Grace at Work E-Book

Bryan Chapell

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A Biblical View of Work in Light of the Gospel  For many people, their job is merely "the daily grind" needed to provide for family or pay the bills. Yet our work is a vital means for fulfilling God's purpose for our lives and displaying his grace to those around us. We bear God's image in our workplaces, experiencing his blessings and expressing his nature through our efforts, integrity, creativity, generosity, and excellence. No earthly chore is without the opportunity to observe his divine hand. No challenge in task or relationship is without opportunity to represent God's heart.  In this ebook, author and pastor Bryan Chapell shares this biblical perspective of vocation, explaining how God gives purpose to our work by making it an instrument of his grace to our own hearts, as well as a way of bringing his goodness and glory into our world. Chapell explains how we can worship God by our work, rising above drudgery, duty, or self-interest with the understanding that our jobs are unique callings for displaying God's character and care.  Our work is worship when we see the glory beyond the grind, the mission in the mundane, and the grace at work. - Ideal for Christians in the Workplace: Contains encouragement for those looking for purpose in their jobs  - Biblically Grounded: Chapell teaches how the gospel blesses attitudes and responsibilities relating to success, creativity, money, integrity, leadership, and even sin in the workplace  - Kingdom Minded: Explains vocation in light of the grace Christ provides to and through his people for blessing our world and bringing him glory 

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“We need a lot more books on integrating faith and work, but not all teaching on this subject is of equal value. In particular, I’ve noticed over the years that a lot of such books tend to be intellectualistic, all about ‘applying biblical principles’ in a way that leaves out the changed heart that we need to glorify God in our work. That changed heart, with its reordered loves, comes from an application of the gospel of grace. Bryan Chapell as always is an expert on this subject. I’m grateful for this important contribution to the faith-and-work Christian movement.”

Tim Keller, Pastor Emeritus, Redeemer Church

“All too often, we think of God’s calling solely in terms of responding to a divine summons to pastoral ministry or missions. But in Grace at Work, Bryan Chapell does a masterful job of helping us understand the dignity and grace involved in serving in any role to which God has led and gifted us. The biblical concept of vocation is one that every believer should understand, as it opens the door to faithfulness and kingdom service in any job or profession. In this book, Chapell aids us in that understanding and helps us see how we can be part of God’s great mission no matter what our work.”

Michael Duduit, Editor, Preaching magazine; Dean of Clamp Divinity School, Anderson University

“Bryan Chapell handles a neglected subject, our daily work, with the lucid writing and pastoral heart we have all come to expect from him. I found my own discipling of others received a needed correction; it’s easy for ministry leaders to focus so much on our work on Sundays that we neglect our people’s work the rest of the week. Dr. Chapell rightly dignifies all work, out of the clear teaching of Scripture, yet also gently brings the gospel to bear on our failings in our work. I will be using this book to help the men and women under my care receive the encouragement and honor that they deserve as they get up on yet another Monday morning.”

Dane Ortlund, Senior Pastor, Naperville Presbyterian Church; author, Gentle and Lowly and Deeper

“I have known Bryan Chapell for over thirty years. I can count on one hand the people I know who exemplify wisdom, brilliance, trust, humility, leadership, and counsel, and Bryan is on that list. I’m honored to be his friend and endorse the vital lessons he teaches to countless others through his books and podcasts. Buckle your seatbelt as his ideas will challenge you as they have me, both in business and all walks of life.”

Benjamin F. (Tad) Edwards lV, Chairman and CEO, Benjamin F. Edwards & Co.

“For anyone in the workplace looking for encouragement in these challenging times, I would highly recommend Grace at Work. A better understanding of God’s grace in us and through us in everyday life and work is clearly presented.”

AJ Rassi, retired officer, Caterpillar Inc.

“With characteristic clarity and honesty, Bryan Chapell has written a realistic, biblical, grace-driven guide to Christians who seek to be faithful and fruitful in their work. Punctuated with lively illustrations, this book nurtures the disciples’ hope of loving God and neighbor at work.”

Dan Doriani, Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology, Covenant Seminary; Founder and Director, Center for Faith & Work St. Louis

“As a part of the 1 percent of the church who, according to Ephesians 2:14, is tasked to equip the 99 percent of you who are called to do your ministry in the workplace, I’m so excited for this book. There is indeed dignity, purpose, and grace as you exercise your God-given gifts for his glory in your occupation. God calls you to minister in your workplaces in ways that church ministers never could. Receive this high calling with heavenly joy! Play your indispensable part in the great commission!”

