From His Hand | Myles Holmes

So good to be together this morning worshiping God and opening up his word.

If you're new here, my name's Pastor Miles.

It's my privilege to open up God's word with you.

And we've been going through a series in the book of Ecclesiastes.

You can turn there now to Ecclesiastes chapter two.

If you don't have a copy of God's word, the ushers are making their way to the front of the worship center, and they would love to get one into your hands, and so you can flag one of them down, and they will give you one, which you can keep as our gift to you.

We are in week four of a summer-long series through the book of Ecclesiastes.

And at this point in Ecclesiastes, if you've been with us, it's probably felt a little bit like standing on the shore of the ocean with giant waves coming every week and they're crashing against you week after week, reminding you that everything is vanity.

It really is Solomon's argument, isn't it?

He opens the book with it.

He says, Everything's vanity, everything's meaningless, everything's empty.

And he says, in case you don't believe me, let me categorically go through everything in your life and talk about how empty and meaningless and vain it is.

Arguing first that everything is meaningless, he then goes, we saw this last week, to pleasure, to laughter, to wine, to houses.

All of it on the search for satisfaction and the things of earth comes up meaningless.

And as we've walked through this series, I've noticed something happening in the life of our really good thing.

The thing I've noticed happening is sort of a mistrust that I think the Holy Spirit is cultivating in our heart of things and the pursuit of satisfaction in this earth.

Do you feel that, loved one?

Have you felt that as we've gone through Ecclesiastes?

You know, there's we have sort of joined Solomon in his experiment and looked at the things in our life and maybe even looked at the future horizon of the things that we're pursuing, and just taken a step back and asked ourselves, will this thing really provide the meaning, the satisfaction, the joy, the peace that I'm asking it to provide for me?

Will it do it?

And there's sort of this mistrust growing in our hearts over the things of earth.

I think it's a good thing.

I think this is right where Ecclesiastes wants this.

I think this is the purpose for which Solomon wrote this book of wisdom was to grow this mistrust in you, but it leads to a deeper question, a question that I was actually asked numerous times this week.

In fact, last Sunday, right after the sermon, you know, someone kind of really chewing on what Solomon is saying here came up and asked me this.

Well, you know, I'm thinking about buying a bigger house.

Should I do that?

Like, what does Ecclesiastes say about doing that?

And then I was in a small group and someone had been offered a promotion, and they're filtering this through Solomon's word.

Listen, if everything is vanity, if everything is meaningless, if nothing on earth, the things of earth won't satisfy, should I then take a promotion?

And and and I've I've sat with enough of you and had these pastoral conversations to know that for yourself, that for myself, each of us have these things on the horizon that I pray what the Holy Spirit has been doing over the last few weeks and what he will do this week is just cause us to hit the pause button and reflect on the scene that is our life right now and look at each individual pursuit and ask ourselves this question: why?

I mean, is this thing going to provide the satisfaction that we want from it?

And more importantly, this morning, I want to practically answer that question.

How do we know, as we look at things that are on the horizon of our life, whether it's a new house or a promotion or the family that we're working to build, whatever it is, as we look at the future horizon of our lives and we see these things, how do we know if they're gonna be vanity or not?

How do we know if that's gonna be lumped in with the things that Solomon says?

Meaningless, meaningless, says the preacher, everything is meaningless.

That's what Solomon wants to answer this morning.

And I want you to see the answer for us this morning is not to become monks.

You can be really thankful for that.

Solomon's answer in Ecclesiastes is listen, if if everything is meaningless, just get rid of all your things and live the monastic life and try to escape desire altogether.

Actually, Solomon has something infinitely richer for us this morning.

I want you to see it yourself.

We're gonna read this together, and as we do, would you stand with me?

Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verse 12 to 26.

Ecclesiastes 2:12–26

So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly.

What can the man do who comes after the king?

Only what has already been done.

Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, and there is more gain in light than in darkness.

The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness, and yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.

Then I said in my heart, What happens to the fool will happen to me also.

Why then have I been so very wise?

And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.

