Why Your Work Matters

Matt Troupe

We have started a monthly men’s BBQ to encourage one another. Last time we discussed the importance of work. Here is the gist of what we learned.

Why our work matters

Why does my work matter? Why do the tasks that make up my everyday routine have any significance beyond themselves? And why does my work matter no matter how insignificant it seems to the world?  I have found that worldly attempts  to answer these questions fall short. They often center around various understandings of self, or fail to show any transcendence beyond our own lives.  The question of meaning is THE nagging question for our generation. We have jettisoned most ideas from history, including faith in God as an acceptable answer to the question of ultimate significance.

I would like to offer 4 substantial reasons why our work matters as believers.

Our work matters to God.

This is the ultimate source of meaning and everything else I have to say flows from this. We ultimately inhabit God's story. He created all things and upholds them by the word of his power.  He designed us with work as a central purpose. Practically, our work matters because we are seeking to please our father.

But our work also has divine significance in reflecting his glory to others. Our work, done in excellence, faith, sacrifice, and perseverance is a witness with a language of its own.

Further, he made the world as a kind of "job site" for our lives.  The cosmos was made as the raw material for the work we would do. The first garden that God made is something of a prototype for the way we are commanded to subdue the whole earth.

He also commands us to work. So for the Christian, Christ is our ultimate boss and master. We look beyond our supervisors and managers, our customers and end users, to Jesus Christ. Our goal is to please him with our work. This is the main application. We must believe that our work is valuable to God and has eternal significance in his plan.

Our work matters for our own fulfillment.

In our vocations we find that we have an opportunity to fulfill our created purpose. We were made to work.  We were designed to create things, care for things, manage them, maintain them.  He made mankind with an itch to create. We have an incurable disposition to take what he has made and create new things.  We have a compulsion to learn and create, and to enjoy the creations of others. This is one of the things that distinguishes us from the animals. 

So when a Christian works to the glory of God, there is a completion of God's intended design.  And this yields all kinds of joy and satisfaction. This comes as we learn how to do the work, in the process of the labor itself, and in the results.  Yet, because of sin, our work is under the curse of thorns and sweat and death. So things don't always work out as we intend. But there is still a place for knowing a job well done.

We see this in the wisdom literature. For instance, "The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails..." (Ecclesiastes 12:11 NASB) There is something satisfying when wise men speak wise words. They are pleasant and useful.  And the scripture compares this to the work of a carpenter. We share a degree of wonder when a skilled hand trained through years of experience places a nail in the right place.  Every calling has its own version of a "well driven nail." And when you get to participate in a job well done, there is satisfaction and a measure of wholeness. And this is part of God's gracious design.

We see this satisfaction in the praise of the virtuous wife in Proverbs 31, "Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates." (v. 31).  Good work is not only satisfying to us, but to others.  We see this in Moses’ prayer in Psalm 90:17 "Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!"  Work that is "established" is considered the blessing of God.

Our work matters for the flourishing of our community.

This is one of the key measures of honest work. Does it promote human flourishing? Does it help others in practical ways to have a good life? Especially as God defines "good."

This is an application of the great commandment and golden rule. We are to love God first, and our neighbors as ourselves (Matt 22:34-40). All our work in this sense should be a labor of love. We should do unto others as we would have them do to us (Matt 7:12). We should do the kind of work that we would want others to do for us if our roles were reversed. Paul expands on this by saying that "love does no harm to a neighbor." (Romans 13:10)

The work we do should be a blessing others and should not bring them harm. Because of this, scripture forbids some kinds of practices outright. Consider Usury or the charging of high interest), or withholding wages, or dishonest business dealings. We must not live by the blind hand of the market, willing to do anything for the right price. We should aim to do work that is good, true, and beautiful. The goal is what the apostle Paul called "honest work" (Eph. 4:29)

Our work matters for our provision.

God has arranged that, broadly speaking, we are to provide for ourselves and others by our work.  We see this in how God speaks the curse to Adam in Genesis 3:17-19 "..cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life...thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 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.” He had previously given them every tree and green plant for food (1:29-30). The obviously implication is that they had to go and gather the food for themselves. This task would now be much more difficult. But the relationship between our labor and our provision endures.

