Sermon Notes: Exodus 31:1-11 - Work
NOTE: This is going to be a very high-level view of the text today and not super granular. There will be lots for you to think through in a more granular application in a personal manner.
Our introduction may help you to see why.
In our text today, verses 7-11 are a compact review of everything we’ve studied in chapters 25 to 30.
Really, the whole chapter goes together, but we are going to deal with the two parts individually.
In order to help us set our interpretive framework for verses 1-6, we have to see the whole.
Verses 12-18 are about the Sabbath.
Verses 1-6 tells us about God calling two men by name to lead the others who will participate in the work of building the tabernacle. Remember, the tabernacle is a replica of the mountain garden of Eden. The Lord himself worked to create Eden for his image-bearers to live in as home base and to serve as the model for their work with him in the rest of the yet untamed creation. God works to create and calls his image-bearers to work to create as imitators of him.
The work of creation and Sabbath.
God bridges Genesis 1-2 and Exodus 31 together in the 10 commandments. Listen to it: Exodus 20:8-11 (ESV) 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall work, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
God made man in his image to work and sabbath. What is the reason the Lord gives for his call on his people to work and Sabbath? Verse 11 answers that question. God’s reason is because he worked and stopped, so his image-bearers are created and called by name to the rhythm of work and Sabbath.
What did the Lord work at and complete in 6 days? Creation, the first marriage and family, and the mountain garden of Eden for them to live in as home and mission out of to make the rest of creation like it.
After creation? The Lord stopped, ceased, rested. Sabbath.
Back to Exodus 31. What is happening in Exodus 31? God calls his image-bearers to work at the replica of Eden and calls them to Sabbath from their work just like he did in Genesis 1-2.
God calls his image-bearers to imitate him in his work and rest and in creation in the creation of the tabernacle and their obedience to the Sabbath.
The arcs between Genesis 1-2, Exodus 20:8-11, and Exodus 31 makes this less about the tabernacle and more about the good news facts of work and Sabbath. It puts the good news on display.
Today we are going to focus on work as a gospel facet displayed in the tabernacle.
Let’s read it. Exodus 31:1-11
What do we need to see?
1) God calls and appoints us by name to work. Verses 1, 6
The fact that God called them and appointed them by name means that God calls us individuals to join in imitating him in work. We are call called to work as image-bearers and we get to imitate him in work.
Work is distinct and complementary in nature. God distinguishes between “call” and “appoint” in verses 1 and 6. God calls Bezalel and appointed Oholiab.
The point seems to be distinction in work not importance or the quality of God’s activity toward each one (meaning God’s appointing is special like God’s call is special). You could say that Bezalel’s role is to lead in a different way than Oholiab, and Oholiab functions in a support leadership role.
“Appointed” carries the same weight as “call” regarding importance and yet it is distinguished from “call” in function. Bezalel’s function is distinct from Oholiab’s function, but both are summoned by the Lord to work with him in the construction of the tabernacle.
We see this dynamic in God’s creation of Adam and Eve. He distinguishes between them for complementary function not importance. Both are equally important and equally carry the image of God, but each are created for a distinct role.
Work is God’s calling for mankind. All of humanity is called and appointed by the Lord to work. Calling is the Bible’s word for what we call “vocation”. Vocation is Latin for calling.
By creating us, God has called us by name to be like him in working, creating, organizing, subduing. You have been created by God and called by name for work. That’s special.
NOTE: This is super important. Not every vocation-calling by God leads to economically supported work. There are some callings that require multiple avenues of work. Don’t confuse work and calling-vocation. Sometimes your calling gets to be your only work. Sometimes your calling requires multiple avenues of work for economic supply, and that is totally ok. There is nothing wrong with that.
Just because an economy does not recognize the vital nature of every calling-vocation does not mean it is unimportant in God’s economy of the kingdom. God has called men and women to artistic work for the sake of beauty, and often it is not recognized by every economy and sometimes those called to this have to cultivate other good work to make way for a truly special calling.
Work and calling may not line up to be the same for everyone, and that does not diminish the work that is done to supply time and resources for a calling.
