Ecc Sermon Week 14

Intro/Welcome

Good to be back

Covid for last month

Riddle:

“What is a multibillion-dollar industry. It fuels the internet. It dominates political campaigns, talk radio, and the evening news. It sits on therapist couches and speaks on Facebook feeds. No respecter of persons, it steals sleep from feeble beggars and mighty kings. It has started wars, yet brought down empires.

What is this pervasive, inescapable, suffocating phenomenon?

Fear.

fear is the currency of the enemy

The Fear Pandemic

We are living in a time of pervasive, rampant and wide spread fear.

Even in America, where knowledge and technology promised us control

they promised us safety

they promised us prosperity

But they have lied to us

They have not delivered

They are false Gods

Perhaps it is no surprise that one of the most frequent commands is scriptures is:

“Fear Not” to “not be afraid”

Yet at the same time one of the most important commands in all of scripture is ‘to fear’

“Fear the Lord”

What this means is:

misplaced fear will lead to misplaced lives.

godly fear will lead to godly living

This is exactly Solomon’s grand conclusion to the book of Ecclesiastes.

We’ve hit on it through out the series.

but his main point, his grand conclusion is this:

Ecclesiastes 12:13 (CSB)

13 When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity.

Having searched everything, examined all things, reasoned, applied knowledge and wisdom, experienced power, success, pleasure and achievement

This is the main point, the main purpose of life, the on thing that

brings meaning to the meaninglessness

freedom from futility

and hope in hevel.

Fear God.

So let’s examine what this means, and perhaps more importantly why many of us give into misplaced fears.

Bible/Welcome

We’ll be in Ecc 12:8-14

Go there in your Bibles

My name is Justin, want to welcome you to One Hope Church

Especially if you are joining us for the first time.

And if you are joining Online — we hope you will join us in person as you feel comfortable and ready

Let’s Pray

Pray

pray for fearlessness

Afghanistan, Haiti, Gulf Coast - hurricane Ida

2 Timothy 1:7 (CSB)

7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.

Fear God

Ecclesiastes 12:13 (CSB)

13 When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity.

What does it mean to fear God?

To see his Glory

Sense of Terror, Reverence, Respect, to be in Awe of Him.

It is to see both his Awesome Power and His Amazing Grace

Terror

There is a rightful sense of Terror

Ex) Israelites at the foot of Sinai — Terror

Exodus 20:18–21 (CSB) 18 All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the ram’s horn, and the mountain surrounded by smoke. When the people saw it they trembled and stood at a distance.

19 “You speak to us, and we will listen,” they said to Moses, “but don’t let God speak to us, or we will die.” 20 Moses responded to the people, “Don’t be afraid, for God has come to test you, so that you will fear him and will not sin.” 21 And the people remained standing at a distance as Moses approached the total darkness where God was.

If you and I were to stand in the midst of the Glory of God displayed in power we would be absolutely consumed.

Utterly terrified.

God is a consuming fire.

Heb 12:28-29 “28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.”

Fear of Judgment

This is a rightful fear — a fear that many of us have lost.

All of us will be judged — the last verse in the book.

Ecclesiastes 12:14 (CSB)

14 For God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil.

Every act but more than that

Every thought, desire, intention, decision

Everything will be judged as good or evil

Scripture is very clear on this fact

Rom 2:16 “on the day when God judges what people have kept secret, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus.”

Feelings have no bearing on Truth

But this is not the totality of what it means to fear God.

Just becuase we don’t like the idea of judgment doesn’t mean its not going to happen

any more than not wanting Monday to come will prevent it from coming

or not wanting to die means that day won’t come.

Our feelings have no bearing on the truth.

One of our misplaced fears is that we fear the judgment of others rather than the judgment from God

This kind of fear of God will lead to a kind of obedience

an obedience of fear

but God is after an obedience of Faith

Fear of God consist of seeing his Glory displayed in his Awesome Power and Amazing Grace

Isaiah’s Experience

Isa 6:5 “Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies.”

