Don't Waste Your Work

Piper, from Don't Waste Your Life:

"You don't waste your life by where you work, but how and why."

So a "secular" vocation (ie, one that is not structurally connected to the church) has every bit as much value and dignity in God's sight as the vocation of pastor or missionary.

Resources on Work

As promised to my congregation, here is a listing of some helpful resources for those who might want to think more deeply about the subject of work from a Christian perspective:

A Biblical Understanding of Work, a very good sermon by John Loftness of Covenant Life Church, laying out a nice overview of a doctrine of work.

Loftness refers to this article by D.G. Hart in an issue of Modern Reformation magazine, which fleshes out the doctrine of work as it relates to the 1999 movie, The Big Kahuna (you may need to create an account and log in to view the article, but doing so is free).

God at Work, by Gene Veith. A good, introductory level book looking at the doctrine of vocation, or calling. It touches not only work, but also callings in the family, church and state.

An article from Veith from World Magazine entitled, Arenas of Service. A good introduction to the doctrine of vocation for those who don't want to read a whole book about it.

Another good book on the doctrine of vocation is The Call, by Os Guinness.

In his book Don't Waste Your Life, John Piper has a very good chapter on work titled Making Much of Christ from 8 to 5. You can read the entire book online here (the chapter on work begins on page 131)

Two sermons by John Piper: Tentmakers in Minneapolis and Why God Wills Work. The chapter from Don't Waste Your Life pulls from material preached in these two sermons.

Tim Keller has some good sermons on work that are available for free online: Made for Stewardship, Work, Work and Rest. I've learned a great deal on this subject from Keller.

In Michael Horton's book Where in the World is the Church? there is an excellent chapter on work (he's where I got my Loverboy reference from). The whole book is well worth reading, and is one of the best, most balanced books I've come across in the area of Christian engagement in culture.

You can watch a video of a talk Horton recently gave on work here.

Dorothy Sayers has a pretty famous article on work titled, Why Work?, which can be read here. To be honest, I've not read the whole thing, but I've enjoyed what I've read of this.

Leland Ryken has written a good, thorough book on the subjects of work and leisure called Work and Leisure in Christian Perspective. I am pretty sure it's the same book that I read published under the title Redeeming the Time: A Christian Approach to Work and Leisure.

For those especially interested or involved in business, Wayne Grudem has a little book titled, Business for the Glory of God.

The book Engaging God's World by Neal Plantinga is not about work per se, but the biblical worldview it lays out is one that can fuel wise thinking about work.

If you're wondering about the practice of slavery from a biblical perspective, this recent sermon by Matt Chandler titled Slavery and the Skeptic gives clarity on the subject. It's also a good apologetics resource.

If the sermon is too time-consuming for you to listen to, this article from the Village website highlights some of the same material on slavery in a shorter format.

Sermon Preview

How can this all-too familiar scene on the Schuylkill expressway help us to have a better attitude about our jobs? I'll be starting this Sunday's sermon with an explanation.

The Gospel, Work and Rest

In the same material from which I posted this quote earlier in the week, I found this one:

Apart from the gospel people remain restless in their work and labored in their rest. The gospel enables people to rest while working because the work that justifies them was accomplished in Jesus -- they don't need to work to give them significance any longer. The gospel also enables people to truly rest while not working, because they know that God is always working -- they don't have to worry that their lack of work will stop the world from spinning.

Christians and the Workplace

JT posted this video on his blog, of Michael Horton talking about the significance of the workplace for our lives as Christians:

Christ and the Workplace from Westminster Seminary California on Vimeo.

As I wrote on Friday, most Christians have not thought deeply enough about a doctrine of work. Horton gives us solid, biblical wisdom here. Check it out.

Don't Waste Your "Secular" Work

The conclusion of John Piper's chapter, Making Much of Christ from 8 to 5, in Don't Waste Your Life (the chapter begins on page 131):

"In conclusion, secular work is not a waste when we make much of Christ from 8 to 5. God’s will in this age is that his people be scattered like salt and light in all legitimate vocations. His aim is to be known, because knowing him is life and joy. He does not call us out of the world. He does not remove the need to work. He does not destroy society and culture. Through his scattered saints he spreads a passion for his supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples. If you work like the world, you will waste your life, no matter how rich you get. But if your work creates a web of redemptive relationships and becomes an adornment for the Gospel of the glory of Christ, your satisfaction will last forever and God will be exalted in your joy."

I'd give the entire chapter a read; I don't sense that Christians do enough thinking about how their "ordinary" work can display the worth of Jesus.

Work & Rest

As I finish up my vacation, I thought I'd post a sermon I listened to awhile back on the theme of work and rest. These are topics which, though they occupy such a large part of our lives, are often neglected by pastors in their preaching.

This sermon by Tim Keller was a blessing to me when I listened to it. Let me know what you think of it if you choose to listen...

Should Christians be Involved in Shaping Culture?

