Do you know the most important thing? In today’s fast-paced world, the pressure to succeed and achieve can sometimes overshadow the true essence of work.

Many people strive for success, but they often forget that the journey itself is just as significant as the destination. In this sermon, we’ll explore the profound truth that working hard is not only about achieving outcomes but also about embracing the joy of the process.

God calls us to use our gifts and talents with diligence and commitment, but He also wants us to find fulfillment and joy in our labor. In Ecclesiastes 3:22, we are reminded that “there is nothing better for a person than that he should enjoy his work, for that is his lot.”

Hard work, when done with purpose and joy, becomes an act of worship. It allows us to reflect God’s character in our daily lives. Join us as we delve into how we can cultivate a heart of gratitude and joy in our work.

Whether in our careers, studies, or personal projects, the most important thing is not just working hard, but finding meaning and enjoyment in all that we do. This sermon will inspire you to see work not only as a duty but as a divine opportunity to grow and thrive.

Referenced Verses:
1 Kings 3:12
James 1:5
Proverbs 4:5-7
Ecclesiastes 3:22
Ecclesiastes 12:8
Ecclesiastes 3:12

Video Transcript
Hello and welcome to Social Media Ministries. Thank you for joining us this week. My name is Spencer Coffman. I’m happy to have you here.

Thanks for tuning in. We’ve got a great message for you talking about the most important thing. So what is it? Well, we’re going to get to that.

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In addition, feel free to share these with others so more people can enjoy these sermons as well. We have a lot of sermons. We’ve been doing this for several years now. So you can go to our website, scroll down. You can go to socialmediaministries.com/all-sermons.

And you can scroll through looking at all the images and the titles, find the ones you want to watch, and learn more about those topics. So that would be really great to see if you took that initiative to learn more about what the Bible has to say. So today we are talking about the most important thing.

We’re going to go to 1 Kings 3:12. Kick it off with a Bible verse right away. 1 Kings 3:12, “I will do what you have asked.” “I will give you a wise and discerning heart so that there will never have been anyone like you nor will there ever be.”

These are the words of God talking to Solomon. God says to Solomon, “What — what can I do for you? What should I give you?” And Solomon says he wants a wise and discerning heart. And so God says, “I will do that, I will give you what you have asked.”

God’s telling Solomon that he will be the wisest man of all time and there will never be anyone like him in the future. So he will be the wisest man up until that point. Never will have there ever been anyone with his wisdom, nor will there ever be.

So no one will ever be as wise as he was. That means it is so important that you learn what he had to say. And we can do that by reading several books in the Bible written by Solomon. But one thing to remember is that God is the one who gave Solomon that wisdom.

And so when Jesus was here, someone could say, “Well, was Jesus more wise?” Yes, He was. But Jesus was also God. Now He emptied Himself of godliness when He came to the earth, and He was fully man.

But He had also the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. And so it would be possible for you to have more wisdom than Solomon in certain areas when you are allowing — I should say — the Holy Spirit to guide you. And to lead you and to prompt you, because we can be filled with the Holy Spirit and be completely baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Whereas in the Old Testament, they were not under that covenant yet. Jesus had not done His job yet, His — what He came to do, and release the Holy Spirit. And so the spirit would come upon them, but they weren’t completely full like we can be today. So you can still have wisdom.

Even though you may not be as wise as Solomon all the time, you can still have wisdom. And we can go to James 1:5 for that. Not to get the wisdom, but to get the proof. So James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all.”

Without finding fault and it will be given to you. So listen, if you lack wisdom, ask God and it will be given to you. Therefore, if you want wisdom, you want more wisdom, ask God, and He will give it to you. So you have an opportunity today.

Not only to ask God to receive that wisdom, but also to read what the wisest man on Earth wrote. And you have a choice of whether or not you will listen. To the wisdom of his words.

Let’s go to Proverbs 4:5-7, “Get wisdom, get understanding. Do not forget my words or turn away from them.” “Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom.” “Though it costs you all you have, get understanding.”

