Why Your 9 to 5 Matters to God | Finding Purpose in Your Work

Sermon Summary:

What if we’ve been thinking about work all wrong? This message challenges us to reimagine our Monday mornings not as dreaded obligations, but as divine assignments. Drawing from Proverbs 6 and the surprising wisdom found in observing ants, we’re invited to develop a robust theology of work that transforms our entire perspective. The passage may call us ‘sluggards’ to wake us up, but the deeper truth is revolutionary: work isn’t part of the curse—it’s part of God’s original design. Before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve were given meaningful work in the garden. God Himself modeled work in creation, structuring the cosmos within a seven-day work week. This means our vocations aren’t just about earning paychecks; they’re opportunities to bear God’s image, contribute to the common good, and extend His kingdom. The Hebrew word ‘avad’ beautifully blurs the lines between work, service, and worship, suggesting that our daily tasks can become acts of devotion. When we grasp that we’re ‘on assignment from God’ in our workplaces, every interaction becomes sacred, every contribution meaningful. The relationships we build, the problems we solve, the excellence we pursue—all of it can honor God and serve others. This isn’t about adding religious activities to our workday; it’s about recognizing that our work itself, done with integrity and purpose, is already deeply spiritual.

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Sermon Points:

Key Takeaways:

• God created humans in His image with great potential to serve and honor Him through all aspects of life, including work
• Productivity and fruitfulness are built into human design; God modeled work in creation before the fall
• Christians should develop a biblical and theological understanding of work as worship and service
• The Hebrew word “avad” can be translated as work, worship, or service, showing their interconnectedness
• Work is God’s idea and existed before sin entered the world (Genesis 2)
• Believers are “sent” to the 9-to-5 window just as missionaries are sent to the 10/40 window
• Profit from work extends beyond economic value to include serving others, contributing to the common good, and extending God’s kingdom
• Work provides opportunities to cultivate meaningful relationships and impact others for Christ
• Christians should view themselves as being “on assignment from God” in their workplace
• The future new heaven and new earth will include meaningful work and productivity

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Scripture References:

Sermon Transcript:

Well, good morning, church. So good to see you here this morning. We’re glad you’re here and that you’ve chosen to be a part of worship with us today. You know, our theme here at First Baptist Arlington for this entire year is flourishing Together. And we embarked on this journey at the beginning of January.

And most of you here that are members of our church, you know that it was last July, not this past July, But July of 2024, when I was away on study leave, that I felt led for us as a church to begin this conversation and this journey around flourishing. And I contacted Baylor University because Baylor and Harvard had secured this grant to study human flourishing. And those two schools, the researchers together have put together a survey and it’s called the Global Flourishing Study. And it is a five year study and it’s a longitudinal study. And they are in the, they’ve just completed the first year of the study, 220,000 adults in 22 countries living around the world.

And it is a true sociological experiment. And the goal is, is to learn why people are healthy and why they flourish. And so as I looked into that research and I contacted Baylor and let them know that of our interest in it, I wasn’t sure how we might connect to it. And so I contacted Byron Johnson at Baylor, he is the leader of this study from Baylor, and he put me in touch with the team from Harvard and he said, you need to get to know these people. So he introduced me to Scott Hare and Kate Long, and they shared with us that not only is there this huge global flourishing study taking place, there’s a smaller one that aims its energy just toward the church, and it’s called Flourishing in the Church.

And we agreed to be a part of that journey. And so there are 12 churches that are in this pilot program. And the survey that’s been put together for churches is different than the Global Flourishing Service Survey, it is more specific and aimed directly at us who are Christians. And so we’ve agreed to participate in that. And we are the very first church in America to take the survey.

And we’re going to take it today. So we’re going to do that at the end of the service. We’ve already had around 400 of our people turn in the survey from the first service today. And we’re going to give you the chance to do it today. So we’ll give you more instructions about that.

But it all connects to our desire to see you flourish. And what does that mean as a Christian? And one of the things that it means is that we live in healthy relationships. That’s really what the Fall is all about here at First Baptist. And our theme is it’s not good to be alone.

Because as we have studied the Scripture and reflected on it theologically, here’s what we have learned already this Fall, and that is that God has designed human beings to live as relational, social and communal beings. From family to friends to acquaintances to our vocation. We live our lives in relational contexts. It’s God’s desire for us to flourish in and through those relationships. So the Lord wants you to flourish in your relationships.

We’ve talked already about the theology of that. We’ve looked at our families, we have looked at our friends, we’ve looked at the church family. We looked last Sunday at our neighborhoods. Here’s what I want us to do today. I want us to think about our jobs, our vocation, and what does it mean to flourish in our work.

