Genesis 2:1-3, 15 The Good of Work

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Pastor Don Filsak is preaching through a sermon series called The Rest of the Week, Loving God from Monday to Saturday. Let's listen in.

I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and I just want to start off by saying thanks for coming out on this wonderful, summery Sunday morning. Glad that you're here. Be sure to fill out the connection card you received when you walked in, and you can turn that in the black box out on the welcome table.

Out in the hallway, how many of you noticed that the welcome table moved? A handful of you noticed that? Ah, change, right? But yeah, it's changed. So all the stuff that you need is out there. If it's your first time with us, we'd also ask that you do us a favor and take a free coffee mug out there, just our way of saying thanks.

We're glad that you're here, and so you can take that. That's just our gift. We recognize that it can be kind of scary checking out a new church for the first time, so just make yourself at home. There's coffee, there's juice, there's donuts, all of that's free, and it's there for you.

Then an offering envelope has been provided for everybody. That offering, if you choose to give this morning, goes in that same black box back.

There.

We don't pass an offering plate here. We don't want anybody to feel awkward about that, but there is an envelope there if you'd choose to give. The ministry here at Recast continues to go forward on the basis of people's generous donations, and we're just very grateful for the way that that's continued on.

July marks the start of a new fiscal year. You can actually see our budget that is there. I'm just praising God for the way that year over year, just since we started, he has always continued to help us to bring in more than what we had actually thought we were going to bring in and what we budgeted to spend, and so we usually budget to spend here, end up spending here, think that we're going to take in here, and end up taking in here.

Year over year, there's always been a balance there, and we are saving towards a down payment to eventually build a building. Anything that is marked expansion fund as a donation, whether that's on the envelope or on the check, is going to go to a specific fund set aside to eventually build a building.

This morning, we're going to hear a testimony from Bruce French, who is our second candidate for eldership. Last week, we heard from Mark Downing, who is in that same position, and I want to be clear that when I say candidate for eldership, this is not going to be a popularity vote or a popularity contest.

They are both being put forward. They would both be joining the board with an affirmation from the congregation. These are people that the current eldership of the church have put forward as people that we would like to appoint, but by our bylaws, we desire for your input and for you to let us know what you see in their lives.

Let them know what you see in their lives as well, and so I'm going to ask at this time for Bruce, who has expressed interest in opening himself up to being a leader in the church, to come on up and just share your testimony.

There's a microphone for you here. There you go.

Thank you. I thought that was a good idea to not do this right off the bat because half the people aren't here yet, so I wouldn't be quite as nervous. But if you'll forgive me, I will read this. That will help me stay on my train of thoughts, and then I will add a few things along the.

Way.

The one thing I do want from you is you'll find a reoccurring theme through here, and I want to, you know, it's three simple words. God is faithful. And so when I get to that point, I'm going to kind of point to you, and I will say, God is faithful.

Okay, that one, it's early. Okay, let's try that again. Well done. Well done. Okay, let's, and once again, this is just a snippet of my story. There's obviously more to 56 years than what I'm going to read here in a minute or two.

And so feel free to come talk to me if you have questions. And I am looking forward to information, affirmation, and encouragement, maybe even discouragement, you know, iron sharpening iron on those forms.

I was saved. I came to Jesus. Jesus found me, however you want to say that at a young age. I received Bible training and information all through childhood and my teen years. This is good, okay? But it wasn't until my mid -20s, or I want to say my late 20s, that I started my own studies of Bible and discipline.

With that came better application, okay? And the desire to serve, discover my spiritual gifts, okay? Back to my early 20s, I walked away from God, but interestingly, He did not let go of me. God is faithful, okay?

One of the things I discovered about myself is that I love children. This created a desire in me to be married, have children of my own. Being a hunter, I began to seek and look and pray. Once again, God was faithful.

He showed me a treasure. With a little convincing on my part, and probably a lot on God's part, Cheryl agreed to marry me. At the time, Cheryl had a little boy named Jeremy, he was four years old. He needed a daddy, and I wanted a son.

