Big idea: The dignity of work rests in understanding work as an act of worshipful service to God and others.
Four perspectives that shape your philosophy of work into worshipful service to God and others:
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It is exciting time of year with all the false startups thinking of children's ministry happening even as you give here in person or online, you are investing in the work of the Kingdom, which really does start with our children's and youth ministry. As I was reflecting on some of that this week, thinking about children 20 years ago, like the milkens, the deans, the Takasaki, Joey, Chris Mullins, these are all children that people down there in the Sunday school hall have taught and trained, and now they're all serving as missionaries or pastors or or pastors wives, and so from the children's ministry all the way up, your giving supports the work of the Kingdom. In a couple of weeks, our counseling team is going to be traveling not too far to the Spokane Valley and doing our fundamentals of biblical counseling course at Valley Bible Church. And you may or may not know the extent to which we've kind of been able to impact the region through the biblical counseling ministry. We have actually taught those those classes in person in Moscow, in Hayden, Idaho, in Hood River, Oregon, at Kootenai Bible Church last year, and then this this fall, at Valley Bible Church. So literally hundreds of people who've never walked through the door of faith Bible Church have been equipped through the ministry that you support, and that's encouraging. So in addition to those, we have an online version of our course that hundreds, literally hundreds of people have taken through the portal online. And so there's there's stuff happening, there's fruit being born from the kingdom that you may never see, I may never see or or hear about until heaven. So be encouraged even as you you give this morning. Okay, stand with me. Let's turn to God's word. I am in Ecclesiastes chapter five, we're continuing our series on on work, biblical theology of work. This morning I'm going to read Ecclesiastes, chapter five, verses 10 through 20. He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity. When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what's the advantage to their owners? Except to look on the sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep. There's a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun, riches being hoarded by their owner to his hurt. When those riches were lost through a bad investment and he had fathered a son, then there was nothing to support him, as he had come naked from his mother's womb. So he will return as he came, he will take nothing from the fruit of his labor that he can carry in his hand. This also is a grievous evil. Exactly as a man is born, thus will he die. So what is the advantage to him who toils for the wind throughout his life, he also eats in darkness with great vexation and sickness and anger? Here's what I have seen to be good and fitting to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one's labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him, for this is his reward. Furthermore, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also empowered him to eat from them and to receive his reward and rejoice in his labor. This is the gift of God, for He will not often consider the years of his life, because God keeps him occupied with the gladness of his heart. This is God's word. You may be seated. Pray with me, God, we have been reminded it has been a heavy week in our country, and we would ask you to show yourself to be a gracious and a sovereign God, as you minister to the family and the staff of Charlie Kirk, as you help your people process what is happening in our world, as you even grow and strengthen us as Christians called to be. Salt and light in this world. Help us to be truth speakers. Help us to be courageous. Empower us to be humble in all these things. Help us not to be caught up in rhetoric, but simply be humble truth telling worshipers of you, the living God, we pray for that small community of evergreen Colorado and the hurt and the confusion, I'm sure so many of them are walking through one that is not foreign to our city and to the people on the South Hill, especially so God, we pray for those families and and we pray for you to be gracious to them. God, we come to your word today to to be encouraged and to be edified on a very practical topic, one that literally touches every single soul in this room. And so we would pray for you to enable us to have open hearts and minds, that you would empower your truth to transform our hearts and minds so that the work we do, day in and day out, would bring glory to you, and we ask you to accomplish that in your name. Amen. Dan read a passage in Proverbs last week, in the first message, talking about the purpose of work from Proverbs 2229 Do you see someone skilled in their work? They will serve before kings, they will not serve before officials of of low rank. Proverbs telling us there that someone who works hard, who takes time to improve their skill at work, will potentially rise through the ranks of of recognition, perhaps even being recognized by nobility. What? That's not a promise, a truism of sorts, but it tells us, at the very least, we should take our work seriously. We should try to be skillful in in what we do. And those themes, I think, will be picked up next week, as Dan picks up the integrity of work, talking about honesty and work, talking about work ethic. We are back for week two today, and in our short series outlining a biblical theology of work, we are going to talk about the dignity of work. The dignity of work. We're certainly not, in three short weeks presenting this isn't three distinct categories of truth about work. They're very interrelated and very overlapping. In fact, as Dan was preaching last week, I found myself going, Oh, I was going to say that. So we had a brief and kind discussion about that at staff on Monday today, we're going to focus on what constitutes the dignity of work, what makes work worthwhile? What makes work worthwhile? Society generally recognizes that there is a kind of dignity that rests in work of all kinds. It's why we use phrases like, you should take pride in your work, or we refer to an honest day's work, or we say things like, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, and that we even have like the biblical metaphor, right, of keeping your hand to the plow. All of those phrases tell us that people are are pretty accustomed to thinking about work in a way that acknowledges there's something significant about it, we use these Proverbs, these true truisms, essentially because we see value in hard and skilled work. Our culture approaches the question, what makes work worthwhile with a different set of standards, though a different set of guidelines than what we as Christians ought to approach the question, what makes work worthwhile? The culture may evaluate the worthwhileness or the dignity of work, and they might connect it to how much you get paid to do that work. They may connect it to how much knowledge or how much education do I need to do that job. That's what makes that job really important. They may connect it to the skill or the nature of a task.
