Young and Old

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was having a conversation with and on the television there was a story about Dolly Parton.

We were curious as to how old she was.

So I took out my phone and googled her to find out.

She is 77 years old.

She doesn’t look 77 years old.

She looks much younger.

Not only that, but she has a lot of energy.

We would say that she is youthful.

And that’s a funny thing isn’t many of us want to stay youthful.

In fact, in our country alone there are more than 10 million plastic surgeries annually and almost none of them are medically necessary.

So people are getting plastic surgeries to decrease the signs of aging.

There’s someone I know that is my age and she regularly gets Botox injections to deal with the wrinkles that come with aging.

One of the idols of our world today is the cult of youth.

Most people want to look young, feel young, and act young.

We have 50 and 60 year olds out here dressing like teenagers.

And look, I’m not here to throw any shade.

I don’t want to crush anyone’s desire to dress a certain way, but I do want to point out that acting, looking, and feeling young can be an Idol.

I remember a few years back when I turned 35, I would tell people that I’m middle aged.

They would look at me like I’m crazy. How could I possibly be middle aged?

The average age of death among men in the US is 73 years old.

So I was at least really close to middle age at 35, and as I round the corner to 40, I am past it.

And you may buck and brace against it, but middle age is halfway between birth and death.

And I think it’s important for us to wrap our minds, hearts, and actions around the fact that we won’t live forever in the state we are currently in.

No matter how hard we fight it.

No matter how many nips, tucks, and lifts we get, every one ages.

And the cult of youth isn’t just for those who are older.

The young are affected as well.

Rather than listen to and respect someone older, the younger generation wants to listen to and take advice from the things that are new and trendy.

They love the novelty of an idea or technology b/c it’s not old fashioned.

It’s fresh, new, and improved.

And if they keep up with the new and improved then they will never grow old either.

Holding onto youth so tight that you never let go is not healthy.

It’s not helpful.

And most of all it’s not realistic.

And that’s what Solomon wants us to see.

He wants us to understand that no matter how tightly we want to hold onto youth it’s going to slip through our hands.

It’s going to be gone tomorrow.

In light of our fleeting life, what are we supposed to do?

How are we supposed to react?

Solomon tells us in the opening verses of the scripture we are going to look at this morning.

For both the young and the old the first thing he tells us to do is to rejoice.

Ecclesiastes 11:7–8 CSB

7 Light is sweet, and it is pleasing for the eyes to see the sun. 8 Indeed, if someone lives many years, let him rejoice in them all, and let him remember the days of darkness, since they will be many. All that comes is futile.

Rejoice in Old Age

The first thing that Solomon points out to us here in v. 7 is that “light is sweet.”

In the ANE, light is often use for life.

While darkness corresponds to death.

So essentially Solomon is saying that life is sweet.

Literally he is saying that life is like the sweetness of honey

When you think about the sweet things in life, they are enjoyable.

They are pleasant.

Though life can be harsh and there are things that happen that we don’t enjoy.

Circumstances that are out of our control.

Death, illness, pain, and heartache.

Though those things exist, life is still sweet.

This is something that Solomon is reminding the older men and women listening.

We know this b/c of v.8 “if someone lives many years”

Life is sweet.

Why would it be important for him to tell the older generation?

B/c becoming jaded is something that happens to us as we get holder.

The hardness of life tends to break us down, callous our hearts, and cause us to become more pessimistic.

B/c we seen the pain, heartache, and struggles of life.

So what is the antidote to becoming jaded?

How do we fight against the hardening of our hearts?

We should rejoice that we get a long life.

A long life should be seen as a joyful thing.

This is only truly satisfying if we have a relationship with the Lord.

How else are we going to rejoice?

Who are we going to be thankful toward?

When we rejoice in the life that God has given us we have a point and a source to project our gratitude.

Think about it this way the longer we live the more we get to enjoy the sweetness of life.

Relationships with our loved ones.

I hear that grandchildren are pretty awesome.

Our relationships shift toward our children.

We no longer parent them, but we get to advise them and watch them grow in their knowledge of life and the world.

We get to continue to rest in the goodness of God.

We get to continue basking in the good gifts that he has given us.

We get to see some of God’s handiwork in our lives and the lives of those around us.

And perhaps the most amazing thing, we get to continue to serve the Lord.

We have more time to serve him.

We get to pour into younger generations.

We get to counsel and give advice to the youth.

We get to sow and reap more b/c the Lord has granted us more time.

And this all starts with rejoicing and giving praise to God.

Praise him for another day.

Praise him for another opportunity.

Praise him that you can rejoice today.

I love the balance with which Solomon teaches here.

Rejoice in the sweetness b/c dark days will come

He isn’t interested in trying to convince us that life is always going to be good.

That we don’t have anything to worry about.

