Everything Is Meaningless - What Are You Working For?

I'm so thankful for the Word of God.

The Bible says that every word of God is flawless.

Think about that.

Every word is flawless, so the Word of God talks about it in Psalm 119 as a hammer.

It can break us down and it also has a capacity to build us up.

You need building up this morning.

Well, the Word of God can do that.

I'll encourage you to pay attention to our scripture this morning.

A little bit of question mark about the book we're going through in the series, because it might be that you kind of have come through the last few weeks kind of feeling a little bit depressed.

The series titled is Everything is Meaningless.

So it's kind of like, well, I feel discouraged and this person called Solomon who wrote this we think seems to be a cynic and he comes away from his experience in life just very cynical and kind of what is life all about?

And so we've been looking at that in this series and we're going to kind of turn a corner today.

I want to go back and do a little deeper dive in chapter two.

We covered that and Scott did such a great job last week, but a little deeper dive this week, still in chapter two, and we're going to look at verses 18 through 26.

And so, if you want to get your Bible or it'll be on the screen here and the title of the message today is what are you working for?

What are you working for?

And this is a focus on that subject.

Let's read it together, beginning in Ecclesiastes 2, verse 18.

Ecclesiastes 2:18

He says 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 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.

So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave it, leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it.

This also is vanity and a great evil.

What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?

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.

There is nothing better for a person than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

This also, I saw, is from the hand of God.

For apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

For to the one who pleases him, god is 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 the wind.

This is the Word of God.

Let's pray so, father.

Today we're just so thankful, lord, that you give us life and the Word of God gives us sustaining power.

Lord, it's found in your word.

So, lord, we're reminded of your goodness toward us and the fact that you provide for us through labor and work.

And so, lord, we ask today that our eyes would be open to the truths you have for this morning, that we don't just work to please ourselves but, lord, we work to please you.

And, lord, we ask, as you do your work in us today, that, lord, you would change our hearts.

We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

So, as I say, we've been going through this series, and it is a series called Everything is Meaningless, and that, of course, is the Riders with Frain all throughout the book.

It's his theme and through a series of lifelong experiments you could call them experience, the preacher, as he's called or we think he's Solomon, has basically tried to find meaning through all these personal pursuits, and we've gone through several of them.

A thorough study says I gave myself to these things and we looked at knowledge.

He looked at knowledge, he looked at pleasure, he looked at wealth and possessions, he looked at wisdom and following.

And now today he's going to look at what he gave himself to, which is the world of work, and he's seeking to find meaning in these things.

And you know, these are the same things that we kind of put into our lives too.

We think that they give us meaning and purpose and fulfillment.

And so he's got a word for us.

But the results of his experiment, his lifelong experiment, prove things are not as they appear.

Things are not always as they appear.

The word meaningless has that kind of that idea.

I was out last week and we were in California, kind of the days I think that was last week, right, it's the days that kind of run together, but as always we were going back, I was looking out the window in the airplane and I was looking down.

You know, if you've ever been on an airplane ride, you look down and as we were coming in the clouds were just thick and it just almost looked like you could step out.

I mean, if you really could, I mean that would be stupid.

Obviously there were something more to the clouds and just missed.

They looked to be solid, but of course that's just something you can't really set down on, even though you'd like to.

And this is kind of the way the word meaningless is.

It's like a vapor.

It has different ideas in it.

One of those ideas is that it's an enigma.

It doesn't make any sense, it's just kind of like that.

And Paul I mean Solomon basically says this is the way life looks to me.

It doesn't make sense, it's smoke and mirrors, and so what might have first appear to be a solution to us about the things we pursue in life, the things we give our heart to, often don't pan out that way, to be that way at all.

And Solomon kind of comes to the end of his life and he kind of comes to these conclusions and we could almost kind of summarize, because he's really looking at his life as in, and he's looking at death and we could almost summarize his life in a way by a headstone.

I've seen on gravesites this goes like this life is hard and then you die.

And that's kind of his perspective.

Life is hard and then you die.

There's truth to the fact that life is hard and then you die, and that could make us all be depressed.

Right, that's all life was all about.

But Solomon comes to another conclusion and we kind of get, as I say, a turning point in this book that and here's the other thing you found that life is hard but God is good.

