The Outpost Church
Three Pillars of Work
  • Overwhelmed
  • Great Is Thy Faithfulness

  • ​

    Big Idea: I want to allow the Bible to realign our vision of work. All work matters! Work is God’s idea from the beginning and will continue on into the New Creation. All work has dignity and whether you are a CEO or a street sweeper, God is honored through our work. Typically, work is only talked about when it concerns how we evangelize through our work and so we are going to get that out of the way up front because the theology of work is so much grander than that. In his book Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, Timothy Keller gives us a grand view of our work and the four basic pillars that should shape the way we see our work.
    ​
    Welcome everyone to our new series entitled “A Theology of Work.” Make sure to remind everyone of the fact that our expedition groups are starting up this week and that it’s not too late to get involved in one if you aren’t already.
    Chicken wing story from deployment...
    And you have all had the chicken wing moment at work haven’t you?…explain (bad bosses, terrible co-workers, not enough pay, even homemakers)
    And so what happens, is our view of work becomes more defined by our circumstances than anything objective. And so our satisfaction is defined by how favorable our circumstances are…explain -
    Let’s say you believe you aren’t being paid enough for the work you are doing and so it causes you to pursue greater salary opportunities. For some of you who have attained that, you have realized that actually, you can be miserable at any income level and dissatisfied
    Perhaps your job is a homemaker raising a few children…something you love dearly. Do kids puking in line at Mcdonalds with one screaming in the car seat on your way to go get them their shots bit…
    I love my job 1000 times more than anything I have ever done and yet there are days when the weight of leadership and personal things I deal with leave me wishing I were like digging ditches for a living…
    It’s bad bosses, slimy coworkers, work that is boring or not challenging, work that doesn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things.
    And so what happens is sometimes the chicken wing incidents turn into weeks that turn into season and all of a sudden, our work become defined more by our circumstances than by the objective reality of work that God’s Word gives us.
    When our view of work is defined by circumstances, we are doomed to dissatisfaction and a constant pursuit of what we perceive to be “better.”
    Did you know the median job length today is 4.1 years. That is down from almost 20 years being the median as late as the year 2000. And it isn’t getting any better either. If you narrow the demographic down to just people between the ages of 25-34 (of which the majority of people in this church fit into), the average tenure is only 2.8 years. Just a little objective data to drive that point home.
    There has to be something more. I speak with a large number of you on any given week. Over the course of a month, I probably talk to around 50% of you and work almost always comes up. What I know from those conversations is that our relationship with work is a HUGE issue that we need to spend some time on.
    Now, over these next few weeks as we talk about this subject there are going to be millions of potential applications that can be made from this theology of work. Each one of you has a unique calling to work. You have unique skill sets, different job situations, different relationships to your bosses, different levels of job satisfaction, and all of that is going to result in different applications of the biblical truths about work we are going to talk about.
    BUT!!!! Before we launch into all of that...
    We need a view of work that is based on God’s design for our work.
    We are going to begin today by looking at three pillars of the theology of work . We are going to look at the objective reality of work as defined by God. These pillars are meant to shape the way we see our work over and above any possible circumstances that are currently defining the way we see and interact with our work.
    ​
    In the first pillar, we see that we are…
    Pillar 1: Designed FOR Work
    Genesis 1:28 NASB95
    28 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.”
    And again in Genesis 2:5-15
    Genesis 2:5–15 NASB95
    5 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. 6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8 The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
    This is known as the creation mandate and describes the work God intends for mankind to participate in.
    From this, we should understand that:
    Work was God’s plan for mankind from the very beginning and existed even when the world was perfect and without sin.
    Check this out though:
    Explain that we have broken the creation and yet, look at what God re-emphasizes to mankind as He is kicking them out of paradise:
    Genesis 3:23 NASB95
    23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.
    Although the nature of our work changed after the fall (something we are going to talk about at length next week), did you notice that the creation mandate still exists? We are still meant to cultivate and work.
    So that is our past and present reality concerning work…but what about our future reality? Well, for anyone who pictures a heaven where we are sitting around on couches eating grapes and plucking harps, check out this vision of the new creation that we get from the prophet Isaiah in Isa 2:4
