Ecclesiastes: Become Free from Other's Approval

So we hear that and we have to wonder what would it be like if that slight comment from your dad or mom or friend or coworker or boss didn't just drive you nuts?

Right?

I mean what would it be like if if that comment on Facebook back to you on the thing you posted didn't get under your skin and just stick with you for the rest of the day?

Or that horrible, legitimately horrible word spoken to you when you were eight.

And it's still on repeat?

I mean maybe you haven't even told anybody that it's still on repeat, but but every once in a while when you get quiet, there's that word that was spoken to you by somebody when you were eight or you were ten or you were twelve, and for whatever reason, that thing's on repeat.

And it just affects you so much more than you wish it did.

So Solomon mentions this in this in this text and in chapter seven of Ecclesiastes, and it's probably not Solomon, it's probably some other guy writing in his voice.

And this was the book in the Old Testament we've been going through back before Easter, before Lent, we were going through this book, and so we're jumping back to finish it off here in the next month or so.

And so I read through chapter seven, and it's a whole bunch of different thoughts.

I mean, that's how kind of how Solomon wrote and throughout this book is a lot of it's just like random thoughts.

He's throwing stuff at you, and some of it's ranting, and some of it's a little more logical.

And through this chapter, I've sort of looked at it all and I felt like we've kind of talked about that, we've talked about this, we've talked about that, but these verses really jumped out of something we haven't really talked about.

And here's a guy.

I mean, this is Bill Gates money.

I mean, this is this is power, this is Putin power.

I mean, this is like, this is it.

I mean, this guy had everything, and he is disillusioned, and yet he's throwing out some wisdom for us at the end of his life.

So let's read it again, Ecclesiastes 7, uh, 19 through 22.

Wisdom, and wisdom is wisdom sound judgment as to like not screw up your life too much.

That's what wisdom is.

Sound judgment, so you don't screw up your life too much.

Wisdom gives strength to the wise man, more than 10 rulers who are in a city.

So he says, hey, wisdom's good.

Pay attention, wisdom's good.

Verse 20.

Surely there's not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

So, like we talked about at the beginning of the service, some honesty here, right?

Level playing field, none of us are perfect.

Verse 21, do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you.

And then you go, okay, yeah, I get that.

Like the people around me, right?

That to him, that's the people around him.

Here's a king.

The people around him are servants.

So he's saying, hey, don't take to heart everything you hear, because people around you will say things.

And if you don't understand that, you really understand verse 22, and he says, Your heart knows many times you yourself have cursed others.

So people say hurtful things, and you are people.

Okay?

People say hurtful things.

Yes, we agree.

We have felt it, we have received it, and you are people, meaning, and you have done that.

And so we come into this with some graciousness toward even people who speak the hurtful thing to you because you know why you speak hurtful things, because you're envious or you're insecure.

Or you know, if you push them down far enough, then you feel more powerful.

That's why we sit.

That's why I say hurtful things.

And that's why they're saying the hurtful thing back to you.

And you have to wonder what Solomon had been hearing to write this.

I mean, obviously he had been hearing things.

He was dealing with this issue of hearing people say things about him.

That he's spoiled, that if he's demanding, he's hollow, he'll never be happy, that he's inadequate, if he didn't have a title, he would be nothing.

If he didn't have that money, he would be nothing, that people only like him because of his position.

I mean, he had to be hearing all of that.

And to that, he says, hey, wisdom is not listening to all the words that are spoken to you.

Last Thanksgiving, uh, Christy, my wife, and my eight-year-old ran uh the gobble jog down the square, right?

Gobble gobble, everybody's down there, and they're down.

Have you been to the gobble jog on Thanksgiving morning on the square?

Everybody's dressed up.

It's fun.

So they went down to run the 5k.

My eight-year-old, amazing.

I wasn't gonna run it, but she went to run it.

And so they start in the square, they run down Cherokee through a neighborhood, they run up a huge hill, they're coming back down church street, and I was there with our smaller two to cheer.

Go for it.

And Christy's running, she's running, and they've been running the whole thing.

She never she never walked any of it.

She's still running, she's still running this thing.

She's running down church street back into the square, and there's the finish line, right?

And you know what you get when you get to the finish line.

You get, you did a great job.

You are great, you're incredible, you're awesome.

I mean, these are the things that we're we we say to her.

