Biblical View of Work and Labor

Introduction: The Need for a Biblical View of Work on Labor Day

0:03 Now, as setting the basis and, in a sense, the framework to our study in the Word of God this morning, I would ask you to follow as I read Psalm 1, and then two verses from the book of Romans. Psalm 1.

0:25 Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law does he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither, and whatsoever he does shall prosper. The wicked. The wicked.

1:04 The wicked. The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.

1:27 And now Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the way of the Lord, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. And do not be fashioned according to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

2:16 Now I would be very surprised if there is anyone in this building this morning who can hear my voice with any degree of comprehension, who is not aware of the fact that this day finds us in the middle of the last official summer holiday, the Labor Day weekend. And because of that fact, we have some of our own people away, seizing this last opportunity to indulge summer vacation. Some of them are on vacation-itis, others are away at the singles retreat for which we prayed earlier. And in the light of these facts, and in the light of the tremendous necessity to address the subject I'm going to address this morning, we're going to take a one-week hiatus from our expositions in 1 Peter, which would find us beginning verses 4 to 10 of chapter 2. And I want to speak to you this morning on the very unglamorous topic, but necessary subject, a biblical perspective of work and of labor. A biblical perspective of work and of labor. And I want to begin our consideration of this practical theme by asking you a very simple question.

3:36 Do you know the origins of Labor Day? Now most of you are going to be enjoying the holiday on Monday. You would not have a boss who doesn't know Labor Day. He wouldn't dare to have you, expect you to come to work unless you were involved in a work of necessity or mercy.

3:55 But do you know the origins of Labor Day? If I asked most of you what's the origin of the 4th of July holiday, you'd be able to answer, at least somewhat accurately, it had something to do with kicking old King George in the shins and going off on our own. It had something to do with our independence. But Labor Day, where in the world did it come from?

4:17 Well, don't feel so bad if you don't know, because I didn't know until I did some research in preparation for today's message. I was fascinated by the thought, I've been celebrating this thing for six decades, and I don't have a clue how it got started. Well, it doesn't have the most glamorous origins. If you were to look up the smallest article in your Encarta encyclopedia with your Microsoft software, you'd find out that this holiday, a legal holiday, celebrated on the first Monday in September, in the United States, Puerto Rico, the Canal Zone, and the Virgin Islands, it is supposedly in honor of the working class.

5:01 Whatever that class is, the rest of you, I don't know what you are if you're not part of the working class. And it was initiated in 1882 by a group called the Knights of Labor, N-I-G-H-T, but K-N-I-G-H-T-S. Knights of Labor. Now, when you think of a knight, kids, what do you think about?

5:23 Think about the guy in his armor and a lance and a sword. You think of someone going out to battle. A knight is not a salesman. He's not performing a service.

5:33 He's a warrior. And this group named themselves the Knights or the Warriors of Labor. And they were warriors indeed. And they held a large parade in New York City.

5:46 And in 1884, they held that parade on the first Monday in September and passed a resolution within their own ranks, which at one point swelled to 700,000 members, that the first Monday in September would be designated Labor Day. And they began to agitate very feverishly until the legislatures in Colorado, followed by New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, established the first Monday in September as a special holiday. And then in 1894, the U.S. Congress caved in to the pressure and established it as a legal holiday. So for 104 years, we've had Labor Day, fundamentally because of the agitations of a group called the Knights of Labor. Now these Knights of Labor, as I say, were a very militant group. At first, they were a secret society.

6:49 And they had their mystic rituals. And they had a very socialistic philosophy of how society should operate. They wanted to have their ranks filled only with those of the industrial and agricultural enterprises. And they envisioned a society that would be owned and operated by the workers, the farmers, the clerks, and the technicians who constituted that society.

7:18 If you were a lawyer, a banker, a professional gambler, or a stockholder, you couldn't belong to the Knights of Labor. Now from those very radical beginnings, there began a labor movement that eventually agitated our national life to such an extent that between the years of 1886 and 1887, that year, they estimate there were over 3,000 strikes. So you see something of the pressure that was being exerted. Now why do I tell you this?

7:52 Just to give you a nice little tidbit of information? No. It illustrates the very rationale for our study in the Scriptures this morning. The Knights of Labor had some very distinct and very strongly held views about the subject of labor and of work.

8:11 They held those views so strongly that they organized themselves into a very powerful power block to impose those views upon an entire nation. Now were those views biblical? If they were not, Psalm 1 has something to say about them. Blessed is the man, blessed are the men, blessed the women, blessed the nation, that in its views and perspectives on work and labor does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, nor stand in the way of sinners, but have views of work and labor molded by the Word of God. And especially to those of us who name the name of Christ, the mandate of Romans 12 comes very, very clearly to us. We are not to be conformed to this age. We are not to have views of work and labor that reflect necessarily the origins of the so-called labor movement and the contemporary perspectives of the heirs of the Knights of Labor.

