Introduction

Last week we discussed the special-ness of the biblical six and one pattern. It is rooted in God's six and one and is therefore special for five reasons: 1) because of God's proclamation, 2) because of God's love, 3) because of God's sovereignty, 4) because of God's promise, and 5) because of God's example. The orientation here is decidedly God-centered. We begin with God's six days before we discuss ours. But now let's turn to our six days. So today's message is titled, "God's Six Days and Ours" (in two weeks we will consider God's seventh day and ours).

We are God's image bearers. We are to work like He worked. We are to rest like He rested. In both ways we function as the analogues of God. What we do bears analogy to what God has done; what we do is similar to what God has done; what we do is patterned after what He has done. He sets the pattern and we follow; He commands and we obey. Our question then is "when do God's six days impact our six days?

1A. First, God's six days impact ours when there is a love orientation to our work

This accords with the big picture that is presented to us in Genesis 1, which shows God serving man in fashioning a habitable, wonderful, and pleasant place for man to live.

1) This means working for others

To be His analogue then, we must view our work in a similar way no matter what form of work we do. We follow our Creator's example when we take up our six days of work for others. What a profound example to follow: be like God, work in order to make life pleasant for others. This means doing your work in this way and fashioning the products of your work to this end. This applies to both the task and the people associated with our work. The work of the six days will be oriented to service to others to promote their life and happiness.

2) It means working with others

Thus, we are governed in our attitudes and relationships while on the job. We are governed by a sense of being a servant as our high calling from our heavenly Father. We want above all else to emulate Him. When we view work as essentially a service to others then it is easy to see how inconsistent it is to be unloving toward fellow workers. We cannot make an absolute disjunction between the "others" we are working for and the "others" we are working with.

There is cooperation between the Father and the Spirit evident in Genesis 1:2, which reveals the fact that the Holy Spirit hovered like an eagle protecting her young. The young earth in all its stages of development went from the Father's hand into the Holy Spirit's embrace. This is directly the case if "the beginning" refers to all six days; otherwise it is safe to infer that what took place on day one continued at each stage of early development. And we know that Jesus was with God in the beginning and that nothing was made without Him (Jn. 1:1-3).

We must do our work with a most cooperative spirit. Others may not be cooperative. They may even hinder us as well as not help us. Nevertheless, we make this our goal in all our work to be like the triune God under whose authority we are committed to live as shown in our baptism (Matt. 28:19-20). Thus our baptism implicitly involved a commitment to work six days in service to others: we are disciples committed to learn and live under the authority of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Being a Christian means emulating God in the six days of work, especially in this love orientation where we work in service to others.

2A. Second, God's six days impact ours when there is a sacred orientation to our work

What we do for others is defined by what we do for the Lord, serving others is serving God. If a slice of the pie is service to others, what is the whole pie? It is service to God. That is a way to explain the point of "not serving man." When you see the slice of the pie in light of the whole pie there is only one thing you can call it: service to God. What it is a slice of will tell you what it is.

All of our work is sacred and religious. We follow God in our service to others. We look at but beyond those we serve, beyond to our sovereign.

It is in this light that we are to understand the duties of slaves cited in the NT as in Colossians 3:22-25. Being a slave is primarily an economic issue in Scripture. The master has ownership of his slaves time and labor not ownership of his person (cf. Murray, Principles of Conduct, pp. 97-98, "not the property of man in man…slavery is the property of man in the labour of another"). Without solving all the problems of slavery as such, we can state that "slave" easily converts to "employee" when we apply the NT to modern culture. We make this conversion intuitively when we apply the text to ourselves. We are to serve obediently in the presence of the Lord not simply under the eye of man (Col. 3:22, "with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord).

We serve with whole-heartedness (Col. 3:23b) no matter what the task (Col. 3:23a, of course, within the boundaries of righteousness). And note who we work for in an ultimate sense: "for the Lord, not for men" (Col. 3:23c). We do serve men, we do work for men, but it is not merely or ultimately for them but "for the Lord." We have a wage motivation that transcends the workers due and just reward. We know of a reward that is an inheritance from the Lord we serve (Col. 3:24). We know also that there is a wage for sin that will be paid regardless of one's station in life (Col. 3:24).

All of these principles put a sacred and religious tone into our "secular" work. It is truly not secular work because we are not secular people. Instead, we are God's image-bearers who perform their work as children and analogues of God. What else can we think? Are we to suppose that our work out there in the "secular" world is somehow separate from our relationship to God, the Creator of all things, the Lord of all? Thus work is priestly service. We are the people of God, a chosen nation, a royal priesthood. We are children of the king. We live under His direction. We follow His example.

We of course work for wages that are justly due to the workman. But underlying the gain we will obtain is the greater purpose of serving, of being of service. We look for the gain of good to others however and wherever we can promote it. This covers all our work as a calling to priestly service from helping a fellow employee solve a problem to doing our work with skill and heartiness as unto the Lord.

3A. Third, God's six days impact ours when there is a delightful orientation to our work

1) Aiming at delight itself is image bearing (at delight in work!)

