Is Work a Blessing or a Curse?

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:04.000 | Well, two weeks back, two Mondays ago, we looked at how to glorify God in our business

00:00:10.000 | successes.

00:00:11.000 | That was APJ 1915.

00:00:13.000 | Now, two weeks later, we're talking about business again, and more broadly, it's a question

00:00:18.000 | from a listener named Travis.

00:00:20.000 | "Pastor John, hello to you.

00:00:21.000 | Can you tell me whether our work today is a blessing or a curse?

00:00:26.000 | Much of our work seems to be cursed based on Genesis 3, but a lot of our work also seems

00:00:32.000 | to be a God-given blessing according to Ecclesiastes.

00:00:36.000 | So, according to the Bible, is my 9-to-5 job a blessing or is it a curse?"

00:00:43.000 | Let's start with the first work mentioned in the Bible, namely God's work.

00:00:50.000 | So, Genesis 2, verse 2, "On the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and

00:01:01.000 | he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done."

00:01:06.000 | So, God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all his

00:01:10.000 | work that he had done in creation.

00:01:13.000 | You can't miss the point.

00:01:15.000 | God worked, God worked, God worked.

00:01:18.000 | Now, work was not a curse for God.

00:01:24.000 | God is not cursed.

00:01:26.000 | He's not burdened.

00:01:28.000 | He's not frustrated.

00:01:30.000 | He's not coerced to do what he does not wish to do.

00:01:34.000 | He worked in creation because it was a sign of his greatness and his fullness that he

00:01:43.000 | should overflow in creating a world that declares his glory and a human image of himself that

00:01:49.000 | can enjoy and worship that glory.

00:01:52.000 | That's no sign of weakness or burdensomeness or frustration.

00:01:55.000 | That's glory.

00:01:57.000 | Work was glory for God.

00:02:00.000 | So, from the beginning, work was not a curse.

00:02:05.000 | It was a God-like gift, a blessing.

00:02:10.000 | The essence of work, as God designed it before the fall into sin, was creativity.

00:02:19.000 | Creative, productive doing, arranging, making.

00:02:25.000 | When God did his primal work, he created the world.

00:02:32.000 | Now, that's the essence of work.

00:02:34.000 | Then he created us in his image to put us in a world that he had made, and he said,

00:02:45.000 | chapter 1, verse 26, Genesis, "Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over

00:02:52.000 | the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping

00:02:58.000 | thing that creeps on the earth.

00:03:01.000 | Let them fill the earth and subdue it."

00:03:06.000 | Then, in Genesis, chapter 2, verse 15, he said, or it says, "The Lord God took the man

00:03:17.000 | and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it."

00:03:23.000 | Literally, the word is serve, serve it, almost like serving in the work of the Lord, to serve

00:03:31.000 | it, to work it and keep it.

00:03:33.000 | Now, I presume this working and keeping of the garden before the fall was a partial fulfillment

00:03:42.000 | of having dominion over the earth and subduing it.

00:03:47.000 | Now, what does that imply then?

00:03:49.000 | It does not mean that the garden was imperfect as God made it.

00:03:55.000 | It wasn't imperfect.

00:03:57.000 | It didn't need correction, as if God had made a mistake.

00:04:01.000 | Oops, I didn't fix the garden right.

00:04:03.000 | It needs help.

00:04:05.000 | It means God made the garden for man, and part of its perfection was in providing for

00:04:14.000 | the man the raw material for being creative like God.

00:04:19.000 | Man would flourish in working the garden.

00:04:22.000 | The garden would flourish in being worked.

00:04:26.000 | It would be beautifully satisfying, not frustrating, not burdensome, not futile.

00:04:32.000 | That's work before the fall, thrilling, satisfying, creative.

00:04:39.000 | Now, what the fall did, that's chapter 3 of Genesis, what sin did when it came into the

00:04:45.000 | world was to make this glorious reality of satisfying work become futile, burdensome,

00:04:56.000 | frustrating.

00:04:58.000 | Genesis 3, verse 17 to 19, "In pain," Adam, "in pain you shall eat of the earth

00:05:08.000 | all the days of your life.

00:05:10.000 | Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.

00:05:14.000 | By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground."

00:05:21.000 | So, it's not accurate to say that work is a curse.

00:05:28.000 | What's accurate is to say that the futility and frustration and burdensomeness and painfulness

00:05:37.000 | of work is a curse.

00:05:41.000 | Paul said in Romans 8:20, "The creation was subjected to futility."

00:05:48.000 | When sin came into the world, God subjected creation to futility, not willingly, but because

00:05:55.000 | of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage

00:06:03.000 | to futility.

00:06:05.000 | The futility and burdensomeness of work, therefore, is part of the curse of creation, and it won't

00:06:16.000 | always be this way.

00:06:18.000 | He said there's a hope coming, and God put the world under this curse temporarily to

00:06:25.000 | show the exceeding sinfulness of sin.

00:06:30.000 | But Christ has come to redeem the world from the curse, and that happens in stages, not

00:06:37.000 | all at once.

00:06:39.000 | This is true for work as well.

00:06:43.000 | It is really significant, when you think about it, that the gospel—good news of Jesus'

00:06:50.000 | salvation—the gospel does not stipulate that work is how you earn it.

00:06:59.000 | You can't earn it.

00:07:00.000 | It's free.

00:07:02.000 | Work is not assigned that impossible, hopeless, burdensome role in salvation.

00:07:10.000 | This is really good news.

00:07:11.000 | Listen to the three things said about work in our salvation, according to Ephesians 2,

00:07:18.000 | 8-10.

00:07:19.000 | Three things.

