What it means to be created in the image of God is a vast, complex and beautiful topic that we do not have the ability to expound on much here today, however; I want to make one significant point in some way being created in God’s image and being created to work are linked.  The fact that the passage above alternates between image and assignment and again image and assignment makes me propose God’s image in us 1) allows us to complete our assignments and 2) we look like God as we complete those assignments.  As I was pondering this several avenues of thought and questions occurred to me.  How does God’s image equip us to work?  Are our particular assignments given in Genesis 1 “God-like?”  But the one that I probably spent the most time thinking about and studying and what I want to discuss with you here today is:

How do we look like God as we work?  Can we work like God works? With that said we are going to organize our thoughts with several questions.  Does God work?  If God works then does that change our concept of work?  If God works then what type of work does God do?  And how does our work compare to God’s work?

God and Work

Sometimes our theological ideas about God are so grand that we have trouble thinking about God actually doing anything.  Sometimes God’s transcendence, otherworldliness, holiness and unchanging nature are stressed so we cannot imagine God working.  We think that real work would in some way diminish God’s perfection.  However; throughout Scripture God is illustrated as extremely active and intimately involved in getting things done.  A quick surface look at a couple verse in Genesis 1 and 2 will be sufficient for now.  Genesis 1:1 God creates.  Genesis 2:1 God finishes his work and rests.  (God resting is another topic for another day.)Genesis 2:7 God forms man.  The words used in the description of this event are very visceral and tactile.  Genesis 2:8 God plants a garden.  At the very beginning of Scripture we encounter a God who creates, makes, shapes, forms and plants.  Then throughout the rest of Scripture God continuously describes himself by using occupational metaphors such as a shepherd, gardener, vine-dresser, businessman and even a metal-smith.

God is perfectly comfortable with working and being thought of as a worker.  But we may still have questions about how could God actually work. Often when work is easy we do not consider it work.  Our concept of work includes descriptors such as hard, toilsome, tiring, time-consuming, exhausting, frustrating, boring, necessary and required.  With a concept of that necessarily includes those ideas it is not only hard to imagine God as working but it would be wrong.  Nothing is hard for God.  God never gets tired.  God is never frustrated or bored.  Nothing outside of God ever imposes requirements upon Him.  God has unlimited amounts of time and energy so nothing can ever truly consume them.  Work and God seem like mutually exclusive ideas.  So if scripture reveals God to work and our concept of work seems to be something that God cannot do then we must change our concept of work.  Allow me the opportunity to propose a basic definition of work.

Work is the intentional use of a person’s energy (mental, physical, emotional and/or spiritual) to accomplish a specific change.

There are four key ideas within that definition:  Personal – By my definition, work is only done by persons.  This does not mean that only humans can do work.  The word person is broader than a synonym for the word human.  God for example is a person.  Angels would qualify as persons.  Intentional – Work is done based on a previous decision of the will.  Work cannot happen by accident or at random.  This is why work must be done by a person.  Only persons have the ability to use their will to intentionally decide to do work.  Energy – Work requires that a person intentionally spend energy.  We have to use some of the resources available to us.  This energy may come in several different forms: mental, physical, emotional and/or spiritual energy.  (However with God the difference is that He has infinite amounts of energy so no matter how much energy He spends there is never a change in the amount He has available.)  Change – The person has to intend to make a change and the person has to accomplish a change.  However, the accomplished and the intended changes do not necessarily have to be the same.

With a change in our concept of work we can now imagine that God is able to work.  So let’s move to a different topic of conversation.  Since God works, what type of work would God do?  One of the things I’ve been trying to do in all my theological thinking is to be intentionally Trinitarian, so as we examine this question we are going to look at each person of the Trinity individually.  As we look at these things keep in mind that a single member of the Trinity never works alone.  The Father never does anything without the Son or the Spirit being involved.  ( This is another fascinating point, if the Trinity works in community and we are made in the image of the Trinity then it would be right to assume that we are not designed to work alone this can be exemplified by the creation of Eve.)  But for the sake of organization I’m going to take each of the persons of the Trinity and state two large categories that their work falls into.

God the Father

In Genesis 1:1 we see God creates.  Genesis 2: 1 through 4, Hebrews 11:3 and Romans 4:17 are just some of the other passages that describe God creating.  What skills does God need to be creative?  He needs imagination to be able to see things that do not yet exist.  He needs power to be able to make things exist.  And he needs a will to be able to decide to do it and follow through with it.  As you work, are you able to be creative?  What part of your job is creative?  We do not create things out of nothing like God.  We are limited in our creativity and our power but we can still create things.  When was the last time you imagined something at your job that didn’t exist before, that you had the power to put into place, and that you were able to follow through on and get done?  I remember working in laboratory I created a database that kept our supplies and orders so much more organize than they had been before.

You may not have a very creative job.  Maybe the next type of work God does is more like your job.  In Acts 14:17 we see Paul describe a God who sustains the creation.  Psalms 104: 10 -30 the Psalmist goes into great details about the sustentative nature of God.  I’ll read verse 10 -15.

¹⁰ He causes the springs to gush into the valleys;
they flow between the mountains.
¹¹ They supply water for every wild beast;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
¹² The birds of the sky live beside the springs;
they sing among the foliage.
¹³ He waters the mountains from His palace;
the earth is satisfied by the fruit of Your labor.

¹⁴ He causes grass to grow for the livestock
and provides crops for man to cultivate,
producing food from the earth,
¹⁵ wine that makes man’s heart glad—
making his face shine with oil—
and bread that sustains man’s heart.

God never created the universe to function without his intimate presence within it.  God is involved in the minutia of details it takes for the creation to be maintained day in and day out  What skills does God need to sustain things?   He needs compassion.  He needs to know what those things need.  He needs the wisdom to know how to best provide it.  He needs to have the power to provide what is needed.  He needs the perseverance to continue to provide as long as the sustenance is needed.  Is your job sustaining in nature?  Several times in my life I have been a janitor or custodian.  I never connected my daily maintenance routine of kitchens or bathrooms as being anything like something God would do.  But now that I think about it I was working in that kitchen at Messiah or Taco Bell taking care of things in a small way that was reminiscent of God taking care of the universe.  (That is if you ignore the fact the Taco Bell food could kill you on the spot but the effects sin has had on work is a topic for another time.)

