Category: Sermon Notes

Sermon notes

A Statement Concerning the Supreme Court’s Decision

As a church family, Fruit Cove Baptist Church rejoices with and affirms the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe vs Wade.  This decision has long been prayed for and we rejoice in the decision that now outlaws the taking of preborn life in the United States.  The impact of this decision will be felt for years to come.  It is a needed course-correction in the moral fabric of our nation.

But the battle has only begun.  Many will push back, some with violence, against this decision.  It is not our place to meet violence with violence but instead with prayer.

Fruit Cove Baptist Church is strongly pro-life.  We not only support the effort of opposing abortion on demand but we also stand supporting mothers who chose to carry their children to term…and to minister with grace to those who do not.

At Fruit Cove adoption is a high value.  We support adoptive families and those ministries that aid in helping adoption take place.

Our Fostering Hope ministry is one of the largest ministries of its kind in our area, supporting families who choose to foster children.

Embracing Grace is a new ministry that allows us to walk with pregnant Moms who have no partner or family support network.

All of these ministries of FCBC are responses to our pro-life views.  It’s easy to oppose a position but much more costly to support those affected by that opposition.  We oppose abortion. But more than that we support the mothers and children who are impacted by our position.

Please join us…both in celebration of this historic ruling, but now more than ever…let’s show the world what a true pro-life and pro-family position look like!

We Are At War

WE ARE AT WAR

Ephesians 6:10-20

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. (Lewis, The Screwtape Letters)

My hope in this series is that we will come away reminded that spiritual conflict in our life on this earth is real. This world is a battlefield. It is a war taking place in an unseen realm, but the effects are being lived out through your life on earth. And in reality, it’s intensifying.  Some of us are completely unaware that such a war is taking place. Some Christians live in denial about this and some live in unconscious disbelief.

I certainly do not want to move us into an unhealthy obsession over the devil and demons. Let’s be real.  We can’t blame they demonic for everything that goes wrong in our life.  Demons don’t make your washing machine break down.  But it’s dangerous to go to the other end of the spectrum and deny that the enemy exists.

And if there is a spiritual war, what do you need to know about it? What do you need to do about it?

An old story is told about a farming community in a drought. The churches all came together one Sunday afternoon in a large, sunbaked field for a prayer meeting to ask God for rain.

As the first old preacher got up, he stood in silence on the platform hooked up behind the tractor. Then he said, “I noticed as I came in to begin this prayer meeting asking God for rain that, in all this crowd, that no one brought an umbrella.”

But I wonder, in much the same way, how many of us show up each day expecting, not rain, but a war? Did you bring your armor this morning, your weapons? Are you aware that we have a very real, very dangerous enemy lurking who wants to “steal, kill, and destroy?”  Possibility is, for some of you, he rode to church in your car!

You may have heard that on Wednesday of this week, Russian media declared that we are now in WW 3. According to their media pundits, the war with Ukraine has now grown larger and is now a war with the US, with Britain, and with NATO. WW 3. It’s on!  I would say most of us aren’t worried about it.  It’s not real to you.

In the same way, many Christians live oblivious to our battleground and the existence of our spiritual enemy. As the old hymn by Martin Luther says,

“And still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe
His craft and power are great
And armed with cruel hate
One little word shall fell him.”

You gained a very real enemy when you gave your heart to Jesus. Since he will never regain ownership of your soul, (demons cannot possess a person the Holy Spirit lives in) he seeks to lie, accuse, and torment and defeat those he has lost. He seeks to separate you and isolate you because you really can be manipulated if you aren’t under the covering of a spiritual family.   And he will take you down and discourage or disqualify you if you don’t learn to fight spiritually.

THERE IS A REAL ENEMY

Billy Graham used to tell the story of a boxer getting pounded in the ring by his opponent. When the bell rang, he went into his corner bleeding and bruised, and said “You’ve got to throw in the towel!”  His trainer yelled in his face, “He’s not touching you!  He’s never laid a glove on you!”  But through swollen lips, the boxer said, “Well I wish you’d keep an eye on that referee then, because someone in there is beating me half to death!”

There is a real enemy. He’s not made up, not a fairy tale, not simply a myth or legend.  He’s a real, smart, and powerful being.  The Bible calls him “The Adversary.”  In some places, he’s called “The Accuser.”  And in others, “Apollyon—the Destroyer.”  He hides. He wants you to believe that he’s some old guy in a red onesie with a goatee and horns and a pitchfork.

He has a strategy.

The Bible tells us that our enemy disguises himself, sometimes as “angel of light.”  He can come in religious packaging, be a moral crusader if it furthers his purpose which is to deceive and to hide. But let’s be clear.

The Devil is not equal to God, nor is he omnipresent meaning, he can’t be everywhere at once.  So, there is a hierarchy in this cosmic war…he commands demons.

Jesus confronted him in the wilderness and wrestled with him for 40 days and 40 nights. He resisted him with the Word of God. You will only win as you do the same. Now let me be quick to remind you again the devil is not responsible for every bad thing that happens to you. We have three enemies as believers:  THE WORLD, THE FLESH, and THE DEVIL. (1 John 2:16)

We live in a fallen, broken, sinful world. It’s a perfect environment for the enemy to work in.  One day God is going to end it, but until then we live in an imperfect and broken world.

You live in a fallen, broken, sinful body. “The things I want to do, I don’t do….” Also, a perfect situation for the enemy to work against you. But sometimes the problems you faced aren’t Satanic, they’re just sin.  They come because we live in a world that is yet to be transformed by the resurrection of Jesus. The same with your body. So, let’s not give the devil more than his due.  He’s not orchestrating every bad situation.  We sometimes suffer from self-inflicted wounds.

But let’s remember we have a very real enemy working against us, who has come to “steal kill and destroy.”  Jesus said, “Satan was a murderer from the beginning.”  The first sins committed by humanity were instigated by this enemy.

THERE IS A RELIABLE STRATEGY

Our warfare is not against flesh and blood…. you know what that means?  That means that the person you’re mad at this morning…the individual that frustrates you continually…the person that is making your life miserable right now…THEY ARE NOT THE ENEMY!  Our warfare is not with flesh and blood. Stop hating on people!

Now people can be pawns to the enemy if they are unaware of what this tells us today. And Satan can use any person…the person closest to you sometimes…to speak lies into your life; to keep your focus off the Lord and His purposes (get behind Me Satan).

He does this to keep you angry, and unforgiving, and depressed. The demonic realm needs a physical body to work through. We are told that Satan used a serpent in the Garden of Eden. He needs the cooperation of a person who is not aware of his devices:   DON’T BE IGNORANT of his “methodia.”  Don’t let him use you.  He can do nothing to you that you don’t give him permission to do!

We win spiritual battles with spiritual weapons. We are to live armed with the full armor of God. We can choose to access this armor or go into the battle without a helmet to protect us or a weapon to wield. We can walk barefoot onto the battlefield, or without covering for our chest.

