The Contrast of Wisdom and Folly | Ecclesiastes 7:1-14 | 07/26/26

All right. Well, great to see everyone.

Um, if you don't know me, I'm Josh. I'm

one of the pastors and elders here. And

as always, it's the great privilege of

my life to get to open God's word with

you all and convey to you what I have

received. Um, this morning, we're going

to talk about one of the hardest things

about growing up and becoming a mature

person. And it's learning to see

ourselves and the world as it really is.

learning to actually think real thoughts

and to be objective about ourselves, our

weaknesses, maybe the ways that we're

broken, and to be open and honest about

the world in the way that it is with all

of its brittleleness and brokenness.

Is it better, we might ask ourselves,

to live our lives with like a constant

awareness of death,

to live our lives with an awareness

about the fragility of our own

existence? one wrong turn, one sneeze

behind the wheel and it could all be

over. Is it good to think about that?

Is it good to consider when people

criticize us? When another person says

something kind of hard and harsh about

you, is it better to try to think about

it and see if there's truth to it and

try to grow from it or to cut that

person off for the sake of your

self-care?

At one level, today's passage is about

whether or not we're going to face

reality as it is. But at a much deeper

level, it's about what kind of person do

you want to be? What kind of person are

you choosing to be in this world? Are

you the kind of person who loves truth

and wants to know the truth even if it

hurts?

Or are you the kind of person who wants

to avoid truth and avoid it because it

hurts?

There's a famous scene in a 27year-old

movie, so do not accuse me of spoiling

it for you, where the main character

sits apart from the another character

and he's offered a choice. He tells the

main character, "The whole world as you

know it is an illusion. Everything that

you think is true is actually not true.

It's been confronted, it's been conveyed

to you that way, but it's actually not

correct. And I want to show you the

truth." And here are two pills in my two

hands. One is blue. If you take this

pill, you'll wake up in your bed

tomorrow morning and you're free to

think whatever you want about the

conversation we just had. But if you

take the red pill, you're going to

actually wake up and see the world as it

actually is.

And in the scene, the character goes to

reach for the red pill. Neo in the

Matrix goes to reach for the red pill.

And then Morpheus stops him and says,

"Remember, if you take the red pill,

there's no going back."

And he sits and he hesitates for a

minute. And he invites the watcher, the

the person observing the film, to enter

into the moment with Neo of like, would

I rather know the truth if it's deeply

uncomfortable, or would I rather take

the blue pill and just wake up in my bed

tomorrow morning?

Cohelith, the author of the book of

Ecclesiastes,

is about to walk into your house and

flush every single blue pill you own

down the toilet. So, prepare yourself

for that.

He wants us to take the red pill and to

never look back. And I realize as I'm

saying that out loud that that might

have some political connotations. I

promise you that has no political

connotations coming from me.

He wants you to be the kind of person

who wants to know the truth no matter

how painful it might be. He wants you to

be the kind of person who will walk in

truth and embrace truth even if it comes

in uncomfortable ways. He wants us to

know that if we hide from reality, if we

bury our heads in the sand, you will

never learn to lift up your eyes and

trust the God who made all things.

If you're the kind of person who's

constantly trying to push away

the truth, [snorts]

you will never learn to put your hand in

God's

and to experience how God wants to use

all things, even uncomfortable things,

even painful things, to make you better,

stronger, wiser, and more free.

That brings me to my main point today.

Don't run from the harsh realities of

life.

Don't run from the harsh realities of

life. rather face them with wisdom and

with trust. Please open your Bibles to

Ecclesiastes chapter 7.

Ecclesiastes 7 · chapter mention

I know a lot of you who are here this

morning haven't been with us as we've

been working through this book. So, let

me just take a quick moment to kind of

unpack where we are at in the argument

of the book of Ecclesiastes.

Um, we're reading a letter from a man

who calls himself Coheliff. Um, probably

King Solomon, but difficult to know for

sure.

and he's been really interested in the

question, what really matters?

What actually matters in this life? And

it's been difficult for him because he's

very rich, very powerful, very capable,

very wise. And no matter what he does,

he doesn't seem to be able to change the

world in any meaningful way. Nothing he

does is going to keep him from dying.

