Enjoying the Process (Pt 2)

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you can take out your copy of God’s Word this morning and turn back to Ecclesiastes chapter 2. There is nothing better, nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. There is nothing better than that. If you read my blogging on this, I think maybe this, the most recent one on Friday was something about, Martha Stewart doesn’t even begin to comprehend this good thing. Because that’s how, you know, that’s her motto or whatever. It’s a good thing. Well, she doesn’t get, this is the best thing.

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. For apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 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 striving after wind. I was reading a blog, somebody else’s blog that I normally check this particular, this past week. This is a blog by a guy who does web design. He’s undoubtedly a pagan, not a Christian, not claiming any kind of religious affiliation whatsoever.

I don’t read it because I think it’s going to satisfy or encourage my soul. I read it because I have a very scratch of the surface kind of interest in web design and blog design, all that different kind of stuff. Anyway, so I was reading this blog and I was noticing the title for one of his posts this week called Fulfilling Your Wishes. And right as soon as I started reading it, I really thought I was gonna get, you know, some good material for my message this morning. And I did get good material, but not in the way I thought. Not in the way that I imagined. He said this, last night while I was driving, I saw a billboard saying that tomorrow’s Florida lottery was for an estimated 15 million.

And like most people, I’m sure thought how nice it would be to have that much money. Right there, I read that first sentence and I thought what I was going to get in the rest of the post was and about how useless that is. I mean, I thought I was going to get from this pagan and understanding that, you know what? It really is more than about 15 mil. I really thought that’s what I was going to get. So I was kind of encouraged. I was like, man, this is going to be good. Even this pagan has a little bit of perspective that life is not all about money and success and all that different kind of stuff. Well, he goes on.

But then I thought if it was nice to win that much money wouldn’t it be better to work towards that goal and why stop at 50 million? What number of dollars would satisfy me? And was I even attempting to work towards that goal? He says this, I know not everyone is infatuated with money. Again, I’m thinking, OK, here’s his shot to change the perspective. I know not everyone is infatuated with money, but I am pretty sure most of you out there have a magic money number in your head that you think about occasionally. The number where you tell yourself, quote, all I need is blank number of dollars, whatever that magic money number is in your head.

all I need is blank and I would be set for the rest of my life, everything would be so much easier. He says, everybody out there has some kind of number in your head that you know if you had that much money, then your life would be great. You’d be set and life would be so much easier. Then his conclusion is, but how many of us are really working to get there and how come everyone isn’t doing so? I was stunned. I don’t know why I really expected that he would have a different perspective, but I really thought he was going to kind of, to use the introduction from last week, get his head up out of the water for a moment and realize life is more than just about your money or your success.

In fact, this guy, who probably is not everybody’s opinion, who’s a pagan, but he assumes that he is everybody’s opinion. He himself figures that that’s what everybody is concerned with. His conclusion was not that money would make him happy, but that enough money would make him happy.

conclusion was that 15 million winning in the lottery was not actually enough. I’m assuming that he would be happy with that if he were to win it. But he thought, you know, why stop at 15 million? And why isn’t everybody? Everybody’s got that number in their head. And I would suggest that even among us, we might be a little bit better off than saying it’s a magic money number, but it’s some fill-in-the-blank kind of thing that we’re looking to that we think as soon as we get that, we’ll be set. As soon as we have this thing, as soon as this event in our life takes place, or as soon as we have this kind of schedule, or or as soon as we have this job or this spouse or any spouse, you know, your standards start to go down as the age starts to go up, maybe.

You know, any spouse or whatever it might be, whatever that blank is for you. If I just had X, if I just had this, then I could have joy. I think almost all of us have one, if not a comma-separated long list of things that go in that blank. If I just had this, I could have happiness. If I just had, you know, whatever it is, then I could enjoy my life. I do think that that is the case for even most of us who are sitting in this room. not just for this pagan guy who makes websites and thinks he needs more than 15 million. That may not be us, but what is the blank for you? What is it that you’re looking to provide that joy?