Life is hard but God is good, and that makes all the difference.

Solomon realizes these two important truths.

They have to kind of be held in tension, because both of the things are true.

We know that and we want to look at these in our passage today.

The first has to do with what I just kind of in short call the illusion of work, and the other the gift of work.

The illusion of work and the gift of work you have that word in your text called it's deemed, it's written toil.

Toil is kind of a general term for anything that you put your hand to.

It might be.

You know your job.

It might be a project that you're undertaking that's difficult.

It might be school.

It might be just keeping kids, grandkids, something that you find not easy all the time.

This word actually has a meaning of kind of a heavy, wear-asome labor Gets old really fast and in fact it's also translated trouble in some verses in the Bible.

Same word trouble, wearing, effort, travail, and by that hence worry of mind and body and a weirdness of body.

So here's the thing built into any kind of work, you think about this as an effort which can what Wear on you and just make it difficult, bringing trouble and worry to your mind and soul, right?

So Solomon now didn't have to deal I don't think with the things sometimes we think about that we have to deal with.

We'll go to a job and you have to go through the traffic and deal with all the traffic.

You get to your job and maybe he didn't have to deal with the fact he had to fill a sales quota of some kind.

Maybe you think about he didn't have to cover for somebody who, the two or three people left, and you have to fill in and you've got all their jobs.

But he still had to deal with the trouble of work and that's because work in Genesis was deemed it wasn't a curse of itself, but there was a curse in it Says we have to deal with it because we have to work by the sweat of our brow.

That means it's not easy.

It's not easy and we hear the term or the phrase no pain, no gain.

You've heard that no pain, no gain.

It's suggested if you invest a little bit of pain, guess what It'll pay off in the end.

And for all the pain, solomon is basically saying any gain that I might have had, it was just temporary.

It was just temporary.

So let's look at these truths.

I want you to see the first one.

We said seeking fulfillment from work.

The first point seeking fulfillment from work is an illusion.

Solomon stops his experiment that he's been spending years on and this is probably the later part of his life.

He spent years on all these things and he considers the outcome of it all and he admits three problems which really bother him and they kind of hang like a shadow over his labors.

And some have called these even confessions of a workaholic.

We're gonna eat workaholics here this morning.

Nobody's gonna admit it.

So well, here's the first thing that bothered him.

First of all, there was a dissatisfaction with his work, and this is in verses 18 and 19.

Notice what he says in verse 18, I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun.

Now, a few verses earlier, he says I hated my life.

This is a question Neil sometimes asked do you hate your life?

And Solomon says, yeah, I do, I really do.

But now he's gone to saying I hate all my toil in life under the sun and I kind of thought, well, it really is that right.

Do people hate their jobs?

And I got on the internet and you know what it's about 50-50.

Studies are about 50-50.

And I think probably part of those people are not being honest and some people are making more of their pain than maybe is warranted.

But it's not necessarily the work itself, I don't think, but the stuff that people have to deal with in their work, and I think that's maybe part of it.

But people are looking for a reward at the end and so, given the opportunity, I just thought this I think people, given the opportunity, would choose to quit their jobs if they had a choice.

I heard an amen.

Yeah, I mean, you kind of see that that's the case, because we just went through a period of time called COVID, and how many people left their jobs.

So that was an experiment in and of itself.

And then you think about the people who, if you said to tomorrow you get to retire, how many of us would say I'm all in, I'd love that?

And so notice why he says he hated his work, though it's because he saw what could happen to all of it that he'd invested.

He did find delight in his work.

We saw that in chapter two, verse 10.

But the outcome of it all his labor, many, many years, 40 years of investing himself in things, projects.

He built cities, he built the temple.

You know, when I was over in Israel, I had an opportunity to go see Solomon's stables.

It was amazing.

He built so many things, projects, parks, and he said I found delight in it.

And all of his work, though, comes to this point in his life and he says it sort of comes to nothing because he says there that he must leave it to the man who will come after him and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool.

So kind of the question of how long before the family fortune is spent.

Who's gonna get my inheritance For Solomon?

How long?

