Work

So the desk I'm sitting at is like the desk that I spend a lot of time during the week preparing a lesson to teach, including this one, including the lesson that I prepared earlier this week for the Renovation Institute New Testament class, including the lesson that I prepared for the senior adults. I do a lot of that. I guess that's what's involved when you're called the teaching pastor at The Chapel. These binders right here. Hi. They represent ... They actually contain all the lessons that I've taught since 1984. That's a lot of lessons. I almost feel like George Costanza in Seinfeld, when you put everything together that I've done with my life, it's something. It's something. That's what these binders represent. Renovation Institute, Single Adult Bible Studies on Thursday night, Sunday school back on North Forest road, senior adults, Bible conferences, filling in for Pastor Jerry on a Sunday morning, even as I'm doing now. Preaching in other churches.

That's what this is. This is my life right here. This is my adult life right now, sitting on a desk. Now, don't get me wrong, I love what I do. In fact, I pinch myself every morning that I actually get to do what I love to do and I get paid for it. But sometimes, when I'm all by myself and I begin to get introspective, I begin to think and consider what was all of this for? I work hard on every lesson I really do, and I can think ... I'm sorry, but I can begin to think, "Does anybody even care? What was all of this for?" I mean really by Friday, this Friday, how many of you will even remember the title of this message? I made it easy for you. It's Work. That's the title. I think you can remember that. But how many of you will remember by Friday even the content of it? And what's even more, what's the likelihood that any of us will really do something with this message other than like it or not like it?

My work, as noble as I think teaching God's word is, can quite honestly be ... There's a dark side. It can be frustrating, and do I even dare to use the word meaningless. And I know the same can be said by many of you about the work that you do or the work that you've done. I mean, let's play this game by the numbers. Can we? There's a network on TV that their news program often will focus on numbers, so let's play the numbers here.

Here's a number, 10. That's the number of different jobs the average American will have during his or her lifetime. How about this number? One out of every three Americans say they hate their jobs and they give reasons for it too. According to a Forbes magazine article, here's the 10 reasons people hate their job. They aren't respected, they don't have the right tools to succeed. Their boss disregards their personal life or the impact their job has on it. Their immediate supervisor is a tyrant or incompetent or both, they're tired of being lied to. They feel like there's no future and their supervisors don't seem to know how to get them there. They're tired of the politics in the workplace. They feel like they're underpaid and overworked. They feel like that when they go to work, they're pushing up hill and they're tired of pushing, and they have to watch every word they say and every move they make because the knives are out and you can get in trouble for the least little thing. Can any of you identify with any of that? Say, "Uh-huh."

That's what I thought. Here's another number, 70% believed that they are in the wrong career. That's mind boggling to me. How did that happen? Somewhere along the line, how did a person, and so many, get pushed into doing something they actually believe they're in the wrong career? And here's another number, 84%  would leave their current job if they could. Now take all of that and let's look at one more number. 90 thousand plus hours we will spend at work in our lifetime. Let me bottom line that for you. Most people are doing something they don't like and they spend a whole lot of their adult life doing it. Right?

Now, not in everyone, and hopefully that's not you, but I guarantee you that you're sitting within three chairs of someone who that is. That is how they describe themselves or how they would describe their relationship with their work. And maybe Koheleth, the writer or the speaker here in Ecclesiastes, didn't wish to be doing something else. I mean, after all, he's the king and it would seem that being king is the top rung of the corporate ladder, right? But he was frustrated as we are going to see today. He was frustrated by what he was doing. He was frustrated in his ultimate search for ultimate meaning, and he found work to be just as much of a dead end as Pastor Jerry spoke about the pursuits that he had two weeks ago. He finds them meaningless he says.

