"Seize the Day" Ecclesiastes 11 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Well, good morning, Emmanuel.

Let me invite you to take your Bibles and open to the book of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes and chapter 11.

And over the next two weeks, we will study together in our corporate worship Ecclesiastes chapter 11, Ecclesiastes chapter 12, as Pastor Jesse is on vacation, and many other from our congregation are traveling this these next couple weeks.

Ecclesiastes 11 · chapter mention Ecclesiastes 12 · chapter mention

We'll be looking at the end of the book of Ecclesiastes together.

So you could be in prayer for our pastor and for those in our congregation who are traveling.

And if you are traveling or you're at home for COVID-related reasons, I extend you greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.

I'm excited to share God's Word with you this morning.

At Student Ministry, we have been studying the book of Ecclesiastes all fall, and I think it will be an encouragement to our hearts to close this book, the last two chapters of this really incredible book together as a congregation as we close one year and begin another one.

So let me begin our time together by reading God's Word.

I'm going to read the entirety of Ecclesiastes chapter 11.

Ecclesiastes 11 · chapter mention

So look down at your Bibles and follow with me as I read God's Word.

Ecclesiastes chapter 11, look down at verse 1.

Ecclesiastes 11 · chapter mention

God's word says this cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.

You have a portion to seven or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.

If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.

He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know the way of the Spirit that comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

In the morning, sow your seed, and in evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.

So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all, but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many, all that comes is vanity.

Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth.

Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

Remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

This is God's word.

You know, there are two little keys on a keyboard that every student that begins to learn their way around a computer has to learn.

I know you might wonder in 2020, don't kids these days come out of the womb programmed knowing how to work a keyboard?

As a student pastor, I'm pretty sure that they come out programmed knowing how to work a smartphone.

But a computer's a different story.

It's a little more subtle, a little bit more intelligent, and of course, the key code I'm talking about is Control Z, the undo shortcut.

What a wonderful little key combination that just makes life better.

You're typing a document and you make a mistake, you hit Control Z, gone, no one will ever see it.

Or you find yourself writing an email in a bit of an emotional tizzy, and you begin to type something that you would regret if you were to hit send, control Z, and it's like it never happened.

Maybe you would never do something like that, but some people would.

But of course, there's an equally important lesson that every student and all of us have to learn and continue to learn throughout our life, and that is this very simple principle that life does not have an undue shortcut.

The nature of life under the sun is that the decisions that we make today and the actions that we take today will have consequences, some of them consequences with which we'll live for the rest of our lives.

And as we are studying the book of Ecclesiastes, the preacher of Ecclesiastes would have us know that because this world is not all there is, and we were not made to live merely for this world, in fact, every decision that we make and every action that we take in our life will have significance not only in this world, but in the world to come.

Every action that we take has eternal significance.

Wouldn't it be nice then, knowing that our lives have these eternal consequences, to have a roadmap for how to live the kind of life that would be free of regrets?

Wouldn't it be good to have a roadmap to be able to live a life that you can get to the end of it and look back and say, I have in all honesty no major regrets, and I will have none for eternity.

That's the kind of passage that Ecclesiastes chapter 11 is meant to be for us.

Ecclesiastes 11 · chapter mention

This passage is a roadmap for a life without regrets.

Particularly on a day like today, where we are closing out one year and we are beginning another.

We're reflecting on a year that unfolded with many events that none of us could ever have predicted.

We are looking forward to a new year, not knowing what is coming.

We know that there will be joys and there will be sorrows, but there will be many events that none of us can control or predict.

And yet in this real world, there is a way to live in such a way that you can come to the end of this year and the end of your life and say, I have run my race and finished my course, and I know there is laid up for me a crown in glory.

Ecclesiastes chapter 11 is given to us to be a roadmap for a life without regrets.

Ecclesiastes 11 · chapter mention

We're gonna look at it this morning, and it really unfolds with just two steps, two steps along this path to a life without regrets, and they are this.

