Never Enough | Week 3

Don't try to spell it. It's impossible. Ecclesiastes is a book in our Old Testament, and it wrestles with these concepts and these ideas of what's the meaning of this life we're living?

What's the purpose of us being here on earth? And last week, Pastor Bill, he kinda walked through what's the meaning of pleasure and how do we deal with it from a Christian perspective. What we're really gonna be zeroing in on today and this morning is the idea and concept of work. Work.

When you when we look at work, it's you know, we we have twenty four hours in our day, and then eight of those, we're unconscious. You know, if we have good sleep habits. We're and so then we have sixteen hours, and then for most of us, about half of those hours are spent with this thing called work.

You know, when work is a broad term, it might mean the job you go to or taking care of your house or taking care of your kids or whatever work means in your context and in your life. But all of us, all of us, all of us have to do something called work. And so if it's half of our waking hours,

we should really have a good understanding of what's God's perspective of work. And my hope is as we get a biblical perspective and an understanding of how God sees work, that we can walk out of this room having unbelievable clarity and a shift in our perspective

so that this half of our life, half of our waking life can actually be something that we never anticipated or thought it could be. So we're gonna be in Ecclesiastes

chapter two, starting in verse 18, so if you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to open them up with me. As you're getting there, I'm gonna pray for us, and then we're gonna jump in. Father God, thank you so much for your word this morning. Thank you that we get to gather and proclaim truth,

that we get to come to your word and hear what you have to say about our lives, what it means to live a good life, what it means to follow you

and see you just shine in our life. So God, would you help us understand your word this morning? I pray with whatever we're carrying here this morning that we would be ready, we'd set it to the side, we would be ready to listen because we truly believe your word has power, that your truth means something,

and that if we listen to what you're saying, we can walk out of this room with new life, seeing things in a new way, walking closer with you. In Jesus' name I pray. Everyone said, amen. So I don't know where you were at during the pandemic.

At that point in my life, right around 2020, I had just moved to Arizona all on my own. And I was getting my foot in the door here at Rock Point Church, and, you know, I really wanted to work here because this is an awesome church. And

so I was going to start in our coffee shop. So I was gonna be a barista at the coffee shop to kind of get my foot in the door. But right when we were about to open the coffee shop, the pandemic hit, and we didn't really have any business here. So now I'm thinking, okay, how am I going to pay my rent,

and how am I going to pay for food? So what I did is I went home, and I just started sending out my applications to as many businesses as I possibly could, just dozens of applications, just I need to get a job, I need to make some money, I need to become an essential worker somehow.

And so the one business that got back to me almost immediately was Walmart.

And Walmart, they're like, hey, yeah, we'll hire you. We'll give you orientation tomorrow. I was like, great. So I show up the next day, and I do the orientation. We watch a couple videos, and I get my vest, and the guy's saying, like, You know, you're gonna meet your manager, and they're gonna enter you in the system, but for right now, until then, you can have these little paper slips and write your hours on there, and we'll make sure to get you paid.

And I was like, okay. And so they told me I was gonna be working in the hot food section at Walmart because that's where everyone goes to Walmart, just to get hot food, right? And

it's, you know, it's the place right like to the right or left when you go in the doors, and they have the potato wedges and the rotisserie chickens and the chicken strips and all that stuff. And so I was like, all right. So I walk over there and I meet my coworkers, and I'm like, hey, I'm new here. And they say, okay.

Okay. And so they show me, you know, how to get the chicken strips and scoop the potatoes and rotisserie the chickens and all that stuff.

And so, you know, I start working, and after a couple days, I'm like, hey, when am I gonna meet the manager here? Like, the person who kinda oversees us. And they're like, oh, yeah, you know, she's around. You'll meet her eventually. All right. I keep putting in my paper slips and keep working.

After about a week, I'm like, guys, am I gonna meet the manager anytime soon? Because I'm not sure she's real at this point. Like, I I need to get into the system. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll it'll come. Just just keep showing up. Okay. After two weeks,

I realized everyone got paid and I didn't get anything. And I'm starting to think, I don't know if I actually work here at this point.

