On this episode of The Disciple-Making Parent Podcast, we explore a biblical understanding of work with a sermon from Jai Paul. In it, we’ll examine how our perception of work shapes not only our own lives but also the values we pass on to our children and grandchildren.
Jai explains how work was established by God before the fall as a good and noble calling. Unlike ancient myths that portrayed work as a burden or punishment, the Bible reveals that God Himself is a worker, and that humans were created in His image to work and create.
He explores four key questions:
- How should we work?
- Where did work come from?
- Why is work so hard?
- Can work be renewed?
Join us as we discover how our work can honor God and love our neighbors rather than simply serving as a means to personal gain. We also highlight how training our children to serve is one of the seven essential commitments of discipleship parenting.
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To learn more about Jai Paul and JP Cross Ministries visit: www.jpcross.org
Topics Covered in This Week’s Podcast
05:02 Introduction
09:27 Where did work come from?
19:07 Why is work so hard?
28:31 Can work be renewed?
35:13 How do we work now?
Episode Transcript
Chap: I am Chap Bettis and you’re listening to The Disciple-Making Parent, where we seek to equip parents and churches to pass the gospel to their children. How do you think about your work? Do you love it or hate it? Do you tend to overwork or under work? And just as important, what values are you passing on to your children or grandchildren?
Hi, my name is Chap Bettis and I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent. And in the United States, in the month of September, we celebrate Labor Day. The holiday was originally created to recognize laborers in our country, and it has since become a marker for the end of the summer, at least here in New England. But on a larger scale, it’s a prompt for us to think about a theology of work. All of us have a theology of work, and that understanding will influence how we work and how we train our children or grandchildren.
Well, in The Disciple-Making Parent, I argue that one of the seven commitments that we ought to make is to train our children to serve. You can find that in chapter 18. Yes, serving around the house and in kingdom work is good. Jesus said It is more blessed to give than to receive. You see, it’s actually a way that we display love for our neighbor and we display God. Work is ennobling and it’s also ennobling for our children. And yes, I know part of their work is to play. I absolutely agree with that. But they also gain a sense of significance and unity as they contribute to the running of the household and the household of God.
Well, recently I heard an excellent topical sermon on work, and as I was listening, I was thinking in my own life about how the world presses in on me with unbiblical ideas of work. And then I thought, Man, if I feel that impact, then certainly you, the listeners of this podcast, feel that as well, and that plays out in how we parent and how we disciple. So I want to encourage you to take a listen to the sermon by Jai Paul.
Jai is an elder at my church. He also has a wonderful ministry called JP Cross Ministries, which seeks to make theological truth simple for you and me. And you can find a link to his ministry in the show notes. Jai was born in Bangalore, India and he also grew up there. He completed his Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering in India and came to the US to pursue a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. After graduation, he started working in the medical device industry, and he also has a Master’s in Applied Mathematics. More recently, he obtained a Master of Divinity degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He’s married to Beena, who our church also loves dearly.
Well, I also know that no one sermon can cover everything. So this one is weighted towards work in the job place, but it also can apply to our labor to build up the church or labor in the family. Certainly, as I’ve said before, moms may be some of God’s hardest-working disciple makers, and that enabling call to imitate God and create overflows into other areas as well. God can and does use all of us to produce in a way that glorifies him and loves our neighbor. So take a listen to this podcast and then cast that positive vision for our children., for ourselves, and yes, even the teen that’s struggling with motivation.
Well, before we start, I want to remind you of two resources that may be of interest to you. The first is our newest book, Managing Your Households Well: How Family Leadership Trains You for Church Leadership. In it, I do a deep dive into thinking about current church leaders and future church leaders, thinking about how they are called to develop and display relational wisdom in their homes. So buy a copy for your pastor. If you’re a pastor, I’d encourage you to buy a copy, or if you’re currently an elder or deacon or aspire to those offices, then pick it up wherever Christian books are sold. The book is Managing Your Households Well, and don’t forget to check out the online bonuses.
And of course the second resource that we always highlight is we give away the audiobook for The Disciple-Making Parent absolutely free. Just visit our website and sign up for our weekly newsletter, and we’re going to give you the whole audiobook for The Disciple-Making Parent for free. So you could listen to chapter 18 I referenced without even buying the book. So head on over to our website for your free audiobook. But for now, let’s listen in as we think about a biblical and godly understanding of work.
