Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Work Wholeheartedly

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Consider how much of your time, how much of your life, is built around your work. Yet, so many of the books and materials that look at what it means to live as Christians only focus on our evenings and our weekends. How are we to be a Christian on the job? We’re going to look at some basic principles of what God says we must do to approach our work and our jobs in a Christian way. Looking at Ephesians 6, we see that this passage knocks down two false views of work: 1) that work is a curse and leisure is the meaning of life, and 2) that work is the meaning of life. And then we’ll see 3) how you get the power to transform your view and aim of work. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 3, 1991. Series: Work & Faith. Scripture: Ephesians 6:5-9. 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. If you have a job, it's likely that you think about it. A lot. But how much have you thought about the biblical approach to your work? Today on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller shows us that the Bible has incredibly helpful and practical wisdom we can apply to the work we do, wisdom you may find surprising, even life-changing. Ephesians chapter 6, we're going to read verses 5 through 9. Something about the subject, please. We had a long series on marriage, as you know, as we got to Ephesians 5. And last week and this

week I've just decided to move on through quickly two very important subjects, not necessarily the most inspiring subjects, not the kind of sermons or preaching that everybody comes out saying, wow, that was so inspiring. The one subject is the relationships of parents to children, that was last week, and today the relationships within the workplace of master to servant, of employer to manager to worker. Now, we're going to look at that tonight and this will be the only night we talk about it. Again, I'll get back to it in a second, again, it's not the most inspiring subject and yet it is so important because when you stop and consider how much of your time, how

much of your life is built around your work, and when you consider that the average Christian, when they, he or she sits down to try to say, what does it mean for me to live my life out as a Christian, if somebody gives you a book on discipleship, here's what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, here's what it means to be a Christian and to walk as a Christian, you will find if you look carefully that basically that's really telling you almost all that material, and I ought to know I've written some of it, so I'm part of it, almost all that material tells you how to be a Christian in the evenings and on the weekends. And since so many of you work on Saturday and get home at 10 o'clock at night, there's really not a lot of time in which you can be a Christian. Because,

you see, nobody is telling you how to be a Christian on the job and in your work. So we have to look at it. I need to say, though, like I said, it's not so much inspiring material as it is important material. It's material that takes all of your wisdom to apply. It's not going to be easy to apply, but you have to say, unless I get this, unless I get the hang of this, there's large sections of my life in which I'm not really letting Christ impact my behavior.

Starting next week, we're going to start a series. We're going to get down to chapter 6 verse 10. And I'm just letting you know that we're going to start another series. Basically this has been a series of series with a couple of connector things like the one this week we're doing. But when we get down to verse 10 where it says, finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but with the rulers, against authorities and against powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God. We're going

to take a lot of time to look at that. I think that there is tremendous amount of teaching in this passage. It's actually verse 10 tremendous amount of teaching in this passage, actually verse 10 to 20 of chapter 6. It's about spiritual warfare. It's about supernatural evil. It's actually in many ways about what it means to live the Christian life militarily. And it doesn't mean that Christian is somebody who likes war. It doesn't mean that a Christian is somebody who likes war, it doesn't mean a Christian is somebody, a hawk in the Gulf War. What we're talking instead of is a Christian is a person who is absolutely realistic about the nature of life. Christians do not look through their life, at life through rose-colored glasses, because the Bible is not a set of

rose-colored glasses. The Bible says the Christian can be known as much for the fight in his life as for the peace in his life. In fact, there's a certain sense in which the real difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is not that a Christian has got a life of peace and a non-Christian a life of conflict, but rather that when you become a Christian, places you had conflict, you develop peace, and places you had peace, you develop conflict. What happens is the battle moves around, and Christianity is by no means, like I said, sentimental. It says a Christian is somebody who knows that it's a very, very difficult, dangerous world out there.

You expect to be shot at all the time. You're never running home saying, as Elizabeth Elliott once said, if you're in the ring and you got the boxer trunks on, don't come running back to the guy in the corner saying, that man hit me. Because your coach will say, if you don't want to get hit, get out of the ring. Being a Christian means you're in the ring. You can't complain about the fact that you come home every day bloody. A Christian is somebody who, instead of saying, that man hit me, a Christian says, I've got to get on the armor, I've got to

get prepared, I've got to see what it is. So we're going to spend a pretty good amount of time talking about the fact that Christianity is a fight. One great book on the Christian life by John White. It's an intervarsity press book. Many of you may know. It's one of the best overall books to give somebody who wants to understand what does it mean to live a Christian life.

