RHYTHMS: Play

Chris McCurley: Happy Easter. You would think that on Easter Sunday we would have a sermon about the resurrection. Well, that's sort of the case. We are in a series called Rhythms where we're trying to get in tune with what God would have for our lives, especially how to live the day to day. What does a gospel shaped rhythm look like? Because every life in here has a rhythm. Every one of you lives your life in a certain rhythm. How can we attune ourselves to what God would have us to do in our daily lives so that we match the rhythm that he would have us live out? And that is a resurrected life. That's what living a resurrected life is all about. So that's what we're talking about in this series, what we're talking about this morning. We've talked about work, we've talked about rest, and lucky for you, you came. when we're gonna talk about play. We all like to talk about playing. We all like to play when we have time. The problem is we don't always have time, which is something we've discussed in this series as well. And how does this relate to living a resurrected life, living out a life that is in tune to God's rhythm? You know, the headline in the newspaper read, The Joyless Triumph of Nick Saban. Now, for those of you who don't know who Nick Saban is, He is a legendary college football coach. He was the coach for the Alabama Crimson Tide up until a couple of years ago when he retired. I'm not an Alabama Crimson Tide fan, but I have to admit he was an absolute beast of a coach and someone that is still considered the most successful, the best college football coach, maybe even best coach of all time. He's won many championships, conference, national, all those kinds of things. And Forbes magazine said that he is the most powerful coach in sports. He's the most powerful man in Alabama, even more so than the governor. At least that's what they say. He's been described as driven, relentless and joyless. One reporter talks about meeting Saban at a party one time and it was fresh off of the national championship and what you won in 2009. And asked him about it. said, you must be on cloud nine after winning the championship. And he replied, I don't know, exhaling as if the whole thing was an inconvenience. You win, but with every championship, you've got this new set of problems and issues. And the writer went on to state that is quintessential saving a joyless winner. I was. Listening to an interview the other day with Lane Kiffin, who used to be on staff with Nick Saban, he said after we won one of the national championships, I remember which one it was. He said we had a meeting, a coaches meeting at 730 the next morning, the day after winning the national championship and Saban said, look, we're behind. We've been playing longer than anybody. We've got to do something to get these recruits. And Kevin was like, what are we doing? We're meeting at 730, but he said that's what made him great. But he never could seem to relax and enjoy the moment. And He's not the only joyless winner. You see Him every day. You see Him all the time in the church. Shouldn't we be the most joyful people on the planet? Shouldn't Christians who live with the hope of heaven, who live a resurrected life, shouldn't they be the most joyful people on earth? We have the peace that comes through Jesus Christ. We are no longer under condemnation. We are the winners, and yet all too often we are joyless. winners and why is that? I think much of it can be attributed to what we talked about a couple of weeks ago with work. We live this turbo pace lifestyle and we're being swamped with anxiety and stress. We're consumed with this turbo pace. We're hurry sick and we can't seem to slow down because if we do slow down and take a break, then it means we're not productive and thus we're not valuable any longer. And so we break out the laptop on vacation. We answer emails and texts and and calls while we're supposed to be relaxing because if we don't, we lose ground and somebody else gets ahead of us. We've been sold on the message as well that leisure time is kind of antithetical to the Christian life. Think about it. Those of you who grew up in the church probably heard a few lessons on how rock and roll music is satanic and how dancing is from the devil and how Our young people are being consumed by video games and how there's nothing good on television and movies are destructive to the soul. You can't go to the beach because you'll lust. You can't go to a Titans game because they serve beer there. You can't go to a buffet because it promotes gluttony and on and on. And we can find a problem with every source of entertainment that there is. And so many people are left with the impression that the only good reaction to all of this is just to stay holed up in your house and read your Bible and pray all day. In fact, there are many religious groups that have done that over the centuries who have just lived in, say, a monastic society and just detached from the world around them and spent their time praying and studying the Bible. But think about this. God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And Eden was perfect. It was paradise. was utopian. Do you not think that God planned for Adam and Eve to enjoy paradise? Did God not expect Adam and Eve to enjoy the utopian existence that He had blessed them with? You think about all the pleasures that God has placed and made available for us. Food, sleep, rest, sex, laughing. I mean, how do you think God expects us to respond to the playful kitten or the dog that wants to go fetch a stick? If entertainment and pleasure is so wrong, then why did he make snow? Why did he create the mountains and the oceans? And why do people in every human culture have the ability to laugh and to be amused? And why did the Holy Spirit inspire these words? Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Notice that last phrase, richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. God is a God of joy. So what's the problem with entertainment and pleasure? Well, nothing as long as they are enjoyed within the context or the framework of God. We're going to be in Ecclesiastes this morning. Ecclesiastes chapter two, starting in verse one, here's what Solomon writes. I said to myself, come now. I will test you with pleasure, so enjoy yourself. And behold, it too was futility. I said of 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 men to do under heaven the few years of their lives. I enlarged my works. I built houses for myself. I planted vineyards for myself. I made gardens and parks for myself. And I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and I had home-born slaves. I also processed 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 pleasures of men, many concubines. Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also stood by me. All that my eyes desired, I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor, and this was my reward for all my labor. Thus. I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted and behold all was vanity and a striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun. Now Ecclesiastes may not be the most uplifting thing you've ever read, but it is Solomon's diary. And while it can seem depressing at times, we see some valuable life lessons, especially when it comes to living a resurrected life. I mean, Solomon pursued leisure relentlessly, pleasure relentlessly. Ecclesiastes is basically a journal of his pursuit. He attained massive wealth and treasures. He partied. He built vineyards and parks and he built houses and he takes on these huge projects. He has servants and butlers and maids and personal assistants. He has a choir of male and female singers. He has 700 wives and 300 concubines. And besides 999 of the women, none of that was wrong. In fact, it was good if you keep it in its proper context. And that, of course, was the problem. And he alludes to the problem by saying it was all a chasing after win, the striving after win. In fact, what he states in chapter one, verse 14 is really ⁓ He says, have seen all the works which have been done under the sun and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind. Solomon's relentless pursuit of pleasure had come up empty. And he concludes that when all is said and done, it's all meaningless. And he gives some specific symptoms in chapter one, beginning in verse four. Since a generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. Also the sun rises and the sun sets and hastening to its place, it rises there again, blowing toward the south and turning toward the north. The wind continues swirling along and on its circular courses, the wind returns. All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again. All things are worrisome. Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor is the ear filled with hearing. Solomon's pursuit has worn him down and he says you work hard, but you have nothing to show for it. You spend all this time breaking your back in labor and you have nothing to show for it. We're just spinning in circles. He says, what's it all for? Now keep in mind that Solomon wrote this before iPhones. He wrote this before Internet. He wrote this before streaming TV, before professional sports. Solomon's pursuit of pleasure turned up empty and 29 times. He uses the phrase under the sun. He searched everywhere under the sun. He witnessed many things under the sun and he found no meaning under the sun. And so Solomon is left frustrated and tired. He's tired and frustrated because his searching was for something that he thought would turn his light on. And yet he simply came up empty time and time again because he's searching high and low for something that cannot be found under the sun. What he needed to be doing, the focus of his pursuit should have been godly. Notice how his diary ends. The conclusion, when all has been heard, is fear God and keep His commandments because this applies to every person. I know you know this, but we were made by God for God. For whatever reason, God has always wanted a relationship with His people. Knowing that we are failed beings, He has still always pursued a partnership, a relationship with us. And all other facets of life are contained within that pursuit. At least they should be. It's not about recreation or play or leisure time being wrong. It's not that we can't enjoy things in this life. It's that oftentimes those things take the place of the one who has blessed us with those blessings. We can enjoy life. It's not that God expects us to spend all of our free time just praying and studying our Bible. It's just that our leisure time, our play time can't be most important. If your play keeps you from church, from worship, then it's not good. If your play involves things that are sinful, then it's not good. If your play becomes all-consuming, that's not good. If your play becomes your god, then obviously that's not good. Sports are great. I love to watch them. They can easily become an idol for me. I don't know about you. We love to play sports. We love to watch our kids play sports. But when they become the focal point of our lives, then it's no longer about recreation. It becomes about dedication. It becomes a question of our allegiance. And that's true of any activity that we engage in for pleasure or entertainment. Are we investing our lives in a relentless pursuit of things higher than what's under the sun? Are we trying to make the sideshow the main event? Which is exactly what Solomon was doing. And thanks be to God that he woke up to that fact and realized it. And hopefully we do as well. that we snap out of it and realize when we're making the sideshow, the main event, it's no different than the workaholic or the couch potato. The workaholic has made an idol out of his work while the couch potato has taken rest to an extreme. It's the same way with play or leisure time. It all matters to God and therefore we have to approach