God and Work

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0:00 Well, this year we're coming out of Pentecost. Pentecost is that traditional Israelite harvest time festival that Jesus reinvigorated together with God the Father as they together released the Holy Spirit on the people of God. It's like uninhibited release of the Spirit of God on young and old men and women.

0:33 And this launched the new age of the church that said, now you have the original life-giving Spirit of God to animate your new creation in Christ and to be the centerpiece that holds you together as the church. For you congregate, no longer will you need to congregate at the temple where God's presence promises to be. Now wherever two or three of you are gathered in the name of Jesus, there in your corporate

1:04 midst is the Spirit of God in a way that constitutes you as the church. God did this at Pentecost when all of Israel was gathered together from the diaspora in Jerusalem in the city. And then so that when they were then scattered back about by the Jewish persecution back to their homeland, then they had an understanding. They go with the Spirit of God. Having practiced gathering together in the city, they take that back to their homelands

1:37 where they set up lives again amongst other people and begin congregating as they had when they were in the Israelite faith in the synagogues. They knew a pattern. They took this pattern and reinvigorated it in what's now called the Age of the Church. When you look at the great ages of our metanarrative, our constituting story in which we live, this is the final age, the Age of the Church. And what I wanted to think about in this season of Pentecost is we move away from Pentecost

2:12 and towards the beginning of the school year through the summer was what does it mean, what does it look like for us to be the church in Orlando? And in order to do that, I was thinking about this concept that I learned some time ago that the church develops its own culture, that our job isn't necessarily to transform the cultures of the world. We don't need the world to look like the church.

2:43 We need the church to be the church faithfully until Jesus comes back and sets all things to right. And the way that we're able to be the church is to fully embody what it looks like to be under the reign of Jesus. We talked about the church. We started defining the church as the people called out from the world, the Greek word ekklesia, those called out, the people called out from the world to live under the reign

3:14 of God. This is what the church is. And throughout time ever since that persecution in Jerusalem as the people redeemed by the death and resurrection of Christ and empowered by the spirit moved to live under the reign of God, they're doing, they're building that culture of the reign of God in conversation with cultures of the world. And broad strokes you might say that as the culture of the reign of God interacts with the Roman Empire, you slowly evolves into Roman Catholicism.

3:48 As the culture of the reign of God interacts with the cultures of the Middle East and Russia, it evolves into orthodoxy. North Africa, it evolves into Coptic Christianity, right? And then as it moves into the Enlightenment and the culture of the reign of God interacts with Western Europe and Enlightenment, it evolves into Protestant denominations. And then as America evolves and the reign or the culture of the reign of God interacts

4:22 with the culture of America, the manifest destiny and rugged individualism, we see all of the holiness movement churches and American evangelicalism, right? And we should be able to find in all those iterations of the church a common DNA about what makes the culture of the reign of God. If you look up culture, it's built by things like values, symbols, rituals and language. And I've been thinking about the particular ways that the values of the reign of God clash

4:54 with the values of the culture we find ourselves in today. And we started, we spent two weeks thinking about money and economy. And we said that under the reign of God, people, the church, interacts in the economy and has a relationship to money that's not about accrual and hoarding, but is about creating, blessing and serving. So we interact in an economy with people, we deal with money, not for our protection or

5:32 our provision as though God were not a good king that would take care of us and provide for us. We don't engage in money in order to hoard and amass all that we can as though our power in the world was determined by how much money we had accrued. We are powerful because we are children of God and bribed with the spirit of God. We are taking care of not because we have enough money, but because we have a God who takes care of us. But we engage in economy and money in order to bless and create.

6:04 And then last week we talked about rest, that for the church, rest is not the absence of work. It is this life-giving regenerative activity that because we have a good king under whose authority we live, we have faith to rest well. People of the church leak well.

6:35 They have patterns of work and rest that mirror that of our God who rests not because he is tired but because he can, because rest is life-giving, something generative happens when we rest. And so this week I want to think a little bit now more concretely about work. But as the church, we have a value around work that at times rubs up against the way

7:12 the culture of our world values work or understands what work is. And for us the story of work starts at the very beginning of our story in Genesis. If you want to look there with me, this is the very original story of our people in Genesis chapter 2. It's kind of beautiful. Genesis chapter 1 and 2 tell the story of creation.

