what-s-the-point-of-our-work-sermon-notes

What’s the Point of Our Work?

Ecclesiastes 2:17-26; 4:4-8

Let’s talk about your work life today. This is a very significant topic. Most of us spend many years of our lives being educated for our careers. Then, once we complete the training and begin our work lives, researchers say the average American worker spends about 30% of life at work – about 92,000 hours over a career.

At its very best, work enables us to find fulfillment and joy. Human beings seem to like to accomplish things. Back in the early 80s, when over 20% of the congregation I served was unemployed, a small group of men said to me, “Pastor, we didn’t know how much we appreciated work until we didn’t have any!”

On the other hand, at its worst, there are few things that can frustrate us more than our work. Why? It may be unfulfilled expectations, i.e., after we finish our education and get our first job, we think work will be great. But countless people report that the thrill or the workplace is soon gone. It was certainly that way for Solomon. Even though his job was to be the king, in Ecc 2:18 he confessed, “I hated all my work in which I worked under the sun.” In our fallen world, no matter what God intended for human beings to experience in our work, for many, it has become a tedium, a waste. It’s like the old song, Five O’clock World by the Vogues:

Up every morning just to keep a job,

I gotta fight my way through the hustlin’ mob.

Sounds of the city poundin’ in my brain

While another day goes down the drain.

How can the thing that brings us fulfillment also bring us frustration? Solomon explains this in two related texts in Ecclesiastes: he tells us both why work can be deeply satisfying and why it can feel meaningless.

#1: God’s Image-bearers – Finding Satisfaction in Work

A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their work. This, I see, is from the hand of God,for without him, who can… find enjoyment (2:24-25).

I want to start by showing you that, even though Solomon strongly declares that working “under the sun” – by which he meant that engaging in work without doing it as a part of your life with God – is something he had come to hate (2:18), he just as strongly declares that work can be deeply satisfying. He says, in fact, that there is “nothing better” than a good and productive work life.

What Solomon is telling us is something that was deeply rooted in the minds of the people of Israel. In fact, the conviction that work can be deeply satisfying takes us all the way back to Genesis 1-2. When we first meet God in Gen 1, he is creating, producing a world. When we pull back in Gen 2 to the 6^th day of creation, we find God engaging in very physical work. He digs into the dust of the earth (Gen 2:7) and creates the first man. As Tim Keller so graphically puts it, “Our God is a God who gets his fingernails dirty.”

And, after he creates the first people, he immediately gives them work to do: to work the Garden and take care of it (Gen 2:18) and to name the other creatures God had made (2:19-20). With God present in the garden with them, the people have a meaningful role to play in the world God had created. Solomon specifically tells us the difference between work that is meaningful and work that is meaningless in v.25: Without God, who can eat or find enjoyment? It’s clear that our work is to be simply a part of our daily life with God. It’s not that we meet with God on one day out of seven and the rest of our days are to be lived outside his presence. We are to work “with God”. The idea of “with God” in v.25 has to do with a life in which we always do what we do as a part of our relationship with him. And, when we believe that God is with us and we do whatever we do to please him, then, the Bible says, we find meaning even in something as physical as working the soil.

Putting it all together, our work brings satisfaction when our relationship with God is close. That primary relationship to God flows into our relationship with those around us being healthy and into our relationship to our world being a relationship of care and nurture. Solomon says that work is to be a natural part of our relationship to God.

But, something has messed the work in God’s good world of Gen 2 up. What’s gone wrong?

#2: God’s Fallen Image-bearers – Finding Dissatisfaction in Work

What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless (2:22-23).

When people walked away from God and disobeyed him, that negatively affected everything in our world, including our work. We are still made to be productive as human beings but, now, there are all sorts of “thorns” and challenges for finding meaning in our work. The verses we read today are concise and remarkably insightful. Solomon chooses words that address directly those things that our work lives seem to promise us but then fails to carry deliver: 1) the expectation of us making a contribution through our work, 2) of experiencing inner fulfillment in our work, and 3) establishing recognition by our work:

The Unfulfilled Expectations of Our Daily Work

Making a contribution (2:18-21)

Read vv.18-21. One of the main goals of people in the ancient near-eastern world was to leave behind a legacy. They were often unsure about whether there was life after death – especially if they believed that the only things that existed were things “under the sun” so they often resorted to the thought that their lives will only have meaning if they leave something behind that leaves the world a better place than when they entered it. That’s not a bad longing. I long for that in my soul – so I can empathize fully with that longing.

And, the world Solomon lived in was a family-dominated culture. Fathers wanted their sons to take up their work and build upon it. I envision this was the case for Solomon. He wanted his sons to carry on his legacy as king. However, many Bible scholars believe that by the time Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, he already knew that the nation would not follow his sons. Soon, Israel became divided into two nations each led by a different son of Solomon. And, very soon, the nation as a whole turned from God.

