Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Work and Calling

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

In the Bible there’s a view of work that’s revolutionary. It’s so revolutionary that Dorothy Sayers writes that society as a whole, and individuals in particular, are dying for the lack of it—that individuals are hurting because we don’t have it. Unless you understand the biblical doctrine of work, you will never find rest. That’s the irony. You see, there’s a kind of work that arises from rest, and on the other hand, there’s a kind of restless work. It’s one or the other. The biblical doctrine of work has 1) two practical guidelines and 2) two motivational principles. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on July 7, 1996. Series: Thessalonians; The Gospel and the End of Time. Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12. 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.

We want to share a special free resource with you during the season of Lent. For the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel and Life would like to send you a daily devotional. Sign up to receive this daily email at gospelandlife.com slash lent. Now here's Dr. Keller with today's teaching. The passage is printed near bulletin, and that's the passage on which the teachings based this morning. We're going through the book of First Thessalonians, and then Second Thessalonians. We're looking at Paul's two letters to this church.

It was a church filled with young converts that Paul had to leave precipitously, to how to get out of town for his life. And as a result, he writes back to them, and we see a great deal in these letters of how Paul built up new converts, how he established people in the faith. Let me read you this section that we come to today. We're going through it week by week. First us alone in four, versus nine to twelve. Now, about brotherly love, we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been

taught by God to love each other, and in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. And this is God's word. Well now, at first, this seems like something of a dreary statement.

It seems a little bit, this latter part. It seems, Paul is talking to a group in the Thessalonian church that wasn't working. At the very end of the passage of the end of the first epistle of Thessalonians, in chapter 5 verse 14, Paul says, warn those who are idle. Paul's not condemning unemployment. That's people who want jobs but can't find them. He's condemning idleness, which is people who have work but can't, doesn't want to do it.

In other words, he's after people who are not working when they have a possibility of working. And at first, this statement by Paul seems kind of dreary. At least, it's not to me a little bit like, I could hear Dana Garvey's church lady saying it to you. You know what he says now? I want you to be quiet. See, mind your own business. Get to work just as I was telling you. You know, it just, it seems like he's scolding them in it.

And, you know, who wants, in fact, who wants to come and sit and listen to a sermon on why we should work hard? I mean, what are you doing here today? I, and that's what actually what I thought about is I looked at this and I said, you know, what are you doing here today? And that's what I actually thought about. As I looked at this, and I said, you know, what's everybody knows we should work right in the world? Should I be telling New Yorkers they need to work? I mean, of all places where people come to work,

and if there was ever a group of people who were in desperate need of rest, the New Yorkers, it's New Yorkers. But actually, in getting ready for this particular sermon, I got the chance to read an essay that I read long ago by Dorothy Sayers. She was a British woman, a writer and essayist, a novelist, a playwright. She wrote a great, great essay called Why Work. And in it, she says a couple of things

that are quite important, I think. She showed me something that, it means to me that at this church, we need to come back to this subject more. Certainly what I'm gonna go over today is just a kind of helicopter ride over the basics of this. We have to get back to this.

We have to talk more about it than we are. But Dorothy Sayers pointed out that she says the society, as a whole, and individuals in particular are dying because they do not have the revolutionary, old biblical doctrine of work. She says in the Bible, there's a view of work that's revolutionary. And she thinks that people in modern society are dying for the lack of it. She says our society is not only hurting for it, but individuals are hurting because we don't have it.

She says the modern doctrine of work, which has replaced the old biblical doctrine of work is, the modern doctrine of work is, work is the old biblical doctrine of work is, the modern doctrine of work is, work is that what you do for a living, work is that through which you make money so that you can do what you really want to do. And she has a quote in her essay, which I thought was pretty pointed, and she quotes a surgeon, a friend of hers, who put it very nicely. He says, what is happening is that nobody today works for the sake of the thing they do. The result of the work is only a byproduct of their real aim.

The real aim in work is money or status. So doctors, he said, practice medicine not primarily to relieve suffering but to make a living. The patient is something that happens along the way. Lawyers accept briefs not because of their passion for justice but because this is the profession that enables them to live. And then he goes on, they have to remember this was a British man talking during World War 2, this or right after World War 2. He says the reason why men found themselves so happy and satisfied in the army was that for so many of them, for the very first time in their lives,

they were doing something not for the sake of the pay, which was miserable, but for the sake of getting something done that really needed doing. Now, Dorothy Sayers gives us a definition of work, she says the biblical doctrine of work, and I'll just paraphrase it for you, and I'll show you that actually though Paul's little statement here is not what

you might call a thoroughgoing passage, a thoroughgoing exposition of the biblical doctrine of work yet it assumes it and it refers to it and I'd like to show you how it's underneath what Paul says. Dorothy Sayers puts the biblical doctrine of work like this. She says, work is the gracious expression of creative energy in the service of others. Work is the gracious expression of creative energy in the service of others. I don't have any real illusions that I'm going to get everybody

excited and completely in an understanding mode of what that means in the next 25 minutes, but I'll tell you, I'd like to unpack that a little bit now, and more and more as the weeks and months roll on the gracious expression of creative energy in the services society. The biblical doctrine of work has two practical guidelines and two motivational principles, and they're all here directly or indirectly alluded to. Two practical guidelines and two motivational principles. I'll go to the practical guidelines first,

and you'll see how they are exactly what I said. Very practical, and I'll help you choose and enjoy your work. But unless we understand the motivational principles under the practical guidelines, you won't see the complete radical nature of the biblical doctrine of work, which we also desperately need. And I'll tell you one of the main reasons you and I in particular need this. And I'll tell you one of the reasons I need it, because unless you understand the biblical

doctrine of work, you will never find rest. That's the irony. You see, there's a kind of work that arises from rest, and on the other hand, there's a kind of restless work. It's one of the other. What does the Bible have to say? First of all, the two practical guidelines. Two practical guidelines are right here, and that is,

the first one is that the functional reason you should do any job is because it helps other people. That's the first practical guideline. You shouldn't do a job primarily because it makes money for you, or primarily for the status, more important should be whether it makes you useful to other people. You know how you see this? You miss it in a way because the new international version makes a break between verse 10 and 11. That is actually one sentence. And because of the break, because Paul's sentence is 10 to be very long, it's very natural

for translators to break them up. As a result, it almost looks like, verses 9 and 10 is a different subject than verse 11 and 12. 9 and 10 is about love. 11 and 12 is about work. It seems like two different subjects. No. Because literally this is what Paul says. He says, now I don't need to write you much about love. You know about love.

God taught you about love. You are very loving people. And then he says, now here's what the new sentence starts. Yet we urge you brothers to love, to do so, more and more, making it your ambition to lead a quiet life, mind your own business, and work with your hands. In other words, if you see what actually Paul wrote, he says, you all think, you know a lot about love,

but unless you are working, you're not loving. You're working is the way you love. He says, I want you to love more and more. How? Get to work. And at the very end, he kind of gives you the hint at least at this. He says, so you will not be dependent on anybody. In other words, a Christian says, I don't want to be a drain on the community. I want to be an investor in the community. I don't want to be draining out of the common good. I want to be investing into the common good. And therefore, you can get a job that makes

all great deal of money, but basically doesn't help people too much, or you can get a job. Hopefully, that makes you a lot of money and helps people. But the point is, if you have to choose, the first thing, the first practical guideline is, get a job that makes you useful. Get a job that loves people.

Get a job that helps people. Get a job because one of the most important biblical facets of the biblical doctrine of work is that one of the main purposes of work is for the common good. Now by the way, we have to be a little careful about this. And when we get to one of the motivational principles you'll see, very often Christians immediately think, well, what I'm doing, I'm just, I'm working and all I'm doing, I'm

making air conditioners for example, or I'm making chairs or I, or I, or I, or I, I'm on the maintenance crew of a highway, that's not helping people. I want to move into the inner city and build homes or something like that, but you have to recognize something. All work that's good work isn't necessarily well-paying work. It's not even necessarily high-skilled work, but all work that's good work is helpful work. If I go, and by the way, very soon,

my wife and I will, go on vacation, we will get on a road, and we will go someplace that only takes, it's called Philadelphia. This first place we're going to go, and it only takes two or three hours to get there. But that's because somebody built a road. Somebody maintains the road. Somebody polices the road, and somebody sweeps the road or cleans the road. In fact, if it wasn't for that, I think it takes weeks to get to Philadelphia without roads.

And you might think, well, I build a road, I make the asphalt, I create this, I create that. Work that's good work helps. Work that's good work is not necessarily high paying work, and not necessarily highly skilled work. Work that's good work is work through which you are promoting the common good. Work is an expression of love.