Nothing he does is going to actually

impact the world with its cycles and

recycles over and over again. nothing he

does, no matter how hard he tries, is

going to lead to him being remembered

forever. And because of this, he's

constantly frustrated. And so he starts

running all these experiments, testing

all the leading contenders for what

actually is meaningful in the world. Is

it meaningful to make a bunch of money

and be rich? He goes and gets a bunch of

money and is rich and is like, "This is

vapor. This is," he uses the Hebrew word

he. It's not something I can hold on to.

It seems to just fly away as soon as you

get it. Well, what about reputation?

What about attaining wisdom? What about

building great buildings? Or what about

doing great work? Do these things give

me ultimate value? To which he runs the

experiment and comes to conclusion, no,

this too is vapor. It's like

moisture out of your breath in the

morning that quickly passes away.

So, what matters then? Well, he hasn't

figured it out yet in this letter. He's

still wondering. But he's kind of

transitioned from asking what ultimately

matters. He doesn't have an answer for

that to well, even if I can't know what

ultimately matter matters, can I

determine what kind of matters? Are some

things better than other things? To

which he's been saying, yes, actually

you can do that. Even if you don't have

ultimate reasons for what you're doing

or ultimate contenders for giving your

life meaning, there are some ways of

life that are better than other ways of

life. And he's been working through that

with us. So now we're in chapter 7:es

1-14

and you're going to get what feels like

just a machine gun approach to what's

better than what.

Here we go. Let's humble our minds and

open our hearts to the reading of the

word of God, beginning in verse one.

A good name is better than precious

ointment and the day of death than the

day of birth.

It is better to go to the house of

mourning than to go to the house of

feasting. For this is the end of all

mankind, and the living will lay it to

heart. Sorrow is better than laughter.

For by sadness of face the heart is made

glad. The heart of the wise is in the

house of mourning, but the heart of

fools is in the house of mirth. It is

better for a man to hear the rebuke of

the wise than to hear the song of fools.

For as the crackling of thorns under a

pot, so is the laughter of the fools.

This also is vanity. Surely oppression

drives the wise into madness, and a

bribe corrupts the heart. Better is the

end of a thing than its beginning, and

the patient in spirit is better than the

proud in spirit. Be not quick in your

spirit to become angry, for anger lodges

itself in the heart of fools. Say not,

why were the former days better than

these? For it is not from wisdom that

you ask this. Wisdom is good with an

inheritance, an advantage to those who

see the sun. For the protection of

wisdom is like the protection of money,

and the advantage of knowledge is that

wisdom preserves the life of him who has

it. Consider the work of God. Who can

make straight what he has made crooked?

In the day of prosperity, be joyful. And

in the day of adversity, consider God

has made the one as well as the other,

so that man may not find out anything

that will be after him. This is the word

of the Lord. God, would you enable us by

your power to take these truths all the

way down into our hearts? I ask in

Christ's name. Amen.

All right. So we're going to talk about

facing reality as it is both in

ourselves and in the world around us.

And we're going to look at this in four

parts. First, we're going to talk about

facing our mortality, the fact that we

are going to die. Second, facing

criticism, taking to heart the things

the hard things that people say to us.

Third, facing the world's brokenness and

all that that entails. And we're going

to close by facing God.

Let's begin with facing mortality. Look

at verse one.

Verse one opens by sounding like a

typical proverb. There's a whole book of

proverbs in the Bible. They kind of

sound like this. A good name is better

than a precious ointment. Having a good

name is equivalent in the Bible to

having a good reputation. Being known to

be a good person. And in a world where

ointment was both rare and expensive,

that is saying that a good reputation is

far more valuable, far more worthwhile

than having access to an expensive

luxury. It's better than having access

to something worth a lot of money. If

you've been in church for a while, you

get used to hearing that kind of wisdom

and it loses a sense of its power and

applicability.

Being a good person, being a hard

worker, and establishing a good

reputation in your community is better

than being super effective at using

artificial intelligence.

Being a genuinely good person and being

known as someone who is responsible and

capable and morally accountable is

better than having a degree from a

prestigious university.

If you work in tech, you have met or

come into contact with people who have

all the pedigree, all the ability to be

great at their job, but they are

miserable to work with, [snorts]

right?

How likely are you to recommend that guy

for the next job?

[laughter]

I mean, come on.

