Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is Your Work Meaningless? | Torah | Genesis Genesis 47:13-31

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're going through the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Right after Clarence Thomas became a judge in the Supreme Court, his brother unexpectedly died. Justice Thomas, in a rare speaking engagement, said that his brother's death caused him to reevaluate his own life. In that speech, he realized that the three Fs, faith, family, friends, are always. what really mattered most. He said, work became irrelevant. Being on the Supreme Court became meaningless. Faith, family, and friends. You can't get better priorities than that, can you?

Starting point is 00:00:46 Several leaders in the American church applauded his statement, faith, family, and friends. It sounds right, doesn't it? But if you were entering the operating room for heart surgery, would you want the surgeon to have had those same values when he or she was in medical school? That their work was, as Clarence Thomas put it, irrelevant and meaningless, that the only things that were really worthy of our whole heart are faith, family, and friends. Would you want the flight mechanic who just did some repair work on the plane you're getting ready to take off in? Would you want that mechanic to think that the only thing in his life that really matters is faith, family, and friends, and that his work is meaningless?

Starting point is 00:01:27 To many people, Christians included, work is meaningless. It's a nuisance, a necessary evil. They wish they were rich enough to stop working. They look forward to Friday knowing they'll get the weekend off. Why are the retirement years referred to as the golden years? Well, because you don't have to work anymore. Many of us have dreamed about winning the lottery and quitting our job. When it comes to our view of work, most Christians share the same attitude as their coworkers.

Starting point is 00:01:53 Christians just add a spiritual dimension to their complaining. They think their work gets in the way of important things. Christians see work as interfering with their attempt to serve Jesus. What we often fail to see is that our work is one of the most significant ways we serve Jesus. In Genesis 47, we see that Joseph loved God and his neighbor through his work. And I think that if we really got this, it could revolutionize how we think about our work. In this chapter, the author of Genesis explaining how God saved Israel and Egypt from the seven-year famine, and it was through the economic and agricultural policies that Joseph employed.

Starting point is 00:02:32 Remember that Pharaoh had made Joseph second command in all of Egypt and that he was specifically in charge of leading the nation through the famine. In his official position, Joseph developed a strategy that allowed enough grain to be stored in the good years so that the people had food in the bad years. Not only did Israel survive the famine, but they prospered and grew as a nation until a new Pharaoh came into power and enslaved them. But that's another story for another day. What we're focusing on today is that Joseph served God by doing his government job with excellence. In Ephesians 6, Paul tells Christians to do their work with a sincere heart as you would Christ, not by the way of eye service as people pleasers, but as servants of Christ doing the will of God from their heart. Paul tells these people that their work is the will of God for them.

Starting point is 00:03:26 Do you believe that when you're working, attending class, being at home with your kids, that you are doing God's will? Suppose you had a vision in the night and Jesus appeared to you telling you what he wanted you to do for him. What would you imagine would be the kind of job Jesus would select for you? And how would you respond to that job? What kind of significance would that give your work? What I've found is that Christians have a very difficult time embracing this, idea that their work, their vocation, their job is the will of God for their lives. As a result, most Christians never think about their work in terms of Jesus. They never consider how to do

Starting point is 00:04:09 their work Christianly. It just becomes a way to make as much money as you can. Who is the first worker in the Bible? It's God. In the opening pages of Genesis, we saw that God created the world and he had his hands in the dust of the earth creating man. And soon after God creates Adam, he puts them to work. This is Genesis 215. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. See, sometimes our picture of the Garden of Eden is of Adam and Eve sitting on the beach, sipping mitis, perusing vogue, and working on their tan.

Starting point is 00:04:45 But the reality is, even in paradise, we were working. human beings were created to work and to find their work enjoyable and fulfilling. Work isn't a necessary evil. It's part of God's perfect plan. When Adam and Eve sinned and the relationship with God was ruptured, sin also affected their work. Sin corrupted their work so that it became more about survival rather than fulfilling God-given purpose. Work became harder, more repetitive, more boring, more futile. So in this sinful fallen world, what should mean? motivate us to do our daily work. Some people say, do what you love and love what you do. Do what you love

Starting point is 00:05:26 and you won't have to work another day in your life. Here's what Steve Jobs said. You have to find what you love and that's as true for your work as your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. Only way to do great work is to love what you do. That's appealing. I'd love to be in a situation where I always loved what I had to do. I always loved my work. But that ignores the fall. It ignores the effect that sin had on our work. I tell people that if you like 60% of your job, that's a pretty good place to be in. So how should following Jesus affect how we do our work? Dorothy Sayers, who is a good friend of C.S. Lewis's, she said that the church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually limited to exhorting him

Starting point is 00:06:19 not to be drunk and disorderly in his time off and to come to church on Sundays. She said what the church should be telling the carpenter is this. The very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. One of the ways that you serve God is through your work. Many Christians think of missionaries and pastors as those that truly serve God. Everyone else is kind of like a second-class citizen in the kingdom of God. But that's not how God sees it. It's not how Joseph sees it.

Starting point is 00:06:51 That's not how Paul thinks about it. If Joseph had thought about his work that way, maybe he would have tried to become a priest in Israel instead of getting a government job in Egypt. Or maybe he would have slacked off on his job instead of doing it with excellence. If he'd committed either of those errors, Israel and Egypt might have starved during the famine. this story, we learned that our work, our typical job, or our being a student, or our being a stay-at-home parent, it's all very important to the way that we love God and our neighbor. It's really important to the way that we fulfill the great commandments. So do your work, not under your boss,

Starting point is 00:07:30 not under yourself, not to get money, but to please God. Hey, thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talk newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week. It'll challenge you to grow in your faith, give you interesting background on today's passage, and a lot, lot more. Just click the link in the show notes to sign up. It'll help you deepen your journey with Jesus.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is Your Work Meaningless? | Torah | Genesis Genesis 47:13-31

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