Making Good Work

Good morning, everyone. My name is Steve. I'm Senior Pastor here at St. Paul's, and

it's my delight this morning to work, to bring this message of work to you. For those of you

who are new here today, this is the third of our series in work, and it's a delight to be able to

stand here and do it, and yet to get to this point has been a source of great frustration

as well. So let's pray that'll come into clarity as we go through. Father God, we thank you

for the security, the significance, the meaning, the hope that we have because of what you have

done for us in the Lord Jesus and who we are, that we are your beloved called children. Father, we pray

that that reality would shape all of our lives, that our vocation being called by you to put our

trust in you would impact the vocation, the places that you put us day by day in this world to work

for you. Use your word today to shape us and to give us hope and to put our primary hope in you

and not in anything else that you've called us to, and we ask it for your sake. Amen.

Studs Terkel was an American author and historian and actor and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer

Prize in 1985 for his book, The Good War. He also wrote a book on work, and in the introduction to that

book, he wrote, work is about violence to the spirit and the body. It's about ulcers and accidents.

It's about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog. Above all, it's about daily humiliation.

To survive the day is a triumph, enough for those walking amongst the great many of us.

Well, that's a bit pessimistic.

He expresses something of the incredible amount of frustration and pessimism there is about our

working life. As I said last week, it doesn't matter what your frontline is, which is what in this series

we're calling our vocation, our work, the place that God has put us. It doesn't matter if your frontline

is in your home or in the classroom, it's on the factory floor, it's in a national park, it's in an office

cubicle. Work can be a source of purpose and dignity and also a source of enormous frustration.

Dealing with difficult customers and a demanding boss or inclement weather or a family's mountain of

laundry or a two-year-old or an elderly parent lingering unemployment, over-employment,

underemployment. It can rob your day of joy. Every day of joy. Of course, that's the flip side of the

message that I preached two weeks ago about the dignity of work where we see right from the very

start of the Bible, God is a God of work. We too, created in his image, were created to work.

It's astounding to, against the pessimism that we have and the frustration, it's astounding to realize

that in the Bible, that work is in fact part of God's blessing and not part of the curse.

Each one of us has been assigned our vocation by God to work out his purpose in the world.

We were created to work, that is to exercise dominion or, if you like, rulership over God's

creation under him. Our experience, therefore, of work is both one of dignity and purpose,

as well as difficulty and frustration and meaninglessness. That is, we flip and we flop

between idealism and pessimism in our daily experience. The difficulty of work has its origin

in Genesis 3, that passage that Jimmy read out to us there, where Adam and Eve decide to reject

the authority of God over their lives. In God's address to Adam, in his response to his part,

Adam's part of the rebellion, God says this about work. To Adam, he says,

because you listened to your wife and you ate from the tree about which I commanded you,

must not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil, you will eat of it all

the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of

the field. So there's the positive and the negative. It's toil, it's hard work, it's thorns,

it's thistles, but you will eat of the fruit. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until

you return to the ground, since from it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will be

returned. And that was my experience cutting the grass yesterday. It was great to cut it, it was

great, it looked good afterwards, but man, it was hard and sweaty work and I just saw weeds everywhere.

I sat back in the day and said, that looks good, but it was hard work. The word curse here is used to

describe a new reality. It's the massive and devastating effect on work. The curse means that

the very nature and the context of human work has now changed because of sin. Work is now toilsome,

it's difficult. Thorns and thistles will bring sweat of exertion to the forehead. The whole landscape of

human existence has now been altered. There is an intense groaning and a weariness and a burden

upon human existence. Evil and sin and death enter the world and they have a ravaging effect

on creation. We are broken people living now in a broken world. And there is a number of ways

that our work is impacted because of sin. The first, our work becomes fruitless. That is, we will be able to

have a vision for far more of our work than we will ever be able to accomplish.

Both because of a lack of ability and because of resistance to the environment around us.

The experience of work will include pain and conflict and envy and fatigue. And not all our

goals will be met. In fact, a whole heap of them will be unmet. For example, you may have an inspiration

to do a certain kind of work and perform a certain level of skill and quality, but you may never get the

opportunity to do what you want. You may desire to be the number one tennis player in the world.

And that will always be frustrated while there's a guy named Roger Federer and Nadal and, you know,

the other guy, the number one guy.

I could see him, but I can't.

Darkovich, that's him. The other guy who I can't remember and pronounce.

While ever they're there, there will be a frustration for your plan to be number one tennis player in the world.

Your conflicts with others in the work environment will sap your confidence and undermine your productivity.

You may hope to make a real contribution to your organization or to work with distinction,

to be regarded as an expert in your field.