For of the wise, as of the fool, there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten.

How the wise dies just like the fool.

So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after the wind.

I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me.

And who knows whether he will be a f be wise or a fool.

Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun.

This also is vanity.

So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun.

Because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it.

This also is vanity and a great evil.

What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?

For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work a vexation.

Even in the night his heart does not rest.

This also is vanity.

There is nothing better for a person that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

This also I saw is from the hand of God.

For apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy.

But to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to the one who pleases God.

This also is vanity and a striving after the wind.

This is the word of the Lord.

You can grab your seat.

Solomon has been on this search for satisfaction and the things and pursuits of life.

And if anybody is equipped for the search, it is Solomon.

And this morning, he he wants to give us everything we need to discern if something is going to be vanity before we get it.

And if you're gonna be able to tell that, the first thing that you must accept, Solomon tells us, is that nothing satisfies for long.

You must accept this, that nothing satisfies for long.

Notice that in verse 12, Solomon then turns again to consider wisdom and madness and folly.

In verse 1 of chapter 2, he had said, In my heart, come now, I will test you with pleasure, enjoy yourself.

But finding that to be vanity, he then turns now to wisdom, to living skillfully, to living in God's world the way that it was designed to be lived in.

What I want you to notice then is that Solomon is turning to not only the best things, he is turning to the best use of the best things.

We saw that in his search with wine, didn't we?

When Solomon turned to alcohol, he did not do so as a drunkard.

It said he tested his heart with wine, searching it with wisdom.

Not doing it as a fool, doing it as a wise person.

Solomon is on the search for satisfaction and he is reaching for the best possible things in the best possible way.

I mean, put this into the 21st century context.

He has climbed to the top of the corporate ladder and he is making the most in the company, but he doesn't have to work a single minute.

He doesn't have to lift a finger.

He's got absolute control, absolute freedom.

Put this in the context of the family.

Solomon's kids always obey him.

Can you believe it, parents?

Could you believe a life like that?

Solomon has achieved the best of the best.

And what I want you to understand in this chapter is that Solomon is not talking to lazy people who can't get what they want, who expect just to be handed whatever they want in life, who expect to do nothing and get rewarded for it.

Solomon here is talking to builders.

He is talking to people who are successful, who are searching for satisfaction in the things of earth, pursuing satisfaction in the pursuits of earth, and doing so successfully.

That's who he was.

And he's turning to those people and saying, hey, listen, I used wisdom.

I turned to wisdom, I turned to hard work.

None of it satisfies.

Notice then, look down at your copy of God's word.

Look what he says in verse 13.

Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly.

Of course, there's more gain in wisdom and of folly.

And Solomon was the wisest person who ever lived.

And he says this again in verse 13: that there's more gain in light than in darkness.

He knew where the gain was, he pursued it, he found it.

And the darkest thing about Ecclesiastes chapter 2 is that he succeeded in it.

Ecclesiastes 2 · chapter mention

Notice, jump down to verse 18 with me.

As he turns to from wisdom to toil, notice what he has to say about toil and work.

I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me.

You see, Solomon, Solomon is in despair over his success because he gets what his heart is after, and he realizes, even as he gets it, that it cannot last.

He has pursued the fruit, he has succeeded.

I say that all to say here, Solomon, as we sit down for a cup of coffee with Solomon and see all the places in life that he searched for satisfaction and could not find it.

I just want you to know, Solomon was a very respectable man.

He searched for the best of the best.

Whatever you're on, whatever you're after right now, that thing that you're after, that pursuit in life that you're after, that thing you want, Solomon had it to the tenth degree more than you will ever have it.

I'm sorry to say.

He got it.

And so you even think about in the context of Ecclesiastes chapter 2, his toil.

Ecclesiastes 2 · chapter mention

I mean, Solomon toiled, he built businesses, he was an entrepreneur, he invested, it tells us in Ecclesiastes 2, he had houses in plural, he had gardens in plural, he had vineyards in plural, he had pools in plural.

This idea that these pools were watering the gardens and the vineyards so that Solomon could just step back and he had the ancient Near Eastern passive income.