Michael Oh, CEO, Lausanne Movement

“Grace at Work is a gift to Christians needing Jesus’s assurance that their work matters. God has woven together Bryan Chapell’s work experience as a common laborer and hourly employee, his pastoral experience with farmers and CEOs, and his communication experience as a journalist and homiletics professor to produce an encouraging read for pastor and layman alike. This is a real masterpiece for the church!”

George Robertson, Senior Pastor, Second Presbyterian Church, Memphis, Tennessee

“Whether you are a preacher or a teacher, or whether you work with your hands or sit at a screen each day, your job matters. As a believer in Jesus, you have a vocation, a calling that can bring glory to God and good for others. In Grace at Work, my friend Bryan Chapell gives practical and encouraging wisdom to believers regarding our work—no matter our location or vocation.”

Ed Stetzer, Executive Director, Billy Graham Center for Evangelism, Wheaton College

Grace at Work

Other Crossway Books by Bryan Chapell

Holiness by Grace: Delighting in the Joy That Is Our Strength (2011)

Unlimited Grace: The Heart Chemistry That Frees from Sin and Fuels the Christian Life (2016)

Using Illustrations to Preach with Power (2001)

Grace at Work

Redeeming the Grind and the Glory of Your Job

Bryan Chapell

Grace at Work: Redeeming the Grind and the Glory of Your Job

Copyright © 2022 by Bryan Chapell

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Amanda Hudson

Cover image: Alamy, Getty Images

First printing 2022

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-7823-6 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-7826-7 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-7824-3 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-7825-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chapell, Bryan, author.

Title: Grace at work : redeeming the grind and the glory of your job / Bryan Chapell.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021056713 (print) | LCCN 2021056714 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433578236 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433578243 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433578250 (mobipocket) | ISBN 9781433578267 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Work—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Vocation—Christianity. | Grace (Theology)

Classification: LCC BT738.5 .C43 2022 (print) | LCC BT738.5 (ebook) | DDC 248.8/8—dc23/eng/20220128

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056713

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056714

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-05-09 10:46:04 AM

To the dear people of Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, Illinois

These messages were first delivered to you, as you sought the will of God for the work of your lives from the truth of his word. Your love for the Lord and this pastor has made this book possible. I echo the words of the apostle to express how blessed were Kathy’s and my years among you:

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” (Phil. 1:3–5)

Contents

Introduction

1  Dignity

2  Purpose

3  Integrity

4  Money

5  Success

6  Humility

7  Glory

8  Evil

9  Leadership

10  Balance

11  Witness

Notes

General Index

Scripture Index

Introduction

Most Christians spend their working lives hoping that God will find some way to use their efforts for his priorities. They may not be able to see how God can use what they consider their daily grind or, by contrast, the glorious pursuits for which they are passionate. Still, because they are God’s people, they pray that he will provide some real connection between their work and his mission for our world.

Isn’t that what we all pray? We pray for the connection because we question, Is there any purpose in my work beyond a paycheck? Is there some mission for me beyond making money? Am I responsible before God only to put in the hours to fill up my bank account, pay the mortgage, feed my family, and not feel guilty about the size of the check in the offering plate? Isn’t there some greater purpose for me that would give my life’s efforts dignity beyond how I appear to others or think about myself?

These are common and persistent questions that weigh on sincere Christians until they recognize that God’s people are being called to his mission not just in Sunday worship but in the everyday workplace. A key aspect of God’s everyday grace is his giving us the means and opportunity to show his character, demonstrate his care, and fulfill his purposes.

God calls us to use the work skills, talents, and resources that he provides for extending the influence of the kingdom of God into every dimension of our lives and world. Understanding this calling enables us to see that our jobs have a dignity we may never have previously understood.

A few years ago, I was speaking at a career conference for Christian college students. Because my background and training are in journalism, the topic of my talk was the calling of Christian journalism. I tried to explain to the students how Christian journalists can have a powerful influence on their culture not only by writing articles on Christian subjects but also by bringing a Christian perspective to their descriptions of human relationships and world events.

After my talk, a young woman came up to me and said, “Your talk just made me feel guilty, because the kind of journalism I want to do is to write articles for fashion magazines. I have a love for fashion, but I know it’s vacuous and vain and doesn’t honor God at all.”

“Listen,” I said, “if you think what you’re going to be doing for a career is vacuous and vain, please do not give your life to that work. But if you are able to express the creativity and beauty of God as a fashion writer, you could be a wonderful Christian influence on an industry that needs to talk about beauty without vulgarity.”

Our sense of our life’s purpose changes dramatically when we begin to recognize that all kinds of work possess qualities of divine mission—not just the jobs of preachers or missionaries, and not just those of CEOs and brain surgeons.

God is calling the cop and the carpenter and the concrete layer to experience the dignity of their work as he uses their jobs to help others, improve lives, and spread the influence of his kingdom in the world. In the skills we express, in the products we make, in the way we work, in the impact of our labors on society and on the relationships affected by our work, we are instruments of God’s redeeming work in a broken world. God intends to demonstrate his grace through us.

We need to claim this truth so that we don’t belittle or disparage our own vocation with, “I’m just a tentmaker.” What? You mean like Paul? “Just a fisherman.” What? You mean like Peter? “Just a carpenter.” What? You mean like Jesus? In every vocation, we have the ability to take the image of God into the work that we do and, in doing so, help people understand the goodness of who God is, the care that he has for us, and the diverse professions he has created for the care of his world and its people.

This book is designed to help us understand and more fully experience personal dignity and divine purpose in the varied jobs that we do to serve God and all that he loves. No matter how isolated our Monday work may seem from our Sunday worship, God is yet providing his grace for the glory and the grind of our jobs.

When we realize that every honest job exists on the holy ground of God’s calling, then we will rejoice in the mission we have at work. Such joy invigorates us for every task, whether menial or majestic, with the understanding that each can bring glory to the one who sent his Son to serve us.

Ultimately, we do not serve a company or a boss or even our family’s needs, but our Lord, who smiles upon our labors, values our sweat, and dries our tears with the grace of knowing he will use every effort that honors him. Even when we have not considered or advanced his honor, his work is not done. Instead, he offers pardon and the grace to try again with the assurance that our labors for him are not in vain.

The new contract without hidden clauses, the lunchtime conversation kept clean, the cleanup job that cuts no corners, the expense report that is true, the hate speech not entered, the rage not expressed, the architecture kept beautiful, the benefits plan made fair, the government policy that is just, the discipline procedure that is merciful—all bring glory to the one who shows his character and care through his people.

All such work done and evil shunned come from the heart of a God who has shown us his grace in his word so that we can know and show his grace at work.

1

Dignity

Author Steve Garber writes that most Christian people “spend their lives in the marketplaces of the world, hoping as they do that there is some honest connection between what they do and the work of God in the world. They yearn to see their vocations as integral, not incidental, to the missio Dei [the mission of God].”

Isn’t that what we all want to know at times? Does God have a mission for my work? Does God have any purpose for what I do? Am I just putting in the hours to fill up the bank account? Or is there some greater purpose in my work? Can I fulfill God’s mission at work?

Garber goes on to say, “Sorrowfully, most of the time the church teaches the opposite . . . that our vocations are incidental, on the sidelines of what God really cares about.”1 We assume that the spiritual priorities concentrated in preaching, witnessing, missionary endeavors, and worship activities are God’s main concern. So everything else is secondary or meant to serve these “really godly” purposes.

I recognize that there is the tendency among pastors, myself included, to see what is said in the Scriptures as applying primarily to the life of the church and not thinking carefully about what people are called to do the rest of the week. I need to remember over and over again that Sunday is for Monday, and that we are being called by God to do his work not just in worship but in the workplace.

An old word that may help us is vocation.

In our culture, we often use the word vocation virtually the same way that we use the word occupation. But it’s really quite different in the history of the church. Our vocation is our calling. The word vocation actually means “calling” and originates in what God has called us to do to fulfill his mission in our lives. That’s a different focus from our occupation, which is how we earn a living to fulfill our needs and desires.

As Christians we need to understand that our occupation actually has a vocation in it and that we are called to use our gifts and talents and resources for the extending of the kingdom of God. Only then will we begin to see that our jobs have a dignity we may never have understood. God intends to show aspects of his goodness and glory to others by the work we do during the week, as well as by the worship we offer on Sunday.