It's like I put in like fifty hours into this job and it's like I don't I don't really know. I I don't even know if the manager's here. I don't know what's going on. And so I was like, I I don't I don't know what to do at this point. So I'm like, I'm not gonna keep working for free and so I just I didn't show up and the

guy called me, he's like, hey, you coming in today? I'm like, I don't know if I work for you, man. Like, I don't think I'm in the system. He's like, okay, Alright. And so I just I I ended up finding another job and and working there, but I was talking to Carrie

a couple months ago, and she was saying, like, you know, you can kinda look on this website. Carrie Bush, Bill's wife, she was saying you can go on a website and look and see if there's any paychecks that you've never claimed out there. I was like, oh, I'm sure. I'm sure I've got a paycheck there. And so I search my name up and nothing. There's nothing out there for me. And I'm like, I really didn't work there. Like, all these hours and all that time I put in, like scooping the potatoes and and and getting the chicken strips and rotisserating the chickens was for nothing.

Literally for nothing. It was a waste of time. And I just remember that moment, just like, it was meaningless. I just, I kind of worked at Walmart, kind of. And it was worthless, it was meaningless.

But I think a lot of us were actually we're going to work and we get the paycheck, or maybe we're even in a job that we wanted and we aspired for, and at the end of the day, when we get in our car, when we lay in bed, we still feel, man, that felt meaningless. What's the point?

Maybe tonight, as you're getting ready for your work week, tomorrow you just lay in bed and your stomach kind of clenches up because it's like, what's the point? I'm giving so much of my life to this work, to this job, and it just feels like I don't wanna do this. Why am I doing why do I have to do this?

You see, this is the exact concept, the thing that King Solomon is wrestling with and wrestling through at the end of his life. He's writing the book of Ecclesiastes,

and he has given his life to work. He's given his life to success and achievement, he's wrestling with this idea of what's the point of it all? But the truth he arrives at and the truth that we're gonna see in God's word, and I really want us to wrestle with this morning is this. Here's the big idea, that work is a gift

when it's done for the giver. Work is a gift when it's done for the giver. See, all of us, all of us engage work in some way or some fashion.

For some of us, we're a student and our work is schoolwork and homework. For some of us, we're retired and and we take care of our grandkids or we we do house projects or we take care of the lawn or we do what you know? Some of us, we're we're stay at home moms and we we're taking care of the kids and raising them and maybe we're homeschooling them. Some of us, we we go to the job when we're cooks and we're chefs and we're managers and we're assistant managers.

Work looks like for you, we all have to have an idea and a concept around it because it fills so much of our life. And my hope is you and I can walk out of this room because we have these default perspectives on how we view work, but if we can shift our perspective to God's perspective of work,

it can radically change the way we experience it. And that's the wisdom that King Solomon is trying to give to you and I at the end of his life through the book of Ecclesiastes. So Ecclesiastes two eighteen. He's writing to us and he's saying, I came to hate my hard work here on earth,

for I must leave to others everything I've earned. And who can tell whether my successors will be wise or foolish? Yet they will control everything I have gained by my skill and hard work under the sun. How meaningless. Now that word meaningless, I'm gonna teach you a little Hebrew this morning, okay?

It's the Hebrew word hevel. Everybody say hevel. Great. Good to hear from you. Hevel. Hevel is this word that literally means it's like a vapor or a mist. Pastor Bill kinda talked about this. It's it's kinda like, you know, we have fog machines. It's like it's like a fog.

Like, it feels like I'm spending my entire life just trying to accumulate all this fog. And as soon as I can get it in front of me, it just dissipates into the air. And then I'm just wondering, what was the point of all that?

That's what work feels like. It it feels like I'm just trying to accumulate fog as I'm accumulating success, as I'm in my life. It just feels meaningless. It's transient. It's absurd. Verse 20, so I gave up. I gave up in despair, questioning the value of all my hard work in this world.

Some people work wisely with knowledge and skill, then they must leave the fruit of their efforts to someone who hasn't worked for it. This too is meaningless, hell, absurd, crazy, a great tragedy. So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety? Their days of labor are filled with pain and grief.