He was doing Amazon drop shipping.

That's what he was doing.

He had it all, he had all the money, he had all the success.

And we take a minute just to hit the pause button here and look at ourselves and say, hey, what's the 21st century New Market version of Solomon here?

I think the 21st century New Market version of Solomon is the providing parent who's working hard, who is working hard to provide for their family, the things that their kids need for success, the house, the school, the extracurricular, sport.

They're not greedy.

They don't just want more.

They don't even really want to.

I mean, Solomon here is trying to make a name for themselves, and maybe you're here and you're saying, I'm not, I'm not trying to make a name for myself.

I'm just trying to provide for my family the things that that they need to succeed.

And you see, Solomon here is not necessarily greedy.

Maybe he's doing it out of love, just like us.

I mean, this is speaking to the spouse who's trying to be the perfect wife, the perfect husband for their in their marriage, so that they can provide something to their spouse.

It's speaking to the success.

But but notice what Solomon, in all of Solomon's success, as he lives really what we could call the perfect life, investing in the right thing, entrepreneurial, building businesses that are succeeding.

Notice what he says in verse 14.

The wise person has eyes in his head.

The fool walks in darkness, and yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.

Then I said in my heart, what happens to the fool will happen to me also.

Why then have I been so very wise?

And and I said in my heart, This is also vanity, for as for of the wise as of the fool, there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten.

How the wise dies just like the fool.

How many, how many men have given their lives on the altar of work to provide for their family when all their family wanted was the presence of a father, the presence of a husband.

For mothers.

How many mothers have been so invested in their thing that they have sacrificed so much to the idol of the pursuit of whatever they're after that they're that they've left their kids and the wake of it.

And Solomon is here saying, You can provide all the best things, you can do all the best things, you can live with wisdom, you can work hard and have success.

And at the end of the day, it is the same fate.

He says it again in verse 18.

He's driving home this point.

Hey, redemption church, let's get some encouragement, okay?

You're gonna die.

You're gonna die.

And man, there is a real clarity that comes when you will believe that and not avoid it.

Can you turn to your neighbor?

Tell them right now, you're gonna die.

Can you do it?

Can you do it?

You're gonna die.

We're preaching the gospel here.

We're preaching Ecclesiastes because look at verse 18 again.

Look at he says it again.

I hated all my toil in which I must toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me.

And who knows whether he will be a wise or a fool?

Don't look at your kids right now, okay?

I mean, you got you're building up this inheritance for them.

And who knows how they're gonna use it?

And who knows if that's gonna benefit them?

Listen, who knows if Christian school is gonna benefit your kid?

I've met a lot of kids who have gone to Christian school and all that they've had reinforced in them is a legalism.

I mean, I love Christian school, but I'm just telling you what Solomon's saying here.

It will not save your kid.

Who knows if the extracurriculars will teach them the things that you want them to teach them or carry them down a track of influence that will be negative for them?

Nobody knows, and at the end of the day, all of us suffer the same fate.

Who knows what we leave to someone else?

It may be a wise person, it may be a fool.

All this striving, Solomon says in verse 22.

Look, look, all this striving with knowledge and wisdom and skill.

Look at verse 23.

For all his days are full of sorrow and his work is a vexation.

Even in the night, his heart does not rest.

He cannot sleep.

Why?

Because he doesn't know, he has no assurance that the things he is working for will actually provide what he wants from them.

It's a hard issue.

It's a hard issue.

At night he cannot sleep.

Is this speaking so practically to some of you?

Because the things that he's pursuing are not providing for him the peace of heart that he wanted.

It's a hard issue.

And he gets great clarity as he considers the reality of death.

You know, the wisdom that Ecclesiastes teaches us is a wisdom that looks at everything in our life through the very last, the lens of the very last day of our life.

There is a great wisdom that comes to us when we view our life through the lens of the reality of our death.

And I'm convinced that much of the foolishness that we embrace in the 21st century is because in many ways we have positioned ourselves as far away from death as possible.

We don't want to think about death.