    Isaiah 2:4 NASB95
    4 And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war.
    The thirty thousand foot view of this passage is that there is coming a day when the tools we use and the work we put our hand to won’t be in competition or struggle with others but will once again be fruitful labor. We don’t hammer swords and spears into farming tools so that we can decorate with them.
    A little further on in Isaiah’s book, he explains this imagery a little further. Check this out:
    Isaiah 65:21–22 NASB95
    21 “They will build houses and inhabit them; They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 “They will not build and another inhabit, They will not plant and another eat; For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, And My chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands.
    Here is what John the Revelator saw:
    Revelation 22:3 NASB95
    3 There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him;
    Our future still includes work! Now, we will get into the theology of why work is currently broken and how it will one day be made right again next week but for now what I want us to take away from these passages is that:
    Work was part of God’s original plan for humanity, it is our present reality, and part of His plan for our eternal future.
    What happens when we miss this truth though?
    John Piper seashells bit. (Ruby Aliason nurse & Laura Edwards Dr. killed in Cameroon as their breaks give out and they go over a cliff and die instantly). Title of the article “Start now retire early” Bob and Penny took early retirement, 30’ fishing trawler, collecting sea-shells… that’s a tragedy.
    Work isn’t some necessary evil that we must endure for 30-50 years just so we can spend our final years sipping cocktails and collecting seashells and skin cancer. Work is God’s glorious purpose for all mankind and is fundamental to our identity.
    ​
    Pillar 2: Dignified THROUGH Work
    To understand what this statement means, we have to go back to our creation mandate.
    Here are the two verses that directly precede the creation mandate:
    Genesis 1:26–27 NASB95
    26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
    This is nothing new. We have talked about this plenty of times before. Pretend you are reading the first chapter of Genesis for the first time. You see God as the workman who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. Then this workman turns to create the pinnacle of His creation in His own image. Since we have not received any physical information about this creator up to this point, our image must mainly derive from what He does.
    We see God primarily working in two ways…as creator and provider.
    We are meant to display God’s image in the world as we participate in the work He created us to do. Now, we have just looked at God’s work as creator, so let’s turn and see what we mean by God as provider. I challenge you to read all of Psalm 104 on your own as an act of worship but I have selected a little snippet from the chapter just to show what I mean by God being a provider. Check this out:
    Psalm 104:10–23 NASB95
    10 He sends forth springs in the valleys; They flow between the mountains; 11 They give drink to every beast of the field; The wild donkeys quench their thirst. 12 Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; They lift up their voices among the branches. 13 He waters the mountains from His upper chambers; The earth is satisfied with the fruit of His works. 14 He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, And vegetation for the labor of man, So that he may bring forth food from the earth, 15 And wine which makes man’s heart glad, So that he may make his face glisten with oil, And food which sustains man’s heart. 16 The trees of the Lord drink their fill, The cedars of Lebanon which He planted, 17 Where the birds build their nests, And the stork, whose home is the fir trees. 18 The high mountains are for the wild goats; The cliffs are a refuge for the shephanim. 19 He made the moon for the seasons; The sun knows the place of its setting. 20 You appoint darkness and it becomes night, In which all the beasts of the forest prowl about. 21 The young lions roar after their prey And seek their food from God. 22 When the sun rises they withdraw And lie down in their dens. 23 Man goes forth to his work And to his labor until evening.
    Listen to this quote by Timothy Keller in his book Every Good Deed: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work:
    “The creation narrative in the book of Genesis is unique among ancient accounts of origins. Many cultures had stories that depicted the beginning of the world and human history as the result of a struggle between warring cosmic forces. In the Babylonian creation story the Enuma Elish, the god Marduk overcomes the goddess Tiamat and forges the world out of her remains. In this and similar accounts, the visible universe was an uneasy balance of powers in tension with one another. In the Bible, however, creation is not the result of a conflict, for God has no rivals. Indeed, all the powers and beings of heaven and earth are created by him and dependent on him. Creation then is not the aftermath of a battle but the plan of a craftsman.”
    Check out this final sentence of the quote:
    “God made the world not as a warrior digs a trench but as an artist makes a masterpiece.”
