Made to Flourish #1 - Work
Description
Dr. Kurt Bjorklund begins a new message series called Made to Flourish. He explores Genesis 1-2 to reveal God's original design for work as a pre-fall mandate, showing that our value comes from being created in God's image rather than from our productivity. This powerful message challenges our culture's tendency to define ourselves by our careers, inviting us to embrace both meaningful work and sacred rest as God intended, finding true flourishing in the balance He established from creation.
Summary and Application
In a world that often equates our worth with our productivity, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund's message offers a refreshing perspective rooted in the creation narrative. Exploring Genesis 1-2, Kurt reveals God's original intention for work as a pre-fall mandate, not a consequence of sin. He challenges the common distortion of work, urging us to rediscover its inherent splendor and purpose.
Work: More Than Just a Means to an End
Kurt argues that we often reduce work to a mere means to an end – a way to earn income and afford leisure. While acknowledging the necessity of work for provision (referencing 2 Thessalonians 3:10), he cautions against living solely for the weekend or the next vacation. Drawing from Dorothy Sayers, he emphasizes that the church has often failed to connect faith with our "secular vocation," leading to a disconnect between work and a sense of higher purpose.
Instead, Kurt proposes that work should be an offering to God, an expression of our God-given abilities contributing to human flourishing. "If we are to work for the glory of God, anytime we're working against pain and tears and mourning and death, we are working for the glory of God," he states.
Work: Not Our Identity
Another distortion occurs when work becomes our primary identity. Kurt quotes Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, who observed that many doctors become defined by their careers, losing sight of their inherent value as individuals created in God's image. He reminds us that our worth comes from being made in God's image (Genesis 1:26-28, Psalm 8), not from our achievements or productivity. When success in our work leads to pride or failure leads to feelings of worthlessness, it's a sign that work has become an idol.
Work: Not a Tool for Domination
Kurt addresses the concept of "dominionism" or the "seven mountain mandate," which suggests that Christians are called to rule over specific spheres of society (government, media, etc.). While acknowledging the call to influence our spheres, he cautions against a posture of domination. Referencing Mark 10:42-43, he highlights Jesus' example of servant leadership, emphasizing that our influence should be characterized by service, not control. Our role is to be salt and light, pointing others to the coming Kingdom, not to force its arrival through worldly power.
Reclaiming God's Design
Kurt encourages listeners to re-evaluate their relationship with work, seeking to align it with God's original intention. He points to Revelation 21-22, which depicts a restored kingdom where human flourishing is present, and invites us to participate in that vision now.
To help you reflect on this message, consider these questions:
Means to an End: How can you shift your perspective to see your work as more than just a way to earn a paycheck, but as a contribution to human flourishing and an act of worship?
Identity: Are you deriving your sense of worth and identity from your work? What steps can you take to ground your identity in Christ and your creation in God's image?
Domination: Are you approaching your work with a posture of service or domination? How can you use your influence to bless others and point them to the coming Kingdom?
By answering these questions, we can begin to reclaim God's design for work, finding true flourishing in the balance between meaningful labor and sacred rest.
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Let's pray together. God, we thank you for how you've worked in Mitch and Ashley's lives. We pray that you'd continue just to show yourself in the details of their lives, their journey, and bring healing to Mitch. And God, as many of us are gathered this weekend at our different campuses, locations online, I know that there are a lot of stories with hardship and pain, and we ask you just to work in the midst of those. And, God, during this moment that we're gathered, I ask that you would speak to each of us. I ask that my words would reflect your word in content and in tone and in emphasis, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
So let me ask you, what was the last TV show or the last movie that you spent time watching? Like, you binge watched a TV show or you had a movie that you sat and watched. What was it?
So just think about that for a moment. Now now take the next question. What was the theme or the big idea or the subtext of that show, that movie? And the reason I ask this question is because my guess is that many of us hear that and the themes are pretty predictable. A lot of times shows that we like are about somebody finding love, being in love, experiencing love, losing love but it has something to do with that.