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Some would connect the significance the dignity of work to productivity, what's being produced through the work that I do, whether that's material goods, or whether that's the good of people, some might even connect the dignity of work to Where do I sit in the food chain, the corporate ladder, right? Saying the most dignified kind of work, or the most worthwhile work, in my mind, is work where I get to be the boss, right? Right? And even, what is the coolest kind of work like, the best job is the job that is most like recreation, right? So I know I'm not going to be a professional golfer, but I think it sounds like a cool job, right? Because it's the most like recreation. And some people would say, actually, the job that I think is best is the job that requires the least amount of work that is not a Christian ethic. I'm sorry if that's how you're thinking. I've not always been a pastor. I think I was thinking about this. Someone said this to me this week, and I don't remember who it was, but I'm probably from the last generation that saw taking out student loans as a problem, like in my generation, none of us wanted to do that. We did not take out student loans unless we absolutely had to. So I literally worked my way through college paying all the bills myself. All the financial ties to my parents were severed about three months after my 18th birthday, so I'm on my own at 18. Have to pay all my bills, including my college tuition, etc, etc. And over that time, I've done a lot of things, like as a kid, mowing lawns in the neighborhood, and then in high school, I got a job doing some record keeping at a manufacturing plant locally, and then eventually stocking shelves and doing janitorial work in a retail store. And then I got a job at a Denny's restaurant, working third shift, bus boy by day, bouncer by night. Those night shifts could be a little rough at Denny's. You know, people don't go to Denny's. They end up at Denny's. That's that's what we used to say. And my boss would be like stairs, get out by the cash register and just look big, there's somebody taunting the ladies at the counter. So and then I got a job as a shoe cobbler. How weird is that? Have you ever met a shoe cobbler? I had a job as a shoe cobbler for a few years, and then as I was studying math in college, I got a job as a math tutor, which has been my favorite job of all time, or most, most rewarding anyway, because that's how I met Michelle. I was her calculus tutor. Oh yeah, wow, that's about as romantic as I've felt in a long time with that little sigh in the audience saying, wow. Okay, you guys must really like math. I took a little of that math skill and then I got a job as a quality control inspector at a jet engine parts manufacturing plant, so quality control inspector, and eventually, after college, got job as an actuary in marketing research. That was all before I went to seminary, all of that. And then during seminary, I went kind of back to the bottom of the the work food chain. I got another job in a warehouse, packing boxes, and then a different warehouse, sweeping floors. And I'm back to kind of the beginning of my vocational journey, as it were. And eventually got a job in accounting, which was a little bit more more lucrative. And for the past 25 years, I've had two jobs, pastoring in New England, pastoring here. So 25 years with the same job, essentially in different locations. We'll talk about a couple of those. I just want you to understand that I've had to over the years think about this question, what makes work worthwhile? What constitutes dignity? And work from a lot of different perspectives. So that's why I went through that history, not because it's particularly interesting, but because it does shape our thinking a little bit. So what makes any and all of those jobs? Because I do believe all of those jobs were a worthwhile endeavor. The answer to what makes work worthwhile is the big idea in your notes, if you're taking notes, the dignity of work rests in understanding work as an act of worshipful service to God and others. The dignity of work rests in understanding work as worshipful service to God and others. So if you're a Christian who's trying to be faithful in your work, you might find yourself weighing certain sentiments. Some of these are familiar from last week. Maybe the way to serve God at work is to just be the best employee you can be, to do skillful work, excellent work. And Dan will talk about that next week. Or you may want to narrowly think that the best way to serve God at work is to have integrity and to evangelize your colleagues. And those are great things, if the freedom is there to do so. Or you may think of it a little different, the way to serve God at work is to create. Is to be creative and create beauty, or maybe focus on things like social justice. I want to get the kind of job that helps me better society, in some way to make a difference in the world. I think all of those have elements of of truth, and in a sense, all of those should be part of what it means to be faithful in the sight of God, as we we do our work. You do need to read Lydia Kinney's article in The Living Faith Magazine, and you'll see in in her article, she runs through a very similar type of list about work ethic, finding satisfaction in your work, and that's because they all provide a partial answer to the to the question, what makes work worthwhile? Or how should we understand the dignity of work as God sees it? The only problem with the list, it isn't that there isn't truth in all of them. It's the problem becomes when we make any one of them ultimate or primary. So we can't say the main way to serve God through our