It is designed that if you can only go to Friday or Saturday, if you can only— like, maybe you can't get the time off work or whatever, you can just register for one of the two parts. So I'd— we'd far more rather you guys come Friday. Friday is going to be kind of marriage envisioning, and then Saturday morning is going to be more of a workshop, the nuts and bolts of how you live as a husband or a wife to please the Lord. So, uh, if you— if that kind of makes you go, 'Oh, I didn't know, I thought I had to go to both,' you can just go to one, and we'd still love to have you join us. We have so much fun stuff planned that I wish I could tell you about, but some of it is going to be a surprise on Friday especially. So I hope you guys will join us for that. And I want to invite Larry to come up. Larry, as I was talking to Larry yesterday— not yesterday, last week after the sermon— found out that Ecclesiastes has been a book that Larry has actually walked with for a lot of his life and has made a huge difference. And so even though just last week and this week we're basically introducing the book of Ecclesiastes to you, I wanted you to hear a real-life example example of the difference it's made in our brother Larry's life over the many years. So, can we thank him for sharing with us this morning, guys?
Can you hear me? Okay. I'm just checking with the pro over there on the sound system. He said many. Years. Next week I will celebrate my 78th birthday. Happy birthday! Woo! Actually, having said that, that's not entirely correct. It should be this way: Thanks be to God who has allowed me to live long enough to see my 79th year. There, we got that straightened out. Fast backward to last week, Ricky began preaching his sermon on Ecclesiastes. He immediately hit a nerve with me. As he was reading Ecclesiastes, I was impressed how closely my life had tracked alongside this book buried deep in the Old Testament. So here are a few— here's one, a couple of reflections on how that book has stuck with me through a full life. I'll be quoting from the NIV, so it may not sound completely familiar. Back in the 1970s, when the Dallas Cowboys were kings of football, Their wins and losses determined my outlook toward work. Here's how it worked. They were the wind, I was the weather vane, the flag. The day after the game, I would bring— if they won, I was up. If they lost, it wasn't pretty. The day after the game, I would bring my distorted perspective to work to confront my moody, couldn't-ever-please boss. Much to the relief and the support of my wife Marian and kids, I started some soul searching. I began in Ecclesiastes, verse 2, chapter 1, just where Ricky started last week. Meaningless. Meaningless, says the teacher. Utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless. That's a direct quote, incidentally. Ironically, that was the most encouraging, uplifting verse I could have read at the time. Right? It pointed out how meaningless my attitude toward the Cowboys was, how fruitless my anger was concerning events that took place 600 miles away, or more. It brought into perspective what was driving me, where I was placing my faith, and how I related to people. Incidentally, my boss had the same outlook I did. Speaking of temperamental bosses, I worked for him for 7 years. He found great delight in tormenting me. He especially enjoyed pointing out my shortcomings in front of our colleagues, and even better if it was a large gathering of our local professional association. Every day I'd pray, 'God, please release me from this job.' Is that today? I was stuck in a dead-end career. We were barely keeping our financial heads above water. I was working all hours of the night and raising 3, eventually 4 kids at the time. What fruit was I seeing? What contribution was I making? Is it worth it? Where am I going with this? Yes, even as believers, we question our purpose and existence. Verse 11, chapter 2 describes my condition: When I surveyed all that my hands had done and all what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, chasing after the wind. Nothing was gained under the sun. But the encouraging side of Ecclesiastes was also ever-present. Verses 24 and 25 in chapter 2 says, 'A man could do nothing better than eat, drink, and find satisfaction in his work. This too I see is from the hand of God, for without him Who can find enjoyment?' And over in verse 13 of chapter 3, that every man can drink, find satisfaction in the toil, this is the gift of God. Whoa! Hand of God, gift of God. Here's a gift right in front of me I hadn't even found, buried in Ecclesiastes. The gift of enjoyment and satisfaction. It said to me, 'Larry, bloom where you're planted.' Each time I recall this gift, I feel uplifted, redirected, and refreshed. Then I can get back to work with a biblical attitude. So, at age 78, what do I have to look forward to? Ecclesiastes, specifically verse 19 in chapter 5. Moreover, when God gives man any wealth and possessions and enjoys— enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work, this is the gift of God. Whoa, whoa, I'm supposed to accept the slippery slope of aging? Is that what I'm supposed to do? Am I supposed to be happy that it takes twice as long to do only half the lawn? And then I take a nap. I must recognize, though, that this reset is another gift from God. I must quit lamenting over what I can't do anymore and focus on what I can do in spite of my increasing limitations. And what is my work now? Keep serving the body of Christ, specifically Cross of Grace Church. Thank you for listening. God bless your hearts, and happy Ecclesiastes. Amen.
Oh, man. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it. Excellent. Well, please then turn in your Bibles to the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 2. If you're new to your Bible, or maybe don't quite remember where it is, it's— if you find the Psalms right in the middle of your Bible, flip a few pages to the right and you will find it. And much of what we're aiming to do last week and this week is introduce you to this book and help you see it as maybe something that you've not paid much attention to in your Bible, but something that actually is full of perspective and life. And today, We're going to be diving into exactly what Larry was speaking about in the middle of his testimony related to God— getting God's perspective on our work and our daily life. Ecclesiastes chapter 2, we're going to begin reading in verse 18. And as we read, let's remember this is God's Word. 'I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun.' seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun. Because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation; even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God, for apart from Him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases Him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give it to who pleases— the one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after the wind. This is the Lord's Word. And, Lord, I pray that You would bless it, bless the hearing of it and the teaching of it in Your house this morning. Amen.
Well, as we talked about last week, Ecclesiastes is an unusual book. If every book of the Bible came to us with, kind of, embodied in a person, perhaps Romans would be a well-to-do guy in a suit that has a pocket watch and those fancy-looking glasses, and Mark and Acts are full of action and they're the life of the party and they're always going here and there, they're never pausing or resting at all, and Ecclesiastes is That guy dressed in black that you hope you don't end up getting stuck to talking to at the party. Because you go up and you're like, 'Hey, man, how's it going?' And he's like, 'Have you ever thought about death? We're all going to die. Your bones dust.' You're just like, 'Okay. All right. I'm going to go back over here. I hope you have a good time.' And before he goes, he says, 'Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before you go, I want to invite you to something. I'm doing a seminar.' You're like, 'You're doing a seminar? What's your seminar on? Is it on how to be depressed?' And he's like, 'No, it's called "Enjoy Your Life." I hope you can make it.' And then he walks away. And you're like, 'That doesn't seem— that's not what I expected. I did not expect a guy all in black to be teaching a seminar called "Enjoy Your Life."' But that is exactly what you get in the book of Ecclesiastes, these heavy doses of realism, of deconstruction of life. And then you get this repeated phrase, 'All is vanity, all is vanity, all is vapor, all is dust and air.' And then the sub-theme through the whole book is this: enjoy your life. We saw it in chapter 2, 'There's nothing better for a person that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.' We see it in chapter 3. 3:12 says, 'I perceive that there is nothing better.' for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live? Also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man. And again in Ecclesiastes 5:18, behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him. 'For this is his lot.' And so you have these two contrasts: the vanity of life, the vaporousness of life, and the enjoyment of life that don't seem like they should go together, but actually they have to exist together.
So, two sections today, and again, this is a very brief flyover of these themes. The first section is work. Your work is dust. So, take joy in it. Your work is dust. Whatever your career is, whatever work you do 9 to 5 on Monday through Friday, it's dust. And the first thing Ecclesiastes does is helps us by deconstructing our work, reminding us that our achievements are dust. For example, in Ecclesiastes chapter 2, notice in Ecclesiastes 2 it's a scenario where where somebody works really, really, really hard, achieves something, and then all of a sudden realizes, I'm going to give this to somebody who didn't work at all for it. Maybe you work hard at your work department, you build the team, you have everything ready to go, and then all of a sudden you get pulled or fired or you get moved and somebody else who didn't do any of that work just inherits it, right? You're just thinking, man, ugh, I'm so frustrated by that. That, Ecclesiastes tells us, is a reminder that life and work are a vapor. That word 'vanity' literally means vapor. It means that wisp of smoke off the tea kettle. It means, maybe for us in the desert, it means a handful of dust or dirt thrown into the air that goes, 'Tss,' just dissipates. That is your work. So, it helps us. And points out— it points out that achievements, looking to achievement to satisfy you in your life, is pointless because it becomes dust and air after us.
