Victory in Our Everyday Work

The Super Bowl is officially over and passionate football fans like me now enter the long offseason of our discontent. It will be 7 months before we hear the unmistakable tones of Al Michaels’ play-by-play call in our living rooms once again. Thank God spring is coming!

I didn’t have a dog in the Super Bowl fight this year. As a Colts fan, I loved the idea of another small-market Midwestern team like Cincinnati taking home the Lombardi. But watching Matthew Stafford win a championship after a 13 years with hapless Detroit was a nice byline, as was the emergence of record-breaking wide receiver Cooper Kupp (no relation ).

Until this year, I didn’t realize Kupp was such an outspoken Christian. But watching Him consistently articulate his faith this postseason has been really encouraging and refreshing. One postgame quote really caught my attention after the Super Bowl:

“It was written already and I just got to play free knowing that I got to play from victory, not for victory,” he said. “I got to play in a place where I was validated not from anything that happened on the field but because of my worth in God, in my Father.”

Play free. From victory, not for victory.

Most of us aren’t employed to play football, but that message is true for you and me and the work we put our hands to each day, too. Our default human instinct is to look to what we do to define us, to fulfill and validate us. We strive to make a name for ourselves, to prove our value and worth. And we just can’t seem to get there can we? Working for worth is exhausting. Yet that’s where so many of us live each and every day.

But if our worth comes from God, if our everyday work begins at the finished work of Christ, then we can actually work in freedom! We can go to work each day no matter what that work is and say, “how can I honor God and love my neighbor today?” That’s freedom. That’s purpose. That’s victory. Working from not for.

How can that Gospel shift in perspective change the way you see your day-job this week?

On the Website:

ARTICLE: Workism and the Christian Ethic (by NCU Student Scott Brown

VIDEO: The Gospel is Power

Accelerating the Great Commission Through the Marketplace,

Erik Cooper | The Stone Table

Don’t forget to pick up your copy of Missional Marketplace: Finding Your Everyday Work in God’s Eternal Plan in your choice of print, e-book, or audiobook by clicking here!