We Don’t know It All

Scripture Reading

Please turn in your Bibles with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Ecclesiastes chapter 7, and we'll be looking this morning at verses 7 through 14. If you're using the provided New King James Pew Bibles, you should be able to find that on page 591. Ecclesiastes chapter 7 beginning at verse 7.

Surely oppression destroys a wise man's reason and a bribe debases the heart. The end of a thing is better than its beginning. The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Do not hasten your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools. Do not say, why were the former days better than these? For you do not inquire wisely concerning this.

Prayer for Illumination

Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and profitable to those who see the sun. For wisdom is a defense, as money is a defense. But the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it. Consider the work of God, for who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider. Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him. Well, in the reading of God's word there, let's pray together. Father, we have read your word. It's perfect. It's true. Objectively.

Sermon

But Lord, we need your Holy Spirit. We need it both in just hearing it and absorbing it as it is, but also, Father, we need your spirit as we hear the preaching of it. Lord, I desperately need it. I need you to help me speak wise words for the building up of your people, and so God, I ask for that. Father, we pray for our hearts as we hear your word preached, that we would consider these things, that you would help us to be attentive So we might have skill, mastery, holiness. God, please help us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

The section of Ecclesiastes, one of the reasons why I'm convinced that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, this is a proverbial section of Ecclesiastes. There's a whole lot of Ecclesiastes chapter 7 that looks like it was almost like a copy and paste from the book of Proverbs.

And here there's a number of different things that Solomon is going to write about, and so I've kind of just lumped them all together in the sermon title, We Don't Know It All. But there's a few different things he's talking about here, and so instead of being exhaustive about a whole bunch of... about one thing, I'm going to try to talk a little bit about some of these things, because I don't know a lot of this. And I'm dead serious with that. Maybe you've been there before when you've read Proverbs or Ecclesiastes and you thought you understood it the first time you read it and then you come back to it 5, 10, 15 years later and you're like, I didn't understand that at all.

Because that's how wisdom works. It's how the wisdom books work, is we realize more and more about the world, we learn more and more about ourselves, we learn more and more about God, and so as we come to these passages, I'm begging you, please do not be, well, heard that once, put the snooze button on, time to go to sleep during the sermon, because this is one of those things where every time we come to these passages, God's got stuff to teach us, because it applies in new ways. And so we'll start with verse seven.

Verse seven, surely oppression destroys a wise man's reason and a bribe debases the heart. So this surely oppression, this idea of, this is all surrounding oppression, or it can be also translated extortion, but this is an idea like money and power and what happens when those two meet together. Surely oppression, right? We think of oppression as just like pushing down on someone. And that's true, right? Using authority down upon someone.

But the idea here is probably, I think, more of the idea of extortion. And think of extortion as like, you know, if you own a business in New York, And you're running a good business, and things are going well, and it's a good profit, it's a good neighborhood, and you love your neighbors, and then all of a sudden, one morning, there's a couple big dudes who walk into your store, and they look like they're just normally shopping for things, and then one of them, right in front of you, picks up one of the fragile things you sell, looks at it, and goes, and breaks it, and the pieces scatter all over the floor.

And they say, oh no, I'm so sorry. I'd hate for that to happen again. And then the other guy picks up another fragile item worth a lot of money that you sell and throws it on the floor and it breaks and it scatters. And they say, you wouldn't want people coming into your store breaking your stuff, would you? These are big, intimidating guys. They say, our boss will keep you safe from anybody coming in and doing this to your shop. You give us insurance money, and we will make sure your shop is protected. What's a shop owner supposed to do? How do you get out from underneath that?

There's guys who are in there breaking his stuff. They're threatening him. They're threatening his business. They're threatening his livelihood. And now they're saying, pay us, and we'll make sure you're safe. This is how the mob operates. It's extortion. And what Solomon is saying here in verse seven, surely oppression or this type of extortion destroys a wise man's reason. Because how do you negotiate with terrorists like that?

