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Text: Ecclesiastes 6
As I get older, I’m learning to enjoy and appreciate things more in their season. Asthma as a child, then for thirty years it was gone, but it resurfaced after I got COVID. It’s a breathing disease. And when it flares up I can’t get a good deep breath. So I have an inhaler. And I’ve learned to appreciate the ability to breathe.
Let’s do a little illustration. Everybody, take a breath. Alright, now that breath is gone. That breath was vain in the sense that it didn’t last and you’ve already had to take another one. But I bet you appreciate that breath. You’d really appreciate it if you had to fight for it. Here’s the point. Almost everything you and I do is temporary, from the thing we do the most, breathing, to the thing we do the least. You can’t eliminate vanity from your life. We need to learn to enjoy things in their season.
We’re going to start this morning off with one of the darkest chapters in the Bible. The observations that Solomon makes are sobering, but there is a flipside to this coin that is inspiring and bright.
Sometimes it takes negative motivation to change our behaviors. Ecclesiastes is that. You know you go to the doctor and he says you need to stop eating this and you need to lose some weight and you say, yea, ok doc. It’s stuff you knew before you got there. But then you end up in the hospital with triple bypass surgery and suddenly you change your diet. Sometimes it takes that bombshell of reality to learn to appreciate and enjoy what you have.
The ability to enjoy things is a gift from God (vss 1-5)
- Solomon is clear that enjoyment of things is not found in things. Enjoyment is an ability that’s in you given by God. Solomon’s examples are tough.
- Someone who has everything, but can’t eat.
- Someone who has lots of children, but everyone is miserable.
- Someone who lives a long life, but never found enjoyment in it.
- He ends it with a still birth is better having never seen trouble in his life.
- But consider the point. The ability to enjoy things is a gift from God.
- Trusting God and enjoying things go together. Trust in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy (1 Timothy 6:17).
- And we can’t enjoy things we don’t take care of.
- If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? The corrupt thing isn’t the point, but how I handle it is.
- And if you can’t manage vain things in this life, why would God make you a steward of his joy or of his peace when you’ve mismanaged things that don’t last.
- Everyone recognizes someone who enjoys things as different
- Did you ever read about Paul and Silas in prison? How about enjoying life as an evangelistic tool in Acts 16:25-26!
- Or how about the fact that even the LORD took note of how Paul and Silas were rejoicing in their trouble?! So much so that he gave liberty to the captives!
The ability to enjoy things comes from the right perspective (vss 6-10)
- Embrace the conflict (vs 7)
- You and I have no choice but to cheerfully embrace the struggle of living amidst vanity. Not everything you do has eternal consequences and not every decision is an eternal one. And you should probably be glad for that.
- Furthermore, death isn’t a surprise nor is it the end. And a Christian has the ability to watch this life go up in smoke as he takes another sip of his lemonade. Why? Because my life is hidden with Christ and I have a perspective on this world that keeps me emotionally separated from it, while also understanding my duty in it.
- Perspective gives you the ability to enjoy things
- 1 Corinthians 7:31 …use this world, but not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.
- Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Well God will destroy them, but you still have to eat. So get a balanced view of it. God didn’t say don’t eat because it won’t last. Quit calling things evil that God made good. If you can give thanks for it then it’s good, eat it, enjoy it.
- Just because it’s not going to last doesn’t mean I need to root it out of my life. Not only that, I don’t even have that as an option. I can’t get rid of temporary things in my life. My life depends on temporary things.
We complicate all this (vss 11-12)
- Here’s where you live. There are a lot of ways to take what’s already vain and make it worse. And we’ve become experts at this.
- You can’t enjoy things because you’re comparing yourself to others. You either say I’m glad I’m not like them. Or you say, They only have better stuff because they’re cheaters and liars! Careful, your envy is showing.
- You can’t enjoy things because you’re too critical of people.
- Somewhere we got the idea that the ability to criticize and identify errors is the highest form of Christianity. Discernment brother! Rightly dividing! Whatever.
- And some Christians are only defined by what they aren’t. I don’t do this. I don’t do that. I don’t celebrate this. I don’t celebrate that. I don’t spend my time here. I don’t spend my time there. You’re an expert at criticizing. But when it comes to enjoying life, you’re not even in the pre-K class. If you’d learn how to enjoy life in Christ, it’d do you some good.
- I thought cynicism was a mark of maturity, but everyone’s a cynic after they get punched in the face. The world is great at making cynics out of people.
- You can’t enjoy things because you’re complaining about things everyone goes through. Or complaining about stuff you brought on yourself.
- Do you know what’ll help people see Christ in you? Ready? Here it is (frown to smile). A smile instead of your sad hypocritical face.
- An encouragement instead of a complaint.
- If you say you love the LORD, can you tell me what you enjoy? Because I’d hate to see what you’d be if you didn’t “love the LORD.”
- Rejoice evermore! Isn’t that an expectation of true Christians?
