Genesis 2:15

Work for and with God

Good evening, church. If you'd open to Genesis chapter two, we're gonna be looking in verse 15. As you're turning there, I'd like to ask a question. Have you ever been to a paradise? Maybe somewhere where you arrived and you thought, this has gotta be what heaven is like. I love this place. Think of that place in your mind, and then let me ask another question. What did you do there? You showed up, maybe you grabbed a refreshment or two, grabbed a seat, dipped your toes in the water maybe. What did you do when you arrived? Well, I wonder how many of you, you arrived at this paradise, and you brought out your toolkit, you brought out your shovel, brought out your pickup truck. You said, all right, let's get to work. Let's clock in and let's do this. I'm sure probably none of you did that when you showed up there. The amazing thing is when God plants a garden and puts the first man in the garden, he says after the Sabbath day, of course, let's get to work and let's do this thing. Well, we're gonna see why God does that and what it means for our work in this passage today. So a little bit of a roadmap for where we're going. Three very simple points. It's a short verse, so point number one is just the text. We're just gonna look at the text. What does it mean? What is its context in the whole Bible? What is the meaning of this text? Point number two is the truth about work We can say the doctrine of work or vocation that we can bring out of this text, that the text brings out for us. You can say the doctrine, point two. Point three, we're just going to look at, okay, tomorrow morning you go to work, how can I use that doctrine? in my workplace as I try to live for the Lord at work. So those are the three points. Let's get into point one, the text. So if you look down at the text with me, it says this.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.

Now I wanna point out what the important thing is In this first half of the verse, if we just take all the way to where it says the Garden of Eden. So the Lord God took man, put him in the Garden of Eden. What's important there? Obviously the Garden of Eden. Need to look at the location there. But my argument is the Garden of Eden, it is the temple of all temples. It is the place where God's presence dwelt perfectly. All of Israel's temples longed to be like the Garden of Eden. Now, I don't wanna spend too much time here. There's so much I could say about why that is. I'm gonna give you two proofs as to why the Garden of Eden was a temple. Proof number one, the later temple had all sorts of garden imagery. You had pomegranates, you had cedar that was carved into the shape of gourds. You had all sorts of garden imagery Most specifically, you had a candle in the middle or you had a lamp stand that was suspiciously shaped like the Tree of Life in the middle of the Garden of Eden. Had all sorts of garden imagery. That's proof number one. Proof number two, just like the cherubim guarded the way to the Tree of Life, there were cherubim guarding the Ark of the Covenant in the temple. That's two quick proofs. that Eden was a temple. So what is God doing here? He's bringing Adam into his presence. One could even argue this is really where their relationship began. Where does our relationship begin? When we're reconciled to God, Adam is brought into this temple. You could argue this is where his relationship with the Lord began. And what do we see in the very last half of the verse? It says, Adam was brought here to work it and to keep it. To work it and to keep it. Now what's important here, maybe not surprising, just as Eden was a temple, Adam is seen here as a priest. That's exactly what a temple like Eden needed. It needs a priest to work it and to keep it. I'm gonna give you one quick proof. Obviously, there's much more I can say about this, don't have time, one quick proof that Adam was a priest. If you look at the two verbs there, to work and to keep, or sometimes that word is translated in the Old Testament, serve and guard. Those two words are used constantly. And when I say constantly, I mean constantly in the Old Testament to talk about the role of priests in Israel's temples. And so Moses, who's writing to us here in Genesis, who also wrote the next four books that have a lot to say about priests, it seems clear he kind of knows exactly what he's doing here in outlining Adam's task to work and to keep the garden. He's showing Adam as a priest. Now, God doesn't just plop him there without direction. without command, without purpose. God has not created anything in this creation week without specific purpose and direction, let alone the crown of his creation, Adam being the height of his creation. There's no way he's going to leave Adam without a purpose and a direction. And so what does he tell Adam to do? Does he tell Adam, stand there, look pretty, this is gonna be an awesome photo, No, he tells Adam, let's get to work. Let's do this. Let's clock in. We have a world to fill with my glory. As Keith talked about last week, Adam's purpose was to expand the borders of the garden to eventually cover the entire earth so that the goal of all of scripture, the goal of God in history to cover all the earth with his glory would happen through Adam and his descendants as priests on the earth. So that's the text. Adam is in a temple as a priest. Now, how do we factor into this? Adam is obviously, he's being shown as a priest here, but what about us? How do we factor into this? Well, my argument is just as, say for example, in union with the Son of God, we become sons of God, so also in union with the second Adam, God gives us a sort of sub-priestly role as believers. We're united to the second Adam. Christ has done the ultimate work Adam was supposed to do, but united to him, we are also given a priestly task. Peter tells us this, doesn't he? Peter tells the church,

you are a chosen race in a royal priesthood to proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

