Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Sluggardliness

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Anybody who reads the book of Proverbs will see how often the book talks about the subject of work.  It talks positively about work under the heading of “diligence.” It talks negatively about work under the heading of “sluggard” or “sluggardliness.”  Proverbs says if you want to have a fulfilled human life, you have to do four things regarding work: you have to 1) do your work, 2) love your work, 3) re-narrate your work, and 4) redeem your work. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 21, 2004. Series: Proverbs: True Wisdom for Living. Scripture: Proverbs 8:1-4; 10:4-5; 12:10-11; 15:19; 22:29; 27:18. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. For many of the decisions we have to make in life, moral values alone can't tell you what choices to make. You may be weighing several options in a decision, and they all could be morally allowable. So how do you choose the right one? That's where God's wisdom is critical. Today, Tim Keller is speaking about how we can grow in using God's wisdom. The reading today is taken from a collection of Proverbs as found in your bulletin.

Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights along the way where the paths meet, she takes her stand. Beside the gates leading into the city, at the entrance, she cries aloud, To you, O men, I call out. I raise my voice to all mankind. Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth. He who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son. A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel. He

who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment. The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway. Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings. He will not serve before obscure men. He who tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who looks after his master will be honored." This is the word of the Lord. We're looking at the book of Proverbs, subject of wisdom, and today we come to another one of its themes. It's a fact that anybody who

reads the book of Proverbs through will see how often the book talks about the subject of work. It talks positively about work under the heading of diligence. It talks negatively about work under the heading of sluggard, or the sluggardliness. And we live in a city or the sluggardliness, and we live in a city where there's probably more pressure on and fewer boundaries to and less stability in our work than anywhere I know. So let's listen to this. The book of Proverbs tells us if you want to have a fulfilled human life

you have to do four things with your work. If you want a fulfilled human life, you have to do your work, love your work, re-narrate your work, redeem your work. Do your work, love your work, re-narrate your work, and redeem your work. Okay, let's first begin. These are a selection of proverbs out of the book that tell us each of these four things. First of all, do your work. About a third of the way down, this text, chapter 10, verses four and five.

Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth. Now, that looks straightforward, but there's a little more to it than you might think. The word lazy here is literally means slack, describing a bow as in a bow and arrow. It's a bow that has been strung not tightly, but it's slack. And it's not that it doesn't shoot arrows, the arrows go astray. They're not accurate. And therefore many commentators think this word diligent means not so much hard work as smart work,

targeted work, strategic work, knowing when it's harvest. Not much use going out into the harvest field when it's winter, right? And therefore it's talking about the importance of not laziness or drivenness but diligence in our work. Another verse, go to the very bottom, the very last verse in the list. He who tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who looks after his master will be honored. Now, that last section is a deliberate paradox. To look after your master means you're a servant or maybe even a slave, very, very low status.

And yet it says, if you do it well, you'll be honored, which of course is a word that means high status. And this is saying, that in the eyes of God and those who know, even the most menial tasks, even the most menial work has a dignity to it, has an honor to it. Now what's the teaching here? The teaching of the book of Proverbs and the teaching of the entire Bible is incredibly positive about work, and it's only understood if you contrast it with all the other religious texts of ancient times, all the other religious, all the other cultures of the time. For example, you know the Greek legend of Pandora's box, right? There's creation and the first human beings

are living in absolute bliss, it's paradise, and Pandora gets a box and the gods say, don't open that box, but she opens the box and when she opens the box, all the human miseries and ills that afflict us today come out. And what was in the box? What comes out in the legend? Death and decay and disease and aging and sickness and work. Work. Work comes out of Pandora's box in that legend. Or maybe the Enuma Elish, which is a Mesopotamian account of creation. And you have the gods and they're making the various, they're making the world,

and they make the world. But when they make the world, they find there's a maintenance fee. It's like buying your apartment and say, I own it now, but then there's a maintenance fee. And they found that the world was, it took a lot of work to keep up. They said, this is very hard. And Marduk, the leading God in the Enuma Elish says this. He says, I will bring into being a lowly primitive creature we'll call man. To him shall be charged all the labor

so that the gods may have rest. In absolute contrast to every other religious text and every other religion in ancient times, you go to the book of Genesis and the first thing you see is God with his hands in the dirt. God doing manual labor, making us and it not being beneath him. And this is astounding to the Greeks because the Greeks understood that the material world was corrupt and all work was a necessary evil and manual labor was particularly degrading,

but there's God with his hands in the dirt. And then you go a little further and you realize that when God creates paradise, he creates paradise for humanity, paradise being the absolute ideal environment for human flourishing. In the paradise he puts work. He makes them gardeners. In the paradise he puts work.

Before sin, before brokenness, before the fall. Now what's this mean? It means this. There is no religious text. There is no religion. No religious text like the Bible that associates all work, even manual labor, even what the world calls menial work, associates all work with great dignity and honor. There's no class of people. There's no class of workers that the text, the Bible doesn't hold in high regard. There's no snobbery, there's no, there's no class consciousness here. Long before Karl Marx, God did manual labor, the biblical

God, and when he made the first human beings, he made him into gardeners, that's the proletariat, and when God, this God, when this biblical God actually showed up in the world, he didn't come the way the Greek gods would have come as a philosopher, he didn't come the way the Roman gods would have come as a general, he came as a carpenter. And what's mind-blowing, I'm sorry that's probably an old term but I'm an old man, and what's mind-blowing, I'm sorry that's probably an old term but I'm an old man and what's mind-blowing is that when you look at what the Bible says the Spirit of God does, does the Spirit of God save souls? Yes, but the Spirit of God creates the world, the Spirit in the very very beginning of the Bible, it's moving

across the face of the earth, moving across the face of the waters and Psalm 104 verse 30 says the Spirit of God renews the face of the earth, and that means that God does save souls, but He also takes enormous delight in growing and cultivating and enriching and caring for His creation and the well-being of his creation and by making us gardeners, he is he's giving us every bit as spiritual a work as a preacher does. See to dig a ditch to get water into a garden or to compose a piece of music or to preach a sermon or to get an investment to get a new product on the market. Those are all spiritual work. That's all spiritual work according to the Bible.

Why? Because God's a gardener, God's an artist, God is an investor in creation, and God's a preacher. There's just no, there's no text that looks at work like that. And of course, conclude the application to this first point. Because work was put in paradise, because it's part of the environment that you have to have for the human heart to flourish. If you are not working or if you are not doing work that you're proud of in any way at all, if you're not doing any kind of work that you can take some pride in, you're being cut off from your humanity.

There's going to be a disorientation. There's going to be an atrophying of your soul. Because the Bible says work is not a necessary evil, work is a good. So the first thing you have to learn is do your work. Secondly though, the Bible says you must love your work. And at this point, the Bible's looking at the motives of the heart. And saying that the motives for which,

the reasons that you do work are all important. There's two motives that are mentioned here that you've got to get a hold of if your work is going to be ennobling and humanizing you and others and not atrophying and grueling. First of all, you have to work in response to human community. In response to human community. Notice that

chapter 10 verse 5, he who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son. Now, why didn't it just say he who sleeps through the harvest is a disgraceful boy or man? Why not just say man? Why say son? And immediately you realize the Bible is saying a failure in the work life is a failure of You're failing your family You're not just failing yourself. You're failing your family because work is for the community but more than that this word disgrace We modern western people when we see the word disgrace We don't understand what that what means, what it meant in ancient cultures

and what it means in the Bible. The word guilt and the word disgrace or shame are not the same thing. Now they're both in the Bible. The Bible teaches about both. Guilt is basically a failure to perform up to standards. That's guilt. Here's the rules, here's the law. You failed, you're guilty. But shame and

disgrace is a failure of community, a failure to do for the community what you want to do. And the purpose of work according to the Bible is, let me put this in a nutshell, the first purpose, you should do work and choose work. More for how it helps other people and the community and society and those around you, than for profit and personal advancement. The Bible says you should, you should both choose work and conduct your work more for the benefit of people around you. You do work that's useful, useful to society, used to other people. More than choosing and conducting work for your own profit

and for personal advancement. Dorothy Sayers wrote an essay in which she just nails this and it's fascinating. She's put, this is Dorothy Sayers, a British essayist who put it like this. She says, the habit of thinking about work as something one does to make money is so ingrained in us that we can scarcely imagine what a revolutionary change it would be psychologically and socially to think otherwise. In the modern

view, people become doctors not primarily to relieve suffering, but to bring themselves and their family up in the world. People become lawyers not because they have a passion for justice, but to bring themselves and their family up in the world. During World War II, now by the way, she was writing right after World War II in Britain. This is amazing and interesting. She says after World War II, one of the greatest surprises for many English men who had to serve in the army was they found themselves for the very first time in their entire lives happy and satisfied.

Why? For the first time in their lives, they found themselves doing something not for the pay because army pay was miserable and not for the status because everyone was just thrown in together, but for the sake of getting something done for us all. Now, you know what she's saying? She's saying, you realize what a social revolution it would be, how much better society would be if we chose work and conducted work for the benefit of customers, for the benefit

of society in general, for the benefit of our employees, for the benefit of our colleagues, for the benefit of the people around us, more than for profit and personal advancement. She says not only would that socially be a revolution, and the fact that we're not doing it that way is actually unraveling the social fabric, but it would also mean for a psychological revolution why they said all those English men when they went in the Army during World War II suddenly found themselves So this is what satisfying work is There was no pay there was no social standing and yet they were happy

hmm Do you and this is wisdom? See the proverbs is doesn't give you rules as to what jobs to take and what you can't of course there's jobs You can't take don't be heroin smugglers Okay, just you know if you want some practical application today there, don't be a heroin smuggler. And maybe this is New York, so probably some of you are. Stop it.

But see, proverbs, but you know what? Almost all of these, all other jobs, almost all other jobs are allowable, but not wise. So many of them aren't wise. God says if you want a social and psychological revolution start to do work and start to conduct work and also choose work in response to human need, in response to human community, being useful for others. But secondly, we're supposed to also choose and do our work in response to God's calling. Look at the second last proverb. Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings. Now you know what's interesting

about that, that word skill. There's a couple ways you can understand that word skill in English. In Hebrew what it means is gifted. It means a man who has, or a woman has an ability, has a talent, has a gift. In the Bible and throughout Christian history, the church has always said, look at your talents, look at your gifts, look at the things you're good at doing, look at the things you love to do, look at your talents, look at your gifts, look at the things you're good at doing, look at the things you love to do.

Look at your capacities, look at your interests. Those aren't just accidents, they're just, they're not there. That those aren't, that's not a random happening, that's a call. Your maker, by giving you what you've got, is calling you into a, into work that fits your capacities. Do work that you want to do, do work that you're good at doing. Now, there's nobody's gifts that are so narrowly focused that you can only do one job. But your gifts are a way to find out

what God wants you to do. And unfortunately, in many cases, again, your gifts take you away from the kind of jobs that bring great benefits and great profit, et cetera, but follow the calling. And if bring great benefits and great profit, etc. But follow the calling. And if you put these two things together, if you start to do things for people's sake, if you start to do things for God's sake, if you start to do things that fit, you'll start to do the work for the work's sake.

You'll start to have a passion and you'll have a whole new approach. It's an adventure. Because suddenly you realize, as the Bible says in Ephesians chapter two, we are God's workmanship, you've been put together by God, created to do works which God prepared in advance for you to do. Do you realize what an adventure this is? When you stop working for yourself and for personal advancement and mainly for money,

and you start to work more for the community, more for others, more for God's, in response to God's calling, then what happens? John Coltrane, the great saxophonist who played with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, et cetera, had a religious experience in 1957, he writes about this in his liner notes to one of his most famous album. He says, this is his words, he says, during the year 1957, I experienced by the grace of God a spiritual awakening, which was to lead me