work is to be hard working and have integrity. That's that's a way, a key way. But we can't say that's the primary way or the main way. The overarching principle of what makes worth work worthwhile is to see it as worship to God and service to others. And as we worship and serve others, those those narrower principles will fall in line this morning. I'm not proposing to have found the secret or found some hidden purpose. It's going to transform your view of work, but I do think God has given us wise principles in his word to understand and assess what we're doing on a day in and day out basis, and it does affect all of us in every way, not just people in the workplace, but moms and grandmas serving in their homes. You who are caring for your family members, you young people or teenagers who have chores. I'm talking to all of you about everything that we do, and that's why we need to unpack this idea that the dignity of work rests in understanding work as worshipful service to God and others. I'm actually going to quote Lydia's article where she says there's been a movement in recent years of quiet quitting, which means showing up to work in body, but quitting with your work ethic, your mind and your heart, these people who do the minimum required are psychologically detached from their job, and they make up half the workforce in America, According to a Gallup research group, woof, some of you are like, I work with that guy, right? In fact, guess what? In a room this size, some of you are that guy, right? And you may know who you are.
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We want to talk to you too. We want to understand things so that we either stop being detached from our work, we and see it the way God sees it, or that or that. We never become detached that way from our work. So to help us get there, we're going to look at four perspectives that need to shape your philosophy of work so that you'll see it as worshipful service to God and others, four perspectives that need to shape your philosophy of work, so you'll see it as worshipful service to God and others. Number one, recognize that work reflects God's image. This one's review. Dan stole my thunder, wonderfully so. But it's, it's it's review. Dan taught us this last week, we have seen the nature of God, as a creator, as a worker and as a restor. And he talked about the work, rest rhythm of life. Jesus said, My father is always working, and I too am working. It is the character and nature of God to be at work in the world. Hebrews one three says he is constantly upholding all things by the Word of His power. That work of upholding all things, of all things consisting together in him, never ends. It is a moment by moment work that God is doing. And Dan talked about our calling to reflect that nature of God in our work, rest, rhythms of life. God specifically called mankind to reflect His glory by being workers, right? And he placed Adam and Eve in the garden that he had created, and he commissioned them to tend and to keep that garden as service to Him. I. And that work got really hard when they chose to sin against the Lord. And now, not only do we have selfish hearts that long for comfort and pleasure more than we want to reflect God's glory by being good servants of God and creation, the garden that we get is not Eden, right? We are living East of Eden, as the phrase says, Now the garden that we are working in is cursed, cursed with thorns and thistles, cursed so that the pleasant work of tending and keeping has become toilsome work involving sweat and exhaustion, but the new found difficulty with which work comes to us does not change the nature and the purpose of the work. The fact that it's harder doesn't change the purpose that God has in it, which is to be worshipful service to God and others that reflect His nature and glory. Dan mentioned the book every good endeavor by by Tim Keller. If you want to dig into these topics more, I'd encourage you to pick up a copy and read it. Tim Keller says about this question, where what constitutes the dignity of work? He says work has dignity because it is something that God does, and because we do it in God's place as his representatives. Work reflects God's image. That's That's how I've worked that, and that is true whether I'm cleaning a toilet and sweeping a floor at a warehouse, or counting and packing Widgets at the plant or cooking a meal for my family, or doing my chores at home, or teaching you the Bible or giving A presentation to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. It's still true that we image and represent God, and we have to see work that way if we're gonna have a right perspective. That's perspective number one, needs to shape our philosophy of work so we see it as worshipful service to God and others. Work reflects God's image. Number two, we need to see work as a vocation. Work must be seen as a vocation. If you kept your finger in Ecclesiastes, you can turn back to chapter two. This category, the meaning of the word vocation in this category has been a helpful one for me to think through. It's not a new concept, but I think it's new language to me, and it's helped me clarify why and how all work has dignity. It's because work is designed by God to contribute to the greater good of everyone. Work is designed by God to contribute to the greater good of everyone, and that idea is wrapped up in a couple of different concepts. Dan mentioned last week, the Reformers talked about there not being a separation between the sacred and the secular, and they were answering a cultural problem of the day where priests were held up as and what priests did and what happened in the church was sacred, and everything else that went