Will We Work in Eternity?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Happy Monday.
00:00:05.080 | Today is Labor Day for many of us,
00:00:07.240 | a day when we rest from our work
00:00:10.240 | and think of, well, just about anything but work.
00:00:13.920 | But here we are talking about work, actually,
00:00:16.840 | and we're doing it because a number of you
00:00:18.640 | have emailed over the years
00:00:19.520 | wanting to know about work in eternity.
00:00:22.280 | Here's one version of that email
00:00:23.640 | from a listener named Steve.
00:00:25.720 | Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast.
00:00:28.080 | I have a question about work in heaven
00:00:30.520 | or work in the new creation, to be more exact.
00:00:34.240 | First, will we work in the new creation?
00:00:37.600 | And if so, what types of vocations will be needed?
00:00:40.760 | Does the Bible give us any hints here?
00:00:43.020 | And if we work, do you think this future vocation
00:00:46.480 | will resonate with or consummate some gifting
00:00:49.920 | that we always felt drawn to express here on Earth,
00:00:53.960 | whether or not we could make money doing it here?
00:00:57.600 | And if you answer yes to all of this,
00:00:59.440 | put on your hat of prediction.
00:01:01.560 | What will you be doing in eternity?
00:01:04.840 | - Let's start with what we know for sure
00:01:07.520 | about the eternal future that all those,
00:01:12.120 | all of us who are in Christ will definitely enjoy.
00:01:17.120 | Jesus said that we will be with him.
00:01:21.000 | We will see his glory.
00:01:24.100 | We will have the capacity to love him
00:01:26.840 | with the very love that the Father has for him.
00:01:29.800 | That's John 17, 24 to 26.
00:01:33.800 | The apostle John tells us in his first letter
00:01:36.080 | in the third chapter, we will see him
00:01:38.400 | and we will be like him.
00:01:41.040 | And that includes both sinless purity of heart
00:01:44.740 | and the glory of our new resurrection bodies,
00:01:49.200 | according to Philippians 3.21.
00:01:52.040 | And then Revelation 21,
00:01:55.200 | John tells us that God will wipe away
00:01:58.360 | every tear from our eyes and death will be no more.
00:02:02.540 | Neither shall there be mourning
00:02:04.560 | nor crying nor pain anymore.
00:02:08.840 | And then Psalm 16, 11 twists that around
00:02:12.600 | and makes it positive, namely in God's presence,
00:02:17.200 | we will have fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.
00:02:21.400 | Now that is for sure.
00:02:24.480 | Now, the question is, will work be part of our experience
00:02:29.480 | of that eternal joy in God's presence?
00:02:35.320 | And I think the answer is yes,
00:02:39.080 | but I say that not because the Bible
00:02:42.400 | has decisive statements to that effect,
00:02:46.640 | but because there are significant pointers
00:02:49.520 | in that direction.
00:02:50.420 | So I wouldn't elevate this conviction
00:02:54.540 | that I'm gonna argue for here to a top level doctrine,
00:02:59.500 | but rather call it a reasonable, probable hope.
00:03:03.640 | And if not this, then something way better.
00:03:07.740 | I mean, if it turns out it won't be what you think
00:03:10.700 | you thought it was, it's gonna be better
00:03:14.220 | because we know there'll be no sorrow there,
00:03:16.460 | no regret, no frustration, no disappointment
00:03:19.900 | with God's decisions about what our happiness
00:03:24.100 | should look like.
00:03:25.340 | So here are my six pointers,
00:03:29.980 | and then I'll end with a caution.
00:03:33.340 | Number one, and these are pointers for why we can
00:03:37.700 | be relatively confident there will be work for us to do
00:03:42.700 | in the age to come, in our eternity with God.
00:03:47.060 | Number one, God himself is a worker,
00:03:50.580 | and we will be more like him then, not less,
00:03:55.740 | than we are now.
00:03:57.540 | Genesis 2:2, "On the seventh day, God finished his work
00:04:02.540 | that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day
00:04:06.720 | from all the work that he had done."
00:04:10.200 | And Jesus said in John 5:17, "My father is working
00:04:15.060 | until now, and I am working."
00:04:18.580 | So God is a worker.
00:04:21.380 | Number two, God created man to be a worker
00:04:26.380 | before the fall into sin.
