God@Work - An Eternal Satisfaction
Ecclesiastes 2:24,25
A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too I see is from the hand of God, for without him who can eat or find enjoyment?
Throughout this series on work I have been emphasising that God is a God who works and, as we are made in his image, we are meant to work too. In fact Genesis tells us that God put us to work in his creation and our work now is part of his work. We are the fingers of God at work in the world – as Luther was fond of saying.
In this final sermon I want you to lift your heads from the day to day grind of work and see, with gospel-trained eyes, a loftier, greater calling on you than you perhaps realise. I want to open up a way of thinking about work which gives free rein to your desires, hopes, expectations. So that you may “eat and drink and find satisfaction in your work”.
Why do we work or study? There are good reasons and there are bad reasons. There are reasons which emerge out of our brokenness and reasons which emerge because we are made in the image of God.
But you can’t really understand why unless you understand the gospel so let me remind you about the mission of God and what He has done to rescue and redeem you.
When God created the world he installed work as part of the fabric of the universe – creating, nurturing, sustaining work. When we turned from him the world broke, the bible calls it sin. And although work is still there it has become something hard, something we do by the sweat of our brow. It has become something that can bring pain and distress. And yet, when Jesus returns to wrap this all up and roll out His new creation our work will still be part of the story.
It all started in paradise with work being a good thing. We are now in a period when work is part of a sinful world. But we await the time to come when God’s glorious kingdom is restored - through Jesus’ death which pays the price of sin and the power of his resurrection which breaks the power of sin.
2,500 years ago the prophet Isaiah wrote a prophetic poem which described this. As I read this look out for the glimpses of a new heaven and a new earth within the description of a better society:
Isaiah 65:17-25
‘See, I will create new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.
‘Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands.
They will not labour in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them.
Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,’
says the Lord.
Here we are – between the original created paradise and the new creation. We live in the now and the not yet. The “now” is work which is hard; the “not yet” is work in which we find satisfaction.
I wonder how satisfying you find your work to be? Remember the Rolling Stones’ famous song, “I can’t get no satisfaction.”? There’s not much to the song, to be frank, except that he is trying and trying and trying and he can’t get him no satisfaction.
There are broken, sinful reasons for working - which reflect the time in which we live and there are good, Godly reasons for working - which reflect the purpose for which we are made.
Broken approaches to work:
Accumulating wealth
I Timothy 6:9-10
People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
It's not that wealth is bad, it can be very good. But a desire to accumulate wealth emerges out of brokeness if that is our primary reason for work.
Ecclesiastes 5:10-11
Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income … As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to their owner except to feast his eyes on them?
Trying to find our identity in work
Climbing a career ladder. It is good to have a calling to a particular work, that's what vocation means, when you are aware of God's calling on your life to do thus and so. That's not the same as pursuing a career, or staying in a particular work just because it provides us with self-esteem and identity.
Proverbs 23:4
Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint.
Where we reach for security in our jobs
Ecclesiastes 5:13-14
I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner, or wealth lost through some misfortune … naked a man comes from his mother’s womb, and as he comes, so he departs.
James 4:13-15
Listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year, carry on business and make money.” Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will we will live and do this or that.”
Getting hold of power, gaining status
Deuteronomy 8:17-18
You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me”. But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so he confirms his covenant.
Preparing for retirement
Dreaming of cocktails and fantasing about hot tubs by the beach.
Proverbs 28:19
He who works his land will have abundant food but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty.
Yes, we should plan for our retirement, do save into a pension plan. But don't let your years of work pass by without realising that they are important years and your work is important work - not just a lever to get to retirement.
God-given approaches to work
Fulfilling a satisfying God-given impulse
Genesis 1:28, 2:15
The Lord took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
Ecclesiastes 2:24
A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too I see is from the hand of God, for without him who can eat or find enjoyment?
To work is how God made us, "we feel his pleasure" as we work.
To help others
To love our neighbour, make a contribution to our community and society and culture.
Ephesians 4:28
… work, doing something useful with your hands, that you may have something to share with those in need
Not just manufacturing or serving but also making a contribution to culture and society – arts, education
Not stuck in a holy huddle in the corner but spread out in society and culture, bringing the kingdom of God through your work.
To provide for others, especially our dependants
1 Timothy 5:4, 8
Tell them to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents … If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Gaining respect as you provide
I Thessalonians 4:11
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
An eternal satisfaction - today
When we can see these reasons in our work, when we sense we are obeying a God-given impulse, when we find satisfaction, when we are able to help others, provide for others, especially our own dependants, when we make a contribution to culture and society and gain respect in so doing – when any or all of this is experienced we are touching on what work is meant to be like. This what God created you for and this is what you will be doing in eternity.
Our work, why we do it and the way we do it reveals who we are and where we are going. The world gets a glimpse of the kingdom of God when they see you at work. The way you work, the reason you work and the satisfaction you find as you work with gospel-trained hands and look at work through gospel-trained eyes.
1 Corinthians 15:58
Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.
I am sure I am not the only one who daydreams sometimes? Somewhere at the back of our minds is a dream which forces its way into our consciousness occasionally and which says things like, “My work could make a real difference … this could be part of something really important … God could change the world through what I am doing here.”
I wonder if it ever occurred to Billy Graham’s grandparents that someone in their family might one day be the greatest evangelist of the 20th Century?
I wonder if the artists among you ever think about how your work might move someone to tears or joy?
I wonder if the businessmen or women amongst you ever dream about making a difference to someone’s life through what you do?
Of course you do.
When this all started we were in paradise and put to work caring for the garden - but not work that meant simply paving over the garden and controlling it that way. Neither did God give us a 4-wheel drive buggy and send us out to be park rangers, monitoring the chaos.
Genesis 2:15
The Lord took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
God gave us the role of gardeners, our hands in the raw materials of his creation, nurturing, sustaining providing. Putting our hands to the very work of God, seeing our work produce food and shelter, safety and care, joy and satisfaction.
In the time in which we find ourselves now we see glimpses of work as it is meant to be. We struggle with hard work, we find ourselves under stress and strain, but we also know times when we are doing God’s work, we know that we are his fingers at work in the world.
Tim Keller (Every Good Endeavour p29)
“If this life is not the only life, then every good endeavour, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever”.
I want you to know that your work, your study, is not in vain, that amidst the sweat and the toil you are touching on eternity. Those times when you step back from your job with satisfaction, those times when someone says thank you, those times when your work has made a change for the better, those acts of worship – every piece of work, every moment of work carries the possibility of an expression of the kingdom of God, something in which you can taste satisfaction.
There is a time coming in which that expression of worship, those satisfactions and successes, those joys and celebrations will be the order for all day every day. You won’t need to work for your identity or to accumulate wealth or pay off your mortgage or prepare for retirement or to give you some sense of purpose. You will be able to work out of a sheer exuberant desire to express your God-given gifts and skills in perpetual satisfaction.
Ecclesiastes 2:24,25
A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too I see is from the hand of God, for without him who can eat or find enjoyment?
The work you do today matters, God calls you to something individual and for you - and which is important to him and to you. And one day your glad and wholehearted work will be a glorious expression of worship to the King, your deepest desires in work fulfilled – an eternal satisfaction.