Wisdom and Our Work | Selected Proverbs
Brad O’Dell | August 4, 2024

Welcome! I’m Brad, I’m one of the pastors here, and it was not the design for me to be here this morning. I got an early-morning text from Brian. He got hit by something hard in the last day or so and is really not feeling well, so please be praying for him. Some bug is really wrecking his system right now; pray that he would find some relief, find some healing, and that it wouldn’t stick around long. And be praying for me as I preach this message. It’s the message that Brian prepared throughout the week, so I’m working off of his notes and it might feel a little different because of that, but I did get to practice in the 9 a.m., so it should be smoother this time than it was then! No, it’s a good message from the word, so we’re going to be doing the best we can with it.

Go ahead and open your Bibles to Proverbs 8. Proverbs 8 is where we’re going to be this morning. We are in a summer series where we have been in Proverbs looking at where God’s wisdom leads us to engage in various areas of our lives, and this morning we’re looking at how we can apply God’s wisdom to our work, to our professions, to even the tasks we are called upon to do day after day in the home or in our kids’ lives—what have you—all of the work that God has given us to do in this life.

You know, of the 168 hours in a work week, a lot of us are giving forty or more, maybe sometimes a lot more, to our professional sphere or to our work in that regard, compared to maybe only a couple hours a week where we might be able to focus in a worship gathering like this. That being said, a lot of us struggle to really figure out how our faith integrates with our work. How do we become worshipers of God? How do we become on God’s mission? How do we even become people who focus on God in the midst of our day-to-day work? How do we take something of the aspect of what we do here in a focused way on Sunday mornings and let it thread all throughout our weeks, both in the big tasks and the small tasks? This morning we’re going to try to find what kind of wisdom God has for us from his word that we can apply to all those things.

Here’s what I’m hoping we get out of this message.

First, I want us to see that our work is intrinsically valuable, it’s meaningful. Those things that you do from nine to five Monday through Friday, they’re not distractions from your real life or distractions from the real things God has called you to, but those are intrinsically valuable and meaningful things. That time matters to God.

Second, I want us to discern some of the sinful tendencies that can be in our hearts related to our work or when it comes time to work.

Third, I want us to embrace a vision of what our work can be—maybe a better kind of work that will glorify God, seek for the common good of those who are around us in our communities, and also help the world flourish according to God’s design and God’s purposes.

Fourth, I’d like us to, most importantly, try to take some of this wisdom literature as regards our work and start to connect the dots for how Jesus’ life and work speaks to these things and helps us to live in the image of Christ and live in the kingdom of Christ in an appropriate way, in a fulfilling way in our work lives. That’s the idea of the message today.

Here’s the outline for how we work through it:

1. The Dignity of Work
2. Sins Related to Our Work [and how the brokenness of sin affects the work sphere]
3. How to Work with Wisdom [principles of wisdom that we can apply to our work lives]

1. The Dignity of Work

Look at Proverbs 8:22-31. To preface this, this is wisdom personified as a woman who is with God in creation and she’s delighting in being used by God in creation. The idea is that wisdom is threaded into God’s created order, and we are supposed to try to discern the wise ways God has created. That’s the language here. Proverbs 8:22 says,

“The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works,
before his deeds of old;
I was formed long ages ago,
at the very beginning, when the world came to be.
When there were no watery depths, I was given birth,
when there were no springs overflowing with water;
before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, I was given birth,
before he made the world or its fields
or any of the dust of the earth.
I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
Then I was constantly at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind.”

You see there this idea that wisdom is presented as alongside God in creation, and the idea is that God’s wisdom is threaded into the creational order and design. That’s what we’ve been looking at this summer. How has God designed the world to work? What is some of the wisdom that comes from the people of God in long relationship with God, discerning his ways in the world, and how to walk in accordance with what he’s called us to, and how to walk according to his purposes in creation? That’s what we’ve been looking at this summer.

What we see here as well is that God is presented as this master workman or master craftsman. You see him drawing lines, you see him measuring things out, you see him making sure that this goes here and this goes here. You see him creating new things, such that personified wisdom herself is astounded at the work of the Lord, and she can just sit and delight in all of the work of God, because it has a beauty to it. We see that God himself is this master workman.

One author looks at all of the language about God and the Bible and sees how God presents himself and how he reveals himself, and he has these titles. He is seen as a composer, a performer, a metalworker, a potter, a garment maker, a gardener, a farmer, a shepherd, a tentmaker, a builder. And we see that God himself is a God who works.

