A Rejoiced City: A New Vision For Work
Theology of Work • Sermon • Submitted
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Big Idea: I want us to develop a new vision for our work that takes into account all of the different pillars of work we have talked about so far (i.e. We were created for work, Our work has eternal value because of who our work images, Our work is the theater of redemption which addresses the final pillar, that our work is done in world marred by sin which produces thorns and thistles). With those pillars in place, we can develop a new vision for work based out of Proverbs 11:10 and Jeremiah 29:1-7. We are to be the tsaddiqim whose work rejoices the city we live in through its acts of redemption which give a foretaste of God’s coming kingdom. We do this by living up, in, and out. We will close out with a story about a man named Perry who exemplifies these traits perfectly.
Briefly recap the four pillars of work:
We were created to work from the very beginning.
Explain…Garden, after the fall, new creation work.
2. Our work has eternal value because of who we work for and who’s image we display.
Explain images of a creator God. Paul’s words to work as though we work for the Lord.
3. Our work is the theater of redemption.
Explain pink spoons
4. We work in a world ravaged by sin that naturally produces thorns and thistles that frustrate our work, rob us of the joy of work, and regularly destroy working relationships.
Explain the two places that the frustration from fruitless work leads us…hopeless vs. creating idols of work.
So I want us to take all four of these pillars and mesh them together. And so the question I want us to answer with all four of these pillars of work in mind is:
What is my work supposed to ultimately lead to?
This is our big idea for today and out of this, I hope to open our eyes to a new vision of work.
Luckily for us, the answer to this question is found in a really simple passage. If you have your Bibles turn to the book of Proverbs with me.
Let’s read this together:
10 When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices; when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy.
11 Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is destroyed.
Specifically here is the key text:
When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices...
This text is actually incredibly beautiful and completely transforms the way we see our work. Well…not just our work…but definitely our work. Because most of the people in the room don’t read Hebrew though, we are tempted to fly past verses like this one and miss some of the incredible nuances that make this verse world-changing for us. So, we are going to slow down and break it down piece by piece. If you are taking notes, we are going to look primarily at the three words you just filled in in those blanks.
Let’s start with righteous. I feel like that is one of those churchy words that gets thrown around alot and yet we think it means something that it doesn’t necessarily mean.
To start:
Righteousness is not merely about our morality.
The Hebrew word for a righteous person is the tsaddiqim.
Righteousness isn’t just about how good or evil a person is. That is definitely a part of it but actually misses the much bigger picture of what righteousness is.
At it’s roots, righteousness is about right-ness. Think of it this way. God, as the creator and architect of all things has defined how things work best. God has defined how relationships, sexuality, finances, rest, work, and just about anything you can think of works best. Think of righteousness as the fuel that makes life work. In order for a person to qualify as a tsaddiqim though, they must be practicing all three dimension of righteousness. Here is what I mean:
Righteousness first has an upward dimension as we submit to God’s design for our life.
The main question here being, do you trust God to define good and evil perfectly and objectively in your life? That is that the central orientation of the tsaddiqim’s life is toward God. The righteous eschew idolatry and put nothing above God. This makes the tsaddiqim people of prayer because being near to God is what the righteous person seeks above all else.
This upward righteousness has massive implications for our work. Primarily, upward righteousness means that the purpose of our life and work is ultimately glorifying God. This is radically countercultural to the career advice you will get almost anywhere else which espouses self-fulfillment as the highest priority.
Second, righteousness has an inward dimension as we are transformed by our submission to God.
We started talking about this concept with our students this past week at refuge. You don’t change as you just try harder and do better. You are changed as you come to know and submit to God. Inward character isn’t changed by effort. Inward character is changed as we grow in the vertical righteousness through our submission to and love for God.
Inward righteousness seeks not only to act right, but to be right inside. Both Psalm 15 and Psalm 24 points to the idea of having both clean hands AND a pure heart. Inward righteousness is the implementation of 1 Pet 1:16
16 because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
A few examples of inward righteousness in practice:
Proverbs 13:5 (NASB95)
5 A righteous man hates falsehood...
The righteous have a blameless walk, speak the truth from their hearts and fear the Lord Psalm 15.
or
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.
or Psalm 24:4
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood And has not sworn deceitfully.
Or how about this one from Leviticus 19:36
36 ‘You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin; I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt.
You see, for the righteous, their hearts are not full of pride rooted in their own accomplishments or their own hard work. They realize that the wealth they’ve accumulated or the successes they’ve achieved have largely resulted from God’s providence. They recognize that they own nothing; rather, they are stewards of God’s resources. Consequently they are joyfully openhanded and are willing to steward their resources for the benefit of their neighbor to bring glory to God.
