Never Enough | Week 3 · Rewind

Never Enough | Week 3 · Rewind

Pastor Hunter Jones · Apr 27, 2026

Big Idea

Work is a gift when it's done for the giver — that is, when we work for God rather than for ourselves.

Work fills half our waking life, and it was never meant to be either something to escape or the thing that defines us. When we offer our work to God as worship rather than demanding it give us identity or avoiding it altogether, we get to experience it as the gift He designed it to be.

Key points

1
1Work can feel meaningless when it's disconnected from purpose.
Pastor Hunter shares his story of working weeks at a Walmart hot food counter on paper time slips, never getting entered into the system, and never getting paid a cent for fifty hours of work. He connects that feeling of wasted effort to King Solomon's reflection in Ecclesiastes on a life poured into work and achievement, using the Hebrew word 'hevel' (vapor, fog, absurd) to describe how work can feel when it's chased for the wrong reasons.
2
2Work is not evil — it was part of paradise before sin entered the world.
Pastor Hunter names the default view that work is something to be endured until retirement, vacation, or the weekend. He points back to Genesis, where God gave Adam work to do in the perfect Garden of Eden before the fall, showing that humans were created to work, and that Scripture actually calls laziness foolishness and sin.
3
3Work is not everything — it cannot give you identity, worth, or purpose.
He tells his own story as a young married youth pastor who slowly gave more and more hours to work because he felt successful and competent there, at the cost of time with his wife and family. He warns that making work an idol is a horrible god because it always demands more, and offers the test: if you lost the ability to work tomorrow, would you still love and respect yourself the same way?
4
4Work is meant to be enjoyed, and that enjoyment itself is a gift from God.
Working through Ecclesiastes 2:24, Pastor Hunter compares work to a good meal you go out to actually enjoy, not ration. He explains that God can give a dream job, but the ability to find satisfaction in it is a separate gift God gives, not something we manufacture ourselves.
5
5Work becomes worship, and a gift, when it's done for God rather than for ourselves.
He tells the story of breading chicken at Chick-fil-A as a teenager until he hated it, then years later cooking the exact same recipe at home for his wife and loving it — the work didn't change, but who he was doing it for did. He ties this to Paul's words to the Colossians about working for the Lord rather than people, and to a craftsmanship quote about a Christian shoemaker glorifying God by making good shoes, not by decorating them with Bible verses.
6
6God can use you right where you are, not just where you want to be.
Pastor Hunter recalls being frustrated serving coffee at Rock Point's coffee shop while waiting for a youth ministry position to open, until his dad told him he needed to glorify God exactly where he was. He shifted his mindset from serving coffee to serving Jesus one cup at a time, and realized he was already surrounded by the high schoolers he wanted to minister to.

Application

Pastor Hunter's charge is to stop treating work as something to escape or something to worship, and instead offer it to God as worship.

Find one way to help someone at work
If work feels like something to avoid, find one area of your job you can use to help somebody and do it to the best of your ability, trusting meaning will follow.
Remember whose worth you carry before work
If your worth comes from work, remind yourself before your day starts who you're working for and that your identity was already given to you by God, not earned.
Worship God through Monday's work
Wake up Monday and start worshiping God with everything you do at your job, your home, or your studies, trusting that this is how you make a difference in your life and family.

Take it into your week

Sign in to ask Rewind about this sermon

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

Related passage

Before the fall, before the curse, before anything went wrong — God gave Adam a job. He placed him in the garden to work it and keep it. Let that land for a moment. Work didn't enter the story as punishment. It was woven into life in paradise, which means it's woven into what it means to be human. Pastor Hunter pointed to this to knock down one of the oldest lies about work: that it's beneath us, or at best something to be tolerated until the weekend. But if God assigned meaningful work inside a perfect world, then avoiding work isn't rest — it's actually missing something we were made for. That doesn't mean every job feels like Eden. Most don't. But the origin of work is good, and that matters for how we carry ourselves into Monday morning. When work feels pointless or exhausting, it helps to remember that the impulse to create, to contribute, to care for something — those aren't burdens. They're part of the image of God in you. This week, instead of asking how to get through your work, try asking what God originally intended for it. That's a better starting question.

For reflection

In what ways do you find yourself thinking of work as something to be escaped rather than something you were made for — and where did that idea come from?

Pray

Pray for a fresh, honest look at how you actually see your work — and for openness to what God might want to show you this week.

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Work takes up a huge chunk of our waking lives — and yet most of us have never stopped to ask whether we're thinking about it the right way. This message from Ecclesiastes 2 digs into that question with some of Solomon's hardest-won wisdom.

Discussion questions

1
In Ecclesiastes 2:18-23, Solomon describes someone who has poured everything into their work and ends up in despair. What do you notice about what he actually expected his work to give him — and where those expectations led?
2
Then in verse 24, the tone shifts: Solomon says there is nothing better than to eat, drink, and find enjoyment in work — and that this enjoyment comes from God's hand. What does it mean for satisfaction in work to be something God gives rather than something we earn or manufacture?
3
The message points to two broken defaults — treating work as something to escape, and treating it as the thing that defines your worth. What do you think makes each of those postures so easy to drift into?
4
Colossians 3:23 says to work heartily, as though working for the Lord rather than for people. How might that shift in audience — from people to God — change the way someone approaches a task they find tedious or thankless?
5
Pastor Hunter challenged people who tend to avoid or resent work to find one area of their job where they can genuinely help someone and do it to the best of their ability — because that's where meaning begins to grow. What do you think connects helping a specific person to finding meaning in a job more broadly?
6
Pastor Hunter described ordinary Monday-morning work becoming something sacred when it's offered to God as worship. What would it look like for a group like ours to actually encourage one another in that direction week to week?

Pray together

Receiving work as a gift from God's hand and offering it back to Him — whatever it looks like this week

Sign in to save this message.

Topics

Finding Meaning in Work Identity and Worth Idolatry of Achievement Work as God's Gift Work as Worship

Powered by Rewind · make your church's Rewind →