In this final episode of our series, Don’t Waste Your Life. Rule It for Jesus, we will examine a very common feeling among Christian men—that their secular work, itself, is a necessary evil, but only of secondary importance in our mission to spread Christ’s agenda of rightness over the earth. Is that true? This episode seeks to apply a biblical worldview of work and rest to our understanding of our mission.
At the conclusion of the creation account given to us at the beginning of Genesis, we read, Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 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. 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 (2:1-3). In Exodus 20:8, we are given the command both to work and to rest. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
THE BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW OF WORK
Six days you shall labor
A. In the beginning there was work. The Bible begins to talk about work as soon as it begins to talk about anything. The Bible refers to God’s actions to create the universe as work. In fact, he depicts the magnificent project of cosmos invention with language that refers to the regular workweek. Genesis repeatedly shows God “at work” using the Hebrew word, mlkh, the word for ordinary human work. Tim Keller observes, In the beginning, then, God worked. Work was not a necessary evil that came into the picture later, or something human beings were created to do but that was beneath the great God himself. No, God worked for the sheer joy of it. Work could not have a more exalted inauguration (Every Good Endeavor).
B. Our calling to work, is fundamental to bearing God’s image. The opening chapters of Genesis leave us with a striking truth—work was part of paradise. It is part of God’s perfect design for human life, because we are made in God’s image and part of HIS glory and happiness is that HE WORKS. “My Father is always at his work to this very day,” said Jesus, and I too am working.” (John 5:17). The fact that God put work in paradise reminds us that it was not a result of the fall, as is often thought. Work was part of the blessedness of the garden BEFORE the fall. Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sex… Without meaningful work we sense significant inner loss and emptiness. People who are cut off from work because of physical or other reasons quickly discover how much they need work to thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually (Ibid).
C. The job description of our work is to fill the earth and subdue it and exercise dominion over it. The word, “subdue” indicates that, though all God made was good, it was still to a great degree undeveloped. To subdue the earth is to explore the created world and harness its laws for the good of mankind. From legislators who design laws to keep order in civil society to engineers who harness the laws of creation in order to solve human problems to scientists who discover those laws, the human concept of vocation is rooted in God’s call to mankind to subdue the earth. God left creation with deep untapped potential for cultivation that Adam, Eve, and their progeny were to develop through their labor. Al Wolters writes:
The earth had been completely unformed and empty; then in the six-day process of development God had formed it and filled it—but not completely. People must now carry on the work of development: by being fruitful they fill it even more; by subduing it they must form it even more…as God’s representatives, (we) carry on where God left off. But this is now to be a human development of the earth. The human race will FILL the earth WITH its own kind, and it will FORM the earth FOR its own kind. (Creation Regained).
Part of the righteous rule of Adam and Eve, “exercising dominion for the High King” has always meant helping creation reach its’ full potential. Spreading Christ’s kingdom today means restoration of what is broken—but also fulfilling the potential God designed into humans.
D. The material world matters. Developing the potential of creation is our primary calling because God’s creation matters greatly to him. In fact, the story of salvation is the story of CREATION. Dutch theologian, Herman Bavinck, argues, “The essence of the Christian religion consists in the reality that the CREATION of the Father, ruined by sin, is restored in the death of the Son of God and RECREATED by the grace of the Holy Spirit into a kingdom of God.”
For Christians all work has dignity, no matter how menial, because it reflects God’s image in us, but also because the material universe we are called to care for matters to God. The biblical doctrine of creation harmonizes with the doctrine of the incarnation in which God takes on himself a physical body. It harmonizes with the Biblical view of marriage, which commands the joining of bodies in sex to accompany the joining of hearts in marriage. It harmonizes with the calling of the Messiah in Isaiah 61 to both proclaim the Word and restore physical flourishing. It harmonizes with resurrection doctrine, in which God redeems not just the soul but the body. It harmonizes with Romans 8:21 where we are told that creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption These all demonstrate how “pro-physical” Christianity is! God loves his creation!
Whenever we bring order out of chaos, whenever we draw out creative potential, whenever we elaborate and “unfold” creation beyond where it was when we found it, we are following God’s pattern of creative cultural development. In fact, our word, “culture” comes from “cultivation.” Just as he subdued the earth in his work of creation, so he calls us now to labor as his representatives in a continuation and extension of that work of subduing (Keller, Every Good Endeavor).