To work hard, serving the Lord now and enjoy your life.

Now.

That's what Solomon tells us in verses one through six.

Let's begin by looking at verses one and two.

Look down at your Bibles at verse one with me.

Solomon writes, Cast your bread upon the waters, for you'll find it after many days.

Give a portion to seven or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.

In a word, work hard at being generous in this life.

Work hard at being generous.

Now, why do I say being generous?

There are two possible interpretations in verse one.

Some of you are using a different translation.

I'm using the ESV, and if you have a different translation, it might say something like, send your product, for after many days you will get a profit.

Something along those lines.

The one interpretation of this text is that Solomon is referring to international trade, sending your waters be some product or investment, and you're sending it on waters, on just on boats on the waters, and you're engaging in some kind of international trade.

That's a possible interpretation, but the ESV really represents the Hebrew pretty well in that.

Look at the second line, look down at verse 1.

Cast your bread after on upon the waters for you will find it after many days.

You'll find what?

What is it?

You might get your bread back.

Throw your bread on the water, and maybe after some days you might get it back.

But if you're engaging in some kind of international trade, I think you would want more than just your bread back, right?

You would want something else back.

And so traditionally, this text has been understood, and I think this is the right interpretation.

This is talking about generosity.

In other words, the image here is of a man casting his bread, and in the ancient world it would probably be some kind of wafer, throwing it on the water.

And what do you expect is going to happen if you throw bread on the water?

One of two things.

Either the ducks eat it or it just dissolves in the water.

That's what happens.

Some of you take your kids, I love to take my kids to the Potomac, and we buy a loaf of bread at the Dollar Tree, and we throw the bread on the water, and the ducks eat it, and it's delightful.

We have no expectation that we are going to be taking that bread back with us.

That's the nature of throwing bread on water.

But this text says, throw your bread on the water, be generous with your stuff, take the things that you have and throw it out.

Use it.

Give it away, give it away.

Feed someone with it, do something for others with it, and maybe, just maybe, you might get something in return, but don't do it for that reason.

In other words, work hard now with the things that you have at being generous.

Be generous to others.

In fact, the Proverbs tell us that really, in the long run, there will be a reward for our generosity.

Proverbs chapter 19, verse 17 says, Whoever is generous to the poor, lends to the Lord, and the Lord will repay him for his deed.

Proverbs 19:17

That's the kind of perspective that is being commended to us in this text.

You want to live a life without regrets, then take the things that you have and send them out on the water.

Spread them around.

Give them to others.

Be generous with what you have.

Maybe someone will repay you in this life, but in the long run, the Lord sees what you do, and he will bring everything to account and he'll reward you for your deeds.

Living a life without regrets starts with being generous with your stuff.

And Solomon continues to add urgency to this in verse 2.

Look down at verse 2.

And he says, Give a portion to seven or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.

He continues the thought but adds, Be exceedingly generous.

That's the idea here when he says, give a portion to seven or even to eight.

Portion, a chelec.

A portion is your lot, your inheritance.

It's the stuff that you have.

It's whatever you have at your disposal.

It's your physical possessions, it's your money, it's your gifts.

As Christians, it would be your spiritual gifts that the Spirit has distributed according to his own will.

Use what you have been given in life and give it away.

Cast it out, send it out.

And he says, to seven or even to eight, which is using a classic ancient Near Eastern formula where you have one number and then plus one.

Here he says, seven or even to eight.

Seven, obviously, is that number that is often used to represent totality, completion, wholeness.

So he says, just give yourself away entirely and then some more.

And these two staccato commands, cast your bread, give a portion, is intended to add urgency to this.

Seize hold of your life and give yourself away now.

Take hold of whatever is at your disposal.

Take your money and resources and gifts and abilities and your time and your energy and your zeal and your intellect and give it away.

Give it to others.

Serve the Lord and do it now.

And then he adds a reason here at the end of verse 2.

Look down at verse 2.

Because you do not know what disaster may happen on earth.