The word is hebel. As Pastor Jerry has outlined this for us, it is a multilayered word. hebel can mean frustrating. It can be meaningless. It can mean futile or empty. It can mean enigmatic. Work is an enigma to us because there's something about it that makes us think that we're going to find meaning and satisfaction. In fact, studies have shown that the major source for self-esteem in a man is his work. And just when we think that we're going to find satisfaction and meaning, we get the job that we love. We hit the desirable income bracket. We finally begin to notice some recognition. We experience some measure of success and we think we're going to get it, but just like that carrot that we're chasing, we don't. Not ultimate meaning at any rate.

And I think that we want to go through Ecclesiastes and at the end of chapter two where we're going to find ourselves, we're going to see how he feels about work. I got to be honest with you. I have to set this up honestly with you so there's no confusion at all. The end result of his teaching on work, the spirit inspired goal for his teaching on work is despair. And I want you to feel it as we go through what he says because there is another voice that we need to listen to, but he wants to bring us to the point of despair so that we'll actually listen to that other voice. So I want to go through this and tell you why he thinks that work can be meaningless.

Here's the first, work can be meaningless because work can be grievous. Now, you don't have to say amen for every point, but I would imagine that you might feel like saying it a lot, because you'll agree with his assessment that work can be meaningless. We start with verse 17. Here's what he says. "So I hated life because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless. A chasing after the wind." Do you ever feel like when you're chasing after the wind, you're actually just trying to chase after a dollar? And it's living under the sun, this is his perspective.

His pursuit is under the sun without ever allowing eternity to speak into your work. Here's a conclusion that you can make. It's grievous. Now, it's interesting to me is that the Hebrew word for grievous is Ra, R-A, the most basic word in the Hebrew language for evil. He says work can be evil. In fact, it is used in Genesis six to talk about the condition of mankind right before the flood. Here it is. In Genesis 6:5, "The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time." And the Koheleth uses that to describe work. Work can be evil, and you know what? It's really not that hard to see how it can be evil.

Work can be evil if you use it to pursue your own personal empire and to amass more. Whatever that more is, the biggest house, the nicest car, the second vacation home, the early retirement, and if that would be you or if it would be anybody, and that is your primary reason for going to work so that you can amass more, well, let me just tell you that maybe you ought to read the parable that Jesus told in Luke 12. It sounds like this. "Now the ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, ;This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones and there I will store my surplus grain and I'll say to myself, you have plenty of grain laid up for you many years. Take life easy, retire early.'" I'm sorry, that's not there. "Eat, drink, and be merry."

Work can be evil if you're using it and your primary goal is to amass more. I'm going to be honest with you, I saw, maybe on a lesser scale, I saw this beginning to hit at my heart, the desire for more. And the way it did might even sound small to you, but oftentimes I'll be asked to speak in Bible conferences and other places and they'll usually throw an honorarium. And my wife would be able to tell you that part of what was going on in my mind is I recognize that we make a certain living and the people that I work for are really good to me.

But I was beginning to think about that extra money in this way. "Oh, maybe now I can. And I like riding bikes and maybe I can. I got some money set aside and now I can get a better bike." And I began to realize how easy this greed and this covetousness was beginning to invade my soul. And so my wife and I decided about five or six years ago that anytime I made extra, I would just give it away, that I wouldn't even allow my heart to entertain the idea that God might actually give me extra for me, because work can be evil if the sole purpose in your heart is to pursue more.

And work can be evil if in the pursuit of those things that I just mentioned, you neglect higher callings. Like maybe you're not there for your kids during critical developmental stages because you're working so hard to amass more. Or, maybe you've been absent from your marriage because work is more important, and you have sacrificed the ultimate for the temporary, only defined that it can't satisfy. But work can be evil that way. And work can be evil if you push your child towards the best college and the best job only to pursue those same things.

I mean, will we ever have the wisdom to realize that maybe the reason 70% of people feel like they're in the wrong career and 33% hate their jobs and the reason is because they chose a career, or one was chosen for them, or they were pushed towards a certain career that fits the pursuit of wrong priorities, and doesn't fit their giftedness or passion. Work can be evil. Work can be evil if you are addicted to it. We call this person a workaholic, and oftentimes what a workaholic is, someone who will pour their lives into their work, because they have no idea or no ability to find satisfaction and meaning in the important relationships in their life.

