Ecclesiastes: Blessed Self-Forgetfulness | Guest Speaker: Bryan Robinson

All right, good morning.

So glad y'all are here this morning.

I don't sound quite as sophisticated as that.

I love that accent.

That was great.

But my name is Brian Robinson, and I'm an elder here at the church.

And the reason I'm up here teaching is because we believe that the Bible says in Timothy and in Titus that one of the roles of an elder is to teach.

So that's why I'm here.

I think a side benefit of that is it gives Russ a chance to kind of rest from preparing, which can be exhausting, as I've found.

And also I think it's healthy for our church to not be focused on one person, kind of like a cult of personality type thing.

So that's that's why I'm here.

Before I start, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, um, I just thank you for this church.

I thank you for specific people that you have brought here today.

Don't think that it's coincidence that anyone is here.

Um pray that you would speak through me.

That's my only hope, and um that you would just help us know you more in our hearts, and uh that you would draw us in closer to you.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

So I'm an Atlanta guy.

I grew up in Decatur, went to high school in Atlanta, went to college in Atlanta, and the only time I've lived outside the city of Atlanta was four years.

I went to dental school in Birmingham, got married, and we moved to Birmingham.

And when we moved there, we lived in a few different apartments, um, which was which was great.

Um, in between my third and fourth year, we lived in this, uh we rented a condominium in a place called Crestline, Crestline Village.

And if you've ever been to Birmingham, this is like just a Norman Rockwell kind of place to live.

I loved living there.

Um there were sidewalks on both sides of the street, um, cute houses.

There was a little village where you could go and eat, and um actually my dad actually grew up about half a mile away from where we lived, so I think I had a lot of nostalgia about living there.

Um as a kid, I would ride my bike from there from my grandparents' house and go get baseball cards at the pharmacy.

And um anyway, we just loved living there.

And so one day, well, we dreamed of kind of like, as most young couples, I was like 25, 26, we dreamed of kind of having a house there.

Um before I hadn't decided that we were gonna come back to Atlanta.

I knew that I was gonna be in school for another year, and I was thinking about doing a residency in Birmingham.

So this house came up for sale on Euclid Avenue.

We saw it for sale by owner.

And um Manny called about it, and uh it was a two-bedroom, one-bathrouse, and she asked the owner how much it was gonna cost.

And the owner says$133,000.

And so Manny and I sat down and I was, you know, we looked at our budget and I thought, you know, if I lowball these people like$100,000, I offer them like$100,000, and if we penny pinch everything we have, if we stop going to Chili's on Friday night, that was like our big splurge on the chilies.

No more chilies, but we can get in this house for$100,000.

Let's let's call them and see if they'll talk to us.

And so I call my dad and asked him, What do you what do you ask when you go meet with the homeowner to talk to him about a house?

I need to know.

I've never done this before.

And so we met the homeowner there, and we're walking through this house, and it's a terrible house.

There's nothing nice about this house except for the location of the house.

Uh and so we're walking kind of through, and I'm I'm kind of asking very sophisticated questions like how's the roof, all these questions that I was told I needed to ask to sound like a very wise, sophisticated future home buyer, which I was not, um, kind of getting ready for this negotiation that I was about to endure, because I'm not good at that.

Um so we were in the uh second bedroom slash laundry room slash kitchen of this house, and I decided it was time.

Now I'm gonna make my move and I'm gonna I'm gonna ask a guy, so how did you get to your price of$133,000?

And it got really quiet.

I felt like the record kind of scratched, and uh he said, the price of the home is$233,000.

And uh I felt the poorest I've ever felt in my life right after that.

And I I think I continued the charade of this conversation for another five minutes, but we both knew like it was time, it was time for us to leave.

Like we're clearly wasting your time here.

So um I felt very poor.

I felt poor.

I was not poor.

Um statistically, in in the world, like globally, not United States, but globally, if you have a car and a house, you are in the top 5% of income earners in the world.

This next one is crazy to me.

If you have a household income, well let me ask y'all.

I want I want to see who who can get this right.

Top 1% of earners in the world, what do you think they make?

1%.

Will anyone be so bold as to guess what it is?

30,000.

30,000?

No.

50.

50.

Keith, wow.

Good job.