That's the first practical guideline. Let me show you the second practical guideline. It helps to put them together. The second one is more alluded to, but again, the translation isn't as helpful as it could be. He says, make it your ambition to lead a quiet life to mind your own business. Now, that really sounds like the church lady there, doesn't it? It sounds like Paul is scolding him

and say, get to work, stopping such busy bodies. However, the commentators who study this passage have always been a little bit concerned about this translation. They put it down. But basically, literally what Paul says is work very hard. Strive, literally he says, strive for quiet. Strive for rest. Now clearly the idle people, the Thessalonian Christians who are not working, were experiencing

a disquiet. They were experiencing a lack of ease, a restlessness, a boredom. They tended to complain, they tended to be bothering other people, but the point is that there was a disquiet inside. And Paul says the antidote for that is work. Now, this is just an allusion to something that comes out of many other places, and that's this. The Bible says, and the Protestant reformers, like Calvin and Luther, and many of their

disciples really got a good handle on this, and that is they say, the work that you do should be work that fits with the insides, your abilities, your talents, your passions, your interests, and your desires. In other words, the Bible says, all work is a calling. God calls you to do work that you're equipped to do. In other words, you should look at your insides. It is a good idea to look inside and see whether or not there's a quiet there. If there's not, you may not be doing the work

that you're called to do or you may not be doing any work because you are called to do work but you're called to do certain kinds of work. Now this doesn't mean, doesn't mean, and nowhere does the Bible say that therefore every individual is called to just one job. Rather, think of it like this, think of the spectrum of jobs, okay, all the different possible kinds of work. Your gifts, your temperament, your abilities, your capacities, your experience, all the things that make you unique

mean that there is a range on that spectrum. There's a section of that spectrum. Well, there may be hundreds of jobs in that spectrum, but there's a range on that spectrum to which God has called you by who He's made you to be. That's exciting. You're supposed to look inside. You're supposed to look at your quiet or your lack of it and say, I need to find work that thrills me actually or I need to find work that inspires

me, that gets a fire going, a work that I have a desire for, a work that I have a passion for now. Let's put these two guidelines together. The two practical guidelines is you ought to do work, first of all, that fits you, but also benefits others. Or I was reading a very good article about this. A Christian man put it this way. He says, he says, ask yourself, what gets a fire in my belly? What do I have a passion about? And then secondly, what can I do that I'm passionate about? That leads to more peace and joy and justice in the world. He says, as much as possible,

you try to bring those two together. Now, some people in God's gracious arrangement find almost ideal jobs. You find jobs in which you're calling your insights and the benefits of what it's doing for other people. All come together and you find the ideal job. Again, it may not be the best paying job. It's ideal if these two things come together. If it's something you're passionate about and on the other hand, something that benefits people. And when you have that ideal job,

you've found it because you have used these two practical guidelines. On the other hand, for those of us, and there's many, many people who don't find the ideal job, they don't find a job in which both their gifts and passions and a lot of benefits to a lot of people seem to come together. But even there, I suggest, and I press you on this, and passions and a lot of benefits to a lot of people seem to come together. But even there, I suggest, and I press you on this, I, you know, I, well, I don't want to get too personally yet here, but like many, many people, being a minister is a little

bit like being an actor. In this, you spend an awful lot of time getting ready to act, doing an awful lot of other things to make money that isn't acting. And ministers also, because we have to go to school for such a long time, we spent a tremendous amount of time doing a lot of other things besides being ministers, being speakers and so forth. But one of the things I realized, as I worked on this years ago, was that when I had a job that really wasn't a great mix of my gifts and benefiting other

people, being a short-order cook, for example, in a golf shop is the ideal job for me. I didn't think so. On the other hand, you can always take those two principles and you have to say to yourself, first of all, how can I use as much as possible my gift mix, my particular gifts to do this job in a way that fits with that? I mean if I was a communicator, but I was also working for a landscape maintenance crew in what way could I use my gifts? There's always what you can always find some way of putting yourself in a position where at least more of your gifts are tapped into and on the other side You have to also consider and always think that maybe what I'm doing, sweeping a street, doesn't seem to be changing people's lives,

but it's for the common good. You have to take those two practical guidelines, and as much as possible, even with your unideal jobs, try to fit it in with your gifts, and remind yourself that this is part of civilization. This is part of what I'm doing is benefiting people. I'm producing maybe not thing that seems very significant, but I'm helping people. I'm loving people.

And you fill your heart with that. As a Christian, you can take unideal jobs and use those two practical principles to make them tolerable while you're looking for a better one. The two practical guidelines are incredibly important for finding a job or enjoying the job you've got. But now this isn't enough. No, no, no, it's not enough at all. And here's why.

