Every good thing becomes a bad thing when it becomes the ultimate thing in our lives. That is true of anything we use to replace God as our supreme treasure. And so for many our job becomes that. It becomes the ultimate thing. Careers where so many in this world will turn to to find their ultimate identity.

We are back one more time with Bruce Hindmarsh, a historian and the James M. Houston professor of spiritual theology at Regent College in Vancouver. So talk to us about battling this tendency. Work requires much of our lives and it can claim all of our lives unless we set boundaries.

So we have Sabbath. One day of rest each week. It's built into the created order and it helps keep labor in its place. Now in a recent interview you said something that caught my attention. You said quote, "Sabbath is not pixie dust you sprinkle over six days of workaholism." End quote.

So explain this Bruce. How does one day of rest influence how we work Monday to Friday? Oh, that's great. I think Sabbath is a reminder that we receive our work as a gift. It's not, we tend to tend to see the world as it's so constituted. It's, we're motivated by, you know, either fear or greed, but it's a sense of scarcity.

It's a sense of scarcity and a sense of anxiety that pervades people's work. And there's all sorts of things written about the movement towards total work and an environment of total work. And Sabbath recalls us not that now that we've done enough work, we're entitled to rest. It reminds us that we actually begin with rest.

We begin with what God has done and it both looks back to God's, the creation as a good gift of a good God in which it's been given and God has rested in what He has made. And we receive our very life again as a gift. We didn't have to be here.

God made the world for us. God made us for the world. We receive that as a gift and work itself. We receive that as a gift. Work is a response to vocation, to calling. It's a gift. And then we, it's an anticipation of our heavenly rest. It's a reminder that God is at work.

God is bringing shalom. And we remember that there remains a rest for the people of God. God's salvation is already broken and God is redeeming the broken world. And so we can go into our week with a sense of, without the same sense of work as a matter of anxiety.

We can receive our work as actually a gift, a chance to offer up the work of our hands to a good God who's already done everything and gives us the opportunity then to share with Him in the work of preserving, sustaining, and redeeming the world He's made. Very good.

Of course, that reference to total work is from Joseph Piper's book, Leisure. And so essentially, Bruce, if I understand you, what you're saying is, is one day of rest does not sanctify a week of unhealthy work habits. Yeah, absolutely. It's, Sabbath is not magic. Sabbath is, Sabbath does not sanctify workaholism.

And so I think there's a, you know, there's a difference between seeking work, feasting and fasting, and indulgence and remorse. It's not a matter that I live really, really badly, and then I try to do something that makes up for it. We, Sabbath is, Sabbath is where we live.

That's where we live out of. That's our identity. And actually, it should chasten us so that there's a little bit of Sabbath in every day. There's a sense that every day we're able to work out of a different kind of center. So, busyness is moral laziness, frankly. It's a kind of laziness.

And we decided many, many years ago, my wife and I, that we would never, ever say to anybody that I'm busy or that I'm too busy or I can't do that because I'm busy. That was simply morally lazy and inattentive to people. And it just makes, it's just often a statement of self-importance.

You know, I'm so important. I'm so busy. But God has given us just enough time to do what we need to do moment by moment to respond to him. And his grace is there, is eternally present. Every moment is a sacrament where time touches eternity. And there is exactly enough time to do what God has called us to do.

Yes, that is wise, sobering, and humbling. Thank you, Bruce. This has been Dr. Bruce Hindmarsh, a historian and the James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver. Bruce has joined us for the past three days helping to cover as John Piper's writing leave comes to an end.

Pastor John returns this week and he's been working on his next major book project. And I'm sure that prompts a lot of curiosity. In any case, I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and I'll see you tomorrow.