Proverbs 10:4
So let’s give our attention to
God’s word. Proverbs 22 verse 29. Do you see a man skillful
in his work? He will stand before kings and
he will not stand before the obscure men. Well, this last
couple weeks we have seen, with the stroke of a pen, the loss
of a ton of jobs and that in the middle of a pandemic where
lots of jobs were already lost anyway. So we’ve got unemployment
rates already at a bad spot. We have unemployment rates probably
getting worse. We have national uncertainty.
But I think we have a crisis in the area of work that is of
a different sort, not just unemployment rates. or economic uncertainty,
national uncertainty, but we have a crisis where we see people
addicted to work. We see people doing things which
they are not gifted to do. But we also see people living
in their vocation with ease and slothfulness. We see low quality
output with expectations of high rewards. We see in some cases
work is overrated and in other cases work is underrated. Nevertheless,
lots of confusion about what God might call us to be and to
do. So it’s good for us to run to the Bible and get an understanding
of God’s design, God’s purpose, the dignity, and the doctrine
of vocation. So I want you to think about
this proposal, this proposition. The King of Kings has created
us, he’s called us, and he has gifted us to serve others for
his sake. When you read the book of Genesis,
you get the sense in the early chapters that God made the world
and everything in it. He put Adam in the middle of
the garden and he said to Adam, you rule the world in my place
or on my behalf. So we want to think about work
or vocation or our calling in a couple different ways. The
first way we want to think about it is what does the Bible say
about work? And this is where we’ll hit a
few of the Proverbs, but we’ll go outside the Proverbs as well.
So start in the book of Genesis, God from the dust of the earth,
made Adam and Eve. He made Adam a living being.
He breathed into him his own breath, his spirit. He made him
a living human being. He was made in God’s image, knowledge,
righteousness, holiness. He gave him dominion over the
creation, told him to dress the earth, to keep it, to be fruitful,
to multiply and fill the earth. So God made him in his image,
and gave him every plant, every tree for fruit. A couple of things
to think about when we want to think about what does the Bible
say about work? We want to think about some of the specific words
in Genesis 1 and 2. Adam was put in the garden by
God to work the garden. And so if God put Adam in the
garden to work it, to keep it, to make it flourish, That’s a
good principle to think of when God puts us in a vocation, a
calling. We ought to find happiness and
joy and service and stewardship in that. But think about an addition
being put there to work, the subject of work. God made this
work for Adam before the curse. His job was to make the ground
prosper, make it productive. It was his duty, it was his blessing,
it was his dignity. You see in the garden industry,
you see capitalism, you see growth, you see provision. So Adam was
put in the garden to work the garden, but also to keep the
garden or to protect it, to be its guardian, to watch over the
creation. And one of the things Adam should
have done besides tilling the soil, planting the beans and
harvesting them, is he should have killed the snake. that entered
the garden. He should have protected it spiritually. And I don’t think we think very
often about that enough in our work. Our work is spiritual. Our work is for the glory of
God and the good of others. But we ought to be watchmen,
guardians, protectors over what God has given us to be stewards
over. And then his job was to name
the animals. He was the first taxonomist, we might say. So
there’s a bit of what the Bible says about work in the book of
Genesis. How about the Ten Commandments, the Eighth Commandment? Do not
steal. We ought to work in order to
provide. No five-finger discounts. We ought to give others what
they are told they are going to get from us. And so we don’t
steal, we purchase, we buy. We give what is asked from another
and do not take. How about the Proverbs? A little
more to our subject. The book of Proverbs gives us
three kinds of workers, the sluggard, the deceitful, and the diligent
worker. The sluggard in chapter six,
verses nine through 11. How long will you lie there?
Oh, sluggard. When will you arise from your
sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of
the hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like a robber
and want like an armed man. And so the Bible teaches against
laziness, against sloppiness, against poor work. Maybe some
of you who are in supervisor positions, I’m sure you see it
in your work. You see all kinds of activity
under the sun, but lazy, sloppy, poor work, not good. How about
deceitful, dishonest scales? When you go pump your gas, you
see the sticker on there from the Department of Agriculture.