And work can be evil if you treat people so poorly to get after how you have defined success in the workplace. You see, the Kohelet is right; work can be grievous, it can be evil. But a second thing that he says, "Work can be meaningless because you don't get out of work what you put in." Work can be meaningless because you don't get out of work what you put in. You need to stay with me for a little while because I need to camp here for just a bit.

A huge part of the frustration and the meaningless in work, and the frustration in not finding ultimate meaning. is that we know that God created us to work. And in fact, one of the very first things that God says about Adam is, "I'm giving you a job. Here it is." Genesis 2: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." And in this way, we imitate the creator.

When Moses gives to us the 10 Commandments, here's what he says in Exodus: "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord, your God. On it, you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son, your daughter, your male or female servant, your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the Earth, the sea and all that is in them, but He rested on the Sabbath. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." So when we work, we are in some way imitating our Creator.

What I'm saying is that work is not bad. God is for us working. Then why do I make the point, and the Kohelet is going to make the point, that you don't always get out of it what you put in? It's because of the fall. And God cursed the ground so that there would be a constant reminder that our world is broken because we have rebelled against God. And He says this to Adam after he took of the tree. To Adam, He said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you must not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil, you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken. For dust you are, and to dust you will return."

So the idea here in the curse is that we will not get out of work what we put in. God's teaching them and He's teaching us that work will not longer produce the fruit that it did. You will not get everything out of work that you put in. And if you're like me, that sounds unfair. It doesn't sound right, and it can easily contribute to our frustration at work; the frustration that I mentioned before of feeling underpaid and overworked; the frustration of seeing people you don't think work as hard as you do get promoted over you.

I saw a Facebook post a little while ago and it said, "Have you ever felt like going up to someone at work and saying to them 'How do you still have a job here?'" The frustration of seeing an idea that you have get stolen or maybe it's not recognized; the frustration of working very hard, and for what? God already told us that this would be the case, that you will not get everything out of work that you put in. And if it frustrates you by the unfairness of work and of life while you're living, how much more frustrating is it when you begin to consider death? Look what he writes here.

"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 that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they'll have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort, and still under the sun this too is meaningless." So take all your assets, your 401(k)s, your retirement plan, your savings account, you'll leave it all behind. Whether it's 500 or 50,000 or five million, I wish, you'll all leave the same percent behind, 100 percent, because you'll never see a U-Haul following a hearse. You're not taking it with you. And someone is going to get what you worked so hard for, and who knows whether they will spend it wisely or foolishly?

Back in 2010, my wife and I decided that we were going to go to Paris to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, but it also coincided with us closing on the house that we were moving into. And of course, you know that if you've ever bought a house, you never know when the closing date is but you need to be ready for it. But we were going to Paris, and so we consulted a lawyer and we got a power of attorney; it's called my son. My son is still the power of attorney, and my son has also seen the last will and testament of Deone W. Drake. And he knows that if something happens to my wife and I, because there's no way my wife will live without me; we're both going together, it has to be that way; that he's going to get it all.

Now I have confidence in Jonathan and his wife, Gabe, that they're very, very wise people and good with money. But quite honestly, if everything that I have, which isn't much and it's none of your business anyways, if it all goes to him, who knows, the Kohelet is saying, whether he'll be wise or foolish. Now I think I know how he'll spend it, but suppose they sit down, Jon and Gabe, and say, "Hey, we've got this windfall here. Let's go around the world and blow it in 14 days." And here's the deal, I've worked all ... look at all those lessons there ... and they blow it in two weeks, and I have nothing to say about it. And if that doesn't make you mad or crazy mad, you don't understand what He's saying.

