Ecclesiastes: The Idolatry of Wealth

So we've been making our way through the book of Ecclesiastes for the past couple of months, and now we're into chapter six.

Last week Brian preached on chapter five, and it was about, he talked about uh wealth.

Uh it's what's going on in Ecclesiastes in chapter five, most of chapter five.

And so Ecclesiastes is about King Solomon's life, Old Testament book, a guy with of incredible power and wealth, Bill Gates type of wealth, incredible money, and after all the money and all the wealth and all the power and everything, he says, vapor.

He says, vanity.

He says, like it's like a mist.

These things, using these things for meaning in your life is like vapor.

It's something that's there and you think you have it, and then it's gone.

And so last week Brian talked about how wealth is it's in its inability to satisfy us.

It just can't satisfy us.

And so that was a huge section of chapter five.

And so I'm reading along like with Brian.

I'm going, okay, so I'm next week, and then chapter six comes up, and Solomon, or actually, it's a probably a guy writing in Solomon's voice about Solomon's life.

Uh the same issue is still going on in chapter six.

And so the same issue is going on in chapter six, so we're just going to keep talking about it for another week.

Now, I'm realistic enough to know that money can make you happy.

Has anybody had money make you happy?

You're just willing to say, I bought a Wave Runner and it was awesome.

Like I had a blast.

It was so much, but somebody gave me money, I got a bonus check, I wasn't happy before.

Legitimately, I was happy afterwards.

So we can be realistic enough to say money can make you happy.

I'm realistic enough to say that.

It can because it can make your life easier, right?

It can make your life comfortable.

If you're young and you're you're eating at cookout for every meal you go out, and you're not sure if it's food or not, because you're not sure how food could cost you know that much money.

And you're feeding your date or cookout, you're going, man, if only we could go to Chili's, like if I got the Chili's and you get the Chili's, and you're going, like, man, if only I could go to that nice Italian restaurant on the square, then that would be good.

And then you're at the Italian restaurant on the square, and you're going like, I've heard of this restaurant down in Atlanta called Bacchanellia, and if I go there, then I'll be like, and we we just always are graduating this thing that's gonna make us happy, right?

And we do it with food, we do it with houses, we do it with trips, we do it with cars.

I remember my first car, it was a gray Toyota four-wheel drive 1985 truck, and I thought it was awesome, but Rusty Collins had a red one.

And I just thought it was awesome.

Same truck, same truck, right?

He had bigger tires, to tell you the truth.

And I think that was it.

It was the fact that his had bigger tires than mine, and it was the same, it was this same as sack truck, and my truck made me really, really happy.

And then I saw his truck, and he had bigger tires, and it was red, and it was awesome.

We'll always recalibrate, right?

To the next house, the new income, the next bonus check, the next restaurant, the next whatever.

We will always recalibrate to that new place, that new house.

And then you discover the thing you were trying to avoid.

You.

You're still there.

Like that's the problem.

Like you're at cookout, and then you're at Bacchanalia.

And you're still there.

This is the problem.

The problem is us.

The problem is is, and then we're asking the question, like, okay, can I possibly have some sort of worth apart from these things that surround me?

Apart from that first income out of college, and it's really sad, like a really sad number.

And your friend got a bigger number.

Like, or do you have worth apart from that, or that investment statement that comes in the mail, and it's just not what you wanted it to be at age 40 or at age 75, and your friend's helping their kids out a lot, and you can't help your kids out like you want to.

Like, can you have worth apart from things, money, wealth?

And imagine that kind of freedom if you could.

Like if you actually could have worth apart from those things.

So, Ecclesiastes 6, 1 and 2, I'll reread these verses.

There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind, a man to whom God gives wealth.

So God gives us wealth.

God gives wealth, possessions, and honor.

And we learned last week from Brian that if your household income is over$50,000 a year, you are in the 1% of global wealth.

50% of the world washes their clothes by hand.

Okay?

I complain because I have to move them from one machine to the other.

Right?

Okay?

