The Story Behind the Work

The average person spends about one-third of their life, roughly 90,000 hours, at work. Another third is spent sleeping. And the final third is everything else: eating, commuting, errands, screen time, relationships, rest, and worship.

"In nothing has the church so lost her hold on reality as in her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of a person's life?" — Dorothy Sayers

If the church never learns how to speak into the world of work, then we're not only leaving people unequipped in one of the biggest areas of their lives, we're also missing one of the primary ways the Kingdom of God actually moves into the world.

Genesis 1:26–28

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it."

Genesis 2:15

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Work Is Not A Result Of The Fall.

Work is a form of worship unto the Lord

• The Hebrew word for work, "abad," is the same root as the word for worship.
• "Abad" means serving, cultivating, stewarding, working in devotion.
• God never intended work to be disconnected from worship.
• Adam's work in the garden was worship.
• "Abad" also means to draw the hidden potential out of something.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning, God created…

Genesis 2:1–2

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

John 5:17

"My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working."

God the Father is always working, and Jesus is participating in the work of the Father.

God is the very first worker, and humanity was created to work alongside Him for the flourishing of His world.

"And God saw that it was... Good."

Good is good, but good is not perfect.

• Adam was not placed in the garden to be a security guard.
• Adam was a gardener, a cultivator.

Every time human beings take what God has created and cultivate it toward flourishing, we are reflecting the image of our Creator.

All work has the potential to be ministry for the Lord.

In God's story, life is not divided into sacred and secular.

"The two ways of life were given by the law of Christ to His church. The one is above nature and beyond common human living, holy and permanently separate from the common customary life of mankind. It devotes itself to the service of God alone. Such is the perfect form of the Christian life. And the other, more humble, more human, permits men to join in pure nuptials, and produce children, to undertake government, to give orders to soldiers fighting for right. It allows them to have minds for farming, for trade, and other more secular interests as well as for religion. A kind of secondary grade of piety is attributed to them." — Eusebius of Caesarea

According to Scripture, God works through ordinary people in ordinary places all the time to do His "Good" work.

Psalm 104:14–15

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.

"Our callings are the masks God wears in caring for His creation." — Martin Luther

Our work should be performed with excellence.

Colossians 3:23–24

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.

• My work ultimately belongs to God.
• My work is not ultimately for human approval — it is worship unto the Lord.

So practically, what does this actually look like?

Matthew 5:16

"Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

Through the work of our hands, the posture of our hearts, and the excellence of our lives, people would catch glimpses of Jesus in us.

Monday morning prayer: "God, help me see Jesus in them, so they might see Jesus through me."

Jesus is not just our example in work, He is our Savior through His work.

John 20:6–7

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.

Your work can never save you — and it doesn't have to — because Jesus already completed the most important work.

• You don't have to work for identity; you work from identity.
• You don't have to work to earn God's love; you work because you already have it.
• You don't have to work to prove your worth; you work from the security of being a son or daughter of God.

Now, we work to live into the story of work we were created for. Work becomes worship and participation with God. Work becomes faithfulness.