How Do I Glorify God in My Job?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Well, a lot of listeners to this podcast

00:00:06.360 | listen on their drive to work in the morning,

00:00:09.600 | so it seems especially relevant for us to talk about work.

00:00:12.640 | We don't wanna waste our jobs, none of us do.

00:00:15.920 | We spend so much time at work

00:00:17.200 | and it's a place to pursue excellence, but why?

00:00:19.560 | Why should we pursue excellence at work

00:00:22.720 | when we often don't see any eternal value

00:00:24.880 | in our weekly duties and our routines?

00:00:27.960 | It's a question today from a listener named Dylan.

00:00:29.920 | Hello, Pastor John.

00:00:30.760 | In Colossians 3, 22 to 24,

00:00:33.080 | Paul exhorts his readers to work heartily

00:00:36.640 | as for the Lord and not for men.

00:00:39.240 | Does this mean that any work not done in excellence

00:00:42.840 | is sinful?

00:00:44.280 | And how do we apply God's view of work

00:00:46.040 | to cleaning our house, writing a paper for school,

00:00:48.480 | or working a nine to five job?

00:00:51.320 | I've been feeling guilty

00:00:52.520 | about the way I handle these things for months now,

00:00:55.480 | and I'm not sure if I'm just being lazy, self-righteous,

00:00:58.200 | or am I disobeying the Lord?

00:01:01.160 | - Well, the first thing with regard to his guilt

00:01:04.440 | or feeling guilty is that the Bible handles guilt

00:01:09.440 | in two ways, and both are very important, not just one.

00:01:14.760 | One is the blood of Jesus that covers all our sin,

00:01:20.600 | including how we do our work,

00:01:22.320 | and none of us does our work as well as we could.

00:01:27.320 | We're always falling short of the ideal.

00:01:31.920 | One is the blood of Jesus that cancels our guilt,

00:01:35.120 | and the other is to resolve to walk and work faithfully

00:01:40.000 | before the Lord in the freedom of that forgiveness.

00:01:43.320 | If we try to use the blood of Jesus as a free pass

00:01:46.440 | to walk in sin, our conscience will rise up and protest.

00:01:51.240 | Thank God.

00:01:52.400 | And if we try to walk in faithfulness and obedience

00:01:57.400 | without relying on the blood of Jesus for forgiveness

00:02:01.480 | and enablement, we will either fail in despair

00:02:06.480 | or we will look like we succeed and become proud.

00:02:10.040 | It's the two together, the blood of Jesus

00:02:13.800 | and the resolve of walking and working faithfully,

00:02:17.840 | obediently, that's the key to the peaceful life

00:02:22.840 | of being forgiven before God and being vigilant

00:02:26.400 | over our hearts and minds as we go about our daily tasks.

00:02:30.800 | So what is God's will for how we should do

00:02:35.800 | our ordinary work, and then in particular,

00:02:39.280 | what is as for the Lord, working as for the Lord

00:02:43.040 | mean in Colossians 3.23?

00:02:44.960 | Let's get the bigger picture first.

00:02:48.280 | In the Bible, God makes total, absolute claim

00:02:53.280 | on our lives, all of our lives,

00:02:57.280 | including all of our work of whatever kind.

00:03:00.280 | Everything in our lives is to be done

00:03:03.040 | before the face of God in reliance upon God's grace,

00:03:08.040 | according to God's guidance, for God's glory.

00:03:13.240 | Listen to these amazing passages.

00:03:16.520 | This is Colossians 3.17, "Whatever you do in word or deed,

00:03:21.520 | do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus."

00:03:27.640 | Isn't that amazing?

00:03:28.760 | Every word, every deed in the name of the Lord Jesus,

00:03:33.320 | giving thanks to God the Father through him.

00:03:35.320 | Or 1 Corinthians 10.31, "Whether you eat or drink

00:03:40.320 | or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

00:03:46.440 | Or Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, "Trust in the Lord

00:03:50.760 | with all your heart.

00:03:51.680 | Do not lean on your own understanding.

00:03:53.880 | In all your ways, all your ways, acknowledge him

00:03:58.880 | and he'll make your paths straight."

00:04:00.960 | Or Proverbs 6.3, "Commit your work to the Lord

00:04:05.840 | and your plans will be established."

00:04:08.240 | Or one of my favorites from Romans 14,

00:04:10.360 | just 'cause it's so amazingly sweeping

00:04:13.480 | in calling us to live Godward lives.

00:04:17.520 | "The one who observes the day,

00:04:19.800 | observes it in honor of the Lord.

00:04:22.040 | The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord,

00:04:26.040 | since he gives thanks to God.

00:04:27.920 | While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord

00:04:32.560 | and gives thanks to God.

00:04:34.920 | For no one lives to himself and no one dies to himself.

00:04:41.560 | For if we live, we live to the Lord.

00:04:43.880 | If we die, we die to the Lord.

00:04:46.680 | So whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

00:04:51.120 | For to this end, Christ died and lived again,

00:04:53.620 | that he might be Lord, both of the living and the dead."

00:04:57.840 | Amazing, I love it.

00:04:59.520 | Oh, how I wanna live to the Lord, before the Lord,

00:05:03.160 | always with reference to the Lord.

00:05:06.440 | All those texts have one basic message.

00:05:10.000 | We belong to God, we're not our own.