Tim Keller takes a stab at that hot-button question in this short article. The article's main focus is to develop a Christian way of thinking about work. I found the first paragraph to be especially insightful and challenging:

I am often asked: “Should Christians be involved in shaping culture?” My answer is that we can’t NOT be involved in shaping culture. To illustrate this, I offer a very sad example. In the years leading up to the Civil War many southerners resented the interference of the abolitionists, who were calling on Christians to stamp out the sin of slavery. In response, some churches began to assert that it was not the church’s (nor Christians’) job to try to ‘change culture’ but only to preach the gospel and see souls saved. The tragic irony was that these churches were shaping culture. Their very insistence that Christians should not be changing culture meant that those churches were supporting the social status quo. They were defacto endorsing the cultural arrangements of the Old South.

Thoughts?

A Christian View of Work

Justin Taylor posted a quote today from Dorothy Sayers in an essay titled, "Why Work?"

The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.

. . . Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade—not outside of it. The Apostles complained rightly when they said it was not meant they should leave the word of God and serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word. But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not meant for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word.

The official Church wastes time and energy, and moreover, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Christian work—by which she means ecclesiastical work. The only Christian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is Church embroidery or sewage-farming.

Thoughts?

Fuel for the Start of the Work Week

A valuable reminder from Tim Keller:

"God places a high value on his work - filling the world with excellence and beauty (Gen 1) - and therefore so should we."

Even our ordinary, "secular" work is loaded with meaning and Godlike qualities. Cleaning a house is bringing order out of chaos, the very thing God did in creating the world. So work with joy this week, in whatever God has called you to do, knowing that your work images forth the glory of our Maker.

Common Grace at Chick-fil-A

Fans of Chick-fil-A will enjoy this post from Kevin DeYoung. I'm always encouraged when people find echoes of God's grace in the simple things of life (like Waffle fries). DeYoung reminds me that you don't have to be a missionary or pastor to be an instrument of God's kindness:

"No one from Chick-fil-A put me up to this little commercial. I just thought it worth pointing out how a little kindness can go a long way, not to mention the kindness of God's common grace. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. And everyone can eat at Chick-fil-A."

Cutting the Grass and the Delight of God's Creation

Yesterday, on my day off, I mowed our front lawn. I have found over the last year that I love mowing the lawn, which is a surprising statement to those who know me well. I used to hate even the idea of mowing the grass (my mom can surely attest to this). Surely there are more important things to do than cut grass...it just grows right back anyway! Have fun outside; I'll do something productive, like reading a book.

But my attitude ignored that the God I claim to worship and love is both a creator and a cultivator. When God created the heavens and the earth, we're told that they were formless and void. But then God took the disorder of the created world and molded it into something beautiful.

And after creating the first man, he told Adam to do in the Garden what God had done in the whole world: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it" (Genesis 2:15). God brought order out of His disordered world; now He calls Adam, and all who are made in His image, to reflect that image in their stewardship of the created world.

Which brings me to cutting the grass. Even though I hated the idea of doing it, there was always something in me that looked at a freshly cut lawn and could see, 'This is good.' Who likes to walk or drive by a lawn that's overgrown, nasty and unkempt (like this photo to the right, which is not what my grass looked like before the cut yesterday!)?

In the last year I've learned that this feeling of satisfaction is multiplied greatly when I am the one who did the cutting. When I finished mowing yesterday and looked back on my 'handiwork', I had a sense of satisfaction that a tiny slice of God's creation had been made a little more orderly.

And I thought to myself, 'I wonder if this is a taste of how God felt, after the sixth day, when He looked at the vast universe that He had created and exclaimed with boundless joy, "This is very good."

Of course, God created me to do much more than just cut grass as a way of bearing His image. He's called all Christians to preach the good news of Christ's life, death and resurrection. Cutting the grass will never accomplish such a task. Nevertheless, I believe God is honored when His people fulfill even their most ordinary tasks (like mowing the lawn) with the joy of knowing that we are doing it for His pleasure. Indeed, I believe it's a way of sharing in the pleasure that He has in the goodness of His lavish creation.

Cold Stone and the Image of God

A few weeks ago I went to Cold Stone Creamery and saw the image of God on display. Nobody was preaching a sermon or leading a Bible Study, nor was there any earth-shattering event like a bolt of lightning or a burning bush. But for a few minutes I watched one young woman reflecting the image of our Maker before my very own eyes.

When God created the universe, we're told in Genesis 1:2 that the world was formless and empty. The rest of Genesis 1 explains how God brought order out of the disorder and chaos to fashion a world in which man and woman could flourish. God took the raw materials of creation and, figuratively speaking, got His hands dirty making something of the material world.

Then, after creating Adam in His image, 'The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it' (Genesis 2:15). Being made in God's image means being made to create; not out of nothing, like God did, but by making something of the world which God has given to us. Genesis 1 depicts God bringing order out of chaos, and then He tells the man, 'Now you do in the Garden what I have done throughout the world.'

To work is to take the raw materials of a particular domain and to draw out its potential, molding those raw materials into something which enables the human society to flourish. Over the centuries, many commentators have taken this charge to work and keep the garden as dealing with more than just agriculture, but the formation of human culture and civil society.