And yet there is an even greater reason why this material world matters to God. Our creation calling is to exercise dominion over our kingdom because it will one day be God’s throne. The ESV study notes explain the expression in Genesis 2:1-3 God rested. “As reflected in various ancient Near Eastern accounts divine rest is associated with temple building. God’s purpose for the earth is that it should become his dwelling place; it is not simply made to house his creatures… The concept of the earth as a divine sanctuary, runs throughout the whole Bible, coming to a climax in the future reality that the apostle John sees in his vision of a ‘new heaven and a new earth.’” Revelation 21:4 reads, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. This earth matters to God. He is going to spend eternity dwelling here.
E. Our vocational calling is an assignment to serve our neighbor in love. No one saw more clearly than Martin Luther that Scripture elevates ordinary “secular” work to the same level as the so called “sacred” work of ministry. In his commentary on Psalm 147, he asks, “so how does God feed every living thing today?” He answers that he does it through humanity’s vocational calling. God does it through the farmer, the trucker, the retailer, the website designer, the police who protect the exchange of money, etc. The biblical view of vocational work is that it is a way to fulfill the two greatest commandments. 1) It is loving God by obedience to his command to develop the full potential of the creation he loves, and which is actually a reflection of himself. 2) It is loving our neighbors by serving them through our work.
THE BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW OF REST
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy (Ex 20:8-11).
In my view, one of the great tragedies of Christianity today is that for the most part we are shaped by one of two imbalanced views of the fourth commandment: Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy (Ex 20:8). One view argues that the fourth commandment is part of the OT law and therefore not relevant for Christians. This view misunderstands the various categories of OT law. The CEREMONIAL law, which had to do with feast days and purification rituals, was designed to point to God’s holiness and according to Hebrews, is fulfilled in Christ. The second OT category of law was CIVIL. Such laws spelled out justice for society. They were specific to Israel’s unique calling to be a theocracy but with some exceptions provide a pattern of general equity for all nations. The third category of OT law is the MORAL law, which is summarized by the Ten Commandments. NT teaching reinforces nine of the ten commandments showing that the moral law of the OT does come into the NT. The fact that God puts the fourth commandment right up there with, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, makes it problematic for Christians to just ignore this commandment. Yet it is the fourth commandment that is the one commandment not repeated in the NT.
The opposite view imports the fourth commandment, which was originally given just to one nation, into the NT era and demands that Christians all over the world make the same commitment to obeying the fourth commandment that was required of Israel. But in the NT era, we take the gospel into the cultures of every other nation, cultures, unlike Israel, that do not practice a weekly sabbath.
TWO ASPECTS OF KEEPING THE 4TH COMMANDMENT
The fourth commandment is both—a creation ordinance and a moral calling for God’s covenant people. In Exodus 20 the reason for keeping the sabbath was the creation pattern. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. When Moses repeats the fourth Commandment forty years later in Deuteronomy 5, the reason for keeping the sabbath was God’s SALVATION OF HIS COVENANT PEOPLE. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
A. Application: The Sabbath as Creation Ordinance--Resting One Day in Seven. During the French Revolution, an attempt was made to have a ten day work-week. But the machinery started breaking down. The factory workers concluded there may be a ratio of exertion to rest bult into the physical world. They returned to one day in seven to shut the factory down. Here are some practical thoughts about implementing this principle.
- It is NOT DOING the type of work required for your vocation. My father was an electronics engineer, which meant sitting at his desk all week. He renewed by puttering around his properties, especially, his cottage. As a former pastor, and one who now releases a podcast on Sunday evening for which I want to pray Sunday afternoon, I take my day of physical rest and non-vocational workday Mondays. That day I try not to focus on our ministry at all. I ignore email, and all calls but emergency ones.
- It is DOING SOMETHING ELSE YOU ENJOY. As a busy pastor with five kids and caring for a father with Alzheimer’s, I went through the experience of burn out. I later gave careful thought to what renews my emotional tank. What I realized filled my emotional tank, was making love with my wife, playing sports with my kids, getting out into nature, and reading novels. I believe that what renews us emotionally is doing what we enjoy. It sounds crass and worldly—but another way to say that is doing what brings you (righteous) pleasure.
- It is BEEING FREE from things YOU HAVE TO DO. I try for at least 24 hours to get a break from chores I don’t feel like doing. I realize this could be a formula for selfishness. But most of us work five days giving us a sixth for the honey-do list. Being the best ME to go hard six days requires that I take seriously the creation principle of rest. (As a husband of five kids at home I also tried to give my wife a weekly break from caring for the kids.)
