Sermon Tone Analysis
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Letters To Me - 1
Introduction
In April of last year, Ryan Leaf [pic], a retired NFL player, posted an article on The Player’s Tribune titled, “Letter to My Younger Self.”
Here is how he began:
“Dear 21-year-old Ryan,I have a joke for you.
Stop me if you’ve heard it before….What’s the difference between Ryan Leaf and God? God doesn’t think he’s Ryan Leaf.
And I know you’re feeling a lot like a God right now, because it’s April 18, 1998, and the San Diego Chargers just selected you with the second pick in the NFL draft.
Congratulations.
You officially have it all — money, power and prestige.
All the things that are important, right?
And by this evening, you’ll be on a private jet to Las Vegas to pull a celebratory all-nighter while sportswriters in San Diego write columns that pair your name with the word “savior.”
You’ll read them and think, Savior … that sounds about right.
That’s you, young Ryan Leaf, at his absolute finest: arrogant, boorish and narcissistic.
You think you’re on top of the world and that you’ve got all the answers.
Well I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the truth is…it won’t last.”
He goes on to chronicle his short-lived failure of an NFL career, his ensuing addiction to Vicodin, attempted suicide, two arrests, and almost 3-year prison sentence.
The article is filled with tremendous wisdom from one who is on the other side of failure, trying to burst the bubble of an arrogant kid.
Wouldn’t it be nice to get that letter from yourself?
In preparation for this series, we asked you to write a letter to the 18-year old version of you…how awesome would it have been to actually receive that letter?
It would contain wisdom beyond our years that would help us get to where we want to be in life.
If you could write that wisdom-saturated letter, some of you might write a letter like Ryan Leaf’s letter…full of regret.
Preparing yourself for disappointment.
Others of you would write letters of encouragement to stay the course, because life is going to get better.
Others still may write letters of praise, commending a decision you made.
The college you chose, the person you dated who became your spouse.
Some will say to just keep doing what you’re doing.
Others will tell themselves to change everything.
It’s a challenge to write a letter like that to yourself because it forces us to admit we didn’t do everything we wanted to do.
Letters like that expose our regrets and mistakes.
It exposes the reality that life in this world is far more difficult than we used to think.
In thinking about wisdom gained over the years, we are forced to reveal a startling truth…for all our hopes, dreams, and plans, we don’t have near as much control over life as we thought.
This is wisdom we need.
Wisdom we crave.
And thankfully, this is wisdom that God graciously gives to us.
The OT book of Ecclesiastes, written by King Solomon (son of David), is one of the most wisdom-filled books in the Bible.
It is part of a genre of literature in the Bible called Wisdom Literature (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, James).
Ecclesiastes presents its wisdom in the form of a “letter to me.”
At the end of the letter, chapters 11-12, tell us this letter is written to the young, encouraging the young to remember what’s really important.
To remember God, and keep him in mind before life starts heading south.
Before your knees start hurting, before you start eating dinner at 4pm, before you start wearing black socks with sandals, remember God while you are young.
Why this message to the young?
Because if you don’t remember God when you are young, you will end up devoting your life to things that ultimately do not matter.
Without God, life is meaningless.
And this is the exact acknowledgement Solomon will make at the very beginning of this great letter.
- 2 “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”
This is a book of wisdom and we want to learn from someone with experience.
And this is how he starts!
This is like sitting down with grandma for some wise advice and her first words to you are, “Life is meaningless.”
Gee, thanks Grandma!
This is why Ecclesiastes is one of the most ignored books in the Bible.
People avoid this book, not because it is hard to understand, but because it is hard to accept.
The wisdom found here is heavy.
Ecclesiastes is a book of questions.
While we’d like a book of answers, it is not found here.
Instead, we are invited to think about life.
About things we don’t like thinking about.
Time and again, we will be asked “why?”.
Why bother with this or that?
What is to be gained from that?
What do you really get when you devote your life to this or that?
These are hard questions because they cut straight to the heart.
Ecclesiastes is a book of tension.
The resolution to the tension doesn’t come until the very end, essentially the very last verse or two.
We are forced to wade through the harsh tensions before we are granted relief and answers.
But it is that tension that will motivate growth and perspective.
Ecclesiastes is a book about reality.
And this will serve us well.
If we are honest, there are many who have a G-rated faith.
They treat their faith and their life like some Disney fairytale.
In the face of hard things, they can give empty religious answers to death, doubt, suffering, and dismiss the hard things and act as if it’s all settled.
This letter confronts our G-rated faith with an R-rated reality.
There is no “could” or “should” about how life is supposed to be lived.
We may say, “Children should never die.”
This letter says, “Well they do, so let’s deal with that.”
We may say, “Marriages should never end.”
This letter says, “Well some do and it is painful, let’s talk about that.”
We may say, “Life shouldn’t be this hard.”
This letter bluntly tells us, “It is.
Now, deal with it.
Think through the hard things.
Don’t dismiss them, don’t ignore them.
Stop pretending these things don’t exist.”
The great theologian John Calvin said that wisdom is to be gained by what he called “double knowledge.”
Essentially knowledge of God and of humanity.
We like the knowledge of God part.
We like talking about how great he is, how loving he is, how powerful he is.
And we like books of the Bible that put God as the central focus…Romans, Gospels, Revelation.
Ecclesiastes does the opposite…it places humanity, in all its brokenness, front and center.
The world and its pain are placed right in front of us and we are forced to look at it.
To deal with it.
To think about God and ourselves in light of the chaos of our world.
TS - As we walk through this great little letter for the next few weeks, let’s let it be the kind of book it is.
Let’s live in that tension.
Let’s let it pop some of the bubbles that insulate us.
Let’s start with that first sentence that will carry us through the entire letter:
- 2 “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”
Sounds a bit like a philosophy class, a bit depressing.
What is Solomon, our Teacher, teaching us?
Two options with this word “meaningless.”
He is telling us that we cannot find significance in what is here on earth (“under the sun”).
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