Colossians 3.23-24
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”
God created man and placed him in the physical world for the purpose of overseeing and managing the world that the Lord had created. This was God’s purpose for man, and we could call it The Prime Directive.
God created man in his image, which provided man with the unique attributes to fulfill The Prime Directive. The plan was for man to be a steward of planet earth on behalf of God the Creator; that is, man was to be God’s earthly representative.
Fulfilling The Prime Directive required that man understand the laws and mechanisms of the physical world. In order to manage and oversee planet earth, man must know and understand how things function in the field, the forest, the factory, the family, and the fellowship. Man must know and understand the physics, the biology, the chemistry, the botany, etc. of the world that God had created and commissioned him to oversee. To put it simply and directly, in order to fulfill The Prime Directive, man must be knowledgeable and skilled.
The work you do every day matters. God created you, redeemed you, and sends you into the world to be a worker. The Lord calls you into relationship with him that you might serve his kingdom and fulfill The Prime Directive through your work.
There are four ways that your work serves God’s purposes. Your work is:
Creative
Through your work you are part of an organization or team that brings order and beauty to the world. You create. You build. You compete. You manage. You organize. You have dominion. Like the God who created you, you are a creator.
Productive
Through your work you produce things that are necessary and helpful for people and society. Through the output of your organization, you feed, clothe, house, warm, protect, heal, support, entertain, communicate, transport, etc.. Work is how the world works.
Redemptive
Through your job you display what the redeemed life looks like when it is “at work.” This is vitally important, because too often people think of the redeemed life as an “at church” thing. But God’s design, and the call of Christ, is primarily about the redeemed life at work. Many have forgotten that the church isn’t a building, it’s a community of people. It is the Body of Christ. We are the church. On Monday morning, the church “goes to work.” This is God’s design.
Restorative
Through your work you are agents of renewal in a broken world. Sin and death entered the world at the Fall. Death distorts. It breaks. Christians work to reverse the effects of death. Through our work we renew and restore. We apply principles and practices and processes so that things (and people) work better and are more productive.
Now, I understand there is a good chance the organization where you are employed does not view work the way I just described it. Nevertheless, the Lord calls you to understand your daily work as creative, productive, redemptive, and restorative. The Lord calls you to fulfill The Prime Directive.
For this reason, a strong work ethic should be a cornerstone teaching of every church, and the followers of Christ should be committed to diligent, disciplined work.
Dorothy Sayers spoke to this topic some years ago when she wrote: “The church would tell a drunken carpenter to stop getting drunk and come to church on Sunday. That is fine, but the very first demand that his religion makes on him is that he should make good tables. What use is his piety in church attendance if he was insulting God with bad carpentry?”
Work isn’t just part of God’s plan. Work is the heart of his plan. The Lord made it crystal clear that we are to work six days, rest and restore on the seventh day, and then get back to work again.
As heirs of the kingdom of God, it is our responsibility to be stewards who wisely and diligently manage the Master’s estate. This was God’s plan for us from the beginning, as Genesis tells us God created us in his image and gave us the directive to “have dominion” over planet earth.
It is imperative that we live and work every day with that purpose — The Prime Directive — in mind. God is the creator and owner of planet earth, and he is the sovereign of his kingdom. If we stay with the metaphor that Paul uses in Galatians, God is the owner and master of the estate. Through Christ we are heirs who inherit the blessing of the estate, and we also inherit the responsibility of being stewards over the estate. The estate doesn’t belong to us; it belongs to the Master. We are stewards, and as such it is our responsibility to oversee the estate and manage it according to the standards of the Master.
Being a faithful steward and servant of God means that we work diligently and exercise wisdom. Is this not what any master would expect from the stewards that he appoints to manage his household? Is this not what any father would expect of his children who inherit his estate? The Lord created us to have dominion over the planet, and to accomplish that requires relentless effort and wisdom. This is especially true since the world was damaged by the Fall.
Many Christians seem to have forgotten the dominion commandment, and therefore have forgotten that being a servant means doing work. Lots of work. When Jesus described his second coming to the disciples, note the metaphor he used. “And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.” (Luke 12.42-43)
A servant who doesn’t work hard is of little use to the master. Same for a servant who makes unwise decisions.
It is very unfortunate that so many Christians believe the primary purpose of the Christian life is to be saved and happy. The truth is that the primary purpose of the Christian life is to serve the Master, do the work to which the Master calls us, and walk in wisdom. We could say it this way: God calls us to be disciplined in our behavior, diligent in our work, and discerning in our beliefs and decisions.
This high calling is beautifully captured in three brief passages in the book of Ephesians:
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2.10)
“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” (Ephesians 4:1)
“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5.15-16)
Some Christians protest against this message. They push back by saying, “No, the Christian life is about grace. It’s not about effort or work. God doesn’t want us to strive, he wants us to believe and have faith. The key to the Christian life is to let go and let God.” This kind of theology is seriously misguided, and it wrongly puts faith and effort in opposition to each other. Scripture is quite clear: trust God and do the work. Jesus said it in the Upper Room: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Be a steward of the kingdom. Do the work. Fulfill the Prime Directive. The most important hymn you sing every day is the work you do.
