Joel Brooks: If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 9. And if if you want to put a thumb also and Ecclesiastes 3, you can do that. All of that is there in your worship God. We're not gonna read through all of that text, but I wanted it there as a reference for you. But we'd be mostly going through Ecclesiastes 9.
Now, if you remember, Ecclesiastes begins with someone called the preacher, who we believe to be Solomon, crying out, Hevel, Hevel. Says the preacher, Hevel, hevel. All of life is hevel. And that word hevel is translated in her Bibles likely as vanity, sometimes meaningless, But literally it means a puff of smoke or a vapor. It's something that's elusive, something that's impossible for you to grasp.
And it's here for just a moment, and then it is gone. And there's nothing that reveals heavleness more than death. And we've had a lot of death this past week, haven't we, as the church? Really, the last 2 weeks. We've lost Tim Keller and Harry Reeder this week.
Last week, JK's father passed away. One of our members had a miscarriage. Many of you knew well Jeremy Kimes, who died young, leaving a wife and 4 children behind. And you wrestle to try to make sense of it, but you can't. One died of cancer, one died in an accident, one died of old age, one was still lost or was lost in the womb, 1 died of cardiac arrest.
It's hevel. It's just hevel. And now death has been lurking in the backgrounds of every chapter of Ecclesiastes. But finally, when we get to chapter 9, he brings it forward for us. He brings it to the foreground and asks us to take a good hard look at it.
He begins this in chapter 3, but he really brings it home in 9. And so we're gonna start with chapter 9, and I'm gonna just read the first six verses for us, and then we'll get to the others later. But all this I lay to heart, examining it all how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it's love or hate, man does not know, both are before him. It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice.
As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live. And after that, they go to the dead. But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. And they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever, they have no more share in all that is done under the sun. This is the word of the Lord.
Caleb Chancey: Please be to God.
Joel Brooks: Would you pray with me? Lord, we ask that through your spirit, you would open up not just sleepy hearts and minds, but resistant hearts and minds to your word so that we might see that and and feel the hope that you have for us. So I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Okay. So I'm gonna give you a one word summary of the entire book of Ecclesiastes. I was gonna do this at the start of Ecclesiastes, but then I thought y'all probably just write that down. Wouldn't pay any attention in the coming weeks, so I thought I would, you know, this is the cliff note of the cliff notes of Ecclesiastes, and it's just one word. It's only three letters long, and it's the word and.
But you have to make it into a question. And? So there's a question mark. And? Say that with me.
And. Alright. Get used to saying that, people. Because we're gonna do a little congregational response time. So if you grew up Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, this is gonna be a stretch for you, but I've kept it at just a word, but you're gonna be saying, and.
So I want you to practice again, and. Alright. Whenever I do my hand out like this, you're gonna say that. Okay? So here we go.
And. That's really good. Make sure it's a question, not a statement. Perfect. And so so what we're gonna do is, I I'm gonna help you think through my life, And I'm gonna actually go back to when I'm in high school and I'm gonna start that time, and then, every time I do my hand like that, you're gonna ask that question.
So here we go. Hey, guys. I've got some exciting news. I, I've got straight a's all through high school and I just crushed my ACT. Amen.
So glad you asked. Well, what this means is I can get into any school that I want. And, and and, you know, there I could probably go on to get a great job. Amen. Well, if I work really hard at at this job that I've already worked so hard for, then, I could probably rise up through the ranks, possibly become the CEO.
Maybe I'll do such a good job, they'll write about me in some business journal or some kind of leadership magazine. Yes. Well, I mean obviously besides just having people's respect, I'm sure I'll be making a lot of money, so I could buy, you know, of course the the great house, some cool cars, maybe go on some great vacations. If I have a family, I can provide for them. Amen.
Well, I mean, eventually I'll retire, but I could probably retire early, and then I'll just get to travel. Well, then I'll play golf. And, well, I guess, I mean, I'd finally reach a stage where I can't play anymore as my body starts to, break down. Well, then, I guess, eventually, I would just die. Well, that that didn't turn out that well.