When we consider inward righteousness against the backdrop of our work, we must remember what Jesus said in Matthew 13:25. We live in a world where the wheat and the tares (that is the good and the bad) all grow together. We work in an environment with co-workers whose lives are dissipated or bosses who are dishonest. We may find ourselves in a work culture where lying to customers, cheating on expense reports, cutting corners, ignoring certain rules for the benefit of production, and patterns of abuse are accepted.
Inward righteousness means we heed the apostle Paul’s words from Phil 2:15
15 so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky
This isn’t a righteousness you can fake. If you try and fake this righteousness it inevitably comes out as self-righteousness and people can smell that nonsense from a mile away.
The final dimension of righteousness is outward righteousness:
When we know and submit to God through upward righteousness we are transformed in our inward righteousness and a transformed you changes the world.
Outward righteousness is the outward acts we do in concert with God’s will for the shalom of the community. The outward activity of the tsaddiqim shows they align themselves with God’s desire to create community well-being, and their activity is part of God’s creative, justice-establishing efforts.
Outward righteousness is about how we treat our neighbors. It has effects in our community. Outward righteousness is the natural overflow of upward righteousness that has transformed us inwardly and is expressed as we love our neighbors.
There are far too many examples of this kind of righteousness to express in any one sermon so I have included a tiny cross section of verses that speak to this kind of righteousness in your notes.
Examples of outward righteousness: Psalm 15:3, Ezekiel 18:8, Psalm 112:9, Psalm 11:5, Psalm 15:5, Micah 6:8, Isaiah 1:17, Job 29:17.
We are actually spending an entire year over this subject with our students in a series entitled Amplify. I told them this week that my goal is to convince them of this truth:
Knowing God and submitting to God transforms you and a transformed you changes everything.
You see, righteousness then isn’t just about our morality. It is partly about morality but it’s a reorientation of all of life around God’s design for good an evil and is played out in the three dimension of up, in, and out.
Let’s look at that next word:
When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices...
Prosperity is pretty simple and means exactly what you think it does. Maybe that’s financial prosperity. Maybe that’s the prosperity of increased responsibility or prestige or a grander platform. But when we look at prosperity in light of our definition of the tsaddiqim, what can we assume?
Because of their upward righteousness, Tsaddiqim assume their prosperity is given to them by God and is meant to terminate in worship of God.
Second:
Because of their inward righteousness, Tsaddiqim do not hold prosperity as an idol to be pursued at all cost.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly:
Because of their outward righteousness, tsaddiqim do not allow prosperity to terminate with them but pass their prosperity on to bless as many of their neighbors as possible.
So, let’s just take it really slowly. What happens when the tsaddiqim prosper?
When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices...
That word rejoices is actually a really unique word in Hebrew. In fact, that particular word for rejoicing is only used one other time in the Old Testament.
Rejoicing - Ta-alos - תַּעֲלֹ֣ץ - is less like a Labor Day BBQ celebration and more like VE-Day dancing in the streets. Ta-alos is the rejoicing associated with the military conquest of a foreign evil.
Here is the idea. Disorder, chaos, thorns and thistles have invaded our world as a great evil brought on by mankind rejecting God’s righteousness. As the tsaddiqim prosper because of their righteousness, they then push back the darkness of hardship and failure in their cities and the result is rejoicing. This is what we would call righteous vocational stewardship.
READ WORD FOR WORD!
Don’t miss this! The tsaddiqim’s righteous stewardship is not simply taking their used clothes over to the Goodwill Thrift Store and a poor person finding it there and being pleased to get a hundred dollar dress for five bucks. No, this dancing-in-the-streets rejoicing occurs when the tsaddiqim advance justice and shalom in the city in such ways that vulnerable people at the bottom stop being oppressed, start having genuine opportunity, and begin to enjoy spiritual and physical health, and economic sufficiency and security.
Indeed, what the Bible teaches us is that by the intentional stewardship of their time, talents, and treasure, the tsaddiqim bring nothing less than the foretaste of God’s Kingdom into reality.
VE-Day-type celebrations occur at those places where King Jesus is about his grand, sweeping work of restoration. They occur at the intersections where Jesus is pushing back the kingdom of darkness and pushing in the kingdom of light. His life was one of offering foretastes of the coming kingdom’s shalom; his death conquered all sin and evil that could oppose the kingdom’s full realization. He came to begin the work of “making all things new.” He saves us from our sins and calls us into that work with him.
END READING
But the reality is that we do still live in this already but not yet kingdom of God. We still live in a world full of thorns and thistles that rob our work of its potential fruitfulness. We looked at that last week. It’s like we are operating in a sort of exile at the moment.
