Three Perspectives on Work (Ecclesiastes 2:18-26) 05.31.26

Intro

Good morning!

Firstly: Welcome to visiting college students. Great to see you back. Looking forward to meeting you properly after the service, and hear what you’re up to.

Secondly: The new EH courses start today. For five weeks "imaging God in a broken world" will be in the first service and "praying with the Lord" will be in the second service. And then they will flip!

If I say, “work”, I wonder what you think of. [pause]

Some of you will immediately think of your paid employment. Maybe you work 9-5 Monday to Friday, or maybe you work quite a few hours more than that. Maybe you’re a student, visiting Universal- I mean Orlando – for the summer! Maybe you work at home: keeping the house, raising the children, teaching the children. Maybe you don’t currently have a job, but you want one. Or you’re retired, and you’re trying to figure out what your new ‘work’ is.

In a room like this, there’s going to be a lot of different answers to that question. But the teacher in Ecclesiastes tells us something we probably already knew, which is that despite the variety of our work, we’re all going to find our work frustrating!

Or to use the word from Ecclesiastes, it is ‘hevel’.

I remember when I was a boy, my dad came home from work one day, tearing his hair out. I said “Dad, what’s wrong?”. And he told me that for the past few years, he’d been part of a team working on improving the roads in Mozambique. And that millions and millions of pounds of UK aid money had been spent on this. But just as the project was wrapping up, and everyone was congratulating themselves on a job well-done, a different government, a generous government, decided to send their aid money to Mozambique too. And they wanted to fix the sewers. So off they went, putting in new sewers, which (predictably) involved digging up all the new roads which had just been completed! It was absurd! Pure hevel! As far as I’m aware, it wasn’t the Americans…

But here’s the thing – I bet many of you could tell similar stories! You’ve spent hours working on something. Days, weeks, months, preparing for a project. Or years trying to get somewhere, and then all of a sudden, something changes, and it was all pointless. All hevel. It’s actually a pretty universal experience.

And it is important to note that Christians are not exempt from this! Whether we work in a bank, or work for a church, our work will regularly be frustrating! And that can be confusing, especially if we believe God has called us to our work in the first place.

God, what’s going on? You’ve put me in this job, and it all feels meaningless! I’m trying to teach my child, and it’s not working! Or I’ve retired, and I feel irrelevant! Or as soon as I get one set of numbers to balance, a new problem springs up!

And this is only amplified in today’s culture, because our work isn’t just a job, it’s an identity. You don’t just do your work to survive, it’s probably the first thing you would tell someone about yourself.

What do we do with this? How are we meant to think about our work?

Well I hope we’ll see that Ecclesiastes give us more than one way to view our work. Firstly, it affirms that our work is often meaningless. But the teacher also insists that work is a good gift from God. More than that, we’re going to see that in fact, as Christians, we have it better than our non-believing friends. Which is a big claim! But according to Ecclesiastes, knowing God should fundamentally change our perspective towards work and finding happiness in it, even with all the frustrations that we encounter.

So we’re going to walk through the text, and hopefully it will give you a richer template through which to frame your work experience.

1)   Work is Meaningless

I don’t need to tell you that work can be frustrating.

For what it’s worth, my first job was as a marshal at a paintball site. No matter how many times we told the customers not to pick up old paintballs off the ground, of course they would do it, and add them to their hopper, as ‘free’ ammo. But the reason we told them not to do that was because as soon as a paintball touches the ground, it absorbs moisture, and expands. So 10 minutes later in the middle of the battle, their gun jams, at which point it I have to wade into the warfare, getting pelted from both sides, to try to sort out their gun. Which was only jammed because they’d picked up the paintballs we’d told them not to use! Pure hevel. That was a bad job.

Whatever your work is, whether its paid, or unpaid, inside or outside, it’s going to have frustrations, because that’s the reality of the world we live in.

In verse 23, the teacher laments that our work causes grief and pain! And it doesn’t just last from 9-5, even at night we are kept up thinking about it. It’s a pretty bleak picture, isn’t it! Work is frustrating during the day, and then at the end of the day, when you can finally lie down, it’s still there! In your head!