Example: I didn’t waste years landscaping, sorting mail, servicing insurance policy holders, or teaching middle and high school students in order to see TRC grow and flourish. Each of those efforts at work made the way for TRC to be here and flourish. My calling in life is to prophetically teach God’s word to God’s people in whatever way he gives me to do that. I have a noble desire to lead as an elder in the local church and employ my calling in that noble desire.
My calling has required me to work at multiple tasks, and currently my daily work allows me to exercise my calling and be sustained economically.
Often, one’s calling will also be their work. That’s good. Sometimes it is not, and that is also good.
Every human has the dignity of being called by name to work for the subduing of creation.
Now, for the rescued, redeemed, saved follower of Jesus who has been given the Spirit, our calling to work carries a greater and more weighty responsibility as we seek the fame of Jesus in the restoration of humans and creation because we know God’s eternal purpose in Christ to restore all things. We are not just working. We are working by God’s call for the restoration of Eden not just economic sustenance. We are working to imitate God as a worker for his purposes, and in so doing we get to pursue and receive the fruit of our labor.
Let’s get into a little application early. In the Christian subculture we have allowed ourselves to take God designating work as his calling on humanity and turned the idea of calling into a special thing for church work.
No doubt, church work is work, and it is necessary work, and there is a place for it to be a full-time work, and in that sense, it is “calling”. But to use that word as our justification for seeking out church leadership is a bit off. Not terrible, but it can cause us to miss what God’s calling is intended for in creation and demean work in the domains of society. Church leadership is carefully called in the Bible a “noble desire”, and that noble desire functions within the larger scope of the calling to work in creation.
We must be careful to make it clear that the work of bringing order from chaos in all of creation in every domain of society through work is God’s calling on mankind flowing from the restored family.
Work as God’s calling was the first family’s mission, and that mission was to work at making the wild creation like Eden.
That mission has not changed. We preach the good news to bring salvation order from the chaos of lost humans that God restores to himself, and we work in all of God’s domains of society to see the order of God’s kingdom come and his will be done on earth as in the kingdom of heaven.
Work is a glorious and dignifying truth in creation, and mankind is dignifed when they work.
This is one of the reasons a welfare state is destructive to people. It robs mankind of the dignity to exercise their image-bearing calling to work. People have a broken relationship with creation, and that needs to be repaired not simply and only have supply made for them.
Work is holy, right, and good for humans.
2) God gives skill for the calling of work and the ability to execute the work of the calling.
Verses 3, 6 God uses 4 words to describe the skill he has given to his leadership and the people who they will serve in his call to them: ability, intelligence, knowledge, and craftsmanship.
Ability – wisdom; wits Intelligence – understanding; reason Knowledge – cunning, astute; ability to know Craftsmanship – business; work
These four nouns describe a crown of glory given to mankind in our capacity to create special “things” from the raw material God supplies from his storehouses of material he spoke into existence in creation.
God repeats “ability” in verse 6 with the intent of making sure we understand all image-bearers are gifted with his gift of ability. That is everyone has the capacity to apply creative wisdom in work.
The women are included in this. It’s important we note that God didn’t leave the women out. We know this because in Exodus 35:25-26 Moses highlights the women’s skillful spinning of the fabrics to be used in the tabernacle’s construction. He appointed two men to lead and appointed the women to work with the men’s leadership to accomplish the work. Just like the marriage, the home. Complimentary. NOTE: God worked complementarianism into all of creation.
So, the whole congregation is called by the Lord and gifted with skill in contributing to the work.
God gave humanity skill for the work of bringing order to the wild creation.
This helps us understand work in creation as good, necessary, and even primal. Work is primal because we are created in God’s image and designed to act like him in creating, not ex nihilo as he did, but creating from the base wild creation all necessary things to tame and maximize creation for God’s glory and human flourishing. It’s wired into us. Humans will not be well if we don’t work.