9:33 That's the various trade unions in existence today. But according to Romans 12, we are not to be fashioned according to this world, but be transformed how? By the renewing of our minds. By coming to a biblical perspective concerning anything and everything that touches our lives as the people of God.

Framework: Work in Creation, Fall, and Redemption

9:59 And so this morning I want to set before you in what can only be a cursory study, a biblical perspective of work and of labor. And how will I attempt to do this? I will attempt to do it by setting this subject in that three-fold category into which we must place all of the issues concerning which we desire to think biblically. We want to look at labor in relationship to creation, to the fall, and to redemption.

10:33 We want to ask three questions concerning the subject of work and of labor. Question one, what were things like when they came from the hand and mouth of God in His original creative work? What was work and labor to be when God made Adam and Eve and placed them in His world? That's viewing the subject of labor in the light of creation.

11:04 The second question we need to ask is, what happened when sin intruded itself into the human condition? When sin came into the human condition, what did it do to the whole issue of work and of labor? Does the Bible tell us? And then the third question is, what has God done to this thing called work and labor in His great work of redeeming grace and mercy?

11:37 And so we're going to look then at the subject of labor and work in the light of creation, fall, and redemption. Consider with me first of all then the duty of labor in creation, then we'll look at the disruption of labor through the fall, and then the deliverance of, not the deliverance from, but the deliverance of labor in redemption. So the duty, the disruption, and the deliverance of work and labor. First of all then, the duty of labor in creation.

The Duty of Labor in Creation (Genesis 1-2)

12:11 Turn with me please to Genesis chapter 1. Here in Genesis 1, we have the overall account of God's creative activity, culminating in the first three verses of chapter 2. God completes His work of creation in six days of creative activity, and it is on the sixth day that we read in verse 26 of Genesis 1, And 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 cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He Him, male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish 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 upon the earth. Now what does this tell us about the place of labor

13:39 in the original creative activity and purpose of God? Well, note the emphasis found in these words. Adam and Eve are to be fruitful and multiply and replenish or fill the earth. As an outgrowth of fulfilling the creative mandate, the reproductive mandate, be fruitful and multiply, they were to fill the earth.

14:11 This mandate given to our first parents involved filling the earth. Now think for a moment. Had sin not entered and there developed from our first father and mother dozens and hundreds and thousands of human beings, what would filling the earth involve? It would involve the labors in conjunction with provision for the growing human family.

14:44 The organization of that human family into harmonious groupings so that interaction would be efficient, so that there would be a multiplication of the gifts and the talents and their proper use in the world that God had made. So that in replenishing or filling the earth, those labors associated with architecture, construction skills, carpentry, if there's a river that must be crossed, someone must design a bridge, just let your mind ramble for a little bit as to the pregnancy of that directive to fill the earth. Whatever it would involve of these various things in its particulars, surely it involved labor, concentrated labor of mind and of body and the engagement of all of the faculties given to man as an image bearer of God. Furthermore, the first pair are commanded not only to replenish or fill the earth but to subdue it, to subdue it. Now remember, there was nothing hostile in the world.

16:04 There was no evil present in the world. But God says they were to subdue it. They were to harness all of its inherent powers and potentials to their service as they in turn were the servants of God seeking to glorify God in His creation. God did not send down with His creative activity a complete manual of physics.

16:33 He did not give to Adam all of the principles involved in the natural world. He gave to him a mind and the capacity to observe and analyze and to break down these things into their inherent laws and principles as God had woven them into the very texture of His world. But Adam and Eve are commanded to subdue the earth. This would involve labor.

16:59 They were not simply to sit back and wait for God to subdue them. They were to send down an angel and to break down the natural sciences for them. That was to be their privilege to explore God's world with a view to harnessing all of its potential to the service and to the glory of God. And furthermore, they were to exercise dominion over every living thing.

17:26 And God is very clear that they were to exercise dominion verse 28 over the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And contrary to modern environmentalism that says there is as much intrinsic worth in some salamander that may be extinct as there is in the fetus in a mother's womb, God never created His world with that kind of egalitarian theology. Man was to subdue all of the creation, not exploit it, not rape it, but to subdue it to His own service and exercise dominion over every living thing. A massive task taking again within its orbit a host of disciplines in the mind and the body of man so that labor and work are not a result of the curse. They are the mandates of a gracious, loving, wise Creator God. And God no sooner makes the first pair but that He makes it abundantly clear that in His world, in fellowship with Him, they are to glorify Him

18:55 in the accomplishment of the assigned tasks. Now when we come to Genesis 2 what we have is God's zoom lens on particulars about the creation of the man and the woman that are not given to us in chapter 1. You do not have two conflicting creation accounts by two different authors. You have one author, God.

19:19 One human penman, Moses. And what you have in Genesis 2 is God takes the zoom lens and zooms in on the particular place in which He is going to be. He is going to put man and woman and the particulars of how He actually created them male and female. And so in Genesis chapter 2 in the midst of that zoom lens picture of the creation of the man and the woman we read in verse 15 And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

20:00 Perhaps the best contemporary rendering of the original is to work it and to take care of it. He did not put him into the garden according to the text to observe it and observing the wonder and the beauty of God's creation to worship. Though that certainly undergirds the entire teaching of the Word of God with respect to God's creation revealing His glory. And man's responsibility in perceiving that glory to honor and glorify God.