It also reminds us that legacy, our legacy is dust, meaning that if you think, 'Okay, I'm going to pass this on to somebody. This is going to survive me, my achievements, my studies, my degree. This will mean something.' Now Ecclesiastes 5 says this. This is an evil I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt. Meaning they're holding on to their wealth even at the point of hurting themselves because they're not spending any of it. And those riches were lost in a bad venture. And he is father of a son, but he has nothing in his hand. Meaning you plan and you're careful and you save and you think, okay, I'm going to pass this on. This will outlast me. This will be my legacy. This will be my achievement. This will be the thing that puts me on the map. This will be my legacy. And yet, in the end, one bad venture and it's gone. One misstep, one kind of false move, and it all crumbles down. And Ecclesiastes helps us. It deconstructs our craving for legacy, our craving to be something, to put our identity in our work. Saying, 'Don't do it. It's all dust and air.'
6 · Ricky expounds Ecclesiastes 4:4 and 5:15 to show that possessions are driven by envy and cannot accompany us beyond death
And then it comes to us and says that possessions too are dust. The fruit of your work is dust as well, meaning Ecclesiastes 4:4, 'Then I saw that all toil and all skill and work come from a man's envy of his neighbor. And this also is vanity and striving after wind.' So you see somebody and they have something you want, you get a car only to see, 'Oh man, the next year's model is way better.' Why did I buy this year? You know? Or maybe a new phone comes out and somebody pulls out their phone— and now they're like unfolding phones or like ching-ching-bluh-bluh-ching— turned into a robot, takes his picture, and then folds back up like a Transformer. That's what those phones seem like to me. And you realize, 'I want that phone.' Like why did I get stuck in this 10-year contract? I want the new phone, that one! Takes 3D pictures. But if you get it, here's what's going to happen. There's going to be a new one. Right? Everything, all the possessions. Ecclesiastes 5:15, it says this, 'As he came from his mother's womb, he shall go again naked as he came and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry it away in his hand.' Meaning this, nobody takes any of their possessions with them to the grave. All of it. I think of that great scene at the end of Citizen Kane. In case you've ever seen it, it's this guy who— who builds an empire and his home is filled with stuff, exotic things, powerful things, symbols of his magnificence. And yet he dies alone after destroying all of his relationships. And when he dies, they just start throwing everything into the fire, right? All the sum total of his grand possessions, they don't even know where to put them. They just start burning them. This is what happens. Possessions are dust.
7 · Ricky expounds Ecclesiastes 5:10-12 to show that the pursuit of money is insatiable—every income level desires just a little more—and that wealth brings anxiety rather than rest
And the pursuit of money is also dust. Ecclesiastes 5:10, 'He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income.' They've done studies and studies about people who have certain incomes. And when they ask people, 'How much money is enough money?' It's always just a little more than they have, right? If you're making $50K, you're like, 'Well, if I made $60K, I'd be safe,' you know? If I'm making $75,000 and I made $100,000, then I would— then I would— I don't need those millions like the millionaires. I'd be more than happy. You know what happens to the people that make $100,000? They wish they had $200,000. You know what happens to the people that make $1 million? They wish they had $2 million, right? It just keeps going on and on and on, this pursuit of income or money or wealth. In verse 11, it says, 'When goods increase, they increase who eat them. And what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes?' Right? California, there's all these amazing boats that are out there on the marinas, and they're in the dock because their owners aren't on them. They're at the office paying for the boats. And they come and they look at the boat and they're like, 'What a boat.' And then they go back to the office. Right? This, this is what Ecclesiastes is pointing out. This is madness. It's madness. Verse 12, 'Sweet is the sleep of a laborer.' whether he eats little or much, meaning a guy who just puts in a day's work, gets paid, buys a Whataburger, goes home, watches a Cowboys game, he sleeps well. But the full stomach of the rich will not let them sleep. Meaning that they're thinking, 'Oh, man, what about this? What about investments? What about the company? What about—' You know, those guys up at night. Meaning these pursuits of achievements, of legacy, possessions, of money, of income, of— whatever is enough, Ecclesiastes says all of it is a handful of dust thrown into the air. Psss. It dissipates. That's everything.
8 · Ricky names the core idolatry: when work or its fruit becomes the source of hope, peace, security, fulfillment, and satisfaction—roles that belong to God alone
And the problem is when we begin to see our work or the things it buys as the source of our hope, peace, security, fulfillment, and satisfaction.
9 · Ricky physically displays 5,000 pages representing 12 years of pastoral writing, confessing that he remembers almost none of it and that the congregation doesn't either
Okay, I need the paper now, finally. These guys have been waiting patiently to bring me the paper. This is the paper. I didn't have this in the first service, so the service is going to be way, way better. This is paper, all right? You guys see this? I've got, I think, 10 reams of paper. Is that right? Yeah, 10 reams of paper, 5,000 pages of paper. Okay, the reason I have this paper is that I went this week and I tried to calculate how many pages of writing of writing and teaching have I done in the 12 years I've been a pastor here, right? So out of this spot, or in my office, how many pieces of paper have I produced? It's more than 5,000, but this is enough for you to get the idea. We're going to get crazy if we go beyond this. Each one of these is 500 sheets. 10 of them, that's 12 years of work for me. But here's the challenge. I do not remember anything here, right? 10 years ago, what did I preach 10 years ago in August? I have no idea, okay? Or, you know, maybe think about it this way. Do you guys remember what we taught 3 years ago? Neither do I. I don't know, I could go look it up. And yet so many of these pages I have produced thinking this sermon, this writing, this is gonna do it. This is gonna, and if I'm honest, displaying selfish motives, especially early on in ministry, this one, people will love me then. This church will really like me after they hear this sermon. Man, as soon as I preach this sermon, you know, probably the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is gonna call me and say, 'We've been looking for the next Billy Graham everywhere.' And it's you. You're the guy. And I will say, 'Oh, my gosh, I'm so surprised,' even though I imagined it many times the first couple of years. And yet, here's the challenge: page after page after page after page produced with the hope that the next one is going to be what's satisfying. Or this will build the church so— the walls of the church, it'll build the church so strong that nothing will be able to shake it. And everyone will be good, and everybody will be happy, and everybody will like me, right? You begin to do this inner work, finding your identity, finding your peace, finding your security, finding your fulfillment, and yet all of it is just scattered into the air, never to be remembered.
10 · Ricky signals the structural shift from deconstruction to reconstruction—from 'your work is dust' to 'take joy in it
So then what do we do with that? What do we do with that? Well, second, Ecclesiastes helps us rebuild our view of work. I'm going to get back to the stack in just a minute.
11 · Ricky expounds Ecclesiastes 2:24, noting the active verb—'make your soul see the joy'—and then traces work back to Genesis 1-2, where God gave Adam the mandate to cultivate and protect before the fall
Because Ecclesiastes says in chapter 2, 'There is nothing better for a person that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.' Larry's translation said, 'Find satisfaction.' Or there's a footnote that literally it says, 'There's nothing better than you should make your soul see the joy of your work.' Meaning it's an active thing. The work in and of itself being produced will not be something you enjoy necessarily. In fact, you have to find the joy in it. You have to make your soul see the joy in it, but it is there. Now, in Genesis 1 and 2, God lays this out as he gives Adam and Eve a job. He gives Adam a job and says, 'Work and keep, cultivate and protect this garden that I've given you. Fill the earth and subdue it.' He gives Adam and Eve this work. Before the fall, some of you guys might be thinking, man, my work is all a result of the fall. Everything I do from the job to the task, it's all a result of the fall. No, there is— it's there. Thorns and thistles are all over the place in our work, but underneath it, there is an innate goodness and joy and dignity to work that each of us has because we've been given a task, a job, a toil by God. And him giving us that toil is not because he hates us, but because he loves us. Because he's for us.
12 · Ricky applies the Genesis 1-2 mandate to specific vocations in the congregation: landscape architects cultivate beauty, chefs create from raw materials, soldiers and lawyers protect, medical professionals restore what sin has broken
Think about those categories of Genesis 1 and 2, to work or to cultivate, right? Some of you guys have jobs where you make things beautiful with the kind of raw materials in the world around us, right? Probably the easiest example is I was talking to a brother of ours, one of our deacons, Jonathan, who's a landscape architect. So he literally spends his whole day using materials God has designed in nature to make pleasing, beautiful spaces for the earth. And so I told him, after this sermon, I'm going to recommend everybody go into landscape architecture. Abandon your jobs immediately. Subdue the earth. We will be a church of landscape architects. And he's like, well, that— I don't know about that. So maybe don't do that. But if you— listen, I think of another friend of ours who's a chef. He takes ingredients that God has given. He has the same ingredients. Look, here's the reality. Chefs have all the same ingredients the rest of us do. They just make amazing things out of them. So you put them together, right? Glimmers of the garden come through that. Or maybe protection. We have a number of soldiers and law enforcement folks in our church, and we're grateful for them. And I want you to see what you do tied back to Genesis 1 and 2. God says, Work and keep it, work and protect it. Any job in which you're protecting people, helping people, if you're a lawyer arguing for justice on behalf of somebody who needs justice, that is the work of the garden given to you. Or maybe the work of restoration. On the other side of the fall, these jobs have a restorative aspect to them because sin brings death and curse and illness and hardship. And yet, God in his graciousness, some of that cultivating and keeping come through medical professionals like nurses or doctors or physical therapists who are repairing bits of creation that are broken. Look, man, if you're a roofer or an insurance adjuster and your job is to help people not sleep under holes in their roof, awesome. That goes back to the garden. And so what I wanna encourage you to do as your homework for this week is figure out how does what you do relate to the original good mandate of Genesis 1 and 2. Whether it's teaching kids or enforcing the law or organizing file folders, all of it somehow relates back. There is a goodness in it.
13 · Ricky returns to the 5,000-page illustration and reframes it: these pages won't make him the next Billy Graham, but every one glorifies God
I love thinking of it in terms of craft. That word is helpful for me. God gives a craft to each and every human being, a toil, a craft. So look, see these 5,000 pages? They won't do what I hope they would, which is make me feel secure and happy and everyone loves me and I'm the next Billy Graham. They don't, they didn't do that. But each one of these pages is glorifying to God. It is, in a sense, look, it may not be something that I remember or you remember, but each one of these pages Right? Imagine this is your work. Each day of your work that goes into the pile, boop, matters because it is part of what God has given you to do. So maybe it didn't change the world. Maybe you stock the shelves at Walmart only for a toddler to come by and brrr, you know, all the shelves, stuff's on the floor and you put the shelves back. But you know this, When you clocked out, the stuff was back on the shelves till the next toddler, right? It's one more day of work done well. And Ecclesiastes says, find the joy and dignity of it. Our world today is divided between— it's almost like the enjoy work people who somehow find the perfect career that they enjoy, and the rest of us who just toil in obscurity and anger and defeat and despair. Not so Ecclesiastes, because Ecclesiastes remind us all those people who you think are changing the world, they probably won't. It's all dust and air. And all those people doing work that nobody sees, there's an innate goodness and joy to it that nobody can take away.
14 · Ricky introduces the New Testament's deepening of Ecclesiastes: Jesus exposes work-as-slavery and offers himself as the true rest and security
And third section then, rebuilding work and redeeming work. Now, the New Testament doesn't contradict any of this, but it does infuse it with even more meaning. It deepens Ecclesiastes, if you could say it that way, because one of the challenges when we see the way that we think about work is that we are often in slavery to our work. Once we see our work as the source of our joy and fulfillment and satisfaction, once we hope that it won't be a vapor, once we hope it will last and it'll be our legacy and that degree on our wall will finally help us feel fulfilled, and respected, once we hope that our bank account is at a certain level so that we know that we matter, that's a slavery. Look, I can't tell you how many guys I— and men and women who have— I've seen sacrifice relationships and family on the altar of work to try to achieve an identity or a wholeness that is ever elusive. But Jesus comes and Jesus points out, just like Ecclesiastes, this will not do what you think it's going to do. This can't be your God. You can't live to serve this. That's a slavery. But Jesus holds out his arms and says, 'Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you,' meaning take his mantle upon you, take his work upon you. And find yourself restored. And so what he does is he dies for our idolatry. He dies for our attempts to make work our God. He sacrifices himself in our place and then begins to redeem and restore every part of our life, including our work. And once we see, okay, Jesus is my security, not my job. Jesus is my identity, not what's in my bank account. Jesus is my satisfaction, not— finally achieving that one possession I've longed for. Once we get that in right perspective, it begins to transform and free us in the way that we work.
15 · Ricky expounds Colossians 3:23 ('work as unto the Lord') and applies it to the 5,000-page stack: forgotten by the congregation and by him, but remembered and received by God
Because then Colossians 3 comes in where Colossians says, 'Do your work hard and work as unto the Lord.' Meaning we don't make our work our god and then use our lives to serve it. We make God our life and use our work to serve him and everything that becomes a meaningful act of worship to a God who sees and receives all of it. Look, this stack of sermons and pages and stuff like this, like if I went through and you— I thought about doing this. I really did think about printing like 12 years of sermons. But then I knew that Todd, on our team of kind of financial people, would be like, that may not be the best stewardship. To blow through 10 reams of paper for a sermon illustration. So, Todd, this is for you. I'm just— I'm going to put it back. Is that okay? Okay. But all of it, in a sense, thrown into the wind and forgotten by most of you, forgotten especially by me. You know who's not forgotten by? Every single one of these pages done unto the Lord is remembered by him and received by him. And that means every day, every page, every spreadsheet matters because it matters to God. And that, brothers and sisters, that frees you then to enjoy your work. You may have a boss, like Larry was describing, that is really out to get you and nothing you do is ever good enough for them, but Colossians remind us, 'Do your work as unto the Lord.' And it may never be recognized here, but in eternity, the Lord rejoices over it. So enjoy your work.
16 · Ricky transitions from work to daily life—the hours after clocking out
And I can only barely introduce this, but then I want to encourage you to enjoy your daily life as well. Enjoy your daily life. So think, okay, work is probably a big portion of your week. What about the rest of your week? What about when you're eating? What about when you're sleeping? What about when you're hanging out with the family? Well, Ecclesiastes introduces this category of enjoy your food and drink, which I think is in some senses a stand-in for the daily stuff of life. Right. And I know that because later they talk about in that same vein, talk about enjoying the ones you love, enjoying your spouse. So this is, this is when you clock out from work, whatever you're doing, then this is what's being addressed. And here's the caution. The caution again from Ecclesiastes is this. That if you look to your daily life, your experiences, you chase highs, you have hopes for a hobby, and you think, okay, those things are gonna satisfy me, they won't, right? Ecclesiastes 2:10 says this, 'Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them.' This is the king. He has an unlimited bank account, right? Every car, everything, every hobby, every whatever, every person he wants, I kept from my heart no pleasure. And in the end, he concludes, all is vanity. He thought maybe this, this experience, this high, this thing, this vacation, this, you know, perfect whatever, that's going to satisfy me. No, he says in the end. He reports back. So listen, think about this guy's an experimenter. He goes, he experiments with everything that you think, if only I had that, if only I experienced that, if only I could go on that vacation. Right? I don't know why, but from watching PBS for many years, there's always the, like, that ad for the Viking River Cruise. And the person's always like, 'The Viking River Cruise.' He says it like that. And you're just like— and there's these, like, shots, and there's, you know, waterfalls, and they're eating food, and you're just like, 'Oh, man, if I experienced that, then I would be happy for the rest of my life.' Right? One Viking— and they even have a guy that comes on and is like, 'All of your possessions can be lost, but your experiences remain forever.' And you're just like, 'That's so true. It's so true. Honey, how much money do we have?' And here's the reality. The guy, the king of Viking River Cruises, in Ecclesiastes said, 'I did all of them. I went around the world twice on them.' They're all vanity. 'Cause you won't remember that meal you ate. You're gonna forget on your deathbed. You're not gonna be like talking about, 'Oh man, when we were in Switzerland.' No, you're gonna be dying. You're not gonna remember any of that. Your memory is gonna get faded. And this is what Ecclesiastes is trying to help us with, say, 'Guys, do not live for those things. They will not ultimately satisfy you.'
17 · Ricky applies the Ecclesiastes critique to digital life—social media, follower counts, vicarious vacation-following
And let me just briefly make a kind of a corollary application to digital life. So much of our life now is digital. We live on social media. We live on— maybe you're a Reddit forum person. I know one guy that's like a Wikipedia guy. They just go in and edit Wikipedia. Look, whatever it is. And we think, okay, man, once I have a certain number of followers, once I have a certain amount of notoriety, once I experience these things, once I— maybe you're living vicariously. You're not even doing the vacations. You're just following people on the vacations. And you're like, oh, if only I could go on this vacation. No, Ecclesiastes is saying, Don't set your hope, your peace, your satisfaction, your life, your security in those things. They are ephemeral. Like, and I know this because I am of the MySpace generation, right? When MySpace came out, we were all, this is going to be around forever. Spoiler, it wasn't. Remember getting on Twitter and be like, this is the future. Twitter is going to last forever. It's not even Twitter anymore. I don't even know. It's like an X thing. It's a black thing. I don't know what it is. This is what Ecclesiastes is pleading with us. Don't give your life to this.
18 · Ricky reframes daily life through Genesis 1-2's pattern of divine giving: God gave trees, the garden, daily pleasures
Instead, think of your daily life very differently. Remember in Genesis 1 and 2, one of the repeated phrases of that is that God gave. God gave the trees. God gave the garden. God gave these things. He's a generous God who gives freely of the daily pleasures and gifts from his hand to humanity. And what the writer of Ecclesiastes is trying to get you to do is to say this. Listen. You're so focused on your Viking River cruise one day that you are missing all of the daily gifts and joys that God has given you today. And your life is mostly today, not that one special day.
19 · Ricky illustrates with his own AeroPress morning coffee ritual—a $30 daily joy he looks forward to, versus the once-anticipated Disneyland trip that disappointed
And so let me give you an illustration of this. These are the two things that the writer of Ecclesiastes has been helping me with. And here, here, here is where I would go. I would think, man, I remember in the pandemic thinking, man, This is the worst, I just wish I could go to Disneyland. And then I did go to Disneyland, and my back was out the whole time, and I didn't get to enjoy it. And so, this is what I'm doing instead. Do you see this? This is my little fancy coffee thing, it's called an AeroPress. It will change your life. Okay? This is, I'm not getting paid for this endorsement, but here's what I realized, here's what I realized. I drink coffee every day. This thing costs like $30. And I make it, and I got a little ritual. I put a song on in the morning. I wake up, and I want you to know, I look forward to waking up in the morning because I know I'm gonna go downstairs, it's gonna be quiet without children for a few minutes. I'm gonna make the coffee, I'm gonna do my little routine, I'm gonna press the press down, I'm gonna listen to my song of the day, I'm gonna sit on the patio, I'm gonna sit there for 5 minutes and enjoy the birds singing, and then chaos begins as my kids run down the stairs and they're like, 'Dad, I can't find this 'cause you make me cinnamon toast,' blah, blah, blah, stuff. But here's what I've realized. I missed that moment almost the whole pandemic because every day I would wake up worried about what was going to happen the next day, worried about this, worried about my security, worried about my satisfaction. And once Ecclesiastes got hold of me, began to push me back and go, like, you're missing the joys of the day, right? This is what Ecclesiastes is meant to do. It's meant to help you see today as you go home, what are the joys and gifts of God that you so often are sailing by on your quest for that one big thing that will ultimately satisfy? Where can you receive, enjoy the gifts of God that he has already given?
