“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
I Corinthians 10:31
Once again on the first Monday in September we will be observing Labor Day. Unlike most of our Holidays Labor Day seems to have no special secular or religious rituals, except perhaps for shopping and barbecuing. For most people, it simply marks the end of summer.
The first Labor Day was celebrated in 1882 in New York City. The founders were looking for a means of unifying union workers and a reduction in work time. Tradesmen would celebrate their contributions of labor, often displaying the tools of their craft in a Labor Day parade. For preachers it was time for a good sermon about hard work and maybe some pointers about picking up your cross. It was a time to reconnect the things we do the rest of the week with what we do on Sunday. You see, many people have trouble believing that the labor they do outside the church is really that important to the Lord. Earning a living often seems far removed from the holy and sacred.
Unlike past generations, most folks haven’t been taught or trained to see their labor as holy, to see their everyday efforts as important to God, to imagine that they are God’s partners in doing God’s work in the world. And, quite frankly, perhaps the church must take a fair amount of responsibility for this. We may take time to honor nursery workers or Sunday school teachers, we may honor missionaries and Christian school teachers, but we don’t seem to get around to honoring the plumbers, waiters, house sitters, and the guy who runs the coffee shop. How many of us recognize the work of nurses, house wives, or the retired? How many of us regularly pray for those who volunteer, not just in church, but in a variety of our service agencies that our communities depend on? We may honor our military and maybe our law enforcement officers, and this is good, but it is not good enough.
We rarely nurture the imagination of our people to believe that God is at work in them and through them for the sake of the world God loves so much. No wonder people can’t figure out how what they do really matters, at least in terms of the faith. Equally troubling, they can’t figure out how their faith makes a real difference in all the other stuff they do. When your faith is divorced from what you do the other six days of the week, then we have to wonder how much longer you’ll keep showing up on Sunday morning.
We’ve been trained somewhere to think that when Jesus talks about “taking up the cross,”he’s referring to some major spiritual travail. Or at least significant suffering or sacrifice, on behalf of the faith. But what if it’s simpler than that? What if bearing the cross does not have as much to do with our daily anguish and suffering as it does with what we do on a day by day basis as a consequence of our relationship with Jesus Christ?
If this is true, then when we are instructed to take up our cross, we are being instructed to have our life shaped by our commitment to Christ in whatever we do. Electricians, students, secretaries, parents and plumbers, all of us, when we offer our time, talent, and labor to God, are bearing our cross by allowing the whole of their lives to be shaped by their commitment to Christ. I am afraid it is rare for the average Christian to hear a message saying that what they do at home, at work, while volunteering or being a good friend matters to God and makes a real difference in the world.
So, let me ask you, “Which is more spiritual; to preach the Bible or to wash dishes at home; to teach a Bible Study group, or to cook meals?”If you say that preaching is more spiritual than washing the dishes, then you are a victim of wrong thinking. Paul said,
“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
I Corinthians 10:31
So, my answer is that washing dishes is as spiritual as preaching the Word, if you do it for the glory of God. Cooking meals is as spiritual as teaching a Bible study, if you do it for the glory of God. Hence, instead of a line dividing the sacred and secular, I’d like you to think in terms of a circle. Draw a circle around everything you do, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do. Everything you do inside that circle, do it for the glory of God, and you are already living in a circle of the spiritual. The significance of work therefore is that it is a spiritual duty. All honorable work is a spiritual duty if you do it for the glory of God. Are you a driver? Are you a helper? Are you a secretary? Are you a cook? Are you a banker? Are you a businessperson? Are you a manager? Are you a grocery bagger? Regardless of your honorable career choice, if you do it for the glory of God, that is a spiritual work.
And because your work is spiritual, your work is therefore important before God. Don’t ever think that what you do is useless. Your work is valuable and important in the sight of God. It is important because you do it for the glory of God. It is important also because what you do in your work place either helps or hinders the glory of God. God has called every believer to be a witness of the Gospel. You are therefore a messenger of the Gospel. You are an ambassador for Christ. Therefore, how you work will either help or hinder the message of Christ. How you work will either make people praise God or blaspheme God. How you work will make people speak good or bad about the character of a Christian.
So, what motivates you to work? Perhaps it is money? Most people work to gratify their needs and wants.
Christians also need to work to supply the needs of our family. But Christians also work for the glory of God. We work to advance the kingdom. We work to see people come to trust Christ. Thus, we don’t want to do anything that will bring reproach to our Lord.
Yet there is the ultimate motivation for working with all your heart today. You do your best in your jobs. You honor your bosses. You follow the rules, because you work for the Lord and not for men only. Paul wrote,
“Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh . . . fearing God. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men.”
Colossians 3:22-23
You work for God’s reward, and not just men’s reward. You also work knowing that God will judge you someday for your work. That’s the Labor Day Prime Directive.
Dr. Worthington has been in the ministry over forty years and serves as President of Pathway Ministries.