Jai Paul: As Kevin said, my name is Jai Paul. I’m one of the pastors here, and this morning we will be doing a topical sermon and we want to see what the Bible has to say about work. But before that, let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, as we turn to your word right now, Lord, we need your help. We pray, Lord, that we will hear you speak. And Lord, we also pray that you will give us understanding through your spirit. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
It is Labor Day tomorrow, and what a perfect Sunday to talk about work. In a lot of ways it is the beginning of new things. Schools start, colleges start, and we begin 10 long continuous months of labor. No more leisure, and many companies also begin their financial year after Labor Day and so on and so forth.
I read somewhere, and I agree, that it is ironic that we commemorate work on Labor Day by doing exactly the opposite, not working. I don’t think we do this for any other holiday. I mean, imagine on July 4th we have the British come and rule over us for one day, or imagine on Thanksgiving Day we spend all day complaining. But on Labor Day we rest.
I’m not sure if you thought about this, but work is something a lot of us would rather not do if we could. Notice I said a lot of us and not all of us- there’s always an exception to the rule. When I was finishing my undergrad in India, someone asked my friend what his dream job was, and I was blown away by his answer because I’d never thought of it in that way, but his answer was getting paid for doing nothing. His answer was getting paid for doing nothing. Now, who wouldn’t want that? If we could find a source of income for the rest of our lives without having to labor for it, I’m sure 99% of us would sign up to do it. And maybe that’s the reason the lottery industry and the gambling industry are doing so well today. Aristotle said that the end or the goal of work is leisure. The only reason we work is so we can have enough money not to work. And often we see work in the same way as a means to an end. The end could be anything. A new house, retirement, a new car, a better lifestyle, so on and so forth.
But this morning we want to know, what does the Bible say about work? And the Bible says that yes, it is a means to an end, but not to a personal end. But rather, it is a means to honor God and to love our neighbor. No matter what work we do, our work matters because it is a means to honor God and to love our neighbor. So we will be looking at various passages this morning, mainly in Genesis. And then we will switch over to Colossians. But if you are taking notes, the outline of our sermon will ask these four questions: Where did work come from? Number one, where did work come from? Number two, why is work so hard? And if work is so hard, number 3, can work be renewed? And finally, question number four, how do we work? So those are the four things that we want to look at this morning.
So first, where did work come from? Work, as some of you might know, is a pre-fall reality. God instituted work when he created Adam and Eve. And this was before sin entered the world. Look with me in Genesis chapter two. If you have your Bibles, you should probably find it on page two of the pew Bible or page one in Genesis chapter two, after God created Adam. We read in verse 15, “The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it.” Other translations will say, “cultivate it and keep it.” The word used for “work” or “cultivate” in the original language also denotes the word for service. So God wanted Adam to work the garden or to serve the garden, not as a servant, but more like how a nurse would serve a patient, to do what was needed so that it is maintained.
Adam was called to use his talents for God’s glory to name the animals and to guard the garden. Eden was Adam’s training ground to learn, and as they multiplied, which God also commanded them to do, Adam would apply what he learned in the garden to the rest of the earth. Theologians will often call this edenizing the earth. This was Adam’s call even before the fall.
Now, there are other creation stories also, which portray that humans were created to work. One of the creation myths in the Mesopotamian region was the enuma elish. And according to this myth, the gods created the world and then they created humans. You know why they create humans? Because they realized that the earth needs to be maintained and taking care of the earth was beneath the gods. So Marduk, the chief of the Gods, says, I will bring into being a lowly, primitive creature, and I will call him man. To him shall be charged the labor so that the gods may have rest. Man was created to work so that the gods will not have to do hard labor. It was a burden that was placed on humans. Work was painful and tiring and beneath the gods.
Another one of the creation myths is Pandora’s box. I’m sure many of you have heard it. It is a myth where Pandora was given a box by Zeus and she was told not to open it. But Pandora, she could not contain her curiosity. And then she opens the box and out of the box come all kinds of evil, and all of them fall on humans. And one of them was work. You see how work was considered evil and not as something good. But the Bible shows God first as a worker. Creation is God’s work. Psalm 19:1, and it should be on your screen, says that the heavens declare the glory of God and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands. And in Genesis chapter two and verse two, we also see that on the seventh day, God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. We see that God is a worker.
And that is what the Bible tells us from the very first chapter. This is his nature. You know, when we think about God’s nature, we think about love, we think about mercy, we think about his power. We think about his forgiveness, his justice. And a few weeks ago when we listened to the sermon on friendship, we saw how God is a relational being with perfect relationship between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the same way, the Bible shows us that God is a worker and that is his nature, and that’s why Jesus said also in John chapter five and verse 17, “My father is still working and I am working also.” God completed his work of creation, but he still continues to work, continues his work of providence. As he upholds all things by the power of his word, and more than that, he is continuing to work in redemption as he regenerates dead sinners.