Just take a moment to appreciate how topsy-turvy the wisdom of the Bible is.

You don't know what disaster is coming.

You might lose everything tomorrow.

You have no idea what the future holds for you.

And so, because you don't know what is ahead of you, what's the natural human inclination?

There could be a disaster coming, so what should I do?

Store it up! Reserve it! Hoard.

Take care that you don't take any risks.

Get to Costco and knock over the old lady and store up all the toilet paper you can.

But Solomon says if you know the living God, if you have an eternal perspective for your life, then the reality that tomorrow may not come means you should seize hold of this moment and give your stuff away now.

Serve the Lord now.

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, well, wisest ever remove one, because there was one person wiser than him, the Lord Jesus.

So Solomon states this principle positively, give your stuff away.

And Jesus actually tells a very similar parable in which he states the same principle negatively.

In Luke in chapter 12, Jesus told a parable saying, land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, What should I do?

For I have nowhere to store my crops.

And he said, I'll do this.

I will tear down my barns, and I will build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods, and I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods, laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink, and be merry.

You don't know what's coming tomorrow, so build the barns.

That is natural human wisdom.

The wisdom of God turns the wisdom of man to foolishness.

Jesus says, God said to that man, Fool, this night your soul will be required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?

So it is with the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

You see, there is a principle at play here.

When you give your things away, you are laying up treasure, but not in this world in the next, not on this storehouses, but in heaven storehouses.

Give, send, cast your things away, because God takes heed to everything you do, and he will be a rewarder.

And he is a greater rewarder than anyone in this world.

Well, Solomon continues to add urgency to this instruction in verses three through five.

So let's look at those verses.

Look down at your Bible at verse three.

And Solomon says, If the clouds are full of rain, and they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, and the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.

What in the world?

The principle that Solomon is teaching us here is that life is uncontrollable and unpredictable.

You can't control the rain and you can't control trees falling.

Now, there are some things in life that you can't control them, but you can at least anticipate, like the rain.

That's why he uses this image of the rain.

You can predict it because you have a weather app on your phone.

Kind of, you can predict it, right?

But you could also look outside and you could see that the clouds are gathering, the wind is beginning to blow.

You can somewhat anticipate some events, but you can't control them.

You can't stand outside and say, Rain, go away.

I have an important event tonight.

You can absolutely there are things in your life that you absolutely positively cannot control.

But more than that, there are also things in your life that not only can you can't not control, but you cannot predict them or anticipate them.

That's why he uses his image of a tree falling.

It falls to the north, the south, and the place where it falls, there it is.

It's just there.

You didn't see it coming.

There have been many storms before, and this tree has withstood them all, and then one day with no warning or no way to anticipate, it's gone.

You don't know which direction, you don't know if it's gonna hit a house or a fence or nothing at all.

You absolutely can't control it, and you can't even predict it.

And there are many things in our life that we neither can control nor even predict.

If this year hasn't taught us all that lesson, then what will?

You can't predict a global virus.

Neither can you anticipate a car crash or a cancer diagnosis.

There are things in our life that we cannot anticipate.

So, what will be our response to this reality?

Well, one possible response is illustrated for us in verse 4.

Verse 4 says, He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

The person who is waiting for the clouds to be just right, waiting for the wind to be just right, before he will sow his seed, before he'll harvest his crops, the person who's waiting for ideal conditions will never act.

The person who is waiting for security to be guaranteed will never do anything.

He'll spend his life frozen by fear and anxiety.

We see this in our world, don't we?

I mean many in many, many ways.

Just one illustration of this is reading towards the end of this year that birth rates in the United States are plummeting.

They've already been dropping for decades, but particularly this year they have been dropping precipitously.

Uh one institute, the Brookings Institute, estimates that between three and five hundred thousand fewer babies will be born this year and in the coming year as well.

Now, there are all kinds of social repercussions of that reality, but I'm not a sociologist, so I won't bore you with those details.