00:07:20.000 | "By grace you have been saved; through faith this is not your own doing; it is the gift

00:07:26.000 | of God, number one, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

00:07:33.000 | For we are his, number two, workmanship; we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus,

00:07:40.000 | number three, for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."

00:07:46.000 | This is glorious.

00:07:48.000 | First, work does not bear the weight of having to save us.

00:07:54.000 | Christ saves us.

00:07:55.000 | He does it by faith.

00:07:57.000 | Second, God steps in and does the work.

00:08:01.000 | He makes us new, and he does everything required to make us new creatures in Christ.

00:08:08.000 | We are his workmanship.

00:08:10.000 | And number three, now that we are loved and forgiven and accepted and adopted, we are

00:08:17.000 | created for good works.

00:08:21.000 | So, we were created the first time that he's brought into being as human people.

00:08:29.000 | We were created the first time for good work, way back in the beginning.

00:08:34.000 | That was our original intent as human beings.

00:08:37.000 | And we are recreated in Christ for good work.

00:08:43.000 | And this work in Christ is not burdensome.

00:08:48.000 | If we find it burdensome, if you find obedience to Jesus and work for Christ to be burdensome,

00:08:56.000 | then you're not thinking clearly, or you're not trusting Christ the way you should.

00:09:01.000 | Listen to Matthew 11:28.

00:09:05.000 | This is the paradox of the work that Christ calls us to do.

00:09:12.000 | On the one hand, we're like hardworking, yoked oxen.

00:09:18.000 | And on the other hand, our work is lighter than a feather.

00:09:22.000 | Here's what he says.

00:09:24.000 | "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

00:09:31.000 | Take my yoke.

00:09:32.000 | Whoa, wait a minute.

00:09:33.000 | You just said rest.

00:09:34.000 | What's with the yoke?

00:09:36.000 | Yoke is what you put on oxen to pull a plow, and it's hard.

00:09:40.000 | "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart,

00:09:45.000 | and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

00:09:54.000 | So, yes, there is meaningful work to do as we follow Christ.

00:10:00.000 | That's the meaning of yoke.

00:10:02.000 | We have a yoke to wear.

00:10:03.000 | We're not thrown out to be doers of nothing.

00:10:08.000 | How boring would that be?

00:10:09.000 | But in that work, that yoke, there is a restfulness of spirit that is free from the curse.

00:10:19.000 | The key in all our work, the key that turns it from curse to blessing,

00:10:26.000 | and the key that glorifies Christ in it is described in 1 Peter 4:11.

00:10:33.000 | "Let the one who serves," just say, "Let the one who works,

00:10:38.000 | work in the strength that God supplies so that in everything God may be glorified

00:10:47.000 | through Jesus Christ."

00:10:48.000 | The one who gives the strength gets the glory.

00:10:51.000 | We get the help.

00:10:53.000 | He gets the glory, and work is delivered from its burdensome cursedness.

00:11:00.000 | Or here it is again in 1 Corinthians 15, 10.

00:11:04.000 | "By the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain.

00:11:10.000 | On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them," any of the other apostles,

00:11:18.000 | "though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me."

00:11:25.000 | That's the glory of hard work in the Christian life, just like it was before the fall.

00:11:32.000 | I don't doubt that Adam gloried in a long day's work in the garden,

00:11:41.000 | making it perfectly suitable to his needs, flourishing in all his efforts.

00:11:49.000 | "Not I, but the grace of God with me," that takes away the misery of burdensomeness

00:11:55.000 | and futility.

00:11:57.000 | So, when Paul calls us to do lots of work as Christians,

00:12:03.000 | he's not calling us to a burdened, frustrated, cursed life.

00:12:07.000 | He's calling us to our glory and our joy.

00:12:11.000 | 1 Corinthians 15, 58.

00:12:13.000 | "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable,

00:12:18.000 | always abounding in the work of the Lord."

00:12:21.000 | I think that means doing lots of it.

00:12:23.000 | "Always abounding in the work of the Lord,

00:12:27.000 | knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."

00:12:31.000 | It's not futile.

00:12:33.000 | And I think that applies to any work done in the name of Jesus,

00:12:38.000 | for the glory of Jesus, in reliance upon the power of Jesus.

00:12:43.000 | Not just church work. All work.

00:12:45.000 | In fact, Paul says in Colossians 3, 23, "Whatever."

00:12:50.000 | That's an important word.

00:12:51.000 | "Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men,

00:12:58.000 | knowing that from the Lord you'll receive the inheritance as your reward.

00:13:02.000 | You are serving the Lord Christ."

00:13:05.000 | So that elevates all of our work, not just church work,

00:13:09.000 | but all of our work to the level of worship.

00:13:12.000 | If we do it in the name of the Lord, in reliance on the Lord,

00:13:17.000 | for the glory of the Lord, it's not mere human work.

00:13:22.000 | It's divine work. It honors Christ.

00:13:25.000 | So, I'll say it again.

00:13:28.000 | From the beginning, we were made for work,

00:13:33.000 | shaping, creating, subduing the world according to the wisdom and goodness and beauty of God.

00:13:41.000 | This was not, it is not, a curse.

00:13:45.000 | It is a blessing, and I think it will last happily forever.

00:13:52.000 | Yeah, an important concluding word there, hinting about work in the new creation.

00:13:57.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:13:58.000 | And thank you for joining us today.

00:14:00.000 | Ask a question of your own.

00:14:01.000 | Search our growing archive or subscribe to the podcast, all at askpastorjohn.com.

00:14:08.000 | Speaking of our work, God's plan for the globe and God's plan for your life

00:14:13.000 | are all one unified plan.

00:14:17.000 | And we will look at that plan more closely on Wednesday in our place in it.

00:14:22.000 | I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.

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Is Work a Blessing or a Curse?

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