Garber challenges me when he continues writing, “When was the last time that architects and builders, teachers and librarians, doctors and nurses, artists and journalists, lawyers and judges were prayed for in your congregation? We need to keep praying for the Young Life staff people and for the Wycliffe Bible Translators, but we also need to pray for the butchers and the bakers, and the candlestick makers, too.”2 I would add that we need not only to pray for them but to equip them for their mission in all walks of life and corners of the world, wherever God calls them to display his purposes and priorities.

The Dignity of Work

Your work is your mission field, and because of that, there is a God-given dignity in what you do. How do I know that there is dignity in your work? Because that dignity is first revealed to us in Genesis 2:15: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

When we “work” something, we make it flourish. And when we “keep” it, we sustain it. We don’t waste it or abuse it. The Lord told Adam in his first job description, “I’m calling you to production and to conservation.” In other words, we are colaborers with God in his creation care. Production and conservation are part of what we are called to do in God’s world. That’s our job description. That’s our labor. That’s our mission too.

Good farming methods, pollution control, mining and land management, energy production and conservation—all modern concerns—are actually being addressed in these early pages of Genesis, where we are called to consider not only how to produce what we need but also to conserve so that God’s world itself is honored.

Label before Labor

One of the important observations in the first chapter of Genesis is that we get our label before we get our labor. In other words, before we are told what to do, we are told who we are in God’s eyes. Genesis 1:26–27 says the following:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

To be created in the image of God is to reflect his character and care, to be one who mirrors him. And here we are being told that even though our genders may vary, God’s fundamental intent for men and women does not vary: both have the responsibility before God of reflecting him in the world.

Of course, being God’s image and mirror doesn’t mean that we are God. When we talk about young people being the spitting image of their father, we’re not saying that they are the same as their father but that, when you see them, you’re reminded of their father. In the same way, when people observe our work in the world, they should be reminded of our Father, especially his character and care.

When the Bible says we have been created “in the image of God,” it is astonishing to realize that this label is given to no other aspect of God’s creation.

Reflect on that for a moment.

Think of the most amazing sunset you’ve ever seen, the grandeur of the oceans, and the majesty of the mountains. Think of the beautiful images from the Hubble telescope of exploding galaxies and of our own glorious Milky Way, and yet not one of those grand creations is identified as bearing the image of God.

As image bearers, we are actually given a dignity above everything in the universe. That is what the psalmist says in Psalm 8:3–5:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.

We are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” I know it may sound a little boastful, but we are awesome! We need to realize what God is saying to us: “You have the special privilege of being my image bearers in every place that you’re called, including your work.”

Our Value Is Not Based on What We Do

Genesis tells us that people were created in God’s image before he assigned them the task of working and keeping the garden. Why is this important? It is important because God is saying, “I’m not determining whether you’re an image bearer based upon what you accomplish.” The reason we value the unborn and the infirm is that they are still image bearers of God, regardless of what they do. What they have done or can do is not the basis of their value.

This notion that we get our label before we are assigned our labor is one of the Bible’s earliest explanations of the gospel. When you truly grasp the profound beauty of being valued by God before you have done work for God—treasured for who you are, not for what you have accomplished—then your life will never be the same. You begin to live in the freedom and power of knowing that God is for you not because of what you provide for him, but because of what he provides for you. God’s love and mercy are never based upon what you do but on his grace toward you.

God has been signaling that message from the beginning of the Bible so that our hearts are made ready to receive his grace and eager to reflect his glory. The care of God that culminates in the provision of Jesus Christ for those who could not earn or deserve his mercy radiates from the simple truth that we are given a loving label before we are assigned our life’s labor.

Because you are an image bearer, you have value and dignity before you’re ever given a job assignment. And whether you become the president of a large corporation or serve God as a custodian in a public school, your value and worth before God never change, since each career path is pursued by a divine image bearer with equal dignity in the Lord’s eyes.

How We Treat Ourselves and Others

Being created in God’s image has many applications for how we view ourselves. Self-hatred is ruled out. All the rejection we fear because of our sin, our backgrounds, our lack of performance, and our body image not being what we think it should be—these should also be ruled out. God is saying to us, “I want you to remember that you’re the spitting image of me.” As a result, I get to treat myself as one who bears the image of my heavenly Father.

The knowledge that all people are created in God’s image should impact how we treat others. Our tendency is to treat people the way they treat us. If we believe one of our coworkers has treated us unfairly, we’re tempted to retaliate. Or if our supervisor is difficult or demanding, that may affect how our hearts respond to his or her leadership.

