This is what the Lord says:
“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
or the strong boast of their strength
or the rich boast of their riches,
but let the one who boasts boast about this:
that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,”
declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 9:23-24)
I have nothing to add…
Here’s a special treat. In the last several posts we have chewed on Ecclesiastes, but how can we scoop its message all together? It seems so full of contradictions – just like you! Scholars have tried for centuries to make sense of it. But, Ecclesiastes is about real life, real life that throws curve balls. Recently, my son sent me a wonderful You Tube about Ecclesiastes. These guys really get it. I couldn’t summarize the book any better. Check it out. But do yourself a favor and wait for a moment when you can really watch and listen. It begins with a short Hebrew song and then goes way deep. Click HERE.
But wait, there’s more! No, not steak knives… This same group produced a beautiful song based on the teachings of Ecclesiastes. You’ll find it HERE.
And, If you missed this short series, the first one is found HERE.
Grace and peace.
If you want to write a hit song for Millennials, here’s how (that is, according to a joke I saw recently): First you start with some banjo. Then all the musicians shout “Hey!” The body of the song should contain complaints about life by Millennials. Then another “Hey!” Finish with a bit more banjo, played faster and fading out. Like any good joke, it’s an exaggeration based on a bit of truth. And the truth is, young people tend to complain when things aren’t going the way they hoped. And write songs about it. It’s not just Millennials. My generation did it back in the 60’s. “I’m just a man of constant sorrow. I’ve seen trouble all my days.” We sang that with earnest looks, even though our “days” were just getting started.
But, spend time with an old farmer, someone who has struggled through the ups and downs of a tough life, and you’re much more apt to hear a fiddle tune than a bunch of complaining. The farmers I have known are well acquainted with the fact that life ebbs and flows through good times and bad, and that complaining only makes it worse. In fairness to Millennials, their generation is also known for a desire to “keep it real.” And in time, by “keeping it real,” they will be known for patient acceptance of life’s various seasons. Because those seasons are real.
Perhaps the most famous section of Ecclesiastes are these next verses.
1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)
Try to identify exactly which of these seasons you have experienced and when. Call to mind any of the ways you experienced God’s influence and care during them.
Everybody dies. So, if death makes life seem pointless (see Vantage Advantage), how does adopting God’s way of seeing reality change the inevitable? Putting it in blunt terms, how can we “receive life as a gift from a generous God,” if we know He will one day yank it back? Isn’t that view of life just a crutch for those who can’t face the hard truth about dying?
It would be, except for this. God made a promise about death in Scripture.
In that day he will remove the cloud of gloom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth. He will swallow up death forever! The Sovereign LORD will wipe away all tears. He will remove forever all insults and mockery against his land and people. The LORD has spoken! (Isaiah 25:7-8)
Death seems certain when life is viewed “under the sun.” But for those who adopt God’s perspective, death will certainly be eliminated. Oh yeah? When will that happen, you ask? It already has! When Jesus was comforting His friend after the death of her brother,
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25 -26)
It sounds too good to be true, a get out of death free card. But, if you are struggling to accept what He said, consider this:
Another time, as He explained eternal life to His disciples, Jesus said He wasn’t lying:
“… If it were not so, I would have told you.” (John 14:2b)
Here’s the deal:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16-17)
You are going to die, so what’s the point of living? According to the guy who wrote Ecclesiastes, there is no point. Once you are dead, theres no difference between the wise person and the fool. They wind up in the same condition and will both, eventually be forgotten.
Then I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said to myself, “This too is meaningless.” For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die! So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:15 -17)
But this hopeless outlook changes when we do not limit our perspective to only that which happens “under the sun.” (See Part 2 for further explanation)
If you look at a piece of stitchwork from the back side, it doesn’t make much sense – bunch of tangled, knotted yarn hanging down. But if you look from above, you see a beautiful picture. That’s the vantage point advantage. When we look at our circumstances from God’s vantage point, seeing things as He does instead of merely from “under the sun,” life seems less hopeless and pointless. We begin to see life as a gift from a generous God.
This principle is stated and restated many times and ways throughout Ecclesiastes. It’s a recurrent theme in all of scripture. Without God, everything looks pointless because we die. But when we are reverently mindful of God, the outlook changes. So,
Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. (Ecclesiastes 5:18 -19)
Christians are losers. That’s what I used to think. Uptight, repressed people, afraid to have fun. So when my brother tried to tell me about Jesus, my responses were laced with sarcasm and scorn. Maybe you can relate – either to my attitude or to how my brother must have felt. If so, spend a moment or two considering an exchange between a man who had just met Jesus and his friend:
45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” (John 1:45-46)
You’ve seen those signs that proudly announce that this town is the birthplace of some famous person? Nazareth apparently didn’t have one of those. But I suppose Nathanael’s snippy response was about more than that. I suspect at some point Nathanael had been burned by believing something that turned out to be a hoax. He may well have thrown out that sarcastic remark as a way of defending himself against being fooled again. That would have been why I said it. No matter why he said it, it probably put Philip off. He might have been tempted to say, “Well, just forget it; you’re probably right.”
