The Art Of Life

In his article, A Mathematicians Lament, Paul Lockhart tells a story of a musicians nightmare.

The musician dreams that one day the powers that be decide that in a world of full of sound, we must educate our children to understand the fundamentals of music.

In order to accomplish that goal, they implement it into every level of schooling.

By the third grade a student should have memorized the circle of fifths and be able to reproduce it perfectly on demand.

The objective being that students learn to master the language of music, the dots and jiggly lines, by copying and regurgitating famous scores of music.

The students would then understand it in such a way that they could transpose it up or down, but showing all of their work of course.

As you can imagine, students quickly became bored and developed a at best, a disdain for music or even learned to hate it.

Lockhart makes the argument, as you may have already guessed, that this is precisely what we have done to the ART of mathematics.

We have taken something that inspires wonder and creativity and reduced it to rules and repetition.

You see, art is messy.

If you have every finger painted with a child, thrown clay on a wheel, learned to sing a new song, or learned to play an instrument you can appreciate that art isn’t immediately perfect.

And even after years of practice, you still make mistakes.

That’s the nature of art.

In order to make art and enjoy are, we must make room for experimentation and failure.

It is in that environment that something truly wonderful can happen.

A new melody is discovered or a stroke of the brush hits the canvas in just the right way.

However, if we spend all of our time just reproducing someone else’s work, those moments of discovery don’t happen.

Rather than discovering beauty, we only experience on person’s perspective on that form.

We have done the same thing with life.

We have reduced something wonderful, creative, and messy, into a set of unrealistic expectations.

We have applied the logic we learned in math class to our lives.

It looks like this.

We assume that if we do good things we will receive the rewards that we are due.

Or if a person chooses to do bad things, they will also experience a just return.

We apply this simple math, this set of rules, to our lives and fully expect that like 1+1=2, we will receive just rewards for the way we live.

This is our logic.

But that isn’t how life works is it?

Life, just like art, is messy.

Look with me at our first verse today.

Ecclesiastes 7:15 CSB

15 In my futile life I have seen everything: someone righteous perishes in spite of his righteousness, and someone wicked lives long in spite of his evil.

This is not a new topic, the author has already brought this out several times.

We have discussed this before, but the author makes the point again.

He is trying to help us rewire our brains in regards to how we process this life.

We must learn to move beyond our childish expectations of life and embrace life for what it is.

It is wonderfully messy.

Life doesn’t work out as we expect.

Most of us have already experienced that our math-logic doesn't work.

Sometimes the formula does work.

Sometimes we work really hard and are rewarded for the hard work.

But just as often we work to the point of exhaustion only to see what we were working toward slip through our fingers.

We accept this childish view of life because we are trying to make sense of the world.

You see, we like a balanced equation.

Balanced equations feel natural.

Almost as if that was the way they were intended to be...

However, we aren’t making life easier.

We are making life harder to understand and reconcile in our minds because we aren’t taking into account an important variable, which is sin.

The struggle to make sense of this isn’t unique to us.

Look at the prayers of the prophet Habakkuk as he experienced injustice.

Habakkuk 1:2–4 CSB

2 How long, Lord, must I call for help and you do not listen or cry out to you about violence and you do not save? 3 Why do you force me to look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Oppression and violence are right in front of me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict escalates. 4 This is why the law is ineffective and justice never emerges. For the wicked restrict the righteous; therefore, justice comes out perverted.

Habakkuk 1:13 CSB

13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, and you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do you tolerate those who are treacherous? Why are you silent while one who is wicked swallows up one who is more righteous than himself?

Can’t you feel what Habakkuk is saying down in your soul?

If we are going to make sense of or learn to enjoy this life we need to recognize and accept two things.

Because of sin, we live in a corrupt and distorted world.

This is a fact not an opinion.

Others may try to convince you that the world is not all bad or you may try to convince yourself.

The fact remains that Adam and Eve choose disobedience and through that action, sin entered the world.

Any time there is sin, there is a perversion of truth and justice.

We may not like it, but that’s the thing about facts, how we feel holds no power over them.

Until we can come to grips with a broken world being our reality, we will be baffled by the outcomes in our lives.

The quality of life we want is balanced, but what we experience is very unbalanced.

The preacher is trying to help us process that and in doing so we can enjoy life.

We can enjoy it when we see it for what it is.

Hevel.

To be clear, we will most certainly face injustice and suffering.

But if we know it is coming, we can allow God to prepare our minds and hearts to deal with it.

If we live with our heads in the sand and choose to believe otherwise, we will always be unprepared to deal with real life.

1 Peter 4:12–19 CSB

12 Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you, as if something unusual were happening to you. 13 Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler. 16 But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name. 17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with God’s household, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God? 18 And if a righteous person is saved with difficulty, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? 19 So then, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator while doing what is good.