7:45 Chapter 1 tells the story of creation from this large-scale macro view looking down day 1 and then he saw that it was good and it was evening, it was morning and day 2 and he saw that it was good and evening is morning. And then chapter 2 kind of zooms into the garden and shows how God created the garden. It says that he formed humanity out of the dust. That he actually breathed the breath of light into humanity. That he took the care to plant.

8:17 He says that he planted plants in the garden all that were pleasing to the eye and good to eat. He does all this very careful work of creation. And then let's look at Genesis chapter 2 verse 15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.

8:49 And the Lord God command the man you may surely eat of every tree of the garden but the tree of the knowledge of the universe tonight for you for of that you shall surely die. On the other side of the garden, on the original side of the garden, Adam is there in it and God gives him the charge of working the garden and taking care of it. So from the beginning, the vision and intention for humanity is one of work.

9:27 Maybe you're in a season where work is overly burdensome or boring. Maybe you're in a season where work feels like drudgery or your boss feels more like an overlord. And you might be tempted to think that work is the enemy.

9:59 That we work for rest. I was thinking about that phrase work and life balance. Maybe you're in a position where you feel like you're searching for work and life balance as though they were two separate things. As though you have two things on a scale that take up all of your time, work and life.

10:35 It does not seem that this is the situation God created humanity into. As though you work and then you get to live. That phrase that Americans work in order to or live in order to work, they live for work and Europeans work to live. I think it's kind of a false dichotomy that's not very helpful.

11:08 I think work is intended to be a part of life. I love the image that God conjures humanity out of the dust, animate them with the breath, sets them down into a beautiful garden that God made just for them and says, now, get to work. I love that Adam doesn't have to search around and kind of divine or uncover an area that

11:45 needs work. It's not a quest that he goes out on what work will I busy myself with. It's that he recognizes he is in the world with capacities and gifts and talents with potential and power endowed by the Creator. There is a world who needs caretaking and here he is. And his life will involve many things.

12:16 Part of it is a fattest, fine labor. When Megan and I were first married, I don't know how I got it in my head. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. We got married halfway through my senior year of college. And somewhere, I think it was my dad who said, after I said, you are a guy who could live,

12:47 he started telling me about kaboots. I guess it was a big thing in the 70s. They probably still exist. Like communal living. Where together you all grow the food that you need and take care of all the things. It's almost like a neo-monastic approach, right? And there was something really beautiful about that that appealed to me. This idea that what I would busy myself with during the day was producing the food that

13:19 I would eat and it was this kind of circle where I wouldn't need money, where we all lived together, took care of each other. I kind of liked the simplicity of that idea. And I had mentioned to Megan, hey, what if we just found you could go live on these kabootsas? We don't have to do it forever, just for a period of time. She was less interested in the idea than I was. There's something, there's some sincere beauty in the simplicity of Adam and Eve in

13:58 the garden. Caretaking. It is very clear what they are to do with themselves. Take care of this beautiful piece of creation that God has given you. But life, of course, doesn't stay that simple. Even in our story, even in the meta-narrative that constitutes our notion of existence, the story doesn't stay that simple.

14:28 In the end, when our story pictures out an end of all things, it's not humanity in a garden, it's now all humanity in a city where there is more to do than maintain the plants, caretake a garden. There are masses of people working together to build civilizations and societies. There's diversity of an economy.

15:01 And when you think about all humanity moves that way, from agrarian systems into more complex urban environments. When we went down first trip to Guatemala to meet the coffee growers, one of the places where we buy coffee for credo, it's very remote. Most of the places don't have infrastructure like police or sewage. They're growing their beans and corn that they're eating and then they're harvesting.

15:36 They're picking some coffee for large coffee plantations to make a little bit of money and buy the things that they can't grow or make themselves. I remember driving around that space and we were talking about the sense of urgency or necessity to their work, that everything was about their survival. I mean, not many kids growing up in the remote mountains of Guatemala think about being brand

16:07 consultants or event managers, right? Because we don't need brands, we need beans coming up out of the ground in order to eat, right? We need someone to take care of the chickens and figure out how to make them grow fatter and happier so we have good chicken to eat, good eggs, right? But as places evolve, we actually really do need brand consultants and event coordinators. We can look around and see the work that needs to be done and take stock of our capacity,

16:44 the skills with which we are endowed and look out at the world and see how we can contribute. Do you see that Adam and Eve work not in order to gain but in order to be contributors, co-creators with God in the world, making the place better? God put them in the garden and he doesn't say, I took care of it, don't worry about it now. It'll be fine. The grass will mow itself, the trees will prune themselves, you just lay here and grapes will fall into your mouth.

