How We Work – September 6, 2026

My name is Rick.

The Old Testament reading is found in Genesis three, verses seventeen through nineteen.

To the man he said, Because you listened to your wife's voice and you ate from the tree that I commanded, don't eat from it.

Cursed is the fertile land because of you.

In pain you will eat from it every day of your life.

Weeds and thistles will grow for you, even as you eat the field's plants.

By the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the fertile land, since from it you were taken.

You are soil.

To the soil you will return.

The word of the Lord.

Whatever you do, do it from the heart, for the Lord and not for people.

You know that you will receive an inheritance as a reward.

You serve the Lord Christ, the word of the Lord.

Hello, my name is Adam.

If you're able, please stand for the gospel reading.

It's found in John chapter 15, verses 5 through 8.

John 15:5–8

I am the vine.

You are the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, then you will produce much fruit.

Without me, you can't do anything.

If you don't remain in me, you will be like a branch that is thrown out and dries up.

Those branches are gathered up, thrown into a fire, and burned.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want, and it will be done for you.

My Father is glorified when you produce much fruit, and in this way prove that you are my disciples.

The gospel of the Lord.

So these words will be on the screen.

Let's pray this together.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.

Amen.

Why don't you grab a seat?

Good morning.

My name is Stephanie.

I'm one of the pastors here.

If you're joining us online, I wanted to say welcome.

We're so glad that you're able to join in this way, but we miss you.

We hope to see you again soon.

And for all our kids in the room, this is All Generation Sunday, which we have like a handful.

If you're an elementary student or a middle school student, would you raise your hand?

Woo! You guys got a round of applause.

You guys were so glad that you're with us this morning.

Oh my son, he was like, it's me, I'm here.

We're so glad you guys are with us this morning.

You are just as much part of our church as anyone.

We believe that the Holy Spirit can speak to you, can speak through you.

And so this morning, as you're coloring or as you're listening, or um, I just want to invite you to continue to ask the Holy Spirit, what are you teaching me?

What do you want to speak to me this morning?

We're so glad you guys are with us this morning.

Well, we as a church, we hold to the statement that we are a community of disciples formed in a common faith, through a common life, and for the common good.

And we're currently in a series right now called the common good.

In the book of Jeremiah, it says to seek the welfare, the shalom, the peace, the flourishing of the city.

So through this series, the common good, we're specifically looking at how to do this both in two ways, both through our work, through our vocation.

We're talking about that for a few weeks.

And then we'll spend a few weeks on how do we share, how do we contribute to the common good through our generosity, through our giving, and in that sort of way.

So we're still in work today.

We're jumping back into this conversation.

How many of you ever played the game Life?

Life.

This game has been around for 40 years.

We just got a new edition.

It still takes as long as it used to.

Um, but in the game of life, one of the first things you do is you draw a work card.

Everyone has to work.

There's no bypassing this.

You can go to college and you can work, or you can just go straight into the workforce, but you have to draw a work card when you start this game.

And these are the jobs that you can draw.

They're all very self-explanatory.

Um, you know, sometimes you ask someone, what do you do for work?

And they tell you, and you're like, I have no idea what that means, or I have no idea what you do.

All of these jobs are very self-explanatory.

So these are the cards you can draw in the game of life: a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, a police officer, a teacher, a firefighter, a video game designer, which one of my kids said would be the best, a veterinarian, a rock star, cool.

A chef, an athlete, a secret agent, or a fashion designer.

And maybe some of these are represented here today.

Do we have any secret agents in the room?

Right?

Oh, my husband is a secret agent.

Awesome.

Cool, good to know.

We'll talk later.

Um, are probably represented in this room, but the reality is that that is not the scope of the work that is represented in this room, right?

We know that there are so many paid and unpaid jobs that people have that we contribute to the common good with.

If you're a student, then going to school is your work.

If you are a stay-at-home parent or a caregiver, then this is your work.

This is what God has called you to do right now.

And I've been thinking about a lot of you the past couple weeks as I've been thinking about work and just thinking about the ways you spend your time, the ways you spend your days, the jobs that you have.

And I know for some people, this conversation about work can feel kind of tricky or can feel kind of limiting.

And so I just want you to know as we talk about work and my goal today, um I pray that that's not the case.

I pray that the Lord will show you that whatever you do, that there is something that He wants to work in you through it.

If you're unemployed, if you're looking for a job, that's your work right now.

You know that that can be hard work.