God the Son

Now let’s move on to God the Son.  The two categories that I want to spend some time on are communicator and redeemer.  God the Son is the Word of God.  He is the communication of who God is to the entirety of creation.  In reference to Jesus Christ, John refers to Him as the Word.  And as John 1:14 and 18 says  “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”  Christ came to make God the Father known.  Christ is the Word that communicates God the Father in a way that makes it possible for us to know and understand Him.  In Colossians 1:15  Paul writes of Christ, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”  Christ is the exact likeness of God.  I find it fascinating that both verbal and visual metaphors are used in describing how Christ communicates God the Father to humanity.

In order for Christ to be a good communicator He needs to intimately know the subject manner that He is trying to communicate and He needs to intimately know the audience to whom he is trying the communicate to.  There is also a decision to reveal and an act of revelation.  Do you have to communicate for your job?  Are you in any way being Christ-like in the way you are trying to communicate?  Now in our jobs the message we have to communicate is typically less important that trying to explain the God of the universe to a separated humanity but the process we use can actually connect us to that God if consciously realize that we are working like God.

Christ the redeemer is about the Son of God coming to us and taking our evil and sin and providing a way for us to eternally reconnect with the God of the universe.  Christ saw that we were separated from God by our sins.  This was unacceptable.  Then He imagined, created, made a way for the situation to be changed and humanity to be reconciled to God. This took an investment by Christ.  Christ sacrificed his resources, to the very point of himself to provide a way for our redemption. Nothing we do will come close to the redemption Christ provided for humanity on the cross.  However; there are redemptive processes in our lives.  We can be redemptive even though we have no power to redeem others from their sins.  We can act redemptively.  Our work can be redemptive.  Redemption leads to change.  There has to be an evaluation aspect to things.  The redeemer has to be able to say things are not the way they should be.  Then the redeemer needs to be able to see, remember or imagine a better way. A redeemer needs to be able to know what is broken and have a vision of how to fix it.  Then the redeemer needs to invest some of their personal resources to actualize the necessary change.

I spent 4 months in Mexico, working with Baptist Campus Ministry in the city of Guadalajara.  They owned a building in a central location in the city.  On the side of that building was a dirt path that led to the basketball court.  During the rainy season it was nothing but mud.  All the water from the court would use the path as a gutter to run off.  The situation was unacceptable and it was my job to fix the problem.  The really cool part was that I was given creative freedom to imagine and design the solution.  We created a brick sidewalk that was sloped in the middle so that during the rainy season it actually functioned like a gutter.  Then we lined the sides of the sidewalk with plants and grasses to hold things in place.  I was able to change things to the way things should be.

Now understand what I did in no way compares to what Christ did on the cross.  Christ’s redemption of humanity was the greatest event in history, however; I can find some small meaning in my work knowing that I was using similar skills and attributes as God while I was working.  I was in some small way being redemptive.  The image of God was shining in me.

In your job do you ever have the responsibility to point out things that are not working properly?  These can be physical, informational or social structures.  Do you ever have to say “this is broken?”  After you have identified something that is wrong and imagined how to fix, then you need to use some of your personal resources of time, energy, money etc. to fix it.  When you do these things you are being redemptive.  You are working like God the Son works.

God the Holy Spirit

Quite often the Holy Spirit is the forgotten member of the Trinity.  This neglect of the Spirit is a result of the nature of the way the Holy Spirit works.  The Father created out of nothing but when He created it existed.  The Father’s work is within creation.  We also can see Jesus’ work on the cross in the exterior world.  He died for all eyes to see.  Christ’s work is within history.  But the Holy Spirit works within the confines of others.  The Holy Spirit works on us and within us.  The Holy Spirit’s sphere of influence is within the private realm.  I can only know how the Holy Spirit is working on you by how you describe it too me.  A moment of honesty; the skeptic in me is really dismissive of the work of the Holy Spirit because I can’t see, or hear, or taste, or smell or even touch it.  I have to feel it inside of me.  I am somewhat skeptical about my own encounter with the Holy Spirit, however; I am extremely skeptical about your experience with the Holy Spirit because you are not me and I don’t trust anyone who is not me.  (Now I may have exaggerated those feelings a little but not that much.)

I have chosen to focus on two large categories for this study: The Holy Spirit as Convicter and as Enabler. In John 16 we see God the Holy Spirit as the convicter of sin.

John 16:7 – 11 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

In order for the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin He has to have certain attributes.  First He has to know the difference between right and wrong.  Then He has to be passionate/interested in what is right.  The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin because the Holy Spirit cares about righteousness.  Finally, the Holy Spirit has to be able to accurately communicate what does not match up to what ought to be.  The Holy Spirit needs to be able to point out what is wrong and to point to what is right.

Our work can be convicting along the lines of the Holy Spirit’s work.  We need to intimately know the laws, regulations and rules that govern our interactions at work.  What should we be doing at our job?  How should we be doing it?  We not only need to know the rules but we also need to care about them.  We need to care about doing things the right way.  We need to want to follow the rules.  Then we need to communicate what those rules mean and how to follow them to others in a way that is meaningful.

The second description of the work of the Holy Spirit is enabler.  God the Holy Spirit is busy enabling us to act in such a way that is pleasing to God.  Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  In this passage we see that the Holy Spirit gives us power, however, that power can only be known through action.    Acts 2:4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.  Again we see the Holy Spirit fill a person and the evidence of that filling was an action by the person.

Joel 2:28 – 29

“And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.

Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

We see the evidence of the work Holy Spirit as a secondary action of the person being enabled.  How will we know the Holy Spirit is working?  We only know the Holy Spirit is working because it has empowered the person to do some sort of action.   This idea about the intangible work of the Holy Spirit may sound very familiar.  Many of us have jobs that we feel are overlook, ignored or underappreciated.  How many of us have jobs that solely and entirely facilitate the success of others?  How many of you have taken the blame for a failure of someone else not doing what you seriously tried to get them to do?

I have worked with students as either a school teacher, youth pastor or campus minister for most of my professional career.  How successful I am, is always measured by the change I produce in other individuals.  I am a good teacher if my students learn what I teach them.  I am a good minister if the students start to grasp lives as a Christian.  My success is greatly dependent upon the interior world of other people.  These are jobs that work through the power of influence instead of the power of force.  My father repairs jewelry and watches for his career.  At the end of the day he could tell you the exact number of watches he fixed.  His work was much more concrete than mine.  So many times I want to have a job that is more concrete.  There is a sense of accomplishment when you can point to something physically present that you have done.