Wealth.

Wealth.

So that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them.

Alright, so he's saying, you're given wealth, and you will die, and you're leaving it to somebody else.

It all goes to somebody else at some point.

And this is vanity, this is vapor.

It's a grievous evil.

And we know this.

We know it's vanity, we know it's vapor.

And part of this process, this evil process is comparison.

Right?

The more you fantasize about something else or somebody else's thing or income or house, the more you're unsettled and not content with the thing you have.

Christy said this week she had read a statement, a quote, a sentence.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

That's good.

That is good.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

And I think it is because we start to compare, you start to covet, right?

I mean, we're talking like Old Testament, like Ten Commandments.

Don't covet.

Because when you covet, coveting bites you, right?

And it sucks out contentment in your life.

That's what it does.

You start to compare, you start to covet, and it just starts to suck out any contentment you would have in your life for what's going on in your life.

And yet this passage is saying it's a grace of God to have a heart that's quieted from that comparing and that coveting and to know some contentment.

So that's point number one.

Point number one, it is a grace of God to live in contentment.

It is a grace of God to live in contentment.

And it turns out it's really hard to not be content if you're being grateful.

Usually these two things go together.

And so if you feel that comparison coming on, that coveting coming on, we just need to repent, right?

I mean, that's what we need to do is repent.

I mean, literally, when we feel that coming on, we just need to stop and say, God, forgive me for this comparison and this coveting.

Thank you that you're gracious to me and I'm still secure and your sight and your child and Jesus' work is enough for me, and I am your child.

Thank you for that.

Forgive me that I'm coveting that next meal, that greater restaurant, the next income, that next car.

And then start to speak out that gratitude for what you do.

I do have a car, thank you.

This car moves me around.

I do have a place to sleep, thank you.

I have a place to sleep.

I do have an income, thank you.

I do have a family, I do have a friend, I do whatever it is you have, start to speak out this gratitude, and all of a sudden, all those eyes that are going towards comparison and coveting can start to come toward what has what has God given you?

And you can start to find some contentment in that, and it is a grace of God to find contentment in what you do have.

Verse 3, if a man fathers, so Solomon's not done making his point about how what a grievous evil this is to not find satisfaction in the wealth you have.

If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life's good things.

Right?

And that's and that's good.

It's like permission.

You should find satisfaction in life's good things.

And he also has no burial.

I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.

Right?

I mean, this turns a little graphic here because what he's saying here is he's saying it's better to never have consciousness than to be discontent.

So point number two, it's possible to have wealth and never find meaning.

It's possible to find wealth and never find meaning.

The New York Post reported last week a lady in Britain, four years ago, she was 17 years old, and she won the lottery.

She won$1.25 million when she was 17 years old.

It's been four years later, she's now suing the lottery company for allowing her to play because she says it ruined her life.

Okay?

So what she says it, we sort of laugh.

She's like, okay, um we take that in.

She wins$1.25 million million dollars.

Four years later, she's suing the company because she played the lottery.

Uh she says she is sick of shopping.

She misses having a purpose in the morning.

She misses hustling for a paycheck.

She's not quite sure who wants to be her friend and why, or if a boy wants to date her, or why the boy wants to date her.

And the irony of all of this, of course, is she's suing for more money.

That her solution to the problem is more money.

Right?

And because the issue's not money.

The issue's never money.

The issue is her.

The issue is me.

The issue's you.

It's the core of who we are.

The issue's not the products that surround us or needing a little bit more money.

See, if the core of who you are is unsettled and not at peace, then you will always try to use wealth to define you and to give you peace.

You're using wealth as a god.

It's idolatry.

You're using God as the savior.

How much stuff do we need to buy?

How much stuff do I need to buy until I finally believe that it won't satisfy me?

It can't deliver you.

Stuff can't deliver you.

Wealth can't deliver you and your heart out of shame, out of guilt, out of inadequacy.

It can't deliver you into a right position of value.

It can't deliver you into a position with God that is secure.

It can't do it.

