Today we want to look at Faith at Work – the Beginnings.

Do you remember your first job?

Hard for me to go back that far.

Grandma – pine knots – fire place.
Selling lemonade at the side of the street.
Charging my friends to watch home movies of the Indy 500.
Mowing lawns, shovelling snow off the walks…

All far short of becoming an automotive engineer, then a pastor and most recently a financial adviser and preacher! But they were a place to start. They were a beginning.

They helped me to learn something about work - to give it the proper place in my life.
Back then I didn’t know much of anything about how my faith had anything to do with it. Perhaps today you might even be thinking the same thing –
What does faith in God have to do with work on the job?
God in the workplace? Those two really aren’t supposed to mix are they?

Give work its proper place in your life.
Make it an outworking of your faith, and you will find it fulfilling.

Let’s go back before mowing lawns. Back to the very beginning. Genesis chapter 1 & 2

Work is more than a way to get a pay cheque. It’s what we were made for.

Gen. 2: 15 – keep it = look after it, be in charge of it.
Gen. 2:18 – helper – what was Eve to help him with? Unfold the deck chairs?

What do you plan to do in retirement? Nothing?

My retirement goal: Not to get out of work – but to get out of having to be paid!

In a moment we will have a look at what faith and work have to do with each other. But first, let’s see what we can learn about work itself from the creation account.

Work takes time.

It took God a whole six days to create the universe. Evening & morning.
Sometimes my projects take a little longer!

What are the implications of this?
1. Put in your time at work!
2. Mark out your achievements as they take place over time. First day, second day…
3. The focus is the work, not the clock!

Work involves the application of resources.

In creation, the initial resource was God Himself. Genesis 1:1
v.1 – created = bara – to create something out of nothing. To bring it to be.
NKJV – made = awsaw – to fashion, to do, to make. It implies to work with something.
v. 7 firmament (expanse)
v. 16 two great lights
v. 25 beasts and cattle
v. 26 man – of the dust. Woman from man.
v. 31 summary statement

What does this mean for you and me?

1. God provides us with resources in order to put them to work (more in future messages on this). Talents, equipment, finances.

2. Sometimes far less is required for a particular work than what it might seem.

Work involves intelligence and training.

Saturday’s Age – article on the changing magnetism of the earth. Einstein marvelled at the nature of the earth’s magnetic field.

Birds that navigate using the earth’s magnetic field.

The marvel of the human brain.

God has infinite intelligence, and His work reflects it.

What about you and I?

Work can bring something out of “nothing”

A friend of mine made a table out of a knot off the side of a tree & a slab of wood.

I know of one very successful man who used to be a garbage collector – he bought some "worthless" farm land and planted Christmas trees...

Work can bring order out of confusion

God’s initial creation at the beginning of day 1: formless and void.

The work of some people is simply to order the lives of others.

One of the greatest impacts of bringing God into the workplace is the order and peace that He can give to it.