Or maybe it has something to do with finding significance or purpose in life. Somebody doing something that that they say this really matters in some way or maybe it's finding transcendence. And you may say, well, I I don't know if that's true. I mean, what I liked was a revenge shoot them up kind of kind of theme. And so how is that any of these things?
Well, it's kind of the dark side of significance or transcendence because what you're doing is you're saying I want justice, transcendent theme, and I wanna see it meted out in real time. Some of you are saying, well, come on, come on. I got into a home and gardening TV show. How is that? Any part of that, you are looking to bring order and significance out of chaos.
And if your last binge show was Doctor. Pimple Popper, I have nothing for you today. But William Barclay, who's an author of another generation put it this way at one point, he said, here's what we need. We all need something to do, we need someone to love, and we need something to believe in. And what we're going to do over the next several weeks is we're going to look at some of the themes from Genesis one and two, which are the account of creation before the fall, and we are going to see how God intended us to not just thrive, but really flourish in this world.
And today, we're going to begin with some well known verses about how God created. We'll begin with Genesis chapter one verse 26, 20 seven, 20 eight, because these verses point to part of how God created each one of us. Here's what it says. Verse 26, then God said, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over the livestock and the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image.
In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. God bless them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
And so there are a couple of words here that emerge right in the creation narrative. Man and woman were created in the image of God and he says he did this so that you would rule over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea. Some versions say have dominion over. That's how the ESV translates this. The NIV says rule over.
Some versions say have authority over. Robert Alter in his translation of the Old Testament says hold sway. You should hold sway over these things. And so there's this word for rule or have dominion, and then there's this word subdue. And this word subdue has a connotation of, of ruling in a in a slightly different way.
Here's how the ESV study bible notes talk about this. It says, subdue, which is the Hebrew word kabash, elsewhere means to bring people or land into subjection so that it will yield service to the one subduing it. Here, the idea is that man and woman are to make the Earth's resources beneficial for themselves, which implies that they would investigate and develop the earth's resources to make them useful for human beings generally. This command provides a foundation for wise scientific and technological development. This evil, the evil, I'm sorry, uses to which people, the evil uses to which people have put their dominion come as a result of Genesis three.
So Genesis three here is an allusion to the fall, and he's saying the evil uses of dominion are because of the fall. The evil uses of authority are because of the fall. And some people have referred to this as the creation mandate, but here's what this really means. It means that you and I were created to work. Okay.
Now some of you are saying, I don't know if I like this message. But notice that work, have dominion, rule, subdue the earth is before the fall. It's not just as a result of the fall. And not only that, when we read our bibles all the way to the end and we see some of return of Jesus. Here's Isaiah chapter two verse four.
It says, return of Jesus. Here's Isaiah chapter two verse four. It says, he will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many people. They will beat with their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Now this is an image contextually of the kingdom, the future kingdom, and he says people will still be using implements in order to do work.
In other words, work is a gift from God for all of us to be embraced that was pre the fall, post Christ coming back, meaning it is good and something to be pursued in our lives. And a lot of times when we think about work in the future, we think about heaven even. We're a little bit like Tom Sawyer. You might remember this. When he was being talked to about heaven by the old woman in the Huck Finn stories and all of that, he said, and she went on and talked about this good place, but I didn't think much of it because all a person would have to do in heaven would be to sit around and sing choir songs and listen to harp music all day.
Well, the vision of the Bible is that you will feel productive and creative and resourceful in the future without the frustration that comes from the fall. But the problem is that we distort work because we live in a fallen world. And so what I'd like to do today is just talk about three ways that work is distorted, and how we can regain some of its splendor, so that we can flourish. And the first way that we distort work is we simply see work as a means to an end. Now work is a means to an end in the sense that work creates income which allows us to have possibilities.