When you buy a gallon of gas over here at the Rego Mart, what
do you expect to get? a gallon of gas. You go to the
farmer’s market and you want to buy two pounds of squash and
you see that little sticker on there. This scale has been tested
and certified. So the Bible speaks against dishonest
scales, weights, the winking of the eye, bribery, poor quality,
shortcuts. But we see this all over the
world. We see again, hate to harp on this, but with the stroke
of the pen, we’re going to fund endless Solyndra type companies. to do all kinds of work to save
our environment. And in a couple years, like Solyndra,
we’ll see, it didn’t work out and billions, millions of dollars
wasted. And so we live in a world of
dishonesty, of ease, of laziness, of dishonesty. You scratch my
back, I’ll scratch yours. But the Proverbs also speaks
of the diligent worker. Proverbs 10, verse 4 says, a
slack hand causes poverty. but the hand of the diligent
makes rich. Then we think about what the
New Testament says about work. Labor and doing honest work,
not stealing, Paul says to the Ephesian church. Labor and honest
work, not stealing. Do your work in a manner worthy
of the Lord, Colossians 1.10. Work heartily as unto the Lord
Jesus Christ, Cautions 3.23. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul has
a lot to say in 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Live quietly, mind your own affairs,
and work with your hands. That’s 1 Thessalonians 4.11.
Avoid the idol, admonish the idol, work, earn a living in
2 Thessalonians 3. and also 1 Thessalonians 5. Obey
your earthly masters, Ephesians 6, 5 tells us. You got a boss,
do what he says. You got a supervisor, give them
the work they’re looking for. And then 1 Timothy 5, verse 8
says, provide for your relatives, especially your own household. And so work is an important part
of the New Testament as well. Think through in the scriptures
some of the vocations, the callings, of different folks. Cain was
a gardener. Abel was a sheep herder. Noah
was a man of the soil, a vine dresser. Joseph was the great
steward of Egypt who saved the Middle East during a famine.
The disciples, many of them were fishermen. Paul was a tent maker. And the apostles were zealous
for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to go from Jerusalem,
Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Work is biblical. Work was given to us before the
fall. After the fall, it was cursed.
Adam would till the soil only for it to produce thistles and
thorns, and by the sweat of his brow. But you think about our
attitude towards work today, and you hear it on the country
radio station. Work, work, work, day after day,
50-hour week, 40-hour pay. It’s 5 o’clock Friday, and payday
is about what many look forward to. You know, the boss man’s
getting rich, I’m getting a backache. People spend a lot more time
considering how to get out of work than how to do well at their
work. You know, you think about all
the holidays a person can get paid for these days. I counted
up the other day in an employee handbook that I was reading through,
and a full-time employee in a organization that I was looking
at can get over 37 days off paid in a year. That’s close to eight
weeks. That’s a lot. And then you can
see with the injury lawyers we see on television, have you been
injured in the workplace? It’s pretty easy these days to
not have to come to work because of some kind of workman’s comp.
And I know there’s legitimate complaints and all the rest,
but you can, you can do it. You can, you can have a pretty
good gig. I know there’s a whole industry of private investigators
who look to see who’s really playing golf, who’s taken off
their neck brace. Uh, you know, if you’re gonna
wear one of those, you gotta wear it consistently, especially
when you leave the house. Uh, and I know there’s legitimate
cases of these things, but, but there’s so much fraud. There’s
so much, uh, in this world of getting out of work. But we remember,
we remember God created work. The fall came later. The curses
came after sin into this world. What does the wisdom books of
the Bible, what do the wisdom books say about work? Well, work
is hard, it’s full of troubles, it’s full of vexation, it’s full
of weeds, it’s full of jungle. And when we die and our life
is over, who will treasure it like we have? Ecclesiastes 2
says, what has a man from all the toil and the striving of
heart with which he toils beneath the sun all his days are full
of sorrow. His work is a vexation. Even
in the night, his heart does not rest. This also is a vanity. There’s nothing better for a
person than to eat and to drink and find enjoyment in his toil.
