The following text is exercpted from a sermon delivered in September 2002.

The sermon is based on Ecclesiastes 5:18-5:20.

Introduction

Tomorrow is Labor Day, a day when we traditionally cease from our labors to enjoy a day off. That is, unless you work in such places as hospitals, restaurants, airlines, Wal-Mart, or any place that people like to go on their day off.

When Deb and I worked for the Navigators in Colorado Springs, we took a class on the importance of work, and we focused on one of the passages we will be looking at today. I went away from that workshop convinced that God had a purpose not just for me and my work, but for all work that was honest and honorable.

And by the way, I think that if your work is honorable and honest, it is worthy of respect. You might be a white-collar professional in an office pulling in big amounts of money, or you might be the custodian of a building, or maybe even one of the garbage collectors in the city. I appreciate janitors, because I like using clean restrooms. I appreciate the sanitation department of our city, because I don’t want to have to haul my garbage out to the landfill, and I like a clean city. When I’m at a restaurant, I like to eat off clean dishes, so I appreciate the dishwashers.

These are honest and honorable positions. We tend to think of them as beneath most people, but just think about what would happen if any of them decided to go on strike. As much as I love baseball, I think I could live without seeing another game, but life would be immensely more tough without people who handle things like kitchen work at hospitals and dishwashing and stuff. I want to celebrate you who work in blue-collar positions doing things that some people think they’re too good for. I appreciate you.

I want to show you how you can have lasting job satisfaction. Why is that so important? Because if you don’t like your work, you have a hard time enjoying anything in life. It’s hard to enjoy your family when your job stinks. It’s hard to enjoy your leisure, because you know that it’s just a matter of time before you’re back to the grind.

So I want to take a serious look at job satisfaction, where it comes from, and how to find it.

In doing that, I want us to look at two main passages of Scripture, and we will look at another one later. But let’s read the two that will provide the focus of our time together today.

Ecclesiastes 5:18-20:  Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him--for this is his lot. Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work--this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.

The next passage I want to look at is John 10:10 -  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

How do we find lasting job satisfaction? There are four keys, and the first one is…

I. Realize: It’s good to enjoy life – including work.

How many here have heard the phrase, “If you enjoyed it, it wouldn’t be work?” The first implication of that is that jobs aren’t necessarily meant to be enjoyed, they’re meant to be endured. The second implication is that if you enjoy it, it doesn’t seem like work.

There’s another saying I’m sure most of you have heard: Life’s hard and then you die. And as I look around at people, I think more and more people have adopted that viewpoint, especially when it comes to enduring their work. But God wants so much more for us than that. He wants us to enjoy our work and our lives.

Look again at Ecclesiastes verse 18:  Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him--for this is his lot.

Notice something here: he mentions “toilsome labor.” He understands that work can be a drudgery sometimes, but see that he says that it is good for a man to find satisfaction in his work. And there’s no denying the fact that if you hate your job it affects your home life. I know – I’ve been there. Not now, of course, but I’ve been there.

If you’re enjoying your job, no matter what it is, that’s good. Be glad. When I sold office furniture in Brookings I would drive to work almost everyday looking forward to my job. I loved it. I love my job as pastor here, and I enjoy the work I do outside the church.

I’ve had jobs I’ve hated, too. I know what it’s like to have a job you don’t like, and my heart breaks for you if that is the case.

Life is meant to be enjoyed. You can have enjoyment in your work, and I want to use the next couple of sections to help with that.

One of the first things we need to do is to…

II. Recognize: God grants the enjoyment.

Look back at Ecclesiastes verses 19-20:   Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work--this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.

One of the biggest barriers to job satisfaction is that we try to get our job satisfaction from the job itself, and that’s not the correct place.

Real and lasting job satisfaction does not come from the job; it comes from God. God grants job satisfaction. How does He do that? I don’t know about for you, but let me tell you how He does it for me.