I believe that many of us have trouble seeing the immediate values in our jobs because they do not necessarily produce immediate tangible results.  Our jobs as convictors and empowerers are measured in how much we are able to influence others to action.  Jobs that are like this in nature can very easily relate to the work the Holy Spirit does.  As you work to influence others and produce positive change in people know that who are working like God works.

Allow me to finish with this thought.  This is the idea that got me thinking about all this in the first place and will be a good way to bring everything together.  Genesis 2:15 The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. …We see God place man in the garden to work it.  That word work may be translated dress, cultivate, tend or take care of but it is just a very generic version of the word work.  That word “work” is actually the Hebrew word “‛âbad.”  It can mean many types of work.  It is often translated into different words based on context of the sentence.  The translation of the Bible sponsored by King James back in the 1600’s actually translated this word in this instance “to till” or “to dress” because that’s the type of work you do in a garden.  This word ‛âbad is used often in the Hebrew Torah.  In fact it is used 294 times.  The vast majority of these are translated “serve” because the context that the word occurs.  Many of them are in reference to the Israelites’ service to God:  Deuteronomy 6:13, 10:12 and 20, 11:13 and 13:4 are some examples.

This is used to point out the fact that there is no linguistic difference in the ancient Hebrew Torah between tending a garden and service to God.  Taking that a step farther, as we work we can look like God.  We can in a small way be creative and sustentative.  We can be redemptive and communicative.  We can be enabling and convicting.  Through our work we can remind ourselves about who God is and what God has done.  This should produce a sense of worship in us.  Through our work we put on display a little bit of what God is like for others.  This may be able to bring other closer to worshipping the Almighty.  Work can be considered worship or as I like to call it Work-Ship.

Allow me to start with a story.  (I’ve completely fabricated while preparing for a sermon so if they bear any resemblance to you or anyone you know that is just the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  The similarities are unintentional on my part.)  The first brother is John.  John works in stocks for a huge financial company in New York City.  He and his family live in Bucks County near me.  Every morning John wakes up at 4:30 AM and drives into the other city (NY) so that he can beat traffic.  If everything goes right he can be at his desk by 7 AM.  John works long hours.  He never gets home before dark.  Dinner is usually very cold by the time he eats it.  John seems to be always working.  He has to.  That is the only way to succeed in stocks.  He loves to work because his job is extremely fulfilling.  John connects what he is doing directly to his clients.  Every time he makes a good investment he feels satisfaction knowing that his client’s future/retirement/college plans/families are little bit more secure.  Every time he makes a mistake he personally feels the loss.  John works this way and this hard because he is a Christian.  Yet, he feels like many Christians judge him because he never has time or energy for church or Bible Study or small groups or family picnics.  John frequently whispers to himself, “God must understand because doesn’t the Bible say something about working diligently.”  Why can’t these other Christians understand that God is okay with John’s schedule?  They don’t seem to mind when John’s tithe check comes in.

Then there is John’s brother Jim.  Jim is probably a genius.  He can do anything and everything.  Yet he really does nothing.  Jim is working his third mediocre job in the last three years.  He keeps looking for the job that doesn’t interfere with what is really important to him.  He is looking for that job that doesn’t get in the way with his real life.  Jim’s real life is at church.  Jim is the volunteer youth leader at a small rural church in Bucks County as well.  He works just hard enough to keep his job.  He makes just enough to pay his bills and give to the church.  But when Jim is working his mind is not there, his heart is not there and you can tell.  He has so much talent but it never comes through at his job.  He doesn’t want to waste his energy on something as trivial as working.  The youth at his church are so much more important.  Sunday nights, Wednesday nights he’s with them.  Saturdays he usually tries to organize something fun.  He has even been thinking about taking a longer lunch break and seeing if he can eat in the local school cafeteria.  Jim feels like this is exactly what God has called him to do.  His brother doesn’t understand.  Jim is tired of his brother’s lectures on diligence and responsibility.  He just doesn’t get it.  If John was committed to God a little bit more he would understand why work is just not satisfying.

How would you summarize John’s attitude about work?  Is it right or is it wrong?  What are some things from his story do you find convincing?  What parts of his attitude toward work would you try to adjust? How would you summarize Jim’s attitude about work?  Is it right or is it wrong?  What are some things from his story do you find convincing?  What parts of his attitude toward work would you try to adjust? Which brother do you most identify with and why?  Which brother would be most accepted by your church?  Which brother would be most accepted by your parents?  Which brother would be most accepted by your friends?

John’s and Jim’s theologies effected how they work.  What we believe about God, creation, humanity, sin, right and wrong, etc. will deeply affect the way we think about work.  Although, you may not have a well developed theological understanding about work, you do have one.  Although, you may have never completely thought through how your beliefs affect how you work, they do.  Allow me to further illustrate this point by taking us out of our Christian context.

The philosophical concept of dualism developed in ancient Greek thought.  This was the idea that the spiritual was ultimately good and the physical world was necessarily evil.  The mind was derived from the good Olympic Gods and the body was derived from the evil Titans.  Salvation was available to those who could separate their minds from their physical bodies. As you consider these ideas it is not hard to imagine vast implications for the world of work.  Physical work is downplayed and almost evil.  Mental work is elevated.  The nobility thought about things and had slaves to labor for them.  What the Greeks believed philosophically and theologically directly influenced their view of work. In a Buddhist mindset attachment is the cause for suffering.  We have ambitions, wants and desires.  When our wants and desires are unfulfilled we experience pain, loss and suffering.  The Buddhist tries to remove wants and desires becoming unattached from this world.   In so doing they will avoid suffering.  The theological removal of ambition has extraordinary implications in the work environment.

So when we step outside of the Christian world view and examine examples from other philosophical frames it becomes quite clear that what we believe deeply affects how we work.  However, many of us have never thoughtfully developed a consistent and coherent way to intimately connect what we believe directly to our work.  Our goal will be to Biblically study what we believe as a Christian and directly apply it to our work.

Genesis 1:26 – 28

²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

²⁷ So God created man in His own image;
He created him in the image of God;
He created them male and female.

²⁸ God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

This passage describes God creating humanity.  As we look at it for our purposes it today you will notice that immediately following our creation, God gives us assignments.  It is far broader than the scope of this sermon to examine what the commands of rule, be fruitful, fill and subdue actually mean.  The nature of God’s assignments for us is very interesting but at this moment, I want point out that our creation involved tasks.  We were created to do something and that something at its core nature was to work.