You see, God is a worker and one of the important works of God is his creation of humans. Remember, God got his hands dirty when he made man from the dust. He fashioned man from the ground and he breathed life into him. It was not beneath the God of the Bible to work to get his hands dirty. He was the first farmer, the first sculptor, the first quantum physicist, the first engineer, or as Lenny would say, the first train driver, the first surgeon, the first teacher, and so on. God is a worker. And he made us in his image and in his likeness to be workers like him. Just as we heard in Kevin’s sermon that God being a relational God made us in his image to be relational and enjoy friendships, he also created us to be workers just as he is a worker. Psalm 104 is a creation psalm, and the psalmist lays out how God created all things, and he says that one of the reasons God created man is to work. Psalm 104 should be on your screen there. Verse 19 and following says, “He made the moon to mark the festivals. The sun knows when to set. You bring darkness and it becomes night. When all the forest animals stir the young lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God, the sun rises. They go back and lie down in their deaths. Man goes out to his work and to his labor until evening.”
Now, this does not mean that night shift is evil. Please don’t read it that way or come to that conclusion, but it’s just showing the cycle of life which God created. And as part of the cycle of life, it shows that man was made by God to spend a significant amount of his time working. God’s will for mankind is to work. In fact, work is very good in God’s eyes and not evil as the other myths portray it. You see, after God created Adam and Eve, he instituted work and he told him to subdue the earth, and after that we read in Genesis 1:31 that he saw that it was very good.
So how do you see work? Do you see work as portraying your maker and reflecting his nature? Or do you despise work and consider it evil? You know, when we work and when we create things, we are engaging in our God-given calling and our being his representatives on earth. Think about all the things that you see around: buildings, roads, bridges, cars, computers, microphone, speakers, furniture. Did any of the other creatures create this? Was it the dog or an elephant, or the lion? Did any of them create this? No. Why? It’s because only humans who are creators, because we are the only ones who are created in the image of God to reflect our ultimate creator. So when you are working, no matter what you do, you are showing forth the likeness of your maker. So do not despise your work and do it with joy and a sense of purpose.
This also means that no work, as long as it is non sinful, is less than the others, and we will look at this later. But we have to remember that we were created to work for God’s glory to be his representatives. However, we all know the reality of the matter is that work is not easy, is it? And it is hard for us to work, and that is why sometimes we see it as evil or something that’s not good. And at this point you might be wondering if God instituted work and if it is supposed to reflect his nature, then why is work so hard? And that brings us to the second question in our outline. Why is work so hard?
To answer that, turn with me to Genesis chapter three. Genesis chapter three tells us that Adam and Eve were deceived by the devil, and they ate from the tree that God had forbidden. Immediately, their eyes were opened and they were ashamed. When God confronts them, they start deflecting. And what follows are God’s curses. Look with me in Genesis chapter three verses 17 through 19. “And God said to the man, because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you to not eat from it, the ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you are taken from it. For you are dust and you will return to dust.”
God curses the ground because of Adam and Eve’s sin, and he also curses their work. Because of sin, we became enemies of God. God’s image that he put in us was marred. It was not completely destroyed, but it was marred. And this included our ability to work and to be fruitful as God intended for us. You see, when God wants to do something, nothing in heaven or on Earth can stop him. Psalm 1:35, “He does whatever he pleases,” but when we want to do something, the elements, they fight us and they prevent us from achieving our goal. God has given us enough ability to overcome it, but we struggle and it is not easy. We toil in pain. We have to deal with the weeds and thorns and unfertile ground.
You might have heard that everything is tending towards decay and disorder. Systems are not 100% efficient and in this cursed, fallen world we live in, disorder is increasing. And consequently, we are fighting against all the elements of nature to create various things. And it is not just that we fight the elements because of the curse, but even our own motivation for work is marred and misdirected. You see, there was no evil in the world before the fall. As long as Adam and Eve did not eat from the tree, everything they did was pure and holy. But after the fall, after sin entered into the world, everything humans do is now tainted with sin.
