Balancing the Pleasures of Life

Introduction: Defining the Pain

There are places around the world where people wake up in the morning with the goal of getting food for their kids that day. If they have a good day they will be able to eat as well. They’re not thinking about vacations or entertainment. Many will never travel outside of the walking distance of their hut or home. Any mode of transportation is to make money for the day not for convenience or travel.

The American culture is something completely different. We live for pleasure. We set it up that way: “Life, Liberty, and the pursutt of happiness.”

So we fill our lives with new experiences, adrenaline rushes, escapes from reality, vacations, big boy toys, trips to the lake in our RV’s or campers. These pleasure are not options anymore but expectactions of life.

And it’s never enough. Last years pleasures don’t carry over to today. We need more we need bigger.

While we work for, strive for, and enjoy the finer things in life, we struggle with anxiety, clinical depression, self-worth, and loneliness.

There is no doubt that God created the world for us to enjoy and experience it’s beauty and pleasure. So, how do we need to change the way we think about life that would allow us to balance the blessings of creation and the work God has placed us here to do.

Before we dive into Ecclesiastes 2 I want you to ask yourself this question:

“My life would be better if…”

Once you get that in your mind. Follow it up with

“Why would this make my life better.”

What if we could change our lives from quick fix pleasures, entertainment, and happiness to contentment and enrichment.

Solomon tried to fill his heart with all the same things we are trying to fill our hearts with today. As I read these verses in chapter 2, see if you can identify some things on your wish list.

The Vanity of Pleasure

Ecclesiastes 2:1–11 ESV

I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

“Quit trying to make heaven out of this sin cursed world.”

Seek enrichment instead of entertainment.

When Jesus was sent to Herod’s court, Herod was glad because he hoped to see a miracle.

Herod was not trying to be enriched by the life of Jesus but just simply entertained.

I see this same attitude with some Christians as they come to the house of the Lord. Their intention is not for their lives to be enriched but simply entertained.

Enrichment: To add greater value or significance to your life.

Find thing that enrich your life and not just entertain you.

Healthy relationships enrich your life.

Get round people that make you a better person. (Who is pouring into you?)

Be the example that enriches the lives of others when they are around you. (Who are you pouring into?)

This could be kids, your boss, your coworkers, your friends.

This should be a mentorship relationship that you have with someone.

The truth of God’s Word enriches your life.

Facts are our friends.

The more we know and understand the truth about God and yourself the better off we are.

Cultural exposure.

The ability to see life from different perspectives.

This is why a mission trip can be so beneficial in your life. I don’t take people on mission trips to change the world but to change them.

Cultural exposure broadens the scope of your mind and thinking.

The difference in a vacation for pleasure and a mission trip.

Pleasure trip: Rest, Relaxation, Rejuvenation.

Mission Trip: New Relationships, Seeing God in new ways, Discovering something about yourself.

The Vanity of Life

Ecclesiastes 2:12–14 ESV

So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.

Be wise with the time you have.

The wise and the foolish have the same amount of time.

The wise move a culture forward while the fool sends it backward.

Walk in Light and not in darkness.

Walking in the light exposes the truth.

Walking in darkness is to live in the lies you are willing to believe.

John 3:19 ESV

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

Ecclesiastes 2:15–16 ESV

Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!

“Quit living to die and start dying to live.”

Luke 9:23–25 ESV

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

The Vanity of Accumulation

Ecclesiastes 2:18–21 ESV

I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.

“Quit building a kingdom for fools.”

Use your God-given wealth for God-given purposes.

Money is a tool that God has given us to be used for this life.

You can’t take it with you.

If you leave it others will waist it. “There is very little value in unearned dollars.”

Use your work to enrich the lives of others.

Ecclesiastes 2:24–25 ESV

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, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

Next Steps:

Identify the people in your life that enrich your life.

Those that make you think differently

Those that teach you truth.

Those you can imitate.

Seek a relationship with God through the truth of His Word.

Read it to know Him on deeper level.

Read it to know the truth about yourself on a deeper level.

Expose yourself to new cultures.

Go on a mission trip

Learn a new language

Visit a new place for the purpose of culture (i.e. get off the coastline and visit the real people.)