Monday, January 25, 2010

Your Work Matters to God: Part 11 of 45

TEXT: "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning—the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done" (Genesis 1:31-2:3).

IDEA: Our work has intrinsic value.

PURPOSE: To help listeners understand that their work is inherently worth doing.

What do the initials TGIF stand for?

When people say that, what exactly are they saying?

If people feel that their work is boring and dull, they often feel that it is a necessary evil.

The Bible pictures work as having intrinsic value. Work itself is good.

I. God is a worker.

Genesis 2:1-3 states that God created the heavens and earth in their vast array. By the seventh day, God had finished the work He had been doing, so on the seventh day He rested from all his work.

The word used for work in Genesis 2:1-3 is the same word used of our work in the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:8-10: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping in holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God."

Psalm 104:10-24 tells us that God not only created the world, but He continues to work to sustain the world.

God can do nothing that is not inherently good, or else He would violate His character. So the fact that God works and calls His work "good" means that work can have intrinsic value.

II. God created us in His image as workers.

Genesis 1:26, 28-29 points to God's creatures as workers: "Then God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground . . . God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.' Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.'"

When we say that we are made in the image of God, what do we mean? One thing it means is that He was a worker and we are workers.

Ecclesiastes 3:13 speaks of work as a gift from God: "that each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in their toil—this is the gift of God."

III. God created men and women as coworkers with Him, Genesis 2:8, 15: "Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed . . . The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."

God plants the garden, but the man cultivates it.

You could have had a sign that read: "God, Adam, and Eve are partners."

You could have a sign that reads: "God and Larry Smith are partners."

God's work is not only to create, but He is involved in sustaining creation by providing food and shelter. We share in that work of God as well.