And Proverbs is filled with many more verses like that, telling you how important it is. To have wisdom and to have understanding, obviously, because look at what Solomon accomplished. But remember, all wisdom comes from God.

We have a sermon on that called “God’s Wisdom.” It’s God’s wisdom, and you need to be ready to handle that. And so today, like I said, you can have that Holy Spirit within you. If you don’t have that yet, just believe in Jesus Christ.

Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. If you are a believer, you’ve accepted that He died for your sins. And that you are not the Lord of your life. You are not the ruler of your life. You are allowing God to direct your steps.

We have a sermon series called “Saved by Grace.” You can check it out on our website or in a card up here, “Saved By Grace.” And that talks about how Jesus died for you. He paid the penalty for your sins, and so you can be redeemed and have eternal life in Heaven. When you die on this Earth.

Now there’s much more that needs to go into that — sanctification and how to live rightly and all of that. Discipleship process and learning how to be a true follower of God. And you can learn all about that through reading the Bible.

Spending time in prayer and also watching more of our sermons online because we talk about a lot of this stuff on and on. So if you were to watch multiple sermons, you’d have a much better understanding than in that 10 seconds I just gave you.

So remember, Jesus was a wiser man than Solomon. You say, “Well, how could that be?” If God told Solomon, “There will never have been anyone like you.” Nor will there ever be. Well, remember it was God that gave Solomon that wisdom. Jesus is God.

And so, of course, Jesus would be wiser. He’s not the same. He’s not on the same level as the rest of us. And so that’s how Jesus can have more wisdom. We don’t have time to dive into all the proofs and everything. This isn’t going to be some philosophical dissertation on it.

The point is that Solomon’s wisdom came from God. Jesus was fully God and fully man. So, of course, it would reason that Jesus would be wiser. So Solomon was not divine. Jesus was. And so now that we’ve established this, we know Solomon was a wisest man.

We have a lot of his works, and we know Jesus was a very wise man. And what is the point — so what is this most important thing? We might be saying it’s wisdom. Well, wisdom is very important.

But Solomon, in all his wisdom, tells us in his book Ecclesiastes what the most important thing is. And so we’re going to get to that. What is it? Solomon says again and again the most important thing in life is to work hard and enjoy what you do.

So let’s go to Ecclesiastes 3:22, “So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot.” “For who can bring them?” — We don’t need to keep going. That’s it. There is nothing more, nothing better for a person to enjoy their work. That’s it.

Solomon went through all kinds of stuff. The book of Ecclesiastes is very telling. Proverbs is excellent for the wisdom. Ecclesiastes is more like an experience. He’s giving more of a testimony. He’s giving his experiment that he did in life. And he’s saying, “I’ve tried all of this stuff.”

So this advice is coming from a man who had every Earthly pleasure — everyone. He had mansions, houses upon houses. I mean, of course, he didn’t have modern-day plumbing. So we might say, “Well, in today’s day, maybe he would change.”

But I don’t think so. He had every pleasure. He had mansions, women. He had money. He had servants. He had power. He had influence. He had a kingdom. He had everything you could think of. Riches upon riches, wealth upon wealth, victory over his enemies.

He had peace. He had freedom. He had literally every good thing you could have on Earth. He had it. He tried it all. Whether it was smoking, whether it was drugs, whether it was sports games, entertainment, etc. He tried it all.

He experienced everything that he could because he was searching, and he discovered, “Look, I have all this wisdom.” “What is the best thing I can be doing?” And so he was teaching others — he was constantly talking to people.

People traveled from all over the place to come and to hear of Solomon’s wisdom. The word of him spread around the known world at the time. People traveled from other kingdoms to come, and they gave him gifts, and they gave him — I mean, probably millions of dollars worth of things.