The idea of God’s work is that all of creation only exists because God, out of the overflow of his love, created the world and the people in the world to display his love and his glory. As God is overflowing in love in creation, it involves him loving others and his creation through his work.

Of course, as image-bearers of God, we were designed to share this creative work of God. As God creates, so we become these co-creators with God, fleshing out our love for God and others and his creation through our work.

Genesis 2:15 says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it.” So, part of what it is to be people is to be people who would be at the work of the Lord, the physical work of the Lord in this creation, helping to bring God’s purposes to bear in the created order. We see that there’s a tremendous dignity to our work, because it is something of God himself, and it’s something that we get to partake in and also be a part of as image-bearers of God.

Skye Jethani, in meditating on this, wrote a book called Discipleship with Monday in Mind. He has a quote that I think is insightful or helpful. It says,

“All work matters to God. Collecting trash matters to God. Preparing lattes matters to God. Changing dirty diapers matters to God. Cooking a meal matters to God. Developing an Excel spreadsheet matters to God. As someone once said, if it is not sinful work it is sacred work.”

I wonder if you have that idea of all of the tasks you have in your day—whether it’s in your profession or if it’s just your normal household chores, the things that no one else really sees you doing. I think sometimes we fall into this idea that there are secular duties that we have and then there are sacred times and sacred duties. “That’s the time when I’m praying and reading the word. That’s the time when I get to go to church. That’s the time when I’m doing family devotions. I carve out these sacred times and I make sure I try to get that in, because I have all these secular times.” But that’s not the presentation of what our time is in the word of God. The idea is that all of our lives and all of our tasks, all of our work, is sacred because we are image-bearers of God and we can glorify God in all that we do, even the most menial tasks of our days.

2. Sins Related to Our Work

But we also understand this: we understand that work, therefore, is not a part of the fall; but the fall does affect our work in some serious ways. It makes it hard, it makes it toilsome, it makes it discouraging in ways that it wasn’t designed to be. That brings us to our second point, and that’s sin’s effect on work, how sin is related to our work.

You see, the fall didn’t, again, create work. Work came before the fall. But it did bring a curse on the ground. You see, the ground that was supposed to naturally give itself to things that flourish and thrive and that are beautiful and that are life-giving, instead the ground will naturally give itself to producing thorns and briers and weeds instead. It takes an extra effort, a toilsomeness in our efforts, to be able to reap what the ground was supposed to do, because it doesn’t happen as naturally because creation is cursed in this way.

The author of Ecclesiastes, other wisdom literature in the Bible, he actually talks about this nature of creation, and he sums it up by saying, “All of creation is vanity. There’s this futility in creation. It seems like no matter what you do, you don’t really produce that much or you don’t really get anywhere.” It’s an overly negative aspect of how to look at creation. There’s a journey there to understand.

But there is a wisdom principle to that. Because of the fall, futility is now threaded into the created order in a very significant way, and we feel this in so many things we do. There are lots of times that we put a lot of time and energy and effort into things and it doesn’t quite get us the results we need. There are times when we feel like we labor and labor and we’re exhausted, and people don’t really appreciate it. No one really sees. We’re not even sure we appreciate it ourselves. It feels like, “What am I even doing? Why am I doing this day after day, year after year? Is there anything in this?” The answer of the Bible is yes, but it also gives strong testament to the fact that that is the reality of living in creation.

I think one big wisdom principle is coming to terms with the fact that there is futility because we live in a broken creation. We just have to recognize that. It shapes our expectations, that we are going to have times where it seems like what I’m putting in I’m not getting out. It’s just going to be a part of a lot of things we do.

Sometimes we’re going to do everything we can take care of our health, and we’re going to get hit by a disease that wrecks our lives. Sometimes we’re going to do everything we can to protect ourselves and be wise, and tragedy is still going to come. Sometimes we’re going to set Saturday aside to do all the house projects, and we’re going to do all the study and make sure we have all the materials, and we’re going to get into it and everything’s going to go wrong and we’re going to have to go buy a bunch more tools and we’re going to spend all the time we had and we’re not going to actually get the project done. There’s futility in creation! (That was what I did yesterday; sorry if that was a little hot. I still feel it a little bit.) This is how sin has affected work in creation.