You may aspire to change the world, to make a major improvement in human society,

to have a lasting impact on culture.

And most people achieve none of that, if not very few of those goals in their lifetime.

And even those who do will sense that their true aspirations are thwarted as often as they are reached.

The second impact of sin on our work is that it will become pointless.

There's a haunting sense that our work really doesn't have much significance at all.

You see that expressed in Ecclesiastes 2, verses 17 to 18,

Ecclesiastes 2:17–18

where the writer says,

So I hated life because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me.

All of it is meaningless.

It's a chasing after the wind.

I hated all the things that I had toiled for under the sun

because I must leave them to one who comes after me.

So the writer there is deeply disillusioned with his work.

And as a consequence, disillusioned with his life.

What's the point of all this work and this toil,

when in the end, I just hand it over to someone else?

Someone else gets the fruit of my labour.

I work hard, build it all up.

And my son buys the Ferrari.

And all this causes many to have a very negative view of work.

How do we get satisfaction in the light of all that's against us?

Well, the same writer says in chapter 3, the next chapter in Ecclesiastes, verse 13,

To find satisfaction in all their toil, this is the gift of God.

It's the gift of God.

The writer concedes that satisfaction in work in a sin-ravaged world

is always and only the miraculous gift of God.

And yet, strangely enough, this same writer says that we have a responsibility,

in fact, to pursue the gift through a particular kind of balance.

He says this in chapter 4, verses 5 and 6 of Ecclesiastes,

The fool folds his hands and he ruins himself.

Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.

What he's saying there is that tranquility, rest, without toil, won't bring satisfaction.

That is, to win the lotto and to not do anything with the rest of your life will not bring satisfaction.

He says, neither will working really hard without any form of tranquility or rest.

He says, there needs to be both toil with tranquility.

That will result in purpose and satisfaction and meaning.

And how you get that balance in life is one of the main themes of the Bible.

The New Testament reveals that the ultimate source of the tranquility that we seek is, in fact, Jesus Christ.

Who, because he toiled for us on the cross, can offer us the true rest and tranquility that our souls are longing for.

Jesus said, Matthew chapter 11,

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

Come to me, all who are weary and burdened.

We've just sang this.

Just sung it.

Come to me, all who are weary and burdened.

I'll give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I have found it so...

Oh, oh, oh.

See, that passage is the deepest picture of what can happen to our work when we meet Jesus.

When Jesus calls all people to himself, he says that he knows that we are weary, that we are burdened, and that we need rest.

But Jesus' cure for our weariness in Matthew chapter 11, verse 30, is a burden.

Matthew 11:30

And a yoke.

And a yoke.

And a yoke.

In verse 29.

It's not to escape all burdens and yokes.

It's not to have complete freedom and do whatever I want.

It is, in fact, a burden and a yoke.

The yoke or the harness which was put on a bullock of burden, the beast which plowed a field, was a symbol of slavery and of grinding toil.

How could this possibly be a solution to the problem of deep weariness?

Jesus says that it is his yoke and his burden that is the only one that is light.

It's the only easy one.

Why?

For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, verse 29.

Matthew 11.

It's only light because of the one who gives it to us.

He is the only boss who will never drive you into the ground.

He is the only audience that does not need your best performance in order to be satisfied with you.

Why is this?

Because his work for you is finished.

That's why.

His work for you is finished.

In fact, the very definition of a Christian is someone who doesn't just admire Jesus, doesn't just respect Jesus, doesn't just desire to emulate Jesus, doesn't just obey Jesus, but someone who rests in the finished work of Jesus.

That's a Christian.

Do you remember that God was able to rest in Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 to 3?

Genesis 2:1–3

I said this last week, maybe the week before.

He was able to rest because his work was finished.

His creative work was done.

And a Christian is able to find rest from toil only because God's redemptive work is likewise finished in Jesus.

When our attempt to find satisfaction and significance and meaning has been satisfied by the Lord Jesus,

all that's left for us to do is to serve the work that we're being given by the Father.

You see, far too many people in our world, and maybe it's even you sitting in here today,

you're not just doing the work that draws the salary.

You're not just doing the work that raises the child.

You're not just doing the work that cares for a family member.

But you're also doing the work under that work, which is attempting to chase away the feeling of insignificance

and purposelessness and meaninglessness.

Through that work, you're trying to solve that job down there.

That's why that is our identities attached to it.

That's why we introduce ourselves with, I'm Stephen, I'm a minister.

I'm Bill, and I'm a this.

I'm Jackie, and I'm a that.

That is, what we're doing, we're doing the work under the work.

You're attempting to work for something more,

for something more that is more meaningful and deeper than just the work that you're doing.