on in the world was secular, and the Reformers began to see No, no. All of life is worship. Not just what happens inside the doors of a of a church building, but all of life is worship, so, and that's true, right? If work is a means of worshiping God and loving others, then that's sacred. Anything that constitutes worship must be a sacred thing. So we put out the idea that my work, whatever it is, right? Again, whether it's you're in a warehouse, or whether you're cooking or your family, you're doing your chores, or you're working some executive job somewhere, all that work can be worship and service to others, and therefore, can be a sacred thing. The second idea of a concept here of seeing work as a vacation or a calling, that that work is something you are called to do for others and not your yourself. Let me, let me unpack that idea. All your work should be seen as something you are called to do for others and not yourself. Our culture, Western, Western society, has become increasingly self focused. I don't think I need to convince you of that. Generally, our society sees life as a means to find their own happiness or their own purpose or their own meaning or fulfillment, and therefore, culturally, we begin to see our work the same way. It's just. Means to find meaning or purpose or satisfaction. And therefore, if your work isn't providing you with those things, I don't get any joy meaning, purpose, satisfaction out of my work, then it just becomes drudgery, right? It just becomes something that you have to endure until you can punch out and leave the prison of your workplace, and then see if you can find that joy meaning purpose, satisfaction, whatever else you have planned that day or that week, which, of course, is also not where we're supposed to find meaning, joy and purpose of satisfaction, right? That's for another sermon. The problem is, it is that we begin to see our work as a means to a personal end, to an individual end, and we don't see the greater aim, the greater purpose that is centered on God and on others. Now, some people actually love their work, and they love what their work does for them, right? Dan talked about that a little bit last week. You relish the fulfillment you get out of your work. You think your work is your ultimate purpose. You long for the respect or the notoriety that you get from your work, and when that's the case and you let that overshadow God as being central to your work, it is so easy to become that workaholic right that we've perhaps known or observed in others, or become right
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that can happen whether You're the workaholic or whether you're the apathetic, quiet quitter that Lydia describes, the problem is the same, right? You're failing to see your work as primarily and ultimately a calling to worship God and serve others. So is every job truly a vocation? Well, it should be. It should be in our modern English language, the word vocation has really come to be equated with the idea of a job, just a job. What's your vocation? Well, I work down at the bank, right? I'm a bank teller. Or I'm a loan officer, it's just a job. But Keller points out that the word comes from the Latin vocare, which means to call a job, was considered a vocation when someone else called you to do it and you performed that task for them or others, rather than your self, that was the original meaning of the word. And again, that can be true whether you're called to be a homemaker or a loan officer, or you're just called to do your chores today, right for the good of others, work can only be a vocation when we see it as a worshipful mission or a calling that's done for the benefit and good of others, that is a biblical perspective of work. And here's one place in the Bible where we see the contrast of possessing that perspective, having that perspective, and what happens when we don't have that perspective. Turn back to Ecclesiastes, chapter two, verse 24 you see there, he says, There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also, I have seen that it's from the hand of God, for who can eat and who can have enjoyment without him, that is without God. The preacher is saying labor is good. Work is a good thing, if and only if you have the perspective that God is central to the enjoyment of your labor and the fruits of that labor. That's the perspective that we ought to have. There's nothing better, he says, than to have that perspective. Otherwise, again, work will begin to feel pointless. You may become discouraged or the quiet quitter. That's why he goes on to say, look at verse 26 for to a person who is good in his sight, he's given wisdom and knowledge and joy, while to the sinner, he has given the task of gathering and collecting so that he may give to the one who is good in God's sight. This too is vanity and striving after the wind. He's saying that God gives to the believer, to the one who's good in his sight, this wisdom and this knowledge and this joy to see work the way God. Sees it, to see it as the fulfilling with the fulfilling aim of worshiping Him and serving others. And if we don't have that perspective, then we're going to be in the other category. We're just the sinner. And we got to go to work, and we got to gather, and we got to collect. And who gets all the reward the other guy. And we throw up our hands and we say, what's the point this too, is vanity and striving after the wind. I think that's exactly what he's saying. Here is we need to have God's perspective, and that's why we need to revisit the meaning and purpose and the perspective of that old language of vocation and see it as my work being divinely designed as a calling to worship God and serve others. Work