Introduction
As disciples of Jesus, we are called to rethink the totality of our lives in accordance to the Kingdom of God. A large portion of our life is our labor, our work. Humans need a story, a grand story that makes sense of all of the days and moments that make up our lives. We need a story that makes sense of our work, why it matters and how it moves the story forward. The Bible gives us this story of work.
God was the first worker in the Bible. Genesis 1 is God transforming the “wild and waste” into a habitable place for humans to be present and flourish. Go makes humans in His image and they become His first co-workers. Work is part of being made in the image of God.
God’s design for work is turning the “wild and waste” into “order and beauty.”
Work is an “others-centered” activity. God works to share the fruits of His labor with others. He gives us a vision of work that is more than for mere survival, but for sharing. God wants to share this creation with humans.
God’s ultimate vision of work is for sharing, not just survival.
Work with Care and Wisdom
Genesis 2 fleshes out a little bit more of God’s work of turning the “tohu vavohu” into a good and beautiful creation and how humans fit into His plans for the world.
Genesis 2:5-10 (ESV) When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.
The picture being painted here is God forming (like a potter forming clay into vessel – Jeremiah 18, Isaiah 43) humans from the dust and creating His life into them (dirt and divine breath) in order to be His commissioned gardeners, extending the garden to the rest of the world.
Genesis 2:15 (ESV) The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Here we see how God assigns humans work: to labor and to care for His garden. Man was made (formed and fashioned) to work hard. The way humans are to work on whatever they are doing is to “keep” it. “Keep” here is a word that is used many different ways in Scripture, but the framing of the word is generally work done with care, like shepherding. To “keep” sheep was to watch over them, guard them, protect them, pay close attention to their needs, care for them. It’s a word that describes “watchman” on cities walls “watching” or “keeping” the city, they are guarding it and paying attention to potential dangers in order to protect its citizens. It’s also a word used for how we “keep” God’s law, which is to pay attention to them, contemplate what they mean, be careful to obey them in every situation. The word “keep” when it comes to our labor is that whatever we are doing in our work, we are to pay close attention to it, care for our work, consider its effects on our world, and bring God’s goodness and order into it, extending that order and goodness as you bring out the raw potential of whatever you are working on. “Keeping” and caring is the appropriate way we “subdue” the earth. We don’t enslave it, we tend to it.
“Work” (2:2) – labor and property as a result of labor – Proverbs 22:29, 24:27;
“Work” (2:15) – to serve, or enslave, keep in bondage, to compel – Proverbs 12:11
“Keep” (Hebrew – “shamar”) – guard; to protect, attend to, take heed, look narrowly, observe, preserve, regard, reserve, save wait for, watch, as in a “watchman.”
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- Genesis 17:9 – Abraham instructed to “keep” God’s covenant with him
- Genesis 30:31 – Jacob asks for sheep to “keep” as payment
- Exodus 31:13 – Israel instructed to “keep” the Sabbath(s)
- Psalm 119:9 – our way is made pure by “guarding” it according to God’s word
- Psalm 121:3-4 – God “keeps” Israel in protection
- Psalm 127:1 – Unless the Lord “watches” over the city
- Proverbs 13:3 – wisdom is to “guard” our mouths
- Proverbs 19:16 – in “keeping” God’s commandment we “keep” our lives
- Proverbs 29:18 – blessed is the one who “keeps” the Law
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Genesis 2:16-17 (ESV) And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
God has been the provider of and definer of “good” up to this point (7 times in chapter 1), but God is now giving the humans the dignity of freedom. This boundary represents God giving them a chance for “moral maturity,” discerning what is good and not good. (“Evil” carries with it a connotation of moral evil, but it is a word that can simply mean “bad.”) Will these humans come under the authority of the Creator, whose creation is good and beautiful, humbling themselves and submitting to His definition of good and bad? Or will they seize the opportunity to take the knowledge and defining of good and bad for themselves?
Work is where humans exercise moral judgment, which requires wisdom
There are few places where this has greater implications than in our work. Work is the place where humans exercise moral judgment all of the time, what is good and not good, what is good and not good for themselves and others. Will humans work based on God’s definition of good and not good, submitting to His moral authority on every matter?