Some of you are injured or you're in a season of recovery.

Your days look different right now.

Your work might be going to appointments, meeting with doctors, meeting with nurses, working towards that health and that healing.

That is your work right now.

So we're all doing something.

We're all doing something in this space, in this work.

We all draw a work card.

Paul talks about work in Colossians 3 in this verse.

This was originally written to slaves in the first century, but the church throughout history has applied this to this larger conversation of work.

And we just heard it read.

It says, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters.

And maybe you had a parent or a grandparent say this to you when you were younger and you were doing chores, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart.

But think about that verse.

In whatever you do, you are working for the Lord.

Whatever you do, whatever season you're in, whatever you're doing with your days, this is your work.

You are invited to follow Jesus in and through that time spent.

Richard Foster says this so beautifully about work.

He says, work in another every is another everyday place for incarnational living.

By work, I am referring not merely to our job.

I am referring to what we do to produce good in our world.

I am referring to our vocation or our calling.

Now I must bear down on this point of our work as the place for living sacramentally.

While some have this special calling to pastor or priestly work in order to equip the people of God, the calling or vocation for most is smack in the midst of the workday world.

This is where we learn to do our work, as Jesus would do our work if he was in our place.

And that's such a good question.

How are we doing our work?

How would Jesus do our work if he were me?

If he were you, if he were in your place.

So, in whatever you do, this is the question.

And last week we talked about the why of work.

We talked about the very beginning, Genesis 1 and 2.

God starts, he teaches us, he demonstrates work from the very beginning.

He creates, he worked, he created order out of chaos, out of void, and he created us, humans, to join him in this work.

And he said, it is good.

And we were made to work to reflect God's image, God's rule, and to contribute to the common good of our world.

And in Genesis 2, God gives humans free will, autonomy, choice.

And he says, you can eat from any tree that you want except for one.

And you know where we're going to Genesis 3, where they choose to eat from that tree.

And it spins all that chaos, all that back into existence, all the order that God had created.

It's broken.

There's sin, there's brokenness, there's disorder now.

And in Genesis 3, we see the fallout of that choice.

God says to the man, Because you listened to your wife's voice and you ate from that tree I commanded you, do not eat from.

This is what happened.

Cursed is the fertile land because of you.

In pain you will eat from it every day of your life.

Weeds and thistles will grow for you, even as you eat the fields' plants.

By the sweat of your face, you will eat bread until you return to the fertile land, since from it you were taken.

You are soil to the soil you will return.

So Genesis 1 and 2, we see God made work for good, and work was perfect for about two pages.

And then so in that time, Adam and Eve, they were with God, they were walking with God, they could easily pick and harvest their food.

The earth, it cooperated with them to produce exactly what they needed.

But now, Genesis 3, the earth is working against us.

It's now there's weeds and thistles and thorns in that work.

We see there's toil, there's labor.

The sweat of your face is understood by many scholars as this expression of anxiety, as perspiration-inducing fear.

And this wasn't just for farmers, although their work is more difficult now, too.

This is representative of all of our work, all of our human work, all the ways we labor, the ways we build, the way we create, all of our work.

What happened in Genesis 3, it affects every area of our life.

And today we're talking in particular about how that affects our work.

So the why of work, it hasn't changed.

Right?

We were made to work with God, reflect his image, contribute to the flourishing of the world.

But the how of work has changed.

Because of sin, it's more difficult, it's more frustrating, it's broken.

There's thorns, there's weeds, there's thistles in it.

It's never as fruitful as we want.

And it's often a complete failure.

This is why so many people inhabit the extremes of idealism and cynicism, or even ricochet back and forth between these two poles.

See if this sounds familiar to you.

Idealism says through my work, I'm gonna change things, I'm gonna make a difference, accomplish something new, bring justice to the world.

Cynicism says nothing really changes.

Don't get your hopes up.

Do whatever it takes to make a living.

Don't let yourself care too much.

Get out of it whatever you can.

So you can see this Genesis one, two fighting with this Genesis three, right?

And I don't know about you, but I can totally resemble both of those and the swinging back and forth that work can bring.

So again, whatever you do, your paid, your unpaid work, there's these weeds, these thorns, these thistles that show up in it now.

It's less efficient, it's less fruitful.

They also show up in the things that maybe don't have to do with your work, but are around your work, circumstances, relationships, frustrating co-workers, a difficult boss, a messy organizational structure.