We have God’s gift of ability, intelligence, knowledge, and craftsmanship that are echos of his ability, intelligence, knowledge, and craftsmanship because we bear his image. We are skilled to work in all of creation from the family unit, which is foundational to human flourishing, to infect all domains of society, to apply God’s creative genius in seeing all things maximized and restored as they should be.
Work exists because a wild creation exists that was designed for us to bring order to.
Work’s difficulty was increased because of the curse of sin.
These two sentences explain why we are drawn to work and are miserable when we can’t work, and it explains the brokenness of sin when some people won’t work and are happy to not work or develop their skills for work.
God designed us for work and he gifted us with everything we need to work.
3) God has given the Holy Spirit to empower the skill he gave us for work. Verse 3
The skill given specifically here for the work of building the tabernacle is to “devise” artistic designs.
The way the sentence is structured implies that having the skill is distinct from the Spirit. We know this is true because image-bearers have image-bearing design built into them, and image-bearing people without the Holy Spirit do amazing work from the skill God gave them whether they acknowledge him or not. They are capable of great work because the image of God in them is “bent” (As CS Lewis will say in the Space Trilogy.) not removed because of sin.
And here the Spirit is given to God’s people to empower the skill he has given them to do the work just like he has prescribed, specifically for devising artistic designs.
In other words, the way the filling of the Spirit of God affected Bezalel was to enable him to be wiser, more insightful, more knowledgeable, and more capable of any sort of work to which God assigned him.
The Spirit is given to super-charge their ability to work and overcome any hindrance of the curse of sin as he sanctified them.
A little pre-application, application: The Spirit is given in order to super-charge the work of his kingdom of priests to see that the lost are saved and creation is restored to the pattern of the Eden of his kingdom on earth as in heaven.
So, we have to ask what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? Let’s do a quick systematic theology of the filling of the Spirit since God gave us the Spirit partially for doing work.
“...being filled with the Spirit is a biblical idiom for ‘having from God the ability to do or say exactly what God wants done or said.’ In the case of Bezalel in Exodus 31:3; 35:31, his being filled with the Spirit meant that he could correctly construct the tabernacle and its furnishings exactly as God wanted them made...”
Listen to Micah 3:8 “But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.”
The filling of the Spirit for Micah is for him to speak powerfully and with effect, God’s word.
In Acts each account of being filled with the Holy Spirit includes overt reference to its result: a speaker’s ability to speak God’s word as God wants it spoken (Acts 2:4; 4:31; 9:17-22; 13:9, 52)… the case is well supported by a negative (example) : in Acts 5:3 Peter asserts that “Satan” had “filled” Ananias, with the result that he “lied to the Holy Spirit.” Thus the filling of the Spirit brings true, godly assertions from the mouth of the speaker because the speaker says what God wants said; the filling of Satan, on the other hand, brings lies, which is what the father of lies” (John 8:44) produces. In Ephesians, Paul’s command to be filled with the Spirit (5:18) is followed immediately by the expected result: “Speak to one another …” (5:19).
So, for the Lord to give the Holy Spirit to Bezalel was to empower him to work at building the tabernacle and communicating/speaking to all the others who are called and skilled with him, God’s instructions that it be done according to his command (Exodus 31:11).
NOTE: The role of preaching is to work at writing to speak/communicate by the power of the Spirit to create a blueprint for us to work together at constructing the temple of his people according to his designs as the body of Christ revealed on every page of the Bible.
Application
1) How is work a facet of the gospel? God’s calling to work prepares us to see our need for the calling of God to salvation in Christ and to act on his gifted work skills on mission with him to disciple the nations and restore creation as we wait on him to return and bring that mission to completion.
God created mankind for work and calls mankind to work. Calling is the root of our word “vocation”. Vocation is the Latin root of “calling”. NOTE: The fact that we use a Latin word for calling shows how Roman Catholicism informed our understanding of church work as “calling” and demeaning the trades as just “work”. Martin Luther opposed this viciously by the famous idea that Christian shoe makers don’t put crosses on their shoes, they make good shoes.
The fact that mankind either worships work as workaholics or shuns work in laziness shows us that we have fallen from created intent through sin and are in need for God to call us out of the darkness of worshiping work or running from it to the redeemed intent of work.