And sometimes it is right to just simply say I need to work to get something. You might be at a stage of life where you say I just need to have this job for now to get kind of this next thing to get to the next thing, but the idea is that work is not simply to be that. Now, again, it is for having food. This is second Thessalonians three verse 10. It says, for even when we were with you, we gave you this rule that one who is unwilling to work should not eat.
So work is good as a means to an end, but it isn't just a means to an end, because when it morphs into just a means to an end, what happens is we start to work merely for the weekend, merely for the things that money can give us so that we can do the things we enjoy. And instead of seeing work as something that we do to the glory of God, that is about our using who God made us to be, we see work merely as a way to get other things that we want. Dorothy Sayers, who's written extensively about work says this, work is not primarily a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is or should be the full expression of the worker's faculties. The thing in which he or she finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.
Now certainly work isn't just what we do vocationally. We work when we care for other people. We work when we care for a home or a property. We work when we invest in anything that brings human flourishing, and certainly our vocations are part of that, can be part of that. But the idea here is that when we see work as merely a means to an end, that all we're ever doing is working to be able to say, now I get to do what it is I really want.
In fact, in the Bible, there isn't the concept of retirement. Now some of you are like, well, wait a second again, I'm not sure I like this message. And I'm not saying that it's not good to get to a point where you're financially able to not go to an actual vocational job that pays you. I think that's a good thing, but the idea that that that you are gonna work your whole life so that you can work on your golf game is not really a biblical idea. Because the idea is that you would still have things that you are contributing to the good of the world even if you're not doing it vocationally from nine to five because those things help the world to flourish.
And so maybe you'll get to a point where you're well off enough that you don't need to work so that you have enough resources, but it doesn't mean that you're done with what God has called you to do. Because work is not just a means to an end. It's something much greater than that. In fact, when we look at what happens at the end of the Bible, what we see is what will be in this restored kingdom. And I want you just to notice, I'm gonna read a little bit of Revelation twenty one and twenty two.
I want you to see what's absent and what's present. Here's what we read, Revelation 21 verse three. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them. And they will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. And then it says this, he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then he said, write this down, for these are trustworthy and true. And then in Revelation 22, again in verse three, actually just the sentence before it says, and the leaves of the tree will be for the healing of the nations. Verse three, no longer will there be any curse.
The throne of God and of the lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve him, and they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. There will be there will not need to be a light of a lamp or a light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever. So what do we see here? In the kingdom, there will be no more tears, no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain, no more night.
In other words, the picture is of a place where there is human flourishing and there will be an overwhelming sense of God's presence. There will be community, there will be worshiping community, the healing of the nations. And Revelation 20 two:two speaks about, about a, a way in which the nations live together in prosperity and peace. In other words, those are the things that will be extended into the kingdom. And here's what this means for how you and I approach work.
If we are to work for the glory of God, anytime we're working against pain and tears and mourning and death, we are working for the glory of God. And every time we are working for the expression of worship, for the flourishing of humanity in any sphere, we are working for the glory of God. And that's important because without it, our work will simply be a means to an end. Again, Dorothy Sayers in writing about this said this, and this is a little longer than what I normally read, but I think it's her words are helpful. In nothing has the church so lost her hold on reality as in her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation.
And here, when she says secular vocation, she's referring to things outside the church that you do. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that as a result, the secular work of the world has turned to purely selfish and destructive ends. And the greater part of the world's intelligent workers have become irreligious or at least uninterested in religion. But it is it astonishing? How can anyone remain interested in religion which seems to have no concern with nine tenths of his life?
The church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to drink too much or be disorderly in his leisurely hours and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this, that the very first demand that religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. In other words, God calls us not simply to use work as a means to an end so that we can worship or do something else, but that it is a place where we offer service to God by working against the things that are against human flourishing and for the things that bring human flourishing. And when you understand the the narrative of the Bible, God created us to work. There's the fall.