I mean, this is the first time in human history that even just practically death has been kind of cautioned off into the a specific room of the hospital or a hospice.

And we don't see it.

I mean, it used to just be that grandma died on your couch.

Not in my time, but that I mean, as you read history, that's how it happened.

And maybe that was a better way, right?

I mean, the couch is a little more comfortable.

We used to be face to face with death, and there is a great, there's a great wise perspective that comes.

I love what Ben Sass says.

He says this in a book, an amazing book.

I highly recommend this book to any parent who's trying to raise a kid who will not always live in your basement, okay?

This this parent this book is called The Vanishing American Adult.

And it's this uh, he's the president of a school in the States, but it's just the same here.

And he's beginning to notice that the kids who are coming into this college and university, they they're not really coming as adults.

And they're embracing this sort of prolonged adolescence.

And Ben Sass says this in one chapter, he says, so helpful.

Life must be lived with the understanding that it is limited.

An awareness of our mortality makes life richer.

Because the important can be emphasized, and the trivial marginalized.

Love one, isn't that one of the greatest benefits of attending a funeral?

In that moment, don't you have such clarity of what is important and what will be forgotten?

And Solomon is looking at you this morning.

He's saying, Listen, you need to live with that clarity.

There are a lot of us in this room who are giving too much energy to things that will be long forgotten very soon.

And only as we look at our life through the lens of death can we have the wise perspective to say that there is much that we pursue that is trivial while there is much that should be emphasized.

Solomon's looking at his life and being a successful builder, he's realizing this: that none, nothing you can build will last long enough to do what you need it to do.

Nothing you build will last long enough to do what you need it to do.

Death here, I want you to know, loved one, is not the problem.

Exposes the problem.

That's what I want you to see.

Secondly, as we are on the search to know if the things in the horizon of our life are vain or not, meaningless or not, the second thing I want you to know is that the problem is never the thing.

The problem is never the thing.

Solomon was on this search throughout chapter two, where he kept turning from thing to thing to thing, asking, will this thing be that which satisfies me?

Will I find satisfaction in this pursuit?

And when he when he turns to pleasure and doesn't find it, he turns to wine and doesn't find it, then he turns to wisdom and doesn't find it, then he turns to work and doesn't find it.

And what Solomon is teaching us here is that the problem is never the thing.

The problem is not the job, the problem is not the house, the problem is not the family, the problem is not the family dynamic.

The problem is never the thing.

Notice that as Solomon accumulates all these things for himself, look at verse 17 and open your eyes and wonder that this is God's word.

Look at verse 17.

So I hated life.

Verse 18, I hated all my toil, in which I toiled under the sun.

Verse 20, so I turned about, and it's like at the end of all of my labor and searching for satisfaction and wisdom and pleasure and people.

And I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, hating life, despair, and it's startling because it's Solomon, it's King Solomon, it's the richest man who ever lived, it's the wisest man who ever lived, and yet he has all these things.

The things have not failed him yet.

The gardens are still there.

The houses are still there.

The reward of the hard work is still there.

His life is still there.

He hasn't died yet.

And yet he turns to it and he says, I'm squeezing everything I can out of these things.

I'm getting every last drop, but but none of it is satisfying.

And left at the end of the day, I hate my life.

I'm filled with this despair.

It wasn't that his wisdom and his work failed him.

You know, for you and me, our wisdom sometimes fails us.

We're not like Solomon, we're not the wisest person ever.

Sometimes we just make the wrong decision.

You ever been there?

You ever made, you know, you're looking at something, oh, this is going to provide me joy, but you go about it the wrong way.

And so you think, well, maybe if I do it the right way, then I will have joy.

I mean, Solomon didn't have that.

He went about everything the right way.

Solomon looks at his work and his work didn't fail him.

His work actually succeeded him.

Every time he wanted whatever he wanted to get, whatever he wanted to do, he had all the resources to do it.

He didn't get stuck on the climb of the corporate ladder anywhere.

His work satisfied him.

As he labored to pour into his family, his family satisfied.