It's difficult enough for him to consider, but he's going in two verses later and saying I still have a problem with this and I still need to talk about it. Here's what it looks like. "For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This, too, is meaningless and a great misfortune." So what's he saying? This is something else is that irritates him. You can use all your skill, your ability, your energy, you may work yourself to the bone, burn the midnight oil to carve out for yourself a secure future, and then death strikes. And all that you have so strenuously worked for is passed onto someone else who has not lifted a finger to earn it, who may have none of your ability, your dedication; who may be nothing else than a fool. It's not a comforting thought.

Have you ever thought as you approach retirement, and I know some of you have because I've heard you say it, "I've worked hard and they're going to give my job to an idiot." And you think about your life, all those years you put in work, and it's like sticking your arm in the bathtub with water and you pull your arm out, and the water rushes over as if you were never there, and you were there for 40 years. But now you're retired and it's as if you were never there, and that's maddening to him.

And if the Kohelet is Solomon, think about Solomon. No one ever amassed more. No one ever accomplished more. No one ever had more influence. No one expanded the kingdom of Israel more than Solomon did. No one had more fame, no one had more stuff, and he gave it all to Rehoboam, who was such a fool that the kingdom split when he died. Do you think that when the Kohelet is thinking these these thoughts that he's thinking of his son, Rehoboam, and saying, "Oh my goodness, I have to leave everything to an idiot."

It's maddening to him, but there's a third thing. Work can be meaningless because work can be toilsome. Work can be toilsome. Look how He says it in verse 20: "So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun." Come on now. We know what this is like, right? Redundant, repetitive, boring. How many times in a day, in a week, in a month, in a year, in a decade have you said this is all I'm doing and I'm doing it over and over? I do the same thing over and over and over again.

The first job I had when I got out of high school was at a supermarket. I was even working in a supermarket when my wife and I got married, and I was working in the produce department. I remember specifically during Thanksgiving that all people do in the produce aisle is they buy celery for their stuffing and they buy potatoes. And so all I did during the whole week before Thanksgiving was stack potatoes on a rack so you could buy them, and trim celery. And I had a green smock and it was coated with celery remnants on this smock. And I didn't need my wife to ask me what I had done all day because I came home and it stunk of celery.

What did I do all day? All I did was trim celery and stack potatoes, trim celery and stack potatoes. Have you ever felt like maybe your job, have you ever felt your job is like Groundhog Day? And I'm talking about the movie with Bill Murray who has to keep on reliving over and over again February 2nd. And there's a part in the movie where he's sulking at a bar, Phil, he's the main character, Bill Murray. And he asked the guy sitting next to him, "What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing you did mattered?" The other guy says, "Well, that pretty much sums it up for me."

Does it sum it up for you, the same tasks, the same thing every day, the same office gossip and games, the same paycheck? And if you're a stay at home parent, the same diapers, the same feedings, the same cooking, the same cleaning, the same taxi service? And you have to be asking what in the world am I doing this for? It's toilsome.

But there's another thing, because work comes with a lot of anxiety. Do I really need to even share this point? According to the American Institute on Stress, and I think I'm a lifetime member, 40 percent of workers reported their job was very or extremely stressful; 25 percent viewed their jobs as the number one stressor in their life; and at least 80 percent of all workers said they feel some degree of stress on their job.

Kohelet agrees. He writes these words, "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." All right, classroom participation again: how many of you have ever gone to bed and you can't turn off your mind because of what's going on at work? Thank you. Right? This is exactly what he's saying. You have the grief and the pain, and the unrest and the stomach ulcers, all the emotional baggage that comes from stress at work, and you think of all the collateral damage when all that stress is taken home with you. And home is no longer a haven; it's a battleground for you to try to sort this out so that you have enough sanity to go back to work the next day and do it all over again.

As I said, the goal is despair. How have I been doing? Look at his conclusion. "A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink, and find satisfaction in their own toil. This, too, I see is from the hand of God, for without Him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases Him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness. But to the sinner, He gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to someone else, to the one who pleases God. This, too, is meaningless; a chasing of the wind."

