By 
This sermon was preached for Capital Pres Fairfax on Labor Day, September 3 2023. A recording of this sermon will be available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
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Good morning everyone! It’s great to be with you. My name is Patrick, I am a pastoral intern here. Our Scripture reading this morning comes from three different passages: Proverbs 22:22-29, Isaiah 55:1-3, and John 6:27-29. We’ll be talking about work this morning, and we’re jumping around a bit because this is a wisdom theme that spans the whole Bible.
22 Do not rob the poor, because he is poor,
or crush the afflicted at the gate,
23 for the Lord will plead their cause
and rob of life those who rob them.
24 Make no friendship with a man given to anger,
nor go with a wrathful man,
25 lest you learn his ways
and entangle yourself in a snare.
26 Be not one of those who give pledges,
who put up security for debts.
27 If you have nothing with which to pay,
why should your bed be taken from under you?
28 Do not move the ancient landmark
that your fathers have set.
29 Do you see a man skillful in his work?
He will stand before kings;
he will not stand before obscure men. (Pro 22:22-29)
1 Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David. (Isa 55:1-3)
(Jesus addresses a crowd) 27 “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:27–29)
Kids, this weekend is Labor Day weekend, which means you don’t have to go to school tomorrow, and that is awesome. Parents, hopefully you don’t have to go into work tomorrow either, and I hope you’ve got some fun plans for the day off—maybe a hike if the weather’s nice, or a movie in the middle of the day. Find something to enjoy the break.
Here’s the thing: if I had to guess, for many of us, the relief Monday brings doesn’t really offset the anxiety we still feel about the week. Does that one day off really outweigh the four days we have left? Or the rest of the year’s five-day work weeks? Many of us feel a sense of dread when it comes to work, even if we really like what we do. Why is that?
We’re going to be digging into some of those feelings and, Lord willing, finding a better way to think about work. My goal is that by the time we’re done with this service, you will be as grateful for this Monday as you are for this Tuesday, that we can all see our work as something beautiful and life-giving. Does that sound too ambitious? That’s the vision the Bible casts for work, and that’s a vision you and I can all share in thanks to Jesus. Our outline this morning is pretty simple; we’re looking at the good, the bad, and the beautiful.
- Work is good
- Work can feel bad
- Work can be beautiful
Work is good
You can’t get far into the Bible without finding the origin of work. In Genesis 1-2, God creates humanity and commissions them to tend to the garden of Eden, to make things grow, to make the land productive and beautiful. This is indicative of God’s vision for all humanity: God wants us to bring order to the chaos of our world just like he did in creation. That sounds really fancy, but it’s actually quite ordinary. Kids, when you clean your room or help your parents with yard work, that’s one small way of bringing order to chaos. Students, when you work on a project for school, that’s exercising the productive and creative capacities God has given you. Adults, when you’re a productive member of society you’re living into God’s vision for humanity.
All this is work, so whether you work in a cubicle or outside, whether you’re a middle school student or a stay at home mom, whether you get paid for your labor or not, everyone here is engaged in some kind of work—we’re all bringing order to the chaos around us in some way. The Bible is full of guidance on how we’re to do our work well, but for the sake of time we’ll just look at this one passage from Proverbs. Here we see three priorities: care, character, and competency.
First, we’re to prioritize care. See verses 22-23: “Do not rob the poor, because he is poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate, for the LORD will plead their cause and rob of life those who rob them.” We’re not supposed to use our work to exploit people, but rather, to protect and uplift others. What might this look like? Students, you might excel at a particular subject in school; consider how you might help your classmates who struggle with it. Working folk, it is wise to consider how you might extend mercy to your coworkers. Offer to pick up slack when someone is struggling, take responsibility when a proposal flops or a project fails, or extend forgiveness when people let you down. Whatever it looks like in practice, good work involves caring for those around us.
Second, we’re to prioritize character. It matters who you are and who you associate with in your work. We see warnings against anger, greed, and dishonesty in the next few verses. For anger, see 24-25 “Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.” For greed, see 26-27 “Be not one of those who give pledges who put up security for debts. If you have nothing with which to pay, why should your bed be taken from under you?” For dishonesty, see 28 “Do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set.” This had to do with ancient property rights—it’s basically saying, “Don’t move your neighbor’s fenceposts to steal land from them.” In all these things, God calls us to work with integrity—to prioritize character.
Finally, we’re to prioritize competency. See verse 29 “Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.” High quality work is important; God cares about both effort and achievement. So we’re to pursue excellence in what we do, no matter how mundane your job might be. This doesn’t mean you need to be the best at whatever you do, but it does disqualify laziness. Because work is a calling from God and a way we mirror him, we ought to take our work seriously and put honest effort into what we do.
So that’s God’s vision for work: you and I reflecting God as his image-bearers by bringing chaos into order with care, character, and competency. We could go into a whole lot more detail on this vision for work, and we have in the past—last year I preached a sermon on work from this passage and a few other from Proverbs. You can check it out online if you want more details. But even from this small snapshot, you can tell this is a good vision. Whether or not you’re a Christian, you’d probably agree the world would be a much better place if we all bought into this idea. Many of us here do our best to live up to this vision.
But let’s just stop for a minute and reflect. Even in light of God’s good vision for work, how are you feeling about Tuesday? If you start thinking about your job or school whatever tasks are waiting for you, has your anxiety level gone down, or gone up? My guess is, there’s plenty of people out there—maybe plenty of people in here—that agree with God’s vision for work but still feel like something’s wrong. That leaves us with an important question: If God’s vision for work is so good—and we agree with it and try to follow it—why does work often feel so bad? Our passage from Isaiah recognizes this tension and offers at least one diagnosis to our problem; so let’s look at Isaiah together.
Work can feel bad
Look at the question Isaiah poses in verse 2 “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”
What are you hoping to get out of your work? If you and I were to grab lunch after church and I were to ask you about your work, what would you say you want to get out of it? I’m sure I’d hear a whole host of different answers, but behind those answers, I bet we could find a few commonalities.
Sometimes we look to work for Security. We tell ourselves “If I can just make enough money, then I can have a robust savings plan with a diversified portfolio and I’ll be set for life.” Or if you’re a college student you might say “If I can get the right degrees from the right schools, that’ll guarantee my hireability and job security.” Or if you’re younger, you might think “If I can keep my room clean and my siblings quiet and my grades high, my parents will love me and my home will be a safe place.” In lots of different ways we can turn to work as our source of security in life.
Some of us look to work for Comfort. We say “If I can find the right job that lets me work from home, I’ll have tons of margin for the rest of my hobbies and passions and I’ll be happy.” Or “If I can make boat loads of money, I can afford all the fun things I never had growing up and finally feel comfortable.” Or if you’re in high school, “If I do well enough in band or on my sports team, I’ll earn my classmates’ respect and make friends, and then maybe I can actually enjoy school.”
Honestly, more and more people are looking to their jobs for their Identity. If you’ve dedicated your whole life to one field of study or one career, or if you’re a high schooler who’s poured your time and energy into a sport or musical instrument, it can be hard to not find your identity in that thing. Have you noticed that companies and schools are leaning into the power of people looking to them for identity? Pay attention the next time you see a recruiting ad or go into a job interview. You’ll hear things like “We really think of ourselves as a family” and “You belong here” and “You were made for this.” In a world where our identity is such a mystery that we have to discover, our work presents itself as a prime foundation.
Do any of these resonate with you? What are you working for? Isaiah’s question to us this morning points to where many of us go wrong. We turn to work for all these things, but inevitably we realize that work will never satisfy the deep longings of our hearts.
Work makes a fine source of security…until it doesn’t. Your investment portfolio is great, until the economy tanks and your savings shrink by 30%. The truth is, there’s so much out of our control that prevents work from being a satisfying source of security. The same is true for comfort: Our work can only provide so much comfort, but there’s some things money can’t fix. New cars and fancy clothes, or good grades and high achievement can’t heal broken relationships or sick bodies.
And work is a really poor foundation for identity. Eventually for all of us the time comes when we have to hang up the hat—and who will you be when you physically can’t do your job anymore? And it’s not just for your career. What happens when the sport that defined you becomes impossible because of injury? What happens when your whole life as a parent comes crashing down when your kids grow up and leave you? This is a live issue for me, too. I’m 27, I’m just at the start of my career in ministry, and Lord willing he’ll bless me with the health and opportunity to do this job for forty or fifty years—but even if I’m blessed enough to make it to retirement, who will I be when I’m not a pastor?
Friends, the problem isn’t that work is bad; work is good. You might even be going about work correctly, with care, character, and competency. The problem is, we look to work for things it can never provide. We so often look to work to satisfy our deep longings. That adds to work such an immense burden that it becomes a dread to carry. And the worst part is, work inevitably fails us—it doesn’t deliver on these deep longings.