He’s realistic.

He wants to speak with clarity.

Life is full of both joys and sorrows.

Pleasure and pain.

Remember that not every day is going to be sweet.

Sooner or later you are going to taste the bitterness of life.

Someone you love will die.

You will face injustice.

You will face disappointment.

You will grieve.

And ultimately you will die.

Solomon wants us to remember that your days are numbered.

That you will not live forever.

There is a day when darkness comes.

Now we as followers of Jesus have the hope that even though our days on earth are short.

They are few, our life with him is secure.

We should rejoice that we have this hope.

That we have the opportunity to know the God who crafted us in our womb.

That we have salvation b/c of Jesus’ blood that was shed.

We should rejoice b/c of God’s goodness. and the life we have in X.

Living within this reality we shouldn’t take our lives for granted.

We should wake up each morning grateful that we are able to take another breath.

We should rejoice today.

Ps 118.24 “24 This is the day the Lord has made; let’s rejoice and be glad in it.”

This command is amazing, b/c what it tells us to that TODAY is the the day we should rejoice.

Not yesterday b/c that day is gone.

Not tomorrow b/c that day isn’t here.

But today b/c this is all we have right now.

Each day is a gift.

Whether your old or young rejoice today.

Speaking of the young, Solomon has an instruction on how they should rejoice too.

Ecclesiastes 11:9 CSB

9 Rejoice, young person, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth. And walk in the ways of your heart and in the desire of your eyes; but know that for all of these things God will bring you to judgment.

Rejoice in Youth

The young should rejoice in their youth.

They should praise God for the strength he has given them.

Young people enjoy many blessings in life.

They have fewer cares of the world.

They don’t have as many adult responsibilities.

They are strong and get stronger.

They have energy that is enviable.

And for most of them they have a pretty happy and cheerful outlook on life.

If they aren’t wasting it away on things that don’t matter.

I don’t know which age group exactly Solomon has in mind here when he is talking to the young.

Is he talking to teenagers, young adults, or people in their 30s.

B/c the reality is youth is relative.

If your 70, 40 is young.

If your 40, 30 is young.

If your 30, 20 is young.

If your 20, 18 is young.

So when does one stop being youthful and start being old.

I don’t know. And I wish I had a good answer for you.

I do know that Jewish children enter adulthood at 13.

That’s why they have the Bar and Bat Mitzvah.

A right of passage to adulthood.

And I also know that 27 year olds shouldn’t be living in their parent’s basement and mooching off of them.

They should be in the work force creating, earning, and becoming contributing citizens for the world.

So I guess the line for youth is between 12-27.

In those years of your life, you can take risks.

You can make mistakes.

You can learn.

You get married.

You can grow, learn, and develop relationships that may last a lifetime.

This is something that the youth can rejoice in.

The young don’t have to worry about sleeping wrong and waking up with a sore, back, knee, or neck.

They have much to rejoice in.

Solomon even tells the young to rejoice in the days of their youth.

The walk in the ways of their heart.

To enjoy the desires of their eyes.

To the old this sounds dangerous.

You don’t want to give youth that much freedom.

You don’t want them to go after the desires of their heart.

You don’t want them to be freed up to do whatever they want.

Because we know one of the things that the youth have is an inability to see the consequences of their actions.

They can be blind when it comes to the desires of their hearts.

They can be duped by the culture telling them to do what feels good.

They can chase pleasure to avoid pain.

They can seek out pleasure and completely forsake their future.

The youth may feel invincible and feel like there is no danger in giving into their temptations.

So, Solomon offers a counter balance to seeking pleasure.

To giving into desires.

He reminds the youth that they are going to have to give an account to God.

That there is a judgement coming.

Ecc 11:9 “9 Rejoice, young person, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth. And walk in the ways of your heart and in the desire of your eyes; but know that for all of these things God will bring you to judgment.”

How do we teach, train, and guide the youth to live lives full of joy?

Remind them to temper joy with fear and reverence for God.

Now this doesn’t mean that all the pleasure, joy, and fun is sucked out of life.

God created his world to be enjoyed, and he also created boundaries around how it is supposed to be enjoyed.

If you are enjoying his creation without acknowledging his boundaries you are bound to sin and create chaos in your life and the life of others around you.

We live our lives before the face of God and this is a sobering reality.

Knowing that what we do matters not just to us, our friends, and our family, but ultimately to God.

We should rejoice in him and the good gifts he has given us.

The word Judgement here in Hebrew is literally “The Judgement” meaning the judgement at the end.

The last of all judgement.

The day that you stand before God and give an account for all your actions, decisions, and life.

And it may seem far away to the young.

That gives them the belief that freedom is better.

That they can live their life full of foolishness.

But each day you wake up is a day closer to your death.