20:38 Romans 1 shows that men are condemned when they do not give God glory in terms of what they see in His creation. But that's not what the Holy Spirit has emphasized. It emphasizes that God took the man put him into the garden to work it and to take care of it. Now remember Genesis 1 says God beheld all that He made and it was very good.

21:03 There were no weeds, no thorns no destructive insects no ladybugs to eat the vegetables. Not ladybugs, Japanese beetles. Ladybugs are good. They eat the bad bugs.

21:15 But no destructive bugs no weeds, no thorns no thistles. But what God made was so pregnant with life that one author described it there would be an exuberant disorder. I call it a prodigality of productivity. So profuse!

21:36 And I never cease to be amazed at this even in a cursed world. When I see all of the little polynoses that fall down from our oak tree and all of the tens tens of not tens of yeah probably if not tens of thousands thousands upon thousands of acorns that fall from our one tree it's losing business to try to keep a neat lawn under that oak tree. I mean the squirrels are burying stuff all summer digging stuff up all the next winter and into the next fall. It's amazing.

22:12 There is a prodigality of productivity. And God did not make His world such that the trees, the fruit trees would be self-pruning. No He didn't. Adam would have to prune them.

22:29 He would have to work it and take care of it. And though the soil was perfectly yielding it would still have to be turned over for the next crop. Adam was placed into the garden to state it crassly to work! To work!

22:47 To work it and to take care of it. The flowers would not be self-arranging. I like to think of Eve over his shoulder help answering to his need. And Adam scratching his head and saying I just don't think that those quite and she said honey the way they fit is oh that's right the woman's touch.

23:07 A helper answering to his need. Bringing her own unique aesthetic sensitivities to Adam as he fulfills his task and with Eve at his side. A helper answering to his needs. They were placed there to work and to labor.

23:24 Not only to worship and to adore but to labor to the glory of God. These are not the walking hands. They were placed there because I need to be glaze the blood and to be touched. That's where I'm supposed to go.

23:40 That's where I'm supposed to go. I'm supposed to show the world that I am, I am, that I am. I have been through so much life and I have gone through so much more than I ever thought I'd have. This is what I've come to do.

23:56 So that's why I'm doing this. Now, there's a very important thing that we've learned in this book. Hebrew setting, when Moses writes that Adam named them, and later on you find him naming Eve, you just didn't think, well, what will sound nice? No, Adam was given the privilege of looking at and analyzing and expressing invocables. What language he spoke, we don't know, but he was expressing invocables that would be the outward expression of the perception of the particular function and the unique and distinctive traits of this animal and this animal. And what's amazing is, God apparently approved of all that he did, because the text says that whatever the man called them, that was its name. God didn't have to say, now look, Adam, you've got nine out of ten, but I think you blew it with this one. You ought to call the elephant a giraffe. You ought to call the donkey an ox. No, whatever he named

25:00 them. For remember, the tremendous intellectual powers that must have been present before sin entered, a perfect sensitivity to the aesthetics of the way the animals are made, and this Adam gave himself to what, in my judgment, is the highest form of his intellectual activity in the Genesis account. There was nothing physical in this activity. Keeping the garden, dressing the garden, subduing the earth, physical and intellectual activity, but here was a primarily, almost exclusively, intellectual labor. I can't read you. You're all sitting there. I think you're listening, but I don't know if I'm communicating. Are you getting excited about this? I hope you are. That's what man was when he came from

25:55 the hand of God. Intellectual labor of the most arduous kind is not a curse any more than physical. The labor of the most arduous kind is to be considered a curse. This is the world over which God said, it is all good, and when he was done, he said, it's very good. And when God rested, God sabbathed, he did so to stand back, as it were, fold his arms, admire his work, and then we read, behold, all that he made was very good. Work and labor in the original creation. And one thing, to be clear to us from this cursory examination of these passages, that Adam and Eve were not only made that they might, in the place of God's appointment, look up into the face of their creator, God, in delightful communion with him, and look out and see his world and

26:56 praise him for the abundant provision that he made for them. They were not only to look up in direct communion and worship. They were to look down at their feet, at the task before them. And for Adam and Eve, in a state of innocency, labor was no more a task and a burden than breathing. It was all part of a life lived in its totality before the face of God, in delightful communion with God. In the joyful realization of the presence of God. This was man as he came from the hand of his God.

27:48 And it's interesting, you see, as we think, well then, how in the world could things be what they now are? Where labor in so many ways is a drudgery. Physical and mental labor is at times so excruciatingly painful, and we have such an aversion. You remember what Jesus did with a question about labor? He said, I'm going to labor. I'm going to labor.

28:08 I'm going to labor. I'm going to labor. I'm going to labor. I'm going to labor.

