Why Do You Work?

[Music] Welcome to the Theology of Work podcast. The Theology of Work project exists to provide a political perspective on faith and work. This episode features a talk by Andy Mills, co-chair and president of the Theology of Work project. February 19, 2016, he spoke to business students of believers in business and BA conference at Pradeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. Here's Andy Mills. Good evening. It's great to be here. And Jeff, thanks for the music and the team. Two old guys from Boston, Massachusetts. We've got a high market share of the program tonight. I love it. You know, for those of you who don't know, Jeff is an avid cyclist. And goes out in all kinds of weather and does all kinds of stupid things. And I'm fortunate enough, at least till this evening, he may cut me off after this to be Facebook friends with him. So I get to watch, I get to see all these crazy videos. The most amazing thing is when he goes out in mid-February in like two degree weather and he's dressed up in this igloo-like clothing. I mean, you can't recognize this as a human being somewhere in there. But Jeff loves his cycling. He's a great guy and we thank you, in diversity for having him in Boston, where does it's great. It's great to be here tonight. And so to kick off this evening from a theology of work point of view, which sounds very proper and very boring, I'll try not to be proper and boring. But I really want to ask a different question. I want to ask you this question. I want to inspire you tonight to change the way you think from how to why. When you think about work, to change from thinking about how to why. I think we're all pretty good at how. I remember as a kid, my parents told me this, so you have to forgive me. This may be them making it up, but it's a great story, so I'll tell it anyway. I used to live up in the northeast of England, a place called Newcastle, which is a long way away from anywhere important. And when I was about six or seven years old, my parents recount a story where I told us in visiting Americans that I was going to go to the Harvard Business School. About 10 years later, I had no idea what the Harvard Business School was, but at the time it's six, that was my goal. And my dad used to take me to the factory. He was a mechanical engineer, machine tools. He used to take me to the factory just about every Saturday morning. And I just loved the factory. I loved business. I loved work. I loved mostly driving the overhead cranes. But it just seemed to me a very natural thing that that's what I was going to do. I wanted to be in business. And I also observed that if you're in business and you're good, then things come to you and you do well. And more money comes and the houses get bigger. And the cars get more expensive. And life is good. And that's kind of life. That's my apologetic for life. And so I sat in a non-Christian home out with that as my approach to life. And I was good at it. It worked hard. Things worked out well. And ultimately, I managed to come to the United States and become president of my own company, which was eventually sold to Thompson, et cetera, et cetera. But it was a funny thing that happened to me because I recognized that I'd never stopped to think about why was I doing that. And I'm not unique in that. I spend a lot of time now talking to men in particular in their 50s and 60s who kind of come to a place in their lives and they go, how did I get here? I'm not sure that's even what I wanted to do. But this was just what I did. And I haven't really enjoyed it. And I haven't really done well. And I haven't really thought much about it. And how did I get here? It's not surprising, I think, the Gallup did a survey recently and show that 70% of people were unengaged at work. 70%. And you know something, I don't think it's as I talk to Christian business people. I don't think it's any different among the Christians because the 30% believe me or not Christians. They were mixed. We're the same as everybody else. And it's interesting as I talk to people, I would argue, as I talk to people about their motivation for work, there's a sort of a continuum. On one end, you have the utilitarian view of work. The utilitarian view of work is simply, I go to work, I make money so that I can actually use that money to do the thing that I really want to do with my life. And kind of work is a means to an end, but it's not something I want to invest myself in. The other end of the spectrum is the complete investment side of life, which I suspect I know that I belong to and I suspect most of you, if you don't already, will belong to, which is the idolatrous end of work, whereby work actually defines who you are and defines yourself worth. You know, men in particular have this way of, we talk to each other, we introduce this as my name is, whatever it is, and what's the second question we ask? What do you do? And I would argue we forget the answer to the first, the only thing that matters is the answer to the second, because we're making a judgment as to whether this person is worth talking to. And if they're not worth talking to, we move on to the next person who is worth talking to, because of not who they are, but what they do. And we get caught up into that trap. How he Hendrix is a famous moment in his office when a senior executive stepped into his office for a counseling session, and he was having all kinds of issues and difficulties and he made this statement, he said, "You know, I spent all my life climbing the ladder of success. I wanted to get to the top and find that the ladder was against the wrong wall." That's how most people live their lives. You have the opportunity today to set a trajectory for your lives, even though you are highly performing people who, you guys understand how to do the how very well, otherwise you wouldn't be here. You've done the education thing, you've done the early jobs with the Wall Street or the consulting firms, you've got all the credentials