00:04:28.680 | The curse that fell on man after the fall was not work,
00:04:34.860 | but futile work, miserable work, sweaty work
00:04:40.060 | that makes us hate it, want to play instead of working.
00:04:45.060 | But God made man from the beginning to work the world,
00:04:50.540 | shape the world, Genesis 1:28.
00:04:54.060 | And God blessed him, blessed them, and God said to them,
00:04:59.060 | "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it
00:05:04.180 | and have dominion over the fish of the sea
00:05:07.960 | and over the birds of the heavens
00:05:09.700 | and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
00:05:12.820 | And then Genesis 2:15, "The Lord God took the man
00:05:17.820 | and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it."
00:05:22.980 | Number three, the parable that describes
00:05:26.860 | how Jesus settles accounts with his servants
00:05:30.500 | at the second coming suggests that now that Jesus has come,
00:05:36.060 | they will have work given them to do.
00:05:40.000 | In Luke 19:17, the master says, "Well done, good servant,
00:05:45.000 | because you have been faithful in a very little,
00:05:49.080 | you shall have authority over 10 cities."
00:05:53.800 | Now, whether that's parabolic or metaphorical,
00:05:58.320 | it may well point to the fact something like that,
00:06:02.360 | we will be given responsibility in the age to come.
00:06:06.720 | Number four, according to Ephesians 2:10,
00:06:11.960 | we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus
00:06:16.960 | for good works, which God prepared beforehand
00:06:22.760 | that we should walk in them.
00:06:24.280 | When Paul identified a purpose
00:06:27.360 | for the new creature in Christ, us,
00:06:31.760 | he said the purpose was work, good works.
00:06:35.920 | Number five, Isaiah 65, 17 to 25 describes the new heavens
00:06:40.920 | and the new earth to include work.
00:06:45.280 | Verses 21 following go like this,
00:06:48.440 | "They shall build houses and inhabit them.
00:06:52.840 | They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
00:06:57.980 | My chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
00:07:02.980 | They shall not labor in vain
00:07:06.620 | or bear children for calamity."
00:07:09.260 | Now, the reason I say this is only a pointer,
00:07:15.220 | not a decisive statement,
00:07:18.060 | even though it may look like that,
00:07:20.040 | about work in the final state,
00:07:22.560 | is that there is serious disagreement
00:07:27.100 | about whether this passage in Isaiah 65
00:07:32.100 | is a description of our final state,
00:07:36.280 | because it speaks of bearing children.
00:07:40.060 | And Jesus said that in the final state,
00:07:42.140 | there would be no marriage
00:07:43.880 | and presumably no bearing of children.
00:07:46.900 | And in the age to come, we're not gonna experience death.
00:07:50.700 | And yet verse 20 says, "A young man will die
00:07:54.740 | a hundred years old in the new creation."
00:07:57.700 | We know there is no death in the age to come.
00:08:02.340 | So what the disagreement is,
00:08:04.940 | is whether those kinds of statements here in Isaiah 65
00:08:09.940 | are somehow metaphorical for eternal life
00:08:15.340 | in the age to come,
00:08:17.080 | which I have never been able to understand
00:08:21.240 | how death is a symbol for life,
00:08:24.620 | or whether this is a description of a millennial period
00:08:29.620 | after the second coming,
00:08:32.700 | which is much higher in its blessing,
00:08:36.380 | a higher level than presently in blessing than now,
00:08:39.820 | but not yet the final stage of the new heavens
00:08:44.180 | and the new earth.
00:08:45.820 | And that would be my view.
00:08:48.340 | But in either case,
00:08:51.020 | whether those are metaphorical statements
00:08:54.120 | and that we will be working in the final state,
00:08:58.660 | or whether this is a next stage of redemptive history
00:09:03.620 | in which, yes, there will be work
00:09:05.540 | and maybe pointing to the fact
00:09:08.500 | that there's work in the final state,
00:09:11.020 | it seems to me that we can't settle that
00:09:15.260 | with enough certainty to persuade
00:09:17.860 | all the evangelicals who love the Bible.
00:09:19.940 | I mean, I've got a lot of good friends
00:09:21.220 | that disagree with me on this.
00:09:23.120 | And so I don't call those verses in Isaiah 65
00:09:27.260 | a decisive, precise statement
00:09:29.720 | that there will be work in the final state,
00:09:32.460 | but it seems to me it points in that direction.