Isa 6:7 “He touched my mouth with it and said: Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.”

His Response:

When God calls for service...

Isa 6:8 “8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking: Who will I send? Who will go for us? I said: Here I am. Send me.”

(To use this verse correctly!)

OBEDIENCE

The Pattern

This is the Biblical Pattern — the results of a right fear of God

An awareness of his awesome power and majesty

which brings an awareness of our feebleness and sinfulness

Followed by an experience of Mercy and Grace

which brings about an willing obedience

one motivated by LOVE

This is exactly what 1 John 4 says

1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love.”

Illustration: Water Pressure

The deepest divers can go without gear is about 60 feet

If they were to go 100s of feet they would be crushed by the pressure

If we were to go before God’s glory in our current condition we would literally be crushed.

the weight — glory lit means weight

We need to be clothed by something, protected by something.

Submarine — you can go hundreds of feet and you are protected by the hull

in the same way when we are in Christ — his righteousness shields us from the weight of God’s glory.

We need to be covered by the righteousness of Christ

We need our sin atoned for — forgiven

This is the gospel and it is not just the knowledge of the gospel

but the experience of the gospel

that produced the kind of obedience that God is after

and obedience motivated by love.

Obeying God

What does it mean to obey God then?

Is it out of fear? i suppose if need be

better yet — it is out of love.

But more than that

obedience to God isn’t about keeping all the rules, certainly not the 600 + rules of the Old Testament

How do Jesus and the NT sum up all of God’s Law?

Matt 22:37-40 “37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

Rom 13:9-10 “9 The commandments... are summed up by this commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law.”

Therefore to Obey God means to Love Others motivated by Love of God made possible b/c of God’s Love for You.

This is what God is looking for

These are the kinds of people that God is making.

The Problem

But what is the problem?

We don’t fear God

We give into lesser fears

And are ultimately ruled by them.

When we don’t have a healthy fear of God we will be ruled by lesser fears

and furthermore we will obey them rather than God.

The pandemic of fear

We are all experiencing this right now

We have been living in a pandemic of fear ever since COVID began

We are afraid of getting covid

of transmitting it to others

being responsible for someone else having it

We are afraid of getting vaccinated

we are afraid of not getting vaccinated

We are afraid of being judged either way

We are afraid it’s all a government conspiracy

Ultimately we are afraid of the unknown

and we are overwhelmed by anxiety and fear

And what do we do rather than coming to God earnestly?

We take control.

the source of all anxiety is a loss of control

and so we are trying to take back control.

What’s the #1 way we do that?

Is it going to the Bible to read and mediate on God’s word and what it might have to say to us?

No, most often, we go to the Bible of our Age

Google.

We’ve all become experts at covid

vaccines, mrna, breakthrough cases

spike proteins

We live in a time of unprecedented information like no time in the history of the world.

There is more information available to us today than could have been imagined just 50 years ago.

The amount of information available today is staggering.

Internet

1. Google gets over 3.5 billion searches daily.

2. The estimated amount of data we had in 2020 40 zettabytes (1 zettbyte = a trillion gigabytes)

3.Today it would take a person approximately 181 million years to download all the data from the internet.

Forbes: 2013

There are somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books published every year in the US alone, depending on which stats you believe

That was 8 years ago

I’m completely overwhelmed by the number of books I could find just on the book of Ecclesiastes

It would have taken me a lifetime

Is information bad?

No, of course not

but Knowledge cannot save you.

Solomon was the wisest and most knowledgeable man of his time

Ecclesiastes 12:9–10 (CSB)

9 In addition to the Teacher being a wise man, he constantly taught the people knowledge; he weighed, explored, and arranged many proverbs. 10 The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and write words of truth accurately.

Solomon was a teacher

He was a great communicator “delightful sayings” = “words of pleasure” — artistic, aesthetically pleasing.

