Are You Willing to Be a ‘Fellow Worker’?

Have you ever tried to imagine what it would be like to work with someone you greatly admire?

Maybe you love motion pictures and think it would be fun to experience working alongside a legendary director like Stephen Spielberg or George Lucas. If you’re a baseball fan, and with spring training starting up, perhaps you think it would be cool to assist the manager of your favorite team. Or maybe you could suggest offensive plays to your team’s head football coach.

My wife’s a big fan of the HGTV show, “Fixer Upper,” so she’d get a big kick out of tagging along with Joanna Gaines sometime and pitching in as she does her designing thing. “Shiplap here, rip up the carpet there, put in hardwood floors, get rid of that popcorn ceiling!” I’ve thought it would be interesting to observe my cardiothoracic surgeon do open-heart surgery, maybe handing him a scalpel or clamp – just as long it was someone else, not me!

You can probably think of lots of other work-alongside scenarios; maybe shadowing a police detective investigating a high-profile crime, or accompanying a celebrated writer as she gathers material for her next novel. But let me suggest one that might not have occurred to you:

Working with God.

At first you might be wonder, “What are you talking about?!” But it’s not a suggestion – it’s a biblical declaration. Reading 1 Corinthians 3:9, we’re told directly, “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.”

Lest we consider this a random statement taken out of context, we see the “fellow worker” concept presented elsewhere. Ephesians 2:10, for example, states, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” The apostle Paul also writes, “For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing…. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant – not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 2:15-3:6).

I remember having lunch years ago with a friend, a financial planner, who suddenly blurted out, “I’d do anything to go full-time for God!” I looked him in the eyes and replied, “What makes you think you haven’t already done that?”

Noticing his surprise, I explained there’s no such thing as a part-time Christian (being born again isn’t a switch we can turn on and off), and we’re all called to serve God and His people. By definition, then, we’re all in “full-time Christian service,” whether that means vocational ministry – as in a church, a parachurch ministry, or some mission field – or employed in a so-called “secular” job.

When Jesus ascended to heaven, He entrusted His Great Commission, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), to a small band of devoted followers, not to angels or even people who would have been in the “Who’s Who” of that day. Later Paul wrote to believers in the city of Corinth, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:19-20). 

The Lord has lots of work to get done in this world, and He offers us the opportunity and privilege to be His “fellow workers”! The question is, are we willing to join Him?