These are the things we still say to her about running that 5K.

But what if, what if just as she nears that finish line?

What if like she gets to like first pres is on the right, first Baptist is on the left, and then the finish line is up there, and you can start to hear the cheers.

And what if just as she starts to get there, the finish line, it moves to like the uh the far end of the square?

So she keeps running, you know, she keeps running for the finish line, you know, keeps running, keeps running.

And then she gets there and then it moves, it moves down to Dobbins Air Force Base.

So, you know, and she's like, you know what, I've run this far, I'm just gonna keep going, I'm gonna go for it, and they stop and grab something to eat.

But they keep running, they keep running so that they get down there, and then what if it moves the finish line, they move it down to Smyrna Village?

And they go, you know what, we're in it so far, let's just keep going.

Let's just keep going for it.

And so they run for Smyrna Village, they get to Smyrna Village, and then it moves to Midtown, they get to Midtown, and then it moves to Macon.

They're forced gumping in at this point.

She's she's running, she's running, just kept running and running.

It just gets to Macon and it moves to Jacksonville, and it moves to Jacksonville, it moves to Miami, and she gets to Miami, and she's been running for a month at this point, and get to Miami, and it moves to Cuba, and it gets to Cuba, and it moves to Argentina, and it just doesn't stop.

Right?

Just waiting for that final cheer, the word, the approval that that run will mean something.

Now you have a picture, now you have a picture of the cycle of what occurs when we use other people's words to attempt to make ourselves whole.

Or saved.

Or right.

It's nothing more than a law of achievement.

Merit.

Validation by a set place of merit, but then you get there and it moves, right?

Like you get the word.

Right?

Like you get a good word.

The bad word breaks you down, but even you get a good word.

And the line moves.

Now, if we're gonna be freed from using other people's words for uh our approval, our wholeness, our redemption, then we have to know where we go to get a secure word.

So two stories jumped out to me thinking about this.

My mind went to two stories where Jesus spoke words of grace and approval, words of redemption to people.

The first was this Jesus calls a failure a strong rock.

Before Jesus' death, all the disciples bailed.

They all bailed.

It was a bad situation.

They all bailed.

And then one of them, Peter, this this one disciple, Peter, three times he's asked, maybe you've been around church, you remember this, three times he's asked, hey, aren't you one, aren't you one of the followers of Jesus?

Like, aren't didn't you love him?

Didn't you love that guy?

No.

No, I'm pretty sure.

I'm pretty sure I saw you with him.

Aren't you, no, no, I'm not.

Are you, are you, aren't you one of him?

No, I'm not.

This is like, this is like someone comes up to you, guys, guys, you, and it says, isn't that your wife over there?

No, I don't, I don't know her.

Don't you love, don't you love her?

Not really.

No, no, no, I I'm pretty sure I've seen you with her a lot.

Don't don't you care for her?

I don't care for her at all.

This is what Peter did.

And he's carrying the shame.

And he was already sort of this guy who asks, he's the guy who asks the dumb question.

He's the guy who trips, he's the clumsy guy.

Like he was already sort of that guy, and then he does this.

And after the resurrection, Jesus comes to Peter and loves him, inspires him, and brings him back, redeems him back into ministry, and he becomes a force for the church.

But before it all, before it all, back in John chapter 1, before any of that, before the failure, before Jesus coming back, circling back to Peter and kind of redeeming him, Jesus comes to calls the disciples, and he shows up to Peter, whose name was Simon at the time, and he says, Hey, you're Simon, son of John, you shall be called Cephas, or Petra, or Peter, or the rock.

John 1 · chapter mention

Okay?

Listen, it preceded it all.

Though you are neither strong, hadn't been strong yet, though you're not even not strong, hadn't even failed yet.

Before it all.

It preceded it all, I call you strong.

See, that it wipes away even a system of merit.

And it creates a relationship of grace.

This means the word over you as beloved and strong is before you're devoted or before you're strong.

And this word, which can define you more and more and more, the more you rest in it and let it abide in you and you live out of it, that's what will transform you.

That's the transformation.

Second story that jumped out to me this week, thinking about this.

If we're not going to live off of the words of the servants, the people, the people around us, Jesus calls an outsider God's closest insider.

So there's no outsider to God, no Greek, no Jew, no female, no male, no male, no slave.

Everyone's the same.

