Sermon Transcript
Well, this is the weekend of Beauty and the Beast. Did you go see it yet? Long lines. Did you notice if you went by a theater? I guess that they’re breaking some records for the release for the weekend in terms of, you know, the number of people to go see a PG show.
Pretty incredible. My mind actually hasn’t been so much on Beauty and the Beast, but more on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I have an interest in fairy tales. Is it okay for a pastor to admit that, that he has an interest in fairy tales? Well, I’ve been thinking about Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs for the last week or so, and really it’s been connected to the passage we’re going to look at this morning.
We’re going to jump back into the book of Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes chapter 2, and we’re going to be looking at verses 17 to 26. So if you brought your Bible, you might want to pull it out, turn there with us, or use the message note sheet. But anyway, back to the Snow White thing. As I was thinking about that show, of course there’s a song in the show that most of us, I would say, probably know. Maybe we even whistle the song, and it’s connected to work.
So I want to remind you of that. So watch this clip just for a moment.
Oh, go on, run along.
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work we go.
Heigh-ho. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Now I’m warning you, don’t let nobody or nothing in the house. Why, Grumpy, you do care. Hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go.
Hi-ho, hi-ho.
Well, y’all want to whistle the song together? No, we don’t want to whistle a song. But you know, it’s fantastic to see, of course, a fairy tale that is connected to work where people are loving their work. Only in fairy tales, or something that could be true of our lives? If you know the statistics, they aren’t good when it comes to people loving work.
There may be 20 to 30% of people, we’re told, actually love their work, and about 70 to 80% of people hate their work or, you know, pushing toward the hatred side. In fact, there was an article that just was posted a week or so ago in LinkedIn, and the title of the article was 80% of People on LinkedIn Don’t Enjoy or Hate Their Job. Now that just makes you wanna hire these people, doesn’t it? People that are on LinkedIn, they’re looking for a job or they have jobs or whatever it is. The article went on to say that these people, if given the opportunity in the next month or 2 to take another job, they would take another job because most people just don’t like or they hate their work.
Well, we come to a passage this morning where that was pretty obvious in Solomon’s life. That was where he was. He wasn’t on the side of I love my work. He was on the side of hating work. And so as we look at this passage this morning, I want you just to be thinking about, you know, your relationship to work, whatever your work is.
It could be schoolwork, it could be, you know, housework or things that you’re doing around the house. It could be what that job’s got you doing right now, you know, the stuff that’s been put on your plate, the condition that the company is in. It could be any number of things. It could be a job that’s close to the home or far away from the home. You could be a people helper or you fix things or whatever it, Whatever it might be, I want you to take this passage that we’re gonna look at this morning and translate it into your situation and think about where you are on this love-hate relationship to work.
Where do you fall? You might be able to completely identify with what Solomon wrote, but the main thing I hope we can gain from this this morning are a couple of learnings, something that would help us with the jobs that we do because they’re so much a part of our lives. So Solomon comes to say this in this book of regrets, in this journal of processing life without God, under the sun, or life that is earthly focused as contrasted to heavenly focused life. He comes to the matter of work and this is what he says, Ecclesiastes 2:17, so I hated life because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. Now, as we read through this passage, You might want to take your pen out or highlighter or whatever it is and just underline the words that connect with work.
Also take note of the words under the sun, and then also take note of the word meaningless. Okay, is that too much for you to look at while we read through this? But just follow along, just get the grasp of what’s— grasp on, grab onto what he’s saying here. So he says, All of it, speaking of work, is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.
And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it.
This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief, even at night His mind does not rest. This too is meaningless. Now if you count them, 4 times he uses the word meaningless.
5 times he focuses on work that’s done under the sun. And so what we have here is we have here a picture of a man who was beaten down by work, beaten down by work that was earthly focused, okay, without God in the picture, work that was earthly focused. And so to summarize what he’s saying there, I want to draw out 2 principles this morning. The first one is found here in what I just read. Work can bring pain, or work can be a pain.