17:14 I've designed it that way. So creation, pristine and new, jumped out of the imagination of God, needs humanity to care taken. This is where work comes from. You are sorely needed in the world. Your capacities, skillsets and talents make the place better. It was designed to have you co-creating with God in it. You don't work to make money.

17:48 It's not some little component that funds the life you want to live. You are made to co-create an image bearer of the creator God co-creating with him in the world, evolving it to what it will be, the heavenly city descended out of heaven for eternal habitation by me and you. Work is substantial, important, life-giving and affirming, fulfilling.

18:21 So why is it such a drag on Monday morning? Well, I mean, look at this in Genesis, still in Genesis. We're going to move out of Genesis here in just a second. But Genesis chapter three, you know, he puts him in the garden and who knows how long that

18:52 goes well. It goes well for a while, I think. It doesn't say how long it goes well. But of course, if you've read the story at all, you know it takes a turn. Adam and Eve enamored with their own power, potential, beauty, capacity, feel like they ought to be able to be God. We can handle the things of God. Let's just side step our relationship to him.

19:25 Let's abuse the creation he's given us in order to take rather than create, sustain, use it for our own gain, and everything breaks. When they break the relationship with God and the relationship to earth, everything breaks. And what was all beauty and good is now contaminated with pain. And there's a specific problem, brokenness around work. If we go to chapter three verse, well, how about 17?

20:06 And to Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and of Eden of the tree of which I commanded you to not eat of it, cursed as the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and fissils it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you shall return.

20:40 It's amazing to think that he could care take, cultivate the land, and it would just respond to him. That's a beautiful thing. This summer we put down some new grass in our backyard, the long story, I'll tell you it later. But the kicker is, this grass is made for Florida. It is like this is the native Florida grass, right? I did the research. It's the right kind of grass. And it's the right time of year to put down grass because you can set your clock at four

21:13 o'clock it rains every day. What time is it? Is it raining yet? Has it already rained? Rain's at four o'clock every day, great downpour and then sun. Lots of sun. It's hot out there. This is the perfect environment for this grass. But when you look at the directions for this grass it's like make sure it's like full sun not partial sun. Make sure that you water it, but don't water it too much. But make sure that you water it enough, but if you water it too much the algae will grow underneath it and kill it. So you got to get the systems just right.

21:44 I'm looking for the reality that there was a time when you could just put down grass and it would grow. Where you could fix some corn in the ground and up it would come. You'd prune it and take care of it, but it wouldn't fight against you. Do you know what I'm saying? That your work, yes. We need your capacity. The world will be better. Your life will be more fulfilling as you engage in the work that your eyes see in front of

22:15 you. As you become a contributor to the culture that is being built, as you take your skill sets and see that you can move over there and serve those people and create that thing, the world will be better. But it will not be easy. It will be hard because your motivations will always be mixed. And the people you engage with will always be fraught with mixed motivations.

22:53 You will encounter good people and evil people. You will encounter good in yourself and self-serving evil in yourself. Work will be fraught. But we, the church, value, we do not succumb to our base desires and our worst instincts. We aspire to the vision of who we can be in the world.

23:23 I want to see, there's one very cool glimpse of that in Luke. If you do go with me to the right, Matthew Mark Luke John, it's in the New Testament, Matthew Mark Luke John Acts Romans. In Luke, he's telling the story of John the Baptist. Remember John the Baptist is the cousin of Jesus who tells everybody Jesus is coming. He's like, hey, you should prepare. Just repent for what a mess you've made. Agree that you've made a mess, that you've turned beauty into ugliness, that you've turned

23:57 a position of serving it into exclusivity, that you care more about yourself and your rules that you do serving other people. Come out here, baptize in the river and change your ways because Jesus is coming and he'll take you if you repent. You can go with him and live under his reign again. It will be good for you. So all these people start coming out from John the Baptist, out of the city, into the desert, next to the river, and he's baptizing him. And there's one thing that Luke records is he's telling the story of John the Baptist in chapter three, at verse 10 when the crowds are asking the specific question and it's