God is faithful. We wanted more children and prayed for a girl, but God gave us two boys. God is faithful, okay? Now we have been married 25 years, we have three grown sons, three lovely daughter-in-laws, one amazing grandson, one coming in December.

God is faithful. Let me return to my ministry experience. Children's work quite varied over the years, home group, small group leader, a deacon, an elder. I would say that serving as an elder is not, it's not in the center of my giftedness.

Nevertheless, the need here at Recast right now is real. I will pledge to serve faithfully because God is faithful. So I stand before you, appointed by the Board of Elders, to become one of them. Seeking your prayers, your feedback, and your approval.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot, Bruce.

Appreciate it. Thanks a lot to Bruce for that. I appreciate his testimony and that God is indeed faithful and has shown himself faithful. I think all of us in this room have various ways that God has worked in our lives that we could testify that he is indeed faithful.

And so I'm thankful for that. Ballots are available. You need to take one for each of these men, fill it out individually. And the ballots are available out on that table out there. If you can't find them, if you're kind of rummaging around that table and you don't know where they are, you can ask Haley, who's going to be standing out there at the end of the service.

Those ballots need to be turned in by next Sunday. We have to have two weeks to allow for you to kind of get to know them in that. We've actually allowed it three because it's the summer and we recognize that not everybody's been around.

But they are due next week, Sunday morning. You can turn those in in the acrylic holder that's out there on the table.

You can hand them to Haley.

You can hand them to me. Or you can take them by the office at any time during office hours, 9 to 1, Tuesday through Thursday. And you can drop those off there. We do need an 85 affirmation from the voting membership of the church.

If you're not a member here yet, don't worry. You can still take one of those ballots. We still want your feedback. Don't be intimidated by that form. There's a lot of content there. And you might not be able to answer every single line for both of these guys.

But take one. And what you do know of them, be honest and frank and authentic in your feedback. And we will benefit from that. So look forward to the way that the Lord is leading there to expand our board of elders here.

All right.

We're going to be jumping into a new series called The Rest of the Week. This is the kickoff for that. The title of my message this morning is The Good of Work. And I kind of introduced that to us this morning.

And I just want you to think about what occupies the majority of your week. What occupies the majority of your week? Now, for a variety of us, we might point to a bunch of different things. And I would guarantee that it's different for each one of us.

But it might also have a common theme. For most of us, there's an activity that we engage in that accounts for more time than we spend sleeping, more time than we spend in prayer, more time than we even spend in leisure, more time than we spend, for many of us, even with our families.

And yet I would suggest to you that this activity is quite likely one of the least likely that we connect as an activity to our relationship with God. One that we rarely think of in terms of our relationship with God.

Do you know what it is yet? It's work. It's our work. Now, right from the beginning, I want to be sure that we define work, work not just strictly as employment, so that we're sure that we're talking about apples to apples.

Because some of you are in here going, okay, this is a throwaway series for me. I don't have employment. I would be declared in the eyes of the government as unemployed or without work. And no one, I would suggest to you, is without work.

So it's important that we get that definition down. Work is so much more than an income. It's so much more than a paycheck or some kind of a formal economic arrangement. Work is more than the physics definition.

How many of you, if you're honest, your mind goes to like physics or something like that when I say work. Work, according to physics, is force times distance. It's a mathematical formula. Dave was thinking that.

I mean, yeah, for sure. That's not the definition we're going to be working with throughout this series. One book that I'm currently reading, one among many books that I'm reading on the topic of work right now, defines work as, and I like this definition.

It's kind of a common theme throughout all of these books, but this one, the way that he worded it is very concise. Work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others. Work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others.

I love that definition because latent in that definition is that each one of you has the ability to be what?

Useful.

Every single one of us has a form, a set of patterns in our lives, whether that's gifts or talents or abilities or knowledge or whatever it might be, the ability and skill to work with our hands. But each one of us has latent within us the ability to be useful to others in our community, in our family, in our culture, in our church.