Well, pretty quickly, because his son, rehoboam, basically was a fool and you can read in 1 Kings, chapter 12, all about his story.

1 Kings 12 · chapter mention

How, about how he divided the kingdom and he didn't pursue the things of his father, solomon.

And then he says yet this person, whoever it will be, yet he will be master.

That is the manager of all which I've toiled and used my wisdom under the sun.

You know what I think?

A lot of times people try to mitigate this.

We think of what we're going to pass on after we die, and so a lot of people, if they're Christian people, you tend to want to give it to a charity or a Christian institution.

There's a great example of this.

You just look at all the Ivy League schools that have put in place in the history of our nation Yale, princeton, harvard and the foundation of these schools was to pass on the Christian faith.

In fact, I looked one of these Harvard up and Mr John Harvard, who specifically was the founder of Harvard University.

He was a true Christian and he left all his money so that the university could pass on his Christian faith.

But you wouldn't identify any of these schools today as having a passion for the gospel.

In fact, they even have a statue, a monument of Mr John Harvard at the school, but it doesn't mean anything.

And this is what Solomon is afraid of all of his labor, all the things, all of his dreams and ambitions and goals, he's got to leave it to somebody.

He doesn't know what in the world they're going to do with it.

And so, at the end of it all, solomon faces the prospect of his own death and he wants what he's done to matter after he's gone.

You want what you've done to matter after you've gone.

Of course we do.

In short, he wants to do something.

All I want to do is just sort of leave a legacy.

You know what a legacy is.

Legacy is the enduring impact that you and I make on those who come behind us.

So it's more than about money or about material possessions.

It's about something that will outlive us.

Someone said that leaving a legacy is like tossing a rock into a pond.

There's an initial splash followed by ripple effects that continue once the rock has disappeared.

You might have a small rock to throw or a big boulder, but each one of us will leave something behind us.

Where are you going to leave behind you.

So, as I say, this is not merely about the state he's worried about.

He's wanting to document his existence on the planet and, in some way, I think, live forever.

It's kind of like the Tower of Babel.

Those people who built that tower wanted to do what?

Make a name for themselves.

So some of it may be pride, other things.

I think he's putting his finger on those something that's much deeper, and it's a fact that we have a divinely implanted awareness that there's more to this life than just the here and now, and that's why in Ecclesiastes, in chapter 3, we'll come to it soon he says he has planted eternity in the human heart.

See, whether it's in our busyness or our business, we want something to matter that outlives us, and it's really something about God has already put into us.

It's about eternity.

So you're not just here for the here and now, folks.

You're made for him, you're made for God, and so he's completely dissatisfied with his work because of this.

This first thing, and now it moves him to admit a second thing, and that is a despair over his work.

Look at verses 20 and 21.

He says so I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, 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 is also a vanity and a great evil.

So his dissatisfaction now turns into despair as he realizes that someone else is going to profit from all his hard work.

It's almost like you know, if you worked for two weeks and somebody else got your paycheck, or you worked for all year and you waited to go take that two week vacation and somebody else got to do that, we got to go to Florida instead of you.

It's a small thing.

He's looking at 40 years, right?

So he sees what he sees, how utterly unfair this is.

That he's labored all this time only to have someone else inherit the fruit of everything he's done, and so to him it's a deep injustice and I think there's probably any with this makes me angry.

I've invested all this and I have to give it away.

Vanity when he doesn't just say it's vanity, he says it is evil that this happens.

And so he wrote a song.

You're all familiar with it Take this job and shove it.

No, he didn't write that.

Oh, he may not have written that, but you know what?

He was probably the first person to put words to it in his heart, and for us that's a lot of the same effect.

I was going to bring my phone and quote you a little bit of the song, but you do, don't you?

Yeah, because it hits home to where we are.

But I want you to notice the depth of despair.

What's it related to?

It's how much it's in proportion to what he's given his heart to Say that, again, the depth of his despair is in proportion to what he's given his heart to.

So many people expect work to give them a sense of purpose and meaning in life, and so our identity is all too often tied up in the fact of here's what you do.

And sometimes we say, well, what do you do?

Well, ask people, introduce yourself and say what do you do for a living?

Like that's who they are.

Your job is not your identity, folks.