I mean, in every way, everything he did, he was successful in all that he did.

Things didn't fail at him.

The thing he was looking for in the things that he was pursuing had failed him.

That's a big difference, isn't it?

There's a big difference in things failing you versus the thing you're looking for in that thing failing you.

Can I give you an example?

What Solomon is telling us is maybe to use the example of the person who wants a bigger house.

The house is not a bad thing.

Needing the house to prove that you've made it.

That's vanity.

The relationship being a certain way, your kids treating you a certain way, your spouse showing you that you are worthy, showing you that you are loved.

The relationship, it's not bad.

But needing that relationship to make you a whole person, as soon as you depend on a relationship for that, you're in trouble.

Wanting a healthy body is not bad.

Wanting to look a certain way is not necessarily bad.

As soon as you need that body, as soon as you need to look a certain way, in order to prove that you are enough or that you are worthy or that you are beautiful or that you are something, that's vanity.

Wanting savings is not bad.

In fact, that's biblical wisdom.

There's a lot of biblical wisdom in saving.

Needing savings, needing to look at your investments to see how they are doing, and having your peace and anxiety tied to the rise and the fall of your savings account, that is vanity.

There is a difference between the problem being the thing you are pursuing versus the problem being what you want from the thing.

In fact, this was illustrated for me this just this week.

I don't I don't go on social media very often, but every time I do, I really regret it.

I don't know if any of you are.

That's the way that you use social media as well.

I I went onto social media and I saw the post of a guy who I hadn't seen in years.

I still haven't seen in years, but I saw at least him on this post.

And this guy was always a very strong person.

But something had happened in the last few months where he had had a lot of success in his diet, and he now looked like a superhero.

And his body fat was 7.8%.

And I know that because the whole post was about his 7.8% body fat.

And I look I could not believe, I mean, by every measurable standard, this guy had achieved a level of success in the bodybuilding world that it would be envied by, I think, probably most people that are in that pursuit.

I mean, he's at this point, he's the most shredded person that I know now.

And yet in his post, he he talked about how difficult it was.

I mean, it was difficult on one hand because his whole life revolved around sleeping, and his whole life revolved around eating a certain way.

And so that was difficult.

But he said the most difficult thing was actually being on social media and comparing his body to other people's body.

And it's fascinating that even as he had reached such a high level that I look at, I said, I mean, I don't know anyone like that, he then would look at other people and say, I mean, I'm not that.

And what happened in his pursuit?

At some point in that pursuit, it stopped being a thing about health, and it started being a thing that needed to prove how worthy he was, that he had worth.

And as soon as he made it about that, anywhere he looked, he could win an argument in his mind to prove that he wasn't valuable, that someone was better than him, that someone was more worthy than him.

He had taken a good thing, and he had made it become what he needed to secure himself.

And Solomon is here to say the moment any good thing becomes what you need to secure yourself, it will never be enough.

The problem is not the thing, the problem is what you want from the thing.

So then, really practically, this helps us address the question: how do I know if the thing I am after is vanity?

And really, I think the real question, as we think about something like a, you know, I want this promotion or I want this house or I want this body or I want this relationship or I want my family to be like this, or I want to do this with my time, as we think about the wisdom in doing that thing, I think there's a question behind whether or not we should do it.

The question behind it, if we're wise, that we ask is what do you need the thing to do?

What do you need the thing to do?

What do you need that job to prove to you?

What do you need that house to say about you?

What do you need that body to provide for you?

What is it that you need from it?

And as soon as you start asking those questions, you will start to see whether the pursuit is wise or whether it is vain.

In fact, let's get really practical here.

Here are three questions you can ask to know if the thing that you are pursuing, maybe in the horizon or even doing right now is vanity.

Here's the first question that you can ask yourself.

If I do not get it, how will I feel?

If I do not get it, how will I feel?

This is a question that really tests how much of an emotional grip that thing has on you.

If you don't get that thing, does it mean you gotta put your grumpy pants on?

If you don't get that thing, I mean, will you never be able to have joy again?

If you don't get that thing, do you kind of live like in this just erratic state?

