I hope I didn’t just describe you, but if I did, I think I have some good news for you. It may surprise you to learn that the book of Ecclesiastes actually has some encouraging news about our work and labor. Now you might naturally think, “I don’t even want to hear what Ecclesiastes has to say about my job! That’s the really pessimistic book! Whatever it has to say will probably make me feel worse than before!”
Well, let’s give this book the benefit of the doubt, because I think you might be pleasantly surprised to hear what Ecclesiastes has to say about the subject of work. As we look at this theme today, I think we will see that Ecclesiastes teaches us this:
Our work in this world is supposed to enhance our lives, not hinder them.
I. Excessive devotion to work or profit is a futile thing (2:18–23; 5:10–17)
Ecclesiastes first of all gives us a helpful corrective to the obsession with work that may plague our lives. Solomon points out two observations that lead him to this conclusion.
A. Whatever you earn, you can’t take it with you! (2:18–23)
In light of our mortality, excessive work trying to earn a profit is futile because we have to give it all up when we die, and everything that we earned might be frittered away by someone else. [READ 2:18–23]
Solomon was greatly troubled here by the thought of leaving everything that he had worked so hard for to someone who hadn’t worked for it at all. There was no telling what the next man would do with all of his stuff, but like it or not, Solomon had to give it up. Solomon understood that timeless principle that money that is easy to come by is easily frittered away.
I remember when I got my first summer job in high school how I felt like I was living the high life. It was a pretty cushy job and at the time, I had no major expenses in my life. I was still living at home and basically had no bills, so my paycheck was easy come, easy go. I threw away money on a leather jacket and movies—all kinds of teenage stuff.
And the worst part of it all is that sometimes I feel like I still haven’t learned my lesson. To this day when I receive an unexpected gift of money, its still much harder to put that money to good use than it is to put my paycheck to good use.
Money that is easy to come by is easily frittered away. This observation is important for us think about. If we are hoping to leave our kids a large inheritance, we may not necessarily be doing them a favor. Now in 7:11 Solomon says that if we pass along wisdom with an inheritance, that can be a good thing, but an inheritance alone may not be a good gift.
Second observation about excessive devotion to work or profit…
B. Profits will not bring the satisfaction that they promise (5:10–17)
If we wear ourselves out at work trying to accumulate wealth and possessions, we’re going to be disappointed when we get them, because we’ll discover that they don’t bring the satisfaction that they promise [READ 5:10–11] I’m sure we’ve all heard the stories of lottery winners who suddenly discover that their family is a lot bigger than it was before! Let’s keep reading [READ 5:12–17]
Notice how Solomon highlights the emotional grief that we experience when we hoard our profits and the fruit of our labor—our sleep is disturbed; our daily routine symbolized by eating in v. 17 becomes shot through with grief and sickness and anger. That excessive devotion to working and profiting and holding onto what we earn brings all kinds of grief with it.
So rather than devote ourselves excessively to work and building up a profit, we need to learn that…
II. Work should be done in the right way for the right reasons (4:4–8; 10:10; 11:6)
Solomon makes three observations along these lines…
A. We should not work in order to “one-up” our neighbor (4:4)
If our primary goal in our work is to “keep up with the Joneses” or if we are working out of a spirit of jealousy, we’ve got the wrong motive. [READ 4:4] Notice how Solomon is really condemning envy and not hard work per se. Business has a natural element of competition to it—businesses are always competing with one another with their goods and services, and that can be okay if a person conducts his work with godly attitudes and motivations. But if we are motivated in our work by jealousy of someone else, work practically ceases to be work and becomes some kind of vendetta. So jealousy or envy is not a proper motivation for work.
B. We should work diligently, but not at the expense of rest (4:5–6)
Ecclesiastes presents us with a wonderfully balanced view of labor and rest [READ 4:5–6] Notice the two extremes that we have here: first we have the fool who folds his hands. The picture is of someone reclining with their hands across their chest. Solomon says all kinds of negative things about the sluggard or the lazy man in the book of Proverbs. The other extreme is the man who goes after labor with both hands, and what Solomon commends is a balance—one hand full of rest, with the idea being of course that the other hand is at work.
This is such an important lesson for us to take to heart, because I fear it is so easy for us to buy into the idea that time spent resting is simply wasted time. And sometimes in church we sanctify that idea because we say, “Well the Bible says to redeem the time for the days are evil, so there’s no time to just sit around.” Friends, what did God do on the seventh day of creation? He rested! We don’t really think He needed to rest, do we? No—He was setting an example for us!
So we should understand that rest is not a bad thing. It is a hard thing to get, however, because there’s always something else that we could be doing. And you know what—that will always be the case! So perhaps what we need to do is make time to rest, and not feel guilty about it, but understand that its okay.