Ideally, humans work in concert and cooperation with the Creator extending His order and goodness into the wild wastelands of our world with care and under His wisdom.
The Fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10) is the beginning of wisdom.
Work after the Fall of Humans
Genesis 3:1 (ESV) Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
The snake is obviously under the influence of some other being. What does this being do? He deceives and dupes humans into all sorts of rebellion and foolishness. Is God holding out on me? There are things that could work for you that God says you shouldn’t do.
Is this a being of equal status of the creator? One that has God biting His nails and wringing His hands worried about its power?
Genesis 3:6 (ESV) So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Sin enters the story and begins to undo all the goodness that God has made and turns it back into “tohu vavohu.” Human relationships get fractured, relationship with God is affected; marriage gets fragmented, family gets fragmented. Even humans’ relationship with work is fractured.
Genesis 3:17-19 (ESV) And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Humans can still eat (receive the fruit of their labor), but the environment has changed. Humans were made for work, but now it becomes much more difficult with the elements working against you. Thorns and thistles enter into the picture. (This may or may not be the origin story of weeds and thorns.) The environment of work with sin being present is our work becomes harder because there are things that begin to resist your work and diminish the fruits of your labor. I may poor choices between what is good and not good, other people are making poor choices, my own competency caps work against me, my own selfish agenda and ego resist the fruits of my labor, other people’s ambition work in resistance. There are things completely outside our control that resist us, market conditions, pandemics, industry upheavals, technological advances, etc. These can be thorns and thistles in our work that resist the good we work for.
The environment of work is made more difficult by sin
Work consists of moral decisions about what is good and not good. Sin in our lives and the lives of others are now resisting our efforts toward goodness and beauty. Sin clouds our judgment in discerning what is good and not good. It distorts and fractures the relationships we engage in while carrying out our work.
Genesis 1 through 3 gives us the tension between the vision of work, going into the wild and waste and bringing out the raw potential and bring order and beauty and goodness, and the ruin of work, our labors are difficult and fractured with resistance from sin and death entering into creation. Work can be both good and hard. Work and life being difficult and having resistance does not necessarily mean you’re in the wrong place or job or career or marriage or friendship.
But there is a seed of hope…hope for redemption.
Genesis 3:14-15 (ESV) The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Two lineages emerge from this story: one will be those who give into the temptation of the serpent, of evil, sin, and death, and those who will cling to the line of God’s promise. There is a “he” that will emerge from the line of woman who will crush the head of the serpent, one who will destroy sin and evil at its source. How? He will “step on its head” but at the moment of his victory, he will be mortally wounded as defeats evil. He will be a “wounded victor” who has to take the venom of the serpent into himself, but at the absorption of the venom, the evil of the serpent that he has lured all of humanity into, is the means by which he crushes the serpent’s evil at its source.
Work for New Creation
This promise is not just about our personal redemption, but includes even the redemption of our work. If we fast-forward to the end of the story we see a city/garden/temple…
Revelation 21:1-4 (ESV) Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Revelation 22:1-5 (ESV) Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
What does the final redemption look like? A city that is a garden, a new creation. This is a vision of “tov” (good) in its final, redemptive form. Our work is going into all of the wild wastelands of creation and bringing goodness and beauty into it.
This is the grand story of work, the story we are to find our place in so that our story makes sense within this larger context.
At the cross, Jesus absorbs all of the sin and evil of the serpent and takes it into death with Him. His resurrection means that sin and death do not have the final word. What the resurrection enables is a slow, partial moving forward of this redemption of God’s world and work in our lives. We are called to take more and more of God’s redemptive work into our lives, taking the wild wasteland’s of our hearts and lives and transforming them to goodness, and allow that work to flow into the totality of our lives, including our work.
Conclusion
Our lives and our work are about moving this new creation agenda forward. This is why we pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We worship and pray and read scripture to anchor our whole lives in this story, the work of Jesus’ redemption. This is not just at a “soul” level, this is for all levels of our lives.
Each day of our lives can move this new creation kingdom of God agenda forward, not only in “church work” or “spiritual matters,” but in our workplaces and homes and cities. This is how we see cities transformed by Jesus, you and I being His kingdom vessels and working for Him every day.