And this comes back around to point number three, which is a little bit of rephrasing.

Using wealth for meaning is like chasing wind.

This is a phrase that Solomon loves throughout this book.

We know the feeling, right?

It's the feeling when you run and you run and you run and you run and you run and you never quite catch the thing you're running after.

Verse 7, all the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied.

For what advantage has the wise man over the fool?

And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living?

So a couple complicated sentences there, but Solomon's sort of taking a shot at the idea that wise people are always wealthy and poor people are not wise.

And he's saying, I don't think that's true.

And then he continues, verse 9, better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite.

This is also vanity and a striving after wind.

So now we get this sense from Solomon who knows personally that wealth will not give you meaning.

He knows it.

Chris and I were talking about this yesterday.

It's like, I like when Paul says it, like when Paul says wealth won't give you meaning.

I like it in the New Testament, but Paul was poor.

Okay?

There's something about Solomon saying it.

Like the wealthiest guy in the world saying it.

That you go, oh, okay, like, okay, so it's not just a poor guy.

Of course you're saying it.

You don't have any money, right?

But here's a guy who has all the money, and he's saying the same thing.

And we know the feeling.

When the inner parts of us are exhausted from trying to use wealth to feel satisfied.

It's that appetite that's never quite satisfied.

It's like being at the Golden Corral buffet.

You move around a lot, you get a lot, you eat a lot, and afterward you feel horrible.

You're not satisfied.

It doesn't satisfy your appetite.

So it's it's kind of like these buckets.

I've been thinking about buckets the last week with this text.

So you have this bucket.

This is your bucket.

It's pink, it works, it has a handle, you can carry stuff, it's functional.

The pink bucket is great.

But then you see this other bucket.

It's pink also, but it's shaped differently, and you think to yourself, I'm pretty sure I need a different shape.

Like I'm I'm just pretty sure.

And it's metal, you know, it's different material.

And all of a sudden your bucket, not quite sure about your bucket, you think, well, that's the bucket for me.

And then you go, oh no, I saw a blue one, saw a blue bucket.

That could be incredible for my life.

This could be a game changer.

And so maybe even get the blue bucket, right?

And you're with the blue bucket for a while and it's great, and then you go, no, that's the orange bucket, and it's bigger.

Maybe you started with the orange bucket and you go the other way.

I don't know.

But the the point is, is just discontentment sneaks in.

It sneaks in on you.

And you're perfectly fine bucket to start with.

There was nothing wrong with that first bucket, right?

But discontentment sneaks in.

And the thing that was fine, all of a sudden it's not fine anymore, and all of a sudden it's really not even about the bucket.

It has nothing to do with the bucket, it has nothing to do with your car, it has nothing to do with your income.

It has to do with redemption.

It has to do with feeling atoned for before God, secure as a child.

It has to do with your sin and the core of who you are, being at peace.

And so you can spend your life looking at the next bucket and the next bucket and the next bucket and the next bucket, or you can understand they're just buckets.

Just buckets.

They all kind of do the same thing.

Just clothes, just investments.

And you can recognize that you have over you the never-ending love of God given to you in Jesus.

And you are adopted into the family as a secure child of God, and your identity is secure.

And then buckets get to be to just be buckets, which is incredibly free.

Brian read last week, 1 Timothy 6, 17.

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches.

But on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

We all use an outside word for wealth.

All of us.

We all use an outside word outside of us to feel rich with value.

And Solomon has been on a rampage in this book to dismantle all the things we use to feel wealthy, to feel rich inside of ourselves.

And he just goes through them all, like achievement and what we look like.

He talks about sex, he talks about money, and he just says, Havel, Havel, Havel, vapor, vapor, vapor.

It's there, and you think that's gonna do it, and it's gone.

It's gone.

That one, that's gone.

That one, that one, that one's gone.

And so point number four, the secure word of Christ is your wealth.

I've been thinking a lot about this issue because this is hard for me.

I mean, this is a tough one for me.

And Brian read this quote, this killer quote last week by Thomas Chalmers.

He quotes a couple hundred years old, and here's what Brian read last week.

It is only when we realize that we are God's children through the faith that is in Jesus Christ, that the spirit of adoption is poured out upon us.

It is then that the heart brought under the mastery of one great and supreme affection is delivered from the tyranny of its former desires, and the only way that deliverance is possible.

And I needed last week's sermon, I need this week's sermon, I'm gonna need it again tomorrow morning because I love new buckets.

They make me feel powerful, they make me feel new, they make me feel secure.

But the thing is, is that they always get dull, they never quite deliver, and they actually hold tyranny over me because I always need the next one.

And this is my sin, right?

I mean, anything but trusting in God's gift to you of Jesus to secure you and give you peace, anything other than that is sin.

That's what sin is.

And the thing that relieves this endless search that we're all on, the thing that ends this is to know you don't have to go find and earn your wealth.

Your wealth is given to you in Jesus.

You you have been deemed a wealthy person.

The core of who you are is rich with value.

And Jesus, God looks at you with compassion and love, and he looks at you, and he says, like, he looks at the one that's greedy and just endlessly saves and penny pitches and frets and hordes.

And God looks at you and says, I I love that lady.

She's mine.

He looks at the one who overspends and keeps spending and buying, is trying to buy yourself out of a feeling of insecurity, inadequacy, or guilt, or shame.

And God says, He's mine.

I love that boy who's doing that.

Jesus tells this parable in Luke 12 where a rich guy keeps getting more and more and more.

He's doing really well.

Things are going great.

He cannot hold the amount of grain he has in his barns.

And so he says, All right, I'm gonna let's tear these barns down and let's build bigger barns.

And we're gonna store all this grain in these barns.

Nothing wrong with this up to this point in this passage.

Nothing wrong, nothing wrong with earning and making and saving and stewarding, nothing wrong with this.

But then in verse 19 of Luke 12, he says this, this guy in the store.

So he's saying to the core of who he is, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.

Relax, eat, drink, be merry.

So he says to his soul, the thing that will give you what you want are the goods.

He's telling his soul, relief is found in the wealth of his good.

See, we love money because we love stuff because we think it will give us control over our souls, over the core of who we are.

But it is the love for this control that puts God, pushes God kind of out into the corners of our soul.

And it ends up, there are there's never enough barns.

There's never enough buckets to make you feel like you're in control of your soul.

So then Jesus says in verse 20, Fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?

Right?

They're all vapor, Havel.

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

So Jesus is saying you should be rich toward God, and literally, this is rich in your relationship toward God, or rich in God's sight.

And the good news is that he doesn't see you.

He doesn't see you because you are perfectly dealing with the idol of wealth.

Good news.

Good news for us.

He sees you through Jesus' work.

Priest and writer Robert Ferrer Capon, he comments on this parable, Luke 12.

He says this.

Here's the quote: Wealthy, poor, or in between, all of this is all of us.

Wealthy, poor or in between.

We are all of us.

And Jesus' eyes nothing but unreconstructed, rich people.

We clutch at our lives rather than open our hands to our deaths.

And as long as we do that, the real life that comes only by resurrection remains permanently out of reach.

So Capone is saying two things.

He's saying, You're already rich.

Because of Jesus' work for you.

You're trying to fill that cup up inside your heart.

You're already rich, it's already full.

You need to become aware of it.

So, my brothers and sisters, may you receive the grace to become aware of the great wealth of absolution and redemption and identity you have in Jesus.

Let's pray.

God, thank you that you deem us rich with purity, rich with righteousness, rich with value, not based on our perfect behavior before the idol of wealth or our perfect heart's position before the idol of wealth, but you see us as this because Jesus died for us.

In your humility, you moved toward us.

While we're out trying to find our wealth, you find us and deem us rich.

Help us to remember we are already rich.

Help us trust in Jesus' word more, that we might become aware of how wealthy you have deemed us in the core of who we are as your secure children.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.