We all have God-given abilities to be useful to others. And in this definition, the other thing that I love is what's absent from it. There's nothing in this definition that has anything to do with the exchange of money.

Did you notice that? Absent from the definition of work is the exchange of money. For some of us in this room, as I've already said, you don't have employment. But work is not synonymous with employment.

Now, let me be clear. If you're employed, you should be working, right? If you're employed, tell me you're getting that. If you're not employed, you should be working, right? As we're going to see through a very inexhaustive exploration of the concept of work through the Bible in just a short time together this morning, we're going to see the good of work.

The good of work. Some of us, maybe depending on how you were raised, depending on what your job looks like now, depending on your employment or your non-employed work, some of you are kind of at the end of yourself and you're going, Are you kidding me?

I live for the weekends, man. We're going to talk about that. But we're going to see throughout the flow of Scripture that work is a good thing. Work in the end, by the way, is more than just serving others if it's done right.

But at the end of the day, it is not just being useful to others. But ultimately for the follower of Jesus Christ, work is for the benefit and for the good of God. Being useful to Him as well. At the end of the day, our work should be more about honoring God through contributing to civilization by the use of our unique God-given abilities.

So let's start off by opening to Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. I'm also going to be reading verse 15 along the way. And this is not going to be the only text that we're in this morning, but it's central enough that I wanted to just start us off here.

So if you don't have a Bible, could you do me a favor and just raise your hand? I know that's awkward, but somebody will bring you a Bible. That's the reason to raise your hand, and they'll just get one into your hand so that everybody has a copy of God's Word on their lap so that they can actually follow along and see the things that I'm saying are coming from there.

And so Genesis 2, 1 through 3, and then verse 15. And if you borrowed one of those Bibles, take it home with you. We want everybody to have a copy of the Word of God. You can take that as a gift from us.

Follow along. Recast. This is God's very Word. This is inspired by Him. This is what He wants for us to hear together this morning. Genesis 2, 1 through 3,. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done. And He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.

Go over to verse 15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Let's pray as the band comes to perform the work of leading us in worship. Father, I thank You for the way that You have orchestrated things, that we can look in Scripture and see the origin of a whole host of things that impact our daily lives, including this concept of work, that we are not left on our own to try to contemplate and consider and figure out what work really is.

Father, there's all kinds of broken notions in each one of us about what it means to work, whether we're a workaholic or we're lazy, whether we're full of sloth or we are a go-getter. Father, whatever it might be, whether we even have a broken notion that our work doesn't matter because we stay at home, or whatever it might be, Father, I pray that You would cut through and slice through the errors in our thinking.

Father, help us to think biblically about these things, as we have an opportunity in Your presence to go through these texts together and see a flow from Your Scripture about the value of work. Father, I thank You for the work of many volunteers who have helped make this Sunday morning flow together.

Father, for this praise team that is even up here, ready to serve You and us, making themselves useful with their skills and gifts. Father, I pray that our voices would be raised to You in worship this morning in sheer delight that we have a Redeemer.

Even as Bruce testified that You are faithful, that You called him from an early age, we can reflect on our callings the way that You've worked in our lives, and I pray that that would overflow in an abundance through our voices to praise and worship to You this morning.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Yeah, you can be seated.

And big thanks to Dave for leading in worship this morning. Just grateful for his filling in there, and even just for Josh to be able to just get a week off and sit in and take it in. So I'm grateful for that.

I encourage you to get comfortable. I know that those are not the most comfortable seats ever known to mankind, and so if you need to get up and stretch out in the back or whatever during the message, it's not going to be a distraction to me.

There's more coffee and juice and donuts. Restrooms are out the hall to the end, women's downstairs, men's upstairs. We ask for you to use the restrooms on that end. The restrooms that are down here are for the children's ministry, so use those down there if you need to.

