FOR WHOM DO YOU LABOR?

BIBLE PASSAGE: ECCLESIASTES 4:1-12

Picture taken from Google

Lesson Prepared by: Krisha of Solomon’s Wisdom FB page

Lesson ideas taken from: enduringword.com/bible-commentary

JANUARY 24, 2021

 

MEMORY VERSE

Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.

ECCLESIASTES 4:6

 INTRODUCTION:

When I was a child, I had so many questions in mind: why my mother always cried because of our status, why we were poor, and why we were oppressed by relatives before? There were so many “whys” but those are part of God’s plan.

 

In verses 1 – 6, the writer of Ecclesiastes speaks about the comfortless oppression of man under the sun. In the Old Testament there are mentioned different oppression:

·         Oppression of people by a king (Proverbs 28:16).

·         Oppression of a servant by his master (Deuteronomy 24:14).

·         Oppression of the poor by the affluent (Proverbs 22:16).

·         Oppression of the poor by the bureaucratic (Ecclesiastes 5:8).

·         Oppression of the poor by other poor people (Proverbs 28:3).

·         Oppression of the alien, the fatherless, and the widow (Jeremiah 7:6; Ezekiel 22:7; Zechariah 7:10).

·         Oppression by charging high interest (Ezekiel 22:12, 29).

·         Oppression by using false weights and measures (Hosea 12:7).

 

https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/ecclesiastes-4

With these oppression, he said it’s better off dead (v.2). Solomon could only praise the dead this way because at his time he had no certain knowledge of the world to come, and he wrote most of Ecclesiastes with an under the sun premise. If he knew and accepted what happened to the unrighteous dead, he would never say such a thing. (Trapp)

Far better than that, he praised he who has never existed (not born).  Jesus Himself said there was one man for whom it would have been better if he had never been born: Judas (Matthew 26:24). The Preacher’s great despair over the injustice of oppression in an under the sun premise shows the moral necessity of an afterlife and a coming judgment. Jesus told us that it is those who oppress and misuse their power who will ultimately endure punishment, not their victims (Matthew 18:6-7).

 

In verses 4-5, the Preacher thought of those who gain success through toil and skillful work – and how it simply brought envy and sometimes hatred from others. This common jealousy of success made life seem like vanity and grasping for the wind.

Solomon here answered the tendency for those jealous of the success of others to be lazy. Like fools, they fold their hands and do nothing – and so waste away. Yet it wasn’t the success of their neighbor that made them waste away; the foolish, lazy man consumes his own flesh.

 

Without reading these verses, we can see with our own two eyes how the system of this world rotates but upon reading these, we can say “that is true”. Whatever labor you have at the present in the church or outside the church, the question is (taken from verse 8), “FOR WHOM DO YOU LABOUR”? Some would answer for the family but search our hearts because in reality there are only two answers from this question: Do your labor for the world or do you labor for GOD? Before we answer this question in our mind, there are some points we need to think about.

 

LESSON OUTLINE:

1.  IN THIS WORLD, THERE ARE NO ETERNAL ACCOMPLISHMENT AND SATISFACTION (ECC.4:6)

Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.

 

Like Solomon, Ernest Hemingway said something about life. “I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead, and there is no current to plug into.” Hemingway lived his life in a way that would be the envy of any person who has bought in to the values of this world. Who is Ernest Hemingway?

 

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and sportsman. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his adventurous lifestyle and his public image brought him admiration from later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short-story collections, and two nonfiction works. Three of his novels, four short-story collections, and three nonfiction works were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.

He got four wives but ended up all separated.

Hemingway maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida (in the 1930s) and in Cuba (in the 1940s and 1950s). He almost died in 1954 after plane crashes on successive days, with injuries leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959 he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho where, in mid-1961, he died by suicide with a shotgun (he shot himself in the head). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway

That was Sunday morning in Idaho. “Vanity of Vanities all is vanity.” Life under the sun never satisfies the desires of our heart.

Now we see how life under the sun is vanity.

 

That is the life in this world without Christ in our hearts. So to all who are not really sure about your salvation, read John 14:6, John 3:16, John 1:12. There are many devices people think in their way to heaven but there is only one way – JESUS CHRIST.

 

To all Christians, we already knew what life in this world, don’t go back serving the world. It’s lonely out there and though you have money, still you feel empty. Why I said this? There are Christians who still don’t prioritize spiritual things. We are envied with hard work and success by people around us and we want to be satisfied. Ecclesiastes 4:6 says, “Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.”