In many ways, these verses are really a commentary on the fall. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve sin, and God curses the land because of them.

God said, “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you… by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground”.

And that has been our experience ever since.

Work is difficult. Work is frustrating. Problems come up which seem totally unnecessary. We are let down by colleagues. Relationships are strained, or even broken. Maybe your job is just boring! Or maybe you’re being asked to deliver things you don’t have the capacity to deliver.

All this frustration can be traced back to the fall, where sin and its curse entered the world as Adam and Eve rejected the wonderful provision that came from living under God’s rule. One day that curse will be lifted, as sin is fully banished in the new creation. But for now, the effects of sin are everywhere, including in our work.

Work is frustrating. But there’s another issue here too.

I had a friend at school who had three big ambitions – he wanted to be captain of the squash team, he wanted to hit a century (that’s scoring 100 runs in cricket), and he wanted to get into Cambridge. And as it happened, he achieved all three on the same weekend. And you know how he felt? Totally deflated. What was his purpose now?

Well the teacher in Ecclesiastes had a similar experience.

Let me read a few verses just before where our reading picked up. Starting from v4:

 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…

This is someone who has made it! Verse 7 says not only was he the richest man in town, he was the richest man who had ever been in town! This isn’t the story of someone who failed to make it, and regrets their mistakes. No, this is the wisdom of someone who achieved it all – And how did he feel?

V18 “I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun”

V20 “So I …gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors”

V22 “What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?”

And you’re meant to think: “What?! You had it all! How could you not feel satisfied by that?!” The richest person ever in Jerusalem, looks at his work with “despair”, and “hatred”.

But like my friend, the teacher had found that there are actually 2 ways to be unhappy. The first is to fail to get what you want, and the second is to get it.

The fact is, our problem with work goes deeper than most of us realise. The problem isn’t just that our work is frustrating. Rather, at a deeper level, we look to work for meaning, purpose, and validation, which it is powerless to give.

We think that life would be better if I just got this pay rise, if I just got that job; once this project is out the way, once that person retires… But the teacher won’t let us think like that. He says no – even if everything in your work went perfectly, and you achieved all of your goals, it would leave you feeling empty.

Because work was never designed to fundamentally satisfy us. We like trying to find our worth in work because it feels within our grasp – it feels like something we can achieve and control. But the great tragedy is that either we fail to achieve it, and that is crushing, or we do achieve it, which is just as crushing!

For the teacher, he had it all, but in verses 18-23 he can’t get over the fact that all his wealth, all his work, will just be ‘given over’ to someone when he dies. And that person might be totally inept. He thinks about how hard he worked for it, and that whole empire, ready-made, is going to be passed to a fool.

In a real sense, work is absurd. It is meaningless. It is vanity. It is hevel.

But it isn’t the only lens the teacher looks through.

2)   Work is a Gift

In verse 24, he switches the camera angle. And all of a sudden, he is able to look back at his same work, and say:

“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”

What?! I thought work was all meaningless?! I thought it was all frustrated and pointless?

But here we see no, there is another way to think about our work, and that is to see it as a gift from God.

If you read Ecclesiastes carefully, you will see that it is actually quite a nuanced book. The teacher is able to look at the same situation through multiple lenses, and here, he sees the great good that comes from work. In fact, he says there is “nothing better” (v24) than finding enjoyment in your toil.

Now the word toil is an interesting one – toil carries connotations of frustration, of hard work, difficulty, and challenges. In verse 23 he uses the more neutral word “work”, but in verse 24 he deliberately switches back to “toil”. Because he’s not saying: “the happiness that you get from doing your work is a gift from God”. No, look carefully at verse 24. He says: there is nothing better than “finding” happiness in your toil.

In other words, your work is going to be toil. But within that toil, you should be able to find some happiness. And in fact, there is nothing better than finding enjoyment in your toil. It is a gift from God.