So, what are we supposed to do? There are six weapons, each of them to be energized with prayer. Six weapons:  Two groups of three—

  • Having…Wear these all the time
  • Taking… Pick them up as you need them    (Tony Evans, Victory)

But God has given us armor…He has supplied us with weapons. But He won’t dress us!   Parents may I make an urgent suggestion? Instead of worrying about your children, dress them before they leave home. Pray the spiritual armor over them…as they leave the house, or your car, or as they are stepping on the school bus. Pray the spiritual armor over your children before they go out on dates, or as they are stepping onto a college campus for the first time.

2 Corinthians 10 reminds us that many of the battles we fight take place in our minds:

  1. When we believe the enemy’s lies
  2. When we surrender to the threat of fear
  3. When we yield to the pressure of temptations
  4. When we fight people as though they are the enemy
  5. When we are dealing with depression
  6. When we are struggling with our temper
  7. When we are gripped by addiction

Satan operates in the spiritual realm.

Everything that occurs in the visible, physical world is directly connected to the wrestling match being waged in the invisible, spiritual world. “The effects of the war going on in the unseen world reveal themselves in our strained and damaged relationships, emotional instability, mental fatigue, physical exhaustion and many other areas of life. Many of us feel pinned down by anger, unforgiveness, pride, comparisons, insecurity, discord, fear. . . and the list goes on. But the overarching, primary nemesis behind all these outcomes is the Devil himself.” (Shirer)

We don’t fight people.  People are not the enemy. That’s the lie the devil wants you to believe.  If you can just destroy that person that you are continually angry with, leave your spouse, quit your job, your life would improve. That’s the lie we must reject.  Our warfare is not with flesh and blood.

THERE IS A REMARKABLE STRENGTH

The enemy wants to destroy you because of the presence of Jesus Christ in you, but “greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world!”

The war we fight is not our battle…it is not our fight. It is not by power; it is not by might but by My Spirit says the Lord.

Our strength is not in our own might. It is there when we learn how to get out of the way and let God fight the battle through us!

You see, we work from a position of a victory that has already been won! The cross, the death, the resurrection of Jesus secured our victory. So, we need to learn to live out the victory that God has already won for us through the blood of the cross and Jesus’ victory over the grave.


(Resources:  Kent Hughes Commentary on Ephesians; John Stott The Bible Speaks Today; Tony Evans; Priscilla Shirer; Ray Stedman, Spiritual Warfare; Chip Ingram, The Invisible War; CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters; Billy Graham)

05 Meaning(Less)

MEANING (LESS)
“Living Wisely in a World of Fools”  Download here
Ecclesiastes 9-10

What will you hear today? There will be two sources of listening, if you’ll participate. One is listening to my words. God may spark something inside of you as your mind traces what I say. But more, the second source. The most important source. Let God speak through His Word. Your Bible open before you. Your phone or tablet open to a Bible app. Listen. God wants to speak, and He does. But we have to listen.

1). Living wisely involves accepting deaths reality (9:1-10)
Solomon has already dealt with this subject in Chapter 7. “It’s better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind.” Death is inevitable. And we live in a culture that denies that more and more. The basis of many of our neuroses and anxiety and most of our fears is the reality that we don’t want to face this truth. Living wisely means we do.

An English poet laureate wrote,
“Oh, why do people waste their breath
Inventing dainty names for death?”

We live in a day that has become skilled in denying the ultimate reality of death. We have renamed it. We pay a great deal of money to make the person lying in the casket look natural…meaning, alive. “They look so natural.” I love the Woodie Allen quote that he gave in an interview where he said, “I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Sometimes, we don’t even bring the deceased to the funeral.

Paul Simon wrote a song in 1965 called “Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall.” I saw the Broadway production just a few weeks ago with my kids. In this song, Simon writes, “So I’ll continue to continue to pretend that my life will never end, and flowers never bend with the rainfall.” But they do bend. And our lives do have an end.

Death is a serious thing, because sin is a serious thing. God never wanted death to be a part of His perfect creation. It wasn’t. Sin…our choice to sin…made death a necessity. “The wages of sin is death…”

I have stood on the porch of a funeral parlor with young men big enough to wrestle a bear. But they were terrified to go inside and view their mother’s remains. Why is that? Death reminds us…this is our fate. It is going to happen to all mankind. We grieve our own death. The Bible is unambiguous about death. “Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes ashes we all fall down.” But death has become something akin to a profanity. It’s offensive to us to be reminded that it is our fate; that God has numbered our days. That, “it is appointed unto man once to die, and then the judgment.” If we just live “under the sun,” without taking God into account, there’s a period there. But for the Christian, when death comes, another kind of life just begins!

2). Living wisely involves acknowledging life’s unfairness (9:11-18)
Everybody dies. The wise man is buried beside the wicked man. Living righteously does not guarantee a longer life or a more honorable death and burial. Death equalizes it all. The best person isn’t always rewarded under the sun… “the race doesn’t go to the fastest, or the battle to the strongest…” The good man isn’t always remembered under the sun…

We are morbidly fascinated with Job because of the unfairness of his circumstances. We are magnificently humbled with Jesus because of His acceptance of the cross…the ultimate unfairness and injustice…Jesus was crucified by religious fools…which He endured without fighting back or speaking back…but he died on the cross and endured and absorbed death and sin’s penalty for the rest of us sinful fools…religious and non-religious alike.

3) Living wisely involves attention to the small things (10)

So just what is a fool?

a. Fool: Doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. So, he goes to school. I may know lots about genetic engineering, but if you slide me under a car on a lift and tell me to repair the transmission, I wouldn’t know where to start
b. Student: Learns what he doesn’t know. That’s why we get an education. But we don’t get answers. Not important ones. You will probably live long enough to see everything you learn in school become obsolete (tubes to integrated circuits). / They told us after two intense years of study, “You now know enough about electronics to go out and really hurt yourself…All you learn in school is what you don’t know.
c. Graduate: Knows the right question to ask…a graduate simply knows more questions that she doesn’t know how to answer. Wisdom is painful, Solomon reminds us. The more we know, the more we learn what we could be, but aren’t.

“If any man lacks wisdom…” (God gives wisdom “freely” and without partiality…no student loans necessary). Solomon’s prayer at the beginning of his reign was “God give me wisdom to lead your people.” God was impressed. And He’s equally pleased with you if you’ll ask! Wisdom pays attention to the small things.

a. Fly in ointment/ bird in filter (My church was on a cistern…thought that was what we called women…” brethren and cistern” …I also thought a bush hog was a pig that ate landscaping). A little thing can pollute a big thing. A little fly spoils the ointment. A little foolishness, a little self-indulgence, a little indiscretion can destroy a thirty-year marriage. “But honey, it was just a little affair…” Stay in tune with the little things.
b. Doing work with integrity … watch the little things…Do what you KNOW to do…don’t fall in the hole…sharpen your axe…watch for falling rocks.
c. Watch your tongue (Charm the serpent in your mouth). I learned in communication classes that, for every statement made there are six possible ways to interpret it. That means you have a one-in-six chance of being understood when you speak. Warren Wiersbe identified five different kinds of tongues

i. Destructive tongues (v 12). “The tongue is small but can start a forest fire.” This is the tongue of the gossip. The rumor monger. The tale bearer. The person that posts an untrue statement online.

ii. Irrational tongues (v 13). Talking nonsense. Much of what is said and written today falls into that category. A New Age speaker named Doreen Virtue, who has written numerous books and is flown around the world to give lectures and conferences renounced her writings and speeches when she became a Christian.

iii. Uncontrolled tongues (v 14a). “I can’t help it…I have to say what I think even if it hurts your feelings.” You can always control your tongue if you want to.

iv. Boastful tongues (v 14 b-c) Boasting about a future they don’t know, and they can’t control. Can’t find their way. “Self-praise stinketh.” “So dumb, he’d get lost on an elevator.”

v. Indiscreet tongue (v 20). The world celebrates and elects fools…. don’t be one. The fact that they are applauding you may not be a compliment. Live with wisdom.