Even at night, their minds cannot rest. It's all heaven, vapor, fog, absurd, meaningless. This is key, verse 24. So I decided there's nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God.

So King Solomon, he's at the end of his life, he's reflecting on his life, and he's writing to you and I what he discovered as he's given his life to work. I mean, King Solomon, he was a hardworking person.

He gave his life to achievement. He built the temple, which was actually really amazing, the temple of God, one of the greatest ancient projects ever performed. Like, was just amazing and beautiful and incredible.

But he worked hard, and he worked his people hard. We have a story in the Bible where his son is about to take over for King Solomon, and King Solomon's advisors are telling his son, like, Hey, listen, dude. Your dad worked us to the bone. You should probably let up, and the people are gonna like you a lot because your dad worked us so hard. And he was not very smart, and so he didn't do that. But that's how hardworking King Solomon was.

He he made Israel a an ancient superpower. It says in scripture that that in the times of King Solomon, silver was was basically worthless because of how plentiful things were in Israel.

He spent his life climbing this ladder of success, and he's climbing and he's climbing and he's climbing, and at the end of his life, he's looking down at you and I, and he's saying, guys, here's what I found at the top of the ladder. It's just more ladder.

It just keeps going. It honestly just felt pointless. I gave my life to this, and at the end of the day, I can tell you, work felt meaningless at the end of it. You see, King Solomon, he's been living in these extremes of how he viewed work, and honestly, all of us, we have a natural disposition towards our view of work.

So I wanna first talk about what is work not as we see in Ecclesiastes? What is work not from God's perspective? The first thing I wanna point out, work is not

evil. Work is not evil. When we're reading this, it kinda sounds like that's what King Solomon's saying. It's meaningless, it's purposeless. Like, what do I get from all this anxiety? And a lot of us, our default position from work is maybe we wouldn't say work is evil, but it's definitely something to be avoided. Right?

Like, I'm just I'm just working so that one day I can retire. And until then, I'm just working for my next vacation. And until then, I'm just trying to get to the weekend. And until then, I'm trying to get a job where I don't have to do much,

and I'm just gonna slip under the radar so I don't have to do, you know, all this hard stuff. And that's kind of our perspective of work. And a lot of us live there, that work is just, you know, we don't like our job, we don't like our boss, it's just something to be avoided. I remember growing up,

you know, I had a pretty rough childhood. My dad made us do chores. That's basically child abuse. No. I remember just hating

chores growing up. Just you know, my my dad, he made us load the dishwasher and do the dishes and pick up after the dog and walk the dog and and clean around the house and clean up our room and and clean out the car. And I just remember feeling like this is the worst thing that anyone could ever do to me because I already have to go to school.

And now this is just time that I can't play video games or hang out with my friends. Like, how dare you? And I would just complain and complain and complain. And my dad, what he would do rather than reprimanding me, he would just say, well, Hunter, this is the only reason we had you kids is to do chores.

And now that I'm a dad, I understand how ridiculous that is, like how how much work having kids actually is. But when I was a kid, I actually believed that. Like, don't think he realized how how truly I I thought that was real. It was like, I was born an indentured servant. Like

like, my life is miserable. Like, I truly and I saw work and chores and anything that I had to do is is just I tried the very best I could to avoid all of that. And the truth is there are times in my life where I can slip into that. When I'm going into a meeting just thinking, how can I zone out without anyone noticing?

Like I think a lot of us, we can live in this space. That work is just something to be avoided. It's evil, it's garbage, It's something that I don't want in my life.

And the best way to live my life is to avoid work. And I'm just waiting one day, I'll get to heaven and I'll get to sit on a cloud and watch football where the Cardinals always win. Right? Like that's our picture of paradise. That's our picture of eternity is no more work.

But that is not the biblical perspective at all of what work is. Actually, when we look at Scripture, Old Testament, New Testament, even in some of the parables of Jesus, it is very clear of God's perspective on work. That the unwillingness to work, laziness, or the old King James version, sloth,

it's actually called foolishness, wickedness, and even sin. And so the biblical perspective of work is actually, it's wrong, it's evil, it's wrong to not engage in the work that you know you should be doing. The work that you were created to do. The the you should be a part of what God is doing.