Last week, we began by considering the superlative prospect of joy in toil. And I don’t really wanna go back through everything that we mentioned about that. But we got that right from the very first part of verse 24. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. And you see there what he is describing, the kind of life and lifestyle he’s describing where joy is possible. And this is a superlative prospect. There is nothing better. It doesn’t get higher. Your blank can’t be better than what he’s describing to you right here. Eating, drinking, being content with what you have, and finding enjoyment in your toil, in what you do each and every day regardless of what that is.

And I spent a long period of time kind of fleshing out some of the things that I thought stood out by not being in there. For example, I’ll just give you that list real quick. Joy comes in toil. It comes in work. Not in avoiding work, not in a vacation from work, not in the weekend. Joy comes in toil. Second, joy in your toil doesn’t depend on what kind of toil it is. It doesn’t depend in this passage on what you do. In fact, it says for a person to find enjoyment in his toil. The implication is whatever your job is, whatever you do, in His toil, a person, there’s nothing better than to get enjoyment out of that.

And I actually gave you a rundown of maybe some of the kinds of people who would have originally been hearing this message from the preacher. And the kind of lifestyle and the kind of work and the kind of exhaustion, the kind of chaos that they would have been facing in their own lives and their own responsibilities and said, look, none of us today have it any tougher than any of them did. We may have some unique challenges, but I tell you what, so did they. And I mentioned things like no running water, no electricity, inability to communicate with one another in a, you know, pretty much instantaneous fashion, almost anywhere in the world.

I mean, we’re going to go to Canada this week. We’re going to the outer edges of the earth. And we’ll still be able to call back and talk to Maggie any time we want. We’re going to have wireless internet access in our little room. Woo. You know? Can you imagine? You’re a shepherd. And you’re out, you know, miles away from home. And you know, you just pull your laptop out of your bag and maybe get your little webcam going and you know, talk with your family at home. Yeah, real tough day. Three or four wolves came, attacked the flock, but you know, they taste real good that we’re having them for dinner. Tell the kids, love them, good night.

You know, they didn’t have that option and all that related to it. Doesn’t matter what kind of work you do, what kind of difficulties are involved in that work. The point is to find enjoyment in whatever your toil is. I mentioned thirdly, that joy doesn’t depend on whether your work is successful or whether you finish it, at least in this passage. Look, there is no doubt that when you finish a project, there is a sense of relief. There is a sense of joy that it is done. But I tell you what, that is not lasting joy. It’s not a substantial kind of life-motivating joy to finish projects because life is way more about doing the projects than it is about finishing them.

Because as soon as you finish one, then somebody’s got something else for you to do. Or you yourself assign yourself another task. Now I mentioned this when we started Ecclesiastes. I love at about 12.05 on Sunday afternoon. That’s a good time for me. Because I have just released the burden onto all of you. You know, I work and study and pray and think and type and write and blah blah blah all during the week. And then for 45 minutes to an hour, I share what I’ve learned. And I’m cranky leading up to that because I’m working so hard, I want to make it good, I want to make it right, I want to be accurate, I want God to get the glory out of it.

at 12.05, things are good. Somewhere, that generally lasts somewhere between 15 minutes, that joy, between 15 minutes, sometimes it doesn’t even get that long as I’m walking up to my office and somebody else catches me on the way and tells me the things that they need me to do for them. But it doesn’t take too long before I start thinking about, well, now there’s Wednesday night sermon. There’s next Sunday sermon. And there’s a lot more of Ecclesiastes after next Sunday sermon. You know, it’s an ongoing kind of thing. And if I was depending on finishing, if I was depending on success in a project, any joy that I would have would probably be pretty short-lived.