He saw that all that He made was good, in fact, very good (Gen. 1:9, 18, 31). This is a pattern for work that we should emulate. We should work until there is fulfillment-until we can feel satisfied with the effort put forth and say, "that's good, that was a good days work." At the least, that should be our goal whatever hindrances may be there due to sin.

2) Delighting in creation is image bearing

We are surrounded in our work by the things in which God takes great delight. Delighting in the things that God has made is image bearing; it means delighting in what delights Him. Consider the things that are good in broad outline: light, sun, moon, stars, seas, dry land with mountains and valleys, vegetation, animal life (sea creatures, birds, livestock, wild animals) and man, male and female. The non-believer shows himself to be God's image whenever he looks at a sunset with awe or experiences an all absorbing delight standing under a star filled sky. He contradicts his humanity when he fails to acknowledge the Lord in all he sees and experiences.

God created the environment of our work, its context, and the substance of our work, its content. Therefore, to delight in work is godly.

3) Temporal delight is image bearing

Furthermore, we should delight in a day of work as having the value of a thousand years because it is another step in the unfolding of the plan of God. By working six days in our time frame, God brought His eternal plan of the universe to realization. He shows us that He delights to work out His plan in a day by day fashion. That is one of the ways for us to see history in a biblical philosophy of history. History is the daily unfolding of the plan of God. Planning and carrying out a plan in daily stages structured around a weekly cycle is image bearing (it is good to say, "we will go to such and such a place to buy and sell and to get gain, the Lord willing).

Our time has meaning however difficult it may be to see the meaning at a given moment. Each day has meaning as another day in the unfolding of God's eternal purpose that He is pleased to work out in a daily fashion. Delight should permeate our work as to its physical and fascinating environment, as to its context of personal relationships, and as to its temporal milieu. Every way you turn, you can step back and say, "here too, we live and move and have our being in God."

4A. Fourth, God's six days impact ours when there is a family orientation to our work

1) Love, marriage, and family are all a delight to the Lord. He made us male and female to be fruitful and fill the earth imaging His social or communal nature (let us make man, male and female, Gen. 1:26-27). Work here also images God. It is being like God to work at your marriage to make it a taste of heaven on earth because you work at it as the analogue of your heavenly Father who "blessed them" and said "be fruitful." God honors this institution. So should we.

Our work does not end at work. Ironing, mashing potatoes, painting, decorating, drawing, fixing, selling, constructing, shipping, and receiving are all tasks of the human family.

2) We are to put forth the work needed to develop companionship and family life that pleases the Lord and reflects His inter-trinitarian love. To work at having marriage as designed by God for companionship, helpfulness, fruitfulness is a central part of the work of the regular workweek.

It is truly a grave and serious wrong when people neglect the family because of work-alcoholism. Work serving others is not proper when it excludes and neglects the family. I refer to the primary unit of husband and wife and with that primary unit comes children and thus a generational responsibility of family life. The fact that we are sinners shows up significantly in this area. Family division, strife, isolation, and non-communication surface all too often. But in His work, God took delight in creating the family. We should as well. We can only do what we can do up to the limits others impose on us. But we can always be willing and make effort to better family relationships across generations (grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, and so forth). Effort means work but we do so following God's example of work if we take delight in family life in making it an object of loving, sacred, delightful work.

Broken families exist because the human family is fallen. We are to do all we can to promote peace, "as much as is possible." There are many dead ends.

3) But by the grace of God, there is a new family, a restored family. This is the household of faith that is to have a priority in our good doing (Gal. 6:10). We are brothers and sisters in Christ. To work at Christian family life that is an honor to God our Father and to Christ our elder brother should be a special part of the fabric of our workweek.

Conclusion: Why so pattern our lives? Why should we follow God's six days of work?

1) It pleases the Father

He worked six days in original creation to show us that He is pleased to work out His purposes in this way. It pleased Him to work, to work in six days, to work for others serving man. By hard work with the right attitude we promote that which pleases the Lord. We should value this pattern as given to us by the Lord. It is His word on how we should think about our days on earth in a weekly cycle of six and one. He has given this pattern for our good. He is helping us, guiding us, in the organizing of our time. He seeks in this way to give us a sense of value and dignity to our work.

2) It glorifies God

When we emulate Him in this pattern of life on earth we image Him, we reflect our Creator. It is glorifying to God when we work with love, sacredness, delight, and family balance. We are to look back to our labors in the past week and ahead to the work that shall begin tomorrow. We are to have a consciousness of time, a consciousness of the divinely given 6-1 temporal pattern for life on earth. Instead of being bound by the clock, we should be bound by the six and one for the great, ultimate, and supreme end of glory to God.

3) It builds the city of God.

Our eyes are thus fixed on Jesus the author and finisher of our faith as we look for a city that has foundations whose builder and maker is God. Because this is the case, then all our work should be done to honor Him and to do that we too should do our work as under-craftsmen who are building and making the city of God in our six days of labor. This is truly a refreshing view of work. This sacred goal of fashioning a people to populate the heavenly city is accomplished in our daily work!

May we be refreshed and encouraged to follow God by working six days and resting on the seventh day in anticipation of the rest that is promised when the city of God reaches culmination.

web address: westminsterreformedchurch.org

email: rostella@comcast.net