It's called The Fight. He's realistic. Okay? Now, but today, tonight, I would just look at briefly at another area where there's a lot of fighting going on. Even if it's not outside, it's certainly inside. And I'd like to look at Ephesians 6, and I'm just going to read verses 5 to 9 and map out this evening some of the most basic principles of what God tells you you must do in approaching work in a Christian way and approaching your job. Let me just read from verses five through nine. Slaves, you say, oh, this is me. Okay. Obey your earthly Oh, this is me. OK.

Obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him." This is God's word.

All right, some general principles, then some practical. General in background, then practical. This passage raises a lot of thorny issues. And fortunately, since we're not making the Christian and work a series, I'll just pass lightly on all of them. But again, they're important. First thing is you must keep in mind that this is another indication that Christianity is a whole life

religion. That Christianity has to touch every part of your life. That you're not a Christian unless every part of your life has been completely reoriented. Actually, this is another way of saying that a Christian doesn't do anything like a non-Christian. Oh, a Christian does plenty of things that non-Christians do, but no, a Christian doesn't do anything in the same way. Otherwise, why would Paul work out in such detail in every area of life? If you've been coming in the evening, you know, through Ephesians, you'll see that in every single area of life, Paul says, this is what it means to be filled with the Spirit, in communication. This is what it means in your marriage. This is what it means in your family. This is what it means in your relationship to your parents, in your workplace. This is what it means in your social relationships. This is what it means in your marriage, this is what it means in your family, this is what it means in your relationship to your parents, in your workplace, this is what it means

in your social relationships, this is what it means in your understanding of culture, and so on. Why would Paul say that unless a Christian in every area is doing things differently? That means that Christianity is not a Sunday thing or an evening thing, it's an all-day, it's a whole-life thing. That's the reason why when Paul says, be filled with the Spirit, he works out in every single area of life. Secondly, you really got to keep in mind that Paul is still telling people what it means to be filled with the Spirit. Now the trouble with long-winded preachers like myself is that it's been weeks and weeks. I forget, it was June I think when we looked at verse

17 of chapter 5 and 18 where it says, don't be drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit. And then he goes on and says, being filled with the Spirit means that you talk to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and you make melody in your heart to the Lord and you thank God for everything? How did I do that? Oh, there we go. Wow, I got to be careful about that. That was the mic. That was not me, honest. I didn't have supper. So, boy. I'm not that long winded. So anyway, long winded. When you're long winded, you might sometimes a minister like myself can make you lose track of the fact that there is, that Paul is still talking about what it means to be filled with the Spirit. Because in verse 21 he said, submit to one another. Then he begins

to move into all areas of life to show how Spirit-filled people relate to the people around them. Now this should at least tell you this, especially those of you who have come out of churches that put lots of emphasis on being filled with the Spirit? Something we, I think, got to last week in the morning services was this. When the Bible talks about what it means to be filled with the Spirit, it always talks about the heart. The heart is affected by the Spirit. Now, something that probably needs to be brought out all the time is in the Bible the word heart does not really have the same meaning that it tends to have in English. In English the word heart means the emotions. The heart is something that's opposed to the

head. And that's the reason why Maria can say, you know, my head tells me one thing but my heart, Anita, my heart tells me that this is what I want to do. And you see the heart and the head are put against one another. In the Bible, the word heart is the seat of the whole soul. And that means you can think with your heart and you can will with your heart and you can feel with your heart. And you'll see different places in the Bible where it talks about, as a man thinketh in his heart, and so forth. The heart is the seat of the mind, the will, and the emotions. And the way you know that the Spirit of God is really affecting you

in the heart is that your religion is not just emotional. We talked about this a couple weeks ago in the morning service. Not just emotional, and not just volitional, and not just intellectual. This is a very, very important thing to consider. Some of you know, some of you have been converted since you started coming to this church, and yet you were very religious before. Now, you're an interesting kind of person, and very often sitting down you can look back and say, you know, my parents aren't going to believe this, a lot of people aren't going to believe this because I've been in church for years and yet I was never a Christian until I came here. And very often if you sit down and talk and you think about it, you'll

be able to identify that you didn't understand the gospel but there was some signs. You should have been aware of it. Because in some cases, your religion was nothing but intellectual. That means you thought about the Bible and you knew a lot and you argued about it and you got your thinking straight. And yet there was never any emotional sense of the presence of God, there was never any passion, there was never any warmth, that's the emotional side. And volitionally, that means in behavior, there was never much in the way of change going on in your life. You couldn't say, well, I'm more loving than I was last year.

