Striving for Control

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Welcome & Introduction

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY

Thank you

Father to the Fatherless

Eccleasiastes Overview

Life apart from God is meaningless (under the sun, Hevel)

The ways we seek meaning and satisfaction (pleasure, work, etc)

Striving for Control

Week after week we’ve discovered that the world doesn’t always work the way we want.

When our world feels like chaos, we strive for control

Smart Homes - new irrigation device for Father’s Day

Social media or News apps so we know what is happening

To-Do lists and organization

We clean and de-clutter (Netflix’s Tidy Up with Marie Kondo )

We plan and research…

We exercise and diet and take supplements

Smart Homes

Sheming for Control

[7:14] “In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.”

The world is complex but God is sovereign

“so that we won’t know...”

This complexity can feel like chaos and meaninglessness when we forget that God is in control and maintains purpose over his creation.

Last Week

Good name - Character more important than appearance

Death is a Teacher

Folly Distracts - flattery, deflection, pride, etc

God is Inevitable

I feel as if the Teacher sighs at the point...

[7:15a] “In My vain life I have seen everything”

Live is a vapor (short, confusing, difficult to grasp, meaningless, etc)

In the confusion of life, we try to find control

CONFUSING WISDOM

[7:15b] “There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil doing”

Reality - sometimes the person who considers themselves ‘right’ die young and the people we think are ‘bad’ live a long, happy life.

And we don’t know why

We want a world that makes sense - good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.

Karma “"the force created by a person's actions that is believed in Hinduism and Buddhism to determine what that person's next life will be like" or "the force created by a person's actions that some people believe causes good or bad things to happen to that person".

Story of young man selling magazines...

People get what they deserve

You reap what you sow

Good things happen to good people

What goes around, comes around...

Receive good energy when you send out good energy

Christians believe this as well

We just try to apply this same principle to God. Good people receive good things from God and bad people don’t

When something bad happens to someone we consider to be bad we say, “they got what they deserved.”

When bad happens to someone we consider good then our world is shaken a bit...

How could God let this happen?

They deserved better?

Summarize story of Job - I once heard of a man who

Loved God

He loved God and went to church every week and was generous

God blessed him with a beautiful wife, numerous children, and a great job

Reality - sometimes the person who considers themselves ‘right’ die young and the people we think are ‘bad’ live a long, happy life.

Tragedy

Then life began to unravel

He received news that all his children had been killed while they we together

He received a pink slip when he came to work that week

When it seemed like things couldn’t get worse - the doctor called - his blood tests returned and the doctor had serious concerns.

Harmful Advise

Pastors came to visit him in his grief - probing his heart to discern areas of hidden sin that might bring such calamity on this man who appeared righteous but must have some hidden secret.

Poem

A hundred proverbs, all concerned

with why calamities befall

a man. And one thread runs through them all:

The righteous have a prosperous lot,

but those who curse and sin do not.

The more your sin is large or small,

The more your comforts rise and fall.

And we don’t know why

I want to come back to this man’s story in a bit....

For now… Karma is not how the world works...

In God’s sovereignty - sometimes the righteous die and the wicked live

Yet, God remains perfectly good and holy

Wrong Cliches

Safest place is center of God’s will

Righteousness here is not talking about faith in Jesus. It is talking about the attempt to control God and environment through one’s good actions. Hence, “his righteousness.”

God won’t give you more than you can handle

WRONG RESPONSES

The passage this morning continues with 2 ways that people try to make sense of the world and control the outcome of their lives.

[7:16] “Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?

[7:17] Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time?

Dangerous Conclusions:

Just be lukewarm

Don’t be too good or too bad.

1 | Self-Righteousness

Warning

[7:16] “Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?

Important for us to see:

Righteousness here is not talking about faith in Jesus. It is talking about the attempt to control God and environment through one’s good actions. Hence, “his righteousness.”

Jesus’ Rebuke Toward the Religious Leaders (Cultural Christians who believe their quasi-faith puts God in their debt…)

“They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.”

“They cross land and sea to make one convert, and then turn that person into twice the child of hell.”

“They are so careful to clean the outside of the and the dish, but inside they are filthy - first wash the inside then the outside.

“Whitewashed tombs - beautiful on the outside but dead on the inside.

“White-washed tombs” - look well on the outside but dead on the inside

This is a warning for those who have grown up in church. You are familiar with the lingo, you can play the game - you can fake it till you make it.

