Pastor Frank Bowden
August 30, 2015

Sermon Notes

For the past several months we’ve been systematically studying through the book of Ecclesiastes. As you are reading this book it can become really frustrating really fast because Ecclesiastes tends to rub you raw in a way like an open wound. Here’s what I mean by that. As you read through this book deep in your soul you know something is not quite right with the world. Ecclesiastes reinforces everything that’s messed up. It can be really discouraging and depressing. It is really not a feel-good read.

Solomon, the guy who wrote this about 3000 years ago, is giving you a picture of the world as it is today, not as it should be. You may be thinking this was a really bad night to come to church if this is going to be a sermon that points to a lot of Scripture that isn’t going to encourage you. That can be both a good and bad response. For the believer, we know there is a hope that we have because we know that Jesus is going to come back and restore this broken world that our first parents Adam and Eve messed up with their sin. But, what about the time between then and now. I am convinced that nobody intentionally wants to live a miserable life. I have not yet identified the person that wakes up thinking they are perfectly fine with the day being completely terrible. I’ve not met that person yet. Solomon gives us in our text three principles, not promises or guarantees. I believe that if you use these things to help you navigate through life that can be sometimes very unpredictable, grueling, and painful then at the flip of a coin could be the biggest blessing. We will look at three principles to help us navigate through a life that we’re ultimately waiting for Jesus to come back and completely restore.

During the 1920s our nation underwent an unprecedented prosperity following World War I. Our nation’s wealth nearly doubled between 1900-1929. Our stock market underwent some rapid expansion and reached its peak in August 1929. When you look at how things were going it seemed that there was only one way to go and that was up. There was no stopping us. The months following August 1929 would also go down in history because production began to slow down, unemployment began to rise, our stocks became grossly overvalued, and the stock prices began to fall. Panic set in and on October 24, 1929 Black Thursday some 12,894,650 shares of stock were traded on that day. That was followed by Black Monday when stock prices began to freefall. That was followed by Black Tuesday in which the stock prices completely collapsed. Billions of dollars were lost and family’s entire life savings were completely wiped out. The U.S. spiraled into what would become the Great Depression.

Could you imagine waking up one morning with everything looking hopeful and so promising and before you get home that afternoon everything that you have ever worked for was gone? I think what we’re going to see in our text from Ecclesiastes chapter 9 is that life can be fragile and can change without notice. I believe the first principle that Solomon would want us to see is to enjoy the simple life.

I. Enjoy the simple life

Ecclesiastes 9:7-10
So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this! 8 Wear fine clothes, with a splash of cologne! 9 Live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil. 10 Whatever you do, do well. For when you go to the grave, there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.

As I read this I get the sense that maybe Solomon is a bit frustrated. He may be getting on to those who aren’t taking the time to enjoy the pleasures that this life can offer now. Instead they are trying to accumulate or hoard up wealth to use at a later date. As I read this I think Solomon is really saying you might not want to wait because life could change in an instant. So go ahead and eat your food with joy and drink your wine with a happy heart. Or, have a BBQ with your friends and neighbors. Take your kids camping. Do something fun in the moment! Take advantage of that opportunity to do something.  Solomon says the Lord approves of this. God is okay if you enjoy life in the present. Maybe sometimes we think that God’s not okay with that.

Later in verse eight he says wear fine clothes with a splash of cologne. This is a picture of celebration. You would see somebody that has their fine clothes, perfume or cologne, running down the street with a smile from ear to ear. It’s a sign of rejoicing and celebration. This is very different in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, when you would see somebody that’s in mourning or in repentance. Think about Job. Job was one of these guys who woke up one morning with everything fine in his world. Everything was looking promising. In our definition we would say he probably had it made. Then one messenger after another, after another, after another brought him terrible news of what was happening to his family, his servants, and his flocks. He had a couple of responses. One was that he shaved his beard, tore his robe, and sat among the ashes. Solomon is saying there is a time when that is perfectly appropriate. There’s also a time when you need to rejoice and celebrate the good things of this life.

He says to live happily with the woman you love. For us guys in the room that are married husbands live happily with your spouse. If Solomon is writing this later in his life, which I tend to believe he is, then no doubt he’s looking backward and thinking he really messed that one up in his life. He didn’t honor the institute of marriage that God put into place because he didn’t have just one wife he had multiple wives. He probably looked back on his infatuation with women and how it wrecked his ministry. Live happily with woman you love. Appreciate the enjoyment and the companionship that God has given you in a spouse.

When we look at verses 7-9 they are driving toward verse 10. Solomon starts that verse off by saying whatever you do, do it well. Paul echoes this in the New Testament in Colossians 3:17, 23. He also says whatever you do do it unto the Lord and not as unto man. If we’re being completely honest the only reason why we can do what we do is because Jesus has gifted us to do it. He’s blessed us with the skills, the ability or the opportunity to do these things. We need to do them back to him not for somebody else.

Solomon says whatever you do to do it well because when you go to the grave there will be no work, planning, wisdom, or knowledge. There are so many uncertainties in this life but one thing that is certain is death. When death comes for you there’s no more opportunity to enjoy the gifts this life has to offer. I want to pause here because I don’t want you to misunderstand what I’m saying. Solomon isn’t trying to compare and contrast life with the afterlife. That would be foolish! Solomon knows that our relationship with Jesus is best possible thing for us to ever want. The afterlife for us is far greater than anything we could ever experience or anything we could ever accumulate. I would gladly trade anything that I have here on this Earth for the perfect relationship I will have with Jesus. So, when I look at what Solomon is saying I don’t think he’s comparing what you can experience and the joys of this life can offer with the afterlife. That doesn’t even compare. I think he is trying to compare and contrast life simply with death. Meaning that when it’s over it’s over. When you die there’s no more opportunity to enjoy what you can here in this life.

I try to tell our student athletes to enjoy the time when you can play sports, whether you play football, soccer, cheerlead, etc. While you can do these things in school, enjoy it because one day you may be a 30-year-old washed-up athlete who would do anything to go play again. Sometimes I look at these guys that play football or basketball and think I could still keep up with them. I wonder if I shaved my beard if it would take some age off and I could get some eligibility back. Maybe Coach Osborne sign me up for a game or two. It doesn’t work that way. Once you get out of that stage can’t go back. It is important for us in the moment, when it’s right and when it’s appropriate, to enjoy the simple things.

The danger that we have in our culture right now is the “can’t wait” mentality. This isn’t a “I’ve got to have it now” mentality. That’s something completely different. This is that “I can’t wait until” type mentality.  I’ve learned this as a new parent. I’ve watched my little boy grow up, he’s almost two. There’s moments where I find myself saying, “Man its going to be so much fun when Austin is a little bit older and we can get to do these things together.” Then I start planning things in my mind of what dad and son are going to be able to do. If I’m not careful I can miss some really precious moments that I have with him right now in this stage and in this innocence. I see this with parents especially with moms. They say, “I love my little girl. I can’t wait for her to start crawling. It will be so much fun. I can’t wait until she starts walking because and we can take walks in the park. We can go places and it’ll be great. I can’t wait for her to start school because then she can make friends and we can have people over. I can’t wait for her to start driving because she can help run errands and go grocery shopping. That will be really good for me. I can’t wait for her to graduate and go off to college. That’s going be a great day for her! I can’t wait for her to meet her husband and give me grandkids.” What you’ve done before you even notice is you’ve “can’t waited” yourself through every precious moment that you had with her. You never took advantage of the time that you had with her.

We men can be guilty of the same thing by trying to go for that next promotion or the next step in your job because you think if you could just get there it will benefit us and we can live a little. I think what we find is when we get to that next step it demand’s a little bit more of us. It pulls us a little more away from our family. Even though we think if we can just get there we can slow down, it really never does that. Don’t “can’t wait” yourself through the precious moments that you have right now. Enjoy the simple things in life while you can. Solomon is saying you can’t predict when death is going to come and you can’t borrow time from tomorrow.

II. Run hard despite the obstacles

Ecclesiastes 9:11-12
I have observed something else under the sun. The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise sometimes go hungry, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time. 12 People can never predict when hard times might come. Like fish in a net or birds in a trap, people are caught by sudden tragedy.

These verses are the epitome of saying, “Life’s not fair.” You’ve done everything right. You’ve dotted your i’s. You’ve crossed your t’s. You’re bigger, stronger, and faster than anyone else on the field. You are smarter and brighter than anyone else in the room. At least on paper there’s no reason why you shouldn’t come out on top. Except there’s this one little thing. There’s this unpredictable nature of the human experience that sometimes throws everything out of whack.

In these verses Solomon gives us five illustrations or five scenarios of how unpredictable life can be. It’s not hard for us the find moments in life or in history where the bigger army or the more experienced army didn’t win the battle. Or maybe when the better team didn’t win the game. In fact, this happened this past weekend. College football kicked off this past Saturday. North Dakota State was playing at Montana. That probably means nothing to anybody here. North Dakota State is the four-time defending national champion in their division. Montana was not even ranked in the top ten in the same division. On paper when you look at these two teams North Dakota State should have wiped the field with Montana. This should have been a blowout. North Dakota State should’ve been looking forward to the second, third, and fourth games of the year. With two seconds left in the game Montana ran a play into the end zone for the win and upset number one North Dakota State. If you follow college football, when you lose the first game of the year that’s not a good thing for the rest of your season. You may have pretty much lost all ability for the rest of your season to compete for a national championship. So we saw this past weekend the best team doesn’t always win. Sometimes the wise go hungry. The guy or the gal who thought everything through and they had contingency plans for contingency plans and sometimes it just doesn’t work out.

What’s being reinforced here is that the world as we know it is finite. Sin has twisted this life into something that God didn’t intend for it to be. So I like what Solomon is doing here. I think he’s trying to reduce our expectations a little.  I think that he’s saying just because you work hard you don’t automatically win a prize. I love what James Harrison did. He landed himself in the news a few weeks ago. He did something really bold and brave. James Harrison is a two-time Super Bowl winning linebacker from the Pittsburgh Steelers. He sent back two trophies that his nine and six-year-old sons brought home from participating with next level athletics. He took a picture of these two trophies at his house and put this caption underneath and posted it online. He said, “I came home to find out that my boys received two trophies for nothing. Participation trophies! While I’m very proud of my boys for everything they do and will encourage them to the day that I die, these trophies will be given back until they can earn a real trophy. I’m not about to raise two boys to be men by making them believe that they’re entitled to something just because they tried their best. Sometimes your best is not enough and that should drive you to want to do better.”

I like this guy! I think I can get behind his parenting here. My wife might not feel the same way if I send some awards back that Austin brings home that he didn’t actually earn but were just given. Harrison understands that life isn’t always going to go your way when on paper it looks like it should. Now you might think this is really easy for NFL football player to do. However, Harrison wasn’t handed anything in life. He’s a football player that didn’t get a scholarship after he graduated high school to go play college ball because he was too small by college standards to play defense. He had to walk on and earn a spot at Kent State. When he graduated from Kent State he didn’t get drafted in the 2002 draft because every NFL scout felt he was too small at 6 feet to play linebacker and too light at 225 pounds to play defensive end. So no one drafted him. He had to go play football in the European league and he got cut from them. He came back to the states and was able to sign on with a couple of teams. However, he didn’t get cut once, twice, or three times from the NFL. He was cut four times! It wasn’t until his second time with the Steelers that he finally made a name for himself. Here’s a guy that on paper shouldn’t even be in NFL but he worked his tail off and earned it. He wasn’t handed anything in life.

Some days you beat the course because you are bigger, stronger, and faster. Sometimes the course beats you even though your bigger, stronger, and faster. When we look back at verse 11, Solomon says that all of this is decided by chance or by being in the right place at the right time. I don’t believe for a second Solomon is talking about luck or chance. What I do believe he is saying is that your entire existence in life the good and the bad, the success and the failures, the sickness and the health it’s all a part of God’s sovereign plan. Ultimately it’s all under his control. It is much like what the apostle Paul says about God in Romans 9:15-16 where God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy. He will have compassion on whom he will have compassion. It depends not on human will or exertion but on God who has mercy. You can’t predict how this life is going to go for you. You can’t predict what circumstances are going to come your way. But, you can control your response to these things. You can control whether or not you’ll glorify God through your sickness and your health. Or whether or not you’ll glorify God through your success and in your failure. Or whether or not you’ll glorify God through your joy and in your sorrow. Winston Churchill captured the essence of this verse when he said, “Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It’s the courage to continue that counts.” Success is not final. Just because you succeeded today doesn’t mean that you have a pass for tomorrow or that it’s all the going to go your way again. Also, just because you may have failed today doesn’t mean that that’s a fatal mistake and that you can’t try again tomorrow. It’s the courage to get back up the next day and to continue that counts. No matter what this life may throw at you, run hard despite the obstacles but also be grateful for the work of others.

III. Be grateful for the work of others

Ecclesiastes 9:13-16
Here is another bit of wisdom that has impressed me as I have watched the way our world works. 14 There was a small town with only a few people, and a great king came with his army and besieged it. 15 A poor, wise man knew how to save the town, and so it was rescued. But afterward no one thought to thank him. 16 So even though wisdom is better than strength, those who are wise will be despised if they are poor. What they say will not be appreciated for long.

To me it is unlikely here that Solomon is referring to an actual battle. This reads more to me like a parable. Maybe this was a battle that he was in earlier in life; maybe it wasn’t. Maybe this is about two neighboring nations that he watched go at it with each other; maybe it wasn’t. I think what he is communicating because he’s seen hopeless situations like this before is that it doesn’t always go to the bigger of the armies even if they have you surrounded like in this case. He’s really pointing back to what he just said in verse eleven. Even if this army has you fully surrounded its not a guaranteed win. Also wisdom may not bring you a reward or anything even if it’s the sole reason you survive this attack from this other Army that is bigger and more dominant then you are. So for us today we live most definitely in a glitz and glamour society. We honor and praise wealth, attractiveness, and success in life. While you may possess every physical ability to succeed on your own, Solomon is trying to warn us today that maybe it is those that go unnoticed that may be most responsible for the success of others. So, be grateful for those who’ve come before you. Don’t put off the wisdom of others that have come before you. It really may be those that are under the radar type that are most responsible for where you are at today.

One the most successful investors of the twentieth century, Warren Buffett said that someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. I think about that. I think about the privilege that I have to work with the students that I get to work with here at Calvary and all the youth pastors, student leaders and parents that came before me to lay a foundation for me to one day come and build on. It’s an awesome privilege to be able to do that. I may never know the names of the people who were so instrumental in me being able to even stand on this stage. I have to be grateful for the work of others. I also need to be aware of what foundation I’m laying for those who are going to come after me years and years down the road. You may need to think about that as well. Whatever it is you’re doing in life be grateful for the work of others that have put into place the ability for you to be where you are.

Maybe today none of this really make sense to you because Jesus isn’t the center of your life. You aren’t able to understand what it means to really enjoy the simple things in life, what it means to run hard despite the obstacles, or to be grateful for the work of somebody else. Jesus isn’t the perspective through which you’re looking at all of this. I really want pray that you would realign your heart with Jesus, that you and him would come to a genuine relationship together. So, that you can look at the finished work of Jesus on the cross and enjoy a relationship with him that starts today and lasts forever. And, so you can enjoy the simple things in this life because you have a future hope to look forward to. When life gets difficult and when it gets challenging it doesn’t leave you defeated because you have a Jesus who is right there by your side that’s helping you. You’re looking toward that perfect relationship with him in Heaven to get you through it. Ultimately you’re not depending on yourself anymore to get through this life but you’re depending on the work of Jesus and his perfect life that he gave up on the cross for you.

Next Steps

• Today I realize Jesus is not the center of my life and for the first time, I pray to Jesus to be my Savior and Lord.

• I commit to slow down and enjoy the simple life each day as God’s gift to me.

• I am struggling to live for Jesus because of my current circumstances. Please pray that I would remain faithful and seek to glorify Him through this circumstance.  

Discussion Questions

1. Where do you live “fast” in life and find yourself missing the simple things?
2. Read Colossians 3:17, 23. What obstacles in life past or current, have kept you from giving your all to Jesus?
3. Someone recently said “I find it easier to stay faithful when the pressure is on than when it is not.” From your experience in life, do you agree or disagree? Why?
4. Because our future is so uncertain, how does one learn to treat today as God’s gift?
5. Many people have come before you in life to “pave the way” for your opportunities. What are you doing right now to lay a foundation for others to build their legacy on?
6. Pray that we would treat each day, regardless of good or bad, as a precious gift from God.