Here's what I think he's saying. Here's what I think he's saying. If you're going to live under the sun, if you're never going to allow eternity to speak into your work, then the best you are ever going to have, the highest plateau you are ever going to reach is knowing your work provided some measure of satisfaction, some measure to meet your needs, some way to enjoy life at times, and in this way you can see your work as a gift. If it's been the means to take care of your family, moms and dads, that's good. If it's been the means to set up your kids for a better future than the one you have, that's good. If it's been the means by which you've been able to create memories at Disney, at your favorite camping site, your favorite restaurant, great. Those things are a gift from His hand. Enjoy and be thankful for them if this is the level by which you want to live.

But there's an underbelly to that. If this is the level you're going to live your life under the sun, chasing after the wind, working so you can enjoy life or working so hard so that you can hopefully get after some of these things, this is all you got. It's like Jesus would say what He said, Jesus would say to you what He said to those who present their gifts and do their prayers, and do their works of righteousness to be seen by none. He said you have your reward. And so if you're going to work and live under the sun, and never allow eternity to speak into your work, you have your reward.

But what if we let eternity speak into this? What if we let eternity speak into this? What if we let God speak into our work and communicate to us what He wants for us to get out of it? I think, and this is just something that I thought of overnight, so there's nothing on the screen, but I thought one thing that we could be thinking about work is that it provides the means by which we can invest in eternity.

We often talk about the 10%, the word tithe, as almost like the training wheels. So one way for you to think about your work, especially if you're in a job that you don't like, is that if I put on the training wheels and do 10%, I'm at least working half of one day out of that work week to invest in the kingdom, and that's a good thing.

My wife and I are trying to pray and we're praying and trying to get to the point where we are working one day out of every week for the kingdom. So one way that you could actually look at your work place is that even if I don't like what I'm doing, I at least have an opportunity to do something by which I can invest in the kingdom.

But there's another thing, and perhaps more important for me to allow you to see, and that is for us to go back to creation, because it's back in creation that God lets us in on what He was doing. I take you back to a verse we've already looked at, Genesis 2:15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. You notice I've emphasized take care of it.

Now, looking at this in our English Bibles, we might think that the very first job that Adam and Eve had was landscaping. Adam's Gardens and Grounds, but it's not that at all. The phrase in the Hebrew language, take care of it, is used later on by Moses, watch this, to describe the activity of a priest. He writes in Numbers Chapter 3, the Lord said to Moses, "Bring the tribe of Levi and present them to Aaron, the priest, to assist him. They are to provide duties for him and for the whole community at the tent of meeting by doing the work of the tabernacle. They are to take care of all the furnishings of the tent of meeting, fulfilling the obligations of the Israelites by doing the work of the tabernacle." Same word. Do you know what God was saying to Adam and Eve? I want you to take care of the sacred space that is the garden.

As Pastor Jerry has explained before, what God was doing in Genesis 1 is He was creating a temple, this earth, so that He would be known and glorified. That's what happens in a temple. God is known and glorified. So God was creating a temple so that He could be known and He could be glorified and He put Adam and Eve in the garden to serve as priests, to represent Him and to make Him known and glorify Him. So they were to take care of that sacred space. They were to protect, to guard that sacred space. They were to make God known as they were fruitful and multiply, to fill the whole earth, to expand the sacred space, to make God known and bring Him glory. They were to serve as priests. And that is what God designed work to be. Sacred space where God is known and glorified. I can say that because that's what God has designed your life and my life to be. Sacred space where God is known and glorified. And work is just one major facet of that sacred space.

Now maybe the word sacred space doesn't work for you. Let's use the word platform. Let's say that your work is a platform for you to put Christ on display so that God is known and God is glorified. I'm not talking when I'm saying to use it as a platform to put Christ on display, I'm not talking about wearing a Christian t-shirt to work. I'm not talking about slipping a gospel track under the coffee mug of your worker. I'm talking about living as one who has been reconciled to God through Christ and lives out the realities of the Gospel. As the Spirit breathes into you and as you go to work, you are putting on display love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, and faith.