As Solomon concludes his argument, he critiques those in leadership. He includes, we are certain, himself in the critique! Four kinds of people (fools) find their way into leadership.

They are …

  1. Immature leaders (vv 16-17)
  2. Incompetent leaders. (v 18)
  3. Indifferent leaders. (v 19)
  4. Indiscreet leaders (v 20)

It’s hard to imagine that a part of this was a job review of his own staff! Solomon was surrounded by leaders and advisers in his role as the King of Israel. He saw each of these in turn. The first, maybe is more like Solomon than the other three. He certainly was not incompetent, or indifferent, though perhaps he was indiscreet. But most certainly he came to the throne as an immature king. Some of his decisions were decisions that an immature leader would have made (see his propensity for foreign women).

Leaders who do not lead well do much damage to their business or, in the case of governmental leaders, to the people they lead. He is right to call for wisdom among those who are responsible and in charge of others.

Life is a gift… live it… live so the mortician has to pry the smile off your face! Death is coming…prepare for it! A wise person lives knowing that death comes but doesn’t allow that reality to stop him from living. In fact, it propels him to take life with more intensity.

04 Meaning(Less)

MEANING (LESS)

“Finding a Heart of Wisdom”  Download here

(Ecclesiastes 7-8)

In 1982 a California man named Larry Walters decided to follow his lifelong dream of flying.  Along with some friends, Larry went to an Army Surplus store and purchased some weather balloons and a couple of tanks of helium.  He tied the balloons to the arms of a lawn chair with the plan of floating at about 10,000 feet, tethered to the ground, then shooting some balloons out with a pellet gun, and then slowly descending to the earth.

Things did not go according to plan.  The ropes tethering the chair to the ground snapped, and Larry and his amazing chair floated quickly up to 16,000 feet and into the flight path of the San Diego Airport.  The other thing he hadn’t thought through was how much a role fear would play.  He couldn’t let go of the arms of the chair to fire the pellet gun.  When he finally did take the chance, he took two shots and then dropped the gun.

By now he was on the radar of the airfield.  A pilot reported, through the clouds, seeing a man floating in a lawn chair.  But luckily, he had hit a couple of the balloons before dropping his gun.  They did have to pry his hands off the lawn chair when he finally landed!  Larry “gained a heart of wisdom” from his experience floating high in his lawn chair.  He never tried it again!  Sometimes we learn wisdom the hard way.

Solomon is taking us on a bird’s eye tour of life from his perspective “under the sun” or, life without taking God into account.   Solomon’s writing goes through something of a transformation at this point.  We don’t know exactly what brought about his turning point, and he now seemed headed in the right direction.  The words “wise” and “wisdom” are used 30 times between Chapter 7 and Chapter 12.

To have God’s perspective is the definition of wisdom.  Seeing ourselves and seeing life as He does…no balloons… through His Word, through His Spirit, and through His people.  That is wisdom.

Observations About Wisdom

Four things that flip our way of thinking on its head. 

  1. It is better to go to a funeral than a party…. (7:1-4)

It was Solomon’s conclusion that going to a funeral, “the house of mourning,” will teach you wisdom more effectively than going to a party.  Honestly, would you rather go to a wedding or a funeral?  People have asked me more than once, “would you rather preach a funeral or a wedding?”  Well, funerals are simpler.  There’s no rehearsal, no seating charts, no mother of the bride or bridezilla to manage, no drama.  It’s just simpler.

I enjoy weddings.  Yet we learn more at funerals.  Every funeral is a caution to us.  My grief class taught me that every funeral is a mortality check.  ^ It reminds us of our own limits. All of us won’t end up having a wedding.  But short of the coming of Jesus, all of us will have a funeral.  “The end of a thing is better than the beginning.”  Weddings are loud and joyful and expensive celebrations.  But a big wedding doesn’t mean the marriage will last.  There’s something quietly, deeply glorious seeing a couple who have made it 60 or 70 years and to see the widow or widower sitting on the front row, reflecting on their life lived well.  “The end of things is better.”

Solomon is just saying, “Don’t miss the wisdom that comes from times like that.”  In fact, occasionally it’s not a bad thing to walk through a cemetery.  I know.  That’s morbid, right?  One guy walking through a cemetery came to a grave marker that said, “Pause friend, as you pass by.  As you are now, so once was I.  As I am now, so you will be.  So, take your heed and follow me.”  Someone came along and added another line to the marker.  “To follow you I’m not content, until I know which way you went.”

Wisdom is knowing which way you’ll go when this life is over.  As we have on our sign outside, there’s only two choices of destination.  Which way are you going?  Paul had no question about this.  In Philippians 1:23-24– “to depart and be with Christ.”

  1. It is better to receive a rebuke than a compliment

Mark Twain said, “I can live two months on a good compliment.”  But Solomon is suggesting that we will live those two months with wisdom after a good rebuke.  I don’t like criticism.  No one does.  Sometimes criticism is unwarranted.  An old farmer told his son, “Son, when a mule kicks you, just consider the source.”  Yet “a rebuke is better than a compliment.”  It takes a courageous person to offer an honest rebuke.  Wisdom tells us to receive those as gifts, not curses.  A wise person learns from the critics.

  1. It is better to be patient than to be angry

You know, anger is something that all of us struggle with to different degrees.  Some of us blow up externally at a situation and others implode internally and make ourselves sick with it.  But anger is an inevitable part of being alive.  It is a God-given defense mechanism.  But for insecure people, their “defense” button is stuck.  They are continually angry about something or someone.  Anger is like a porcupine’s quills.  They stick everything in their path.  That’s what an angry person does.  And the first law of the jungle is, “You can’t hug a porcupine.”  Angry people alienate others.

Solomon gives clear warning to that person.  It is unwise to live in anger, lest it make its home in you.  (v9). Anger releases a chemical that we become addicted to.  We can’t live without it.  Then, we have to have it to feel ok.  And then it owns you.

  1. It is better to experience adversity than prosperity

You know who disagrees with that?  Those who are going to through adversity right now!   But we actually learn far more from difficulty than prosperity.   We see people struggle sometimes and feel sorry for them, and yet Solomon says, “They’re better off.”  Jesus Himself was called “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”   Our sufferings make us more like Jesus, but they also give us “a heart of wisdom.”  As AW Tozer said, “God can use no man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.”