Jesus came to redeem. It means he's redeeming our work, and one day after he comes back, our work will be restored to that glory, and he invites us to participate with him now. So that's sometimes distorted because we simply see work as a means to an end. Here here's a second distortion, and that is sometimes our work is distorted because we see work as a means to our identity. And what I mean when I say this is that our work becomes so important to us that it defines us, that it's how we see ourselves.
In Psalm eight, the word that's used for rule or dominion is rule is used also. And here, it's used in the context of talking about being made as humans a little lower than angels. Let me read a few verses, verse three and following. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them? Human beings that you care for them.
In other words, God, you have made people in your image for your glory. And then it says this, you've made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You have made them rulers over the works of your hands. You have put everything under their feet. But what happens sometimes is when we lean so much into our work, our rule over an area of this world, we forget that we were made in the image of God a little lower than angels, and that we are the handiwork of God because work becomes our identity.
Now, clearly work can bring a feeling of dignity. Proverbs 22 verse 29 talks about that. But the issue is is when we work in such a way that that that it defines us, we end up working too much because we have to get what work gives us or we become insecure in our work. I heard somebody put it like this, and that is when our work is our identity, if we're successful, it goes to our head and we become prideful. And if we're not successful, it goes to our heart and we feel like we're somehow a failure.
Think about this as parents. If you've parented, that's one of your big works in life. And what happens is if your kids do well, it can easily go to your head and you can start to say, well I guess we figured this parenting thing out. We're doing it pretty well. And if your kids don't do well, it can go to your heart and you can say, what have I done with my life?
And think about it in your career, it's the same thing. If you're defined by it, if it goes well, you start to think I've really got something here. I I I've achieved, and if it doesn't go well, you start to feel like somehow you are less than who God made you to be. Doctor Martin Lloyd Jones was a medical doctor in London a generation ago, a couple generations ago now. And he became a pastor and he preached at a church there in London for years and years.
And he at one point said that that what's true about most people he knew who were doctors like he had been is that they were his quote, born a man and they die doctors. And his point was, you start out as a person apart from your career, and then your career defines you and it becomes what is most important about you, and that is not how God designed you to be. He designed you to be a person who has value because you were created in his image, not because of what it is that you produce or do or don't do. And it's hard sometimes in our world to live in that reality, but but here's what God gives us for this and this is just baked right into Genesis one and two because what does it say? That on the first day, he created, and the second day, and the third day, and the fourth day, and the fifth day, and the sixth day, and then what happens?
The seventh day, what does he do? He rests. And then in Exodus 20, where we get the first stating of the 10 Commandments, it's memorialized. What are we to do? We're to work for six days and then what?
To take the seventh day, set it apart as unto the Lord to make it holy, which means it's for worship, it's for rest, it's for recalibration. What happens for many of us and how you know that work has become your identity is when you use the day that God has given you for worship and rest set apart to him for what you use every other day for. Because now what you're doing is you're saying I can't rest because I need to use this time to be productive. And so for some of us, the way this works is we simply say I just have to keep producing because it's the only time I feel good about myself, or I'm insecure enough about what happens if I don't keep producing myself, or I'm insecure enough about what happens if I don't keep producing that that that everything's gonna fall apart if I take a day off. Do you hear the fallacy of the thinking?
And it starts, by the way, when you're in high school, when you're in college that says, you know what, I need to crush my academics so I can get to a college, I can get the job, and I need to work at my my my grades when I'm in college every day. I can't take a day off because if I ever take a day off, what will happen is I won't get the job and I'll somehow be a failure. Did did you hear it? And what Sabbath means is that you say I'm going to have a day that is about worship, a day that is about relationships that get neglected at other times of my life, and a day that's about rest. How many of us could use more time for worship relationships, key relationships, and rest, but we let so many things influence our lives.
