Do you realize you’re going to spend (or have spent) about 150,000 hours of your life working, which is about 40% of your waking hours. Unless you’re retired, you are probably groaning inside. A Harris survey found out in 1973 the average American spent 40 hours a week at work, but by 1987 the average American spent 46 hours a week at work. If you’re a professional you spend an average of 52 hours a week working and if you’re a small business owner/operator you work an average of 57 hours a week. The fact is you’ll spend more time working, commuting to work and thinking about work than you will eating meals, playing on week-ends and vacationing in the summer combined. Work is a huge part of our lives.
It shouldn’t surprise us that God addresses work in the Bible since it is such a major part of our lives. If we work 40% of the waking hours of our lives, I think God is concerned with how we live that 40%. Following God should affect our work life. How do we honor God with our work?
Over the last few weeks we have been exploring the book of Proverbs or as it is known as, the OT book of wisdom. It was written by one of the wisest people who ever lived, King Solomon. In this book God speaks through Solomon to give us practical wisdom and guidance on how to live our lives, including work.
1) Work Hard - Diligence
The first principle which Solomon affirms over and over again in his Proverbs regarding work is the expectation that God’s people will be hard workers, they are to be diligent and avoid laziness at all cost. In our verse this morning, Solomon points to the ant and tells us to learn from it how hard it works. It works hard storing its provisions for the summer and gathering at the harvest time. Ants don’t have anyone to tell it what to do, but they work diligently to store up for the winter. I find this Proverb a little humorous when I think that Solomon was writing it for his son. I can just see dad telling his son this proverb trying to get him to pick up his room and work around the house. Look at the ant they don’t have their mom or dad telling them what to do, but they work hard and pick up their room.
Why is it important for God’s people to be hard workers?
a) Laziness leads to poverty
Solomon was a very practical person and his reasoning was not so much spiritually related as it was practical, if you are lazy and choose not to work, perhaps you sleep in too late, catch a few extra zzz’s, get to work late. His reasoning is very simply, you will fall into poverty, you will lack provision, you will go hungry:
Proverbs 6:10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-- 11 and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.
In another Proverb Solomon writes: NLT Proverbs 20:4 If you are too lazy to plow in the right season, you will have no food at the harvest.
Those who are too lazy to work won’t have food when the harvest comes. They were mainly an agricultural community and if you missed the planting season because of your laziness, guess what? There was no crop for the harvest, and therefore no food. 1100 years later, the first Christian missionary to the Gentiles, the Apostle Paul, was adamant about this when he wrote, “if anyone is unwilling to work they should not eat (2 Thess. 3:10).” He modeled and taught that Christians should live by the principle of hard work (we’ll talk more about the situation he faced in one of his churches in a moment).
I have seen younger generations who have been spoiled and become lazy thinking everything will just be given to them on a silver platter. The problem we run into is the motivations behind our work.
God created us to work, it is built into our DNA. When the first woman and man, Adam and Eve were created, God gave them a job to do in the Garden of Eden, to tend the garden. Work became more difficult after Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden and were booted out, but it is still a necessary part of our lives, and I don’t by the way see retirement in the Bible (retirees).
Our country is where it is today because of hard working people. Our country is still in the top five in the world for the highest average work hours per week. However we must ask, “what drives us to work so hard and so much?” Unfortunately, what drives us all too often is not need, but greed. We work more hours because we want to earn more money to have more stuff, or nicer stuff. I once heard a survey (I couldn’t find it this week), but US employees were asked if they thought they worked too much. The majority replied that they did work too much. Then they asked, would you work more if you were asked to. And again over 50 percent responded positively. We feel overworked but want to work more? Is it out of necessity or greed?
NLT Proverbs 16:26 It is good for workers to have an appetite; an empty stomach drives them on.
It is good to be driven to work by need (appetite), but not by greed. If we work more to make more money to have more toys (boats, snowmobiles, computers, etc.) we are not working with God’s motives. God expects us to work, and work hard but for the right reasons, to support our families, to support God’s work, and if you are blessed with extra above and beyond this, to enjoy the fruit of God’s blessing.
b) Hard work leads to leadership
Solomon had another practical reason for working hard, to be a leader.
NLT Proverbs 12:24 Work hard and become a leader; be lazy and become a slave.
It is usually hard workers who are promoted to leadership in companies, while people who are lazy are demoted or fired. Yes, I know there are exceptions to this, but rarely do you see supervisors, bosses who are not hard workers. This doesn’t mean every hard worker will be promoted to leadership but if you have the gifts and skills to do so you will need to prove yourself through hard work. I believe it honors God when Christians become leaders for their employer because they are able to influence the people around them in a positive godly way, which brings us to the next reason, and for this we need to turn to the NT.
c) Hard Work Earns the Respect of Outsiders (non-Christians)
Christians in particular should be hard workers because we are witnesses to those around us and we are working for the Lord. When we are idle we weaken our witness of God’s Good News because people lose their respect for us.