But also, of course, sin corrupts our hearts and how we approach our work. Though we were given work to be co-creators with God, to bring glory and honor to God and help flesh out God’s purposes in this world and like Lady Wisdom delight in the ways of God, instead sometimes we have wrong motivations to our work. We tend to overwork. Maybe we tend to neglect work, we tend to undervalue work, we use our work to glorify ourselves instead of God—all kinds of things.

Proverbs will focus on two specific kinds of people, right? It will talk about the sluggard and the slothful; we hear about this a lot in Proverbs. It also is going to be those who use their work and their work sphere to bring injustice. So the sluggard or the slothful and the unjust. We’re going to look at those.

(1) First, the sluggard. In Proverbs 26—you can flip there if you want, but the Scripture will be on the screen—in Proverbs 26:13-16 we get these four characteristics of the sluggard or someone who is slothful in their work, and they let sin lead them into this trap.

First, we see that the sluggard is one who’s always making excuses. Verse 13: “A sluggard says, ‘There’s a lion in the road, a fierce lion roaming the streets!’” The idea is that they make up an excuse: “Well, there might be a lion out there.” There’s probably not a lion out there; one hundred times out of a hundred and one times there’s not a lion, but there could be, “So therefore I have an excuse to not go and do the thing I’m supposed to do. I can neglect my responsibilities.”

The thing is, sin will lead us to want to avoid responsibilities and to deny in this sense who God made us to be by not picking up those things that he’s given us to do.

The sluggard has, secondly, a lot of motion, a lot of activity, without much progress. Proverbs 26:14 says, “As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed.” That’s a funny image, right? As a door swings on its hinges, back and forth, back and forth, creakety creakety creak, there’s a lot of action happening, but nothing’s really getting accomplished there. So is a sluggard, right? He will have a lot of activity, but really it’s like he’s just lying in bed.

The idea is that sometimes we can display to others, and maybe even to ourselves if we’re in self-deception, that we’re very busy and we’re doing a lot of things and that we’re working really hard, when really we’re just producing a lot of activity while not actually doing this. This is being in the office, and when you go to walk down the hall you walk really fast, like you’re on a mission. You know you’re not really on a mission, but you want people to view you as you’re on a mission. When people come into your office you have a furrowed brow looking at your computer. You’re not really concentrating, probably, that much, but you want people to see that you feel busy. Oftentimes it doesn’t actually reflect that you’re approaching your work with diligence. Those are some ways it can look.

Another one: a sluggard doesn’t complete tasks. Proverbs 26:15: “A sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth.”

What we see here is that these are people who tend to have a lack of integrity. They say they’re going to do a lot of things, but they just never tend to carry it through, and their life is full of a bunch of half-finished projects, half-finished dreams, half-finished what-have-you. There’s a lack of faithfulness, a lack of dependability that can come into our work because of how sin affects our hearts.

We see that the sluggard is proud, and he doesn’t listen to others. Proverbs 26:16: “A sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven people who answer discreetly.” There’s the idea that a sluggard has all kinds of ways to try to defend his way of life and to try to get out from under the responsibilities he has to embrace the call of God on his life to be a worker to the glory of God.

I think what we can do is we can fall into the error of having very obviously lazy, exceedingly lazy people in our minds for these truths, but I think we can recognize in all these things that there are ways that I can in small ways bring this into my work. There are small areas of integrity, small areas of dishonesty, small areas where I just don’t really try to step up to the plate as much as I could in the work that God has given me to do. What it does when we give in to these sins, it strips us of a lot of the dignity of our work that was a part of God’s good design. It also strips from us a lot of the fulfillment that our work is supposed to give us, such that we are thankful. This leads to a glorifying of God, a thankfulness in God, and a joy that we bring to others.

(2) But also we see how sin affects us and brings injustice into our work or dishonesty in some way. We see this especially in the oppressor. We actually see Proverbs focused on those under authority, but also those in authority.

For the first, we see Proverbs 20:23. It says, “The Lord detests differing weights, and dishonest scales do not please him.” This is the idea of in your work, sometimes in major ways but also sometimes in usually a lot of small ways, just not being fully honest or having full integrity in all the ways that we can. We can do our expense reports and add in a few more things. We can look at the clock and show up a little late and check out a little early day after day. We can know how we’re using our time on the clock and know that, “Well, it wasn’t a very good workday, but hey, we all have not-good workdays,” but we rationalize our work effort in some ways, and there’s some injustice and even some dishonesty that goes on there.