I mean, I couldn't help but think as I reflected on this own question of Smeagol and Gollum and Lord of the Rings.

You know, what does he think about the ring?

No, not everyone's obsessed about the ring, but Smeagol's a bit of a nut, isn't he?

He calls it my precious.

And anytime he doesn't have it, he's just sort of like this lunatic.

We look at that and we say, listen, it's just this simple ring.

Obviously, it's got this hold on you.

And yet I cannot help but to think that each of us probably have something like that.

That that because we don't have it, we're sort of like this lunatic that's willing to give up anything in order to get it.

My precious, my precious job, my precious spouse, my precious family, my my precious work, whatever it is.

If I do not get it, how will I feel?

Here's the second question you can ask.

What would it mean about me if I never had it?

What would it mean about me if I never had it?

It's a question of identity.

You know, I gotta ask myself this all the time as a pastor.

It is so easy to play the comparison game as a pastor.

To look at other churches and say, oh man, you know, that that church has a building.

Wouldn't it be nice?

I mean, we're all there, right?

That's not just a pastor.

You're sitting in your seats right now thinking, man, a padded chair would be nice.

These chairs are vanity and meaningless.

Amen to that, right?

Wouldn't it be nice to have a building?

I mean, I mean, oh man, that pastor has that many attenders.

And they run that course.

And man, if I don't get that, I I must be less than a pastor.

I must be a pretty bad pastor.

What am I doing?

I am looking at a thing and I am attaching my identity to it and saying, unless I have that thing, I am a bad pastor.

Love one, where is that happening in your life?

Unless I have that, fill in the blank.

I I'm just not a good person.

Unless I have that fill in the blank, I'm not a successful person.

What would it mean about you if you never got that thing?

It's a test of your identity.

Third thing you can ask is this could you genuinely thank God if someone else got it?

Could you genuinely thank God if someone else got it?

That's a tough question, isn't it?

I mean, what if what if your enemy got that thing that you so long, that you so need?

And you know what God is doing?

He's revealing what are the things in your life that you have too tight of a grip on, that you are looking to to do too much for you.

The answer, loved one, that Psalm is telling us is not to want less.

The answer is not just to say, well, then I I'll never want a house.

I mean, I'm just gonna live, I'm gonna have one cup and one plate and one spoon, one fork.

You seen those people on YouTube?

I'm just not I'm not gonna have anything to prove that my worth is in God.

And Solomon says the answer's not there either.

The answer is this you need to receive differently.

You need to receive differently.

Notice, look at verse 24 of me.

I find this fascinating.

In verse 22, sorry, verse 21, notice he says, because sometimes a person has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill and must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it.

Sometimes you work so hard and you and you have all the wisdom and all the knowledge and all the skill, but at the end of the day, you get nothing.

You're working, working, working, working.

What's the reward?

There's nothing from it.

You keep working, you keep squeezing out the sponge, asking for satisfaction, asking for meaning, asking for identity, asking for security, asking for peace.

The harder you work, the drier it gets.

It never comes.

Solomon says sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill gets nothing.

Look at verse 24.

Because something dramatically shifts in verse 24.

There is nothing better for a person than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

This also I saw is from the hand of God.

Look at look for for who can have who for apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy.

Verse 22, there's there are people who are laboring with wisdom and knowledge and and and joy and everything, trying to get a reward out of their work, trying to squeeze the sponge and get satisfaction.

But then in verse 26, there are people who can receive that from the hand of God.

There is a way to receive the things you're looking for, but it it all depends on your posture.

You must receive differently.

Notice verse 26, for to the one who pleases him.

Everything changes.

The third thing I want you to see is that if you want to answer the question of whether something will be vanity, you need to believe that what you need God offers as a gift.

You need to believe that what you need, God offers as a gift.

What changed in verse 24?

It wasn't the things, right?

I mean, in verse 24, Solomon says, There's nothing better for a person that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil, to which you and I say, Okay, wait, listen, Solomon.

I don't want to cause a scene here in this coffee shop as we sit down to have a cup of coffee, Solomon.