But he didn’t. His response was elegant in it’s simplicity and effectiveness. He said, “Come and see.” Check Him out for yourself. No need to try to prove it to his friend. All he needed to do was simply invite his friend to come, to come and see. I’m going to have to remember that. There have been many times when my response to a sarcastic doubter was to try and prove Who Jesus is. Perhaps you know that’s a response that rarely works and usually left me feeling frustrated and inadequate. Philip intuitively knew Jesus could do His own proving, that he, Philip, didn’t need to do that part. His role was to simply invite his friend.
“Come and see.”
Can you really forgive if you don’t forget? God doesn’t think so. When He forgives He forgets. Speaking about all those who accept His forgiveness and salvation through faith in Jesus, He says:
12 For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more. (Hebrews 8:12)
So, this woman goes to her priest and says, “I have a word from God for you.” “Oh no,” he replies, “we don’t do that in this church.” She persists and he finally tells her to prove she really is in contact with God. He tells her to ask God to tell her the last sin he owned up to in confession. If she gets it right, he’ll listen to what she has to tell him. When she comes back, the priest asks her what God told her was his last confessed sin. She says, “God said He can’t remember…”
Of course, you could ask all sorts of logical questions about what could be impossible for an all-sovereign deity. But the point is this: once God has forgiven you, that is the end of it. He will never bring it back up and hold it as leverage against you. When you accept Jesus’ payment on the cross as a full payment for all your sin, your account is paid in full. It’s done.
David Blaine blows your mind by doing things that seem impossible. But if you knew how he did his tricks, they would not have the same effect. When God performs a miracle, He deliberately hides how He did it, in order to preserve the full effect. Because it’s the why that’s important with miracles, not the how. I know people who declare, “There’s no such thing as a miracle.” What they mean is there must be some physical explanation for how God pulled off His tricks. Perhaps they are right. But in getting all focused on the how, they’ve probably missed the why. And that is a shame.
Miracles are often called “signs.” Signs point to something. When you see a sign for a hospital, you don’t stop there to get medical attention; you head in the direction it points to. In the New Testament, most of the miracles, or signs, point to the validity of the identity, message and work of Jesus Christ. They are designed to work like starter fluid for faith. You don’t run your engine on starter fluid; you just squirt some in the intake when you are having trouble getting it started. God uses miracles to help people get their faith started. When you read about or experience a miracle of God, don’t get so distracted wondering about the how that you miss out on why it happened.
1 We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:1-4)
I’d be very surprised if the movie, “God’s Not Dead,” convinced anyone to abandon atheism. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I suspect movies like that mostly feel good to those who already know God’s not dead. I’m pretty sure God does not need to be defended. Why? Because He isn’t dead! He’s all powerful and His purposes prevail. If He was dead, then maybe we’d need to work hard to prove He wasn’t.
That’s the idea humorously and ironically illustrated by these guys:
24 A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. 25 He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. 26 And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. 27 There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.” (Acts 19:24-27)
Any so-called god who can be “robbed of divine majesty” because of something someone says is no god you want to follow. I’ve seen many movies about faith in God that have stirred my soul. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not down on God movies. It’s just that the real God doesn’t need our movies; He makes His own:
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world. (Psalms 19:1-4)
There’s a lot of weird churches out there. Unhealthy, conflicted and sometimes dangerously wrong in what they teach. Trouble is, these problems often lie hidden. You can’t tell the condition of a church by how nice it looks, how upbeat the music is or by the size of the congregation. Good churches come in many shapes, flavors and sizes. So, how can you know if you’ve found a good one? What do you look for? Here’s a description of the first church, the initial gathering of people who knew Jesus. I think it describes some of the most important things to look for in a church:
Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers. (Acts 9:31)
Good churches will surely have a peaceful vibe and will seem to be growing stronger and adding people. But not necessarily always. For example, what seems like a lack of peace may actually be a manifestation of honest willingness to address a tough problem. And what seems to be peacefulness may be an unhealthy passivity of a congregation that is under someone’s thumb. Same thing with temporary swings in attendance.
But central to the health of a church are the two phrases highlighted above. A good church is very aware of the awesome and somewhat frightening presence of Almighty God. They understand His amazing power and perfect understanding and are reverently responsive to Him in a natural way. And a good church is mostly made up of people who, by having put their faith in Jesus, are alive with the Holy Spirit. Instead of going through religious motions, they are engaged in an exhilarating relationship with the Spirit, being encouraged, strengthened and instructed by Him. A church where these two are present will likely be one where you will be blessed and changed.
FRESH BREAD OF LIFE 