What do you do? You say, no, I'm not gonna pay you, and what's gonna happen? You're gonna get beat up. Store's gonna get trashed. Your family might get hurt. And so what you know is, hey, I know it's not wise, I know I can't pay these guys because now I'm underneath their thumb. What's your only option? You gotta pay them.

And what happens when that, and this is where the second part of this goes, it gets really hard, and a bribe debases the heart. What happens when the police chief has been bribed? What happens when he gets a kickback? What happens when the society around you starts to just go into this chaos where money starts ruling things, and even wise men, they can't get out from under this. This idea in the second half of the verse, and a bribe debases the heart, it's a phrase for driving people mad. Power plus the ability to make money often turns people in a way that they didn't expect. And I was thinking about this, I was looking at my history books and trying to think of examples of how this plays out, and then I realized, well hold on, I don't really need to look on my shelves, I could just look over the river and think about how many governors of Illinois have suffered from this.

Rod Blagojevich promised to be a reformer and yet When Obama was elected as president, what does he do? Obama goes to senator, he goes to run for president. He literally horse trades away Obama's seat. So when a senator is, you know, leaves office or dies or gets a different office, it's the governor who gets to appoint that senator's seat.

And so what's this governor do? Who is all about cleaning up Springfield. I'll sell it to the highest bidder. Before that, there was George Ryan, who was governor, but he was also a different government official before that, and he started selling trucking license in the state.

Dan Walker, reformer as well, who ended up committing all sorts of bank fraud. Before him, Otto Koerner. He was a war hero from World War II. He became the governor of Illinois, and he was even a federal judge, and yet he comes under conviction for bribery. Conspiracy, perjury, and tax evasion.

Because this is what Solomon's talking about. Surely extortion or oppression destroys a wise man's reason, and a bribe debases the heart. None of these people, I think, went into office thinking, man, I'm gonna get loaded rich. No, they went in thinking that they were going to actually be reformers, but instead, That's what Jesus was talking about. You can't serve God and mammon. You're gonna either serve one or you're gonna serve the other. So the question is, who will you be? Who will you be?

How will you know that if you get power or authority that you're not going to use it in a corrupt way? What keeps us from going mad like this? It's by reading things like this. It's by having the two by four of Solomon's wisdom smack us up in the face and say, this can happen to you too. This can happen to me. It's by listening to others around us.

And each one of these different stories that I was reading through, every single time there were people trying to warn and tell these incarcerated governors now, don't do this, don't go this direction. People trying in their lives to tell them not to go this way. One of the ways that you avoid this type of authority abuse, and by the way, we live in a culture that's very much allergic and suspicion of all things authority and power. We should be allergic or suspicious of anybody who's in authority or has power who seems to be using it for their own wicked ends. God gives, Romans chapter 13, God gives authority and power to those to do good for those under them who are keeping the law, but to punish those who are violators of it. There's a rightful place for power and authority.

But one of the ways that as I was thinking about these different guys' lives and other examples of this, I realized they had started associating with people who were living in the lap of luxury and not with their people. They moved out of their normal neighborhoods and moved into wealthy neighborhoods. I saw a show that Bogoyevich was on TV one time and he's got like this mortgage for this super ritzy place, and it's like over $5,000 a month mortgage, and he's defending why he went on the show The Apprentice, and he's like, because you can't make decent money anywhere else other than entertainment. I'm like, or you could just not live in the fancy house that you've decided to live in, because that's what got you into this problem in the first place.

It's about abiding in Christ, and as we abide in him, growing in those fruits of the spirit of self-control and of loving others. So hear from Solomon. Surely oppression destroys a wise man's reason and a bribe debases the heart. I'm telling you, we don't want to live in a society where that's what it's like.

I remember being in a foreign country and I was talking to this girl. And she was telling me about, she was from a different area in this country, and her mom was a widow. Her dad died early, and in that country, they had this land, but they weren't doing much with the land, and the population is growing so fast that they went on vacation, and when they came back one time, all of a sudden, people were building on their land. And so they went to the judge, and the judge wouldn't do anything about it. And it was so interesting, because as she's telling me about this, this is a Christian lady, and as she's telling me about this, all of a sudden the cab driver we're with says, why didn't you give the judge some money?

