The Word Before Work

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: The Work Beneath Your WorkDevotional: 4 of 4 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:28-33)I began this series by asking you two questions:What is the work beneath your work? How does the gospel free you from that work? We’ve already explored two of the most common answers to that first question: performance and avoidance. Today, we look at one final work beneath our work: fear.This may be the most universal of all that we’ve explored. Entrepreneurs overwork themselves for fear that if they “don’t put in the work,” they won’t be able to provide for their families and their teams. Employees overwork for fear of losing their income and health insurance.Now, some of this fear is healthy. 1 Timothy 5:8 says that “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”But fear is terribly unhealthy and sinful if it controls you. If it plagues your thoughts. If it leads you to overwork or not faithfully “stand in for God,” and say hard things when they need to be said to your boss or customers.How can we be freed from fear—from this work beneath our work? The same way we are freed from performance and avoidance: the person and character of Jesus Christ.In today’s passage, Jesus promised his followers that if we “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,” he will meet our every need. Why can you trust this promise when your job is on the line? Because God provided for your ultimate need of spiritual redemption even when it cost him the life of his Son. If God kept that promise, surely he will keep his promise to provide you with food and clothing. If the work beneath your work is fear, let that truth free you today. But maybe the work beneath your work isn’t fear, avoidance, or performance. Maybe it’s something else that I don’t know.But here’s what I do know: Until God’s glory and the good of others is the predominant motivation for your work, you will never be satisfied. You will never be able to truly rest. You will never find sustainable fuel for the good works God has called you to do.So do the hard work of identifying the work beneath your work. And meditate on the gospel of Jesus Christ that frees you to work solely for his glory, the good of others, and your joy.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: The Work Beneath Your WorkDevotional: 3 of 4In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8)We’re in a four-week series exploring the work beneath our work—in other words, the ultimate why underneath what we do.Now, if you are subscribed to my devotionals, part of your motivation for your work is undoubtedly to leverage your vocation for the glory of God and the good of others. But if you find yourself consistently overworking—if you find that you’re unable to rest and “turn your brain off” at home—it’s worth asking whether there are deeper motivations for your work that are less than God-honoring.Last week, we looked at one of those motivations: performance. Today we look at another: avoidance.I know a lot of Christians who are using their work as a narcotic to avoid dealing with their depression, conflict with a family member, or a sense of inadequacy they feel when they’re at home compared to when they’re at their desk.It’s a lot easier to work hard at the office than it is to deal with these things. And so we work hard to numb the pain that comes with doing the harder work that awaits us when we step away from our laptops and workbenches.How do we free ourselves from this work beneath our work? By looking to Christ.As today’s passage reminds us, Jesus was under no obligation to enter our mess and save us. It was perfectly within his rights to avoid our sin and suffering. And yet, he “did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing,” on our behalf (Philippians 2:6-7).What is our response to Christ’s unfathomable grace and mercy? To “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5) which includes entering into the messes around us rather than using overwork as an anesthetic against hard things.Is God bringing to mind something you’re trying to avoid with your overwork? Ask him for the Christ-like courage to lean into that hard thing today for his greater glory.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: The Work Underneath Your WorkDevotional: 2 of 4Then the eyes of [Adam and Eve] were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:7)Last week, I asked you this: What is the work beneath your work? In other words, why are you working so hard?Over the next three weeks, we’ll explore three of the most common answers to that question. And while this will be far from an exhaustive list, I’m confident it will be a helpful one.Here’s the first: Performance, or using your work to earn the respect, love, and acceptance of others.For the first few years of my career, this was the primary work beneath my work. I wasn’t working primarily for the glory of God and the good of others. I was working to impress you. And so I would not-so-subtly name-drop big brands I had worked for and impressive people I knew—not to facilitate great conversation, but to make you think I had the most impressive LinkedIn profile in the room.Why did I do this? Why do you? For the same reason Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves for themselves in Genesis 3: to cover up the fact that underneath it all, we’re not OK.Of course, we don’t cover ourselves with literal fig leafs today, but we do with metaphorical ones to be sure. And because professional performance produces one of the thickest fig leaves of our modern era, we can work ourselves to the point of burnout, not because we need to financially, but because we need to spiritually.This work beneath our work of performance is laid bare in Taylor Swift’s autobiographical song Mastermind. She writes:No one wanted to play with me as a little kidSo I've been scheming like a criminal ever sinceTo make them love me and make it seem effortlessWhy are Taylor, you, and me working so hard? To perform. To “make them love” us.What can free us from this exhausting work beneath our work? Christ alone. 