This I also saw was from the hand of God. For apart from him,
who can eat and who can have enjoyment?” So what does the
Bible say about work? This is the first thing we want
to consider. It says a whole lot. It’s good, it’s hard, it’s
from God. And the King of Kings has called
us, or created us, called us, and gifted us to serve others
for his sake. Another question, though, that
we ought to consider, what might God call me to do? We have questions,
particularly in the South, when we meet somebody. Who are you?
Who are your people? Where did you go to school? And
then we ask, what do you do? And when somebody asks, what
do you do, they inevitably mean, what’s your day job? What do
you do for a living? You know, what’s your day job that provides
money? So I always get a little sheepish
and tell people I’m a pastor. And they kind of clear their
throat. They change the subject. They move on to something else.
Or they say I ought to behave a little better around you. As
if that’s, I don’t get that. But anyway, I should tell them
I’m an insurance salesman. But no, the real truth is we
ought to be bold. I ought to say to a person, I’m
a minister of the word of God. I’m a steward of the gospel.
I’m an ambassador of God who makes known the message of reconciliation. But that’s not all that we are.
Our day job does not define us. And that’s often where we stop.
The long answer we can say is, if you’re a guy, you’re a man,
a husband, a father, a neighbor, a citizen, a friend, a pastor,
shows our biblical understanding of what God has designed us and
purposed us and called us to be in our lives. We understand
the doctrine of vocation is not simply our day job, but it’s
our whole life. Vocation is from the Latin word
that in English comes out as calling, vocation, calling. So the doctrine of vocation,
what does God call us to do? vocation. Well, God doesn’t make
us to work only. He puts us in relationships. Yes, dominion over the creation,
the fish and birds, livestock, and all the rest. But God has
called us to do significant other things. He’s put us in some cases
in marriage. He’s given us children, be fruitful,
multiply. He’s made some elders, some deacons,
some pastors, some women of the church, some men of the church.
He’s called us to serve our bosses. He’s called us to be good bosses. He’s called some to be students
so they can learn a trade. He’s called us to love others,
love ourselves, care for our body as a temple of the Holy
Spirit. There’s a pretty big to-do list when somebody asks
us, what do you do? Well, you do a whole lot by God’s
design and calling. So God, the King of Kings, has
created us, called us, and gifted us to serve others for his sake. So what might God call you to
do? Well, probably multiple things. To be at work in the home, in
the marketplace, the church, Martin Luther mentioned a few
moments ago, saw this in his studies of God, the Bible, theology. He saw that in every realm of
life, we wear the mask of God to our neighbors. And so when
we pray for our daily bread, we’re really praying for the
blessing of the farmer. We’re praying for the blessing
of the milkmaid. We’re praying for the blessing of the deliveryman,
for those who serve us. and bring food to our tables.
When we pray for safety, we’re praying for the government. We’re
praying for the army. We’re praying for the police
officers. When we pray, thy kingdom come, in a sense, we’re praying
for the next generation of the church, for dads and moms and
Sunday school teachers, elders, deacons, pastors. We’re praying
that God might, through all the many people who wear the mask
of God and serve for the glory of God and neighbor, that they
would do their task and that they might serve the king of
kings and making these things known to the next generation.
So God creates us and calls us and gives us to serve others
for his sake. What does the Bible say about
work? What might God call you to be or do? The last thing we
want to think about is what should I think about my God-given work? And I have a handful of things.
The first is this, because God designed us to work, Satan will
use work to destroy us. It goes back to the crisis we
mentioned earlier, not the unemployment crisis, but really the misuse
of work crisis. Very often we live to work instead
of work to live. And so we can be overworked and
ignore marriage. We can ignore parenthood. We can fail to serve the church.
Our neighbors don’t know us. And this is a crisis, I think,
that has been really upended by COVID. We can’t go to work.
