Seeing The End To Live In The Present

Intro:

The problem: Life is upside down. The righteous receive the reward of the wicked and the wicked receive the rewards of the righteous.

The answer: Enjoy God’s gifts as He intended them to be enjoyed.

Allusion: The language of this book points us back to Genesis and God’s intent for men and women when He created them.

Fear of the Lord: Living in the right relationship with God by abiding in Him.

Hevel: meaningless, vapor, breath, idol, temporary, or being like Abel. This is a general word that is often translated in a specific way which can lead to a misunderstanding of what the teacher is trying to communicate.

We need to wear the correct lenses as we study this book.

Keeping in mind hevel and what it means to fear God.

On January 12 of this year, I preached on 1 John 2 and there was a particular passage in that chapter that God used in speaking to me about us studying the book of Ecclesiastes.

I even referenced this sermon series on Ecclesiastes when we were going through that chapter.

To help us understand those few verses in 1 John 2 we also looked at Matthew 6 where Jesus tells us not to store up for ourselves treasures here on earth.

Why does he tell us not to store up treasure?

Because those things won’t last.

Matthew 6:19–21 NLT

“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

This is a passage that we are all familiar with, but how have you applied it to your life?

When you read this text, does it define how you choose to live?

If so, how do you determine what should be the priority for your life?

John uses the same sentiment in his letter to the church.

1 John 2:15–17 NLT

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

I’m leading with this today to set the tone for this series.

And that tone may not be what you are thinking so let’s take a moment and refine this a bit.

As I have studied and prayed about this series, I have been trying to come up with a tag line that will help us to keep our perspective as we go through it.

We did this with Exodus.

We repeated regularly that our goal was to joining god to set people free.

Keeping that idea before us informed how we approached the scripture and how we applied it to our lives.

My first thought was this:

Giving up the American Dream to live in the Kindgom.

I decided though that it had too negative of a tone.

It also doesn't really communicate all that God wants to teach us.

Then I came up with: Getting off the Trump train.

I felt like that was a little too edgy and may gain some attention that we don’t want.

This one made me laugh more than it was useful.

I landed on God’s Love in a Broken World.

I wanted to have a verb at the beginning of that book.

Discovering, Sharing, Abiding, Experiencing, etc.

but to do so would imply that you should be in a certain place already.

All of us are in different stages of both physical and spiritual life.

The two verbs I tossed around the most were discovering and revealing.

You can’t reveal until you have discovered and so if you, like many, are in a place of struggle and are having trouble seeing God’s love in your life, my prayer is that through this study you will discover it.

If you have discovered God’s love it is my prayer that through this study that God would use you to reveal that with those that are looking for it.

I understand about as well as any what it feels like to know God, but to be confused about what is going in life and reconciling that with who I know God to be.

I didn’t start today with the Matthew and 1 John passages today to set a negative tone, but to help us get some perspective.

Here’s what I want us to remember as we walk through this book.

1. Our lives are temporary.

Jesus isn’t saying that the “treasures of the earth” are inherently bad, they just don’t last.

They are hevel.

Because our time on earth is limited and earthly treasures don’t last, we shouldn’t focus what little time we have on gaining a bunch of stuff.

We should spend our time knowing God and following His lead.

Ecclesiastes 12:8 NLT

“Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless.”

Depending on what translation you are using, this passage is either at the end of a section or the beginning of the last section.

Right off the bat, we need to address this word hevel.

To take the very general word hevel, and try to use the context of this passage to understand what the teacher is saying, I would say it this way.

“Life is upside down, says the teacher, it is completely temporary.”

Life, as we experience it, is not what was intended for us when we were created.

A lot of the things we experience in life are not what God had in mind when he created us.

Because of sin we go through really hard things in life.

Because of sin, we do not reap the right rewards.

We experience the Abelness of life.

Sometimes that is the result of our actions, sometimes it is the results of others, and sometimes it is no one's fault, life is just upside down.

I have to use this example and I know you may be tired of me talking about it, but it is the most abel thing I’ve ever experienced.

My wife had cancer.

Some of you have walked through this as well.

There is no obvious reason that people get cancer.

It just shows up out of no where.

One of the things that has come out of that period of my life is that I don’t look at time in the same way.

A small example of that is in how we decide where we travel.

Because I am now aware of how fragile and short life is, I don’t want to go to the same places over and over again.

There is too much to see and enjoy to keep going back to the same places.