Earlier this week, when I was just even writing my message, I was writing on a Google Doc that was connected to my internet, and all day long my internet kept dropping.

And it was so frustrating.

It was freezing, it was stopping.

I was trying to do my work, and these exterior circumstances were making that harder.

We all have days like that, right?

Where it feels like nothing goes right.

So there's challenging.

We're exhausted.

For a stay-at-home parent or caregiver, this can feel like the exhaustion at the end of the day, and you worked all day, but feel like, what did I get done?

Or for someone who's unemployed, it can look like searching for a job, filling out applications, navigating the uncertainty of unemployment and finances.

These thorns can show up in that rejection, the uncertainty of what's ahead.

So we experience these challenges out here because of the fall, because of brokenness.

But the brokenness, it isn't just around us.

It's not just exterior.

We also find it inside.

The brokenness is also within us.

See our sins, our wounds, our past experiences, the patterns that we've learned from our families of origin.

They can shape the way that we see ourselves, the way we see God, the way we see others.

And we can become bent away from God's good design.

And that obviously then can get carried into our work.

So maybe you learned as a child or as a young adult that your worth comes from how productive you are.

Maybe you watched a parent that was a workaholic that worked constantly.

You were taught that rest is lazy.

Maybe your work has been a source of conflict or instability in your home, or maybe with your spouse, or maybe you've just experienced difficulty, failure, rejection, or even burnout.

And so now you carry that into your current work.

We can also be shaped by the generations that we grew up in, right?

My grandparents had a very different view about work than my generation does, right?

You found a job, you work it for 40 years, end of story.

But my generation changes careers three to four times while we're working.

So there's multiple things that we're learning about success, ambition, money, status, what makes life meaningful.

And then we carry all the outside things, the things that we would say don't have anything to do with our work, right?

Our families, finances, parenting, relationships, health, just these normal day, everyday life things that can get carried into our work.

So work was created for good.

But because we are broken, we can take something that was good and bend it towards something it was never meant to be.

So through work, we can often look for our identity, our worth.

We can resent work and see it as a burden.

We can work to avoid things we don't want to face.

We can pursue success at the expense of people we love or at the expense of coworkers.

So we see that these thorns, these thistles, they're out there, but they're also within us.

It's a pretty inspiring message so far, right?

So but but part of us as Christians, as Christ followers, reimagining what does work look like?

What does I what I do on an everyday basis?

What does this look like for me as a Christ follower?

Is allowing Jesus in this, in our work, to renew our minds, heal the brokenness, heal the woundedness, and begin to restore this understanding that we have about work, how it was meant to be, and how we can live into that now.

So I want to ask you this question: how, how do you work?

Not why do you work, but how do you work?

This question applies to all of us, whether you're a fourth grader, whether you're retired, whether you're a therapist, a barista, an Amazon driver, a construction worker, a pilot, a homeschool parent, whether you work for a nonprofit, whether you work for a really successful company, how do you work?

In whatever you do, how do you work?

Dorothy Sayers, who was a theologian and scholar, she wrote an essay in the 1940s during World War II.

It's called Why Work.

You can find it online.

Um, one of her main points in this essay is that the work itself, the work itself, whatever you do, it matters to God.

And she famously wrote, the only Christian work is good work well done.

So in whatever you do, it can be good work well done, and it can contribute to the common good.

But this only can happen if we don't hold our work and our life with Jesus as separate.

Right?

How we work should be bringing them together.

Even with these exterior and interior thorns, how we work should be paired with how we follow Jesus.

So wherever you're at, whether you're a student, whether you're retired, I want to give you a couple thoughts that I think apply to all of us in our work, in our everyday work.

We do good work, as Dorothy Sayers says.

We do good work when we remain rooted to Jesus.

Our faithful abiding in him, it affects every aspect of our life.

It affects the way we work, it affects the way we treat people, it affects the way we handle difficult situations, the way we understand our own worth.

Jesus says that when we remain in him, we find stability.

We grow fruit, we grow mature, we can find healing from our brokenness.

Not because it's easy, not because our circumstances become easier, but because we're connected to him.

We're connected to the source of life.

And when we remain in Jesus, this is what allows us to approach our work differently.

So instead of allowing these thorns around us to determine how we work, we continue to come back to Jesus, to find our identity in him, to find our strength in him, to find our purpose in him and in his kingdom.

And to allow the Holy Spirit and invite the Holy Spirit into everything we do.

So good work is not simply doing Christian things, but doing our work like Jesus would, faithfully, honestly, creatively, excellently.

