Ecclesiastes 9 - The Pursuit of Righteousness
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Intro
Intro
(New Slide) Recount Theme: Ecclesiastes is how to live in light of death. Solomon is trying to get you to see that life is “hebel.” It does not last and lacks true meaning since it will be forgotten. Instead it is a gift that God has given you. Life is a gift, not gain.
Why is he going through all this? He wants you to enjoy life. He acknowledges how miserable life can be at times but he attributes that misery to our attempts to find joy in fleeting things. Things that are hebel. The way you find joy in life is by enjoying God.
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God,
I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live;
So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?
Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot.
And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.
Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.
Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.
(New Slide) Today we are tracing one theological thread. The thread of the Pursuit of Righteousness.
Righteousness = The state of meeting a demanded requirement. The essence or quality of being “upright.” Essentially, the state of being good with God?
(New Slide) I want you to answer three questions:
Do you think you are “right” with God?
Why or why not do you think you are “right” with God?
What do you get from being “right” with God?
Solomon’s Guide to Living a Righteous Life:
Solomon’s Guide to Living a Righteous Life:
1. Accept your own lack of righteousness (8:14-17)
1. Accept your own lack of righteousness (8:14-17)
Have you guys ever heard of karma?
Well there is a Christianese version of karma. We call it retributive theology.
Idea: God pays back your good deeds with blessings, and your bad deeds with punishment.
There are some people who are huge proponents of retributive theology (Job’s friends)
Many people will doubt the existence or goodness God because they expect God to reward them for how they live.
Share story about Joel, the homeless man.
If God loved you more on some days because you obeyed him than he would also hate you more on days because you disobeyed him.
If God operated through karma you would be dead right now. You would have failed at life day 1.
Solomons Point in these Verses: The world does not operate in retributive theology (8:14-15). You can try to figure out how it operates, but you never will. It is up for God to control alone and for Him to understand alone (8:16-17).
Earlier in the book Solomon said something interesting:
In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.
His point here: Don’t aggressively try to be such a good person thinking it will make your life get better. He also warns against the other side: don’t take that mentality as a liberty to sin. He says is foolish.
Solomon is saying the world does not work that way because good people die unfairly and evil people live longer and can commit more evil.
I think this youth group is very sincere. I think the people here really love Jesus. I think many of you have been transformed and I see fruit of the spirit flowing out.
Can we just accept something? The real us, the person we were before Christ, was not a good person.
The way you live your life is not wired to the way your life goes.
He wants you to realize that
The point is this: if God loves you, it’s not because you are living your life well.
2. Realize God’s control of your righteousness (9:1-6)
2. Realize God’s control of your righteousness (9:1-6)
v. 1 - Solomon lists three good things people tend to take pride in:
Righteousness = Your standing before God
Wisdom = Your understanding of the world
Deeds = Your actions in the world
His point: Everything you are is in his hand. Do you want to be right with God?
Don’t try to be right by “trying hard.” It won’t work.
Turn to the giant divine hand that holds your righteousness, wisdom, and deeds in his hand.
Solomon made a point in Ecclesiastes 3 that all time is planned by God, including your life. If all time is planned.
v. 2 - Your destination is in the hand of God: in his love or in his hate. Heaven or hell.
The point: the decisions of who you are and how your life goes are not up to you. They are up to God.
This is an extremely offensive message to America because so many movies, music, or culture comes down to trying to convince and empower people to believe that the get to decide who they are and how their life goes.
Solomon is trying to warn you that you are harmed by that mentality because even though it appears freeing, it is actually binding and frustrating because it is not true. If you believe that you have the power to make your life go the way you want, you will be toiling and striving after the wind. Trying to accomplish something that is only in the hand of God all along.
V. 3 - Man’s condition is realized. He is not free to do good or evil, rather, his heart is naturally hard wired to do evil.
This is due to the condition of his inner man. His heart.
Contrary to popular conception
Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
there is none who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.
