Good morning, everyone. My name is Steve. I'm Senior Pastor here at St. Paul's, and
it's my delight this morning to work, to bring this message of work to you. For those of you
who are new here today, this is the third of our series in work, and it's a delight to be able to
stand here and do it, and yet to get to this point has been a source of great frustration
as well. So let's pray that'll come into clarity as we go through. Father God, we thank you
for the security, the significance, the meaning, the hope that we have because of what you have
done for us in the Lord Jesus and who we are, that we are your beloved called children. Father, we pray
that that reality would shape all of our lives, that our vocation being called by you to put our
trust in you would impact the vocation, the places that you put us day by day in this world to work
for you. Use your word today to shape us and to give us hope and to put our primary hope in you
and not in anything else that you've called us to, and we ask it for your sake. Amen.
Studs Terkel was an American author and historian and actor and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer
Prize in 1985 for his book, The Good War. He also wrote a book on work, and in the introduction to that
book, he wrote, work is about violence to the spirit and the body. It's about ulcers and accidents.
It's about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog. Above all, it's about daily humiliation.
To survive the day is a triumph, enough for those walking amongst the great many of us.
Well, that's a bit pessimistic.
He expresses something of the incredible amount of frustration and pessimism there is about our
working life. As I said last week, it doesn't matter what your frontline is, which is what in this series
we're calling our vocation, our work, the place that God has put us. It doesn't matter if your frontline
is in your home or in the classroom, it's on the factory floor, it's in a national park, it's in an office
cubicle. Work can be a source of purpose and dignity and also a source of enormous frustration.
Dealing with difficult customers and a demanding boss or inclement weather or a family's mountain of
laundry or a two-year-old or an elderly parent lingering unemployment, over-employment,
underemployment. It can rob your day of joy. Every day of joy. Of course, that's the flip side of the
message that I preached two weeks ago about the dignity of work where we see right from the very
start of the Bible, God is a God of work. We too, created in his image, were created to work.
It's astounding to, against the pessimism that we have and the frustration, it's astounding to realize
that in the Bible, that work is in fact part of God's blessing and not part of the curse.
Each one of us has been assigned our vocation by God to work out his purpose in the world.
We were created to work, that is to exercise dominion or, if you like, rulership over God's
creation under him. Our experience, therefore, of work is both one of dignity and purpose,
as well as difficulty and frustration and meaninglessness. That is, we flip and we flop
between idealism and pessimism in our daily experience. The difficulty of work has its origin
in Genesis 3, that passage that Jimmy read out to us there, where Adam and Eve decide to reject
the authority of God over their lives. In God's address to Adam, in his response to his part,
Adam's part of the rebellion, God says this about work. To Adam, he says,
because you listened to your wife and you ate from the tree about which I commanded you,
must not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil, you will eat of it all
the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of
the field. So there's the positive and the negative. It's toil, it's hard work, it's thorns,
it's thistles, but you will eat of the fruit. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until
you return to the ground, since from it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will be
returned. And that was my experience cutting the grass yesterday. It was great to cut it, it was
great, it looked good afterwards, but man, it was hard and sweaty work and I just saw weeds everywhere.
I sat back in the day and said, that looks good, but it was hard work. The word curse here is used to
describe a new reality. It's the massive and devastating effect on work. The curse means that
the very nature and the context of human work has now changed because of sin. Work is now toilsome,
it's difficult. Thorns and thistles will bring sweat of exertion to the forehead. The whole landscape of
human existence has now been altered. There is an intense groaning and a weariness and a burden
upon human existence. Evil and sin and death enter the world and they have a ravaging effect
on creation. We are broken people living now in a broken world. And there is a number of ways
that our work is impacted because of sin. The first, our work becomes fruitless. That is, we will be able to
have a vision for far more of our work than we will ever be able to accomplish.
Both because of a lack of ability and because of resistance to the environment around us.
The experience of work will include pain and conflict and envy and fatigue. And not all our
goals will be met. In fact, a whole heap of them will be unmet. For example, you may have an inspiration
to do a certain kind of work and perform a certain level of skill and quality, but you may never get the
opportunity to do what you want. You may desire to be the number one tennis player in the world.
And that will always be frustrated while there's a guy named Roger Federer and Nadal and, you know,
the other guy, the number one guy.
I could see him, but I can't.
Darkovich, that's him. The other guy who I can't remember and pronounce.
While ever they're there, there will be a frustration for your plan to be number one tennis player in the world.
Your conflicts with others in the work environment will sap your confidence and undermine your productivity.
You may hope to make a real contribution to your organization or to work with distinction,
to be regarded as an expert in your field.
