Sermon Tone Analysis
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Burnout
I don’t know how many of you have experienced what we call burnout.
It comes in many forms, and has a variety of causes, but usually it happens as a result of rewards not matching effort.
In my case, I suffered what I guess you could call burnout at the end of a long period of effort in our company, DreamSpring.
We started developing smart phone apps even before smartphones existed.
(We developed apps for a PDA platform from a company called Psion, which evolved into the first significant smartphone platform, Symbian.)
After 10 years of developing apps for Symbian, the platform was abandoned.
We had come close on several occasions to breaking through to large-scale sales, but had always just missed out.
We had poured so much effort into creative and exciting apps, but had never achieved that breakthrough, so when we considered whether to seek investment to start afresh on a new platform, I simply didn’t have the energy.
Question: has anyone else experienced burnout like this?
Solomon was certainly familiar with the idea that life’s rewards didn’t match the effort we put in.
Let’s look at what he says in Ecclesiastes chapter 9.
Bible
Responses to burnout and unfairness
Notice how Solomon points out that no-one is immune to unfairness.
It doesn’t matter whether you have physical prowess, intellectual gifts, or moral strength, nothing guarantees you success in life.
What can we do about this?
How can we handle this endemic unfairness of life?
Solomon suggests several strategies in Ecclesiastes.
First, we can recognise that the season has changed and we can try to accommodate ourselves to the new season.
But, as Graham pointed out last week, we have to recognise that we have no control over this—God is one who controls the seasons of our lives.
Second, we can simply put our noses to the grindstone.
If our efforts don’t yield the expected rewards, we can simply work harder.
This is a classic response encouraged by the Protestant Work Ethic of our society.
But, of course, more work doesn’t guarantee more rewards.
Third, we can eat, drink, and be merry.
We can endure the toil and focus on enjoying what it buys us.
Work hard and play harder, is the attitude.
But this doesn’t always work, we can easily lose everything that we enjoy, and it eventually becomes hollow, anyway.
Finally, Solomon suggests that we can give up on the idea of working for a reward, and simply do whatever it takes to get what we want: cheating and stealing with abandon.
Of course, this behaviour just makes it more likely that we’re going to end up badly, doesn’t it?
The answer from “above the sun”
None of these answers seem very satisfying, but that’s all that we can offer if we limit ourselves to what Solomon calls “under the sun” thinking, and which we would call a materialistic worldview.
But we don’t need to limit ourselves to under the sun, because as believers in God, we have access to answers from “above the sun,” spiritual solutions.
The OT answer
Even Solomon’s contemporaries had access to this wisdom, as Psalm 49 demonstrates.
In this psalm, the author addresses the same problems Solomon saw, but offers a very different solution:
Now, you might notice that the Psalmist seems happy just to know that God will somehow redeem him from the grave.
Job places the same trust in God, too.
But with our perspective from beyond the New Testament, and the coming of God as the man Jesus, we can ask “How and why does God redeem my life and snatch me from the power of the grave?”
The NT account of God’s redemption
We are all familiar with the explanation that the apostle Paul gave to the Roman church:
So now we know the reality: God will put everything right after death—the apparent meaningless chance of this material world will be corrected in the next world through the power of Jesus.
So, there is one burning question remaining: how then shall we live?
The options that Solomon suggest only make sense when God is excluded from the picture, how should we live when God, and the next life, is very much part of the picture?
The right way to live
The apostle Paul, perhaps the New Testament’s equivalent to Solomon in his incredible theological wisdom, explains in his second letter to the Corinthians:
So our whole lives are to be lived “above the sun.”
The reality of “under the sun” still tires us, but we know that soon, soon, we will put on our heavenly bodies (v.
2).
When we encounter unfairness, what then do we do?
We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, and we aim to please him.
A metaphor for life: IFR
I know this is a very abstract idea, so an illustration might help to cement this idea in our heads.
The Challenge of Single Pilot Instrument Flying
When a pilot first starts flying, they are licensed to fly in what’s called Visual Flight Rules, or VFR.
They must only fly in situations where they can see all around them, so that they can maintain appropriate distance from the terrain and other aircraft.
They use their eyes and the radio to talk to other aircraft.
But what happens when they encounter a storm or even just fluffy, white clouds?
They have to fly around them!
When you can’t see the horizon it is very easy to become disoriented and fly the plane right into the ground.
Now, if you’ve flown anywhere, you will know that commercial aircraft fly through clouds all the time.
That’s because commercial pilots are licensed to fly in Instrument Flight Rules, or IFR.
In IFR, the trained pilot scans six main flight instruments and responds to them.
An IFR pilot flies by having faith in his instruments, rather than his eyes.
In a storm, you can imagine how difficult this can become.
On top of this, in IFR the pilot must maintain contact with air traffic control in order to ensure that there are no other aircraft too close by.
And, to add a further burden, IFR requires the ability to navigate via radio beacons and airways.
Yes, you can use GPS to navigate most of the time, but a pilot must be able to navigate without GPS, since pilots can’t simply pull over to ask a pedestrian which way to the nearest airport.
Now, you might be thinking that IFR sounds a lot more complex than VFR, and it is!
Fortunately, commercial aircraft, and indeed many IFR flights, have an extra pilot along to help share the burden.
You might have thought that the copilot just sat their waiting for the pilot to drop dead or something, but no, they have an important role to play at all times.
How does this illustrate our situation?
Think of Visual Flight Rules as Solomon’s “under the sun” perspective.
It works OK so long as no clouds or storms come along.
As soon as life’s storms gather, VFR leaves you grounded!
Now think of Instrument Flight Rules as our “above the sun” perspective.
With IFR we can fly straight into a cloud or storm, confident that we’ll come out the other side.
Of course, flying by instruments requires a lot more attention: we need to communicate with God, study his word, pray, and ignore the visual circumstances of the storms around us.
We live by believing and not by seeing.
And that’s why it helps to have others around, sharing the load.
But the benefits are huge: we can fly into the storms of life without fear.
We don’t need to worry about chance circumstances, we can navigate without focusing on our circumstances.
We can fly without limitations.
We know the truth, and the truth sets us free.
Let’s pray
Lord Jesus, we thank you for coming to die for us.
Your death and resurrection has set us free from the limitations of this world.
We are free to join you in the heavens, like a pilot flying on instruments.
Help us to remember and relish our freedom, and to encourage one another in keeping our eyes fixed on you rather than our circumstances.
In your name, Lord Jesus, Amen.
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