But also for those who are in authority, injustice can come in. Proverbs 29:4 and 7 says, “By justice a king [that’s the person in authority] gives a country stability, but those who are greedy for bribes tear it down. The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”

The idea is that some of us have a place of authority in this world, either in other people’s lives or in some regard, even if it’s just in your household. The idea is, do you use your position as a way to bless others in love, just as you are being represented of God who loves this person and is desiring to bless him through your work, or do you use it for some other purpose—either for the bottom line of the company or to build you up or to even just have a show of power? There are lots of things that this can look like. God tells us to be wary of how dishonesty and injustice can come into our hearts from these things.

We get a few directives in Proverbs for how we are to work with wisdom, how we are supposed to work within the ways that God has designed the world, and then find fulfillment in that and also a joy in our work that has been impacted by the fall.

3. How to Work with Wisdom

We see four characteristics of wise work that I want to dwell on this morning.

(1) First, we see that Proverbs calls us to diligent work. We’re supposed to work hard, we’re supposed to work diligently, and Proverbs gives us an example of this. It says this in Proverbs 6:6-8: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways, and be wise. It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.”

This is something that Proverbs does a lot; it uses these images of nature, and it says, “Don’t you see that God created the natural order? Don’t you understand that you can learn some of these things and apply them to your life?” It says in this case, “Look how the ant is diligent in its work.”

First of all, in verse 7, it doesn’t have a commander, an overseer, or ruler. There’s no one that the ants are like, “Whoa, we have to do this because our boss said we do.” No, they just get at what they’re supposed to get at. They innately understand what they’re supposed to be doing in the day.

I think for some of us, how we learn that is, you’re supposed to own your work. A lot of us in our work sphere or even in our tasks, we sit back and do the minimum, we let other people do the thinking, we let other people do the strategizing, we let other people give us directives, and we’ll do the minimum to make them happy and then just go about our lives and do whatever else we want. But the idea is that God gave us our work. This is our profession. This is something that God has called us to engage in this season; we’re supposed to own it to the glory of God and seek to engage in it with as much excellence as we can. In that, there is a deeper fulfillment, and there is an aspect where we represent the character of our God and Savior.

But also we see the industriousness, the diligence of the ants. Ants work hard. You know this, right? That one time that the jelly from your kid’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich drops—there’s only one drop in the house, but what do you find the next morning? You find hundreds of ants in and out. They figured it out, and they’re on it. What happened? How did they figure that out? You thought you had a pretty well-sealed house, but it’s obviously not sealed at all, it’s just infected. What happens? How do these ants find that? They’re diligent in their work. They’re always at it. And once they’re at it, man, they really get after it and they communicate it to everyone else. And boy, it’s a lot harder to get them off the trail than it was to get them on the trail, right? Ants are diligent.

The idea is that in our work there’s supposed to be diligence, there’s supposed to be regularity, there’s supposed to be real concentration and focus. We’re supposed to give ourselves to these things. It is part of how God designed us to operate in the world.

(2) Secondly, we see that we are supposed to engage in what we’re going to call “deep work.” We’re using a phrase from Cal Newport—I’ll mention him in a second—but I think we see this in Proverbs 28:19: “Those who work their land will abundant food, but those who chase fantasies [or worthless pursuits] will have their fill of poverty.”

We see this contrast between those who work the land and those who have worthless pursuits or light, unproductive pursuits. To work the land is to be someone who is patient. That’s attentive work, it’s hard work, it’s regular work. You can’t take time off when work needs to be done. You have to show up for what needs to be done on that day, in that season. It’s a type of work that takes expertise, right? If you are working the land for your provision and for your wealth and you’re dependent on all the elements of the weather and all the things that can happen, there is this intangible knowledge that has to be gained through long, hard focus, and it takes time and experience.

The idea is that there is a full concentration of work, such that it gets into us. If you’ve ever met farmers around harvest time, there are some who have been doing it for many years. The moisture level of whatever they’re looking at has to be at a certain point before they can harvest it. Some of them can just pick it up and rub it with their hands and be like, “Nope, that’s not it.” Now, they have little machines; you put it in it, you grind it, it tells you the moisture. They’ll use those, but those who have been at it a long time just know intuitively that it’s not ready for harvest; if you harvest it now it’s not going to go well. Or, “It’s too late for harvest; we’ve missed it; let’s move our efforts somewhere else.” They have that because they have given themselves to this in a very concentrated way; they’ve given themselves fully to it.

