Light Service Sermons for the Month
How to Build Healthy Relationships
The Secret to Job Satisfaction
DATE: April 19, 1998
TEXT: Ecclesiastes 5:18-20
This morning we’re beginning a new four part series called, “How to Enjoy
your Job.” And to get us started I’d like to give you a pop quiz; a quiz
designed to help you measure your job satisfaction.
- Do you dread the thought of getting up in the morning?
- Do you go to work angry or depressed?
- Do you lack a sense of meaning and purpose about your job?
- Do you lack a sense of accomplishment on your job?
- Do you frequently come to work late, leave early, or call in sick?
- Do you lack enthusiasm in your work?
- Do you believe your boss is too difficult to work for?
- Do you think that enjoying your work is impossible?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, you may be experiencing what
has been called “pulling down times,” the sense that your job is
controlling your life, leaving you feeling helpless or overwhelmed. You’re
not alone.
We spend 75% of our adult lives working and yet the majority of us aren’t
enjoying our jobs. Statistics tell us that up to 95% of all Americans are
either dissatisfied with their work or are in a job they weren’t wired for.
As many of us move into middle life we realize that our dream job is no
longer going to happen. So we end up going to work each day disappointed,
frustrated, and unfulfilled.
Add to that frustration, the uncertainty of the job market. The 90’s have
been a decade of downsizing as corporations tried to trim expenses. The
result is that many are having to settle for less meaningful work just to
pay the bills.
For instance, 30% of new graduates will be underutilized between now and
2005. Even though they have college degrees, they’ll have for settle for
McJob--or minimum wage jobs. As one Hallmark card says, “Congratulations
on your degree. It will look nice hanging on the wall of a fast food
restaurant.”
Survey after survey suggests that Americans feel they are working harder
and yet enjoying it less.
And yet work is something we cannot live without.
As Albert Comus says: “Without work all life goes rotten. But when work is
soulless, life stifles and dies.”
Many of you know first hand what Camus is saying. Your job is squeezing
the joy out of you. You feel frustrated, bored, and tired.
I believe that god created us to work and that he intends for us to take
pleasure in our jobs. His desire is that our careers not only pay the
bills but offer us some meaning and fulfillment. The good news is that we
can enjoy our jobs, no matter what they are, no matter how qualified or
overqualified we might be. And ion the Bible God shares some keys to
making our careers more fulfilling. but before we look at them, let’s
pray.
O Lord, you set Adam and Eve in the midst of the Garden to care for the
creation you creation. The work that you gave them provided meaning and
purpose for their lives. Thank you for the gift of work. But more than
that thank you that our worth comes from you AMEN.
As we look at our Bible reading for today, we find three keys that can help
us find satisfaction in our jobs; three keys that can help us change our
attitudes toward our work that we might find fulfillment it in.
1) The first key to job satisfactions is to discover your value in Jesus
Christ. The Bible says, “It is fitting to find enjoyment in all the toil
with which one toils under the sun...” (Ecc. 5:18)
Over and over again, research tells us that the key to job satisfaction or
enjoyment is found in developing a healthy sense of value. Those who feel
good about themselves are much more likely to feel good about their jobs no
matter what the job might be.
Unfortunately, many of us have gotten it backwards. Our self-concept has
become so wrapped up with our jobs that it’s our jobs that influence our
identities rather than our identities influencing our jobs.
so in order to enjoy our jobs, we need to begin to enjoy ourselves--to
develop a healthy sense of self respect and value. And that happens as we
discover who we are in Jesus Christ.
A little girls was rummaging through all of the presents sitting under the
Christmas tree. She would pick them up, shake them, listen to them, and
then try to guess what was in each one.
While she was doing this a bow fell off of one of the packages. She
quickly picked it up, stuck in on her head, and said, “Look Daddy. I’m a
present.”
When we live in a relationship with Jesus Christ, we begin to see ourselves
differently. He helps us see ourselves as he does, as people with worth
and value. He restores our confidence, our dignity and our self-esteem.
He fills us with a healthy sense of pride--a pride that shakes seriously
our weaknesses and our strengths. He helps us realize that we are a
present--we are special to him. And as we develop that healthy sense of
worth, we are better able to enjoy our jobs. For now our fulfillment isn’t
wrapped up in what we do, but in who we are in Jesus Christ. No matter
what the job is, we still have worth and value because he loves u. And
that love changes the way we see our jobs.