Your identity is found in Jesus Christ.

What you do doesn't define who you are.

So, in a practical sense, what happens when you do give your heart to something and then it goes away?

And if your identity is based on what you do, then you're going to be really depressed, you're going to be in despair when it goes away.

And I think that's proven out by the fact that when you so a lot of people when they retire, unfortunately they die sooner than they would have because they have no purpose in life.

Their whole purpose has been defined by their job.

Your purpose in life is not your job.

So Solomon is in despair because he's given his heart to his work.

Ever seen somebody who breaks down or respond in rage when they get the message we're going to have to let you go?

I've seen that and you would be surprised.

Maybe you wouldn't.

Maybe you sit on the other side of that desk and people cry and they weep and they rage, they pitch a fit because their emotions are so tied up that they've given themselves, given their heart to their job.

It matters more than anything, and so here's what Jesus said about it when your treasure is there your heart will be also.

So what that means is that where you put your treasure, that's where your heart is going to follow.

So where should you put your treasure?

Not in the earthly things, but in heavenly things.

See, we exert all this effort, someone says, to amass possessions.

We never really get to enjoy because we were working all the time, and then we leave them to someone else and he may just be a fool who squanders all we work to earn.

You know what, if you lay up your treasures for heaven, nobody can take those away.

Jesus said that.

Well, the third thing that bothers him so now comes in the form of what I would call a rhetorical question, and I want you to see it.

It's a disillusionment from his work, and this is in verses 22 and 23.

Verse 22 says what, as a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?

In other words, what's the point in working so hard to accumulate so much when you can't take it with you?

You can't take it with you.

It's like the person who asked about the wealthy philanthropist who recently died in town and then somebody said, oh, how much did he leave behind?

And the answer was all of it.

All of it.

And so, even though we know that we don't stop from being workaholics sometimes who want more and more and more, they say well, sometimes I'm just surviving, but is your heart tied into what you do?

So he naturally asked this question what do you get for it all?

What do you get for this investment of your life?

And someone says, well, you know, I do get some things.

I get a new car, I get a nice retirement, I get a bigger house or a million other things.

And I think all those things are fine, they're good, there's nothing wrong with those things.

But you know, and I know, much of the work the world pursues is beyond all that's necessary for life, and I think we have to come to that as believers.

We have to come to the fact of being satisfied, being content with what you have.

This is what Paul brought us to and is teaching, and I don't say that to promote laziness.

This is not about not working.

Work is a good thing.

In fact, the writer of Proverbs says I observed and took it to heart.

I looked and received instruction.

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber and need like a bandit.

If you don't work, you'll be in need.

That's also true, right.

But I've seen people, and some of you, that have made it their business and it's all about making money, gaining more wealth, and they failed to lay it for themselves, treasure in heaven.

And so listen, if all you're living for is your next paycheck, it reveals something about you spiritually.

It reveals there's a measure of spiritual poverty in your life.

That's just the truth.

And Jesus warns us of this type of focus.

Remember that parable is called the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12.

And he's talking about this parable and he talks about a man who's all his life, all he's doing, is building bigger and better barns and he's filling up the barns.

He gets a new barn, he fills it up.

That's all his life is.

And in the parable, jesus says God, come to the man.

Because he says God said to him Fool this night, your soul is required of you and the things you've prepared, whose will they be?

So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich, toward God.

And I think, in a practical sense, how should we think of this?

Well, the way Paul talked about it in 1 Timothy 6,.

He says and those who are rich in this world's goods, not to be haughty or to set their hope on riches which are uncertain, but on God, who richly provides us with all things for our enjoyment, tell them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, to be generous givers, sharing with others.

In this way they will save up a treasure for themselves, as a firm foundation for the future, and so they hold of life that is truly life.

So your life is not about the here and now.

It's about our time and eternity with the Lord Christ.

So Psalm 11 says this what do you get for it all?

And he answers it right here.

He says in verse 23, 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.

That little word vexation may throw us a little bit.

It's a word that means his work is a job.

There's sorrow to it.

There are things that you do not want to do.

When you go to work on Monday, in fact, that little saying Monday is coming.

Well, why did we say that?

Because some sorrow is mixed in with the work, but there's also vexation.