We've already helped a little bit by saying, now the purposes of what you're doing when you're looking for a job is you're trying to answer God's calling to you and you're trying to benefit the people around you. You are not supposed to be trying so much with your job, your primary purpose should not be A, to make money or B, to get an identity. Get a status. Know something about yourself.

It's estimated that most of us spend half of our waking hours at work. How does the wisdom of the Bible apply to our careers? In other words, how can our work connect with God's work and help us make our vocations more emotional? In his book, Every Good Endeavour, Tim Keller draws from decades of teaching on work and calling to show you how to find true joy in your work as you serve God and others. The book offers surprising insights into how the Christian view of work can provide the foundation of a thriving professional and balanced personal life. Every good endeavor is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share Christ's love with more people around the world.

Just visit Gospel and Life.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. And yet you see, if I've found over the years, if I just give you those two practical guidelines, you might say, well, that's all very nice, very nice. I'm supposed to honor my talents that God's give me, I'm supposed to benefit other people, but I continually find myself being pulled into doing my work for the money period, or certainly for my identity, my status, I find myself being wrapped up in my work.

And when you identify with your work that emotionally, so that if you're not doing well in your work, you're nobody. What ends up happening is when you do work either for money or for status, work either becomes too important in your life or too unimportant in your life. Becomes too important or too unimportant. Now, on the one hand, too important, you burn out. You work too much. You go berserk. You go crazy. You're all wrapped up in it or

Because work is that kind of draining. You go to the other side and you say I'm just gonna do something to just just get a paycheck Period and work becomes too unimportant and you don't do work well Or you cut corners ethically or you don't do work well, or you cut corners ethically, or you don't care the fact that all you're really doing is manufacturing trivialities, and not really helping anybody. Work either becomes too important to you, or not important enough.

Dorothy Sayers says that it's not just that you are supposed to as a Christian work for the benefit of others, but you have to make sure that your work is a gracious, gracious expression of creative energy. What does she mean by that? Well, it's in the Bible and it's here in Paul. First of all, two things.

You have to see that your work, first of all, is an expression of the energy of the creator. God is creative. You know, it says here interestingly enough in verse 11, make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and work with your hands just as we told you. Now, why in the world does Paul say work with your hands? Every commentator recognizes that this was a smack right in the face of the dominant culture.

Because the dominant culture, the Greeks and the Romans believed that by and large work was degrading, but some kinds of work were less degrading than others. I even put a quote in the very front of the reflection by Cicero. Cicero says, you know, if you get paid for manual labor, hard toil, that's sorted, that's degrading. He even points out that retail is degrading and sorted.

No, no, no. The way the Greeks understood it is, if you got into the world of thought, if you got into the world of the mind, if you got into the world of the arts, well, at least then you weren't doing anything too physical, and that kind of work wasn't as degrading. Paul goes out of his way to say, work with your hands. He's really saying to the Christians, just because you've lived in a culture that thinks that work is degrading and physical and manual labor is the most degrading. He says, I don't want you to be shaped by the culture. Paul is saying something that he's saying something, and the Bible says something, no other religion says.

William Temple put it this way in his very interesting book, Christianity and the Social Order. He was the Archbishop of Canterbury, I think, and when he wrote this, he said, look at the Bible, creation, consummation, incarnation, resurrection. What do they all have in common? God will his hands in the dirt. Creation, the Greeks, Eastern religions all say,

oh no, God isn't physical. In creation, God's hands in the dirt, creating. At consummation, God is cleaning up after the great battle and building a city. In the incarnation God becomes physical in the resurrection, He redeems the physical. And so what Paul is saying is, we have in God not what the Greeks think,

the Greeks thought of God as someone who didn't really create matter. If there was a divine realm, you got to it by kind of getting away from matter. If you got to the divine realm, you got from being away from work, that kind of brought you down into the world. Instead, you contemplated, you tried to escape it. That's not the Christian approach. The Christian approach is that all work has dignity and all work has value, all work. No work is sorted. No work is degrading because Jesus was a carpenter and God dug ditches and therefore because God is a creator and He loves to put His hands into the matter and create. A Christian knows that even if you're being

ordered out of chaos by sweeping the streets in New York and boy I'm so glad somebody does, 12,000 people an hour go by in the corner of 59th and Lexington. There wouldn't be civilization if somebody didn't sweep the streets. If you're sweeping the streets or if you're preaching the sermon, this is what all the reformers, Calvin Luther would all say this, to sweep the street or to preach a sermon is bringing order out of chaos, is taking the material world that God loves and made and making it orderly and making it livable and redeeming it. And therefore, to sweep the street and to preach a sermon are both valuable work, valuable

to God. We have to see that what we do, if you're an artist, you're just doing what God did. He's a creator and you're creating, but if you're sweeping a street, or if I'm preaching a sermon, we're all trying to do basically the same thing. All of our work has value before God. All work, in a sense, is work with the hands. Or another way Paul is trying to say, and the Bible says work with the hands is not fundamentally different.