First of all, He helped me understand my gifts and abilities and helped me steer away from jobs that wouldn’t use them.
Let me tell you that I would make a lousy mechanic. I can barely remember which way to turn a screwdriver. Let me just tell you that you don’t want me to work on your car or remodel your home.

I am good with people, so I found jobs that would let me interact with people and help meet their needs, and now especially with people’s spiritual needs.

Sometimes there are parts of a good job that are not very fun.

When I first started working with office furniture, I had to assemble it after I sold it. Now that was fun to watch. I had never used a power drill or screwdriver, so I approached them with mortal fear. I ruined more than one piece of furniture before I got the hang of it. Eventually I got to the point where it was easy, but I could never do it as fast as the other guys.

So the first thing He did was put me in a position to use my gifts. If are in a job that leaves you unsatisfied, it might be that you are in the wrong type of job for your skills. Contact the Job Service or employment agency and get tested for your real skills.

God also put me in positions where my bosses and co-workers got along well and supported each other. Let me tell you, this makes all the difference in the world, and we’re going to look at that in more detail here in a minute, but it’s easier to relax after a hard day’s work when you’ve had a good day in each other’s company on the job.

But probably one of the best things God did to give me satisfaction in my jobs was that He reminded me that I was fortunate to be able to work at all. I didn’t grow up in the Depression when work was harder to come by. We live in an economy that allows anybody to work if they are willing to do it and are physically capable of doing it. There have been times when I have had to work 3 jobs at a time, and I was grateful to God for all of them, because I knew that God could have let me live in a time when all I had to live on was government assistance. I’ve had to rely on that at times as well, but God has allowed me to work so I could get out of that in time. God grants enjoyment of work sometimes by just granting the employment.

Sometimes we may have to take a job we don’t like so we can meet our obligations, but be thankful for it. It’ll go a long way to giving you the satisfaction you want and that God wants you to have.

Realize it’s good to enjoy life – including work, and recognize that God grants job satisfaction. Let’s move on to another important aspect of lasting job satisfaction…

III. Respect: Each other.

I mentioned that having good relationships between the people at work goes a long way to enjoying your work. Why is that? It’s because our relationships help shape us, and they affect our whole life. Relationships are key. Lousy relationships at work affect not only your work, but also your home life. Is that not true? How many times have you had a lousy day at work, and it had nothing to do with the job itself, but with the boss or coworkers, or even customers?

It bothers us because the issues are based on our relationships. So what can we do to help with the relationships with people we are in contact with through the day?

The one-word answer is respect. And let’s look at three relationships that need to have boat-loads of respect for each other if we hope to have lasting job satisfaction.

The first one is with…

A. Employers.

The vast majority of people in the workforce are employees, not management or self-employed. So a good relationship with the boss is essential to job satisfaction.

Let me read a verse from the book of Colossians that every employee should burn into memory. It is Colossians 3:22-24 -    Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Now before you freak out about the reference to slaves here, let me explain something about the Roman Empire where this was written.

Slavery in New Testament times was nothing like the horrible practice that we think of here in America. Slaves were owned, yes, but their lives were better than most people who tried to make livings in small business or agriculture. They were well-fed, well educated at times, lived in good homes provided by the owner, and often developed loving relationships with the family that owned them, oftentimes becoming freed later out of gratitude for the service they rendered.

The idea here is that employers deserve respect, and an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wages. And we need to be diligent about our work when they are around and when they are not. This raises your value in their sight. If you cannot be trusted to do your job when the boss is not around, you won’t last long. Develop a reputation for being someone who can be trusted to be left alone and get the job done. Even though the boss may not be around, God sees you and your work, and you will be called to account for it. But an even bigger reason for those who call themselves Christians is reverence for God, and the knowledge that although they work for an earthly boss, their real boss is God Himself.

Be a great employee and your relationships with your employers will be great, and that helps in finding lasting job satisfaction.

The next relationship we need to look at is with the…

B. Employees.

If you are a boss, manager, owner, or whatever, the Bible has something for you as well.