is not primarily a means of personal fulfillment. It's not primarily a means of personal fulfillment, though understood right and carried out right, it will produce joy and reward, the writer says, and properly so. Now, if you're a Christian here this morning, I hope you find personal fulfillment in loving and serving others, which means you can find personal fulfillment even in your vocation or the work that God has for you today and every day or this week, but seeing God as the goal, and loving and serving others as the ultimate goal, rather than what I get out of it personally, is vitally important. It's a necessary perspective if we're going to see work the way God sees it, because, and again, Keller warns how it is that having become so individualistic in our society, we've lost sight of our work being a calling that contributes to the common good of others. So let's talk about toilets some more. Doesn't that sound fun? Is it really that important that a gas station attendant take pride in their work and strives to maintain a clean bathroom for their patrons. It's important for that vacationing family who sadly has had the flu run through the children on their drive home and are about to have yet another emergency pit stop. It's important for that family, isn't it, or for that guy on the road trip hiking at Glacier who's realizing on the way home it was a bad idea to combine Taco Bell with a Monster Energy Drink. Which brings us to the importance of the Taco Bell employee taking pride in how thoroughly they cook the meat for your taco right. And then we can go right up the corporate ladder, right to the common good that is brought about as the CEO of Taco Bell leads and guides an entire Taco Bell enterprise for the good of its employees and the enjoyment of its customers enjoying Taco Bell. Which brings us to whether or not Taco Bell was a good illustration, but it's too late for that. I would challenge you, challenge you to consider your work a vocation, a calling, to serve others for the common good, no matter what your work is, right kids, if you're just doing the dishes at home, see it as a calling, right to create a space that is neat and tidy and enjoyable for the family, whatever your work is, see it that way. Now it's not always easy to see our work that way. So that brings us to our third perspective, which we've been touching on already, third perspective that needs to shape our philosophy of work so we see it as worshipful service to God is to understand dignity in work rests in God's design, not the nature of the work you do. Dignity in work rests in this design of work as worship and service, not in the nature of the work you do. God does have purpose, and there is dignity in every legitimate form of work. And I'm not saying that every job has the same kind and same degree of dignity. I reflected on some situations I've had a connection to in the past, one friend who supplemented his income by occasional shifts as a bartender. I wouldn't necessarily recommend the Christian bartender vocation, whatever your view on Christian liberties, it's there's probably some lack of wisdom to make that something you do. Another friend was responsible for marketing in an inventory for Philip Morris. You know who they are, the leading producer of tobacco products in the world, I think. And his job was to make. More people want to use tobacco products. That literally was his job. Again, I think there are better jobs to be found than that one,
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and I'm not, I'm not. I want to get a bait about where the lines are drawn, right? Some jobs are just out of bounds for the Christian and we intuitively, we know that, and we shouldn't recommend them or pursue them, but within the bounds of legitimacy for the Christian, we learn that God has a design and purpose for everything and for every work or labor. It's a familiar passage Ecclesiastes chapter three, you're picking up right where we left off, where you see the preacher writing, there's a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to tear down and a time to build up. It's that familiar. There's a time for this and a time for that. And the overarching principle there is that from the good to the bad and everything in between in life, God has a purpose. How does he? How does he state that purpose? Look at Ecclesiastes, three, verse nine, what profit or what lasting benefit is there to the worker? From that in which he toils, I have seen the task which God has given to the sons of men and which with which to occupy themselves. He has made everything appropriate or beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart yet, so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. So he talks about the good things of life, time to love, time to hate, right, the bad things of life and everything in between. God is doing something appropriate and beautiful and wise and good. The writer specifically ties that idea to this principle of the toil of the worker, right? What profit is there to the worker? From that in which he toils, and then he concludes by acknowledging this is hard to figure out. Sometimes this, there's mystery at times, how to how and where to find and see these eternal ends, right? He's put eternity in my heart. I know there must be something bigger to this, there must be something more, more significant to this. It may be difficult to find out the work which God is doing in all that, but the assurance is there that even if you can't see all the significance of it, that God is accomplishing divine and beautiful ends through all the circumstances of life and even the toil of your labor. Now, I'm not going to run through the whole list of jobs I've