to a richer, fuller, more productive life. And at that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked God to give me the means and privilege to make others happy through music. Now, one day, he was, one night he was performing, and he was performing one of his spiritual works, A Love Supreme. It's really a song in praise to God. And being a saxophonist, he got up there, and as you all know about jazz, it's different

every single time. And he played the lights out that night. And he played his heart out. And he played beyond what he thought he could have ever done. Beyond even anything he'd ever conceived of. It was the best thing he'd ever done. And when it was over and he stepped down, others heard him say, Nunk Demittus, which is Latin for the beginning of what Simeon said, the old Simeon when he saw the young child Christ in the temple. Now let thy servant

depart in peace according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Now what is he saying when he says now like, here's what he's saying, I'm ready to go. I've done it. I'm not working for myself. I'm working to give people joy through music. I'm working to do my music to the very best of my ability. I'm thinking of God's calling.

I'm thinking of other people. And one night he got it. He did it. And he was ready to go. What an adventure. What a satisfaction. What a whole different approach to work than the rest of us have. You've got to do your work. You've got to love your work. In the midst of life's uncertainties, where do you turn for wisdom? The book of Proverbs is filled with wisdom to help guide us in all aspects of life. In Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional book,

God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, you'll get a fresh, inspiring view of God's wisdom each day of the year from the Book of Proverbs. This devotional book will help you unlock the wisdom within the poetry of Proverbs and guide you toward a new understanding of what it means to live the Christian life. This resource is our thanks for your gift

to help Gospel and Life share Christ's love with more people. You can request your copy of God's Wisdom for Navigating Life when you give today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now, here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

Thirdly, you have to re-narrate your work. Now what does that mean? Well let's take a look at the first four verses at the top of the chart here. This is from chapter eight. Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights along the way where the paths meet she takes her stand. Beside the gates leading into the city at the entrances she cries aloud, to you, O man, I call out. I raise my voice to all mankind. Now boy, there's a lot I could go into here, but what's interesting is this. In the city, God's wisdom refuses to stay in the home but goes out into the public spaces and calls aloud.

And those public spaces are very important. For example, she calls out beside the gates. Now the gates were, the gate was the place where the elders sat and they heard cases. So when she says, I'm crying out in the gate, she's talking about the justice system of the city. She insists on being heard in the justice system. Then it says, where the paths meet. Well, what was the paths?

Well, where the paths met was where you had squares. You ever noticed that? You know, you had, you know, where Broadway hits one street, you have Times Square, then you have Harold Square, then you have Union Square, where the paths meet, you had marketplaces. It was the place of commerce, and so what she's doing is she insists on being heard in the business and the commercial realm. And then she says, on the heights. Now, even though in a sense they didn't have skyscrapers back then, every city, like for example, you go to Athens, there's the Acropolis, you go to Edinburgh, and there's the Arthur's

seat, you go to Jerusalem, and there's Zion. Inside cities, the high places, you didn't just put anything up there, you put buildings up there, you put temples up there that showed what the society worshipped, or to use a little more modern and trendy term, but I'm going to use it, to exhibit the master narrative of the society. Now what do I mean by a master narrative? A master narrative is what that society says life is really all about. What's really important in life?

What is your life really about? What's the meaning of life? And of course by putting the Parthenon on the Acropolis, different cities would put, you know, some cities worshiped war, the God of war, some worshiped the God of beauty, some worshiped the God of this and that. It's no different today, by the way. No different at all.

Because our highest buildings in any city still tell you the master narratives of the society. What are the highest buildings in New York City? They're not church spires anymore. They're office buildings. They're places where people make profits. And please endure the next two or three statements, all right? Because our master narrative as a society is individual fulfillment and freedom trumps everything Individual fulfillment and freedom trumps family commitments tradition divine authority

Individual fulfillment and freedom trumps everything as a result of that the master narrative has worked itself out into our society in saying Financial profit is the only bottom line. Oh,, yeah, yeah, we'll do community service because it makes people think well of us, but only as long as it increases profits. Profit is the bottom line. Because individual fulfillment, my individual fulfillment and freedom trumps everything. Now God's master narrative isn't that one, is it?

Oh no, that's not what he says life's about. That's not what he says history's about. He says what's wrong with history is that everybody is self-centered. What's wrong, that's the very thing that's wrong with us, is that everybody's out for him or herself. And his master narrative is, I'm coming back into the world to re-weave and renew the world and recreate what he calls shalom. Interdependent human flourishing, peace, justice, and I demand, he says, that the voice of my wisdom is heard in the public place, and this is what this means.

In society, society tends to co-opt your work and put it into its master narrative. That's what's happening now. It tends to fit your put it into its master narrative. That's what's happening now. It tends to fit your work into society's master narrative. God says, no. You don't keep my wisdom in the private part of your life, so it just gives you peace, love, and groovy vibes on the weekends.

What you need to do is you need to put your work, your work into my master narrative. So that, for example, profit is one thing, among other things, but human flourishing is as important as profit, and in some cases, more important than profit. You must renarrate your work. Put your work, your whole life, into my master narrative.

Not society's master narrative. It's not enough for you to come to church on Sunday just to get inspiration in your private life. You need to say, how does my work fit into God once? God's viewpoint. Now, for some people, this sounds threatening. Does this mean, for example, if you're a Christian and you run a car dealership that every person

who comes on in that's trying to buy a car, you have to try to convert? No. No. Flourishing. See the Spirit of God doesn't just save souls. The Spirit of God renews the face of the earth. Working for peace and justice. Working balancing, unlike the rest of the our society, balancing profit with human flourishing of our customers, of our community, of our employees, of our colleagues, and if the two can't be brought together, actually taking a hit on the profit

for the sake of others, that's God's master narrative and that's what you're supposed to do. Well, you said that's interesting. How do we work that out? Well, let me give you the most famous example in the last 100 years or so. There was a great awakening in Britain in the 1700s. And as the century was turning, many of these new Christians who had become thousands, hundreds of thousands

of people had become Christians in the great awakenings of Britain, many of them started to say, how do we take the Gospel of grace and work it out into public life? And when they came out into public life using, you might say, the spectacles of the Gospel, they saw something that was there, and that was the African slave trade. For 30 years, Christians in Britain did everything they possibly could to work toward the abolition of all slavery and the slave trade. At one point, Christians actually did a petition drive and got one half of all the voting population of England to sign a petition for the abolition

of the slave trade. You can imagine what that was. But the money classes were utterly against it. It was going to be a huge, huge economic debacle if they did it. And let me read you out of a history book I read on this that is just poignant and amazing. He says, the planters in the colonies

warned that emancipation would cost investors in Britain catastrophic losses. And pointed out that everyone in Britain would pay because the price of sugar and price of many other food stuffs would rise greatly if it had to be produced by free labor. These appeals carried weight in the House of Lords. In those days the Lords were not a figurehead and the moneyed class stood to lose even more mightily than everyone else, and their agreement was needed for all legislation.

To gain this agreement, the abolitionists in the House of Commons accepted provisions in the Emancipation Act so as to compensate the planters for all their losses by an enormous sum right out of the British Treasury equaled at one half of the British annual budget. The Abolition Act passed in 1833, providing that on August 1st, 1834, slavery would cease in all British colonies. The direct cost to individual British citizens was substantial, both in terms of taxes to buy off the planters and for continuing tax support of naval operations against slave ships and a much, much higher cost of living. The price of sugar and other foodstuffs did rise sharply, as predicted.

Indeed, the costs of emancipation were so high that the historian Seymour Drescher called the British abolition of slavery voluntary iconoside that they were willing to to trash their economy for almost a generation or two in order to rid themselves of the slave trade. Now this is let me continue this is fascinating. Scholars have been desperately trying to figure out why the British abolitionists were really so willing to sacrifice so much profit to end slavery. Historian Howard Temperly says that the history of British abolition is so puzzling because all historians believe all political behavior is self-interested. And this is a quote from Temperly. The British anti-slavery movement has continued to intrigue historians not the least because of the apparent lack of self-interest on the part of its principal supporters.