00:05:12.360 | Everything we do from morning till night

00:05:14.920 | is to be done in a Godward, Godward way,

00:05:19.640 | before his face in reliance on his grace,

00:05:22.400 | guided by his will,

00:05:24.880 | aiming to make him look magnificent and glorious

00:05:28.760 | as our all satisfying treasure.

00:05:32.040 | That's what work is for.

00:05:35.020 | That's what all of life is for.

00:05:37.660 | And I don't know whether Dylan knows my book,

00:05:42.660 | "Don't Waste Your Life,"

00:05:45.320 | but there's a chapter called,

00:05:47.880 | from eight to five or something like that,

00:05:49.780 | and tries to grapple with how do you go about

00:05:53.360 | doing your daily work so as not to waste what it's for.

00:05:58.360 | Now, just a few words about Colossians 3.

00:06:03.000 | Here's the text that Dylan is exercised about.

00:06:06.760 | It's got the phrase in it,

00:06:07.840 | "Work as for the Lord and not for men."

00:06:10.480 | It goes like this,

00:06:11.320 | "Bond servants, obey in everything

00:06:13.840 | those who are your earthly masters,

00:06:16.720 | not by way of eye service as men pleasers,

00:06:20.140 | but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord,

00:06:23.080 | whatever you do, work heartily,"

00:06:25.780 | here it is, "as for the Lord, as for the Lord."

00:06:29.460 | So work as for the Lord and not for men,

00:06:32.760 | "knowing that from the Lord you will receive

00:06:34.960 | the inheritance as your reward,

00:06:36.700 | you are serving the Lord Christ."

00:06:39.640 | So work as for the Lord,

00:06:41.620 | and Paul modifies this command in five ways

00:06:46.120 | so we can know, there's not much doubt here

00:06:48.400 | how Paul thinks about this.

00:06:49.760 | There are five modifiers to what he means by,

00:06:53.840 | as for the Lord.

00:06:55.120 | Number one, not to be done with eye service as men pleasers.

00:07:00.120 | That is, you're not just angling to impress others

00:07:05.160 | when you do your work.

00:07:06.980 | God, not others, is the one you have in view.

00:07:10.580 | You're working in a Godward way first, not a manward way.

00:07:15.580 | Number two, the opposite of eye service is sincerity,

00:07:20.660 | he says.

00:07:22.140 | In other words, you really mean the good

00:07:25.320 | that your work is aiming to do.

00:07:28.200 | The work is not to impress others.

00:07:30.360 | The work is what it is.

00:07:32.140 | It's for the good of others.

00:07:34.340 | Number three, fearing the Lord.

00:07:37.720 | In other words, fearing displeasing the Lord,

00:07:41.280 | having a reverential desire to please the Lord

00:07:45.280 | in the way you do your work.

00:07:47.640 | Number four, working heartily, literally from the soul.

00:07:52.640 | That is, not half-heartedly,

00:07:56.920 | but putting your whole self into it.

00:08:01.200 | And number five, expecting a great reward from the Lord,

00:08:06.200 | even if man gives you nothing for it.

00:08:10.040 | That doesn't matter in the end.

00:08:11.500 | What matters in the end is you're gonna get

00:08:13.360 | totally overabundance, poured down, pressed together,

00:08:17.720 | overflowing in your lap, reward from the Lord.

00:08:22.120 | Now, all five of those guidelines

00:08:24.860 | for how we do our work for the Lord

00:08:28.760 | are given to us not because the Lord needs our work.

00:08:33.760 | He doesn't, Acts 17, 25.

00:08:37.480 | God is not served by human hands as though

00:08:40.280 | he needed anything.

00:08:41.240 | God doesn't need our work.

00:08:42.920 | That's not the point.

00:08:44.520 | Paul gave us these instructions

00:08:47.000 | because this will bring the greatest joy to us

00:08:51.720 | when we work this way,

00:08:53.440 | and will show that God is our greatest treasure.

00:08:57.680 | Amen, yeah, what a great perspective

00:09:00.520 | to have on all of our daily labor,

00:09:02.640 | bringing eternal reality to bear on our daily lives

00:09:05.520 | and what we most treasure.

00:09:07.520 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening

00:09:09.280 | and making the podcast part of your week.

00:09:10.920 | Three times a week we publish,

00:09:12.680 | and you can subscribe to our audio feeds

00:09:14.400 | and search our past episodes in our archive.

00:09:16.160 | Even reach us by email with a question of your own,

00:09:18.740 | even questions related to work and vocation

00:09:21.580 | and all the time that we spend at our jobs.

00:09:24.400 | You can do all that through our online home

00:09:25.740 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:09:29.980 | Well, at DG, we often talk about God having two wills,

00:09:33.880 | two wills, a will of decree and a will of desire,

00:09:38.300 | which leads to the theological question,

00:09:40.360 | does God ever decree something that he does not desire?

00:09:44.580 | Wouldn't that cause in him a divided mind?

00:09:48.720 | Now, this is a fairly technical question,

00:09:50.320 | and we'll give more background to make more sense of it.

00:09:53.280 | If this is brand new to you,

00:09:54.760 | we'll explain it more, I promise.

00:09:56.440 | But that's next time on Monday when we return.

00:09:58.840 | I'm your host, Tony Reinhke.

00:10:00.000 | Have a great weekend, and we'll see you on Monday.

00:10:02.500 | (upbeat music)

00:10:05.080 | (upbeat music)

00:10:07.660 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Do I Glorify God in My Job?

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