What a shift in perspective! That within the toil of our work (whatever it may be), God enables us to experience happiness, or enjoyment. Where does that happiness come from? The teacher gives us a few clues:

Verse 24 says there is joy in being able to provide food and drink for our families. That should be a source of happiness to us. Even if our work is boring, or frustrating, being able to provide is a good gift from God. But I don’t think that is the only blessing to be found in toil. Maybe you are able to help people in your work. Maybe you can serve your local community, or even your church. Maybe you are a deacon, and put in hours of work which hardly anyone is aware of. Well I hope and pray (firstly, that we would appreciate you properly), but secondly, that you are able to find joy in your service, as you follow the pattern of Jesus.

Maybe you find joy in simply doing a job well! I remember watching an electrician take great pride in plastering the inside of a socket cavity, which no one would ever see, but there he was, smoothing out all the rough edges! The teacher is clear that in the toil, there is happiness to be found. That’s not to deny the toil. That’s not to deny the hevel. But it is to insist that enjoyment can be found in the toil, and that this enjoyment is a gift from God.

So what am I meant to do with this?

I suspect that most of us are pretty familiar with lens one (seeing our work as frustrating, or meaningless), but perhaps you need reminding about that second lens. I appreciate not every day of every job feels like a gift. And it may be that there are some people in this room who can’t see any aspect of their job which is a gift. Let Ecclesiastes challenge you. The teacher was able to see two perspectives. On the one hand, he could look at all his work, and see it as meaningless. That is a valid lens. But crucially, it is not the only lens. He could also look at his work and see it as a gift from God. Have you discovered that perspective?

And then secondly, I think these verses should make us think seriously about the sabbath. Because toil is not meant to last forever. In fact, it can’t. We’re not designed to toil 7 days per week, week after week after week. Part of the ‘gift of God’ which we can find in our toil, is in the breaks that he gives us. When God created the world, he rested 1 day in 7, and scripture consistently holds this up as a pattern that we ought to follow. If you are toiling every single day, then you are not experiencing one of the gifts that God wants to give you in your toil.

Work is hevel. And it is also a gift from God. But then the teacher goes even further, which brings us to our third point:

3) Christians have it better

I wonder how that phrase makes you feel.

Maybe it makes you confused. You think of all the Christians who are suffering for their faith around the world.

Or maybe it makes you nervous. You think of the prosperity gospel, and the preachers who promise riches, long-life and happiness…

We definitely don’t want to deny the suffering a lot of Christians go through. And we also want to avoid the excesses of the prosperity gospel. But the teacher in Ecclesiastes is insistent that in a real way: people who know God should be happier in their work than people who don’t.

Let’s have a look at verses 25&26

25 for apart from him [God] 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.

Notice, both the Godly man and the sinner toil. We’re all doing the same work. But in verse 25, the teacher asks “Apart from God, who can have enjoyment? Who can be happy?”.

He explains a bit more in verse 26. He says that the one who pleases God is given (wisdom and knowledge and) joy. But what is the sinner given? Well, the sinner also goes about the business of gathering and collecting (just like the Christian), but instead of finding happiness or receiving knowledge and wisdom, what does the sinner receive? Nothing. In fact, even what he has is taken from him.

So why is the Christian meant to be able to find joy in work, which the non-Christian can’t access?

Imagine you have a 3 year old child, and you gave them a toy saxophone. How happy would they be with it? Well it’s a gift, and mini, plastic saxophones are pretty cool, so probably fairly happy. They’d probably try pressing all the keys, try blowing it, maybe try banging it on the table, and then – more than likely – they’d play with the box and wrapping (the best part of any present). But what if you yourself were a saxophone player. What if for 3 years, your child had been watching you play, and ‘learning’ how you do your ‘work’. How excited is that child going to be, the day she receives her mini, plastic saxophone? [show picture] She’s going to be thrilled! Finally, she can do what daddy does!

Do you see the difference?