You may aspire to change the world, to make a major improvement in human society,
to have a lasting impact on culture.
And most people achieve none of that, if not very few of those goals in their lifetime.
And even those who do will sense that their true aspirations are thwarted as often as they are reached.
The second impact of sin on our work is that it will become pointless.
There's a haunting sense that our work really doesn't have much significance at all.
You see that expressed in Ecclesiastes 2, verses 17 to 18,
where the writer says,
So I hated life because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me.
All of it is meaningless.
It's a chasing after the wind.
I hated all the things that I had toiled for under the sun
because I must leave them to one who comes after me.
So the writer there is deeply disillusioned with his work.
And as a consequence, disillusioned with his life.
What's the point of all this work and this toil,
when in the end, I just hand it over to someone else?
Someone else gets the fruit of my labour.
I work hard, build it all up.
And my son buys the Ferrari.
And all this causes many to have a very negative view of work.
How do we get satisfaction in the light of all that's against us?
Well, the same writer says in chapter 3, the next chapter in Ecclesiastes, verse 13,
To find satisfaction in all their toil, this is the gift of God.
It's the gift of God.
The writer concedes that satisfaction in work in a sin-ravaged world
is always and only the miraculous gift of God.
And yet, strangely enough, this same writer says that we have a responsibility,
in fact, to pursue the gift through a particular kind of balance.
He says this in chapter 4, verses 5 and 6 of Ecclesiastes,
The fool folds his hands and he ruins himself.
Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.
What he's saying there is that tranquility, rest, without toil, won't bring satisfaction.
That is, to win the lotto and to not do anything with the rest of your life will not bring satisfaction.
He says, neither will working really hard without any form of tranquility or rest.
He says, there needs to be both toil with tranquility.
That will result in purpose and satisfaction and meaning.
And how you get that balance in life is one of the main themes of the Bible.
The New Testament reveals that the ultimate source of the tranquility that we seek is, in fact, Jesus Christ.
Who, because he toiled for us on the cross, can offer us the true rest and tranquility that our souls are longing for.
Jesus said, Matthew chapter 11,
Come to me, all who are weary and burdened.
We've just sang this.
Just sung it.
Come to me, all who are weary and burdened.
I'll give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.
For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
I have found it so...
Oh, oh, oh.
See, that passage is the deepest picture of what can happen to our work when we meet Jesus.
When Jesus calls all people to himself, he says that he knows that we are weary, that we are burdened, and that we need rest.
But Jesus' cure for our weariness in Matthew chapter 11, verse 30, is a burden.
And a yoke.
In verse 29.
It's not to escape all burdens and yokes.
It's not to have complete freedom and do whatever I want.
It is, in fact, a burden and a yoke.
The yoke or the harness which was put on a bullock of burden, the beast which plowed a field, was a symbol of slavery and of grinding toil.
How could this possibly be a solution to the problem of deep weariness?
Jesus says that it is his yoke and his burden that is the only one that is light.
It's the only easy one.
Why?
For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, verse 29.
Matthew 11.
It's only light because of the one who gives it to us.
He is the only boss who will never drive you into the ground.
He is the only audience that does not need your best performance in order to be satisfied with you.
Why is this?
Because his work for you is finished.
That's why.
His work for you is finished.
In fact, the very definition of a Christian is someone who doesn't just admire Jesus, doesn't just respect Jesus, doesn't just desire to emulate Jesus, doesn't just obey Jesus, but someone who rests in the finished work of Jesus.
That's a Christian.
Do you remember that God was able to rest in Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 to 3?
I said this last week, maybe the week before.
He was able to rest because his work was finished.
His creative work was done.
And a Christian is able to find rest from toil only because God's redemptive work is likewise finished in Jesus.
When our attempt to find satisfaction and significance and meaning has been satisfied by the Lord Jesus,
all that's left for us to do is to serve the work that we're being given by the Father.
You see, far too many people in our world, and maybe it's even you sitting in here today,
you're not just doing the work that draws the salary.
You're not just doing the work that raises the child.
You're not just doing the work that cares for a family member.
But you're also doing the work under that work, which is attempting to chase away the feeling of insignificance
and purposelessness and meaninglessness.
Through that work, you're trying to solve that job down there.
That's why that is our identities attached to it.
That's why we introduce ourselves with, I'm Stephen, I'm a minister.
I'm Bill, and I'm a this.
I'm Jackie, and I'm a that.
That is, what we're doing, we're doing the work under the work.
You're attempting to work for something more,
for something more that is more meaningful and deeper than just the work that you're doing.
You're working for hope and security and identity and significance through the vocation.