Let let me try a different strategy here. I mean, so obviously grades, achievement, that that wasn't the answer to find meaning in my life here. So, I'm gonna give myself up instead to to pursuing fun and maybe just relationships, making as many friends as possible.
Caleb Chancey: Well I
Joel Brooks: mean, if I did that through high school, I can't get into the best college, but you know, I could I could go to another college. And, in there, I won't study as much, but I'll have lots of friends. Well when I graduate, I could get a so so job, but it's okay because, I'll it won't be as demanding. I'll have time to spend with my friends and perhaps I can have a family. Well, I mean, eventually, I'll I'll do that long enough, and then I will retire.
I won't have made enough money, so I can't travel the world or anything, but my kids will love me. You know? They'll they'll come and visit me. Yes. Well, then, hopefully, maybe I could become a a grandparent.
Well, I mean, I'll enjoy my kids for a while, but, you know, then I'll start to lose some of my senses,
Caleb Chancey: Yes. Well,
Joel Brooks: I guess, then eventually, I'll I'll die. You know, you guys are not any help at all, you know, as you're helping me think through my life. You're you're the you're the worst. You can see why Solomon was not invited to parties. Alright.
Let let me let me let me try a different strategy here. This time, I'm gonna give myself to being as fit as I possibly can. I'm I'm gonna have like kale protein shakes every morning. Yes. So glad you asked.
I mean, I'm gonna be able to do like 400 pound dead lifts. I'm gonna Instagram my abs, you know.
Caleb Chancey: What do
Joel Brooks: you mean and? I mean, I mean, then, it's gonna add like some years in my life. I just read an article, no lie, I read an article that if you are an Olympic athlete in an endurance sport, so if you were like the most elite of the elite athletes, on average, you added 4 years to your life. So I mean, that means I could add like, you know, some years. 4 years.
Well then eventually, no matter what, I guess my body will break down and I'll die. Well, let me try one more thing. What if I became really religious? You know, did a lot of good works, spent my life fighting for justice. What if I gave my life to helping people?
Yes.
Caleb Chancey: What do you what
Joel Brooks: do you mean and? I'm I'm helping people. Yes. Well, if I help people, they're gonna they're gonna go on to live better lives. Well, then I guess eventually they would grow old and they would die, and then I would die.
You could do this all day. All day. And the truth is as you think about your life and all the options, I mean, you're just that you sweat over, you pour over, put so much weight and anxiety in, you could pour over all that, but you know what? All paths converge. All of them.
They all meet at death. It is inescapable. Every one of you will die. Now the opening verses of chapter 9, the the preacher is just trying to make sense of this, and he can't. I mean, in the end, it doesn't matter what you do.
It doesn't matter how you live. It doesn't matter whether you spend your life trying to do good or bad, or whether you're religious or irreligious or whatever, it doesn't matter. In the end, we all go through the same event, we all die. He calls us evil. And He's not just saying that death is evil, He is saying that the way death does its work is evil.
Because death takes the good and the bad, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason at all as to who or when or how people die. It's hevel. You cannot understand it. And if you weren't on board with with the preacher before as he was talking about hevel, now this, it comes it's this trump card. He says, it's all hevel.
All past converge. Everyone dies. I can't make sense of it. And one of the things that the preacher hammers home to us in Ecclesiastes is that no one at any point could look at what's going on in their life and see it as a kind of evidence as to whether God is pleased or displeased with the way that they are living. You can't do it.
Sometimes, a person can lie and steal their way through life, and you know what? They're blessed. Good health, they live a long time, they seem to be happy and comfortable. And then, you can have another person who gives themselves to good good works, goes to church every week, prays, and they die penniless young. It's like can't can't figure it out.
It's hevel. I mean, look at John the Baptist. Jesus said he was the greatest person who ever lived. He had his head chopped off because a king liked the way a girl danced. Try to make sense of that.
