Ecclesiastes Preachers notes Sermon 03 Making sense of work

Transcription

1 1 INTRODUCTION The book of Ecclesiastes is a difficult book. Now just because it raises the deep and penetrating question, what is life all about and where can I find meaning? But also because it leaves you with these tensions that it never seems to solve: It matters how you live but we are all going to die so what does it matter. Enjoy food and wine, but in the end they are all meaningless Wisdom is better than foolishness, but the wise and the foolish both die so what does it matter Enjoy your work but remember: you leave it all to someone else who may squander it all Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-22 MAKING SENSE OF WORK Most of you who sit here on a Sunday morning spend more time in the workplace than anywhere else. People work anything from a 40 to a 50 hour week and then come home to other kinds of work with the kids or in the home. Taken together we probably spend half of our lives working. Work is a big deal in our lives! Twice in our passage (3:12-13, 22) and then two other time there are direct references (Eccl 2:24, 5:18-19) and then other incidental references to the satisfaction and enjoyment. How does that work? Many of you feel like work is a drain and there is no satisfaction in it; or there is very little satisfaction and so can relate to the meaningless of work, but not the idea of God s gift of finding satisfaction in your toil (Eccl 3:13) when you come home from work you feel battered and bruised: difficult bosses, exhausting travel, demanding clients, tough job assignments and conditions Too often the Church and ministers make the Christian life about personal devotions and church activity. Many Christians seem to operate on the everyday assumption that God is not interested in their work for its own sake. God, they would say, cares about the church and its affairs, about missions and missionaries, about getting people to heaven, but not about how society and its public places are conducted on earth. Or, if he does care about work it is as a context for evangelism.

2 2 But how do we find God s gift of finding satisfaction in your toil? Does God cares about work s for its own sake? GOD AND YOUR WORK 1. GOD IS A GOOD WORKER God is a worker. For six days of creation he worked and on the seventh he rested. The important thing is that the work of God s hands was commended as good and very good! Now, we are made in the likeness (image) of God and part of that means that we continue the work he has begun. We are to fill and subdue the earth! Genesis 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." 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. In the Bible God is described as building, make, creating, fix, grow so we can create, invent, explore, discover, develop, produce, write, buy and sell. God has graciously invited us to participate with Him in the task of producing a beautiful world that brings Him glory. 1 More than that, just like our Father in heaven provided for our through his work, so we too can provide for our families through our work. So work is integral to what it means to be a human being made in the image of God. Work is good. And therefore there is a right amount of satisfaction and fulfilment in it: We find pleasure in a job well done; We delight in a product well made or a service well performed; Something that works; Something that is beautiful; Something that will endure; There is pleasure that all of us can find in our work: the clean floor, the student who grasps an idea, the empty in-tray, the balanced books, the clean kitchen, the tidy garden, the on-time delivery, the completed design, and the satisfied customer. That pleasure is an echo of the pleasure of God when He saw that all He had made was very good. 2 1 Chester, Tim ( ). Gospel-Centred Work (Kindle Location 104). The Good Book Company. Kindle Edition 2 ibid

3 3 God Himself is a worker who finds pleasure in what He s made and we glorify Him when we find pleasure in our work. 2. SIN HAS TAINTED WORK So we have seen that work is not a result of sin and the Fall. Work is a good thing. But it has been affected by the fall. The effects of the Fall are universal: everything has been tainted and damaged. The Fall made a good thing into something that is often burdensome and frustrating. In Genesis 3 the ground was cursed and God said that by painful toil you will eat, the ground will produce thorns and thistles and work will make you sweat (Gen 3:17-19). To put it into today s terms: you will work hard and long hours to put food on the table for your family and still proposals and deals will fall through, projects will run over budget, people will stab you in the back, employees will give you a hard time and your boss will be a dragon! But this is all the effect of man s rebellion against God. More than that, we work with other sinful human beings who can make the work environment more challenging for the Christian: dirty jokes, sexist comments, and expectation of dishonest dealings. It is difficult for the Christian not to be dragged down to and sucked into an oppressive work environment! 3. JESUS TRANSFORMS WORK Sermons on work often focus on sharing the gospel with people at work, or earning money that I can give to gospel work, or praying about your work and for your work colleagues. None of these are bad, but these are about the context for glorifying and honouring God AT work. What is the content of glorifying God with your work? Work transforms the world Listen to this passage which connects (1) the fall of man, (2) the coming of Christ, and (3) work: Hebrews 2:5-8 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified: "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? 7 You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honour 8 and put everything under his feet." (Ps 8:4-6) In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. 9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. What is happening here?

4 4 The passage says that man is unexpectedly blessed and privileged better than the angels! It is not the angels who have been crowned with glory and honour it is mankind! What does that mean? Verse 8 says that God blessed man as ruler and subduer of God s precious and wonderful creation! The enormous and majestic work of God s creation is put under mankind s care. BUT that isn t the whole picture... At the moment everything is not actually subject to mankind Adam was given the task of ruling over creation. But instead Adam allowed an animal to rule over him (the serpent). And s o the created order was turned upside down everything is not rosy in the garden! Work is hard and hostile world. But then God sent Jesus Christ. Read verse 9. He came to break the curse of sin. Like Adam. Jesus was tempted. But he remained faithful to God. And so he gave us the hope that, one day, the curse of sin will finally and fully be removed. Until that day The exciting thing is that, until that day, we have the privilege of working in a way that drives back the darkness of sin. In the same way that we do that in our own personal lives (sin is defeated but we need to work at living in freedom), so Christ transforms work for a Christian. If you work as a manager or business owner there is a great opportunity to create a culture in your work based on Christian morals in the targets you set, conduct in meetings, management style, treatment of staff, and customers an opportunity to show the liberating and life-enhancing rule of God. If you work in government many times (not always) bureaucracy stops development. Systems are important, but systems can stifle (or can be used to stifle). But you can work to minimise bureaucracy and enable service delivery, problem solving, and effective growth and development for South Africa. If you work in education I was reading an article this week that linked education as the most significant factor in overcoming poverty literacy particularly! A stable, developing economy needs education. More than that, teachers If you work in the service industry (waiters, cleaning staff, mechanics, NGO) If you work in the art/creative field there is no end of scope for creatives to show forth the Mini-conclusion

5 5 Work is opportunity of witness, it is opportunity for funding other gospel work, but this morning work is the privilege of driving back the darkness of sin and brokenness in this world CONCLUSION: WORK IS NOT OUR GOD Work is good; it is a great gift; it is a great way to glorify God. But it is not God! Work itself cannot sustain the aspirations and hopes and dreams of man. In the end all the money you make, all the advancements you achieve, all the qualifications you complete, and the size of the legacy you leave cannot give you a soul-satisfying peace. God alone can give perspective and Christ alone can bring peace to a restless heart!