And this is why God concludes in Genesis chapter six and verse five, that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time. And this included our work as well. Work becomes a form of idolatry and the height of work as an idol comes to us in the story of the Tower of Babel, where humans decide to build a tower to reach the heavens. Look with me in Genesis chapter 11 verses one through four. The whole earth had the same language and vocabulary. As people migrated from the east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, Come, let’s make oven fired bricks. They used brick for stone and asphalt for mortar. And then in verse four we read, they say, come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves. Otherwise we will be scattered throughout the earth. You see that there is technology and human flourishing. There is a lot of good work that they’re doing, but there’s also selfishness and self glory in their work. They did not do it for the glory of God. They did it so that they could make a name for themselves. Work, which was a good gift from God, was now being used to gratify the flesh and even in defiance of God.
And this is the reality even today, and we see this all across our lives. Also that work becomes a means of status. It becomes a means of money, prestige, power, and other selfish ambitions. See, we chase after jobs for the sake of our own glory and not for God’s purposes. This is what sin does in us. Every good thing that God has given, because of sin, we corrupt it and we use it for our own glory to exalt ourselves and to make ourselves equal to God just like Adam and Eve did. Augustine called this phenomenon incurvatus in se. It is a Latin phrase that means “curved in on oneself.” Everything we do curves in towards ourself. And Martin Luther in his lecture on sermons, he writes, “Our nature by the corruption of the first sin being so deeply curved in on itself, that it not only bends the best gifts of God towards itself and enjoys them, rather even uses God himself in order to attain these gifts. It also fails to realize that it’s so wickedly, curvedly, and viciously seeks all things, even God for its own sake.” Dave Harvey, in his book Rescuing Ambition, talks about this fallen ambition and says that when it curves in, it has a tendency to launch out. He writes, “Ambition has a driving tendency to push outward to amass new glory, but instead of launching great deeds in the service of God, we are more likely to launch massive monument building campaigns for ourselves. Our work is the best candidate that we use to build these monuments for ourselves. We get so invested in it that we start seeing our identity in our work.”
I wonder if this is true in your life and in my life. You know, there is a very easy test for us to see if we find our identity in our work. When you succeed at work, does it get to your head? Are you satisfied or do you start yearning for more and that is all you can think of? Remember Tom Brady when they asked him which one of his Super Bowl rings was the best? Remember his answer? He said, “The next one.” It’s always the next one. The next achievement, the next accomplishment. Nothing ever satisfies. On the other hand, when you fail, do you get heartbroken and do you get so depressed that it affects all other areas of your life, your church life, your prayer life, your marriage? Do you get so depressed that you are not able to think about anything else but just your failure in your work? Do you think of yourself as a failure and inferior to others?
If I’m honest, I can say that I have been on both sides and both are unbiblical. It reveals that we look at ourselves through the lens of our work because of sin and because of the curse work has the potential to curve us in on ourselves and to take us away from God. The only way we can work in the way God intended for us is if the curse is removed and when our work is renewed.
So the question is, can our work be renewed? Can this curse be renewed? And that brings us to the third question: Can work be renewed?
Look again with me in Genesis chapter three. After the fall in Genesis three, God did not just pronounce curses, but he also gave us a promise. In Genesis chapter three in verse 15, God promised that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. And we see in the New Testament that this seed was Jesus. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, true God, became true man and dwelt among us, and he did not come as royalty, but he came as a worker. He was born in the house of a carpenter and worked as a carpenter. He worked with his hands and underwent all the struggles that people experience. He was tempted just as we are to make his work his identity- to create furniture and find his glory in it to boast that he was the best carpenter ever, the goat. To cheat, to deceive people and charge people more. To slack off and skip work, so on and so forth. Everything that we are tempted with in our work, Jesus was tempted to do also.
However, the Bible tells us that he did not sin, he did not give into any of these temptations. Rather, in all things, he did what was right. But the Bible also tells us that he did not become man just to work as a carpenter. His true work was to redeem God’s people and to redeem all the areas of our lives, including work. You see, Jesus knew that he was on the earth on mission to do the father’s work. He said in John chapter four and verse 34, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. And again, in John chapter six in verse 38, he said, I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. In everything Jesus did, what was the will of the Father? And it was the father’s will to crush him and to put him to death on the cross as we read in the gospels. God did this because of our rebellion. Because of our sins, Jesus bore the punishment that we deserved upon himself. Isaiah says in chapter 53 that all of us, like sheep had strayed our own way in every area of our lives. We sought our own glory, our own will, our own selfish desires, our own way. We had no concern for God’s will or for his glory. And that is what sin does in us.
If you’re not a Christian, we are really glad that you’re here and that you’re listening to this. I’m sure you can see the truth of this in your own life. You are striving for success in your work or you might have already achieved it, but it is not to glorify God or because you’re seeking to fulfill God’s will as we have been considering this morning without a relationship with God. We work and toil to fulfill our own plans to further our own kingdom. And this is because of the sin living in us, which controls every action. The only way for us to get rid of our sin and the only way for our work to be renewed and for us to be redeemed is when someone takes this curse away from us. As long as we are under the curse, our work will be a burden and it will be sinful, and thanks me to God that someone was Jesus Christ. He redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us. He took all our sins upon himself. He was condemned and was beaten. A crown of thorns was put on his head. Remember the curse. In Genesis three, the Earth would produce thorns and thistles because of God’s curse. Now Jesus bears the thorns on his head as a symbol of bearing our curse.
He became the curse for us. He was put to death on the cross and buried, and his death paid in full for all the sins of God’s people and all of God’s wrath, which we deserve. We know this because he rose again from the dead. He did not remain dead, and his resurrection is the evidence that we now have fellowship with God, that we have been redeemed, and not just that our work has been renewed, and now God calls all people everywhere to repent and to turn away from our own sinful ways, and to turn from seeking our own glory and to believe in the finished work of Jesus, to call upon him as Lord and Savior. If you are still looking to build your own monument and living for your own, for your own purposes, then this call is for you. Turn to him today, and if you are someone who has been united to Christ through faith and repentance, then you should rejoice that you have been redeemed and because your work has been renewed, we are not under the curse anymore. Praise God. Because Jesus took it all and in Him we have life in all its fullness.
But that does not mean that this creation will not oppose us, or that everything we touch will turn to gold. Remember Paul says in Romans eight, that creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. But that will happen when Jesus Christ comes again in glory.
So what of work until then? How can we work in a renewed way? This is what we will consider in our final point. How do we work now? How do we work now? Because of Jesus’s finished work and because we have been redeemed from the curse, we are now able to work as God intended even before the fall for his glory and for his purposes. The question is how do we do it? We could spend a whole series of servants, and there’s so much material out there to talk about work, but this morning, we will look at just one verse as we think about how can we work in the way God intended us to work. So please turn with me to the Book of Colossians, which is in the New Testament, the book of Colossians, chapter three and verse 23.
This is a passage where Paul writes instructions to the slaves, or in our context, it would be workers, employees in the Colossian church. He writes, whatever you do, do it from the heart as something done for the Lord and not for people.
There are three things that Paul is instructing workers to do. First work from your heart. He says that in verse 22. Also, if you look just one verse before verse 23, he says, do it wholeheartedly. The first thing Paul addresses is the heart. Our work should be a heart matter and not just an external act. If you look through the Bible, the heart is described as the seed of all our desires. Our innermost desires come from our heart, and when and when Paul addresses the heart, he’s addressing our desires. We should do our work wholeheartedly. We should want to do our work. We should be invested in our work, and therefore we should do it well as redeemed people.
As Christians, we should be the best employees. I’m sure you’ve heard this before. We should put our full effort into our work and not be lazy. Are you a chef? Then cook from your heart and do it well. Are you a CEO of a company? Manage the company from your heart and lead it well, Tim Keller often uses this analogy and he asks, how can a Christian pilot do his job well? By landing the plane and landing the plane in such a way that it can be used again, right? And that is how a Christian pilot can do his job well. So whatever you do, whatever your work is, do it with your heart and do it with integrity and do it well.
The second thing Paul reminds us and tells us is that we are to do it as something that is done for the Lord. You see, as is commonly thought in our world today, work is not for ourselves. But we work for the Lord, just as Adam did in the Garden. We work knowing that God is our master. It is to fulfill his purposes, that as we work, our work when offered to God becomes our worship in our workplace. It is a sweet offering to the Lord because our intention is to please him. Remember Eric Liddel in Chariots of Fire as he was talking to his sister, that he was going to China as a missionary, but he also tells her that God also made me to run, and he tells them, tells her that when I run, I feel God’s pleasure. Can we say that about our work? When we work, do we feel God’s pleasure? Is it as unto the Lord where it is a worship to him? You see, we don’t just worship when we gather as a church, which we are called to do, and we don’t just worship when we are singing or listening to a sermon. No, a life lived before God seeks to do all things as worship to the Lord. And that includes our work.
Also, Paul tells us that no matter what we do, no matter what work we do, we are to do it for the Lord. And this implies that there is no work that is less than the other as long as it is non sinful. This is a common misconception that certain jobs are better than others. Or certain jobs are more respectable than others and more valuable than others. Now, clearly this is not the message of the Bible. In Psalm 1:46, we read that it is the Lord who executes justice for the exploited, and it is the Lord who feeds the hungry. Now, think about it. How does the Lord feed the hungry? Does he make food miraculously appear on a platter before the hungry? Or how does he deliver the exploited? Does he miraculously stay the hand of the wicked who are oppressing the weak? That is not what happens on a daily basis, is it? No. Instead he does it through other humans, through the work that we do as humans. Food is grown by farmers. And it is harvested and traded, and distributors ship it to all parts of the world. And someone has to take those grains, take the vegetables, take the meat, and cook it, and then it is ready to be eaten. So everyone in this chain is actually doing God’s work and providing for the hungry.
You know, Martin Luther, he had a lot to write on the doctrine of vocation. And he says, even the little maid who milks the cows is doing God’s work. Think about the people who clean and keep the city clean. Imagine if they started thinking of it as a horrible thing and stopped cleaning the city. We will all die because of bacteria and all the germs and the unhealthy living conditions. Is that less than anybody who’s working as an engineer? No. So you see, no matter what work we do, when we work for the Lord, as a consequence, we are also working for the benefit of society. And in this way, our work becomes a means to also love our neighbor. So don’t despise your work.
Now the same thing could be said about pastoral or ministry work and secular work. You see, often we think of secular. When we think of secular work, we see it either as a place to evangelize and spread the gospel or as a way to earn money so that we can support gospel work. Now, there’s nothing wrong with either of those, but often God places us in our respective workplaces just to get the work done, like the pilot. And when we do it as unto the Lord, we can bring him glory. Consider Joseph in the Old Testament. He was not a prophet or a priest. He was a prime minister who advised the Pharaoh and he stored grain for the famine that was coming. Through him, God sustained the line of Abraham through which the Messiah was born. Imagine if he hadn’t done that. So whether you are in pastoral work, ministry work, or in secular work, when we do all things in a God honoring way, it is for his glory and it is our worship unto him. This also includes those who are at home caring for children or for elderly people.
You know, when we work for the glory of God, no job is mundane, but it is a means to love our neighbor. Wherever God has placed you, we are called to glorify him in the things we do. And if you are retired, it doesn’t mean that you cannot be part of God’s work on this earth. It is a great opportunity for you to use the gifts that God has given you for his glory. Think about it. Is there something that you love to do even if you don’t get paid for purpose, that you can do to honor God, to glorify him and to bless his people?
Thirdly, in Colossians chapter three and verse 23, Paul tells us that we should not do it for people’s praise. Our hearts are always seeking praise, and we want everyone to see how good we are at our work and praise us. As we considered earlier. We seek our glory and everything we wanted to curve in on ourselves. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for doing this. He said that they stand in street corners to pray because they want to be seen by people. They fast and put on a gloomy face so people can see how religious they are, and they give arms to the poor to show how generous they are.
You know, in, in our work sometimes we tend to do the same things. We seek human praise and we will go to great lengths to even achieve it in our work. We compare ourselves to others, and when people are doing better than us, we get jealous. We want to be in a higher position than they are. How could that person be a manager while I am still a low paid employee? We want better than them and seek out positions of power and fame. You see, Paul warns us to avoid this trap. And not to do our work for people’s praise. Instead, Paul tells us in verse 24, the very following verse to verse 23, he tells us that we will receive our reward from the Lord when we work as unto the Lord. We will receive our reward from the Lord.
As you consider your own work, do you see yourself doing it to glorify God, or to seek praise from others? Do you see yourself working wholeheartedly or is it a pain that just gets in the way of your selfish ambitions? Church, we live and we spend at least a third of our lives working and we have a great opportunity to worship God as we work for His glory. As we conclude, let’s remember that God created us to work and when we work, we display God’s image in us. And even though work was cursed in the fall, Jesus has redeemed us. And he has renewed our work, and now we can work wholeheartedly for God’s glory and as a way to love our neighbors. Let’s pray.
Father, we praise you and we thank you for the gift of work that you have given us. And Lord, as we read in Ecclesiastes, even the gifts that we enjoy, the success and the benefits that we receive from work is your blessing to us. Father, we thank you that in this fallen world, you still give us a way to enjoy your good gifts. And Lord, we pray that we will not curve these things into ourselves, but rather we will turn them to you and that we will do our work to glorify you and that our work will be a worship to you. And that you will be pleased in the work that we do. Father, we pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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