Confessions of a Workaholic

We are, as Carolyn said, in Ecclesiastes on Sunday mornings where Solomon is taking us on a journey. That journey is a search for fulfillment, purpose, real meaning in life. That's the journey along which he's taking us. And he's tried a couple of different roads. Remember that Solomon is writing to, in addition to the people in his own country, a wider audience of pagan nations under his influence, some of them even under his control, and he's writing this with that audience in mind. So it's a very low-key, fine common ground kind of approach to introducing them to who the Lord is. That's what Solomon's doing in this book. So he begins with exposing in people's hearts the different ways that people try to find fulfillment and meaning in life. Real purpose in life. He's already taken us down the road of the search for knowledge. And some people think that if I just gain all the knowledge I can, that will give me true meaning and fulfillment and purpose in life. And Solomon found himself after that pursuit being a frustrated scholar. With real no ultimate answers about the meaning and purpose of life in his grasp. So he decided to go headlong into pleasure, entertainment, external stimulation, possessions, the good life. And Solomon said at the end of that it was like I was chasing the wind. There was nothing of substance to grab onto. And I found also that it does not lead to fulfillment. So today he takes us on another road, another route that many people try to find meaning and purpose and fulfillment in life. He's exhausted those other two. In fact in chapter 2 verse 12 he says, then I turn to my thoughts to consider wisdom and also madness and folly. What more can the kings, successor do than what has already been done? In other words, you can't get any more gusto out of life than I've gotten. You can't go any further down that road. That road is exhausted. So we've got to try something else. We've got to try a third avenue that people often try to bring fulfillment and meaning to life. And that is work. Now work is good. God ordained us to work. Before sin ever came into the human race, God ordained man to work. He gave Adam a job in the Garden of Eden. So work is good for us. But what Solomon is going to do is paint the picture of one who becomes so consumed in his or her work that they become a workaholic. So we're going to change gears again today, much like we did last time. We're going to trade in the trendy clothes and the designer sunglasses for a business suit or a work uniform. We're going to trade in the party life for late nights at the office or long weekends getting your work caught up. We're going to trade the Lamborghini in for the company car. And we're going to see what it's like to really pour yourself into your work and put everything you have into your work. Involve everything in your life around your work and see if that satisfies. And what Solomon is going to tell us when that avenue reaches its end to use the title of Wayne Oats book. He's going to describe for us the confessions of a workaholic. Solomon is going to tell us what it is really like. He's going to open up from his own experience and his own pursuit. He's going to open up and tell us what it is really like to be totally consumed by one's work. This is where it will lead you. Now there's an interesting play back and forth between two ideas in this passage. And this is the way I've chosen to structure the message. So we're going to make you aware of this. There's kind of an interplay between two ideas. One is Solomon paints the outward picture of success. And outwardly the person who is a workaholic looks pretty good. Smooth, stable, successful, swab. Great. You've got life together. But then he paints an inward picture. What is it doing on the inside? But what is it causing to happen in the soul? And inwardly he says that person finds him or herself frustrated, empty. It's still a chasing after the wind. So what does it look like and what does it feel like to become an orcaholic in the pursuit of meaning and purpose in life? Solomon says it will lead you to three things. Number one, it will lead you to despair. In verses 12 through 17 he describes a life of despair that is centered around work to find meaning and purpose and fulfillment in life. Again, there's this contrast between the outward facade and the inward reality. So let's look at what he says first of all outwardly. Outwardly he says this person is characterized by wise planning. Now I have to understand that Solomon is going to begin by contrasting wisdom and folly and then he's going to apply that to work. So it all goes together. Let's see what he says about the person who outwardly is wisely planning his or her life. So in verse 12, then I turn my thoughts to consider wisdom and also madness and folly. Okay, those are the two options. Wisdom, folly. I'm going to compare those. I'm going to put them side by side and see which is the better. Here's the conclusion he comes to in verse 13. I saw that wisdom is better than folly just as light is better than darkness. So wisdom wins hands down. There's no comparison. I mean, you compare light with darkness opposite extremes, polar opposites and that's the way he comes to his conclusion. Wisdom wins hands down and here's the