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Enjoy this week's devotional!

September 2, 2024

"THE THEOLOGY OF WORK"

     Today (the first Monday in September) we celebrate Labor Day,  a federal holiday established by President Grover Cleveland in 1894 as a time to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the contributions workers make to the achievements and well-being in the United States. Probably few really take time to reflect on the purpose for the holiday, but see it simply as a final day to enjoy summer before the grind of school and the fall work schedules begin.

     Much discussion takes place about work and some do their best to avoid the activity. Many of our young people have grown up never really learning how to do physical work. Is work just a means of making enough money to survive or does it really have a higher purpose?  Since it is not always the favorite of our activities, many joke about work.  The world is full of willing people: some willing to work and some willing to let them!  Some people are like blisters. They don't show up until the work is done.  Robert Frost said, "The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work." Someone else said, "I love work. I could sit around and watch it for hours!"

     You would think work is part of the curse back in Genesis as a result of sin.  While the curse made work more difficult, God's purpose for mankind was to work, to be productive, to be good stewards of the earth He created for us. "And 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; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth' " (Gen. 1:27,28). Man was to "fill," to "subdue," and to "rule over" "God's creation--that meant work!  Then we read in Gen. 2:5,6: "Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth; and THERE WAS NO MAN TO CULTIVATE THE GROUND." So, "The LORD God formed man of the dust from the ground...and took the man and put him into the garden of Eden TO CULTIVATE IT AND KEEP IT" (vv. 7,15).  God gave Adam a reason to live. God's purpose was for man to cultivate, care for and rule over His creation.  That was all before sin occurred.  When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, the ground was cursed by God, death and decay would take place and work would become "toilsome" (Gen. 3:17-19).  That did not mean that work became a curse.  Work was not a result of the Fall.  God's purpose for man hadn't changed. Rather, it meant that work would become much more difficult.   But that work, no matter how difficult, is to be done for the glory of God, and it helps each of us grow and become productive members of society, contributing according to the talents (and spiritual gifts--in the case of believers) that God has given us.

     God put work into your life and He expects you to put life into your work.  All of our work, when done as service to our Lord, has significance.   The Apostle Paul, in writing to the believers at Colossae, said: "And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father...Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord, rather than for men; knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve" (Col. 3:17,23,24). 

     We need money to live in our world, but money's not the prime reason for working and by itself does not make a job useful or purposeful. The worth of a job is not defined by what it allows you to do when you're not working.   Nor is the workplace merely a place to evangelize or earn money to support pastors and  missionaries. The work itself should be productive and done as unto the Lord. A job should employ God-given talents in a way that glorifies Him. He is the One who gave us the ability to work. Again, we are made in His image! People formed in the likeness of a Creator God are naturally creative beings. As we use those creative talents and gifts from God we bring glory to Him and we contribute to society.  

     Yes, the curse of the Fall means that work will be hard, but it does not mean that work must be joyless or purposeless.  "Our position, as followers of Christ, gives every job we do a higher, clearer, ultimately more satisfying sense of purpose" (Paul Nyquist, past President of Moody Bible Institute). A mother mending a hole in her child's pants participates in God's redemptive work just as much as a surgeon removing a brain tumor, or a pastor giving his Sunday sermon. In the program of providential God, the slightest acts of obedience can have dramatic consequences. God calls a few to socially significant roles, and God calls many others to make each act significant by doing it for God. Martin Luther said, "even the lowliest Christian laborer is a Kingdom worker."  That's the "Theology of Work"--everything we do should be done as unto the Lord and for His glory and to contribute to the world in which we live. 

     So, a question: If you got paid as much if you didn't go to work, would you still work?  Unfortunately there are some who wouldn't have to think twice about just living a life of ease and pleasure. But, God made us to be workers and the only way we can be fulfilled and find that significance that we search for, is to be what God made us to be.  We have a sense of value and worth when we contribute, when we are givers, not just takers.  After all, that's the purpose for which we were made.  (Oh, and it does say, "If anyone will not work, neither let him eat" ...II Thes. 3:19...There's that!)

Happy "Labor Day"!
Pastor Dave