Sermon, Text: Proverbs 14:4, Title: Work for the Night is Coming

Introduction

Our text says In the absence of oxen, the crib is clean. The owner is thus spared the labor of providing food for the animals or cleaning the dung in the area where the animals are normally kept. On the other hand, Great harvests come from the strength of an ox. This animal was used for plowing and threshing the grain. Without the ox there is nothing to put in the granary. The advantages of keeping an ox far outweigh the disadvantages. An investment of time and effort is essential to an abundant harvest. As the old song says, “Work for the Night Is coming,” and we properly understand the song to mean, work for the kingdom of God, but what does that mean? We will learn today. However, right now I say, work for the night is coming because the author of Ecclesiastes says in 9:10, Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might because in the grave there is no working.

I The Duty of Work

Most of us regret having to work. In fact, in our culture, for many people one of the primary reasons for work is so that they can get enough saved to quit work and retire. Others have a different reason, as in the bumper sticker axiom “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.” People call it the grind because according to polls only 43% of American office workers are satisfied in their jobs. And that’s a good percentage because in Japan where we tend to think everybody loves their work the figure is only 17%. That’s not surprising because research indicates that on average about 65% of working Americans are in a job that does not match their abilities and is therefore unfulfilling. How many people really love what they do? It’s complicated because people are influenced by attitudes around them and it involves understanding your motivation, your abilities, and the realization that no matter how much you love your work, there are going to be some days when you just don’t feel like it. Still the primary factor in having a job you love is knowing that work is not a curse, but a mandate from God. It is his creation. In the beginning, in Genesis 2: 1-3 we read, And the heavens and the earth and all their host were finished. And God had finished on the seventh day his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it, because that on it he rested from all his work which God had created in making it. God worked and then rested. We are also to work. The commandment says six days shalt thou labor, and we are fulfilling God’s command and imitating his ways when we work. Adam it says in Genesis 2: 15, was put in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Man was always meant to work and it only became drudgery after the fall into sin and expulsion from the Garden. Only then did Adam work in the sweat of his brow and cope with the thorns and thistles of life.The ground is cursed, the work is cursed, and all of life-every enterprise, every achievement, every relationship is under the curse. That does not mean that the inherent dignity of marriage is lost. It does not mean that the inherent dignity of Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, or Handel’s Messiah is lost, and it does not mean that the inherent dignity of work is lost. Like everything else it becomes difficult. When we become Christians we are supposed to understand this: work is hard because of sin, but it is also a blessing because if it is done for God’s glory we become more like Him in doing it. And thus the duty is turned into dignity.

II The Danger of Work

One 20th century word comes to mind, “workaholic.” Many people substitute work for God. They find the meaning of their lives in what they do. It becomes their identity. This is a pitfall. They neglect other important things in life such as their family. Even Pastors do this. In college I remember an Inter Varsity staff member asking a group of Christians a question. “Who are you?” If you ask that question of a group of people they generally search their minds for keys to their identity. Swarthmore College student was an appropriate answer in that group. In Society people might say I’m a stockbroker, or a lawyer, or a factory worker, or a custodian. Or they might say I am a son, or a father, or a boy scout, or little leaguer. Of course all those answers are wrong. The right answer is “I am a child of God.” If you get your identity right you will also avoid the danger of work defining you. Your ultimate job is always pleasing God. God knows this and that’s why he created the Sabbath. The seventh day he rested and that’s what you are to do as well. God knows what working seven days a week does to people and so the whole Old Testament is structured around the sabbath. Weekly sabbaths first, then after every seven years a whole year off, then in the fiftieth year after seven sevens a jubilee year which meant 2 years of rest, the forty-ninth and the fiftieth. There were severe penalties for breaking the sabbath. God takes it very seriously. Lee Iacocca was a busy man running the Chrysler Corporation. Even so, he knew the value of taking time off and he writes in his autobiography: “I’m constantly amazed by the number of people who can’t seem to control their own schedules. Over the years, I’ve had many executives come to me and say with pride: ‘Boy, last year I worked so hard that I didn’t take any vacation.’ It’s nothing to be proud of. I always feel like responding: ‘You dummy. You mean to tell me that you can take responsibility for an $80 million project and you can’t plan two weeks out of the year to go off with your family and have some fun?’”

III The Dodging of Work

Recreation should not become a reason for dodging work. Godly people should not resent work. Our text implies that there are people who are so neat and nice, they cannot endure husbandry because there is so much dirty work in it, and therefore will sell their oxen to keep the crib clean; but then not only the labour, but even the dung of the ox is missing and the result is poverty and hunger. The book of Proverbs has much to say about sloth. Proverbs 10:5, He that gathereth in summer is a wise son; he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame; 15:19, The way of the sluggard is as a hedge of thorns; but the path of the upright is made plain; 19:24, A sluggard burieth his hand in the dish, and will not even bring it to his mouth again; 22:13, The sluggard saith, There is a lion without, I shall be killed in the streets; 26:14, As the door turneth upon its hinges, so the sluggard upon his bed. In the NT there are several admonitions. In II Thessalonians 3:10,11 Paul says, For also when we were with you we enjoined you this, that if any man does not like to work, neither let him eat. For we hear that [there are] some walking among you disorderly, not working at all, but busybodies; and in I Timothy 5:8 he writes, One who is too lazy to work or who otherwise refuses to provide for his family has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. God loves workers and despises laziness. The sign in the store window read: NO HELP WANTED. As two men passed by, one said to the other, “You should apply-you’d be great”