Laughter is fine, but Solomon says it’s empty, “like thorns crackling in a fire.” It’s empty, with no heat, no depth, no lasting value.  A man came to his doctor complaining that his life was tedious, hard, and it just made him not want to get out of bed.  The doctor gave him a prescription and advice: “There is this great comedian holding some shows at a nearby comedy club…Doc, I am that comedian!

There are none who are perfectly righteous; this is the beginning of wisdom (v20)

Then Solomon takes us to the beginning of wisdom.  The beginning of wisdom is realizing that there is no righteous person on earth.  No one, in themselves, is righteous.  This paves the way for the most important lesson in life:  By ourselves, we can never make ourselves acceptable to God.  “There is none righteous, no not one.” Paul said.  Solomon agreed.  (v29)

Conclusions Regarding Humility

  • “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6)
  • “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” (James 4:10)

Wisdom is seeing life from God’s perspective.  Someone has said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.

1. In the presence of authority. (8:1-9)

                One of the most important lessons we have to learn in life is that there is always some authority we must learn to obey.  A parent, a teacher, a police officer, a military chain of command, a CEO, a board of directors, the president.  And they don’t always exercise their authority wisely.  It’s hard to humble yourself in their presence at times.  But wisdom dictates that we must exercise humility in our dealings with those in authority.  We need to learn we are not always in control and understand our limitations (v 8)

We obey, Solomon said, “because we have made a vow.”  Because the government can compel us to do so, and because we don’t always have understanding of what God is doing through the authorities placed in our lives.

2. In the times of injustice.          (8:10-14)

                Sometimes in life, the wicked prosper and are celebrated, while the righteous seem to suffer for doing good.  It is hard for us to live in a world where things seem so unjust and inequitable.  “Oppression drives the wise person mad.”  We are angry at Russia because of the unfair match-up against the Ukraine.  It’s like an entire nation, or a demagogue dictator, has become the school ground bully.  They are good people who just want to be left alone.  But it torments us to see good people hurting.  We feel this because the love of justice and fairness is hard wired into every person by God.  (Evidence of God’s identity in you)

3. In the moments of mystery (8:15-17)

                Life is full of mysteries.  Why does your peanut butter sandwich or your toast always fall jelly side down?  Why is your traffic lane or your grocery store checkout line always the longest?   Where do your spare socks go in the washing machine?  And why is it just ONE?           Solomon says, in these closing verses, that some things in life will always be a mystery.  There are some things that we must just have the humility to say “I don’t get it.  I don’t understand.”   Some things are just out of our pay grade.  But then, we trust in the God Who holds the keys to all mysteries!

Romans 11

[33] Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!  [34] “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”  [36] For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

 

03 Meaning(Less)

MEANING (LESS)

“Life without Meaning”

(Ecclesiastes 5-6)  Download the notes here

 

“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” Ephesians 1:4-5 NLT

Ephesians 1 tells us clearly that, when God created us, He created us with a plan for our lives.  There are no random, accidental people in the world.  God made us all and gave us freedom so we could love Him by our choice, because if we can’t choose, it isn’t love.

God has a specific plan for each of us.  Jesus tells us, “The very hairs of your head are numbered.”  So, we aren’t just numbers…we’re names.  We’re people made in God’s image.  We’re part of God’s plan to love the world.

In fact, it goes further in Ephesians 2 and tells us in verse 10 “we are His workmanship…”  The word the Bible uses there is “poema.”  I met a guy recently who named His daughter “Poema.”  It means “masterpiece.”  We are God’s master work.

And even more than that, we are unique!  Every person.  That means there’s nobody in the world quite like you.  Now there may be some other people who look like you in some ways.  We all have doppelgangers out there; people who weirdly kind of look like us.  A few years ago, I apparently reminded people of the guy on America’s Got Talent who was a ventriloquist.  “You look just like that guy.”  I always thought I looked just like Tom Selleck or Kevin Costner.  But no, I look like a ventriloquist.

But we’re all unique, and God has a custom-designed plan for YOUR life that nobody else fulfills!  You are unique.  Nobody does you like you!

But in spite of this, we choose to go our own way.  That’s what sin is.  It’s not just being evil, like Putin.  Sin means we go our own way.  We turn our back on God’s plan, revealed in His Word.

And then at some point, we hit the wall.  And we wonder, “so what is life about?  What does it mean?  Why does it all seem so pointless?”  We neglect our Creator; we reject His Word.  And then, life is just empty.  It’s meaningless.

That’s where Solomon found himself.  Like so many of us, Solomon thought he knew more than God.  He knew better than God.  He could find meaning in life without reference to God.

And Ecclesiastes is his testimony to life “under the sun” or, life without God.

Worship without Meaning

1. An authentic consistency (“Watch your step”) 5:1

            Our spiritual walk has a great deal to do with our worship.  If we are walking in the counsel of sinners, our worship is just going to bring conviction to our lives.  If we are thinking scornful thoughts, we are going to mock the things of God.

I did that in my life, in a time when I had wandered far from God.  The preacher was one of the best in the state at that time.  He was anything but boring.  But I was bored.  I was empty.  What was inside of me, and how I was walking, affected my worship.

2. A Quiet Spirit. (“Watch your mouth”) 5:2-3

            Solomon’s counsel if you don’t want your worship to be meaningless is, “Come to listen, not to talk.”  Be still in the presence of God.  Don’t come to give your opinion.  Come to learn. Don’t make promises or vows that you don’t intend to keep.  Watch your mouth.

Singing?  Sometimes we lie in worship.

3. An eager obedience. (“Watch your heart”) 5:4-7

            Don’t try to manipulate God.  If you make a vow to God, keep it.  If you make a promise, “don’t delay” in fulfilling it.  “Don’t let your mouth cause your flesh to sin.”  Bring a prepared heart.

For worship to be authentic, we must be sincere.  What’s your motive for coming to church?  i.  Are you coming to impress others?  ii. Are you coming to try to manipulate God?  (Counseling—divorce).   Because what you bring into worship is pretty much what you’re going to be getting out of worship.  If your reasons for coming are genuine, your worship will be too.    But sometimes our worship has no meaning.

Wealth without Meaning   5:10-20

I’ve shared these thoughts before, and I’ll remind you again this is adapted from another preacher. *  I’ve taught this passage before for a stewardship message, so this is a review for some of us.

Solomon was one of the wealthiest men who ever lived.  Maybe, if his wealth was calculated in today’s economy, he would have been the richest man.  He had so much gold he used it to decorate his palace.  Silver in his kingdom was so common it was almost without worth.  He was a rich guy.  So, as Boomers remember the old commercial said, “When EF Hutton speaks, everybody listens.”  Maybe we should hear Solomon the same way.

  1. The more we have the more we want. (5:10)

If you or someone you know has been addicted to gambling, you understand the allure of having more.  A gambler’s heart is never contended with the first round of winnings.  It leads to the need for a second.  And a third.