But one demo demographer interestingly remarked that the birth rate is a barometer of social despair.

And he says, these numbers indicate that our society has reached a new level of despair.

And I think we should appreciate that from a secular perspective, that just makes sense.

That if life is hard and unpredictable and disappointing and dangerous, why would you bring kids into it?

There is a sense in which, from that perspective, that kind of makes sense.

But that is not the perspective of a Christian.

We believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

We believe in the new heavens and the new earth where our God will reign with us forever and ever.

Will he wipe away every tear from our eyes?

And death shall be no more.

Neither will there be any sorrow or pain anymore.

We believe in that reality.

And when you believe in the resurrected Son of God and the new kingdom that he is bringing, that changes everything.

You don't need ideal conditions and you don't need to stress about what would be or what could be.

You can deal with confidence with what actually is in your life and you can act for Jesus Christ and you can serve him now, even if the conditions aren't guaranteed or ideal or safe, even if there is risk involved, because the God who holds you in his hand sees you and he will reward you.

When you labor for him, no single deed will hit the ground and be unrewarded.

You don't need to worry about ideal conditions.

You can seize this day and serve the Lord.

Well, Solomon continues with a couple more verses on this topic because there's perhaps another excuse we could use to delay our service.

And he addresses that in verse 5.

Look down in your Bibles at verse 5.

Solomon says, You don't know the way of the Spirit that comes into the bones in the womb of a woman with child, and you don't know the work of God who makes everything.

Now, if you're reading from a different translation, your text might say that something slightly different.

You don't know the path of the wind or how bones are formed in the womb.

There's a translation difficulty that we won't get into, but either of those translations illustrate basically the same point.

In the ESV, you don't know how the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman.

That is, you don't know how the soul is united to the body in the womb of a woman.

You don't understand that mystery.

How is it that this soul that is in the image of God that will live forever is united to this incredibly intricate physical body?

You don't understand that.

Or it could be saying, you don't know, instead of translating ruach, this Hebrew word as spirit, you could translate it as wind.

You don't understand the wind.

You can't predict the details of the wind tomorrow or the next day.

You don't even understand exactly how a baby comes to be born.

You don't understand how there can be a human and another human, you don't understand the origins of your life, those are shrouded in mystery.

Your tomorrow is shrouded in mystery, and your whole life is shrouded in mystery.

And what Solomon is saying is this if the reason that you are waiting to labor for the Lord, to take a risk for the Lord, to share the gospel with someone, to step out in faith and give something away, to if you're waiting for ideal conditions where there are no distractions to get in the way of your prayer life before you actually start to become more intimate with the Lord in your prayer life, those I those ideal conditions are never going to come.

You don't even know how the wind blows.

You don't even know how you came to be.

You don't know what tomorrow will bring.

Why wait?

Then he says this at the end of the chat, at the end of the verse, at the end of verse 5.

You don't know the work of God who makes everything.

You don't know what God is doing.

But if you are a Christian, then you know this.

You know who that God is.

And that God is not just a distant deity somewhere doing something that you don't know.

Through your faith and repentance in Jesus Christ, he's become your father.

A father who knows every hair on your head, who declares the end from the beginning, who holds all things in his hand, and promises that he is working all things together for good for those who love him, who are called according to his purposes.

If you know that God who holds you in his arms, then you can act and take risks because he will hold you.

So the conclusion then, if you're thinking coherently with the writer of Ecclesiastes, is in verse 6.

Look down at verse 6.

In the morning.

Sow your seed, and in evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

The conclusion is act and do it now.

That's the point of this morning and evening.

That's a literary device called a merism, one extreme and the other, morning and evening, just the totality.

Just take every moment you have.

You don't know when the ideal conditions are going to be.

You don't know the future.

You don't know how things will turn out.

Just take a calculated risk and act.

Give your stuff away.

Send it on the water.

Give your portion.

Share your gifts.

Share your time.

Share your energy.

Go serve the Lord.

You're not in control of where the bread ends up.