    It is this masterpiece that we, as God’s image bearers, are meant to participate in through our work of creation and provision.
    Just as the multifaceted nature of God’s work is made evident by the diversity of all He created, so too, we image our creator best through the variety of vocations God has called us to and equipped us for.
    I want you to read that statement again as I read it aloud.
    Here is the bottom line:
    The dignity of our work isn’t based on what we do but on the Creator who’s image we display through our work.
    What happens when we miss this truth though?
    When we fail to understand that all good work (give caveat about Christian mercenaries or abortion doctors) has dignity and value, we inevitably develop a hierarchy of work in what is known as the Sacred vs. Secular debate.
    Talk about Sacred vs. Secular and the Catholic church and the faulty thinking that Doctors are better than the person sweeping streets and pastors being at the top of that hierarchy because their work directly correlates to God’s work...
    I think it is a bit of comedic irony that when God comes to earth, his chosen profession wasn’t a Rabbi. Jesus was our High Priest but that was not his trade. Jesus was a carpenter.
    Jesus’ first disciples were fishermen, tax collectors, political activists, and tradesmen.
    The Apostle Paul who wrote like half the New Testament…he was a leather craftsman and a tent maker. We know from scripture that Paul never walked away from the vocation either. Paul continued to work in his trade-craft long after Jesus called him into “ministry.”
    I want you to think about Paul’s trade as I read these words that Paul wrote to the Colossian church. Hopefully you will see them with fresh eyes:
    Colossians 3:23 NASB95
    23 Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men,
    I think about my wife when I think about this passage. If her job is only dignified if she can openly share the Gospel with students and co-workers then her job really isn’t dignified because she could lose her job if she openly shared the Gospel from the platform in her classroom or in the teachers lounge. That is the same for many of your jobs as well. Now, don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean that you can’t still be a witness in your job through your actions and love for others.
    The idea here is that all good work has dignity and eternal significance when it is done passionately and with integrity as though we were working for the LORD. When we participate in good work, we are carrying out the creation mandate for which we were intended and in which we will participate eternally in God’s Kingdom. Our work is just one of the many ways we get to display the beautiful image of our creator to the world.
    This is a much deeper purpose than anything we can get from work and allows us to transcend the dissatisfaction often associated with our work to find our satisfaction in the one who our work images.
    ​
    On to our final pillar:
    Pillar 3: Work as the Theater of Redemption
    A gardener doesn’t grow a beautiful fruitful garden just to let the crops die on the vine. There is purpose in growing the food…namely to fill empty stomachs.
    So it is with the Creator whom we image through our work. God did not spin all of creation into being just to let it die on the vine. God is taking this creation somewhere beautiful. God has a purpose and is acting to redeem all of creation. The beautiful part of that narrative is that God has chosen to partner with mankind to bring about that redemption. Just as in the Garden of Eden, God has chosen to partner with us as agents of redemption in the world.
    God partnered with one man, Abraham to create a family he would partner with to create a nation he would partner with to bring blessing to the whole world.
    Honestly, I cannot imagine in my wildest dreams what our work will look like in the New Creation. And honestly, God doesn’t really clue us in. I think there are a couple of reasons for this but perhaps the foremost reason is that it doesn’t really matter that much what we are doing as long as we are with Him as we do it. I think it is enough that we know there won’t be futility and fruitlessness in the work we do in the New Creation (that much God does tell us).
    No… I think what matters is that we know what the purpose of our work now is. And there is perhaps no better example of what that work is than Jesus himself. Look at what Jesus says about the work God called him to:
    John 17:1–8 NASB95
    1 Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, 2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. 6 “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 7 “Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; 8 for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me.
    Jesus’ work was a work of redemption and as such, ours should be as well.
    Through Jesus’ work, he made God and His Kingdom evident to men.
    This is a work that Jesus has invited us to participate in as well. Listen to Jesus’ call to his first disciples in Matthew 4:18-20
    Matthew 4:18–20 NASB95
    18 Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19 And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.
    I want to be very careful and very intentional about the language we use to talk about this passage because of how I have heard this passage preached on in the past because language drives culture.