You have seen how everyone kind of sort

of is always hoping that there will come

a day when that guy or that girl gets

cycled off the team. And to the

contrary, you have all seen a person who

maybe isn't quite as good at their job,

but who's doing their very best, is

trying as hard as they can, and who you

are quietly rooting for and are willing

to help because you like them so much.

Having a good name is better than having

an expensive luxury. That's what that's

saying. A good name is better than those

things of earth which appear to have so

much value for what they are but in the

end are just another passing thing. So a

good name is better than precious

ointment. And then Cohelith blindsides

us with a completely unexpected

statement. The day of death is better

than the day of birth.

That appears to come virtually out of

nowhere. What is that referring to? Only

by continuing to read does that second

line begin to make sense. Verse two,

it's better to go to the house of

mourning than to go to the house of

feasting. For this is the end of all

mankind, and the living will lay it to

heart. Okay, so the end of verse one is

not saying it's better to live than to

die or to die than to live. The end of

verse one is making a claim about

wisdom.

You will learn more at a funeral than

you will at a birthday party.

That's not saying birthday parties are

bad. This is saying that contemplating

death is more fruitful produces more

wisdom than celebrating life.

And I'm just going to let that sentence

hang in the air for a second.

Solomon is telling you it is better,

that's his word, it's better to go to

the house of mourning, the funeral home,

then to the house of feasting, the

birthday party.

Because at the funeral home, the living

will lay it to heart.

At a funeral, you will take lessons and

make observations and think about ideas

deeply in your heart that you simply

just will not do at a birthday party.

And I've got to say, for almost

everybody, almost all of the time, this

is simply objectively true. When you go

to a birthday party, it's fun. You have

great conversations, you eat some good

food, you drink something yummy, and

then you go home, and you probably

haven't contemplated your life in a more

deep and meaningful way.

But when you gather around a dead body

and reflect upon the significance of

their life,

it just hits you at a deeper level,

doesn't it?

Cohelith is saying birthday parties are

like a blue pill and funerals are like a

red pill.

Nothing wrong with birthdays. Birthdays

are great. You will just objectively get

more more wisdom from a funeral than a

birthday party. And verse three

articulates why sorrow is better than

laughter. For by sadness of face the

heart is made glad.

I'm I'm going to be totally honest.

There's a lot of different ways to

interpret that. Let me offer you what I

think is going on here. And I will be

upfront. Part of what shapes my

interpretation is my life experience of

of how I feel like I've seen this play

out in real life. I don't think Solomon

is saying it's better to laugh than to

cry. I think he is saying choosing to

focus on what's funny to the neglect of

the things that are sorrowful is a worse

way to cope with your problems.

It's better to face the things that will

bring you sorrow than to try to bury

them under laughter. Does that make

sense what I'm saying?

It's only by confronting your grief.

It's only by facing those things which

make your face sad that you will ever

get through them, that you will ever

process them honestly and work it

through until it doesn't bother you

anymore.

It's only by actually engaging those

things that your heart is afraid to

face.

It's only by actually thinking through

in real life those deep areas of sorrow

in your heart that you run from when

they come up.

That is the only way you will ever get

catharsis and closure is by actually

facing them as painful as it might be.

Look,

I know many of you have things from your

past that you look back on and you go,

"I don't want to think about that. That

is the darkest thing that's ever

happened to me. I would rather just put

that out of my mind and never think

about it again."

For a long time, I had stuff like that.

Death has touched all of our lives.

Horrible sin has touched pretty much all

of our lives. I know it's true. I talk

to people about it all the time.

And whatever the horrible thing is can

take a thousand different shapes.

In this example, it's the way death

touches us. There's a way we can stuff

those things down by distracting

ourselves with things that are funny or

we can face them. We can embrace the

sadness. We can actually process it and

through doing so find on the other end

gladness of heart.

Coella says, 'The heart of the wise goes

willingly to the house of mourning, but

the heart of the fool, the heart of the

fool goes to the house of mirth. Notice

it's describing where the heart goes,

where you would rather be.

That is about the will.

Are you willing to go face the hard

things of your life or does your heart

want to run away into distractions to

avoid facing what is otherwise hard and

difficult?

I know in a room this size that what I

have said has probably touched a pretty

sensitive spot in some of your hearts. I

just want to offer you two thoughts

before I move on. First,

if as I was talking something super

specific and clear came to your mind,

I I didn't know you're going to be here.