1 John 3:1 says that Christians are to be “called children of God…that is what we are!” Through Christ, I am an adopted child of God. A co-heir with Christ (see Romans 8:17). No amount of professional success will ever give me a loftier title than that!It is meditation on that truth that God has used to slowly but surely free me from the work beneath my work. The same will be true for you.But maybe the work beneath your work isn’t performance. Maybe it’s avoidance. It is to that work that we turn to next week.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: The Work Beneath Your WorkDevotional: 1 of 4Jacob made love to Rachel also, and his love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah….When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, “It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.” (Genesis 29:30-32)In today’s passage, we find one of the best biblical case studies for what Tim Keller calls "the work beneath [our] work.” On the surface, Leah’s work was that of childbearing. But her real work—the true why underneath all of her labor—was the exhausting work of winning Jacob’s love. After her first son Reuben was born, Leah said, “Surely my husband will love me now” (v. 32).But evidently, he didn’t, because Leah said the Lord gave her a second child, “Because…I am not loved” (v. 33).Maybe the third son would be the proverbial charm, Leah must have thought. So she gave birth to Levi and said, “Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” (v. 34). Do you hear Leah’s angst? Her striving? Leah was desperately trying to get something from her work that God never designed her work to give her—namely the love and affection of another human being.But by the time Leah had her fourth son, something had changed. When she gave birth to Judah, Leah didn’t say anything that would connect her work as a mother to her attempts to earn her husband’s favor. She simply said, “This time I will praise the Lord,” and “then she stopped having children” (v. 35).It was only once Leah found love and acceptance outside of her vocational performance that she could rest her body and soul. It was only when the praise of the Lord was her primary ambition that she was freed from the work beneath her work.The question, of course, is what is the work beneath your work? And how does the gospel free you from that work? Those are the questions I’m going to challenge you to answer over the next few weeks. Now, the reality is that the “why” of your work is always going to be mixed. Some of your motives are likely honoring to God, while others aren’t.But we’d be wise to discern the primary motives of our hearts. Because until our motivation is predominantly to “praise the Lord” through our work, we will be restless, unsatisfied, and overworked.Start this morning by praying that God would begin to reveal the work beneath your work. And join me next week as we explore one of the most common ambitions that the gospel can free us from.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 7 of 7When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?” Moses answered him, “Because the people come to me to seek God’s will. Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.” Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good.” (Exodus 18:14-17)Moses’s father-in-law Jethro was blunt. But he was also profoundly helpful. So much so that Exodus 18:24 tells us that “Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said.”What did Jethro tell Moses to do? In short, delegate the work of governing Israel. Exodus 18:13-26 gives us a front-row seat to the masterclass Jethro taught Moses on delegation. Today, I want to turn your attention to five principles from that passage that are relevant to you today, whether you lead a team of 10 or 0 and are simply delegating work around your house.Principle #1: Identify the work you’re most uniquely equipped to do. For Moses, that was to “be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him” (v. 19). He was the only person God had called to that task, and so, Jethro urged him to focus his time and energy on that singular activity.Principle #2: Select trustworthy people to delegate other work to. In verse 21, Jethro told Moses to “select capable” people to delegate the work of judging Israel to. But when he explained what he meant by “capable,” he didn't focus on technical skills, but matters of the heart, urging Moses to select “men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain.”Principle #3: Make the time to train well. One of the most common mistakes I see people make when delegating is not making the time to delegate well. Jethro warned Moses against this, instructing Moses to “teach [his team God’s] decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live” (v. 20).Principle #4: Trust your team. “The simple cases they can decide themselves,” Jethro said in verse 22. In other words, don’t micro-manage, Moses! When we trust those we delegate work to, it not only serves us by freeing us to focus on the work we’re most uniquely equipped to do, it also enables others to do their most exceptional work.Principle #5: Delegate, but don’t abdicate. Jethro didn’t advise Moses to let his team handle all cases on their own. Just the “simple” ones. Jethro said, “have them bring every difficult case to you” (v. 22). Why? Because, to quote Michael Hyatt, “Delegation is not abdication. The outcome is still your responsibility.”Why does it matter that we, like Moses, learn to delegate well? Because it enables us to excel at the very thing God saved the Israelites and us to do: Work for his glory, the good of others, and the advancement of his kingdom!