This is a warning for the person who just started coming to church because of some challenge in your life. Maybe your marriage in on the rocks or you’re having trouble with the kids. Maybe you are praying for something in your life so you’re here putting in your time being good so God looks on your situation with favor.

Bad News - God doesn’t relate to us based on scale of our actions

Amazing News - God does relate to us, he is present, he does care

2 | Self-Indulgence

[7:17] Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time?

YOLO - experience life to the fullest

Give our hearts whatever it desires.

A Barna Study from last year found

24% of Gen Z believe that what is morally right or wrong changes over times based on society (double that of boomers)

21% of Gen Z believes what is morally right or wrong depends on what an individual believes. (+4% from Boomers)

Christians fall into this as well

If I’m forgiven then what does it matter if I sin…

We aren’t the first ones to think of this excuse for sin...

[] Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live it?”

FEAR GOD (but wrestling continues)

Warning | [7:18] “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.”

“this…” the warning to not give yourself over to either self-righteousness or self-indulgence

we take hold of true wisdom, the fear of the Lord.

[] “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

[] “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

The Wrestling Continues

But wisdom is good right?

[7:19] “Wisdom gives strength to the wise more than ten rulers”

See, wisdom is good - even when people misuse it or pursue it for the wrong reasons.

[7:20] "Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins”

Yes, wisdom is good but is there anyone who is truly good. Everybody sins, nobody is 100% good.

I’ve Learned Some Stuff - TO FEAR GOD

[7:21-22] Fear God vs Striving for People’s Approval

More concerned about what people say about you then what God commands.

Will you fear God or fear man

[7:23-24] Fear God vs Striving for Knowledge (Control)

- FEAR GOD

[7:25-26] Fear God vs Striving for Sex

Solomon disobeyed God when he instructed the nation of Israel to not marry anyone who was not from Israel so that they would not be led astray from the one true God.

BUT Solomon feel in love with the daughter of the King of Egypt…

He also fell in love with a woman from Moab… Ammon… Edom… Sidon…

He fell in love (lust) 700 times to daughters of kings and then he fell in love 300 more times.

Then Solomon began to worship the gods and disobeyed the one true God.

FEAR GOD

[7:27-29] Fear God vs Striving

Nobody is righeous

One man - Jesus

Solomon isn’t intentionally referring to Jesus. I think is is still a bit bitter and sore about God confronting him and he wants to blame it on the women rather than taking responsibility.

No women

I’ve Learned Some Lessons

The ’Teacher’ can identify the problem and ask questions but he cannot point us beyond “fear God and keep his commandments… [12:13].

WRAP UP

We seek control through 1) self-righteousness and 2) self-indulgence but both are wrong and insufficient

True peace comes by fearing God and trusting him.

But how...

THE GOSPEL CONNECTION

1 | CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

[] “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

“So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

2 | DISOBEYED GOD

[Romans 3:10-18]

No one is righteous - not even one.

not even one.

No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God.

All have turned away; all have become useless.

No one does good, not a single one....

They don’t know where to find peace.

They have no fear of God at all.

The wages of sin is death

3 | SAVED FOR THE SAKE OF GOD’S NAME

[Isaiah 48:9-11]

“Yet for my own sake and for the honor of my name, I will hold back my anger and not wipe you out… I will rescue you for my sake - yes, for my own sake! I will not let my reputation be tarnished and I will not share my glory with idols.”

how did he save us...

4 | SAVED BY THE WORK OF JESUS

[Ephesians 2:8-10]

“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. “

CONCLUSION

BELIEVER’S RESPONSE

Questions

In the midst of your life circumstances...

are you striving for control

walking in the fear of the Lord?

Communion

Confession - none of us are righteous

We come to the Lord’s table with empty hands to receive what only God can provide.

We ‘take’ the bread (receive it) - broken body

Dip the bread in the cup - representing the blood of Jesus that was shed as he took upon himself God’s wrath in our place.

NON-BELIEVER’S RESPONSE

Questions

In the midst of your life circumstances...

Are you tired yet.

Striving for control and meaning apart from God.

Are you willing to look to Jesus?

Prayer

And now come, broken, to the cross,

Where Christ embraced all human loss,

And let us bow before the throne Of God,

who gives and takes his own,

And promises – whatever toll He takes – to satisfy our soul.

The treasure that we have in God.

He is not poor nor much enticed

Who loses everything but Christ.