We do good work when we stay rooted in Jesus.

We also do good work when we faithfully steward what he has entrusted to us.

Jesus tells a story about a master entrusting different talents to his servants.

The master leaves and then he comes back and he sees how they have stewarded these things.

God has entrusted something to you, to each of us.

And in the context of work, he's entrusted to you a place, a workplace.

Maybe that's your home, maybe it's an office.

He's entrusted to you a set of responsibilities, a circle of peers or coworkers, people that you interact with regularly on a daily basis.

He's entrusted something to you: a place, people.

He's planted you there for a reason.

And what God has entrusted to you, it's different than the person next to you.

What he's entrusted to you, it's different.

And also those thorns, those thistles, those challenges, those are different from the people around you, too.

But the question is, what am I doing with what God has entrusted to me?

The place, the people, the responsibilities.

How am I taking care of that?

In the Bible, we we know that Jesus was a carpenter, right?

Which means he built tables and chairs and furniture.

Can you imagine the quality, the care, the detail, the sweat he put into those things?

Those were likely the best chairs, the best tables.

This is our invitation as we enter our work.

Are you stewarding what God has entrusted to you?

Lastly, we do good work by allowing the Spirit to form us through it.

Because God is not just interested in the outcome of our work, He's interested in who you are becoming through it.

And the thorns that we find in our work, these are now the invitation for our formation, for our transformation.

But if all we care about is just getting the job done, getting the results we need, blowing over people, earning the money that we want to earn, we're limiting what God could do.

We're limiting the formation that could come from partnering with God in our work.

So how are you being formed through your work?

Maybe right now God is teaching you patience.

Maybe he's forming in you humility.

Maybe he's teaching you to trust him and not hold so tightly and control everything around you.

Maybe he's inviting you to become more courageous or more generous or more compassionate with others that you work with.

It's often in the difficult, the mundane, the repetitive tasks that we find the best time to turn to Jesus and say, What are you trying to teach me?

What are you forming in me through this work?

Paul says in First Corinthians that when we give ourselves to our work, when whatever we're doing, when we give ourselves to this work, our labor is not in vain.

So it's so important to hear that our work does not have to be done in vain.

Our work matters.

The beauty we create, the problems that we solve, the way that we help bring order from chaos, none of this is insignificant to God.

And it can all be used for the common good.

It has eternal implications.

And we know that even though our work is still marked with those thorns, those thistles, those weeds, those challenges on this side of heaven, there will come a day where God will make everything new, and where those thorns will not have that final word.

We sing this verse every Christmas in the song Joy to the World.

We sing, no more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground.

He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.

So we can partner with Jesus now to extend this good, to bring his kingdom here, to bring the good, the beautiful, the true to our kingdom, to earth now, his kingdom to earth now.

We partner with God in the renewal of all things by bringing this good news of Jesus into the places where we've been planted.

I'm gonna invite up Brock and the worship team.

This is something we're reminded of every time that we come to the table.

Jesus did not stay distant from our brokenness.

He did not stay distant from this.

He entered into it.

He began this good work of new creation.

He invites us to join him in it.

And so that's what we're reminded of when we come to the table.

And if hearing about work, again, if this is challenging for you, if you're looking for work, if you're unable to work right now, I just want to encourage you that this time is not wasted.

This time is not wasted.

Your vocation is not your value.

And there are still good works to be done.

There is still good work.

There's people to love, ways to serve, people to pray for.

You can still do good work in this season as you partner with God.

So as we close, I just want to give us a few minutes.

I asked a lot of questions in this.

So I just want to give us a few minutes to pause, to allow the Holy Spirit to speak, and just to pray some of these things.

So would you close your eyes?

I want you to ask God, how am I rooted right now in Jesus?

Are there places specifically in my work that I've I've pulled away from being rooted in you that I need to come back and surrender those things to you?

Holy Spirit, we pray that you would speak.

Bring these things to mind, God.

What do we need to surrender to you in our work?

I want you to ask God, how am I stewarding what you have gave me, have given me in my work?

How am I stewarding it right now?

Lastly, I want you to ask, Holy Spirit, what do you want to form in me through my work?

What do you want to form in me?

God, we pray these words that we prayed a few minutes ago.

We pray that your kingdom would come, that your will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Let that be true.

Let us help with that, God.

May we partner with you in all aspects of our lives, God.

May we give you glory, may we give you worship in all that we do.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.