But when we realize that people’s image bearing is not based on what they do, that is a game changer. We may think that they aren’t very good examples of God’s image, but their value is not based on what they do but on who they are in God’s eyes.

Further, because every person is created in God’s image, our goal should be to help them flourish. How can we do that? If you’re an employer, look at your employees and ask, “How is their healthcare? Are they receiving appropriate benefits? Are they paid a fair wage for their work?” Those created in God’s image deserve our care.

If you’re an employee, you should treat your coworkers—even the difficult ones—with dignity and respect, remembering that God’s love and grace toward you are not based on your actions. You should also do whatever you can to help the people you work with to flourish rather than focusing solely on your own advancement and success. Those created in God’s image deserve our service and sacrifice.

When We Fail to See God’s Image in Others

Recently I saw in the news that a bus in the Middle East was forcibly stopped on the road. Terrorists got on the bus and asked people to recite portions of the Quran. If they were not able to do so, they were either abused or murdered. These terrorists were able to justify their actions because they viewed non-Muslims as less than human.

The same thing happened in World War II. The Nazis declared that Jews were subhuman and therefore should be exterminated. If you’ve ever visited a Holocaust museum or seen images of the Nazi death camps, then you’ll realize the atrocities that can occur when we fail to affirm that all people are created in God’s image.

The history of the United States also provides grim reminders of what happens when people are viewed as less than human. Although the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” these God-given rights were not extended to Native Americans or African-Americans.

As a result, our nation impoverished “Indians” and viewed their genocide as acceptable. The terrible abuses of slavery were justified because black people were viewed as subhuman property. These abuses continued—and still continue—far beyond the Civil War because people of one race consider themselves superior to another.

One of the greatest blights on contemporary society is the result of a similar conclusion about unborn children. In the 1973 Supreme Court case known as Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun spoke for the majority when he wrote “that the word ‘person,’ as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.”3 Since that time, there have been over sixty million abortions in the United States alone.

By contrast, Genesis tells us that every person, regardless of color, nationality, religion, or age, is an image bearer of God. The Psalms and the prophet Jeremiah add that God knows us—person and purpose—even as we are “knit together” in our mother’s womb (Ps. 139:13; Jer. 1:5). Therefore, we are obligated to treat people of every nationality, ethnicity, ability, or age with dignity and respect.

Labor Comes before the Fall

We have already seen the dignity of work affirmed in Genesis 2:15, which says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” But that’s not the full message of what’s happening in Genesis. We also know that our work has dignity because our labor comes before the fall of humanity.

Do you know what I mean when I talk about the fall? According to Genesis 3:15, that’s when human sin caused corruption and decay to enter the world, along with all the evil, pain, and difficulty we now experience.

But this fall of humanity described in Genesis 3:15 comes after our job description in Genesis 2:15. Why is that important? It is important because it means that labor is not bad. Labor is not evil. Of course, after the fall labor became more difficult, but it is not a curse—it is a prior gift from God that gives our lives purpose.

Why is it important to affirm the goodness of labor? It is important because you and I sometimes say to ourselves, “If I just didn’t have to work, life would be so pleasant.” Right?

I can remember when I was in college, and one of the jobs through which I earned my tuition was bussing tables in the student cafeteria. The work was dirty and messy and not much fun. After a semester or two of bussing tables, the food service changed hands. New management came in and said, “We’ve got a new rule: For one price, every student can eat all the food they want every day.” That sounded good until the food company began to realize that students can eat a LOT of food! Supervisors also discovered that students were taking extra food out of the cafeteria to eat over the weekend when the food service was closed. So my bosses decided that someone needed to guard the door. Someone had to do the job of sitting by the exit to watch for people who were stealing food.

Every one of us wanted that job! No more bussing tables, no more cleaning up messes, and no more handling dirty dishes. All you had to do was sit by the door and nothing more.

Doesn’t that sound like a great job? I got the job and discovered it was awful. You couldn’t do your homework, because you were supposed to be looking for people stealing food. All you could do was watch time pass and students pass by. But very quickly those students learned that if they hid their food in their backpacks, you couldn’t know whether they were stealing food.

In the end, my job as a “food policeman” was pointless and boring. The hours crawled by, and I was miserable.

Some of you have that same experience at a different stage of life. You think to yourself, When I retire, I will play golf all day, every day. It’s going to be so wonderful! As it turns out, it’s wonderful for about three weeks.