So if you have your copy of the scripture, Proverbs 6 is the text I’ve entitled the message working nine to five, obviously original to me. Once again, just like last week’s, It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. It’s amazing how creative I can be when I have time to come up with all these titles. And so thank you. Working 9 to 5 Proverbs 6.

I’m not going to read the entire page. I would encourage you to read it. There’s a couple other passages in Proverbs that I think are very helpful, but I just want to skip down to verse 6 of Proverbs 6. Here’s what the writer says. Go to the ant, you sluggard.

Consider its ways and be wise. It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up and find your sleep? Get up from your sleep.

Rather a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. Poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man. I wanted to just provide an uplifting passage for y’ all this morning just to encourage you on when the last time you were called sluggard, I thought I’d just wake you up a little bit this morning. Actually, as direct as that text is, I think there are some principles there that we can draw from here today. I hope when we think about our vocation, our work.

Some of you have been in our church for a while and you know that a few years ago I actually did a nine week sermon series on the theology of work. And I wrote nine Bible studies on the theology of work. It’s called the Fruit of Our Labor. We have this little booklet that we put together that I wrote on the theology of work and it’s nine Bible studies sermons. It is a very comprehensive, holistic take on theology of work.

So we don’t have time to do all that today. I just want to reintroduce you to it, or if it’s the first time, to introduce you to this whole idea of having a theology of work. If you’re a Christian, you should have a theology of everything. You should have a theology of every facet of your life. You should be thinking, reflecting theologically about all aspects of your life and certainly your working life.

Now we have this saying in America, thank God it’s Friday. Y’ all may remember. I’ve challenged y’ all to change that so that we can say, thank God it’s Monday.

That’s the attitude I would love you to have. However, I realize that a lot of us are like Garfield the cat. You know, he hates diet, he hates exercise, and he hates Mondays. He’s fond of saying, I’m a Friday person living in a Monday world. That’s how you may feel.

But I want you to think about how much time you spend at work. Those of you that are still working for a living, employed, earning money as someone who works, or those of you that may be retired and you’re still invested in doing a whole lot of things that you just don’t get paid for anymore. Or those of you that are in school right now because in some ways school is your job. Think about how much time you spend at work, how many hours every week. Maybe you’re a stay at home dad.

Think about all the time you spend with your kids, whatever it may be that you do. It’s amazing how much time we spend at it and how little thought we give to it. So often we think we just get up on Monday and just go to work. I really want to change that perspective for you today. So here’s what I’d like to do today.

I want to give you four words, four images. And we’re going to talk about all four of them quickly this morning. And then we’re going to take this survey together. But the four words are potential, productivity, perspective and profit. So let’s start with the first one, potential.

God has created all of us in his image, and thus we have great potential to serve and honor Him. When you read your Bibles, the very first page of the Bible. Genesis 1. The Bible says that God has created human beings in his image. That means he’s placed his image inside of all of us.

Now, ever since that was written, presumably on Moses, theologians have been trying to understand what that really means. Here’s what we’ve discovered. It means more than we could ever fully comprehend. It is a rich, deep theological truth made in the image of God. One of the things that it means, though, is that God has put in every one of us potential.

We saw these babies here in front of us this morning. Weren’t they beautiful? Don’t you love seeing these babies? You know, we look at them and you know what? We see potential.

We see hope. Some of y’ all are in this room are parents of. Of littles. Like you just said, Lakan parents of littles. I love how y’ all say that.

Some of us are grandparents. You know, Cindy and I have that privilege. We’re. We’re grandparents. In fact, today’s one of our granddaughter’s birthday.

This very day is Adler’s birthday. And how about that? Yeah. So, you know, we have grandkids. We’ve lived long enough.

Some of y’ all in this room have grandchildren. In our first worship service, we had folks here who have great, great grandchildren. What a blessing it is to get to see these kids, these grandkids. They represent something to us, great potential. Well, we all have potential.

We have potential because we’ve been created in the image of God. We’re image bearers. And that means that we have the opportunity to partner with God and. And serve his kingdom interests. And what I would like for us to do this morning is give thought to how we can do that through our jobs.

Okay? So with that said, let’s talk about our perspective, our productivity, rather as workers, because there’s. God has placed within us a desire to be productive and fruitful. It’s just in you. It’s almost like you just can’t help yourself.

You’re a human being. You want to be productive. You want to be fruit. Fruitful. Leisure is great.

I love leisure, but it only goes so far. You know, the Bible says in the book of the law, six days shall you rest, and one.