had, but let's think about being a shoe cobbler for a second. A shoe cobbler. Brian the shoe cobbler. I needed an elf that'd come fix the shoes at night, but that didn't happen. I think, honestly, if I thought I could have made a living at that, I would have just kept doing it. I really enjoyed the job that much. It was a fun job. You have this thing in your hands when you're all done, you can take something that that is looks like it's falling apart, and you can put it back together and make it useful and beautiful. And it was actually kind of fun. Or standing in the shop and a lady walks in, I just stepped in a hole in the parking lot and my heel fell off my pump. Can you help me? Like, yes, give me 60 seconds. I'll have that shoe back together and we'll have you on your way. That's pretty satisfying. Ian, that makes women happy, right? And it helps them save money on shoes, which makes their husbands happy. I'm making everyone happy. It's also a great illustration, right? How God restores the well trodden, broken soul, right? How he can make all things new? It's kind of like a living illustration of that. Or can be right? Or a parts inspector inspecting jet engine parts. That's a really important job if you're ever going to fly on a plane. Does everyone agree? Yeah. So we got a whole shipment of rivets in one time, and 75% of them were the wrong size. So I'm going through testing a sample, and I'm like, This can't be right. This can't be right. So we got to pull those off the line right. We can't be using those those parts protecting the lives of airplane passengers. That's a pretty noble job, though, counting and measuring rivets seemed pretty insignificant in the moment, right? But in the broader picture, that's a calling, right to do that well and to serve LA. And serve others who might get on a plane with those rivets in the engine, right or not? Those rivets actually. So transitioning a little bit part of God's design is that people live and work and enjoy the fruit of their labor, that that is a significant part of what constitutes the dignity of work that God wants us to he does want us to enjoy it, that just can't be our ultimate aim. And we see that at the end of the passage in chapter five that we read this morning, that though we're not to trust in the uncertainty of riches, which he says is striving after the wind. We are to enjoy the fruit of our labor. Chapter Five, Verse 18, here is what I have seen to be good and fitting, to eat, to drink and to enjoy oneself in all one's labor, in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life, which God has given him, for this is his reward. Furthermore, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, he's empowered him to eat from them and to receive his reward and to rejoice in his labor. This is the gift of God, and so it is. It is part of God's design. It is a gift from him that we can work and find dignity and find pleasure and reward in that partial purpose of supporting ourselves, financially, physically, through labor and toil and again, as you're in the the marketplace, that is true, no matter what job You do that God wants you to support yourself that way, because dignity in work rests in God's design, not the nature of the work that you do. Again, whether you're doesn't matter. The dignity rests in God's design. A fourth. That's the third perspective. Here's number four. The fourth perspective that should shape our philosophy of work, so that we see it as worshipful service to God and others. Number four, God must enable you to enjoy your labor and its fruits. And we just kind of transitioned and stepped in there we read earlier in chapter two, verse 25 for who can eat and who can have enjoyment without him, right? He's saying God is the ultimate source of our provision and God is the ultimate source of our pleasure. If we're understanding and experiencing pleasure and reward properly, and recognizing that God is the source of our provision and pleasure, helps us avoid the errors of of pride, thinking I've made my own way, or I've earned it right. That's that's pride. It helps us avoid the opposite error of hedonism, just living life for pleasure, without reference to God, thinking I deserve that as well. Instead, it helps us see all of those things, His provision and the enjoyment of it as a gift from God to be enjoyed in moderation and to be pursued for His glory. And we see in chapter five, where we just we're reading the preacher saying something similar chapter five, verse 19. Furthermore, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also empowered him to eat from them and to receive his reward and to rejoice in his labor. This is the gift of God, for He will not often consider the years of his life, because God keeps him occupied with the gladness of his heart. God empowers us to rejoice in our labor, in our work, in our toil, and this is the place where we most clearly see the application of the gospel to a life lived in a sin, cursed world as it relates to this topic, right? The ground is cursed because of the fall. Thorns and thistles are in the way of our fruitful farming, and there are other obstacles or other decay in the way of whatever your labor is right, and Jesus Christ came to reverse the effects of the fall, to overcome sin and death and all of its effect and all of its consequences. And in that sense, he also came to redeem our work and to empower our work with dignity and purpose, even in a sin, cursed world. And then, having sought to fulfill that divine purpose in our work, he empowers our ability to enjoy it as an expression of worship to Him and of service. To others and to experience the reward of it all, because he is a redeeming and a sanctifying God.