So the first key to job satisfaction is to enjoy your job by enjoying who
you are in Jesus Christ, and finding your fulfillment in him.
2) A second key to job satisfaction is to see your job as God’s gift to
you. The Bible says, “...to accept their lot and find enjoyment in their
toil--this is the gift of God.”
The movie Chariots of Fire, tells the story of Harold Abrahams and Eric
Liddell as they competed for gold medals in the 1924 Olympics. In the
movie, there’s a scene that takes place one hour before a big race. Harold
Abrahams is talking with his trainer and says, “I’m 24 and I’ve never known
contentment. I’m forever in pursuit, and I don’t even know what it is I’m
chasing.”
May of us know exactly what Abrahams is saying. We work ourselves hard day
after day, continually pushing ourselves on and one but never finding what
we’re looking for. Our jobs leave us empty and unfulfilled.
contract that attitude to Eric Liddell’s experience. His family
continually discouraged him from running and tried to pressure him in to
returning to China as a missionary. No one in his family could understand
his obsession with running and felt he was abandoning God’s call on his
life.
In trying to explain his feelings to his sister he said, “Jennie, you’ve
got to understand. I believe god made me for a purpose--for China. But he
also made me fast!--and when I run, I feel his pleasure.”
god takes great pleasure in you. He’s delighted with you and he takes
great pleasure in what you do. Your job is his gift to you. It’s his way
of taking care of your needs. And as you begin to see your job as his gift
to you, you find your attitude toward it changes. Though the work may not
change, your attitude can. And knowing that God takes pleasure in what we
do motivates us to do the best we can with what we have.
Martin Luther King once said, “If a person is called to be streetsweeper,
he or she should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven
composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He or she should sweep
streets so all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, “here lives
a great streetsweeper who did the job well.””
Before I became a pastor, I had several jobs that were less than
stimulating from waiting tables to putting mail into little pidgeon holes.
I found that if I decided the job was boring, it became boring. but when I
decided to do the best I could and take pride in my work, I actually found
satisfaction in it. I remember I would always reward myself each night
after waiting tables with an ice cream cone.
Seeing our job as god’s gift to us, and knowing that he takes pleasure in
us, motivates us to give our best, which ultimately gives us more
satisfaction in our jobs.
3) Finally, a third key to enjoying your job is to let god’s joy occupy
your heart. The Bible says, “They will scarely brood over the days of
their lives, because God keeps them occupied with the joy of their hearts”
(Ecc.5:20).
One day a man met a beggar and said to him, “God give you a good day, my
friend.” And the beggar replied, “I thank God I never had a bad one.” So
the man said, “God give you a happy life, my friend.” To which the beggar
answered, “I thank God I am never unhappy.” The man was intrigued and
asked, “What do you ,mean?’
“Well,” said the beggar, “when it is fine, I thank God; when it rains, I
thank God; when I have plenty, I thank God; when I am hungry, I thank God;
and since God’s will is my will, and whatever pleases him pleases me, why
should I say I am unhappy when I am not?”
The man looked at the beggar in astonishment and asked, “Who are you?” The
beggar answered, “I am a king.” “Where is your kingdom?” he was asked.
And the beggar answered quietly, “In my heart.”
The beggar knew the secret to satisfaction and fulfillment in life. He
learned that joy is not found in what we do or how much we have or what our
circumstances might be. Joy is found in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
It’s the certainty that he is with us giving our lives meaning. Joy is
finding delight in God as he finds delight in us. It’s knowing, sometimes
in the tedium of work that God takes pleasure in us and what we’re doing.
And as his joy permeates our hearts we’re able to see the value in our
jobs, the surprises each day has, and the satisfaction that comes in
knowing that god hold us in his hands.
In may very well be that you are not in the job you always thought you
would be or that your dream job isn’t everything you hoped it would be.
But ultimate joy in life does not come from our jobs. Rather, joy makes
our jobs enjoyable. And that joy, the joy that can make our jobs and lives
more fulfilling is a gift that comes when we live in a relationship with
Jesus.
So if your job has you down, if it’s robbing you of energy, I encourage you
to change your focus. To look not to your job, but to Jesus Christ, for
your joy and fulfillment. and as his joy occupies your heart, it will set
you free to enjoy your job
AMEN