Ecclesiastes 2:1-11, 18-26
Listen! Last year a man’s private collection of 152 classic, iconic cars.
Question: If abundant life were found in classic cars, wouldn’t one be enough?
We're looking at two paragraphs in Ecclesiastes 2:1-11, and then we're going to skip the one we did last week on wisdom and go to chapter 2:18 to 26. So last week we did a paragraph out of chapter 1 and we did a paragraph out of chapter 2. Both of them dealt with wisdom and how far does it take us?
And so this week we're going to look at two other paragraphs that deal with the questions of pleasure and possessions and labor. And this is the sort of experiment to see how far can I get toward joy, happiness, and a meaningful life without God.
As I said a couple of weeks ago, he's acting as Qoheleth. Even though he believes in God, he's a follower of God. He's doing this whole experiment as a practical atheist disconnected from God. So how far can we get with pleasure, possessions and with labor?
Chapter 2. Let's start at verse one, please.
“I said to myself, come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself, and behold, it too was futile. I said with laughter. It is madness, and of pleasure. What does it accomplish? I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly until I could see what good there is for the sons of man to do under heaven the few years of their lives. I enlarge my works. I built houses for myself. I planted vineyards for myself. I made gardens and parks for myself. I planted all kinds of fruit trees. I made ponds of water for myself which were to irrigate a forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and I had home born slaves. I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. Also I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself male and female singers, and the pleasure of man.”
(9) “Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom stood by me. All that my eyes desired, I did not refuse them. I did not withhold from my heart any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor, and this was my reward for all my labor. Then I considered all my activities which my hands had done, and the labor which I had exerted. And behold, all of this was vanity striving after wind, and there was no profit under the sun.”
And then drop down, please, to chapter 2:18.
“Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun. For I must leave it to a man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise, a wise man, or a fool. Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too, is vanity. Therefore I completely despaired of all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun. When there is a man who has labored with wisdom, knowledge and skill. Then he gives his legacy to one who has not labored with them. This too is vanity and a great evil. For what does a man get in all his labor and in his striving, which he laborers under the sun? Because all his days his task is painful and grievous, even at night his mind does not rest. This too is vanity.”
We're coming now, friends, to the very first ray of hope in this book. There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. For also I have seen that it is from the hand of God. For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without him? For the person who is good in his sight he has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, while to the Sinner he has given the task of gathering and collecting, so that he may give it to one who is good in God's sight. This to his vanity and striving after wind.”
Let's pray, please friends.
Father, we pray on this day that we would honor you, that you would guide us to know by your spirit what you're saying here. We pray that our hearts will be open. Pray that we would make the adjustments you're calling us to. Deeply grateful for this book, deeply grateful for your spirit to teach us from this book. Thank you so much for your compassion for us. And we need your help Lord, every aspect of our lives, we need your help. We're clear about that. Help us today in Jesus' name, Amen.
Friends. Last spring I went to Texas with some friends of mine and visited a private car collection that one man owned. He must have been a gazillionaire. Because every car was worth between 50,000 and 500,000 and he had them in six big metal sheds, all closed in. They had painted floors, all the walls had antique signs on them, and antique gas pumps. It was just amazing. He had vets and Jags and Shelby Mustangs. He had a Bentley, he had old T Birds, he had just every imaginable old classic car.
Everyone of them is restored, beautifully restored. There was nothing hammered or rusted or broken. It was amazing. Around the outside of the sheds. He had these big covered long sheds that had all manner of military vehicle in them. World War 2 stuff and tanks and jeeps and stuff. He had one of the jeeps that you shipped over to some other country and came out of a box and you could put it together. In 4 minutes.
There's amazing stuff he had there. I walked out of that thinking to myself. If an antique car could bring abundant life to a person. Wouldn't one be enough?
Now I know that none of you have that sort of, I say I doubt that any of you have that kind of an antique car collection. But let me ask you some other questions. If antiques themselves could bring abundant life, wouldn't one be enough? If state championships could bring abundant life. If plastic surgery could bring abundant life. If you could get an abundant life by having a guitar, wouldn't one be enough? The worship team is not here right at the moment. Don't tell them what I said.
If you could get abundant life by having a decorative pillow on your bed. Wouldn't one be enough?
Preach it, Dave. All right, now get ready, ladies. If you could have an abundant life with a gun, wouldn't one be enough? No. OK, just asking.
So Qoheleth is looking for abundant life in stuff disconnected from God, possessions, pleasure in labor, in accomplishment, and working hard in stacking up stuff. He's looking for abundant life in that, and he's going to go through as a practical atheist.
What would life be like if I were utterly self absorbed? And also, what would life be like if I was an amazing worker? Have you ever had a flight of imagination where you're kind of, you're sitting on a porch, you're drinking a Diet Pepsi, you're looking out at the sky and you're thinking, what if I won the world's biggest lottery and I got billions of dollars? And I would buy a professional ball team and then I would buy a ranch in the mountains and then I would buy a couple of Lamborghinis. And I would get a house on the lake and a house in the mountains and a house on the ocean. I’d get a house in Tuscany. I’d get a house in Hawaii. And then I would just get a private jet and I have a super yacht built like these crazy rich people. How would my life be then?
Well, that's an experiment that none of us are ever going to practice. Because when I'm sitting on my deck thinking about those kinds of things, I've got a house payment due and my son just broke his glasses and the garage door is not working and you know, we're a little short on cash. The money's gone and the month is not and it's just a flight of fantasies. Pure craziness.
Well, here's the good news, friends. We don't have to have that Daydream. Because Qohelith lived that exact dream. He had the billions and he spent it and he gave us a report. He wrote a report on how it works to have billions and to do that.
The Abject Failure of Self-Absorption in Delivering Abundant Life (2:11)
● Futility of Personal Pleasure. (v. 1-3)
So he's going to start in chapter 2:1-11 with the abject failure of self absorption in delivering abundant life. And he's going to start with this, the futility of pleasure. Verses one to three he says, what about pleasure, mirth, gladness, gaiety, pleasure? Conclusion.
What does it accomplish? Meaning not
much. Well, what about enjoyment? Benefit yourself with good things. What was
the conclusion? It's futile. It's breath. It's vapor. It's fleeting. What about
laughter? Laughter. derision.Sport. It's madness.
What about gratifying or stimulating my body with wine? What about stealing 40 bucks out of my mom's purse and going to the gas station and getting 7 bottles of Boone's Farm apple wine and me and my buddies go out behind the high school and we drink all of it?
What about being an extremely wealthy person who goes to supper with all my friends and we have 7 bottles of wine. Qohelith says it's madness. It's acting like a madman. It's crazy if you think that it's going to help you. Ever been in a restaurant where there was a group in a corner booth who had obviously been there drinking for a long, long time? And they were loud and happy and shouting and, they were spilling stuff, and everyone in the place was looking at them and the manager said it was time to cut these people off. What am I going to do about that?
It's madness, he said. It's madness. I was on an airplane coming home a couple months ago. I was on the aisle, there was a woman in the middle seat, a woman on the window seat, and the woman in the window seat was telling the woman in the middle seat that she was coming home early from a Bachelorette party in Vegas and she was telling her this long story. She said we got to Vegas, we're having a great time, she said. We're drinking hard all day long. We're having a wonderful time.
2-3 days into this they got in a whale of a fight and like three of them including the woman at the window got kicked off the wedding party. They're going home early. It's madness. It's madness. Why would I even do that? It's crazy. Or what about folly? He says. What? What would that be like? I'm behind here, Am I not friends?
No, I'm fine. It's utter foolishness, he says. It's bitter and mismanagement of one's life. It's ridiculous. You have no idea why. Why would you do that?
A writer named David Gibson, not me, the other guy said. We use distraction and diversion to console ourselves in the face of our miseries and confusion. Personal pleasure is God's testing ground for diminishing returns.
It only goes so far and then it goes not quite that far and then it doesn't go that far at all. The more you do it, the less it delivers to you. So Qohelith says verses 4 to 8, why don't we try something else? Why don't we try personal possessions? Let's see how that would go. And
● The futility of Personal Possessions. (4-8)
In chapter 2:4-8 hw says, “I enlarged works for myself. Magnificent structures. Houses for myself, one in town, one at the ocean, one in Tuscany. I planted vineyards for myself, vineyards for miles, gardens for myself, gardens for acres, parks for myself, parks for blocks, ponds of water for myself, ponds for hectares and for fishing. Slaves galore. I have forced labor for myself for decades. I had the largest flock of sheep, all these for myself. I had the largest herd of cattle, beef and male cows, all for myself. I collected silver for myself. Silver was stacking up in his treasury on a yearly basis. That was stunning. Gold for myself, stacking up. I collected provinces for myself. I was getting more and more and more land.”
I have a cousin that lives in Isabel, SD. He's farmed there his whole life. And there's a family in the Isabel area who did really well. And then they bought the farm next to him and then the farm next to him. And then they leased the one next to him. And by this time they have 10s of thousands of acres. And they're just buying up the whole county, just making progress. And they're going to own the whole county at some point.
And that's what Qohelith was doing. He was just getting all kinds of things for himself. Places of kings for myself, stacking up jewels and sculptures, male and female singers. I'm going to have a concert at any time. I want 700 wives. Building alliances with foreign countries so I'm really safe. Then I had 300 concubines using women for personal pleasure for myself. He's got all of this and the operative word there is what?
“For myself”, it's 2 words for myself, he said. I'm just going to make myself happy with pleasure. I think this is a very pointed attempt to recreate the Garden of Eden in his backyard.
When Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden before they sinned, it was a glorious place. It was amazing. We have no idea what a stunning place that was. And he is rebuilding that in his backyard and he had a huge backyard. A writer named Ian Proven said this section of Ecclesiastes is a sobering account of the relentless anxiety of the materialist.
Who lives under the shadow of unavoidable death?
Relentless activity of the materialist, the shadow of death is always over him, even in his own Garden of Eden. That's what Qohelith was doing in this situation.
Now, friends, I don't want to preach against beautiful physical spaces. I mean, I think God is lover of beauty and God's the lover of truth, and God's the lover of kindness. I think God's a lover of creativity and love of beauty. No problem. If you have a beautiful backyard, God bless you.
But if that beautiful backyard is your ticket for joy. It will be ridiculously frustrating. I'm going to do this for myself. I'm going to make myself comfortable. I'm convinced one of the major sins of Americans is the love of comfort.
So I won't go on a mission trip because it's uncomfortable on the plane and it's uncomfortable out there. I won't talk to a person in church who's crying because that would be uncomfortable. I won't share the gospel because that would be uncomfortable. I won't come to a Saturday work day because this is my day to be comfortable. We, just as Americans and really also as christians, have this addiction to comfort. And as a Christian, it also becomes an idol. I'd rather be comfortable than do the uncomfortable thing to serve my God.
The Apostle Paul I, 2nd Corinthians 11 gives an account of what he did. Beaten 4 times, shipwrecked, didn't have anything to eat. He was in danger from countries, danger from robbers, danger from my own fellow people. I mean the guy had no interest in comfort.
One of my missionary friends I worked with at East West, we're in a hotel room in China. We're doing some work in China with some training and church planting. And I woke up about 6:00 in the morning and I saw that the hall light was already on. And I get up and my friend Bill is sitting on a marble floor with his back against a cold wall in his underwear, typing away emails.
I said, “Bill, aren't you cold?”
“You know, Dave, I've lived in the Far East for 40 years. I don't understand comfort or discomfort anymore. He just wouldn't even think about it. He just had no addiction to comfort. What about us? So he says I'm going to switch over. I strike one, his personal, his personal pleasure, strike two, his personal possessions. Now I'm going to try another one.
● The futility of Personal Prominence. (vs. 9-10)
This is strike three which is Prominent.
He says, “I became great. I increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. That was great. I was powerful. There was nobody like me. There was nobody who had near my abilities. There was nobody even in the same class as me.
Let me if you say, all right, well, who's the greatest quarterback of all time? Name a name and pick a fight. Greatest runner of all time? Name a name, pick a fight. Who's the greatest president of all time? Name
a name, Pick a fight. The greatest guitarist of all time? Name a name, pick a fight. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. And so Qohelith says, who's the greatest preacher of all time?
Well, contrary to popular opinion, it's not Steve Walker. It's called Qohelith. It's called Qoheleth the Preacher.
Inspired by the Holy Spirit, he wrote in the Bible preserved for eternity. There's no one like me. I am The amazing person. I am the top of the heap, he says. Everything in my eye wanted it. I took it. This is his formula. I saw it, I wanted it, I took it. Everything. Nothing was off limits for him.
Psalm 73:7, “That the evil person's eye bulges from fatness.”