Once we can accept the broken nature of life on earth, we can then understand our place in it.

We will suffer, but instead of wallowing in self-pity, rejoice in the victory of Christ, and trust in God’s faithfulness.

We can rejoice because the justice and victory we long for are already available to us.

When we are living life in an abiding relationship, we will experience life through God’s perspective and not just our own.

The end goal isn’t righteousness, but a relationship with God.

Ecclesiastes 7:16–20 CSB

16 Don’t be excessively righteous, and don’t be overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself? 17 Don’t be excessively wicked, and don’t be foolish. Why should you die before your time? 18 It is good that you grasp the one and do not let the other slip from your hand. For the one who fears God will end up with both of them. 19 Wisdom makes the wise person stronger than ten rulers of a city. 20 There is certainly no one righteous on the earth who does good and never sins.

On first examination of this passage, we see what seems obvious.

After all, at the beginning of this study, the preacher makes the point that striving after wisdom leads to much vexation.

He also says that he sought folly and it to was hevel.

So what do we do with this passage?

What is he saying?

Some may interpret this as a call for moderation, but it is a call to reliance on God instead of self.

Verse seventeen is easy for us to wrap our heads around.

Ecclesiastes 7:17 CSB

17 Don’t be excessively wicked, and don’t be foolish. Why should you die before your time?

In fact, this idea was popularized in the late nineties by Jeff Foxworthy.

He quoted the words of every redneck ever.

“Y’all watch this!”

Most people have a pretty good handle on the results of wicked or foolish behavior.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

However, verse sixteen isn’t as easy and we struggle with what the preacher could be saying.

We struggle because Christian culture has been preaching for hundreds, if not thousands, of years that our good behavior will gain us favor in God’s eyes.

At TGP, we of course know that this is not the truth, yet it is often still our default.

We default to acting and thinking that our ability to be righteous has a direct correlation to the quality of our lives.

We default to math class again. 1+1=2

We are caught in the lie that our good behavior means we will live an easy, God-blessed, life.

As I am saying that you are probably running the equation in your head.

You are either still under the power of the lie and trying to reconcile your math with what I’m saying or with this passage.

Or you have lived long enough to be able to emphatically confirm the truth that our lives are not that simple.

There are people that regularly arrested having done nothing wrong.

There are also those that commit horrible crimes and receive no consequences for their actions.

Verse 15 speaks directly to this hevel-ness.

Ecclesiastes 7:15 CSB

15 In my futile life I have seen everything: someone righteous perishes in spite of his righteousness, and someone wicked lives long in spite of his evil.

How are we to live in a world like this?

The preacher doesn’t offer a solution to the problem.

That’s not his purpose.

He isn’t trying to correct our math, he is trying to get rid of it completely.

The equation doesn’t work and never will because it is too simplistic.

The preacher is trying to help us to come to grips with the reality that we have experienced.

He wants us to hear what we have not had the cognition or courage to speak out loud.

We are not in control.

We want to be, with everything that is within us, we want to be in control.

That is the sin that was the result of the fall.

The issue is that we are attempting to rely on our own knowledge and experiences to invent a way of dealing with the world.

The burden of righteousness must be placed on the work of Christ because it is to heavy for us.

Rather than us trying to do for ourselves what Christ has already done, we should allow the Holy Spirit to work His righteousness into us.

Look at what happens when we try to do the work of making ourselves righteous.

Matthew 23:1–7 CSB

1 Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. 3 Therefore do whatever they tell you, and observe it. But don’t do what they do, because they don’t practice what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves aren’t willing to lift a finger to move them. 5 They do everything to be seen by others: They enlarge their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. 6 They love the place of honor at banquets, the front seats in the synagogues, 7 greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by people.

In this passage, Jesus is pointing to the fact that the religious goals of the Pharisees were to enlarge their following.

They believed that their personal righteousness equaled favor in God’s eyes.

Their job was to be a mediator between God and his people.

It was their responsibility to teach Isreal how to have a right relationship with God.

They took the law, which God intended to show their need for God, and perverted into a set of rules.

They took the beauty of God and reduced it to a set of things to be copied down.

Rather than fulfilling their commission, they choose to focus on themselves.

They were proud of their accomplishments and wanted others to be proud of them as well.

Seeking righteousness through our strength leads us into the trap of pride.

Anytime we make our lives about what we can gain, whether that be wealth or popularity, we are falling into the trap of pride.

In those moments we are taking the focus of our lives off of God and putting the spotlight on ourselves.

We are being just like the Pharisees.

We are wearing our goodness for all the world to see.

This is not the goal of God.

He didn’t send Jesus to die so we could impress one another.

Jesus came so that we could be restored back into a right relationship with God.

The goal is to be in a relationship with Jesus.

To allow Him to be our righteousness.

We find a happy place between righteousness and wickedness through abiding in Christ.