Jesus was a carpenter. God had his hands in the mud. And so the first mode of the two motivational principles is your job is to simply mirror your master, who was the creator, and who loved this world. He didn't, we're not being redeemed out of this world. We're being redeemed for this world. God invented souls and bodies and He's redeeming souls and bodies.

And therefore all work is valuable. But the last motivational principle is this. It's not in the text. This is one of the problems with printing this text, the way we do, and not printing you the whole context. But up in chapter 4 verse 1. And Drew Field was here two weeks ago, and he preached on this, as goes, we're going through chapter 4.

Up in chapter 4 verse 1 and 2, it says, Paul says, we instructed you how to live in order to please God. And then he goes into a section on sex, which we looked at last week, and now he goes into a section on sex, which we looked at last week, and now he goes into a section on work. But the important thing you have to realize, as Paul says here, what he says in Ephesians and Colossians as well, he says, fundamentally, you have got to work to please God. He says, you have to work to please God, not your market segment, not your supervisor. God becomes your boss.

God becomes your market segment. God becomes your audience. God becomes your supervisor. Now at first you may say, oh no, no, no, that would be terrible. A lot of people will say that would be the worst possible thing. You read Ephesians 6 where Paul says, he says, now when you do your work, don't work for your boss, don't work for your masters, work for God. That's what he's saying here.

And some people say that would be terrible. That would be awful. Because right now, at least I can stretch of stretch my lunch break a little bit. If I was working for God, I couldn't do that. My boss went to the Hamptons on Tuesday this week, and I had to work on Wednesday and Friday. Well, there was nobody around, so I did a lot of things I wouldn't dare have done if the boss was there. If you're telling me I have to work with God looking at me,

my goodness, well, then I would have had a very bad Wednesday and Friday. But you're missing the point, and I'm going to have to remind you of something that Drew would have alluded to. When the Bible says, you should live in order to please God. That is not the same as when the Bible says, you are to live in order to please God. That is not the same as when the Bible says, you are to live in order to appease God.

You can either do your work tomorrow on Monday, in order to feel good about yourself, to have self-esteem, and maybe even to appease God. You see, plenty of people are moral and they do their work and they say, well, I'm doing all this work because I want God to hear me. I want God to help me.

I want God to answer my prayers. I want to feel good about myself. That's to appease God. Plenty of people are very moral. Plenty of people are very diligent. Plenty of people are very disciplined. Plenty of people are working like crazy to move up their career ladder.

And they're saying I'm doing this to please my parents in a way to please God to to know I'm a good person. Well that's not what the word please means. When the Bible says live in order to please God it means live for the sure pleasure of giving pleasure to God. To living to a peace God is not the same thing as living to please God. And I'll put it to you in the most philosophical way I can because I don't have time to drag it out. Jonathan Edwards in his book, The Nature of True Virtue,

lays it on a line away. I've never seen anywhere else. Edward says, unless you've experienced the grace of God, unless you know that you're not saved by your work, unless you know that God embraces you because of Jesus' work, unless you've experienced the grace of God, then when you go to help the poor or when you go to your job, no matter what you do, as good as it seems to be, you're doing it at a self-interest. You never help the person and you never do the job for the sheer joy of the person or the sheer joy of the job.

You're always doing it in order to get something from God. But if you know, God loves you because of what Jesus has done. If you know, God has embraced you because of His work that you're in, that you're accepted. Now when I move out into the world, I do the work I do for the sheer joy of pleasing my master and for the sheer joy of it. I don't love people in order to get something from them. I love people for who they are themselves.