It was an absolute pain for Solomon enough that he hated his work that even resulted in him hating life. Now, what do we know about Solomon? Well, we know that he was the 3rd king over Israel. We know that he was responsible for the whole kingdom. We know that he was the one that built a temple.
We know that he built a beautiful palace. Steve introduced us last week to some of the waterways and the reservoirs and other projects that he worked on, that he was a father. So he was all of that and more. And as he kind of summarizes, you know, what work did to him personally, he uses words such as verse 17, it was— it’s grievous. It’s grievous because it’s meaningless, meaning it was empty, or it was like chasing the wind, he says.
It was empty. Verse 19, he summarized work as despairing. It took him emotionally down. It put him into a pit of despair, we might say. Verse 21, he calls it a great misfortune.
That’s interesting. It’s a great misfortune. I mean, dashed hopes, broken promises, that sort of thing. Anxiety-producing, verse 22, all the toil, all the labor. It produces stress and pressure.
You might be able to identify with that. And then verse 23, work is painful even at night, he says. You can’t even get a good night’s sleep because work is on your mind. Now you might especially identify with that. You know, you try to get a good night’s sleep, but you can’t get your mind off all the responsibilities that you have.
So we can look at that and say, yeah, that, that That kind of oftentimes describes work. It’s just one painful thing after another. I had a conversation last week with a woman who quit HP, and she said that, you know, I quit. I asked her, why did you quit? She said, well, because it wasn’t enjoyable, and I got tired of it, so I quit.
And of course, Solomon in essence is saying that, and part of the reason that he’s not really excited, or we might say he’s in a funk over work, is because of the fact that ultimately he’s gonna have to leave it to somebody else. So all of the possessions and everything that he works for and all that he acquires, he’s ultimately, as he focuses on here, he’s going to have to leave it to somebody else. But in thinking that thing through, it brings him to a question. And I want you to notice the question in verse 22. It’s the what question.
And this is a great question for all of us to ask about our jobs, about our work, whatever that work might be. He asked this question, what does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? That’s a great question. You know, in your work, just to come back and, and to kind of have a reflection moment and to ask yourself, so what is the point of this? You know, what’s the payoff?
For all that I’m doing, is it worth it? And especially if it’s done under the sun, apart from God, it’s just for earthly gain, especially if we’re working for earthly gain, that’s our primary objective in work, what Solomon would say is it’s not worth it, it’s meaningless or it’s pointless. And part of what brought him to that conclusion was the fact that as he looked down the road, he knew that one day he would die, he was going to have to leave it. And notice how this is a big deal to him. Do you notice that here in verse 18?
I hated all the things I toiled for under the sun because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. I mean, he’s thinking about his family. You might say, well, this guy’s pretty narcissistic or selfish or, you know, whatever. Just is, is that where he’s going with this? I gotta leave all this stuff.
And, and when I think about, you know, leaving this to other people or leaving this to my kids. I just, I hate that. And verse 19, and who knows whether he might be a wise man or a fool? He can’t control that. In fact, he says, yet he, this person he’s gonna leave all this stuff to, will have control over the work that he’s poured all of his effort and all of his skill into.
And he says, you know what that is? That’s empty to me. And verse 21, he adds, a man may do his work with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and we hope we would, and then he has to leave it all, all that he owns, to somebody who’s not worked for it. And you can hear in there, of course, unfair, this just isn’t right, and he finally just says that’s meaningless, that’s a great misfortune. Now let me ask you, do you think that this is a very selfish guy?
Or do you think that this is a very realistic guy? I mean, he’s looking at his work situation, he’s looking at all the things that he’s doing, and he’s basically saying, you know, there’s gonna be a day, and so in this time of reflection, there’s going to be a day where I’ve gotta leave this. I’m not gonna be able to take this with me. And I don’t like that. In fact, it causes me to think differently about my work.
What a great thing for us to consider. What are we doing this for anyway? Now, one of the things you can consider here is he might have had in mind Rehoboam. Rehoboam is his son, and Rehoboam ultimately is going to be the one who inherits the throne. He’s going to be the one that takes over after Solomon.