I'm more patient than I was last year. I'm more wise than I was last year. Then other folks say, my life was a volitional one. That means I was a very dutiful, disciplined person, but there was no growth in my thinking. And I never sensed I had a real relationship with God, you see. Now, many people may find that though they love worship and though they seem to be having tremendous emotional experiences, and they say therefore I must be filled with the Spirit, yet when it comes down to it, Paul is saying if there isn't a progressive transformation

in all of your living areas and your life relationships, you're not filled with the Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit is not a matter of crying at worship services. It's not a matter of super high emotions, though of course it includes those things. Yes, it does. But you know, to be filled with the Spirit, you know it, you feel it. But you can be thinking you're filled with the Spirit and have an emotional experience unless it's working out in the way in which you relate to people on the job, in the way in which you relate to your parents. In all of these areas, unless those things have changed, you're not filled with the Spirit. Now that's the most, in some ways, the most obvious point

of this passage, and you'd miss it completely unless you stand back and say, what is Paul saying? You look at the context, which is hard to see, again, when you come to this church because I go along so slowly through the passage. The main point is you're not filled with a spirit unless you find that the way in which you relate to people on the job has really been changed. Okay now one more background area, one more background thing, a general thing, but it's not unimportant. It's not practical, but it's a big issue. You can't really go by it. In fact, if I don't go by it, somebody's going to come up and ask me about it afterwards anyway. Does this passage condone slavery? Now you see, there's been two kinds of enemies of the Gospel who have really misused this passage. One kind, unfortunately, enemies of the Gospel were people who didn't think

they were enemies of the Gospel. They were people in the Church, they were clergy, who have used this passage to say, yes, slavery is fine. And if you want to go back to the 1850s and the 1860s, you will find United States clergymen, especially in the South, justifying the institution of slavery on the basis of this passage. They say, hey, you know what it says to slaves? It doesn't say get going. It says obey your masters. It says, you see, well, there we go.

And on the other hand, there's other people who have misused this. There's people who said, see, the Bible does condone slavery, and that just shows that the Bible is a good book in many ways, but basically a backward-looking book, a primitive book, a book with retrograde morality. This is an unworthy text. And so there's a lot of good things in the Bible, but basically there's things in the Bible that really are not good. There's things that are backward-looking, that are bad, that we have to reject, that

are immoral even. It supports this, it supports racism, it supports classism, it supports slavery, and so on. Well, neither of those folks are right. Especially, I have to say, the latter people. It's an illogical thing to say, since the Bible condemns slavery and since we know slavery is wrong, therefore the Bible is characterized by inferior morality at this point. You see, friends, the Bible claims to be revelation from God. And if God has spoken and if God has revealed Himself

and said this is what's right and this is what's wrong, then there really can be absolute principles of morality that we can say to everybody no matter what you think this is right and this is wrong. This is a universal absolute truth. This is objective truth just like the law of gravity. You've got to believe it. But if there's no revelation, if there's no place that God has spoken and told us what

is right and wrong, then all morality is a matter of opinion. All morality. And I like to know where you get this high standard of morality by which you can judge the scripture. Where does it come from? You see, if there's no revelation, then it's a matter of opinion and you might have your opinion, but there's no revelation, then it's a matter of opinion, and you might have your opinion, but there's no way you could consider this inferior. You see that? You have no basis for saying so. Now, the fact is, the reason I know, and the reason you should know that slavery is wrong,

is because we believe the Bible's revelation. First, there's two things you've got to say about this passage in slavery. First of all, no, of course it doesn't say, in this spot, slaves go get loose. You got to remember, again, the context. The context is, what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit and how is that going to affect tomorrow every one of your relationships? It's natural and normal, in a sense, that the Bible never deals with a social issue abstractly.

