Keep It Simple: Industry (And More)
By Dr. Tom Pace
May 21, 2017
Genesis 2:15-18

Our Scripture Today is found in Genesis. There are two creation stories in Genesis and one of them is in Genesis chapter one and the other is in chapter two. That is the story of how the man and woman were put in the Garden of Eden and what their purpose was. So listen as we hear the Scripture read this morning.
TheLordGod took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.And theLordGod commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” Genesis 2:15-18 (NRSV)
We are in the sermon series called “Keeping It Simple.” You know there was a book that came out about maybe thirty years ago, that was really influential in my life. It was by Stephen Covey and was called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Many of you probably did it in business or school or something.
The second habit was called “Begin with the end in mind.” And the idea was that you would identify the goal you were trying to go for and then you’d make decisions that would help you get to that goal.
It’s interesting because recently I’ve begun to see that whole point sort of differently. “Begin with the end in mind.” Like begin with the end of your life and mine. Begin with this realization that life is finite. These young people don’t realize it but their life is finite. Your life, my life. And you only get one chance at it – there are no dress rehearsals. Just one chance at life. And the question is when you get to the end of it will you be able to look back and say, “I lived it the way that I was supposed to. I put my energy and time into the things that matter to me.”
So for Christians what we say is that what we’re called to do is live and love like Jesus lived and loved, to follow the pattern that Jesus taught us in our lives.
What are the components of that? What are the principles? And I would say for me I’ve sort of identified four that I want to talk about in this “Keeping It Simple” sermon series.
One is compassion. Jesus was a man of compassion. I want to be a man of compassion. I want to have lived my life out of a compassion for others.
Second is friends and family. Jesus focused on relationships. I want to have invested my energy and time in relationships.
Third is industry. I want to have given my life to doing meaningful work. When I reach the end of my life, I want to say, “I did meaningful work.” We’re going to talk about that specifically today.
Next week we’re going to talk about gratitude. Being grateful to God, embracing both the laughter, the joy, and tears and sadness, and being grateful for all that life has given us.
So our Scripture today also has sort of four components like that. And we’re going to glance at three of them. They sort of mirror some of those four I’ve already gone through, but then we’re going to go ahead and talk specifically about the first one – about work, about industry.
Let’s pray together. O God open us up. Open our eyes that we might see, and our ears that we might hear. Open our hearts, God, that we might feel. And then, O Lord, open our hands that we might serve. Amen.
I encourage you to open your Sermon Notes and take a look at the Scripture that’s there because we’re going to work right through it directly. But we’re going to start with verse 16 and come back to verse 15 at the end.
So this life worth living has to do with how we were created. Here’s how we were created: in verse 16 God has created the man and put him in the Garden of Eden. “And theLordGod commanded to the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden…’”
So the first principle is permission. We always focus on, “But don’t eat of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil...” that sort of warning. But before that there’s permission. “You may eat of any of these trees.” Picture thousands of trees and God’s saying, “You can partake of any of these.” Permission to live life. King Solomon says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” Experience all that life has to offer you.
There’s a quotation that’s been attributed to Mark Twain and it goes like this: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the things that you did do.” So throw off the bow lines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
When I look back at my college years, I made a mistake. I decided I wanted to get through college as fast as I could. So I went to every summer school, I went to every inter-term, I took as many hours as I possibly could and finished in two years. Just worked as hard as I could. And I was out – and I could say, “Hey, I’m out! Now what the heck am I going to do?” I think of all I missed at that time, all the football games I decided not to go to and all the decisions I made because I had my eye just on finishing quickly.
Here’s the deal, though. That doesn’t end just because you get out of college. You know, when we sing this “Borning Cry” song, one of the things that gets me is that I’m in the next to the last verse. Have you ever noticed that? You get to there and you think, “Aw, man! That’s where I am. I’ve already done all of these and now I’m there. You know, there is stuff I could take hold of and I want to do that.” Permission.
