Work as Worship

I love church. I don’t just love the church, which is you, the body of believers , but I love the Sunday worship experience. My whole week builds up to this day and ever since I gave my life to Jesus, I have loved coming to church. I’ve had some great church experiences and some terrible ones but I believe that God does something special and unique on Sundays. God transforms us and speaks to us as we gather in Jesus’ name and bring Him our prayers, our praises, our offerings and our hearts.

At the beginning of November, I went to our annual Alliance pastor’s retreat. I went in feeling fine, but during the first session, which is structured just like a church service, we worshipped God in song and as Mark Peters, our district superintendent preached, I felt the Holy Spirit move in me in a powerful way. I recognized that my heart was hard and so, when Mark finished preaching, I went forth to the prayer team and asked them to pray about it. Through them, God revealed that I had bottled up a lot of bitterness and resentment from Christians who had hurt me in my time as a pastor. I learned that while I had moved past the circumstances, I hadn’t dealt with the effects of the way I was hurt in my heart. I needed to forgive people and some of those hurts went back over 20 years.

God spoke to me powerfully that week through the corporate worship of God’s people together. I got to have three days of Sundays, and it was awesome.

But the danger of Sunday worship is that we can, sometimes accidentally, sometimes purposefully, draw a dichotomy between our work life and our church life and by doing so we end up limiting our worship to the corporate gathering each week and ignoring God throughout the week.

Through this min-series called Sacred Rhythms, my hope is to remind you or to inspire you that your faith is to be lived out everyday - that the dichotomy that many of us do is actually harmful to our lives and that we thrive in a deeper, more spiritually fulfilled way when we abide in Jesus everyday, when we establish healthy rhythms of rest, and when we reframe our work as a form of worship because, at the end of the day, the difference between work and worship is the object of your devotion.

What do I mean by that - that the difference between work and worship is the object of your devotion? Well, we all have to work in some form or another.

Some of you are working at jobs that you love, in a field of interest to you, and others are working jobs you hate but you feel stuck in.

Some of you work at home, raising children and taking care of your household and that IS work - real work.

For some of you, your work is school, earning your degree to help launch you into a career.

For some of you, your work is getting healthier. Whether it’s in the area of physical health or mental health, your job is to get healthier and that’s hard work.

And while some of you are retired, but that doesn’t mean you are done working. Some of you might be volunteering, or looking after grandkids, and honestly, for some of you, just getting up and showering is a work since everything is getting harder and harder.

We all have to work in some way. But who are you doing it for?

Like many of you in my generation, I have spent a lot of hours watching the TV Show, The Simpsons, the longest-running American primetime TV shows ever, currently at 776 Episodes over 36 years. Homer, the lazy, oafish patriarch in the family works at a nuclear power plant, a job he doesn’t like but feels like he has to do.

In season 6, episode 13, Homer is telling Bart and Lisa the story of Maggie’s birth. Just before Maggie is born, Homer has to reluctantly get his job back at the power plant, which he hates and his boss, Mr. Burns, puts up this sign as a “demotivator.” {SHOW PICTURE}

The kids ask Homer why there are no pictures of Maggie in the family photo album and he says there are lots, but he keeps them where he needs them most and the shot pans to his control room at the plant and we see this: {SHOW PICTURE}

Maggie is the object of Homer’s devotion at his job. He works there for her. Which works for him because he’s just looking for a reason to show up. The problem is that he only needs to work hard enough not to get fired.

But we are called to something different.

Look at the passage that Brandon read earlier:

Colossians 3:22–24 (NLT)

22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord. 23 Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. 24 Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.

Let me make a short note here. Many people might object to the use of the phrase “slaves” and “masters” that Paul uses. Paul is preaching and writing in a time when slavery is widespread among every nation. And while the scriptures show a redemptive narrative towards slaves that both empowers them and sets the kingdom of God on the path to abolish slavery, he still speaking first and foremost to the people of his time, in their situations, empowering them to follow Jesus no matter what station they hold in life because Jesus gave his life for all people.