No, what does it say? Six days shall you work, and one day you’ll rest. In other words, you spend the bulk of your time engaged in meaningful endeavors. So let’s go back to Proverbs, this kind of blunt passage. Go to the ant, you sluggard.

Well, what’s the writer trying to say to us? He says, watch ant Y’ all ever watch ants? I’m just going to tell you right now, in Texas, you can’t get rid of them. You know, we have a guy we pay money to to come and spray around our house. All he does is hold them at bay.

Just, just a little bit. Hold them at bay. I’m telling you right now, they. I don’t know if ants have nine lives. I’m not sure how many they have.

But I defy you to get rid of them. You just. You. All it needs, all you need is a rainstorm. And here they.

Where do they come from? You know? And your. Your kids and grandkids, they find them all the time, and they’re just everywhere. Well, the point is, the writer is saying, just watch an ant.

An ant works. That’s just what it does. It’s very productive. It doesn’t just lie around and spend all this time in slumber. And what the writer’s trying to say is, go to work.

Your life is supposed to be filled with meaningful endeavors because God has just designed you to flourish. He’s designed you to be productive. He’s designed you to be fruitful. Your vocation is a part of that. See it that way.

That leads me to a word about perspective. As Christians, we should have a Biblical and theological understanding of work. Here’s what the Bible teaches us about work. It is God’s idea. It’s not a part of the curse.

Some people have misunderstood that. They think, well, you know, God cursed the ground, so man’s having to work now. No, that’s not what happened. Prior to that. You go back and read Genesis 2.

When Adam and Eve were still in their innocence, God told them to tend the garden, told them to work. It’s God’s idea. God worked. God created everything that is. And he models work for us.

A work ethic. We should have a work ethic. We ought to have a Biblical, a theological understanding that it’s our opportunity to contribute to this world. Here’s what Tim Keller says about that. He wrote this book entitled Every Good Endeavor.

Listen to his comment about work. He says the Bible begins talking about work as soon as it begins talking about anything. That is how important and basic it is. The author of the Book of Genesis describes God’s creation of the world as work. In fact, he depicts the magnificent project of Cosmos intervention within a regular work week of seven days.

I love that God worked. You and I have been designed to work. As a matter of fact, if you read the scripture and you look to the future, the Bible says that one day there’s going to be a new heaven and a new earth, and that’s what we’re going to inhabit. Some people have this understanding of heaven. They think that when we get to heaven, we’re going to sit around on clouds with a fishing pole and we’re just going to be chilling and hanging out.

I don’t know about y’, all, but. But I couldn’t care less about fishing. I’m not going to be fishing in heaven, as far as I know. Here’s what I believe. We’re going to be in a new heaven and a new earth, and we’re going to the Garden of Eden is going to be restored and we’re going to be tending in the future in glory, in perfection, how God designed it to be in the very first place.

So there’s creativity and productivity in our future, and we need to be preparing for that right now because Christians have been gifted by God to be sent into this world. So, you know missiologists, when they talk about the world. When you study missiology, missiologists often use the phrase the 1040 window. What do they mean by that? Well, if you look at the equator and go north 10 degrees latitude to 40 degrees latitude and you wrap that band around the globe, the majority of unreached, unchurched peoples live within that band.

It’s called the 1040 band, if you will. And missionaries are sent to that window. Well, here’s what I’d like for you to consider. You’re being sent to the 9 to 5 window every day. It’s your opportunity to be sent.

So you don’t just get up and go to work. You’re being sent to work. You’re being sent by God to do something meaningful. Tom Nelson has written a lot of material on work. I would recommend him.

If you would like to read someone who has a great grasp on the theology of work, I would encourage you to read Tom Nelson. His newest book is entitled why youy Work Matters. Listen to this quote. When we hear the word work, we often think of what we are paid to do. Of course, getting paid is important to make a living.

But work is not limited to what we’re paid to do. Work is not defined by its compensation but by its contribution to others. Work is not first and foremost about economic exchange, financial remuneration, or a pathway to wish fulfillment. Rather, it is about God honoring creativity and loving contribution. In other words, God is gifting you to contribute and you think about all the relationships that you develop in your working Life.

It’s a complex web of people that you now are a part of because of your vocation. And it’s an opportunity for you to impact them. If you want to expand your understanding of worship a little bit, I want you to think about the Old Testament. Hebrew word for work. The Old Testament’s written in Hebrew, not in English.

The Hebrew word for work is avad. It’s found in the Old Testament in its noun and verb forms over 430 times. And you know what’s strange about the word avad in Hebrew? It’s hard to translate into English. Some words are like that.

