Colossians 3:23–24 - Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
There are two ideas here worth highlighting:
The first is the phrase, “Whatever you do.” The gospel of Jesus Christ gives meaning to the “whatevers” in our lives. It’s all-encompassing. Whatever narrow notion we have of what a healthy, mature Christian life looks like, the Bible says back to that, “Actually it’s wider than you think.” Whatever you do for a living, whatever you eat, whatever you wear, whatever you enjoy doing, whatever your parenting philosophy is, whatever your politics — the list is almost endless — Christ is with us in those things. He can be found there.
Not that there aren’t moral “fencelines” to the Christian life. There certainly are. But there’s also not a narrow 10-step discipleship program that some of us were led through when we were younger only to come out on the other side feeling like it didn’t work. Well, I have good news for you: Christianity isn’t about your “next steps,” it’s about his constant step toward you, in love, so you don’t have to tip-toe around life wondering if everything you do pleases him or not. You can be free to work heartily for the Lord in almost any activity under the sun.
The second idea worth highlighting is that it says Christians will receive an inheritance from Jesus as a reward for their work. You don’t have to know much about inheritances to know that they are decidedly not worked for, but given. So, in the Christian economy, working for Jesus and serving him are not tied to paychecks like the law was in the Old Testament. They are tied to grace. Think of the parable of the workers in the vineyard where Jesus says those who work 2 hours and those who work 8 hours get paid the same at the end of the day. Doesn’t sound fair, does it? Grace has a way of messing up our idea of what it means to work in God’s kingdom, yet when properly understood, it frees us to labor without fear or comparison.
On that final day, when the dead are raised and we all come face to face with our Creator, inheritances will be doled out, not wages. And our spiritual inheritance (like a will) was kicked into motion when a death occurred, that is, when our Savior died on a cross. Christians are beneficiaries. We’re living off of the sacrificial work of another. Nothing you do (or don’t do) in this life — even your notion of what it means to work for Jesus — can put an asterisk on that. So, breathe all of that in. Drink it to the dregs. Then (and only then): work heartily for the Lord.
CHRIS WACHTER / LEAD PASTOR