I don't know some of you. If I'm talking

and you're hearing me talk about

brokenness in our past and something

immediately came to mind, that's an

unprocessed thing.

That's something you have to face.

That is an emotional wound that has not

been dealt with. And Solomon says it's

not wise to see to simply avoid dealing

with it. His whole point is it's better

to address it to process your grief than

to keep avoiding it for for the house of

mirth.

I think the fear for most of us

is if I face it,

it's going to overwhelm me and break me

and I'm never going to be the same.

But I have found that that's just not

true.

People who face their wounds, people who

rip off the scab and put on the

antibiotic, it hurts. I'm not going to

lie to you. It hurts,

but it also heals.

It also heals.

The second thing is this. Most of us can

do this alongside someone that we trust.

I think we tell ourselves, "I need to go

to like a medical professional to do

this." I actually don't think you do. I

just think you need someone who loves

you and cares about you and wants what's

best for you to talk to you about it.

Because when you're the object of that

pain, when you're the person in the

middle of the story of that pain, it's

almost impossible to interpret it

objectively. It hurts too much. But

someone who loves you and cares about

you can hear you tell the same story and

hear it objectively and give you

objective observations that are easy to

miss when you're the one in the middle

of the story. And by doing that can

actually re articulate how you

understand it. It can help you retell

the story to yourself in a way that's

more true and more accurate and more

sustainable for your emotions to

process.

Sometimes in more extreme circumstances,

it is better to speak with a medical

professional. But I think for most of

us, if you just talk to someone who

loves you, you can do this. And if

[snorts]

you're not sure if you should talk to a

medical professional or not, come talk

to me afterwards and I'll help you

process that. So that's Solomon's first

point. Funerals are better than birthday

parties. And what he means by that is

it's better to face your mortality. It's

better to reckon with the reality of

death and the reality of loss than to

try to avoid it. The heart of the wise,

the wise person is willing to go into

the house of mourning and the heart of

the fool is always trying to escape from

those feelings. Let's now transition to

facing criticism.

Verse 5, it is better to hear the rebuke

of the wise than to hear the songs of

fools.

Again, the contrast is between what is

unpleasant and what is pleasant. If

sorrow is better than laughter, then the

criticism of a wise person is better

than the pleasant songs of a foolish

person.

This example is crazy because many of us

might have literally done it. But have

you ever had a hard conversation with

someone whose input you respect and they

told you something you really didn't

want to hear? And maybe you were

respectful in the moment, but as soon as

you left, you were super frustrated and

when you got under your car, you turned

on the music as loud as you could.

The sag of fools.

Verse six. For as the crackling of

thorns under a pot, so is the laughter

of fools.

Thorns aren't wood.

Thorns flare up. They give the

appearance of a fire, the appearance of

warp, and then they die out immediately.

If a rebuke of a wise man is better than

the song of a fool, how often do you

seek that rebuke out? Or to say that

differently, how often do you solicit

feedback on how you're doing as a person

from people you respect and who care

about you?

I don't mean how often do you ask people

who don't like you why they don't like

you. I'm not talking about that. I mean,

how often you talk to people who

actually care about you and ask them if

there's ways that you could do a better

job loving them, you can do a better job

serving them. Maybe people in your own

home.

And just in case you find yourself on

the other end of that question after you

leave church, if someone asks you how

you can do a better job loving them, you

want to try and receive that question

and answer it with wisdom, not

selfishness.

You should want the good of the person

asking instead of thinking through the

grid of what you yourself want from

them. Wisdom is seeking to give more

than wisdom is seeking to get.

On the other hand, you could be the kind

of person who just wants to avoid this

kind of talk, who never asks, who never

expresses a desire to grow.

After all, that's the only reason a wise

person would rebuke you. If there's a

way that you're out of whack and you

need to be corrected, there's something

you're doing that's unhelpful that needs

to change. That's why a wise person

rebukes you. They're aiming to help you

grow as a person, to help you become

better, wiser, stronger, and more free.

In the same way that the wise person's

heart inclines to the house of mourning

and the foolish person's heart inclines

to the house of mirth, so the wise

person seeks correction from the wise

where the fool seeks after only the

laughter of fools.

