This week I preached the second-to-last sermon in our Deep Rest series at Trailhead Church called Rested Work. The sermon series explores the nature of what the Bible calls Sabbath rest, and this message focuses on our need to have a good "theology of work" in order to be able to experience rest.
The central point of the message is that we need to turn our work into worship. This means that whatever our work is - a minimum wage job, being a student or stay-at-home mom, or laboring in a white or blue collar career - we need to learn how to see our labor as worship. What we do may not have eternal value (or even much temporal value), but how we do it does - because if we turn our work into worship, we glorify the God who wired us to be creatively productive - to be culture makers.
So, in follow up to that sermon, here are a few pratical tips on how to prepare your heart to do this on a day-to-day basis.
Pray to Give Thanks
The first thing you can and should do is pray to give thanks (this is always a good place to start). Give thanks to God for the labor he has given to you to do (even if you find the labor hard or unpleasant). You don't have to love your work to love your God, but you do need to love your God enough to give thanks for both the challenges and benefits your labor provides.
Pray so See God's Work in Your Work
Sometimes our work is frustrating, draining, and much of what we have to do may seem meaningless in the big picture. Remember, though, that God will use your work to not only get things done, but to get you done. Ask God to show you what he is doing - in your life and in the lives of the people around you. Ask God to use you to encourage others or point them to the gospel. Ask God to encourage you and point you the gospel, so that you can labor diligently with joy and hope because there is a greater purpose to what you do and a greater reward than a paycheck.
Pray to See Where You Are Looking to Your Work instead of God's
We often look to our work to give us what it is really God's job to give. It is God's work that gives us security, comfort, approval, and a sense of significance and success. We will become enslaved to our work if we see it as providing for us what only God can provide and we will be drained of joy - and then things we seek will seem further and further away the longer we try to get them away from God. Only God can make you a true success. Only God can affirm your worth. Only God can give you true comfort and joy. Pray that God will show you where you are looking to what is not God to do for you what only God can do.
Pray to be Able to Work for His Honor Instead of Your Good
When we see that God has given us everything we truly, most deeply desire in Christ (approval, security, joy, and success), we can stop working for our own good and start working from the good God has given us in Christ. The challenge is that it isn't natural or easy for us to see the work of Christ as being sufficient - and will find ourselves continually falling back on our own work to prove ourselves: a young lawyer who craves to make a name for himself; a dad who is desperate to measure up with his children in a way his parents didn't; a pastor who counts the number of people listening to his sermon weekly to find out if he's "doing a good job"; a student is obsessed with whether the people at her job really like her... the examples go on and on. If we are going to turn our work into worship, we need to be freed from working for our own honor and good, and freed to work for his honor and thankfulness for the good he has given us.
In the end, it is God who sets us free, God who gives us rest, God who anchors our success - so we if we are going to turn our work into worship, we need to pray to the God who can change our hearts for his glory.
The central point of the message is that we need to turn our work into worship. This means that whatever our work is - a minimum wage job, being a student or stay-at-home mom, or laboring in a white or blue collar career - we need to learn how to see our labor as worship. What we do may not have eternal value (or even much temporal value), but how we do it does - because if we turn our work into worship, we glorify the God who wired us to be creatively productive - to be culture makers.
So, in follow up to that sermon, here are a few pratical tips on how to prepare your heart to do this on a day-to-day basis.
Pray to Give Thanks
The first thing you can and should do is pray to give thanks (this is always a good place to start). Give thanks to God for the labor he has given to you to do (even if you find the labor hard or unpleasant). You don't have to love your work to love your God, but you do need to love your God enough to give thanks for both the challenges and benefits your labor provides.
Pray so See God's Work in Your Work
Sometimes our work is frustrating, draining, and much of what we have to do may seem meaningless in the big picture. Remember, though, that God will use your work to not only get things done, but to get you done. Ask God to show you what he is doing - in your life and in the lives of the people around you. Ask God to use you to encourage others or point them to the gospel. Ask God to encourage you and point you the gospel, so that you can labor diligently with joy and hope because there is a greater purpose to what you do and a greater reward than a paycheck.
Pray to See Where You Are Looking to Your Work instead of God's
We often look to our work to give us what it is really God's job to give. It is God's work that gives us security, comfort, approval, and a sense of significance and success. We will become enslaved to our work if we see it as providing for us what only God can provide and we will be drained of joy - and then things we seek will seem further and further away the longer we try to get them away from God. Only God can make you a true success. Only God can affirm your worth. Only God can give you true comfort and joy. Pray that God will show you where you are looking to what is not God to do for you what only God can do.
Pray to be Able to Work for His Honor Instead of Your Good
When we see that God has given us everything we truly, most deeply desire in Christ (approval, security, joy, and success), we can stop working for our own good and start working from the good God has given us in Christ. The challenge is that it isn't natural or easy for us to see the work of Christ as being sufficient - and will find ourselves continually falling back on our own work to prove ourselves: a young lawyer who craves to make a name for himself; a dad who is desperate to measure up with his children in a way his parents didn't; a pastor who counts the number of people listening to his sermon weekly to find out if he's "doing a good job"; a student is obsessed with whether the people at her job really like her... the examples go on and on. If we are going to turn our work into worship, we need to be freed from working for our own honor and good, and freed to work for his honor and thankfulness for the good he has given us.
In the end, it is God who sets us free, God who gives us rest, God who anchors our success - so we if we are going to turn our work into worship, we need to pray to the God who can change our hearts for his glory.
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