Work is greatly misunderstood in this fallen world. The world thinks it gets in the way of leisure while evangelicals think it gets in the way of grace and denies faith, but having something useful to do that matters, actually lies at the heart of our salvation and makes it worth having.
The mark of the box loving Christian is a tendency to leap from one extreme to another without considering the dynamics of God’s truth. Thus it is possible to be so convinced that we are saved by grace through faith alone and not our own works that we begin to believe that there is something inherently evil about wanting to do good works for fear of detracting from either the glory of God or one’s salvation.
I think Paul anticipated this which I suspect explains the structure of that famous verse in Ephesians which goes “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift from God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works. Which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph 2:8-10).
You’ll note that Paul goes to some lengths to convince his readers they haven't a thing to boast about, because their salvation is a graciously given free gift for those who do no more than hear the Gospel and say ‘yes please!’ They also come to realise that they can’t even take pride in the ability to say ‘yes’ - that too was a gift from God.
He goes on to say that our freely given salvation comes with a freely given, interesting lifetime assignment which God put together even before he began work on the universe.
We are the workmanship of a God who loves to work and loves to see his creatures at work. As our designer and creator he knows what is best for us and he knows that we are most fulfilled when we have something useful to do.
Too often we focus on what we have been saved from and forget what we have been saved to. Salvation is much more than a narrow escape from Hell, it’s really about fulfilling our God given destiny to become rulers over his brand new, indestructible universe under King Jesus. The universe itself is longing for the day we will be revealed, for that day will herald the end of frustration, decay and futility.
We don’t work to earn the right to enjoy an eternity sipping wine under palm trees or to float around the clouds playing harps. When Jesus promised to relieve you of the burden of heavy labour he was referring to the pointless drudgery of working for a boss, whose only wages are death, and giving you a job in his eternal kingdom that paid eternal rewards well beyond anything you could imagine. His perfectly designed yoke amounts to challenges that respect your abilities and understand your passions. What’s more He’ll never sack you or condemn you for mucking things up occasionally.
In the eternal kingdom, work will be impossible to distinguish from art. Our love and respect for one another’s contributions will be such as to turn our efforts into an eternal symphony of praise to our wonderful creator who will never get tired of telling us how good we sound.
We work now because we’re expected to begin as we intend to go on. We also do it because it is now possible, under the lordship of Christ to do good things that can make a difference to people’s lives and provide the world with evidence that God exists and he is good. It also shows there is hope for mankind in Christ.
The parable of the talents shows us that the reward for faithfulness in small tasks, is to be given more to do. It also warns us that there will be no place in God’s kingdom for those who refuse to work for him because such a person could never know or enjoy the God we love doing things for.