In order to just sit with him and talk and observe him in court, and learn his wisdom, because they were so fascinated by it. And Solomon said, “This isn’t enough. I just — there’s got to be something more.”
And so he searched and went through all of these things. And you can read more about it. You know, I encourage you to read Proverbs and read Ecclesiastes. What’s interesting is a lot of Solomon’s proverbs.
Are echoes of his father David’s writings in Psalms. So read Psalms. That’s a great book. Read Proverbs — I mean, they’re all good. And then if you read Ecclesiastes, a lot of people struggle through that one. I really enjoyed it, though. I like that book a lot.

Because it’s Solomon telling of his experiences. And by the time he had finished all of this experiment on Earth, he had a conclusion. And it was twofold. Number one, everything is meaningless because he said, “What’s the point?” He has all of this stuff.

He has everything and he’s searching after it. And so what is the point on Earth? And we have a sermon. We did this. This was one of our first sermons, way back in the beginning, “Everything Is Meaningless.” So check that one out. You can watch that, learn more about it.

And he’s saying, like, this world doesn’t matter. And so what’s so interesting is when you get into the New Testament. You realize how Solomon, when he went through all of this and concluded all of this stuff, he’s really a precursor to what Jesus was saying. And Jesus, we know so much in the Old Testament was prophetic.

So Solomon’s words were prophetic about that. Jesus is telling us we are not of this world. Do not store up for ourselves treasures here on Earth because our treasure needs to be in Heaven.
This world does not matter. Yes, it matters in the fact that you are here, but you are not of the world.

And so you need to do your job while you’re here. What’s your job? Go into all the world, preach the gospel, make disciples of all nations. And teach them to obey all that I have commanded you to do. Now that means we have a mission while we are here, but this is not our home.

And so Solomon didn’t know that yet. He hadn’t received that commission, and he hadn’t received a helper, the Holy Spirit. To help him have a mission while he was here on Earth. We have that today.

So we have arguably more of a direct purpose and a calling. Then Solomon had, with all his wisdom, all his wealth, all his riches, all his servants, all of his stuff. We have that today. So he was searching for something like that. He was searching for a divine purpose, a mission.

Now, of course, he did have a purpose. He had a kingdom to rule. He had people to teach. He built God’s temple. I mean, he had a lot of things that he was supposed to do during his reign. And he did them, and he said, “It’s not enough.” And you see today, without Jesus and without the Holy Spirit, many people do that.

Look at how many people have great companies. And great wealth today, political power, influence, and they just always seem to want more. It’s never enough. Even celebrities or sports players, they have millions of dollars a year, but they’re not satisfied and they’re trying to do good works.

I mean, you look at the NFL and they have all these players that are trying to do all of these things in order to get some kind of man of the year award. Or this or that or prestige or honor, and it’s like it’s never enough. Well, when they have Jesus and they live on mission for Him, it’s enough.

And so Solomon his conclusion was twofold. Everything is meaningless on this Earth. There’s nothing here that really matters. And number two, the most important thing is to do good and enjoy what you do.

So let’s go to Ecclesiastes 3:12. We’ll check that one out. No, first we’re going to go to Ecclesiastes 12:8. “Everything Is Meaningless.” We got to give you that Scripture.
So Ecclesiastes 12:8, “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Everything is meaningless.” Solomon, in all his wisdom, his conclusion. It’s all meaningless. Now we’ll go to Ecclesiastes 3:12. This is his conclusion now.
Ecclesiastes 3:12, “I know that there is nothing better.” For people than to be happy and to do good while they live. Solomon is saying that in everything on Earth, no matter whether you’re rich or poor.
Whatever, you have everything here, it doesn’t matter. The most important thing to do is to enjoy your life and to do good. And so you have to do good and enjoy your life. That’s it. So what are you doing? What are you doing in your life? You have a job. Do you enjoy your job? Do you like it? If you don’t, why are you doing it?

Because this world doesn’t matter. And so you must enjoy your time here because your time here is short. Psalms says that man is fortunate if they live 70 years, maybe 80. But what do they accomplish? Well, if you’re living 70 years, maybe 80, you can do a lot in those years.