Our skin, our faces, our customs.

That's all us.

That's all us.

That's all it's all us.

To God, he's just seeing his created beings.

And so Jesus tells a story in Luke 11 about a good act that someone does for somebody else.

There's a traveler, he's hurting.

Maybe you've heard the story.

It's called the Good Samaritan story in Luke 11.

A traveler's hurting, he's down on the road.

It's not looking good for this guy, it's looking really, really bad.

Some people walk by, religious people walk right by him, go straight by him.

And then Jesus keeps telling the story, and somebody of a despised race, a Samaritan, that the religious crowd is, they would have just despised this guy.

The idea of a Samaritan being deemed, being deemed worthy or good.

I mean, this is this is so difficult for them to write.

This is so radical to them.

And Jesus in the story says, the Samaritan stops.

That's the good guy.

The good guy is the Samaritan.

That's the good one.

What?

The outsider.

The outsider's the good one?

The Samaritan?

That's the them.

Like us, we're us.

They're them.

They.

They think that.

You know the them.

They believe that.

They do that.

I'm not that.

And Jesus says, you draw that line.

Paul says that.

You draw that line.

No Greek, no Jew in Jesus.

But if you draw that line, you draw that line, us and them.

You draw that line, the outsider's the insider.

The outsider's always the insider.

It's the same story, the prodigal son.

The outsider's the insider.

He comes home.

He's welcomed home.

He's welcomed in.

The broken down son.

Or when Jesus sides with the prostitute rather than the religious people, they want to stone her.

And Jesus says, I'm siding with her.

That's the one I'm siding with.

See, this is about a word that precedes it all.

You're strong before you're strong or not strong.

Because you're deemed that by God's word to you.

You're an insider, even though you have even though maybe you have felt like an outsider your whole life.

Maybe you have felt like you've never fit in, or you can never quite get it all together.

And God says, yeah, yeah, you're you're you're you're the insider.

You're the insider.

That's the word spoken to you before you do anything.

This is That's what all this is about, right?

I mean, this is what all this is.

This isn't about us getting together and pressing each other with our morality or spiritual disciplines and for us to give each other words of affirmation to each other.

That's not what this is about.

This is about us knowing redemption and God's pursuing forever love of you that precedes it all.

That's what this is about.

A few weeks ago, I sat next to a very good friend of mine, one of my best friends, we sat together at dinner, and he started to tell me how lately, for no reason, for no reason, he'll wake up in the morning and he'll think to himself.

He'll have this fear that rushes over him and thinks, what if my church dies?

What if I'm, he's a pastor, what if I'm the one that has to shut this thing down?

Like we think about these things.

Just like if you own a business and you think about that.

What would that say about him?

What would people say?

Like what would the people around him say if that happened?

And so he was telling me about this, and he said he was telling his counselor about this, and his counselor looked at him and said, So what?

So what if that happens?

And that's a great point.

That's a fantastic one.

So what?

So what?

How free is that?

How freeing is that thought?

So what?

So what if that happens?

It can all crumble down.

You can never get the job.

You can never get the word of approval from the neighbor.

You can never hit the social status.

Mom and dad can never give you the approval that you want.

So what?

There's a word that precedes it all.

I know we want all the other words.

I don't blame you.

I want them too.

But so what if you don't get them?

And so what if you get the bad word?

So what?

There's a word that precedes it all.

See, the old Adam, the flesh, wants to make everything about you, wants to make everything about us and our control for our wholeness, for our validation.

The old Adam wants to keep you, keep you living in the energy of other people's words.

That's what the old Adam wants to do.

Keep you living in the energy of other people's words.

And the new self created in Jesus, the spirit residing in you.

The new self lives by a different word, the word that precedes it all, that was earned by Jesus' death on the cross, where your sin was put upon him.

All your self-saving practices and mind, how we'd like to love, just collect everybody's words, and then I'll feel worthy enough, or maybe I, you know, impress everybody with my spirituality, and then I'll feel worthy enough as a Christian, and then I'll feel right with God.

And Jesus says, I'll take all the self-saving practices, I'll take it upon the cross, I'll give you my righteousness.

I will deem you worth I'll deem you strong before you're strong or not strong.

And you will be redeemed and secure by my work for you.

I've been doing it my whole life.

Fearing failure, gauging how great I am based on people's words.

I did it when I was young with sports.

I did it with academics, I did it with social life.

And now I do it, I do it with my job.

I used to work at this great church, this great church in the wealthiest zip code in Georgia.

And people, they would ask me what I did.

I couldn't wait to tell them what I did and where I worked.

Because you know what people because I learned what people's responses was.

Oh wow.

You work there?

I went there one.

I was there once.

That place is beautiful.

And it is.

Man, that's amazing.

Golly, how'd you how'd you get that job?

That's amazing.

Wow.

Oh, you work you work for him?

He's famous.

Like, do you know him?

Do you know him?

Yeah, I know him.

Like, like, yes, I am so look at this, I am somebody.

And then I there's there's no way around it.

I mean, it's strange, it was strange for me to leave that.

And I love Brian and Mandy and Brad and Megan.

That's only four people, you know.

There's six of us.

And people would say, where do you work?

And I'd say, well, this is church.

We're at a preschool.

That's not impressive.

Preschool's not impressive.

It's the opposite.

It's the opposite of impressive.

Nobody cared where I worked.

Nobody cared.

And that was a weird one for those words to be stripped away.

This week somebody asked me what I did and where I worked, and I told them, and they sort of moaned when I told them where the, like, oh, oh, like the back of an office part?

Like, oh.

Oh, like there are thousands of you.

You you little churchmen.

This is what it felt like.

The most gracious words spoken to me since we started the church, came in the that first year in that preschool where nobody was impressed.

Not impressive.

Nothing impressive.

You know, scattering of people showing up here and there.

And we had set up, and you know, those of y'all who remember setting up, we just kept setting up, kept setting up.

Sometimes there were people in the seat, sometimes there weren't.

And you just never knew.

And it was set up, and there was always sort of like a 20-minute period of quiet before like everything started going.

And I was just sitting there, and one of our founding elders, Brad, he sat down next to me, and he just looked at me.

And this was early on.

I'm thinking, I'm thinking unimpressive, like if we want to talk numbers, there's like 30 people, and we're like, like, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't.

I won't ever say that to anybody, but that's what I'm thinking.

And he just says, he looks at me and he says, Russ, if this is all it ever is, this is great.

If this is all it ever is, this is great.

I mean, man, that's a word of that's a word of grace.

That's the opposite of the world.

But you know what?

As good as that word is, and I st God, I still love that word given to me from him, it still can't deliver me.

It still can't deliver me.

Not from me trying to self-save, from getting another one of that.

Who else will give me one of those?

And that line keeps moving.

That can't bring me ultimate peace inside of my heart, relieving me of self-justifying and self-saving, which is my sin.

It can't.

The secure word, the secure word is what lives in you.

Christ, the hope of glory.

I know you don't always feel it.

I know you don't.

Neither do I, neither do I.

You don't have to.

You don't always have to feel it.

But know the word has been spoken to you in the beautiful name of Jesus, who speaks words of acceptance and love and approval and redemption and forgiveness and adequacy and sufficiency over you because of what he has done for you.

I ran into this quote this week.

I'll end with this.

Martin Luther, a few hundred years old, great reformer.

Pardon the old English here, hang with me.

Christ, therefore, saith he, thus joined and united unto me and abiding in me, liveth this life in me, which now I live.

Yea, Christ himself is this life which now I live.

Wherefore Christ and I in this behalf are both one.

This union or conjunction, then is the cause that I am delivered from the terror of the law and sin, and separate from myself, and translated unto Christ in his kingdom, which is a kingdom of grace, righteousness, peace, life, salvation, and eternal glory.

Whilst I thus abide in him and dwell in him, what evil is there that can hurt me?

So, my brothers and sisters, may you be found in his view and his word of you, not everybody else's.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your goodness and your mercy to us.

We confess that we use and love to use everybody else's words.

And in our insecurity, we allow those words of the people around us just to cut us to the core rather than to find our trust and security and your goodness and your acceptance and in your work for us.

And we look for that good word.

Trying to accumulate all the good words to justify ourselves and our worth and value.

And so we confess this.

We do this, I do this.

Please forgive me, have mercy on me.

Increase my trust in your word to me that the cross is enough, and that Jesus is the love of God for me to know.

Would you help us as we wake up each day to confess over all the ways that we self-save, and to remember again our redemption, our wholeness, our salvation is in you and in you alone.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.