IV The Devotion of Work

The ability to work is a precious gift from God. Like many things in life we often don’t appreciate it until we lose it the ability, and many people really don’t appreciate it. Indira Ghandi said “My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there.” But work is only worthwhile if it is devoted work. Paul says whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all to the glory of God. Now I mentioned earlier that I would explain what I meant by kingdom work. If you are a true believer, then absolutely everything you do is kingdom work. It includes, of course, things you do for the church. It includes tithing to the work of God. It includes witnessing to others; it includes teaching whether adults or children; it includes efforts to help those in need. These are obvious. What is not obvious is that mowing the lawn, cooking the meals, washing the clothes, changing tires, working on a production line, or laboring in an office, or seeing clients or patients are all kingdom work. Christian slaves had even less reason to be enthusiastic about their work. But in I Timothy 2:10 Paul gave them a way to grasp a glimpse of glory amid the grind. He wanted them to adorn the doctrine of God, that is, to show the beauty of their faith in Christ by how they work. Martin Luther understood this when he wrote, “The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays — not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors. The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.” That reminds me of a story told by Harry Ironsides, the prolific writer and former Pastor of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago. “When I was a boy, I felt it was a privilege to help my widowed mother make ends meet by finding employment in vacation time, and Saturdays. For quite a while I worked for a Scottish shoemaker, or “cobbler,” as he preferred to be called, named Dan Mackay. He was a forthright Christian and his little shop was a real testimony for Christ in the neighborhood. On the little counter in front of the bench on which the owner of the shop sat, was a Bible, generally open, and a pile of gospel tracts. And whenever opportunity offered, the customers were spoken to kindly and tactfully about the importance of being born again and the blessedness of knowing that the soul is saved through faith in Christ. It was my chief responsibility to pound leather for shoe soles. A piece of cowhide would be cut to suit, then soaked in water. I had a flat piece of iron over my knees and, with a flat-headed hammer, I pounded these soles until they were hard and dry. It seemed an endless operation to me, and I wearied of it many times. What made my task worse was the fact that, a block away, there was another shop, and in it sat a godless cobbler who gathered the boys of the neighborhood about him and regaled them with lewd tales that made him dreaded by respectable parents as a menace to the community. Yet, somehow, he seemed to thrive and that perhaps to a greater extent than my employer, Mackay. As I looked in his window, I often noticed that he never pounded the soles at all, but took them from the water, nailed them on, damp as they were, and with the water splashing from them as he drove each nail in. One day I ventured inside, something I had been warned never to do. I said, “I notice you put the soles on while still wet. Are they just as good as if they were pounded?” He gave me a wicked leer as he answered, “They come back all the quicker this way, my boy!” Feeling I had learned something, I related the instance to my boss and suggested that I was perhaps wasting time in drying out the leather so carefully. Mr. Mackay stopped his work and opened his Bible to the passage that reads, “Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of god.” “Harry,” he said, “I do not cobble shoes just for the four bits and six bits (50c or 75c) that I get from my customers. I am doing this for the glory of God. I expect to see every shoe I have ever repaired in a big pile at the judgment seat of Christ, and I do not want the Lord to say to me in that day, ‘Dan, this was a poor job. You did not do your best here.’ I want Him to be able to say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’” Then he went on to explain that just as some men are called to preach, so he was called to fix shoes, and that only as he did this well would his testimony count for God. It was a lesson I have never been able to forget. I have often thought of dear, devoted Dan Mackay, and it has stirred me up to seek to do all as for Him who died to redeem me.”

V The Distinction of Work

Psalm 58:11 says, surely the righteous are still rewarded. Faithfulness in all that we do brings rewards. Jesus said in Matthew 10: 41 and 42, He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward: and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward. Even the most mundane actions, the most seemingly insignificant righteous acts are rewarded. Many people receive honors and rewards: diplomas and degrees, commendations from organizations, medals for heroes, plaques recognizing service, trophies for athletes. Today I am wearing a gold Hamilton watch that my Dad received in honor of working for the Budd Manufacturing Company for forty years. But in the end the reward that counts is the reward that God gives and that Jesus talks about. Do you remember the parables in the gospels describing three servants to whom their master committed varying amounts of treasure? Two invested it and made more-and one buried it and made nothing. To the two who made a profit the master said, Well don thou good and faithful servants, you have been faithful in a little, I will place you in charge of more. Now the thing that fascinates me about this is that Jesus is telling a parable about business. Sitting in the financial district of many big cities are men at their desks taking other people’s money and making more for them. It’s a job that the men in the parable had and they did it well and were honored for it. It does not matter what you are doing, sweeping the floor or standing in the pulpit, preaching the gospel in a foreign land or sending supplies to a medical clinic overseas. If it is done for the glory of God you do not lose your reward. In Luke 19 and Matthew 25 we read those famous words of Jesus, in as much as you have done it for the least of these my brethren, you have done it for me. Listen to the words of Jesus in Matt, 25: 34-40, and note the work that was done. He doesn’t say you were a missionary or a pastor or a famous evangelist, he says: Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and fed thee? or athirst, and gave thee drink? And when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? And when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me.

CONCLUSION

I looked up Bible illustrations on the internet in Bible.org and under a believer’s work it had just one illustration and it was pray unceasingly, praise continually, preach unwearyingly, and it gave Scripture references for each and they are right, but is that all you can say about a believer’s work? No, absolutely not. What we learn in the Scriptures is that all work is divinely ordained, everything is a holy calling, whether it’s in the kitchen or the yard, whether it’s a job behind a desk or under a car lift. It is God’s work to be done for God’s glory. This is what Jesus rewards, and we should seek to dedicate every moment of our time at a job or at home, at work or at leisure for his glory. If we all did that more people would see Christ in us, the hope of glory.