Prayer

Our Lord and our God, we thank you for the world that you've made and for the constant supply of good things that you give to us. Lord, we pray as we live this day that you've given to us.Be merciful to us. Forgive us and help us. Lord, we pray as we begin to consider this topic of work, that you would help us to see our work, our vocations, from your perspective, that we may honour you in all that we do. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Reading

Genesis 2:15.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

Meditation

What do you do for work? In the average lifetime of someone who works a full career, that person will spend about one third of their life working. That is a significant chunk of the time that you have on this earth! One third of your life. If you’re a home-maker, I daresay that your work is an even larger portion of that time. Here’s another question to think about: Why do you work? What is the purpose of that third of your life? Why do we do it? What will we achieve through it?

For many people in the world today, work is seen as a necessary evil and a drudgery. From a biblical perspective, and even from a practical perspective, it’s an absolute tragedy that people live like that. Who wants to spend one third of their lives on something that they believe is a waste of time?

I actually think that even in the church we have taken on a lot of worldly thinking when it comes to our work, and as we explore this topic in Genesis 2 in the next few meditations, we’re going to begin by doing a bit of theological demolition work. As 2 Corinthians 10:5 puts it, we need to destroy a few lofty opinions that have been raised agains the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Demolition and reconstruction is needed on our theology of work, and Genesis 2:15 gives us God’s original blueprint for a new building.

We’ve been seeing in our meditations on the Edenic narrative, that God’s purpose is for life to grow, flourish, and increase. In chapter 2:15-25, we begin to find out just exactly how that is going to happen. In a big picture sense, this section shows us that life will grow, flourish, and increase through service, wisdom, and relationships. Chapter 2:15 begins this by looking at service, or work.

Let me then give you the big picture of work now, before we dive down into more detail in later studies. Life will grow, flourish, and increase because life – by nature – is itself service. Life is service, and the very first thing we need to see about this service is that it is a gift from God. Work is not a drudgery, it is a gift from God! Verse 15 makes this clear: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

Work wasn’t something that we invented, it was part of God’s design for creation. God put man in the garden, and God gave man the task of working and keeping that garden. Straight away that goes head-on against what the world will tell you about work. People in the world work for all sorts of reasons: to make money, to pay the bills, to try and find meaning in life. As Christians we must begin with this basic view of work: that it is a gift from God.

Be ye doers of the word…

There is a simple point of application that flows out of this: treat your work as God’s gift. Now, the question is: How do we do that? Firstly, it means that we ought to be thankful for our work. Give thanks to God for your work regularly! Ecclesiastes 3:13 says: “everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.” Work is a gift of God’s common grace, and to be without work is to lack purpose, provision, and all manner of other things. Work is a blessing.

As believers, we ought not to be like the world which is thankless to God for the gift of work. Even more, we give thanks because our work is also redeemed by Christ. As Christians we have a fuller vision for work than the world can ever hope for outside of Christ. Our work will not disappear when we die, but will go on to bear fruit unto eternity. Indeed, Christ is with us in our work, which is why Ephesians 2:10 says: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” All the work of unbelievers is passing like the wind, as Ecclesiastes says, but our work in Christ will endure.

Secondly, serve God with your work. Seeing that work is a gift from God, we should self-consciously use our work to glorify and serve God. Thus we read in Colossians 3:23 “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” Our work is not separate from our faith, we must rather see our jobs as service to God. I don’t mean by that that our work is a mere platform for evangelism, as if the only reason you should get a degree in engineering is so that you can evangelise engineers. Your work isn’t just a platform for sharing the gospel, it’s a vocation for living the gospel.

Martin Luther once put it like this: ““The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.” Serving God in your work means you pursue excellence in what you’re doing. Each one of us should consider that: Do I pursue excellence in my work? Give thanks for your work, and serve the Lord with your work. These are the foundations of a seeing your work from God’s perspective. SDG.

Prayer of Confession & Consecration

Our Lord and our God, we pray that you would please forgive us for the negligence that we have exhibited in our work. Lord, we have not used the gift of work as we ought to. We have not thanked you for our work and we have not served you with our work. Lord, please forgive us for these sins and help us. Lord, to give thanks to you for the gift of work and to work hard in the things that we do, in service to you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

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