In the Bible, the very first chapter of the first book, Genesis, tells the story of God creating and uses a framework of six workdays to describe its development. Then in Chapter 2, verses 1 and 2, we see work, work, work.
[2:1] Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. [2] 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.
The story of creation from the Jewish scriptures, believed by Christians, is that creation was the product of
God gets right to work from the beginning of time. That’s unique. Many other creation stories in other cultures start with conflict between gods. They say we and our world are products of destruction. But the Christian story says we are products of construction.
When it’s all done, God is satisfied, and can rest. He’s said over and over as he created, it’s good. When he created humans he said it was very good. And then he rested, satisfied he’d done good work.
For the rest of the summer, we’ll be looking at work and rest, and how important they are for followers of Jesus.
And it starts here, with the simple fact that God works, and is still working to provide, care, heal and sustain life for us on earth.
God and Jesus work: in John 5:17 he responded to those who objected to him healing people on Saturday, what should have been a day of rest. He said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
God didn’t stop working forever, he is still at work, including in and through his son Jesus.
Later in John 5:36 it’s clear God the Father has given him work to do…like an assignment.
Finally, work is in paradise. If the Garden of Eden, in creation, we get a picture of heaven on earth, and we see work is meant to be there, not just added in after humans rebelled against god – it was there before the rebellion. The nature of work changed, but it was meant to be there already.
Today we’ve seen, work is meant to be a good thing…something God embraces. Not an evil virus infecting life.
Question: Why is the goodness of work not more apparent in human life? What makes this so hard to believe?
Acknowledgements: Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavour and Work & Rest
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In Matthew 5:48 Jesus said, Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
What's your reaction? Do you laugh? Yeah, right, I'm supposed to be perfect like God!
Or do you feel guilt? I'm so not perfect…but I should be.
Do you try to rationalize it? He doesn't really meant that?
It's not a mistake. This idea comes up elsewhere in the Bible.
i.e. Be holy as I am holy. Leviticus 11:44
Holiness is God's quality. Good, perfect, godly.
Is Jesus really asking us to be like God in some way?
If people were trying to redefine holy to get around this passage from Leviticus, Jesus makes it clear. I really mean I want you to be perfect and holy.
By our usual definitions, it seems overly idealistic.
Something for young, dreamy-eyed people.
But have you ever tried to follow all God’s laws to the letter?
The Sermon on the Mount can be discouraging if we treat it this way, and this line is the cherry on top.
We'll see tomorrow what this means.
Question: Jesus seems to expect the impossible of his followers. How do you react to this?
