Work and Obedience
(The following is the text of the video, “Work as Obedience,” found HERE.)
If you do an online search for images about obedience, you’ll find countless pictures of dogs—dogs with their masters or dogs in obedience school. Other images show parents jabbing fingers at their children. Or you might see a stern teacher, arms folded, glaring out at the classroom.
When you read these words, “Work and obedience,” do you sense a bit of pushback? If so, no surprise. Obedience these days is getting bad PR. Why does that “O” word make so many Christians wince? For some of us, obedience sets loose a flood of memories. Perhaps a harsh father with his do-t-or-else demands. Or a legalistic church that specialized in keeping grit-your-teeth rules. Obedience, then, carries overtones of being pushed around, manipulated, or smothered.
Yet in many other areas, obedience does not trouble us at all. When a traffic light an intersection turns red. we stop. If the captain of the jetliner announces turbulence ahead and says , “Fasten your seat belt,” we gladly comply. Or if the sign at the beach says, “no swimming,” we stay out of the water. In these situations we act as if obedience works best for us and for everyone else.
Some fear that any call to obedience smacks of legalism. After all, God freed us from the Old-Covenant law keeping as the way to get right with himself. But he did not free us from obeying him. Even Jesus himself, speaking of his Father, said, “I obey his word.” And Paul says Jesus “humbled himself by becoming obedient.”
The link that connects work and obedience began before sin entered the picture and then continued after it. Here is God's pre-Fall assignment: Adam was ‘to work the garden.” And here are his post-Fall orders: “to work the ground.” God still expected him to work the ground, the real estate belonging to God.
Centuries later after rescuing the Israelites from their back-breaking, demeaning, slave labor, God made sure they did not misunderstand. Freedom did not mean living lives of playtime and do-nothingness. To make his point, he gave his first work command at Sinai: “six days you shall labor and do all your work.” And then he repeated this command at least five more times in the Old Testament:
“Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work.”
“For six days work is to be done, but the seventh day is a sabbath rest.”
“Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest.”
“For six days work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day .”
“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath.”
So here's what God's calendar calls for. Let's do the math: six days divided by seven days in a week equals 0.857 or 86 percent. So the command to work involves 86 percent of our days. All this provides us with another Kingdom of God reason to go up and go to work to obey God.
Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs guy says that in the U.S., seven million able-bodied men between the ages of 25 and 54 are not only not working, they are affirmatively not looking for work. They’ve punched out. They’re done.
Shirking work is not a new problem. In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul called out those who were refusing to work. Withdrawing from work is not acceptable, because it amounts to disobeying God. Here’s how Paul spelled out how serious it is to disobey God by refusing to work: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
The keyword here is “unwilling.” Obedience means able-bodied Christians will work, whether that work is paid or unpaid. Behind Paul’s words lie an if-then statement: if . . . work . . . then . . . eat. If follows that: if . . . no work . . . then . . . no eat. This reflects the ancient truth about planting and harvesting. If you plant seeds, you can expect a harvest. If you don’t plant seeds, then don't expect a harvest.
Obeying God’s command to work, then, is not some dog-like response to a bossy rule. Instead, obeying his command to work is simply lining ourselves up with reality, with the way things actually operate in God’s created order.
God has demonstrated his power to supply things miraculously. Manna in the desert. Oil for a window. Lunch for thousands. Wine from water. And so on. But behind the scenes, he usually furnishes what we need through the work we do. We could call this God’s “supply chain.”
He has so arranged it that as people obey his command to work, all kinds of good gifts flow for our benefit. Shelter. Food. Childcare. Clothing. Water. Transportation. Electricity. Healthcare. Heating. Deliveries. Education. Communication. Repair. Government. Protection. Sanitation. Waste disposal. And so much more.
Bottom line: each workday brings new opportunities to obey God. As you begin the day, consider making these words of Jesus your own prayer: “I have come to do your will, my God.” Then, offer up everything in your workday to God: the actions, the reactions, and the interactions; the emails the phone calls and the zoom meetings; the decisions the successes and the setbacks.
Find out what pleases him. And then, aim to obey.
Chapter 10: “Working to Obey God”
“All legitimate work, in some way, contributes to making earth a livable place . . . . Obeying God by taking care of his earth-busness can provide a powerful motive for us to return to work day after day.”
