The Gift of Responsibility

Genesis 1:28; 2:15

Your work matters to God. You’re not just getting a paycheck. You’re not just punching a clock. It’s not about making a lot of money. God created work as a sacred calling. Your vocation places you on mission to do ministry. Every day you are investing in eternity. 

What you do today matters forever. That’s because in the beginning God gave Adam the gift of responsibility.[1] God said that man was to have “dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28).

The heavens and the earth were God’s creation. He owned it and was sovereign over it all. And he gave man the responsibility to reign over all that he had made. God chose to rule the world through man. The history of the world is God’s story through his people at work. God demonstrated six days of creative work. Then he assigned man to share in his work. Check this out. 

Genesis 2:8, 15
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed . . . The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Yahweh Elohim planted a garden and then put Adam in it. God gave Adam the responsibility to carefully tend the garden that he had planted. Adam was able to see how God had planted and took care of the garden. Now he was to follow God’s example and design. 

God also shared his work by allowing Adam to name all the animals. God set the tone naming the light “day” and the darkness “night” (Gen. 1:5). God “called the dry ground “land” and the waters “seas” (Gen. 1:10). Then God delegated the work of naming the animals. He brought the all the animals  and the birds “to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one” (Gen. 2:19).  

It’s important to note that the gift of responsibility came before sin entered the world. The divine assignment was meant to be fun, fulfilling, and meaningful. Sin did alter work. After sin entered the world, Adam was to continue his work but now man’s labor would involve pain and labor to till the ground (Gen. 3:17-19).  However, the believer’s life and calling have been redeemed and transformed. We are to see work as a gift from God used to honor him. The apostle Paul reminds us that whatever we do should be done to honor God.[2]

Now certainly, we expend energy and become tired. We need time to refresh and reboot. However, we understand our work as a sacred calling. We understand how God has wired us, equipped us, and trained us for his desired vocation. Solomon said, “there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work” (Eccl. 3:22). 

There are about important things to remember about our work.  

Your Calling is Your Ministry 
God has gifted us, given us certain experiences, and wired us in a certain way. He has a special job for you to do that may involve specific training and education. And God’s calling for work is a call for ministry that may be in business, medicine, education, building, manufacturing, sales, or any service industry. When we are doing what God has called us to do, we experience God’s pleasure in our lives.  

In our Living Grounded discipleship curriculum, we have a session on how to determine God’s will for your life.[3] Please take the time to engage in this biblical process of learning what God has called you to do. 

But I Don’t Enjoy My Job
Perhaps you haven’t found the job where you experience God’s pleasure. Continue to pray and ask God to give you guidance. But don’t expect the perfect job to be delivered by DoorDash. Make the contacts you need to make, get the training you need to get, and be the very best employee to honor God in your work. God is at work in your life, developing you for the next stage of the journey. He never wastes our time.

In his book, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, Timothy Keller presents a biblical view of work.  

Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make a difference, and all good endeavors, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is a God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever.[4] 

You work matters to God. Make it matter forever.  

PERSONAL TIME WITH GOD 
Time in the Word: Read Genesis 1:28; 2:15—Contemplate on your work as a mission.

Talking to God: How does knowing that work existed before sin change the way you view your job or daily responsibilities?

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