Ecclesiastes 3:16-6:12 - The Pursuit of Justice

Intro

I took you through the first three chapters of Ecclesiastes, but I failed to paint forth the whole big picture of the book. It is how to view life in light of death. Because you will die, because everything around you will die, Solomon questions why we even stress out about this life. When you think on death, you are reminded of the eternal perspective.

What we learned: Life is a gift, not gain. you will not achieve happiness if the world changes. It is not the things outside of you that must change, it is you that must change.

Solomon is confronting a lie with the truth:

The Lie: You will be content the more you control your life.

The Truth: You have no control over your life and accepting that is the only way to be content.

The rules according to Proverbs: do this and you get this.

Ecclesiastes reveals a glitch in the system: your actions do not guarantee any outcome.

Today’s Message: The pursuit of justice.

Justice is an issue the whole world screams in agony over.

Justice = Judgement executed rightly. Evil is punished and good is praised.

We all want justice because it is the righteous punishment of evil. It is wired into our very person that if someone commits evil, that evil should be returned on their head.

The reality is, life under the sun does not go the way we often want

Two Bookending Verses: 3:22 and 6:12 - “What can tell man what will be after Him?”

You do not know tomorrow. Not only that, you have no control over tomorrow. At first, that is a truth that will seem terrifying. But when you finally realize tomorrow is not held by your shaking and sin stained hands, but rather in the almighty sovereign hand of a perfect God, you will learn contentment.

Outline: How to Enjoy a Life Surrounded by Evil

1. Submit to the lot God has given you (3:16-22)

Last time, Solomon eventually discovered that everything is planned by God, therefore all the anxiousness he feels of trying to control his life means nothing because he can do nothing to change or control the plan of God.

God is accomplishing this plan of “fixing what is broken” (1:15) and “seeking what has been driven away” (3:15).

But that raises some difficult questions: if God is in control, why does the world not look like it? Why would God allow evil? (Verse 16)

Solomon gives two reasons that he discovered in his heart that solve this issue:

1) God will judge, it just is happening on His timing. God does not punish evil the moment evil is committed. He waits for his perfect timing to do it (Verse 17).

2) God is waiting to judge to test man and prove to man the sin of their own hearts (Verse 18).

Romans 3:3–8 “What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.” But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.”

The point: God waits to punish evil so that at the perfect timing, man has no excuse that God is unjust. God does not punish the crime before it was committed like the Minority Report.

God’s justice will be executed for our sin. Either on his Son on the cross, or on us at death.

Hebrews 9:27 ESV

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

So here is the thing: you have no idea when you will face justice. You have no idea when your death day is. Because you have no idea what day your death is, you have no control of it.

Many do try to control their death. I have two examples:

My Grandpa in-law

Anakin Skywalker

So since you don’t have control over death, that leads to a crippling fear (fear, leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering).

But Solomon offers a solution… (Verse 22)

Lot = Possession, share, portion. Out of the cut of the pie, this is the slice you are given. Here, it is used to refer to the life God has assigned you.

Your life is your lot. Your work is your lot. Your family is your lot. Your spiritual gifts are your lot. Your money is your lot. Your personality is your lot. Your birth is your lot. Your death is your lot.

Solomon bought into the lie that he would enjoy life if he could control his lot. But death is the ultimate reminder he has no control over it. The ultimate question he ends with: “Who knows what will be after him?” You have no control over your death, therefore you have no control over your life, your lot.

Instead, he says to enjoy that lot as a gift from God. Use it to obey him because honoring him will bring you the best joy. If God designed your body to look a certain way and another person to look another way, that is the lot he has assigned you.

“Rejoice!” he says! Don’t dwell on what you have not recieved in your lot, submit and delight in what you do have.

Psalm 16:5–6 ESV

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

2. Share the lot God has given you (4:1-16)

Verses 1-3 - Solomon sees people who have wrong done to them, and no one comes alongside them to comfort them in their injustice. He knows God is in control of these situations, but he still anguishes over the suffering of others. So much so that he says the dead are better than the living!