You're just responsible to let it go.

Now I think that this will be very familiar to us who have read the New Testament.

I think a good way of summarizing this is the Apostle Paul, who took the lesson from the book of Ecclesiastes, is that he was a man who gave his portion, who cast his bread, who spent himself for the Lord Jesus.

He writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 6 the point is this.

2 Corinthians 9:6

He's making the same point as Ecclesiastes.

Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly.

And whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully.

Those are your choices.

You can hold on to your bread, you can hold on to your time, and it will just hit the ground.

Like hitting rock hard pavement.

Nothing will bloom.

Nothing will last.

Or you can cast your bread and trust that the Lord will catch it and bloom it.

Now there's another man who I just want to tell you about before we move on to the second point, who understood this point.

There was a 19-year-old in the 18th century who understood this teaching and took it to heart.

His name we're familiar with, Jonathan Edwards, the American theologian, wrote in his diary when he was 19 years old a series of resolutions that he intended no one to see, but propitiously we get to see them.

These resolutions were intended to guide his conduct and his character.

And I'd like to make a habit of every new year rereading the resolutions.

And I'm going to read a few of them for us that I just cherry-picked because they stand out for us, stand out to me.

I think they will encourage your heart just to read them together.

In the preface to his resolutions, he wrote this being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these resolutions so far as they are agreeable to his will for Christ's sake.

In that vein, he wrote, I am resolved that I will so live in the way that I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

Resolve never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it to the most profitable way I possibly can.

Resolve to live with all my might while I do live.

If there's not a more Ecclesiastes-inspired resolution, I don't know what it is.

That is the kind of life that stores up treasure forever.

Resolve to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea, violence I am capable of or can bring myself to exert in any way that can be thought of.

That's the kind of life that matters.

And we are a people with gifts, with spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit God Himself, with physical blessings given to us by God Himself.

We are a people with gifts, with opportunities that other people would die for.

No, I don't think it's too melodramatic to rephrase that and say, no, they actually have died for this.

You want to live a life without regret.

A life without regret seizes every opportunity that you have this day to serve the Lord with gladness.

Serve the Lord, work hard, do it now, act, throw your seed, cast your bread, give your portion, because the Lord sees what you do.

There's one more step, though, to live a life without regret, and that is to enjoy your life, to work hard, to labor, to spend yourself for Christ, and to enjoy the life that He gives you.

And to do that now.

That's what Solomon teaches us in verses 7 through 10.

Let's look at those verses together.

Look down in your Bibles at verse 7.

Solomon says, Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.

The metaphor light is just speaking of life, to be alive, to be able to see the sun.

It's sweet, it's pleasant.

Life, in other words, is to be enjoyed.

God doesn't put us on this world merely to be slaves going about the drudgery of our duty.

He puts us in this world as beloved children who serve him with gladness.

He wants us to enjoy our life.

Yes, we have to seize the day and work hard for him, but our work is not glum and severe.

It's joyful.

And yet, we're going to see in these coming verses that this joy is not frothy, trivial, and fleeting.

It's a solid lasting joy.

Verses 8 through 10, we could summarize by saying, Solomon in these verses teaches us to enjoy life in light of eternity.

I want to go through these three verses pretty quickly just to overview them, and then we'll zoom in on just a couple points in these verses.

Let's zoom out and look at an overview.

Follow with me.

I'm just going to go through verses 8 through 10.

Look down your Bibles at verse 8.

Solomon says, So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all.

Rejoice, enjoy your life.

God wants you to enjoy your life while you are alive.

But let him remember that the days of darkness and is light is a metaphor for being alive.

Darkness is death.

Your death is coming, and the days of darkness will be many.

You'll be dead a lot longer than you'll be alive on this earth.

And all that comes is vanity.

And the word vanity here doesn't mean meaninglessness, doesn't mean that life is pointless.

The word that's translated vanity in the book of Ecclesiastes is a word that means a breath or a vapor.

So it could be meaningless and pointless.