It always deals with it from the standpoint of how does this relate to your relationship with God. Again, a couple weeks ago we pointed this out. The Bible in a sense will not, this is in the morning service so I'll bring this up here. I mentioned this. The Bible in a sense does not even, will not even, the New Testament will not even talk to you about most issues until you decide what you think about Jesus. There's a sense in which it won't even let you get to other issues. People will say, well I'm interested in being a Christian but I don't know what I believe about evolution. Or they say I like to be, I'm interested in Christianity and I might be interested in Christ but I don't understand what he means by turn the

other cheek. Or I like a lot of things but I'm interested in Christianity and I might be interested in Christ, but I don't understand what he means by turn the other cheek. Or I like a lot of things, but I'm afraid if I become a Christian that this is going to change my politics one way or the other. Or even a person says, I'd like to come to Christianity, but I first have to find out what I would have to do in this or that area of my life. And there's a sense in which the New Testament says, there's no way we're going to answer those questions. There's no way, the New Testament writers say, we're going to answer those questions. First, what do you think of him? Now the reason they do that is because they say if Christianity was basically an intellectual philosophy,

then you could have your answers to your philosophical questions before you come to him. But if Christianity is essentially a relationship, a personal relationship, then you have to figure out what you think of him, whether what he says about himself is true or not, and whether you're going to accept or reject him. Otherwise, everything else the New Testament says makes no sense. It's silly to say, I don't know if Jesus is God, but I want to know what the Bible says, what Christianity says, about slavery. It's ridiculous to even ask a question like that. The point is if Jesus isn't God, who cares what the Bible says about slavery? If Jesus isn't God, who cares what anybody thinks? It's all a matter of opinion. On the other hand, if Jesus is God, then we can talk. Once you understand that, once you accept Him, once

you receive Him into your life, then all sorts of things that he says will start to make sense, but not until then. See that? And, you know, the great illustration is that, you know, marriage is a complex thing, as you know, so we spent nine weeks on it. There's all sorts of facets to it. And there's a lot of things that you do in marriage, a lot of issues, a lot of business you do, but every so often, you know, one person or the other, right, will suddenly stop and say we can't do anything else because there's something wrong with our relationship.

We can't make this decision, we can't go on this trip, we can't buy this thing because our relationship's a mess. We can't go any further until we get that straight. Why? Because marriage ultimately and first of all is a personal relationship, right? And it's only secondarily a financial or a business or a travel partnership. In the same way, Christianity says, first, first, first, your relationship with God, that's the first issue. And that's why you never see Christianity dealing with any issue, of a social issue, abstractly. The first thing Paul's going to say to slaves is, well, let's debate whether or not it's right or wrong for you to leave, whether we should start an abolitionist movement. That's not

the first thing he says. The first thing he says is, tomorrow, if you're filled with the Spirit, how's that going to affect the way in which you deal with your master? See, that's why he's doing it that way. He's not condoning slavery here. He's talking about how slaves are going to live their lives tomorrow. He's immediate. He's practical. And he's dealing with things from a Godward relationship point of view. We absolutely have to remember that. And that's really critical. And by the way, and we'll say one more thing in a minute about slavery and Christianity. One other thing is whatever God says to these people about how to conduct their work life. Whatever he says to these

people, if it works for them, it probably ought to work for you. You can laugh about being slaves, but you're not. You can laugh at saying, I'm miserable, but you weren't as miserable as these people were, I can tell you that. You can laugh about being poorly paid and overworked, but these people were more poorly paid and more overworked. You can grump about lack of independence, these people had a little less than you do. If it 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 how can our vocations be more missional?

In his book, Every Good Endeavor, Tim Keller draws from decades of teaching on vocation 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 a Christian perspective on work can serve as the foundation for a thriving career and a balanced personal life. Every good endeavor is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel In Life share Christ's love with more people around the world. Just visit www.gospelinlife.com. That's www.gospelinlife.com. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now, one more thing, and that is, you can't find a verse actually that tells people that there's nothing, you're not going to find a verse in the Bible that says we need to

abandon slavery. Not only that, you don't see a verse in the Bible that says whether or not you should belong to a labor union. You're not going to find a verse that says a lot of things. And here's the reason why. Because what the Bible does is it lays down universal principles that apply to everything. If it went after this or that social institution and dealt with it in a detailed way,

there'd be big sections of the scripture we could just say, ugh, that doesn't apply to us. Who got rid of slavery? It was essentially, and I think most people would agree with this, most historians would certainly agree with it, it was essentially Christians and evangelical Christians. There was a friend of mine who's now passed away but who was a history professor and a student of history at Yale University and he did his dissertation there on abolitionism in the States.