it in a godly manner. I want you to think about it like this. Many of us approach life like an orange. And what do you do with an orange? Well, you peel it. and then you eat the different sections of it. And that's how many people look at life. Everything has its section. So I have my work section, or maybe my school section. I have my leisure section. I have my church section, my faith section. And that's our life. It's lived compartmentalized and sectioned off. When in actuality, our life should look like another fruit. It should look more like a peach. Because a peach is a hand fruit. You eat it and you eat it until you get to the center and in the center is a pit. And that pit is God. He is at the core of everything. Everything. He encapsulates everything. Everything is saturated by him. Everything points back to him. Everything radiates out of him. Our work, our rest, our play, whatever it is, he is at the center of all of it. I want you to notice. Ecclesiastes 3, 1-4, says, is an appointed time for everything and there is a time for every event under heaven. A time to give birth and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. Solomon says there's a time for everything. Everything. There's a time to laugh, there's a time to dance, there's a time to celebrate life and enjoy the things of this life. It's a balance. And Solomon says, I'm not trying to be a killjoy here. He didn't do a 180 and decide that he really messed up and swing the pendulum so far the other way that he went to the next extreme. He's not saying that pleasure is a bad thing. He recognizes that life should be enjoyed. However, it must be enjoyed within the context of God and living a resurrected life. I know that. There is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one's lifetime. Moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor, it is a gift of God. And then you go over to Ecclesiastes 9 and verse 9, he writes, Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life, which he has given to you under the sun. For this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun. It's not that we can't enjoy life the wise. Solomon says that we should. I have no doubt that Solomon enjoyed life. I mean, it had to be pleasurable having all of the things at his disposal. He worshiped pleasure, though, and that's where he got off track rather than worshipping the Holy God. There's a great book. It's called God's at War as written by Kyle Idleman. And in the book, he tells the story about. entertainment and worshiping pleasure and sports and things of that nature. And he talks about how his little girl wanted to go watch Peyton Manning play when he was with the Indianapolis Colts. And so he got tickets to go and watch the Colts in Indianapolis. He lived in Louisville and he said, we drove up on Saturday night. We spent the night. We got up early to go to church because the game was on a Sunday. We went to church Sunday morning. And then the idea was we go straight to Lucas oil stadium for the game. And he said, we got up that morning and my daughter begged me to wear. her Peyton Manning jersey to church. And he was like, honey, nobody's going to be wearing a Peyton Manning jersey to church. And he said, ⁓ how I was wrong. There were 37 people at church wearing a paint manning jersey, two of them with their faces painted. A few hours later, Eitelman and his daughter were sitting in Lucas Oil Stadium. They cheered so loudly that they lost their voices. But here's what I wanted to bring up. This is what he writes in the book about that experience. He says, but on the drive home, as my exhausted daughter slept, I couldn't help but think about the fact that I had really attended to worship services that day. The question I was asking myself was, which one was I most passionate about? Are we committed to a surrogate religion? Are we polytheistic and don't even recognize it? Does God have competition for first place in your life? Because God has given us many wonderful things to enjoy, whether it be children or the ski slopes or, you know, sailing on the ocean or the mountains to climb or trails to hike, whatever it may be, God's handiwork has provided us with many options for us to take. pleasure in but still is he the only one we worship we enjoy God's blessings but we worship the one who has blessed us right many of you have played Monopoly I'm sure and you know that the goal of Monopoly is to gain as much property and wealth as you can so that every time somebody lands on your property they have to pay you rent or a fee or whatever You know, pass go, get $200, all that. You want to collect the most wealth and money that you can, most properties that you can. And at the end of it, even if you win, what happens? You put it all back in the box and you put it back on the shelf. And that essentially is what Solomon is saying. It all goes back in the box. It all gets placed back on the shelf. Ecclesiastes 9, 7 through 12. Go then, eat your bread and happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart. For God has already approved your works. Let your clothes be white all the time and let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life, which he has given you under the sun. For this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. For there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom and shield where you are going. I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors and neither is bred to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to men of ability for time and chance overtake them all. Moreover, man does not know this time like fish caught in a treacherous net and birds trapped in a snare. So the sons of men are ensnared at an evil time when it suddenly falls on them. Well, what an uplifting and inspiring message, right? Solomon begins this section of his journal by pointing out that death is intimate. I mean, we're all born with an expiration date, right? We're all terminal in that sense. None