Theology of Work

Transcript

1. THEOLOGY OF WORK A C F W O R K S H O P N I G H T F E B R U A R Y 2 2 , 2 0 1 3
2. Every Good Endeavor Timothy Keller
3. “My heart is in the work”
5. work | wəәrk | noun 1 activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result: he was tired after a day's work in the fields. 2 such activity as a means of earning income; employment: I'm still looking for work. 3 a task or tasks to be undertaken; something a person or thing has to do: they made sure the work was progressing smoothly.
6. Why work?
7. • The way to serve God at work is to further social justice in the world. • The way to serve God at work is to be personally honest and evangelize your colleagues. • The way to serve God at work is just to do skillful, excellent work. • The way to serve God at work is to create beauty. • The way to serve God at work is to work from a Christian motivation to glorify God, seeking to engage and influence culture to that end. • The way to serve God at work is to work with a grateful, joyful, gospel- changed heart through all the ups and downs. • The way to serve God at work is to do whatever gives you the greatest joy and passion. • The way to serve God at work is to make as much money as you can, so that you can be as generous as you can.
8. “Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” What do you love the most?
9. Let your work be worship and you’ll never have a meaningless workday.
10. The kingdom of God on earth and heaven
11. The image of God love, creativity
12. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” GENESIS 1:27-28
13. Work as cultivation • God’s creative energy: taking raw, undeveloped things and refining them • He has asked us to continue in his role • Implication 1: Don’t flee from culture or blindly embrace all of it, but rather engage it • Implication 2: Take advantage of your placement and status in society for God’s work
14. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you. He makes peace in your borders; he fills you with the finest of the wheat. PSALM 147:12-14
15. Work as service • People are the vehicle through which God sustains and crafts human society • We love our neighbors this way • Implication 1: Self-worth and worth of others are not based on field of work, money, etc. • Implication 2: Work is a ministry of competence
16. 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. COLOSSIANS 3:23-24
17. • Fruitlessness • Meaninglessness • Selfishness • Idolatry Sin plagues work
18. The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.” EXODUS 5:6-9
19. Looking to Jesus
20. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. HEBREWS 12:1-2
21. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And 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. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. GENESIS 2:1-3
22. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. MATTHEW 11:28-30