Success @ Work

Pastor Calvin Lee

Examples of success of the people in the bible :
Genesis 39:23 (Joseph)
1 Samuel 18:14 (David)
2 Chronicles 26:5 (Isaiah)
Genesis 24:14 (Abraham ask for success)
Nehemiah 1:11 (Nehemiah ask for success)

How does culture define success?
- Position
- Power
- Prestige
- Pleasure
- Prosperity

The above are not the ultimate key to success in God's understanding

Ecclesiastes 1:3; 1:14
Work under the sun perspective
- Self centered, looking at things with earthly perspective, view life as a race
- Meaningless = Vanity, vapour or breath

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
Work above the sun perspective
- God fearing, God centered, seek after God's purposes, view life as a pilgrimage not as a race

What is the elements of success @ work?
(1) Success is about God, not just me
- work and worship share the same DNA

(2) It's about significance, not just success (Ecclesiastes 3:9-10)

(3) It's about eternal, not external (Ecclesiastes 3:11)(Colossians 3:1-2)
- we look at things, setbacks, problems differently

(4) It is about meaning, not just money (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13)(Ecclesiastes 9:10)

I can find significance in M.Y. work :
Missional (Daniel 6:3-4)
Yahweh and not my way (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

You can't make a difference if you'd not be different

"The key to understandig the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term 'under the sun'. What that listerally means is you lock God out of a closed system, and you are left with only this world of time plus chance plus matter."
- Dr Ravi Zacharias -

"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."
- Martin Luther -

"The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not be putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship."
- Our Daily Bread -

"If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music... Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say : 'Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.'"
- Martin Juther King, Jr. -