You're working for hope and security and identity and significance through the vocation.

But it will never give you the rest that you need.

In Jesus, we find rest for our souls, and without it, all other work will be unsatisfying.

Never be able to relax, even when you're supposed to be resting.

You won't ever be able to walk away from your work, even for an evening.

Won't be able to enjoy the satisfaction that God intended when he called us to the work that he prayed for us to do.

Because we're hoping that that work will give us what only God himself can give us.

A classic example of how this might look like in reality, in practice,

is in the film Chariots of Fire, which is a real-life story.

One man, there's about two main characters.

One of those characters ran in the Olympics, and I quote,

to justify my existence.

While the other man had such a deep rest in Christ,

that he could miss, likely miss, a gold medal by not running on a Sunday,

because his commitment to Jesus meant that he had rest already.

He didn't need the gold medal to find that.

The first man had to get a medal because he was running to find satisfaction.

The second man, devoted Christian, Eric Liddell,

did not care in the same way whether he won the Olympic medal or not,

because he had rest.

He had his satisfaction.

He had his meaning.

He had his purpose.

He told his sister that God had made him fast.

And when I run, when I run, I feel his pleasure.

It doesn't matter whether I win or not.

He ran for the joy of running itself,

and to delight the one who gave him the gift of running.

The gold medal was inconsequential to him.

You see, when we have rest, we have significance,

and we have acceptance and security,

in Jesus, we are set free to work well.

Jesus' finished work of salvation is the work that catapults us

to work well with dignity,

even when it is hard,

as it was for those who were receiving Colossians 3,

Colossians 3:22

verses 22 onwards.

This is revolutionary teaching in Colossians 3,

to slaves.

The dehumanizing nature of slavery was vast in the Roman Empire.

Ancient historians estimate that there were some 60 million slaves

in the Roman Empire.

Half of the population.

Half of the population.

Work was considered below the dignity of slave owners,

and it was below the dignity of the Roman culture.

Practically everything was done by slaves,

including doctoring and teaching.

Now, while there were some good relationships

between slaves and slave owners,

on the most part, that was not the case.

Ancient tradition, dating back to Aristotle,

classified slaves as things.

They were regarded as tools.

Not as people.

Tools.

The Romans classified farm implements

into three categories.

The articulate,

the inarticulate,

and the mute.

And the articulate were the slaves.

They were regarded as tools,

farm implements.

A later Roman writer

recommended quite a grim action

when a Roman landowner

bought a new farm.

His suggestion was

that you tossed out the old slaves to die

because they were broken tools.

And so most did.

So the situation of slaves in general was not good.

It was terrible.

Hardship.

Hopelessness.

Hopelessness blanketed the lives

of millions,

tens of millions

in the ancient world.

And Christianity's preaching

of the British work

of the Lord Jesus Christ

with his explicit doctrine

of the equality of all people

raised the hope.

and also created

an awful lot of society tension.

Particularly between slaves and masters.

The advice of the Apostle Paul here

was revolutionary.

Because in time,

it actually brought down

slavery as an institution.

But it was immediately revolutionary

that it actually brought fullness

to the Christian life

of whether you were a slave

or a master.

And if you go a couple of verses before,

parents,

wives,

children.

It's all in the same context.

Look at the revolutionary teaching.

Firstly,

because of the finished work of Jesus

that gives us satisfaction,

security,

fulfillment,

rest,

slaves

and us

are set free

from people pleasing.

Verse 22,

slaves,

obey your earthly masters

in everything

and do it not only

when their eye is on you

to win their favor.

Now, of course,

Paul's not encouraging submission

to immoral and hurtful

commands.

And yet everything,

the word everything,

is so encompassing here.

Slaves were very often

asked to do

the most debased

and demeaning things.

And so this is a tough command,

especially when it's linked

with the very next phrase

which says,

not only when their eye

is on you

and to win their favor.

It literally means

eye service.

Eye service.

It's working

that is only done

when the boss

is looking.

We all know

what that's like.

You know,

you're at the gym

and you're,

you know,

you're in a gym class

and you're hiding

down the back

and the instructor

comes near you,

you're doing push-ups

and all of a sudden

you can do 10 of the best.

And when they,

when they got,

you know,

the feeling,

you know,

when you think

you're getting scored

in some way,

you can produce the best.

Eye service

results in

half-heartedness.

I'm trying to please

someone out here.

The room is swept

but the dirt

is brushed under the carpet.

Work breaks

get extended

until the boss

returns.

The finished work

of Jesus

motivates us,

enables us

to work

with sincerity

of heart

with all

of your heart

and this high call

here makes

no distinction

between the pleasant

and the unpleasant

tasks,

the dull

or the challenging,

the menial

or the interesting.