In this book Deep Work, Cal Newport talks about this problem with a lot of work that we have today that’s shallow or unproductive, and it has little economic value to it but also little personal value. I think a lot of us feel this. We have a lot of what seems like urgent work that somehow isn’t very important. So it makes our days feel like we are living in the fullness of that futility and we aren’t getting any of the richness of God’s good design. What he calls us to is deep work.

I think this is a good definition of deep work. He says,

“They are professional activities that are performed in a state of distraction-free concentration [key phrase, distraction-free concentration] that pushes your cognitive capacities to the limit. These efforts create new value, they improve your skill, and they are hard to replicate.”

Of course, he also says we need to have balance, we need to have seasons in our lives. We even see that in the example of the ants, right? They understand that there are seasons for them to store up food and then seasons for them to enjoy the food. This should be in the rhythm of how we live.

But I think maybe a lot of us are disillusioned with our work or disheartened by our work because we aren’t really giving it the focus it needs to shape us and grow us and also for us to get to that point where it feels rewarding for some of the focus and effort we’ve put into it.

You see, God designed our work, first of all, for us to partner with him and to shape the world like we’ve talked about, to shape the world, to shape our communities, to shape our environments toward ends that are consistent with his purposes and his good plans. But he also gave us our works to shape us and to grow us and to develop our character, to call us to his specific purposes for us. If we don’t give ourselves to it fully, we kind of are skating over the surface and miss a lot of this deep, good work.

I think the fight of our day, in this technological environment where we have so many distractions at ready hand, is to really fight to become undistracted. We have to find a way to become undistracted. I think that really means we have to exercise a lot of energy and discipline in the areas of how technology really calls us to be distracted in a lot of ways, and even how a lot of work environments do, but I think that is a fight worth fighting, and you’ll find it fulfilling.

(3) Third, quickly, we’re also called to work for the common good. We see just a few examples of this.

Proverbs 25:13: “Like a snow-cooled drink in harvest time is a trustworthy messenger to the one who sends him; he refreshes the spirit of his master.” This is someone who works faithfully, someone who is a good employee, they can bless their employer. It’s like the heat of harvest time when things are hot and someone’s tired, it’s like a cool drink on that day. We need to know that as employees, as ambassadors of Christ, we can work in such a way that we can bless our employers, we can bless our coworkers with our work, and it’s honoring to the Lord and it’s a good representation of Jesus.

We even see that as a manager—we see this in Proverbs 26:10—some of the decisions they make, they need to make with regard for all the employees, not just one person or just themselves. It says this: “Like an archer who wounds at random is one who hires a fool or any passerby.”

This is saying if you don’t exercise some discernment and wisdom in your managerial practices, it’s not just going to affect you, it’s not just going to affect your business, it’s going to affect all the people around you like an archer firing at random. Your work is supposed to take into account the common good or the good of others.

We also see that our work is supposed to be used—in any way that we have power and influence, we’re supposed to use it for justice. This is written to a king, right? This is Proverbs 31:8-9: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

This is a big, big thread in Scripture. If you are one who knows the one true God, if you are a child of God, if you’re a worshiper of him, then your heart should reflect his heart, and all throughout Scripture we see that that should flesh out in having a heart for those who are poor or oppressed or voiceless in some way. It might just be for those who are struggling or hurting particularly in this season. It might be for those who are just under-resourced in a way that you can step in and help out.

We’re supposed to have a heart for these people. We’re supposed to be actively seeking how we can engage those with the opportunities God’s given us. Part of what we’re called to engage in industriously, diligently, is working for the good of others. This is what it is to live in accordance with how God has made us to be.

(4) But also, I think the Lord calls us, lastly, to restful work. Look at Proverbs 10:22. It’s an interesting one. It says, “The blessing of the Lord brings wealth without painful toil for it.” It’s interesting. It’s saying there’s a blessing that comes from the Lord in your work that doesn’t include this painful toil.

Now, we already said that part of the broken creation is that there’s painful or frivolous or futile toil that is going to take place, but there’s a way that you can experience the blessing of the Lord to where the impacts of that are quite lessened as you do your work. This phrase “painful toil” is only used a handful of times in the Old Testament. It’s the same word that’s used in the curse that’s given to Eve in Genesis 3:16, that the woman will have painful labor in childbirth. The idea is that our work can be like this. It can be as painful and difficult as a childbirth would be, but there’s a way to work within this toilsome, broken sphere in a way that still experiences the blessing of the Lord.