28:11 I'm going to labor. I'm going to labor. I'm going to labor. He said, from the beginning, it was not so. They were saying, look, if marriage is such a wonderful institution, what about divorce? And what about infidelity? And what about the disruption of relationships? Jesus took them where? Back to creation. He said, have you never read, in the beginning? Go back to Genesis. See what God intended the institution to be. We need to do the same thing with the subject of work and of labor.

28:43 Don't try to understand it in terms of what it now is. Go back and see what it once was and what God intended it to be. Well, that's a brief consideration of the duty of labor in creation. Now, secondly, consider with me the disruption of labor because of the fall.

The Disruption of Labor Through the Fall (Genesis 3)

29:02 And you see, this is why people who deny biblical revelation believe that man is simply the product of this brute force upon these material substances and he's just evolved somewhere, somehow or another over some indefinite period of time. They can't think straight about labor because they've rejected the biblical doctrine of creation. And furthermore, they have no...

29:33 No biblical doctrine of the fall. You can't understand what labor is unless you understand that man is not now what he once was.

29:44 And so the scripture gives us in chapter 3 of Genesis the tragic account of the fall of man. Verses 1 to 7 tell us of the temptation of the woman, then the man, the man's willful disobedience. Then beginning in verse 8, we have the account of God coming to the man and the woman in...

30:04 Grace and in judgment. God takes the initiative to come to man who is turned away from him. God seeks him out. And as God seeks him out, then he begins to deal with the major players in this whole tragic event of the fall.

30:22 And so in verse 14, God speaks to the serpent. And the Lord God said to the serpent. And he pronounces a curse upon the serpent. And as a little aside, never forget that...

30:34 Verse 15, the first gospel promise is spoken directly to the serpent. God sticks it to the devil.

30:43 It's an amazing thing. I read that for years and just never paused and contemplated. The first word of gospel promise is spoken to the serpent, the devil. And God says, I'm going to mess up the alignments that my creature, Adam, has made with you.

31:01 And he says to the serpent, I will put enmity between you. And the woman, between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head. And you will bruise his heel. God says, I'm going to undo your horrible, nefarious work in my creatures.

31:21 And your head is eventually going to be crushed. And that gospel promise flowers out in the rest of scripture. But now he turns from the serpent in verses 14 and 15. And he speaks then to the woman.

31:34 Verse 16. Verse 16. Woman, he said. Then in verse 17, he addresses Adam.

31:42 And unto Adam he said. Now notice, here is God dealing in grace and in judgment, particularly with the man. And notice how much the issue of labor enters into what God says. And unto Adam he said, because you have hearkened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat it.

32:10 Cursed is the ground for your sake. On account of you, Adam, and your sin, the ground that up till now has been nothing but part of this blessed creation, it will be cursed for your sake. In toil, in sorrowful toil, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, and you shall eat the herb of the field.

32:42 In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, till you return unto the ground. For out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and unto dust you shall return. What is God saying? The ground will be cursed because of man's sin, and what will some of the results be?

33:03 Verse 17. Verse 18. Verse 19. Verse 20.

33:05 Verse 21. Verse 22. Verse 23. Verse 24.

33:06 Verse 25. Verse 26. Verse 27. Verse 28.

33:06 Verse 29. There will be in interconnection with this an increase. There will be painful toil in connection with its increase for the rest of Adam's life. Cursed is the ground for your sake in toil, painful toil.

33:23 Some would translate it, in sorrowful toil. So to the concept of toil is added an element of discomfort that causes grief and sorrow and pain. Cain, cursed is the ground, in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Adam, this condition is going to obtain throughout the entirety of your life.

33:51 Secondly, there will be unyielding elements that must be overcome. There will be elements introduced, forms and thistles shall it bring forth unto you.

34:05 There were no forms or thistles until now. The earth was perfectly yielding. Adam had to breast the garden and keep it, yes. But as I sought to emphasize, it was not because of any negative influences.

34:20 Now those influences are present. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you. God makes it personal. Every time you see the weeds and the thorns and the thistles, see a finger pointing in your face as part of Adam's.

34:37 Fall in race. Bring forth to you. And then God goes on to say,

34:46 and you shall eat the herb of the field. I'm not sure the exact significance of that. I've checked a number of the, several of the commentators. None are agreed, so I pass over it.

34:55 But verse 19 is clear. In the sweat of your face, notice, shall you eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, and unto dust you shall return. What is God saying here?

35:11 God is saying in the sweat of your face you'll eat your bread. Your toil will be a part of your life, even when you sit down to eat your bread. The reminders of the toil that had to go into the labor that would enable you to eat your bread, it will accompany you. Your sweat drops will fall off your head and into your plate and be absorbed by your bread.

35:37 This is what God is saying to Adam. And remember, this is because of the improvement, the diffusion of sin into the human condition. And he says this will obtain, not until you're 65 or 62 and take early retirement. This is going to be your life till you go back to dust.

35:56 That's what he says. You shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it will bring forth to you. In the sweat of your face you'll eat bread till you return to the ground.