It's a figure of speech. You know, the cartoons were the eye bulges out of the head. This is a figure of speech that says I looked at everything and I wanted everything, and I didn't care which side of the boundary line it was on. I was just after everything that I could possibly get, and I took it whether it belonged to me or didn't belong to me. This is the hunter who's been following a huge buck all morning long. It's a beautiful animal. He's seen it about five times. It just keeps a little ahead of him. And he comes out in this area and he realizes it's just probably 10 yards till that, till that big buck is going to be on an open slope and I can get him. And then he comes. There's a fence here. I'm going off public land into private land. He's across the boundary. I've been following him all day. It's my deer, no one's around. I'm going to climb the fence. I'm going over the boundary. To get that animal that I've been following the whole day, even though it's no longer on public ground, it's crossing boundaries to get stuff that doesn't belong to you.
Friends, if you're thinking about crossing a boundary to get something that doesn't belong to you. I have no idea about it. But this application is God's message that he knows.
This application is God's message that whatever I do in the dark,
in private will eventually be shouted from the top of the roof. And for all of us, Dave Gibson included, if we're thinking about going across a boundary to get something that doesn't belong to us, God is watching this. And God knows exactly about this. Josh McDowell had a wonderful ministry. He's still going. I don't know how old he is. He's in his 80s. Wonderful ministry, especially to college students. I heard him speak one time and he said this in private it leads to intimacy.
College boyfriend and college girlfriend don't have sex in the coffee shop. It's always in the dorm room.
Privacy leads to intimacy. That's the truth. Not just for college students. It's true for all of us. Don't be in private places where you shouldn't be. So the Qoheleth formula, I saw it, I wanted, I took it any pleasure my heart wanted, he says, it's mine, I'm taking it. Psalm 73:7. The imaginations of their heart run riot. The imaginations of Qohelith’s heart were out of control. There was no attempt to restrain anything. Here's the verdict on all of this.
The Verdict: All this is fleeting, striving after wind, and profits nothing (vs. 11)
● Self-absorption confines one to the smallest possible world (“Phenomenal cosmic powers, itty bitty living space”, Robin Williams as the genie in Aladdin.)
He says it's fleeting, it's striving after wind and it profits nothing. Verse 11. I'd done all these things and I concluded labor's like a mist. It's like a mess is here, but then you're running to a house to get a camera to get this beautiful shot and then no, it's not. It's not right anymore. Second, it's like chasing a leaf in a tornado. It's striving after the wind. You can't catch it.
Friends, my buddies and I climbed up to the top of Table Mountain, western Wyoming. 11,000 feet were sitting in this gorgeous mountain looking at the Grand Teton across the Canyon and eating our lunch. And this wind comes up and it takes my buddy's ball cap, flings it out into space. We went to the edge of the mountain and that ball cap was already 2000 feet down the hill. It's gone. Nobody thought, oh, let's go get that. We're not hiking 2000 down and then we're going to try to find it. It's gone.
It's chasing after wind and 30 says there's no profit. There is no profit separate from God for me to use pleasure to try and find an abundant life. When you do all the work, there's nothing left over.
My buddy and I in seminary tried to make some extra money at Christmas time by cutting down big trees that were between a church and a house. We had seven days off. We spent the whole 7 days there. We got them down without knocking down any trees or houses. We did. We did bend the corner of one little air conditioner. We bought 2 electric chainsaws, burned them both up. We rented a gas chainsaw, we bought ropes, we borrowed laters. We worked like a dog for seven days and when we got done. We took the profit, subtracted the expense, and the daily income to each of us was $1.70.
$1.70 for risking our lives, spending seven days risking breaking someone's house apart. $1.70 There was nothing leftover. So here's a summary. It's useless diminishing returns. It's if you abandon God and you turn to idols. A self absorption which he was practicing here makes the smallest possible world.
I haven't seen it for years, but there's a Aladdin version. A version of Aladdin which is a cartoon and Robin Williams plays the genie and at one point he says amazing cosmic powers. Itty bitty living space. He lives in a lamp. Itty bitty living space. When I'm self absorbed, I have the world's smallest living space.
When I'm other focused, I have the world's biggest living space. Jeremiah 2:13 is the biblical version. “My people have committed 2 evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters to heal for themselves. Cisterns. Broken cisterns that can hold no water.
The source of abundant life, of living waters. Jesus himself satisfied in Jesus. Anything else that I think will deliver life is going to just be a broken cistern. It's going to leak diminishing returns.
So that's strike three, and apparently he gets another strike because now we're going to try another thing.
The Futility of Labor (2:18 to 26.)
● The Verdict for all Atheists (theological or arrogant or practical) (vs. 26b)
He's going to talk about the futility of Labor and the verdict for all atheists, whether you're theological, guilty, practical, whatever kind of atheist. The summary for you is in chapter 2:26, & 26B.
Gather it to lose it. Live a fleeting life. Constantly chase the wind. Labor. Gain fruit from your labor. Leave it to somebody else. Leave it to somebody else. And they might be a wise person and they might be a fool, but they didn't labor for it. That's how it goes. That's your summary. If you think labor is going to deliver something to you.
Read a fascinating book last year. My son put me onto it. My son's a financial advisor. He read this book about the Vanderbilt family and in that book he talks about Cornelius Vanderville.
The man was born in 1794. He died in 1877. And when he died in 1877, he was the world's richest man. And he started out as an immigrant, son of an immigrant. And he borrowed his father's rowboat. And he transferred people across the waterways of New York. And then he started transporting goods. And then he got his own boat, then another boat and another boat. And then he got a railroad. And then he built a bunch of railroads. And then he became the world's greatest shipping magnate right there in New York City and so when he died 1877, this driven, brilliant man was the wealthiest man in the world at his time. The book is called Fortune's Children, the Fall of the House of Vanderbilt. And in that book, the author discusses the fact that when Cornelius Vanderbilt died and left the money to his kids, they were crazy rich. They built mansions in New York and mansions on the coast up in New England and each one bought a super yacht and they just, they were spending money. They spent money like crazy. At one point, one woman who was a part of the family was spending $1200 a day on cut flowers in her mansion.
And at that same time you could spend $1.00 and rent a horse drawn taxi for the day. You could rent a taxi for the whole day for a dollar. She was spending 1200 bucks a day for flowers. 50 years later, not one of the heirs, was among the wealthiest people in the world. 100 years later, they had a Vanderbilt family reunion. Not one member was a millionaire.
They had squandered all of it. And so Cornelius had worked himself to the bone, to exhaustion and the embodiment of diligence and hard work and labor and brilliance he just made it happen and they left the money to fools.
So here's a conclusion. Every day the man's task is painful and grievous, physically and mentally. Sorrowful Anger, vexation, provocation, grief. It's ridiculous and frustrating. This man died at the age of 82. He lay in his bedroom for eight months, and then he died of illnesses exacerbated by exhaustion and left everything he had to fools.
And on top of that, Qohelith says every night, his mind does not rest. Can't even sleep at 3:00 in the morning, he wakes up angry, cussing out customers or cussing out employees or cussing out somebody. At 3:00 in the morning, he wakes up anxious about the cash flow or the competitors or whatever's, whatever's weighing on him. At 3:00 in the morning he wakes up with his mind just racing because he's trained himself to wake up at 3 and noodle on everything.
He came to sleep, Qohelith says. This is a vanity. And a great evil if I'm an atheist of any kind trying to make life work by labor.
● The Verdict for Believers (vs. 26a)
I am going to wear myself out. So here's the verdict that he gives us for believers. It's in Ecclesiastes 2 and we're looking at verses 24 at the beginning of verse 24 and 25. So Ecclesiastes 2:24 says, if you're a believer, there is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. For this also I have seen is from the hand of God, for who can eat and who can have enjoyment without him?
For the person who is good in his sight, he has given wisdom and knowledge and joy. If I am a person who in the sight of God is good, I have this blessing as a believer regarding my labor. Now I put on the back of your outline today, friends, this brief theology of Labor of work and I hope you'll read it when you go home to think about what God actually says about work. Now if it's on the back of the outline, it's extremely brief. Obviously this is not the definitive work on labor, but The verdict for believers is eat, drink and tell yourself that your labor is good. Enjoy your drink, enjoy your food, tell yourself that your work is good.
In the novel Brothers Karamazov, the author has a figure named Father Zocima who says above all, don't lie to yourself.
Don't lie to yourself and what Qohelith is saying here is. Tell yourself the truth. Your labor is good if you're laboring as a believer connected with God, your labor. Is good. I think one of the major problems in life is that we lie to ourselves. We listen to the chatter in our heads. Now the obvious example is the girl who weighs 85 lbs and tells herself she's fat.
And we look at that and say that's crazy. But then in our heads we tell ourselves I don't do anything wrong, it was his fault. In our heads, we tell ourselves I'm the smartest person in the room, or we tell ourselves I'm bad. Or we tell ourselves I know God loves me, but he doesn't really like me, he just tolerates me. So we tell ourselves all these lies in our head and Qoheleth says. Tell yourself that your labor is good.
Be careful what you're saying to yourself.
Martin Lloyd Jones in his book called Spiritual Depressions that said this.
He said stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself. Stop listening to this endless loop that's going on in your mind of negative lies and start talking to yourself. It's an amazing piece of advice, friends. There is a book that just came out called, “Chatter, The Voice in our Head, Why it matters and how to Harness it”. And the author says this.
He discovered that we talked to ourselves in the third person. In other words, if I say David, talk to myself in a third person, which he calls distance, self talk, giving advice to myself, I can have positive results in as little as one second. OK, you're saying, Dave, that's just a psychotic mumble, Jumble. No. Psalm 42:5. “Why are you in despair? O my soul, distant self talk. Why are you? Why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of his presence.”
Stop listening to yourself and start doing what the psalmist did, which was talk to yourself.
David, why are you depressed? I know you live in a dumpster fire, but it's not sovereign. God is sovereign. Oh yeah, yeah. OK, I'm OK. I'm going to make it. Be careful what you say to yourself. Then he says enjoy what you eat and what you drink as a gift from God. The first key to enjoyment of things is understanding.
● Enjoy what you eat and drink as unto God as a gift from God.
God handed it to me. God gave me this meal. This meal there's a wonderful prayer practice of earlier believers where they would take their plate when it was full before they ate. They would lift it up and they would hold it up and then they would pray because as they held it up they were reminded. This is not a given, this is not a guarantee. There's kids in Africa, friends who are literally eating clods of dirt just to get something in their stomach so it won't hurt. This is a gift, understand that. Connect yourself to the gift that God has given to you. We have the choice. He says enjoy yourself, enjoy it. Choose joy. Don't choose anxiety, don't choose bitterness, don't choose jealousy, choose joy. We have that option. This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice. I choose to rejoice on this day. I choose to be glad in it.
I have the option of choosing joy and especially when I see my eats and my drink as stuff has been given to me. My God and he says enjoy your work as unto God as a gift from God. To the degree that I connect my work to God, it will be enjoyable.
● To the degree that I say this is a gift God has given to me to work, it's a gift God has given to me to do.
What I'm good at for the good of others. When I was teaching Alaska Bible college, I counted it up 36 years ago. I was teaching there. A businessman took me to lunch. I got up to leave and I said, Jim, I have to go to work. And as I'm walking past him, he grabs my forearm and he's sitting in his chair still. He looks up at me with the soberness of a man who's about to confess adultery.
And he said, Dave, you don't have to go to work. You get to go to work.
I have a job, I get to go to work. It's God's gift. It's God's kindness to me. And in the generosity of God, I get to go to work.
And then he finishes it by saying,
● Enjoy the wisdom and the knowledge that has been given to you. Enjoy the joy that's given to you by God when you're intellectually and spiritually and emotionally connect your life to God. There's crazy joy in that. Enjoy it.
Choose joy. We have a choice. We don't have to choose anxiety. I think here's a core idea, friends.
The core idea. Simply this. Every aspect of life is immeasurably better when it's connected to God. Every aspect of life raking leaves is immeasurably better when it's connected to God. David Gibson in his book Living Life Backwards says this is the message of Ecclesiastes in a nutshell.
Life in God's world is a gift.
It's not gain.
The point of Maine being here is to enjoy this gift from God. It's not to be Cornelius Vanderbilt.
It's not to be Solomon when he was disconnected with God. It's to enjoy the gift of being alive. He gives us meaningful things to do. Connect my life with God.
Friends, this book is going to continue a long way in talking about the issues. We're going back.
Next week to some other things, but part of what he's going to say to us, our lives are a gift, and to the degree that I connect them with God, I'm going to experience joy.