Secondly, we were not only are we created by God to work but we are also commanded by God to work.  God told us to work.  God said to them these commands.  Keeping those two thought s in mind (1. that we were created to work and 2. that we were commanded to work) let’s move to Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2

¹ So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. ² By the seventh day God completed His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. ³ God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it He rested from His work of creation.

⁴ These are the records of the heavens and the earth, concerning their creation at the time that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. ⁵ No shrub of the field had yet grown on the land, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not made it rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground. ⁶ But water would come out of the ground and water the entire surface of the land. ⁷ Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

 ⁸ The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He placed the man He had formed. ⁹ The LORD God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. …

¹⁵ The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. …

We work within the context God created.  We work within the heavens and the earth that God made.  We were placed within the garden that God planted.  Our work is completely dependent upon God’s previous work.  But also God created his universe and planted his garden with humanity as an integral part of the design.  We are intended to be important, significant and vital in the proper functioning of God’s creation.   Within God’s context our work is significant.  Continuing on in chapter 2 we find another interesting thing about the way we work.

¹⁸ Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper as his complement.”

¹⁹ So the LORD God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found as his complement. ²¹ So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. ²² Then the LORD God made the rib He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man.

We were created by God to work in a community.  It is not good for us to be alone so God creates for us a “helper.”  Man and woman’s initial relationship with each other is described in the context of work.   Adam needed a helper.  Adam being alone was the first thing in God’s creation labeled as “not good.”  There are a couple points I want to bring up here.

1)      Work was part of God’s good creation.   Often we see work as a necessary evil however work was good and part of God’s plan.

2)      God created a situation where Adam had more work than he could successfully accomplish.  Adam needed a helper.  Having a significant amount of work that is on a challenging level is not a bad thing.

3)      We were not designed to work alone.

So allow me to summarize these ideas in two sentences.  We were created by God to work in community.  We were commanded by God to work in God’s context.

However; there is one last idea from this passage that I want to point out.  This is the idea that got me thinking about all this in the first place and will be a good way to bring everything together.  In Genesis 2:15 we see God place man in the garden to work it.  That word work may be translated dress, cultivate, tend or take care of but it is just a very generic version of the word work.  That word “work” is actually the Hebrew word “‛âbad.”  It can mean many types of work.  It is often translated into different words based on context of the sentence.  The translation of the Bible sponsored by King James back in the 1600’s actually translated this word in this instance “to till” or “to dress” because that’s the type of work you do in a garden.  This word ‛âbad is used often in the Hebrew Torah.  In fact it is used 294 times.  The vast majority of these are translated “serve” because the context that the word occurs.  Many of them are in reference to the Israelites’ service to God.  Look at these quotes just from the 5^th book of the Hebrew Torah Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 6:13 Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.

Deuteronomy 10:12 And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

Deuteronomy 10:20 Fear the LORD your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name.

Deuteronomy 11:13 So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul-

Deuteronomy 13:4 It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.

This is used to point out the fact that there is no linguistic difference in the ancient Hebrew Torah between tending a garden and service to God.  Taking that a step farther, work that is done because it is how God created us in obedience to God’s command for us acknowledging our dependence upon the context for which God has given us and an in community as we were designed to be, can be considered worship or a I like to call it Work-Ship.

I hope you have been able to see just a glimpse of how to look at work from a Christian perspective.  There are many pieces that we didn’t have time to touch on this morning, however; I would be remiss if I didn’t say a few words about sin.  In chapter 3 of Genesis we see sin enter the picture.  Sin has a drastic effect on work.  Sometimes sin on a large scale that prevents me from working where humanity’s greed has created economic situations that make work hard to find.  Sometimes the curse affecting creation through droughts or disasters makes certain types of work impossible.  Sometimes it is on a small scale where you personally are unable to work because of disability or disease or even your own sin.  In these circumstances it can seem dehumanizing because work is so much a part of who we were created and designed to be.  I don’t have all the answers for those times except that the God, who created an entire universe for us to work in and planted a garden for Adam to work in, is the God over your situation as well.  He can both supply you grace to get through or find you significant tasks within any circumstance.

I am reminded of the initial point in one of my seminars for Drexel on Spiritual Leadership.  This seminar is one of the sources that gave the impetus for developing Work-Ship.   If God created time, and we should try manage our lives based upon God’s will for our lives then God’s will for our lives will never be to do more than there is time to complete. Therefore if we do not have enough time to complete everything we are trying to then either we are trying to do more than God’s will for our lives or God is using the tension to change us into more capable persons. What needs to be done is more than what God wants me to do.  So the liberating question is not what needs to be done but what can I do.

What Can I Do?

As I been thinking about that question and the various levels of my life the central theme that keeps coming back is Work-Ship.  Work-Ship may be the organizing idea of my life at this moment.

As I look at my roles as a husband, father, son, family member and friend,  I realize that I need to model the proper balance between work and rest, between mission and worship, between task and relationship.  This is what I can do.  I won’t ever be able to be everywhere my daughter wants me to be, but I can be available when my daughter needs me.  I may not be able to saturate my wife with the amount of quality time she deserves but I need to make certain that spending time with her never feels as if it is pulling me away from more important tasks.  I need to develop relationships with people simply because I like being around them.

As I look at my role as the Baptist Campus Minister at Drexel University, I am in a unique position to really experiment with methods in developing mature Christian graduates who are able to approach work as mission and rest as worship.  Because Drexel operates on the quarter system and has the extensive co-op program, I am in a unique situation with a unique clientele.  I can develop curriculum with students and test its effectiveness almost immediately.  I have access to students who know what they need when entering the work environment.  This is what I can do that no one else is able.

As I engage the University in my role as Coordinator of Spiritual Life, I realize that the one thing that I can be an expert on is how work and faith interact.  I can answer the question of how a student processes academically from a faith perspective.  I can help Student Life investigate proper work – rest balance issues.  I can challenge the University to allow room from students to explore their vocation as spiritual beings.  I can ask University to look at the balance between achievement and celebration.

As I engage my role as Coordinator of Spiritual Life from a personal perspective, it gives the opportunity to first hand evaluate what it means to serve a secular institution as a committed Christian for God’s glory and because of God’s calling.  II do my best for Drexel to make Drexel the best place it can possibly be and still remain faithful to the calling of God in my life.  I am an ordained evangelical Christian minister who serves to the best of his ability the needs of Drexel.  My job and my faith are inextricably twisted together into one unique calling from God.