Verse 4 - He reveals why people work to control their lives: we look at others and we want to be like them. We look at the appearance of another so we toil, work anxiously to mold our body to display the same. We look at jobs, successes, and we see people that we believe are happier than we are because of something they have under the sun.

Solomon offers some wisdom: A balance - Laziness is sinful (v. 5), but so is two hands full of toil (v. 6). The solution is one handful of work and a handful of rest.

But how do you strike that balance? The following verses illustrate:

Verses 7-8 - If you rest out of a motive to please yourself, if you work out of a motive to please yourself, it will leave you never satisfied.

The issue is not your discipline, it’s your heart motive.

If you simply just rejoicing in that lot, you will not be content. It must go outward.

Verses 9-12 - Solomon presents a better way: use your work to bless others. To bless your fellow. use your rest to bless others. Companionship is the answer.

When God made Adam he said it is “not good that man should be alone” which means a single person is not enough to reflect the glory of God. Because you will die, seeking to please yourself goes against the way God has wired creation.

Focusing on others is wisely living in light of death because you invested in the soul of another person and that soul is eternal.

Luke 12:16–21 ESV

And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

His point: You will enjoy your life more if you work and rest with an outward focus. If you are lazy, it is because you lack the motivation to overcome the discomfort of work. If you are anxious and struggle to rest, it is because you work to find comfort for yourself instead of focusing on outward focus of blessing others.

Verses 13-16 - A warning to how your actions will always affect others.

3. Slowly Speak in the lot God has given you (5:1-7)

Solomon gives a warning of caution.

Don’t make a rash vow because you have no idea if you can fulfill it. Again, who can tell man what will be after him?

If you did vow, he says pay it off right away in integrity.

Matthew 5:33–37 ESV

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

Jesus is saying that when a rash vow is made, it’s not done out of submitting to God’s plan and will. It’s done out of asserting your own will in hopes that it pleases God so that he bends creation to match your will.

You don’t know tomorrow: don’t speak to God of something you have not thought through

James 4:13–17 ESV

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Luke 14:27–30 ESV

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

The more you fantasize of your future the more you will hurt and be disappointed with that dream or vision is not met. God chooses not to reveal that to you. Some of you might be very convinced you will get the career you are planning on. Some of you are very convinced you are marrying someone that you’re planning on, even if that person doesn’t know it yet.

So ultimately: Don’t go running up that hill to make a deal with God.

4. Steward the lot God has given you (5:8-6:12)

A steward knows they are taking care of something temporarily. It will not be in their possession for long, it will pass at some point. It belongs to someone else, they are just watching over it in the meantime.

Do not be surprised at those who do not share their lot because God is above these men and he is allowing it for a good reason (Verses 8-9). The king cultivating fields

These men lived thinking that tomorrow under the sun promised a better life. The reality is that you have no way of knowing. Solomon offers three warnings of caring for your Lot:

1. Your Lot Will Be Lost (5:10-20)

2. Your Lot Might Go to Someone who Didn’t Earn It (6:1-6)

3. Your Lot Will Not Be Satisfying (6:7-12)

How does Solomon know this? He lived it. It went to his son Rehoboam who lost everything.

Conclusion

It’s okay that your lot fades away because waiting for you on the other side is a lot that is so much better than anything you could ever experience.

Your lot is destined to die. Death is the great opponent of this life. If only there was someone who conquered death.

Ephesians 1:3–4 ESV

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love

Are you ever discontent with your lot on earth? You will be if you think that this is as good as it gets, or that it could be better under the sun. Don’t rejoice in your life under the sun, rejoice in your inheritance in the Son.

Jesus died to make your vain life meaningful.

Enjoy what God has given you to steward.

If you hold these gifts tightly, your world will be rocked when they are endangered.

Application: Steward the lot you have now, treasure the lot to come.

If Christ is the treasure in your heart, nothing can endanger that, especially not death.