But it will never give you the rest that you need.
In Jesus, we find rest for our souls, and without it, all other work will be unsatisfying.
Never be able to relax, even when you're supposed to be resting.
You won't ever be able to walk away from your work, even for an evening.
Won't be able to enjoy the satisfaction that God intended when he called us to the work that he prayed for us to do.
Because we're hoping that that work will give us what only God himself can give us.
A classic example of how this might look like in reality, in practice,
is in the film Chariots of Fire, which is a real-life story.
One man, there's about two main characters.
One of those characters ran in the Olympics, and I quote,
to justify my existence.
While the other man had such a deep rest in Christ,
that he could miss, likely miss, a gold medal by not running on a Sunday,
because his commitment to Jesus meant that he had rest already.
He didn't need the gold medal to find that.
The first man had to get a medal because he was running to find satisfaction.
The second man, devoted Christian, Eric Liddell,
did not care in the same way whether he won the Olympic medal or not,
because he had rest.
He had his satisfaction.
He had his meaning.
He had his purpose.
He told his sister that God had made him fast.
And when I run, when I run, I feel his pleasure.
It doesn't matter whether I win or not.
He ran for the joy of running itself,
and to delight the one who gave him the gift of running.
The gold medal was inconsequential to him.
You see, when we have rest, we have significance,
and we have acceptance and security,
in Jesus, we are set free to work well.
Jesus' finished work of salvation is the work that catapults us
to work well with dignity,
even when it is hard,
as it was for those who were receiving Colossians 3,
verses 22 onwards.
This is revolutionary teaching in Colossians 3,
to slaves.
The dehumanizing nature of slavery was vast in the Roman Empire.
Ancient historians estimate that there were some 60 million slaves
in the Roman Empire.
Half of the population.
Work was considered below the dignity of slave owners,
and it was below the dignity of the Roman culture.
Practically everything was done by slaves,
including doctoring and teaching.
Now, while there were some good relationships
between slaves and slave owners,
on the most part, that was not the case.
Ancient tradition, dating back to Aristotle,
classified slaves as things.
They were regarded as tools.
Not as people.
Tools.
The Romans classified farm implements
into three categories.
The articulate,
the inarticulate,
and the mute.
And the articulate were the slaves.
They were regarded as tools,
farm implements.
A later Roman writer
recommended quite a grim action
when a Roman landowner
bought a new farm.
His suggestion was
that you tossed out the old slaves to die
because they were broken tools.
And so most did.
So the situation of slaves in general was not good.
It was terrible.
Hardship.
Hopelessness.
Hopelessness blanketed the lives
of millions,
tens of millions
in the ancient world.
And Christianity's preaching
of the British work
of the Lord Jesus Christ
with his explicit doctrine
of the equality of all people
raised the hope.
and also created
an awful lot of society tension.
Particularly between slaves and masters.
The advice of the Apostle Paul here
was revolutionary.
Because in time,
it actually brought down
slavery as an institution.
But it was immediately revolutionary
that it actually brought fullness
to the Christian life
of whether you were a slave
or a master.
And if you go a couple of verses before,
parents,
wives,
children.
It's all in the same context.
Look at the revolutionary teaching.
Firstly,
because of the finished work of Jesus
that gives us satisfaction,
security,
fulfillment,
rest,
slaves
and us
are set free
from people pleasing.
Verse 22,
slaves,
obey your earthly masters
in everything
and do it not only
when their eye is on you
to win their favor.
Now, of course,
Paul's not encouraging submission
to immoral and hurtful
commands.
And yet everything,
the word everything,
is so encompassing here.
Slaves were very often
asked to do
the most debased
and demeaning things.
And so this is a tough command,
especially when it's linked
with the very next phrase
which says,
not only when their eye
is on you
and to win their favor.
It literally means
eye service.
Eye service.
It's working
that is only done
when the boss
is looking.
We all know
what that's like.
You know,
you're at the gym
and you're,
you know,
you're in a gym class
and you're hiding
down the back
and the instructor
comes near you,
you're doing push-ups
and all of a sudden
you can do 10 of the best.
And when they,
when they got,
you know,
the feeling,
you know,
when you think
you're getting scored
in some way,
you can produce the best.
Eye service
results in
half-heartedness.
I'm trying to please
someone out here.
The room is swept
but the dirt
is brushed under the carpet.
Work breaks
get extended
until the boss
returns.
The finished work
of Jesus
motivates us,
enables us
to work
with sincerity
of heart
with all
of your heart
and this high call
here makes
no distinction
between the pleasant
and the unpleasant
tasks,
the dull
or the challenging,
the menial
or the interesting.