What can I do?  Exactly what God wants me to do.

Quite often the Holy Spirit is the forgotten member of the Trinity.  We often do not emphasize Him.  Or sometimes we focus on what He can do for us at the expense of who He is.  That is the just in the nature of the way the Holy Spirit works.  The Holy Spirit does not function alone.  The Holy Spirit cannot function alone.  Now all the members of the Trinity work in unison. That is not what I’m talking about.  It is not who the Holy Spirit works with but whom the Holy Spirit works on.  The Father created out of nothing but when He created it existed.  The Father’s work is within creation.  We also can see Jesus’ work on the cross in the exterior world.  He died for all eyes to see.  Christ’s work is within history.  But the Holy Spirit works within the confines of others.  The Holy Spirit works in the interior life.   The Holy Spirit works on us and within us.  There is no external manifestation of the Spirit’s work there is only the internal process.  The Holy Spirit’s work is within the person.  The Holy Spirit’s sphere of influence is within the private realm.  I can only know how the Holy Spirit is working on you by how you describe it too me.  This creates confusion and even distrust.

That sounds very familiar.  Many of us have jobs that we feel are overlook, ignored or underappreciated.  How many of us have jobs that solely and entirely facilitate the success of others?  How many of us have jobs that are dependent upon the performance of others?  The entire service industry could very easily relate to the work of the Holy Spirit.

I have worked with students as either a school teacher, youth pastor or campus minister for most of my professional career.  How successful I am, is always measured by the change I produce in other individuals.  I am a good teacher if my students learn what I teach them.  I am a good minister if the students start to grasp lives as a Christian.  My success is greatly dependent upon the interior world of other people.  My father repaired jewelry and watches for his career.  At the end of the day he could tell you the exact number of watches he fixed.  His work was much more concrete than mine.

Just as we see Scripture talking about God the Father and Jesus Christ; God the Son as workers we can also examine the work of the Holy Spirit.  Although there are probably innumerable different possibilities of distinction in the work of the Holy Spirit, I have chosen to focus on two large groups for this study: The Holy Spirit as Convicter and as Enabler

The Holy Spirit the Convicter:

In John 16 we see God the Holy Spirit as the convicter of sin sometimes we look at this in solely a Spiritual way.  However; there are convicting processes in our everyday lives.

John 16:7 – 11 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

In order for the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin He has to have certain attributes.  First He has to know the difference between right and wrong.  Then He has to be passionate/interested in what is right.  The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin because the Holy Spirit cares about righteousness.  Finally, the Holy Spirit has to be able to accurately communicate what does not match up to what ought to be.  The Holy Spirit needs to be able to point out what is wrong and to point to what is right.

As we think about working in the image of God we can also think about working like the Holy Spirit.  Our work can be convicting along the lines of the Holy Spirit’s work.  In order for our work to be convicting there needs to be a few characteristics to it.  We need to intimately know the laws, regulations and rules that govern our interactions at work.  What should we be doing at our job?  How should we be doing it?  We not only need to know the rules but we also need to care about them.  We need to care about doing things the right way.  We need to want to follow the rules.  Then we need to communicate what those rules mean and how to follow them to others in a way that is meaningful.

Now I am of the absolutely correct opinion that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.  He by far exceeds any other player in the history of the game, however; my father has never understood this.  He has never seen the light.  There have been many occasions that I have tried to convict my father of the error of his ways but he refuses to listen to the truth.

This brings up some interesting kinds of questions when we think about the Spirit’s work and how we can work like the Spirit, especially when we think about our original definition of work. Work is the intentional use of a person’s energy (mental, physical, emotional and/or spiritual) to accomplish a specific change. Can we say that the Spirit is working if it is not producing a change?  Can the change God the Holy Spirit wants to produce be resisted?  Those are huge theological questions that Christians have been debating forever and beyond the scope of this study, but on a more personal level.  Can a teacher say that s/he is working when the students are not learning?  How frustrating is it when work is unsuccessful; when you are unable to accomplish the changes in people that you intended?

How do you point out things that are wrong within your work environment?  How are your actions like the Holy Spirit?  How are they different?

What types of professions would you see as being at their core convictive?

How can your convictive actions within the parameters of your work lead you to worship God?

The Holy Spirit the Enabler/Motivator/Mover/Empowerer:

This is the second description we are used to when refer to the work of the Holy Spirit.  God the Holy Spirit is busy enabling us to act in such a way that is pleasing to God.

Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

In this passage we see that the Holy Spirit gives us power, however, that power can only be known through action.  Would you know that the Holy Spirit has given power if that power was not used for some action?  The action the Holy Spirit empowers is “witnessing.”

Acts 2:4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Again we see the Holy Spirit fill a person and the evidence of that filling was an action by the person.  Could the action be “faked” and thus produce a false perception of the filling?  Could the filling have occurred without resulting in demonstrable evidence?’

Joel 2:28 – 29

“And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.

Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

Again we see the evidence of the work Holy Spirit as secondary action the person is doing.  How will we know the Holy Spirit is working?  We only know the Holy Spirit is working because it has empowered the person to do some sort of action.

Are there specific careers that are solely judged by the results they produce through other people’s actions?  Do athletic coaches function in ways that are very similar to the Holy Spirit?

What are some of the characteristics of Holy Spirit’s work of Empowering?  What are some of the necessary skills and attributes Holy Spirit must possess in His person to enable us to be more like God?

Do you see the work you do as requiring the same type of skills and actions that Holy Spirit used when He empowers us?

How do you empower and enable others within your work environment?  How are your actions like the Holy Spirit?  How are they different?

What types of professions would you see as being at their core based on empowerment and enabling?

How can your empowering within the parameters of your work lead you to worship God?