The Apostle Paul faced a problem with one of the churches he had started, the church in Thessalonica. These Christians struggled with being idle. They tried to spiritualize their laziness, by claiming they were waiting for the return of Jesus any day so there was no point in working or planting crops when Jesus was coming back tomorrow or the day after. Instead they were soaking off of those people who lived around them, depending on the goodwill of other Christians and non-Christians, and with the extra time on their hands they began meddling in other peoples business. They were creating a bad reputation for themselves. In Paul first letter to the Thessalonians he writes:
1 Thess. 4:11 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
In other words Paul was saying get back to work, make a living, work hard just as he did so that, as a Christian, they would win the respect of “outsiders,” or non-Christians. They would be impressed with our work ethic. Once you have the respect it opens the door to sharing the good news of Jesus with them. If you’re lazy, no one is going to listen to you because your actions speak louder than your words. Christians should not be dependent upon anybody, not other Christians, not unbelievers, and not the government, if at all possible (Realizing of course that some people are dependent on others because of a disability or medical reason). Paul pointed to himself as the model of self-sufficiency because he never asked for any money for his mission work among them, he provided for himself through his tentmaking work.
As Christians, people are watching us at work, what do they see? Does your work ethic bring respect or lack of it? I have told you before how in my first job as a chemist I worked for an Iranian born boss who told me (because he knew I was a Christian) that he preferred hiring Christians because of their honesty, integrity, and hard work ethic. There were several Christians who worked for him who were a positive influence. He even sent his young child to a Christian pre-school even though he didn’t profess to be a Christian.
As Christians we are called to be different at work because when we work we aren’t just doing it for a paycheck we are doing it in service of Jesus.
NLT Ephesians 6:7 Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people
NLT Romans 12:11 Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically.
Our work is our service to the Lord. Many times people see their work as this whole realm of something they do to make a buck and pay the bills. While my service to Jesus is what I do at church or for the church. But Scripture does not separate any of the areas of our life; family, work, retirement, or church. All of it is done in service to God. When we work, we work for Jesus. Jesus is our boss no matter who our earthly boss is. If we are lazy with our work, what does that say about our service to God? What if I hate my job? That verse from Ephesians was written to slaves, how do you think they felt about their job? Yet he still said work with enthusiasm as though you were working for the Lord. What if you are retired? Even in retirement we are still called to serve God.
Yesterday I went to the memorial service of Pastor Rudy Kuyten of the Mennonite church in Brutus. The denomination official helping with the funeral told the story of how he came to the church to help interview Rudy surprised to discover he was gray haired man. Rudy was 74 at the time and was ready to take the job of part-time pastor after retiring from 34 years of missionary work in Japan. He said at the time that he felt he had 20 more years in him. No one knew that he would die a year later in a car accident. I’m not saying we all should to go back to work, but Rudy demonstrated that we never retire from serving the Lord.
Proverbs 16:3 tells us, “Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will succeed.”
Are you committing your work (or your retirement) to the Lord? Does that effect how you approach your work?
2) Work with Integrity
A second principle Solomon gives us is to work with integrity, particularly in being honest in all our business dealings.
NRS Proverbs 20:10 Diverse weights and diverse measures are both alike an abomination to the LORD.
NLT Proverbs 16:11 The LORD demands fairness in every business deal; he sets the standard.
In other words be honest and don’t cut corners in your work. The imagery Solomon is giving is of a balance used to measure whatever goods they were buying or selling [show slide of balance]. Their balances weren’t fixed like ours today, they had to measure by comparing with a supposedly fixed weights. They would use a two tray balance (like this one). On one side they would put the item to purchase (such as grain), and the standard measure on the other side. Unfortunately what would often happen was a person would have two different sets of weights which were supposedly the same but one was a little smaller and one was a little bigger. So when I sold something, I would put the smaller weights on so I sold less for more money, and when I bought something I would put the slightly larger weights on to get just a little more. That is the deception Solomon was referring to which is an abomination to God.
Today our weights and measures are pretty fixed and we have government agencies to overlook these businesses so people can’t cut corners there. But people can still be unfair or dishonest in their dealings with others. For example they could intentionally charge someone more than the item, service, or project is really worth. Like when stores mark items up 20% to have a “sale” where they mark their items down 20%. We could also skimp on the quality of our work, putting in less time and effort than what we said or charged. Perhaps we add just a little more time on the time card than we actually worked, or we take extra breaks we were not allowed. Or we call in sick when we weren’t and use our paid sick leave. These are all dishonest, it is stealing, and an abomination to God, it is a sin.
I recently read a magazine article which claimed that approximately 36% of employees who had access to the internet at work were using it for personal use on company time. Most employees didn’t think this was a problem, in fact younger generations of workers felt they were entitled to use company time in such ways. It was a perk for them. Is that working with integrity? Is that working as though it was for the Lord?
Working with integrity means we are the same person whether people are watching or not. In Ephesians 6:6 Paul writes: “Work hard, but not just to please your masters when they are watching. As slaves of Christ, do the will of God with all your heart.” Or as the KJV puts it, don’t just give “eyeservice.” In other words, don’t just let them think you are doing your work diligently when they are watching but slack off when they aren’t, work with integrity all the time because you are doing it for the Lord, and everything we do for the Lord should be done with excellence.
Conclusion:
How does your work or even your retirement reflect God’s work ethic? Do you demonstrate hard work and integrity? Do you have the respect of fellow employees for your work? Or have you tried cutting corners? The Scriptures are clear, if we have sinned in this way, we need to confess this to God, repent or commit to not doing it anymore, and ask for God’s forgiveness. We need to see all of our life as service to Jesus.
Prayer
Father, reveal to us if we have not honored you with our work. If we have sinned father in our laziness or integrity convict our hearts. We confess to you Lord where we have failed to serve you and represent you wherever we are: at work, in our home.
Lord, may our work not be a burden to us but a delight as we work hard for you. Whether we work for a living or are blessed with retirement help us serve you with gladness and enthusiasm.