And he says, you know, a historian doesn't think the way normal people do. He says a historian doesn't say, look at the abolition of slavery and say, why did people put up with it that long? You know, how could those people have ever put up with slavery? It's amazing it took so long for people to abolish it. The historian asked the question, since everybody, everywhere did it, as far back as human beings

can ever remember, that the strong enslaved the weak and the conquerors enslaved the conquered. Since everybody had done it from whenever, why did it ever get into anybody's mind that it was wrong? The historian says it's a complete enough – it's very difficult to understand. And he says the point is that people got the idea that it was wrong from the Bible, in Britain and here. In Britain, there was a man named William Wilberforce who was a very wealthy person born in the lap of luxury who lived in the early 19th century and who led a lifelong battle to get it abolished in the British Empire. Why? Because you see, William Wilberforce didn't necessarily find a verse about slavery

one way or the other. Instead, he found all the passage, he found the Ten Commandments, he found the Golden Rule. Love your neighbor as yourself. Pay people wages. Treat every human being with dignity. And it's just very easy to see that you don't, every human being is the image of God, you don't have the right to own people, to sell people, to kill people, to say who's gonna marry who, and so forth, in that sense. And therefore, the Christians understood that and they got rid of it. And that's the reason why you can say, you know, this passage condones slavery. Actually, it doesn't abolish it, it doesn't condone it, it's not talking about that. How do we know that slavery is wrong,

though? Because we know, well, the Bible obviously is a backward-looking document. If the Bible is a backward-looking document, if there is no revelation, you have no way of judging what progress is. No way at all. It's a crap shoot. The deconstructionists know it. They're saying that. They're saying all beliefs are social constructions. Basically there's no right and wrong. All beliefs are socially constructed out of your own imagination and basically out of communities. And if that's true, then which end is up? This end up we don't know. There's no way of dealing with progress. The reason I know that slavery is wrong is because the scripture says so.

Because Christianity lays out, you know, in a sense, Paul, even in this passage and other places, if you look carefully, has sown the seeds of his destruction. Now the practical. What we've got are several principles, actually two, and only two. Let me tell them to you now and then go back and just elaborate on them until we're finished. Let me tell them to you now. There's two false views of work that this passage knocks down. First false view of work is that work is a curse and that leisure is the meaning of life. And here it tells us that you should be doing

work as if it's the will of God and you should be doing it from the heart. The second false view of work, so the first view is that work is a curse and leisure is the meaning of life. The second false view of work is that work is the meaning of life. And leisure is just something that, you know, in other words, the first view says we work in order to really live. And the second view says we live in order to work. All I do is I just have enough leisure so I can just get back in there. Just enough so I don't completely kill myself.

Leisure is my fulfillment, work is my fulfillment. Now I'm giving it to you in a nutshell. Both of these things are very, very dangerous. If work is a curse and leisure is the meaning of life, if that view of work gets into somebody or gets into a population, gets into a society, what really happens, of course, is what is happening. One quarter of all human, well, no, but actually I want to show you that in our culture both these false views of work are growing extremely fast because of the secularization of our society, because God's out of the picture. If God's out of the picture, either leisure is the meaning of life or work is the meaning of life. Now, if leisure is the meaning of life and all I do, work is a curse and I don't

really care whether I'm getting anything done, whether I'm helping anybody, whether I enjoy what I'm doing, I just want to get enough dollars so I can really live, do the things that I want. In a situation like that, productivity goes down, pride in our work goes down, quality of product goes down. Do you know that today one quarter, study show, one quarter of all American workers are deeply ashamed of what they're producing in the workplace? That's deeply ashamed, okay? Three quarters of all people, three quarters of all people in the workplace say that the quality of the work at this place was better 10 years ago. That's pretty scary as well. Well, what happens, of course, is to all society when that happens.