So, it goes without saying that if we want to learn about how God works we need to study the work of Jesus.  Just as we see Scripture talking about God as a worker we can also examine the work of Jesus.  Although, there are probably innumerable different possibilities of distinction in the work of Christ, I have chosen to focus on two large ideas for this study: Christ as Redeemer and Christ as Communicator

Christ the Redeemer:

Throughout the Scriptures we see God the Son as the redeemer.  Sometimes we look at redemption in solely a Spiritual way.  We only talk about the redemption of our souls.  This redemption is what eternally reconnects us with God and is the central aspect of our faith.  However; there are redemptive processes in our everyday lives.  We can be redemptive like Christ even though we have no power to redeem others from their sins.  Our ability to redeem is so much smaller than Jesus’ but it still does exist.  We can act redemptively.  Our work can be redemptive.  Let’s look at some of the verses from Scripture that show Christ’s redemption.  As we do this ask yourself some basic questions:  What are the tasks associated with redemption?  What character traits and skills does one need to be redemptive?  What are the effects of a redeemer?  If we think about Christ’s redemptive acts through those questions we may see how we can work like God.

Job 19:25 I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

I include this verse to show that the Redeemer, who is later identified as Jesus Christ, God the Son, was not only a New Testament reality but also in the Old Testament.  Job is one of the oldest books of the Bible and within it is this idea of a redeemer.  This idea gives Job hope and the ability to persevere.  The fact that someday, someone will change things, someone will make things right gives Job the ability to keep going.  It gives him hope in his desperation.  Just the possibility of redemption brings people hope.

Colossians 1:13-14 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Redemption leads to change.  There has to be an evaluation aspect to things.  The redeemer has to be able to say things are not the way they should be.  Then the redeemer needs to be able to see, remember or imagine a better way. A redeemer needs to be able to know what is broken and have a vision of how to fix it.

In your job do you ever have the responsibility to point out things that are not working properly?  These can be either physical, informational or social structures.  Do you ever have to say “this is broken?”  When you do that you are taking the first step toward being redemptive.  Then do you ever have the responsibility to propose a way to fix that which is broken?  This is the second part of redemption.  Seeing what’s wrong and imagining how to fix it.

2 Corinthians 5:21 God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.

However, there is a third piece to being redemptive.  Christ saw that we were separated from God by our sins.  This was unacceptable.  Then He imagined, created, made a way for the situation to be changed and humanity to be reconciled to God. This took an investment by Christ.  Christ sacrificed his resources, to the very point of himself to provide a way for our redemption.  After you have identified something that is wrong and imagined how to fix, then you need to use some of your personal resources to fix it.  When you do these things you are being redemptive.  You are working like God the Son works.

What are some of the characteristics of Christ’s redemptive work?  What are some of the necessary skills and attributes Christ must possess in His person to be redemptive?

Do you see the work you do as requiring the same type of skills and actions that Christ used when He was redemptive?

How do you act redemptively within your work environment?  How are your actions like Christ?  How are they different?

What types of professions would you see as being at their core redemptive or restorative?

How can your redemptive actions within the parameters of your work lead you to worship God?

We can highlight several key parameters of what it means to work redemptively.  1) There is dissatisfaction with the way things are.  2)  There is an imaginative response creating the image of the way things should be.  3) There is a sacrifice of personal resources to change things from the way things are to the way things should be.

Christ the Communicator:

This is one that might need some explanation.  God the Son is the Word of God.  He is the communication of who God is the entirety of creation.  God the Son is the example for humanity of how to relate to God as a human being.  The word for this type of communication is revelation.  Jesus has revealed God to us.

In reference to Jesus Christ, John refers to Him as the Word.  And as John 1:14 and 18 says  “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”  Christ came to make God the Father known.  Christ is the Word that communicates God the Father in a way that makes it possible for us to know and understand Him.

In Colossians 1:15  Paul writes of Christ, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”  Christ is the exact likeness of God.  I find it fascinating that both verbal and visual metaphors are used in describing how Christ communicates God the Father to humanity.

Christ, through His life, death and resurrection makes in general the Trinity available for our understanding.  He communicates to us the infinite, omnipotent, all-loving, holy, eternal, omnipresent Trinity to us the only way we could possibly understand.  He is the Word of God and the image of God.

What are some of the characteristics of Christ’s work of revelation?  What are some of the necessary skills and attributes Christ must possess in His person to reveal God to us?

Do you see the work you do as requiring the same type of skills and actions that Christ used when He revealed things to us?

How do you reveal and communicate to others within your work environment?  How are your actions like Christ?  How is it different?

What types of professions would you see as being at their core based on revelation and communication?

How can your revelation within the parameters of your work lead you to worship God?

Christ needed to intimately know God.  Jesus says in Matt. 11:27 “All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him.” Jesus is able to communicate God to us because He knew God.  If you think about God the Son being omniscient that would mean that God the Son knew God the Father as well as God the Father knew Himself.  This consistency of knowledge within the Trinity has huge implications on what it means to be three-in-one.  For our purposes we can draw the conclusion that to be a communicator you must know what you are communicating.  A corollary to that is the better you know a subject the better you will be able to communicate it.

Also, we see in this verse the need for the decision to communicate.  Christ decides to reveal. To truly communicate we need to decide to communicate.  There is a lot of non-verbal and accidental communication that exists.  We often communicate things that we do not intend, however; this unintentional communication is not work.  It is accident.   Christ chose to communicate God to us.  That choice resulted in several other decisions.  He chose to put Himself in a place that communication was possible.  He chose to use a form that made understanding possible.  Christ decided to reveal God.  We must also decide to communicate.  This decision will lead to other decisions about how to communicate.

So those decisions on how to best communicate require knowledge not only the subject trying to be communicated but also who we are trying to be communicated to.  Christ not only needed to know how to “talk” about God but He needed to know how to “talk” to people.  Christ was excellent with this.  John 7:46  The officers answered, “Never man spake like this man.”  Christ knew who he was talking to.

In order to communicate you need to know what you are talking about, who you are talking to and make the decision to talk.  Now how is this applicable to our work situations?  1) As we try to learn our area of expertise, more intimate with our subject the more we can communicate in a “Christ-like” manner.  2)  Our decisions to communicate will lead to other decisions that will put us in place to communicate.  This can be viewed in a small way of Christ being incarnated so that we could understand who God is.  3) As we examine those we are trying to communicate with we can aspire to the image of God at work in us.  Learning about the nature of humanity (generally) or the concerns of those persons (specifically) that allows us to communicate more like Christ.

The Greek and Roman gods were very near and present in everyday life.  They were helpful and harmful but always near and involved.  They were intimately involved in the needs of workers.  There were gods for the farmers and gods for the smiths and gods for generals.  But these were nothing more that super-humans.  They were just like people only stronger and more powerful.  They were sinful and vulnerable.  They were a mix of good and evil.  They were just like us only bigger.