I mean, we we go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible in in in Genesis. God creates a perfect world, and he creates the Garden of Eden, this paradise, and he creates man. And do you know the very next thing he does? He gives him a job in a perfect world, in a paradise. He gives Adam a job to rule over the garden,

rule over the animals, and to cultivate what God has already created. That's his job. What does that tell you and I? That there is a piece of you and I that was genuinely created to do work in a perfect world and a paradise? Now, where the bit of truth that's behind this concept, this perspective

that we can fall into, that work is evil, is when sin and death entered into the world. One of the curses is sin, or is work is harder. Work is more difficult. It can sometimes feel meaningless. But work in and of itself is not evil. So a good indicator,

if you're kind of in this zone, in this perspective, if this is your default, is do you believe tomorrow if you woke up and you won the lottery or something happened where you never had to work again, all your problems would disappear? Because if there's a little part of you Someone said most of them.

There's a little part of you that's like, yeah, that sounds about right, that probably is a good indicator that this is kinda your default perspective when it comes to work.

Work is not evil. But some of us are on the other default perspective. Some of us are over on this side. We wouldn't say work is evil. We would actually say work is everything. Man, work is so important. But the second point I think King Solomon's making, and I wanna really, really get clear on it today, is work

is not everything, but work sorry, work is not evil, but it's also not everything.

You see, it's easy, especially I think in American culture, for us to slip into this perspective. It's so easy. And I think specifically men, it can be anyone, but specifically men, we can get into this perspective, into this idea that work is where I get my worth. Work is where I get my meaning.

Work is where I get my purpose. Work is where I get my security. Work is where And if we're not careful, we start to expect work to give the things that only God should be able to give us. Our identity and our worth and our purpose and our meaning. And it's so easy to get here. It's so dangerous to slip into the spot.

I remember when my wife and I, we were newlyweds, and we'd just kinda gotten married, and I very quickly realized that nobody's really good at being married at first. It's like, there's a lot of things that I never knew I was bad at. It's like, man, I'm not very good at loading the dishwasher, apparently,

and I don't know how to do the laundry right, and I don't clean the house correctly, and all of these things. You know, it all traces back to chores. Chores is the worst part of my life, I think. But

then I would go to work, and I was doing really good. It's like I was a youth pastor and I loved my students and my students loved me and my friends were there and I loved my coworkers and I was like, at work I feel successful. At work I'm the man. At work I'm doing really good. And then slowly, I started to

give more and more time to work. Less time to my wife, less time to my home, less time to my family, and more time to work because that's man, I I loved who I was when I was at work. I love the success of doing something right. I love feeling competent.

I love feeling like, man, this is my community and this is my This is who I am, because I'm a good pastor. And it's so easy for us to slip into that and to make it our identity and our purpose. But the truth is, that's idolatry.

Is expecting from work, expecting from something that's not God what only God should be able to provide for you? Because the truth is, God is the one who gives us our identity. God is the one who gives us our meaning. God is the one who gives us our purpose, And he may equip us with a calling, but it's not our identity.

Work is not everything. Because the paradox is if you give everything to work, it's only going to demand more. Work is a horrible god because when you succeed, you always have to find another success or you're gonna feel empty inside. When you achieve,

there always has to be another achievement or you're gonna feel empty inside. When you a promotion, that'll be nice for a couple weeks, and then you always feel like you need to step up if you're gonna feel satisfied.

It is a horrible, horrible God because it is always gonna demand more and more until you give it your entire life. I don't think any of us wanna get to the end of our life, and as we're sitting on our deathbed looking at our family, none of us are gonna think, man, I really wish I spent more time at work.

None of us are gonna think, man, I really wish I spent more time building my business. I really wish my house was cleaner.

We're gonna have unbelievable clarity and that's exactly where King Solomon is at. He's at the end of his life and he's saying, listen, I gave everything to work. I gave everything to it. And I can tell you right now, it felt meaningless. It felt like I wasted my time.

When you give everything to work, you actually end up with nothing.

