Work: What is it for?
by Greg Wood
I normally like my job. I like performing various structural analyses on helicopters and their parts and then making decisions about whether or not they need replacement. But here lately, things are different. Work has been much more of a struggle! I can’t tell you how many revisions I’ve had to make to the same briefing recently, but it’s at least 20. And the review has taken over a year, with some feedback asking me to make the changes back to what I had in an earlier revision! I think I am experiencing what a lot of you have told me is your typical experience with work: toil.
Toil is the idea that we put in enough effort to get a high level of results, but instead, the result is far less than it should be. Not only that, but our work should be rewarding and satisfying, but toil causes us to lose some of that fruit too. Scripture teaches us that this is our common experience as mankind because of the fall of Adam.
17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17–19)
Because of Adam’s rebellion and failure to obey the Word of the Lord, death and toil entered creation. The ground was cursed, and Adam’s work became painful. That pain was at least in part due to the thorns and thistles that now grew where he was trying to grow the fruit-bearing plants, and the comments about sweat being required indicates working harder than before was the new norm.
Is this just the way it always has been and always will be?
Work Before the Fall
Work existed differently before the fall into sin. We clearly see God working as He created everything out of nothing, subdued the chaotic scene of Genesis 1, and made a perfectly suitable place for humanity to dwell.
31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. (Genesis 1:31–2:3)
So of course, work is not evil. God delights in His works, especially in mankind, created male and female as complementary to one another. And work before the fall was not only good because God worked, but work was part of the design for mankind.
5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, (Genesis 2:5)
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Genesis 2:15)
God gave Adam and Eve work to do - before the fall. To cultivate, protect, rule, and subdue. We were made to be workers like God.
The Work of Christ
Unlike Adam, Jesus fulfilled the work given to Him by God with joyful obedience. Jesus did the perfect work and continues to this day perfectly guarding the temple of God’s people so that none of us is lost.
17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” 18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. (John 5:17–18)
Jesus did all that He and the Father agreed He would do for the redemption of the church! Through His life, death, and resurrection the world will be changed for the better. The redeemed of God live in the world as the hands and feet of Christ to continue His mission and bring His completed work to bear on the world.
Working in Light of the Gospel
I hope we have all seen glimpses of the good of our work. Perhaps for you, it has been in those times where you contribute significantly to doing something good for those you serve through your work or those you serve alongside. I know I’ve seen some of this in the times when I have helped the search and rescue mission proceed safely.
But, it is not always that I have this mindset about seeing God’s purpose in my work, and especially I struggle when there is much toil involved. So I want to invite you into a series of blog posts in which we will explore a theology of work. I know that I need a reset to a refreshed heavenly perspective as much as any of you!
I would like to help us remember that work is a good thing, a gift from God that is part of the image of God in us as His creation. We will dispel the notion that work is only a result of the fall of mankind. I also want to help dispel the notion of some division between sacred and secular work, since all of our work is to be done unto the glory of God. So this series will try to bring the gospel to bear on our work.
As I seek to explore how I should approach work in light of the gospel, I plan to write under these themes:
Remembering we are image bearers of the God who works
Motivated with God’s perspective
Seeing work as the blessing that it is
Seeing work as preparing the kingdom
The everyday level of working in light of the gospel
Resting as an act of faith, submitting our work to God
I would love it if you sent me an email if there are other themes or questions you have about a theology of work.
In this series I think we will see clearly that the gospel of Jesus has the power to change the way we approach our work. We will see that because of who God is and what He has done to remake us in His image, we will find freedom and power to work differently.
I’ll leave us with this Scripture:
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:29)
Let’s ask the Father to give us the mind of Christ about the work He has given us to do.