36:12 Dust you are, and to dust. You will return. Sin has radically disrupted the nature of labor. It has introduced elements never attended by God in the original creation.

36:27 But these are the realities that are with us until God releases the earth from the curse. Cursed for man's sake. And it will not be released, according to Romans 8, until the manifestation of the sons of God. That is, at Christ's second coming, when he gives to all of his redeemed their resurrection bodies.

36:49 Then the apostle says, this earth itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption. It was made subject to vanity on account of man's sin. But at the coming of the Lord Jesus, that curse will be released. The Lord Jesus will usher in the new heavens and the new earth.

37:08 And it will be paradise regained. And that forever. But until then, this is the real situation in which labor is to be carried on. All of its dignity as seen in creation is now conditioned by these negative influences introduced as a result of the fall of man.

37:33 Therefore, it should not surprise us when we read our Bibles from Genesis 3 onward to see that many sins recorded in the Bible, identified, condemned, illustrated, are sins in conjunction with labor. You read on a bit in the book of Genesis, and you find in Genesis 31, one of the complaints of Jacob to his uncle Laban. He says, Ten times you changed my wages! Why did he do that?

38:01 Because he's a sinner trying to exploit someone else who's laboring for him. And you find that all the way in the New Testament. James speaks to these employers who are withholding legitimate wages, wages from their employees. And he says, The cry of the laborers has come into the ears of the Lord of armies.

38:24 God is concerned with equity in the workplace. You turn to the book of Proverbs, and you find six references to the sluggard, eleven references to the slothful and slothfulness, seven references to diligence in labor. Add them up, and you come up with two references to the sluggard. Add them up, and you come up with two references to the sluggard.

38:47 Add them up, and you come up with two references to the sluggard. Add them up, and you come up with two references to the sluggard. He has given a dozen explicit references to a work ethic. Most of it in condemnation of the sin of laziness, and idleness, and slothfulness, and the absence of diligence.

39:06 Why was that necessary? It was necessary because Solomon was the realist who understood that he was writing to men in a fallen condition, in whom the original purpose of God with respect to labor and to work had been greatly marred and crippled because of the intrusion of sin. We learn from this that in this world until we die, our labor personally will be tinged with sorrow. There will be unyielding elements that will make it difficult.

39:43 Note, but that refusal to labor is sin of a most serious nature, so serious that according to 2 Thessalonians 3, 6-14, it can be the occasion of church discipline.

40:00 It is laziness that is identified as disorderliness that warrants church discipline and Jesus in the day of judgment according to Matthew 25-26 will condemn some people to hell for being lazy. Thou wicked and slothful servant.

40:21 My friends, it's not a matter of indifference that you have a biblical perspective on work and labor and that that perspective percolates down into your life and into your practice. Well, we looked at the duty of labor in creation, the disruption of labor as a result of the fall. Now then, thirdly, let's consider the deliverance of labor in redemption. The deliverance.

The Deliverance of Labor in Redemption: A Christ-Focused Ethic

40:47 The deliverance. The deliverance. The deliverance of labor, not the deliverance from labor. And I want you to note with me five passages of scripture and I want you as we work through them, and I'll give a very brief exposition, to try to catch the common denominators because once we've gone through these passages, I want to identify four of the major leading emphases of these passages.

41:10 The first one is Romans chapter 12 and verse 11. You remember the overall context? Paul has been expounding the salvation that God brings to sinners in Christ and in the light of that great salvation, chapters 1 to 11, he entreats these Christians to present themselves living sacrifices unto God, not to be fashioned according to the world, but transformed by the renewing of their mind with a view to proving in their experience the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Now he's going to descend into, and in the midst of this collage of particulars, in Romans 12 and verse 11, we have a trilogy of concerns that relate directly to what we would call a redemptive work ethic. How a man or woman, boy or girl, redeemed by the mercies of God, should think and act with respect to his work and labor. Indiligence, not slothful. Fervent in spirit, not slothful.

42:18 Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Here in the most terse, reduced language, we have a compendium of a biblical theology of labor. Notice the emphasis of the text. As to diligence, Paul says, not slow, idle, or lazy.

42:38 Your performance should be marked by diligence in contrast to idleness and laziness. And that ought to be observable, to all who assess you with any degree of accuracy. That has to do with your actual performance. Indiligence, not slow, idle, or lazy.

42:58 But what about the internal attitude? Look at the text.

43:03 With respect to diligence, not lazy, slothful, indolent. With respect to your spirit, your internal disposition, fervent, literally, boiling in spirit. In other words, your heart, and your soul are engaged in that which you are doing with diligence. True diligence is traced to its root.

43:29 In the spirit, the human spirit, not referring to the Holy Spirit, but with respect to your own spirit, boiling, and then look at the last words, serving the Lord. What is the ultimate reference point in your work ethic? It's the realization that you are Christ's bond slave. This enslaving to the Lord would be a literal rendering.