This is totally contrary to conventional views of political behavior. And it has given rise to much scholarly controversy, yet in spite of the exercise of much ingenuity over the last 30 years, no one has succeeded in showing that those who campaigned for the end of the slave trade and then for the freeing of the slaves stood to personally gain in any way at all but rather only to lose. The fact is, those who brought about abolition in Britain quoted the Bible, talked about sin and God's saving grace. We don't have anything as obvious as that and therefore we probably don't have anything quite as hard as that

but that's what it means to re-narrate your whole economy. So you have to love your work. You have to, pardon me, you have to do your work. You have to love your work. You have to re-narrate your work. And lastly, you've got to redeem your work. See, listen, let's, let me, I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking.

This is just so idealistic. This is unbelievably idealistic. And I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking. This is just so idealistic. This is unbelievably idealistic. And I know what you're thinking. It is. Because work is extremely difficult just to get through and just to do. For a lot of reasons, and I, let me give you two. One is, we don't have the hope to work this way.

This seems so idealistic. We don't have the hope. Because life seems broken, and everything goes wrong with work all the time. There's so many ways in which that's the case. Just as you finally get the intellectual capital together to do a project, all the investment capital dries up for four years.

Just as you finally have your team together, can finally do this incredible thing you're gonna do, two of them get mad at each other, stop speaking to each other and quit and you're never able to pull a team together like that again. Just as you're getting wise enough to finally figure out what you're doing in your field, you're old. Just as you finally figure it out, you're over the hill. Just as you finally know what you should be doing, you don't have the stamina to do it. But worst of all, and just things go wrong all the time. And this is the reason why you start off idealistic.

But because of the brokenness of reality, work is so incredibly frustrating, and it never seems to go right. And you know, the big corruption, the brokenness of reality, work is so incredibly frustrating and it never seems to go right. And you know, the big corruption, the Enron scale corruption, the unbelievable graft and it doesn't happen with young people. It happens with people my age. You know why?

Because in beginning you're idealistic, but slowly the reality of life grinds you down and you lose hope. You lose hope you're ever gonna get anything really done for anybody. You lose hope you're ever gonna realize your dreams. You lose hope that you actually have the talent or the ability to actually pull off what you really aspire to pull off.

You lose hope. We don't have the hope to work like this, but secondly, we don't have the inner rest. Rest. Michael Musto, who writes for the Village Voice, he's basically a gossip columnist and he's so much fun to read. And one year, one year he was covering Fashion Week and he was talking about how busy everybody is at Fashion Week. There's the designers and there's the artists and there's the models and there's everybody. And they're so, so busy. Why are they busy? He says Fashion Week

is that period of ritualized yearning in which people jockey for visibility while hoping that nearness to a runway will purge them of that nagging feeling of soullessness. Here's what he's saying. He says it's not about the clothes, it's not even about the money. We've... it's about us. We desperately need to believe we count. We have this feeling inside that we're nobody. And so we work like crazy to prove ourselves. That's why it's not just the money. It's not even just the advancement.

But we're not doing anything for others. We're not doing anything for the love of the job, with the work. We're not, we're near John Coltrane. We're doing it for us. So that I can feel good about myself. So I can get rid of this nagging feeling of soul soullessness We don't have that's why we we overwork and then we just get so exhausted. We underwork We start out really too idealistic and then afterwards we become way too realistic and cynical

We don't have the hope. We don't have the rest. What can we do about it? Here's what we can do about it Proverbs 15 29 19 It's right in the middle. Pretty much in the middle. The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway. Now when you first look at that, it seems straightforward, does it not? The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway. At first it seems like, okay, if I'm lazy, my life will go badly, but if I'm diligent, my life will go well.

But it doesn't say diligent, does it? It says something weird, the upright. Now the wisdom literature should know better than this. Everybody's got thorns in their path. We've all got problems. It doesn't work well whether you work hard or you don't work hard. And besides that, who in the world is upright?

Because Psalm 130 verse 3 says, Oh Lord, if you kept a record of sins, who would stand? There's nobody can stand. There's nobody upright. How in the world? Who's pure enough to get a life like this? So when you first look at it, it looks okay, then you look at it a little bit longer, it doesn't look okay.