reason why verse 14. The wise have eyes in their heads while the fool walks in the darkness. It's an interesting statement, isn't it? The wise have eyes in their heads. So I thought everybody had eyes in their heads. Well, this is an expression that describes the ability to see clearly and to see in all directions. You may remember that sometimes the prophets will use an expression about God. He talks about having eyes all around. It's used in Ezekiel, it's used again in Revelation. Having multitudes of eyes in their head. And the idea is that God sees everything. He sees all directions. He knows and sees everything. This expression that Solomon uses, the wise person has eyes in his head. Eyes in her head. The idea is that this person sees far ahead and sees in many directions. This is the kind of person who approaches life with wisdom, with foresight, with planning. They see ahead, they look ahead, they see around them, they see obstacles, they see problems, they have clear vision, they set goals, they plan their work and their life. Clearly, carefully. This is the kind of person that plans his or her education, pursues the best job to use that education, puts themselves into that job with careful planning and wisdom, pursues and organizes even their inner life sensibly, plans wisely for how to use their income, invest it, plan for the future. This is the kind of person we're talking about here. And Solomon says when it comes to whether or not to choose that kind of lifestyle or a foolish kind of lifestyle, wisdom wins, hands down, no comparison. It's much better to have your eyes in your head, to be seeing clearly, to be seeing much ahead of you, and to be seeing in all directions and plan accordingly. In contrast, the fool, look at what the fool is, verse 14, while the fool walks in darkness. The word walk here is used of the whole way of life. It's not just walking, putting one step in front of another. It's the whole way of life, and that's often how the Bible uses the term walk. So what's being talked about here is this person's conduct, their choices, their relationships, and yes, their work. Everything about a fool is like their groping in darkness. So a wise person sees clearly, plans ahead, season all directions, takes things into account. It's talking about wise foresight planning, vision goals, that kind of thing. The fool, on the other hand, just kind of drifts along through life, bouncing from one thing to the next. No idea of where they're going, no plan for life, no real direction in life. It's just like groping your way around a dark room, just like living in darkness. You walk into a dark room, and all of a sudden the darkness just hits you, and you're thinking, oh, where's the furniture? Where's the, I don't want to, you know, hit my toe against the dresser, and so you're just kind of stumbling through the darkness. That's the way some people live their lives. No thinking ahead, no planning, and Solomon says, when it comes down to it, there's a difference between light and darkness between those two, much better to live with wisdom. So outwardly, this person is very successful, characterized by wise planning. We would say, kudos to this person, they're really doing good in life, right? Ah, but look at what's going on inside. Solomon now turns inwardly and sees this person, disillusioned. This wise person who's been planning ahead, getting the right education, applying it well to job, making it up the ladder of success, planning ahead, planning for the future, getting ready for every disillusioned. How did that happen? Well, look at what he says, in to verse 14, the wise have eyes in their heads, the fool walks in darkness in the middle of verse 14, but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both. The fate that he's talking about here is not some kind of fatalistic view of life. Like, I have no personal freedom in life, I have no will to choose. No, no, the word fate here is used of something that is beyond your control. And he's going to identify that there's one thing beyond your control, and it's the same thing for both the wise person and the fool. In the context, clearly it's death. Look at verse 15. Then I said to myself, the fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise? I said to myself, this too is meaningless. For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered. The days have already come when both have been forgotten, like the fool, the wise to must die. Now, here's Solomon's point. The same fate, the same event that you have no control over happens to both the wise and the fool. So what difference does it make? You're both going to die and eventually be forgotten. That's his point. You say, that sounds awful, cynical, pessimistic, ungodly. Remember, Solomon in his wisdom is writing to an audience that does not have a biblical perspective, does not have the law of Moses, does not understand spiritual things, and to begin with, he's finding common ground in the frustrations of life when you try to live just with what's under the sun as he calls it, just what's on this earth. And if your perspective is only what's down here, and you pour yourself like the wise person into planning and scheming and thinking and working hard to make it happen, you're still going to die. And someday you're going