A good indicator that this is kind of your default position, this is where you tend to view work is ask yourself this question, and I want you to be really honest. If you, tomorrow, lost your ability to work, would you still love and respect yourself the same way you do right now?

If tomorrow, you woke up and something happened and you could never work again, would you still love and respect yourself the same way you do now? And if the answer isn't yes, if the answer isn't yeah, I think I would still love and respect

myself the same way, That's a good indicator that this is probably your default position of work, that work is where you get your identity and your purpose and your meaning.

So what do we do with that? If work isn't evil and work isn't everything, then what's the answer? What does God wanna give us, this truth that'll actually transform the way that we work?

Here's where I think King Solomon landed. Here's where I think the answer is, is actually this healthy gospel middle. And here it is, work is to be enjoyed. Work is to be enjoyed. Look at verse 24, here's what he says. He says, verse 24, So I decided there's nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and find satisfaction

in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. I love that he relates it to food and drink. Because you know when you go out and you have a nice steak dinner and it's

a special occasion and you go out and you get a good, expensive meal? Nobody goes out to a nice steak dinner and is like, all right, I'm gonna eat 20% of this, and I'm gonna save the 80% so I can save it for a rainy day, make sure I have it. No, that's not why you go get a steak dinner. You go to enjoy a steak dinner

because you can't have your steak and eat it too.

I wish I could tell you Pastor Bill told me to say that joke, but sadly, I came up with that all by myself. Thank you. Thank you. No, the truth is you go to eat a good meal to enjoy a good meal. And King Solomon is saying the same way It's the same way with work. You go to work to enjoy work.

Yes, there are things that are frustrating. Yes, there are things that are hard. Yes, there are things that are just naturally difficult when it comes to work, but the purpose of work is to actually enjoy it. We need to provide. We need to make sure there's a house. We need to make sure we're eating food,

but the purpose of work is to enjoy work, to find satisfaction in it. So how do we do that? How do we actually receive work as a gift rather than a burden or rather than making it too much? How do we see it as not more than a gift, but also not less than a gift?

You see, the latter part of the verse I think is really the key. It says, Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. What is he saying? He's saying that God can give you your dream job, your dream version of work, and he cannot give you the ability to enjoy it.

The ability to enjoy the work that you have is also a gift from God. And so how do you and I get this ability to enjoy the work that we've been given? Well, it's from God. And the truth is we can experience work as a gift only when it's done for the giver. When we work for God, it changes everything.

So my first job, it was Chick fil A. Anybody love Chick fil A? Yeah, that's the Lord's chicken right there. It's closed today because, yeah. So

that was my first job ever, and, you know, I applied and got the job, and I was in high school, and they were like, We don't want you in the front where people can see you. We're gonna put you in the back.

And I was the breader, okay? I don't know if you know Chick fil A has a breader, but I was the breader. So my job was we had these drawers of like the raw chicken. I'd get the raw chicken out, and I'd put it in the egg milk wash, and then I'd put it in the flour, and then I'd put it on this little shaker and shake off the excess, and I'd put it in the fryer.

And so, you know, my coworkers, they'd be like, Hey, we need more sandwiches. So I'd make more of the fillets, and, Hey, we need more chicken strips. So I'd make more strips. It's like, Hey, we got a school bus. Drop all the chicken nuggets we got. And I was to get all the chicken nuggets, and that was my job.

And you know, I did that for about two years, and at the end of my two years, I was so done with that job. I was so done with the raw chicken and getting burned by oil and the freezing, like, milk wash and the flour, I was just done with it. It was no longer my pleasure.

It got to the point it was my torture, okay? And so I was done. And so I put in my two weeks, and I moved on to my next job. But years later,

my wife and I, we were talking about like, hey, what would be a fun date night that, you know, we could do something that we enjoy and spend time together? And she's like, hey, what if we did like an at home Chick fil A night? I was like, okay, you know, I know how to do that. And so, you know, I got the chicken,

and I got the egg milk wash, and I got the flour, and I got the oil, and I put the chicken in the flour or the you know what I'm saying. And I cooked it, right? And here's what's crazy. It was the exact same work that I did before. The exact same. The exact same job,

the exact same flour, the exact same chicken, the exact same oil, the exact same product, but the experience was totally different. What changed? Not the work, but who I was doing it for. That is what changed the experience for me. You see, God is the person

that we work for. You know, we might have a boss, and that actually might be the reason that work is so difficult right now, is our boss is difficult to work with, or the people we're working beside of, they're just difficult to work beside of. But the truth is, if you're a Christ follower, if you're a Christian,

God is your number one boss. You might have a secondary boss, but the person you're doing the work for is actually God Himself. You see, work is actually a form of worship. It's a way that we worship God is by doing this work and giving it, offering it to Him as a gift.