    Jesus wasn’t just using metaphorical language that these men understood. That is far too low of a view of what’s actually happening here.
    Jesus wasn’t calling his followers to a new vocation but the same vocation with new purpose and intentionality.
    We can think that because Peter and Andrew left their nets and went “Full time for Jesus” that is somehow the pattern we should follow. I honestly hate the phrases ‘full-time and vocational ministry.’ They just reinforce the sacred vs. secular problem we are already fighting against. You are all full-time vocational ministers meant to bloom exactly where you are planted.
    God has planted you in a particular neighborhood, in a particular group of friends, and in a particular job that He intends for you to be a missionary.
    Was the Apostle Paul any less impacting on God’s kingdom because he wasn’t full time? I know we briefly touched on this but you do know that right?!? If Paul wasn’t in prison he was working 40 hours a week in the marketplace making tents or working with leather.
    What about Priscilla and Aquila? They were full-time tent makers?
    How about Luke the physician?
    How about Barnabas the businessman and investor?
    How about Lydia the businesswoman and fashion designer?
    ​
    Here is the bottom line.
    You are meant to be pink spoons.
    Do Baskin Robins bit...
    God’s Kingdom is a place of redemption, beauty, satisfaction, rest, justice, and relational harmony and we are meant to bring that reality to earth through our work. This is our works grand purpose.
    So be pink spoons.
    This is the part where there are a million different applications. There are a million different ways to be pink spoons in your vocational calling. And while we will talk much more about the outworking of this in week three of this series, I don’t want to leave you without giving a practical example.
    READ SHERMAN 110-111.
    I have put her last quote up here on the screen for all of you to read:
    “With each step I take, it becomes more clear to me that these two paths, as an architect and as a disciple, are not meant to be walked separately and independently of the other. The longer they overlap and intersect, the further they intertwine and correspond, the more alive I become and the greater glory He is given.”
    You want to know what’s beautiful about that story for us? None of you are architect designers. At least not that I know of. Nope. You are in the military, you are accountants, bankers, truck drivers, daycare workers, baristas, landlords, doctors, computer programmers, teachers, nurses, meteorologists, biologists, leaders of businesses and non-profits, electricians, physical therapists, machinists, students, plumbers, retail workers, and homemakers.
    And each one of those vocations have a million different ways that allow you to be pink spoons through your work. You just have to have the correct vision for work to begin seeing how that can happen. It must be a vision that transcends the often-times bad circumstances of work and instead is rooted in God’s vision for our work.
    ​
    One final thing then we are closing it out.
    Do you know why God planted a garden paradise and then invited mankind to partner with Him to cultivate it through our work? The short answer is:
    So that we would experience the greatest degree of human flourishing that would result in our worship of and love for our glorious Creator.
    I have already shown you how God still desires the same thing and yet we often make our work about something else. When our work becomes primarily about profit, or job satisfaction, or feelings of accomplishment, our concern for human flourishing that leads to God’s glory and people coming to know him instantly suffer.
    What happens when profit is king? Well our history would show that we aren’t beyond enslaving people to maximize it. What happens when human flourishing and the proponents of God’s kingdom are the most important influence for our work? Do profits suffer? No! Not at all. In fact we want to provide our investors with the greatest return and our employees with the greatest payout. We want to take care of our customer and our supplier alike. Profits still matter, its just that we aren’t willing to shortcut human flourishing to get there.
    ​
    And so I think the question that really matters…the question we need to think about and talk more about in our expedition groups is this:
    Who do you ultimately work for?
    If your answer to that is the military, the name of a school, the name of a hospital or some company, or even yourself, you’ve missed something critical about the way you were created. You’ve missed something critical about why you work. You’ve missed something critical about the dignity and eternal value that your work holds.
    It probably means your view of work is shaped more by circumstances than what God has said about your work.
    Your work matters. Your work has dignity and eternal value. Your work is meant to show the world God’s Kingdom and offer of redemption as we image our savior through our work.
    Will you pray with me?
    ​
    ​

      • Genesis 1:28NASB95

      • Genesis 2:5–15NASB95

      • Genesis 3:23NASB95

      • Isaiah 2:4NASB95

      • Isaiah 65:21–22NASB95

      • Revelation 22:3NASB95

      • Genesis 1:26–27NASB95

      • Psalm 104:10–23NASB95

      • Colossians 3:23NASB95

      • John 17:1–8NASB95

      • Matthew 4:18–20NASB95

The Outpost Church
(360) 567-6759
http://theoutpostchurch.org
35 members • 49 followers