It is abiding that we find that happy medium.

Our motivation is no longer the fear of death.

We are made righteous, we don’t achieve it.

It is our personal relationship with God that brings us into perfect righteousness.

Our own sinfulness should remind us to be gracious with one another.

Even though we have the righteousness of Christ, we are still human.

As such, we sin on the regular.

In verses 19 and 20, the preacher addresses this.

Ecclesiastes 7:19–20 CSB

19 Wisdom makes the wise person stronger than ten rulers of a city. 20 There is certainly no one righteous on the earth who does good and never sins.

Wisdom is most definitely an advantage for us, but it is important that we remember that we are not perfect.

It doesn’t matter how wise we are, while we are still in these bodies, sin and temptation are all over us.

I was thinking about this idea this week and looking at the lives of teens will help us understand this.

I know I’m just getting to the age of having teenagers, but I’ve worked with them for a long time.

One of the things that happens in preteen years is the sin of the parents becomes a glaring obstacle for the teenager.

You may remember this from your time as a teenager.

Often this is also amplified at the time of salvation or spiritual awakening.

As God is dealing with the sin in the teen’s life, the sin of their parents is shining like a lighthouse on a clear night.

Their sins are painfully obvious.

As a teenager, there is a great deal of frustration with those in authority, because of sin.

This struggle often lasts for years and makes for a tumultuous relationship between the teen and the parents.

In growing older, we realize that there is just as much sin in our own lives.

We also begin to see that the world is not as cut and dry as we naively thought it was.

In discovering that, we tend to go a little easier on our parents.

This is the same idea that the preacher is making.

Because we all sin, we personally understand the enormous need we all have for grace.

We need to allow that knowledge to inform the way we treat one another.

It is easy to be upset when someone does us wrong, but do we consider the way we have treated others that day?

When feelings are hurt and tempers flare, do we take the time to consider our own faults?

Romans 3:9–20 CSB

9 What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, 10 as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. 11 There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one. 13 Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips. 14 Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and wretchedness are in their paths, 17 and the path of peace they have not known. 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes. 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment. 20 For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.

Scripture contains abundant evidence of our sinfulness and need for God’s grace.

What an incredible way to be God’s Love in a broken world by offering abundant grace to the people in your life.

Our friends and family need exactly the same amount of grace that we do.

They need all of it.

We need all of it.

Our lives are full of both righteous and wicked and because of sin, we all need grace.

This leads us right into our last two verses for the day.

Ecclesiastes 7:21–22 CSB

21 Don’t pay attention to everything people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you, 22 for in your heart you know that many times you yourself have cursed others.

We need grace.

At anytime that we come under fire from the people in our lives, we need to do two things.

We need to ask God if there is truth in what is being said.

If there is truth, we need to repent and follow God’s guidance in resolving the conflict.

If not, again, we need to ask God how to handle the issue.

We need to extend grace, not retaliate.

1 Peter 3:8–9 CSB

8 Finally, all of you be like-minded and sympathetic, love one another, and be compassionate and humble, 9 not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult but, on the contrary, giving a blessing, since you were called for this, so that you may inherit a blessing.

Just like the other two points we have discussed this morning, if we make what happens in our lives all about us, we are missing the point.

We assume that when we receive suffering in the place of blessing, it is because of something we’ve done.

We assume that in order to be righteous, we need to live a certain way and work really hard.

When someone speaks ill of us, we need to remember that it may not be about us at all.

It is very likely that they were dealing with other issues in their life, and you were a convenient opportunity to vent all their frustration.

There will be times that we are being purposefully attacked, but even in those times, we are still asked to extend grace.

There is an old hymn that I am reminded of, They will know we are Christians by our love, that wraps this up for us.

We live in a broken and sinful world.

If it were not for the love of an amazing God, we would be miserable.

Our call of God, to be His love in this broken world, it relies on our dependence on Him.

There are going to be many times in your life where people are mean just because they can be.

When that happens, bring it to the Lord and let Him deal with them, but also with you.

Do not let bitterness take root in your heart.

That is not who we are called to be.

Bitterness and resentment do not speak of love.

This is where the rubber meets the road.

We can talk about being God’s love, but it requires that we love as Jesus did.

When they scourged, spit, and ridiculed Him, he didn’t get mad and walk away.

He endured it for the sake of those that were causing the pain.

He loved through the hurt so that those very people could be made right with God.

We need to allow God to remind us of our own sin and need for grace.

That person that is ridiculing you is just like you.

They are in need of grace and it may be in the giving of grace that the glory and goodness of God are revealed.

This life is not about us.

We were created, not to enjoy life, but to enjoy God.

When we are in the right relationship with God, we will then enjoy life.

If we make our lives the focus, we won’t experience God, but if we experience God, He will give us life.

Let’s pray together and ask God to keep that perspective before us.