On The Office there is a character named Angela – it’s apparent she’s a Christian. It’s not apparent through her sharing her faith or attending church, rather it’s because she’s so judgemental about certain things, the producers have drawn a caricature of a real phenomenon where many Christians don’t know how to reconcile work and their beliefs.
At its worst, this confusion can come out as prejudice, anger or manipulation. Or it can be inappropriate and insensitive attempts to convert everyone they work with.
Instead, sometimes Christians will withdraw. They can either quit working in their industry, feeling the only way to be true to their faith is to work at a Christian ministry. Or they might find a company where all their co-workers are Christian. Or, Christians might compartmentalize their lives and give up their beliefs Monday-Friday, and only live out their faith on Sundays.
Neither extreme is good. In one Christians withdraw from the world that God created. In the other, they see their contribution only as moral police and evangelists.
What if God is calling us to do good work in his world? What if God is calling us to be serving others and creating – not just in Christian ministries, but in industry, education, art, media, business, civil service and more?
How could you tell the difference between a Christian doing God’s work, then, and anyone else? What difference does being a Christian make? Clue in this short little bit of a Psalm, a kind of musical poetry in the Bible:
Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.
Psalm 127:1-1 ESV
We come back to foundations…something we looked at in last series. The image is of two subcontractors – say two carpenters, perhaps even working for the same general contractor. Or the second image: two soldiers guarding a base. They could both be in the same country, same regiment, same platoon. The difference is one works for God, and the other works for something else. You can imagine the possibilities, they could simply work for the company, dad, greed, comfort and security in life, ego, etc.
That kind of work, the Psalm says, is in vain. It’s an exercise in frustration.
When we think the world revolves around us, we can’t stop. Can’t rest. Up early, go go go, late to bed. Not because there’s something to be done, but something to be proven.
But the one who works for God first, and humans and himself second, does work with purpose – it’s not in vain. Most tellingly, it leads to the kind of satisfied rest in knowing you’ve done your part, and the world doesn’t revolve around you. “God gives his beloved sleep.”
We’ll explore tomorrow how work, of various kinds, can be “for God”.
Question: What kind of work have you done that felt like it was “in vain”? How did it feel useless?
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Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I'm Ryan your host of the Daily Challenges. Here we are in nature. And that's because this week we're studying how following Jesus resets our views of society’s divisions.
We saw yesterday a vision of those in Christ being one with no divisions due to class, race or gender. Unfortunately there have been many divisions between Christian individuals and churches from history, influenced by wars, political differences, etc. but that is no excuse. For Christians this passage makes it clear that nurturing divisions from other Christians for race, class or gender comes under God’s judgement.
Note the particular emphasis on Christians here – those who have been baptized into Christ. He’s reflecting on the ways a committed follower of Jesus acts in response to the gospel. His emphasis on baptism didn’t mean he thought a Christian was made by water – he’s so clear elsewhere that one is saved by faith alone. Water signifies what happens on the inside, and wouldn’t have been taken lightly in his day. No one was likely being baptized out of tradition, like we unfortunately have today. Only those who deliberately meant to follow Jesus, and were willing to risk everything for it, including family, social standing, inclusion in their ethnic group, would bother being baptized.
The baptized risked these things for Christ, and gained a new family, a new society that is meant to be unified. To see further division in that would be a terrible shame, and undermine the message.
When people are bound by Christ, those differences are not cause for division, but can be celebrated.
Now this isn’t a statement that all religions are equally valid and good. Nor is it a statement that everything in every culture should be celebrated. He is saying those who say they follow Jesus need to overcome the divisions that others may promote.
Here’s how John Stott put it: Celebrate richness of culture but not the idolatry that may be at its heart.
What comes first is the faith and baptism into Christ. Then that changed, and reset heart can be led by the Holy Spirit to discern what parts of culture, ethnicity, gender roles, etc. are of Christ, and what is about idolatry – of the religious variety or the selfish variety.
Paul himself tried to navigate this carefully. When he spoke in Athens, he explored a city full of altars to various gods, including one to an “unknown god”. He told them he knew the unknown God they’d been looking for. He found the one thing in their culture that he could celebrate.
Question: Think critically: What parts of your own culture are rooted in idolatry? Idolatry doesn’t just mean worship of golden statues, but worship anything God created – things like money, power, ego, etc. What parts are compatible with life in Christ?
