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Finding Meaning on Monday Morning

Wisdom for the Heart / Dr. Stephen Davey
The Truth Network Radio
December 12, 2024 12:00 am

Finding Meaning on Monday Morning

Wisdom for the Heart / Dr. Stephen Davey

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December 12, 2024 12:00 am

Do you dread Monday mornings, feeling like your work is pointless? King Solomon, one of the wisest and wealthiest figures in history, experienced the same frustration. Despite his incredible achievements and dream jobs, Solomon came to a startling conclusion: work, no matter how impressive, doesn’t satisfy without God. In this episode, we’ll dive into Solomon’s personal journal, Ecclesiastes, and explore why he declared his work empty and meaningless. Learn how recognizing your job as a gift from God can bring true joy and purpose. Whether you’re coding, roofing, or managing a household, discover why Monday mornings can shift from burdensome to blessed when approached with gratitude and devotion. If you’ve ever struggled to find fulfillment in your work, this episode will guide you toward a new perspective. Don’t miss this deep yet practical exploration of what brings real satisfaction in life.

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So here's the contrasting perspective from Solomon's journal. Without God, Monday morning is just another meaningless arrival, but with God, Monday morning is another assignment. Without God, Monday morning is senseless and you get old enough and you realize he really is.

But with God, it becomes sacred. Without God, Monday morning is just another act of drudgery. With God, Monday morning gives opportunities for more devotion.

Do you ever wonder why Monday mornings can feel so empty? King Solomon, with all his wisdom and wealth, wrestled with this too. In today's message, we'll explore his revelations on work, fulfillment, and purpose. Solomon found that no job or success satisfied his deepest need.

He learned that everything accomplished under the sun is fleeting without God's presence. What happens when we shift our mindset to see work as a gift from God? Stay tuned as we uncover how to bring true meaning to your work week and transform Monday morning from drudgery to devotion. I came across an article recently by a career guidance service that has analyzed 200 jobs in our culture and then ranked them from best to worst. The best jobs, they called dream jobs, and the worst jobs, they called non-dream jobs. If you wanted to live the dream, you needed to follow their advice, I suppose. According to their analysis, among the top dream jobs were software engineers, financial planners, occupational therapists, and others. The non-dream jobs, according to them, were dishwashers, meter readers, and roofers. If you wanted a dream job, work on a computer, not on a roof. This isn't really new.

In fact, none of that's true. A few years ago, excavations uncovered in Egypt a school text. It had been originally scribbled down by students 1,700 years before the birth of the Lord, and they were copying down a text that had been assigned them, and the text was really career counseling. It was encouraging them to become scribes to get into academia and avoid other jobs. The text discouraged them from other occupations like, and I quote, a small building contractor who carries mud, dirtier than pigs he becomes from all that mud. Another line discouraged them from becoming embalmers, quote, whose fingers are foul for the odor thereof. Another line warned them of becoming laundry men because they would be washing the laundry on the river next to the crocodile who could eat them. So the dream job would not be doing laundry or working at a funeral home or putting up a building.

The dream job would be becoming a scribe, a teacher, a writer. Frankly, nothing's changed in thousands of years. There are still those giving advice on what would give fulfillment, what would be the dream job, and if you just had it, then you'd really have it. Frankly, to this day, Monday morning is probably the most frustrating time in anybody's calendar as they go back to work, as they drive or walk or whatever wondering is this really it. Of course, the bigger issue is that the world is desperately trying to find some kind of meaning for living, and they're trying to find it on Monday morning.

They're trying to pursue it, and maybe they'd catch it if they add another one, a different one, when the frustration is only building. In fact, one journal article I came across reported that work is dominating Americans' lives like never before. Workers are piling on hours at a rate not seen since the Industrial Revolution, but it's really not bringing fulfillment. The article reported employees are feeling more and more insecure and unfulfilled. Work, and this is from a secular journal, work is not satisfying life's deepest needs.

Well, that's not news, and that's not new, frankly. Solomon discovered that centuries before those Egyptian schoolboys ever wrote down the advice they were given to avoid doing the laundry, and I'm all about that advice, by the way, in case you're wondering. If anybody had a dream job, Solomon had it. You couldn't come up with a more dreamy occupation than the one he had, and yet what he says about his career might surprise you. So take your copy of Solomon's private journal called the Book of Ecclesiastes if you're new to our study, and go to chapter 2 where we left off, and while you're turning, let me tell you ahead of time, Solomon is going to basically announce that he's had a lot of jobs, but none of them brought him any kind of fulfillment.