The world of work is loaded with landmines of emotional misunderstanding and grandstanding against the Holy Spirit to justify our addiction or our avoidance of putting ourselves to the work God created us for and doing it in a holy way.
God’s call to work should make us take note of God’s call to salvation in the good news. Just like God created man for work and calls him to dignity in work, God’s calls sinners to salvation to be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus. God then takes reconciled sinners and gifts them with the Spirit to put his image in us to work by faith in work, preaching the good news, and healing/restoring all things back to its Edenic state.
Whatever your work it, look at it through that lens of the good news.
2) You are called and skilled for work to bring order out of chaos and maximize human flourishing through your work and using that work as God’s missionary means of seeking the lost and partnering with the Lord in restoring creation.
It is this truth that drives us to ask the question: What if the whole church were the missionary? What happens if working and skilled followers of Jesus work mobilize from the home and local church to every domain of society to preach the gospel and restore creation? Might that be how we complete the Great Commission?
Your work at home and in the local church to the marketplace is designed by God as a calling he supplied you with skill and his Spirit to work out for salvation for all nations.
Notice the text says that all those able have been given skill so “that they may make all that I have commanded you:” (verse 6).
The “that they may make” is the “Qal perfect” in the Hebrew language. It carries the implication of a completed action. You could translate this phrase like this: “that you may complete the work I have commanded you.”
The implication is that if they employ his gifting, they will get the work done, but if they don’t employ his gifting it won’t be done. It carries the weight of possibility in completing the work rooted in the ability God has given them.
That means that just because one is skilled does not mean that those skills will get used or maximized. It means those skills have to be put to work, developed, and honed to maximize potential as image-bearers.
This means that we have great potential in our calling by God to become excellent in our skill set’s capacity, and it means that we can underperform and never fully realize our full potential also.
We are called by God to join him in work to be participants in the Great Commission.
Here is a fun question: How do you know what work God has skilled you for?
Ask a few diagnostic questions: What are you good at? What do you enjoy? What are you drawn to? What is natural? What do you want to work at to become an expert in? What would you love to work at even if there was no economic benefit from it? What is good and necessary for you that you have a desire for? What are you drawn to? Are you running from something rather than running to something?
Delight yourself in the Lord. Seek his kingdom and his righteousness. Work. See what you love that is holy and good that you excel at. Get after it!
Our gifted skills together will complement each other, and it takes fellowship to learn how those work skills overlap and gain strength.
Remember, the text distinguishes our functions. Some of us will be skilled in one work and some in another. That means that we learn to work together and lean on each other’s gifts rather than envying other skills or demeaning someone else.
Jesus brings work together in his church, and he calls his church a “body” who is full of different parts with equally important functions serving the whole body and his kingdom while representing him among all nations for the mission.
3) If you are in Christ, you are gifted with the Spirit and have available God’s filling as empowerment of skill for the mission.
The Bible distinguishes between the gift of the Spirit who is our seal of salvation who guarantees our inheritance (baptism of the Spirit) and the moment by moment empowering of the Spirit for necessary work (filling of the Spirit). Wayne Grudem’s “Systematic Theology” chapter 39 does a quite exhaustive job at making my summary point with all the texts of Scripture that apply, and I recommend you read that if you doubt my little sentence summary.
Here is the point for my sentence and this application: Followers of Jesus have the Spirit every moment, and we also have available the supernatural empowering work of the Spirit for work as we are doing our work for God’s glory and human flourishing in the home, the church, and the marketplace.
Ask the Spirit for help, receive his help as you work, speak his word as you work, and give God glory.
4) Is there anything the Spirit is convicting you of regarding sin, righteousness, or judgment? Is there something the Spirit is prompting you toward? Would you be courageous enough to trust him by seeking his word, counsel, and waiting on him in faith to move circumstances to just the right place for you?
5) Pray: Increase us / Make us holy and a people who seek kingdom and righteousness first / Send us / Teach us to honor God / Teach us to be contrite-humble / Teach us to pray
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