And the third bad response, or the third problem, is dishonesty becomes routine when work is a curse. You don't have pride in your work, you don't see yourself as a servant of anybody, and therefore you're going to cut corners wherever you can. is a curse. You don't have pride in your work, you don't see yourself as a servant of anybody, and therefore you're going to cut corners wherever you can. You're going to get whatever you can out of people. You're going to work strictly for the short term in getting the bucks, not for the long term in the good of the economy or the good of community or good of people. Isn't that right? And so what you have is the great temptation of dishonesty over here on the left. That's an accident. I'm not talking about the left, but on my

left hand. It could be on my right. I'm not talking about politics here. So on the one hand, work is a curse. However, I must point out to some degree, it's a bit of a blue-collar problem. Because on the other hand, we've got the other problem. That is, whereas people work in order to live, there's other people who live only to work. Work as self-fulfillment. Work as the meaning of my life. Now the problem with this view and the problem that happens here is work, whereas it should be your dignity, it's become your definition. It's the thing that gives you even meaning in life. And of course the great danger on this side is the danger of workaholism and burnout. And you see what's interesting is the temptation of dishonesty and the temptation to overwork are both,

both stem from a lack of trust in God. If you are dishonest to try to get more money, you're simply saying, I can't trust God to take care of me. On the other hand, if you are burning yourself out to work, in many cases, again, you're saying, I can't really trust God to support and take care of me either. They both stem from basically getting God out of the picture. Now let's talk about these two things briefly. And you see, on the one hand, the passage goes against the idea of work as a curse. It says, do your work as the will of God.

It gets rid of the view of work as self-fulfillment, you see, because it's saying you're working for God. See, this person over here says, I'm working for the master. I'm just putting my time in. I'm working, you know, I've got the ball and chain on me. I'm just working for the master. I'm just putting my time in. I'm working, you know, I've got the ball and chain on me, I'm just working for the money. Over here it says I'm working for myself to fulfill myself, to know that I'm a great person, to know that I really can accomplish something. And the Bible says if you work for either for money or for yourself,

the whole society will go down and you yourself will eventually break apart. So you have to transform, first of all, your view of work. It's not a curse, it's a calling. And then secondly, you have to transform the aim of your work. It's not self-fulfillment, but it's service and stewardship of your gifts to please God. If you get those two things down, by and large, you're going to find an awful lot of your problems, not only in society, but in the workplace, will work themselves out. Now, I got a couple minutes, so let me go back and try to elaborate each of these a little bit.

On the one hand, work is a curse. That comes from the classical traditions. It comes from the Greeks and from the Romans. If anybody has read, if you read your Greek mythology close enough, you remember the little story of Pandora? Zeus gave Pandora a box when the world was perfect. There was no problems in the world. And Zeus gave Pandora a box and says, don't open that box. This is a real sexist myth anyway. We all know that. Because you give it to a woman, so the woman is to blame. And at least, you know, at least in the, in Genesis, the man and the woman do it together, you know, and then they blame each other. Which

we all know is absolutely realistic. But, you know, in the Greek myth, it is a sexist myth. First of all, the woman is the one who's to blame and she's just too curious. She doesn't have self-control. She lets her emotions get away with her. That's how the myth goes. The point I'm trying to make is when she opens the box, all sorts of things come out. Disease comes out and death comes out and hatred also.

You know what else comes out? Work. Completely different approach to the Bible. The Bible tells us that work was there from the beginning, that Abinav were put into the world to work, and that you were built to work. You were built to get something, to take care of it, to cultivate it, to create. You're made in the image of God who loves to create. You're made in the image of God who loves to take things and bring the best out of them.

And if there was no sin in the world, you'd still have work. And as far as we know, in heaven there's going to be work because you were built for it. And there can't be a real joy without it. That's totally different than the Greek and Roman notion. See, the biblical understanding is that we were put here and then sin happens through the man and the woman together. And all kinds of things come into the world but work is not one of them that was already there. It's not a curse. It's cursed. Work has been cursed but it's not a curse. Very important balance but a very difficult one to maintain. Work is cursed. That's the reason why God says to Adam and Eve,

you're going to toil in the dust and you're going to try to cultivate the earth and it will never quite go right and the thorns will come up. And that means no matter how good you are and no matter how perfect your work environment is, you're always going to find thorns coming up, frustrations, never able to quite do it. But you cannot jump from that to saying work is a curse, the Greek and the Roman idea. In fact, the Latin word for work, negotium, actually means non-leisure. It goes to show their idea was work is a curse and the best thing to do is get away from it, especially physical labor. Contrary to that, the Bible says the first man was a gardener and the first man and woman were farmers and they worked with their hands. Tremendous dignity given to work.

Aristotle and Plato says, if you've got to work, you should never work with your hands. Do art. It depends on what kind of art, right? Some of you get awfully dirty doing your art. I know that. Do music. Do philosophy.

