Towards a theology of work (3)
So work is good. And work is spiritual. Why and how we work therefore is important. It’s an area we must spend some time thinking, reflecting and helping one another to grow and develop in.
I want to suggest three important questions to consider:
- Why are we working ? (motivation for our work)
- What are we working towards ? (purpose of our work)
- How do we approach our work ? (attitude to our work)
1. Why are we working ? (motivation for our work)
The sole reason for work ultimately is that God works, and we are created in His image to share in that work.
There are many other motives for work:
- To provide for my family.
- To support me so that I can do the spiritual church stuff
- To bring financial prosperity
- To gain personal fulfilment
- To provide for the church
Don’t get me wrong… some of these are good reasons to work ! But they are not the primary Biblical reason for working. Some of these may well be the fruit of work, but they are not the Biblical basis for working.
Our calling is to work as God worked. Our work is meant to be an expression of the energy of the creative Creator. The Apostle Paul makes it clear throughout his letters that our work brings pleasure to God. We have to work to please God. cf. 1 Thessalonians 4, Ephesians 6 for examples.
When we don’t work for God we deny our calling to work with Him.
Living to please God is not the same as living to appease God.Pleasing God means living to give pleasure to God. God is pleased when we live as He created us to live.
Jonathan Edwards puts it like this:
“Unless you have experienced grace and know you are saved by Jesus’ work not your work, you will always approach your work out of self-interest, not for the sheer joy of bringing pleasure to God.”
Work is ultimately doing things to give joy to God’s heart because of what He has done for me. Until we work for God’s sake not our own, our work will not fulfil us.
If we work for personal fulfilment, work will end up either being too important or too unimportant for us. Eventually this way of working will burn us out. But when we work for the pleasure of God, we will experience all the fulfilment in the world. When we work purely to please God, we can rest from the need to get identity in our work, and simply work for God out of that place of rest.
Exactly, too often work takes us out of the eternal perspective and into the temporary “stuff” perspective. As my Pastor said this past weekend, at the end of our life it all goes back into the box.
But, if we are working to please God and help others, we let go of the ego, the stuff, the competition and take hold of the eternal.