So so so we look at what happens around in us, and there's no evidence as to whether God is pleased or displeased with our lives. Don't believe any of that health, wealth, prosperity garbage because you know what? The preachers who preach that all die in the end. Regardless of who you are or how you live, you will die. Now the danger in doing this is like saying this is like all of us know this.
We all know it, but very few of us have ever actually even felt it, experienced it by people close around us even dying. I mentioned, last week that the biggest interpretive issue with Ecclesiastes is that we say, I hear you, Solomon, but, honestly, that doesn't apply to me. And here's the truth. None of us have experienced death. Not one of us.
Every one of us think we're the exception, and we have been the exception so far. And so it's really hard for us to listen when we've every person here is the exception. But then you have weeks like this, past week, and and maybe it opens up our hearts just a little bit, and that that's a good, good thing. Perhaps, we'll listen to the preacher here because he does give us hope. Look at verses 4 through 6 again.
But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished. And forever, they have no more share in all that is done under the sun. K.
So everyone take a deep breath right now. Do it again, deep breath. The preacher says there's your hope. It's your hope. Right now, you are alive.
It's better to be a living dog than a dead lion. Right now, no matter what's going on in your life, it's better to be you than any other person in history. It's better to be you than Julius Caesar, than a a Einstein or like a a John d Rockefeller, whoever it is, because they're dead. There's no more conscious thought under the sun. There's no more that they could do under the sun, but you you could breathe, you're alive.
And what he is saying is what this means is you can now currently make choices. They can't make any more choices in this life, but you can. Because you have this gift right now. You're alive and you're breathing. You can make a choice to make your life mean something.
They no longer have that opportunity. So what are you gonna do with it? That you're here living and breathing. Are you gonna waste that opportunity? Because you don't know what tomorrow brings.
Well, here, the preacher tells us how to not waste this opportunity in verse 7. He says, go eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. So here we come to another one of those enjoyment passages that are sprinkled all throughout Ecclesiastes, but this one has one very important difference. I don't know if you noticed it or not. It it I didn't notice it for years.
Yeah. But but here's the one important difference. This time, he doesn't just say, I have found that there's nothing better to do under the sun, you know, than to eat and to drink. He doesn't say that. He gives an imperative.
Go. Go. Eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart. He commands you to do these things. Do can you tell the tone's different?
There's an urgency here to his voice. Go. Don't waste a moment while you still have breath in your lungs. You don't know what tomorrow is gonna bring. Go eat and and don't just eat.
Eat it with joy. Drink with a merry heart. This means, like, have as we looked at last week, if you happen to be one who has money, go out, get that filet mignon, get that, you know, really nice cut of prime rib, whatever it is, and and a nice cabernet, and just savor it. And if you can't afford that and it's just gonna be burgers, you know, and a diet Doctor Pepper, enjoy it. Take time.
Like, how many flavors? Doctor Pepper's got like, what? 9, 11 flavors in it? Like, take your time and try to taste every one of those flavors. But there's an urgency here.
Thank God for the senses that He has given you in this moment to experience those simple pleasures. Verse 8, let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. So white garments are the the clothes you wear that would reflect the oppressive heat of a life under the sun. And the oil on your head, and it would also be, you would put it on your skin.
It was a preservative. It kept your skin and your hair healthy. And so what the preacher here is telling us is, yes, death is coming for you, but don't wear sackcloth and ashes. I mean, don't don't put on, you know, a sackcloth and ashes on your head. No.
Get out something nice. Dress up. Put something nice on. Make yourself smell nice. Use some beauty products here to preserve your skin.
Do that. Verse 9. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your hevel life that he has given you under the sun. Because that is your portion in life and your toil at which you toil under the sun. Husbands, you're not told just to live with your wife.
You're not told just to get along with your wife. You're told to enjoy your wife. And wives, enjoy your husbands. And if you're not married, then give yourself to enjoying deep relationships with your friends. Lauren and I, we have the privilege of leading some marriage retreats a couple times a year.