Each sunrise gets closer to the last.

As a youth you can ask any older person in here how quickly life flies by and they will without a doubt say its quicker than you think.

So, especially if we claim Jesus as our LORD and Savior, we should live a life that glorifies him.

Meaning that, yes, you can enjoy life.

But don’t enjoy it outside of his lordship.

Enjoy life and don’t sin.

Rejoice in the goodness of life, responsibly.

Celebrate the fact that you are young, but don’t be young and stupid.

This is what Paul tells us in 2 Tim 2:22 “22 Flee from youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

So rejoice, seek joy, but know that you will never truly find it outside of God’s oversight.

After Solomon talks about rejoicing for both the old and young, he moves forward to helping them to find one way to rejoice.

By removing sorrow, pain.

Ecclesiastes 11:10 CSB

10 Remove sorrow from your heart, and put away pain from your flesh, because youth and the prime of life are fleeting.

Clean Up

I’m not a huge fan of the phrase this translation uses when it says “remove sorrow” the word there is actually vexation.

Remove vexation. What is vexation?

“Vexation is any problem that causes us worry and concern, that “anger, grieves, or irritates.”

One theologian says that vexation is “the bitterness provoked by a hard and disappointing world.”

This is a broad command, b/c the application is broad as well.

B/c what causes vexation is different for each one of us.

What angers and irritates you, might not anger or irritate someone else.

But it’s not just vexation that is a problem, it’s also pain.

Physical pain. Maybe from an illness, accident, or disability.

Or maybe just from getting older.

We are all subject to pain and vexation.

We are all subject to the brokenness of this world.

Solomon realizes this.

And he commands us to remove and put away these things.

We, to the best of our ability need to remove the things that discourage us and cause us pain.

This means that we may need to strip social media away from our lives.

We may need to cut people out of our lives who cause us pain.

We may need to kill the sin that entangles us.

We may need to see a therapist.

We may need to go to the doctor.

We may need to acknowledge that we are in pain, whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual.

Instead of hiding behind a smile.

We may need to quit playing the victim and refuse to feel sorry for ourselves.

Removing vexation and pain from our lives is not going to be a passive activity.

We must do the work.

We must clean out the closet.

We must bring order out of the chaos.

We must remove and put away the things that cause us harm.

One way to do this is to continually count our blessings.

To remind ourselves about the goodness of God.

To look around at all the blessings that God has given us in the form of family, friends, and most importantly himself.

We should run to our brothers and sisters in X and allow them to speak into our lives when we are down.

They can advise and give us scriptures to ease the difficulties we are facing.

Additionally, when we are vexed we need to run to God in prayer.

I know that one of the hardest things for us to do when we are mad is to stop and take a break.

But we should take both a praise break and a prayer break when we get irritated and angry.

Running to God in prayer is the best way to turn our vexation into joy.

Phil 4:6-7 “6 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

The biblical way of curing vexation is to cast all our cares, angers, worries, pain, sorrow, irritation on God.

Life is too short to be always angry and sorrowful.

Life is fleeting.

Our life is simply a vapor and being vexed all the time isn’t a good and godly way to live.

We aren’t honoring God if we are angry and irritated all the time.

We’re no good to the world around us if we are always vexed

So to honor God and live redemptively we need to cast our vexation and sorrow away.

However we may need to.

Commune with fellow believers.

Go to the doctor.

Seek out a therapist.

And steep your life in prayer.

Especially when you are young.

These things will help you to remember your creator, which is what Solomon urges us to do next.

Ecclesiastes 12:1 CSB

1 So remember your Creator in the days of your youth: Before the days of adversity come, and the years approach when you will say, “I have no delight in them”;

Remember God

Getting to know our Creator before we grow old and die is the most important thing that we can ever do.

The best time to give your life to God is when you are young.

The second best time is today.

Remembering God in your youth helps you to orient your life so that you can live devoted to him for more days than not.

I’m not discounting people who are older when they give their lives to X, they are amazing too.

But submitting to God young and growing old with him is a beautiful thing.

But the command to remember God is a good command for everyone regardless of age.

Remember him calling you.

Remember hims saving you.

Remember the graces and goodness that he has poured out on you.

Remember who you were b4 God saved you.

Remember who God has called you to be.

Many times in the Bible we are told to remember.

We are told not to forget.

We are told to think about and meditate on the Scriptures so that they are ingrained in our minds and hearts.

Why?

B/c we are all prone to forget.

And especially as we age.

As we get older, one of the downsides is our memory fades, but if we have anchors around God, we have reference points for our minds and hearts.

We have a past to look back on to see God orchestrate and move our life so that it glorifies him more.

And here’s a beautiful truth.

Even when you forget God, if your mind fades through age or illness, God won’t forget you.

