Fork of The Broad/Sermons from Carlton Baptist Church

Sam Storms defines wisdom this way - "It is the God-given ability to take the scattered, chaotic, and seemingly senseless trials and afflictions of life and understand them as God’s way of producing Christian maturity."  If we ask, God will give us an eternal, Big-God view of our temporary, small trials in life.  The wisdom we need is not from politicians or pop culture – I Corinthians 1:30 says that Christ Himself is our wisdom. He knows we have conflicting desires. He knows how easily we choose wrong when we know we should choose right. If you aren’t a Christian, then what you need is Jesus. And if you are a Christian, then what you need is Jesus.  Our desperate dependence on Him produces fruit in our lives.

James teaches us in these first few lines that the trials that come our way aren’t intended to shake our faith or see if our faith is real; instead, these difficult things happen in life to increase and deepen our faith and our confidence in the character of  God. So we go through difficult things to reach a positive end – to make us more like Jesus.  Those who have faith in Christ can rejoice in times of trial because every difficulty in life has purpose - God's glory, and our own good.

Where do you look for joy and satisfaction?  Most of us look horizontally, at temporary, earthly things - our possessions, our social status, our careers, our family, our achievements in life.  But Solomon challenges us to look horizontally, to God Himself, as the greatest source of joy and satisfaction we could ever experience.

In today's text, Solomon gives us 6 negative facts about money, and 2 positive facts about money, and teaches us to keep the gift in context - the Giver, God himself, is of much greater value.  Matthew 6:21 says “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. How you earn, spend, save, budget, and give away the gifts God gives you is a direct indicator of how much you love the Giver.  In Matthew 7, Jesus said a good father gives good gifts to his children – And money is a good gift – But money is not God. Our God has given the greatest gift we could ever receive in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The Good News of the Gospel is that God gave us Jesus, and Jesus gave His life on the cross as a gift, to pay the price all of the sins of all eternity, so that we no longer have to fear God, but we can enjoy life in this world and and enjoy peace with God in eternity.

In today's text, Solomon gives us four commands for the worship of God - Guard your steps. Watch your mouth. Keep your vows. Stand in awe. 

Remember God in the days of your youth. Fear God, and keep His commandments. This fear always asks one question when we’re faced with choices in our lives – “Does my Father in Heaven approve?” And you ask it not because you are in terror of Him – but because you are in awe of Him – You adore Him. You want to live under His smile with your career choices, with how you spend your weekends, with how you spend your money, and with how you spend your time. Because He’s a good father.

God created human beings to be in relationship - In fact, the first thing God said was "not good" was for "man to be alone".  You’re created to have relationships as a priority in your life – Relationship with other believers in the context of a church family helps ease the weight of burdens you can't bear on your own -and no relationship is of greater importance than your relationship with Jesus.  Relationship matters in this life, and relationship matters for eternity.  Charles Spurgeon once said, “There is no joy in this world like union with Christ. The more we can feel it, the happier we are.” Union with Christ is the center of our salvation and our growth as believers and the key to the deepest joy you can experience in this life and in eternity.

Sometimes we get caught up in the mindset of wishing people would "get what they deserve" - Which sounds reasonable, until the idea is applied to me personally!  Here's the good news – Life isn’t fair. If life was fair, God would absolutely obliterate us for our sins.  Jesus didn’t come for the winners in the world.  Instead, Jesus identifies with the poor, the blind and crippled, thieves and drunks and battered women and adulterers and unfaithful sons who spend their dad’s last dime and widows who lose their last coin. He invites those to the table who have no place in proper society – the sinners, and the sick; the lawbreakers; the needy and the hungry; the neglected and forgotten; the thirsty, the naked, stranger, those who mourn, the rejected, the convicts, the poor and powerless; all those oppressed and weighed down by their sin; He invites those who don’t deserve it and could never earn it.

Pastor and author Dustin Benge framed the theme of this passage with these words - “The world is not falling apart.  It’s falling together into God’s sovereign plan.” God is in control, no matter what your circumstances in life may be. No matter what your circumstances are, God is sovereign over them, and the time he has placed you in for this moment is a gift - And in eternity, He will set right everything that has gone wrong.

The theme for the episode is "“True joy comes not from our striving, but from God’s giving.”  We so often get caught up in experiencing the gifts God gives us, we forget the Giver.  There’s a place in your heart that only God Himself can occupy. Knowing Jesus is the most important thing, the one thing, the good portion. I John 4:19 says: “We love because he first loved us”. We love God, because God gave us the gift of Christ on the cross – We love God because He gave us a gift that won’t fade away – He gave us Himself.

Life is short.  Life is repetitive.  Life can be difficult. Ecclesiastes teaches us that life is just a breath.  Knowing that, all of our work and efforts and striving can leave us feeling empty - which is exactly what the writer intends.  This book compels us to understand the emptiness of our short, repetitive, difficult lives, so that we can fill ourselves with eternal truths.  Empty cups aren't a bad thing - They're just waiting to be filled.

So how do we approach this life from a Biblical perspective? How do we "fill our cups"? Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes encourages us with this overarching theme -  “Don’t just think in the now – because now will be gone soon. Focus on forever. That’s what really matters. Remember God in everything you do. Enjoy life, and enjoy God.”