This heart comes with several gifts: righteousness (Rom 3:21-22), wisdom (1 Cor 2:9), and works (James 2:10).
vv. 4-6 - Solomon addresses a possible thought that some may have considered: well it is better for me to be dead than alive if all I am capable of is evil. He immediately refutes that.
Solomon is calling your attention to this reality because he is saying that there is still hope. Once the dead are dead, they are dead and there are no second chances for them (Heb 9:27). What is that hope? There is a chance for them to repent. A chance for them to turn to God and trust in the hand that holds their righteousness, wisdom, and deeds, and trust in Him and not themselves.
Do you hate the sin of the heart within you? Do you hate it’s rebelliousness against your parents? It’s want for the idols of the world?
There is hope, but it is faith in Jesus. He takes away that heart.
How does this happen? At the cross.
Jesus came as a man, lived a life with a perfect heart, perfect righteousness, perfect wisdom, perfect deeds.
At the end of his life, he chose to die. God killed God. God poured out his wrath and anger against your sin infested heart upon the perfect heart of Jesus.
If the story ended there, that would be a bummer. He paid our punishment but we are stuck as the same people. But Jesus rose. Because he rose again, he is still alive and free and powerful enough to change you.
Here is how is choosing to operate still alive: having paid for your sin, he offers you something incredible. A new heart. He performs heart surgery on you.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
We sang Rock of Ages on purpose. “Foul I to the fountain fly, wash me savior or I die.”
You don’t have to stay a fake Christian anymore. Believe today.
3. Enjoy your life in God’s Righteousness (9:7-10)
3. Enjoy your life in God’s Righteousness (9:7-10)
V. 7 - “Go”
The big imperative. The big command. He wants you to take the reality of losing life as hebel and do something instead.
Enjoy your life knowing that God has covered it with his righteousness.
“God has approved of what you do.” It delights God to enjoy the life he has given us, and Solomon said earlier the only way we could enjoy it is by accepting and trusting his righteousness to cover us.
V. 8 - White garments and oil = White clothes reflect the sun and oil protects your skin, but these are more symbols of righteousness holiness in the Old Testament. They mean you are seen by God as clear.
“The holy garments of Aaron shall be for his sons after him; they shall be anointed in them and ordained in them.
In the New Testament, those in the church are compared to ones being clothed in white robes, symbolizing that Christ gives us his righteousness.
God transforms you. He makes you capable of obeying Him. He did not die telling you to go and sin, but when you fall you are covered by his grace. Use that freedom to walk in white garments, to be holy, to be set apart.
God does not love you for who you are. He loves you because he loves you and he wants to transform you from who you are into what he wants you to be.
V. 9 - He is not saying you need a wife to enjoy life. Earlier in chapter 4 he talked about the things you are given in life are meant to be shared with others.
The righteousness of Christ is enough, share it with your neighbor.
An example of a nearest neighbor is your wife.
He is saying delight and share in your portion instead.
V. 10 - “Work with all your might” - Motivated by the righteousness God has imputed to you, you find the capacity to work with full exertion or joy for him.
God has wired into creation the concept of reaping and sowing.
“You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.
Return on Investment: The Ratio Between Net Income and Investment
I put money in, I expect something back.
I invest in this friendship.
You will only live out righteously if you think God is worth it.
Share story of RK, who bought the lie that there was greater goods apart from God.
You may lose everything on this earth but nothing can take away the righteousness of him.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Think through those three questions again?
Do you think you are “right” with God?
Solomon asked you to consider that we are born into a world where we are not right with God, and asks you to lay aside any belief that
Why or why not do you think you are “right” with God?
What do you get from being “right” with God?
The joy of enjoying him. Because you enjoy him, you have a freedom to enjoy the rest of life.
Application:
Life is only enjoyed if you live trusting in Christ’s righteousness rather than your own.
The reward for following God is not a better life on earth.
Life is not something you need to do well to earn God’s favor. You have already failed. It is now something you get to do because God has granted you favor. Trust in him to wash you, to give you a new heart.
