Shepherd of the Hills Evangelical Lutheran Church ť SOTH Home

Labor Day is coming up. What is your field of labor? And do you love it?

Yesterday I googled “work bumper stickers” and discovered most referred to work as just a means to getting paid. Here are a few: “I Owe, I Owe, So Off To Work I Go.” “If Work Is So Great, How Come They Have To Pay You To Do it?” “I Thought I Wanted A Career. Turns Out I Just Wanted Paychecks.”

Are you working just for a paycheck? In the Bible, God tells us the down side to that: The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep. (Ecclesiastes 5:12) God says that common laborers sleep better than wealthy people. Huh? I thought that getting more money means less worries! But think about it. If you don’t have a 401k or IRA or afford to own a home, you don’t stress about how much value your retirement account and home has lost when you turn in for the night. Your stomach doesn’t churn when you read about government policies, laws, or tax codes that are going to take more of your money. I think of the Wilder family in the “Little House On The Prairie” books, living in a dirt house dug out of the bank of Plum Creek with so few possessions they fit in a covered wagon. But they were happy. Oh, they had worries. But not the ones that come with wealth.

God, in fact, describes the life of a wealthy person as pretty gloomy! All his days he eats in darkness, with great frustration, affliction and anger. (Ecclesiastes 5: 17) Well off people still live in a gloomy world. Rich people get sick and frustrated and depressed, get their hearts broken and lose loved ones, experience problems and tragedies, get old and lose strength and vitality and finally die.

Yet Solomon, inspired by God to write the book of Ecclesiastes, said, “It is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him-- for this is his lot.” (Eccleisiastes 5:18) Here is what Solomon- and God- is getting at. The man who has been waiting for an agonizing two weeks to hear whether he has a terminal illness, and who finally gets the good news that he does not, cares a lot less that his flat screen TV is a 32 inch instead of a 54 inch, and is a lot more appreciative of his wife and a lot more patient with his kids, and he goes into work with a lot more positive attitude too. Because he realizes he has what really matters: his life. The key to contentment (with our job or life) is realizing we have what really matters in terms of true life- that we have life with God. Through the forgiveness of our sins God is once again our Father. He is going to be there for us every second of every day with his love and help, and one day he will bring us to share in the riches of life in heaven with him for all eternity. But it came at a cost: God’s Son had to be nailed to a cross for our lousy, thankless attitudes about work and our shallowness at working mainly for a paycheck. The hell we deserved had to engulf him for our love affair with all things earthly and our coldness toward God. But Jesus gladly paid the high price of his holy life so that our pay day could be when he takes us to heaven.

So here is the bottom line: Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work-- this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart. (Ecclesiastes 5:19,20) Through faith in Jesus, you can happily trust that God has given you the job and income and life he wants you to have so you don’t live an unhappy life of unfulfilled longing for what others have and you never get. You can happily trust God to provide for you and guide you day by day instead of stressing about how you are going to take care of yourself and how things will work out. You can happily trust God that he has you in the right place right now, and see your work as your God-given way to find satisfaction from doing something useful with the skills he gave you, to help and serve others, and to show them the difference Jesus makes by your attitude and approach to work as a child of God. You can happily thank God by seeing your job, not in terms of a paycheck, but in terms of a payback to God by how you do your job as one who knows he or she has from God the life that really matters.

JOIN US FOR WORSHIP: