To Have A Life And A Job

Written by Ed Allen
Wednesday, 30 May 2001 19:00

Ephesians: Christianity for Dummies

The French have two words for "work." The word "travail" comes from the Latin word for a 3-pronged device used to torture people. And the word "oeuvre" comes from the Latin for opera, which signifies creativity, artistry and beauty. I can't think of a better illustration of our conflicted feelings about work. On the one hand we love it and find our significance by it. On the other hand we dread it, and we long to be away from it or beyond it.

By any standard, our job takes up significant space in our psyche as individuals and families. Consider that for the average American, our families gatherings, our trips, our vacations, our sustenance, even our relationships orbit around work. Or consider that numerous surveys detail that an overwhelming majority of college seniors count employment as their biggest concern. Just in terms of time investment, work takes center stage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the average American works 50 hours a week. And as we apply that to us the statistics get down-right scary. In contrast to work habits 100 years ago, today managers and executives tend to work longer hours than laborers. I could not find statistics peculiar to Northern Virginia, but if you take a national average and add in commuting times the results are not encouraging. It means that the people in this room spend between 55 and 75 hours per week devoted to your job. You spend more time and energy devoted to your job than any other single aspect of your life - more than family, more than church, more than sleep, more than exercise. In fact, if you spend 80 hours per week devoted to work, then you spend almost as much time related to work as you do to all other aspects of your life combined.

Therefore, I think it is absolutely critical that we hear what the Bible says about work, because if we allow this aspect of our lives to be out of focus, then our whole lives have little chance of being in focus. Ephesians 4:28 is a perfect place for us to get a handle on work.

But anything we say about work today comes with a warning. As with everything else related to our faith, if we try to apply to our lives what the Bible says about work through strenuous effort, then we will fail. We will either fail outright or we will succeed at obeying technically without heart transformation.

So this morning we need to do three things. We need to briefly outline what God says here about work. Then we need to set that teaching in its proper context. Then we need to suggest what this might look like.

Ephesians 4:28

"The one who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need."

Work summary

1. Steal no longer

• Stealing was common among slaves.

• May have been a so-called "lesser sin" in some people's minds

• God will have none of it.

• Not simply because it is wrong. Everything that God commands, he commands with a purpose. He intends for us to be productive.

2. The thief must work instead. He says three things directly about work and one thing by implication

Work must be Worthwhile

• Literally "working the thing that is good," NIV "useful"

• The thing that contributes positively, not negatively

It must be hands On

• The 18th C. philosopher Samuel Johnson said, "Every man is or hopes to be an idler." This is not God's hope for you.

• God does not want you to retire at 40 and play golf.

• He wants us to do something useful with our own hands.

• It is not His primary intention for us to make a fortune playing the stock market or the lottery or betting on horses. He intends our lives to have much more direction and meaning than that.

By implication, God says our work must involve Remuneration

• None of this feeling guilty because you make a good living.

• That doesn't seem to be a problem at Gateway.

• Why should we desire to make a good living? Because then we will have something to share with those in need. In other words ?

Work must be Koinonia Kindling

• "koinonia" is Greek for fellowship, sharing, partnership, community.

• We work so that we can have something to share.

• In short, God wants to turn thieves into philanthropists.

• Your work should be connected to a larger purpose. It is not a distraction from what God has called you to do and be. It should help enable what God has called you to do and be. God has called you to be a giver and your work enables you to be that. It gives you something to give.

Warning signs

Signs that work may not be for us what God intends:

• If it is a source of depression

• If you consistently feel undervalued

• If you work too much (may be that you need or want work to be something other than what God wants it to be for you.)

How to make work what God intends

How to rescue it from depressing monotony? How to place it in proper context? How to fill it with meaning? How to work appropriately hard with right motivation and purpose?

• Not by determination

• Not by making a clever life plan

• Not by more education/training

• We make work what God intends by faith

That's why the Apostle Paul would never think of lining out a list of ethical expectations and demands, which is what he does in Ephesians 4, 5 and 6, without first laying down the proper God-saturated foundation. We dare not even begin to think about trying to live better or tyring to measure up to a higher standard simply by great effort. Paul begins at the only place he knows from experience that he can begin. He begins with a penetrating portrayal of who we are in Christ. We are:

1. honored by God

2. God's choice

3. Someone whose life has been ordered by God

4. God's child

5. Free

6. In the know, and

7. secure. 

Then he reminds us what an incredible thing God has accomplished in our lives. Listen to the kind of images he uses. God has 

1. made us alive

2. saved us

3. made us His workmanship

4. brought us near

5. united us

6. given us peace.

All of this has happened by grace through our faith!!!!!!

Then Paul describes two kinds of life. One he calls the old self and one the new self. The old self is caught in a downward spiral of disobedience. (4:17-19) The old self moves from hardness of heart to ignorance, to futile thinking - which means blinded and separated from God - to insensitivity, and finally to abandonment to impurity.

The other kind of life is called the new self. This life is being made new, this life is being created to be like God. The old self is being corrupted by its desires, which are deceitful. The new self is being given a new attitude.

Therefore, because of all that God has done for us and in us, because of who He has made us to be, because of His immeasurably great work on our behalf, and because of the dangers and darkness that accompanies our old lives, let's live our new lives. Like putting on clean clothes each morning, let's put on our new self. We do so not by great effort or great planning, but by great faith in a great God.

Practical suggestions:

• Put up pictures of family in cubicle

• Put up pictures of pastor, or your Home fellowship

• Put up pictures of missionaries you support/ children you support

• Memorize Ephesians 4:28

• Better, memorize Ephesians 1:3-14

• Set a specific goal for how much you will devote to work and ask someone to hold you accountable to that goal.

• As you do your budget, figure out how much of your work goes to what causes. Then identify what you are working for each day.

• Simplify your life. Eliminate the excess. Streamline. Downsize.

• Make it your goal to see how much you can give away next month or next year.

• Ask God to show you how your gifts and skills can be used directly to spread His love.

I pray that God would give you a vision of your work as worthwhile, as hands on, as remunerative for a purpose, the purpose being so that you might share with others. That your efforts would be koinonia kindling.