Just two verses after the passage we just looked at is this, in Colossians 4:1 –    Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

Is that plain enough? If you provide what is right and fair, you gain the favor of your employees, and you please God, who sees everything.

My most pleasant memories of my last job have to do with the fact that my bosses took care of me, especially when it came to family concerns. Lance was suffering from seizures when he was a baby, and we thought we were going to have to go to Sioux Falls to have him evaluated, and we thought we’d have to be gone for up to a week or more. All I had to do was tell my bosses. It wasn’t an issue for them. They said to do all I needed to do to make sure my boy was okay. That made an impact on my attitude. I could leave when I needed to take care of an emergency, and when I was sick, they made sure I was feeling well enough before coming back so I didn’t make myself worse. I never forgot that, and my desire to be a good employee for them went even higher.

So bosses, treat your employees with respect, being just and fair in compensation and honor. A good employer knows that happy employees mean less turnover, and better quality work, which means more business.

The last relationship I want to emphasize this morning is the relationship between…

C. Co-workers.

Unless you’re an alien from outer space, you’ve probably worked with someone who got on your nerves, or was just someone who you would rather avoid. Some of these situations work themselves out, when the co-worker leaves or is fired, or if you move on to something else.

But what about those times when you’re just plain stuck with them?

Let me tell you a story. When I was in high school, I often went to music contests. During one of these contests, I met a girl from another high school, and we struck up a friendship that went into college.

She was a year ahead of me, so when I got to college, she was a sophomore, and had begun to develop a reputation as being someone people wanted to avoid. And over the next couple of years, I began listening to the comments, and wouldn’t you know, I started seeing the same things they saw? And I started to avoid her. One day God got my attention, though, and He reminded me that I was friends with this girl years before I started noticing these things. So I decided to ignore the things that bothered me and concentrate on being the friend she needed me to be. That’s not to say that she didn’t irritate me sometimes, but I decided that I wouldn’t let those minor irritations get in the way of the relationship.

The lesson? Look for the good in your co-workers, and use that as a basis for getting along at work.

I found that if I praised my co-workers when they did well, not only did they do a better job all around, but we got along a whole lot better on and off the job.

Develop positive relationships with your co-workers.

IV. Remember: The promise.

Take one more look at verse 20 of Ecclesiastes 5 -    He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.

Earlier I talked about how sometimes we adopt the lie that life is hard and then we die. God says that doesn’t have to be the way it is. He wants to keep you occupied with gladness of heart. You can have job satisfaction that spills into every other area of your life, and life satisfaction that spills into your job.

Let me read again the other verse from the book of John, John 10:10 –   The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

The devil wants you to have a lousy life. Jesus came so you could have a good life. What does that mean? It means that a life in Christ is infinitely more meaningful than a life outside Christ. A full life in Christ means a life that is ultimately more satisfying than any type of life you try to get for yourself on your own efforts. Living inside the protections offered by the Scriptures is a life worth living and passing on to your family. It’s not always easy to live a life with Jesus as your boss. In fact, sometimes it’s downright tough, because we will run into people who don’t understand and don’t want what Jesus offers.

Being a follower of Christ doesn’t make all your problems go away – I wish it did, but the Bible makes no promises like that. But if you are willing to live for God, through His Son, Jesus, you will be rewarded in ways that are too numerous to mention, but not the least of which is peace from knowing that God, who made the universe, is living in you, helping you get through life’s hassles.

God promises to give you a full life, and He keeps His Word, unlike others around us who prefer to take advantage of us.

If you want lasting job satisfaction, live for the One who can really provide it – God, who not only made the world, but made it in such a way that we could have work that is meaningful and satisfying.

Sermon by Brian La Croix, Aberdeen Wesleyan Church.  Exercpted, with minor editing.     sermoncentral.com     Content distributed by WorkLife.org > used for non-profit teaching purposes only.