Here’s the second thing he says, “…but of that tree of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
Now we often translate that as sort of a warning or threat, “If you eat of that tree I’m going to kill you!” That’s the picture we get from God. I hope you don’t interpret it that way. I don’t think that’s what it means. What he’s doing is setting boundaries. So if you want to live a life that is good and full you have to recognize there are some guardrails that keep you from running off the road, some boundaries.
When we were in Israel, on every electrical tower there was posted a sign with one of those little lightning bolts on it. It said, “Electrical current.” It was in Arabic, English and Hebrew. “Electrical Current. Do not climb. Danger of death.” It was like – “wow – that’s intense.” But it is true. That’s what this is, it’s a warning. For your own good don’t climb that tower. Don’t eat of that tree. It’s not good for you.
In all of the years of ministry the stream of people who have come into my office - what I’ve come to learn is that when you move outside the boundaries that God has set for us, what you discover is pain. Just pain. You may think it looks beautiful over there but when you get there what you find is pain.
Then it goes on. “Then theLordGod said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”
Now this is the part where they make the woman… you know sometimes you hear this interpreted that the woman is less than the man because she was made out of the man and the point of the story is exactly the opposite.
God parades all the animals by the man and seems to say, “Hey, how about this one? Is it good enough?” The man says, “Nope!” Then “How about this one?” “Nope.” “How about a giraffe? A giraffe would be awesome for you as your partner.” “Nope,” the man says.
The only way good enough for the man is where it says, “And none were found suitable.” The only way she could be good enough for the man was to be made of the same stuff he was made of. So they made her out of him.
But here’s what I want you to see in this passage. It’s that it’s not about a companion for the man. This is not about a lover for the man. This is about a helper, a partner, a colleague, a workmate. This is not about face to face friends, “Let me tell you all about my life. Let me pour out my soul to you over coffee.” This is about side to side friends, shoulder to shoulder, working in the garden.
Find some teammates. Find some people to live your life with and to achieve together with. There’s nothing more powerful than that.
Sid Davis pointed out to me an old African proverb that’s says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Find some teammates.
Now let’s go back to verse 15 because that’s where I want to spend the lion’s share of our time.
“TheLordGod took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.”Permission, boundaries, relationships. Teammates and industry-work.
I want to talk to you about your vocational choices. I don’t mean what you’re going to do for a living necessarily, though that’s part of it. I want to talk about how all of us, not just these graduating seniors, how all of us approach the idea of work, of industry.
We have three choices. The first is - choose to work.
Thomas Harper who also preached the same text this morning, when we were talking about the sermon said, “You know what strikes me is that the Garden of Eden was not a Caribbean vacation.” That’s what I think about. So when we think about paradise, or the Garden of Eden, we have a picture where we’re just going to sit back and they are going to bring us Daiquiris and stuff. We’re going to hang out tighter – it’s paradise!
The Garden of Eden is a working farm. And there’s stuff to be dealt with, there are fences to be mended, and there’s work to be done. That’s the Garden of Eden. The man was put in the Garden to till it and to keep it. To be about the business, the industry of taking care of God’s creation.
We were made to work. We were created to work, to be about some business. Ask anyone who’s been unemployed and they would tell you that it’s hard. And it’s not just hard because you’re worried about where the next meal’s coming from or how you’re going to pay the bills. It’s hard because there is a sense inside you that you ought to be doing something. So you do something. You go look for a job and you work here. We have people who choose to work here at the church because they’re currently looking for a job but they want to be about doing something that matters.
Goodwill Industries – Steve Lufburrow is a member here at St. Luke’s and I have the privilege to be a part of their Board of Visitors. And one of the things that we recognize is that our mission is to help people experience the power of work. People who have difficulty for a variety of reasons finding employment. Goodwill helps them to do so and experience the life changing joy of having a job. Something to do.