 

2.  YOU CAN’T DO IT BY YOURSELF (ECC. 4:9,12)

You cannot separate serving from commitment because if you truly serving the Lord, you will commit. I remember some members before who had been battling about commitment because some believe that it didn’t need any more because they go to church and already serving. What’s the need? They focused on the “commitment program” not on committing their hearts to the Lord  or renewal of commitment.  I remember one time there was an evangelism activity in the church and it was planned by the leaders, the BODY (people who committed- congregation) and of course the pastor that time and these members I was referring to, had their own style of evangelism. They didn’t join the church activity instead they made their own way. You can’t serve the Lord by yourself and in your own way, you need to submit to the church or in the authority.

In verse 9 and 10 say, “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.”

1 Corinthians 12:12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.

God uses members of Christ's body to compliment the gifts and graces of other brothers and sisters and to offer encouragement and support. When Christ sent his disciples out to minister to the lost sheep of the house of Israel they were sent two by two - "for two are better than one because they have a good return for their labour...

As Christians we are all individuals, with our own God-given tasks and responsibilities, but we are one body that is called to live and work in partnership with one another, which is much more productive and profitable than toiling alone.

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/ecclesiastes-4-9

 

 

3.  ALWAYS PUT IN MIND THAT LIFE IS SHORT (ECC. 4:15-16)

I considered all the living which walk under the sun, with the second child that shall stand up in his stead. There is no end of all the people, even of all that have been before them: they also that come after shall not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and vexation of spirit.

 

Let’s paraphrase this verse, if a king finished his reign and another generation arose or a second child stood up in his stead, the past has been forgotten or could not rejoice with him (past king) because his time is done. Therefore, like the writer said, “Vanity of Vanities”. Everything is vanity.

 

James 4:14 says, “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

 

 Sorry if I’ll say this again because FB reminded me of this person (picture memories). It’s been a year when one of our brothers died and every time I remember him, I can’t help and think that life is really too short. Sometimes we think we still have more time serving the Lord. It’s normal to say, “I’ll do it tomorrow” or “Bukas na lang” in tagalog. Remember he was still young when he died. Sad thing that when your time was over, God would find you not in God’s service. It could be that your life ended because your life is not usable anymore or your purpose ends.  

 

I remember one thing that hurt the professionals when pastor mentioned that, “You think you are serving the Lord because you are busy in your work outside the church, actually NO” because most Christians quote Colossians 3:23. In other hand that is correct but we need to search our hearts. Is that work really doing work for God? IF so, why sometimes, it’s okay not to be in prayer meeting or in the church on time because you say you do something for God. If the work is for God, it doesn’t contrast to God’s word. I do it for God but you forget to attend services of the church; you just go if the time is okay (no commitment). Another thing, you say “This work is for God but you don’t give your tithes”. Don’t get mad but sometimes we need to really search our hearts.  Life is too short to be idle in this life. The world offers so many things in order your time to be filled up with so many things and it would be hard for you to insert time for spiritual things. That’s one of the reasons you need to commit because Christians are stubborn. Unless they are forced, they wouldn’t do anything outside their comfort zones.

4.  YOU HAVE A REWARD FOR YOUR LABOR (ECC. 4:9, HEB.10:12)

“… because they have a good reward for their labour.”

“For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.”

 

It is only through God that our toil, our work, our enjoyment of life can have meaning and purpose. It is in that relationship with God then, that we can be free to work, free to use the fruits of my labor to serve God and the people around us. It is in that relationship with God that we can be free to love, free to care, free from the bonds of greed to enjoy life, to discover the beauty of relationships, the joy of a person who truly cares for us as we are, and the thrill of knowing that when this life is ended, we will be given a mansion for eternity (John 14:1-2) and Hebrews 4:12 says, “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.”

 

CONLUSION:

"A pastor in a very large congregation gave a rousing sermon on how we view our possessions one Sunday.

"Nothing we have is ours," he told the relatively wealthy members of the congregation, "all belongs to God."

One wealthy member of the congregation, a surgeon, took offense at what the pastor had to say. He invited the pastor to his lovely suburban home and it’s beautifully landscaped yard and pool area.

As the doctor took the minister on a tour of the estate, he asked pointedly, "Did you mean what you said in your sermon Sunday? Do you mean, the doctor said, with a wave of his hand, "that all these are not mine?"

The pastor simply smiled and replied, "Why don’t you ask me that question fifty years from now?"

Isn’t that the point? It really doesn’t matter what we have now, because in the end, what really matters is our relationship to God.

Deuteronomy 8:18 -  But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

 

Colossians 3:23 - And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;

 

We really can determine if we work for God. Check your priorities, check your walking, check your time, check your budget and check your heart.

 

For those who give their commitment in God’s service, I hope this verse would remind us, Ephesians 6:7 - With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men.