to die and be forgotten, just like the fool. And so the tendency of a person who has no eternal perspective, please remember Solomon will get to the eternal perspective. Next time we'll see it actually. But right now he's just trying to draw us in with this common frustration in life, particularly of unsaved people. And he's going to tell us that if this is all you're living for, you're going to die just like the fool and be forgotten someday and what was the use of all your hard work and wisdom and planning and trying to prepare for the future. It's gone. Oh, how we would like to change that. Oh, how we try to avoid that. Verse 16 says, for the wise like the fool will not be long remembered. The days have already come when both have been forgotten like the fool. The wise too must die. How we try to avoid that. We build our tombstones out of granite. And we don't just paint information on them. Our names are birth date, date of death. We etch them in the granite so that that will be permanent. But you know what? It's not. When I passed in North Carolina, the first church I passed was a rural country church. And we had a cemetery as most of the churches in that area did. We had a cemetery out. And it was quite a large one across the road from the church. And so we were responsible to maintain it and take care of it. And I have a special place in my heart for that piece of ground. It may sound weird. But I think I've told you before that we used to dig the graves by hand. And so there's a lot of blood and sweat in that ground for a lot of guys in that church. But I can remember one time every year we would have a memorial service. It was in May. And we would really clean up the cemetery very nice to prepare for that because we'd have lots of people come on those days. So I remember one time doing that cleaning up, working out there, and a bunch of the older guys in the church and I were looking around at some of the gravestones. And there was a section of the cemetery as in most cemeteries that you could tell was older just by the look of the gravestones. And we started looking at some of those. Most of them had kind of worn smooth. You couldn't even see the names very well anymore. You couldn't see the dates very well that had been etched into that stone. And you know it was amazing to me these some of them 70, 75 year old men who had lived in that community all their lives had grown up in that church. These people obviously a part of the church or they would not have been buried there. They could not remember who they were. Nobody knows who this person is. We've asked other people nobody can remember who this person is on this gravestone. You think about it. The hard reality of life is that that's going to happen to all of us unless the Lord comes first. No matter what you do in life, no matter how much you accomplish with your wise planning and foresight and working your way in a very wise way through your life, you're going to die and be forgotten someday. That's true. I mean the Pharaohs tried to avoid that. They built these huge monuments, huge pyramids and most people today, except for a huge history buffs. Cannot call one of their names. I looked up this week the largest pyramid was in an honor of the Pharaoh Kufu. You remember him? I don't think so. I'm heading to either. Who remembers Kufu? Only a few history buffs. One of the greatest monuments to someone in history. Nobody remembers who he is. That's the hard reality of what Solomon's saying. So what he's saying is if all you have is down here. Again, he's not looking at the eternal perspective yet. He'll get us there. But if all you have is down here and all you have to build your life around is your wise planning for your job and your career and you've got it all laid out for the decades of your life and how you're going to reach retirement and what you're going to do at retirement. That's all you've got. You will die and be forgotten someday. What's the advantage? That's Solomon's point. A life of despair, disillusionment. But he goes on to say, work a holism putting everything you have into work to try to find ultimate meaning and fulfillment and purpose in life there. Work a holism will also lead to a life of worry. Look at verse 18. He says, I hated all of it. Well, we've got to skip verse 17. We've got to at least get that in. His conclusion was so I hated life because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, chasing after the wind. It's not like he hated life. Like I want to commit suicide. I want to escape life. It's clear in the context he's talking about. I hated what my life had become. Because he says it's because of the work that is done under the sun. When I looked around and realized I've put everything into my work and I realized where it was going to get me. I hated that. I hated that. So verse 18. He says, I hated all the things I toiled for under the sun because I must leave them to the one who comes after me and who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish. Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toil some labor under the sun for a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill. And then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. The word misfortunes, the Hebrew word for evil in this context, it means injustice. You know, I've these translated it misfortune. But it means injustice. What a great injustice. For me to work all my life with skill, with knowledge, do it right, do it well and accumulate all the fruit of my labor and then leave it to someone else. Okay, here's the picture that Solomon's painting for us of this life of worry outwardly. There is the fruit of your work. And he talks about that in verse 18, he talks about the fruit of my labor in verse 21. He talks about doing this work with skill, with knowledge, with wisdom. Here's a person who's done it right. Here's a person who's worked hard, used their skills and abilities very wisely. And they have enjoyed the fruit of their work. And in the context, the implication of this is the fruit of your work is the things that money can provide for you, the things your job can afford for you. Money, possessions, assets, your estate. That's what your work has afforded you. It's what it's provided for you. That's what he's talking about here. And so in order to get that, you pour your life into your work more to advance more those causes in your life so that your equity can grow, your assets, your estate can be bigger and more productive. You can get more so you plan your scheme, you sacrifice, you work, you add hours, you start working weekends, you work evenings and you do everything to accomplish your dream and build your empire. And build your empire, even while you're on vacation and on the weekends, you're still working on it and your mind can't rest at night because of it. All your spare times taken up with this. Does that satisfy? No. No. Oh, there's fruit, there's fruit to be enjoyed from that labor. That's the outside, but look at what it does on the inside. On the inside, worry, worry. The Solomon says, I'm worried about two things. Two things I worry about with this focus upon being a workaholic. The first one is death. Look at it in verse 18. I hated all the things I told you before under the sun because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. In other words, Solomon says, I'll work all this time, apply myself to everything I do and I have a lot of fruit of that labor. There'll be a lot of assets in a great estate, but then I got to leave it all behind. I got to leave it. I'm going to die someday. And so I leave that all behind. It becomes somehow terribly irrelevant. All that I've spent my life doing. And I got to leave it behind. I got to leave it to someone else. Think about it. You pour your whole life into a career that affords you things in this life. And people will file by your casket. You'll have a nice outfit on. Maybe a pair of glasses and piece of jewelry. That's it. And even that you haven't taken with you. It's just adorning the body that you left behind. So John, this is depressing. This is so cynical and pessimistic. It's very real. And Solomon is getting the hook into us to help us realize if all you have is your work and pouring your life into that under the sun on this earth. If that's all the perspective you live by, this is exactly where you're going to end up. You'll find yourself waking up thinking, I'm going to leave all this behind someday. That's first thing he's worried about is death. Having to leave it all behind. Secondly, he's worried about what will happen to his possessions when he dies. Did you notice that in the passage a couple times? He says, I got to leave this to someone else. And who knows whether they will be wise or foolish, whether they will continue to make that prosperous, the business, the company, my assets, or whether or not they'll foolishly waste it all. Who knows what they'll do. But I got to leave it behind to them. Very interesting expression. He gives us in verse 21. He says, a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill. And that's the person who does his or her career well. You've got the right knowledge. You approach it with wisdom. Like we said before, eyes in your head, foresight, thought, planning, goals, all of that. And skill, that means efficiency. The Hebrew word literally means efficiency to do the work well. You do all of that. And then he says they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. Interesting expression. The book of Proverbs tells us that when a great inheritance is left to people who've not worked for it, that's a recipe for disaster. Could I just give a little sideline here for just a moment? If you have the kind of career that affords you some of the nicer things in life and you've been able to build a lot of assets, please teach your children how to work. Please teach them how to work because if you don't, they'll inherit everything you've gotten, they'll waste it. They'll ruin their lives with it. I look with great respect on families who, although they have everything they could give their children, have taught their children to work hard. I think that is so wise. And that's what Solomon's saying here. A life of worry. I'm worried about dying and leaving all this behind, but I'm also worried about who's going to get it, what's it going to do with it, and the more you have the more you worry. So Solomon says, if you're a workaholic, you will cultivate a life of worry. But lastly, you'll also convolt cultivate a life of compulsion, a life of compulsion. Verse 22, what do people