But if you’re not happy during that time, what good is it? None. So you might as well do something that you enjoy. Enjoy what you’re doing and do good while you’re doing it. Because if you are enjoying your job, think about it. If you go to work eight hours a day, and you sleep eight hours a day, and then you have eight hours of leisure time.

Which arguably I would say that is the time that you need to be living. I mean, you need to always be living on mission. But that’s your real workday. Your eight hours while you’re making the money, going to your job. That’s really not — that’s not your workday.

That’s not your calling. Now it could be if you’re out on the mission field or depending on your job, whatever. You get what I’m saying. That time is usually someone else’s. Your employer is paying you for that time. So they’re buying you for that amount of time. Then you have eight hours of free time, and you have eight hours of sleeping time.

Now, arguably, the eight hours of free time you’ve got some meals. Maybe some chores to do, whatever. So we could probably get that down to five hours. So, really, five hours of your day you need to be doing.

The most important thing, enjoying what you’re doing, doing good for God, building the kingdom. Hopefully, you are doing more than that. Because during your workday, even though you’re being paid by someone else and you’re on their time, you could still be building the kingdom there.

But remember, what is your mission? It is the great commission. You have been commissioned by Jesus Christ to preach the Gospel. To go into all the world. You say, “Well, I have a job, I can’t travel into all the world.” You can on social media. You say, “Well, I’m not a good teacher.” The Holy Spirit is your helper.

If you get out of the way, the Holy Spirit will flow through you and be the teacher. What other excuses do you have? Because any excuse you have, the Bible’s got an answer. You need to start doing. Remember the most important thing: do good and enjoy what you’re doing. And when you start living on mission for God, on mission for Christ.

You will enjoy what you do. And as Paul says, if you do everything as if working for the Lord, you will find enjoyment in your work. Even if you hate your job, if you start doing it as a means to fulfill the mission, like, okay, I’m working my job to support my family.

To make money and then, in my time off, I’m able to do what I want to do for God. You will enjoy that work because you will see that work as a step to doing the mission that God has you to do here. So I really encourage you if you don’t know your divine calling or your divine purpose.

I’m going to tell you what it is right now. It is the great commission. Preach the Gospel. Make disciples of all nations. Get out there baptizing people in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Raise the dead. Cast out demons. Heal the sick. That is your purpose. That is your mission.

Now, of course, you might have another calling that goes with that, but that is really the bottom line. And your other calling could be your daily job. But if you want to know more about what it is, check out a playlist we have on “Your Purpose.”

And we have several messages about that. You can learn more about what you are supposed to do here on Earth. But just remember, while you’re here on Earth, this is a temporary place for you. This is a training ground.

This is a place where you are to do as much as you can to build the kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven. You want to make this world reflect Heaven as much as possible. And how do you do that?

You learn as much as you can about what Heaven is like. And about what Jesus tells us. He tells us many, many times the Kingdom of Heaven is like this. That’s what you need to be making this world like. Solomon says the most important thing is to do good and enjoy what you do. When you do God’s work, you are not only doing good. But I promise you, you will enjoy it.

Let’s pray.

Father, thank you so much for this message derived from Solomon. The wisest man that you sent here on Earth. You gave him that wisdom. I ask that you give us that wisdom.

We can be even wiser than Solomon with your wisdom. I pray that each and every person watching and listening would open up their minds. And their hearts and be ready to receive your wisdom.

That they would be willing to let the Holy Spirit flow through them to do your work. To fulfill the great commission, to do good and enjoy the good they are doing. That they would remember that their purpose here is for you.

That they would work hard and enjoy what they’re doing because that is their lot in life but that they would always remember. Not to store up Earthly treasures but to remember that their treasure is in Heaven.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Thanks for being with us this week. If you have any questions or comments, put them below. You can also join us on social media. Or the Discord server, Facebook, anywhere. Comment on YouTube as well.

Have a great week, and God bless!