And he just said it like, of course, that's what you're supposed to do. Just grease the wheel, and you would get the land back. Of course, then he would send the police, and they would kick him off the land. And she started saying, well, no, because I'm a Christian. And what they're doing is wrong. And for me to then start bribing the officials to do what's right is doing evil, that good might come of it, and that's not right either.

And so we would rather be wronged and go testify to those who stole our land. We don't want to live in that society. We don't... Okay, I'm going to get off my hobby horse here, and I'm just going to say, The reason why we don't live in that type of land, for the most part in our country, is because people took these words seriously.

Because our forefathers took these words seriously and it was baked into the ethos of our culture. As we've seen in a couple of decades, as the Christian fabric of our society has started to go to threads at the ends, we'll continue to see more and more corruption and bribery. But it doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be that way.

So I wanna point us to verses eight and nine now. We're gonna just leave that where it was and we're gonna pick up on verses eight and nine. On about cultivating our spirits. Look with me at verses eight and nine. The end of a thing is better than its beginning. The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools. The end of the thing is better than its beginning. That was one of my Hebrew professor's favorite phrases to us in seminary. He just encourages, guys, don't be a flash in the pan.

If you're going to start in ministry, set up the patterns and the disciplines in your life that you're going to end in your ministry well. He's like, you can do great at the beginning and then be gone. I don't know if you knew this. This is one of these things that each of you work in different industries, right? But in my line of work as a pastor, the average time for somebody to be a pastor in America five years, and then they quit. Then there's, I'll get all sorts of emails with these statistics and stuff like this, and sometimes it's discouraging, right, when you're like another 1,000 pastors quit the pastorate forever this week in America. And you think, man, what's my end gonna be?

The end of a thing is much better than the beginning. That's why he says it's better to have the patient spirit than the proud spirit. I actually really like the Hebrew here. The patient in spirit is actually the long in spirit is better than the tall in spirit. You would rather have an endurance in a long race than to be the tallest guy in the race. It's not about the sprint. It's about the marathon. So the end of the thing is better than the beginning of it.

Because when you're proud in your spirit, you can think like, oh, I'm going to start this thing, and you can be all arrogant and haughty, and this is going to happen. I'm going to do it fast. And it may not come about, one of my favorite stories, this is actually one of the funny things, is it's the king of the north who's not a godly king, and he's getting kind of provoked by the king of Judah, who is somewhat of a godly king, and so the king of Judah says, I'm gonna go to war against you up in the north, and in first Kings chapter 20, the king of the north says, let not the one who puts on his armor boast like the one who takes it off. Right?

Don't start lacing up your shoes sitting there saying, man, I'm going to be the best runner. I'm going to, I'm going to run the fastest race. I'm going to get the best time. I'm going to get the gold medal. I'm going to beat everyone. You don't got no right to boast about that while you're lacing up your shoes. It's when you're standing on the podium, then maybe you have a right to boast, but even then people don't like that pride spirit either. Have a long view of things. Cultivate a spirit of humility, not a proud, tall spirit. Don't get discouraged when things take a long time. Man, we are an immediate gratification society. We want stuff right now. I mean, I'm mad that it takes so long for popcorn to get popped in the microwave. We want stuff now. But that's not the way most of life works.

So don't get discouraged when things take a long time, even in your walk with Christ. He who has begun a good work in you will bring it about even unto the day of Christ Jesus. But that day might be a long time away. You may get frustrated in your own Christian life with, I wish I was further along in my holiness.

Why am I still struggling with these sins? Why am I still, God, why is this still going on? And the answer is, he's not done with us yet. And there's more work to be done. So don't get discouraged. But then look with me at verse nine, tying into this idea of the proud spirit. Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry. For anger rests in the bosom of fools. Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry.