20 · Ricky expounds 1 Corinthians 10:31 ('whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God') and applies it to the AeroPress moment: when Christ frees you from idolatry, every ordinary act—making coffee, eating breakfast—becomes an act of worship done unto him
And by the way, once you see the Lord and he frees you perhaps from that idolatry of chasing experience, chasing popularity, chasing whatever, then every experience, every moment is done as unto him. 2 Corinthians— 1 Corinthians 10:31 says this: 'Whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.' Means that when you make your AeroPress in the morning, or whatever, you know, whatever your thing is that day, whenever you experience the daily gift of God, you receive it and thank him for it. This is what we are meant to do.
21 · Ricky issues the second homework assignment: identify the daily joys you are missing while consumed with worry, work, or the news
So here's what the other piece of homework is this week. See the daily joys of your life. Maybe it's what you eat. Maybe it's what you drink. Maybe it's being with your family. Maybe it's— listen, sometimes, a lot of times I get to drive over Trans Mountain on my way to work or back and forth from work. It is unreal. But most of the time I miss it because I'm like, 'Argh, I'm just—' you know, I go into the work. Or I'll have the news on and be like, 'More bad things are happening again. Now for more bad things, I go to this person.' Hey, Frank, we got some bad things here, and it looks like they're going to continue. That's just like— that's the news. And I'm like, oh man, more bad things. Meanwhile, I'm just sailing through a mountain that we carved with human ingenuity. I mean, that's like filling the earth and subduing it, man. That is a highway in a mountain. So when I'm driving that over, you know, sunset's happening, the mountain's lit up. It is me saying, listen, My work is ephemeral. I don't know what's going to last, but this I can receive as a gift from God. Thank him and enjoy as unto him. Amen.
22 · Ricky concludes by returning to Larry's testimony: at 78, Larry is one of the most joyful people in the church, and his secret is Ecclesiastes
So this is, I think, what Ecclesiastes frees us to do. One of the other reasons I had Larry share is Larry said he was 78. He is one of the most joy-filled people. He and Marian are some of the most joyful people I know. And I think his secret might just be the book of Ecclesiastes. 'Cause when you realize, listen, all of it's ephemeral, we don't know what's going to last, it finally frees you to say, 'Listen, today I have good work from the Lord I can enjoy, and I have gifts from the Lord I can enjoy, and I can do both to the glory of God.' Amen?
23 · Ricky closes with a pastoral prayer of confession and petition: confessing the idolatry of looking to work, possessions, and experiences for life, peace, fulfillment, and security—roles that belong to God alone
So let's stand and let's commend kind of ourselves to the Lord in this moment. Lord, we just confess that so often we have— we do— Take the gifts you've given us, the gifts of work, the gifts of experience, the gifts of possessions, and we look to them for what should only be found in you. We make them, in a sense, into a god that we worship and serve and sacrifice for, hoping that it will be our source of life and peace and fulfillment and security. But Lord, we just confess right now as we are about to sing, that's you. You must be our life. You must be our security. You must be our— satisfaction. You must be our future hope. And so, Lord, I pray that if things need to be reset in our hearts, that you would reset them today as we sing, that the fear of the Lord, as we behold you in reverent awe, would put all things rightly into perspective. That we would see you as the point of our lives, see our work as a gift from you and an opportunity to glorify you, see our enjoyment as a gift from you and an opportunity to glorify you. We pray that you would reset our hearts, retune our hearts to sing your praise, that work and daily life might be transformed for the better. In Jesus' name, amen.