What do we know about Rehoboam? Well, simply said, we know that when Rehoboam took over the throne, he in essence decided that he wanted to do what his dad had done and maybe more. So he brought in his father’s advisors and essentially said to them, listen, my dad was great. I want to be great like my dad was great. What do I need to do to be great like my dad was great?
And they said, your dad was great because he had a lot of money, and if you want to be great, what you need to do is just take the money that you have and not tax the people anymore, okay? Don’t tax the people anymore. And if you don’t tax the people anymore, then you’re gonna be great. I mean, seriously, you’re gonna be great in the eyes of people because if you’re not upping their taxes, they’re gonna like that, all right? Well, Rehoboam considered that advice, and if you read the account, you find out that he decided, well, you know, I’m just gonna check in with my peers.
I’m gonna check in with my colleagues. So he brought in a group of younger advisors and he essentially said to them the same thing. My dad was great, I wanna be great like my dad was great. What do I need to do to be great? You know what they said?
Your dad was great ’cause he had a lot of money. You need more money, and so what you need to do is raise the taxes. That’s what he did. He raised the taxes and ultimately what happened was this great empire that Solomon built split. The kingdom split between the north and the south, between Israel and Judah.
It was no longer a united kingdom. It became a divided kingdom, and Rehoboam ended up being the ruler over the southern kingdom, over Judea, which was 2 of the 12 tribes. 2. The 10 other tribes, they went with the northern kingdom. In other words, they did not want to be under Rehoboam’s rule.
In other words, the things that Solomon was fretting over and concerned about, it actually happened, and it didn’t result in a great future. So Solomon is contemplating all of that, and he’s thinking, I can’t control that, and all this does is it, it just causes me despair. Not— it doesn’t give me any happiness.
I was reading Tim Keller’s book some time ago, that book called King’s Cross, and in the book he is reflecting on an article that Cynthia Heimel wrote. She used to write for Village Voice, and in this article she describes how she knows a number of people who are struggling actors and actresses who have worked in restaurants and they’ve punched tickets at theaters to pay their bills, and then they became famous. And Cynthia said, you know, that when they were struggling, they were struggling to become these famous people, they kept on saying to themselves, if only I can make it in business, because if I can make it in this business, then I would be happy. We would experience the happiness that we’re seeking. But she said, but you know what I found in my relationships with them?
I actually found that the fame that they longed for became their undoing, that they when they experienced the fame, they found not happiness but unhappy lives. She said this, I pity celebrities. No, I really do. Celebrities were once perfectly pleasant human beings, but now their wrath is awful. They wanted fame, they worked, they pushed, and the morning after each of them became famous, they wanted to take an overdose.
Because that giant thing that they were striving for, that fame thing that was going to make everything okay, that was going to make their lives bearable, that was going to provide them with personal fulfillment and happiness, had happened and nothing changed. They were still them. The disillusionment turned them into howling dogs. And insufferable. And you kind of feel like as you read this account that all of this fame and all of this fortune and all that Solomon has, it’s turned him into a disillusioned person.
Why? Because he was attempting to do it under the sun, life without God. So he comes to his senses, and this is one of the few passages that we have in the entire book of Ecclesiastes where he comes to his senses in verses 24 and 26, and he says this: A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. Just think about that. Think about your work.
Wouldn’t you like to be able, through your work, to provide for your needs? Yeah, to eat and drink whatever it is that you need and drink. Sure, that, that’s a good thing to do. There’s nothing better than that. But then also to not only provide for what your needs are, but to find satisfaction in the work that you do.
Would you agree with Solomon that there’s nothing better than that? That would be wonderful, that we’ve provided for what we need and we have a sense of satisfaction in what we’re doing. Well, Solomon says, this too I see, this providing for and satisfaction, This too is from the hand of God. For without him, who can eat? So without God providing, who can eat?
And without God providing, who can find enjoyment? And notice that enjoyment is used as a parallel word to the word satisfaction. So without God, we’re not going to ultimately experience satisfaction and enjoyment in our work. And then he says, and to the man who pleases him, God, God gives, and there’s this list. He gives not only satisfaction and enjoyment, but he gives wisdom and knowledge and happiness.