45:13
What does the writer mean in verse 20, when he when he asks or he makes the statement he will not often consider the years of his life. I think the writer is acknowledging, first of all that life, life is hard, life in a sin, cursed world, life under the sun, as the writer of Ecclesiastes says, is hard. And he's saying, as we embrace and live out the reality that labor and toil and work is done as worship to God and service to others, then we will be empowered by him to enjoy the rewards of that labor and that enjoyment, the satisfaction of conducting Our work for the glory of God can then overshadow the pain and the difficulty of living, living and laboring in a sin cursed world. As I, as I do, work as worship to God, in service to others, and he empowers me to enjoy both the work and its rewards I'm I'm lost in the joy and satisfaction of that worship and service, and I'm not overwhelmed by the pain and the labor of living in this world. And the opposite is true. If we see labor and toil without God's perspective, at some point we're just going to go, Ugh. When will this all end? Right? Instead, God says, No, I want to keep you occupied with the gladness of heart that comes when you see work and labor the way I've called you to see it as worship to me and loving service to others, and you will only consider the years of your life in that way as a drudgery, to the extent that you're failing to see your work and toil as worship and service. Those are four perspectives. They need to shape the way we think about work. I want to give you four encouragements or four applications as we we close this morning. First, I want to encourage you take the time to prayerfully consider that is ask God's help. Ask God to help you see how your work is loving service to others, identify how your work fulfills the divine design, so that you can find the dignity and purpose that God has in it. And again, whether you're going home to cook lunch for your family or to do your chores, or you're going to the office tomorrow morning, or whatever your work is, what is the greater calling. How are you going to worship and serve others? Maybe group thinking, this question would be good. This might be good for your growth. Groups like, Hey, I prayed about that, and I'm still coming up empty my my work still feels like a waste of time. Can somebody help me think through this? Maybe you think through it with some friends at group. So ask God to help you see how your work fulfills the design of worship and service to others. Number two, you may need to identify the wrong ways you have viewed work. How have you made work about yourself, or how maybe have you just seen work as servile or drudgery. Oh, work is just a curse. Well, it's more than that, right? Work, in a sense, has been cursed, but it not is, in and of itself, a curse. Work is much more significant than just that thing I have to endure, right? In order to make a living. God doesn't want us to see it that way. So identify the wrong ways you have you have viewed your work? How have you made it about yourself or just a drudgery and put off those ways of thinking and intentionally try to put on the perspectives that we've encouraged you to see and to have today number three, make it a matter of prayer each day, or at the beginning of your work day, the beginning of your shift, to ask God to help you see and remember and enjoy your work in this way. Help. Ask him to help you see your work with those perspectives so that you're not taken away with the wrong thing. So make it a matter of prayer each day as you work. And number four, ask God to grant you. Ask God to do what he says he will do here, to empower you, to empower that perspective, and then at the end, to empower your rejoicing and your satisfaction. In the work, because you see it as worship to Him and and service to others. It says right here, he is able and willing to empower you to rejoice in you your labor, and to keep you occupied with the gladness of heart as you consider his divine design and purposes and work. All right, let's pray God we we're thankful that your word is so practical and speaks to questions like this, questions that relate to all of us, no matter what our station in life is, no matter what our responsibilities are with our family or our employer or our our teachers, whatever it is you make what we do noble by being the center of it, and we want to do everything in life, and especially the labor of life as worship to you, help us to see it that way and to pursue it that way. And God, help us to see the dignity that comes in seeing our work as not just something that we do for ourselves, but that always has an impact, always has influence and and consequence in the lives of those around us, in the lives of those we serve. Help us to see it that way, so that we can be occupied with the gladness of heart knowing that we are walking faithfully with you in our work. Do that for your glory, we pray amen.
Brian is the Pastor of Counseling & Equipping at Faith Bible Church. He is passionate about the local church, and equipping the saints to effectively serve one another. Before coming to Spokane, he spent 14 years serving God's people as a pastor in rural New England (Vermont & New Hampshire).
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