Not really sustaining kind of joy, which is, I think, the kind of joy that Solomon is saying is a prospect here. Doesn’t come from finishing it or being successful in it. Nothing in this passage forth, I said, depends on the paycheck for your work. There’s nothing here about renumeration, about just get a raise and then it will be better. Nothing about that. Nothing about recognition for your work. You know, some of us would say things like, well, you know, I don’t really need the money, but it sure would be nice if they’d just, you know, sink me. All they gotta do is just say thanks. I don’t need a raise, I don’t need more money.

Just some appreciation. And you know what? If your joy… can I give you one to grow on? If your joy depends on other people’s pat on your back, then you might as well die right now because you’re not going to get that kind of joy in a sustaining kind of way. Ladies, as godly as your husband will hope to be, he will fail to properly express appreciation and value for all that you do for him all of the time. And if you are depending on his approval and recognition for your lasting joy, you’re not going to get it. I mean, yes, that’s no excuse for us guys or those who are already husbands to not be expressing thanks and appreciation.

I’m just saying, if that’s what you depend on for your joy, you’re going to be sad. And vice versa. Guys, if you’re just waiting for your wife to tell you what a stud you are and how much, you know, you’re a world beater, you know, and nothing going to stop you now, I mean, if you’re depending on that or you’re depending on your boss, your employer, or you’re depending on the people who work for you to reciprocate that back. I mean, life is not about getting thanks. I mean we should be giving thanks to other people, yes, but life is not about us receiving thanks. That is not where the prospect of joy is found. If I could just get somebody to be telling me how great I was and how awesome what I do is every day, man I’m kind of weak, so I’ll probably need it about every 10 minutes.

If I could just set somebody’s alarm reminder to go off on their Palm Pilot every 10 minutes to come and tell me how good of a job I’m doing, then I could be happy. I mean, that’s ridiculous. And Solomon here is not including that in how the prospect of joy is available anyway. Because that’s not where it’s found. It’s found in our work. It’s found in enjoying the process. Whether we get paid, whether we’re recognized, and no matter what it is. Whether you are a junior hire who’s doing schoolwork and chores, or whether you’re the provider of income for your household, or whether you’re the one who’s managing the household, joy is found in the process, the superlative prospect of joy and toil.

I do want to point out, as we move on into point number two, that while there is nothing better than joy in our work, that joy is only a prospect, not a guarantee. You are not guaranteed to get joy out of your toil. It’s only a possibility, it’s a potential, it’s a hope.

And that brings us to point number two, which is the sovereign source of joy in toil. the sovereign source of joy in toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God. For apart from Him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? And here’s the thing, joy is not a guarantee, it is a gift. Being able to enjoy the process is not a guarantee, it is a gift and God God is the provider. The preacher, Solomon, explains that enjoyment of your work, enjoyment of the process, comes from the hand of God. We don’t typically use that kind of terminology anymore, but occasionally somebody might say they had their hand in something. If I say I had my hand in a meeting and I had my hand in the decision, that means that I was a part of it in some way.

The idea of getting our hands into it or getting our hands dirty is the idea of personal involvement in whatever the task is. Solomon says here that joy in the process is from the hand of God. It is a personal activity, a direct work of God to bring joy to us in the midst of the process. In the case of joy, God’s hand is also the only hand that matters. Enjoying the process, enjoyment of toil is from the hand of God and from the hand of God alone. He then is in control of who gets joy. I don’t know if I like that on one level, speaking as in the flesh. I don’t know if I like that it’s up to God whether or not I have joy, because that means it’s out of my hands.

It’s out of my control and my decision. It’s up to God. And that’s why I say that this is the sovereign source. God is absolutely sovereign. He is dependent on no one else and on nothing else. He is completely sovereign in this bestowing or giving of joy. And He is the only source of this joy. If you don’t like that God is the sovereign giver of it, it’s not like you can go to some other source. This is the only place it comes from and he is absolutely and utterly the one who is in charge. That means that the fruit of your labor is not always enjoyment. That means you can work and you can work and you can work and you can do some more work, and there is no guarantee that you’re going to have joy.