And then he contrasts that with this, but to the sinner, he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. That’s ironic. To the sinner who makes all this money and acquires all this fortune, ultimately it’s just going to go away and it’s going to go to one who pleases God. And Solomon then comes back to us, so this is so meaningless and it’s a chasing after the wind. What you have here is a second key learning that would really help us in our work, whatever that work might be.
The first one being work can bring pain But secondly, work can bring pleasure. Have you found that to be true? That work can, in your work itself, bring a sense of satisfaction and provision. And when it does, he says there’s nothing better. But even better is to connect with God and through God find also wisdom and knowledge and happiness.
What’s he saying? What’s Solomon saying? He’s saying that satisfaction and enjoyment and happiness are God-given gifts. You notice the word give that’s used there. They are gifts that God gives to those who live for God’s pleasure.
To those who work for God’s pleasure, God gives them wisdom and knowledge and happiness. In other words, he gives them a whole different reason for living. He provides in ways for them that are beyond what this earth can give us. And so he’s trying to get across this concept that, you know, the last thing you want to do is work for yourself. You want to be a worker for God.
You want to think of what you’re doing not for yourself, not for somebody else, but you want to please God. You want to be working for God. You want to gain, work for his profit, because in his profit is ultimate satisfaction and pleasure. And those who, verse 26, the last part of verse 26, those who choose not to live for God, who choose to live under the sun, ultimately the wealth that they gain is not going to be for their profit. It’s ultimately going to be for somebody else’s profit, actually for God’s profit, for his pleasure.
He’s going to take it and use it. It’s fascinating to follow stories of how some wealthy people have left estates that ultimately Christian organizations took on and have used to please God. You might be familiar with the Glen Eyrie Conference Center story. It’s in Colorado Springs. This was a huge estate that for years was owned by various millionaires until it was finally just handed over essentially to the Navigators for a very cheap price, a fraction of what it was worth, and now the Navigators ministry, which is all about helping people come to know God and make God known, this ministry is using this incredible, incredible, if you’ve ever seen it, it’s this gorgeous facility, they’re using this facility to please God and to help people come to have a relationship with God.
You may be familiar with the story of Westmont College that’s located in Santa Barbara, but specifically, It’s located in this very wealthy city, this very wealthy town called Montecito. Well, Westmont used to be an estate in Montecito that was on 125 acres of land. It had this Mediterranean home. This is the home right here. It was owned by a millionaire named Dwight Murphy who basically handed it over to Westmont College for a very inexpensive price, and now it’s serving God’s purposes as people are learning about God and being transformed by him.
So what he is saying here is that pleasure, if you want to experience ultimately pleasure, it’s not found in living for yourself, it’s found in living for God. It’s found in doing things in such a way that God is honored. He asks another question, verse 25, notice it, because not only can we ask ourselves the what question when we find ourselves in a funk with regard to work, but it probably would also be good to ask ourselves secondly, verse 25, the who question. Who can eat or find enjoyment in work without God? It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?
First glance, you probably say, well, hey, listen, I know a lot of people who are eating and drinking and finding enjoyment without God. They’re living a life apart from God. And what Solomon would suggest at this point is, sure, you could say that, but ultimate satisfaction and ultimate enjoyment and ultimate happiness is found in a vital relationship with God. It’s found in living for God. It’s found in pleasing God.
So this who am I living for question is a very important question to ask when you find yourself in a funk. About your work? Are you experiencing that for which God desires your work to be?
Habakkuk, you’re familiar with Habakkuk, he’s a prophet in the Old Testament. Habakkuk wrote about his, his work situation in Habakkuk chapter 3, verses 17 and 18. He says, though the fig tree does not bud, And though there are no grapes on the vines, and though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls— let me just stop there for a second.