The person who does that second thing is

simply chasing chasing hell. The person

who does this is simply burning the

precious hours of your passing life, not

becoming more and more like the kind of

person God wants you to be.

So what have we seen so far? We have

seen it's better to face mortality than

to avoid it. And we have seen that it's

better to face criticism than to run

away from it.

Let's now transition to facing the world

in all of its brokenness.

We now

face a series of proverbs that on the

surface appear unrelated but actually

have a common underlying root. Verse 7

says, "Surely oppression or extortion

drives the wise into madness and a bribe

corrupts the heart.

That is a large sweeping comment about

the way political power is often

corrupted by sin. Who are the objects of

extortion and bribery? Typically pe

people in places of pit uh political

authority. People who have some

ability to render a judgment or make a

call, judges, rulers, leaders in the

land. Cohelith makes the point that

everywhere you find people trying to

exercise justice, everywhere you find

people trying to deal with the word in

truth, you will find other people coming

alongside of them to try to manipulate

them and get them to do what they want

to corrupt them, to bribe them, to

extort them.

Wisdom, it turns out, is not a safeguard

against temptation to sin.

Unfortunately,

even the very wise can be manipulated

and taken advantage of.

It's not smart for us to think that just

because a person has a lot of wisdom and

a lot of knowledge that somehow their

heart is less likely to be inclined

toward corruption by sin.

Knowledge, wisdom, and holiness do not

go hand in hand. Unfortunately,

cultivating self-control and chastity

and humility are not the same thing as

being super well read.

That's just a fact about the world. But

despite that, despite the fact that

political power is easily corrupted,

better is the end of a thing than its

beginning. And the patient in spirit is

better than the proud of spirit. And

with that, don't be quick in your spirit

to get angry, for anger lodges itself in

the heart of pools.

I know that's two separate verses, but I

actually think it's meant to be read as

a couplet, as two ideas meant to be

taken together.

Better is the end of a thing than the

beginning of a thing, and the patient is

better than the proud. Similarly, it's

better not to be quick to anger because

anger lodges itself in foolish hearts.

Let's think about how those things

relate for a second.

When it comes to light that a ruler or a

judge or a leader has been driven into

madness, into crazy thinking by

extortion,

or that a wise person's heart has been

corrupted through a bribe. What is the

first thing we all want to do?

Get super mad.

Right?

Quick in our spirits to anger.

We take a kind of sinful, gleeful

pleasure in a scandal, but only at the

beginning of a thing.

Better is the end of a thing than the

beginning of a thing. Because in the

beginning, when something happens that

appears scandalous, it feels almost good

to react before you've seen the

evidence. It feels almost good to render

a harsh judgment before you really

understand what's going on. But there

needs to be a hearing of all sides.

There needs to be an examination of the

evidence. There needs to be

considerations for external factors and

the weighing of competing claims.

Often times the end of a matter involves

recognizing that the person did

something foolish for a bunch of reasons

that likely would have driven all of you

to a similar course of action. That's

not as fun,

right?

If you're a wise and mature person,

if you're like an elder of a church or

the Christian in your friend group or

the leader of your organization, you

have a fundamental obligation to wisdom,

to not just react emotionally. It's not

from wisdom that people do that.

It's from pride that we judge quickly.

It is a proud spirit that wants to

render a judgment about a matter before

that matter has been thoroughly

considered and examined.

If this whole culture of outrage we live

in is going to die, it has to start

among us. We have to stop doing that.

It needs to die among us in the church.

Scripture teaches us that outrage at

everything that happens in the world is

foolish.

It's right here in front of you in your

holy scripture.

Seriously, look at it.

It is literally saying in the context of

political corruption, it's better to

focus on the end of the matter once

everything's been patiently evaluated

and what happened is thoroughly

understood. It's better to wait to the

end than to judge at the beginning. It's

from pride that you do this. It's

letting anger lodge itself in your heart

like a foolish person. Verse N. Don't be

quick to get angry. That's what fools

do. Don't be quick to react to the news.

Don't be quick to react to a report

about corruption. Don't be quick to

react

about an abuse of power. Because if you

do that as a pattern of life, you will

become an angry and cynical person.

You will start saying things like, "Back

in my day."

I'm actually not joking. He says,

"That's what you do when you become an

angry, cynical person." You start

asking, "Why are the former days better

than these?" Verse 10. Remember back in

the good old days of King Solomon when

everything was going well, Israel was

flourishing. There was international

trade for like the first time maybe ever

in the history of the world, like judges

judged justly. Remember back when it was

so great

when people always just did what was

right and just and never considered

taking bribes or succumbing to threats

of extortion. It's it's literally still

happening even in the golden era of

Solomon. He talks about it right here.

It's crazy. I used to read these words

and imagine like a sentimentalist,

someone reminiscing about a past they

didn't really understand. Sometimes I

hear people process their past or like,

man, when I was growing up it was all

like this, like everything was just

taken care of. People just figured

things out. And I'm thinking to myself,

like no one just like things don't just

get figured. Like there was someone

planning all this. Someone was taking

time out of their life to make sure that

everything was running well. There's no

such thing as a good old day.

I actually don't think that is Kohella's

point here. When you are confronted with

the brokenness of the world, it is of no

use to ask why were former days better

than these days. Wisdom does not ask why

the past is better was better than the

present.

The wise person asks, "How do I make the

present better?

How do I deal with human corruption the

way that everyone else has had to do

since the beginning of time, since Cain

slew Abel?"

Everyone is just like they were before.

And every generation, there are people

that God raises up who try to make the

world better for everyone and every

generation.

And at the same time, there's also

people who try to think, how do I make

the world better for me?

And the two must clash.

Verses 11 and 12 close with a frank and

humble recognition about the limits of

wisdom. Wisdom is good with an

inheritance, it says, and an advantage

to those who see the sun.

That last phrase there, an advantage to

those who see the s the sun immediately

will clue you in to what the author is

doing.

Wisdom is good

while you're alive.

Wisdom is good while you can see the

sun, but it can't save you from death.

It can't stop time from marching on. It

can't grant you any kind of permanence

in the world. Wisdom is good when you

have an inheritance to steward, but it's

only an advantage when you can see the

light outside. Because the protection of

wisdom is like the protection of money

in that like money, knowledge and wisdom

can help preserve your life. In the same

way that a wealthy person can afford

help in the world and doctors and

medical care and blah blah blah. So

wisdom can help you make wise decisions

about life under the sun. Choices that

can even prolong your life.

Every once in a while, we like go to a

lake and I'll see like teenagers, like

18, 19 year old guys on jet skiis just

doing crazy things and think to myself,

it's not from wisdom that you do that.

Don't do that. You're going to hurt

yourself.

Facing reality in all these ways is

better than avoiding it. But even wisdom

has an inherent limit.

It can prolong your life. It can make

your life a little bit better in this

world while you're here.

And that is really is better than the

alternative, but it isn't ultimate. It

isn't going to have permanent value.

So, what have we seen so far? We've seen

that facing our mortality is better than

avoiding it. We've seen that facing

criticism is better than ignoring it.

And here we've seen facing the

brokenness of the world with a patient,

cool spirit, a rational mind is better

than just getting angry and growing

either cynical or embittered.

Instead of complaining that the present

is worse than the past or to try to make

the world better,

let's now close with facing God.

Verses 13 and 14 tell us tell us twice

to consider God. To think about God as

we think about these things. Consider

the work of God. It says, who could make

straight what he has made crooked? In

the day of prosperity, be joyful. And in

the day of adversity, consider God has

made the one as well as the other other

so that man may not find out anything

that will be after him.

Those two verses could very easily be

their own sermon.

But here's a simple statement about what

it's saying.

In a world that is inherently broken,

you need to root your interpretation of

all things through the lens of God's

sovereignty.

The lens that God is sovereign over all.

This is calling us to face God as we

face the world to engage everything

honestly by faith with wisdom. Some of

us walk through the earth saying why

isn't the world straight? Why do bad

things happen to good people? Why do you

know why did the wicked person prosper

and the righteous person suffer? Why do

hard things happen in inopportune times?

Why isn't everything always fair all the

time for everyone to the greatest

possible degree? And the answer is

twofold. One is because of human sin.

We have been given moral choice. And

what we did with that moral choice was

sin against God. And we continue to sin

against God and against each other. And

the other answer is the world is this

way because God has laid judgment upon

it. The ground is cursed because of us.

Childbearing is painful because of us.