But otherwise, have your Bibles open to Genesis 2 to begin with. We're going to be moving through a couple of different texts this morning as we go along, but we'll start there. So if you lost your place, open back up to there.

Remembering that Genesis is a book about beginnings, right? That's the whole point. The title is Genesis. It's about origins. And I know we covered the whole book a couple of years ago, so when I asked you guys earlier to turn to Genesis, some of you were like, this again?

Are we starting this over again, like clear back at the beginning? But I just want to point out that any time that you are tracing the history of a theme throughout Scripture, you're probably going to begin in what book?

Genesis. That's probably where you're going to start because it's the book of beginnings. And so we're going to start off there looking at the concept of work. And so we come across this text in Genesis 2, verses 1 through 3, and it may surprise many of us that the word work occurs so prominently right from the beginning of the pages of Scripture.

Like, think about it. I mean, all the different themes, all the different grand scheme of all that transpired through creation and through the origin of the world and all of those types of things, and the word work takes up a significant chunk of this chapter, the concept of work.

The text says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and three different times at the start of the second chapter, talking about creation, talking about origin, the creative act of God is called work.

That's the word that is used for it.

And so that leads me to our first point. The first point of the message this morning is that God is a God who works. That's point one. If you're taking notes, you can jot that down. God is a God who works.

Okay?

That's something that is true of Him. Once again, we ought to review our definition of work because some of us immediately turn to the concept of laborer and toil. Like, that's part and parcel for what it means to work on a fallen planet.

So we've already jumped past the third point for me this morning. If we're talking about sweat and toil and hard labor. Like, he asked the question, okay, God worked and creation is called work. So did He sweat?

Was it hard for Him?

Was it tough?

Did He spend a lot of the stores of His power? And was He depleted by the end of creation? Was He just like, oh, that exhausted me, man. I've got to take a break, man.

This is tough.

I would suggest to you, yeah, did He take a break? You're kind of going, in your mind, yeah, I think He did, like that rest on the seventh day. And I would suggest to you that throughout the pages of Scripture that's demonstrated as a model and a pattern for us.

I don't believe God, in the least, was depleted in the act of creating the world. But remember that in our definition, work is contributing to the good of others through action. How many of you think creation was for the good of others?

Yeah.

How many of you have ever benefited from God's creative act? Yeah, your existence is dependent on it. So it was, by nature, the very first thing that is called work was of ultimate benefit to others. It was actually the creation of others.

Right?

That was the very origin, the very beginning. And it is, indeed, called work. And so God started all of this through the very first acts of work, that original creative act. So we see clearly from the start that the King over this entire universe demonstrated work for us in this very first recorded act.

And all work, I would suggest to you, is in some sense vitally connected back to that original act of work. I would suggest to you even that all of our work is lesser in that it's just a reshaping, in some sense, of the stuff that God originally made.

We do not, like God, create out of nothing with our words. If you can do that, come and see me. I'd like to talk with you. I've got a couple jobs I'd like to have you do around my house.

You know what I'm saying?

I mean, if you're able to just speak and stuff comes into existence, that would be really awesome, right? But we do not make the stuff that we make the stuff out of. So in one sense, when we talk about our work or our creative acts, they are definitely clearly, obviously, subservient and lesser, too, and very tied to that first act of God.

Every manufacturing process extends backwards to the God who made the stuff that we use to make stuff. God, in this sense, is the first manufacturer. In this sense, we find that work has dignity. In just this very first simple point that our God is a God who works, God is not ashamed to identify himself as a worker.

He's not ashamed to use the word work to apply to his own actions. And if this was all that we had in Scripture, if this is all that we had revealed about the concept of work, we would be left to conclude that work is indeed a noble thing, right?

It's a noble thing because God participates in it. God is not above applying the word work to his own things. Down through the ages, by the way, the word work has not always been considered noble, right?

And there are still, I think, in many cultures, and even in our own culture, there is work that's beneath some people. Do you know what I'm talking about? Some of us in the room might have, honestly. We really probe deep into our hearts.