C. We should work smarter, not harder (10:10)
[READ 10:10] If we don’t employ wisdom in our work, we will only make things harder on ourselves. Imagine if no one had ever invented the wheelbarrow. I don’t know who invented the wheelbarrow, but imagine if that person had said, “I can’t waste my time with all of this silly daydreaming about a basket with a wheel—there are rocks to be moved! What I really need to do is just put in a few more hours moving the rocks—that’s the answer!”
Now that sounds pretty silly, but its no sillier than what we often do! Its so easy to think that answer to every problem at work is a few more hours. How many times have you thought, “If I only had a few more hours?” Well usually at the end of those hours, we’re still thinking the same thing!
I think the application to rest comes into play here once again, because when our bodies and our minds are properly rested we can use them to the best of their ability. We can think more clearly about our work when we’re rested, and that will allow us a better opportunity to see how wisdom can help us improve our work.
I think one way that we can apply wisdom to our work is by taking to heart our third lesson…
III. Finding the good that our work accomplishes is a gift from God (2:24; 5:18–20)
A. We should look for the good that our work produces (2:24)
Now I have said “look for the good” for a reason, because it is so easy to start feeling like your work is pointless and meaningless. If we embrace that attitude, then work will be drudgery for the rest of our lives, but if we can focus on the good that our work produces, we can find satisfaction in it.
[READ 2:24] Notice that the verse says we are to “find enjoyment” in our toil. Now this doesn’t mean that we have to deceive ourselves or anything like that. A slightly more literal translation from Hebrew here would read “cause your soul to see good in your labor.” Solomon is talking about a choice—the attitude that we choose to have about our work. If we choose to think that our job is just pointless drudgery, that’s exactly what it will feel like. But if we choose to see the good that our work accomplishes, we can find satisfaction.
But how do we choose to see the good, especially when work often has so many hassles and frustrations? I think the answer is to focus on the way in which your job allows you to serve other people. I briefly worked at a bank at one point during seminary. That really wasn’t a bad job—I had a good work environment and a very good boss, but nevertheless, that was not what I wanted to do with my life at that time. I didn’t wake up every day with a burning passion to be a bank teller, and there were days when it was very easy for me to have a bad attitude as I went off to work. But I started to become convicted about my attitude, and I decided that God had me there for a reason, so I decided to focus on the good that our bank accomplished. I started to focus on the small businesses that relied on our loans to get by, and the homeowner’s who had taken out a mortgage with us so they could buy a home. I started to focus on the financial planning that we offered to help people take control of their spending, and I started to see that our bank really did accomplish good in this community. We were providing a service that allowed our community to improve, and when I thought about my work like that, I was able to find satisfaction in it.
So what about you? How does your work allow you to serve people and improve their lives? That’s what you need to focus on, because serving people is always a satisfying thing, and you can serve people in any profession (provided of course that profession is within God’s moral standards).
B. We should enjoy the profit that comes from our work (5:18–20)
We saw earlier that Solomon instructs not to devote ourselves excessively to the profit that we can make in our work, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not supposed to get any enjoyment from our profit at all! [READ 5:18–20] Notice the benefit that we get from enjoying our profits in v. 20 [READ v. 20]. Enjoying our profits takes some of the sting out of life.
I think we all know that it can be very, very easy to become overwhelmed with all of the problems that we encounter in this world. If we focus on our own problems and the problems in our government and the problems in our world long enough, it is easy to be overcome with despair. But what Solomon is telling us is that the profits we receive are a gift from God that he allows us to enjoy to lift up our spirits as we deal with life in a fallen world. What a beautiful perspective on the fruits of our labor! I think this tells us that we don’t need to feel guilty if God allows us to be successful in business; we don’t need to feel guilty about enjoying some of the fruits of our labor.
Now this is to be balanced of course by Solomon’s warning about devoting ourselves excessively to money and profits. And you know, as we look through Scripture, the Bible doesn’t give us a clear-cut guideline about how much is too much. The New Testament treats us like people who are supposed to be mature in Christ, and mature people are supposed to be able to achieve a balance in the various areas of their lives. So as we seek to mature in Christ, that’s a question we should wrestle with—“How am I handling the profits of my labor? Am I being too selfish with them? Am I enjoying them appropriately?” We may not always have an easy answer, but we need to wrestle with the question.
I hope we have seen today the appropriate way to deal with work and labor, something that consumes a large portion of our lives. Friends, I hope we have seen that God does not consider your job to be an unimportant thing. It is not a waste of your time, it is not less important than a “spiritual” job like being a pastor, it is not even a necessary evil—it is a gift from God to you to give you an outlet for serving other people, to provide for your family, to be generous to others, and to get some enjoyment out of what your labor produces. I hope that you will buy into this perspective, because I believe it will make your days at work much more pleasant, and it will allow you to find satisfaction in what you’re doing. So, enjoy your day off tomorrow, and I hope you can return to work on Tuesday with a new appreciation for the gift of labor.