Ecclesiastes 9:1-12

Illustration: Parent is excited to give Christmas gift. First guarantees that they really love the kids. They want to show you that by giving you an all expenses paid trip to a Seattle Seahawks game. After the excitement and questions die down, the parents then tell them of one other guarantee: the game will end after three hours and you may not be able to finish the game.

A tension is now set up: guaranteed love and guaranteed uncertainty don’t exist in the child’s mind together. Was the parent wise in telling them of these ends and uncertainties? Does it cancel out the whole enjoyment of the trip?

We all like to see symbols such as these that guarantee outcomes that we want or expect. Many times, wisely so, we don’t like to plan, invest, or put energy into something that does not have a confirmation code or guaranteed satisfaction.

Is God wise in telling us of the certain end of death and the uncertainty of life?

Don’t live for guaranteed outcomes enjoy your guaranteed portion

What are some of the guaranteed outcomes we can come to expect.?

A pleasant life and a delayed death

Ecclesiastes 9:1–3 NKJV

1 For I considered all this in my heart, so that I could declare it all: that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. People know neither love nor hatred by anything they see before them. 2 All things come alike to all: One event happens to the righteous and the wicked; To the good, the clean, and the unclean; To him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; He who takes an oath as he who fears an oath. 3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that one thing happens to all. Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

Righteous and wise are in God’s hands

They don’t know if they will face love or hate in life

Righteous living and wicked living both face similar fates

The path along the way in marked by unfortunate events

In light of the given limits, what is the advantage of living?

Ecclesiastes 9:4–6 NKJV

4 But for him who is joined to all the living there is 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 Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; Nevermore will they have a share In anything done under the sun.

Life has opportunity now, don’t live it try living as though they exist forever.

You do have hope and knowledge now.

However, in this life, opportunity for gain will end, you will be forgotten. All the emotion that you poured into something will end

In the end, death makes no sense. Death will leave your face tearstained in perplexity. And because death is like that, life works like this: God comes to us in Jesus and says, “Trust me. Walk with me. Love me. Put your hand in my hand. Believe my Word. Stop trying to understand everything, to be in control of everything, to tie up all the loose ends, to have perfect peace and wealth and health and happiness. Stop striving for all those things, and stop it now. If you can’t see that life doesn’t always make sense, then something is coming your way that will prove it to you. Death is coming.”

Dying well doesn’t mean that when death touches your family you do not have a broken heart. It doesn’t mean that you do not experience suffocating grief. To die well means that you realize death is the limit God has placed on creatures who want to be gods.

Gibson, David. Living Life Backward (p. 109). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

Illustration of van

What is another guaranteed outcome that we come to expect?

Unbroken connection between cause and effect

Ecclesiastes 9:11–12 NKJV

11 I returned and saw under the sun that— The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all. 12 For man also does not know his time: Like fish taken in a cruel net, Like birds caught in a snare, So the sons of men are snared in an evil time, When it falls suddenly upon them.

Many times outcomes are related to effort and knowledge put in

Ecclesiastes 3 showed that time is in God’s hand alone.

Events happen at unexpected times

We have expectations of degrees giving us jobs, hard work giving us more resources and better living, saving resulting in security. These are not guarantees that we must live for.

Illustration of servants in the parable of the servants hired at different parts of the day

With this lack of guarantee what do we do?

Enjoy your guaranteed portion

Ecclesiastes 9:7–10 NKJV

7 Go, eat your bread with joy, And drink your wine with a merry heart; For God has already accepted your works. 8 Let your garments always be white, And let your head lack no oil. 9 Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.

Our God gives to you in the form of physical gifts.

He delights in giving to you.

He has portioned out what you have in life

Enjoy the food and drink He gives to you.

Don’t die before you die. Dressing with beauty matters. Stay clean. Display joy and happiness. However don’t use your portion for outward appearances

Enjoy the spouse God has given you

Likewise, somewhere along the line, men and women look beyond their wives or their husbands in order to find the gain they long for. Others passively fade away always in the house but never actually present toward the other. Still others use fists and threats as substitutes for care and companionship. These do not realize that no matter who they pledge their lives to, the questions will remain the same. Can they learn to discern God here in ordinary covenant love and to taste the joy he has for them right where they are, such as they are? Only God’s provision can do it!

Make the most of the opportunities that God has given you.

What does it mean to love life and the world if it’s passing away, and if I’m meant to enjoy God and live for Christ first and foremost? Let me say that the two things go hand in hand absolutely beautifully, and for this reason: in the created world, you can only truly enjoy what you do not worship. The man who makes sex his god, and who worships it, discovers that actually what is normal, pleasurable, soon becomes inadequate, not enough, and he becomes chained to a path whereby he begins to enjoy only perversion—​​​which of course is no enjoyment.

Gibson, David. Living Life Backward (p. 115). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

God uses these limits to make us homesick and to give us tastes of the infinite joys that lie before us.