Old Years 1997--Good Endings

Reading: Ecclesiastes 7:8-18
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Ecclesiastes 7:8 (NIV)

Intro:

Two important spiritual disciplines: looking back at what had God has done & looking forward to what He will do. What did God do? How did we respond?

I.    Seeing God’s Hand (vv.13-14)

      A.  Play the Cards we’re dealt

            1.   Who can straighten out what God seems to have gotten wrong?

            2.   Looking back we can see that God has sent some curve balls our way.

            3.   The big question is: How have we handled what He has allowed or brought into our world in this last year?

      B.  In Good Times and Bad

            1.   If you’re normal you had both good times and bad in 1997

                   a.   The bad times maybe are only bad from our limited perspective (but that’s the only perspective we’ve got!).

            2.   But what’s remarkable is that God was in everything.

            3.   God made them both so that we would have the opportunity to be faithful in both.

      C.  Our Unpredictable God

            1.   Therefore a man cannot discover anything about his future !!!

                   a.   A man’s steps are directed by the Lord, How then can anyone understand his own way. (Prov.20:24)

            2.   God worked last year in some ways we could not predict.

            3.   How can we predict what He’ll do this next year?

II.   Seeing Inconsistencies (vv.15-18)

      A.  Good people suffer, Evil people flourish

            1.   We look and see inconsistencies in what folks did in 1997.

                   a.   Princess Diana and Mother Theresa died.

                   b.   The killers of Jon Benet Ramsey are still unknown.

            2.   In our own lives too: we see good people are fighting for survival, while cruel people move around like they own the planet.

      B.  Extremes are hazardous to our health

            1.   We see inconsistencies in who people are.

                   a.   Legalism — trying to be righteous to the extreme destroys people.

                   b.   So does being too wise for your own good!

                   c.   But being evil and foolish destroys people too!

            2.   We find in ourselves that the legalistic answers are too simplistic they don’t work

            3.   We find our best wisdom gets us in trouble.

            4.   But neither does the attitude “anything goes” nor “leap before you look.”

      C.  Harmonize the dissonance

            1.   The author concludes that we need to find a harmony between the two extremes.

                   a.   Neither legalism nor libertinism works.

                   b.   Neither over-thinking nor under-thinking works.

            2.   Somewhere between moral rigidity and moral apathy is the inescapable tension we felt each day of last year.

                   a.   It is like a dissonant chord that wants to be resolved to one extreme or the other.

            3.   We need to learn to let the music resolve in another direction — where the extremes are replaced by simply loving God and our neighbor in the most faithful way we know.

III.  Finishing Strong (vv.8-12)

      A.  Keep our eyes on the Prize

            1.   The end matters more than the beginning - or even the middle.

                   a.   Being legalistic or wicked, over-wise or foolish means we have taken our eyes off of the prize: our relationship with our loving God.

            2.   Let us run with patience the race set before us.

            3.   It is patient, faithfulness that brings a matter and our lives to a good conclusion.

      B.  Stuck in nostalgia Paralysis

            1.   As we look back on the last year, and the years that have gone before, it doesn’t make sense to wish for a past that can never be again.

                   a.   The old days, like nostalgia, aren’t what they used to be.

                   b.   Somehow the problems of the past seem more manageable (i.e. looking back at them with our 20/20 hind sight.)

            2.   We can’t turn the Church’s clock back to the 50's, or the 1500's or 1st century Christianity.

                   a.   We are responsible to live in day we have, and to do so with all the faithfulness we can muster.

                   b.   In other words, we’re not supposed to run someone else’s race. We’re supposed to run the race set before us.

      C.  Run Well

            1.   How shall we run?

                   a.   In looking back we see how God has guided and provided.

                   b.   He has been faithful and surprising

            2.   In looking ahead we know that God will only allow us to experience what will move us closer to Him.

                   a.   Though we may experience it as bad, God will somehow work it for our good.

                   b.   While we cannot predict what next year will be, we know that whatever it is, God will be with us in it.

                   c.   And that will be enough for us.

The Bottom Line:

.