00:09:35.220 | Number six, when you take sin out of the heart
00:09:38.500 | and out of the world,
00:09:40.660 | which will happen in the age to come,
00:09:43.600 | the line between work and play becomes almost invisible.
00:09:48.600 | What is play?
00:09:52.440 | When all our work will be totally enjoyable.
00:09:56.420 | I mean, totally.
00:09:58.220 | There is no work now that is totally enjoyable.
00:10:01.380 | All work has some element to it
00:10:04.180 | we find frustrating or disappointing
00:10:06.360 | or futile or discouraging.
00:10:07.960 | Perhaps, this is speculation,
00:10:12.500 | perhaps there will be sweet weariness of mind and body,
00:10:19.380 | new body getting weary in the age to come
00:10:23.440 | that needs something different than its usual occupation,
00:10:28.440 | namely rest and play.
00:10:32.320 | I don't know, because work itself
00:10:35.160 | will be so profoundly satisfying and sweet and enjoyable.
00:10:40.160 | Nobody will say, "I need a weekend.
00:10:42.600 | "I gotta have some playtime,"
00:10:44.580 | because everything will be as happy and satisfying as play,
00:10:49.580 | but there may be a difference.
00:10:51.760 | And that word, perhaps,
00:10:53.100 | I mean, I've been using the word perhaps all along,
00:10:56.380 | leads me to wrap up with a caution
00:10:58.900 | about making more precise statements
00:11:02.740 | about the age to come
00:11:03.660 | than the Bible gives us warrant to make.
00:11:06.140 | There are cautions in the Bible that remind us
00:11:09.860 | the glories of the age to come
00:11:12.420 | are going to be beyond
00:11:14.800 | our present comprehension and imagination.
00:11:18.120 | 2 Corinthians 12, 4, Paul said,
00:11:20.620 | "He saw things in heaven that no man can utter."
00:11:25.200 | 1 Corinthians 2, 9, Paul says that,
00:11:27.180 | "God has prepared things for those who love him
00:11:29.840 | "that are beyond human imagination."
00:11:33.300 | They've never entered into the heart of man.
00:11:35.800 | He tells us that our resurrection bodies
00:11:38.100 | will be spiritual bodies.
00:11:40.640 | Well, who can say all that is involved in a spiritual body?
00:11:45.640 | John speaks in Revelation 21, 23
00:11:52.080 | of a world in which there will be no need of sun or moon,
00:11:57.080 | because the glory of God gives it light
00:12:01.220 | and its lamp is the lamb.
00:12:02.920 | Well, who can imagine a world
00:12:06.700 | with no sources of created light,
00:12:10.080 | but only God's light?
00:12:12.620 | And in Revelation 21, 18, John says,
00:12:15.700 | "The city," New Jerusalem,
00:12:18.520 | "the city was pure gold, like clear glass."
00:12:23.520 | What's that?
00:12:26.140 | Gold that is clear as glass.
00:12:28.680 | Jonathan Edwards wrote an entire sermon on that text,
00:12:33.680 | Revelation 21, 18, and here's the title.
00:12:38.100 | Nothing on earth can represent the glories of heaven,
00:12:43.100 | because there is no such thing on earth
00:12:46.420 | as gold that is clear as glass,
00:12:48.660 | and that's the way it's gonna be like.
00:12:50.500 | So yes, I think we will work in the final age to come,
00:12:55.500 | whether we will do what we were gifted for here,
00:12:59.080 | or whether we will have holy new giftings
00:13:02.300 | a thousand times greater,
00:13:04.180 | or what kind of work John Piper will be doing.
00:13:08.060 | I leave in the hands of God,
00:13:10.620 | who planned the universe for the happiness
00:13:13.780 | of his people in himself.
00:13:16.840 | We will not be disappointed.
00:13:20.140 | Yeah, amen, we know that for sure.
00:13:21.540 | There's no disappointments in store in the new creation.
00:13:24.360 | Thank you, Pastor John,
00:13:25.900 | and thank you for joining us today,
00:13:27.740 | and happy Labor Day for those of you for whom this applies.
00:13:31.800 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke,
00:13:32.820 | and we will see you back here on Thursday,
00:13:35.100 | talking about Calvinism.
00:13:37.100 | We'll see you then.
00:13:38.100 | (upbeat music)
00:13:40.680 | (upbeat music)
00:13:43.260 | [BLANK_AUDIO]