When I go to work, it's a job, not all the time, but it is a job.

And so often what we do and I think what this reveals is it never ends, because he says it keeps him up at night we bring our work home and we think about it.

What are we going to do next?

How are we going to prepare for it?

What's the plan?

And so he doesn't sleep well, he's restless, and I think, you see, in these verses there's something a little bit about drivenness here, revealed in this verse, and it's kind of this drivenness.

For us it's often a cover for emptiness.

So sometimes we're unable to stop and put down our to-do list.

You got a to-do list.

Do you live by your to-do list?

It was Augustin who said you have made us for yourself, o Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

And well, these are problems that affect all of us.

This is not just for Solomon, this speaks to us, and Solomon did the experiment, so we wouldn't have to.

You know, who's really smart and wise is to look at somebody else's life and learn the lessons that they learned.

So we won't have to repeat what Solomon has done here and spend our whole life to learn it.

We can learn from this man's mistakes, and what we learn from Solomon is that seeking fulfillment from your work is an illusion.

Well, now, at the end of his experiment, here's a thing that sort of comes to chain.

A light sort of turns on for Solomon as he realizes not everything is meaningless.

Not everything is meaningless.

In fact, this is a real turning point in the book.

And there is then the second truth that we need to see, and that is that finding God's pleasure through work is a gift, and he tells us about that in verses 24 through 26.

And there's three realities here that he presents.

It sort of balance out and hold intention the enigmas of our life, our work life, and the first one is this one is that we should learn to enjoy the simple gifts of God.

We should learn to enjoy the simple gifts of God.

He says there's nothing better for a person than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

This also, I saw, is from the hand of God.

And that phrase there is nothing better for a person than it occurs three other times in the book in chapter 3, verse 12, verse 22 and chapter 8, verse 18.

It's been called often called the Carpe Diem passages.

Remember Carpe Diem?

There's an old movie with Robin Williams called Carpe Diem.

What does it mean?

It's a Latin phrase that means seize the day.

Seize the day, and I think sometimes, when people have approached this part of the text and said this is really pessimistic.

This is a pessimistic statement kind of like 1 Corinthians 15, where it says let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.

We might as well just live it up, because this is all there is.

Grab for all the gusto that you can, because there's no more after this.

Well, that's not true.

This is actually truly the verse positive statement we run across in the whole book.

Right here, a preacher now points to the God who occupies the heavenly realm and to the life of faith in him, says Michael Eaton.

So instead of despairing, he is beginning to see the difference it makes to include God in all your pursuits.

And that book could be anything that you put your time and attention to.

Solomon's telling us this one thing we should live in the moment, live in the now, because it's in the mundane and ordinary things in life, because these are where the gifts of God are found.

So we're sometimes so busy we miss those things and the gifts of God.

We don't even see them.

And I was yesterday delivering some coffee beans over to one of the local shops here and on the way over, after fighting through all the traffic and getting to the shop and carrying the stuff in.

As I was walking out there was a young couple walking in.

They had a little puppy on a leash walking in and it was kind of entered.

The puppy kind of just walked over toward me and just looked up like that and I stooped down and put his face in my hands just to pat him.

I thought that's a gift.

And you see, the thing is that we can miss the things because we're so busy.

Those little things that maybe, just maybe, god has put in our path so that we can enjoy life, don't miss those.

Walk slowly through your day and you can see those things.

God says He'll give them to us.

And so Solomon's telling us live in the moment, because it's there, even in the mundane things, that we find the gift of God, often the unnoticed gifts of God.

So here's the thing when we're working and slaving away and we're busy and we don't give our time and tension to the things but our job, we let other things go and we endure the trouble of the day, we can miss those simple things that God gives us.

In that time and most of the time here's the thing I think of Most of the time we're looking at how do we fix the things that happened in the past, or we're planning for tomorrow, and what he's teaching us here is to live in the day.

Seize the day, because if you live for yesterday, try to fix it and you live for tomorrow, which you can't control, it's just a pipe dream.

You're only fooling yourself.

You can't change your past and you cannot know the future.

Live in the moment.

Discover God's gift of the now.

Seize the day.