I don't have a prize.

$50,000.

If you make more than$50,000, you're a 1%er.

You are up there.

Okay?

So um in America, we're we're not used to saying that we are wealthy if we make more than$50,000.

But the truth of it is we are.

We have houses for our cars.

We call them garages.

That's what we call it.

Some of you have, I don't want to have one, but some of y'all have seen you have houses for your cars.

Um and I think we deny this.

It's very uncomfortable to talk about this.

Um, and we deny this by this whole idea of comparison.

Um, there's always somebody next to you that has more.

We're always seeing people that have more than us.

And I think Satan does that to distract us.

We can get on this chase of having more and more and more, and it takes our eyes off of God because there is always someone with more.

Um let me read these verses.

Um, I'm gonna start again with 10 through 12, and this is a little bit more rednecked than the last person that read this.

Uh, he who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income.

This is also vanity.

When goods increase, they increase to eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes?

Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.

So I have a friend who does not go to church here, and he is about 45 years old, and when he was in his late 20s, he came up with a number, a financial number of when I have X amount of money, I don't have to work anymore.

I'll be financially free.

I'm done working.

Um when he was 41, which is my age, he he attained that number.

He got there.

Um and he stopped working.

And I've known him for about 15 years, and I've I've gotten close to him and talked to him a lot in the last three years about that.

He grew up in a middle class family.

It was never his goal to be rich.

I would say he said, really, my goal was I just didn't want anybody telling me what to do.

I didn't want to go to work at a job that I didn't like.

And uh there were a lot of people in his high school that told him he wouldn't amount to anything.

Um, and so I think he wanted to prove those people wrong.

Um but anyway, it's interesting because knowing him now, since he obtained that number, uh, some interesting things have happened in his life.

He spends a lot of time kind of maintaining his stuff.

His pile has gotten bigger, and he has to spend this energy maintaining that stuff.

Like he has a few different houses that he has to always maintain.

And that's what verse 11 is talking about.

When goods increase, they increase who eat them.

Another thing that's happened that I've seen with my friend is he wakes up in the morning, doesn't go to work, so he starts drinking at 11 o'clock, and he eats too much.

And he just doesn't have something to like go and do.

And um, it concerns him.

Um, and that's what verse 12 is talking about.

Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.

Um he also worries about his kids.

He he's raising kids in this very affluent, comfortable lifestyle, but he doesn't go to work.

And he's asking them, hey, you need to work hard at school, but he's not.

So he kind of worries, what kind of example am I to my kids?

And this is all like I know this to be true, that money is not going to make us happy, but as I know him, it's almost like a surprise to me.

Like, wow, he's not happy at all.

I think he's less happy that he's making all this money, that he has made all this money past tense, and he still struggles, I would say, even more.

He says the time in his life that he was the happiest was he got laid off from a job in his mid-twenties before he had set that number, and he told me his prayers were more heartfelt.

He was more dependent on God.

Uh, he was closest to his family, and he was more content.

And I believe what God speaks to us in these verses in Ecclesiastes are what my friend knows to be true.

This presents us with a dilemma.

In Marietta, Georgia, in 2017, money gives us the illusion that we are in control.

When we reach that number, my friend's number, and whatever that number is for you, we cannot, it will not be enough.

It won't make us happy.

We cannot be the source of our own freedom.

When we focus on ourselves, we cannot be content.

It's not possible.

So, how do we find contentment?

And that's spoken about in verses 18 through 20.

I'm gonna read those as well.

Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment, and all the toil with which one toils under the sun, the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot.

Every one to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot, and to rejoice in his toil.

This is the gift of God.

And he closes the chapter with verse twenty, which I think is the linchpin or the key verse.

For he will not much remember the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with the joy in his heart.

So the focus here is not on us and the days in our lives.

God keeps us focused on the joy in our heart.

And that joy for us today in our heart as believers is Jesus.

We believe that Jesus lives in us.

And we receive, um, when we set our hope on him, I think it's possible to receive one of his greatest gifts, which is that of self-forgetfulness.

Um the the verse, the next verse I'm going to read is 1 Timothy 6, 17, which is also in the bulletin.

Paul talks about this idea of blessed self-forgetfulness.

Um it says, As for the rich in this present age, which is, I believe, probably all of us, 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.