That sounds like vanity. sounds like meaningless repetition. I can work and work and work and there’s no guarantee of anything? That’s exactly right. God is the one who gives it. Enjoyment is a gift of God that he gives to one and not to another. A guy named Doug Wilson. If you’re familiar with Doug Wilson at all, you know he has some colorful ways of speaking. This is a great comment. He says this, God is the one who gives things, and God is the one who gives the power to enjoy things. These are distinct gifts, just as a can of peaches and a can opener are distinct gifts. that one sink in for just a moment. Now let’s just talk about me giving you a can of peaches.

Let’s say you’re starving and I give you a can of peaches. That’s a gift from me to you. Talk about a vain and empty gift if I don’t also give you the can opener to get into the can of peaches. That’s a beautiful illustration of just a plain old everyday God is the one who gives things and God is the one who gives enjoyment of things. Distinct gifts just as the difference between a can of peaches and a can opener are distinct gifts. Only the first is given to the unbeliever. The believer is given both which is simply another way of saying that God has given us the capacity for enjoyment. Verse 25 makes it even clearer, moving on into a rhetorical question in this sovereign source of Julian Toil.

For, apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? And this rhetorical question reminds us of what we instinctively know. We know the answer to this question, that’s why he doesn’t need to then say, no one. He doesn’t need to spell that out. We get it. Apart from Him, no one can have enjoyment. God is in control and therefore joy depends on Him. Apart from Him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? And that means that better personal time management is not the guarantee of gladness. It’s not. It may be part of what God uses, but in and of itself, an unbeliever can be the most precise, on time, getting every task done kind of person and get no joy, no meaningful lasting joy out of that if God doesn’t also give the gift of enjoyment.

Working harder is not a guarantee to make you happier. Being smarter is not the promised source of joy. God is. I was thinking about it last week and this week. I get joy, and I keep confirming this with other people, I get joy out of something that most people don’t. And that’s probably true in a couple different areas of life, but the one that has particularly been on my mind is running on a treadmill. I enjoy running on a treadmill. My wife got me a treadmill a couple years ago, almost two years ago now, and maybe I am on that thing, and I love running on the treadmill. I would rather run on a treadmill than outside on the most gorgeous Seattle Pacific Northwest day you could imagine, which for me would be cloudy and rainy and windy anyway.

I would rather 10 times out of 10. There is not even a 9 times out of 10 for me. 10 times out of 10, I would rather be running on my treadmill. I like the exercise. I like being in the same place. I can think more than rather thinking about whether a dog is going to come bite me. It provides some cushion rather than the concrete or it’s flat rather than if I was running through the grass or whatever it might be. I love running on my treadmill and I’m honest about this. That is a gift of God to me. Most people that I know detest a treadmill. And if somebody even likes running at all, they like running outside. It’s a gift to love, to exercise.

It only profits a little. It doesn’t change your eternal destiny. past week I ran 42 miles on my treadmill. My longest day, my longest for any one day was 12 miles. I ran those 12 miles on the treadmill on Wednesday morning. So I figured that out. I probably was on the treadmill this week somewhere around a total of 7 hours. a long time. And you know what? I’m happy to do it again this week, even though it’s in Canada. And that is a gift of God. It’s enjoyable to me. It’s not constant drudgery. That’s why a treadmill is so often used as an illustration of monotony. Doing a bunch of work and going nowhere with no change of scenery, you know, nothing to stimulate your mind and make it interesting.

And not only do I get joy out of, you know, running, you know, it’s not like I’m running away from a lion that’s chasing me, you know, like it’s necessary. It’s just good exercise. Maybe it’s keeping me healthier. I tell you what though, if I die tomorrow from a heart attack, I will still have enjoyed all the time I spent on the treadmill. It’s not about for me making sure that I live really long. I don’t need to live really long. I don’t really need to live a lot longer at all. Like going to heaven is going to be better. I’m pretty sure about that. So, the doctor tells me tomorrow, you know, I walk in, I go to the doctor, and he says, you’re a big fatty.

