Grace and the Workplace.
Grace picture of grace often means we celebrate our freedom and acceptance on the
weekends, but then it’s back to being a slave to the grind Monday-Friday.
There’s a gap between our eternal security and day to day grind.
We live as if there’s a whole slice of the spectrum of our lives that is sometimes
untouched by our faith and God’s grace.
We pastors point to “THE” way to serve God at work.
Excellence- Make excellent products.
Evangelism – Make disciples of your coworkers.
Engage – Make use of your voice in culture.
Just three of many good things that people make the main thing.
Better phrased as “A” way to serve God at work.
Each of these factors can take different forms and levels of importance based on the
career path…
And the biggest gamechanger remains after Easter and goes with us to the workplacethat gamechanger is GRACE.
LUTHER - “I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the
righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith… Here I felt that I was altogether born
again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of
the entire Scripture showed itself to me.”
Luther’s stance on vocations and work was a 180 from what was commonly believed in
the church at the time- that only work in and for the church could qualify as God’s work.
Luther’s stance on work was impacted by his stance on grace.
Grace properly grasped means we operate from assurance, not for approval.
If religious works were crucial to gaining approval and good standing with God, then
there would always be a difference between those in church ministry and everyone else.
But if religious work didn’t earn favor with God in any way, then it should be seen as
superior than other forms of labor.
But where ancient monks and priests may have sought favor through religious works.
In our culture, many people seek their own version of salvation - self-esteem and selfworth- through career success and climbing career ladders.
But just as we don’t have to prove ourselves to God, we don’t have to find security or
prove ourselves in our careers either.
So… why work?
Ecclesiastes – a book where the author searches for meaning in life.
The central problem is in the third verse of the book–
“What do people get for all of their hard work under the sun?”
We may not phrase it that way… but we may echo it when we ask:
- Is there more to life than this? Does my work really matter? How can I better
connect my work and my faith?
The key is to understand the story we are a part of. A story that doesn’t end in our death.
Pastor and Author Tim Keller defines worldview as a sort of defining narrative =
What should our lives in the world look like? How are things supposed to be?
What knocked it off balance? What is the main problem?
What can make it right again? What is the solution?
Why do we want to work? Are we created for this?
Then why is it simultaneously sometimes a royal pain and the last thing we want to do?
How do we solve that tension?
God inaugurates work in Genesis. The work of Genesis is manual labor!
The word for “work” isn’t some special Hebrew word. It’s the same word used for
regular human work.
Work isn’t a necessary evil ushered in later on.
Work isn’t something beneath God that He passed over to us.
Jesus says in John 5:17 - “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am
working.”
AFTER THE RESURRECTION
Acts 1 – bear witness. In Acts we see the church walking out this calling.
Acts 6 – Stephen’s calling to be a waiter.
Acts 6:1-8
In this passage, echoing the points we just saw about God’s work in creation, we see four
sides of work that deserve attention and application:
DESIGN – we were designed for work. We were created in the image of a creative,
working God. But we were created for both work AND rest.
The Twelve could have taken on the responsibility of caring for the widows.
Clearly we see elsewhere in Acts that the leaders in the church didn’t exclude other roles
and acts of service. Paul- for instance- built tents.
But they also didn’t fill every bit of time with work and service.
Jesus himself is found taking naps in the Gospels.
God also demands that we rest. He himself took a day to rest and instituted the Sabbath as
a law for his people.
MARK 2:27 - NLT - The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not
people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.
The problem he was addressing was the fact the Pharisees had turned rest into legalism.
In fear of becoming like the Pharisees turning rest into legalism, many have thrown out
weekly rest- the practice of Sabbath- saying we don’t need to meet that requirement.
But the Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people- and we still have the need!
Guess what- if I don’t rest, I won’t make it!
Just as Ecclesiastes finds that championing work is chasing the wind,
championing leisure and pleasure above all else is equally futile.
We were designed to do both.
Leisure seems good until you lose your job and your ability to work and you’re stuck
with it. Then you realize you’re designed for both.
Work is such a part of our design that we’re designed to take a lot of it without harm.
The pattern isn’t 6 days of rest with some work thrown on.
It’s 6 days of work with a seventh to rest.
As God did it, so do we.
We’re made in his image. That speaks to our dignity.
DIGNITY –
The value of human life- our dignity- is found in the fact we were all- man and womancreated in the image of God. In a similar way, the value of work is found in the fact we
were created in the image of a working, creative God.
Stephen in Acts 6 – was waiting on widows. He was a waiter.
It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on
tables. (Acts 6:2, NIV) “We apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God,
not running a food program.” (NLT)
It’s hard to get around- is that a tone of condescension? As if waiting tables is a lower
task and less meaningful?
To elevate sacred over secular work would insult the dignity God has placed on it.
Acts 6:2 – the word for “serving” tables is the same as used just verses later in “serving”
the Word in verse 4. Whether working in the word or putting food on tables, it’s serving.
The life of community depended on service, and the author Luke doesn’t elevate one
above the other.
Stephen was clearly one of the greatest orators and preachers in the community. Scripture
shows him as such! Yet God’s will placed him serving tables. And he used him there.
God himself elevates the dignity of the work of serving tables to preaching the word.
Jesus himself built tables. Jesus, the Nazarene day laborer.
Our central Christian holidays point to the cradle and the cross, but we can’t skip over the
carpenter shop. Jesus spent more time in carpentry then in vocational ministry!
The fact he spent so much time working with his hands affirms the dignity of our work,
whatever shape it may come in…
In Genesis God is a gardener. A landscaper.
In the Gospels Jesus is a carpenter.
1 Corinthians 7:17 - Paul counsels people that when they become Christian its
unnecessary to change what they are doing in life- marital state, job, or social standing…
In a society that overly stressed status symbols (sound familiar?) this was striking.
"Only let each person lead the life that the LORD has assigned to him, and to which
God has called him.”
ASSIGNMENT AND CALLING
The words used by Paul are key.
Because in the same letter, the same two words used in his famous passage about the
body of Christ. The same way one is called and assigned to serve the body of Christ, we
too are called and assigned with various gifts and talents to the building of community
and culture.
DEVELOP –
Stephanie Burch’s retirement ceremony after 25 years on the police force…
Suffolk is a different place because of her.
Her work speaks to our calling to develop culture through our work.
It’s not just for police or service men.
Author Lester DeKoster puts it this way:
“Imagine that everyone quits working right now! What happens. Civilized life quickly
melts away. Food vanishes from the shelves, gas dries up at the pumps, streets are no
longer patrolled, and fires burn themselves out. Communication and transportation
services end, utilities go dead. Those who survive at all are soon huddled around
campfires, sleeping in caves, clothed in raw animal hides. The difference between a
wilderness and culture is simply, WORK.”
Work doesn’t just care for creation, it directs it. It structures it. It forms a culture.
We’re called to fill the earth in Genesis. But that speaks to not just procreation, but
civilization. He didn’t want to just create a species. He wanted those humans to go on and
create society. And he didn’t just create a bunch or people in cities to accomplish that.
He left the work to us.
Even in exile, God called his people to cultivate culture. When the Israelites were in exile
for another 70 years, God says to his people through the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 29:
This is what the God of Israel says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from
Jerusalem: “Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they
produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have
many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and
prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare
will determine your welfare.
If he wanted to Israelites to build and serve the culture, even in exile, how much more
does he want that where we are today? Clearly, to work towards that is our duty.
DUTY - to serve –
To develop a culture, we serve the needs of others. It’s our duty.
Working within a culture is a powerful reminder that we aren’t alone and we weren’t
created to be alone.
We were created for relationship. Work is relational.
It’s creative service. Our abilities serving others.
Stephen was actively serving people, loving his neighbor, being the vehicle that delivered
God’s daily bread.
“People aren’t projects.” – should filter from the church to the workplace.
People aren’t contacts. People aren’t clients. People aren’t customers.
They’re people first. They’re people Jesus died for.
Competent work is a form of love.
Story of pilot landing a broken plane…
What mattered was that he did his job with excellence.
Ecclesiastes 9:10 -Whatever you do, do well.
Colossians 3:23-24
“Work as if you are serving the LORD…”
We don’t have to prove ourself to God through works- religious or secular.
This frees us from underwork – because we are serving God. We wouldn’t sell him short.
& from overwork – we don’t have to prove ourselves to God. We already have assurance.
We also don’t have to prove ourselves to other Christians.
Many in the church would say writers who believe in God should write Christian stories,
musicians likewise should make Christian music, and companies should make Christian
products; the idea that the Christian worldview only operates in Christian activities.
Christianity isn’t just something we look AT in our work.
Look THROUGH the Gospel into the world.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but
because by it I see everything else."
C.S. Lewis
Matthew 5:45 - For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain
on the just and the unjust alike.
Common grace.
How much of God’s common grace comes to us from the labor of others.
Our daily bread – farmer, delivery driver, employee at Food Lion…
We work to “put food on the table.”
But without the work of others, it’s not readily available!
All work- in and out of the church – involves some common grace.
All work- in and out of the church – is tainted by sin.
All human beings are made in the image of a working God.
All are given skillsets to work in the world (1 Cor 7:17)
We value all work done by all people, as it all is the vehicle through which God provides
for us. There is equal worth in work done by non-Christians.
“The world can do almost anything as well as or better than the church. You need not be
a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the
world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.” - George MacDonald.
Jesus after Easter in Acts – our Christian vocation is to bear witness to the Risen Jesus.
“Bear witness” doesn’t only mean an individual sharing the Gospel with another
individual. That is A way.
BUT…
It’s also the living of principles and practices of God’s kingdom in our workplace.
It’s recognizing work’s design and dignity, and our duty to serve people and develop
culture.
Colossians 3:23 – work as if you’re serving the LORD…
Say what you mean. Do what you say. Follow through on commitments.
Be fair compassionate and transparent.
Be calm and poised. Not worried or stressed. Be generous.
You could begin to list the fruits of the Spirit and virtues in growth lists in scripture.
It’s because through our workplace God often works in us.
Jesus joined us in labor. God wants to work in and through ours.
He wants to join us IN our work.
Work reminds us that we were created for culture, for relationship.
No relationship defines us like God.
No relationship solves to problem in our worldview BUT God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 - Do everything to the glory of God.
If this life is all there is as the author of Ecclesiastes struggles with… all is indeed
meaningless.
But if God is real, there are eternal ramifications to every bit of work and creative service
we do in this life. May we do it all to the glory of God!