But it is rapidly being supplanted by a kind of driven-ness, a new ‘slave mentality’ that lives in bondage and fear to the threat of overwork, underpay and the ‘bricks without straw’ production quotas imposed by merciless overlords, along with the threat of ‘down-sizing’ and redundancy if these figures are not met in increasingly competitive world markets.
 
With some work has even become a form of idolatry, a spiritual quest for Economic Man. It alone is said to be able to provide content to that that elusive search for ‘the meaning of life’. But divorced from God, this only leaves the worshipper spent and empty. A kind of ‘burnt out’ rocket stage on the ‘quest for the stars. This may be primarily an American influence. The ‘evil mutant’ distant offspring of ‘The Protestant Work Ethic’ of the Puritan ‘Pilgrim Fathers’. Industriousness and diligence, spawned a great nation, but eventually work became an obsession!
 
A moment’s reflection would tell us that things are less than ideal in our attitude and outlook. In common with the rest of British society, even Christians tend to view work as ‘a necessary evil’. We’d rather be somewhere else, doing something else, something we really enjoyed. Our culture is desperately trying to avoid work, or permanently insure against its uncertain future. We have many ‘get rich quick’ schemes like the National Lottery which promise the opportunity win such a jackpot that we’ll never have to work again. Our advertising sets huge importance by leisure industries like music, movies, clubbing, vacationing, driving, travelling, eating, dressing-up and playing sport. We want the leisure to spend our lives doing what we want to do – and work is not usually seen in that category! City men would love to retire at 35. There is a push to the four or even three day working week. Trade Unions exist to minimise work and maximise pay.
 
Three factors fuel this escapist mentality, and challenge us all to REVIEW OUR ATTITUDES
 
1) The Immorality of the workplace
Not just the page three pin-ups on some office walls, but the whole mentality of turning up at work to get rather than to give. We want to know ‘What’s in it for me?’, and this is an unworthy motivation that deteriorates the work place over time. ‘Perks’ are taken whether authorised or not. Expense accounts are routinely falsified. VAT fiddling and false tax returns are commonplace, and so is shoplifting and stealing from your own place of work. Shortcuts are made in service. Cheating and lying to customers is becoming the norm. Orders are not completed on time; invoices are not paid on or time either. The idea is to do as little as possible for as much money as possible. The immorality of the workplace.
 
2) The Inhumanity of the Workplace
In the Renaissance period, Leonardo Da Vinci came to Florence but found himself a tool of higher powers that simply wanted to use him. Giorgio Vassari, a contemporary artist and historian summed up the mentality, “Florence treats its artists as time its creatures: it creates them and then slowly destroys them.” You may have your ‘human resources’ manager and personnel staff.
 
But though there are an increasing number of laws to protect human rights, it still does not mean you will be treated like a human being. You are seen as a cipher, a cog in the corporate machine. Few people actually know your name or call you by it. You are not valued very much no matter how talented you are. You are rarely thanked or praised. You feel insecure, especially when the sales figures aren’t good and redundancy threatens. Mergers and takeovers seem to happen without any other consideration than that of profit for the shareholders and ‘the bottom line’. Relationships are superficial and phoney, judging by the gossip and vitriolic backbiting that takes place at the photocopier. The inhumanity of the workplace.
 
3. The Idolatry of the Workplace
Work has become something of a deity, a cruel god that demands all and gives little, sucking all of the juices out of you over the space of half a lifetime then discarding the empty husk of what’s left of you. Your last years on earth may turn out to be ones of idle uselessness, an early heart attack or premature senility and death. This ‘god’ will take you away from your family, your church and your ministry provided the offered promotion and inducements are just right. Roman tombstones often contained epigraphs that repeated a grim joke against death: “I was not, I am not, I care not.” Used so frequently it was abbreviated to its initials in Latin, “n.f.n.s.n.c.” It’s true to say of many that they ‘live for their work’, and will die in it. The idolatry of the workplace.
 
You know what’s missing? The eternal dimension! I want to help restore this in all of our thinking tonight.
 
I. MAKING A CAREER OF OUR CALLING
 
One major factor in restoring the eternal dimension to work now faces us. I’ll put in a nutshell what I believe is the most important factor. It is to hear from God as to your life calling or vocation.
 
‘Calling’ is the means or process by which we get somebody’s attention. When you ‘call’ on the phone you demand someone’s attention, at least for a while. Human beings call to eachother, to God and to animals. Animals can call too. You know this, but have you considered the possibility that God himself may do the calling?
 
Take any of the world changers we find in the Bible or world history, people who served God in special ways. Each was resolved to find out what it was God meant them to do. They wanted a Mission in life. Adam and Eve were given this blessing in the first place, right at the very beginning. They soon rejected their creatureliness and moral responsibility to God and refused to be directed any longer. William Dumbrell “They sought absolute moral autonomy, a prerogative the Bible reserves for God alone.” The result was loss of meaning, fulfilment and direction to their lives. Everything went wrong for them.
 
Even the church we have often lost this sense of the importance of ‘calling’ to all of our lives. ‘Vocation’ – Was once seen as something reserved for very ‘special’ servants of God e.g. Clergy, monks, nuns etc, in mediaeval times. Even today, we often think or even say that, ”Full time missionaries and pastors are ‘called’, but not many others”.
 
The Reformation went a long way to address this. Its leaders like Luther and Calvin reacted strongly to this clergy-laity hierarchy and distinction. They recovered NT emphasis on ‘The Priesthood of all Believers’. But this tends to become forgotten quickly. Without a sense of dignity and calling, everything goes wrong. Unbelievers think in terms of ‘fate’ – forces and powers, ‘’luck’ – mere chance in life, ‘karma’ – paying off bad debts from a previous lifetime, and ‘selfactualisation’ – we invent our own purpose in life. And some Believers – are unable to see themselves as specially guided by God as to how they invest the only life they have before dying.
 
One major result of this is that work becomes a very negative part of people’s lives. Work is dulled and becomes a meaningless even though necessary evil for the majority of people. This can result then in laziness in some, and overwork in others – sloth or workaholism, ‘dropping out’ or becoming ‘buried alive’. They cannot see the point and either escape it, or drown in it in order to dull the pain of living. Herman Melville “They talk of the dignity of work, bosh! The dignity is in the leisure.” The 1960’s student movements called for a work-free world in which total automations would produce the food, goods and services we needed. Men would be free for drugs and fornication. Magazines, movies and holiday adverts still promote this ‘dream’. But a life of leisure is essentially parasitic and non-productive. A leisure class is parasitic, and when a culture aims for leisure it becomes a parasitic one.
 
We need to recover a wholesome view of our callings. And to see this we need to understand that God is the source of this calling and the only one who can give us dignity in following them. We need a mission in life.
 
We need to recover a wholesome view of ‘calling’, and to see this we need to understand that God is the source of these callings and the only one who can give us dignity in following them. There are several ways to think of God’s calling :
 
1. To Faith – the ‘Effectual’ call
Ephesians 4:1, Matt 9:3, Mark 3:14. The verb kaleo, and the noun klesis denote the way God begins to intervene in our lives and we cease being rebels and become disciples of Jesus (Romans 1:6, 7).
 
This is a call to SOMEONE before it is a call to SOMETHING. This is not something we choose and initiate, rather we are chosen. For some it is a crisis experience and fairly instant – a sudden turn around. For others it is more gradual, as the gospel begins to make more and more sense to them. People with no identity and no name (other than the designer labels and fashion accessories that mark them out in a group), who are lost and homeless in the universe, suddenly find they have a home and a family.
 
2. To a Station in life – the ‘Providential’ call
When we become Christians it is not in a vacuum. We are already somewhere and living at some time, and can now see this in a new light. I Cor 7:17, 24. Circumstances of birth, family, education, city, era – all carry new weight and significance. We find that God was at work, before we knew him, even in this. The use of klesis here was translated by Luther as ‘station’, i.e. the position you were in when Christ called you to faith. This was no accident. The context speaks of possibilities like slave or free, married or single, circumcised or uncircumcised – i.e. Jew or Gentile. It helps us to see providence at work, even when we knew not. Even Rulers are subject to this providential activity of God (Romans 13:1-2).
‘Calling’ here means something like ‘appointment’, ‘station’, ‘situation’ or even ‘starting point’ with God; and since this is of God, it has now become more liquid, more ‘open’ and pregnant with new possibilities beyond the limits set for us or even set by ourselves. No situation is as ‘fixed’, determined or ‘fated’ as we had thought, once God enters the framework.
 
It was no accident that Lydia sold purple cloth, Priscilla and Aquila were tentmakers and Saul of Tarsus was a highly educated Pharisee, when Christ revealed himself to them. But you aren’t locked in to this. This is your starting point for the renewal of the whole of your life. The situation can be transformed because it is taken up with you in your call to now follow Christ. Don’t be in a hurry to change it – you may miss something! It can be sanctified in some way. So there is no such thing as a ‘dead end’ job, or being trapped in a stale marriage or singleness, or even fixed in your status on account of an ‘accident’ your birth.
 
3. The call of new inner convictions – the ‘Heart’ call
 
The Holy Spirit not only begins to create new abilities in you but he also creates the desire to use them for particular areas of service. Sometimes this comes to individuals directly, even verbally, but God can work just as strongly through our wants and desires. So we find we have new ambitions to do what is needed in the Church and in the World. Cf. I Timothy 3:1. You find a love for words or for music. Children, clunking cars, pregnant mums, diseased bodies, blank canvasses, whirring PC’s, columns of figures, the elderly and shut in, the desire to keep pigs or chickens, the fantastic world of books and ideas…! They all do different things to different people. And we can’t shake them off.
 
Elizabeth O’Connor “We ask to know the will of God without guessing that his will is written in our very beings.” Frederick Buechner offers this advice – “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it no less than the excitement and the sadness; touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it…”
 
4. The call to service in the world – The ‘Dominion’ call
God has given a creation mandate – based on his own Creation work in Genesis 1:1 – 2:1, it is in Genesis 1:27-30. The fact that God himself is a worker endows all of our work with dignity. YOUR WORK MATTERS TO GOD. God both created out of nothing, and also continues to uphold his creation in being, by maintaining its existence from moment to moment, in very part – microcosm to macrocosm. He is both a manufacturing worker, and a maintenance worker. He is also a designer and an engineer, with all of the artistic, mathematical, mechanical and motor skills necessary.
 
Furthermore, he made Adam and commissioned him to work. Adam’s work was both manual (he was a gardener) and mental (he was a zoologist, naming and classifying the animals). I love the definition of work given by John Stott “Work is the expenditure of energy, mental, manual or a mixture of both, which brings fulfilment to the worker, benefit to the community and glory to God.” Note carefully: Not all work is employed work (e.g. your gardening) or even paid work (e.g. being a mother of two children under 2 years of age!), but it is glorifying to God and has dignity. This is the origin of the term ‘Amateur’, from the Latin word for ‘love’ – It means somebody who does it out of love for the work alone.
 
Christ does indeed guide us into particular outlets of our talents and gifts for he has a life of fruitfulness and productivity in mind for us. He has mapped out a lots of good works for each of us (Ephesians 2:10). This is a biblical principle. Joseph became Egypt’s Prime Minister, after a long route that took him to jail and a faithful role as ‘trustee’ there. Daniel trained to be ‘Cupbearer’ to the king and later a life of statesmanship in Babylon, well on to his eightees. Saul not only learned the trade of ‘Tentmaker’, he trained as a Rabbi in the school of Gamaliel. Nothing is wasted with God!
 
5. The call to ministry in the church – the ‘Charismatic’ call
God gives gifts and graces as he operates in and through us by his Holy Spirit. See I Cor 12:7, Romans 12:3-8. And then God moves to stir these abilities into operation and to confirm them prophetically so we will take our place in the service God has for us in edifying his people and building up his church (Acts 13:1-2).
 
This is not so much to do with the ‘Creation Mandate’ as the ‘Re-creation Mandate’ or ‘Great Commission’ of Matt 28, designed to restore people to God’s original design for them, which sin has spoiled.
 
And so when we ask “What is my calling?” Greg Ogden outlines three dimensions of the individual experience of the call (1) We feel a compulsion, an inner ought-ness (2) It is bigger than ourselves (3) It brings you satisfaction and joy. It is something you feel born to.
 
This is what we mean by ‘A Mission in Life’
A ‘mission on life’ Great phrase isn’t it? Webster’s dictionary defines his as ‘a continuing task or responsibility that one is destined or fitted to do, or specially called upon to undertake.’ We all want something to be enthusiastic about. ‘Enthusiasm’ is word derived from the Greek ‘en theos’, and literally means ‘God in us’. A vocation or calling implies Someone who calls; a destiny implies Someone who has determined that destiny. When you and I have found our mission in life, three things are true of us You have come to know God personally and live in his presence daily, consciously drawing on his power.
 
1. You are looking every day and each moment to do whatever God tells you to do to make this world a better place under the guiding hand of his Holy Spirit. You do this ‘one step at a time’, because you don’t always see the ‘big picture’, just your part in it right now.
 
2. You are using the talents and gifts he gave you, (a) so that you derive the greatest pleasure in discovering and using the abilities God gave you (b) in the place to which he has sent you, and (c) for those purposes which God has in mind for you to accomplish on his behalf.
 
We can sum it up in three words in this way: A task; Abilites; A place.
 
It is to know, very profoundly in your spirit, that you have been sent by God. You are here, as Richard N. Bolles put it, so that ‘Earth might become more like heaven, and that human lives might become more like God’s’. And how does this feel? It is not so much something God might ‘write in the sky for us’, as some ask him to do, but rather something that God has already written in every fibre of our being. It’s in every cell and pore of our bodies. He has revealed it to you if you’d only take the trouble to seek it. I love the way the writer Frederick Buechner expresses it. “The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) the world most needs to have done” He also says, “The place God calls you to, is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” In other words, God says ‘I wish’ and you say ‘Oh, yes!’
 
5 questions then:
 
What do you feel prompted to do? -That insistent summons that keeps coming back to you when your thoughts aren’t legitimately engaged somewhere else.
What do you enjoy pleasure in doing? -So that when you are about that task you wouldn’t swap places with anybody ‘this is such a delight’.
What do you experience power in doing? -That is what are you anointed to do? What does the Holy Spirit give you an ease, a facility to do?  You feel well oiled, you don’t creek and croak, whine and whine.  You feel ‘this is what I was made for I feel an ability in doing this’.
What do you observe progress in doing? -What is God actually blessing that you do, so that it is not something you’d see no fruit for. It is something that evidently God is favoring you, and the results are flowing.
What do you receive praise in doing? -Because human endorsement is often important and when you are in the right calling people will endorse it.  They will say ‘you were born for this weren’t you. I have never seen anybody work like that at that job. You produce such wonderful results. Do you know it was fascinating just listening to you or watching you at work’.  They keep telling you what a good job you have done.
 
It may be you find a love for words or for music. Children, clunking cars, pregnant mums, diseased bodies, blank canvasses, whirring PC’s, columns of figures, the elderly and shut in, the desire to keep pigs or chickens, the fantastic world of books and ideas…! They all do different things to different people. And we can’t shake them off. Elizabeth O’Connor “We ask to know the will of God without guessing that his will is written in our very beings.” Frederick Buechner offers this advice – “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it, no less than the excitement and the sadness; touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it…” To be called is to feel summonsed, conscripted, even wooed by a presence outside of yourself. You hear a warm voice, the voice of someone who knows you, and has something very special to accomplish, and only you in mind to do it.
 
Your Identity as a person is truly bound up with finding God’s calling. In the old days this was well known. People’s names reflected this – Miller, Baker, Potter, Carpenter, Ploughman, Wheelwright and Blacksmith. Dorothy L Sayers “Work is not primarily a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do.” God has given you talents. To use them is fulfilling. To waste them is the road to boredom and frustration in your life – and the loss of identity as a person.
 
All of our great heroes and heroines in the Bible found out what God wanted them to do, and then did it. Have you done this? Or are you living a bored life, begrudging getting up in the morning, and looking forward only to the weekends? Are you grubbing around in dull routines, trips to the pub or the cinema and fancy meals out when God actually wants you to achieve something great for him! Try completing this sentence: “If there was one thing that would make my life complete before I die it would be….”
 

II. WORKING AT OUR VOCATION
WORK’ – It’s a four-letter word, as they say, and one that is not likely to excite anything other than negative emotions in the hearts of most people, and sometimes even in the hearts of the people of God also. But biblically, Work is a vocation or calling under God. Work is not only a necessity for survival (an outlook that gave it a sad and burdensome aura), it is has an eschatological meaning. It is more than drudgery; it is a means of dominion. It is a means not only of maintaining life but of creating the future! To build a house, plant a tree or till a garden has a future orientation. Bishop Westcott said once “The whole world will be conquered because of what Christ did in Judea.” You really have to work at your vocation! If you and I are to feel better about our work, then there is only one thing that can do that – Good Theology. All of life it theologically determined? That’s why theology was once regarded as the queen of subjects in European Universities. It was the centre; it had the throne everything else orbited around it.
 
So now, we need an overview of the Bible’s teaching on this topic, that may well change your whole outlook, and that will almost certainly make a difference to your life from Monday morning onwards.
 
What is your idea of heaven?
An eternal Saturday – a long lie in, cooked breakfast, football match or a trip to Lakeside or Blue Water Mall?
A veterans Rest Home with comfy chairs, bedroom slippers, regular meals and afternoon naps?
An eternal Sabbath or Sunday, hymns galore – hymns over there, choruses over here!
An everlasting Monday to Friday with lots of interesting things to do and all the energy you need to do it, now?
 
In an ideal world, would there be any work? Would you still go to work if you weren’t paid to do so? Is work just a curse, a result of Man’s fall? Well to answer these questions we have to turn to the only inspired description we possess of an ‘Ideal World’ and that’s in the Bible. In Genesis 1 – 2 we have the Creation account of the world ‘as it was in the beginning’, before anything spoiled it. As with so may issues – issues of origins, nature, our relation to the animals, sex, homosexuality, marriage, calling, work, child-rearing, politics, science, and government – we would have no foundation for our ethics or understanding of these unless we possessed and believed the early chapters of Genesis. No wonder Satan and rebel men hate them!
 
1. WORK – THE THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION
 
(1) God Himself is a Worker (Gen. 1)
He has imagination so he can conceive things that do not exist as yet. He has creative power so that he can expend energy to manufacture and bring into being the things he has conceived. He has the creative power so he can turn the ‘blueprints’, which are only in his own mind into a physical, reality, external to himself though sustained by himself but that has an integrity all of its own because he made it to have that integrity. He is versatile so he can give himself to a vast array and variety of creative activities. Everything from atoms to planets, from molecules to man, from animals to rivers and seas – everything in a wonderful diversity. He is both a manufacturing worker, and a maintenance worker. He is also a designer and an engineer, with all of the artistic, mathematical, mechanical and motor skills necessary.
 
He is co-operative and worked in partnership with the other Persons in the Godhead – the Father initiating, The Word or Logos describing and directing, the Spirit energising and ordering it all (Gen. 1:1-3) The fact that God himself is a worker endows all of our work with dignity.
 
God felt deep satisfaction and found pleasure in work. God both created out of nothing and also continues to sustain creation by keeping it in existence. God thus
enjoyed making and completing his creation – saying it was ‘Very good’. He built into this process and into his world, a rhythm of work and play, productivity and leisure, setting a divine pattern into that process of six days labour then he rested to enjoy the sight and fruit of his labour.
 
(2) Made in his image man is a Worker too (Gen.1:26-28)
Adam was not put on earth just to sing choruses! His fellowship with God took place after he had finished his work – ‘in the cool of the evening’. He had a job to do. He was a gardener. He worked with his hands and so God has dignified manual labour. So God has given us abilities reflecting his own – mental processes including imagination to conceive how things can be different and even better than they are. Authority to change them, along with the power to do so. That authority extends over the animate and inanimate creation, over plants, trees, animals, rocks, chemicals, minerals, waters, wind and seas.
 
Partnership initially between the Man and the Woman, but by extension, broadening to all of their offspring. All work is meant to be Team-work. The creation was finished, but not yet complete. It needed man’s contributions to continue it’s ordering and unlock more of it’s potential by the husbandry of its animals and soils, the processing of its chemicals and minerals, the harnessing of its energies, the landscaping and building of its territories and dwelling places. This was God’s will for mankind. If you don’t work you are less than human, you’ll be forever bored and you will never find fulfilment.
 
Work is to be a pleasure – Have you discovered the joy of using your natural talents? A joint superbly welded, a ball kicked into the goal, a poem beautifully crafted, a race well run, delivering your 237th baby, putting our a dangerous fire, preaching a life-changing sermon? It’s not so much a question of how busy you are, but what you are busy doing. We praise the honey bee for flitting form flower to flower, but we swat mosquitoes!
 
(3) That work was to be properly balanced (Gen.2) –
A. It was to be both Manual and Mental – Adam was a gardener. He ‘took care’ of the real estate God assigned to him (2:15) He engaged in digging, tilling, sowing and harvesting the fruits of his manual labour. He also used his brain! In Gen. 2:19-20, he was a scientist, naming and classifying the animals in an early form of biology, zoology and taxonomy, discovering and observing the distinctive features of the animal world and tracing their relations, classifying them accordingly by a ‘naming’ process.
 
B. It was to have a proper rhythm of Work, Worship and Play –It was carried out before God in worship, interrupted by regular play over a seven week, and enhanced by the joy of partnership and increased productivity through help. Adam related to God in fellowship and in worship (3:8), to Eve in companionship and partnership, to creation in work, and to the Seventh Day in rest and recreation as God himself did (2:2-3). In addition, unlike God we need to rest and sleep on a daily basis – if only to remind ourselves that we are not God! We find this an extremely difficult balance to maintain. ‘Americans worship their work, play at their worship and work at their play.’ It may be more accurate to say that British people probably play at our work, work at our play and totally bunk off our worship!’ The ideal is to Work at your work, Worship at your worship and truly Play at your play! “Rest and play are the dessert of life, but work is the meal. It is only a child who dreams of dessert all the time.” Indeed, we need work in order to be able to rest properly: “The sleep of the labouring man is sweet.”
 
C. It is to be set in context of other ‘Kingdom’ activities – These would include Church, Family, Friendships, Recreation, Creativity etc., all laying legitimate demands on our time, talents and energies. It is vital that God is invited to become part of this process, for without Him we are left with only limited human perspective on vocation. Only the will of God can set you free to be who you really are. God calls us BY CHRIST, TO CHRIST and FOR CHRIST. God normally calls us along the lines of our giftedness, i.e. in line with the abilities and talents he has already given to us – or is about to. The purpose of our gifts is not self-promotion or celebrity status but service to others. They are a stewardship. Our gifts are ultimately God’s and we are only the stewards of them. As Os Guinness says, God is not like some Divine Employment Agency just wondering, ‘Now where shall I see best to put her? Let me see…Oh, this is really difficult!’ No. Guinness says, “The truth is that God is not finding us a place for our gifts but that God has created us and our gifts for a place of his choosing – and we will only be ourselves when we finally get there.” (‘The Call’ p.47)
 
So the Puritan writer William Perkins was right when he said, ‘Every calling must be fitted to the man and the man to the calling.’ Do you fit? The call then, as we have seen, is simply this “It is the call or summons to that which needs doing.” Have you found yours yet? When you do you will be able to say, “This is what I was made for. This is what I was always meant to do.” To be fully human you need (1) God (2) A job (3) Other people (4) Worship and (5) Recreation, to help you enjoy all of the other 4 properly.
 
2. WORK – THE PHILOSOPHICAL CONTAMINATION
We need to note here the influence of Greek thinking on all of our lives. It’s there in our architecture, our sporting competitions and our worship of heroes and performers in sport and in drama. Can you name one sporting hero of the Hebrews of biblical times? One actor who won an Oscar? One famous building other than the Temple (and then God was the great attraction!)? One Singer who had a No.1 hit in the charts? Those things simply weren’t that important to them. Instead they valued God-centred living, and the presence of God in lives that glorified him no matter what the work you were involved in. God wants us all to become servants not celebrities as the highest goal in life. Lacking a full-blown doctrine of Creation, the Greeks were dualistic in their approach to thinking about all of reality i.e. secular v. sacred, higher v. lower, perfect v. permitted, contemplative life v. active life.
 
There were three emphases the Greeks left, that bear on the issue of work:
 
i) Some activities are more important than others – T
The distinction here is between the sacred and the secular. Sacred work (vicar, priest, missionary) is valued more than ‘secular’ work (miner, postman, teacher). Some jobs are more important than others – mental work is valued above manual work, so that a university philosopher has more status than a country farmer or municipal road-sweeper. If it was the case of a Professor of Philosophy being eliminated from the planet or a road sweeper which one would you choose?
 
ii) Some people are more important than others –
so they tended towards ranking people in various hierarchies of value, according to what they were and what they did e.g. Kings, noblemen, men, women, artisans, slaves. White collar workers have more status (and pay) than blue collar workers.
 
iii) Leisure activities are more important than work
That’s why they had a huge proportion of slaves, as did Rome, their spiritual heirs. They could buy a slave for 30 pieces of silver to do their work for them. Two thirds of Gk. Society consisted of slaves. The rest lived for leisure not work – they prized time off for holy days, public games, debates, philosophy etc. The Greeks had everything we now have access to on television, except the TV itself and ‘The Simpsons’ – they had sport, comedies, history, discussions, drama, soap operas, and cruel violent entertainments! They also had leisure centres, fitness suites, shopping malls, easy sex and recreational drugs.

But note also:
 
In the Bible there is nothing ‘secular’ except sin. All of life can be consecrated to God.
 
In the Bible we all have different gifts so it is not a matter of status and competition and God frequently chooses the lowly and despised for great distinction in his kingdom (I Cor. 1:25-27)
 
In the Bible all work is special if it is done to God’s glory, and mental work is not considered superior to manual, both are vital for human welfare and for the good of society. Moses was a shepherd, so was David too. Amos a dresser of fig trees, Jesus was a carpenter/mason, Paul a tentmaker, Peter, James and John fishermen. We all need work we can look and see results for and feel a sense of satisfaction about – manual work carries those qualities to a high degree. If we want to stay mentally well, physical work is good for all of us. Christ dignified manual work. He was a teknon i.e. a ‘mason-carpenter-bricklayer’, and that for 18 years of his 33 year life. 2nd Century apologist Justin Martyr grew up over the hill from Nazareth. He noted that ploughs made by Jesus were still used widely in his day!
 
In the Bible slaves are ultimately liberated and the leisured classes set to work, because work is now done to please God, serve our neighbour and help fulfil our lives.
 
So all that matters in the Bible is that your work is not immoral or illegal – there is nothing secular except sin. So provided you aren’t a pimp or a gangster for example, your work can be ‘sacred’ to God. You are to bring God into it. It is to have an eternal dimension to it – teacher, playwright, road-sweeper, nurse, architect, builder, joiner, engineer or decorator – all can be done to the glory of God.
 
3. WORK – THE MORAL REPERCUSSIONS
 
The big question is, ‘Why has work become such a chore and dissatisfying drudgery to so many?’ The answer lies in Genesis 3 -it is because of sin. Sin has separated us from God, distanced us from each other and drained us of ability, motivation and power. Sin has touched every area of life and relationships, including our work. God cursed both the animals and mankind. In Gen. 3:16 the woman was cursed in her relationships, the place she finds most significance – and particularly with her husband and with her children, if that is her calling. She will be tempted to distrust and manipulate her husband in attempts to control him, and also to despise and find frustration in birthing and raising children. Modern feminism carries abundant examples that this is true. The man is cursed in his work. Most of our problems are at root moral problems.
 
Not that work is sinful, but that we are, and so all that we are and all we do has been cursed on that account. Not that work itself is a curse, but in common with so much in our fallen world, it has been cursed and so changed complexion for us.
 
And note, we are not simply referring to individual choices and abandonment to sin a personal propensity to indulge sin here. We have in mind more corporate or ‘systemic’ expressions of sin and evil, that may infest and take captive whole institutions, corporations, organisations and communities, and deeply affect not only the whole but individuals as a part of that institution. A kind of detrimental force working from the ‘outside in’ as well as from the inside out, and proving even more detrimental to human welfare.
 
Genesis 3:17-19 is the record of the pronouncement of God’s curse on man’s world and his labour as a result of the intrusion of sin into his world and into his life.
- Birth became painful
- Life became hard
- Work became toil
-Death became certain So that all work carries a fair degree of difficulty, a loss of tranquillity, and a large element of futility within it.
Adam’s work became harder than it was (‘thorns, thistles, tough ground’).
Adam’s body became weaker than what it was (‘by the sweat of your brow’).
Adam’s calling became less interesting than it was (‘painful toil’), and
Adam’s life became shorter and less fulfilled than it was – more futile (‘until you return to the ground…to dust you will return’). “The only man who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe!”
 
It is an ugly picture of difficult labour pains, premature death, the land less fertile, thistles for produce, and everything marked by problems, frustration and trouble.
 
4. WORK – THE SPIRITUAL REDEMPTION IN CHRIST
 
This is vital. We need to be delivered form the Immorality, Inhumanity and Idolatry of the workplace, not by withdrawing from it but by transforming our outlook and behaviour in it. The good news is that because of Christ and his gospel the whole of life has begun to be redeemed, including our work lives. John Stott defines work this way: “Work is the expenditure of energy, mental, manual or a combination of the two, which brings fulfilment to the worker, benefit to the community and glory to God.” This is the perspective of both Old and New Testaments.
 
This is why the Hebrews have always viewed manual work differently from the Greeks and Romans, to this day. David Ben Gurion (one of founders of modern state of Israel) “We do not consider manual work a curse or a bitter necessity, not even a means of making a living. We consider it a high human function. It is a basis of human life - the most dignified thing in the life of a human being and which ought to be both free and creative. Men ought to be proud of it.”
 
So Martin Luther was right, “Your work is a very sacred matter. God delights in it, and through it he wants to bestow his blessings on you. This praise offered in work should be inscribed on all tools, on the very forehead and faces that sweat from toiling.” This is true of all honest and decent work – checking out groceries, stacking shelves, cleaning and removing dirt, selling futures, teaching kids or re-spraying a car back to pristine condition.
 
The Puritans saw this too. We are serving God and sustaining God’s world through supporting yourself, your family and the Commonwealth or economy of people to whom you belonged. You may have been ‘small fry’ in your own eyes but God called you to be part of something big. The Puritans taught that we are involved in world-making by pursuing the call that is on our lives. Whether that is a cultural call, a musical call, an aesthetic call, a political call, an artistic call, a musical call, a technical call, or a relational calling. “The problem with modern Christians is not that they aren’t where they should be, but that they aren’t what they should be where they are.”
 
Colossians 3:22 – 4:1 would be typical of the new approach
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.  Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism. Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.”
 
Five things about our work then, now that we are Christians:
 
1. Christ is your new Boss (v.22) – A First Aid instructor in a factory asked an employee ‘If you discovered you had rabies what would you do?’ The worker replied ‘I’d bite my supervisor!’ Whoever your earthly employer or manager is, you are all really working for the Lord. So even when your earthly boss doesn’t notice you or isn’t even looking, Christ is. This means your work is an aspect of your worship The Lord is not as hard to please as some of your employers are. He notices all you do, he praises you for it and he pays you better! Christ is interested more in you and in how you do your job than in what job you do. Martin Luther “All work ranks the same with God.”
 
Have you noticed how much our personal identity is bound up with our jobs today? Our first question when we meet someone is ‘And what do you do?’ We put it on our passports, application forms, business cards etc. But God is interested more in WHO you ARE than in WHAT you DO. Our identity is that of a child of God, a believer, God’s man or woman on the job whatever that job may be. Our new boss likes us. He loves us. He talks to us. He lets us in on his secrets. He claims our workplace as his own. Abraham Kuyper “There is not a thumb’s breadth of this universe over which Christ does not say ‘IT IS MINE!’ “
 
2. Work is to be co-operative not adversarial (3:22, 4:1)
Paul here addresses both slaves and masters from their new position in Christ. Work is relational. Bring back the humanity into your workplace, this is a team effort. You are not in competition with those over you, those who are your peer levels or those beneath you. So you don’t want to be shirking and getting away with the bare minimum. This is about service and cooperation for the good of the company, and for our fellow human beings. It ceases to be a dog eat dog world when you work with Jesus, and you’re not in competition with anyone. But it is only Christ and the Gospel that can instil this.
 
Communism tried to accomplish this by force and coercion destroying dissenters – it failed abysmally. Only Christ can give us the proper motivation. And what is that? In our work we are serving our neighbour, to meet a genuine need in his or her life. Some jobs don’t do this – they are immoral (pimping, prostitution, hit-men) or they make money illicitly from someone else’s folly or greed (gambling, lottery, money trading), and so ‘fleece’ or ‘screw’ our neighbour. But a street cleaner is serving his neighbour so this is honourable work. Be faithful! People who are too big to do little things are usually too little to do big things.
 
3. You now work for the glory of God (v.23)
This means your aim is to take the Lord with you and bring him honour in everything you do. It means you work with a good attitude and with the motive to please him. It means a new standard of excellence even when nobody else is supervising you or taking much notice.
 
Extrinsic versus Intrinsic motivation. ‘The Puritans lived as if they had swallowed gyroscopes, we tend to live as if we had swallowed Gallup polls!’ I am a highly intrinsically motivated person. I don’t primarily work for Westminster Chapel, I work for the Lord. So do you! Your work has eternal significance. The sculptor Phaedias carving the statue of Athena at the Parthenon in Athens in the 5th Century BC. He erected and climbed the scaffolding to carve individual hairs on top of her head.
 
‘What are you doing Phaedias, you fool? No one will ever see she is not finished!” He calmly replied, “The gods will.” And he carried on until it was complete. God sees us. That should be enough. “To get a true estimate of a person’s calibre, notice how much more he does than what is strictly required of him.”
 
 
4. Your work is a service or ministry, not just a job (v.23b)
It is to help remove the chaos and disorder due to our fallenness and sin. It will make the world more like God’s original design, and people more like God. You may make tools, or prepare food in a restaurant, or fix up sick bodies in a hospital, or train reluctant young minds to think and use their hands, or tally figures and keep accounts in order, or broadcast entertainment, or see that justice is done in our Law Courts, or help keep our streets and environment clean or restrain wicked people from doing the rest of us harm. Whatever you do is ‘divine service’ helping to take the misery out of life and making the world a more decent and happy place to live and work in.
 
A fabled Philosophy Professor who drew crowds to hear his lectures, would give tough essay assignments to his students. He was always met with “But sir, how long should this essay be? How many pages do you want?” The Professor winced. His reply often made students wince. “Look” he said, “Don’t worry about the length. Forget your future careers for a moment. Remember that the grade is secondary. Just hand in something you can respect, something you will be proud of.” That is DIVINE SERVICE, and it means that any job done to God’s glory is a ministry every bit as much as mine is of preaching and teaching God’s word to you. ‘Thank you for doing it’ we can say to all of our street sweepers, teachers, nurses, engineers, designers, carpenters and plumbers – even students and lecturers! This helps to ensure there is a real delight in our work – no matter what it is or who it is for!
 
 
5. Christ will reward you (v.24)
You may command an extraordinary salary in the ‘super tax’ bracket, or live on subsistence wages supplemented by government ‘top ups’. But since your real employer is Christ there is no limit to the ways he may remunerate you. One thing’s for sure, ‘the labourer is worthy of his hire’ and Christ will see you get what‘s coming to you, if not now, then later! He may send special gifts to you, give you a raise, see you are promoted, get you your dream job, stop stuff wearing out like it used to, have someone leave you a legacy, or some other kind of ‘bonus’ will come your way. God wants us all to come to the place where we feel like Moses mother after the baby was discovered in the bulrushes. She got to do what she loved most – and she got paid for it!
 
So we learn to know and believe that Christ, not our earthly bosses, is in control of our advancement and promotion. He is looking for faithfulness and is in complete control of our career path. We can trust him to reward faithfulness in little things, delegated responsibilities and material things (Luke 16:9-10). We can relax in his providence. We can be at peace when we don not understand all that’s going on (see Psalm 131). It is important to realize that ‘Promotion comes neither from the East or the West…but from the LORD’.
 
Conclusions:
 
1. It’s a sin to be lazy
The Bible speaks graphically of ‘the sluggard’ who ‘turns on his bed like a door on its hinges’ – creaakkk – what a life! Prostrate and Dormant. That’s no life. It is a wasted life. Proverbs tells us to ‘go to the ants’. We saw South American leaf cutting ants in Bristol zoo. Made most of captivity, constant stream of constructive, cooperative teamwork. They were achieving something worth achieving together. We need that too. The Bible says, ‘If a man will not work he should not eat.’ It does not say, ‘If a man cannot work…’ We should help those, but NOT the congenitally lazy!
 
2. It’s an evil to suffer unemployment
Made in God’s image we have dignity if we work. Lose that work and it robs a man of dignity, perhaps ten times more than it hits a woman. A man who loses his work has lost his reason to be. Women excel at relationships, caring and nurturing life. She will do that whether she is paid to do it or not. One future direction for the Church is to help the unemployable to become employable, changing their minds, teaching them valuable skills, helping them with CV’s and job interviews.
 
3. It’s a joy to have work
Work is good. Work is of God. You and I are to relish not only Sunday morning, but Monday morning too! – we go to work for the Lord! We not only go to work for pay, or to witness – we go to work to work! Work is intrinsically valuable. It is valuable in itself and it is something God made us for. Without it our true humanity and dignity is diminished.
   
We’ll let the biblical but anonymous philosopher, writing in ‘Ecclesiastes’ have the last word: “A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God.” (Eccl.2:24)
 
© Greg Haslam Westminster Chapel, London