PRAYER

Lord we pray for our church right now to be focused on you and tobe loving toward one another. Help us to be loving. There are thoseliving in fear right now. I confess, I’ve not had a loving attitude. I’vebeen dismissive and judged. Lord, help us to love your children, tolove those who need the gospel, to be your hands and feet.

Focus our minds on you. Drive our affections. Rewire what we careabout. Change what we love.

Amen.

We are in the book of Ecclesiastes learning about the perspective ofa life lived under the sun. Solomon’s main point: Life is a vapor. Lifelooks solid. It looks like you should be able to just reach out andgrasp it.“There it is. It’s yours for the taking." And so you think to yourself,"Well, that does look nice! I don’t mind if I do.” And so you reach outyour hand and to your astonishment, it vanishes between yourfingers. Life under the sun is fleeting.

And so if you can accept that vanishing reality as part of the design,then all of the sudden it allows you to lower your expectations and inso doing, increase your joy. That’s wisdom.

Wisdom takes charge what can be controlled and accepts whatcan’t.Wisdom enjoys the gifts of God in their season without needingthem. And we learned last week. That Wisdom is Listeningcarefully.

You see the fool talks. The wise listens. Most of the time we aren’treally listening to God. Have you ever had that moment where youwant to talk with someone, maybe a friend or one of your kids oryour spouse. And you see them on their phone scrolling throughsome shopping sight or social media sight and you say, “Hey.” Andthey say, “what’s up?”“Are you listening?” “Yeah, I’m listening.”

Oh, okay, it just doesn’t really look like it. I need to tell yousomething important. “Uh huh…go for it.” So don’t forget to take thecake out of the oven or it will burn. “Got it.” “yeah… Uh Huh.” Andyou can tell in those interactions approximately .05% of their brainpower is engaged in the interaction.

And eventually, you say, “Jason Wolin. Listen to me. Look me in theeyes and listen.” There’s a pretty big difference between, being ableto respond as if you are listening and actually listening. There arevast differences in the level of engagement and listening. I see youlivestreamers out there not paying attention.

Are you listening to God? What is your level of engagement? Areyou “uh-huh” ing God? The wisdom is here for the taking and we aregoing to have to do more than uh-huh.

Now if you are ready to listen, then he’s going to give you advicetoday on how to experience a life of flourishing. Today’s text isanother great angle on the central message of the book. And theformat he chooses for us today is to show us the right way byilluminating the folly of the wrong ways.

So he speaks here of the violation of justice and this structure ofpower and authority that exists in the world. Now here’s our outlinefor today. We are going to see three obstacles to flourishing.

The world is a tower of structures. From the highest king down

through the lower reaches of government to the bosses and theemployees. There’s this giant web of authority structures.

The problem is not that these authorities exist. The problem is notpower.God created power structures. He created differences in power - onpurpose. He never intended for there to be equal power in the world.It is the diversity of power that makes the world an interesting andbeautiful place. Take for example the power of fire. When you light abirthday cake would you rather have a match or a volcano?

The problem is never inequality of power. There is inequality ofeverything. God has sprinkled throughout the world are sorts ofinequalities, gifts and privileges that make the world interesting.

Some people are better painters then others.Some people are better at sports than others.Some people have big hands and other people have short hands.Some have great linguistic abilities.

I mean, nobody is surprised that not all people are the same in everyway.

So the problem is never inequality of power. It’s the abuse of power.In fact, this is what makes power so unique. When you have lots ofpower, you can force people to do things against their will. A reallygood musician can’t force you out of your home with his greatmusical abilities. It’s a soft gifting. It’s a candle. It’s beautiful. It’sneeded and wanted. But it’s not strong. A military commander with arifle, on the other hand, could. He’s got the political and physicalforce to do it.

All of us abuse whatever power we have to force our will on others.

This is without exception.

Every parent in the room abuses the power God has given them.

I’m imposing a dad tax on you. Give me some of your Tricker TreatCandy. Just teaching the kids about being a good citizen.You can make your kids do things that advantage you because youare bigger, stronger, more powerful then they are.

Every kid in the room abuses the power God has given them. Theyhave the power to annoy their parents and get what they want.

If they are stronger then their brother they beat em up. They tease.They speak condescendingly, they mock, they flex putting them intheir place. Sorry I’ve got four boys so my examples are a bit boy-lopsided. I suppose girls can brag about their unicorn collection orsomething.

Every husband in the room abuses the power God has given him.

Through intimidation, anger, venting frustration to get his way.

Every wife abuses the power God has given her.

Happy wife, happy life. Wives know the power they have to maketheir families miserable. They know that if they are grumpy andunhappy, upset they can get what they want.

All of us abuse power. And the more power you have the moreterrible it is when it’s abused.

The ultimate expression of this is oppression. To see someone whohas opportunity to advance in life and work and improve themselves,

but then ensures that that won’t happen. They remove opportunityand take away any advantage that might give them upward mobility.

Incredibly powerful people have incredible influence. Powercorrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Solomon sees that.

Ironically, Solomon is writing about the tragedy of Tyrant kings andhe’s one of em. I think Solomon can so easily see how, the positionhe finds himself in, is not fair. Solomon had enough objective tocould recognize that he didn’t do anything to be born a song ofDavid. This isn’t fair. What if I was born one of the 180,000 slavesfrom the Ammorites or the Hivvites or Perizzites or the Jubusites.Solomon built the temple with these slaves. He could decree thatwork be done and at the same time recognize that it’s not fair.

You see, I don’t think Solomon is looking out into the big bad worldout their at all these corrupt politicians and saying, look at how theyabuse power. I think he was looking at himself. I think he could seethat he was one of the most powerful men who had ever lived. Hehad self awareness of his ability to control anyone in the world; hewas functionally omnipotent and totally miserable.

Why? Because he loved the wrong thing. He needed to changewhat he loved. Our themes this year is change what you love.

Solomon says, my problem is I love power instead of the Lord whogives power. My problem is I love what power can do for me ratherthan what the power that the Lord gave me can do for him. He lovesthe wrong thing.

He sees it. He feels it. He marvels at it. When abused, I suffer andpeople around me suffer.

What if a king actually did what he was supposed to do? He used allhis power to care for the people. What if he loved God who givespower and because he loved God so much he used the power givento him to care for the people under him. He organized the country insuch a way that the people prosper.

That’s what is meant by the phrase, “But this is gain for a land inevery way: a king committed to cultivated fields” He’s not committedto his personal gain. He’s committed to God who gives the power touse his power to help the people.

I used to really want power because I felt that with power wouldcome respect. Now I totally shirk away from it. I realize how muchresponsibility there is to use it for the good of people and its reallyhard to do. I fear making bad decisions and how that will affectpeople.

Solomon says, “Look at the king who loves the Lord and not powerand because he loves the Lord, he serves the people. Isn’t that abeautiful thing?”

Now the first obstacle of flourishing is loving power not the lord ofpower. Now there’s a second obstacle to flourishing. Loving Money.

Reading the Bible is difficult because sometimes in order tounderstand it properly we have to immerse ourselves in a cultureentirely different than our own. I mean the Bible was written a longtime ago, in cultures wildly different than our own. Now if we aregoing to understand this text as American’s we are really going to

have to work hard to extract ourself from our culture and try toimagine what it would be like to live in a society that desired to havelots and lots of wealth and riches and possessions. Try to imagine it.Now get this: apparently, these primitive people created identity andmassive security blankets around a number in their bank account.They would get all stressed out when disease and sickness wouldbreak out and their fortunes would plummet. Can you believe that?It’s so silly and has practically zero implication, but it’s in the Bible soapparently we are supposed to get something out of it.

So you can see here, that Solomon is bemoaning this golden goosewe all chase. We say to ourselves, “Imagine if I could just own thegoose that lays the golden egg. All my problems would be solved!”

But that starting assumption distorts everything around us. Thatinitial belief warps our perception about the nature of reality.

Let me illustrate with an optical illusion: what do you see happeningin this video?

Now the trick here is that this is not a video. It’s an image and youreyes, because they have to make certain assumptions about whatit’s seeing and because they have to have use certain referencepoints, reality gets distorted. Everything looks like it’s moving eventhough this is just an image.

And in the same way, when you approach life with the assumptionthat money is worth loving, that reference point begins to skew andcolor and distort reality such that you begin to interpret the world inreally wonky ways. You begin to have a perception of the world thatis very different than the real world.

When we believe that money is worth loving, everything gets jackedup. Now it looks like it’s worth loving, but it’s an illusion. It’s aspiritual optical illusion. It appears one way but it’s actually quitedifferent. Your eyes are playing tricks on you.

So Solomon points out 4 illusions of wealth:

The first illusion is that there is an end to the appetite. That you willbe satisfied if you get enough. You can be starved of Oxygen andthen you can breath and you can get enough. When you breath youare satisfied. That doesn’t apply to money.

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. Whatever youare hoping money will do for you, you’re going to be disappointed.

Now what is the reason for that? Here’s the theological answer.Because money does not contain the properties necessary tosatisfy. What essential property is it lacking? The ability to love.

And the heart wants to love something and be loved by something.And money can get you half that equation. You can love money, butthat money can’t love you back. No matter how much cash youaccumulate that lacking element will always be there.

Now instead of identifying the problem and saying, “You know what,money can’t love me and therefore will never be able to fulfill me,”we instead think, the problem is that we just don’t have enough. It’sjust never quite right. You always want the next thing. Take just yourliving space as an example.

You start out life going from sharing a room with your sister, to yourown room. That’s unbelievable. What an upgrade.Then from your own room to a dorm room.A dorm room to an apartment.An apartment to a rental.A rental to a starter home.A starter home to a custom home.

But you always are looking up saying to yourself wouldn’t that benice? Just a few more square feet, a few miles further toward thisdesirable end, just a bit more land. I found myself on a website thisweek looking at 15000 acre wilderness ranches on the Salmon riverin Idaho saying to myself, now that would be nice. I live on a 1/4acre now. My heart tend to make rather big jumps.

The heart just opens to receive and the second you do it expands.Greed has two sisters, give and give. It’s brother’s are more andmore. The problem is not money. It’s the love of money. It’s not aworthy enough object to love; it doesn’t possess the properties tosatisfy. Do you hear this? It’s such a crucial concept. Money hasmany powerful properties which is why we tend to be drawn to it. It’swhy many worship it. But it doesn’t have the properties necessary tosatisfy.

What if you really, really loved the taste of celery and lettuce pickles.I mean those things were your absolute favorite foods and that wasall you ever ate. You’d be dead in a month. Even though you can fillyour stomach with them, even though your taste buds fire andactivate, those foods don’t have any calories.

Money is like this. It tastes good. It feels good. It fills your stomach.And it will kill you if you love it and serve it. So the first illusion ofwealth is that it can satisfy.

The second illusion of wealth is that it can comfort. When it comesto money, obviously, it’s not the paper or the number on the screenthat we want. We want the stuff that money can buy. We envision alife of easy and luxury and COMFORT if we had more. We envisionjust a life of ease hanging out with friends.

But Solomon points out, this too is an illusion. You think it’s easy tohave lots of money?

The Illusion of Friends

He says, money creates problems. Congratulations, your reward forowning all this stuff is managing thousands of problems that areassociated with wealth.

The first problem is your friends? You think your friends will treatyou the same if you are wealthy? Look at verse 11. “He says, whengood increase, they increase who eat them.” And then he points outa really interesting fact.Get really rich and you’ll find parasites that just cling to you likebarnacles on the side of a ship and you’ll constantly, your entire lifehave to scrape em off.

Get rich and suddenly everyone’s your best friend. You’ll discoverthat the people who think they are the absolute best managers ofmoney are those who don’t have any. It’s really easy to explain tosomeone else how they should spend their money. When goodincrease, those who want to spend your goods increase along withit. Friends don’t increase. Consumers increase.

The Illusion of Ease

Now that’s not the only problem, Solomon observes. It’s not justpeople. It’s the wealth itself

In the ancient world, wealth was measured by goods. So if you havemore lambs what do you need? Shepherds to tend those lambs. Andthe shepherds need more grass to feed the lambs. And you needmore lambs still to feed the shepherds who lead the sheep who eatthe grass. You get the point. The more you have, the more you needto take care of what you have. The more you now need to worryabout protecting what you have.

He’s asking the guy to step back and evaluate. What benefit is allyour wealth to you? You functionally live no differently than the nextguy. You basically dress the same, eat the same, breath the sameair and your reward is that you get to look at a number in a bankaccount. You’ll never experience the benefit of most of the moneyyou earn. Most of it goes to either maintaining the estate or letting itpass on to others after you die. Most of it you’ll never enjoy. Insteadyou just pay out to keep it all up.

Your fleet of cars needs to be maintained and that kid on thescooter scraped the paint and now you have to hassle with theinsurance company and find a time on your schedule to go downand get it fixed. Ugh. You got to get oil changes and rememberwhen to do it.You buy this giant brand new house, but then you notice, that totallywithout your permission a spider decided to make his web 20 feetup in the vault of your ceiling. How dare he. What’s he doing upthere? So you need to go to home depot and buy a ladder or one ofthose long stick things. But then you need store that long stickthing? Where do I store it? And I need a little hanger to put it on. Sooff to home depot you go.The rentals need fixing, the boats need winterizing, the weeds needpulling, the valuables need guarding and insuring, the taxes need

filing. The complication factors skyrocket.And at some point you pause and say to yourself, what was thepoint of all this again? What was the benefit I perceived that causedme to pursue all this junk?