If you’ve got nothing coming in, it’s not a good time in your job, right? I mean, basically, you’ve got nothing. He’s got nothing coming in. There’s no paycheck, no paycheck. But in spite of that, he says, yet, in spite of the fact that things aren’t going well for me in my work, in spite of that, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will be joyful in God my Savior. What’s he saying? He’s in essence saying the same thing that Solomon is trying to say here to all who would read his journal. Ultimate joy and ultimate satisfaction isn’t found in, you know, getting the perfect job, because it doesn’t matter what the job is going to be, there’s always gonna be pain on the job, there’s always gonna be something that’s grievous about the job, there’s always gonna be something that will put us into despair on the job. It’s not that you gotta fix this thing by fixing, you know, get a different job and then everything’s gonna be fine.
I mean, at this moment in time, if you’re Habakkuk, you’re thinking, this job thing isn’t working for me. You know, I gotta get into another trade. This agricultural thing, this isn’t working for me. But even right there in the midst of that terrible work circumstance, he’s able to find joy. And where is the joy found?
It’s found in the one that Solomon is ultimately saying we gotta have a vital connection to. It’s found in God, and who’s God? God is our Savior, and God becomes our Savior through the Savior Jesus Christ. So it’s found in connecting to God in a very personal way through Jesus Christ. As we connect to God in a very personal way, he begins to gift our life.
He begins to gift our life. With gifts that we don’t deserve. Are you kidding? He begins to transform our attitudes and our mindsets on our job. Even in environments where it’s not working, the product isn’t happening the way that we want it to happen, yet even in that kind of an environment, God is able to transform us into happy people.
Wow. C.S. Lewis said it this way, the people of God ought to be the happiest people in all the world. The people of God ought to be the happiest people in all the world. Why, because our work is happy?
No, because our God who we are working for is transforming us into the people that he longs for us to be. What Solomon’s saying, he’s saying, Pleasure comes to those who work for God’s pleasure. And all these pleasures, these pleasures he’s talking about, enjoyment, satisfaction, happiness, it is the result not of living under the sun, it is the result of a vital connection to the Son, S-O-N. It is the result of a vital connection. To Jesus Christ.
Last week Bernice and I went to Atlanta. We had a good time in Atlanta. I’m looking at Austin because, you know, Austin’s from Atlanta. By the way, these guys are going to get married this weekend. Here they are.
Isn’t this fantastic? Yeah.
And so anyway, we went to Atlanta and we landed in the airport there, and one of the things that we did was hang out in the airport a little bit for some of the others to arrive. We were there with Walk Thru the Bible Ministries. They brought back a bunch of us instructors because they’re gonna have a week with us and teach us how to teach the seminar that I’ve been teaching for them since 1986. They’re gonna teach us how to teach the seminar shorter, okay? So what’s happened is, if you notice this, our culture doesn’t wanna have long messages.
Are you still with me this morning? Culture doesn’t want to have long messages. We just want, you know, short sound bites, Twitter kind of stuff. And so Walk Thru has come to understand that, so they’re cutting the seminar in half, and they flew us all back together to, you know, take us to a retreat center. And so before we went off for this retreat center, Bernice and I said, well, you know, we got to get ourselves a blended drink.
And by blended, I mean a coffee drink, okay? Just get that clear. We’re gonna get a coffee blended drink. And so we were looking around the airport trying to find a place, and we finally found one. And we went up and we’re expecting, because we’ve been to this place, these places many times— I’m not gonna name it this morning, the brand name here— but we went up and we’re expecting that, you know, just the jovial, happy, it’s nice to have you here.
What can we do to help you, serve you, you know, that attitude. But it was anything but that attitude. It was almost as if the person who waited on us was a disciple of Solomon, you know, at this point in his life. And so it was pretty unusual. I mean, it felt like we were an inconvenience for ordering something.
Have you ever had that experience, you know? And they really didn’t want us there, and I had to say my order about 4 times and all the rest of this stuff. It was not really fun at all, not at all. And I remember thinking, you know what this person needs to do? She just needs to have a little bit of a break, and she needs to ask herself 2 questions: What am I working for?
And who am I working for? 2 great questions, really, that any one of us could use at any point in our life or in our work. What am I doing this for? I mean, what’s the profit of this? What’s the point?