None of them brought satisfaction. We're at chapter 2, and let's pick it up at verse 18. Just the first phrase where Solomon blurts out, I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun. You could paraphrase this to read, I hated every job I ever had.

Thank you, Solomon. Tell us how you really feel. That's how we really feel.

Maybe you've arrived here. Maybe that's how you're feeling right now. Glad I have a job, but I hate it. I dread the next shift. I dread clocking in tomorrow morning just the thought of getting in the car and heading to that job just makes my spirit sink.

Think about all the jobs you had. Solomon's an old man, and he's sort of looking backward at all the jobs he ever had, and he comes to the conclusion, I didn't like any of them. None of them satisfied. Solomon is looking back and he's saying he's filled with this hate. By the way, the word for hate is a word in the Hebrew language that can be translated disgust or intense dislike. There's not a job on the planet I've ever had, he says, that I didn't intensely dislike.

Why was that? Well, he's going to give us several reasons why he hated Monday morning, so to speak, and every day after that. Here's why everything he'd ever done left him unfulfilled. Let me give you the first one.

I'm going to give you four of them, but let me give you in principle form the first reason why. Number one, because he's going to leave behind everything he's earned and accomplished. Look at verse 18 again. I hated all my toil in which I toil unto the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me. Everything he'd rattled off earlier in his journal about all those parks, all those gardens, all those orchards, all those vineyards, all those houses, it's hitting him. As an old man, it's confronting him that now somebody else is going to vacation in that park, somebody else is going to move this furniture into my house a day after I die.

I'm going to leave it all behind. Solomon really didn't want to share it with anybody. You remember, if he'd been with us, he really wants it all for himself. Earlier in this chapter, remember how he emphasized in his journal the word I, me, myself? He says, I build houses and planted vineyards for myself. He writes in verse four, I gathered for myself silver and gold. It was all mine.

It was all for me. So what's driving him to distraction is the fact that he's going to leave every bit of that behind to somebody else, and it distresses him. The second reason Solomon is feeling entirely unfulfilled is that he can't guarantee that what he leaves behind will be managed well. Look at verse 19, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool?

Who knows if he's going to not handle this or not, yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom unto the Son. This also is vanity. This is vanity. This is frustration.

This is futility. He's basically saying, oh, the futility of the thought that somebody is going to inherit everything that I've accomplished, and they're probably not going to have the street smarts. They're probably not going to have the business savvy to manage it as well as I've managed it. He's concerned that an unworthy heir is going to take everything and inherit what he's built. There are many Old Testament scholars that I've been researching for our studies, and most of them believe that he has Rehoboam in mind when he writes this. His younger son or the son he has that's going to sit on the throne is arrogant, spoiled, foolish. Solomon is worried that his legacy isn't going to last one generation. Well, let me tell you, if he only knew his worries, it ain't going to last a week.

By the time you get to about day 10 after the death of Solomon, Rehoboam blows it all away. Can't help but think of the newspapers today that are filled with the stories of wealthy heirs that squander the inheritances of their parents who slaved away and decades of difficulty and hard work and they inherited and they just partied away. But what about somebody that didn't want to carry on the legacy you've established? They're not necessarily going to partied away, but they just couldn't care less about what you've done with your life. What if they don't care about parks? What if they don't care about palaces? They want to live outdoors in backpacks. What if they don't care about vineyards or orchards?

They don't want any of that. What then? One of the authors I'm reading in my study wrote about his childhood out, he had this neighborhood store in his area where he lived. Maybe you had one of those.

I had one of those as well. He said it was open early in the morning. Didn't close until late at night. That man kept that store running seven days a week. He wrote, I never saw that man outside that store except at the crack of dawn when he was walking his dog. Other than that, he lived in there. His wife every so often would come over and be behind the counter. This man had devoted his entire life to that little neighborhood store. In fact, he died in that store helping a customer. This author writes in his early 20s, this man passed away and a few days later that store was up for sale and that man's wife was showing everybody the brochure of the cruise she was going to take around the world with the money she got from that store and he said he could almost hear that proprietor rolling over in his grave. Solomon is driven to distraction. What's going to happen to this business?

