We have a God Who works

I enjoy the website “Theology of Work.”  For several months, I made their online study materials my Saturday Bible study.  Their study of the book of Hebrews highlights the work of God in Christ, and the diverse ways that God is portrayed as a Worker.  I’ll take a quote directly from their site:

“The imagery of God as worker continues throughout Hebrews. He put together or pitched the heavenly tent (Heb. 8:2; by implication, Heb. 9:24), constructed a model or a blueprint for Moses’ tabernacle (Heb. 8:5), and designed and built a city (Heb. 11:10, 16; 12:22; 13:14). He is a judge in a court as well as the executioner (Heb. 4:12–13; 9:28; 10:27–31; 12:23). He is a military leader (Heb. 1:13), a parent (Heb. 1:5; 5:8; 8:9; 12:4–11), a master who arranges his household (Heb. 10:5), a farmer (Heb. 6:7–8), a scribe (Heb. 8:10), a paymaster (Heb. 10:35; 11:6), and a physician (Heb. 12:13).”

We have a God Who works.  He created the world according to His divine plan and creative nature; He redeemed the world from sin out of His divine justice and compassion.  He spoke the world into being and spent generations working out His plan of salvation in Christ “in the fullness of time.”  We have a God Who works—He does not shy away from difficult, dangerous, time-consuming, bloody work.  Were He a God Who shied away from challenges, He would have started without the premise of free will and the possibility of disobedience.  After the Fall, He could have opted to destroy the entire world and start from scratch.  But He did not.  He enacted a deeply personal plan to redeem His creation.

Stop and contemplate "Jesus bar Joseph, the carpenter's son". If history had never known Jesus' family business, I imagine we might have guessed farmer or shepherd based on some of His parables and analogies. Of course, part of that is just the highly agrarian culture that existed then. But to see Jesus as a carpenter--which I'm sure that He was, having been raised into adulthood in His parents' home--now seems doubly perfect; He "is the builder of everything" (Heb 3:4).  As Man, He was a God who worked.  

There is a beautiful imagined scene in movie “The Passion of the Christ” depicting Jesus interacting with Mary His mother.  It shows Him building a dining table—testing its strength and levelness; wearing dirty work clothes.  The scene is doubly beautiful in that it depicts Jesus calling as carpenter—a craftsman diligently working on producing a quality product—and His calling as a human son—lovingly, teasingly interacting with His mother, obeying her demand that He was His hands before eating.  Jesus worked with His hands while on earth; before He entered His period of ministry, it is not unreasonable at all to imagine that He worked hard in the profession of carpenter, the trade handed down to Him by His earthly father Joseph.  And anyone who has ever done word-working of any kind—let alone wood-working without modern tools and electricity—knows that can be hard, demanding and possibly dangerous work.  We have a God Who works. Even in His Incarnation, Jesus did not shy away from hard work.

I recall a conversation with a friend in which we were discussing images of Christ on the Cross as He is very commonly portrayed—a rather effete and scrawny half-naked, pale, white man, bloodied and sad, rather pathetic looking. My friend pointed out that Jesus was NOT the wimp often depicted in artwork--He was a carpenter, and was likely strong, fit and well-muscled, capable and competent (because if the Son of God was trained to do anything, He would do it well). I think that image of Jesus as ineffective and weak, hanging forlornly on the cross, expresses a weirdly inaccurate view many people may subconsciously (or consciously, if only periodically) hold about Jesus --an itinerant preacher, a man of words, maybe a little frail, caught up in a political game that He lost because He was powerless to do anything.... these images betray our fear that our God in Christ may not be strong enough to handle the "real world" challenges that we face; that somehow He failed in the transition from ivory tower to earth, that His pie-in-the-sky ideologies are silly and foolish, that His death was a strange accident (1 Cor1: 18ff).

But this is far from the truth. Jesus was physically strong and competent, in creative and physical work with His earthly father Joseph; and He was and is the perfect expression of the creative power of God, who formed the world and still rules it. He intentionally set aside His glory as God and His physical power as a man, willingly submitting and participating in the plan of salvation. This is His great love for us:  He endured the cross for our salvation and His physical health and strength likely prolonged His pain and suffering, compared to what a weaker man might have been able to endure. We will experience challenges as we live out our calling on earth, and we also are called to endure. But we do not serve a weak and ineffective God; our God and Savior is capable and competent, strong and effective and we do not need to fear that He will abandon us, or that His "arm is too short to save (Is 59:1).

We have a God Who works.  He works hard; His work ethic embodies self-sacrifice and compassion.  The gospels relay the many miracles Jesus did, the times that He healed, transformed, fed and resurrected the people who clamored for His every last drop of energy.  He grieved with them and for them.  He rebuked and taught them.  He was patient with their blindness, their selfishness and their ignorance.  John 13: 1b says “Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love.”  A verse that serves as a transition from Jesus ministry to His final days, it highlights the acts of love and service that Jesus lived out during His ministry; His life of love and service culminated in the final act of love, His sacrificial death on the cross for our salvation.  

Because we have a God Who works, I do not shy away from hard work.  I know that God is in ultimate control of all of His creation; He initiated it, He sustains it, He redeemed it, He will destroy and remake it into perfection for eternity.  All of this will occur according to His plan, His wisdom and His timing.  With the Psalmist, I say “’You are my God’, my times are in Your hands; delivery me from my enemies and from those who pursue me.  Let Your face shine on Your servant; save me in Your unfailing love.”  

Because we have a God who has already worked out the plan of salvation for His creation, I know that He will work “…for the good of those who love Him,Who have been called according to His purpose.”  He has called each of us His friends and He has called us to remain in Him and bear much fruit for His glory.  We are called, justified and will be glorified with Him; and by His divine power He gives us everything we need for life and godliness.  He has promised us His Spirit, a Spirit of wisdom and power.  We have a God Who works, and He will work to bless our efforts; He will give us divine wisdom, sustain us in our efforts, forgive our sins and errors, and weave together our human work with His divine work.  I do not need to approach life or work with fear that God is too weak to preserve and sustain me; I have no fear that He will abandon me; I have no fear that I can destroy by human errors what He plans and intends; I have no fear that His expectations for me will exceed the power and strength that He offers.  The God Who created and redeemed the world is my God, and He is a God Who works.

1)      Does your perspective of God include His role as both Creator and Redeemer of the world?  Spend time contemplating the nature of God as a God Who works.

2)      Have you experienced personal or professional challenges that you felt were somehow outside of God’s authority?  When or why did you have this perception?  Review Hebrews 1 and 2; how do these chapters inform your perspective of God’s interest in and authority over your challenges?

3)      Consider how Jesus is often portrayed:  gentle shepherd; slight-framed man dying helplessly on the cross; sad-faced teacher.  Do you have a false image of Christ as weak and ineffective, as good intentioned but ultimately powerless?  How does the intentionality of John 13:1b—“He now showed them the full extent of His love"—refute this image?  Spend time meditating upon the reality of God’s plan of salvation lived out in Christ Jesus—the deliberate taking-on of servanthood, the setting aside of His full power as God—and how this demonstrates both God’s power and His love.

4)      We have a God Who works.  How does this shape your perception of the work you do daily?

Some of this post was originally published as a comment on the Theology of Work website.

The picture was taken at the  Garden Valley Ranch in Petaluma, CA.  Highly worth a visit!