This is the promise and illusion of materialism. There is no end to the itch.  We want more.  We NEED more to make us happy, or so we think.  I think a great name for a gambling house in Las Vegas would be “The Mirage.”  Oh wait…there is one of those!  It’s all a mirage, and they tell you that going in with huge neon lights.

Materialism is a mirage.  A promise that never delivers.  A puff of smoke than vanishes.  Jesus said, “A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” (Luke 12:15).  Materialism says, “that’s a lie.”

  1. The more we have, the more we spend. (5:11)

“The more loot you get, the more looters show up.” (The Message)

The more we have, the more we need, the more we have to have, the more we want.”

My hamster, Diggy, was busy last night.  She was really working her wheel hard.  She does that when she’s stressed.  Well, and also when she isn’t!  But I noticed this morning, after she worked all night, she’s still the very same place.

So, with us.  We have more, we spend more to keep it, we need more, we want more and then the wheel starts over.  It never ends.

  1. The more we have, the more we worry. (5:12)

John D Rockefeller was the world’s only billionaire at age 53, but he was continually sick and lived on a diet of milk and crackers.  Until he learned how to give his money away.  As a philanthropist, he lived to be 98!  Guess the lesson is, if you’re worried about money, give it away!

If the world works so hard to keep everything they have and end up miserable, maybe if we’d work equally hard at giving away, we’ll be fulfilled and happy!  That’s what Rockefeller learned.  Maybe we should take the hint.

  1. The more we have, the more we lose. (5:13-14)

I worried less about stuff when Pam and I were first married and living on a shoestring budget.  My living room suit, brand new, cost us $188.  They were miserable to sit on. But I never worried about stuff when I was renting an apartment, sharing food with our seminary classmates and owned 2 beat up cars.  When you own stuff, you worry more about what you could lose!  I never gave two thoughts to the stock market…until I started investing in it!

  1. The more we have, the more we leave behind (14-17)

The trick to surviving the money trap is to learn that, for the Christian there is no own. There’s only loan.  “You are not your own…”  We invest what we have here in eternity.  We will one day leave it all behind for something or someone.  Maybe our family, or maybe the government.  Or maybe you could figure out how to bless the work of God’s Kingdom here on earth and see that your investment is awaiting you in glory!

“But lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither rust nor moth corrupt, and thieves don’t break in and steal.” (Matt 6:20-21)

(*Jeremiah, Heaven…)

1. God gives us the ability to make money (5:18)

            Solomon here is alluding to Deuteronomy 8:18 where it says, “It is God Who gives us the ability to produce wealth.”  You may argue, “No, it’s not.  I’m going to work every day.  I’m putting in the hours.”

But who wakes you up in the morning, and gives you grace for your body to function?  Who opened the door so you could get the job you have?  Who allows you life and breath to earn a living?

2. God must give us the ability to enjoy the money we make, or it will destroy us! (5:19-20)

Work without Meaning

            A dimension of how God created us is to work.  “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”  Work is not a curse.  Work was part of what God created, and He gave Adam and Eve jobs in the garden BEFORE sin came.  But remember you are bigger than your job.  You are a human BEING, not a human DOING.

Your job was never intended to make you miserable, to take away your personhood, or to be a way to do things that aren’t ethical or legal.  It was meant to bring you fulfillment and even joy.

If you are looking at the right ends for your labor and can enjoy the process and not just the weekend when you’re off, you can find enjoyment in life.  If you are working to fulfill the will and purpose of God in your life, your job can be a source of great satisfaction.

1. Work has no meaning when we can’t enjoy the proceeds (6:1-2)

            If we work and never stop because we’re working for the “end game,” for money, then we will never enjoy the fruit of our labor.  Sometimes we find ourselves laboring hard just to pay off debt we’ve accumulated buying things we couldn’t afford.

Occasionally we need to stop and ask the hard question: “Do I need more money?  Do I have to sign up for overtime again this weekend, taking me away from time with my family?” How much money is enough?

When we are off-track from the purposes of God, He will not allow us to have joy from the things we accumulate.  Oh, maybe we can look to others like we’re living it up as we climb in and out of our leased Lexus, but in truth in the middle of the night, we know it’s like sand in our mouth.  It’s nothing fulfilling or exciting.  It’s dull, monotonous, and we don’t enjoy the things we have and use.

Unless God gives us the power, we can’t enjoy anything.

2. Work has no meaning when you lose the honor of your family: Nobody wept when he died.  (6:3-6)

            Solomon tells a sad story that is repeated far too often.  A man works hard…too much…in the name of “providing” for the family, and then one day he comes home and realizes his family is grown. Or his family is gone.  Or the family barely knows him.

Sadly, Solomon says, this man would have been better off never born.  As it is, he faces the end of his life with a family that provides him “no burial.”  Now that doesn’t mean the family just leaves his body where they found it.

Not having a burial basically had nothing to do with burial processes.  It had everything to do with being eulogized; being remembered fondly and emotionally by the family.  The man in Solomon’s illustration left the world without a tear being shed for his passing.  This, he said, is the ultimate insult and a grievous evil.

Howard Hughes, the world’s wealthiest man in his day, lived as a recluse only speaking in letters to his assistant.  He lived with the motto “Every man has his price…otherwise a man like me could never exist.”  When his employees and closest associates were able to speak about him, they universally revealed their absolute disgust for him.

He “had no burial.”  No one cared that he no longer lived.  What a tragic end to a life.

3.Work has no meaning when you sacrifice your soul for income:

            We are a soul with a body, not a body that contains a soul.  That means the essence of who we are is far more invisible than visible.  Far more spiritual than physical.  And yet the most of our years are spent living for the part of us we can see to the neglect of the invisible and unseen and most important part of us: Our soul.

Jesus told of a man who was a successful and productive farmer who needed more storehouses for his crops.  At the end of a particular day, he sat back in his office chair and began to inwardly congratulate himself.  What he didn’t realize was that this was his last day. All the things he had worked for to feed and clothe and care for his body suddenly meant nothing.  “This day your soul (the essence of who you are) is required of you.”  But you know, the man had lost his soul already to the accumulation of stuff.  (6:7)

What are you sacrificing for the work you are doing?  It’s one thing to spend time.  It’s another to spend…your soul.   Rule of life:  Never sacrifice the eternal for the temporal.  It only leads to pain.

4. Work has no meaning when you don’t REALLY know how to live (6:8).

Why are you living? Are you making a living, or making a life?  You make money with your job.  You make a living with your life, and by having the right allegiance in life to the One Who created you!

5. Work has no meaning when you don’t know how to die. (6:9-12)

            No doubt Chapter 6 is a self-portrait of Solomon.  At the end of life, Solomon realized to his sorrow that the path he thought would lead to joy and fulfillment led to emptiness and sadness.

What do you want to leave behind of yourself?  Do you use your time in the workforce to love people as Jesus would?  Or do you just go through the motions?  Do you want people to remember you for more than the fact that “you were always on time for work?” (Eulogy…” He was never late for work a day in his life.”)