Here’s what translators do with that word. Sometimes they translate that word as service into English. Sometimes they translate that word as worship into English. Sometimes they translate that word as work into English. So think about that.

Our work can also be worship. Do you ever think of it that way? God can use you through your work to honor and glorify Him. It’s not just to make a living. You can serve God and serve others.

Now, with that said, let’s talk about profit, because profit matters. The profit gained through our vocation extends far beyond economic value. God uses us through our work to contribute to the common good, to serve others, to cultivate fruitful relationships, extend the kingdom of God. He just does. Think about how God uses people who work to contribute to the common good.

This morning, most of you in this room got up, got into your car, and you pressed a button. And most of you in this room have absolutely no idea what happened next. You have no clue. But somehow or another, because of somebody’s technological ability, your car came to life, didn’t it? You pressed a button in your garage and miraculously your garage door opened.

You don’t even know how to open your garage door anymore. If that didn’t happen, if the electricity went out, we’d all just be stranded with him. How do you open a garage door, man? Our electricity’s out. We don’t even know how to manually do anything.

But somehow or another it worked. And you got in your car, you mashed the accelerator, and hopefully not too much, but you mashed it enough. And you got all the way here to church, and you got into this church. And guess what? Somehow or another, this building has been constructed.

And somehow or another, there was somebody who was smart enough to figure out how to control the climate and the electricity. Are y’. All, Come on, y’. All. I mean, come on.

I say all that to say this? Listen, the deal is technology contribution. The things that you do Think about all the people that have done all that. And it contributes to the common good of everybody. Because that’s how God uses work.

It’s supposed to be like that, and we’re supposed to do it. Of course we are. In First Thessalonians, Paul talks about this in First Thessalonians 4. One of my all time favorite quotes from the Apostle Paul is in 1st Thessalonians 4. He says, Everybody should mind their own business and work with their hands.

I love that right there. If we could just get the first part down, it’d be awesome. But mind your own business, work with your hands. That way you won’t be dependent, he says, in other words, work is honorable. It’s a way to make a living.

But it’s so much more than making a living. The ant is symbolic of just a productive person. Be productive. Engage in that endeavor. You’re invested in a network of meaningful relationships.

Honor God through your work. I love it when I encounter people who love what they do. A few years ago, Cindy and I were flying back from Africa and we came through LaGuardia Airport. I don’t know why I have a hard time getting through LaGuardia. Sometimes I just do.

It’s interesting. The signage wasn’t good in those days. Maybe it’s been improved, I don’t know. But anyway, we were flying Delta. We were trying to find our way to this other terminal.

Signage was confusing. We get to the escalator, we thought, maybe we should go up. Nope, I think we should go down. We got to go catch a shuttle. Let’s just go down.

We go down. Cindy and I are beside each other and we’re kind of the first ones. And there’s a Delta gate agent standing there, and he looks at us, he said, I can tell by looking at y’, all, you have no idea where you’re going. That’s why I’m here. Where are you headed?

And we told him, well, we’re going to. Someone say you were in the right place. What you need to do is just go right over here and shuttle B is going to come by and get you. Don’t get on shuttle C. Take you to the wrong place. You’ll miss your flight.

Shuttle B, take it where you need to go. It’s all going to be good. Just have a seat right here. I’ll let you know when it gets here. Thank you.

We sat down. Next thing you know, we just watched him. He’s just doing that. Finally, I went over to him and I said, dude, what are you doing? He said, what do you mean?

I said, I’ve been watching you, and you’re just. He said, I’m on assignment from God.

He said, you see, I’m a Christian, and I get sent here every day just to make this little spot right here as bright as it can be. I just went, good. Could you teach everybody that I’m on assignment from God? Why are you here today? Well, I just had to.

I had to be here five minutes ago because I got to pay my bills. No. Do you have to pay your bills? Yes. But can you.

Can you start seeing that perhaps you’re on assignment from God? Do you know when Moses was called by God, he wasn’t having his quiet time. He was at work. You know, when Gideon received his assignment from God, he was at work. You know, when Saul of Tarsus met Jesus, he was at work.

God can speak to you, use you in your work. Let’s let him use us so that we can all wake up tomorrow morning and say, thank God, it’s Monday. May it be so. Let’s pray together. Father, we thank you for giving us the opportunity to live meaningfully in relationships.

Our families with our friends, our church, but certainly, Lord, in our jobs. And perhaps if we viewed our jobs theologically, we would see our relationships at work differently. So I ask you, Lord, to transform our view, our vision, our perspective, our understanding of our working life. And may you use us for your glory as we make our way through our work week. And we pray that in Jesus name, amen.