Then you tell yourself, I’ve got to do something! I need to volunteer at the soup kitchen or tutor neighborhood kids. Maybe my spouse and I need to move to where we can help with our grandkids. I need to take a part-time job or be useful in some way. Why? Because you were made to work, to enable things and people to flourish.

That’s how God has designed us.

When we begin to recognize that work is not evil but is actually something that gives our days purpose and our lives a sense of worth, then we begin to view our labor in a very different way. We discover that work is dignifying and doing nothing is dehumanizing. Nothing is more wearying to the soul than no work at all.

Irresponsible Lifestyles

A few years ago, a Texas teen stole beer from a store and went for a drive while intoxicated. He struck and killed four people on the side of the road, and a passenger in his car became paralyzed and suffered brain damage. When the teen went to trial, a psychologist suggested that the young man was suffering from “affluenza,” claiming that his affluent upbringing had failed to teach him right from wrong. Prosecutors sought a twenty-year prison sentence, but the judge sentenced him to only ten years of probation.4

We may all shake our heads and say, “Well, that’s crazy,” but we should grieve for any young man who doesn’t know right and wrong, or doesn’t know how to be productive, or doesn’t know how to make his way in the world because he doesn’t have any understanding of work or responsibility.

We should also recognize that this story in a different version is spreading across our culture. Do you realize that 30 percent of all men of working age in this culture are not working? There are many reasons for this. Some workers lack the skills needed for all but the lowest-paid jobs. Some jobs have been eliminated because of technology advances or cheaper overseas labor. Some have discovered government benefits that enable them to avoid working:

In a study for the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, Scott Winship reports that “75 percent of inactive prime-age men are in a household that received some form of government transfer payment.” Mr. Winship believes that government disability benefits in particular are one reason for the lack of interest in work.5

Another trend toward irresponsibility is the growth of the video-gaming culture in our society. Many young men and women are spending countless hours every day or many hours of the night just gaming away. They may lose sleep, college opportunities, and work advancement with addictions to meaningless competitions that consume time and energy but produce nothing.

Do you know what I would call a pastime where I spend all my time, all my money, all my resources, pursuing things that are not real and that never will benefit me or society? I would call it slavery. And those who are enslaved by such meaningless pursuits ultimately lose all respect for themselves.

Work gives us dignity, because work itself is dignified. When we begin to understand God’s perspective on work, then we realize that it is actually a form of worship.

Our Labor Follows God’s Rest

Genesis 2:2 gives us another important insight into the nature of our work: “On the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.”

On the very first Sabbath day, the Lord had finished all of his work, and therefore he rested—he wasn’t tired; he simply came to the end of his creation plan. But when God ceased that work, he wasn’t finished with his work in and for us. When God ceased his work, he gave humanity its work of tending his world (Gen. 2:15). In essence, God is saying to us, “I’ve completed my work of establishing the creation; now it’s your turn to work, to make things flourish and to conserve my creation.”

In other words, through our own labor, we are continuing God’s work in the world. Of course, we know that after the fall of humanity, weeds started to grow and corruption entered the world. For this reason, the work of humanity never stops, and God’s intention to bless through our work never ceases.

We are meant to continue to plow under the weeds and to push back the corruption. In this way our job extends the glory and goodness of God made evident by his creation, even against the corruption that’s here. This is God’s mission for each of us.

There are many ways in which Christians can think about their work honoring God. We work to provide for our families, which is a very good and appropriate means of fulfilling responsibilities God gives us for the care of loved ones.

Another responsibility that can be fulfilled in our work is our witness to unbelievers. Although that, too, is a valid objective, you need to remember that your company did not hire you to be a Christian witness. And if you think that’s how you should spend large amounts of your time on your job, that’s going to be frustrating to both you and your boss. God requires us to represent him with integrity, giving our energies and resources to the job we were hired to do (Col. 3:23).

An additional reason we work is so that we can be generous to the church and to the mission of God in the world. Our resources can help to fund food banks, homeless shelters, ministries to battered wives, Bible translation and distribution, and those who preach the gospel throughout the world.

All these are appropriate reasons for working. But we will miss the deepest joys and neglect the most profound impact of our vocation if we do not recognize that our work is itself intended to extend the influence of God’s kingdom to every corner of creation. Our work is not valuable simply because it provides for some