003 ST_Vainity of Riches (ES 15 Feb 2015)

Sermon on the Vanity of Riches

Read 5:10-20

10 Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! 11 The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth-- except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers! 12 People who work hard sleep well, whether they eat little or much. But the rich seldom get a good night's sleep. 13 There is another serious problem I have seen under the sun. Hoarding riches harms the saver. 14 Money is put into risky investments that turn sour, and everything is lost. In the end, there is nothing left to pass on to one's children. 15 We all come to the end of our lives as naked and empty-handed as on the day we were born. We can't take our riches with us. 16 And this, too, is a very serious problem. People leave this world no better off than when they came. All their hard work is for nothing-- like working for the wind.

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17 Throughout their lives, they live under a cloud-- frustrated, discouraged, and angry. 18 Even so, I have noticed one thing, at least, that is good. It is good for people to eat, drink, and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life God has given them, and to accept their lot in life. 19 And it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life-- this is indeed a gift from God. 20 God keeps such people so busy enjoying life that they take no time to brood over the past.

Pray:

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Let’s look at 5:10-11.

Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! 11 The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth-- except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers !

Solomon who was probably the richest man in the world comes right out and says money can’t buy you satisfaction.

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The love of money is a sad investment

Solomon is saying loving money won’t bring you happiness, but it will bring more people into your life to spend your money.

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People who have money, (and they don’t necessarily have to love money are always running into people who want their money

Story about the lottery

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In an article Can You Spare a Million?: Why It Pays to Stay Anonymous After Lottery Win

Attorney Andrew Stoltmann, who has represented millionaires after they’ve lost their money to con artists and in bad investments, said "The average lottery winner is a blue-collar individual, and all of a sudden you give them tens of millions of dollars and you post their name across the world, and then you expect them to act responsibly — it’s an unenviable expectation"

"Some winners have squandered their earnings. West Virginia man Andrew “Jack” Whittaker, who won $315 million in a 2002 Powerball drawing, lost it all in about four years. His misfortune reportedly included thieves stealing $545,000 from his car and lawsuits over his gambling debts.

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Kurland, a lottery lawyer, said new winners can try to limit their public exposure upfront. During news conferences, they should say as little as possible, he advised.

And in states where it’s permitted, they can also form a limited liability company so that when a winner’s name is reported, it’s the LLC and not individuals being identified.

However, the attention is tempting for some. Last August, when “Wild” Willie Seeley and 15 of his coworkers at an Ocean County, N.J., maintenance garage won a $450 million jackpot, they basked in the spotlight.

But a month later, Seeley lamented to NBC News that all he wanted was his old life back.

“There are days I wish we were back to just getting paid every two weeks,” he said.

Besides other people wanting your money, the other part of this increase are the people you have to hire to help you manage your wealth and possessions. If you get rich you’ll need a maid to clean your house, a gardener for the yard, a nanny to watch the kids, a chauffeur to drive the car, an accountant to keep the books, a broker to invest the money and a body guard to the protect them and their family..

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In vs 12 we read;

People who work hard sleep well, whether they eat little or much. But the rich seldom get a good night's sleep.

The laborer will sleep whether he eats little or much. However, the rich person will not sleep well because of the rich food and drink he had, or just worrying at night if he is going to lose his possessions.

As Solomon said “those who love money will never have enough.” When the richest man of the world at the time, J D Rockefeller was asked “How much money is enough?” He answered, “Just a little bit more.” The love of money will never satisfy anyone. The love of money is a sad investment

Besides, a sad investment, it is also a bad investment.

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Read 5:13-14

13 There is another serious problem I have seen under the sun. Hoarding riches harms the saver. 14 Money is put into risky investments that turn sour, and everything is lost. In the end, there is nothing left to pass on to one's children

Twice in this section, Solomon uses the word phrase “grievous evil”. This phrase describes something that is deeply hurtful and very painful to watch. Solomon is clearly bothered by the unfulfilled expectations that accompany wealth.

In v13, the hoarding riches harms the saver. Meaning he was storing them up and hiding them.

There are three things that make money a bad investment

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First, you can lose them. And when people who have put their trust and love into riches can have a very bad reaction to the loss.

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For example, Tim Keller, writes in his book, Counterfeit Gods, about a string of tragic suicides that followed the economic crises that started in 2008.

The acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, hanged himself in his basement. The Chief financial executive of Sheldon Good, a leading U.S. real estate auction firm, shot himself in the head behind the wheel of red Jaguar. A French money manager who invested the wealth of many of Europe’s royal and leading families, and who had lost $1.4 billion of his client’s money in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, slit his wrists and died in his Madison Avenue office. A Danish senior executive with HSBC Bank hanged himself in the wardrobe of his £500-a-night suite in Knightsbridge, London.

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The second reason the love of money is a bad investment, is that you can’t take it with you.

14 Money is put into risky investments that turn sour, and everything is lost. In the end, there is nothing left to pass on to one's children. 15 We all come to the end of our lives as naked and empty-handed as on the day we were born. We can't take our riches with us. 16 And this, too, is a very serious problem. People leave this world no better off than when they came. All their hard work is for nothing-- like working for the wind. 17 Throughout their lives, they live under a cloud-- frustrated, discouraged, and angry.

Look at the second part of verse 14 and following. I know it may sound obvious, that you can’t take it with you, but I know in my own life the older I get, the more I believe it. You don’t know how long you are going to live. Why toil and labor and accumulate things you can’t take with you.

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The third reason the love is a bad investment is that God will not allow you to enjoy the love of your riches.

Let’s look at Ecc 6:1-6.

There is another serious tragedy I have seen under the sun, and it weighs heavily on humanity. 2 God gives some people great wealth and honor and everything they could ever want, but then he doesn't give them the chance to enjoy these things. They die, and someone else, even a stranger, ends up enjoying their wealth! This is meaningless-- a sickening tragedy. 3 A man might have a hundred children and live to be very old. But if he finds no satisfaction in life and doesn't even get a decent burial, it would have been better for him to be born dead. 4 His birth would have been meaningless, and he would have ended in darkness. He wouldn't even have had a name, 5 and he would never have seen the sun or known of its existence. Yet he would have had more peace than in growing up to be an unhappy man. 6 He might live a thousand years twice over but still not find contentment. And since he must die like everyone else-- well, what's the use?

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God gives the man wealth and honor, but does not allow him to enjoy. The rich man wants to enjoy his wealth, but he can’t. Solomon says the stillborn child is better off than the rich man. Though the rich man, may live 2,000 years and have a hundred children, which would be a blessing to Israelite, if he is looking for satisfaction in his money he won’t find it. The point of this passage is a “long life without enjoyment . . . is far worse than no life at all.

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This brings to the third point: to trust in God is a wise investment.

Read 5:18-20

18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. 19 Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil-- this is the gift of God. 20 For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.

In Ecclesiastes, Solomon doesn’t mention God very much and Solomon seldom sees God as a solution to a problem. However, in these four verses he mentioned God four times. Solomon urges us his readers to accept his lot and the good that God has given them, and to find enjoyment in their toil. God keeps such people so busy enjoying life that they take no time to brood over the past.

One of the benefits of being a NT Christian as opposed to being a OT Jew is we have the revelation of the NT.

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Read 12:13-21

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." 14 But he said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?" 15 And he said to them, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." 16 And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' 18 And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry."' 20 But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."

This is one of my favorite parables. On the initial read this parable seems to parallel closely what we have read in Ecclesiastes. Let take at these elements a little closer.

First there is man with an estate law problem who ask Jesus to have his brother split the inheritance with him. It was common in Jesus’s day for teachers to help solve problems that people had.

However, he isn’t asking Jesus to hear a case, but almost demanding that Jesus command his brother to divide the inheritance. Jesus refuses and warns the crowd to be on guard against covetousness and tells them a parable

The rich man in the parable has a storage problem. He has had a bumper crop and no place to store it. He got this abundance honestly and it really his to him on how rectify his problem.

From economic standpoint if he stores the grain in a bigger facility, he can keep the price of grain up, but if he gets floods the market with excess grain, that will keep prices low and he won’t make much money that way.

He has a conversation with himself on how to solve it. He’ll make a larger storage facility, relax, eat, drink and be merry. But what happens to him next is what Solomon warns about, sooner you will die and things you have prepared go to someone else. And this is what happens to the rich man in the story. 20 But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'

Conclusion

1. The love of Money is a sad investment

2. The love of Money is bad investment

3. To trust in God and lay up our treasure is a wise investment

i. Everything belongs to God

ii. We’re only stewards of what he has given us

iii. Be free in our giving to building the kingdom of God