Blaise Pascal was a French mathematical genius who lived and was born back in 1623.

And after running from God for 31 years, he gave his heart and a life on November 23 at 1030, to God and he came to know Jesus Christ personally.

Un-unshakable, he converted to Jesus, and what he would do later, he would write down his thoughts in a book that's pretty famous now it's called Pinsies and he put this thought down.

I thought fit well with this idea of living for the moment.

He says we never keep to the present.

We recall the past, we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and we're trying to hurry it up.

Oh, we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight.

We are so unwise that we wonder about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is.

The fact is that the present usually hurts.

We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away.

We try to give it the support of the future and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching.

Let us each of us examine his thoughts.

He will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future.

We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future.

The present is never our end.

The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end.

Thus, we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we're always planning on how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.

Living in the present, enjoy God's simple gifts.

That's what he is saying.

He is making a second thing here as he comes to the end of his life and it makes it turn a corner.

He said God alone gives us the ability to enjoy what we do.

You like what you do?

He says from apart, for apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

So you know, always, when I see things like this, who can do this, apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

I would play the devil's advocate and say well, why?

Why is that true?

Because there are people who would disagree with that.

I mean you, that you really, you can enjoy life without God and Jesus Christ.

And so there's this pushback.

Well, watch me, I'll show you how much I enjoy life.

I enjoy life to the hilt.

I have a great time, apart from God.

Well, that's the problem, isn't it?

How would you even know, unless you tried it, if you're sitting here this morning, you've never met Jesus Christ?

How would you know that your life couldn't be better by having the person of Jesus within you, having a personal relationship with you?

That's why the Bible always encourages us.

He says, for example, in 1 Corinthians whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

And I was just thinking, you know, jesus kind of modeled this, didn't he?

And I think we kind of have a distorted view, really, of what Jesus was like.

Sometimes we think of him as this starchy, self-restrained, joyless person who kind of just walked and did his thing while he was on the earth here, and I think that's just wrong.

I really do.

Jesus enjoyed life for 33 years that he walked this earth.

He did everything to the glory of God, including the things he did not want to do.

Go to the cross for our sin.

On our behalf, I'll tell you what do you mean?

Well, the people that wanted to bring him down, his enemies, his detractors, you know they came to him and they accused him of something based on what they thought they saw.

And it's in.

Matthew 11 says in Jesus says this he says the Son of man came eating and drinking and they say look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

Jesus was not a drunkard or a or a glutton, but you know what he enjoyed the good things of life.

I really think he did.

I mean, if you had spent time with Jesus, you would have had a fun day, you would have enjoyed it with him, and so Jesus was often criticized for his excesses and his celebration, his exuberance for life.

And he went to parties and when he was invited, he was invited by who?

Whom Would be correct Whom?

He was invited by tax collectors and sinners, the most unlikely people, because he they knew they'd had fun with this man called Jesus.

But he was also a man, isaiah says, who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Those things, those two things, can be held together, can't they?

The toil of life and the joy of the Lord, the sorrow and joy.

And I think this is what Solomon comes to.

And you know, the fact is that God alone gives you that ability.

In the midst of the hard life, we can no joy because of Jesus.

Well, there's a third reality that I want you to see, and he says it there, in verses 20 or verse 26.

He says our hearts focus will determine what we receive.

Essentially, our hearts focus will determine what we receive, he says, 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 is also a vanity and striving after when.

So the blessing of this life are the gift of God and the power to enjoy them are also from God.

They come from God and that includes our work.

Work is less.

You misunderstand.

Work is a gift.

It was given in the garden before the fall.

God gave it to Adam to work the garden and plant and enjoy, be fruitful and multiply.

And guess what he said?

This is good, this is good, work is good.

But here, in this last verse of this chapter, we find something very interesting and we see how God deals with two kinds of people, two, two classes of people those who please him and those who don't, those who offend him.

And to the former he gives them his blessings.

But to those who live for themselves, he gives them a job, he gives them more work to do, and the work that he gives them to do is to gather and to compile all their stuff, all their life, so that somehow, in the providence of God, they give it away.

To people who please God Say how does that work?

I don't know.

I could only find one example in the Bible that kind of illustrates this for us, because I think these things we don't often see.