What comfort there is in that truth.

God remembers you.

He knows your name.

He knows your faithfulness.

He knows you.

And the good news is this, our salvation isn’t based on our remembrance of God, but on the reality that he remembers us.

If you have a friend or family member who suffered from dementia or Alzheimer’s, and they were believers, even if they forgot about God, he didn’t forget about them.

His faithfulness isn’t dependent on the ability or lack there of of our mind.

God is good to all who are his.

Mental capacity not withstanding.

God took into account our decaying bodies when he put into practice the plan of redemption.

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But going back to giving your life to God at a young age, this is the best way to live life.

In accordance with his design.

Follow him when you are young and you will have more reference points to remember.

You will be able to look back on how God moved and worked in your life over a longer period of time.

The earlier you give your life to Jesus, the longer you have to live for him.

So if you are young and you haven’t trusted in Jesus, today’s the day.

Trust Jesus. today and live a long life of faithful obedience so that you can look back and see God’s faithfulness.

Better to live for the Lord young than to do so when old, but the reality is it’s never too late as long as you are breath.

In the next few verses, Solomon is going to continue to talk about the body breaking down on the way to old age.

It’s a beautiful picture of the reality of our broken bodies.

He’s going to talk about while leading us to, once again, the reality of our death.

Ecclesiastes 12:2–5 CSB

2 before the sun and the light are darkened, and the moon and the stars, and the clouds return after the rain; 3 on the day when the guardians of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, the women who grind grain cease because they are few, and the ones who watch through the windows see dimly, 4 the doors at the street are shut while the sound of the mill fades; when one rises at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song grow faint. 5 Also, they are afraid of heights and dangers on the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper loses its spring, and the caper berry has no effect; for the mere mortal is headed to his eternal home, and mourners will walk around in the street;

Body Breakdown

I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time on this section, but Solomon here is likening the aging process to the decay of a house.

Like all the material structures of the world everything will eventually lead to disrepair.

Everything will eventually decay.

Likewise, we are all going to get older and it doesn’t matter how much youth and vigor you have today one day that will end.

This is a complex metaphor, but I’ll try to simplify it.

Guardians of the house= Arms, trembling, not as strong as before

Strong men= Legs, pain riddled and bent with age

Women grinding are teeth that are fewer and fewer with age.

Windows are eyes seeing dimly

Doors are the ears that have closed or become more deaf.

Daughters of song fading is the voice that is no longer able to speak loudly or sing beautiful songs.

The blossoms of an almond tree are white signifying the graying of hair.

The point of this passage is to point us to the reality that even if God blesses us with a long life, the body breaks down.

One day you will be spry and full of energy and vigor, the next you will throw out your back just from sleeping wrong.

Or a sneeze will incapacitate you.

Solomon uses the analogy of a grasshopper that loses his spring.

What was strong and is now weakened.

This is proof again of the fall.

The reality that life is broken.

The bodies we once loved have now betrayed us.

By growing older and weaker, but there is a glimmer of hope here in this passage.

“for the mere mortal is headed to his eternal home.”

This world isn’t our home.

It’s our temporary dwelling place, but this isn’t all there is.

There is eternity beyond this life.

And that eternity is either going to be with God, or without him.

You are either going to the eternal home to be with the Father, or you are going to be separated from him for all eternity.

The hope of every believer is that they will get to enjoy God and his goodness forever.

In order for that to happen, we must place our faith in trust in Jesus.

We must know that we need to be saved from our own sin, rebellion, and distance from God.

We are all going to live for eternity.

Either in the presence of the almighty, or eternally in hell separated from him.

There is threshold that we must cross to enter into this eternal home, and it is death.

And everyone will die.

Ecclesiastes 12:5–7 (CSB)

5 ...for the mere mortal is headed to his eternal home, and mourners will walk around in the street;

6 before the silver cord is snapped, and the gold bowl is broken, and the jar is shattered at the spring, and the wheel is broken into the well;

7 and the dust returns to the earth as it once was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Return to Dust

The picture that Solomon is painting here is a funeral and mourning.

The mourners are walking the street.

Life has ceased.

The light of life has been snuffed out and our bodies return to the earth.

Dust returns to the earth as it once was.

This should immediately cause us as the readers to reflect on Genesis 1-2.

Where we were created from the dust and where we will eventually all end up.

We can’t escape death.

But we can have eternal life.

We can live forever.

Death isn’t final.

When you die.

When your body returns to the dust your spirit will either enter into the presence of God or into the absences of hell.

My plea for you is that you would give your life to Jesus today.

You never know when you will breath your last breath.

You never know when this body will give up.

Whether young or old, you aren’t guaranteed another day.

Turn to Jesus.

Submit to him.

And you will have eternal life.

Find life today in the arms of Jesus.