and now you're at business school and you're taking that next step to the next level. You're just charging ahead. And good for you. But what I want you to do tonight, and the change I want you to think about is not just about the how, but I want you to start to think about why are you doing that. Because believe me, you'll either think about it now, which will set a trajectory for your life, or you'll think about it in 20 or 30 years when it's too late. For me, I was fortunate because God just intervened in my life. I was not a Christian until I was in my mid-30s. I was already the CEO of a corporation when God just burst into my life. A lot of it because of the dissatisfaction that I felt, having built a company and spent all my time doing this and almost lost my marriage because of it and having sold it, sitting there going, "Is this what all life is about?" And it shocked me because the thing that I'd lived for and thought was real and thought was important suddenly was nothing. It was an illusion. And that shocked me into a deep sense of thought about what is life about and why am I here? The kinds of questions that I hadn't asked since I was probably 15. You know, you have those great questions when you're 15 about why we're here and that you sort of forget those questions again. And so I looked at this and I said, "I became a Christian." As a CEO and God asked me this incredible question, He said, "What difference does it make?" Being a CEO is a Christian. Now my wife will tell you that she would much have preferred that God said to me, "Now what difference does it make being a husband or a father?" But the reality is God said to me in a, just a obvious way, "What difference does this make?" So I went on a journey to find out and ask people. I went to talk to business people who are Christians and I started reading books and frankly the answers were very unsatisfactory. If I could sort of summarize the answers I got from people, it would be this. You have to work with integrity and if people would like to talk about Jesus, you should talk about Jesus. Now don't get me wrong, both of those are good. Don't please don't go out of here saying, "Andy said we can work without integrity, it doesn't matter, we can lie, cheat and steal and we shouldn't talk to anybody about Jesus." No. But my point is, is that all necessary but sufficient? Question mark? Is that, I mean, I, we spend all of our days working. We spend all of our waking hours thinking in some way about working, whether we're working in a job or we're working at home or we're volunteering. We spend our productive lives working and it's that all there is, making sure you do it well and with integrity and if you have the opportunity to share about Jesus, share about Jesus. And so I started a journey, a good friend of mine down here, Scott Stephenson here and I started this journey together to really go through Scripture because where else could I go? Where was I going to find answers? I wanted to find what God had to say. It was the only thing I could do. And I even maybe, but I don't know where else to go. And what I found in the Bible was this just from the, from Genesis 1 to Revelation, God speaks all the time about work and how we should think about work. And yet I wasn't finding any of this in people's conversations all the way we talked. And so tonight what I'd like to do is because you got the how down, is I'd like to give you three themes about the why. Why do we work? And I want to argue too that if you don't know why you work, then it doesn't really matter what you do. You know, the old saying, it's an old saying, but still the true saying, if you don't know where you're going, any road works. So I want to put to you tonight, three themes of the why, why do we work? And I'm hoping by understanding why we work, you'll clearly have a sense of, I need to do something different tomorrow. Because there's no point just coming to a speech and saying, well that was nice. I think what God is calling us to is to learn and to think. And the one thing that I can do here is to stand up in front of you and say, I am just further down the path than you all. I've experienced a lot of stuff good and bad. And so it's almost a cry from me to you all to say, please listen to me because you'll come to this sooner or later. And I'd rather you come to it sooner because you can impact the world if you do rather than later. So here are my three themes. Simply stated, number one, God wants us to live as what I call whole life disciples. What do I mean by that? If you look at the Bible, there are really three great great mandates in the Bible. Two of them you could probably readily name the great commandment. We all know that, to love your Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second like that to love your neighbor as yourself. The second one, by the way, Jesus himself said, that is the greatest commandment. So I'm not about to say that's the third or the second or that is the greatest commandment. No question. The second one that we all know very well is the Great Commission to go into all the nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. But the third one is the Cultural Mandate. The Cultural Mandate starts in Genesis 1, 28, goes on through Genesis 2, it's found in Psalm 8 and also throughout the scriptures whereby God has given to us as humans dominion over the earth. Now I know words like dominion and power and this that and the other have to be very careful with these words today. But that's what the Bible tells us. The God has given dominion over the earth. And as we think about it, you have to live all three legs of the stool as part of your life. And I would argue that when I talk to those men who were the leaders of those organizations and they said, well, you've got to act with integrity and you've got to talk about Jesus. It's because what they understood was the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. That's what those are. But they didn't understand