This is an idea, I mean, I've had to repent lately. Olivia and I have talked quite a bit about this. I've realized I don't want to say things to her in a mean way. or until I've actually thought about what I want to say and then how I'm going to say it. But what that looks like before I ever say something is a whole bunch of, I'm not talking to you. And in that whole bunch of, I'm not talking to you, there's a real danger, as I think I'm doing the godly thing, right, don't let unkind words come out of your mouth, right, don't let caca words leave your lips, and so okay, I wanna impart grace there, I'm not gonna say anything, and yet Satan, it's so amazing how slippery Satan is in temptation. In that moment, what I'll find is in my spirit, I'm having legitimate arguments and conversations with Olivia in my heart and getting mad and bitter, and I've not even uttered a syllable to actually talk with her. And in my heart, it's like there's something brewing in there, a bitterness and resentment, stoking a flame, stewing it over, sulking in my anger.

And none of it's love. None of it's love. As you hold anger in your heart, you open up that door to Satan. That's wrong. That's why 1 Corinthians 13, four through seven, when it speaks of love, notice what it says love is like here. Versus this person who's harboring anger in their heart, in their bosom. God says love is long, is suffering long. It does not parade itself. It is not puffed up. It is not provoked. When anger builds in your heart, it's like a fire. And the thing is, it's only burning you.

You're the one getting second and third degree burns in your soul as you hold this thing. As you become increasingly irritated, annoyed, intolerant, and even to the point of hatred. And I see this happening in our society. I see people treating other people like you're the problem. And instead of it going and talking to people, instead of having conversations, you talk within your own echo chamber, and I'm guilty of this too, and we just get mad at other people, and we get more mad, and more mad, and more mad, and more mad, and more mad, until that anger in your bosom looks like a bullet that leaves a gun. Anger consumes us.

Anger held in the bosom is like throwing a match into one of the fields that's brown and ready for harvest. The whole lot of corn can go up real fast. It's just been holding it in our hearts. Don't hasten in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools. Some of your translations even might say, in the heart of idiots. It's not wise. It's not godly. It's not loving.

So don't hasten in your spirit to be angry. So if you don't do that, what are you supposed to do, right? I don't want to just tell you don't do these things. The New Testament has these patterns for us, right? Tells us not to do things, but then tells us what to do, right?

So you put on love and you put on patience. You put on kindness. You bless others instead of cursing them. There's another thing that Solomon wants to get at in verse 10. And that's one that I find myself at times liking more and more. The idea of nostalgia. Look with me at verse 10. Do not say, why were the former days better than these? For you do not inquire wisely concerning this. This is just like, you want the good old days. Oh, why can't things be like what they were back then?

And I remember when I first read this, when I became a Christian, I was in my early 20s, I was like, I don't really understand that. And then now I find myself more and more becoming this old cantankerous dude, and I'm not even that many gray hairs in, but I was smacked in the face the other day while I was watching this little video, and it was how you know you're old. And it was just interesting, because I had not considered myself like, oh, OK, I'm out of the generation.

Instead, if you find the songs and the language of the new generation annoying, or you just don't even understand them, what does that mean that you are modded? What does it mean that's cat? What do you mean that that's sus? If you can't understand the new lingo, guess what? It means you're not in that generation anymore. You're old. If you have a favorite burner on the stove. Okay, yeah. Welcome to the club.

If you remember, and you can put this for any number of things with media, if you remember when the television would play the national anthem at night and then there would be no more broadcasting, or for my generation, do you remember that coming soon on DVD near you screen? Congratulations, those movies are old and kids don't watch them anymore.

And so we might remember this, fondly of the good old days, but then I was thinking about, okay, what would be the good old days in our congregation that we might look forward to? We might have fond memories of the 1980s in this congregation. But hold on, we might not want to remember the farm crisis, the rise of the drug wars, sex, rock and roll, and the AIDS epidemic starting. But maybe for some of you, it's the 1970s. That was a good old days. And then you remember, oh, hold on. The expansion of the Vietnam War. Heroin. The effects rolling out of the sexual revolution. Oh, what about the 1960s? Those were fun days.

Yeah, you know, when JFK was assassinated and there were race riots. When the Cuyahoga River was so polluted it lit on fire? Well, maybe it was the 1950s, right? You mean when Emmett Till was killed? When the Cold War loomed over people's head? When the Cuban Missile Crisis was right around the corner? When Stalin was in power? When experimental psychology was messing with people's brains with electric shock therapy? People were getting lombotomies? Oh, but the 1940s, right? That's when the war heroes were. Yeah, they faced the Holocaust and the atrocities of war. The atom bomb, gulags, rations. 20-year-old ladies finding out that they were widows by letter that their husbands had died.

But maybe the 1930s, that was better, right? Yeah, the Great Depression. I'm sure those were the good old years. Families literally auctioned some of their children off to pay debts. Or maybe the 1920s, the Gilded Age, when Al Capone was shooting people up, when Tulsa massacre happened, when Margaret Sanger was on her high horse talking about how it would be the most loving thing to use eugenics to sterilize and kill all sorts of black children.

Yeah, those were the good old days, right? Solomon says, that's not a wise thing to do. There was no good old days. There were just days. You have fond memories, and that's fine. That's good, right? Hold on to those good memories, because there was something good about it. That's fine.

That's not what he's getting at. But what he's saying is, you don't want to live in the past. You can't say, why were the former days better than these? Because there were no perfect days in the past. You honor what was honorable, but in all eras, we must learn, we must repent, and we must also build. We don't know why things are happening today, but we can't look to the past and say, well, that was the model of perfection, and so we should go back to that era. That era had its own issues. And I'm not, don't. Hear me wrong, right? I'm not here saying like, oh, I'm a progressive. If you know anything about me, that's not where I'm going.

What I'm saying is we don't dwell in the past and romanticize history and wonder why today we don't have those same things. It's not wise to live in the past and not see what is here and now. If you live in the past, you're going to have blinders on and you're going to miss it. There are people you need to love today. If you're tired of the generation now because you thought, well, our generation didn't do that in the past, so are you investing in the generation today?

If you're like, man, I just don't understand. Why don't these kids get it? Why do they engage in this behavior? Are you involved in their lives? Are you caring for them? Older ladies, are you investing in the younger ladies? Older men, are you discipling the younger men? Who are you spending time with? Because what happens when we live in the past, we just become a bunch of complainers, and we're not investing in the future. We become part of the problem and not the solution.

But there's good news. The good news is that Jesus Christ is still king today, just like he was king then. And the gospel is still true today, just as it was then. Christ Jesus died. According to the scriptures, he was buried. He rose again from the dead. He was seen by over 500 people and he gave a commission to his apostles to go out into all the nations and make disciples and you are the ends of the earth. And the great commission is still today. See, we might wanna think like, oh, oh, it's so sad.

There's so much wrong in our society and in all the societies, but the point is, yeah, and what saves people from that? What changes society? What redeems the home? What puts off these patterns of generational sin and destruction? It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's the good news that Jesus Christ saves sinners like us, turns us from our sins, and turns us towards righteousness and holiness.

That's what our country needs today. Our country needs not people living in nostalgic past, but we need, I need, my children need, the college students on campus need you to disciple them. They need you to be involved in their lives. Okay, let's keep moving. Verse 12 and 13. Or 11 and 12, sorry.

Wisdom is good with an inheritance and profitable to those who see the sun. For wisdom is a defense as money is a defense. But the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it. What is wisdom? Wisdom is a mastery. Wisdom is knowing stuff and being able to do the stuff.

Sometimes I get fooled by this. I think wisdom is like if I just read all the best parenting books and read all the theological books, if I just read all the books on practical holiness, then I will be able to be holy. And it won't work like that. Can you actually do it? You can watch a YouTube video on how to fix a car, but can you actually turn the wrench? Well, it's taking the knowledge and applying the knowledge and doing it well. Now, you don't want to just go out and work on the car with a wrench and you don't know what you're doing, because then you end up in problems.

That's not wise either. But wisdom is the skill plus the knowledge going towards mastery and the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord. So wisdom is good. Wisdom is fear of the Lord and application of knowledge is good with an inheritance. And profitable to those who see the sun. Right, wisdom with an inheritance is good.