Which brings me back to Cold Stone on that Wednesday night a few weeks ago. The young woman making my cup of Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate chip is bearing the image of our Creator God, whether she knows it or not. What has she done in making me that sundae? She's taken some raw materials (mint cream, one chocolate brownie, and chocolate chips), she picks up her tools and begins to make something out of those raw materials.

She cultivates them, digging and molding and fashioning them into something more than was there to start with. Mint cream is good, and so is a brownie and chocolate chips. But in molding them together, she's brought out some of the potential of those raw materials. She's made a little bit of culture. She is doing in her domain what God had called Adam to do in the Garden of Eden thousands of years before her.

If the girl who 'dug up' my dessert happened to be a Christian, then surely she would also want to lovingly share the Gospel with her co-workers and customers, and to work with integrity and faithfulness as a way of adorning the teaching of Christ as her Savior. But even in the simple act of making my delicious dessert, she has reflected the glory of God. Her job is, therefore, full of dignity and value in God's sight. She should experience joy in the awesome privilege of imaging forth her Maker in the domain He has called her to, whether she had any opportunities to share the Gospel that day or not. For God is a lavish Creator, and He created us to be creators.

I used to go to Cold Stone just to fill my belly; but now I also admire the God who is being reflected in our most 'ordinary' acts of making something of His world.

Is anyone else getting hungry?

The Church in the World

While Monday is a day of rest for me, it signals the beginning of the work week for most. This quote from Michael Horton, in his book Where in the World is the Church?, was a good one to get the week started:

"While the midieval and, to a large extent, pietistic tendency is to call the believer out of the world and into church-related activities, the Reformation approach is to view all church-related activities as 'refueling' stations for their real service in the world. We should not put people who work diligently at their calling on a guilt trip for failing to attend every church-related activity or volunteering for church-related tasks. It is the church that serves the Christian so that the Christian can serve God in the world...

"Even if a church is feeding the sheep with God's promises, a further question must be asked: If the church itself is healthy internally, are individual Christians fulfilling their calling in the world with excellence? That is not the same question as, Are they winning souls? Rather, Do individual believers sense that it is their Christian duty to transcend mediocrity in their daily routines and link their service in the world to their service of an all-knowing God of glory?

"A Christian does not go to work on Monday morning in order to convert people to Christ, but to pursue his or her calling, for which he or she was designed by divine creation."

I am curious to know what those people who went to work at a 'secular' job today think of this quote. Leave a comment and let me know!

Education on Vocation

Last week Halle asked me to read her a book called When I Grow Up, by P.K. Hallinan. I read a lot of books to her, but I hadn't seen this one before. After one read, I'd have to say it's one of my favorites. It is not a Christian book, but it deals with a very Christian subject: the doctrine of vocation.

Of course the book doesn't use those fancy words, but as I read to Halle, I couldn't help but see the very God-centered theme of vocation running throughout it. Essentially the book's intent seems to be to help kids learn the alphabet, as it begins, 'When I grow up, I know I can be whatever I dream of, from A down to Z.'

In the pages that follow the book covers a wide range of possible jobs, one beginning with each letter of the alphabet. An actor, baker, carpenter, dancer, engineer, etc. While I certainly plan to read many theologically-oriented books in hopes of stirring in her a passion for the supremacy of Christ, I am also eager to read her a book such as this. Because I think the lesson of this book seems to be a lesson lost on many Christians.

We're told that after God made the world and Adam,

"The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it."

Part of Adam and Eve's privilege and responsibility as God's image-bearers was to take the raw materials of God's good creation and mold, fashion and cultivate them to bring out its latent potential. This responsibility was tragically impacted by the Fall, but it was not abandoned. Right after the Fall, we're told in Genesis 3,

"Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken."

Even after being removed from the Garden, Adam is still called to care for and cultivate the creation. And we see in Genesis 4 that the offspring of Cain are responsible for the formation of cultural products, like musical instruments of bronze and iron.

The point is this: all vocational tracks (excepting, of course, those which promote and glorify sin, like pornography for example) have the potential to glorify God as we exercise our image-bearing responsibilities in bringing order and peace out of the chaos of God's creation. A homemaker (the 'H' vocation in When I Grow Up) who looks at the disaster area which the kids have made of the house, and cleans it thoroughly, is imaging forth the glory of God by creating order out of chaos, the very thing God did in fashioning the creation into something beautiful out of what was without form and void.

As the book comes to a close, Hallinan sums things up by writing, 'Whatever I do, from A down to Z, I'm bound to succeed if I stay true to me.' While this could be a humanistic attitude (I am my own sovereign, all-authoritative god), Christian parents can use these words to show their children that God has made us with certain abilities, talents and desires, and 'staying to true to me' means staying true to what God created us to be.

Whether Halle wants to be a librarian, a musician, a nurse, a scientist a waiter or a veterinarian, I hope to teach her that each (non-sinful) possibility for her career has the capacity to bring God great pleasure and delight as she reflects the image of her Creator. I want her to know that being a good, God-glorifying Christian does not mean that she has to be a missionary to a foreign country or a biblical counselor or director of women's ministry in a church.

Alright, I've gone on long enough! The bottom line: if you have small children, pick up this book and use it to teach your little ones that all work -- not only Christian ministry -- can bring glory to God.