The real great thing about this reality is it doesn't matter if you are working in the home or working in an office. It doesn't matter if you are working or you're no longer working. When you retire, you just change platforms. Work is just a platform for you to put Christ on display 40 hours a week, and if that's an office or a kitchen table or a factory or a hospital bed or a telephone or a retirement home or a golf course or Starbucks, or you fill in the blank. You still have a platform to put Christ on display, and what it looks like for you, I would obviously say stop chasing the buck. But I would like to say this to you, stop chasing the wind at work, start chasing after Christ. That's what He's called you to do. Stop chasing the wind, start chasing after Christ.

Let me give you something really tangible that you can hold in your hands or really literally in your mouth. Towards the end of Jesus's earthly ministry, at least that's the way John phrases it for us, some Greeks approached Jesus and they wanted to see Him. In fact, they said to Philip, "We want to see Jesus." Now, what's interesting is there's no evidence that Jesus actually ever talked to them, but it provides an opportunity for John to record some words about Jesus as he begins to talk about His death. He talks about the seed, the grain falling into the ground and dying so that it can bring life. He's talking about His own death. It's in the context of this that Jesus makes a great statement that I want to press on all of us. Here it is. John 12, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. That's your platform. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

My gracious, what if every follower of Christ would arm themselves with that calling as they headed off to work or began their work? The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Instead of turning off that alarm with drudgery and saying, "Oh my goodness. I guess I better get up and get into the shower and go off to work," instead the words in my mouth are these, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." Do you think that would change your work? I think it would. And what you're doing there. You may be dead stuck in a job. You may no longer be working. You may be wondering what your purpose is. Here it is. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. You are redeeming your work, or you're allowing God to redeem your work. You're taking on a holy calling. You're no longer chasing the wind. You're chasing after Christ.

So the hour is 10:15, but that's not the right time. The right time is for you to leave and for you to be saying, "The hour has come." So when you're going home from work and you've had a bad day and you just want to go home and be pampered or just take it easy, but you got a wife or you've got a husband and you got some kids who desperately need your love. You're not saying, "I'm just going home, the hour has come for me to relax." The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. It will change your marriage, it will change your life, it will change every part of you if you will invest your life in the mission of Christ. Because whether you're working or you're not working, it's not about that. It's about your mission, and your mission is to see the Son of Man glorified.

Would you pray with me? This may not have been a message that directly funnels down to do you have a relationship with Christ? But it certainly fits. It certainly fits. Because maybe you began to feel the weight a moment ago of the despair of work and maybe over the last few weeks the despair of your life. That is the Koheleth and that is the Spirit of God infusing the words there to say, "You need Christ, because you need a higher purpose for what you do with your life." You do not want your life to be meaningless. You do not want your work to be meaningless. If all you have is despair, may I encourage you that you need Jesus Christ in your life, and when this service is through, I would ask you to go to the fireside room. There are prayer partners there and counselors and pastors who would love to introduce you to Jesus.

But maybe also you are here and as a follower of Jesus Christ, you are having a really difficult time trying to make sense out of your work. Those same prayer partners would love to pray with you about a specific area in your work. Don't go home and don't leave here without at least having someone pray with you about what is going on with you at work. You see, God loves you. He created you to work, but He created you with a higher purpose and when you know Jesus, you know what that purpose is.

So, Father, we thank you, that you have given to us a wonderful new perspective, even as Jeremiah was talking about before, that perspective it is well with our soul, is a reality because we are connected to you, and now we are trying to connect our work to you. We recognize, Lord, that it is merely a platform for us to put you on display. So now, right now, as we begin our new week, now is the time, now is the hour for the Son of Man to be glorified. I pray, Lord, that this would set us free from the despair that we often experience at work, the drudgery, the repetitiveness, the toilsomeness of it, that this would set us free. We would recognize that even in the boring things of life we have a higher purpose to glorify You. May we do that with everything within us and we ask this in Christ's name. Amen.