Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes

New Year Plans

Intro: As 2020 winds down, many of us are looking forward to 2021 with cautious optimism. Many people may make either new year resolutions or or perhaps better yet, goals for what you want to accomplish.

These can be anything really, To make sure that how we live glorifies God. This is not about being perfect, but living a life that demonstrates to others how God has worked in your life and how he is still working in your life to mold you in the image of Christ.

Where do we turn to, who do we ask for. This advice that we need. The Answer is simple, God’s Word. And one of the best places in the Bible, is the book of Ecclesiastes.

It is written in the genre of Wisdom, so it stands with Psalms, Proverbs and Job. And it is a look at real life. You may be familiar with the song Turn turn turn, by the Byrds, which quotes the first 8 verses of Chapter 3.

Solomon may have written it as the conservative scholars believe or it may have been someone after the exile using Solomon’s name and perhaps some other writings to capture and think absolutely life’s peculiarities and think about God’s role in all of our lives.

The teacher or preacher as the author calls himself is writing his knowledge a. Nd experience before it is too late and perhaps spare people from mistakes or make them aware of what they should do.

The overall theme is that Everything in life is vanity or vapor without the Key to understanding that God controls it all.

Life can disappear Iike steam from a tea kettle.

Read verses: 1:1-6,

The words of the Preacher,[a] the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2 Vanity[b] of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? 4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens[c] to the place where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.

12:13-14

13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with[b] every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Main Point: As you make your 2021 plans, keep your eye on God to make sure your plans are not in vain

I. Work for the Lord (Ecc 1&2)

We are meant to work. We need to do it to earn either money to buy goods or make goods to trade for other needs. Life can be like the preacher says, and the sun rises and sets. As the Earth rotates, so do our lives.

In chapter 2 verse 4, the teacher points out that he has made great works , building h]great houses and planting vineyards, by himself he says.

In verse 10 he says that he kept no pleasure from his heart, for my heart found pleasure in my toil . But in verse 11, the ten changes. Then I considered all the energy my work took and behold, it is all vanity. It is really all for nothing.

The wind and rain destroys the building, the cold weather kills the grapes on the vine.

So it is easy to hate life, but then then the teacher comes to the conclusion at the end of chapter 2 verse 26, For the one who pleases Him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and Joy, but to sinners he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to the one who pleases God.

The goodness of God is reflected in the divine creation (Exod 18:9; Pss 86:5; 100:5; Mark 10:18). God created a world full of pleasures and assessed it as “good” (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25) and “very good” (Gen 1:31; cf. Ps 16:11; 1 Tim 6:17). God’s delight in pleasure is evident in joyous accounts given in the Bible (1 Kings 4:20; Neh 8:10–12) and in the purposes outlined for the religious festivals of Israel (Deut 16:9–15; 26:11). God’s joy in providing food is particularly evident (Deut 8:3; Pss 104:14–15, 27; 136:25–26; 145:15; Isa 30:23; Matt 6:11; 7:7–11). It is clear from Revelation 7:16–17 that God desires to relieve the distress of people:

They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;

the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat;

for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

On the other hand, Jesus taught that the pleasures of life, as well as its worries and riches, cause the seed of God’s Word to be choked so that a life bears no fruit

So we walk the middle ground, the narrow way, of Not taking too much pleasure in things that cause us to sin, but also not thinking everything is miserable that we don't enjoy anything.

We enjoy working for God, because the work we are doing is what he has trained us and prepared for us.

And while we do that, we know there are days when we have to wait through the bad times to get to the good times.

II. Wait for the Lord (Ecc. 3-9)

There are seasons in life that we all go through, youth Adulthood, old age. Death, life, love, hate, mourning, laughing.

There is no warning to many of these events. Even age creeps up on you, one day you are 18 and the next time you look, you are 68.

When we are faced with death, we are forced to deal with our own mortality and finiteness of our lives. That is why people are so stressed with the COVID virus. Because we don’t know if you will get it and it will kill you or perhaps you give it to a loved one and it kills them.

But this is just an extended season that we have to live through. When we make goals for our life, we not only have to work for them, but we also have to wait. If God is driving or shaping our plans, then it may take a little longer to get to the goal.

And as we see in chapter three and other places life is not fair, at least to our standards or wishes.

But God is fair because everyone faces the same end as Chapter 9 states. But in chapter. 9 verse 4, the teacher states “But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.”

How are you among the living? The key is in the New Testament,particularly Paul's letter. To the Romans and the Ephesians. Ephesians 2:1-5

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body[a] and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.[b] 4 But[c] God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Likewise Paul tells the Romans heat the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. That is what we should be able to persevere and withstand whatever goes on in this life, because we know where we are going when we die.

What Paul is saying and I think he is linking what the Teacher is saying to his audience, that those in Christ or God (they are one in the Same) know they are alive. I believe this is what the Teacher is saying. You are alive in God. Those of us who are alive in God know we will die, but that is just on this earth. But the people who are dead in their sin, don’t know anything else and they strive so hard to make every day count here. Because they will be without in the afterlife.

It is because they lack a proper fear of the Lord in this life, that they will experience the full wrath and know what fear is on the last Day.

III. Fear of the Lord

Ecclesiastes 12:13 (ESV): 13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

The Teacher wraps up the whole book in this one phrase.

We are to keep the whole law. What is the law? Love God, Love your neighbor.

So when you are making your plans for the year Do those plans help you love god and love your neighbor?

The fear of the Lord is not to be scared of God so we cower in fear, but we properly recognize and stay in awe of who God is.

Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

fools despise wisdom and instruction.

This fear you have lets people know you are one of the smart people or at least that you are not a fool.

Where does my help come from, the psalmist asks? The Lord. We have David and Solomon both saying that even though they were Kings, they knew they were put there by God.

Being wise keeps you from doing unwise actions, saying unwise words.being slow to speak and slow to anger as James says. But before that Ames tells us to Be quick to listen. One way we show love is to listen to others. So if we listen to God and listen to others, then we are demonstrating that what they say is important and that they are important.

So as you make your plans listen to what God is telling He wants you to accomplish for His kingdom this year.

Conclusion:

As we make our plans, for our personal lives and this church we need to do these three things, work for the lord, things that further the gospel message. Sometimes it is a big event or Job, like putting up walls and sometimes it is the fine work like fixing the holes in the wall.

Next we have to Wait on the Lord, Through different seasons or times in our lives. We wait. When they put up a new building, oftentimes it seems like the longest part of the process is repairing and lawn the foundation. Because if that is off, the whole building is off. So sometimes it takes longer than we want to wait. But we all go through stuff. And we know we are alive in Christ and God has prepared our new homes for us.

And lastly we must follow His commandments to Love Godard love our neighbors. The fear or awe we have for God will keep you in the middle of the path, guided by God.

So what if 2021 falls apart or goes like 2020 part two?

There is a gospel song we heard yesterday called Stand and the opening verse goes like this:

What do you do when you've done all you can

And it seems like it's never enough?

And what do you say

When your friends turn away

And you're all alone, alone?

Tell me, what do you give when you've given your all

And it seems like you can't make it through?

Well, you just stand when there's nothing left to do

You just stand, watch the lord see you through

Yes, after you've done all you can

You just stand

If you don’t make any other plans this year, just make your plan to Just stand in the Lord all year.

Amen.