Wealth creates problems. I love the way he says it in verse 12.Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, butthe full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep. God builds into theequation of life consequences for luxury. Soon as you eliminatework, you get no exercise. No exercise equals fat. Fat meansunhealthy. Fat an unhealthy and no exercise equals no purpose andboredom and all that means a bad sleep.

Or maybe the consequence of luxury goes this way. Good payingjobs are high stress jobs. The life of the rich is full of stress and thefirst thing stress goes after is sleep.

The guy who works a 8-5 job doesn’t have to worry about this. Hejust works hard, gets paid very little, but he’s also responsible forlittle. So he does his honest days work, gets to go home, lets otherpeople worry about all the problems, feel good about his honest dayswork and then sleeps like a log.

The CEO is all stressed about

the supply chain,the market share,the personnel problem,what if my price is undercut,how to we fix the problem,the perception of the media.

This guys work leaks out all over into his personal life. What a

nightmare. I’m just going to dig my ditch.

Hear it again. God builds into the equation of life consequences forluxury. God builds into the equation the fact that money will leaveyou disappointed. You just can’t fix all the problems with money. Assoon as you plug this hole and fix this problem, out springs another.

It’s kind of sad thing. He summarizes by saying, "Isn’t it sad to thinkthat riches are kept to the hurt of the owner." He just spent his wholelife working for riches and those very riches destroyed him. Wellthat’s sad.

It’s the same sadness of the guy who nurses back to health awounded mountain lion. And he sacrifices his time and his moneyand his food and energy. He gives that mountain lion everything hehas and then one day, the mountain lion just eats him.

When you serve money and nurse along your portfolio and feedyour retirement funds and bottle feed that 401k and then one day itwakes up and decides to eat you. That’s sad.

It’s sad when money turns on you. So Solomon points out theillusion of comfort. Next is the illusion of security.

Now he’s addressing the guy who is insisting that his life is muchimproved by wealth. Some people, if you talk to them about theproblems of money, they’ll respond by saying to you, “Well, if it’s soproblematic, I’ll take your problem from you.”

Play me a song on your tiny violin. Poor you and all your problemswith loads of cash you don’t know what to do with.

Solomon says, fine, I’ll concede your point. There is a way to usemoney wisely and set up a really good life. But here’s the problem: itwont last. One of two things will happen. Either you will loose itthrough a bad investment or economic collapse and then you’ll havenothing to give to your kids OR you will die. THe more money youmake, the more you will one day loose.

Just this week we’ve seen just how volatile the economy is. Aninvisible virus can bring down a conceited and connected world. It’samazing. So maybe your wealth disappears that way. He envisions

the sadness of a man who takes out a home equity loan, invests hislife savings in a business idea and the whole thing goes belly upthrough a circumstance the guy could have never predicted. “Thoseriches were lost in a bad venture. And he is father of a son, but hehas nothing in his hand.”

You could hardly imagine anything more shameful in the mind ofJew than to leave no inheritance to his son. And yet, here he is,robbed of it all.

But even if you made it, he says, you can’t take it with you. Youcame into the world naked. And you leave naked. No Uhaul’s on theway to the cemetery. Nothing can go with you. In both cases it’s sad,because the thing the guy truly loved, the thing he was living for, thething that he invested his entire life in, was taken away from him.

He’s talking about the sorrow of loss. I don’t care what that thing is,that act of taking away someone’s love is sad.

Solomon’s observing that money can never make you secure. Itlooks like it can, but it will fail you.

Finally he observes that no matter how wealthy you are it will neverfix the soul problems. Remember we said the most fundamentalneed of the human heart is to love and be loved. Money will neverlove you. And because money will never love you, look at verse 17,“Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness in much vexation andsickness and anger.”

And because money does not love you, you are left feeling, very,very alone. He eats in darkness. What a picure. All alone, in thecastle on the top of the hill, in your mansion on your 40 foot diningroom table, Tesla in the garage, Yacht in the docs, perfectly clean, inorder, perfect temperature and ALL, freakin’ alone. That’s so sad.

Money can’t fix that problem. And the fact that it can’t fix thatproblem creates anxiety, frustration and anger. The longer that needgoes unmet, the more unhealthy you become. And then eventuallyyou get sick and realize that money can’t fix that problem either andthen you die.

That’s sad. That’s just sad. I’m not mocking that guy for his dumbdecision. I’m just truly sad for him. How sad it is to watch people getdisappointed. It’s sad to watch people’s love fail them. How sad it isto watch people’s dreams get crushed and hopes shattered.

This dude is broken.

Well what’s the right way? You don’t love money. You love the Lordwho gives money. You love the giver not the gift.

In fact, this is the thrust of our final point.

Here’s Solomon’s conclusion.

This is one of my absolute favorite parts of the book becauseSolomon turns the corner here. And the view he gives us isamazing.

He says, the gift is life and it’s beauty is a function, not of what theconsumption of that gift does for my senses. The beauty of the gift isits connection to the giver.

We need to love the Lord who gives life, not life itself.

Here’s an illustration.

The India team was in India when the news that Trump had shutdown all incoming flights to the US hit. And so we were thinking thatmy wife whose on that team would be stuck there for 30 days. AndI’m getting all these texts and people are concerned for her safety.And I’m thinking to myself, let’s get perspective here folks. The realdanger here is not the spread of Corona virus. The real danger is formy kids who are going to die of malnutrition from dad’s cooking.

Now I’m joking because this is far from true. It’s true I’m a bad cook,but we were in no danger this week because we were well takencare of. You would of thought I had open heart surgert. Randompeople offered to bring us meals. I felt so guilty. I was like, I’m grownman and I take care of myself….but I’ll take any help I can get.

Now here’s why I am telling you this. Was the gift I received thisweek food? Yes. But it was way more than just food. It was the lovethat produced the food. That made the food so much better. What ifI found $50 dollars on the side of the road and it was all crinkled upand had that road grime and oil all over it. And I took that bill and Iused it to hire someone to cook me a meal and some stranger cameand delivered it vs have that exact same meal delivered to me out ofthe loving kindness of someone’s heart. It’s the exact same meal.Do you enjoy one more than the other? Absolutely. In fact, the mealis kind of of the side-note to the affection I feel toward the peoplewho provided that meal.

This world, this life is a gift of God. But the real gift is God and thisworld is infused with meaning because. You see this world ismagnitudes more meaningful and enjoyable when we see it as a giftthat God gives.

This is what Solomon means. The gifts according to verse 18 is tofind enjoyment in the work God gives you for the few days that Godhas given. God gives the wealth you have. God gives the power youhave in verse 19. And they are, he says very explicitly gifts to beenjoyed. But they can ONLY be enjoyed if you LOVE the God whogave them. That is what ultimately what infuses those gifts withmeaning.

One of my absolute favorite C.S. Lewis quotes comes from hissermon called the ‘the weight of glory’ and he’s talking about thepleasure we receive from enjoying God’s creation. And he says this.He’s referencing in this section God’s joy in creating the universe.

And if you look at the creation narrative described in Proverbs 8 oreven in Genesis 1-2 you can see the joy of God in creating his

world. The language of the Bible is almost as if God is frolicking injoy.

I mean, I get annoyed when I hear people read Genesis. Theyalways read it with this monotone voice.

Genesis 1:3-4, “And God said,”Let there be light," and there waslight. And God saw that the light was good."

So this is the backdrop to the C.S. Lewis quote. He’s talking aboutGod’s delight in his creation.

The world, was God’s work of art. And he implanted in the world, inthe physical matter, pieces of his joy. The creation is God’s work ofart. It’s the overflow of his own creative joy. He was in rapture whenhe made the world. He was in such joy. Some of that joy gotpermanently into the world he was making. And we bump into that,we call that pleasure.

God said, “Let their be light.” How much of your joy comes fromlight? The infinite variety.

Why do you so love a sunset? That sunset from a few a nights agowas spectacular! Why are things beautiful?

Why do we enjoy the sound of music? Why does a beautiful moviecause you to cry?

We experience it as physical pleasure. But in reality, we areparticipants in God’s joy. Common grace. We are tasting of the joy.Now if you don’t see our physical joys as connected to a SovereignGod you miss so much.

Solomon says here that God is the one who gives, “pleasure andpower and money to be enjoyed” but you have to recognize thegiver. It’s God who gives it. And so the joy comes from partaking inthe pleasure of God, not just the stimulation of the senses. Do yousee how vastly different they are?

The greatest pleasure that we could ever have is just far off hints.It’s just dancing in the shadows that are cast from the source. Whatmust it be like to be at the fountainhead?