And when we offer it to Him as a gift, get to start experiencing Bless you. We get to start experiencing it as a gift. I love So there's this quote, and some people say it's a quote by Martin Luther, some people say it's C. S. Lewis, and some people say it's neither. So we'll just say it's a quote from me, okay?

But it's a good quote. Sorry, I'm messing with my mic. It says, The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship. So the purpose of a Christian shoemaker, if your job is to make shoes,

the way you're a Christian shoemaker isn't to put little John three sixteen on the shoes, It's to make good shoes.

Because when we offer God our best, he is glorified through that. It doesn't mean like we need to be the best in the business, and if you're not doing the best you can, then God's gonna be disappointed in you. It's a heart of wanting to do the best you can to the glory of God. Does that make sense? Yeah.

He's actually This quote, whoever said it, it's a summary of Colossians chapter three verse 23. Paul, he's talking to people who are actually slaves in households, and he's talking to these early Christians and encouraging them. This is what he says to them. Verse 23, he says, Work willingly.

Other translations say, Work hard at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than people. It's like if you're mopping floors, mop those floors in the name of Jesus. Right?

And if you're working on a farm, harvest those crops in the name of Jesus. Do it with excellence and do it to glorify God because when our work becomes worship, we get to experience it as a gift. When our excellence becomes His exaltation, we get to receive the gift of what work really is.

We get to experience the goodness of what work God designed work to be. Because yes, work is hard, but when we do it for God, He partners with us in the work. So what does it look like in your life for you to glorify God through whatever you're doing? You know, maybe you're a stay at home mom

and that means you cook those chicken nuggets in the name of Jesus, and you cultivate those little lives and point them to Jesus and give them the love and grace of Jesus and you teach them the truth. Maybe you're a business owner and you seek to operate your business as a picture of God's economy. Your

sole mission is to help people with whatever you're doing. Maybe you're an insurance salesman, and you truly seek not to benefit yourself, but to benefit the people that you're actually serving, that you're selling the insurance to. Maybe you're a janitor, and

you clean those floors and you pray over the people who are going to walk on them. If you're cooking food, you pray for the food and you pray for the people who are going to eat it that they would experience good food and it would remind them of a good God. See, work is a way that you and I get to glorify Jesus.

It's our worship. And when we offer our work to God, we get to experience the gift of work. So all of us have to make a shift. Whether we think, you know, our default position is work is evil, it's something to be avoided, it's something that I don't really want to be around, We've got to realize that work is

a good thing. There's a piece of us that we've actually been made to do good work. And on the other side of us, some of us, we've made work way too much. And we need to realize that we're working to glorify God, not ourselves,

and that our work is a gift to the God who gives us our purpose and gives us our identity and gives us our worth and our work is an expression of it. But the only way you and I can experience work as a gift is we offer it to the giver. It's the only way, because the ability to enjoy work comes from God.

And so if you are over here and if you feel like work is something to be avoided, here's my encouragement for you. Find one area of your job or your work that you can use to help somebody and do it to the best of your ability. One area of your job that you can do to help

someone around you, to point someone to Jesus, and do it the best you possibly can. And you're gonna start to find meaning and fulfillment in the work because that comes from the hand of God. For those of us that are in this default position of work is everything,

work is where I get my worth and my purpose, here's my encouragement to you. Before you start your day at work, remind yourself who you're working for and where your worth comes from. Remember the truth that I'm not going to work to earn something, I'm going to work to express who God has already made me to be

and to love on the people around me.