Then you have the other side.  The Deist of the 1800’s developed this idea of God the best.  This God is a perfect being.  Completely separate and separated from the world.  This God is untarnished and unblemished by the strife of the Creation.  He is unchanging and immovable.  This God is perfect but being perfect must require him to be far and distant.  He is also inaccessible.  Even if we were able to contact this God, He is so utterly different that He is incomprehensible.  His ways are not our ways.  We are totally isolated from this type of God.

We have created these competing ideas about God.  On one hand we have Gods that are very useful and helpful and immediately present but they are not always powerful enough or good enough to do what is in our best interests.  Then on the other hand we have a God who is perfectly good and completely strong but is He close enough and caring enough and malleable enough to change circumstances for our benefit?

In the Christian Scriptures we see this tension but it is relieved not because of anything we have done but because of God’s own actions.  The Scriptures do reveal a God who is great and marvelous and incomprehensible to humanity.  Read Job for a great picture of God in this light.  But the Scriptures also reveal and are completely based on the assumption that in some small way this God has chosen to reveal himself to us in manners forms that we can understand.  We could never figure out God for ourselves.  God is too big for us to comprehend but God can reveal certain parts about himself in ways that make sense to us.  God can explain Himself to us.  And God does this through His creation, through the Scriptures and ultimately through Christ.  God is totally incomprehensible to us except for the parts He has explained.  God is a mystery but certain parts of that mystery have been explained.

For a brief moment we are going to focus on Genesis 1:26 – 31.  This will be a very important passage for us in Lesson 5 but for now we are only going to take one point out of it.

Focus Passage: Gen 1:26-31 (NET)

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”  God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.  God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I now give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.  And to all the animals of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to all the creatures that move on the ground — everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.” It was so.  God saw all that he had made — and it was very good! There was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.

A God who works creates humanity in His own image.  And then immediately after creating us, He gives us certain assignments.  The image of God in humanity has deep and meaningful significance.  Our value and worth are intimately tied to the fact that we are specifically created in God’s image.  The entire scope of what it means to be created in the image of God far exceeds this study, however; it is important (vital) to note that humanity being created in the image of God is directly and immediately connected to the assignments God has for us to do.  Our work is somehow dependent upon the image of God invested within us.  Our tasks of ruling, being fruitful, multiplying, filling and subduing is interwoven among four statements of being created in God’s image.

Being created in the image of God means in some small way that we “look” like God.  Being created in the image of God who works and then immediately assigned tasks to complete allows us to assume that we can “look” like God as we work.

So, If we can work like God works, how exactly does God work?

And as we examine How God works are there any points of comparison between God’s working and ours?

Just to make this idea about God working more manageable, let’s handle each person of the Trinity separately.  And let’s begin with God the Father.  The Bible uses many different figurative descriptions of the work God the Father has done, is doing and will do in the future.  Psalm 139:13 – 16 describes the God of the universe as a weaver.  John 15:1 – 8 describes God as a vinedresser and gardener.  Psalm 23 calls God our shepherd.  Jeremiah 18:1 – 10 sees God as a potter.  In Isaiah 1:24, 25 God is a smith or a metalworker.  These are just a small sample of some of the ideas expressed in Scripture about God’s work.  In board sweeping general terms we can categorize God the Father’s work into two categories:  His creative work and His sustaining work.

Let’s examine a few specific verses about God the Creator.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 2:2 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.

Genesis 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Romans 4:17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”–in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

What are some of the characteristics of God’s creative work?  What are some of the necessary skills God must possess in His person to be creative?

Do you see the work you do as requiring the same type of skills and actions that God used when He was creative?

How is your creativity within your work environment like God’s?  How is it different?

How can your creativity within the parameters of your work lead you to worship God?

Let’s examine a few specific verses about God the Sustainer.

Act 14:17 Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.

Psalms 104:10-30

You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills;

They give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst.

Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches.

From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.

You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring

forth food from the earth

and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s

heart.

The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.

In them the birds build their nests; the stork has her home in the fir trees.

The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers.

He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting.

You make darkness, and it is night, when all the beasts of the forest creep about.

The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God.

When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens.

Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening.

O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of

your creatures.

Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small

and great.

There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.

These all look to you, to give them their food in due season.

When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good

things.

When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and

return to their dust.

When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.

Deu 11:1-7 You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always.  And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm,  his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land, and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD has destroyed them to this day, and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place, and what he did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel.  For your eyes have seen all the great work of the LORD that he did.

What are some of the characteristics of God’s sustaining work?  What are some of the necessary skills God must possess in His person to sustain things?

Do you see the work you do as requiring the same type of skills and actions that God used when He was sustaining things?

How are you sustaining things within your work environment like God?  How is it different?

How can you sustaining things within the parameters of your work lead you to worship God?

Final Questions:

Do you see your work as more creative or sustaining?

How does it make you feel that God in some way has worked or continues to work in a similar fashion to your work?

Does that significantly change how you look at your job?

What is one thing that you will change this week because you now see that you can work like God works?

Conclusion:  God works.  Because we were created in the image of God we can work in some small way like God works.  God the Father is creative and sustaining in His work.  We can be both creative and sustaining in our work like God.

Allow me to tell a story of two brothers.  (I’ve completely fabricated while preparing for a sermon so if they bear any resemblance to you or anyone you know that is just the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  The similarities are unintentional on my part.)  The first brother is John.  John works in stocks for a huge financial company in New York City.  He and his family live in Bucks County near me.  Every morning John wakes up at 4:30 AM and drives into the other city (NY) so that he can beat traffic.  If everything goes right he can be at his desk by 7 AM.  John works long hours.  He never gets home before dark.  Dinner is usually very cold by the time he eats it.  John seems to be always working.  He has to.  That is the only way to succeed in stocks.  He loves to work because his job is extremely fulfilling.  John connects what he is doing directly to his clients.  Every time he makes a good investment he feels satisfaction knowing that his client’s future/retirement/college plans/families are little bit more secure.  Every time he makes a mistake he personally feels the loss.  John works this way and this hard because he is a Christian.  Yet, he feels like many Christians judge him because he never has time or energy for church or Bible Study or small groups or family picnics.  John frequently whispers to himself, “God must understand because doesn’t the Bible say something about working diligently.”  Why can’t these other Christians understand that God is okay with John’s schedule?  They don’t seem to mind when John’s tithe check comes in.