And secondly, who am I working for? Well anyway, so we finally got our drinks and we went over and caught up with the rest of the team and they put us on a bus and they shipped us off to Rome, Georgia. Have you ever been to Rome, Georgia? No? I’ve never, I had never been to Rome.
Did you know that there was a Rome, Georgia? I only knew about Rome, you know, like the real Rome. But anyway, so I guess Rome, Georgia is real Rome. Georgia. But anyway, so we got on the bus.
It was a couple hours trip out to WinShape. WinShape. This is a picture of what we saw when we first drove onto this gigantic property out there. It’s in the middle of the countryside by a college, Berry College, which is the largest campus of a college in the world. I had no idea.
And so WinShape is owned by Chick-fil-A. You heard of them? Yeah, you go there. So anyway, Chick-fil-A owns this, and of course Chick-fil-A is a company that is rooted in their relationship with God and Jesus Christ. They value— they constantly are focused on pleasing Jesus Christ.
It’s part of the reason for them that they made a cultural decision, or they made a company decision, to not be open on Sundays. You know that. Right? Chick-fil-A is not open on Sunday. They want people worshiping.
They want to exalt God through— by being closed on Sunday and all the rest of the connections to all of that. And so anyway, we go out to this retreat center where they have employees from Chick-fil-A, and all of these employees that they have out there are strong Christ followers. They’re connected to God. They love God, and they long to to please those who are there. In fact, what’s fascinating is if you ask them for something or you ask them if you could, you know, can you get an ice cream, whatever it is, you know what their response is?
It’s always the same. My pleasure. 2 words. My pleasure. That’s their response.
And when they say that, It’s not that they’re just saying that, you know what I mean? Like they’ve been trained to say that. I know that that’s been part of their cultural training, but they actually really mean that. They really mean it’s their pleasure to serve you, but because by serving you they’re ultimately serving God, and it’s their pleasure to do that. In fact, this is so much a part of their culture and so much a part of their lives that I asked them What’s— you know, I wanted to use the Wi-Fi system.
I said, what’s your password for your Wi-Fi? They said, my pleasure. I said, no, you don’t understand. What’s your password? They said, it’s my pleasure, my space pleasure lowercase, my pleasure lowercase.
I thought, really? And I found out, yeah, that’s what it was. Try uppercase, it doesn’t work. They don’t want to shout to you, my pleasure. I mean, it’s interesting that they would even think about that.
We’re going to keep it lowercase, soft, because it’s our pleasure. It’s our pleasure. You get the point? That’s what Solomon came to. Came to come to realize that.
If you wanna experience satisfaction and enjoyment and happiness in your work, it’s found in a connection to God, in living for his pleasure, in pleasing him. Is it your pleasure, is it my pleasure in the work that we do, is it our pleasure to please God? Let’s pray. Lord, thanks for a good reminder this morning, because we can end up in the work like, like people that hate work and constantly thinking about the new job. And boy, if only I could, and if people would just treat me the way that they should, and all the other things that could come into our minds.
And so we thank you for this passage that speaks to us today, and may we we see its application in our lives and not have to go through the same experiences that Solomon did where we work and we work and we work for the earth, for what we can gain materially, and that becomes our primary focus. And in the end, we end up like those actors and actresses we talked about this morning, unhappier People that really miss out on what they thought that they would find at the end of that rainbow. And so we pray that you would help us get this thing right and, and live in your grace in such a way that we experience your best for our lives. We don’t want to bring on ourselves unnecessary pain. We already have enough.
But we want to, in the midst of our pain, see the pain trumped by pleasure. And so whatever the circumstances are that we’re faced with right now, may we discover afresh what it is like to work for your pleasure, and in that, may you transform our lives. Transform our thoughts, transform our focus. Help us become the people that you want for us to be, a person that Solomon wanted to be as he came to understand the lack of meaning that’s found in doing things for himself. We pray for anybody who’s here this morning that doesn’t know you as their Savior, that even today would be the day they’d reach out to you and Ask you to save them from their sins.
You would become their God. They would no longer live for themselves or something else, but they would live for you. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