43:54 You recognize that in being an adopted son or daughter, and having all the liberty of filial access to God through Christ, you are nonetheless Christ's willing and joyful bond slave. And you recognize in your legitimate calling the will of God in Christ for you, and you see beyond your job, beyond your paycheck, beyond your boss, and you see Christ Himself who has conscripted you to that task, and you are His bond slave, as with respect to diligence, not lazy or indolent, with respect to your own spirit, boiling with the engagement of your whole being. And your ultimate reference point is Christ Himself. Second passage, Ephesians 4.28.

44:44 And I do this flyover to let you see how critical this is. This must be to the thinking of the Apostle that he should include it in so many of his letters to the young churches. Ephesians 4, verse 28. Briefly, the context is his instruction concerning what it means no longer to walk as the heathen or the Gentiles walk.

45:09 Verse 17, This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord that you no longer walk as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. He said you're to walk in terms of what you are. You've been created anew in Christ Jesus, in righteousness and holiness. Now you're to walk in a way that reflects what you are.

45:29 And now he descends to particulars. And in verse 28, Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, in order that he may have whereof to give to him, who has need. The negative, don't acquire necessities or luxuries by theft. Don't be a thief of another's goods, another's time, another's money.

46:04 Don't acquire anything by means of thievery. Now he's writing to people who lived in a society that didn't think this was a big deal. So he had to tell them, stop this. No longer walk in this pattern.

46:18 Let him that stole, stop his stealing. But rather, let him labor. And the verb here is not just the ordinary word for labor. It's kapia'o.

46:29 Labor unto toiling and painful labor. This is labor hard. Let him labor, working with his hands, that is, working with his own abilities and capacities, the thing that is good. There's the qualification.

46:46 People say, well any calling sanctified, and given to God is noble.

46:52 Not every calling. If you were the professional gambler, you'd have to leave your trade.

47:03 If you were a go-go dancer, you'd have to leave your trade. You have a trade that in its very essence is a living, standing, clenched fist in the face of God's moral law, where exploitation and immorality are part and parcel of that trade. You've got to leave it. You see, Paul is assuming that when he says, let him labor, working with his hands, the thing that is good, it is a morally, ethically defensible sphere of endeavor.

47:37 And he says, you're to work now, to what end? Not simply to have your own needs met in an honorable way, but he goes beyond that. Work to the extent that having met the modicum of your own needs, you'll have a surplus to give to others. You'll be like the God who has given of His only begotten Son.

48:02 That's the work ethic in Ephesians 4. But look how he advances when we come to chapter 6. And here he is speaking to slaves, people who are regarded as the property of another. And notice what he says to these slaves in verses 5 to 8 of chapter 6.

48:24 Slaves, bondservants, be obedient to them that, according to the flesh, are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ, not in a way of eye service as men-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service as unto the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that whatsoever good thing each one does, the same shall he receive again from the Lord, whether he be bond or free. Do you see the Christ-centeredness of this work ethic four times in this brief passage? He says, as unto Christ, as servants of Christ, as unto the Lord, receiving from the Lord. Now who were these people? They were slaves. We would say they had the least desirable occupational framework imaginable.

49:27 Now don't assume that their masters were all cruel and unreasonable. If they were Christian masters, they wouldn't remain members and good standing of a Christian church after Paul wrote this epistle, because in verse 9, he gives directives to the masters and how they are to treat their slaves. And they are to remember they have a master in heaven, but we're focusing upon the work ethic as he lays it upon these slaves. It is to be unto Christ, as servants of Christ, as unto the Lord.

49:56 What a revolutionary, wonderful perspective. You see, Adam labored as unto his God, whom he knew as Creator, as benefactor, as loving Father, for Adam is called the Son of God. Adam labored in fellowship with the God whom he knew as Creator, Sustainer, Provider, and loving Father. But he did not know Him as Redeemer.

50:27 And here are these slaves, they've been redeemed by the pouring out of the life of the Son of God, as he says in chapter 5. Christ loved the church, gave Himself for the church, that He might sanctify it and present it to Himself. And now Paul comes to these slaves and says, look, you have been apprehended by the Lord of glory who came in saving mercy by way of Mary's womb. He was immolated upon a cross for you.

50:56 He suffered under the wrath of God. For you, He was raised from the dead. For you, and He has come and laid hold of you in grace and mercy. Now as you work in the same setting for the same Master, perhaps doing the same humdrum tasks.

51:15 Can you see how revolutionary this was? He now tells them, now that you're saved slaves, obey your Masters, and how are you to do it? With fear and trembling. That doesn't mean the fear and trembling of someone who's afraid he's going to get caught in some wretched, immoral deed.

51:39 No. But with the concentration of all of your faculties upon the seriousness of your present position in singleness of heart as unto Christ. Not in a way of eye service. You look beyond your Master and whether or not He will smile and He will say, well done.

52:00 That's being a mere man pleaser. But as the servant of Christ, you are not just your Master's bond slave. You have been the purchased slave of Christ Himself. He, the gracious Master who loved you and died for you.