I think we see some of what that looks like in Psalm 127:1-2. Look at these verses. It has both of these ideas in mind. There’s a blessing and a work of the Lord and then there’s our work that can be in vain. “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late toiling for food to eat, for he grants sleep to those he loves.”

The idea is that there’s a way to work hard but also, at the same time, entrust our work to God, such that it’s as if God is the one doing the work through us and it’s not actually us to whom the glory or the deliverances of the work redound. There’s a way of working that’s not anxious toil, even if it is still toilsome in the sense of hard work. Right? Rather it can be full of a deep trust and a deep rest in God.

So, anxious toil—where does this come from? I think we need to discern that. I do think it just comes from this: when our work is driven by wrong motives. We’ve talked about those motives a lot this morning, but sometimes we just have an ambition for wealth, or we have a desire to make a name for ourselves. Again, we want people to see something awesome in us, and our work is a way that we’re trying to get that. Maybe we’re trying to build an identity for ourselves or we’re trying to glorify ourselves and maybe even validate ourselves through our work.

I wonder how many of us our validation, our personal identity, is based on it people appreciate our work or if we feel like we can appreciate our work, and if we don’t we just are crushed by it, we’re disheartened, it’s like a dry, barren land and there’s no joy in the work that we do. There’s a way to live unto God and not seek to glorify ourselves in this.

In honor of Brian for not being here, we’re going to use a golf analogy. There’s a documentary on Netflix called Full Swing, and it follows professional golfers. It’s pretty interesting to see how their seasons go, how they approach the game. There’s one episode where two people are focused on, and they’re diametrically opposed in how they approach the game. One of them is Brooks Koepka, and he’s really dedicated to the game, such that he’s driven to win. He calls it an addiction; he has to win. It’s such that when he is having success in doing things, he’s not really satisfied in it because he’s not the best or there’s always something more to be gained, and he can really get angry when things aren’t going his way. This is his drive in the game.

In the same episode, Scottie Scheffler, who’s a Christian and really seeks to glorify the Lord in all he does and keep his priorities aligned, he’s the other golfer in the series, and it’s such a difference in how they experience losses, how they experience difficulty, how they experience success. It looks very different. Scottie Scheffler won the 2022 and 2024 Masters, he’s had six tour wins this year, he’s currently number one in the world. Listen to how he approaches his profession, which is the game of golf. He says,

“The reason why I play golf is I’m trying to glorify God with all that he’s done in my life. So for me, my identity isn’t a golf score. Like Meredith [his wife] told me this morning, ‘If you win this golf tournament today, if you lose this golf tournament by ten shots, if you never win another golf tournament again, I’m still going to love you, you’re still going to be the same person, Jesus loves you, and nothing changes.’ All I’m trying to do is glorify God, and that’s why I’m here, and that’s why I’m in this position.”

You see, he understands, “Why am I in the position I am? Why did God give me the skills I got? Is it to make a lot of money? Is it so people know I’m the best? Is it so I can go down in the history books?” It’s because he wants to glorify God and to use his outlet for that.

For all of us here, work can become one more means of self-salvation, trying to justify ourselves or our existence, establish our identity. But the deeper we have a rest in God and a worship of God through our work, we give our work to him even as we diligently give ourselves to it, the freer we are to actually do good work as fulfilling and satisfying. We get the joy and dignity. We can do deep work, where we can grow in excellence and bless others around us. We do diligent work, to where we feel proud of our work in a really healthful way. We can really bring glory to God and bless others tremendously through it.

The question is, where do we get this rest? I want to end here. We need a rest of our souls, such that we can worship God and turn our hearts to God and not have to rely on ourselves. That does come to us through the gospel and what Jesus has done for us.

Jesus came into the world, and first he dignifies work. Did you know that Jesus spent years and years just doing carpentry before he started his public ministry? Then his public ministry was definitely a lot of work. If you’re just a simple tradesman, if you just have simple tasks that you’re doing throughout the day, don’t you know that the Lord of all glory came into the world, and one thing he knew he needed to be about while he was on this earth was just simple, everyday work that glorified God and blessed others in a small way, before he did his public ministry. That’s a dignifying of work.