the Cultural Mandate. They'd never been talked about. We do not talk about it in the churches. The church focuses on the Great Commandment, the Great Commission axis. And so for many of us as workers sitting in the in the pews every week, it's kind of like, but when are they going to talk about what I'm doing all my days? And it leads to an incoherence, it leads to a compartmentalization of our life. We have our Sunday morning religious life and our Monday through Friday, whatever life that is. That is never meant to be that way. That is not God's plan for us. He wants us to be integrated with all of those things. Great Commandment, Great Commission and Cultural Mandate. That's the whole life discipleship. So one of the things I want you to pursue is what is the Cultural Mandate and how do I need to think about that? So that's theme number one. Theme number two is that God actually has a vision and a purpose for work. And I want to make just a few points on this. Firstly, if you think about the arc of scripture and the narrative of scripture, where do we begin? We begin in perfect relationship with God in community Adam and Eve and where do we start? The perfect. This is an omenshirt question, folks. The perfect God. Thank you. The perfect God. I think the scripture has 1189 chapters. There's only four and a half chapters in which is without sin. We have to go to the end of Revelation to get to the next session where without sin. Where does God leave us or where does God rejoin us in a sinless environment in Revelation 21-22? The perfect city. It doesn't take us back to the garden. He takes us to the perfect city. God is writing a narrative of taking us from a garden to a city and the complexity of the city is the place that he's leading us to. And that's the narrative that he's writing. When you think about the earth, when it was first created and Adam and Eve wandered around, yes, there was a garden and fruit and there's that in the other animals. But also in creation, there were all the tools and minerals and resources that we were going to need today. Gold was already there, oil was already there, silver, iron ore go through all the things that we used today. I mean, those things have not suddenly been created in the last 200 years when God looked at what was going on and said, oh, my word, they're going to need some aluminum. Let me put some bauxite in the ground. That was already there. God created this amazing creation with all the tools, it's like a sandbox, all the tools that we are going to need to build flourishing societies. And not only physical societies and buildings and products, but also societies about the way we govern ourselves, the way we think about ruling at each other, the way we think about living together in community in ways that provide security, safety, etc., etc. So God's writing this narrative. The second thing is, but somehow in God's design, we're an integral part of that narrative. You know, we all know Genesis 2.15, I hope, which is to work and tend the garden, but actually Genesis 2.5 is very interesting because Genesis 2.5 tells us creation was already there, but if you read the scriptures, it was unproductive, nothing was growing. And the scripture gives us two reasons for the fact that it was unproductive. The first reason we understand there was no rain. That's fairly straightforward. No rain, nothing grows, we get that. But the second explicit reason given in chapter 2, verse 5 is there was no man to work it. So God created this creation with all this material, all the resources ready to go. There was no rain, and we understand that things didn't grow, but there were no humankind either. And without humankind, God's creation does not grow in flourish. Without us, none of this happens. Now God could have designed it any way He wanted, but that's the way He designed it. He designed it, he designed it, he designed it, not just to be a sort of a side show in this creation, but actually is the central actor in taking that early formation and taking it to where it's moving towards the city. Without us, it doesn't happen. One billion people in this world in 1872, 7.2 billion today. When you think about it, that's unbelievable, in terms of the growth of the population. And yet the living standards of every one of those 7.2 billion people today far better than the living standards of the one billion people. So not only have we had a sevenfold increase in people, but when you think about their wealth and their ability to live, it's gone up many times as well. It's an unbelievable multiplication. God knew that, but God needed man, humankind, to move that through and to make that realistic and make it possible. That's part of our role. So God is writing this narrative. We are integral to what He's doing. And the third thing I want to say is He's gifted every one of us in different ways. And the way He's gifted us lines up with what He wants us to do. God's not going to gift you to do something you can. Most of you probably have a pretty good sense of what you're good at, what you're gifted at, what you're better at than other people. It's not a thing to be boastful about. It's a thing to be thankful about and to look at God and say, thank you God, that's what you've given me now. How do I think about using that to the benefit of mankind and the glory of God? And when you start to take cultural mandate, which is the way this whole thing, you know, that this whole part of whole life discipleship, you add it to God's narrative. He's writing this complexity from the garden to the city. You add it to the fact that we are integral. It doesn't happen without us. And then He's given us gifts and skills to be able to participate in this when you add all those things together. That's our calling. It's a high calling. It's a spiritual calling. It was a calling that was given in Genesis chapter 2 before the fall. It was a calling that was given before any other commandment. It's the calling that God gives all of us to