As Christians, we know the God who has given us our gifts. More than that, we’ve seen Jesus working, we’ve seen him bring life. We’ve seen him uphold and fulfil the sabbath. When we receive the gifts of providing for our families, and doing good for our society, that should be more meaningful, and more joyful for us, because we are mirroring the God who gave us those gifts.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Because as Christians, when we engage in our ‘toil’, we know more than the teacher in Ecclesiastes knew. You could say, we have a third lens.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul waxes lyrical about the far-reaching ramifications of the resurrection. And you know how that chapter ends? He says: Because of the resurrection, “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58).

You and I know that there is something new under the sun. The resurrection of Jesus was the first-fruit of a much greater resurrection and restoration. When we work now (as long as our work isn’t sinful), we are engaging in the work that we know Jesus will ultimately bring to fruition. As we provide for our loved ones, as we help build-up society, as we care for one another, as we teach, we are (in a small way) reflecting Christ in his work of renewing and redeeming all of creation. We are not tossing our efforts into a bottomless pit. We aren't wasting our work on a creation that's just going to burn up and be forgotten. We are joining Christ in the process of reconciling all things to himself in anticipation of the day he restores everything - even our work, to the way it should be. As we are faithful to him with our lives and work, Paul can say that none of our work is in vain.

So where does that leave Ecclesiastes? Well those first two lenses are still valid. Our work under the sun can feel meaningless (lens one), and God does provide opportunities for happiness and joy through our work (lens two). But as Christians, we now have a third lens – a lens the teacher in Ecclesiastes only saw dimly. And with that lens, we know that none of our work is in vain, because faithful service to Christ should bring us a level of joy, happiness, and satisfaction that the non-Christian can never have.

And you know what’s remarkable: God is glorified by us enjoying his good gifts.

Just like a father loves to see his children delighted with their Christmas presents, so God loves to see us enjoying the gifts from his hand, because his gifts always magnify and point us to him. As we enjoy his gifts, we learn more about his character, we experience more of his love, and we increase our dependence on him.

John Piper went so far as to say: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. And I think he’s right.

With that framework, verse 26 begins to make more sense. The Christian does gain wisdom, knowledge, and joy through his work, as he grows closer to God. By contrast, the non-Christian might gain some blessings, and know some (common grace) joy, but not to the same extent. And the verse then ends with a great reversal – whereas the teacher started in verse 18 frustrated that his work would all pass into the hands of fools, he ends here with ironic confidence that (in some way), the work of the non-Christians will pass to him. It is an indication that in God’s sovereign ordering of the universe, nothing is truly random. Christians will ultimately know greater blessing than those who reject God. Even if the teacher can’t resist seeing it as another example of ‘absurdity’.

So can I encourage you: look for the joy in your work. Ecclesiastes insists that it is there to be found, and more than that, that enjoying it brings glory to God. Whether it’s paid, or unpaid. Whether you’re looking for employment, or you’ve just finished. However you spend your time, do you have eyes to see the gifts God is giving you amidst the toil, which bless you and bring you closer to him? He is the good father who loves to give good gifts. He showed that supremely in giving us his son at the cross. And after Jesus had died to take away the sins of all who would believe in him, he rose from the dead, showing us that this dying world will ultimately be renewed and recreated. And for that reason, your labour is not in vain. We serve a victorious king.  

Billy Graham used to tell the story of William Robinson, a young man from South Carolina. When William was young, there were two things his grandmother used to make him do: shine his shoes on Saturday, and go to church on Sunday. Which was unfortunate, because the two things William least liked doing were shining his shoes, and going to church! Anyway, William did it, and in the Lord’s providence, William ended up coming to faith. And you know what the Lord put it on his heart to do? Start a shoe shining business! William never loved shining shoes, but he found great joy in serving other people, relating to them, listening to them, and sometimes even sharing Christ with them. He found joy in the hevel, and in his words, he said “I can reflect God’s love to my customers through this work”.

Conclusion

Work is hevel: it is frustrating, it is absurd. That is a legitimate way to feel sometimes.

But simultaneously, work is a gift from God, and he blesses us through the toil.

More than that, our work follows the pattern of Christ, so that Paul can say our labour is never in vain.

Let’s pray.

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