You’re going to die because your heart is not right. I’m like, dude, I just ran. I’m going to tread them up for like seven hours last week. And he says, well, that’s not what you need. You need to do this other thing. Chew gum or whatever. The point is it’s boring on one hand, I guess. It’s repetitious. And you know what? I get joy out of it. I consider that a gift of God. And I think that that’s an illustration of the kind of joy that is available, that is God-given for any task and toil that we have to do. I’m convinced that that is exactly what he’s saying here. It doesn’t matter what it is. You can get joy out of the most simple, basic, exhausting, wearisome work that you do, God is actually more powerful than whatever that job is to infuse joy into your heart.

Only Christians, and I realize that there weren’t Christians per se at the time that Solomon wrote this, but only Christians at this point are unable to have that kind of perspective. God gives that to his people. We’ll see that in just a moment. One more thing about the sovereign source of joy. And this is again from Doug Wilson. He says, quote, this is meaningless. Work in particular is meaningless prior to the gift of God which makes it enjoyable. The gift of God does not make this meaninglessness go away. The gift of God makes this vanity enjoyable. He is not infusing success into your widget making. He is giving you the power to enjoy doing the work of making widgets or digging ditches or writing a research paper or whatever it might be.

This gift of God does not change the chaos and the craziness and the late nights and early mornings and the exhaustion and the running on the treadmill. God’s gift does not change that. He changes our perspective and our ability to enjoy the chaos and the vanity. That leads to the third and final point, the simple qualification of joy and toil. Joy is not given to everyone. There are two types of people then. Those who get the joy and those who don’t. And in verse 26, we see the difference between these two types of people. For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and what? Joy to the one who pleases him.

But to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to the one who pleases God.” This also is vanity and striving after wind. This is one of the key words, the simha, the joy. God gives wisdom and knowledge, but so far wisdom and knowledge haven’t guaranteed anything in the book of Ecclesiastes. So it’s nice that he gives wisdom and knowledge to those who please him, but Solomon has already said wisdom has relative value, but not ultimate lasting meaningful value. This is the word that’s different about the paragraph from the rest of the book is the word joy, gladness of heart, festivity of heart, pleasure.

It comes at the end of the list here because it’s the turning point. But what we’ve got to answer is, who are these ones who please God? If these are the ones who get the joy, who are they? And maybe then more specifically, how does a person please God? How do we get into this category of joy receivers? Because it’s great to know that joy is the superlative prospect. It’s the best thing that’s out there. It’s good to know that God is the giver, the source of it, but okay, that’s all good. How do I get it? Is there something that I can do to enable me to at least be in a position to receive it from the sovereign giver of it?

How does a person please God? And at this point, we could probably run all through the Old and New Testament and look at verses that describe the kind of people who please God, right? You know, without faith, it is impossible to please God. I mean, there it is right there in Hebrews. We could run all over and start cross-referencing here and there to figure out what kind of people pleased God. But Hebrews was not written when Solomon explained this. Solomon figured that whatever he meant by it, people would be able to figure out from what he gave him right here. So our task is to see if we can figure out who are the kind of people who please God from this paragraph or from this book, from this message.

Well, I think that the answer is here. Who are the kind of people who please Him, who please God? I can’t come up with anything other than outlook. Your outlook on life. perspective on life. And included then in that outlook and that perspective are priorities and goals, dependence, trust, all those kinds of things. Those who please God are those who submit their lives to God and who do their work for God. It’s a change of outlook. There’s nothing here about praying a prayer, about believing in Jesus, though obviously we know that that’s part of what it’s going to describe in the New Testament that is included, but to Solomon’s readers, or the ones who are getting his message here, I think he’s saying that the ones who please God are the ones who are living for God.