work, just as by the way, He works. Colossians tells you that Jesus holds all things together, even today. We're consistent with the Godhead in what He's calling us to do. I want to share with you, and I want to suggest to you that's an incredible calling. The third thing I'd like to add is this, or the third theme I'd like to bring in, excuse me, simply this, that I think God also wants us to work the other way is He wants to work with us to build intimacy between Him and us. There's a word that I've really enjoyed studying in the New Testament, "Economus." Some of you might know that word. You probably understand the derivation "economus" economics, economy, two words, "Eukas" meaning a home, "No-Mas" meaning law. home and the the economy must is the person that does that so the master of the house. It has ten it appears ten times in the New Testament and it's interesting because it's it's definition sort of changes by the context of the passage. You'll find it four times in Luke and in each of the times in Luke you'll find it it's translated as master or steward and I think for most of us when we think about the cultural mandate and what God has given us we think about God giving us to be master or steward over his creation and that's what that translates to be. But then there are some others and I will bear with me because I don't have these fully memorized but further down if you get to Rome in 1623 all of a sudden this word "beconnumus" has a higher level of understanding instead of just a master or a steward this becomes the Chamberlain or the treasure of the city. When you get to 1 Corinthians 4 this is 1 and 2 happens a couple of times there suddenly we are the stewards wasn't as we are the stewards of the mysteries of God and those mysteries are entrusted to us. If you go a little bit further into Galatians 4.2 we are guardians of a son by the Father we've been given the Son to God over that's the translation by the Father and finally if you look at 4 Titus 1.7 the overseer of God's household that's a that's the recommendation for elders out of Titus and then finally if you look at 1 Peter 4.10 we are the faithful stewards of God's grace. These are a wonderful series of phrases and I want you to understand I think that many people think of our role as the master or the steward and I think there's a sense at work that there's a sense among a lot of Christians that what we have is a fixed thing that God just wants us to take care of, manage, steward make sure it goes okay but I think what you see very quickly in this word "occonnumus" is actually what God is calling these people to do is to be the entrusted one. To have been given by God's something which is very precious a church, God's people, a son, his mysteries you know through all of these things these are precious things that God is providing and he's saying be the steward be the entrusted one that looks after these things and I think it's exactly that way as we think about creation that God is not just asking us to manage something to keep the trains running on time. He's actually saying to each of us here in the situation in the environment we're in this is the piece of my creation that I've given to you. I've given you gifts, I've given you talents, I've put you in this place you now are my entrusted one. It's like this is my son I'm giving you I'm trusting you to bring my son up I'm trusting you to look after my mysteries. I'm trusting you with this thing that's very precious to me and now I want you to basically look after it to nurture it to build it to create to grow it the way I would do it if I was there God speaking. So how do you think about your work environment if you are the economist of your work environment that entrusted one by God now coming into that work environment. How do you think about that differently? I want to submit to you that you think completely differently about it because one of the first things you change is the centricism of what you think about you no longer become self-centric you immediately become other centric. I mean the big problem with the workplace and the big problem with sin generally is us. It's self-centred nature that we have. It's selfish ambition that the Bible talks about and all the issues of selfish ambition. If all of a sudden God is entrusting you with this and saying please be my representative do the things that I would do the first thing you know the first response to that is oh no this is great I can grab more of this stuff now because God's given it to me. No that's not the response to the Father who gives the Son to the God who gives His mysteries to you to be God didn't look after. It's how do I nurture this? How do I build it? How do I grow it? How do I help other people achieve goals? How can I address issues? How can I address conflict? How do we think about new things? How do I be creativity that God has given us? You know human kind is the only animal on this earth that has imagination that can think about different things new things the future. How do I use those things to the benefit of my work group, to the benefit of my company or my organization, to the benefit of people who are without things that need things, products and services, medical devices and whatever it might be. How do I help think about that? And I think there's an intimacy about that with God because just for that moment and that area of time because people talk to me all the time and say well I understand there's a CEO of a company. There's a lot you can do to sort of do the Christian stuff. Actually the reality is very hard is the CEO to do the Christian stuff. It's actually in many ways a lot easier to do it when you're in small work groups and you can really work closely with people. The first place you go to work you can influence for Christ. The first place you can, and I'm not just talking about evangelism, I'm talking about nurturing that place and growing that place and building it the way God would want you to build it. So those are