Work and Blessing the World
(The following is the text of the video, “Work and Blessing the World,” found HERE.)
You’ve heard of “worldview.” But what is your “workview”? How do you see your daily work?
Do you see your work as a cash machine? An handy money-dispenser that lets you buy the things you need and want? Maybe you see your work as a prison. It bars you from doing what you’d really prefer to spend your days doing. Or do you see your work as a security blanket? Hang onto it long enough and your reward will be a comfortable retirement with great pension benefits. Perhaps you see your work as a place to socialize. To make friends and engage in some pleasant back-and-forth conversations.
Do you have a Christian workview? In other words, is Jesus, your Potter, reshaping the way you see your work? How does your workview differ from that of coworkers who are not following Jesus? Are you seeing your work in its Kingdom-of-God context?
Without a context, what might this image look like? A smoker’s pipe ? An alpenhorn? Well, actually . . . no. Seeing anything in its proper context makes all the difference.
As a Christian, You also need to see your work in its context—in its Kingdom-of-God context. In other words, you do it under the authority, the rule, of King Jesus. Through your work, he calls you to do God’s will here on earth as it is done in heaven.
God’s will is to bless people worldwide. How do we know that? God promised to bless all nations through Abraham’s offspring. And sure enough, through his offspring, Jesus, God did so. By trusting him, anyone may have their sins forgiven and get right with God.
Through Abraham’s descendant, Jesus, God provides his saving grace. But God also extends common grace—through which blessings come to everyone. We all have this grace in common. Through his common grace, God supplies our physical needs. For example, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” As a result, “The land yields its harvest; God, our God, blesses us.”
How does God get these common-grace blessings to us? Mainly through the work people do. If you are trusting Jesus, you are also Abraham’s offspring. And through your work, you are blessing earth’s people—just as God had promised.
God’s common grace reaches people around the world with water . . . food . . . shelter. . . clothing . . . waste disposal . . . protection . . . transportation . . . government . . . education. . . and health care, and more . All of these common-grace-gifts come to us through the work of human beings.
Lester DeKoster served as Director of Libraries for Calvin College and Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In his book, WORK: THE MEANING OF YOUR LIFE, he wrote: “Work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others.”
But wait, someone might object, “I can see how the work of doctors blesses others. And I can see how the work of teachers blesses others. But I don’t work directly with people. I’m just an inventory control clerk for a food distributor. I work with computer files. I keep track of stock supplies, and write requisitions for reordering. How am I blessing the world?”
In our modern world, the systems that provide all these common-grace-gifts can be very complex. Working with computers may seem like a tiny cell in an endless, impersonal grid. But if no one did the inventory control for food distributors, people would go hungry. Combined with the efforts of many others. All legitimate work—combined with the efforts of many others—contributes to God’s blessing for the world.
Let’s see how that works in, say, a simple situation such as buying an apple for your lunch. For sure, having the apple is a blessing. But whose work did God use to bring you that blessing?
The story of your apple blessing begins with some farmer somewhere, who plants an orchard and nurtures this tree for several years until it produces a crop.
When the apple crop ripens, the farmer hires pickers. One of them pulls the apple from the tree.
Someone else loads the apple into the farmer’s truck and drives it to a wholesale produce warehouse.
The warehouse manager keeps the apple at just the right temperature to keep it fresh.
When an order arrives for apples, another truck driver arrives with a much larger truck and haus the apple 200 miles to a grocery store near where you live.
Employees in the grocery store unload the apple and put it on display in the produce section. You find the apple there and put it into your grocery cart.
The checker rings up your bill and bags your apple along with your other grocery items.
And there you have it—your apple. A real blessing. But one that came through the combined work of a great many people you’ve never met.
In her book, BE A BLESSING, Elizabeth Ellen Ostring, who served as a medical missionary in Asia, writes: “The essential purpose of work is to be a blessing . . . . every situation offers opportunity to demonstrate God's promise that he will bless, and that he can bring blessing out of the most discouraging circumstances.”
How does your work bless the world? Whatever it is that you do, blessing the world is yet another reason to get up and do it.
From Chapter 9:
“God blessed Abraham so that he could bless others. Abraham the blessed one became Abraham the one who blessed. God blesses us with the same goal in mind—that we in turn bless others.”
