God is at work?

 At church we sometimes sing a hymn that has a line saying God is WORKING even when we cannot see Him working. For instance, in the weeks leading up to my husband’s salvation, I had no idea that God was at work changing his attitude and granting him faith. On a larger scale, the fact that God is sovereign and involved in the events of this world is no little comfort as I read the morning news. The world seems in total chaos, yet God declares:

Isaiah 45:7. “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.”

My faith in God’s holy goodness alongside the realization of human sinfulness stirs the idea that if we got what we deserve, things would be far worse; none of us would draw another breath. If it were not for His saving work, we would perish.

That said, the word ‘work’ and its variations occurs hundreds of times in Scripture. One OT word means both work and trouble, referring to the effect of sin and death to make our ordinary work meaningless in the long term. Another OT word is about ‘skilled labor’ generally gifted by God to do temple construction and various other worship and ministry tasks.

This word is related to the Sabbath commandment which teaches us that there is always more work to be done and we are never finished, yet we can rest knowing that God has finished his work of redemption accomplished by Jesus. We can rest in what he has finished, not what we have completed. (See Hebrews 4)

Resting on the Sabbath is not about our ‘regular work’ being unholy and must be suspended, but a reminder that all of our needs are supplied by the Lord, including the physical ability to return to our regular work.

But what about the ongoing work of God? What is He doing since that first day of rest? In the NT, the root word translated work is about supernatural powers, godly or demonic. It points to God’s work of resurrecting Jesus Christ from the dead, working in people for salvation and spiritual growth, working in the church through spiritual gifts, and empowering His people to pray and evangelize. Consider this:

John 14:10. “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.”

The work of God included empowering His Son to do His work. If Jesus Christ relied on the work of God to do what He did, how much more do we need Him to empower us!

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. I am a bit startled at the NT absence of any description of what God is doing other than what He does through His people and how He worked through His Son. We truly are His hands and feet, His mouth and His message. I cannot always see what He is doing to change me, never mind those around me, but need to get this through my head and heart: the work of God in today’s messy world may be unseen in the realm of conviction, granting faith, giving direction etc. to His people, yet it is mostly seen as we do the work He tells us to do . . . as I do what He tells me to do. In my desire that this world be a better place, my prayers should include asking God to work in us and through us so that myself and God’s people will be better listeners and far more obedient than we are to do His work.