I remember when God just had to hit me over the head with this truth, with this reality that work is a gift. So

I got to help start our coffee shop, which is really cool. And it was kind of my foot in the door here at Rock Point because I was like, Rock Point is such an awesome church, and I really wanna work here, and so I really wanna be in ministry here. And there weren't any positions open, so I decided to start in the coffee shop. And so,

you know, I was like, I can't wait for a youth ministry position to open up. I just finished my college degree from a Bible college, and I'm like, all right, God, I'm ready for youth ministry. Open up the floodgates. And nothing happened. And then the days rolled into weeks,

and the weeks rolled into months, and I just started to get really frustrated with where I was at. And I looked around, and, you know, I have a college degree, and I have the same job as these high school students, just serving coffee.

It's like, God, I'm ready for ministry. I'm ready for what's next. I'm ready to step into what you have for me. Why am I here? Like, I want to be on the youth team. I want to do ministry. I want to appoint people to Jesus. Why am I here? And I just got so frustrated with where I was at. And I remember I

flew home to visit my family in Missouri, and I was talking to my dad, and I was just kind of emotionally throwing up, just how I was not happy with where I was at. And I don't know why God wouldn't put me where I want to be, and I've done all the work, and I've done the preparation, I've prayed for it, and

I'm, you know, working with these high school students. And my dad looked at me and he said, Well, Hunter,

you better get over yourself. That is not what you're supposed to say. He said, Hunter, why would God put you in the place that you wanna be if you're not willing to glorify him exactly where you're at? Why would he put you in a place of ministry where you're stewarding the souls of these youth

unless you're glorifying him and worshiping right where you're at. I said, why would God

And as I was flying home, I couldn't get his words out of my head. Why would God? Why would God put me where I wanna be? Why would God give me more if I'm not glorifying him exactly where I'm at? I don't know. So I decided when I go back to that job, I'm not serving coffee anymore. I'm serving Jesus. And

it happens to be one cup of coffee at a time. And I am going to pour that coffee, and I'm gonna make that coffee, and I'm gonna work on my latte art, and I'm gonna give people an incredible experience when they show up to this coffee shop.

And I'm gonna be the best breeze that I possibly can because I want to honor and worship God with everything that I'm doing. And you know what happened when I started to get that mindset?

God opened my eyes and he hit me over the head and he said, you wanna do high school ministry and you wanna pour into high school students? Look around, dummy. You're working with them. I was like, I'm sorry guys, my hands are tied. I can't pour into you until I get the title and the paycheck. I don't know what to do.

It's like, come on. I wanted the title and the paycheck and everything that came with it, but the truth was God put me in the perfect place to pour into those high school students right there and do ministry right there.

And I eventually ended up in the youth ministry and whatever, but man, that was a pivotal moment in my life where I realized it doesn't matter where I'm at or what I'm doing, I need to worship God in it and through it, and that's when I get to experience the gift of what God has given me to do. How about you?

Where are you at right now? Is work something to be avoided right now because it's just hard and you don't like what you're doing and you like your boss and you don't like your coworkers, let me encourage you. Works works can still be a gift because that gift comes from God.

So start glorifying him exactly where you're at. Maybe you're you've given work everything, and work has become your identity, and work has become your purpose, and and you've sacrificed so much for work. Let me encourage you.

If you give work everything, you're gonna end up with nothing.

And so start to realize that work is not more than a gift. There are limits on what work can give you, so you should put limits on what you give work. It's not more than a gift, and it's not less than a gift, but it is a gift when we offer it to the giver. So let's wake up Monday morning

and start worshiping God with absolutely everything we get to do because that's how we make a difference in this world. That's how we make a difference in our lives. That's how we make a difference for our families. We start to see work as a gift that glorifies the giver. Father God, thank you for this room.

Thank you that we get to come here this morning and worship you, to hear truth from your word. Father, pray that we would be excited to go to work tomorrow and experience the gift you've given us. I pray that in everything we do, you would help us see the purpose and meaning in the way we can worship in and through our work.

Bless us as we come, and bless us as we go. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you so much for joining us for church online this weekend. You can stay connected with everything happening here at Rock Point on our social media or by visiting rockpoint.io.