So we, as restored image bearers united with the second Adam, we are given this task that Adam had here. working to expand God's glory over the earth. Okay, so we've done the hard work. We've looked at the text. We've gone through a lot of biblical theology very quickly. That's the text. Now we need to ask, what is the doctrine of work or vocation that we can draw out of this? Well, first we need to see the connection between priesthood, working and vocation, Adam's role, our role, we need to see the connection here, and the connection here is this, follow me. Just as marriage has a sort of new covenant fulfillment in Christ and the church, so also work as this sort of creation ordinance, this is before the fall, God puts Adam to work before the fall, This work as a creation ordinance, it has a new covenant fulfillment in our priesthood and the whole theme of priesthood, but just as marriage is actually not less important because it's fulfilled, it actually becomes more important that it's fulfilled in the new covenant. Marriage becomes more important even though it's fulfilled because now being fulfilled, it can more clearly point to what was being fulfilled in it. It's the same thing with work. This role of Adam as a priest and to the mandate of working and vocation, it's fulfilled in the priesthood of all believers, and yet that does not lessen the importance of work. That actually heightens the importance of our work and vocation. Because now, our work takes on an eternal purpose. Our work now goes from, I need to just earn money, I need to put bread on the table, and it now goes to, I need to expand God's kingdom out in the world. Through all of these unbelievers I'm interacting with, through all of these things I'm doing out in the world, God is calling me as a priest to expand his kingdom. So that is what work has to do with our passage. Now, here's the doctrine that I'm going to state for work and vocation from this passage. Joy in this life does not come from maximizing your rest, getting as much chill time as possible. Joy comes from being productive in your work for and with God. Joy does not come from maximizing your rest, but from being productive in your work for and with God. And we can draw that out of the text for two reasons. Here's reason number one. Eden was paradise, wasn't it? No sin, no pain, only maximal joy. And Adam, living out that maximal joy, what is he called to do? He is not called, except for the Sabbath day, to rest, to sit back, to do nothing, to take it all in, consume. Adam's life of maximal joy in the garden is filled with six days of work. He's called, yes, of course, to enjoy every tree of the garden, but after a long day of work where he's been taking care of the garden. And so joy, we see, does not come from trying to get as much rest as possible. retiring as early as you possibly can so you can just be on your boat fishing every day. That's actually not what joy comes from. It comes from being productive in your work for and with God. That's reason number one. Reason number two, Adam's joy in his work in paradise came from his fellowship with God. came from his fellowship with God. Now you need to follow me here. If you look in chapter three, verse eight, it talks about God walking in the garden. And it seems that this was sort of a routine thing. It seems God didn't just show up after Adam and Eve sinned and never really hung out with them before that. It seems this was a sort of routine thing. And the interesting thing is, God shows up to take a walk in the garden, and he asks Adam, where are you? That seems to show us God, as he routinely walks through the garden, he's not doing that by himself. It's kind of their usual thing. God shows up, Adam comes with, they take a stroll together. We see kind of the idea of fellowship with God. God would walk with Adam through the garden. Now the interesting thing is, where is God's ideal choice location for fellowshipping with Adam? It's in the very place that Adam spent all day working. It's in the very place that Adam, six days a week, is hard at work. And so what am I getting at with that? It's this, God loves to see our hard work. God loves to fellowship with us about what we've spent the entire day doing. You're here now at church doing spiritual things. God is not just interested when you show up here. He was interested in the last eight hours of your life. He was interested in fellowshipping with you since this morning. God loves to fellowship with us through gazing at our work and admiring it. God says, come on, Adam, let's go fellowship at the very place you've been working. I wanna see what you've done. I wanna see what you've done with these plants and with these trees. God loves to look at our work and admire it. And I just want to emphasize that you may be exhausted after a hard day of work. You may be extremely frustrated about the situations going on at your work. God looks at what you've done at work today and he loves it. He looks at what you've done today and he's proud of it if you've worked hard. He loves his children's hard work. So friend, you were designed to fellowship with God and do your work with God because he sees and he admires your work. So that's the doctrine. How can we go away from this tomorrow morning and use this doctrine that joy does not come from maximizing our rest. but from working productively for and with God. How can you take that truth with you and use it? Number one, find ways to admire God at work. You may be thinking, you don't understand. I go to work, there's nothing to admire there. I'm sure there's something you could find. What sort of common grace is there at your work that you can just look at, glance at every day, say, Lord, thank you. That's lovely, that's beautiful. Thank you for that. Second thing, as we've touched on already, after a long day at work, remind yourself, God is proud of your hard work. He loves to see you working hard. You think of a parent who their child brings home, you know, this kind of scribbled, vaguely, you know, beautiful piece of artwork, and their parent loves it because their parent knows the child cared about doing that. The child worked hard at doing that. And friends, it's the same thing in our work with God. He loves to see your hard work. And so at the end of the day, when you're exhausted, This is what you do. Recognize God loved the hard work you just put in. He loved it. This doesn't need to be prideful. This is actually a way that we can stop caring so much about the opinions of our bosses, our coworkers, and actually just be satisfied that God loved what I did when I worked hard at work today. This does not need to be prideful. This is actually a way to destroy fear of man at work that I'm sure at times plagues all of us. Remind yourself he's proud of you. Now, in conclusion, I remember having a conversation with my friends one time about what job we would want in the new heavens and new earth. It's kind of a fun question to think about. You should discuss it on the way home today. I said I wanted to work at a ski resort, but though it was fun to think about the jobs themselves, the most beautiful thing, if we are working in the new heavens and new earth, who knows, but if we are working there, the most beautiful thing is not our jobs there. It's that we can look back at a life of toil And we can see God say, well done. You can look back at days where in your car driving home from work, you just, you couldn't see how you could go another day toiling at this job. And you will see face to face God's adoration of your hard work. His love for the work you've put in. and you will hear well done one day for all of it. You may be frustrated about how much money is not coming in in your paychecks, maybe how much money is being taken out in taxes from your paychecks, but when you get to glory, God will reward you well beyond all of the money you feel you did not receive for your work. He will repay you. He will, and so work joyfully until then. Let's pray. Lord, we recognize that work is one of the places that brings us the most stress and pain. And yet it is the place you, as priests of you, you have sent us out to expand your glory there. Lord, may we expand your glory by fellowshipping with you there, by seeing that our joy can come not from getting away from work, but from serving you in our work. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.