Then there is John’s brother Jim.  Jim is probably a genius.  He can do anything and everything.  Yet he really does nothing.  Jim is working his third mediocre job in the last three years.  He keeps looking for the job that doesn’t interfere with what is really important to him.  He is looking for that job that doesn’t get in the way with his real life.  Jim’s real life is at church.  Jim is the youth leader at a small rural church in Bucks County as well.  He works just hard enough to keep his job.  He makes just enough to pay his bills and give to the church.  But when Jim is working his mind is not there, his heart is not there and you can tell.  He has so much talent but it never comes through at his job.  He doesn’t want to waste his energy on something as trivial as working.  The youth at his church are so much more important.  Sunday nights, Wednesday nights he’s with them.  Saturdays he usually tries to organize something fun.  He has even been thinking about taking a longer lunch break and seeing if he can eat in the local school cafeteria.  Jim feels like this is exactly what God has called him to do.  His brother doesn’t understand.  Jim is tired of his brother’s lectures on diligence and responsibility.  He just doesn’t get it.  If John was committed to God a little bit more he would understand why work is just not satisfying.

How would you summarize John’s attitude about work?  Is it right or is it wrong?  What are some things from his story do you find convincing?  What parts of his attitude toward work would you try to adjust?

How would you summarize Jim’s attitude about work?  Is it right or is it wrong?  What are some things from his story do you find convincing?  What parts of his attitude toward work would you try to adjust?

Which brother do you most identify with and why?  Which brother would be most accepted by your church?  Which brother would be most accepted by your parents?  Which brother would be most accepted by your friends?

Presupposition # 1:  There is no theological understanding about work.

Corollary Statement:  I do not have a theological understanding about work.

John’s and Jim’s theologies effected how they work.  What we believe about God, creation, humanity, sin, right and wrong, etc. will deeply affect the way we think about work.  Although, you may not have a well developed theological understanding about work, you do have one.  Although, you may have never completely thought through how your beliefs affect how you work, they do.  Allow me to further illustrate this point by taking us out of our Christian context.

So when we step outside of the Christian world view and examine examples from other philosophical frames it becomes quite clear that what we believe deeply affects how we work.  However, many of us have never thoughtfully developed a consistent and coherent way to intimately connect what we believe directly to our work.  This series of lessons aspires to be the initial step in the direction of a practical theology of work.  Our goal will be to Biblically study what we believe as a Christian and directly apply it to our work.

The Beginning:

It is good to start an extensive project at the beginning.  You start a race at the starting line.  You start a class on the first day.  You start a song with the first note.  You start a book with the first chapter.  Since, we will be using the Christian Bible as the text for this study; we should start at the beginning.  In the first book, the book titles in Hebrew “Beginnings.”  Genesis is the starting point for work.  In Genesis work begins.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The Bible starts with a God who is active, a God who creates, a God who does and a God who works.  It is interesting to use the phrase God works.  Does God really work?  It might seem that work is beneath God.  God wouldn’t dirty his hands by working would He?

Presupposition # 2:  God’s perfection prevents Him from working.

Corollary Statement:  Work must include difficulty, toil, frustration, etc.

Sometimes our theological thoughts and ideas about God are so grand that we have trouble thinking about God actually doing anything.  Sometimes God’s transcendence, other-worldliness and holiness are so stressed that we cannot imagine God working.  We think that real work would in some way diminish God’s perfection.  However; throughout Christian Scripture God is illustrated as an extremely active worker.  This apparent contradiction does not come from a faulty definition of God but from a misconstrued idea about work.

Often when work is easy we do not consider it work.  Our concept of work includes descriptors such as hard, toilsome, tiring, time-consuming, exhausting, frustrating, boring, necessary and required.  With a concept of that necessarily includes those ideas it is not only hard to imagine God as working but it would be wrong.  Nothing is hard for God.  God never gets tired.  God is never frustrated or bored.  Nothing outside of God ever imposes requirements upon Him.  God has unlimited amounts of time and energy so nothing can ever truly consume them.  Work and God seem like mutually exclusive ideas.

But then the Christian Scriptures engage us as we examine God and work.  We hear about a God who creates, makes, shapes and forms.  We read about a God who rests.  We see a God who reveals himself as a shepherd, a gardener, a metal smith.  We listen to God describe himself as a worker.

Examine some of these passages:

Psalm 104: 10 – 14

Deuteronomy 11:1 – 7

Proverbs 8:27 – 30

Psalm 139:13

Isaiah 1:24, 25

Is God describing Himself as a worker in this passage?

If yes, how?

Identify some of the work that God is doing in these passages.

Is the work being described metaphorical?

This produces an unnecessary tension in our minds.  Is our theology about God wrong?  Has God misrepresented himself in Scripture?  But the key questions are neither of these.  Are our ideas about work Biblically correct?  What is a theologically sound definition of work?

Conclusion: God works and our definition of work must be based on God’s work, although there are some aspects of human work that is distinctly different from God’s.

We have many colloquial sayings that involve work.

“That was a breeze.”

“I have a light workload.”

“No pain, no gain.”

“He is consumed by his work.”

“As busy as a beaver (or bee).”

We even have some religiously inspired work related sayings.

“Only what is done for the Lord will last.”

“He that doesn’t work doesn’t eat.”

Some of these sayings are quite useful.  Some are confusing.  Some of these saying contradict others.  Some of them are completely wrong.  However, they completely illustrate the fact that when we use the word work many underlying assumptions come with it.  So to get past our assumptions I will propose a basic definition of work.

Work is the intentional use of a person’s energy (mental, physical, emotional and/or spiritual) to accomplish a specific change.

There are four key ideas within that definition:

1) Personal – By my definition, work is only done by persons.  This does not mean that only humans can do work.  The word person is broader than a synonym for the word human.  God for example is a person.  Angels would qualify as persons.

2) Intentional – Work is done based on a previous decision of the will.  Work cannot happen by accident or at random.  This is why work must be done by a person.  Only persons have the ability to use their will to intentionally decide to do work.

3) Energy – Work requires that a person intentionally spend energy.  We have to use some of the resources available to us.  This energy may come in several different forms: mental, physical, emotional and/or spiritual energy.

4) Change – The person has to intend to make a change and the person has to accomplish a change.  However, the accomplished and the intended changes do not necessarily have to be the same.

Based on this definition do you think God can work?  Why or why not?