Work
Ecclesiastes - Meaning in the Mundane • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 42:25
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· 19 viewsMeaninglessness of Work Without God
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INTRO
When I was a child I had a hamster… Run on the wheel and go nowhere...
A rat race is an endless, self-defeating, or pointless pursuit. The phrase equates humans to rats attempting to earn a reward such as cheese, in vain. It may also refer to a competitive struggle to get ahead financially or routinely.
The term is commonly associated with an exhausting, repetitive lifestyle that leaves no time for relaxation or enjoyment
How should God’s people work in a society filled with wickedness, oppressions, and envy?
PRAYER
A - Father in heaven we are blessed by you this day. We praise you for your wonderful works, for they are evident to all mankind even to those who chose to not honor you as God. We thank you that your work is good and true and it will always stand.
C - Father we confess that even so we ourselves often question your work or seek to have merit in our own. Please forgive us for our folly and vanity in our work.
T - Thank you God that your Son our LORD Jesus Christ has fulfilled all the law on our behalf and it is by His work that we are made whole. He has himself said “It Is Finished”
S - Therefore we pray that you might be merciful and gracious to us this day as you speak to us by your scriptures. Change our heats and minds to work and view our work rightly as you would have us to. It is in your name and for your glory we do pray.
MESSAGE
(Texts Ecc 2:4-11, 2:18-26, 3:9-15, 4:4-8)
Ecclesiastes 2:4–11 “4 I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. 9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”
Ecc 2.18-26 “18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, 21 because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? 23 For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. 24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.”
Ecc 3.9-15 “9 What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. 14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.”
Ecc 4.4-8 “4 Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. 5 The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. 6 Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. 7 Again, I saw vanity under the sun: 8 one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business.”
Work is a gift of God
Work is a gift of God
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
God created work
What is your attitude toward work
You are to do our work unto the Lord
You are to do our work unto the Lord
23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
22 So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?
God has gifted you
God is glorified by you
Work is to be for us not us for work
Work is to be for us not us for work
27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
You are to provide for your family
You are to provide for others
You will never be satisfied by your work
You will never be satisfied by your work
19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
7 All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied.
Ecc 4.8 -
Work cannot bring joy or hope
We cannot take it with us
We are called to enjoy our work and glorify God in it
We are called to enjoy our work and glorify God in it
16 Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.
8 Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.
1 Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.
The Works you do are Christ in you
We have but a limited time on this earth to work for God
Our reward is waiting for us
The sinful man works out of envy and covetous of his neighbor. Though he seeks pleasure in his possessions and accomplishments he is never satisfied and in the end will lead only to emptiness. He also at the end of his life will discover that he can take nothing with him and he must leave all he has to another.
if not that then...
The sinful man understanding that life is short and work is hard will decide that he instead of “wasting his time” working he should simply fold his hands and live life off of the work of others seeking to enjoy whatever he can get in the meantime.
However...
Those who have been saved by grace understand that we are created for and gifted to work, that our work is to be done to the glory and praise of God, that our work is to be a means by which we are blessed and a blessing to others, and that our joy, hope and pleasure is to be found in one day receiving the imperishable inheritance that we ourselves could never earn but rather is a gift of the completed work on the cross by Christ.
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
CLOSE
Group Questions
Group Questions
What do you and the people around you think is necessary to be truly happy?
Why do we continue to think possessing more than we have right now will make us happy when we are not happy with what we have?
Why do pleasurable experience and the accumulation of money and things not ultimately satisfy?
Why do most of us kill ourselves to succeed in work despite the Bible’s repeated warnings that we do not get to take our stuff with us when we die?
Were you given the impression growing up in church that pleasure was to be avoided? Why do you think that was what you were taught?
What do we often think we need to do for God to be pleased with us? What does the Bible say is the path to God’s pleasure?
What are some ways we use pleasure, possessions, relationships, and work in ways God did not design?
What are some ways we can enjoy pleasure, possessions, relationships, and work in ways God did design?
How can we fight against finding satisfaction in created things and instead find it in God alone?