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 6 of 7On the sixth day, [the Israelites] gathered twice as much [manna]—two omers for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest.’” (Exodus 16:22-23)This is the first time Sabbath rest is offered to human beings in the Bible. Contrary to the Israelites’ ruthless Egyptian masters who offered them no rest for 400 years, their perfect Heavenly Master offered them the gift of rest once every seven days. And he promised to provide the manna they needed for two days so that they could rest without worry!The announcement of this gift undoubtedly led to great jubilation. And yet, Exodus 16:27 tells us that “some of the people went out on the seventh day,” to work. In her terrific study on Exodus, Jen Wilkin explains why, saying that while God had gotten his people out of slavery, he had yet to get the slavery out of his people who fell back into non-stop work due to four centuries' worth of habit.That’s likely what kept the Israelites from resting. But this morning, I want you to consider what might be keeping you from Sabbath rest. Chances are, it’s one of these three lies.Lie #1: Sabbath is irrelevant under the New Covenant. It is true that Sabbath is the only one of the Ten Commandments not repeated in the New Testament. “But even so,” says John Mark Comer, “the Sabbath still stands as wisdom. There isn’t a command in the New Testament to eat food or drink water or sleep eight hours a night. That’s just wisdom…You can skip the Sabbath — it’s not sin.” But it’s also not wise.Lie #2: More work equals more productivity. Not necessarily. When the Israelites went to gather manna on the Sabbath, Exodus 16:27 says “they found none.” Similarly, Dr. John Pencavel of Stanford has found that our productive “output falls sharply after a 50-hour work-week, and falls off a cliff after 55 hours.” It’s almost as if God has designed us for a full day of rest once a week…Lie #3: I’m not a slave. Tim Keller says, “Anyone who cannot obey God’s command to observe the Sabbath is a slave, even a self-imposed one.” Do you feel that you have to check email every day? If your phone buzzes, do you pick it up without even thinking? You’re more of a slave than you think. Sabbath is one way to declare that, through Christ, you are free from the pressures of this world. And it’s also a gift that God invites you to enjoy (see Mark 2:27). Accept that gift this and every week!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 5 of 7Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. (Exodus 8:1 ESV)A few weeks ago, we saw that it was the horrific working conditions of the Israelites that was the impetus for their exodus from Egypt. But if we’re not careful, we can mistakenly believe that God freed his people so that they could spend all their time worshiping him through song and sacrifices in the wilderness.But that’s not at all what we see. Seven times between Exodus 4:23 and 10:3, the Lord states his purpose for delivering his people. Over and over again he declares, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” Commenting on this passage, one theologian says that “God did not deliver Israel from work. He set Israel free for work.” But work as he had originally intended it. This sets up a theme we see throughout Scripture: Salvation isn’t an end in itself. It is a means to an end—namely being with God and working for his glory rather than the glory of man.That’s why God saved the Israelites, and it’s why he has saved you and me. This is precisely what Paul is getting at in Ephesians 2:8-10 when he says that while we are saved “not by works,” we have been saved “to do good works”—not to just sit around and wait for Christ’s return.Can I be real for a second? This is what drives me absolutely crazy about the (largely) American End Times industry. Rather than busying themselves with the “good works…God prepared in advance for us to do,” many Christians spend their days sharing fear-mongering Facebook posts speculating about the details of Christ’s second coming—all in the name of Jesus’s command to “keep watch” for his return in Matthew 25:13.But the context of that passage is crucial. Immediately after he instructed his disciples to “keep watch,” Jesus launched into the “Parable of the Talents,” the story of a Master (representing Christ) who puts his servants to work while they wait for his return (see Matthew 25:14-30). From the Old Testament to the New, God couldn’t be any clearer: We aren’t saved to sit on our hands, but to work with them. The good news of the gospel is not just that you get to go to heaven when you die, but that you get to partner with God in cultivating heaven on earth until you die.How? By weeding out the injustices you see in your industry. By creating businesses, films, and novels that offer glimpses of the beauty of the kingdom. And by serving as a faithful ambassador of your king in your place of work (see 2 Corinthians 5:17-20). Work hard to those ends as a response to your salvation today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 4 of 7Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. You are to say everything I command you” (Exodus 7:1-2)God could have set the Israelites free all on his own. He could have taken human form, walked straight into Pharaoh’s palace, and led the Israelites out of Egypt for good. But that wasn’t his strategy as today’s passage makes clear. The Lord said to Moses, “I have made you like God to Pharaoh.” In other words, while God could have done this work on his own, he chose to do it through Moses and Aaron. Why? Was it because God had more important things to do? No. It’s simply because this is how God has always chosen to operate. All throughout Scripture, we see that while God is perfectly capable of working on his own, more often than not, he chooses to work in this world through human beings. That was true with Moses thousands of years ago, and it’s true with you and me today. In