Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work

by Timothy J. Keller

naïvete, sometimes hubris.

So for a story to be a story, there must be a problem that makes life not as it ought to be.

narratives are actually so foundational to how we think that they determine how we understand and live life itself.

merely a set of philosophical bullet points. It is essentially a master narrative, a fundamental story about (a) what human life in the world should be like, (b) what has knocked it off balance, and (c) what can be done to make it right.

All people are living out some mental world-story that gives their lives meaning.150

others. In each case you are putting yourself into a larger story that assumes the world would be a better place if more people were doing what you were doing.

When any one of these worldviews grips the imagination of a culture, it has a profound influence on how life is lived, even for those who do not accept that worldview.

At a day-to-day level, our worldview will shape our individual interactions and decisions.

The gospel, however, teaches that the meaning of life is to

love God and love our neighbor, and that the operating principle is servanthood.

How are things supposed to be? 2. What is the main problem with things as they are? 3. What is the solution and how can it

be realized?

We were made for a relationship with God, we lost our relationship with God through sin against him, and we can be brought back into that relationship through his salvation and grace.

The great danger is to always single out some aspect of God’s good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of sin, as the villain.

the Bible is unique in its rejection of all attempts to either demonize some part of creation as the root of our problems or to idolize some

part of creation as the solution.

naïvely utopian or cynically disillusioned. We will be demonizing something that isn’t bad enough to explain the mess we are in; and we will be idolizing something that isn’t powerful

enough to get us out of

it.

The Christian story line, or worldview, is: creation (plan), fall (problem), redemption and restoration (solution):

The whole world is going to be redeemed. Jesus is going to redeem spirit and body,

reason and emotion,

people and ...

The gospel worldview will have all kinds of influence—

on how you actually do your work.

Corporate profits and influence, stewarded wisely, are a healthy means to a good end: They are vital to creating new products to serve customers, giving an adequate return to investors for the use of their money, and paying employees well for their work.

individual compensation

is not our identity, our salvation, or even our source of security and comfort.

This is why it is so important for us to be intentional in applying the counter-narrative of the gospel to business.

The gospel-centered business would have a discernible vision for serving the customer in some unique way, a lack of adversarial relationships and exploitation, an extremely strong emphasis on excellence and product quality, and an ethical environment that goes “all the way down” to the bottom of the organizational chart and to the realities of daily behavior, even when high ethics mean a loss of margin.

Your care and commitment to those values, assuming they are good ones, could be just the encouragement your boss needs.

Those whom God favors are granted grace not for any worthiness of their own, but by God’s unmerited mercy.”158

the gospel worldview equips the artist, as it does the journalist, for a unique combination of optimism and realism about life.

we all are responsible. Each of us is capable of the worst kind of evil, and there is nothing we can do to change ourselves, or even see ourselves in our true light, without God’s help.

From a Christian perspective the problem with both kinds of stories is that they tend to blame problems on things besides sin and identify salvation in things besides God—and therefore are ultimately too simplistic.

Only if Jesus stays real to the heart can you be consistently joyful enough in him to avoid making medicine your whole self-worth, and then becoming hardened when you meet so much ingratitude.”

it does speak to an enormous range of cultural, political, economic, and ethical issues that are very much part of how we all live.

and personal Creator was prevalent.167 So we all owe more than we may realize to the unique contours and power of the Christian worldview.

Are you asking questions such as: • What’s the story line of the culture in which I live and the field where I work? Who are the protagonists and antagonists? • What are the underlying assumptions about meaning, morality, origin, and destiny? • What are the idols? The hopes? The fears? • How does my particular profession retell this story line, and what part does the profession itself play in the story? • What parts of the dominant worldviews are basically in line with the gospel, so that I can agree with and align with them?

What parts of the dominant worldviews are irresolvable without Christ? Where, in other words, must I challenge my culture? How can Christ complete the story in a different way? • How do these stories affect both the form and the content of my work personally? How can I work not just with excellence but also with Christian distinctiveness in my work? • What opportunities are there in my profession for (a) serving individual people, (b) serving society at large, (c) serving my field of work, (d) modeling competence and excellence, and (e) witnessing to Christ?

Their Scriptural heritage and beliefs give them a strong commitment to “act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

If the Christian worldview is so unique, how do we account for this?

God is Creator of the world, and our work mirrors his creative work when we create culture that conforms to his will and vision for human beings—when it matches up with the biblical story line.

And because all human beings are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–28) and all are given their talents and skills for work in the world by God (1 Corinthians 7:17), we should not be surprised that many people without belief in Jesus can do great work—even better work—than Christians.

“common grace,”

Does God work in the broader reaches of cultural interaction to bestow certain blessings on all people—blessings that provide the basis for Christians to cooperate with, and learn from, non-Christians?169

This is remarkable. Isaiah tells us that anyone who becomes a skillful farmer, or who brings advancements in agriculture, is being taught by God.

Everyone who does not acknowledge Christ as Lord is operating out of a false view of ultimate reality, while to confess Christ as Lord is to be in line with ultimate reality.

the doctrine of common grace means that despite all false worldviews, everyone grasps and to some degree acknowledges aspects of the biblical worldview: truths about God, creation, human nature, and our need for rescue.

“first-order beliefs.” All