What's going to happen to those parks, these houses, that palace, this kingdom? It's driven him to hate Monday morning, so to speak, and every day. He can't find fulfillment and he's terribly worried about what happens after he's gone. Thirdly, Solomon writes this in principle for him. He can't enjoy his accomplishments because they will be enjoyed by somebody who didn't work for them. And again, Solomon is self-absorbed here. He's not our example, but he still put it out there and he's putting it in writing when a lot of people think.

Maybe we think it as well. Look at verse 20. 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 is toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed, keyword there, enjoyed by somebody who didn't toil for it. They didn't slave over it.

They didn't sweat over it. They're going to enjoy it. This also is vanity and a great evil.

I mean, he says this just isn't right. Somebody's going to enjoy apples from that orchard who didn't plant that tree. Somebody's going to stroll through that park that didn't spend hours building it.

I spent hours designing those palaces with the architects. And as soon as I'm dead, somebody's going to move their furniture in the bedroom. I mean, this can't be right.

You see, Solomon is old enough and he's giving us practical wisdom from his journal. But why would this bother him so much? So what if somebody eats apples from a tree you planted they didn't? So what if somebody enjoys a stroll through a park and you planted the flowers?

So what if somebody moves into that house you built? Why is that such a big problem to Solomon driving him to such distraction? Well, we're given a clue in his fourth complaint.

And here's the complaint in principle form. Then we'll look at the text. Number four, he worked around the clock to buy everything he could which left him little time to enjoy anything he had. That's why.

That's why the key word is enjoyment. Look at verse 22. 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 maddening frustration.

You can translate it. Even in the night, his heart doesn't rest. He's got his cell phone on. He's answering an email. Here's the swish of it coming into his phone. Can't turn it off.

Even at night, his heart doesn't rest. This also is futility. You see, here's the point. Solomon never enjoyed those apples. Solomon never enjoyed taking a stroll through that park. He never enjoyed his palaces. He's like one of the kings of Great Britain I learned recently who centuries ago built a palace he never once visited. It was beautiful.

Right by the river. See, the problem isn't with palaces. It isn't with possessions. The problem is priorities. The problem isn't with our things. The problem is with our thinking. Let me put it this way.

It's not wrong to have things money can buy unless you have no interest in things money cannot buy. Solomon has excluded God from the equation. He can't then enjoy whatever it is he's been building. He can't just sit down and enjoy the view because he's squandering and he's squandered decades of his life without God.

Maybe I'll find meaning on Monday if I work harder, if I move faster, if I get up earlier, maybe significance will greet me when I clock in. Not a chance. Now with that as backdrop, Solomon makes this surprising turn in his journal. He's going to do it six times.

This is the first of six times. He's going to straighten everything out. He's going to move away from his testimony and he's going to tell us what's right and what he should do. Then he's going to go back to his testimony in his years of wandering. So let me take what he's going to give us and put them in two principled forms as we go through the rest of this chapter.

Here's the first principle. Your station in life is a gift from the hand of God. Look at verse 24. There's 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, you exclude him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? This is the first time you notice Solomon talks about really truly enjoying anything. He hasn't enjoyed anything. He's had pleasures, but not enjoyment. And suddenly he's talking here about enjoying your meal, your food, your job. One author wrote that this is kind of like a beam of light, a shaft of light, inspired light, you know, beaming through, breaking through the gloom of this journal. Solomon hates his job and now he enjoys his job.

What made the difference? God. The perspective that God has brought this about, that I'm in the hand of God, that I'm receiving what I have from God, that to God alone belongs glory for whatever is accomplished and I can enjoy this because God is allowing me to experience it. This is the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy that God gives us all things to enjoy. 1 Timothy 6.17. It's a gift from the hand of God, which means a satisfied life can be found when you stop looking for another one. Life that truly satisfies can only be found and enjoyed when we stop looking for another one. Demanding from God another one, but accepting what God has given us and making the most of it. Williams translates it this way as he records 1 Corinthians 7.17 where Paul is encouraging the Corinthian believers and he writes, everyone needs to continue to live in the station where the Lord has assigned him. Now that doesn't mean you can't change your job.

