The Sacredness of Secular WorkSample

The dominant version of “the gospel” preached today goes something like this: Jesus came to save you and me from our sins.

Every word of this “abridged gospel” is gloriously true and tragically incomplete. Because while Christ certainly came to “seek and save the lost” (see Luke 19:10), he didn’t just come to seek and save lost souls. As Colossians 1:20 reminds us, he came to redeem “all things,” spiritual and material in Act 3 of The Unabridged Gospel.

But somehow, this lie has entered modern Christian thinking that, as the popular saying goes, “The only two things that last for eternity are God’s Word and people.”

Can I be real for a second? This phrase boils my blood for two reasons.

First, it heretically diminishes the power of Christ’s death and resurrection. Because, as we’ve seen throughout The Unabridged Gospel, God deemed all things—spiritual and material—to be “very good” in Act 1 of the biblical narrative (see Genesis 1:31). Satan and sin broke all things—spiritual and material—in Act 2 (see Genesis 3:1-19). And God promised that a Redeemer would one-day “crush” Satan’s head and win back every square inch of God’s good world (see Genesis 3:15). And so, as theologian, Dr. Steven Lawson pointedly says, “If redemption does not go as far as the curse of sin,” in Act 3, “then God has failed.”

Do you see how dangerous it is to say, “the only two things that last for eternity are God’s Word and people”? To say that inadvertently accuses Jesus of being a loser rather than Lord. But Christ is not the loser—Satan is! Because at the Resurrection, Jesus rose from the grave as the indisputable Victor, Redeemer, and Lord over every square inch of creation.

Here’s the second reason why this popular phrase makes me so angry: it blocks our ability to see the sacredness of our "secular" work. If “God’s Word and people” are the only things that aren’t going to “burn up” in the end, then your work only has value when you leverage it to some instrumental and “spiritual” end, like sharing the gospel or donating money to your church.

But because Christ’s death and resurrection were sufficient to redeem all of creation—spiritual and material—you can be confident that your work with the material world—typing on aluminum MacBooks, architecting parks, and growing businesses—must have intrinsic value to God. Because Christ’s blood paid to redeem it all!

With that in mind, submit all of your tasks—spiritual and material—to Christ’s lordship today!