But if you keep looking at it for just about three more minutes, it will look okay again. And here's why. That word thorns is so significant because when Adam and Eve lost paradise, because they turned from God and said, we want to be our own savers and lords, what did God say? He says, all right, but I want you to know that since I made you to serve me, since you turn away from me, nothing in this world will go right for you.

And he says, cursed will be the ground because of you. In painful toil you will work it, but it will only produce thorns and thistles. Cursed is the ground because of you. In painful toil you will work it, but it will only produce thorns and thistles. Ah, and that's what we've been talking about. Why do we never reach our aspirations? Why are we never talented enough to get what we want to do? Why does the world never seem to work? Why don't we have the physicalness or the friends or the team? Why does it always fall apart? Thorns. This world doesn't work anymore. It's broken. This reality is broken. There's a tendency to chaos and disorder and it makes work, work, painful toil, deadly painful. Is there any way out?

Yes. Cursed be the ground because of you. Galatians chapter three says Jesus Christ came to be a curse for us. It will only produce thorns for you in painful toil. Do you know what happened? The night he died, they put thorns for you in painful toil. Do you know what happened? The night he died, they put thorns on him. They pounded thorns into a skull.

The curse fell on him. And you know, in the most poignant and horrible picture of laborious work, don't look at mythosisyphus. You remember, you know, that Greek myth about the man who always has to... and there's the perfect idea of cursed work, you know, taking a stone up the hill and it keeps rolling down and taking it up the hill. Look at Jesus Christ under the cross being crushed into the ground. Look at that. Look at him toiling up Calvary. Look at the work that he did. And look at how cursed he was. Look at the work that he did, and look at how cursed he was.

Look at how driven into the ground he was. Look at how trampled into the ground he was. Why did he do it? God made him sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. He took the thorny way. He took that way that we deserved so that we could have the way that he deserved.

And this is the solution. First of all, it's the solution for hope. How can you keep on working when your hopes get dashed so much? Because the resurrection of Jesus Christ means some day everything sad will come untrue. If you want to write the greatest play, some day you will. Guaranteed. If you want to write the most play, someday you will. Guaranteed. If you want to write the most incredible music, someday you will. Whatever you want, whatever your heart wants, because you're called by your gifts to want to do that kind of work, someday you will get it.

So you can live in hope because of the renewal of the earth. We sing about it all the time. Enjoy it of the world. You're going to sing about it in a month or so. No, more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. Because he died, because he took the thorns, we get the highway, and someday all the thorns will be gone. But it's not just that you get hope, you finally get rest. You finally get rest. That's soullessness, the reason why we work too hard

or we don't work hard enough. You know the place in Matthew 11 where Jesus Christ says, come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Sounds like a vacation? No. He says, take my

yoke upon you. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Oh you poor person, you're so labor, labor. Don't work, don't work, work for me. That's what he's saying. He's not saying don't work. He's saying work for me. He says I'm the only boss that won't grind you into the ground. He says, from now on, see what I did for you. Look at the work I did for you. Look at the deadly work I did for you. I was, I was ground into the ground for you. Now you work for me. And if you work for me, finally you'll be liberated. Do you know what that means? Work for Jesus. Don't work for anybody else. Don't work for anybody else. Do your work for Him. Because on the one hand hand you won't overwork because you know he loves you

already, but on the other hand you won't underwork because he's always looking and you want to give him the best work you can do because he gave you the ultimate work, the finished work on the cross. My friends, do your work, love your work, re-narrate your work, redeem your work. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you that through Jesus Christ's work, we can finally begin to redeem our work and we can finally begin through our work

to renew the creation and bring about peace and justice in the world and we can change the motivations for how we work so that we find that society and our own inner being are becoming stronger and stronger. What a vision of work. We thank you that you gave it to us through your word and we pray that you would help us apply it to our hearts by your spirit. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. [♪ upbeat music playing the life-changing wisdom of God's Word through this ministry. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were recorded in 2004. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. here in church.