the words of Tim Keller, “We are called to stand in for God here in the world…as his vice-regents.” His deputy kings and queens. This is precisely what Paul was getting at in 2 Corinthians 5:20 when he calls you and me “Christ’s ambassadors.” Think about the role ambassadors play on behalf of nations today. They themselves are not sovereign. But they stand in for and represent the sovereign and the values of their kingdom.So it is with God and his kingdom. One of the purposes of our work is to “stand in for God” and be what James Davison Hunter calls a “faithful presence” for him in our places of work. To be “like God,” not to Pharaoh but to our bosses, co-workers, and customers.What does this look like practically? It means exposing evil in our companies and industries (see Ephesians 5:11), “making [God’s] appeal” of salvation to the non-Christians we work with (see 2 Corinthians 5:20), and working “heartily, as unto the Lord” knowing that it is through our work that God feeds, heals, clothes, protects, and helps the world (see Colossians 3:23).The purpose of your work is so much bigger than providing for your needs or fulfillment. You wear what Martin Luther called “the masks of God,” standing in for him in your small corner of creation. Stand in as a bold, joyful, and faithful representative of him today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 3 of 7“So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10)God just said he would free the Israelites from their oppressive work conditions in Egypt, which undoubtedly brought Moses great joy. After all, he once killed a guy for the way he treated an Israelite worker (see Exodus 2:11-12). But what God said next broke Moses’s grin: “I am sending you,” Moses, to do this work. Exodus 3:11 - 4:10 records four excuses Moses makes for why he’s not the right person for this job. Today, I want to look at two of those excuses we borrow all the time to avoid doing the hard things God calls us to do.Excuse #1: I’m not qualified! Immediately after hearing God’s words in today’s passage, Moses said, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11) to which God replies, “I will be with you” (see Exodus 3:11-12). In other words, “You aren’t the point, Moses. ‘I AM.’ I don’t need you to be qualified. I need you to be willing to let me work through you.”The same is true with you and me, believer. Maybe God’s calling you to speak up to your boss about an offensive comment he made to someone who doesn’t have as much political capital at work as you do. It can be easy to say, “Who am I to have that conversation?” But if God is calling you to do it, you can do so boldly knowing that he is with you.Excuse #2: I don’t have all the answers! Exodus 3:13 records Moses as saying to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” Essentially, Moses is saying, “I don’t have all the answers, God!”We use this excuse all the time—especially when it comes to sharing our faith. To be clear, you should know God’s Word well enough to “be prepared to give an answer…for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15) But you also have to realize that you’ll never have all the answers to all the questions. Which is probably why, after commanding his followers to “make disciples,” Jesus reassured them by saying, “I am with you always.” And if he is with us, we can trust that he will give us the answers we need, when we need them.What excuses are keeping you from doing the thing God has called you to do in your work today? Ask God to reveal the answer and prepare your heart to step out in obedience despite your reservations.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 2 of 7The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians. (Exodus 3:7-8a)We’re in a seven-week series extracting wisdom for our work from the exodus, and in today’s passage, we find the impetus and trigger for this monumental event: Work! Or to be more specific, the horrible working conditions of God’s people.The Egyptians had “made [the Israelites’] lives bitter with harsh labor…[and] worked them ruthlessly” (Exodus 1:14), screaming “Get back to your work!” (Exodus 5:4), and, “Make the work harder” (Exodus 5:9). So God’s people “groaned in their slavery....and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God” (Exodus 2:23).And as today’s passage shows us, God heard the cry of his people and acted decisively. The ability of God’s image-bearers to do good work is so important to him that he sent ten brutal plagues and parted the Red Sea in order to free his people.Now, our work today can not compare to the enslavement of the Israelites. But we do deal with less severe “thorns and thistles” of the curse nonetheless (see Genesis 3:17-19). We are forced to put up with non-stop emails that distract us from our families, verbally abusive customers and bosses, and rising costs of living without corresponding increases in income.It can be tempting to think that God is indifferent to these struggles—that he’s got bigger things to worry about than whatever is frustrating you at work today. But the exodus shows us that’s not the case. As one theologian said commenting on today’s passage, "Work, and the conditions under which it is performed, is a matter of the highest concern to God."In light of that truth, how should we respond to the frustrations we face at work? In three ways.First, cry out to God for help like the Israelites did, knowing he hears your lament.Second, fight to improve the job conditions of those you work with, especially if you lead a team. The exodus reminds us that working to make your organization’s culture more equitable, peaceful, and enjoyable isn’t “secular.” It is God-ordained work.Finally, when you encounter frustrations at work today, look forward to when God will “come down to rescue” all of his people and put us to work on the New Earth where we will “long enjoy the work of our hands” (see Isaiah 65:22).