We use our weekend day, our Sabbath day to get our lawn cut. Now, I'm not saying there's never a time to let the lawn get cut on Sunday, if it's gonna rain on Monday and you had the week. But do you see how quickly it can become? Well, I'm just going to do this so I have more time to work the rest of the week. You can't have Sabbath if you're doing kids sports every weekend.
Now I get it, you're, you know, you're sitting there with the umbrella out in a nice sunny day or a nice 40 degree day, whatever it happens to be, and you're having a nice tea and you're thinking this feels like rest, and it is. But when it is every weekend, it becomes that you do not have a day that is set apart for worship, and for rest, and for relationship, because what you're doing is you're trying to let your 12 year old beat 12 year olds from somewhere else. I know, I'm meddling, I get it. And I'm not suggesting that you don't do kids sports. I'm not suggesting that you don't do travel sports, but what I'm saying is be really careful because work isn't just I went to the office and I spent all my time there, it's everything that we do that we think is somehow bringing us something.
And when our identity is, I'm the kind of a parent who does a great job getting my kid to play sports so that they can go and play sports somewhere and they can have an identity. We're borrowing worth from something that doesn't really amount to much at the end of time. Our worth needs to come from what Jesus says about us ultimately. What God says about us. You're created in my image, and the reason we take Sabbath is to stop producing long enough to let the voice of God be heard.
So, we distort work because we use it as a means to an end. We distort work is because we use it as a means to an identity, and then I believe we distort work because we use it as a means of domination. Now I say this and this may feel like it's a rabbit trail to some of you. Some of you will understand the nuances of what I'm about to say. But in Genesis, when we're told that God gives us rule, authority, or dominion, there are some who take this and say, well, okay.
So dominion means that we rule, and God intends for Christians to rule over creation. And they see it as the creation mandate, and therefore our task, if you're a follower of Jesus, is to rule over an area of this creation. And like most things that are kind of off, they're kind of true. And what I mean by that is is this idea that says God calls you to to have dominion over something is true, but notice what he calls you to have dominion over, the fish and the birds and the land. It's not about having dominion over other people necessarily.
Now, here's how this plays out. The people who hold this, it's called dominionism by some people or the seven mountain mandate. And here's where you get this. This is Revelation chapter 17 verse nine. This is part of this thinking.
It says the calls, this calls for a mind of wisdom. The seven heads are the seven hills on which the woman sits. And so what people have done is they've looked at this and said, well the seven hills must represent the seven spheres in which people live and move, the seven mountains. So it's the seven mountain mandate that you are, if you're a follower of Jesus, to rule in one of the seven spheres, one of the seven mountains. Family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, government.
Those are the places and you are to rule in those places. Now the problem with this is that it's really bad exegesis of this passage because it says the seven hills are the are the place. I mean it's still this would be like saying when Jeremiah walked around the walls, the four walls stand for, you know, I'm just gonna say opposition to the ways of God and opposition to, you know, the character of Nehemiah and this. I mean, you could throw anything on top of the seven or the four. Or if you're going to say the giants in the Old Testament represent giants that that, you know, David slayed with a slingshot of fear and the giant of depression and the giant of, like the text doesn't say that.
The text does seven spheres here. And my point in this isn't to necessarily pick on this because I think, again, there's a rightness to saying you are called to influence an area, but Jesus is the king and the ruler. We are servants. And in Matthew chapter five, Jesus says, here's how I want you to influence the world. He says, I want you to be salt and light.
I want you to influence the world. So here's the right part. You are not called to sit aloof from whatever sphere you live and move in, but to be salt and light in the sphere. But what domination does is it says, now I have the right to rule. And sometimes it's very personal where you use power to just dominate other people.
Sometimes it's very much bigger than that where you say I'm part of something. In fact, Charlie Kirk, who's a conservative commentator, has said when the last president was elected, he said, we finally have a president who understands the seven mountain mandate. Now, I realize to even reference that is a little problematic because some of you are saying, well, yeah, this is awesome. And others of you are saying, oh, that's bad. And I get that, okay?