We've broken our connection with God

because of our sin. That is the

consequence of his allowing us

meaningful choice. And because we have

this meaningful choice, they're going to

be terrible things that happen in the

world. And the only way for the terrible

things to stop is we have to stop being

terrible.

You guys want to make the world a

perfect place? Let's all stop sitting

right now. 3 2 1 go.

You know, it's worth thinking about that

sometimes

about how much better the world would be

if I stopped sinning and if we stopped

sinning.

That aching you feel in your heart for

why is the world like this? That that

frustration you feel. It's because the

world's not meant to be like this. We

were created to love each other and love

him. We were created for a garden in

paradise. We were created to have to

suffer. That is a byproduct of the

curse. That is a consequence of our sin.

The world isn't supposed to be like this

and it's not going to stay like this.

Christ is coming to set things right.

Our

only hope is that the God who was

sovereign over all will take the days of

joy and take the days of adversity and

lead them drive them anoint them to a

good and meaningful end.

Our hope in this world full of suffering

and brokenness is that it's not random

and a consequence of chaos. There is an

actual king who is lord over all and who

has directed all things to their

appointed good redemptive end.

These dark experiences,

these things that you try to avoid

confronting in your mind because of the

pain,

even those things, God is somehow

working together to draw our story into

his grander story where the life and

death and resurrection of Jesus deals

with not only our sins, but all sin. It

deals not just with my brokenness, but

the brokenness of all things.

where those sins committed against us

and by us can be forgiven.

Where our existence with all of its

brokenness can find its own resurrection

triumph through the love and life-giving

power of God.

We are about to bear witness to five

baptisms here in a minute. Five lives

that are being redirected away from a

focus on sin and selfishness and

brokenness to lives being reoriented

towards sacrificial love, mercy, and

kindness.

>> [sighs]

>> And that is a very good thing. We as a

community through grace are being

healed. We're being healed into people

who can receive days of joy and days of

adversity as different gifts from the

same God.

As different things that God is doing in

our lives to make us stronger, wiser,

freer, and more holy.

This verse closes with a profound claim.

God has made this world with good days

and bad days on purpose so that man may

not find out anything that will be after

him.

God has ordained good days and bad days

for us all. And it's impossible to know

what tomorrow will bring.

You know what you can know in this life?

You can know by faith through Christ

that no matter what tomorrow holds, it's

in God's hands. No matter what tomorrow

holds, God is going to go with you. No

matter what it requires you to face, the

brokenness of your past or the

brokenness of the present or the

brokenness of the future, God has

ordained all things to their God

glorifying end. That all things will

work together for the good of those who

love God and are called according to his

purposes forever and ever.

God does this on purpose so that you and

I and everyone will learn to trust him.

How do you learn to trust someone?

You know, right outside our house is an

an on-ramp onto the 280. You might know

the one I'm talking about. It's right

where 280 and 17 cross. And we have to

exit that on-ramp and cut across three

lanes of traffic before you're

immediately pushed out of the 17 north

or the 17 south. It's the crazy. You

have like a 100 yards and cars are going

like 75 miles an hour. It's the craziest

thing I do every day of my life.

>> [laughter]

>> I feel like a Mad Max trying to GET OVER

LIKE MOVE, you know, but Janine has had

to sit in the driver's seat of our van

and watch me do this over and over and

over again. And I'm not trying to throw

you under the bus here, but there's, you

know, there's a lot of times I can see

her hands white knuckle in the,

[laughter] you know, she's like, "Oh my

gosh." Because a it's an objectively

difficult transition to make, but then

b, we drive differently. You know, I

drive faster than she does. I'm a lot

more willing to change lanes with

minimal amounts of room than she is.

And this is a stupid illustration, but I

think it makes the point. It's It hasn't

gotten any scarier getting onto the 280.

She's just learned to trust me.

She's learned to go with me onto the

freeway and to accept that I may not be

a perfect well I may not be a perfect

I'm definitely not a perfect person

perfect perfect driver but I know how to

do that.

Similarly, you don't learn to trust God

when your life is full of sunshine and

daisies and puppies.

It's just not how it works.

You learn to trust God by walking in

faith that no matter what tomorrow

brings, he'll be there. Don't run from

the harsh realities of life. Face them

with wisdom and trust. Let's pray.