That doesn’t mean I will never return somewhere for a second time, but our priority is to see as much of this earth, that God has created, as He will allow us to see.

As Russ showed us over the last two Sundays, the teacher is using language to point us back to the Garden and to look at life through the lens of why God created us.

He created us to be in a relationship with Him.

To work, with organic joy, in the Garden.

To enjoy the people that God gives us to do life with.

To be satisfied with the food and drink that He provides for us.

I want you to hear me say something clearly and to understand that it is not contradictory to what we just read.

Life is not meaningless, it is short, but it matters.

“Life and its events may be merely momentary experiences but are critically important to us and to God.”

The teacher is saying that he has lived a long and extremely full life.

He has lived and experienced the best of what this world has to offer.

The riches of this world paled in comparison to knowing God.

I had a couple call last week and ask to meet with Bethany and I. They were struggling with reconciling a past experience with what God was saying now.

We had some great conversation that evening.

Some of it was hard, a lot was confusing, some was simple and straight forward.

I cried a little, they cried a little, and it was good.

In trying to understand what God might be doing we looked together at scripture to see God’s perspective, looked at the truth, and we shared stories of our experiences of difficult times and how God helped us through it.

There were no magic words that brought instant clarity or comfort.

But, there was an understanding that what they were experiencing wouldn’t last forever.

We found comfort in knowing that God is with us right in the middle of our struggles.

This is exactly the kind of perspective and conversations that the world so desperately needs.

They need to know that God did not intend for this world to be upside down.

Your friends and family that are struggling need to know that they aren’t alone.

While we can’t answer all their questions or fix the brokenness, we can choose to live with them in it.

Before we can share that perspective, we must discover it for ourselves.

How do we discover or come to understand what the teacher has come to understand?

Ecclesiastes 12:9–12 NLT

9 Keep this in mind: The Teacher was considered wise, and he taught the people everything he knew. He listened carefully to many proverbs, studying and classifying them. 10 The Teacher sought to find just the right words to express truths clearly. 11 The words of the wise are like cattle prods—painful but helpful. Their collected sayings are like a nail-studded stick with which a shepherd drives the sheep. 12 But, my child, let me give you some further advice: Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out.

Here we have arguably, the wisest man that has ever lived.

He has made it his life’s work to seek out all the wisdom of both scripture and the world.

Not only did he spend his life learning it for himself, but also how to communicate it effectively to others.

But what does he say is the result of all that work?

They are received like a nail studded stick.

I will admit that there is something lost in translation here.

There are a few rare moments in time where you all can benefit from the fact that I am a cowboy.

This is one of those moments.

Cattle prods and why we work livestock.

Sorting

Grooming

Caring for the animal - wound treatment or vaccinations

The cattle don’t want to go where we need them to go so that we can take care of them.

This is why we prod them along.

So, what is the teacher saying?

We are all in need correction because of the sin.

Just like the cattle, we don’t want to be forced into anything.

Life can be overwhelming and scary.

Moving forward can seem like it is going to kill us.

Huge waves that would frighten an ordinary swimmer produce a tremendous thrill for the surfer who has ridden them. Let’s apply that to our own circumstances. The things we try to avoid and fight against— tribulation, suffering, and persecution— are the very things that produce abundant joy in us. “We are more than conquerors through Him” “in all these things”; not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. A saint doesn’t know the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it. Paul said, “I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation” (2 Corinthians 7:4).

Because we live in a broken world, we are all going to face hardships.

Because we live in a world that is broken, we are going to face difficulties.

God wants to do in us is to give a proper perspective so that when those hard times come, we are able to recognize that God is going to use it for our good.

He wants us to see that we are not alone.

He cares about what is happening to and around us.

Ecclesiastes 12:12 NLT

But, my child, let me give you some further advice: Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out.

Last week Russ showed how we can find ourselves between two extremes and the teacher is warning that we can go to the extreme of spending all of our time and energy in the study over these things or by contrast, pay them no attention.

At the end of a life of diligent study, he brings us to the conclusion of his life’s effort.

He comes back to the truth that he already knew.

We can spend our lives searching for answers, trying to change ourselves via the wisdom of the world, or we too can come back to the truth that God gave His people on the mountain.

This is the crescendo of the whole book.

Can you imagine spending your entire life in pursuit of something only to find that you had it the whole time?

Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 NLT

That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.

2. Love and obey God.

God gave his people the key to enjoying life when He set them apart from all other nations.

He tells them that they are going to face difficult times, but that He will be with them.