Isaiah 55 sees this insufficiency and points forward to something that can satisfy; read the passage again with me. “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! (Skipping forward) Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.” A covenant is a special kind of relationship that God shares with his people, one grounded in steadfast, sure love. That’s our key. That relationship has the power to satisfy us, and to transform the way we go about work; this can make work beautiful.
Work can be beautiful
To see how, let’s jump ahead to our third passage in John 6. Here we find ourselves in the middle of a conversation between Jesus and a crowd, and Jesus references this passage from Isaiah. Jesus has just performed a miracle of multiplying five loaves of bread into enough to feed thousands of people. And now the crowds are swarming him because, like me, they love free food.
That’s when Jesus says this: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Many of the people in the crowd might take this literally, but in light of Isaiah 55, we know Jesus is talking about something much greater—eternal satisfaction of our deep longings. And he says that the Son of Man (who he’s already identified as himself) is the one who will give this bread of life.
So the crowds naturally ask him, and we ask with them, “What work do I have to do to get this from you, Jesus? What are the works of God?” What do you think they had in mind when they asked this? What do you have in mind? “Do I have to quit my job and become a missionary? Is that the works of God? Do I need to start giving away all my money to charity, or to the church? Do I need to start working extra hard with care, character, and competency?” You can just feel the anxiety bubbling up in their throats as they wait for the answer—it seems like Jesus is adding even more pressure onto our work. But look at what Jesus says. He answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” That’s it!
Friends, the good news of the gospel is that satisfaction isn’t based on something you do, it’s based on something Jesus has done. What has he done? He’s reconciled you and me to God. You see, because you and I have turned our hearts away from God and looked to other things like work as our source of life, we’ve actually brought enmity between God and ourselves. We’ve forsaken the God who created us in his image and blessed us with all good things, including work, and by cutting ourselves off from the source of life, we’ve doomed ourselves to starve to death. Later in the Bible we’re told that the wages of sin—what we earn for forsaking God—is death.
But Jesus came to remove that enmity, to set us right with God. To do that, he himself faced death and God’s judgement. He took the burden upon himself so that you and I might be restored in our relationship with God, we might join that everlasting covenant Isaiah talked about. And Jesus’ resurrection is what confirms that our relationship is restored. Death has been defeated, we’ve been offered food that endures to eternal life. So Jesus’ work—his death and resurrection—is what opens up the possibility of satisfaction for us.
But notice: our satisfaction isn’t just found in something Jesus does, it’s found in who he is. Again, Isaiah promised us that the fulfillment of his prophecy would be a relationship, and just a few verses later in John 6, Jesus says “I am the bread of life.” That’s why Jesus tells us that the only way to gain this food is to believe in him—to trust him, and at a more basic level, to know him. This is the purpose of our very lives: to know Jesus and trust that as your Creator and savior, he will meet every deep longing of your heart. He is the security, the comfort, and the identity you’ve always sought.
When we really know and trust Jesus like this, it transforms everything, including the way we approach work. Rather than feeling the full weight of the world everyday when we go about our jobs, thinking it all depends on us, we can give that weight to Jesus and instead view our work as an opportunity to know God in a new way.
Let me give you a picture of what this looks like. My wife’s parents have a neighbor they don’t know the name of, they just refer to him as the “Good Dad.” Every weekend when he’s out doing yard work, his two young boys, maybe 4-6 years old, are constantly chasing him around with their own trowels and toy lawn mowers. The dad goes out of his way to include them in his yard work, and the kids absolutely love it, because they’re doing what Dad is doing and they’re with him while they do it.
Do you think those kids are thinking, “Man, if I don’t get those hedges trimmed and that patio power washed, Dad’s gonna kick me out of the house?” No, absolutely not! Those boys aren’t looking to their “work” for security, or comfort, and certainly not identity. They’re looking at their Dad, and they’re delighting in him—and he himself is their source of security and comfort and identity, they know that they’re his boys. The beautiful thing is, this is a two-way relationship. That Dad is delighting in those kids, too.
That is God’s heart for you. He loves having you participate in the work of bringing chaos into order. It was God’s delight to give you the talents and opportunities to do your work well. And because of the work of Jesus, you can find all satisfaction in him—and work can just be a way to delight in your Heavenly Father. That’s how work can be beautiful in light of Christ.
Friends, as you go into Labor Day tomorrow, take some time to process this. Reflect on your work; ask yourself “What am I hoping to get out of this?” If you’re stressed about work, it could be you’re spending your labor on something that won’t satisfy. Turn to Jesus tomorrow, even as we do right now, give him your work and your anxiety and your very heart. He will satisfy you.
Take Note Of This 