of us are getting out of this life alive. I mean, technically speaking, we, child of God, we have the hope of eternal life. So we're living that resurrected life right here right now. But death is a reality to all of us. And Solomon is pointing to that. Solomon says, go then eat your bread and happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart for God has already approved your works. What he's saying is enjoy what God has blessed you with. Celebrate it with others. Have a good time. God has already approved your works, he says. That means that God's will for you is that you enjoy this life that he has blessed you with. In other words, it's not simple to take pleasure in what God has given us unless that pleasure leads to sin, which he did for Solomon. Solomon also writes, let your clothes be white all the time and let not all be lacking on your head. In the Old Testament, births, weddings, festivals, they were occasions that required individuals to dress up and smell good. So anointing on your head with oil was equivalent of putting on deodorant or putting on cologne or perfume. Solomon is saying dress up every day as if you're celebrating. He goes on to say, enjoy life with the woman whom you love. You know, Solomon had many honeys and many honeymoons, didn't he? And it seems like here he's reversing course and saying, you know, basically I wish I had spent it with one woman. I wish I had not divided my attention among 700 wives and 300 concubines. I wish I had focused all of my attention on her and making us have the best marriage that we could have. Life is short. You're going to die. So don't waste your life seeking pleasure from many women. Find one and give her heart. Give your heart to her. And finally, Solomon says, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. We only have one life to make a contribution. And so our time, our rest, our play will come to a screeching halt. So we live for God now. We let our work and our rest and our play be God focused. In essence, Solomon says, you got one shot at this. This is a one-shot deal. Make it count. Make the most of this vapor that is your life. Above all else, live a life that matters to God because none of the earthly pleasures that seem so appealing will scratch your itch deep enough. They never will. And I love what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 6, verse 7. says, a man's labor is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not satisfied. You ever eat a really good meal? Like maybe a thick, juicy steak? And no matter how good that meal is and no matter how full you are, eventually you get hungry again, don't you? There's a curious repetition to our appetite that no matter how good the meal was previously, no matter how much we filled up, we're going to be hungry again in short order. There is always a hunger for more in this life for the things that are under the sun. At the end of the day, though, it all goes back in the box. And the sooner we realize that, the better, Someone once said that you have two worries in life. Am I healthy? Or am I sick? And if you're healthy. You got nothing to worry about. If you're sick. You have two things to worry about. Am I going to get better? Or am I going to get worse? If you get better. We have nothing to worry about. If you get worse. You have two things to worry about. Am I gonna live or am I gonna die? If you're going to you have nothing to worry about. If you're going to die. You have two things to worry about. You're go to heaven, or you're gonna go to hell. If you're going to heaven, you have nothing to worry about. If you're going to hell, you got two things to worry about. Original or extra crispy, right? No. There's some things there that think that Solomon is pointing to. Be well. Make sure that your life is lived in a healthy direction. Make sure that no matter what happens in this life, that when it comes to an end, you've lived it in the proper direction. Here's the deal, you are a true underdog story. When you became a child of God, you not only became a conqueror, Paul tells us you became more than a conqueror. And it doesn't seem like that sometimes. It seems like the world is shooting its darts at you all the time. It seems like Satan is constantly attacking you. You feel wounded, you feel defeated at times. But you're not. Because I've looked at the back of the Bible, I see how this thing plays out. We win, right? And so live your life as a winner. Understand that there is neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing that can keep you from the love of God. You are safe and secure in Christ. When you live that resurrected life, you live it as a winner. It's not something that you just get to enjoy in the future when you go to heaven. It's something that you can revel in right now. You are a child of God. You are a winner. You are victorious. So don't live your life like a joyless winner. Instead, live your life bounding on air, knowing that when all is said and done, my future, my home, is with the Jesus who rose from the dead. I love you all. I'm grateful that you're here this morning. And I pray that as you leave here this morning, that you go out into the world around you and you show them what a joyful winter looks like. And maybe you don't have that joy. Maybe you want it, but you don't have it. Let us study the Bible with you. Let us talk with you about salvation, about discipleship, and what it means to be a child of God. Maybe you've been thinking about that and maybe that's something that's been on your mind and something has tethered you, something has held you back. Don't let it hold you back any longer. Put on Christ in baptism. Rise a new creature in Christ and live this resurrected life that He so desperately wants you to live. We say it every week, there's no reason to leave here without being right with God. So how can we help you this morning? If you have a need, why don't you come as we stand and as we sing.

Ecclesiastes 6:7