Your work, no matter how productive, or powerful, or wealthy you become, cannot take the place of simply knowing God and accepting that He is the One Who is in control of everything.  Not you.  You may be a CEO, or the clerk on a sales floor.  But God is the One Who controls life.  The sooner we accept that, the sooner we will find the meaning we are all searching for!

You see meaning comes to us and everything we do when we know Who made us, Who put us here, Who created us, and Who we will one day stand before.  Meaning comes when we honor the Bible as the guidebook for our life.

We have a choice to make today.  Will we love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, or will our life be lived without meaning?  A puff of smoke in the wind? It is a clear decision we must make.

God is waiting for you to decide.  But some may still argue.  (6:10-12) Solomon reminds us that there is no use arguing with God about how He has wired the universe He created.  We simply learn to live within in or destroy ourselves trying to kick down gates and make our own way.

God is in heaven…you are on earth.  Remember your place…and live joyfully under God’s loving pleasure!

02 Meaning(Less)

NOTES FOR WEEK OF FEB 27

Meaning (less)

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4:16

“The Human Dilemma”

You can download the notes here

 A few weeks ago, I challenged us using a simple two-story house diagram created by Will Mancini.  Using that illustration I asked the question, “Are you a first floor or a second-floor church member?”  Second floor members are those who have embraced the mission of the church, the Great Commission of Jesus to take the Gospel to the world and make disciples.

The purpose of this study we are in is to give you a different way to look at what we do here on Sundays…we want to equip you, to resource you to make disciples where you live, and work and play.   So, as you listen today, you need to listen not just to “get” a message, but ask, “How can I take the truth of the Bible into my world?”  There are some additional resources online at fruitcove.com to help you do that.

So, we are in a series called “Meaningless.”  Now that doesn’t mean the series is meaningless.  It is a way of presenting the message of Ecclesiastes to our world today, a world that denies that God exists.  A world that sees life as devoid of meaning.  Solomon is taking us on a journey into that world.  It’s not an easy study, but it’s an important one.

I wonder who in here today would say, “I’ve got plenty of time to do all the things I need to do.  I’m never stressed about time.  There’s always just enough.”   Anybody?  I doubted it.   You know we’re not always honest with each other or ourselves about time.  How many times have you said, “I’m sorry, I just didn’t have time to do that,” when the more honest answer is, “I’m sorry I chose not to call you back because I chose to spend my time differently.”  So at least you know if someone says, “I didn’t have time,” they had just as much time as the president.  Just as much time as a surgeon.  Just as much time as a composer or author.  Same 24 for everybody.  They just didn’t invest their time wisely or chose not to invest it with you!

One of the places that most people express frustration or dissatisfaction with life is knowing our time is limited.  We have expiration dates.  The Bible tells us “three score and ten” a total of 70 years.  On average, that’s about right.  My father-in-law lived to be well over 90 but he would remind us often that we were never promised more than “threescore and ten.”

Time flies.  Whether you’re a king or a truck driver, a young person starting out in life (think about how fast spring and summer break used to feel) …unless you’re the parent.  Then it feels like eternity unfolding.

But time is something that is in God’s control, not ours.  That’s the first reality we encounter in Ecclesiastes Chapter 3.  The ticking of the clock.  The passing of the seconds and the days and months and years.  In a Psalm written by Moses, we read “…teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”  But eternity doesn’t run on a clock.

Wisdom takes time seriously.  Wisdom requires us to understand that we live life on loan.  We ultimately can’t control how many minutes or days our lives will be.  We just know that, at a day set by God, we’ll spend our last second on earth.  “Teach us to number…” Or as Solomon puts it in our text, “There’s a time to be born, and a time to die.”  We had no control over our entrance into the world.  We will have no control over our exit.

But right here is where we encounter:

The Source of Our Dissatisfaction:  God is eternal

He has placed eternity in our hearts.  What that means, simply put, is that God is in control of that most precious commodity in our lives:  Time.  The one thing we all share in common is that an hour is an hour.  It’s not 36 minutes to one person and 60 to another.  A day is 24 hours.  And the other thing we get is we have a choice how to spend that time…or waste it.

At this stage of my life, I would really like to have some of those wasted hours and days back for a do-over.  But while with hard work or just being smart we can make up money we’ve wasted, we can’t make up time with our families…or time we could have spent walking with the Lord instead of wandering in the world.  No do overs exist.

But here’s some good news this morning.  “God has set eternity in our hearts.”  We were made to yearn for something that transcends the clock and the calendar.  We were made to enjoy eternal things.  Our dissatisfaction comes because of this.  You see, if we only live “under the sun,” we try to make the pleasures and joys of a fallen, temporary world have eternal significance.  They can’t.  I know I have an eternity of time awaiting.  It takes the sting out of not having enough time now.

Every pleasure you enjoy, every joyful moment with your spouse, or your children, or looking at a beautiful landscape or work of art…all of it is destined to lead to dissatisfaction unless you know that, with those things God is just hinting at what’s waiting for us in eternity.  When we focus on the things of this earth as our ultimate reality and our ultimate enjoyment, we make our ultimate meaning about that relationship or that possession or that experience.

God goes to great lengths to remind us that our time here is limited.  How we use our time will be something we’ll be called to account for.  “…God will call the past to account.” If we invest it with a view toward eternity, it’s something for which we will be rewarded!

Our dissatisfaction comes when we forget that it is God Who gives us the time we enjoy.  We need to invest it wisely.  “God makes everything beautiful in its time,” if we can see God’s hand in it.

The Reasons for Our Frustration:  God is just

             We struggle with the same issues Solomon did.  He lists them for us in Chapter 3 and 4, and they were the source of his frustration, and the source of ours as well.

Inequity (vv 16-17)

Life isn’t fair.  And it isn’t perfect.  If it was, the driver who ran you off the road speeding by you would be pulled over at the next mile marker.  The person who gossips about you would have her teeth fall out that same night.  But the Christian NFL player doesn’t always win the Super Bowl, and the guy living it up as a partying pagan doesn’t always fumble at the goal line. Bad things happen to good people, and equally frustrating good things happen to bad people! But we really don’t want to live in that kind of world either.  We just want other people to be punished for evil, but we want to be allowed to get away with it.

Death

Death, we are told, is the great equalizer.  One out of one people die.  And one out of one animal die.  While it looks like man and animal experience the same fate, that is not the case.  “Who knows,” Solomon asks, “if the breath of man ascends upward…”  Life isn’t fair.  We work like a dog, and then die just like a dog, or so Solomon concluded “under the sun.” But we know, as Christians, that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”

Oppression/When it seems the wicked are always winning

             Ecc 4:1-3

In Psalm 73, the Psalmist said, “But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps nearly slipped…when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”  But then, an important thing happens.  “When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me, until I went to the sanctuary of God.  Then I understood their end.”

A pastor had a golf buddy who was not a Christian who was always challenging him.  As they put their clubs away, he said, “See pastor, in my world, the good guy always finishes last.”  The pastor replied, “Yeah, but the bad guy goes to hell.”