52:17 Who continues to nurture you and cherish you as He says in chapter 5. You are to fix in the mind's eye that it is Christ who is your ultimate Master. As the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. What was the will of God?

52:35 Going to a mission field for these slaves? No. Listening to the slave master's orders and meticulously obeying them. That was the will of God for them.

52:47 That was the will of God for them. And He says, you do that will of God. How? From the heart.

52:56 Literally from the soul. What a revolutionary concept. Not grudging, external, minimal obedience to the Master's directives. But whole-souled engagement with fear and trembling as unto Christ.

53:14 With good will doing service as unto the Lord. Someone says, well I want to get out of my secular employment so I can serve the Lord. That is what Paul says. He says, you slaves, you are serving the Lord.

53:28 You are serving the Lord in obeying your masters. That is what he tells them. You are serving the Lord. And then he goes on to say, you are to do this knowing that whatever good thing each one does, and what is a good thing?

53:45 It is doing what he has just prescribed. Doing your work in the framework of your master's directives with fear and trembling as unto the Lord, not with eye service. Doing it with all of your soul. That is the good thing that you need to know will be rewarded in the reward of grace.

54:07 The same shall he receive again from the Lord whether he be bond or free. In other words, these directives apply not just to slaves but to free men as well. That is a radical work ethic. Isn't it?

The Deliverance of Labor in Redemption: Heart-Engaging and Reward-Motivated

54:27 That is what redemption does to work and to labor. It elevates it into the whole context of redemptive grace and redemptive obligation. Quickly now, Colossians 3. In the interest of time, I will just pass over this passage quickly.

54:46 It is very parallel to the Ephesians passage. Verse 22, Servants, obey in all things those that are your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord. See the many echoes of the Ephesian letter. Whatsoever you do, work heartily, literally from the soul as unto the Lord and not unto men, knowing that from the Lord you shall receive the recompense of the inheritance.

55:17 You are serving the Lord Christ. Again, a radical concept. And when we come to 1 Thessalonians 4, 11 and 12, we have a similar exhortation. They are to strive eagerly for something.

55:33 And what is it? Not to have an exciting life with all kinds of new things. And he said, no, you are to strive to live a life in quietness. Give yourself to your legitimate labor.

55:45 To what end? He gives two ends that they are to have in view. And I want to just note those in verse 12 of 1 Thessalonians 4, that you may walk becomingly to them that are without and may have need of nothing. He said the goal in view is that you may have a credible witness with the unsaved and that your legitimate needs may be met legitimately.

56:09 Now, if you take all these passages and put them together and say, what are the major strands of emphasis? I think your judgment will be carried when I say the Word of God teaches that in the orbit of redemptive grace our labor should be pervasively Christ-focused. Pervasively Christ-focused activity. You see, Paul does not just occasionally say, oh, by the way, the Lord is there with you.

56:37 No, as unto the Lord, from the Lord, to the Lord, from the Lord. There is to be a pervasive Christ-focus in our labor. Secondly, our labor should be a heart-engaging activity. Singleness of heart, from the soul, your spirit boiling.

56:56 We are not simply to trudge through the motions of our legitimate sphere of labor, whether it's the shop, the office, or whether it's the kitchen and the bedroom, the dining room, the living room. Our labor should not only be pervasively Christ-focused, heart-engaging, but result-oriented. Yes, it's right to have a result-oriented work ethic. He says that you may provide for yourself, that you may have to give to others, that you may have a good testimony.

57:30 It is right to think of those specific results. The Word of God mandates them. And it is to be reward-motivated. He says knowing you will receive the reward, the recompense of the inheritance, you know that there will be the reward of grace for the good that is done.

57:53 I ask you sitting here this morning as a Christian, can you say that this past week, in your place of employment, not perfectly, but the baseline ethos of your labor was one that was pervasively Christ-focused, heart-engaging, result-oriented, reward-motivated? You see how such a perspective governing your attitudes and actions in respect to labor will indeed cause you to be light and salt in this particular generation? That regards labor, by and large, as a necessary evil to get to where the real action is, and that's recreation. Shorter work week. Higher wages. Why?

Application: A Biblical Work Ethic as Light and Salt

58:45 So we can have more fun on extended weekends. Because the real action is the fun, not the labor. And if you have this biblical work ethic, don't let anyone call it the Protestant work ethic. It's a biblical work ethic.

59:01 You'll be light and salt in this crooked and perverse generation. I don't often share personal incidents. When I do, a number of you usually say, please do that more. But I shall never forget in the summer of 1954 when Dad moved the family from Stanford, Connecticut to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

59:21 And because he'd already been transferred there as an executive, he asked me, I was in the midst of college, and he said, son, would you oversee the move? Well, with all the batch of kids they had in the house they'd lived in for all those years, that was no little undertaking, so I oversaw the move. And I had a month left at the end of the summer, and I was working my way through college. And I said, Dad, any chance you can get me a job at Chick for one month?

59:44 I can't go out and get hired out any other place for a month. He said, well, we'll see what we can do. He said, I'll speak to the maintenance manager. So he came back home and he said, yeah, they'll hire you.