And now I'm gonna tell you, You're going to die someday and you're going to pass on an estate. I don't know if it's gonna be a big estate, a small estate, I don't know what you're leaving behind. It might just be some worn out clothes and that's it. But you're gonna leave something. And you may even have a big estate. You may leave a lot of money. You may have worked hard and put in investments and your retirement account and invested in different businesses and you may have a big estate to pass on.

But I want to ask you, for those who are getting that inheritance, have they received from you wisdom? Now, here's the tricky thing about that. You can speak to someone, and it could be like speaking to a brick wall. I know you've never experienced that before, right? When you're trying to tell someone, hey, look, when this happens, this is what you do. And it's like, you're talking into the wind.

You can provide all the opportunities to give someone wisdom, but it's up to them to actually latch onto it and practice it. You can pass on a whole bunch of money a whole big estate to your kids and your grandkids, but are you trying to also give them the wisdom of what to do with that inheritance?

Wisdom with a good inheritance. Wisdom is good with an inheritance and profitable to those who see the sun. Money's only good until you see the grave. Wisdom though, Wisdom shelters us from trouble. The wise man sees trouble coming and knows when to hide, but also sometimes knows the difference and knows when to fight. Money cannot buy you life, but wisdom can bring us eternal life. Because you see, money, when it says here in verse 12, wisdom is a defense and money is a defense, The word there is actually a shade.

You have to think this is ancient Near East. It's hot. This is like what happens with Jonah. He's sitting waiting for Nineveh to be destroyed. And what does he do? He waits. And God brings up a plant and it gives him shade. It gives him protection. A defense. Wisdom is a defense. Wisdom protects us. Wisdom cares for us. Wisdom is like a shield.

And so is money. The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, but don't get that wrong. Solomon isn't saying that you should love money, but it is nice to have a savings account when stuff goes wrong. It is nice to have built up a reserve for when your car breaks down. Money is like a shield, it is like a shade, it's a defense. trust it all the time, because someone could come in and they could steal your money, they can get inflated away, stuff can happen, right? But it is a helpful defense, he's saying.

But the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it. Wisdom gives life to those who have wisdom. And this is where I want to just point you to 1 Corinthians chapter 113. Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. When we come to the knowledge of God and the understanding that we can't do anything to save ourselves, when we get all the accumulated knowledge as Solomon has tried to do here in reading all the books and in trying all the ways to get all the knowledge, he realizes, all I All I have is the Lord and his word. Everything else is vanity, the grasping for the wind.

But wisdom gives life to those who have it. Jesus Christ gives you life if you will cling to him. Wisdom shades, gives us a defense for eternity. Money, silver, gold, IRAs, bank accounts, whatever financial vehicle you may have may give you a certain amount of protection for a while. But has Christ carried you in his arms? And do you know that when you die, for you to live is Christ, but to die is gain? Has God worked that wisdom into your heart?

Lastly, I want you to consider one more thing. Humility and peace. Look with me at verses 13 and 14.

Consider the work of God, for who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider, surely God has appointed one as well as the other, so that a man can find out nothing that will come After him.

If God's made a stick crooked, you ain't gonna make it straight. That's what Solomon's saying here in verse 13. Consider the work of God, for who can make straight what he has made crooked? The idea there's like, you got a branch coming off a tree and the branch is all crooked, that's like a metaphor for your life. You can't make it straight. It's crooked, God made it that way.

God knows where the knots are going to be in your life and where the bends are going to come and what's going on. And he says, you got those turns in your life for a reason. If you're like me, sometimes you just want to control life. You want to know what's coming next and you want to know what's coming around the bend and try to be prepared for it and there's some of us who even struggle with manipulation and over control and trying to get a grasp of everything and it's exhausting. It's a life ridden with all sorts of anxiety.

Where am I gonna get food? And how am I gonna get this job? And where's money gonna come for this? And what's going on with that? And why isn't this working? And what's going on with this relationship? And with this relationship, but what if they do this? And maybe I could do this? And you start having these conversations in your head, and you start trying to plan out everything.

And the point is, You can plan all the paths you want in your life, and you can think, I'm getting from A to B, and this is my straight line, and I gotta tell you what, every time I think that's what's gonna happen, God has me on some type of weird way all the way over here.