Rivalry/Envy

Ecc 4:4-6

A survey on PersonnelToday.com reported than nine out of ten office workers suffer from “professional envy” of colleagues they picture to have more glamorous or higher paying jobs…a third envy a partner or spouse’s jobs, while a fifth feel jealous of a colleague further up the work “ladder.”  We compensate for those feelings by underperforming or over competing.

Materialism… riches over relationship…things more important than people

             Ecc 4:7-8…This is directed to those who blow up their relationships and never take time for friendships to accumulate money and things.  They don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but often we let our ambition for things and status and money to push out the important things.  You find yourself, at the end of the day, rich.  But alone.

The Root of Our Isolation: God is love

Ecc 4:9-12

            We were made for relationships.  “It is not good for the man to be alone,” God said.  We need to keep reminding ourselves that God revealed Himself to us as a God in relationship with Himself.  The Trinity is an eternal relationship in which God is one-yet-three.  I don’t have time to go into all the explanations of that, but the Bible proclaims it’s true.  Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And this relationship is open-ended.  God invites us to join Him in this joyful dance.  He didn’t create us because He was lonely.  He created us because He wanted us to enjoy what He had!

Earthly relationships are a reflection of that eternal and invisible reality.  We are made to relate, not isolate.  We are wired to know and be known, because the God Who made us is like that.  He knows that the most painful reality of Hell is not the flames but the eternal aloneness. And those who are lonely can testify to how difficult it is.

2 are better than 1.  For working, for walking, for warmth, and for weaving.  You know, when we get married, we are to leave, cleave, and weave a life together.  I will sometimes use the three-stranded cord as an illustration in a wedding ceremony.

Rope makers know that you can take two cords and wrap them together…into eternity… and they will eventually come apart.  But they learned if you put a third cord in the center and wrap the other two around that cord and around each other, it will never come apart!

We have changed marriage into a relationship where it’s just the two of us against the world.  We wrap ourselves around each other and then we wonder why it comes apart.  But the marriages that understand the need for that third strand in the middle…don’t come apart easily at all.

When a marriage is done right, with Christ as the center strand, you create something that is greater than just two people clinging to each other.  There’s a synergy that is created…and those marriages will seldom pull apart.

Popularity (4:13-16)

This ends with a particularly telling thought.  We live in a day when people long for popularity and recognition from others.  People will do silly, funny, dangerous and even deadly things in an effort to get more likes on their social media accounts.  It is a very enticing sin in our day, and the church is not immune.  Neither is politics.  Here’s the story of a popular king that got old, was replaced by a popular upstart young king (who was, ironically from the same background as the old king) and we see the rise and fall and fickleness of popular applause.  It’s frustrating to those who hang their self-worth on this.

Solomon is no doubt reflecting back to his own father, David’s, history.  The popularity of a young king named Saul was replaced by the rising star of King David.  David’s popularity was eventually eclipsed by the new young king named Solomon.  Solomon, once the rock star of Israel, is now the old king who sees his once soaring popularity poll sliding south.

If we are seeking an earthly crown of glory, it will perish quickly.  But if the crown we hope to wear is an eternal reward that we can “cast down” at the feet of Jesus, we will find our star never sets as we live in the glory of making Jesus famous!

Paul said, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…” (Galatians 6:14).  May our pursuit be that kind of glory…the glory of the cross.

What’s the solution to our dissatisfaction, our frustration, our isolation?  Knowing the God Who invites you to come into a relationship with Him through Jesus!  It brings satisfaction and fulfillment and fellowship to us.  Without God, life is without meaning…without purpose.  With God, you get meaning now…and heaven later!  And it comes by grace, through faith in Jesus.  Won’t you trust Him today?

Resources and References:

  • Nelson, The Problem of Life With God
  • Swindoll, Living on the Ragged Edge
  • Stedman, Is This All There is to Life?
  • Jeremiah, Heaven on Earth
  • Kidner, Ecclesiastes

Meaning(less)

A Study in Ecclesiastes

Click to download: MEANING(LESS)

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 (Chapters 1 and 2)

I do feel some connection and affinity with Solomon.  I’m now looking back through the same tunnel of time that he was staring through.  And he didn’t have it all figured out either.  I believe this book we call Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon, although he never directly says so.  He refers to himself as “the preacher,” or “the quester” or we might even say, “the pundit.”

Solomon was one of the most powerful monarchs of his day.  He led Israel over 40 years in peace. He was also the smartest guy in the room.  Any room.  He could talk politics, religion, finance, agriculture, horticulture, or architecture.  People would literally travel from around the world just to get a seat at one of his lectures.  He had more money than Jeff Bezos and was smarter than Elon Musk.  He was literally sitting on top of the world…and found it empty.  Vain.  Boring.

Jan Krakauer was a journalist who scaled the summit of Mt Everest.  Twelve of his fellow climbers died in the incident.  He wrote in his book Into Thin Air about standing “with one foot in China and the other in Nepal.”  He continued, “I cleared away the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared down at the vast wasteland of Tibet.  I had fantasized about this moment for months, the emotional release that would come.  But now that it was finally here, I couldn’t muster the energy to care.  I snapped four quick photos…then turned to begin my descent.  All told, I spent less than five minutes standing on the roof of the world.” (Krakauer, Into Thin Air)

            Solomon could identify with the climber’s disappointment.  While he had scaled no mountain peak, he stared into the extent of his accomplishments and said, “It’s empty.”

He’s taking us on a journey through the paths of life he has taken.  It is, mostly, one dead end after another.   It’s not an easy book to read and study, although there are a couple of high points we hit along the way.  His words have become lyrics to popular songs, “Turn, Turn, Turn” by the Byrd’s.  Google it.  His thoughts make this book the most-quoted Biblical book by atheists.   Most of us wouldn’t buy a coffee mug with the inscription “a time to be born and a time to die” on it.

But I think, of any study you can do, this book takes you into the mind of those around us trying to live life without reference to God.  We read the phrase “under the sun” thirty times in twelve chapters.  I heard a line from a very popular new TV show that said, “We are now in heaven.  And in hell.  They happen simultaneously.  And the land is God.”  Life under the sun.

That is where the majority of our post-Christian culture lives today.  “Under the sun” means “assuming there is nothing but what we can see and experience with our senses.”  That’s where the dominant philosophy of our day takes us.  As Ephesians has it, they are “without hope and without God in the world.”

We have become a people who believe the extent of existence today is set by the limits of a universe that we can see, study empirically, and explore.  Nothing of consequence exists beyond the visible, material world.  Nothing eternal.  No God Who created all things.  As Carl Sagan, a proponent of today’s philosophical naturalism put it, “The Universe is all there is.”  (In Sagan’s last book, Contact, he did conclude that there is a majestic artistry to the universe.  There must be an artist behind it).  For many who live in such a system there is no room made for invisible, all-knowing, all-powerful God.

If that’s true, then the words of Qoholoth are exactly right.  At the end of the day, there is no meaning to it all.  There is no reason for existence, except to exist.  Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant cosmologists who ever lived, concluded that we have pretty much understood and can explain most things scientifically or mathematically, except why there is existence!

