On Sunday I spoke about the importance of living out of the "Rest" that Jesus has won for us. Even as we labour in all that God has called us to at work, home and through the church (scattered and gathered) we can know a form of rest that can refresh our souls.
Marshall Segal's blog (below) continues that theme as he talks about the perils of the workplace. Thank God there IS a better way - there really is and it's this that gives us as followers of Jesus a distinctive quality that is compelling and attractive.
Idolatry is a subtle
and scary business.
You simply don’t know all the lies lurking in
your desires, ambitions, and decisions — even the good ones. In fact, Tim
Keller says, “The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it
can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes” (Counterfeit Gods, xvii). That’s
a terrifying proposition. And one I can testify to personally. Some idolatries
scream, and others whisper. Some lure us down long, dark alleys. Others creep
into the comfort of our more safe, suburban self-righteousness.
Success is a drug of choice among Americans,
and it is a slow and subtle killer. I wonder why you want the job you do. There
are lots of good motivations. Maybe having a higher salary would free you to
give more to ministry. Maybe more power would put you in a position to
influence more people with the gospel. Maybe God’s gifted you for more than
you’re able to give in your current role.
There are bad reasons, too, though, and one
that is especially sinister and murderous. Success at work will play god and
make promises to you that it cannot and will not keep. Success promises to fill
holes in our hearts. If you only ascend this high or accumulate this much, your
fears and insecurities will be resolved once for all. Success promises the love
of those around us. They will finally give you the respect and affection you
crave. Success says it can cover everything wrong about us. It offers esteem,
control, and security — everything we surrendered in our sin. It wears the
savior’s costume and presents itself the strong, charming, and trustworthy
hero.
But success is a horrible hero, and an even
worse god.
Work in
Line with the Gospel
There is only one way to deal with the sin
that remains and the death we deserve, and it isn’t found at the top of any
corporate ladder, or in the size of a 401K, or in the number of people
reporting to you, or even in how happy you are in your job. Only God can
address the needs nested deep in our weaknesses, insecurities, fears, and
failures. Success could never address what we all really need most. Only the gospel
will save us — even those who believe success in this life might save them.
We all try to earn love. For many of us, it
started in preschool trying to please Mom and Dad with another picture for the
fridge. Then it was cultivated in the competition of middle-school classrooms,
and confirmed in the grades and awards of high school. In college, for the
first time, we were identified by our major — our future job. And then four
years later, after our first paycheck, we’re already fighting society’s desire to
define us by where we work, who works for us, and how much we make. It all looks like work, but it’s really
worship. It wears the responsible nametag of provision, but it’s really the
frantic, promiscuous search for redemption.
Again, Keller writes:
God is not on a leash, he cannot be bought or
appeased. The gods of religion can be controlled. If we offer them hard work
and devotion, then they are beholden to us. However, God cannot be approached
like that. Whatever he gives us is a gift of grace. (85)
God will never be won through work. He loves
to save, but he will not rescue those who believe they’ve earned it. Grace is
the only currency he trades in. Everything else we might offer him is as
Monopoly money in his hands. He refuses to love and affirm you like a cosmic
CEO, because he’s not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything”
(Acts 17:25).
To be clear, success is not a curse. It becomes a curse
when it quietly becomes your savior. God prospers the work of our hands in all
kinds of ways for his glory. But it is not
his method of making you his, and it’s certainly not meant to make much of you.
Success is a servant of sovereign Grace, the only means by which anyone is
saved.
If you see and embrace this about success, it
will free you for Monday morning. We work and succeed as those who’ve already
been rescued from our brokenness and need. We labor from the safety of God’s
love. We won’t earn anything from God between 9:00 and 5:00, so we work with
the security and confidence we have in Christ only because of his cross.
Work in
Love for the World
The gospel frees us from going to work to prove ourselves, and it frees us
from going to work to serve
ourselves. A second great and pervasive sin in the workplace is selfishness,
wielding ambition and vocation to satisfy our own needs and desires.
According to Nathan Hatch, President of Wake
Forest University:
Students are [pursuing lucrative and powerful
professions like finance, law, and specialized medicine] with little reference
to the larger questions of meaning and purpose. That is, they choose
professions not in answer to the question “What job helps people to flourish?”
but “What job will help me
to flourish?” (Keller,
79)
It’s the trend at Wake Forest, but what about
for you? Maybe you’re not aiming at six-or-seven-digit salaries or a second
home somewhere warm or recognition from industry leaders, but are your
aspirations fundamentally serving you or others? Is your desire for that job
driven by a heart for the world around you or for the one within you? Is your
work about making your life count for the good of others or about having your
own little heaven here?
The gospel saves us so deeply and satisfies us so fully that we
can let ourselves — our gifts, our career, even our lives — be poured out for
the sake of others, especially for the sake of their faith and joy in God. The
meaning and purpose of history, and the meaning and purpose of our lives
specifically — every area of our lives, every day of our lives — is Christ. We
never walk away from that, certainly not for eight hours a day, five days a
week. He is the freeing, satisfying, and controlling purpose for everything we
do. So our work is about
worship after all, not
of success, but of our Savior.
This does not
mean everyone should go into full-time Christian ministry. You do not have to
be paid to make much of Christ to make much of Christ. In fact, I’m sure as
much or more ministry is happening today in homes, schools, hospitals, and
downtown corporate towers as in churches.
It does
mean that we’ve been freed to labor not for ourselves, but in love for the
world around us. Wherever we work, we’ve been deployed by God as agents of
everlasting joy. So, let’s labor and succeed as those who’ve already won in
Christ. And let us work — in whatever field — that others might experience the
freedom, love, and security we enjoy with God.