Proverbs 12:14 points to this, "From the fruit of his mouth a man is satisfied with good, and the work of a man’s hand comes back to him."  This is why Paul went to such pains in Thessalonica. He wanted to make sure that the church understood this connection, "For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat." (2 Thess 3:7-10)

This does not mean that only "waging earning" counts as work. That is one of the central mistakes of many strands of feminism. There is a lot of important work that does not earn a paycheck.  The work of children (in doing chores), homemakers, parents,  grandparents, and volunteers are all very important. But the larger principal still applies. God made the world so there is a relationship between the work we do and the way we live.  Paul makes this connection in Ephesians 4:28 "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need."  The thief TAKES. The man doing honest work MAKES. The thief takes FROM others, the honest man makes enough to provide FOR himself and others. 

And this connection between our work and the fruit of our work is deeply related to our sense of purpose and meaning in the world. Through our efforts we come to have a sense of what makes something valuable. We come to understand the meaning of sacrifice and generosity. It is one of the ways that we are "needed" by our community and this has transcendent significance. In addressing the Ephesian Elders in Acts 20 Paul explains "You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ” Acts 20:34-35

Gratitude Journal: One of The Most Rewarding Things I Have Done

I have journaled off and on since becoming a Christian in high school. But it has always been inconsistent. Even more, I felt strange about what to write. “Dear diary” seemed a strange approach to me. Several years ago a friend gave me the idea of keeping a gratitude journal and it has been one of the best things I have done. Now, the number 1 priority for my journal is to record the things I am thankful for. I use it for more than this. But using the journal for this has constrained my practice and made it a little easier to stay on track.

I write in my journal 3-4 times per week on average. Sometimes less. It us usually less than a page. Here are four significant things I have learned:

• This is hard. I am surprised at how difficult this has been. My life is overflowing with blessings and often I find it hard to find something to write. My heart seems wired to complain and focus on the problems. This discipline has forced me to see the blessings in my life and put it down on paper.

• One of the real benefits is in going back to review the journal. I have a day calendared once a month for reflection and solitude. I don’t always succeed at keeping this, but it has been helpful. I have created a list of profitable things to do on a day like this. One of them is to go back and review my journal. This has encouraged me to see God’s hand of mercy in my life. Throughout scripture God’s people left memorials and landmarks. This has functioned like those memorials.

• This practice has helped me to see the big picture and overcome my emotional ups and downs. It shows me progress in my life over time. I just spent an hour doing reading entries from last year. Wow. So much mercy.. I often go back and make notes from what I read. It gives me ideas and helps me counter the false ideas that come from culture and my own heart. I am NOT a victim. Life is not horrible. The sky is not falling. My cup overflows.

• Many of the things I read in later months are things that I would not have recalled if I had not written them down. Simple things like a good night of sleep, relief from a bad tooth ache, a meaningful conversation with one of my kids, growth in the way my wife and I handle problems, answers to prayer, etc.

Sin Is Crouching At The Door

In Genesis chapter 4, Moses records the sad story of the children of Adam and Eve. This is the generation after the fall into sin. In many ways this is the pilot episode for the rest of the history of the world. Conflict, anger, lying, competition, envy, and bloodshed have become the new normal for humanity. 

From one perspective, the ugliness of Genesis 4 is really a cautionary tale about an unheeded warning. After Cain offer’s an unacceptable sacrifice to God, he becomes very angry, to the extent his whole appearance is affected. “His face falls.”  God offers a rebuke to Cain and warns him in the following words: “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”  (Genesis 4:6-7, ESV)

This is the first time the word “sin” is mentioned in the Bible. And much of this account is about the power of sin to grow, overcome, and completely dominate a person.  Cain rejects God’s words, and the rest of the passage is a revelation of what it looks like to be overcome with sin. Anger ripens to premeditated murder of a brother. God describes sin like a deadly predator, a lion crouching just before it takes its prey by the throat and dominates it. Sin wants to take control. 