Do politics. Anyway, the point is, don't get dirty. Do politics. Anyway, the point is, you know, don't get dirty, do politics. Oh, Aristotle, come on. The Bible says Adam and Eve worked in the garden. But more than that, the Bible says that work is a calling. Now, what does that mean? It says so not, it doesn't use that word here, though it's implied. It says so in 1 Corinthians and several other places. Work as a caller. A calling means that God has put things in you, given you abilities, and that not that there's one job for you, but that there are a range of jobs that use those abilities,

and you need to find your abilities so that you can use them as a signpost toward those jobs that you will find that they will be fulfilling. There is a fulfillment there. You remember, for example, in Chariots of Fire, here you have two guys, Eric Little and Harold Abrams, and they're both working for the prize and they're reaching for the prize and they want to be gold medalists in running. They're doing the same thing, the same work in everything. Two quotes. Eric Little at one point says to his sister, who's afraid he's not going to be a missionary in China, and eventually he did of course, but he says to her, Jenny, you've got to understand, I believe God made me for China, but he also made me fast. And when I run,

I feel his pleasure. See now there's a Christian view of work. Remember I said there's a Christian view of work, it's a calling, and the Christian aim of work, not for money and not for yourself but for him. What does he say? First of all there's the Christian view of work, God made me fast. And here's the Christian aim of work, when I run, I'm pleasing him. I feel his pleasure. Meanwhile, Harold Abraham says, I've never known contentment. I'm forever in pursuit and I don't even know what it is I'm chasing. Would you please answer me a

very personal question? In your work right now, what is the language of your heart? Do you say, man, when I do the thing I'm doing, I'm not doing it right, but when I do the thing I'm doing with all my might, I think I'm starting to find out who I really am. I'm finding myself. I feel his pleasure. Or do you say, I'm working and working and working and working like a dog, I don't even know what I'm working for, and there's no joy or contentment in it. Which are you closer to? I'll tell you this. If you're like Harold Abrams, then you have to look at these two things.

One is you have to say, am I working only for money? Have I sold my soul for a mess of potage? Is that what I've done? Or secondly, am I burning myself out? And that gets us to the other thing. Because I'm trying to define myself in terms of my work, which is a more subtle problem, and a more difficult problem for Christians to deal with.

And if you say, hey, I don't think I'm doing that either, then thirdly, maybe you just haven't really found the place that fits your gifts. So talk to people and find it. Well, now now let me just talk briefly about that other side of things. As I said that work is a curse, leisure is the meaning of life. You've got to begin to realize you're not going to find yourself that way. You have to say I am working as a steward of what

God's given me, my gifts and the world. I am to be useful to people. That's what you work for. To be useful to people. To be a steward of the things that God's given you. The world that he's given you and the gifts that he's to people. That's what you work for, to be useful to people, to be a steward of the things that God's given you, the world that he's given you and the gifts that he's given you. That's a calling, see? He's called you into that. And no matter who you are, no matter how high or how low, whether you're just, quote, a gardener or somebody sweeping, you see, as opposed to a philosopher,

the biblical understanding is whatever you do with all your might, you are pleasing him and you are honoring him. That's why Elizabeth Elliott, you know whatever you do with all your might, you are pleasing him and you are honoring him. That's why Elizabeth Elliott, you've heard me say this, Elizabeth Elliott says a clam glorifies God better than you, she would say. Why? Because a clam is doing exactly what it was built to do. It is using its capacities, it's glorifying God by being a clam, it's glorifying God by being a clam, it's perfectly everything God meant it to be. clam. It's glorifying God by being a clam. It's perfectly everything God meant it to be. And when it clams, it feels His pleasure, I'm sure. But are you being what you were meant to be? Are you using your gifts and capacities in that way for Him? Do you see

that? Okay, secondly, here's the other problem. Much more subtle and much more difficult, and this is where I have to close, is the other problem of work is the meaning of life. You see, because you heard me, didn't you hear me? Get very close to saying that as you work you find yourself. Yeah. As you work unto the Lord you find yourself. There's a place in the Narnia Chronicles where Lucy reads a beautiful story, the most beautiful

story she ever, ever, ever heard, and as soon as she closed the page, she couldn't remember it, no matter how hard she tried. But from that time on, for the rest of her life, whenever she heard a good story, she always said, I know that's a good story because it reminds me of the one that I can't quite remember. It gets me back to that story. And when I get into heaven, I'll have the story for real. There's a sense in which when we're doing our jobs well, using the gifts, feeling his pleasure, doing things with all his might, being useful to people, being a good steward of what we've got, there's almost a sense in which it gets us back in touch with that story of who we're really supposed to be that