But but but here's my point, and that is not that one candidate isn't preferable to another and one may not be better for the things that are friendly to the kingdom of God, but my point is if you're hoping for a political candidate or for a business opportunity or an education reform that is going to usher in the kingdom of God, you have misunderstood, I believe, the kingdom of God. Because the Kingdom of God is future, it is present, but it's present in part, it's future will be its fulfillment, and your call right now is to say, how can I influence and point people to the ultimate kingdom? Just as one example, and there are so many we don't obviously have time to go through so many. Let me give you one. This is Mark chapter 10.
This is Jesus speaking. I'll begin in verse 42. I think you'll see verse 43 and following on the screen. It says, you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. And the word for Lord over here in the Septuagint, which is the Greek version of the old testament, is the same word for dominion.
He is using this here to say, in essence, I am lording it over or I'm not. The gentiles are lording it over one another. They're using it for domination. Then he says this, not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.
For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. So why did Jesus come? Not to dominate, but to serve. Now he is coming to rule, and there's an invitation to say, let your work point to that, but it is future, and again, why that matters is because it's your posture. And if your posture is I'm going to take charge and we're going to rule, it leads to the kind of thinking that says when we get the right political candidate, when we get the right school board, when we get the right people in media or wherever, then the kingdom can come.
God doesn't need you. It doesn't mean you're not part of it, but you become salt and light to point to it and let God be the one who drives the results. And that way, your work is done unto the glory of God. Now, you may be here saying, okay, well how does this help me with my job? You know, whatever my place is in that.
Some of us are in a place where we're barely tolerating our job. We hate our job. And if that's you, you may be in a season where that's what you need to do because it's a means to an end. But can I encourage you to not stay in that place, but to look for a place where you sense the pleasure of God in working against the things that are against the kingdom of God, and for the things that are for the kingdom of God? And that's just all human flourishing.
As Dorothy Sayers said, if you're a carpenter and you make great tables, that is for the glory of God. If you teach kids, you're doing it for the glory of God or you're doing it for a paycheck, but if you're hating something, either change jobs or change perspectives, so that you can say, as of now I'm doing this for the glory of God. It changes how you approach your everyday. Some of us are in a place where we don't need to work. You've earned enough money and you've come to a point where you can choose to go to work or not go to work, and that's a great place to be if that's where you are.
Let me just reiterate what I said earlier, retirement is not a Biblical concept. And so what I'm saying to you isn't that you should keep working at your job, but you should still be asking yourself how can I contribute to human flourishing in this world? Maybe I do less of it than I've been doing, but how can I help the world flourish because that is the call of God on you and it doesn't end because you get enough money to walk away from a job? And some of us are probably in a spot where we feel overwhelmed. We feel like there's never enough time for us to do all the things that are in front of us between work, and properties and people, we just feel like we're always under it and there's never enough time.
And maybe for some of us that means that we need to reevaluate if we're getting our identity from being productive, and if we're taking a day to at least rest and focus our attention on God. Because what we're probably doing is we're saying this world can't get by without me for a day In such a way that that that we're overwhelmed because we keep saying yes to things when we could say no and trust God for the future. Do you see how these all work together? To be able to say, God, I offer you my work as worship for your glory. Not to be defined by it, not to dominate people by it, but instead to say this is something that I offer to the world where this helps others and me flourish. And when we do that, then we're working for the glory of God in the place where we live.
God, we ask today that you would help us to work for your glory, that we would know that Jesus has accomplished his work on our behalf so that we can share in this beautiful eternity. And that we would know that it isn't our work that does that, but we can offer our work to you as an act of worship. And I pray we would all learn how to work for your glory from wherever we are, whatever we're doing, and not for an identity, and without being drawn to an undue sense of importance or domination over others. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Thanks for being here. Have a great week.