He taught WISDOM — Book fo Proverbs

Wisdom is beneficial

Ecclesiastes 12:11 (CSB)

11 The sayings of the wise are like cattle prods, and those from masters of collections are like firmly embedded nails. The sayings are given by one Shepherd.

Cattle Prod = Goad — pointy stick to move animals

[Picture of goad, cattle prod] —I will prompt

Wisdom gets you going in the right direction — sometimes painfully

Wisdom is ‘fixed like nails’ you can hang a lot of weight on them.

They will generally keep you in a good path.

And we’ve seen living wisely is advantageous to foolish living in this broken world.

Ecc 2:13-14 “13 And I realized that there is an advantage to wisdom over folly, like the advantage of light over darkness. 14 The wise person has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I also knew that one fate comes to them both.”

Wisdom is from God — One Shepherd

so it is good.

But wisdom and knowledge cannot save you.

Bookshelves

In my office I have bookshelves up on the wall

One morning I walked in and one of those shelves had come crashing down

books everywhere

I had put some more books on the shelf and it was too much for the screws that held it up

snapped the head right off — shelf comes crashing down.

This is what happens when we put too much weight on wisdom and knowledge.

They are like nails — but put too much weight on them

and it will all come crashing down.

The Limits of Wisdom

Solomon warns us

Ecclesiastes 12:12 (CSB)

The sayings are given by one Shepherd. 12 But beyond these, my son, be warned: there is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body.

Beyond this ‘wisdom from God’

be warned

There is no end to study — it will consume you

Don’t put too much weight on it.

We’ve seen it this whole series: something more than wisdom was needed

Rising above Fear

Which brings us back to the conclusion of the matter

Ecclesiastes 12:13 (CSB)

13 When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity.

This is for all humanity — the duty of every man, woman and child

It is your whole purpose — your reason for being.

If we get this right, everything else will fall into place

But if we get this wrong, everything will be a mess.

Oswald Chambers: “The remarkable thing about fearing God, is that, when you fear God, you fear nothing else; whereas, if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.”

Fearing God will lead to love

Fearing anything else will lead to pride.

Application

Aren’t we seeing that in our world.

Fear is driving people towards division and hostility

Pro-mask vs. Anti-mask

Pro-vaccine vs. anti-vaccine

It’s ultimately about pride — being right

or fear of losing — and so in our pride we take control.

But when we fear God — and trust in his Sovereign over All things — even pandemics

it can free us to love others.

For as long as humankind has been around there have been plagues, pandemics and politicizing.

Maybe, just maybe, God is interested in something more than if we right or not

maybe, just maybe, he’s teaching us to love.

What is love?

This chapter is placed in the middle of another controversial subject in our day: Spiritual Gifts

1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (CSB)

4 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, 5 is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

What if this characterized the church?

What if the church looked different than the world?

that would be compelling.

But fear so often gets in the way.

Fear of God over lesser fears

We don’t have to be afraid to getting it wrong b/c God is sovereign over all decisions

We don’t have to be afraid of sinning against others b/c if we sin, God in Christ will forgive all

We don’t have to be afraid of failing b/c in Christ we are completely secure.

We don’t have to be afraid of dying b/c in Christ death will be a great homecoming

for the believer there is only gain after death

but for the unbeliever that is only loss after death.

Maybe God is up to more than just providing a cure

maybe he’s drawing people to himself

maybe you can I have the opportunity to share God’s love with people

That judgment is coming and salvation is at hand

Closing

So what does love look like in your life?

Who can you show kindness to?

Who can you share God’s love with?

I learned a lot about kindness and patience over this last month.

When Elise had it it was me and four kids

But God was there with me.

God is always with us, even if we don’t feel him

Where are fears ruling rather than trusting God?

We are so free in Christ

What might be God doing in your heart as you turn to him?

I had fears this last month

What if my son gets it? What if he dies?

Would God still be good?

I prayed for him — to keep him safe, but more than that to Save him

so one day I would meet him

Where do we need to repent of serving lesser fears than the Fear of God?

What misplaced fears do you have?

Closing Prayer