Maybe you don't have to go too deep to figure out that there are things that you're just kind of like, somebody else can do that, I don't do that. But there have been whole societies and cultures based on the premise that the Roman culture, for example, was one where they actually had a very strict hierarchy of different things that people did.

In the Middle Ages, there were things that peasants did that the nobility didn't. And there was a very strict hierarchy and class system. But what's interesting is I think there's somewhat of a classism in America here as well.

I actually just saw an article this morning in USA Today about this classism between blue-collar and white-collar and how there is a growing divide in America over this classism. I happened to run across that article.

I wasn't even, it's not like I was looking for it, for this message, but it was right there. And I had to read it. I was like, wow, that's my sermon. That's the tying into it. The idea that we have a classism here is for real.

That there's dignity in work because God himself is indeed a worker. My second point, the text goes on in verse 5. We see this clue towards our second point, and that is that humanity was created to work.

Look at verse 5 with me of Genesis 2 real quick. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground.

There's an impression that's given from the verse there, even in the Hebrew language. It's like it's not complete yet. It's not fulfilled yet. It's not completely done yet.

Why?

There's no man there to work it yet. There's no humankind to work the ground. There was an intention for us. Verse 5 tells us that the earth was incomplete before the creation of mankind. But if you go over to verse 15, you get my second point clearly.

The Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. Mankind was created to work.

All of us.

Before sin entered the world, before we broke the world through sin, there was work. Now, for many of us, we've already jumped ahead to my third point, but we need to sit here for just a moment and consider the goodness of work as God created us.

The essential component of work and what it means to be human. We live in a broken world, that's for sure, where all kinds of sin corrupt us and corrode our daily work, and it's hard and it's toilsome.

But let's not let that get in the way of our understanding that work existed before sin. And there is every indication that work will exist after sin is finally done away with. And God rolls this up and provides for us a new heavens and a new earth.

But the word for work in this text covers a broad spectrum of human activity. The word that's used in Hebrew here in verse 15 for the work that we were supposed to do in the garden, it is used of cultivating and gardening right here in our text.

It is used for metal and woodworking and the making of the tabernacle. It's the same Hebrew word that's used there for the creation of these implements, for the craftsmanship that went into the structuring of that tent dedicated to God.

It's also used, as I alluded to earlier, it's used literally, that word work is used for those leading in worship at the dedication of the temple. So it covers a broad spectrum of activities. Those who were standing up and singing and leading with instruments at the dedication of the temple were said to be working.

Now some of you might be, that's entertaining, isn't it? Isn't that fun? Isn't that their hobby? Isn't that something that they do on the side? You know, we had a band come up here and play their musical instruments and lead for us.

Weren't they just kind of having fun? According to the text, and Pete says, yeah, it was fun. But it's work. It's declared in the text that that kind of behavior is within the classification of human work.

So everything from bending metal in a machine shop, to growing tomatoes, to leading out with musical instruments, is covered under the word work. And you go into the text and further, in verse 15, the injunction on us is to keep, on humanity, to keep the garden.

That was one of maintenance and protection. And so if you consider all the various human activities that are involved, how many human activities are involved in maintaining and protecting this planet, we suddenly realize that everything from raising kids, to becoming a responsible God, for them to become God-honoring citizens, to being responsible with what we throw away, to caring for pets and animals, to a whole host of industries that fall into these original marching orders, are all within the realm of work.

And they are all part of the call on the human race. Despite what we may think at first blush, the wild and natural order of things is not the best. It is not the final plan of God. Some people have this mindset that we're heading back to a garden with all the busyness and the technology and all the advancement, wouldn't it be nice to just go live in the woods in a shack by yourself for a while?

There's this idea that the best place for us is to move back to that which is completely natural, right? But that is not the arc of the story of the history of God, from the creation act to the fall of mankind, to the majority of His redemptive work in our lives, to an ultimate place of consummation where it's going to be all finished in the end.

