SERMON FOR SEPTEMBER 5, 2010
LABOR DAY WEEKEND
TITLE - “What Am I Working For?”
***SCRIPTURE - Ecclesiastes 2:1-11, 22(NIV)
I would like to begin today’s sermon with some words from Erskine White, who said…..“I want to introduce you to someone you may not know very well: the Preacher who wrote Ecclesiastes. We ought to find him quite interesting; he is one of the most modern personalities in all the Bible. In fact, here is someone very much like you or me.
He is a successful man by any measure of worldly achievement and he knows how to enjoy the pleasures of this world. But like many people today, he is also restless. He is looking for deeper meaning and greater fulfillment in life.
He is honest about himself and even a bit cynical about his world. He is not seduced by vanity. He looks at what he has done with his life and he asks a question which many thoughtful people are asking today: What am I working for? What am I living for? "What do we gain from our labors under the sun?"
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Marian Peter asked if we could do something a bit different on Labor Day. She had asked folks to bring or wear something that would represent what they did for an occupation. My husband could have worn his work uniform as an RV Technician or wear a Seed Company hat representing him as a farmer.
??? Did anyone bring or come dressed in something that represents the labors of your life?
I would like to remind you that: you do not have to have an income to be considered a worker. Mothers, fathers, grandparents or aunts and uncles are often called to work every day of their lives in parenting those God placed in their families. Other’s of you are doctors, some are factory workers, some volunteers in 4-H programs and many servants of Christ as volunteers or employees of the Church.
Regardless of age or circumstance, WORK is our common lot in life, our legacy as children of Adam and Eve. It is so basic that I ask the question, “What am I working for? What are you working for?”
*** “WHAT AM I WORKING FOR?”
“WHAT ARE YOU WORKING FOR?”
In the Scripture reading for today we find a man who wore the hat of many occupations. He began with simply “having fun”. Not working but doing what he wanted to do. Anything and everything it sounded like. But what did he gain? Nothing but the feeling of foolishness.
Then beginning in verse 4, we see he chose to put his hands to labor in great projects. He was a carpenter and built houses (for himself) and a farmer, planted vineyards. He became community minded and made gardens and parks and became a water plant manager when building reservoirs. Then he became an employer taking on slaves.
He moved on to being a cattle farmer owning more than any other farmer in Jerusalem.
His hard works led him to great wealth and power. It is getting obvious that he never stayed at one job very long but moved up the ladder of life with great drive and ambition. He may have been the Simon Cowell of “American Idol” when he acquired singers and entertainers.
BUT the greatest thing he became was GREEDY. Very, very greedy. There was nothing he could see that he did not desire and acquire but still it brought him “little satisfaction“.
??? How many of you have ever chased a dream only to find it completely unfulfilling? Did you ever ask yourself WHY you worked so hard for what you have? Did it all pan out the way you expected it to?
It appears that this great Preacher, Solomon, exhausted himself in seeking the GOOD LIFE without any thought as to what the GOOD LIFE was really all about. Isn’t that what much of America has done this past 40-60 years? She has strived to attain more than anyone before her at the cost of lost relationships, integrity and following God’s will for her life.
??? WHAT ARE WE WORKING FOR?
As Erskine also said, “The Preacher does not say that his work and its material rewards are evil. But they are vanities which do not satisfy. They are like cotton candy: all taste and no substance. In the end, the Preacher found he had asked too little from his world and thus received too little from his life. "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. What do we gain from our labors under the sun?"
This is the day set aside several years ago as a reminder that we work for 5-6 days and then take time to rest. Hmmm. Doesn’t that sound like someone else we know? Did not God himself rest on the seventh day?
This Labor Day weekend we are to be thankful for the jobs that we have or have had in the past. Each step we have taken upon the way have changed us in some way or another if we allowed life’s lessons to serve purpose.
You see the author of Ecclesiastes…the Great Preacher Solomon…found that without God and his leading we are nothing and life is meaningless.
This day I would like to challenge you to ponder upon a few things.
1) What do you consider worthwhile in your life?
2) Where do you place your time? Energy? And Money?
3) Will you one day look back and find these things, “Like chasing after the wind?”
Solomon found that we must not build our lives on perishable things but on the solid foundation of God. If we did that one thing of building our lives on the Solid Rock of God…then we would find that if all was taken away tomorrow we would survive leaving our families with something far more than the things of this world. We would still have the God, who is all we really need. Just ask anyone left homeless behind the trails of a horrific tornado or hurricane. Just ask a lone survivor of a plane crash or the child left behind when losing a sibling.
Or even greater than all of those tragic incidents…think of that loved one left behind when God comes to gather the believers in Christ on that last call into His Kingdom?
What are you working for? May we find ourselves working for the Lord in all things and may the labors of our lives bring the promise of eternal life to those around us.
PASTORAL PRAYER…
Most Righteous and Holy God, who is Lord of all the earth and not just the realms of our private prayers and praises, hold before us on this labor day Sunday a vision of justice in the marketplace. Hasten the day when the dollar serves people and people are no longer sacrificed upon its altar. Teach the leaders of industry that a profit earned at someone else's expense is no profit at all. Nourish the harvests of our plenty with the waters of equity. Make the day come soon when the needs of the poor matter more than the wants of the rich, the day when justice and good business are no longer strangers to one another.
O Lord of life and Ruler of all worlds, hear our prayer this labor day Sunday: that owners and workers will lie down together as the lion and the lamb, engaged in common enterprise for the good of all and for the glory of Your creation. In Jesus' name we pray. AMEN