Brookwood Community. If you’ve ever been there it’s an amazing place that works with adults with disabilities of a variety of sorts. It calls itself “An Entrepreneurial Community.” The idea is, “Let’s figure out what folks can do and let’s get them working. Because it’s so life-changing.”
One of my favorite Bible stories is found in 2 Samuel and it’s about King David. I’ll just give you a hint – it’s the story of David and Bathsheba where he gets in trouble with Bathsheba. But here’s how it begins, “In the spring of the year, the time that kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. It happened late one afternoon when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful.”
The rest is history. What the problem was is that he got lazy. The time of the year when kings go out to war, David lay on his couch. He got lazy, and said, “What am I going to do?” So he got up and walked around and….trouble, trouble!
My wife and I are keeping our grand-twins this weekend and they came and joined us on Thursday and they’re going home at 3:27 today. They are 18 months old or so and their parents are in Mexico drinking Mai-Tai’s and Daiquiris and whatever in the Caribbean there. So we’re keeping them – my wife and I.
It’s interesting, and it’s exhausting, I have to tell, you this morning my wife said, “Do you have to go to church? Seriously? Is it essential? There’s stuff to be done here! There are these two 18 month olds!”
But what’s fun is to watch them. They have this block and it has these little cut outs of different shapes. Then there’s a block that fits that shape. And their job is to take that block and find the shape and get it to fit in the shape and then it drops in the cube. It’s so interesting to watch them because the intensity with which they work at trying to get that block into that hole. Their little tongue goes out and every time they get it in they say, “Yea!” I know their parents have taught them that but it’s great.
Because we were cut to work from the time God put into our systems to be about the business of something. To lean in, to put your shoulder to the plow and try, try, try. It’s not about succeeding. The joy is not in success. The joy is in the effort that’s something that you’re really going to work at.
Giving the commencement speech at the University of Southern California this year was Will Farrell. If you haven’t seen the speech, it’s delightful. It’s funny. He’s just a nut. They gave him an honorary doctorate to start and he says, “Now I can do minimally invasive surgery as a doctor!” He’s great.
At one point he tells part of his story. He says, “Starting in the fall of 1991 for the next 3 and a half years I was taking classes and performing in various shows at The Groundlings…” That’s a little comedy club in Los Angeles, and I was even trying my hand at standup comedy, not great standup mind you but enough material to keep myself up in front of strangers. I would work the phones to invite all my S.C. friends. I was not even funny, just weird.
“But I didn’t care; I was trying, trying to throw as many darts at the dart board, hoping that eventually one would stick. Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t confident that I would succeed during this time period. Yes, I was afraid. You’re never not afraid.”
“I’m still afraid, but my fear of failure never approached in magnitude my fear of ‘what if?’ What if I never tried at all? I was just trying to throw as many darts at the dartboard as I could, hoping that one would stick.”
Just try and try and work. Chose to work at it.
Here’s the second thing: choose to care.
You know what word makes me craziest? It’s the word “whatever.” You’ve had teenagers, you guys say it, and I know you do. We say, “Go do your homework.” “Whatever.” You just want to say, “Please let them live till adulthood, please let them… I don’t want to go to jail.”
But here’s what’s happens. We never grow out of “whatever.” Or at least many of us don’t. That’s why in the last mid-term election in the United States, only 36% of us voted. Thirty-six percent – because the rest of us were like, “Whatever…”
How many people do I talk to who are struggling because they can’t find something they really care about. They really care about. Choose to care about something. Enough that you would really give it your all, that you’d really do your very best you can at it.
I want you to imagine this. The idea is that we take our work …Here’s what St. Paul says, “When you work, work as for the Lord.” In other words, do your work as if it’s an offering unto God.
Imagine this. It’s Mother’s Day and your mom – let’s just pretend you’re a mom. And you have a five year-old and a seven year-old. And Mother’s Day dawns early and your five year-old and your seven year-old bring you breakfast in bed. They bring you waffles that were frozen but are now not completely thawed and a bowl of Count Chocula. They’re so excited. They bring it in and they set it down and you’re honestly touched that these kids brought you this meal.
But pretend that it’s your 40 year-old husband who brings you soggy waffles and a bowl of Count Chocula. Now how would you respond differently? You’d say, “This is not a gift! What are you thinking? Do you not even care?”
The difference is – are we really offering God our very best? I will tell you that the saddest part for me of ministry is on Sunday mornings – other times, too – but on various Sunday mornings when I walk out of here and I think, “That wasn’t your very best effort, Pace. You could have done better than that.” And it makes me sad because I figure I didn’t give it my best. For whatever reason I short-circuited the preparation or was distracted or something else.
Choose to care, and offer to God your very best.
The third part is this: that work that you do, do something that actually makes a positive difference that actually matters, that makes a difference in the world around you.
I was given a book not too long ago. It’s by one of our church members and it’s called The Power of Meaning: Creating a Life that Matters. And one of the things that the book says is that you choose a purpose and you do it in sort of two components. One is by looking inside you at what your passions are, what your gifts are, and the other is by looking at the world around you and seeing where the needs are. The author is Emily Smith and here’s what she writes: “Purpose sounds big. Ending world hunger or eliminating nuclear weapons big. But it doesn’t have to be. You can find your purpose in being a good parent to your children or creating a more cheerful office environment.”
“According to William Damen, a developmental psychologist at Stanford, ‘Purpose has two important dimensions. It is a stable, far-reaching goal and second, it involves a contribution to the world.’ A part of one’s personal search for meaning has an external component. The desire to make a difference in the world, to contribute to matters larger than yourself.”
People will say, “You need to go follow your passion. You need to follow your passion.” And I think there’s some truth to that. You don’t want to move into something you don’t care about. But listen, Adolph Hitler followed his passion. He believed in that fully and he was going to go do it.
The question is, will you go do something that aligns with God’s purposes in the world? Will you be a part of God’s work making a difference in the world on behalf of the Father who created you and the Son who redeemed you? Will we choose to do that?
I’m going to shoot straight and I’ll be just as forthright as I can.
Choosing to make as much money as you possibly can for the sake of making as much money as you possibly can is not aligning with God’s purposes. It’s not. The Bible is clear about it.
Choosing to make as much money as you possibly can so you can use those resources to make a difference in the world – that aligns with God’s purposes.
Choosing to make as much money as you possibly can so that you can provide employment for people in jobs and help them feed their families, to care about the people you work with and for - that aligns with God’s purposes.
Choosing to provide a product for the world that makes a difference in the world and as a result getting paid for it – that aligns with God’s purposes.
So it’s not so much about exactly what you do but the why behind what you do – the driver. Are you working to help to bring in God’s kingdom with your life? And again, it’s not just about what you do for a living. It may be that what you do for a living just provides you with a way that you can do something else that you really care about more. But choose to do something that matters.
I’m going to close with Will Farrell again because I thought he was great. He says, “Now one may look at me as having some great success, which I have had in the strictest sense of the word. And don’t get me wrong, I love what I do and feel so fortunate to get to entertain people. But to me my definition for success is my 16 and a half year-old marriage, to my beautiful and talented wife Viveca. Success are my three amazing sons. Success to me is my involvement in the charity Cancer for College which gives college scholarships to cancer survivors. It was started by my great friend and S.C. alum Craig Pollard, a two time cancer survivor himself who thought of that charity while we were fraternity brothers at the Delt House up on West Adams. No matter how cliché it may sound to you, you will never truly be successful until you learn to give beyond yourself.”
Do something that matters. Work, care, join in God’s work, bringing in the kingdom.
Let’s join in prayer. Gracious and loving God, we pray for every single one of us here that at whatever stage in our lives we are, that you might speak to us about what we can lean into. About how we might make a difference in lives whether those be many, or just a friend who lives next door. We pray that we would do our very best and offer it to you as worship. In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.