Check out the prophet Jeremiah’s words to a group of God’s people who were going into exile. The nation of Israel was about to be conquered by the Babylonians and it was going to get really ugly for a long time. Check out what Jeremiah says to these people as they are being forced into exile…it’s honestly very reminiscent of what God said to Adam and Eve as they were leaving the Garden of Eden and going into exile. We don’t just give up and stop working because it’s hard. We don’t let it produce hopelessness and we also don’t allow our hearts to wander into idolatry either. Here is what he says in the book of Jeremiah
1 Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile, the priests, the prophets and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
2 (This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the court officials, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem.)
3 The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, saying,
4 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon,
5 ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce.
6 ‘Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not decrease.
7 ‘Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.’
Can you think of any stories where, because of their righteousness, God’s people prospered in exile and passed that prosperity onto everyone else?
How about Daniel? Explain...
How about Shadrach, Meschach, and Abed-Nego? Explain...
How about Queen Esther? Her righteousness in prosperity led to salvation and prosperity of the entire nation. There was literal dancing in the streets rejoicing that came out because of that.
How about Ezra or Nehemiah?
All of these stories are about how their upward, inward, and outward righteousness as the tsaddiqim led to the prosperity of entire nations and rejoicing. All of these characters shined like stars in the dark night sky as little foretastes of the kingdom of God. It was from this picture that they called people to follow God and that is what real rejoicing looks like.
When lives that have been transformed by God go on to transform the world we display display a compelling foretaste of the kingdom of God that we can then invite people into. This is our works greatest purpose.
I love the book of John. There is a beautiful symmetry in John to keep in mind as you read the book. The book is arranged around these seven different miracles only the book of John doesn’t call them miracles…does anyone know what John calls them?
Signs.
Here is how the symmetry works.
Sign - I Am statement - Invitation into God’s Kingdom
While that pattern can change from time to time, the book is arranged around seven different instances of that pattern.
Explain = Jesus showed the reality of God’s kingdom through performing a sign that showed the beauty of God’s kingdom and power (power over nature, power over sickness and the physical body, power over death, power over provision). Then, Jesus would tell about God’s kingdom and how an upward righteousness of submitting to him and following after him was the key to entering that kingdom. The effects of that pattern is why you and I are sitting in this church right now. People came and followed Jesus.
While we don’t raise people from the dead and multiply bread and fish, Jesus still calls his followers to embody and show the world the beauty and reality of his kingdom. We are to steward everything we have…to include our vocation to this end.
Here is a good working definition of vocational stewardship:
Vocational Stewardship is the intentional and strategic deployment of our vocational power, knowledge, platform, networks, position, influence, skills, and reputation to advance foretastes of God’s Kingdom so that people might come to know Jesus.
And so you may be thinking…what in the world could that look like?
I love it when you ask questions I want to answer. I want to read you a little something…its a couple of pages long but I promise you it’s worth your attention.
READ SHERMAN PAGES 59-62
I want to conclude with two final observations about this new vision for work.
First, you aren’t Perry Bigelow. I know that may seem a little elementary but we already have a Perry Bigelow who is creatively applying righteous vocational stewardship in some amazing ways. And plus Perry lives in Chicago. No. You live here and you aren’t all contractors. You are business owners, homemakers, doctors, nurses, electricians, teachers, students, factory workers, etc. The good news is that those are the exact fields that God needs in the city of Yelm to give a foretaste of His kingdom. It is from that platform that we can share the Gospel with incredible effectiveness.
The second observation requires us to go back to Hebrew school for just a second. The word for righteous is tsaddiqim. Tsaddiq is the word for a righteous person. Tsaddiqim is the plural of Tsaddiq meaning a group of righteous people. The city rejoices when a bunch of Tsaddiq come together to prosper their city.
That is God’s plan for us as the church. What could our city look like if we approached all of our jobs with this type of vocational stewardship? What could our witness in the city of Yelm look like if we all applied the same creativity, focus, and intentionality to our jobs that Perry Bigelow did? I think my favorite thing about that whole story I read was that Perry isn’t some super saint. Perry isn’t doing anything beyond any of our capabilities.
People who rejoice their city through their prosperity are displaying outward righteousness. Outward righteousness begins with inward righteousness and we are only transformed inwardly as we submit to God through upward righteousness. And so I think that’s where we need to begin.
If we are going to see the city of Yelm rejoicing because of the kingdom of God it must begin with our hearts being transformed through our submission to God.
Give invitation to the unbeliever.
Submission to God in upward righteousness isn’t a one-time deal… Give invitation to repent and lead the way in that.