And For our 1st session, we do the same thing. What I do is I tell a story about doctor John Piper and his wife, Noelle. This happened about 15, 20 years ago. But anytime, doctor Piper was asked about his marriage to Noelle, he would say, oh, we have a rock solid marriage. And he'd always say that.
We got a rock solid marriage. We got a rock solid marriage. Rock solid. Finally, Noelle decided to just chime in low and she goes, what if I want more than a rock solid marriage? What if what if I select the baseline, but but I want something more?
And doctor Papy realized he needed to step away from work for a little bit and spend time just investing more in his marriage. For those of you who are married here and you would describe your marriage as rock solid, I want you to hear me clearly say God wants something more for you than that. That could be that that baseline that you build on, but he wants you to have a deep, passionate, joyful marriage. He wants you to have a marriage that oozes with strength and kindness and grace and forgiveness and gentleness. But this doesn't just happen.
It takes work. Notice here, when the preacher talks about marriage, he talks about toil. Do you notice that? He doesn't mention toil when you're eating and drinking. You're like, hey eat and drink, there's no toil.
He doesn't mention toil when you're putting on the nice clothes and the perfumes and stuff like that, but marriage is like, hey there's gonna be some toil. There's gonna be some work. But it's for your joy that you work it out. I mean, I I don't understand God. Once again, it's hell, well, you can't make a sense of it.
But think of Mary, he he decided to put 2 completely different people together. People who who think differently, people who feel differently, people who have different emotional needs or physical desires, people who experience temperature vastly differently. I mean, Lauren and I cannot, she dresses like she's going on an Arctic expedition at home, and I'm like, you know, shirtless wearing sandals, and what God does is he puts the 2 of us together like it's an experiment. It's like I wonder what's gonna happen, but it's for life. Takes work.
Takes a lot of work for our joy, for our joy. So if you have a rock solid marriage, God bless you. That's wonderful, but he wants more and you're gonna have to work for it. Verse 10, he says, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. For there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol to which you are going.
So he commands us to work, to be productive, to do it wholeheartedly or with all our might. We're not to do anything half ass, and I'm I'm gonna go ahead and just say that, and I guess I'm allowed. I like You know what I mean? Yeah. Say it again.
Some of us need to hear it again. Alright. So there there's something about, like, it's going through hard work, and you you finish it, and it's a job well done. This is satisfying. And and the preacher says, yeah.
Give yourself to that. Don't do it half heartedly. Now I gotta change it. So so in summary, what the preacher has been telling us here is that, you know, as you go through life, like, shower, get dressed, wear put on a nice dress shirt or or or a nice dress. Put on some, you know, something that makes you smell nice.
Call up some friends or go with your spouse to that restaurant you've just heard about and you wanna try. And when you get there, slow down. Enjoy the conversation. Enjoy the good meal there because this is God's gift to you. Alright.
Let me let me begin to pull the the threads together here. We need to go back to verse 7. And the reason why we could do all these things in joy, because we read, for God has already approved of what you do. For God has already approved of what you do. Now, the reason we know that God has already approved of these things is because these are the same things that Adam and Eve were doing in the garden.
Same activities. When God created Adam and Eve, He put them there in the garden where they were to eat and to drink with joy. They were to enjoy being married to one another and then he gave them meaningful work to do. Same activities. Now of course, they sinned and they messed it all up, and so God had to remove them from the garden.
But even though God removed them from the garden, he didn't change their calling. The environment changed, but their calling did not change. So they were still to eat and to drink and to enjoy one another and to work, but now they would have an environment of toil. Now this would their calling would have to be done underneath the sun, and they would have to do this calling until they died. And of course, death is the ultimate change in the environment, same calling, different environment.
Now there's toil. And now all of these activities end in death or do they or do they? Remember that one word summary of Ecclesiastes? Say Say it with me again. Yes.
Okay. So we need to ask that question one more time. So let me pick back up where all roads converge. