Reading
I was re-reading C.R. Wiley’s excellent book, The Household and the War for the Cosmos, today as I prepare a series of sermons on the topic of marriage. One of the concepts Wiley grasps so well is the biblical picture of marriage at the center of a productive household. Marriage isn’t an entity unto itself.
As interesting as that topic is, though, there was a side tangent that took me back to Sunday.
On page 92 of his book, Wiley quotes from Ephesians 6. Verse eight seemed to leap of the page:
knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.
This statement is given toward the end of Paul’s household code, in the part relating directly to slaves.
Who You Work For
In context, Paul is instructing slaves to view their work as fundamentally oriented toward God, not man. This is explicitly what Paul says in the preceding verse: “rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man”.
It can be very tempting in life to go through with the attitude of, “why does this matter?” “am I making a difference?” “who cares about the quality of this work?” “my boss doesn’t have my best interests in mind, and the company certainly doesn’t: why should I have theirs in my mind?”
And you’re a modern wage worker. Imagine being a slave.
But the fundamental truth underneath is the same, whether you are unjustly enslaved, a bondservant working off a debt, or a well-compensated employee of a fortune 500 company: work isn’t fundamentally for your employer. You work, at the most basic level, for God himself.
Dignity
This truth is one I have heard/read/said more times than I can count; however, I don’t think it sank home how this dignifies work until this past week. Last Sunday I preached on the greatest commandment, from Mark 12. There, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6, and tells the questioning scribe that one must love the Lord your God “with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” “All your strength”, both in the original context of Deuteronomy and in how Jesus quotes it, clearly indicates the best of your labors (in fact, some commentators believe that the Hebrew of Deuteronomy 6 implies the idea of mental labors as well, thus explaining Jesus’ addition of “mind” to the list in Mark).
What this doesn’t mean is that you should quit your job and go to work for the church in some formal capacity. Most should not do that. Rather, it indicates that any good work can and should be done with a view toward loving God. Wire that outlet to the glory of God. Bake that bread, pull that espresso shot, change that diaper, fix that toilet, write that code, teach that math class to the glory of God. Do your work with a conscious bent toward loving God in every aspect of it.
What does this mean for the quality of your work? Can you really cut corners in love for God? Perhaps, in certain circumstances; but I would say such love for God precludes what we might call a corner cutting attitude or approach. You should be aiming to bring your best, because your work has divine dignity, and reflects on your Maker.
Dominion
If that seems like a stretch, consider the text of Psalm 8 (WEB):
For the Chief Musician; on an instrument of Gath. A Psalm by David.
1 Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth,
who has set your glory above the heavens!
2 From the lips of babes and infants you have established strength,
because of your adversaries, that you might silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have ordained;
4 what is man, that you think of him?
What is the son of man, that you care for him?
5 For you have made him a little lower than God,
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You make him ruler over the works of your hands.
You have put all things under his feet:
7 All sheep and cattle,
yes, and the animals of the field,
8 The birds of the sky, the fish of the sea,
and whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
9 Yahweh, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
This Psalm also loomed large on my mind this past week as I worked on memorizing it, and then preached it at our sending church on Sunday evening. One of the things that strikes me about this Psalm is that the focus is on God’s majesty—and the second half of the Psalm describes the way God exercises his majestic reign on earth: through the dominion of mankind. Man is “crowned with glory and honor” (v5), “ruler over the works of [God’s] hands” (v6).
God is the sovereign and majestic ruler of the universe, incomparable in glory, splendor, and wisdom (v1 & v9). And, in that divine and incomparable wisdom, he has ordained to do most of his ruling on earth through the agency of human beings.
To take an example: we pray, “give us this day our daily bread.” How do we get our daily bread? A seed company works with farmers to farm crops for seed, and then sells that seed to other farmers who farm for crops. Those farmers are dependent upon equipment companies selling machinery, often designed and/or built overseas, which means that involved are also shipping companies and government officials in customs. Friends, we haven’t even got the grain to the seed elevator, let alone to the flour mill, or the bread company, or the trucker hauling it to the store. I started to type this example and realized that process of getting bread to my table is more complex than I realized and I don’t have 25 minutes to run down a Google rabbit hole to grasp and then try to explain exactly how it all goes down. Which perhaps makes the point even more clear: it is incredibly complex and involves human beings working all sorts of different jobs before I can buy two loafs of Lakeland White Bread in one bag at Sam’s Club.
Are we right to pray, “give us this day our daily bread”? Yes. If you have bread on your table (or steak, or whatever it is you eat), it is God’s kindness and provision for you. And yet, most of the time, how does he bring such provision? Through complex and multi-layered human action. Which means that the guy driving the tractor in the field, or the truck down the road, or the forklift at Sam’s, are all doing God’s work.
If humans are capable of creating and maintaining such amazing systems of production and transportation, how much more majestic is the One who created our minds? Who gives us strength? Every job has dignity, as you have an area of competence to develop, and a means of serving others and reflecting the goodness of God to them.
Back to Ephesians
But as lofty as that may sound, my example there may actually bring to mind another objection: if we’re all part of the giant web of humanity doing all of these things, why does my contribution matter? Who cares if one person does or doesn’t show up for work on a given day? We’re back to a multinational corporation not caring about me—why do I care for them? Your husband doesn’t even notice that you quit cooking that meal he doesn’t like—why not just go straight microwave meals?
The answer brings us back to Ephesians 6: the One for whom we fundamentally work is the One who will bring the real and lasting reward. “Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord.” Do you trust God to have your best interests at heart? Do you trust the Lord to reward that which is done in secret, that which goes unnoticed by your supervisor, that which your husband doesn’t thank you for, that which is right and good and excellent and unseen?
Friend, God is at work in this world. If you are a Christian, you have the opportunity, day in and day out, to be consciously at work for him: loving him with all your strength, assured of a lasting reward. This is worth more than all the passing fame or accolades that others can give.
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My friend Jake has started a YouTube channel, Illustrated Expositions, walking through the text of the Bible explaining passages and visibly working through them on a digital whiteboard (or blackboard?). Check it out!