But you just said you hated your life because of all your toil.

And you tried food, and you tried drink, and you said none of it would work, and you're starting to sound a bit little schizophrenic here.

Which one is it?

Notice, loved one, the key.

This also I saw is from the hand of God.

The things do not change.

The posture in which Solomon receives them changes.

Instead of having to secure them for himself, to toil in in order to earn his identity, to strive in order to secure himself, he finds himself in a place before the living God where he can receive.

Solomon here has been drowning in materialism, drowning in the search for satisfaction.

And he lifts his head up and gets a breath of fresh air and proves that he's a Christian, by the way, and believes in God because he realizes for a moment.

Now, listen, in chapter three, he's gonna put his head back down, and we're gonna be drowning for a few other chapters.

But Redemption Church, we get a bit of a breath of fresh air here.

He lifts his head up and realizes wait, there can be joy in life.

It all depends on your posture.

Will you receive these things from the hand of God?

Verse 26.

For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom.

He has given wisdom, knowledge about how to navigate life well and find satisfaction in this world.

He says in verse 26, to the one who pleases him, God has given knowledge, a knowledge of who you are, a purpose in life as to why you live.

To the one who pleases him, Solomon says, He has given joy.

Joy, this satisfaction, this deep, unshakable gladness of life that cannot be taken from you, no matter what your circumstance.

Solomon says, wisdom, knowledge, and joy is given to the one who pleases God.

And then the question then becomes who can please God?

Who is the one who pleases God?

And the answer, loved one, is no one.

Romans 3, Paul quoting the psalmist says, No one does good, not even one.

The prophet Isaiah says that apart from Jesus Christ, even our most righteous acts are like filthy rags before him.

We feel this, don't we?

I mean, we don't need scripture to tell us how far short we fall of the glory of God.

We feel it in ourselves.

We know who we should be.

We set a standard for ourselves we can't even live up to, let alone the standard that God has set for us.

There's no one who does good.

There is no one who pleases God.

We have one hope.

Our one hope is that in Matthew chapter 3, when Jesus entered into the waters of the late of baptism, the glory of God the Father shone upon him, and everyone there heard the voice of the Father, who said, Behold, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

Jesus pleased the Father perfectly.

Jesus in all his life on this world never once turned to anything else to find his identity like you and I have.

He never strived for a security that he could not find.

He lived a life that was entirely pleasing to the Father every step of the way, fulfilling the law in our place in every way, not only to please the Father, which he did, but loved one, to please the Father in our place.

Do you know how we know that?

Because even though Jesus lived a life that pleased the Father completely, on the cross he cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Because he embraced our position as one who had greatly displeased the Father by our sin and deserved to make payment for our sin.

Jesus gives you the position of a child who is pleasing to the Father and takes from you all the sin that you deserve to make payment for.

And what does he do?

On the cross, he makes payment so that if your faith is in Jesus Christ this morning, when God the Father looks upon you, do you know what he says?

He says, Behold my beloved son.

Behold my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.

And you say, But Father, look at all that I've done.

Look at my sin.

Look how far short I fall.

And I know, I know, even leaving this place, I know I'm gonna fall short.

I know I'm gonna put my hope in things.

I know I'm gonna put my trust in my pursuits.

I look how far short.

And what does God say?

It's not about you.

It is about my son, who lived perfectly and pleased me in every way.

And when I look at you, I see the righteous perfection of my son.

Behold, my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.

Loved one, the the most important thing about you, the most important thing about you is do you have that?

Do you have that?

Do you have the pleasure of the father that can only come through faith in the son in his son Jesus Christ and union through faith?

So when the Father looks at you, he sees the perfected righteousness of his own son.

Loved one, do you have that?

You can have everything else in the world.

But the Christian says, take it all, take it all, give me Jesus.

There it

Is nothing of eternal value under the sun.

Everything is vanity.

But what the Father has done, what the Father has provided for you, and a possibility for you to be found pleasing to him in Jesus Christ, is of eternal value.