I don't help the poor because then it makes me feel good about myself. I do it simply because the poor is valuable. But I don't do things for God so that I get things from Him. I do things simply to give joy to His heart because of what He's done for me. And Edwards goes so far as to say, it's impossible to do anything of true virtue unless you've experienced the grace of God in the Gospel, because you never do anything good just for the sheer joy of its goodness, just for the sheer joy of the work well done, for the sheer joy of pleasing your master who's in heaven,

for the sheer value of the person made in the image of God who you're helping. No, no, no, no, until you know that you're not saved by your works, but you're saved by grace, everything you do is filled with self-interest. And therefore, everything you do is filled with anxiety. Everything you do will burn you out eventually. This is the great irony. Until you learn to work for God's sake, for people's sake,

and for the work's sake, instead of for money's sake, and people's sake, and for the work's sake, instead of for money's sake and status's sake, here's what's so odd. Until you work not for your sake, but for God's sake, the work will not fulfill you. That's the reason why Jesus says you have to lose yourself to find yourself. If you work for personal fulfillment, I tell you work will either be too important to you or too unimportant to you. It will, you will work yourself to death or else you'll be completely cynical. If you work for fulfillment, you get no fulfillment. If you work for him, all the fulfillment in the world. They'll be quiet. They'll be rest.

Don't you see? There's a work that arises out of deep rest. It says in Hebrews, they remaineth a rest for the people of God, that when you understand the gospel of what Jesus has done for you, you enter into that rest, you rest from your works, you rest from the need, to your work, define yourself, and earn that sense of self-worth, but instead what happens to you? Instead you work in response to the rest, which means you always work in a way that's good, in a way that's excellent.

Of course you're working for the Lord, but you don't overwork. Oh no. It's so interesting. You know, the great and very famous place in the chariots of fire, chariots of fire, two people, Eric L. Harold Abrams. Both of them are running, both of them are seeking the gold medal. Remember what Eric Liddell says in chariots of fire? He says to his sister, he says, I believe God made me for China.

I do want to be a missionary, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure. Chapter four verse one, chapter four verse 11. When I run, I feel his pleasure. He made me fast. When I answer my calling. See? When I answer my calling, and I seek to please him because I know that I'm his child, I feel his pleasure. He runs, he ran very hard, he worked very hard, he got a gold medal. On the other hand, he have

Harold Abrams, and what does Harold Abrams say? He says, I'm 24, and I've never known contentment. I'm forever in pursuit. I donams say? He says, I'm 24, and I've never known contentment. I'm forever in pursuit. I don't even know what it is I'm chasing. When I run, I have 10 seconds, because he was a sprinter. I have 10 seconds to justify my existence. Do you see it? Here's two men.

They're working very hard. One with joy, one without joy. One doesn't even know what he's after. The other certainly does. And the whole point of that, you know what the member of the point of that movie was? There was a limit to Liddell's work. Because he ran for the pleasure of God. He ran very hard, but he was a limit.

He didn't run on Sundays. Remember that? Oh, by the way, the main meat is on Sunday. I'm sorry. I always take Sundays off. Here's a man who worked like crazy, but there was a border, there was a boundary, there was a limit. He didn't overwork. To work for God, God will never overwork you. You overwork because you don't have His Sabbath rest.

The rest of the gospel in your heart. Jesus Christ. He looked at Mary and he looked at Martha. Martha was running around, remember? Working like crazy, Mary was sitting at his feet. Martha came up and said, why doesn't she get to work? And Jesus says, Mary has found proper priorities. I'm paraphrasing.

Martha Martha, he says, you're anxious and troubled about many things. Come to me first, get my rest first, and then you will work much, much better. You won't overwork, you won't underwork, and you will work so diligently, you'll even work hard when the boss is in the Hamptons. See? Jesus Christ says, come unto me, all ye who labor in our heavy laid and I will

give you rest. The reason you'll work hard even when the boss isn't there is because you're not over working in your soul. What kind of work do you have? Rested work or restless work? Come unto me, all ye who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Let's pray. Our Father, would you give us the ability to apply these practical guidelines and these

motivational principles to ourselves and sort of troubleshoot ourselves? Some of us are overworked, some of us are cynical in our work, some of us are doing things that our parents wanted us to do, but really on our calling. Some of us are doing things that are making money, but they're not helping anybody much. Some of us are doing things that are close to dishonest, but they make us money. And Lord, as a result of all this, there will be a deadness inside. If not now later, there will be a disquiet. Show us how to live a quiet life, work with our hands, not be a drain to others.

Show us how to graciously express the creative energy you put into us when you made us and redeemed us, help us to turn around with that energy and serve others with it. And everything we do, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to Today's Teaching by Tim Keller, here at Gospel and Life. We want to share a special free resource with you during the season of Lent. For the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel and Life would like to send you a daily devotional. Sign up to receive this daily email at gospelinlife.com-lent. That's gospelinlife.com-lent.

This month's sermons were recorded in 2006 and 2007. 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.