I think I'm going from Iowa to Washington on I-80, but it ain't gonna happen. It's not the straight road that he often wants us to take. We're gonna end up somewhere in Colorado, and then in Montana, and then back in Indiana, and then down in New Mexico, and then over to California, and then maybe we'll get up to Washington, and we may not even get there. The Lord directs our paths.

That's what's all I've been saying. As we fight about it, as we wrestle with it, it doesn't provide peace for your soul. So let it go. Let go of what's outside of your control. This is why Paul will say it. Don't be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Because do you see, when we realize we're not in control, We can leave it to the Lord who knows the path, knows how he's making the crooked branches. We can say, God, not my will be done, but yours. That's why Jesus taught us to pray, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We rob ourselves when we worry of what Solomon had told us in chapter three.

There are different seasons in life, and the Lord knows when they're gonna happen. There's a time to be born, and there's a time to die. There's a time to plant and a time to pluck. What is planted? There's a time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time for laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones.

In your life, there will be times to embrace and there will be times to refrain from embracing. In your life, there will be a time to gain and there will be a time to lose. In your life, there will be a time to keep and there will be a time to throw away. There will be a time to tear and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war, and a time for peace.

What Solomon is getting at here in verse 14 is that in the day of prosperity, be joyful. If it's harvest season, eat. And if it's famine, tighten your belt. If it's a wedding, dance. And if it's a funeral, it's okay to cry. What God has made crooked, we can't make straight. We can't come to the funeral and say, I don't wanna mourn, I just wanna dance and laugh and smile. It's just gonna hurt you. And if it's a time to rejoice and you're hell-bent on, no, I don't wanna rejoice right now, I wanna be mad. It's also going to hurt you, and it's going to hurt the people around you.

There are times and season in life, and he says, surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him. We don't know what's coming. We don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. And you know what, Jesus tells us, don't worry about tomorrow, you got enough to worry about today. So don't do it. Have rest, come to Christ and find peace for your soul.

We cannot control tomorrow, but the question is what are you doing today? What do you know about the world and what do you know about God's word? What do you know about how you're supposed to respond in the situation you find yourself in now? And now the hard thing is the mastery of the Christian life, as God has instructed us, Now we need to ask the Holy Spirit and actually do what's appropriate in that time.

Okay, you've sat through a lot. Brothers and sisters, I just want to encourage you. Even as I look across the pews now, some of you are in very different seasons of life. Some of you are struggling. Some of you are rejoicing. Some of you are wrestling with anxiety and fear, and some of you have the deepest peace you've experienced in a long time.

All of those things are part of the human experience that Solomon is getting at here in Ecclesiastes. There is a wise way to live in this life, and that wise way is to fear the Lord. to have reverence of God, to know his word, and as best as you can, for the glory of God, to apply those words to your life, hoping and resting in Christ. Because see, Solomon here finishes the saying, so that man cannot find, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him. I don't know what's going to happen to anything I own or anybody I love once I'm dead.

They're in the Lord's hand. But today, today is the day that the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it. Today is the day of salvation. Today the Lord is near at hand. Today, if you are rejoicing, I ask you, are you rejoicing in the Lord? And if today is the day of sorrow for you, are you looking to Christ in your sorrow? What are you holding on to? What are you loving? What are you living for? Is it for money? Is it a bribery? Is it a corruption? Is it a twisting of your soul? Is it for the anger that's burning in your bosom?

Or have you found the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding that comes from the wisdom of God revealed to us in Christ Jesus. So go to Christ, find hope for your soul, because then you will know for you what will happen, even if you were to die tonight. Tomorrow would be the best day for the start of eternity. Hope in Christ, brothers and sisters.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, we do pray that you would please help us with practical wisdom in this life. Give us humility and not arrogance. Give us patience and not pride. Teach us, Lord, to submit to you because you are a loving God. And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love you and have been called according to your purposes. And so, Father, we trust you. No matter what comes, Father, we pray that you please make our end far better than our beginning. Let us trust in you always. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.