24:30 really interesting to me. In Luke chapter three, verse 10 and the crowds asked him, what then shall we do? He's telling them repent and believe and they're like, cool, we've repented, we believe we're out here in the desert. What do we do next? And he answered them. Whoever has two tunics, share with him who has none. And whoever has food do likewise. He's saying just like look at the problems that are there and if you have a capacity to address them, address them. They're saying, should we just stay out here and like hang out by the river like what do

25:05 we do now? And John the Baptist says go back and contribute. Do you see a problem that you have the capacity to address? Address that problem. I love it. You know, later Jesus would say there was no man born of woman greater than John the Baptist. I mean this guy is a paragon of humanity as a tested by Jesus himself and he says, hey, if you see a problem, just be a contributor and whoever has food do likewise. But this is where it gets really interesting.

25:37 Look at verse 12, talks collectors came also to be baptized by him and said, teacher, what shall we do? You know, if you spend any time in the gospel, the tax collectors are the real rock ones. Like they're just like always the bad guys in the story of Jesus. They've turned on their countrymen. They're working for the occupiers. They're extorting everyone they can.

26:07 They're using their relationships in order to get as much money, pay as little to grow them and keep as much for themselves. Tax collectors are wealthy, successful people in the culture of the world, hated by their own countrymen, but comforted by their own wealth and power. Tax collectors are crooked. It is a not a good profession in the time of Jesus. And so the tax collectors come to John the Baptist, the one who's like repent and live holy lives. The one who's there's no one greater.

26:38 And they say the tax doesn't seem to be baptized. teacher, what shall we do? Verse 13, and he said to them, collect no more than you are authorized to do. And then he goes on, soldiers who also asked him, and what shall we do? And he said to them, just do not escort money from anyone by threats or by false accusations and be content with your wages. He doesn't tell the tax collectors to quit doing this.

27:09 He doesn't tell the soldiers to leave their service. He just tells them, hey, we need tax collectors in order to keep the whole system working right. This be a just and ethical tax collector. He doesn't tell them, hey, I'm John the Baptist. You are now repent and believe. Come on here. Take that other spot in the river. We'll both preach and we'll get more people. He says, no, you're a tax collector. The problem you saw in the world was we had to navigate a very real relationship between

27:40 Rome and Israel. And you have a unique skill set in order to talk to both people groups. Use that skill set, but just be just about it. Same with the soldier. He doesn't tell the soldier, leave your post, go to another river, preach repentance because we need as many people circling the city preaching repentance on the river because Jesus is coming. Jesus is no, you are a soldier. Just be a fair and ethical soldier because throughout the history of our people, we have

28:15 said the world needs workers and here we are. And we don't need to extort and cut corners. We'll be the best soldiers, the best tax collectors. The best profit, the best leaders, the best mothers because we are so well cared for by the king under whom we live that when we engage in our jobs, our work, we do it not out of

28:45 compulsion or fear, but out of the desire to co-create a better world with our God. Look, you have the capacity to be co-creators with God. He died, rose, ascended, dispatched the spirit in order to awaken in you the capacity to work safely in the world. It is not a quest that you need to go on. It's very simple.

29:15 We look at the world, see what needs to be done and move towards it and do it with our skill sets and capacities. We just move towards it and do it. The last little thing I want to give you because it is such a weird time with work is this passage that I read for the kids. I'm just going to read it and let it sit with you as you think about how you engage with your work. If I can find it.

29:46 Oh. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. What you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body, what you will put on. It's not life more than food and the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air. They need a stone or a reef, nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them and are you not more value than day? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

30:21 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow. They need their toil nor spin yet. I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. Therefore, do not be anxious saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things and your heavenly father knows that you need

30:56 them all. But seek first the kingdom of God, the reign of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. The vision for the day is its own trouble. Let's pray together. Oh, good Lord. Give us faith to put aside anxiety and fear and work from hearts that contribute with

31:29 capacities and skills given by you with hearts to serve and create that are called alive by you. Make us those types of workers today in order that we might like the generations before us faithfully be your church. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.