And then the one who pleases him, God has given knowledge and wisdom and joy.

It is yours this morning if you are in Jesus Christ.

Are you in Jesus Christ?

Everyone, what's your posture before the Father?

Are you receiving these things from his hand, recognizing that what you need only God can give?

And God freely, it's the gospel, God freely offers it as a gift.

You cannot please him, but in Christ you can be pleasing to him, and he will give you wisdom and knowledge and joy.

So then, what's your posture before the Father?

You know, Jesus illustrates this so well for us in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15.

There's two sons.

One is the famous son, the prodigal one, who decides to take his father's inheritance early.

One of the most disgusting acts you could do to your father.

And it's pretty much saying to his father, I'm gonna treat you like you're dead.

I'm gonna take my inheritance, I'm gonna go live life.

And he goes and he and he invests himself in the things of the world and partying and drinking and trying to find joy.

I mean, it is Solomon's pursuit in and of itself.

But at the end of the day, he finds it's all vanity.

And there he is one day, thinking, he's looking at pig slop, and he's thinking, maybe I should just eat them.

I mean, maybe joy will be found there.

And eventually, I think it's a supernatural act.

His eyes are open, and he says, If I have any hope for joy, I gotta go back to my father's house.

And you know what happens.

I mean, you probably know the story well.

When he goes back, his father receives him and not only receives him, but throws a feast for him.

He says, Come into my house, enjoy all that I have.

And you can imagine the prodigal son, he's he's sitting at the table and the feast is laid out for him, and he's receiving all these things.

He is delighting in the reality that he is a child of his father, even though he doesn't deserve it.

Where is the older brother?

The older brother is outside.

The older brother is not enjoying the feast.

Why not?

When his father comes and meets him, the older brother says, I have worked for you.

I have been here the whole time.

I've worked for my reward.

Where is it?

What does the older brother want?

The older brother wants a reward for his work.

And he is going to be upset until he he gets it.

And what does he get in return?

He gets nothing.

The father looks to the older brother and he says, Son, everything I have is already yours.

If you had stopped laboring for the things for which I have already provided you, you would be able to enjoy the feast like your younger brother.

Everything I have is already yours.

And the older brother could not receive it because his fists were so clenched around his own work that he could not release it to enjoy the feast at the table.

And loved one, is that where you are?

Are you so caught up in the pursuit of your own things, the pursuit of finding identity in something like work or family or material things, the pursuit of finding peace in something like a savings account or having control over your life?

You're so caught up in this pursuit.

I just need peace.

I just need joy.

I just need to know that my life is of some sort of significance.

And here is God through Jesus Christ saying, you can have it all.

Come, come to the table, he says in Isaiah 55, he who has no money, come eat and drink.

Everything that you are striving for, God has already given you in Christ.

You know that?

In Christ you are loved.

In Christ, you don't have to be enough.

You are accepted as you are.

Can you rest in that?

If you can rest in that, do you know what a house can be to you?

It can just be a house.

And it doesn't have to mean anything else.

If you can rest in the love of the Father through Jesus Christ, do you know what a job can be for you?

It can just be a job.

And you don't need it to prove anything about yourself.

Everything has already been proven by the Father who sent his son for you.

Everything you're looking for must be received from his hand.

When it is received, it can be enjoyed without guilt.

Should you buy a bigger house?

Should you take the promotion?

Should you work for the type of family you've always wanted?

Maybe you should.

Not if it's defined what you already have in Christ.

What you need that God offers as a gift.

Could you thank him with me?

Father, we praise you for the gospel.

Thank you that everything we need is in Jesus Christ.

And we confess how much we are like the older brother.

How being offered this, many of us will continue to strive for a sense of peace that can only come from the gospel.

A sense of identity that can only come from being united to Jesus Christ.

And so, Father, we pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would give us wind for change.

Or transform our hearts, that we might not prolong the search for satisfaction in places where it will never be found.

Instead, we might look to you and say that everything that comes from your hand is a gift to be received, and that joy is to be found there.

God, thank you.

You are so good, and we praise you because of that reality.

And we pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.