Jesus also used his power for the good of others. We see that in his example. He lifts up the downcast, he brings salvation to those who others have shut out. He cares about the oppressed.

More than this, we talked about how broken creation produces these thorns, and the thorns are the representation of the curse on the earth. It’s a really interesting thing…as Jesus goes to the cross, something happens. They place a crown of thorns on his head. There’s something of the curse of creation that Jesus is specifically taking to the cross and saying, “Yes, this creation has been broken, but I will bring it back to fullness, and I will bring health and healing, and there can be redemption now and then.” Even now, in the midst of this broken creation, your work and the curse can be redeemed in your life in so many ways. Of course, that fleshes out in our sin, but it also fleshes out in how we engage in our day-to-day lives.

I think one of the sweetest things about Jesus’ sacrifice and his new life on our behalf, him taking the curse on himself so that we wouldn’t have to bear the burden of it, is what the Bible calls propitiation. It’s a word we don’t use very much. For someone to be propitious towards someone means that someone views someone else favorably. They have a loving heart disposition or a good heart disposition towards someone. What Jesus does is he doesn’t just give us an example of these things and he doesn’t just redeem us from it, but the separation that happened between us and God, such that we were hostile to God and we were about ourselves and we didn’t really even know how to and we didn’t desire to live for the glory of God, Jesus brings us back into right relationship with God such that the very love that the Father has for Jesus, his Son, he now has that same heart of love toward us. He has been propitiated. He views us in love.

I think a lot of us don’t have this joy, this thankfulness, this fulfillment in our work, because we do all of our work and we just think, “No one really cares, and this really isn’t making an impact. Is this really even doing anything in our lives?”

I think we are supposed to learn from Jesus—and from his crucifixion and resurrection on our behalf—we’re supposed to learn the life of letting ourselves see the Father looking at us as a proud Father. The same way you do if you’re a parent…you look at your kids and they’re doing things, they say, “Dad, look what I did!” Is it wonderful? Usually not, but you’re so proud of them. You see what they’re doing. You see where it’s going. You see the kind of thing that’s happening, and you’re so proud of them. Don’t you see that the Father looks at you like that?

I know that you think that you’re just changing diapers. I know that you think you’re just cooking meals and no one really appreciates it. I know you feel sometimes like the work you’re doing isn’t even accomplishing anything, it’s not very fulfilling…but don’t you see that your Father, if you’re doing it unto him, if you’re doing it with the right heart, don’t you see he’s proud? He’s doing something in it. He’s a proud Father. He loves you with the very love that he has for his Son. Sometimes I think we just need to stop and sit in our work and just let the joy of the fact that the Father’s looking on what we’re doing today with love in his eyes, and he’s proud of us. That makes work so satisfying.

Maybe your boss doesn’t notice. Maybe none of your coworkers really get it. Maybe no one will ever know the impact you had on the world. But your heavenly Father knows, and he’s so proud of you, and he loves you with an everlasting love, and he says, “I am going to work salvation and life into your life through this. Keep at it. I see what you’re doing and I’m proud of you.”

Do you know the love of the Father this morning? Can you bring that into your work? I think that’s our heart for this message this morning, is that that would be our takeaway. Let’s pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word, how it calls us to remember these core things, that we get to see some of the deep rhythms and patterns of the world and how we can walk in accordance with your good purposes and your ways and your heart, and that we can have a hope for our work. Lord, I especially pray for those here this morning who are listening, who are right here with us this morning, who just feel tired. Their day-to-day tasks feel like a drudgery. Maybe they don’t see the goodness and beauty of it. Would you open up their eyes and their hearts? Maybe they don’t know your love for them in the midst of the day-to-day. I ask that you would just bring to mind your love for them, that while they’re doing those tasks your love would really impact and hit their hearts in a profound way, and that you would be honored and glorified in it.

Lord, we want to use what you’ve given us in life to flesh out your kingdom purposes. Jesus, we want to be ambassadors for Christ in the spheres you’ve given us, whether it’s a small sphere or a sphere with a lot of influence in this world. Lord, you have called us to be your ambassadors, your co-creators in that space. We ask that you would give us a heart for the same. Jesus, what a wonderful life you led, what a glorious life you led, what a lovely life you led. We want to people who live beautiful, lovely lives that represent you and bring honor to your name. So we ask that you would teach us to do that in our work, that you would give us the joy of that as we see you working through us. It’s in your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.