The Search for Not Wasting Life (Copy)
This morning, we are wrapping up our wonderful series on Ecclesiastes with one of my favorite passages of scripture. This series has been an 8-week teaching series we’ve calling “The Good Life.” It’s been about finding satisfaction and purpose in daily life. This morning, we are closing out the series in the last few verses of Ecclesiastes and we will be discussing the importance of truth and following God’s commandments because of our desire to honor him. Imagine what a world without truth would look like. Imagine living in a world where you can’t rely on anything to be true?... Going to the doctor would be a terrible waste of time and a frustrating experience. Imagine the doctor telling you something like “It sounds like you’ve got a bad cough… we should probably amputate both of your legs because this cough could infect the bones in your legs and it would be best to amputate. You’d call that doctor crazy and go get a second opinion. You can’t rely on what a doctor is telling you is true about your health or diagnosis?... Or what about an airline pilot who can’t believe in and articulate simple truth like up is up and down is down? You would no longer fly with that airline and you wouldn’t argue with someone who holds such a ridiculous opinion. A world without truth is a dangerous world. We couldn’t possibly live and survive in a world where we can’t depend on any truths...There has to be truths we can rely on even for practical everyday things... So truth matters, and there is no greater source of truth for our lives than the truth God gives us in the bible. Let’s turn to Ecclesiastes 12 and get into it. If you open the bible to the middle, keep turning left, you’ll find Ecclesiastes. We’ll be in Ecclesiastes 12:8-14, and the title of the message is The Search For Truth. I stole the big idea of the message from The Teacher himself and it is to fear God and display it by keeping His commandments... fear God and display it by keeping His commandments...
Here’s your context. The author of Ecclesiastes is King Solomon who’s one of the wisest, wealthiest, most powerful kings in history. He’s a man who experienced a lot of life, he made a lot of mistakes in life, and he wrote Ecclesiastes towards the end of his life so we can learn from his mistakes. As we read this we need to picture him as a wise old teacher, a wise old grandpa, who’s teaching us a few things about life. Last week, Pastor Louis opened chapter 12 with the first eleven verses where he teaches us to not waste our life. We will review a couple of the things we talked about last week but through a different lens. All throughout Ecclesiastes, Solomon has been discussing the different vanities in life and in chapter 12 he’ll bring us to the final vanity: death. Let’s check it out.
Ecclesiastes 12 8-14 states: “Absolute futility,” says the Teacher. “Everything is futile.” Verse 9, “In addition to the Teacher being a wise man, he constantly taught the people knowledge; he weighed, explored, and arranged many proverbs. The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and write words of truth accurately.”
Many scholars argue that verse 8 would’ve been a fitting end to Ecclesiastes because the ending brings us right back to where we began by the Teacher proclaiming that “everything is futile” – which reinforces his point that “there is nothing new under the sun.” However, it continues in verse 9, and because of the change to writing in third person, it is believed that the last five verses may have been written by one of Solomon’s editors or perhaps even two since there is a distinction in verse 9-11 and 12-14. Verse 9-11, the editor seems to agree and affirm what the Teacher is saying and verse 12-14 closes by attempting to correct him. Whether there were two editors or one or whether it was written by an editor or just Solomon reflecting on all he had said doesn’t matter. The point is that the Teacher has put great effort into providing his people knowledge and guiding them. And in verse 9, he is pointing to the source of this knowledge as God’s word.
Last week, Louis talked about all the voices coming at us and while he encouraged us to give ourselves a life audit and begin each day listening to our Shepherd’s voice above the thousands of other voices we hear, I want to build on that encouragement by recognizing that our Shepherd’s voice is where Truth resides. Capital “T” Truth. These thousands of voices speaking at us through advertisements, and opinions, and talking heads are seeping with misinformation and lies. Lies about ourselves, lies about each other, lies about our communities and the world we live in. City Awakening is a place for skeptics and believers alike. It is easy for us all to be skeptics when community notes are being community noted on Twitter. Or “X”. Or the bird app. Whatever you want to call it. The search for Truth is growing increasingly difficult in the world we live in. We are skeptical of each other, we are skeptical of our leaders, and ultimately we are skeptical of God. It makes sense that we would be. For thousands of years, it was clear and no one argued what a woman was. Now there is a documentary that spends two hours sarcastically searching for the answer. We have grown too accepting of your truth and my truth and her truth and his truth and their truth and that truth. The absence of clear truth has led to overwhelming ambiguity and more confusion, more anxiety, and more frustration with each other.
Many of you know I am a huge Star Wars fan. There is a new series that just finished last week and while, yes, it is a Star Wars show, it is in fact one of the greatest political and social commentaries in tv today. There is a quote from one of the main characters, Senator Mon Mothma who in one of the final episodes is addressing the Galactic Senate at the height of the rule of the evil Galactic Empire. She is secretly working for an up and coming Rebel Alliance and their cause and she says: “This chamber is a cauldron of opinions. And we’ve certainly all had our patience and tempers tested in pursuit of our ideals. Disagree as we might, I am hopeful that those of you who know me will vouch for my credibility in the days to come. I stand this morning with a difficult message. I believe we are in a crisis. The distance between what is said, and what is known to be true, has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands – we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.”
Say what you will about the Star Wars writers and the movie and show’s historical lack of writing depth, those words slap! And how true they are for our culture today! The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil! Solomon knows this and he is trying to warn his son, his heir, and his people about the dangers of letting truth slip away. So, he teaches them knowledge, he weighs and explores and spends so much time at the end of his life arranging proverbs that will point his children and his people to ultimate truth. And that truth is found in God’s Words. These “delightful sayings” or some translations call them “words of delight” show us the beauty of the Bible and the “words of truth” show us that words of knowledge are tied to scripture. The search for knowledge and the search for truth begin with God’s Word!
I teach a freshman Bible class here at the school we are meeting in and I tell my students the two most common themes I have seen in my friends who have walked away from their faith are number one, that they stop going to church and fellowshipping with a community of believers. And Number two, they stop reading their bible. They stop starting their search for truth and making sense of this world at God’s Word. Don’t abandon God’s Word as the authority for truth in your life church. We have a code here at City Awakening, it’s like our genetic code as a church, meaning our core values as a church. One of those codes, one of those core values is that we believe in biblical authority. So something we say often is “We will read the bible and let the bible read us.” What we mean by that is instead of us letting our beliefs and worldviews shape and change the bible, we let the bible shape and change our beliefs and worldviews. It’s because we believe the bible is true, and we want that truth to shape every aspect of our lives. My friends who have walked away began listening to other voices above the voice of God and they started to become their own authority in their lives rather than submitting to ’od's authority.
He continues in verse 11, “The sayings of the wise are like cattle prods, and those from masters of collections are like firmly embedded nails. The sayings are given by one Shepherd.”
Louis talked last week about the purpose of cattle prods and the comparison between them and how wise words are used to prick and prod us in the right direction. Wise words of truth should convict us, they should move us in the right path and it is our responsibility to reach and respond when we hear those wise words. In the past, when I have heard something in a sermon, from scripture, that didn’t sit well with me or made me uncomfortable, it usually pointed to something in my life – that I was aware of – that I needed to change or fix. It could’ve been a relationship, or words I was speaking. The teaching convicted me and prodded me in the right direction. He says something else here that the “masters of collections – or collected sayings – are like firmly embedded nails.” I love this line because it has a couple of meanings. First of all, nails are used to stabilize and secure something. Whether it be attaching trim to a wall with a nail gun or securing plywood, nails are helpful to strengthen the finished product. So it is with wise sayings. These collected sayings strengthen and reinforce truth in our lives. But I love this second meaning even more. Nails are perhaps even more commonly used to hang something on. Whether it be guitars from a wall, or pictures, or coats and keys by our entry way, nails are used to hold something up instead of letting it fall to the floor. These collected sayings and words of truth and wisdom are spoken to us to hold us up. They are words we can hang our lives on that securely fix us to the truth of God’s Word. This reinforces the instruction to hide God’s words in our hearts and memorize scripture or if we are bad at memorizing and recalling things, plastering the truth of scripture anywhere we look. Writing a verse in dry erase marker on our mirrors to read over as we get ready in the mornings, writing verses down on notecards and putting them on our dashboard or sending them in our children’s lunch boxes. Hanging frames with scripture on them all over our house. In our kitchen, at the house I grew up at, my Mom had hung a cross-stitched bible verse from Joshua 24:15 that said “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” That verse has been one that throughout the years, I have never struggled to recall or remember and I believe it reinforced the truth of scripture in my life as I was growing up. Thanks Mama! These sayings are important enough to hang them and secure them everywhere we can in our lives. And these sayings are spoken by the one Shepherd which is pretty easy to deduce here this is referring to God. This affirmation at the end of verse 11 proves to us we can trust these words of the Teacher because they are inspired and spoken by God himself. And just as a shepherd guides his sheep by jabbing them with a rod, our Shepherd guides us in truth by jabbing us with the cattle prod or goad of His Word.
Verse 12, “But beyond these, my son, be warned: there is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body.”
This is where some scholars believe a different editor may begin his warning or correction of what Solomon has been saying but again, whether it is one editor or two editors, the message of futility remains the same. The warning just as stark. Whether you are reading books or writing books, the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom for the sake of merely acquiring it is not only useless… it contributes to the wearing out of our bodies and minds.
Students know this perhaps better than anyone right now as the season of school finishing and graduations happening is upon us. I don’t know about you, but my kids are exhausted. They have been learning and acquiring knowledge since August, and they are ready to be done! But adults can understand this as well. We find ourselves chasing the next promotion, the latest book, the most recent news story, the best new weight loss method. We try and try to acquire knowledge and wisdom by what we read, watch, and listen to. Think about the surge of podcasts. We are so desperate as a culture to learn, we will listen to other people talk and conversate for 3 hours and at the end of it, have we really learned anything? Don’t send me podcasts by the way. As I was working on this section of my sermon this week, my brother sent me one. I haven’t listened to it. I won’t listen to it. Sorry Ben. I have way too much going on to listen to people talk for hours on end. Every now and then, I’ll listen to one, but it has to really pull my attention and usually it only happens if I see a clip of it first on twitter. Or X. Or the bird app… Where I am in danger of this warning is books. I love reading. And I’ve recently discovered a love for listening to books. And while my wife usually reads for pleasure, I read super intense stuff. I love historical nonfiction like Erik Larson or historical semi- fiction like James Michener. And I love biographies. I’ve read president’s biographies, and tech leaders and CEO biographies, notorious leader’s biographies. I love reading. But I would be lying to you if I said I was currently reading a biography on Chairman Mao, the notorious leader of China, for “pleasure.” I am reading it to acquire knowledge about his reign so I can be better equipped to talk on that subject. But too much acquisition of knowledge can be a bad thing. It can hurt our brains more than it can help our brains. In a pursuit of knowledge and clarity, it can make us more confused. I believe this is where a lot of the issue with my truth and your truth comes from. In our effort to be more inclusive, more affirming, more understanding, we have become less inclusive, less affirming and less understanding. We have lost our ability to hold an opinion and stand on it. We have lost the ability to politely disagree with others. We have lost the ability to call people out and hold them accountable. Too much knowledge can harm us and wisdom is good but it can be overdone. God’s desire for our lives is not to make us smart sinners, but godly saints. As we are about to find out in verse 13, our life purpose is not to acquire knowledge and wisdom.
Verse 13, “When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: Fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity.”
When all has been heard or as one of my favorite song writers, Drew Holcomb, says, “When it’s all said and done,” the conclusion of the matter is this: Fear God and keep his commands. By saying “the conclusion of the matter,” the Teacher is saying that the chief end of man or God’s design for us is to fear him and keep his commands. Not to fear him like we fear something scary, ominous, or harmful. To fear God is to take him seriously, to acknowledge him in our lives as the highest good, to revere him and worship him and honor him and to center our lives on him. Paul says in Acts 17:28 “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” God is the reason for everything. And out of our love and respect for him, we obey him. We follow his commands for our lives. The order here is very important. We don’t obey God so that we can be accepted by him. We are accepted and loved and cherished by him and that produces obedience in us. Not perfect obedience. But because of the finished work of the cross of Jesus, we desire to follow him in obedience. Sheep don’t obey their shepherd to gain acceptance from him. In fact, sheep struggle to obey their shepherd even after they’ve been rescued. There is a great video that illustrates the life of a believer well where a sheep is stuck in a rut in the ground, the shepherd rescues the sheep and pulls him and then in a fit of joy and jubilation, the sheep runs off with a couple steps and hops itself right back into another rut! Isaiah 53:6 says, “We who are like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” We have each turned to our own way church, our own path, our own truth, and we have gone astray because of it. But thanks be to Christ who died for us and God put on him the iniquity of all of us! Because of this, we obey. Next week, we are opening our series in Psalms, melodies of encouragement. Regarding obedience, there may not be a more famous Psalm than 119. Nearly every stanza opens with a reminder of the importance of obedience. We don’t have time to read the whole thing because it is also the longest Psalm but it references that joyful people are joyful because they follow the instructions of the Lord (vs. 1), young people stay pure by obeying God’s word (vs. 9), we hide God’s word in our heart so we won’t sin against him (vs. 11), it acknowledges that we are foreigners and need instruction to live by (vs. 19), God’s word provides hope when we are abandoned in the dust (vs. 25), desiring an eagerness for God’s laws over money (vs. 36), reflecting at night on God’s word and spending our lives obeying his commands (vs. 55-56), And finally,believing in God’s commands because of the good things he has done for us (vs. 65).
We love and serve in grateful response to the work of Jesus. Augustine says, “Thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it rest in thee.” We will never have rest until we fear and obey God. Our hearts will constantly wander and be looking for wisdom, power, success, money, pleasure, and anything and everything else to fulfill us. Why? Because we weren’t designed to be fulfilled by wisdom, power, success, money, pleasure or anything else. We were designed to fear God and keep his commands. Only then, will we experience rest and peace and fulfillment in our lives.
Finally, in verse 14 he says: “For God will bring every act to judgement, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil.”
The ending of Ecclesiastes does not provide us with a message of grace. It is instead, a reminder of coming judgement for hidden actions and thoughts, whether good or evil. But despite the severity and intensity of the warning, it is not hopeless. It is not a message to despair over. Verse 14 serves as a reminder, a nail to hang our purpose on, that God will bring every thing to justice. For skeptics and believers alike, we look at the world around us and see injustices happening all the time and every day. Things that make us retch and wonder how a loving God could let happen. What this final verse of this final chapter of Ecclesiastes reminds us is that he won’t just let it happen. The injustices and tragedies we see and the ones we don’t see will be brought to justice and held accountable. Including the things in our own lives. The most important response for us to have is to fear God and obey him.
The big idea of the message is fear God and display it by keeping His commandments. The message of Ecclesiastes is wrapped up in this instruction from verse 13. In fact, the message of life, the chief end of man, the reason we were created is wrapped up in this instruction from verse 13. For skeptics who are here this morning, you could read these verses and say, “Well, I don’t believe in God so what is there to fear? Why should I obey something I don’t believe in?” I would encourage you with this: If there is no God, there is no meaning to life. It IS all vanity. It IS all futile. It IS all meaningless. It IS all a vapor. Nothing matters if we have nothing to live for besides ourselves. But that is not the message of Ecclesiastes. Solomon has said all throughout these 12 chapters to take delight in the pleasures of life. In our relationships, in our work, in our travels and experiences, and in our wisdom and knowledge. But do so through the lens of worshipping God. Recognize that he designed us with the intent of experiencing all these things through Him and thanking him for this life we have. The final message of Ecclesiastes is not that nothing matters… no, it is that everything matters! Everything is enhanced through our lives lived in light of God’s intention for us. Are you searching for truth? Find it in God’s word and then respond in obedience. Not so you will be accepted but BECAUSE you are accepted. And for those of us who are still wrestling with why there isn’t an easy answer this morning or maybe we have been praying for someone who is wrestling or has totally abandoned their faith: trust that it takes time. It takes time to work through an issue before a person is able to understand or hear the simple answer. The process of struggling through problems and unanswered questions we face in this life is just as important at times as giving the simple explanation. And when we struggle and doubt and question and can’t seem to find truth, trust in Jesus. His victory on the cross saves us from life’s vanity.