Working God’s Field (1)

“I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.” John 17.4

Working with the Lord
We should be greatly encouraged to realize how broadly, constantly, and excellently God is at work in the field of the world. He has not varied in His methods from the time of Jesus to the present. The Lord is preparing a great harvest for His glory, and, while today a secular religion and worldview predominates worldwide, we should be neither deceived nor discouraged by this situation. The doubters, deniers, and disbelievers of our day are but tares in the Lord’s field. He is working despite them, under them, over them, around them, even through them to accomplish His plan to bring glory to Himself.

And His Kingdom is increasing like a growing stone, which nothing can resist, nothing can overthrow, and which ultimately must make of the field of the world a wheat field for harvest to the glory of God (Dan. 2.44, 45; 1 Jn. 2.8).

God calls us to remember, delight in, and pursue His works, and thus to join Him in His work. The Son of Man goes forth daily to tend His field. As He did with the apostle Paul (2 Cor. 10.13-18), the Lord has assigned to each of us a sector of that field – our Personal Mission Field – in which to cultivate His goodness in the land of the living. We must understand the times in which we live, so that we may know what to do in sowing and cultivating our part of the Lord’s field.

To glorify God
Understanding our times includes understanding why we are here in these times. We readily concur in the answer to first question of The Westminster Shorter Catechism: “What is man’s chief end?” “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Of course we are to glorify God; every believer knows and accepts that. God’s covenant plan for the ages is to glorify Himself, and He is calling into existence a people who understand that, whatever may be the temper of their times, this is what they must do.

But how? How do we glorify God? By going to church and worshiping with all our might? Partly. By joining a Bible study and sharing together with others over the Word? That could help. By practicing prayer and treating our families nicely and loving our neighbors as ourselves? All that matters as well.

But the real answer to the question of how we may glorify God is to live in our secular age the way Jesus lived in His.

In His great High Priest’s prayer to the Father, Jesus acknowledged that He had glorified God during His time on earth. A little later He would tell His disciples, “As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you” (Jn. 20.21). Jesus glorified the Father, and we have been sent to glorify the Father – in the same way that Jesus did.

 So how did Jesus glorify the Father?

Working for God’s glory
By His work. He says it plainly: Jesus came to earth with work to do, a work uniquely His own, appointed to Him by the Father. He fulfilled that work and, in the process, brought glory to God. By His work Jesus put God boldly and brightly on display for all to see. By His work, Jesus brought near the Kingdom of God, and paved the way, by His death and resurrection, for the Spirit to launch that great work into the field of the world and the framework of history.

Now Jesus has sent us into the world in precisely the same way. God has given to each one of us a unique calling, a place and people to serve, and a custom-tailored agenda of work to do; and He expects us to do that work to bring glory to Him.

In our work – all our work, whatever our work may be – God can assert His weighty, mysterious, arresting presence, so that the way we work and the amount of work we do will stand out over and above those who are merely working to get by in life.

Work matters, and not just for earning a living or keeping up appearances. Work matters to God, for He intends to glorify Himself in our work, just as He did in the work of His Son.

No, we don’t have the same work that Jesus did; we have the work God has appointed to us, and He is able to use our work to further His work, and through it to show Himself in His glory to the watching world.

Work matters, and the work we’ve been given to do is greater than the job at which we work. While we’ll want to work hard at glorifying God in our jobs, we’ll need to be equally earnest and diligent to seek the glory of God in all our work.

But that means, first of all, we have to identify the work we’ve been given to do, and then to understand just what it takes to glorify God in our work.

For reflection
1.  What kind of work is involved in seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness?

2.  What do we mean by saying that the work we’ve been given to do is greater than the job at which we work?

3.  What kinds of work are necessary for sowing, cultivating, and tending your Personal Mission Field?

Next steps – Preparation: Have you identified your Personal Mission Field? Watch this brief video, then download the worksheet and map out your sector of the Lord’s field.

T. M. Moore

For a more developed view of the Kingdom, and of the Gospel of the Kingdom, order a copy of our book The Kingdom Turn (click here) or The Gospel of the Kingdom (click here). You can download a free PDF of Vocational Disciplines, a complement to this week’s study (click here).

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.