And indeed, if this life is all there is, then all of human existence is ultimately vain and pointless.

But here Solomon is saying, all that is going to come and your future is like a breath.

That is, it's fleeting and transient.

And you try and grab it, it's going to slip through your fingers faster than you can get it into your pocket.

Your life is going to go by so fast.

So enjoy the gifts that God gives you now.

Verse 9, then he continues and says, Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart chew you in the days of your youth.

Enjoy your life, enjoy everything that comes your way.

Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these, here's the but God will bring you into judgment.

An eternal judgment is coming.

The point of your life is not the pleasure of this fleeting world.

The point of your life is the treasures and the joys of eternal gladness with God.

Enjoy the things He gives you and do it in light of eternity.

And then He says, verse 10, looked at verse 10, remove vexation.

Vexation is annoyance, frustration, the cynicism of how pointless and frustrating and disappointing life can be.

He says, get rid of that, because yes, youth and the dawn of life are fleeting, but when you live for God, then you live for more than this world.

This world may be fleeting, but that ought not cause frustration and vexation in the heart of a Christian.

It ought to cause joy in the things that God gives us.

Summarize verse 8 through 10 would be this: enjoy your life in the light of eternity.

Enjoy your life.

God gives you gifts to enjoy them.

Enjoy them now.

But we'll be well served to drill down on just a couple observations from these verses to spend a little more time on.

Notice in verse 8.

Let's look at verse 8 again.

If a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all, but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many.

All that comes is vanity.

In other words, remember your funeral.

Live in light of that.

Have that reality that your life will end before your eyes as you live in this world.

Now that sounds certainly very morbid to a person who believes there's nothing beyond the grave, but when you believe that what is coming is everlasting joy in God's presence, then that shapes everything in this world.

You know, the Bible says a lot about remembrance.

It is a spiritual exercise.

We'll look at remembrance even more next week, but just one note to make from Ecclesiastes is that even in the book of Ecclesiastes, remembrance can either do you spiritual good or do you spiritual harm.

There's a way that remembrance can do you spiritual harm.

If you flip back a page in your Bible to Ecclesiastes in chapter 7, in chapter 7, Solomon says something so wise that echoes through the ages about the kind of remembrance that will hinder your faith, not help it.

In chapter 7, verse 10, he says, Don't say, Why were the former days better than these?

For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

Do not say, 2019 or some time in my past or some previous era was better than today.

It is not from wisdom that you ask that.

That kind of remembrance blinds you to reality and creates despondency and discontentment in the present.

That kind of remembrance does you spiritual harm.

That kind of wispy nostalgia doesn't help you.

It hinders your life of faith.

Because it's not even true.

The moment that God made you to be alive is now.

There is no possible, conceivable better moment for you to be alive and to serve the Lord than this very moment.

God in eternity past, in his infinite wisdom, planned for you to be on the world right now.

And he stored up good works for you to walk in them, and he's given you the spirit to empower you to do it, and he calls you to cast your bread and give a portion today, because yesterday was not better than today.

Today is the perfect day to be alive.

So that kind of remembrance won't help your faith.

It will hinder it.

But there is another kind of remembrance that will help you.

And that fills me with joy and confidence that as you kept your promises in the past, you will keep your promises in the future and even in the present, and that motivates me to act.

There's a kind of remembrance that serves faith, that causes it to flourish.

But remembrance isn't reserved to just remembering God and who he is and what he has done.

It also functions when you remember your mortality.

So in Psalm 90, Moses says, Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Because when we remember our days are numbered and fleeting and finite, we'll live wisely with the days that we have.

That's the teaching that Solomon is giving us in verse 8.

If a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all, let him enjoy them.

But remember that the days of darkness will be many.

All that comes is fleeting.

I think there are at least two things we learned from this verse.

One is to enjoy your life now because you cannot do it later.

There is a natural human tendency to be discontent with the present and to think if only I could have fill in the blank, then I would be happy and enjoy my life.

Solomon wants you to shed that sinful discontentment in your heart.

You can't fill in that blank.

What are you gonna fill it in with?

You can long for whatever you want in this world and think, if only I could have that, then I would really enjoy my life.

But the way that life goes, it is so fleeting and so fast that whatever that blank is, even if it comes your way, it will sneak up on you so quickly and pass you by.

Even if you were to grab onto it, you would find that it were a bubble and it would pop before you could get it in your mouth.

It's not the way you were meant to live.

You were meant to enjoy the gifts that God gives you now.

Enjoy your family, enjoy your life, enjoy your home, enjoy your job, enjoy every blessing that God brings you because you know you don't deserve any of that.

If God gave you what you deserve, you would be in hell yesterday.

Everything that you have is a gift from the Father of lights, in whom there is no shadow, shifting, or variation due to change.

Enjoy what He gives you now because you can't do it later.

But this also teaches us to enjoy what you have now because you can't keep it forever.

That is whatever God gives you, He gives you, and He means for it to be like the rest of our life, a breath that comes and goes.

Enjoy it now because you can't keep it forever.

And do you know that if you believe that, it will free you from the burden of idolizing this world and trying to make the fleeting gifts in this world last forever?

How many times have you thought in your heart, I wish this meal, I wish this moment, I wish this could last forever?

It can't.

And when you try and make it last forever, you crush it because it wasn't made to bear the weight of that burden.

That longing in your heart, wanting the joys in your life to last forever, is real, and it points to the reality that you were made for more than this world.

You were made for an eternal home where there will be joys lasting forever, where there will be fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore in the presence of our God.

You were made for that, but this world is just made to give you signposts to point to that reality.

You will enjoy your life when you remember that the days of darkness will be many, that you will be dead a lot longer than you were alive in this world, and so enjoy what you can now.

You can't keep it forever, and live in this world in the way that you won't regret ten thousand years from now.

Because that's what God made you for.

Remember your funeral.

Solomon continues, and I think even enhances this thought in verse 9, and we should look at that.

Look down in your Bibles at verse 9.

He says, Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

Solomon teaches us to enjoy life in the light of judgment.

He says, Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth.

So he is specifically speaking to young people, and yet there is this reality that you are younger now than you will ever be again.

And so seize this moment to enjoy your life now.

But there's a bit of a difficulty in this text that I want to bring to your attention.

I think it will help us wrestle with what's happening here.

Notice in the middle of the verse, Solomon says, look at the middle of verse 9.

Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes.

That sounds weird because there are many texts in the Bible where God specifically commands us not to follow our hearts.

For example, Numbers in chapter 15, Yahweh says, remember all the commandments to do them, not to follow your own heart and your eyes, which you're inclined to whore after.

That's some strong language.

Don't follow your heart.

Your heart is naturally sinful, and there are many desires that arise in your heart that seem as natural as your desire for water, but they are sinful and wrong because all human beings are born inherently sinful.

So you can't follow your heart as a moral compass.

There will be times when your heart, because you are created in the image of God, leads you to righteousness, but there will be many times because you are fallen in the image of Adam, that your heart will lead you into sin and idolatry and rebellion against the God that made you.

You cannot follow your heart as a reliable moral compass.

And so God warns us not to do that.

And yet Solomon says, walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes.

So what is he saying?

Notice just a couple things.

One is the language, he doesn't say follow your heart.

He's not saying use your heart as a moral compass.

He's saying, Walk in the ways of your heart, that is, the things that you enjoy.

Enjoy your life.

Your heart should be full of joy.

Your eyes should behold the beauty that God has made in your life, and you should enjoy it.

He's not talking about follow your heart, following your heart as a moral compass.

He is talking about enjoying the gifts that God gives you, all of them, and maximizing them and savoring them.

And the end of the verse defines the boundaries of that kind of enjoyment and enhances the quality of that enjoyment, where he says, Know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

And so don't live according to the moral compass of your heart.