I know so many stories of successful business people who have worked diligently with the hope of passing the fruit of their work over to their children only to have the children reject them or choose another occupation. I know of those who have built companies with their names on them only to have the company bought out and have the name changed. I had a donor in my earlier work who built a large investment firm fully planning to have his son take it over. Then, a few months after the father died, the board appointed a different CEO with completely different goals and values. I think of the epitaph that poet John Keats wanted to have on his gravestone: “Here lies one who only plowed water.”

Can’t you feel with Solomon’s words in v.21? “A person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then must leave all he owns to another who has not toiled for it. This is meaningless and a great misfortune.”

Experiencing inner fulfillment (2:22-23)

Read vv.22-23. One of the biggest promises about work we have in our culture goes like this: “Figure out what you have a passion for and then get the training you need for it. Then, when you get into the work that fits that passion, you’ll find deep inner fulfillment. You’ll know that this is what you were meant to do.” Solomon takes up that promise and says it doesn’t always work that way. He’s not saying that finding work we enjoy brings no satisfaction at all. But, he is very clear that making work the basis of our identity and satisfaction will always let us down. He uses powerful words to drive that home. He says that instead of fulfillment:

Work brings “grief” – You will constantly be evaluated in your work. Even if you are praised one day, you may find that tomorrow, your supervisor feels different about you. That’s true of all work – even of the King. Even of the preacher! The “great sermon” that people talk to you about last week turns into “it was too long” next week. The “engaging sermon” of last week becomes “you bored us with your flat preaching style” in the next. In any job, constant reviews of your work almost always lead to grief.
Work brings “pain” – The word he uses in v.23 for “pain” means non-stop exertion, i.e., that the work load grows and grows until you feel exhausted. Did you know that, among a group of global CEOs who were asked, “What would you do if you had more time in each work day?” 85% said, “I’d sleep.”
Work brings worry – As he speaks about the difficulties of our work, Solomon starts in v.21 by saying it’s made up of “anxious striving” and ends my saying in v. 23 that our work tends to become so consuming that ”our minds cannot rest at night.”

All this is to say that, if you think that work is the answer to finding inner fulfillment in your life, you will soon be disillusioned.

Establishing respect and recognition (4:7-8)

Sometimes, we think that if we become successful, then we’ll be known and we’ll have a sense of belonging and being respected. Solomon tells a brief but poignant story in 4:7-8, it’s the story of many people who have worked so hard in their lives. He tells the story of a man who is successful but alone and feels alienated – that people only wanted to be around him for what he could do for them. He was recognized – but not the way he hoped for. He had lived to have his name in the biggest publications, to have his paintings in the best galleries, or to perform in the most prestigious halls… He thought, “People will know me and love me.” But no – he was alone. The promises of what his work would bring to his life go unfulfilled. The real relationships he longed for happening through his success had, instead, been destroyed by his obsession with work.

Solomon’s declaration: Work “under the sun” is not worth being placed at the center of your life. The more you count on your work to make a meaningful life, the more you will find meaningless breaks into your life through work.

Putting It All Together:

So, work can consume you and drain you of meaning in your life. And work, in its right place, can bring meaning to your life. Soloon says, “Work can either be meaningful or meaningless!” So, what makes the difference? This phrase is the key: “Finding satisfaction in your work is from the hand of God for without him who can find enjoyment?” (from 2:24-25).

The practical question is how you actually do this? How do you work “with God” instead of working “without God”? Answering that question adequately would take more time than I have in this sermon. One point that I must leave for another day and another sermon about is how to find joy in your work by taking one day out of every seven to cease from your work! (The 4^th Commandment) But, right now, I will give you three brief thoughts and ask the Lord to help apply them to your life. The first two are from Ephesians 6:5-9.

Whatever work you do, work as if you are working directly for the Lord. Most human beings work more diligently when the supervisor is watching us. Well, the God who is directing your life is always with you. Remember, Solomon says to work “with God”. Work in a way that will please him. What will happen is that you will be the best employee or the best employer that God has given you the gifts to be if you do all your work in a way that pleases God.
At work, serve those around you wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord. The Bible commands that explicitly in Eph 6:7. And, you may think, “Well, they were probably in a better work environment back then than I am.” I tell you that they were not. Paul wrote that to people who were indentured servants, even slaves. If they could serve the people around them wholeheartedly, then you and I surely can too. To do this, you will sometimes have to pray much about God empowering you to do this before going to work -- because the people around you may be hard to deal with. But, from your side, you should make a commitment to be the best, most service-oriented colleague imaginable.

Even at work, look for ways to appropriately give witness to Jesus. If you commit to 1 & 2 above, i.e., being the best employee you can be and the best colleague you can be, you may find that you will have some doors opened to you to give witness. But, I will stop right here with my part of the sermon – though the sermon will not yet stop! We have called Pastor Jeff Liou at LAC specifically to give guidance to what we call “Missional Outreach” -- and that includes outreach as a part of your daily work. So, Jeff will now come to tell how how you might take some “next steps” in doing what Solomon says, i.e., engaging in your work “with God” instead of “without him” – particularly in your witness.