the three things that I wanted to kind of bring to you today. The themes of why we do what we do. Number one we do what we do because in the free tripartite stool of our lives we have the great command and the great commission and the cultural mandate and those three things have to be done together. Otherwise you live a compartmentalized life. Secondly God has got a purpose for work and we are central to that purpose. We are intrinsic to the development and the growth of his creation and the narrative that he's writing and thirdly he calls us into this amazing intimacy and he entrusts us with this amazing creation that he's given and he said this is yours. Do with it as I would do with it. I think if you change the way you think from how do I get to the next level, from how do I do this, from how do I achieve this, from again which comes back to self-centrism and you begin to focus on what is God doing here. Not in some kind of namby, pamby, kind of goody, too shoe, kind of you know we're all Christians so let's be nice about this. I'm talking in a real competitive way you know how if we're in the workplace how do we compete? Well how do we do better than other people? How do we win? That's that's not antithetical to what I'm talking about but it's the way you do it. Bringing grace and mercy, bringing righteousness. You know it's interesting to be able to do that you really have to understand the nature of God because if you're being his representative you have to understand who he is. Psalm 8914 it's this wonderful Psalm 89 that talks about God and verse 14 really gives us an interesting hint as to who God is. It's a justice and righteousness are the pillars of his throne and loving kindness and faithfulness go before. You know we're struggling with an election right now right and we're trying to figure out who all these people really are. Here we have our God our King who's declaring who he is and he says justice and righteousness are the pillars of my that's the foundation of my throne. So if we want to represent Jesus in our workplace what have to be the pillars of our throne? Justice, righteousness, doing what's right, doing what's fair. I mean this is not brain science folks right? But we have to be willing to do that and we have to be committed to do that because often that will mean sacrifice. Often that will mean being overlooked. Often that mean will mean giving other people the credit which they then go and take and you don't get that promotion that you may need. Now I'm not saying this is a this is a way to go to the bottom. Indeed in doing this the one thing we've got is we've got God overseeing our lives and overseeing our careers and the question at some point you have to ask yourself is am I trusting God for my career and my life or am I trusting me? That's a tough question if you really ask it because nine times out of 10 we trust us because we can hold on to that and we can manage it. We need to be faithful to the process and let God deal with the outcome. These are challenging things but I really if there was a change that I would just pray for all of you to have in this conference it's just that you would change from this focusing on doing and how I do it and this charging along this this invisible escalator of life which you guys are doing very well on already to stop a little bit and say now why am I doing it what is it that God wants me to do how could I be doing this differently for his glory and for his honor and for the flourishing of humankind and I'll just finish very quickly this is nothing new this is not some 21st century apologetic this is how Christians through the centuries have believed being a Christian is about I mean it starts back with Luther if you go to the falls as I mentioned I spent quite a bit of time in Africa if you go to the falls of the Zambezi River you know Victoria falls you'll see a statue of David Livingston probably one of the great missionaries I mean if you think of David Livingston you think missionary right deepest darkest Africa taking the gospel I mean that's what you think about it's interesting what's on the plent of that statue three words Christ, commerce, civilization. Because you see David Livingstone knew that, knew that if you took the gospel, but then you left people without a means to provide for themselves, commerce, or a way to organize themselves in safety, civilization. That's not what the whole Christian life was about. And we are the ones, again, back in the 17th, 18th, 19th century, if you look at social movements, you look at art, you look at music, you look at science, you look at businesses, most of the major movements were made by Christians. Most of the major changes were Christians leading the way. Today we don't see that. In the early 20th century, we left the cities, we left business, we left a lot of these things for safety of the suburbs and other things, and we've been happy in our little places there. It's time to re-engage. We have got to become impactful for Christ because He's given us this creation, and all of creation is grouting, and we can be a little piece of the reconciliation that can take place in our lives. That is a bigger picture of work. It's not about us. It's about what God is gonna do through us. And just the question I'd leave you with tonight is simply, are you prepared to let God work through you in the workplace? Or are you still gonna do your own thing? I spend a lot of time with people who say, I really wanna do my own thing and hope that God blesses it. That's what most people believe. That's what I used to believe. But really God's question is, do you really wanna do what I want you to do? And let me tell you, when you do that, and you let go of the reins, God is gonna take you to the place He's designed you for. Joy, contentment, unspeakable. (gentle music) For more resources on a political perspective on faith and work, visit us online at theologyorc.org. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at TheoWorkProject.