get for all the toil and anxieties, anxious striving with which they labor under the sun, all their days, their work is grief and pain, even at night, their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless. Now outwardly, here's a person who has a challenging job. Here's a person who other people look at and say, I'm amazed at how much they accomplish. Look at all they get done. But what's going on inwardly with this person who has become a workaholic and their whole life is just centered around their career. What's happening on the inside inwardly, they are driven by compulsion. They are compelled, driven to perform, to achieve, to produce, and to do more this year than last year, and keep the charts going up and to the right, and make sure it's getting better every year. They're compelled, they're driven to do that. You find yourself in this shape, you are driven when your work takes over your life and everything else revolves around that. You become a driven person or you are a driven person when it so has its clutches in you that you can't sleep at night, like Solomon says. Their minds do not rest even at night. When you can't sleep, you cannot let it go. You're still trying to balance the books and figure out what the next project and how it's going to work. So you can't sleep at night. You're driven when your job, your work, consumes everything about you all your time. You're in a constant hurry. You're just plowing through the responsibilities of life. Because you've got so much to do. You hopelessly over commit yourself and you push yourself constantly to get the next thing done. Just get the next thing done. So you live constantly with stress and fatigue. That's where you are. Exactly where Solomon said. Did you notice all those words in those two verses? This toil, anxious striving, labor, grief, pain, minds do not rest at night. Is that describe you? And maybe you're a workaholic. Maybe you have poured your whole life to try to find purpose and meaning into your career. Now again, remember who Solomon's writing to. He is writing to a group of people who probably are living that way because it's all they've got to live for. They don't know any better. They have no eternal perspective. Solomon's going to say that will not fill that emptiness in your heart and life. And as we have seen before, here is the reason why God created you to have a relationship with him. That relationship was broken by Adam and every person since him has been born without that relationship separated from God. That is the whole in your soul right there. You're born without a relationship with God. You were meant to have a relationship with him. We were created in his image, which means we share something that enables us to have a relationship with him. We were created for that. And we're born without that. That's the reason why there's emptiness inside. Now you can try to fill it all you want. You can try to find real purpose and meaning all you want with your thirst for knowledge and search for knowledge or you can try pleasure and possessions and external stimulation and all of that entertainment. You can try that or you can try just immersing your life in your work and becoming a workaholic. All three of them, all three roads lead to the same dead end chasing after the wind empty. Nothing to hang on to. And maybe yes, cynical, disillusioned, pessimistic about life. But if I could just anticipate very briefly where Solomon is going to take us next time, he's going to draw all this to a conclusion and tell us the way to find true meaning purpose and fulfillment is life in life is not on the horizontal plane anyway. It's not under the sun. It's not just from an earthly perspective. It is vertically looking up and establishing a relationship with the God whom you were created to have a relationship with. And when you do that, then you find the true purpose and meaning and fulfillment of life. Then when the empty spot spot in your soul is filled because that's what you were created for. And the Bible tells us the only way you can establish that relationship with God is through Jesus Christ. Because remember, it's sin that causes us to come into this world separated from God. We're separated from Him because of our sin. Jesus Christ came down from heaven to this earth to die for your sin, to pay for your sin, to take God's punishment for your sin. Not only so that you could be forgiven of your sin, but so that you could become God's child. You could have that loving relationship with Him that you're so long spore. And here you are scrambling around looking for it and pleasure and entertainment and even your work. You can only find it when you come to Christ. And the wonderful thing is that when you come to Christ and as you keep your life focused on Christ, all the other pieces of the puzzle come together. Work, legitimate entertainment, pleasure, possessions, knowledge, all of those things have their place in our lives. But they only fit together when you know Christ. So some of you here today need to trust Christ. Some of you who have already done that, who are believers, who have gotten caught up in the flow of this world and become a workaholic. You need to refocus upon Jesus Christ and center your life upon Him once again. Would you bow with me in prayer?