It simply states
that everything
must be done
energetically
from the heart
whether the boss
is present or not
because the boss
is always present.
do it
as working
for the Lord.
And if that high call
stood by itself
it would be
supremely,
supremely
debilitating
and impossible.
But it's accompanied
by an enabling
rationale
so secondly
because of the
finished work
of Jesus
that gives us
satisfaction
and security
and fulfillment
and rest
slaves
and us
are set free
to work
wholeheartedly
because the work
that we're doing
is in fact
spiritual work.
Verse 22
work
sincerity of heart
reverence for the Lord
whatever you do
work at it
with all your heart
as working
for the Lord
not for men.
Some of us
shuffle
meaningless
mounds
of paper
around
some dig holes
and fill them
back in again.
some can see
nothing noble
in the task
that you're
performing
they are
nevertheless
serving God
as you work.
This truth
transformed
the work
of the Christian
slave
in the ancient
world.
His
nothing
tasks
were actually
noble
in a culture
that disregarded
them.
They were
actually noble
when done
for Christ
because he
has been
set free
by Christ.
It's interesting
that Christian
slaves
invariably
brought
higher price
at slave
auctions.
This radical
preaching of
Paul
so transformed
Christian
slaves
that the
higher price
was paid
for them.
The pagan
slave
served his
master
because he
was bound
by fear.
He never
knew when
he was going
to be executed
because he
displeased
his master.
The Christian
slave served
his master
better than
anyone because
he was bound
by the love
and the acceptance
and the freedom
of Christ.
Working
hard at
our tasks
from the
heart brings
glory to
God.
Christians
ought to be
the best
in attitude,
the best
in dependability,
the best
in integrity.
Thirdly,
because of the
finished work
of Christ
that gives
us satisfaction
and security
and fulfillment
and rest,
slaves and
us are now
set free
to work
with the
hope that
our work
will be
recognized
and rewarded
in the end.
It's not
just about
handing it
over to the
next person.
Work with
all your heart
because,
verse 24,
you know that
you receive an
inheritance from
the Lord
as reward.
It is the
Lord Christ
you are
serving.
It is the
Lord Christ
you are
serving.
To the
first century
slave,
that bit
of news
was fantastic
because under
Roman law,
it was illegal
for a slave
to inherit
anything.
they were
a tool
that was
disposed
of.
All their
labor just
came to an
end and
that's it.
And yet
here,
they learn
that they
would receive
a reward.
God rewards
faithful workers
forever.
This ought to
be an
encouragement
to us
as it is
to them.
Whatever your
lot in life
is,
God pays
you so
well.
He pays
you so
well that
when we
get to
heaven,
we will
wish that
we just
worked more
and better
for him.
Now,
notice that
this instruction
to these
Colossian
slaves sits
within a
section of
hard and
controversial
instruction to
Christians living
to wives and
husbands and
children and
fathers and
masters and
slaves.
In other
words,
in one way
or another,
all of this
teaching will
jar.
But the
empowerment and
the fuel and
the energy and
the motivation
to live this
life came from
the rest of
chapter 3.
This is coming
at the end of
what has
happened before
in chapter 3.
Verse 1 of
chapter 3,
since you've
been raised
with Christ.
Verse 3 of
chapter 3,
your life is
now hidden
with Christ.
Verse 4,
when Christ,
who is your
life,
appears,
then you will
also appear
with him in
glory.
Verse 12,
as God's
chosen people,
holy and
dearly loved.
And then
verse 16,
just before
this section,
let the
word of
Christ dwell
in you
richly.
In other
words,
and more
specifically,
for that
verse,
let the
gospel,
let what
Christ has
achieved for
you,
his finished
work on the
cross for
you,
dwell in
your heart.
May your
vision be
the gospel.
May it be
your focus
and your joy
and your hope
and your
treasure.
When your
heart comes
to know
hope in
Christ and
the future
that he has
guaranteed for
you because of
his furnished
work,
when you are
carrying his
easy yoke,
you will
finally have
the power
to work
with a
free heart.
You can
accept gladly
whatever level
of success
and accomplishment
that God
gives you in
your vocation
because he's
the one who
has called
you to it.
You can
work with a
passion and
rest,
knowing that
ultimately the
deepest desires
of your heart
will only be
fulfilled.
when you
reach your
true home,
your inheritance,
the new
heavens and
the new
earth.
And so,
brothers and
sisters,
whatever you
do, whether
in word or
deed, do it
all in the
name of the
Lord Jesus
Christ, giving
thanks to God
the Father
through him.
Amen.