It’s the ones who are submitting to God’s sovereignty, not the ones who are trying to be sovereign themselves. It’s the ones who are looking to God and depending on Him for the joy and the strength to do the toil. Those are the kind of people, that’s the kind of relationship then, living in dependence on God. Those are the kind of people who please God. All of their calendar appointments, all of their to-do list, all of their roles, all of their goals are under God. Now conveniently, there is a program by Arch Enemy Microsoft called Outlook. Right? And Outlook, how many of you are familiar with Outlook? seen it or you use it, something like that. Outlook is a great name. I love the name from the beginning. Outlook is a program that you put all of your personal data information into. And so it’s a one-stop shop for what appointments, what meetings, you put your calendar in there, and then you also have a place for your task list and all the different things, you can categorize them and prioritize them and put them all in there.

And then you got another spot where you can put just notes that you need to keep and depending on what time management system you use, you know, always encourage you to think about your roles, the different hats that you wear and all the different priorities that you need to put in place because of your roles and how that impacts your calendar and your task list and the priority of all those things. If it gives you a place to put your goals, what you’re trying to accomplish with your life, it is then your outlook, your life perspective. And I tell you what, those who please God are those who in their outlook, everything underneath it is looking to God.

There is no task to the God-pleased. There is no task that is outside of that umbrella of God. There is no contact, no address book, no person that you know, no relationship you can have horizontally that is not impacted by God. There is no calendar appointment, no visitation, no event that you can participate in that ought to be then out of underneath God. Those are the ones who live their lives managing everything in their life under him. Those are the kind of people who please him. It’s a perspective. It’s an outlook. And this is exactly what Solomon was stopping doing. This is exactly what he had failed to do in his description of however many years it took for him to pursue the wisdom and think life was in wisdom.

For him to pursue pleasure. what makes this paragraph different, not only that there’s joy, but that God is back at the center. The one who pleases God is the one who has God at the center of their life. And it touches everything that they do. And this is otherworldly kind of living. This is having loves that are beyond the sun. This is storing up treasure in heaven. This is making much of him. That was the last song we sang. I want to make much of you. And the biggest reason why we probably don’t have joy is because we’re busy trying to do something that is ultimately futile. And what is that? Making much of us.

It is no wonder that we don’t have joy in our toil because we anticipate that at the end of our toil, we will be made much of. And we will be able to quantify that by looking at our bank statement, or by looking at our mantle of trophies, or by the clamoring crowds who can’t wait to get our advice and be our friends, give us stuff. And we think that in our work, we’ll make much of us. And you want to talk about an empty endeavor. That’s it right there. Trying to make something that is not worth anything in and of itself. No wonder we are frustrated. We are set about to an ultimately frustrating task, an impossible task, if our goal is to make much of ourselves. But here’s the thing, no matter what you do, whether you’re writing a research paper, no matter whether you spend hours writing your research paper, no matter what your grade on that paper is, no matter how many hours you spend shoveling gravel from one pile to another, no matter how many miles you are on the treadmill, no matter the result, no matter the paycheck, if your goal in doing

that is to make much of him, you can be successful. You can actually make much of him in any in any task you do. You can make much of him scraping gum off of the floor. You can make much of him doing the dishes. You can make much of him whatever your toil and work is. You can be successful in that and those are the kind of people who have joy. Those are the kind of people that God gives joy to who have him at the center of their life and who are living for him. This is not really Saying that we’re looking for something other than success, it’s just a different standard of success. I still want to have a successful life, but I’m defining success as being able to make much of him, not much of me.

You can make money and you cannot make money and still be successful if you’re making much of him. You can make minimum wage or you can make a six-figure-a-year salary. Either way, you can make much of Him. If that is your standard and your understanding of success, there is great possibility of your joy. Think about this. God values, if God is the sovereign giver of joy, and we’re interested in those who please Him, because those are the kinds of people He gives joy to, these are the people who then have God at the center of their lives. These are the people who prioritize what God prioritizes. Just a brainstorm list.

