Ecclesiastes Part #9: The Authentic Life

 

Ecclesiastes Sermon #9

The Meaning of Life: The Authentic Life

Chapter 7

Introduction 

Good morning! This week we are continuing our series in Ecclesiastes called The Meaning of Life with chapter 7: The Authentic Life.
Where do we go to find wisdom, meaning, and purpose?
What is the point of all our accomplishments?
Where is our hope when our life is met with failure or even simple toil and boredom?
Is this all there is to life?

Solomon has found throughout Ecclesiastes in his grand experiment of life under the sun that all seems to be vanity, a chasing after the wind, as he struggles to find his purpose and meaning, apart from God.

Some people doing this experiment would conclude that  “all of life is meaningless and nothing matters” which is called nihilism; but Solomon and us conclude that it’s because of God as the source of all meaning, and goodness, as we live the life we are given, that EVERYTHING matters! AND IMPORTANTLY, many things that the world puts on the back burner and says are least important actually matter MORE than the things that the world thinks matter.  A couple weeks ago, we talked about God given joy and how it glorifies God for us to enjoy what he has given us in this life and we prayed that God would give us the power to eat of our current situations to grow and be nourished and become closer to Him, like a Father doing projects with us, and how this is the meaning of life that we Glorify God by enjoying our lives with Him.  I hope you are finding this God Given Joy in your lives.

Multiple people caught me after the sermon a few weeks ago and commented that we also learn a lot from sorrow. They are absolutely right and that is a big part of what we are going to look at today.  I think Solomon would say that joy is great and sorrow is even greater.

There are a lot of topics in this chapter so we are going to bunch some ideas together and work to make sense of them.

Verse 7:1-8 | “Better Than” Showcases

Ecc 7:1-8 |1A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth. 2 It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. 3 Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. 4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. 5 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. 6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity. 7 Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart. 8 Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

This starts with a popular proverb, “a good name is more valuable than riches or luxury.” “Name” has a deeper meaning than just your name. 

I had a student once who was “a real piece of work” you might say, he was always getting in trouble, was pretty mean to the other students and rude to his teachers and just generally didn’t care.  So, I’m at a small school, so we have most of the same students year after year and really get to know them and I had this student AGAIN come into my classroom and I could tell that there was a huge difference in him. He carried himself differently, he treated everyone differently, he cared about his learning and his work. A complete 180 degree turn. So, when other students weren’t around, I asked him what happened, telling him that I had noticed this great change for the better and he told me that he had started a lawn care  business over the summer and he quickly realized that his name was on the side of his truck… so his name was important and what people thought of him was important and he needed to fix the bad name he had made for himself and make a good name, or nobody would hire him for lawn care.  A great lesson for a 17 year old young man.  A good name means the totality of your “underlying nature” it is a good reputation that flows out of your character. You can’t fake having a good name. It is being “authentic.”  I heard it said once that It doesn’t matter if you smell great if your life stinks.  For the most part, everyone is on board with this concept, but things can quickly turn on you when you consider what a life of character might require… there are a lot of challenges in life and it’s hard work to have a good name. We have a series of experiences in these verses that can easily be grouped into two distinct but related groups:

Showcase One: Day of Death, House of Mourning, Sorrow, sadness of face, Rebuke, the end, patient.

Showcase Two: Birthday, House of feasting, Laughter, house of mirth, songs, beginnings, proud.

To the World, which showcase is more desirable? Is there any logical reason, under the sun, that we would choose showcase one? NO! We would all choose Showcase 2! Showcase One, sounds awful, like a terrible day, while Showcase Two sounds like a vacation. Yet, we are clearly and repeatedly told the items in Showcase One are “Better than Showcase Two. Better Than here doesn’t mean that one is good and one is bad, it means “More Good” like a greater than symbol, so it could be read more like: precious ointment is great but a good name is even greater, birthdays are great but funerals are even greater.  Regardless, this all seems counter-intuitive. If we were writing these verses though, wouldn't we say “Be happy, at a feast with laughter, partying, that is just beginning  and that is WAY better than mourning in sorrow over your short life that will end.” Yet the preacher of Ecclesiastes says “the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning” while the fools heart is in the “house of mirth.” Why? 

There is wisdom in being more than casually acquainted with the fragility of your life.

There is so much more we can learn about the reality of life during these sacred moments; than dozens of parties. I’ve never been to a birthday party and thought about the finiteness of my life. But in grieving well, pressing into periods of mourning our hearts have a real opportunity to heal. Verse 3 says our hearts are made glad, through engaging with the reality of sadness. Another translation is “put right”. 

We usually grieve and comfort the grieving poorly saying things like “They are no longer with us.” “They are in a better place.” “But I know they’re smiling down on me right now.” It feels like we would do anything to avoid the cold, hard truth they have suffered death… and we will too.