It simply states

that everything

must be done

energetically

from the heart

whether the boss

is present or not

because the boss

is always present.

do it

as working

for the Lord.

And if that high call

stood by itself

it would be

supremely,

supremely

debilitating

and impossible.

But it's accompanied

by an enabling

rationale

so secondly

because of the

finished work

of Jesus

that gives us

satisfaction

and security

and fulfillment

and rest

slaves

and us

are set free

to work

wholeheartedly

because the work

that we're doing

is in fact

spiritual work.

Verse 22

work

sincerity of heart

reverence for the Lord

whatever you do

work at it

with all your heart

as working

for the Lord

not for men.

Some of us

shuffle

meaningless

mounds

of paper

around

some dig holes

and fill them

back in again.

some can see

nothing noble

in the task

that you're

performing

they are

nevertheless

serving God

as you work.

This truth

transformed

the work

of the Christian

slave

in the ancient

world.

His

nothing

tasks

were actually

noble

in a culture

that disregarded

them.

They were

actually noble

when done

for Christ

because he

has been

set free

by Christ.

It's interesting

that Christian

slaves

invariably

brought

higher price

at slave

auctions.

This radical

preaching of

Paul

so transformed

Christian

slaves

that the

higher price

was paid

for them.

The pagan

slave

served his

master

because he

was bound

by fear.

He never

knew when

he was going

to be executed

because he

displeased

his master.

The Christian

slave served

his master

better than

anyone because

he was bound

by the love

and the acceptance

and the freedom

of Christ.

Working

hard at

our tasks

from the

heart brings

glory to

God.

Christians

ought to be

the best

in attitude,

the best

in dependability,

the best

in integrity.

Thirdly,

because of the

finished work

of Christ

that gives

us satisfaction

and security

and fulfillment

and rest,

slaves and

us are now

set free

to work

with the

hope that

our work

will be

recognized

and rewarded

in the end.

It's not

just about

handing it

over to the

next person.

Work with

all your heart

because,

verse 24,

you know that

you receive an

inheritance from

the Lord

as reward.

It is the

Lord Christ

you are

serving.

It is the

Lord Christ

you are

serving.

To the

first century

slave,

that bit

of news

was fantastic

because under

Roman law,

it was illegal

for a slave

to inherit

anything.

they were

a tool

that was

disposed

of.

All their

labor just

came to an

end and

that's it.

And yet

here,

they learn

that they

would receive

a reward.

God rewards

faithful workers

forever.

This ought to

be an

encouragement

to us

as it is

to them.

Whatever your

lot in life

is,

God pays

you so

well.

He pays

you so

well that

when we

get to

heaven,

we will

wish that

we just

worked more

and better

for him.

Now,

notice that

this instruction

to these

Colossian

slaves sits

within a

section of

hard and

controversial

instruction to

Christians living

to wives and

husbands and

children and

fathers and

masters and

slaves.

In other

words,

in one way

or another,

all of this

teaching will

jar.

But the

empowerment and

the fuel and

the energy and

the motivation

to live this

life came from

the rest of

chapter 3.

This is coming

at the end of

what has

happened before

in chapter 3.

Verse 1 of

chapter 3,

since you've

been raised

with Christ.

Verse 3 of

chapter 3,

your life is

now hidden

with Christ.

Verse 4,

when Christ,

who is your

life,

appears,

then you will

also appear

with him in

glory.

Verse 12,

as God's

chosen people,

holy and

dearly loved.

And then

verse 16,

just before

this section,

let the

word of

Christ dwell

in you

richly.

In other

words,

and more

specifically,

for that

verse,

let the

gospel,

let what

Christ has

achieved for

you,

his finished

work on the

cross for

you,

dwell in

your heart.

May your

vision be

the gospel.

May it be

your focus

and your joy

and your hope

and your

treasure.

When your

heart comes

to know

hope in

Christ and

the future

that he has

guaranteed for

you because of

his furnished

work,

when you are

carrying his

easy yoke,

you will

finally have

the power

to work

with a

free heart.

You can

accept gladly

whatever level

of success

and accomplishment

that God

gives you in

your vocation

because he's

the one who

has called

you to it.

You can

work with a

passion and

rest,

knowing that

ultimately the

deepest desires

of your heart

will only be

fulfilled.

when you

reach your

true home,

your inheritance,

the new

heavens and

the new

earth.

And so,

brothers and

sisters,

whatever you

do, whether

in word or

deed, do it

all in the

name of the

Lord Jesus

Christ, giving

thanks to God

the Father

through him.

Amen.