Pastor Mike rightly pointed out that we all yearn for transcendence in our work. We want our work to have more significance than just the completion of tasks or making a living. I want to change the world and improve other people’s lives through my work. We long to achieve good goals, express truth, and create beautiful things because God installed those impulses in our hearts - and our work is the primary means through which we pursue them.
But I tend to pursue these transcendent goals in a self-referential and self-oriented way. First, I work as though my ultimate success depends on my own performance. Second, I work as though I’m autonomous. These views cause a great deal of fear! I take on too many projects, I avoid needed rest, and too many of my workdays are full of frantic desperation. I care a great deal about whether other people are recognizing my contributions.
The gospel of Christ provides a way for us to pursue transcendence with confidence. The Gospel helps us understand work as service in response to the self-sacrificial service of Jesus, rather than as a way to earn or prove our own, autonomous worth.
When we see our work as service to God and to others, and as a response to our salvation through Christ’s sacrifice, we are freed up to work with joy, rather than out of fear.
Pastor Mike cited the Swiss theologian Karl Barth’s definition of service:
<blockquote>“In general terms, service is a willing, working, and doing in which a person acts not according to his own purposes or plans but with a view to the purpose of another person and according to the need, disposition, and direction of others. It is an act whose freedom is limited and determined by the other’s freedom, an act whose glory becomes increasingly greater to the extent that the doer is not concerned about his own glory but about the glory of the other ...”</blockquote>
First, when we believe the gospel, we’re reassured that ultimate success has already been earned through Christ’s sacrifice. That means we’re not in danger of ultimate failure. We can take risks, we can forego recognition, and we can leave things undone when our health requires it, if we know that our work is a response Jesus’ life-giving service, rather than needing to be life-giving in itself.
Second, the gospel confirms we’re not on our own in our work. Christ’s followers are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people” (1 Peter 2:9). Our obligation to serve others begins with the family of God and extends out from there to the whole world.
I’m grateful that the gospel frees us from fear-driven work - and mindful that I need to “preach it to myself,” as Pastor Mike put it, and have it preached to me, to keep these truths in my heart.
<em>This week's sermon response comes from Grace Downtown member Hudson.</em>
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