B. Application: The Sabbath As a Moral Calling for God’s People—Renewal. I believe the Bible teaches us to set apart the Lord’s Day in some way for the Lord. In the application above, the focus was on resting from work. This second part of the application focuses on the phrase, Remember the Sabbath to keep it HOLY. The early Christians changed the day of worship from the Saturday Sabbath of Judaism to Sunday, the Lord’s Day, because Jesus was raised from the dead on Sunday, the first day of the week. However, the early Christians did not REST FROM WORK on the Lord’s Day. It was like our Monday, the first day of their work week. So, they met for worship after work, which explains why Paul talked until midnight in Acts 20. Sunday, the first day of the week, has been celebrated by Christians as the day OF WORSHIP since the Sunday of Christ’s resurrection. But that day OF WORSHIP was not a day OF REST until 300 years later, when Constantine made Sunday a day of rest in the Roman empire.
I believe that the whole concept of sabbath—a day for rest, reflection, renewal and recalibration was designed by God to be a great blessing to us. Some Christians have turned it into a legalistic rule about whether you can eat out at a restaurant or watch football games on Sunday afternoons. (Believe me, I know. I was one of them!) But the fourth commandment, as all God’s commandments are, IS GIVEN TO US BY GOD AS A GREAT BLESSING, which is why Jesus said, the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). In fact, I believe that giving God the firstfruits of our time is very much like giving God the first fruits of our earning power. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine (Prov 3:9-10). Someone has defined TIME as: a limited resource extended only by giving the first part back to God. I believe this principle of money management applies to our management of other resources, like our time.
When Genesis 2 says that God rested from his work of creation, resting had to mean more than just taking a break from the exertion of working. God doesn’t get tired! Resting must imply, at the very least, reflecting upon and delighting in what he had made. Could a rest day be for renewal of our perspective, our spiritual energies, and our love relationship with Jesus? Gordon MacDonald, in his book, Ordering Your Private World, identifies three principles of genuine rest:
1. Looking back: Closing the loop. “When God rested, He looked upon His work, enjoyed its completed appearance, and then reflected upon its meaning. 'And God saw that it was good' (Gen 1:10)…So you could say that on the seventh day, God closed the loop on His primary creation activity. He closed it by resting and looking back upon it to survey what had been accomplished.” After the first time I spoke at a men’s breakfast with my son who coaches high school football, when we grabbed a coke afterwards—the first thing he wanted to do was evaluate everything we did. I was shocked. But in the world of football and in many other secular fields, the planning of the next event begins with an evaluation of the game film of the past event. Why wouldn’t our review of last week be a natural starting point for meeting weekly with our CO?
2. Present recalibration: Returning to the Eternal Truths. “We are daily the objects of a bombardment of messages competing for our loyalties and labors. We are pushed and pulled in a thousand different directions, asked to make decisions and value judgements, to invest our resources and our time. By what standard of truth do we make these decisions….Thus rest is not only looking back at the meaning of my work and the path I have so recently walked in my life but it is also a finetuning of my inner navigational instruments so that I can make my way through the world for another week.”
Might the Lord’s day be the opportunity to read that Christian book, read a longer passage of Scripture in one sitting, go to the Colson Center's What Would Your Say website to sharpen your skills at promoting the biblical worldview, or pick up a dictionary to do a word study on the Fruit of the Spirit? Our Mormon friend, Stephen Covey, calls this process the sharpening of our saw.
3. Future strategizing. Defining our mission. “When we rest in the biblical sense sense we affirm our intentions to pursue a Christ-centered tomorrow. We ponder where we are headed in the coming week, month, or year. We define our intentions and make our dedications.” MacDonald continues,
“General George Patton demanded that his men know and be able to articulate exactly what the current mission was. ‘What is your mission?’ he would frequently ask. The definition of the mission was the most important thing a soldier could carry into combat. Based on that knowledge, he could make his decisions and implement the plan. That is exactly what happens when I pursue biblical rest. I take a hard look at my mission.”
I want to close with a final reason for making sabbath rest part of the pattern of your life. Our greatest calling in life is to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. As every marriage counselor knows, ALL LOVE RELATIONSHIPS require time apart alone with each other. And the love-bond between us and our Master is the source of all the spiritual fruit that will bring Him honor. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit…By this is my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples (John 15:5, 8).
For Further Prayerful Thought.
- In your own words, how would you summarize the biblical view of secular work? How is a high view of creation connected to a high view of work?
- How would you answer the objection that the 4th commandment isn’t relevant for Christians?
- How would you explain to another that instead of a legalistic prohibition, the fourth commandment is an invitation to weekly renewal? How is the way that God rested a pattern for us to follow?
- How can Gordon MacDonald’s three principles of genuine rest, 1) looking backward, 2) sharpen our present truth perspective, and 3) looking forward to the upcoming mission for the week be a helpful pattern to you?