When we look at this passage now, in 21st century Canada, we need to first acknowledge the historical reality Paul is writing in, but then contextualize it for ourselves so we can hear what God is saying. So for us, it’s a fair equivalence for us to identify with the slave here, because we all serve someone. As employees, we serve our supervisors. As parents we serve our kids and as kids we serve our parents. Students serve the teacher through completing the assignments and as Christians, we serve each other here in the church. All of us serve in some way so we can adopt and apply Paul’s challenge to slaves in our passage in Colossians.

And what is Paul’s challenge? That we should reframe our work as worship because, after all, the difference between work and worship is the object of your devotion.

I worked with a guy at Roofmart who used to go into the warehouse, in an area hidden behind some pallets and that was not in line of sight of the office, and he would lie down on the bundles of shingles and play on his phone or sleep, instead of repacking the pallets like we were supposed to. I remember he once told me to slow down and stop working because I was making him look bad. I just looked at him and said, “keep up then.”

He worked when the boss was watching, but was lazy when he wasn’t being watched because for him, the object of his devotion was himself. So he did what was good for him.

But Paul challenges us here to reframe our view of work by changing the object of our devotion. Instead of us being the object of our devotion - our reason and motivation for our work - and instead of other people being the objects of our devotion - whether they are our family, like Homer did with Maggie, or our bosses or any other person - we should make God the object of our devotion at work.

Paul invites us to see God as our true boss and work for him as a form of worship.

Colossians 3:23 (NLT)

23 Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.

What happens when we do this is our definition of worship begins to expand. Too often, Christians can limit worship to singing songs and prayer.

But when God becomes the object of our devotion in our work, then sweeping the floor becomes an act of worship. Going the extra mile for a customer is an act of worship. Studying hard for that exam is an act of worship. Making dinner is an act of worship. Going for a walk to clear your mind and be active is an act of worship.

When we live in a way that separates our worship from our work, we limit our worship. But when we integrate our worship and our work, the ways we worship grow exponentially.

And church, let me tell you, your walk with Jesus will grow exponentially as well.

When we make God the object of our devotion at work, we begin to foster a deeper connection with God. Our awareness of God’s presence begins to grow, which fills our hearts.

Additionally, when we become more aware of God’s presence we not only worship God through our work, we worship God at work. We pray more, we delight more, we praise God more.

Another way we grow when God becomes the object of our devotion at work is that we realize and live out the deeper purpose of our work. Let me put together two scripture passages that will help us.

Matthew 28:18–20 (NLT)

18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

One of our primary purposes as followers of Jesus is to make disciples. Now look at this passage from a sermon/debate that Paul is giving in the city of Athens in Acts, chapter 17:

Acts 17:26–27 (NIV)

26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

God has placed you in this time, in this city, in this family and workplace and circle of friends so that you can be the instrument that he uses to draw people to himself. When God is the reason behind and the motivation of your work, you work with him in living out your purpose - to reveal Jesus in a way that people will want to follow him.

If all that isn’t enough of a reason to integrate your worship and your work, look at what Paul says at the end of the passage in Colossians we looked at:

Colossians 3:24 (NLT)

24 Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.

When we faithfully live out the gospel in the context of our work and we worship God through our work, there is some form of reward that we earn that God will give us. I don’t know exactly what that reward is, but I do know that any reward that comes from God is infinitely better than any benefit we may think we will get if we keep our work and our worship separate.

Conclusion

At the beginning of creation, when God created humanity, he gave us the gift of work.

Genesis 2:15 (NLT)

15 The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.

Our work, in whatever form it takes, whether it’s in farming, banking, computer science, family, health, school or any other form, has dignity and purpose because it comes from God.

The difference between worship and work is the object of your devotion. Being a Christian at work is more than just exhibiting morality and inviting people to church, although it is not less than that. It’s to see what you do as part of the bigger picture.

In his book, Every Good Endeavour, pastor and author Tim Keller writes, “The church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him to not be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.”

When God is the object of your devotion at work, you will strive for excellence instead of ordinary, passion instead of disdain, and the main desire of your heart becomes the glory of God.

The difference between worship and work is the object of your devotion.

Will you make God the object of your devotion?

Pray.