God values faithfulness, not success. Nobody gets into heaven and is pleasing Him because they won 8 million people to Christ, compared to Jeremiah, who won nobody. It’s not based on numbers and success. It’s based on faithfulness to keep obeying. God values obedience, not results. God values our trust. This is, I think this is a good one. God values our trust in Him, not our abilities. God doesn’t value our independence. It pleases Him when we are dependent on Him. In fact, if God valued our abilities, it would really be His job to try to make much out of us too. But the fact is, we don’t have anything that we haven’t been given.

He doesn’t value our abilities and our wisdom and our strength. He values our trust in Him. God values our pure hearts more than our clean desks. God values our love of Him, not our love of ourselves. So living life from Him and through Him and to Him is what pleases Him and there is no greater joy possible than when He is at the center of your life, whatever it is that you’re doing. But to the sinner, He has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to one who pleases God. Now that’s a miserable lot. I mean to the sinner, to the one who doesn’t have God at the center of life, who isn’t Living for God is not concerned with God.

To that person, God has given them something too. Do you see that God is still the sovereign source? It’s not like to one God has given joy and to the other He just lets them alone. To one God gives joy, to the other God gives it to them and it’s worse. This is a giving of judgment. It is judgment. It is punishment that God gives to those who don’t have Him at the center of their lives, that they work and toil and labor, and then they die. That is not just empty and vanity. That is painful punishment. God has given the business of gathering and collecting. The result of all the sinner’s work here is not joy or success, but vanity.

The word business. God has given the business. He’s given the task. He’s given the job. And the idea is that this is a frustrating, wearisome, burdensome work. The business He has given them is gathering and collecting. And this is, you know, I can’t think of a better way to kind of heap up the idea of just monotonous, tedious, boring stuff gathering and collecting. Whether you’re gathering money, whether you’re gathering kernels of corn, whether you’re gathering whatever it is, accumulating it up. You know? That’s the race, trying to get what we can, grab all that we can. God has given you 60 seconds in the grocery store.

You run around and you put everything in your cart that you can and then you don’t get to keep any of it. And then you do it again. You don’t get to keep any of it. It doesn’t bring you happiness, it doesn’t bring you joy, and that is a punishment, that is a judgment on those who don’t have God at the core. He is not part of their outlook. So, unenjoyed work is God’s judgment. God’s hand is just as much involved in this part of the process as God’s hand is a part of giving joy to those who please Him. The sinner keeps on gathering and collecting week after week with no end in sight and no meaningful enjoyment of it.

Not only that, unenjoyed work is God’s judgment, but God uses his enemies for his own sake. There is actually a result for the sinner is that all their stuff goes to the ones who please God. Solomon doesn’t say when that happens or exactly how that happens, but he does summarize that that’s the bottom line. God is storing up more and more good stuff for the ones who please Him and taking it away from those who don’t. Well, that’s not fair. Well, we are not God. And it is exactly by saying it’s not fair that shows God is not at the center of our lives. And we would rather be in control and make the decisions and have it depend on us rather than for us to humbly depend on Him. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

I don’t think that this is a summary on the whole paragraph. I think it’s a summary on verse 26 that in particular the last part there right before this is vanity. It’s a summary on the sinner’s frustration. That is a painful kind of emptiness. Well, as I Lack of joy is not a vocational problem. It’s a theological one. Lack of joy is not an issue of paycheck, but of perspective. Your lack of joy is not dependent on you. It’s probably because you’re not depending on God. And so, what is that blank for you today? What is it that you’re looking for, you’re hoping on, that you yourself are providing or you’re just hoping that you’re going to win the lottery and that’s going to do it. Right here we see how our heads can be up above the water, how we can breathe, how we can have joy, and it is by having God doing everything under God, having Him at the center of our lives, depending on Him to give us that joy regardless of what task He has us doing at the moment.

And Father, this is Your gift, and the most we can do is ask. So we do. We ask for Your help to have this kind of outlook and perspective to prioritize each and everything in our lives for Your sake to make much of You. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.