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

So we are not central.

And what that's what Paul is telling us here.

Um there's two common ways that we view ourselves.

One is we have a very high view of ourselves, and I do both of these things every day.

Um, and high view of ourselves is called hubris or pride, where we can kind of perform our way into acceptance.

And we do all kinds of things.

We use all kinds of things to get this.

Um ask my middle schooler what kind of things she thought she uses and grades, whether a boy likes her or not, um, acceptance.

Just adults do the same thing.

My job, how my kids are performing, um, you know, how much money I'm making, what club I'm in, what car I drive, all those things.

Um we're trying to perform our way into acceptance.

The other way to view ourselves is a low view of ourselves, which is we'll never be worthy of acceptance.

Kind of this whole self-pity, which turns into a cycle of just focus on yourself and it's an inward circle.

Um, there's an entirely different way to view ourselves, and that's what Paul's talking about, self-forgetfulness.

We believe, as Christians, that God created us and he sent his son, who was tried and convicted, found guilty for our sins, and now as believers, we have him.

Jesus lives in us.

And I think it's important to say this was God's plan from the beginning.

It wasn't like we started sinning and then God was like, oh no, I've got to send Jesus.

Like, his plan was to do this from the beginning of time.

He wasn't surprised at us that we sinned.

Um now we believe, as believers, that when God looks at us, he sees Jesus, he sees perfection.

So now we can act and perform out of our verdict instead of to get our verdict.

We are now free from focusing on what other people think about us.

Um in fact, more importantly, we're free from focusing on what we think of ourselves.

So this all sounds good, but how how do we actually do this?

How do we stop thinking about ourselves?

Um, we all have things that we have given our hearts to, different things in our lives.

I have some.

I call those addictions.

And I think left to our own devices, we don't really get rid of an addiction.

We kind of just trade it out for something else.

And we see that one clear example of that I've seen is people that are alcoholics or substance abuse, a lot of times they'll start doing ultramarathons.

They'll be free of uh alcohol or whatever substance, whatever drug it is, but now they're kind of addicted to exercise.

And there's a lot of different ways that we do that.

So, how is this cycle of addiction, how does that get broken?

And I think one of the best things I've read about this is um Thomas Chalmers, who's a um Scottish preacher in the 1700s, wrote a little paper called The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.

And expulsive just means like to expel, to get out.

Um, and I'm gonna read this quote, it's in your bulletin as well.

And Chalmers writes Seldom do any of our habits or flaws disappear by the mere force of mental determination.

Reason and willpower.

Seldom do any of our habits or flaws disappear by the mere force of mental determination.

Reason and willpower are not enough, but when what cannot be destroyed may be removed.

The only way to rid the heart of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one.

A young man, for example, may not may not idolize pleasure, but it is only because the idol of wealth has become stronger and is enabling him to discipline himself for a prosperous business.

But there is not one of these identity transformations in which the heart is left without an object.

Its desire for one particular object may be conquered, but its desire for having some one object of absolute love is unconquerable.

It is only when we realize that we are God's children through 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 in the only way that deliverance is possible.

So our hearts long for this affection that Chalmers writes about.

And we read in Ecclesiastes that we look for that everywhere under the sun in so many different places.

We look for the creation to give us what only the creator can give us.

And so I want to close by saying a couple couple of things.

And sometimes when I'm at church and Russ is preaching, I'll think, what a great church this is.

I love coming to church here.

This is so good.

I'm so glad this person's hearing this.

I wish this person was here.

Um but I want you to just think about you, the you that's just sitting here this morning in February.

Um, and I just want you to think about these things.

And this is not our theology.

I mean, this is our theology, but this is more personal, I hope.

That in Christ, you are forgiven.

In Christ, you're free.

In Christ, you're redeemed.

You don't have to go chasing after these different things.

In Christ, you're a new creation.

If you'll bow your heads, I'll pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for um this church and just the place that it's become.

Thank you for worship this morning.

So good to sit and listen to songs about you.

And uh I just pray that um that you would keep us focused on the joy in our hearts, which we believe is you.

Um I would ask that you would draw us in closer to you.

Help us know how you really see us and how you really feel about us, not just in our heads, but in our hearts as well.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.