Stop Working for the Weekend
Working for the weekend?
In 1981, the band Loverboy sang that memorable line:
Everybody’s working for the weekend…
Loverboy
They were singing about an attitude — which I’m sure you’ve seen or had yourself — that the point of going to work Monday through Friday, is that you can enjoy your time off Saturday and Sunday.
Or as N*sync later put it:
Thank God it’s Friday night
And I ju… ju… ju… just got paid!N*Sync
The reality is that you spend way more time at work than you do virtually anywhere else. We spend one-third of our lives at work (another third is sleeping). On top of that, a majority of Americans report being disengaged or disinterested at work. In other words, most of us either don’t care about—or actively hate—our jobs; and we only go to work so that we can have time off at the end of the week to do what we really want to do.
We’re working for the weekend. But is that the point of work?
If I ventured a guess, I’d imagine that many followers of Jesus are dissatisfied with our jobs in the same way that most Americans are. We don’t enjoy going to work each day. Even more important, I’d guess that many of us don’t know whether our jobs matter to God. Notice Paul’s words on the topic:
Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. (Ephesians 6:5–8, ESV)
For many of us, work is just a necessity, something we do because we have to — it pays the bills. Far from us doing “the will of God from the heart” (v. 6). This attitude doesn’t reflect God’s intention for our jobs. No, for us, “serving God at work” would look something like this:
“I work to make money so I can be generous to the church and good causes.”
“I work with a grateful and joyful heart so others can see Jesus in my attitudes.”
“I work to provide for my family and take care of those I’m responsible for.”
“I work my job so that I’m freed up to do ministry at other times in the week.”
“I work so hopefully I can share the gospel with my co-workers.”
Now, these are fine reasons for a Christian to go to work! But what’s missing? None of these reasons to go to work have anything to do with the work itself.
Our jobs might come with good opportunities to evangelize, and the money from our paychecks might afford opportunities to do good. But what about the actual work we do, day-in and day-out? What does God say about that? Is that work good? Is it God-honoring? Does it even matter?
Some of you work a front desk. Maybe you teach students, or swing a hammer, or analyze data. Or you create reports, babysit another family’s kids, or stay home raising your own kids. As a student, maybe you study full-time and work part-time. Others of you sell insurance, or fetch coffee, or make products, or sign deals.
Do those jobs, and the actual work you do, matter to God?
Every job matters
I’ve noticed discouragement among followers of Jesus when it comes to their jobs. They love Jesus, but feel “stuck” in a job that doesn’t seem to matter in God’s kingdom. They feel like pastors and leaders are able to “serve God” while they sit in an office chair. They think, “Well, at least I make money so I can be generous” — which is a good thing. But perhaps not the best thing.
To make matters worse, the message we often hear from our pulpits is, “Share the gospel in the workplace!” You say, “But… I work from home alone, how can I?” Or, “But if I did that I’d get in trouble.” “But I don’t have many opportunities to share the gospel…”
And so discouragement sets in. It seems you’ll never be able to do enough.
But in Ephesians 6, Paul instructs workers (“bondservants”) to work hard for their masters. Look at the words he uses: wholeheartedly, obediently, and excellently. He’s talking about the attitudes and heart behind how we work.
But look even closer: “doing the will of God from the heart” (v. 6). Now, this is an amazing statement. Paul is equating the menial task of a lowly Roman bondservant with “doing God’s will.”
In other words, even slave labor matters to God.
Paul doesn’t stop there. Two other times he refers to the work itself. He calls it “rendering service” (v. 7); then “whatever good anyone does” (v. 8). Paul is taking the lowly effort of the lowest economic class (slaves) and elevating it to the status of good work that God honors: “he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free” (v. 8).
Our jobs matter to God. Not merely how we work or what results from our work — these are very important to God as well—but more fundamentally:
God cares about the work you do, day-in, day-out, Monday through Friday.
Created to work
The Bible lays out a vision for our jobs that goes far beyond a payday every two weeks. Far beyond the weekend or affording luxuries or vacation time or retirement or the rat race… It’s not just a paycheck. It’s a calling.
Let’s go back to the beginning.
And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28, ESV)
Two of these words are not like the others: dominion and subdue. This language was typically (in the ancient world) reserved for royalty. Only royalty rule over their domain. Only the monarch would subdue his/her world. These are words used for kings and queens.
But in the Genesis story, every man and every woman — all humanity — is given this royal charge. God says to all mankind, “fill the world and exercise rule” over every sphere: the sea, the heavens, the earth…
And what does this rule look like?
It looks like gardening.
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed… The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Genesis 2:8, 15; ESV)
According to the Bible, God forms mankind — whom he calls “very good” (Genesis 1:31, ESV) — and places them in the middle of an ongoing construction project, a wild garden brimming with potential but as of yet totally uncultivated, and he says, “Let’s get to work.”
Pay attention, because this is key. If humanity is “very good,” then so is work. Humanity was created to work.
Just as Paul affirmed in Ephesians 6, our jobs — from the barista to the data analyst to the operations director to the student to the CEO — are important to God. These jobs play an important part in our cultivating God’s world and extending God’s rule.
This principle boils down to one essential word: “Vocation.”
What’s a vocation? We might say it’s synonymous with “job” or “career” — which it typically is, in English. But the word vocation comes from the Latin word vocaré which means “to call.” (From this word we also get our word vocal.)
In its fullest sense, a vocation is much more than simply a “job” — what I do day to day that pays the bills. It’s what God has called me to do — what he’s built, given, equipped me in this place at this time with these opportunities to accomplish right now. It’s synonymous with calling.
You’re not just serving your boss or company. You’re not just providing for your kids or affording a comfortable life. It’s about more than just having a good attitude and witnessing to your co-workers. You are serving the one who called you, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Isn’t that what Paul is getting at? Notice his logic: “obey… as you would Christ” (v. 5); “as bondservants of Christ” (v. 6); “rendering service… as to the Lord and not to man” (v. 7); “whatever good… he will receive back from the Lord” (v. 8); “Masters… stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours” (v. 9) (Ephesians 6:5–9, ESV).
Five times, literally in every verse in that passage in Ephesians, Paul reiterates that Jesus is our real boss and we are employed by him.
It’s been this way since Adam and Eve. We work to cultivate God’s world, to build culture, create systems, produce goods, provide services that help others. To serve a purpose in society, to earn a living for ourselves and support those doing the same. This is God’s vocation for every person.
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.
Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker
A carpenter who makes it a priority to do good work pleases and honors the boss. Whatever you do for work, do it as if you were doing it for Jesus.
What the Bible says about our jobs should help us understand that work is fundamentally good (even though we live in a fallen world) and that God wants you to use your talents and hard work to cultivate this wild garden brimming with potential and do your small part to make it look a whole lot like Eden.