Follow the compass of God's commandments, because that's the standard by which he will bring you into this judgment.

The judgment he's speaking of here is the final judgment.

In the Hebrew text, the definite article is there.

You could translate this He will bring you into the judgment, the final judgment where God will raise the living and the dead and bring them before his throne and judge them according to their deeds.

The end of the book of Ecclesiastes says, He will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

That is the ultimate destiny of every single human being.

That is the destiny for you.

And Solomon is imploring you to keep that reality before your eyes and live in light of it.

Live according to this reality.

That everything in your life will fade like a shadow.

It will vanish, and you will find yourself standing before a great white throne that is more real than anything you have ever experienced in this world.

Everything in this moment should be shaped by that future reality.

This is the end of the matter.

If we will live in 2021 in a way that we come to the end of it saying that I have run my race, and I can confidently say I will have no regrets, not just in some kind of trivial social media post manner, but in a manner where you could stand before that throne and say, I have no regrets, I have run my race, and I'm going to stand confidently before the throne.

It is the most dishonest thing in the world.

It is the most dishonest thing in the world to say to yourself that when God judges me, He'll know my heart and He'll know that I did my best.

You know that's not true.

You know that's not true.

You know, if we were to record your life, not just your words, but your thoughts, we would find that all the time you're passing moral judgments on other people.

You're saying in your heart, you shouldn't lie, you shouldn't cheat, you shouldn't be unjust, you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that.

And if we were to record your life, we would find that you are breaking your own standards all the time.

You can't even live up to your own standards.

How much less can you live up to the infinitely perfect and holy standard of the God that made this world?

It is the most dishonest thing in the world to say to yourself that God will see my heart and know I did my best.

You are lying to yourself and doing yourself a disservice.

God does see your heart, He sees every secret and hidden thing in your heart, and that should cause you to tremble.

Because God sees your sin.

And he won't excuse your sin, he will bring you to judgment.

That's the reality that should compel you.

And what it should drive you to is the Savior God has provided, the one means by which all the sins that God clearly sees in your heart, the one way he can wash them away and remove them as far as the east is from the west, is through the death and resurrection of his son Jesus.

His son came into the world and died in our place, bearing the punishment that we rightly deserve for our sins before God.

He resurrected from the dead, and now he calls all people to believe in him.

And Jesus Himself says, Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.

Present tense.

You can have eternal life right now.

Jesus says he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

The one and only way that you can stand in the judgment that is coming with confidence is if you pass through it now.

And you pass through it now when you give your life to Jesus, when you honestly come before him, acknowledging the reality that you are as sinful as he says you are, you know that this is true.

And you lay your life before him and you ask him to save you, you ask him to forgive you.

Jesus says, Everyone who comes to me, I will not cast out.

But I will give him eternal life, and he will pass through the judgment in this moment through the judgment into eternal life.

When that is your reality, then you can face 2021 and every year that God may give you under the sun with confidence and live a life with no regrets.

You will live a life of no regrets when you follow the one person who did this perfectly, who served the Lord with gladness, who seemed every moment, whose very food was to do the will of God, and now calls you to believe in him, take up your cross and follow him.

And when you follow Jesus, you will live a life without any regrets.

Let's pray to him together.

Lord, thank you that you have given us your word.

Thank you that you have come into the world and done what we couldn't do.

You live the life that was required, that we know we have failed.

Christ, thank you that you give us this free offer of the gospel.

Lord, we ask that you would give us humble hearts to receive your word.

Lord, for those who are here who have been continuing in stubbornness to live their own life their own way.

Lord, do what I can't do, what they can't do.

Lord, give them humility and a soft heart to recognize that they were made to live forever and only Jesus can give that to them.

Lord, give them a love for Christ, a desire for him, a desire to know him, to be brought into right relationship with with you through your son Jesus.

Father, I pray that in this coming year you would give each of us zeal and eagerness and gladness to serve you.

Help us to seize the moments, to seize our days, to live a life without regrets.

We pray this in your name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.