Funerals are not for the dead, they're for the living to remember they will face the end of their lives on this earth as well. It is a call to truly live in light of the fact your life is short, temporary, and fragile. Funerals are a rebuke on the pride of our lives that says that our lives will not end, because every funeral points to our own funeral. We eagerly RSVP for parties, but we run from “having to go to funerals,” yet we need the experience of funerals way more than another party. There are times it is necessary to grieve and be with those who are grieving, but we don’t like reality and prefer to escape the truth of our own fragile lives so we flee.

Our alternative to gaining in wisdom is to drown out the shadow of death and sorrow with an overabundance of “good times” and empty frivolity. Popular entertainment shows a caricature of reality with many jesters but few mourners, to blind us to any spiritual issues and the “authentic realty” of life and death. Avoid the house of the grieving it will only bring you down, hang in the house of feasting (more than food, a festival party.) Our world doesn’t want to merely go whistling by the graveyard it wants to throw a rave in it. We will do anything to avoid sorrow. We endlessly entertain ourselves. Yet the cold rebuke of reality is Better Than a nonsense Song of Fools. Ever tried to get deep comfort, solace, or theological perspective from popular music? #1 song right now is called “A Bar Song[Tipsy] by Shaboozey” If there is a vanity of vanities it’s popular culture.

Thorns burn fast and are quickly extinguished. Rather than feeling the real heat of true life and death moments, engaging with sadness that leads to warm glad hearts; we settle for a fast burn of the jester of escapism. It crackles loudly and burns brightly but it’s more flame than fire. 

“Invite death into our presence when it is still at a distance and not on the move.” -Martin Luther

So we are told the end of things is better than their beginnings. There can be a beautiful reflection in things completed. But that requires a certain amount of patience. Patience is contrasted with pride because it requires humility that your way and our timing are not what matters and there is purpose in what the Lord is bringing us through.

Verse 7:9-12 | Yesterday’s Gone Don’t be Angry with Today

Ecc 7:9-12 |9 Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools. 10 Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. 11 Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. 12 For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

The desire to avoid pain, grief or even adversity leads us to be angry quickly when our comfort is disrupted. We can easily tell how much we actually trust God by how bent out of shape we get when things don’t go our way. When faced with problems in our lives we need to respond with patient self-control. Not like rash spoiled children. James 1:19 tells us be “slow to anger” Here we see the reason why. Anger that is closely held gets fed, nurtured and grows until it cannot be contained. It becomes lodged in our hearts and keeps us from life like a clogged artery. We are like a heart that keeps pumping harder and harder but life stops moving as we cling to our angry bitterness. The answer is not “vent quickly” but rather to be “slow” to anger and remain patient. So rather than trusting God today we compare today with our version of yesterday. We dress up the past with thick lenses of nostalgia.  We foolishly white wash our past and THE past in a way that makes the present seem that much bleeker than it even is. This is another form of escapism. “That season was good, that period of life was better, “I remember when I was younger.” This keeps us from being all in on life right here and now. It is another form of foolish self-indulgence, another form of complaining and lacking God-Given Joy. If these days aren’t that great then why should I be? Living wisely now is better than the foolishness of vain nostalgia. Celebrate, remember, reminisce, but avoid looking fondly backward at some imaginary yesterday that never existed while being robbed of authentic life God has given you today. Where are you going to turn when the good old days are gone and the day of adversity is here. God made them both.

Verse 7:13-14 | God Given Days

Ecc 7:13-14 |13 Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? 14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

Wisdom is good, it’s indispensable but it’s not God. God has ordained some things in this world to be awkward for us (the verse says crooked, not wicked). Full of pride, we assume if we experience something we perceive as bent out of shape our circumstances need to be corrected and not us. What we’re saying in those quick moments is “God got in wrong.” Because we only see what is now. If we’re going to live a life trusting God we have to recognize a longer view of our lives and experience exists beyond the immediate we are currently experiencing. We’re told God works all things out for good for those called according to his purpose. That doesn’t mean every day is awesome all the time. Authentic Life knows awesome and adversity are all part of our life experience. So when we are blessed with a day, time, or season of prosperity it should be seen as an opportunity to praise him.  We can and should enjoy our lives as gifts from God. Don’t think you’re any more holy if you don’t enjoy things that God gives as good. God is not off the hook on our “day of adversity”. We don’t have to sadistically enjoy when things are difficult, but we cannot think during those times God has checked out. We have to be comfortable with a measure of unpredictability from God that happens to regularly remind us we are not as self-sufficient as we think we are. Adversity is also ALLOWED by God and He uses it to draw us close to Him. We have to depend on Him and not our ability to predict what is coming next.

Verse 7:15-19 | Reality Check

Ecc 7:15-19 | 15 In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. 16 Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? 17 Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? 18 It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.19 Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city.

Authentic Life means holding in tension two concepts: 

1)There are ways to live that are relatively better than others, 

while also recognizing 

2) The world is full of contradictions and anomalies. 

We need to have a solid framework to deal with the paradoxes in the world we see between people who appear to be “wise” “righteous” and “upright” whose lives are cut short AND those who seem to be defined by wickedness and evil who appear to gain and have long life. 

Authentic Life is not solely defined or ruled by our experiences and observations. If it is, an apparent contradiction would lead us to a crisis of faith. If something happens that we believe is unjust or untimely we cry out “Where is God?” “He’s not just.” “Who does God think he is?” “I give up on God if this is how he allows or ordains the world to function.” Or we can push into religion and our own good works and try to be “extra righteous” with the hope of avoiding an apparently random tragedy. That is not Christianity that is karma. 

So what is the Authentic Life in verse 16? This isn’t saying don’t be righteous or that you should pursue some worldly maxim of “all things in moderation.”

It is saying don’t think it is your righteousness that saves you, that if you are more vigorous in your pursuit of righteous living God will be so impressed with you he’ll give you a few more years. That is religion, assuming you can manipulate God’s blessings by your performance. Authentic Life is a call to humility and reliance. Don’t become so prideful in your wisdom you no longer think you’re dependent on God. Know also it is ok to flee from wickedness and not act a fool. Go ahead and restrain yourself from being an idiot. As was quoted a few weeks ago from Dwight Schrute 

“Whenever I’m about to do something, I think, “Would an idiot do that?” And if they would, I do not do that thing.”

― Dwight Schrute

The apparent contradictions observed in life are not permission to live as wicked as you want to be.  The authentic life is a trying to be righteous life while relying on Christ for real righteousness because He can clothe you with His Righteousness.

Verse 20-22 | Never Good Enough

Ecc 7:20-22 |20 Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. 21 Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. 22 Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.

The reason you can’t trust in your own righteousness is because it’s not as righteous as you think it is. Complete righteousness is not something that can be achieved by us. There is a universal truth we easily accept that “nobody’s perfect” or “pobody’s nerfect” In case it’s not clear this verse is telling us the nature of our “imperfection” is both the sin of omission, when we fail to do what we should (no one does “good”) but also the sin of commission when we actively do what we shouldn’t (we all sin) Everyone has failed. 

There is an apparent application for this: toughen up! Do not pay unnecessary attention to how mean others are towards you. Because of sin, expect people to say bad things about you. Expect to even be criticized even unfairly by others. Taking what people say about you too seriously is just asking to be hurt. And before you get all offended remember you’re pretty offensive to other people. Not one little slip up, but “many times” so don’t judge others quite so harshly. There is a culture of victimization (righteousness through victimization) and outrage that has been developed in our college campuses and social media this that you are being warned against.   Don’t take people too seriously and don’t take yourself too seriously either.

“If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him, for you are far worse than he thinks you to be.” -Charles Spurgeon

Verse 23-29 | Confession – Authentic Life Needs Jesus

Ecc 7:23-29 |23 All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. 24 That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out? 25 I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. 26 And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. 27 Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things—28 which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. 29 See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

These last verses begin with an honest confession about our failure to live in the authentic way we desire. If we all do desire good character, reality shows us the overwhelming distance of true wisdom from humanity. “I tried to find rest in wisdom but it was both “far from me” and “deep, very deep who can find it out?” In Solomon’s and my own experience there is nearly no one who actually lives on the path of wisdom. Everyone is trusting in some scheme or another to save them, or they’re ignoring their need for salvation in the first place while groping around in the dark for something to hold on to. Because wisdom is far off, foolishness and folly are both near and seductive. They have to be resisted. This woman in the passage is the embodiment of the foolish house of mirth, it’s attractive but she’s a snare leading to death… not authentic life.

We have to be captivated with something else. We need one who is greater than Solomon, and the Bible says that one greater than Solomon has come… Jesus.  Only Jesus leads to the authentic life we were created for. God made us in his image, we were not made sinful, or like a blank canvas, we were created “good.” Sin entered into our world by our desire to turn from God to our “many schemes.” This is sin, it is universal, deliberate, and diverse… it is rejecting God’s plan for our authentic life, desiring and seeking out our own “devices” by grabbing at something that will save us from our failure to live an authentic life on our own. 

We worship Jesus who was a “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” who still knew how to enjoy his life even being accused by the religious world of being a drunkard and a glutton… and knowing He would die a horrifying death on the cross… He still chose Joy! We celebrate Christmas recognizing how glorious it is that God would come dwell with His people. But each week on Sunday, we gather here and we don’t remember “Christmas” the day of birth and beginning of Jesus life on earth though. We remember something far better than his birth which is the “day of death” the end on the Cross. It’s on that cross where the one righteous man (who is God) who never sinned bore the penalty for our life of rebellion. The day of Jesus Death is called Good Friday because He is on the cross instead of us. Our sin began in the beginning at the Garden of Eden, but for those who have their faith in Jesus it is finished on the cross. 

“Better is the end of a thing than its beginning.”

Let’s Pray:

Father, once again we need your Holy Spirit to teach us how to follow you well, how to be authentic as we walk out our faith.  Give us the power to have joy in our circumstances but equally show us how to learn from sorrow.  You have built this world to bring us closer to you through EVERY thing that we experience and we know that we need to be thankful not just for the blessings but also for the trials.  Help us Lord to follow you authentically.  Amen.