59:54 Well, you know what my job was for a month? I don't know if they have them anymore. They used to have these big cans full of sand, and people would put their cigarette butts in them. My job was to go around with a little sieve and shake out the sand, get the cigarette butts out, and go in the bathrooms and clean the urinals and the toilets.

60:13 It was the most mundane form of labor. But I used to go around singing hymns, and I used to sift out the cigarette butts as unto the Lord, and seek to get out those butts as thoroughly as though the Lord Jesus were going to expect the sand can when I was done, and clean the urinals that if the Son of God came in to use one, it would be that He would not be offended. Often, singing a hymn to myself, humming a hymn, I'd have people say, What in the world are you so happy for doing this kind of work? Well, that's like saying, Sick him to a bulldog.

60:50 And I'd tell them why I was so happy, that I was a child of the King, doing the King's business. I might not say it in those words, I'm using that, but it gave a marvelous opportunity to bear witness to who and what I was when I was a child of the King. I was a child of the King when I was a child of the King. I was a Christian when I was a Christian that I could clean urinals and sift out cigarette butts with joy and do it from the heart with a boiling spirit.

61:20 That's what God calls you to do in the drudgery of that housework, housewife, in the drudgery of that miserable commute, Mr. Businessman, in the drudgery, in the humdrum, you serve the Lord Christ. May God grant that this will so grip us that our life and our salt will be brighter and tastier because we see that laziness or mere external performance without the heart or diligent performance that only terminates on the boss's eye and on the paycheck falls far short of that to which God calls us as those who bear the name of Christ. What about those of you who are not sure where you are spiritually? Do you see why mom and dad won't let you buy into the notion of so many of your peers that unless it's fun, it's dirty? I get so sick and tired of this idea that we've got to persuade kids that what we're asking them to do is fun.

Application to Children and the Unconverted

62:43 This life ain't all fun and games, kids. God puts you in sweat drops on it and the thing in which you're laboring will often be unyielding. This is a cursed world and no amount of American affluence and ingenuity and the plethora of games and trinkets can change the fact that cursed is the ground for man's sake. And thorns and thistles it's going to bring forth to us and in the sweat of our brow we go back to dust.

63:21 And I plead with you children to thank God for parents who seek to inculcate in you a biblical perspective about the nobility of work and of labor. And as you think of going back to school, sure your teachers want to make the subject as interesting as possible. They want to get you enthusiastic about the subject but at the end of the day you've got to learn the difference between a subjunctive and a past tense. It's not if I was a rich man even Octavian knew better.

63:58 If I were a rich man he knew the difference between the past tense and the subjunctive. And there's no way to make that such fun that you don't have to bend your brain to learn it. We've got a whole crop of uneducated people carrying around degrees because people bought into the notion there's no way to make learning seven times seven equals forty-nine make it fun, fun, fun. Don't buy into it dear people.

64:35 It'll be the death now of rearing a generation who'll count for anything. What about you who sit here and are unconverted? One of the texts that gripped me afresh in preparation was Proverbs 21-4 where it says sin the wicked man must plow because God commands him to plow but even his plowing is sin. Why?

65:06 Because he doesn't plow to God's glory out of a motive of love to God in Christ. He doesn't plow with the biblical perspective shaping the way and the reason why he puts his hand in his mouth and says why ought you to become a Christian? May I give you a very crassly practical reason if for no other reason so you can work and not have your work sin. Yeah, you heard me right.

65:44 So you can work and not have your very work be sin. The plowing of the wicked is sin. That's what the scripture says. I didn't write it.

65:56 The Bible says that. The terminus of all your engagements and your labors and your efforts. If it is not to glorify God out of gratitude for his salvation in Christ you work to an end that runs cross purposes to the revealed will of God. It's a wonderful thing to be able to appeal to sinners to repent and to believe the gospel for all kinds of reasons.

Rethinking American Work Culture and Retirement

66:28 And I'd like you to join me in a little group to start rethinking a lot of things that are part and parcel of our American way of life. The pressure for a 35 hour week, justify it from the Bible. Forced retirement at 65, justify it from the Bible. Change of careers may be necessary but the idea of retirement in which you hoard up course and going to the Bahamas, show me from this book.

67:05 My Bible says all the days of thy life and consistent with waning physical powers and job opportunities. I'm not being legalistic and saying if you retired at 65 you're sitting. No, don't anyone say I said that. I'm saying we must rethink this whole mentality that I work till 65 and then I take it easy and bless to the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth and they rest from their labors.

67:39 You rest from your labors when you die. As long as you're here you have a labor to accomplish. Consistent with your physical and mental powers with opportunity, yes, all of those variables but you must view yourself as a laborer till you go to your eternal Sabbath. Well, we've covered a lot of material.

68:01 We've been attentive. We've prepared a lot of material that we think that it is very important for us and our faith to be more disciplined and the life of that one who is not just an angel but a person who is a great God and a lives. Seal your word then to our prophet and to your glory. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.