All right, good morning. It is good to see everyone in the house of the Lord today. I want to invite you to open your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 9. That may not be a typical place you open your Bible, but that's okay, because one of the things our church aims to do in our teaching of the Word is to teach all of the Bible for all of life. And so, by God's grace, if you're here for like 30, 40 years with me, we're going to get through the whole Bible. I don't know if you'll be there for all of that, but that is our aim. Our goal is that every single part of God's Word is active, and we want to teach it the way that God delivered it, book by book, section by section. So, we're going to be in Ecclesiastes chapter 9 as we pull out a particular theme in the book of Ecclesiastes.
And I'm going to introduce it just by reading one verse that I think sets the stage, and then we're going to cover verses 1 through 10. Verse 3, Ecclesiastes 9, verse 3, and let's remember this too is God's holy and authoritative Word. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun. That the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
And this too is God's Lord, we pray for Your blessing on the preaching and the hearing of Your Word in Your house today. May You open our eyes. May we get what You have intended from this section of Scripture. In Jesus' name, amen.
I want to tell you about the most intense alphabet I have ever encountered. It comes from the 1970s— I'm sorry, 1777, 1777 New England primer, and this contains, you know, some of the standard things you'd assume in a school-age primer, the vowels, the consonants, the double letters, the easy syllables, the words of one syllable, the words of 2 syllables, etc. Lessons for children. But then the alphabet is where it gets really fun. In— now when I say A is for, what's the first thing that comes into your mind? A is for Apple, right? No, it's not right at all. A is, according to the 1777 New England Primer, in Adam's fall we sinned all. Thus begins the alphabet. Some other favorites I have in this lesson, this alphabet lesson, is G. G is a personal favorite. As runs the glass, our life doth pass. You're like, wow, this is for 5-year-olds? And my absolute favorite is X, which is obvious. If you're a schoolteacher, you know, like, X is always a problem. What's X? They've got it for you. X. Xerxes the Great did die, and so must you and I. Imagine this just recited by schoolchildren. I love it.
Now, you may be tempted to think the Puritans were crazy, the New Englanders are nuts, but I want you to consider something about all the kids learning this alphabet. At this time in the 1700s in the United States, about a quarter up to a third of infants and children did not make it to adulthood. So, they lived in a world in which eternity and death were not somewhere down the road past retirement, they were right there. So, from the very beginning, they were dead earnest about teaching their kids to deal with the reality of life and death. Now, the reason this strikes us today as strange and maybe bizarre, maybe a little uncomfortable, is that our culture in particular in America excels at pushing the reality of death far from our minds.
Now, I'm not talking about the bloodless superhero crowd death. You know, where a tower falls and you're like, who are those people? They're just CGI people. We don't care about them. They're just— they're fake. Or a fake action movie, you know, blood death, like, ah, ah, and we all know they're not really dead, right? That stuff is all around us, but real death, real death is what we avoid. Centuries ago, for example, you would have walked into church past a church graveyard greeting people that you knew and grew up with. Every day on the way to church. But now we've moved the cemeteries further out, so we don't have to see them quite as often. Most people in centuries past died at home, where most here die in hospitals or other facilities. For centuries, people used blunt terms like, they died, they have died. That's what you read in the 1700s. But we prefer in our world to use language like, they passed away. Or they are no longer with us. And in previous cultures, grief was a public thing. You would wear black for a year in some cultures. It would be obvious. And yet grief in our American culture is relegated off to the side and intended to be dealt with privately so that it doesn't bother the rest of us having to think about death more while we enjoy our meal, right? We want that stuff pushed away from us.
6 · The preacher states the text's pastoral intent: Ecclesiastes 9 confronts death not to depress but to free
And yet Ecclesiastes chapter 9 will not let us do this. Ecclesiastes 9 pushes death back into the forefront of our mind to where we have to look at it. And yet the reason it does this is not to be mean, not to depress us, neither to paralyze us, but rather Ecclesiastes 9 wants— hear me on this— wants to free us to live and to live well. And so, we're going to look at this in 2 halves today. We're going to look at acknowledging death and then second half embracing life. I'm just telling you that so you know where we're going.
7 · The preacher reads Ecclesiastes 9:1-6 in full after warning it requires the preceding cultural framing
Number 1, acknowledging death. Now we're prepared to read verses 1 through 6 because I was a little concerned that you wouldn't make it through them without the preface. So verse 1, but all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know, but both are before him. It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to them all. Also, the hearts of the children of men are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever They have no more share in all that is done under the sun.
8 · The preacher extracts the first move from the passage: the call to acknowledge death's universality
First, this text calls us to acknowledge the reality of death. This same event, it says over and over, this same event happens to us all, regardless of whether we want to acknowledge it.
9 · The preacher introduces a secular productivity book that echoes Ecclesiastes' death-awareness
This is a recent self-help book, productivity book, and it's called 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. And it does have some good tips in here. Surprisingly, very much reflects some of the lessons of Ecclesiastes, but I want you to hear the opening line of it. The opening line is as follows: The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short. And you might think, oh, that doesn't sound very positive. The chapter title is worse: Introduction: In the Long Run, We're All Dead. So, if you're interested in that book, I've got it available.
10 · The preacher identifies two false paths people take to avoid death's reality: radical autonomy ('I do what I want') and radical moralism ('I'll be good enough to avoid suffering')
Now, listen, obviously it's provocative, but I think it is pushing us to reckon with the reality of this. And in particular, one of the things we have to reckon with is the 2 great sort of misconceptions about life. On one hand, some people think, well, I will live my life the way I want. I'll be so free that no one will tie me down. No one will constrain me. Nobody is going to tell me what to do. It is— we say things like, it's a free country, and I do what I want. But in the end, you won't. You'll be dead. Right? That's what this text is saying. I'm not being mean here. That's Ecclesiastes. You can break free of morality and religion and live life the way you want, but in the end, there is a reckoning. But similarly, the other side of life, other people think, well, I will in response be so good. I'll be so good that I'll avoid all the difficult things. I'll be so good and give so much money and say the right prayers. I'm going to be a good enough citizen or a good enough religious person. I'm going to be so good that I'll always be healthy and I'll always be wealthy and I'll live an abundant and pain-free life where I never have to encounter anything unpleasant. But in the end, Ecclesiastes says, You will, you'll be dead, right? These are the 2 paths of life.
11 · The preacher argues that confronting death produces wisdom — it cuts through pretense and forces clarity about what matters
And why is the preacher in Ecclesiastes bringing them into the forefront of our minds? Because there are lessons we must learn. Ecclesiastes 6 tells us that it is better to go to a funeral than to a party because of many of the lessons it provides. Psalm 90:12, asks God to teach us to number our days. Look, with this book, The 4,000 Weeks, one of the things the author says is when he tells people they have 4,000 weeks, if they live to be 80, you got 4,000 weeks. One of the things that people cannot help but doing is terrifyingly calculate how many weeks they have left. Everybody talks, you got 4,000 weeks. No, I don't. I have, like, that's what happens. And the psalmist says there is actually wisdom in acknowledging the finitude of your life that you might learn and be wise. There is a way in which death cuts through all of the smoke and mirrors of life and forces us to reckon with, oh my goodness, this is what life is.
12 · A personal story of the preacher's first encounter with death in a pastoral role — a child dying at El Paso Children's Hospital
I still remember a number of years ago, the first time I was in the room when someone passed away. I was a young pastor and one of the nurses in our church was working at El Paso Children's and they had a family from out of town whose child was about to pass away and they were looking for some kind of pastor to— they were believers, they were looking for some kind of pastor to be with them when it happened. And so I left the office, I went down, entered into the moment, I still remember I I don't know why, but in these moments it feels like the beeps and whirs and all the machinery is so loud. And I remember trying to meet people and enter into the reality of this moment that this child is about to pass from life to death. And then it happens. And I remember, you know, praying with the family, trying to be there as much as I could, and then driving back to the office here, walking up the stairs, going into my office, closing the door, opening my laptop and just thinking— this is the thought I had— I need to rethink everything in my life, right? Meaning that the sober reality of that provides a clarity for life that we often lack, doesn't it? It has a way of separating priorities from what matters and doesn't matter, doesn't it? It has a way of helping us see So many of the things that we're grasping and concerned with are nothing.
13 · The preacher expounds Ecclesiastes 9:6's reference to love, hate, and envy perishing with the dead
And one of the specific things this text does is it applies it to 3 particular areas of life, talking about how when it comes to the dead, their love and their hate and their envy have already perished. And think about those categories. I think they're instructive. Love means all the things that we're pining for, right? That one relationship that got away that we just keep thinking about, oh, if only I'd been with So-and-so, you know, from high school, they were so great, and I see them on Facebook now, and look at— you know, it's like caught up in that. Or those endless nights, that love of a career or an achievement that like, I'm gonna get this. I'm gonna achieve this. I'm gonna do this. The problem is this: that career and that achievement will be quickly passing, and that even industry may not exist in 20 years, and nobody will remember your name. All of these things that we're wrapped up in will fade like sand. And when we see it, we find ourselves able to do what we've been hearing the last few weeks and release those things rather than cling to them.
14 · The preacher moves to the second category: hate
The second category is hate. Now, this is really interesting to me. This was not something I expected. But think about all of the time we often spend in our hearts being resentful and angry and bitter. Bitter, right? Remember that one person who wronged you and how you so wish and long for them to get what is coming to them. And you're just, you're looking at them on Facebook and you're like, their life, and you're asking for information about them. And Ecclesiastes is going, why? Right? Or the promotion that you were passed over for. And you're just, it's, you're seething in it. And you've got something in your heart that's like, I just can't believe I was passed over for this promotion. And Ecclesiastes says that industry won't exist in 50 years and nobody will remember you anyway. Right? There was a striking, brutal clarity that comes from the writer going, why are you allowing this hatred to live in your heart? It's sand.
15 · The third category: envy
And then the third thing is envy. Oh man, this is such a big one for Americans. Look, we often as Americans live with a list of things we wish we had, don't we? Right, you see the Zillow commercial of all these homes that are available and you're like, those homes are way better than where I live. If only I could live in a Zillow commercial home, right? Or there's like a credit card commercial and The people are taking these vacations. I don't know where these places even are, but they're just like, there's boats and things and sun and scuba diving and fancy meals. And you're thinking, if I could have a vacation like that, you know, all this envy consumes our hearts. This, if I could only have this experience, if I could only have, go to that concert, if only I can have this home. Friends, Ecclesiastes reminds us it's all sand. All of it is sand.
16 · A personal family illustration makes the 'sandcastle' metaphor concrete: the preacher and his kids building a sandcastle, getting emotionally invested, then frustrated as the tide comes in
Look, each of us, the way I would say it is this, each of us has places in our lives. We are like kids building sandcastles, frustrated when the tide begins to come in. Look, this has happened with my kids at times where, where like you get wrapped up in what you're building. You know, you're like, this is actually a really cool sandcastle. Like, I mean, sure. But like, this one is really cool. And you start like a moat and you got to do this and you're doing that. And, and they start, you know, and you start, doing all these little towers and then all of a sudden the waves start coming closer and you start to get mad, right? You see the kids mad. And as a dad, I've been in there, I've been in the sandcastle and I'm getting mad. I'm like, we were almost done with this. I'm still trying to finish this thing. And I'm yelling at the tide. That's what Ecclesiastes 9 is telling us. So many of these areas that we're just, we're clinging to sandcastles that will, not last. And when you see it, Ecclesiastes tells us, when you see it, you can finally let go. And that's a gift.
17 · Structural pivot from the first death-acknowledgment (death itself) to the second (death after death, i
We acknowledge the reality of death, but then there is a second reality, acknowledge the death after death.
18 · The preacher zooms out from Ecclesiastes' ground-level perspective to the canonical backstory: Genesis 1-2 (life), Genesis 3 (sin, death)
Because Ecclesiastes is written from a very particular perspective on the ground level, from the kind of the borders of life, being born to death. But if we back up just a little bit, take a little bit of a wide angle shot, we see, okay, but why is death in the world in the first place? Because in Genesis 1 and 2, there is no death. There's only life, right? Adam and Eve living in— living as God's people in God's place under God's rule. And everything is going well. And so then how do we get from that to here? Well, the reason we get from that to here is Genesis 3. Human beings said, I don't want to be God's people. I want to be my own. I don't want to be in God's place. I want to be in charge. And I don't want to live under God's rule. I want to decide. And with that, sin brings death into the world. You see the irony. Human beings in seeking life cut themselves off from the source of life and as a result receive death.
19 · The preacher identifies the existential consequence of the fall: humans are 'profoundly unhappy' because they are 'trying to find a source of life that we have cut ourselves off from
And in the end, it's like, well, that's what you wanted. You wanted to be cut off from the source of life. And as a result, the writer of Ecclesiastes says, that's why there's madness and evil in our hearts and in the world, because we're all trying to build our own little worlds. We're all trying to find a source of life that we have cut ourselves off from. That's why we are profoundly unhappy as a human race.
20 · The preacher traces the protoevangelium in Genesis 3 forward through progressive revelation to Daniel 12 (resurrection to eternal life or everlasting contempt) and Hebrews 9:27 (death, then judgment)
And yet, It's not hopeless. And yet in Genesis 3, you get this hope that one day sin and evil will be crushed. And that kind of flowers as the revelation of God goes on. And you get to places like Daniel 12, which says this, many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake. And you're like, oh, that's good, right? That's good. Some to eternal life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And you're like, whoa, what is that? I don't know if I like that. Hebrews 9:27 similarly says, it is appointed for man to die once and after that face the judgment.
21 · The preacher explains final judgment in terms consistent with his earlier framing: if we have chosen to be cut off from the source of life, we receive that choice forever — plus the penalty for the evil we've done
Look, I don't want to oversimplify this, but in a sense, What the Lord will do at the end of your life and my life is we will stand before him and give an account. And if with our lives we have basically said we want to be cut off from the source of life, we will receive being cut off from the source of life forever. And not only that, we will receive the penalty for any of the evil or madness we ourselves have brought out into the world. Look, that's the reality.
22 · Direct application of the death-after-death reality to different life stages in the congregation: the 12-year-old who's never thought about death, the invincible 20-year-old, the 82-year-old calculating weeks
And here's where I think this text is so important for us. Have you really considered the fragility of life, friends? The frailty of life? You might be 12 years old and think like, yeah, I've never thought about death in my life, right? Or maybe you have, maybe you have because you've encountered it in your family. Maybe you're 20 and you feel invincible. And you feel like, yeah, I'm never gonna die, right? Maybe you're 82, maybe you're like, man, I think it— I don't have as much weeks as I thought I did right now. We need to grapple with this.
23 · Return to the Puritan alphabet, this time with a direct address to teenagers ('this one's especially for you')
Uh, it would be wise to take a lesson from the Puritans with G, like, like the glass our life doth pass. And here's one for all the teenagers, this one's especially for you. Why, while youth do cheer, Death may be near. You're like, boom, whoa, whoa, that is cold. That is cold. I have a personal belief that Puritans would have been great rappers if they'd only had 2 turntables and a microphone. But I mean, 'cause that's a rhyme. I mean, that's like, that's a twist, right?
24 · The preacher presses the application harder: ignoring the coming judgment doesn't make it go away
The reality is we think I'm fine, I'm invincible. That's not today, that's another day. We would do well to grapple with the fact that eternity is much closer and that appointment with the Lord is far closer than we often want to remember. And Ecclesiastes is not trying to be mean. It is trying to help us face the reality. Look, you ignoring the reality that you will stand before God will not make it go away. You will. So you best grapple with it now.
25 · A pastoral aside specifically addressing church kids and teens who've become acclimated to Christian language without personal urgency
But let me just encourage you, if you're a teen or a kid that's grown up in the church, you have gotten used to church churchy stuff. You've gotten used to being around church. And there may even be an idea like, well, I can take it or leave it. I can live as a Christian or not live as a Christian. Friends, you're going to stand before the Lord in the end. And so, what will your response be? This is dead earnest. This isn't life preference. You deal with the reality of death after death.
26 · Major structural pivot from 'death after death' (judgment) to 'death of death' (resurrection)
But third, the Bible doesn't just leave us there. It helps us acknowledge the death of death.
27 · The preacher traces the protoevangelium from Genesis 3 (serpent crushing) through Isaiah 25:8 (death swallowed up forever) to its climax: 'until one man taken by death stands back up
It gives us hope there because in Genesis 3, right after sin enters the world, there is a promise that this serpent who represents in that moment all evil, all sin, all the death that's been wrought into the world, God promises to crush the serpent one day. And you find promises like Isaiah 25:8, which says this, that God will swallow up death forever and the Lord will wipe away tears from all faces and the reproach of his people he will take away. From all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. Look, that is a promise that those of us who see life quickly passing, we need to be on the lookout for. We're like, can anybody do something about this? Can anybody face the great enemy that takes person after person and generation after generation? Right? No city has escaped it. No town has escaped it. No nation or empire has escaped it. No great king or wise man has escaped it. It's this endless flood of people living and dying and living and dying. And they go and pass away until— we should be highly alerted— until one man taken by death stands back up.
28 · The preacher names the unique claim of Christianity: Jesus Christ is the man who defeated death
All of a sudden we should be leaning in and going, who's that guy? Who is that guy? Right? Because you can lead an empire, you can deliver a bunch of pithy proverbs like the Buddha, you can be as great as King Xerxes or as great as Caesar, but who is this guy that has beaten death? And the New Testament zooms in and introduces us to the man Jesus Christ. Because in a world of endless tombs and endless graveyards, we best pay attention to the man who walked out of his tomb and walked out of the graveyard.
29 · The preacher expounds 1 Corinthians 15 to establish Christ as the second Adam who reverses the death Adam brought
And here is the glorious reality of this man. He, in doing so, in defeating death, opens a way to life for all who will follow him. 1 Corinthians 15 says it this way, for as by a man, Adam, came death, By a man has also come the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order. Christ the first fruits, meaning that the first crop out of the ground, then at his coming, those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying destroying every rule and every authority and power, for he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.
30 · The preacher uses two extended analogies to make Christ's defeat of death vivid: death goes from 'roaring lion' to 'house cat,' and from 'endless flood' to 'ferryman
Look, this, this is a a hero who has broken death itself, who has dealt a death blow to death. And for those who follow this hero, Jesus Christ, death is nothing more— he goes from, from a roaring lion to a servant, to a house cat. Death goes From this endless flood to a ferryman who all he does is shuffle those who have died in Christ to their eternal life. Right. This is what Jesus has done to death.
31 · Direct evangelistic appeal with a courtroom analogy: you can represent yourself in the judgment or have the best lawyer in the world
And so let me encourage you, friend. Do you know this Jesus? There is no more important question in your life today. And there will be no more important question in your entire life then what will you do with death? What will you do when you face the judgment? You can— and the Bible basically says there's 2 ways. You can either face it alone or you can face it with Christ. And I don't know about you, man, but I'm gonna go with the guy who defeated death. The one guy who's walked out of the tomb. Right? I'm like, I'm with that guy. You want to— it's almost like one of those moments. Do you want to represent yourself in court or would you like to have the best lawyer in the world? You're like, I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm just not sure. I really like being my own lawyer. And the Bible's like, no, friend. He defeated death and he has his arms open and says, come, come friend, come join me.
32 · The preacher explains how to respond to the gospel: reverse the Genesis 3 rebellion by submitting to God as his people, in his place, under his rule
And how do we receive him? We receive him. We reverse in a sense what went wrong in the garden. We say, I wanna be your people. I wanna be in your place and I wanna live under your rule. We put our faith in him as Savior and Lord, and we are welcomed to new life with him.
33 · Return to the Puritan primer to show that their death-awareness was paired with gospel hope: C (come to Christ), I (draw near to God), N (now is the time)
Look, you might think, okay, well, the Puritans, man, they just seem like real downers. Here's I, right? I— no, no, actually I can't even do I. I'm gonna give you 3. C, this is the word of God for you. Come unto Christ, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Let me say under death. And he will give you rest. Or I, which says it is good for me to draw near unto God. And N, now is the time. Now is the day of salvation. Right? Do you see what they're doing? They're going like, look, man, you got to think about eternity. But here's what you do. And here is the man who gives you hope. He says death is a reality. Yep, it is. But I believe in the death of death, in the death and victory of Christ. That's what this does for us.
34 · Major structural pivot from 'acknowledging death' to 'embracing life' — the sermon's second half
So we acknowledge the reality of death. And then second, we arrive at the second section. We embrace life.
35 · The preacher reads Ecclesiastes 9:7-10, the passage's turn from death to life
It almost feels like these must have been written by 2 different people, but they are indeed the same preacher, the same author talking about death. And look at verse 7. Go then and eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that He has given you. Meaning fleeting life He's given you under the sun. Because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do it. Meaning whatever work you do. Do it with all your might. For there's no work or thought of knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, meaning in the grave you won't be working in the same way to which you are going.
36 · The preacher identifies the controlling theme of Ecclesiastes: gifts
Now, what does this mean? First lesson, embrace the reality of life. One of the themes of the Book of Ecclesiastes is the theme of gifts. Now, in chapter 1, we learn that one of the gifts is a humbling gift, the gift that God reminds us that he is God and we are not, that we're finite, that we are mortal. We have to receive the gift of that. But then in that place, we can receive the joyful gifts of God for us. Right. The gift theme is in verse 7. Right. Drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Meaning if we're enjoying a table full of good things, God is the guy in the back of the restaurant nodding and saying, this is on me, right? That gift he sent there is for us. Or similarly, talking about the gift of a wife and the gift of work, these are gifts from God. And so we are to acknowledge the reality of death, but then we are to lean in to receiving and embracing the gifts of God in life.
37 · A personal family story illustrates gift-seeking: the preacher's boys at the Shavers' house for a scavenger hunt
Now, recently we were having dinner with the Shavers and they were super kind and they, they invited us over. And one of the great things they did is Kristen made like a little scavenger hunt for our boys. And as soon as my boys heard the word scavenger hunt with a prize at the end, the way that they looked at the house was totally different. Right? You walk in, you're like, okay, maybe there's something here. Cool. Maybe not. You know? All right. There's another painting. Great. Cool. Right? If you're a kid, that's the way you're thinking. But as soon as Kristen goes, oh, there's a scavenger hunt, their eyes are like, boom, okay, what do we got? What do we got? Anything out of place? Anything? I'm looking, I'm looking, right? They're like— and I think they assumed it would take them a couple of minutes. No, 60 seconds. They were like, like little, little, little Sonic the Hedgehogs zooming around the home finding— and what was the prize at the end of it? The scavenger hunt? Water guns. And they were like, yes, this is the best day ever. Right? And they didn't know what it was, but they knew there were gifts. They knew there were gifts. Friends, that's why the writer of Ecclesiastes is so joyful. That's why the preacher is assured that your life has daily gifts and big gifts and small gifts and work and home and family. Why is he so assured? Because God gives gifts. And he basically says, I want you to just be attuned and go find them. Right? This reality that the world is passing away is like, okay, there's a bunch of stuff we can release, but then our attention is turned back and we go, but there are gifts right here too. There are gifts right here too. What are these gifts I can embrace?
38 · The preacher expounds verse 7 by contrasting two postures toward joy: deferred ('I'll be happy when I achieve X') vs
So look at verse 7. Go eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has approved what you do. Look, Often we're waiting for some big life moment to be joyful about. It's like, I just got to grind. It's got to keep grinding. My life's going to be the worst until I get to this one pinnacle moment. Then it'll be happy. You know, I'm going to grind, but one day I'll be able to go eat whatever I want. You know, whatever restaurant, walk down to Cafe Central and say, I want everything. Right? That's the moment that I'm living for. And Ecclesiastes, you know what Ecclesiastes says? Ecclesiastes says, You know what else is great though? When you get the toast exactly right and before it cools, that's the key, before it cools, you get the butter on it and that starts melting right into those little crunchy pockets and you take the first bite and you're like, come on. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Right? That's what Ecclesiastes is saying. Is you're living for like, I gotta grind through and I gotta increase my income. And Ecclesiastes is like, but you know what's great? A warm off-the-griddle tortilla. Right? You put some fresh queso on there. You're just like, oh, you get it, right? That's— I know who I'm talking about, right? This is lunchtime. So you guys are really in with this illustration.
39 · The preacher expounds verse 8 (white garments, oil on the head) as a call to joy rather than perpetual mourning
The Lord says, assume that there are gifts and embrace them. Not these sandcastle gifts, but the daily joys that God gives every day. Look at verse 8, let your garments be white. Let not oil be lacking at your head. This basically means don't live in mourning perpetually. Don't wear black and be dour every day. The oil for your head, that's basically how you would look if you're going out to a nice event in the ancient world, okay? And you may be thinking like, well, whatever, I just am trudging through life. No, man. Put a clean shirt on, do your hair, and then go to the restaurant, right? I mean, just make something of it. That's what the writer and the preacher is saying. Enjoy it.
40 · The preacher expounds verse 9 (enjoy life with your wife) by pressing the urgency of fleeting time into relational application: hold your wife's hand, go for a walk, say yes to the kid with the matchbox car
Look at verse 9. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love. And you're like, oh, that's sweet. All the days of your vain life that he has given you. And vain there really means fleeting. Right? It means fleeting. It's— the writer is— I think there's some dark humor here. You and your spouse, if God's given you a spouse, you are both quickly aging and you will not be there forever. All right? When you're just sitting on the couch, you could be sitting on the couch holding her hand, right? You could say, you know what, babe? Let's go for a walk. You could say, you know what? Let's just clean. The work will all be there tomorrow. Let's go watch the sunset on Trans Mountain. When's the last time we did? I mean, like, that's the way— it's all fading. It's all cracking. The budget will be there tomorrow. Enjoy your wife. Enjoy your family, right? I would expand this not just to wife, but your kids, your extended family, your parents if they're still in your life. Oh man, what a gift. Treasure those parents. Treasure a cousin or an uncle that's still in your life, right? If your, if your child is like for the millionth time saying, can I show you this thing? Say yeah. Right? All of your spreadsheets will be there tomorrow. But that moment with that little matchbox car is for today.
41 · The preacher expounds verse 10 (work with all your might) by addressing vocational discontent
And then I love this. You might think, well, okay, I understand this. Maybe at home, maybe I can find some joys. You don't talk to me about work. Yep. Work. Verse 10, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all Rather than being morose or just, oh, work is always the worst, right? I'm always complaining about work. And I bet you, if we asked everybody here, could you give me 10 annoying things about your work? People are like, me, I got one. And yet the writer of Ecclesiastes says, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Work unto the Lord. I mean, this means embracing the joys of work as well. Embrace the fact that if you're a teacher, You may feel like it's going nowhere, but embrace the moment that you teach one kid one thing for one day before they forget it the next day. It's just, I did that. Or one spreadsheet, if you're an accountant, that is perfectly, beautifully organized at 5 PM before somebody makes an unauthorized purchase overnight that messes it up the next morning. Embrace that. Or if you're stocking shelves in retail, it's like, for this moment, this shelf looks great, right? These are the daily gifts of God, and we would do well to embrace them.
42 · The preacher pivots from embracing life's present gifts to embracing the life beyond this life
I hope you get the picture. I hope you get the picture that we're, in light of the fact that so much is passing, we're to let it go and embrace the realities of daily life. Now, here is the second reality though, that is even better than this. When we look at the whole Bible, we embrace not just the reality of this life, we embrace the life after life. Because the reality is that this life is still going to be full of thistles and thorns and frustrating realities. And yet the hope that we have in Christ goes far beyond this frustrating life. Psalm 49:15, the psalmist doesn't know everything we know about eternity, but he does know this. God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for he will receive me. The psalmist is like, look, man, I don't know a whole lot about what goes on after the grave, but I know 2 things. I know God is good, and I know he will receive me. Right? That's all I need to know. I'm happy to sing about that.
43 · The preacher expounds 1 Corinthians 15:51-54, emphasizing the transformation from perishable to imperishable
But friends, oh man, in the New Testament, It makes sense that when Jesus blows the door of death open into life, we get so much more information about what's in that life behind the door. And some of that information comes to us gloriously in 1 Corinthians 15. I just want to encourage you, if you are struggling with life and struggling with this stuff, spend time this week in 1 Corinthians 15 as you see the reality of death, the death of death, and the life after death. Life. 1 Corinthians 15:51 says this, behold, or Paul is saying, listen up, I tell you a mystery now revealed. We shall not all sleep, but we, those of us in Christ, shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, And the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For the perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. Oh friends, I love this picture. It is saying, yeah, same thing as Ecclesiastes, it's all fading, it's all cracking, it is all blowing away. But one day we will be clothed with a life that will never blow away, that will never fade or crack, that is not sand but beautiful steel for all eternity. Right? This is what the Lord holds out for us.
44 · Direct application: Christians should live as the most fearless and eternity-pointed people because eternity with Christ is 'even more real than death
Look, friends, we as Christians need to live like death is real and eternity with Christ is even more real than death. Because the reality is this, death is a moment, but eternity with Christ is forever. And so from this, Christians should be the most fearless and eternity-pointed people on the face of the planet.
45 · A self-deprecating story about picking up a bucket-list book and realizing how few of the 1,001 places he'll actually see
Look, I saw in Barnes Noble semi-recently a book that was called 1,001 Places to See Before You Die. And because I like lists, I picked up the book. And I picked it up thinking, I wonder how many of these I'll see before I die. And I was so hopeful. I was so stupid and hopeful. 'Cause as I flipped through the book, it was like, you really should see Patagonia in the spring. And you're like, what? You really should see the Andes Mountains and this one particular spot accessible only by the most experienced guides and travelers. And it takes 4 weeks to hike in, and you must train for 2 years, but it's really worth it. And I'm just looking at this going like, what in the— I'm never doing any of this. I like, I got out of the 1,001 things, I thought, I think I'm gonna do 3. I think I got 3, maybe, if I'm lucky.
46 · The preacher applies the illustration to the sermon's dual realities: you may never achieve your earthly dreams (home, family, achievement), but 'in 100 years in the presence of Christ, you will have forgotten all about' them
Look, friends, the reality is this. You may never have your dream home. You may never have the perfect family, quote unquote, in your mind. You may never have that great achievement you long for. But the preacher says it is all dust and air, and in the end, you will have something far better. You may not have the dream home from HGTV. Oh, and you're like, oh, I'm never going to have that. Wall, that shiplap, that whatever, you know. I really wanted a home with shiplap. Friend, in 100 years in the presence of Christ, you will have forgotten all about the dream homes of HGTV, and they will pale in comparison to what you will receive prepared for you by Jesus himself. So then, we embrace the life of life.
47 · The preacher synthesizes the sermon's dual realities via 2 Corinthians 4: outer self wasting away, inner self renewed daily
Look, there is death in the world. There is cracking and fading and sand all over the place. And we as Christians, we learn to live in these dual realities. And we see them both, for example, in 2 Corinthians 4, which says this, so we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. Right? So, do you see how Christians, even better than the preacher of Ecclesiastes, can live both of these realities? We as Christians go, Yep, death comes for everyone, right? It comes unexpectedly. It comes without warning and it takes us quickly and all of our achievements and life and hate is forgotten. And that's the reality. So I'm going to live accordingly. But also life is at work in this world. There is a power, the power of the resurrected Savior at work in the world. The Kingdom of God is bringing life in glimpses here and there into the world. There are marriages that get restored and are glimpses, and there are healings that happen, and there are glimpses, and there are victories for Christ that are glimpses, and we see them, and one day we will see them in fullness. But we own it even now.
48 · The preacher expounds John 5:24 to emphasize the present reality of eternal life: 'you are not dead anymore
I love the words of Jesus in John 5:24 who says, whoever hears my word and believes has eternal life and has passed from death to life. Here's what I love about that is the present tenseness of it. It's not like whoever believes in me will get eternal life. No, he's saying, no, no, no. Whoever believes in me has right now holding on to eternal life and has passed from death to life. Meaning that in the deepest recesses of your soul, the most fundamental parts of who you are, you are not dead anymore. Anymore. You are alive and you will remain so for eternity, right? So these 2 realities we balance, we live in the tension of, but we hold out glorious hope and we embrace the life the Lord has given us.
49 · The first of three closing applications: look for the sandcastles in your life this week
So as we end, I just want to give you 3 final encouragements. One, look for the sandcastles in your life this week. It may well be that you are pushing sand around, frustrated at the tide coming in. Or I'll also return to this, or holding on to some anger or bitterness or hope or thing that is making your heart sick. And you need to let it go and just say, this life is dust and air. Is there an envy to release? If I finally do X, it'll finally fulfill me to release. Look for the sandcastles.
50 · The second application: go on a scavenger hunt for God's gifts
Second, go on a scavenger hunt for the gifts of God in your life. And I want to challenge you. The harder that is for you to hear, the faster you probably need to work on this. Meaning if you're like, I don't have any gifts in my life, I want you to go home before the day ends and make a list of 10. And if you can't come up with 10, call one of the pastors and Chuck will help you fill that out. 'Cause Chuck will just be like, great, are you holding a pen? Yeah. Is your hand working? Yep. Okay, you got one. So like, it's just, meaning you just sometimes we gotta force ourselves to go, okay, where can— look, I'll give you very simply, I am an Eeyore person by nature and I mostly see all the things going wrong in life. And so every day before I do my to-do list, I have to write 2 things at the top. One, what am I grateful for? And number 2, what am I looking forward to that's a gift of God today? And there are times the second one takes me a minute. What am I looking forward to today? My heart's like nothing. Right. And I'm like, okay, that's a heart check, man. I need the Lord to help me here. You know, there are days where I'm like, I don't see anything good. So I'm going to, I need some toast. I need to make a perfect slice of toast to sustain me today. Whatever it is, they're gifts of God in your life.
51 · The third application: 'wherever you are, be all there,' attributed to Jim Elliot
And then third is this: wherever you are, be all there. That's advice from Jim Elliot, widely attributed to Jim Elliot, from really from an extraordinary yet brief life. Died in missionary service. And his encouragement is wherever you are, if you're a student going back to school, a person who doesn't want to go back to work tomorrow, a parent struggling with a particular season of parenting, be all there. Find the gifts of God and trust that this life and that thing will soon pass into glory.
52 · The preacher returns to the Puritans one final time to vindicate them as joyful, life-affirming people
Now I want to end with the Puritans because contrary to what many think, the Puritans were not dour, grumpy people perpetually. That's the way our culture often portrays them, but in fact Leland Ryken has a great book on this called, I think it's called Worldly Saints about the joy of the Puritans. And he talked about how they loved kids. They loved playing with kids. They spoke warmly about marriage and family. They spoke very warmly about the particular physical joys in marriage in a way that became uncomfortable for me to read. And so these were guys that were like, all right, let's, let's get after it. And they loved music. They loved art. They loved reading. They loved exploring. Right? Uh, they were not perfect. They had flaws. They had issues like all saints, but they were the furthest thing from dour and lifeless.
53 · The preacher gives the Puritans 'the last word' via a final quotation from the 1777 Primer
And I want to end, give them the last word, and give their 1777 Primer the last word. It's a good word for kids, for teens, and for all of us. Says this: Awake, arise, behold thou hast thy life, a leaf, Thy breath a blast. At night lay down prepared to have Thy sleep or Thy death, Thy bed or Thy grave. Lord, if Thou lengthen out my days, then let my heart so fixed be that I may lengthen out Thy praise and never turn aside from Thee. So in my end, I shall rejoice in my salvation. Joyful be my soul shall say with loud, glad voice, Jehovah, who is like unto thee?
54 · Closing prayer invoking Psalm 90:12 ('teach us to number our days') and asking the Spirit to apply the Word to individual hearts
Would you stand and let's pray. Lord, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Lord, every single person seated here has a very individual and distinct life, and yet Your Spirit is at work in all of them, and the Word of God is living and active and penetrating all of our hearts. And so, Lord, I pray for each of us. Help us to see what you have for us in particular, what your word is highlighting in our lives. Is it something to release, something to let go of? Is it something to change our perspective? Is it, is it that we need to deal with the reality that our life will quickly pass and we will stand before God and must turn and trust Christ even today? Whatever it is, Lord, I pray that you would speak as we end. A sobering but joyful word in the name of Jesus Christ. Well, church, we want to end with a song that.