Cain needed this warning, and so do we, because this is not how we view sin. We downplay our own faults. We believe that we are in control. That we have mastery over the dark impulses of our hearts. We see our sin as a little kitten that is easy to handle, rather than a man-eater.

This portrait of sin is taken up repeatedly through the Bible. Sin is compared to weeds that grow and choke the power of God’s word in our souls (Matt 13:22). Sin is compared to a little spark that can start a whole forest fire (James 3:5). It is compared to deadly gangrene that can spread through a whole church (2 Tim 2:17). And frequently sin is compared to leaven, which is similar to our modern understanding of yeast. The smallest pinch of yeast will take over a lump of dough as big as the world, given enough time.  “A little leaven, leavens the whole lump.” (I Cor. 5:6, Gal 5:9)

    This is one of the lessons of the feast of unleavened bread in the Old Testament. The Jews were to clean out their houses and cupboards of all the yeast/leaven. This is symbolic of making a thorough dealing with the sin in our lives. Paul uses this metaphor in I Cor. 5:7 as a way to instruct us in dealing with sin.

Sin grows, consumes, dominates and destroys. Here are a few ways to apply this idea:

1. Do not underestimate sin’s power in your life. It is deceitful. Sometimes we don’t see the way sin is working in our lives. Sometimes we don’t want to see it.  When you see one cockroach, assume there is a colony in waiting.
2. Do not tolerate sin in your own life. There is an important discussion to have on what this means in our dealings with other people in the world. That is for a different place. Suffice it to say that we cannot escape the sins of other people unless we leave the world entirely (I Cor. 5:9-10).  But we must not tolerate any known sin in our lives. Don’t make excuses for it. Don’t rationalize it. Don’t minimize it. Don’t blame others for it. Don’t make peace with it. “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,  the Lord would not have listened.” (Psalm 66:18) The word for cherish comes from the root word “to look after,” and has the idea of looking on something with pleasure. We do this when we treat sin as a welcome friend rather than a hostile enemy. This is a helpful metaphor because it connects well with the idea of repentance, which literally means “a change of mind.” Obviously repentance is more than changing our mind, but it starts there. The first step to turning away from sin begins in the way we view it. We must see it the way God sees it.  We must see it as an enemy, as cancer. We must starve it. We must work to evict it. We must kill it (Romans 8:13).  This is why Paul says, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Romans 13:14)
3. Attack sin when it is small and you are first aware of it. Small weeds are easier to pull than big ones. I had a friend go in for colon cancer screening 10 years before it is normally recommended. She did this because of her family history. One physician didn’t think it was necessary.  But when they looked, they found a small tumor that she was able to have treated. The doctor that found the tumor said it probably would have slowly grown without being noticed for 10 years or so until it had done a lot of damage and spread.  The delay could have been fatal. We know that early detection and treatment works for cancer, the same is true for sin.  Look with alarm at small patterns of ingratitude, anger, bitterness, greed, etc.  
4. Ask God to search your heart for hidden faults. In Psalm 139 David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart!  Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” In Psalm 19 he prayed, “Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.  Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;  let them not have dominion over me!  Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.”  Obviously these ideas are not only in the New Testament.  We also need the help of other christians in this regard: “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (Hebrews 3:13)
5. You cannot do this on your own. You need divine help. The good news is this: Jesus helps us in our weakness. We don’t have enough wisdom, discipline, or strength to manage all of this. Our battle against sin is fought in two ways. There is the conscious intentional battle that we fight, and then there is the part that is unconscious to us. We must work to search our hearts and turn away from sin. But the Holy Spirit works in us continually to help us grow. I John 1:7 expresses this in the context of dealing with the reality of sin in our lives: “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” The tense of the word “cleanse” is present, active, indicative. It could be translated “the blood of Jesus his son IS CLEANSING US from all sin.” When does this happen? As we walk in the light. The ongoing work of growth and cleansing happens as we walk with him and one another. A farm worker covered in dirt from a day’s labor can get clean by taking a shower, but much of the dirt gets washed off as he spends his day working around the irrigation sprinklers.  That is how it happens with us. As we trust and walk with Christ he is at work to cleanse us and overthrow sin in our lives.