But there are times in life when God gives riches away to people who deserve them, though it may not always seem that way.

Sometimes it seems unfair.

But here's this one, and it's in the Exodus, and from Egypt, and there, as the, the children of Israel, was coming out of the land of Egypt, god made it so that the Egyptians, who were their slave masters, were the ones who would end up giving all their wealth as the children of Israel left that country.

It says there, in Exodus 12, the Lord calls the Egyptians to look favorably on the Israelites.

And they gave the Israelites whatever they asked for.

So they stripped the Egyptians of their wealth, and I think God still does that, though we don't often see it.

You know the title for this message was uh, what are you working for?

And I think, really, what it probably should be is who are you working for?

Who are you working for?

Colossians 3 says whatever you do, work hardily as for the Lord, and not for men.

That helps, doesn't it?

Because if you're not working for the boss that you don't like or the person who's giving you the job to do, well, listen, you're not working for him or her.

Really Work hard, oly as for the Lord, and not for men.

Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward, you are serving the Lord, jesus Christ, and so the way to experience that is to work for God and not for yourself.

See, this was the problem Solomon had at the beginning.

Everything he was doing was for himself.

And he comes to the end of his life and says well, there's meaning when you work for God.

You know, one of the best examples, I think, of this idea of living in the moment and appreciating God's gift is in the life of this man called Brother Lawrence.

He was a 17th century Carmelite monk and lived in France.

He wrote about it in his book called Practicing the Presence of God.

Maybe you've read it.

You should Practicing the presence of God.

It's really a spiritual exercise that challenges us to remain really focused on God throughout the day, whatever we're doing.

And in that day Brother Lawrence was assigned the task of being a dishwasher, cleaning up.

After all, the people had been in the monastery at eight and he prepared and he cooked the food, and then for the day, and then he cleaned up afterwards and because of the task being really mundane and unpleasant, he didn't want to do it.

He decided what he would do is he would begin to infuse his relationship with God into all those menial tasks that he didn't want to do.

And so he decided, as he was cooking, washing the dishes, cleaning up, he would have this ongoing conversation with God as he went about his chores.

And it changed everything.

And so, kind of, with this idea, this focus, he believed that God could be invited into everything.

He did everything, and so for us today, it might be that you go home this well, this week and you have to cut the grass, and I don't want to go out and cut the grass.

Well, can you find God in that?

Can you invite God into that?

Some of the best conversations I've had are cutting the grass with God.

His biography says this because he believed that that was true.

His biography says Brother Lawrence retreated to a place in his heart where the love of God made every detail of his life of surpassing value.

In fact, he has his brother Lawrence, his own words.

He says I, brother Lawrence, began to live as if there were no one save God and me in the world, just him and God.

You know, one of the other persons I think of this when I think of this happening to us is Corrie Tin Boom.

If you know Corrie Tin Boom, she was always having this conversation with God and sometimes in the videos I've caught with her you see her talking to the Lord.

It's just her and God.

So in that way, brother Lawrence found that that was the case and whether it was running errands or scrubbing pots or pans or whatever, he did that and he endured the scorn of the world of that day misery.

So if we live for God's pleasure, we will be richly rewarded.

Solomon says, with all the spiritual blessings that he wants to give us, joy will be given.

You want joy.

It all depends on the state of your heart, the state of my heart.

So our goal, our goal, should always be to do what To please the Lord, because when we please the Lord, you can.

You can see.

It's a promise.

He's going to give you His gifts.

Isn't that amazing?

Let me end with this today with this promise from 1 Corinthians 15, because Solomon started out with toil I hate it, life, I hate it, it's all meaningless.

And he says here in 1 Corinthians 15, paul does, verse 58, therefore, my beloved brothers, if you're in Christ, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain.

There's a reward in it if you slow down long enough to see it.

Amen, let's pray Father, we're thankful for your Word this morning reminding us, lord, that you love us and you care for us, that all the things that we go through in this life, lord, whether they're easy or difficult, lord, you're with us.

Help us, lord, as we go back to work this week or take on projects that we might find unpleasant at times, to look for you and look for your gifts in the middle of it.

Do that, lord, in Jesus' name, amen.