Solomon’s conclusion in the opening soliloquy of Ecclesiastes is “everything is boring.  Everything is the same.  Nothing makes sense.”  “The wind blows on the same circuits, the streams run to the same ultimate end into an ocean that’s never full.  Every day is the same.  The sun rises, and sets.  We punch in, we punch out.  The course of life, the circle of the sun, the circuit of the winds, the cycle of the water.  What’s the point? “There’s nothing new under the sun.”

SOLOMON’S QUEST FOR MEANING

Now lest we think that the insight of these words really has no bearing on our lives, let me remind us of something.  You see, I believe this is THE most important question we can answer for ourselves today.  Without reference to God, does anything make sense?

That’s exactly where “the preacher” found himself at the end of his life.  Looking back over it all, he concluded, “It’s empty.  Vanity.  Smoke and mirrors.”  I read a copy of an anonymous suicide note written by a bright young college student.  Partly it said:

To anyone in the world who cares.  Who am I?  Why am I alive?  Life has become stupid and purposeless.  Nothing makes sense anymore.  The questions I had when I came to college are still unanswered and now, I am convinced there are no answers.

            Our young people today, bright, educated, talented…are walking into the abyss of suicide because it’s preferable to living the life they know… a life of guilt, and frustration, and despair, and futility.  This isn’t a theoretical, abstract question.  It’s life and death.

And it’s not just the young affected.  Ernest Hemingway, the famous writer who lived a Solomonic-like life…traveling, fishing for Tarpon in Florida, hunting wild game around the world… turned a rifle on himself.  After all the words he had written, his suicide note was chillingly simple: “Life is just one d*** thing after another.”

Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life reports on a survey conducted by Dr Hugh Moorland, a philosophy professor from Northeastern Illinois University, in which he polled 250 intellectuals, philosophers, scientists, and writers and asked them, “What is the meaning of life?” Most wrote back with answers which many admitted later they just made up.  Some were honest enough to write him back and ask if HE had discovered the purpose of life!

THE LONG AND WINDING ROADS

If Solomon had a theme song, I would think it might be something like the Rolling Stones “Can’t Get No Satisfaction.  And I tried, and I tried, and I tried, and I tried…I can’t get no…” Mick Jagger is now 78, in his fifth marriage and the father of 8, but he’s still singing it.  He’s the most prominent rock musician in the world, maybe in history.  He has more money than he’ll ever find time to spend (well, except on alimony).  But it hasn’t brought satisfaction.

Unrivaled education (1:12-18)

Solomon sat on top of the world.  One of the most, if not the most educated man of his day.  His intention was to figure this problem out.  (Ecclesiastes 1:12-18).  But he found accumulating knowledge…education… to be a dead end.  Listen, if you think your college degree or your high school diploma is going to be the answer to all your problems, you need to pay attention here.  It won’t be.   Some of the world’s greatest evil has been committed by brilliantly educated people.  There’s no guarantee education will make you a better person.  TS Elliot said, “All of knowledge just brings us nearer to our ignorance.”  That was Solomon’s conclusion.

Unbridled pleasure. (2:1-3, 24-25).

I drove past a bar called “The Muse” in Mandarin on Friday and Saturday nights this week.  Both nights, the parking lot was full to overflowing, with cars lined up to find parking.  If you follow any one of those cars home, ask the person “Are you happy now?  Does life make sense now?” I have a strong suspicion their answer will be a resounding “no.”

If you had virtually limitless resources, could I ask you a question?  What would YOU do to make yourself happy?  Your answer speaks volumes about your soul.

Unlimited accumulation. (2:7-11).    In a survey called the World Values Survey, the poorest countries in the world consistently score highest on the happiness index.  As boxer Joe Lewis used to say, “I don’t like money actually.  But it calms my nerves.”  Maybe.  But it won’t make you happy.  And it’s the people who have it who say so.

Unending work. (2:4-6, 17-23).   That did not satisfy him.  It keeps you busy.  It won’t satisfy you.  So many people lose themselves in their daily work, thinking that the next level, the next step, the next raise will make it feel it makes sense.  Solomon testifies that it never does.

AN UNSATISFACTORY CONCLUSION

So, are you thoroughly depressed yet?  Some of you aren’t because you’re on the right path.  You know this is your Father’s world, and it’s not the final stopping point.  But so many don’t know that.

If you are living just for what you can see and feel and taste and touch and put in your pocket, believing these things will make you ultimately satisfied, you are headed for a great disappointment.

In other words, without God it’s all meaningless.  What’s the point?  But if God is in the center of your career, your relationships, your finances, your joy then suddenly the lights come on.

Most of the things Solomon was doing are things we couldn’t criticize.  But anything we try to do…leaving God out in the process…will lead to emptiness.  And anything we do for His glory and for His honor, will fill us with meaning and satisfaction beyond belief.

So how do you want to live?  Do you really want the epitaph of your life to be, “I Never Got Any Satisfaction?”   Or do you want it to be, “All That Satisfies My Soul is Jesus?”

I have wondered through the years why Ecclesiastes attracts me so much.  But I think I’ve figured it out.  When I made my decision for Jesus as a 20-year-old, I was coming out of a season of deep searching in my life.  I was searching for meaning in all the wrong places, too.

I thought fulfilling my dream as a professional musician would do that.  It didn’t.  I followed all the dead ends associated with our culture in the early and mid-70’s.  Nothing did it for me.  At the end of the day, I came to a point of true despair in my life.  Life had no meaning.

Then I met Jesus.  I mean, met Him for real.  I was hollow as a chocolate Easter bunny, and I had everything I thought I wanted.  It wasn’t what I wanted after all.  The partying, the popularity, easy money.  All of it meant nothing.

But when I walked out of the house after praying, repenting, and receiving Christ, things suddenly began to make sense!  Jesus is better.  “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” the Bible says.

Your heart…and your life…will be full if you know Him.

Introduction to the Gospels: Mark: Session 1

INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPELS

The Gospel of Mark. (Session One)

 Outline of Mark’s Gospel

  1. Prologue                                             Mark 1:1-13
  2. Jesus’ Early Ministry                       Mark 1:14-3:6.
  3. The Galilean Ministry                      Mark 3:7-6:6
  4. Beyond Galilee                                  Mark 6:7-8:21
  5. Toward Jerusalem                           Mark 8:22-10:52
  6. Teaching in Jerusalem                    Mark 11:1-13:37
  7. Jesus Faces Death                            Mark 14:1-15:47
  8. The Resurrection                              Mark 16:1-8
  9. Addendum                                         Mark 16:9-20

i. Authorship and Date of Writing

ii. The Synoptic Problem

iii.  Purpose of the Gospels

  • John:  Jesus is the Divine/human incarnation of God in Whom we must believe to have eternal life. (universal)
  • Mark:  Jesus is the Suffering Servant Who ministers on our behalf and gave His life as a ransom for sinners. (Romans)
  • Matthew:  Jesus is the Old Testament fulfillment of Messianic prophecy of a promised King sent from God.  (Jews)
  • Luke:  Jesus is the perfect Son of Man Who came to minister to and save people through the power of the Holy Spirit. (Greeks)

iv. Difficulties in Mark

 

 

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