Make Me A Telescope - Philippians 1:19-21a Series

Philippians 1:17 The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. 18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, 19 for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. 20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.

Introduction: The Need for Meaning

Years ago when I worked at Domino’s, one of my jobs was to scrape the dried-up remnants of dough off the dough trays. So I would scrape off all these crumbs, dump them on the floor, scrape the next one, dump, and keep going until I got them all done, then I’d get a broom and sweep up the pile of crumbs and throw them away. One day I was working on that mindless task and my thoughts were, who knows where? I wasn’t really paying attention to my surroundings at all. I finished a tray, turned around and dumped it on the floor, and right there where the crumbs hit the floor I see these two feet. And a broom. And I looked up, and attached to those feet was someone who had just swept that spot - like one second before I dumped the crumbs. He was a developmentally disabled kid who worked there, and about all he could do was fold boxes and sweep the floors. So that’s pretty much all he did the whole time he was at work – he would just keep sweeping the floor over and over. So he sweeps up this area all around me and I immediately turn around and just dump crumbs all over the place. I looked up at him, and that kid looked at me with this combination of anger and consternation and exasperation – he was furious. And I felt terrible. I apologized profusely, and I told him I would sweep it up, but that didn’t assuage his anger at all.

Why was that so upsetting to him? Was it because I created more work for him? No. He knew I’d clean it up. It wasn’t because I increased his workload. What was so upsetting to him was that I had taken some work he had already done and undid it. And if you have ever had someone do that with some job that you have done, you know – it’s maddening. Even if it doesn’t create any new work for you, still, it’s so hard to take. Why? Because God hardwired us with a powerful need for our work to have meaning. We need what we do to matter. We need to make some kind of difference. People become suicidal when they see their life as completely devoid of meaning. If they see what they are doing as pointless, all motivation drains away.

So how meaningful is your life? How important is your work? How important are you? In the Old Testament, for a person to live and die without leaving behind any kind of lasting impact was one of the great calamities that could befall a person.

On the other hand, if your work does have meaning, and you really are doing something important, that can keep you motivated and happy even through the most arduous kind of work. A search and rescue team will put themselves through the most miserable conditions to try to save someone’s life. Most of us wouldn’t want to stand up for 22 hours working on some meticulous, difficult thing, but Ben Carson was willing to do that to separate 11-month-old twins joined at the head. The more important task, the greater the motivation. But when it feels like your work is meaningless, you have no motivation.