He will be their God and they will be His people.

Much later in history, a lawyer is trying to trip Jesus up and ask him what the greatest commandment is.

You’ve heard me teach this passage many times.

Matthew 22:37–40 NLT

37 Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

You may be sitting there thinking that I’m a one trick pony, but this is the gospel.

Love God.

If we love Him, we will follow Him, love like Him, and be made like Him.

The teacher says that “this, (knowing God) is the whole of man.

This is what it means to be human.

We are created in God’s image, to know Him and to obey Him.

Any other pursuits in life will leave you empty and wanting.

Ecclesiastes 5:7 NLT

7 Talk is cheap, like daydreams and other useless activities. Fear God instead.

We can continue to talk about this until Jesus comes back, but it won’t make a difference in your life unless you make the effort to know God, by experience.

Deuteronomy 6:2 NLT

2 and you and your children and grandchildren must fear the Lord your God as long as you live. If you obey all his decrees and commands, you will enjoy a long life.

Deuteronomy 10:12 NLT

12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the Lord your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul.

Simple right?

Then why do we find ourselves constantly going to the world seeking satisfaction and fulfillment?

Or even worse, we bring the world into the church to try and “fix” the brokenness of our people using the worlds answers.

The church must caution itself about fostering an other-worldly mentality among its people who have been called to make this world work as well as possible.

Fredericks, D. C., & Estes, D. J. (2010). Ecclesiastes & the Song of Songs. (D. W. Baker & G. J. Wenham, Eds.) (Vol. 16, p. 243). Nottingham, England; Downers Grove, IL: Apollos; InterVarsity Press.

The world offers us no answers.

It has nothing of eternal value.

The church belongs to God.

We belong to God.

It’s time for us to stop acting like the world by pursuing things that won’t ever satisfy.

The teacher cannot be any more clear.

He has done it all. It is all hevel.

At the tail end he reminds us that all that we do matters and God will be the judge of how we choose to spend our lives.

I have said this so many times and it is as true today as it has ever been.

How we live matters.

Here we see that truth echoed again.

In every situation we face in life, we can choose to pursue God in it or we can go to the world for it’s solution.

The method we choose reveals to ourselves, to God, and to the world where we have placed our trust.

While preparing last night and thinking about how this was ending, it made me think of a story that my grandpa told.

There were folks who lived across the road from us for a while that had a boy and girl about the same age as Mary and me. We were doing chores together on night and, while chopping wood, we got to playing around, as kids will. The boy from across the road put his finger on the chopping block and told his sister he bet she couldn’t chop it off. Well, she did - plump off!

This story is in a book that my cousins compiled from audio tapes that he recorded before he passed away.

This story is up amongst other stories and this is all that is told.

I don’t know about you, but there is so much more I want to know about this kid.

There are so many questions.

I don’t know about you, but while reading this passage this week, I found myself wanting more.

I think we often find ourselves like Job’s friends.

We want to know why.

God, why are you doing this or at least why are you allowing it?

The teacher doesn’t offer any of that here at the end.

No explanations, just an answer.

Fear God- or as we would say it. Abide in God.

Every person in this room has had moments in their life where God’s activity or the circumstances of their life just don’t make sense.

You probably have that moment in your mind right now.

We, just like the teacher, don’t have the answers to the why questions.

We do have one another though.

As we share those experiences we help one another realize that we are not alone.

I want you to discuss this in life group this week.

I am going to supply you with some questions and it would be good for everyone to think about them in advance.

You can find them in the Faith Life app.

How do we deal with “Abel” situations in our lives?

How do we help others who are dealing with “Abel” things?

How does “Fearing God” (abiding) help us when experiencing injustices or difficulties?

Do you have any past experiences that you need God to give some perspective on?

Do you have any past experiences you can share to help others understand?

I titled today’s message.

Seeing The End To Live In The Present

I wanted you to understand that we are so easily distracted from what is the most important thing in our lives.

We are distracted from experiencing the life that God has given us.

By looking at the end here in the beginning of this study we are going to be able see the joy that is to be found in following the words of the teacher.

It is my hope and has been my prayer that each of us are awakened by this study and are able to see the life, the incredible life, that God has for us.

I want us to be able to see past the facade that this world has put in front of us.

I want us to be able to see the world as a broken place that can find its wholeness in the God that created it.

We need to see through the lie that deceived us so long ago.

Submit to God and allow Him to bring us back to reality so that we can enjoy what He has given us.