You might long for the day when you can quit that job working on computer code and be up there on that roof with that guy shingling, man that is the job. It's like that pilot who wrote his own testimony I read some time ago and he said when I was a little boy I'd be fishing down there at that stream and it was in the corridor of an international airport and when those planes flew overhead I'd look up and he said oh I long to one day be flying and he said now as a pilot I fly over that stream and I think oh how I long to be fishing. We find our satisfaction in the hand of God who is ultimately shepherding our lives. Principle number two, your station in life should produce gratitude for the grace of God. He writes in verse 26 for to the one who pleases him don't misunderstand that Hebrews 11 tells us that without faith it is impossible to please him. So he's talking about the believer who's in relationship with him. God has what given wisdom and knowledge and joy but to the unredeemed, the sinner, the unbeliever he has given the business of gathering and collecting and in other words that's all the lover do is work nine to five or nine to nine or look forward to the weekend and dread Monday that's all they'll get. They've excluded God from the equation all they'll ever do is gather and collect. Then he makes this veiled reference which is another study but at least let me mention it here of the redeemed one day inheriting the earth where he says this he has given the business to the unbeliever of gathering and collecting only to give to the one who pleases him, the one in relationship to him where Jesus would say in Matthew chapter five the meek, the believer will one day inherit the earth. All they do who deny him is gather and collect only to lose it all in the end. Solomon writes this also is vanity and a striving after wind.

The only thing they'll ever get is a fistful of air. So here's the contrasting perspective from Solomon's journal. We could apply it and translate it into the vernacular of our lives to this day. Without God Monday morning is just another meaningless arrival but with God Monday morning is another assignment. Without God Monday morning is senseless and you get old enough and you realize he really is.

But with God it becomes sacred. Without God Monday morning is just another act of drudgery. With God Monday morning gives opportunities for more devotion. See Monday morning work can be just as meaningful as Sunday morning worship. The problem is we have to revive that reformation doctrine of vocation. Have you ever thought about the fact that nowhere in your Bible is the phrase full-time Christian service?

Nowhere. Why? Because every one of us are full-time in Christian service. So whatever you're doing, writing code or doing laundry, a roofer or a dishwasher, that's your assignment for now from God. He may shepherd you in a different direction one day.

For now that's it. Make the most of it. Take that assignment on and then by the way that you serve and the way that you work demonstrate that which builds a bridge into the lives of those around you because they can't understand why you would ever show up on Monday morning with a song instead of a sigh.

I saw that played out yesterday in real life. Yesterday I had to drop off a package at the post office, the little one down here on Tryon Road. Nobody knows it's there.

Don't you start going there. The lines are very short. About two or three of us in there. There's only one guy working behind the counter. I put him at his late 20s, early 30s. I'd never seen him before. And I could hear music playing in the background, couldn't make out, you know, what it was. Every once in a while he would just sort of absentmindedly as he's working just kind of sing one of the phrases. I couldn't make out what he was singing but he just, he was having a great time. When it was my turn at the counter I joked with him that the post office ought to double his salary because he's not only serving us but doing it with a song.

That was fantastic. He kind of laughed and waved my package and sang another line. And then I realized it was a Christian song. It was a Christian artist coming out of his little boombox he had there with a CD in there. I stood there thinking, wow, this guy's singing.

Doesn't he know he's working in the post office? How many people are going to show up with joy and a song on their lips? And I wanted to say something but really couldn't think of anything to say. He handed me my receipt after a couple of seconds and he looked at me and he said, hey, God is in total control of everything. All I could say was amen, brother.

Amen to that. You see, that guy had taken God to work with him. God had clocked in right along with him.

So instead of a sigh, he had a song. And he's delivering to his world as God gives him opportunity. The message Solomon writes here, everything is from the hand of God. God is in control, which means the only life that satisfies is the life that finds its satisfaction and its meaning. Not in Monday morning, but in him.

That was Stephen Davey and this is Wisdom for the Heart. This message is called Finding Meaning on Monday Morning. Solomon's lesson is clear. Work is only fulfilling with God.

Bring him into your Monday and find meaning that lasts. Our ministry is on social media and we'd love to connect with you. Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel for daily Bible lessons. It's a great way to stay informed and engaged with our ministry.

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Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-12 00:56:52 / 2024-12-12 01:06:51 / 10

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