Our children can’t go to school. And so we have this crisis of
a two-income world with all the underpinnings of it falling apart
with the COVID mess. And so we’ve really seen families
and homes tested by the inability to both work and provide for
children. at the same time. But we find also with technology,
not only are people addicted to work, but they’re addicted
to technology. When you went to work 20, 30 years ago, you
never came home with the telephone. It stayed on your desk. And if
it rang while you were away, you never heard it. But then
the cell phone, the BlackBerry, or the CrackBerry, as people
called it, then the iPhone, we are never away from work because
of technology. They often spend time doing what
God has not called us to do. We’re dissatisfied with our lot
in life and God’s boundaries. He’s put us in a place to work,
but we often find ourselves unhappy with it. But also in work, we
cross boundaries. I have a little joke here, but
God would never call a person to be a hit man. or a drug dealer,
right? But many do spend their time
in those professions, as you might call them. Or we spend
our time doing what is for another to do. And so that’s one of the
things that we should think about our God-given work. Satan will
use it to destroy us or confuse us. The second thing is we ought
to spend a considerable amount of time praying and seeking wisdom
related to God’s calling on our lives. get towards high school
age, people say, oh, you’re about to go to college, aren’t you?
You’re about to go into the workforce. What do you think you’re going
to do? And, you know, when you’re little, everybody wants to be
a fireman or a policeman or, you know, the dog catcher looks
like a pretty good job. I can remember in grade school
thinking about all the things, but as you get older, you begin
to think about it. But one thing parents ought to do, children
ought to do as they get older is pray and seek God’s wisdom
related to God’s calling. Nowadays, I think the basic way
to answer that question is what will make me the most money?
And so we spend a lot on education and training and getting into
debt only to find out probably it wasn’t all it was cracked
up to be. But we ought to think about what
God would have us do in life. Think about whether we’re employed
in the right position. Is God using our skills best? But we also, a third thing, ought
to teach our children about work, to prepare for a job, but also
to seek God’s total calling on your life. Do you want to be
a mom? Do you want to be a dad? Do you want to be a husband?
Do you want to work for a living, provide? Do you want to be outside,
inside. Do you want to sit at a desk?
Do you want to be a hands-on type person? Those are things
to think about. A fourth one, and this is a simple
one, we ought to reject poor workmanship. If God has a high
view of work and quality, we should reject poor workmanship.
We ought to reward good work. That’s the fifth thing to think
about, reward good work. A sixth thing is we ought to
find satisfaction in our labors. Our lot is from God. He’s put
us at a century post where we might do our task for his glory. And God can use the thorns, the
thistles, the limitations, the frustrations to lead us closer
to him. I’ve been in the church workforce
now, I think for going on 18 years. And I would say most of
those 18 years have been full of difficulties and frustrations.
Some of it has been glorious and sweet, and that’s probably
the case in a lot of people’s work lives. It can be very frustrating,
but we gotta remember it’s cursed. There’s thorns and there’s thistles,
there’s frustrations and limitations, and God may be using this to
bring us closer to him. A seventh thing, think of work
as redemptive. Think of it as part of God’s
plan. He’s giving you dignity and others service. And so God just may be blessing
you through the work you do, but blessing others as well.
An eighth thing to consider, and this is probably one of the
most important ones, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
It’s a day of rest and it’s a day of worship. We need both. We need our bodies and our souls
to catch up with the other six days. The last thing, the ninth
thing to think, of God as the commander and he has issued commands
and we will stand before his throne and give an answer. How
did we spend our time? How did we develop our skills?
Did we do the work that he gave us to do? Were we lazy? Were
we diligent? Did we work as unto the Lord
Jesus Christ? So we want to think of our calling,
our vocation. us to do that which the King
of Kings has created us, called us and gifted us to do in order
that we serve others for his sake. We’re going to give Charles
Haddon Spurgeon the last word here. He says, there is not a
spider hanging on the King’s wall, but has its errand. There is not a nettle that grows
in the corner of the churchyard, but has its purpose. You can
look up what a nettle is later. There is not a single insect
fluttering in the breeze, but it accomplishes some divine decree. And I will never have it, Spurgeon
says, that God created any man, especially any Christian man
to be a blank, to be a nothing. He made you for an end. Find
out what that end is. Find your niche and fill it.
If it be ever so little, if it is only to be a hewer of wood
and a drawer of water, do something in the great battle for God and
truth. Let’s pray together. Lord, we
pray that you would show us the dignity of work, Help us to be
faithful followers of Jesus, serving others, serving our family,
serving our church, and serving in the marketplace, all for your
glory, but for the good of our neighbors and to make the world
go round in a blessed way. We pray all this in the name
of Christ, amen.