we won't quite, we can't quite remember, we won't really know until we get there. But on the other hand, work is definition. The perfect example of that was Rocky. Rocky, sure. Go for it. What's it? Not money. Oh no. What's it? If I just go the distance, then I'll know that I'm not a bum. If I can do my job right, I know I have a self. I know I exist. And the way you know that you've moved over from work as dignity to work as being your salvation is you're working yourself into the ground. Now, you say, what about the fact that I'm scared of losing my job? People are giving me too much to do. And you see, there's plenty of people to whom work is a curse or to whom work is fulfillment of their

their meaning in life and they're your boss and when that happens It's mighty difficult for you to just sort of arrange things the way you want, but look carefully and look really at your motives What this says is you must never work for your boss You must never work for your constituency. You must never work for the people out there. How was it possible for a slave to get through a day? Paul says the only way a slave is going to get through the day is to look at the master and of course in the heart not out loud say, I am not working for you. That's how he dealt with it. That's how she dealt with it. I'm not working for you. I'm working for my master in heaven. I'm going to do the best job with my with it. I'm not working for you, I'm working for my master in heaven.

I'm going to do the best job with my gifts today. I'm going to be as useful as I possibly can. I'm not going to worry about how you think or what you feel. I am simply going to do what you asked me to do, but I'm not working for you. And until you're able to do that yourself, you're not going to be able to deal with the pressure. Hey, you know, us Christian workers have the worst problem of all, because of course you're

working for the Lord. Not necessarily at all. I have to every single week, I've got to look out there and say, I am not working for you. You see, because it is not very far to say, I really need for them to come back next week and bring somebody. That's why I'm preaching. Oh no, oh no. I got as much of a problem with being a slave to you as you've got a problem being a slave to your work or these folks have being a slave to their masters. Now here's the last thing I'll say. You've got to be a Christian to do this. You've got to be a Christian to do this because unless God is the meaning for your life and unless He's the thing you're living for, you've only got leisure money or self-fulfillment and self-actualization. You've got nothing else. And both of those

things are going to destroy the country, which they are economically, and most of all, they'll destroy you, especially if you become that workaholic that I've got to live for my work. There was a University of California Berkeley student not too long ago that went berserk in class, started running around yelling, they're getting ahead of me, they're getting ahead of me. Sure, he looked down in the gym, there were people down there who were getting ahead of him in training. There were people in the library reading books he should have been reading. They're getting ahead of him. The poor guy. Down into the ground, why? Because unless I do a great job, I won't know that I exist. Everybody's getting ahead of me. What else are you going to live for unless you live for Jesus?

You're going to have to live for money, and that's the most boring thing. I tell you, we're not built for that kind of work, and it will kill you. Your life will become like a dust storm that's choking you. But you're not built to live for work either. That'll just grind you into the ground're not built to live for work either. That'll just grind you into the ground. You'll never be able to relax. You'll never be able to say, I'm going home because I'm working for him. I'm not working for you. I'm not working even for me. I'm working for him. You've got to, by the way, have a personal relationship

with him because it says, don't work for them. Don't look at their eyes. Look at God's eyes. You've got to be a Christian. You've got to have looked him in the eye, and you've got to keep looking him in the eye. And when you take your eye off of him, one way or the other, work will be a curse. It'll be a millstone around your neck and down you'll go. Jenny, he says, I know God made me for China, but he also made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure. He felt the pleasure of working for him.

Let's pray. Now, Father, we thank you that you have shown us so much here, even though we only had a brief period of time to look at it, I pray now that you would enable us to bring you into every part of our lives so that we can truly be filled with the Spirit and we can truly honor you. Lord, where else will we go if we don't work for you, if we don't live for you? We'll just be crushed and yet

we know Father that you would not have shown us this unless you're going to give us your Spirit and give us the power to practice it. So we ask that you help us now and we ask that you help us to practice it and apply it to our lives in the individual ways that we need to by your Spirit's help in your Son's name. Amen. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel in Life podcast. We hope that today's teaching challenged and encouraged you. We invite you to help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great gospel-centered

content by Tim Keller, visit GospelAndLife.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 1991. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel And Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.