Work and Lighting the World
(The following is the text of the video, “Work and Lighting the World” found HERE.)
Right from the start, what was it God vetoed? What’s the first thing God would not put up with? Genesis 1:2 and 3 describe what he found unbearable and what he did about it. Darkness covered the face of the waters. That’s in Genesis 1:2. Later in this chapter, God will call his creation “very good.”
But he finds nothing good in the shroud of darkness engulfing his world. So the first words out of God’s mouth are: “Let there be light.” The darkness doesn’t stand a chance. “And there was light.” God spoke the word that drove the darkness out. Darkness clashes with God’s very nature. As the writer of I John 1:5 explains: “God is light; In him is no darkness at all.”
But things took a disastrous turn for the worse in the world’s first workplace. At some point the serpent began speaking darkness into the human beings God had put in charge of the Garden. The darkness spread. The first case of workplace violence occurred when Cain took his brother, Abel, out to a field meant for growing crops and murdered him.
Now, thousands of years later, the darkness has crept around the world and into its workplaces everywhere. In their book, INTEGRITY AT WORK, Norman Geisler and Randy Douglass, open Chapter One by saying, “Today’s corporate world is lost in work’s ethical wilderness.” But what’s so dark about the workplace? Most offices seem well-illuminated with carefully planned lighting fixtures.
Darkness in the workplace can’t be seen with the eye. But those working there experience it in these and other ways: Discrimination; theft; gossip; envy; bitterness; laziness; sexual harassment; grudges; greed; deception; selfish ambition; bullying; disengagement.
So the darkness in today’s world, unlike the darkness of the earth at the beginning, is moral, ethical, and spiritual. But the God who is light will not tolerate this darkness either.
He came against the darkness by sending his Son, Jesus, who said: “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Knowing he would not remain on earth, Jesus told his followers, “ You are the light of the world.”
This changes everything for you and me as contemporary Christ-followers. As he himself says: “If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand” (Matt. 5:15, MSG).
Your work, then—whatever it is—serves as that light stand. Are you a janitor? A graphic designer? A grocery checkout clerk? Each of those jobs serves as a lampstand, because it positions you, the light, in a specific part of God’s world.
First, your work makes the light visible within your spheres of influence. Your tasks put you into relationships and positions from which the light can stream out. Like a lighthouse tower, your lampstand-job lifts your light so it can reach into the darkness.
Second, as a lampstand, your work holds you stable within those spheres of influence. It provides a place, a steady platform from which the light shines out.
Third, your work lampstand holds your light steady within your spheres of influence over extended periods of time. It makes your light dependable. Others can count on it being there tomorrow. This gives those in your work circles time to observe how your faith makes a difference in the way you work and relate to coworkers.
But there in the trenches of the work world, you may feel that any light you may contribute is pretty insignificant. What difference does it make whether you shine there or not? Let me tell you a true story.
When I was 13, my family drove in our 1951 Plymouth from the State of Washington to Ohio. My dad could not resist when we saw the road signs saying the Lewis and Clark caverns in Montana were just ahead. Our guide took us deep into the cave lined with stalactites and stalagmites. Then, stopping his lecture, he announced that he would turn off all the lights.
When he did, we were plunged into a darkness like I had never experienced. I could not even see my own hand in front of my eyes. After the effect of total darkness had sunk in the guide . . . lit a match. That seemingly insignificant dot of light reached everywhere in our cave room. No—not enough light to read by. But enough to let us walk among those stalactites and stalagmites without injury.
As a Christ-follower, you not only have his light, you are light. Jesus said so: “You are the light of the world.” Paul says so: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth). Light is you are. Light is part of your identity.
Like that match, your presence there in your workplace “cave” can drive out darkness. The “fruit of the light”—goodness, righteousness, and truth—manifests in qualities such as these: Integrity; Compassion; Humility; Honesty; Forgiveness; Patience; Gentleness; Generosity; Hope; Self-Giving Love; Purity; Diligence; and so on.
No amount of darkness can ever overcome the smallest amount of light. Thank God, then, that your work is the lampstand that makes your light visible, holds it stable, and makes it dependable.
One more Kingdom-of-God reason to get up and go to work.
From Chapter Eight:
“Too often Christians see workplace darkness as a reason to escape from so-called ‘secular’ work. . . . It is not to be avoided; it is our assignment.”