And when it's finished, do you know what it is? When it started it was a what? A garden. When it finishes, what comes down out of heaven?

A city.

The New Jerusalem, with culture, with expansion, with all different kinds of things for us to participate in, with art and with all the advancements of that. But I'm convinced that we'll still have a lot to explore.

We'll still have a lot to cultivate. We'll have plenty of work to joyfully keep us occupied for eternity. Mankind was designed and imbued with the image of God for this very creative act of work, that we would reflect His creative glory in the world that is busting at the seams with opportunities to express our God-given form of usefulness to others.

Each one of us is full of opportunities to serve others as an agent of God in this world for change, for good, for blessing, for benefit. Think about it this way. From the very first rudimentary tools of humanity to the iPhone, our human advancement is not so much a testimony to our glory, to our grandeur, as much as it points to the glory of the God whose image we bear.

We are looking like God when we create. We are participating in the advancements that He desires for us as a civilization. Civilization is advanced because He has placed within our hearts to cultivate, to create, to explore, and to work.

Now certainly I wouldn't suggest to you that every single technological advancement is always great and peachy, and we know that ethics get involved in that and all of that. But I think we'd all be far from saying that the iPhone is evil.

How many of you know that its application can be evil? The way that we use it can be evil, right? But the technology in and of itself is not evil. Some of you might want to talk to me afterwards, right?

I'll argue my point on that. The first point, remember the first point, God is a God who works. The second is that God made mankind, God made humankind to work. And the third point now, if you turn over to Genesis 3, I don't know if you have to turn in your Bibles or not, Genesis 3, 17 through 19 say this.

Genesis 3, 17 through 19,. And to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat. Cursed is the ground because of you.

In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken.

For you are dust and to dust you shall return. Many of us in the room understand the context of what's going on in that passage. Adam and Eve have sinned, they've rebelled against God and he's given them an explicit command, don't eat from this tree.

They ate it and in so doing rebelled against their creator. And so now they're standing before God after hiding from him. How many of you know that's never a good idea, hide from God for real? But they tried to hide from him.

He of course uncovers them quickly, finds them and begins to dole out consequences of the effects of sin, the effects of their rebellion against him. And the consequences affect this subject of work. Out of all of the different consequences that he could spell out in this text, he talks about its impact on our work.

A subject that I said takes up the majority of our time. And of course he addresses this. And he says the ground has now been cursed. It brings forth thorns and thistles, according to the text, and pain we eat from the ground.

And it will be by the sweat of our faces and hard work that we eat. Just like I don't think God was picking on two specific plants, thorns and thistles, he's picking on the rose bush and the thistle plant, right?

That's the only effects of the fall regarding the ground. No, I think he's being very general. I don't think he was merely speaking of curses on agriculture. It's not like, well, fortunately I'm not a farmer, so the effects of the fall on work don't affect me because I'm not in agriculture.

So, whew, dodge that. Rather instead, I believe it is a curse on all those who need to eat. If you need to eat, you've fallen under this curse. How many of you would testify that you need to eat from time to time?

Maybe even some of us like that, right? But yeah, if you need to eat, then you're affected by this curse to some degree. And remember that Genesis 3 is not the start of work. This is important for us to grasp.

Genesis 3 is not the start of work, but it is the start of toil. It's the start of labor. Hard work with limited production began at the fall. It's not that hard work started, but hard work with limited production began at the fall.

Drought, blight, weeds, all kinds of physical destructive forces began to interfere with human productivity at this point. But for many of us, it isn't blight or weeds that interfere, but sin has definitely brought upon us a brokenness to all aspects of our work.

How many of you can testify that there's some broken aspects to your relationship with work? Anybody? Four, five, ten. There's about ten of us that would agree with that. I think all of us, some of your hands weren't working, but you knew that you were raising your hand in your heart, right?

You knew that. I remember about three years ago, three years ago I was busy typing my sermon. I usually go to a coffee shop a little bit ways away and work on my sermon, and I manuscript it usually on Wednesday mornings.