In our blog entitled Good to Work, we examine how work is something God designed in His creation. God works (Genesis 1:1) and God gave responsibility to people to work in His creation (Genesis 1:28). God and people work together in God’s creation and God communicates His pattern for work so that life with Him is enjoyed in His creation having times for work and rest (Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; Leviticus 23:3). This pattern of work and rest is a way for people to spend time with God through working but also to celebrate God’s work and their work in God’s world. Work also is a way to bear God’s image in His world using God-given skills (Genesis 1:26; Exodus 35:31-35; 36:2; Acts 18:1-3; 20:34-35). Click the image below to read Good to Work if you haven’t already.
If work is part of God’s design for life with Him in His good creation, what’s gone wrong with work in God’s world? Have you ever considered why you might not experience work the way God designed work to be in His creation? There are reasons.
Consequences for Work
In Genesis 3, God allows Satan, the Devil, also called the serpent, to enter the Garden of Eden. “The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made.” (Genesis 3:1) We are not told why God allowed Satan to enter the Garden of Eden. We can only assume based on who God has communicated Himself to be in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 that there are purpose and intention for this allowance because when Genesis 2 concludes life with God in His creation is described as thriving, flourishing, enjoyment, freedom, and relationship with no shame!
God and the people He created in His own image are enjoying a work-rest cycle of living and sharing in the joy of bearing God’s image in His creation. God spends time with them talking, listening, planning, and working in His creation.
God instructs them on how to live in His creation. God also gives them freedom of choice in what they do. They could be in relationship with God, follow His lead, receive His blessings, and live in God’s creation the way God designed with all the provision and protection they need, or they could reject a relationship with God and work to provide for themselves.
Although God communicated the consequences of seeking life without Him, the first people (Adam and Eve) rejected God and the life He provided for them. Death was a consequence, but additional consequences came about before physical death occurs. The consequences for women are increased pain of childbirth, the desire to control their husbands, and their husbands will rule over them (Genesis 3:16).
The consequences directed at men (but for all who engage in work) are they will have trouble in cultivating the ground to produce food to eat. Work will be difficult. Obstacles (thorns and thistles) will impede work success, so work will require intense effort (sweat of brow) to produce life-sustaining results. (Genesis 3:17-19) Although God did not design work to be this way in His creation, these consequences regarding work remain to this day.
Work as Self-Worship
Unfortunately, generation after generation of people reject God and make work something God never intended it to be. People use work to make a great name for themselves (Genesis 11:4). The decide to build a city and a tower to the heavens to ensure a settlement in the same area all together (Genesis 11:3) which is not what God desires for them and not the purpose of work. Also, instead of people working in partnership with God in His creation, God is no longer a part of their work (Genesis 11:5). They make plans and work separate from God and do life on their own, their way, without consideration for God, God’s ways, or that they are working in God’s world.
The consequences of their actions (i.e., using work as self-worship and rejecting God) is that God confuses their languages. (Genesis 11:7) When God confuses their languages, the groups of people who no longer communicate through the same language move away from each other, and eventually, the specific regions of the world become associated with the descendants of three brothers: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Not every descendant is mentioned in the Bible, but this focused genealogical record in Genesis 11 is purposeful because God shares through whom and how He will accomplish His purposes to fulfill His promise regarding Satan in Genesis 3:15.
The rest of Genesis 11 focuses on the one son of Noah: Shem and his descendants that lead to one man named Abram that God will enter a covenant relationship. The Bible doesn’t indicate that God enters this covenant relationship with Abram because of Abram, but rather because God made a promise to Adam, Eve, and all generations after them that a future descendant would crush the serpent/Satan’s head (Genesis 3:15). The same Satan that God allowed to enter the Garden of Eden.
Satan is a tempter and is still trying to kill, steal, and destroy the life God intended for you (John 10:10), including God’s purpose for work and your enjoyment of work. But God, fulfilled His promise to Adam, Eve, Abram, and all generations, including you, by sending Himself–God, the Son, Jesus into His creation in human form.
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. Colossians 1:15
For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. Colossians 2:9
Jesus is God (fully divine) but also is an earthly descendant of Abram (fully human) that God empowers Jesus to use His authority to provide you protection against Satan’s plan to destroy you before you choose to reconcile with God, your Creator.
Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone. God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that He should make Jesus, through His suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation. . . . Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could He die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil [Satan], who had the power of death. Only in this way could He set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. Hebrews 2:9b-10, 14-15
Despite people using work as self-worship and rejecting God, God still desires a relationship with them. Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection provide the way for reconciliation with God and to engage with God at work in His creation.
Conclusion
The consequence of rejecting God affects all people’s work to this day. Work is difficult. Obstacles impede work success. Work requires intense effort to produce results. Also, the repercussions of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) still exist, because people continue to use work as self-worship, a way to secure human recognition in history, but also to serve oneself. People work to accumulate money, power, position, status, control, and a false sense of security apart from God. Self-worship through work is a rejection of God. Yet, God desires to spend time with and enjoy life in His creation working together with the people He created.
Consider these reflection questions regarding work.
- Do you trust God and follow His work-rest cycle incorporating regular time spent with God celebrating His work and your work in His world and acknowledging your dependence on and trust in Him?
- Do you work to point people to God and allow your work to bear God’s image in His creation or do you primarily work as self-worship, so you make a name for yourself, and try to build wealth and false security for yourself apart from God?
- Do you work in partnership with God knowing your work in His world has eternal significance for you and others, or do you work in rejection of God with no regard for the negative effects your work will have on you or future generations?
Although, the consequences and negative effects of rejecting God remain in God’s world, God intends for you to work to reflect His image in His world and enjoy working in partnership with Him to accomplish His purposes.
God offers you His perspective of work when you are in relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. You can work as God designed work to be and experience work with God in His good creation by rejecting the destructive work purposes and patterns embraced by culture. Work with God. Work for God. Work God’s way!
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2
Click the image below to explore God’s Commands for Work.
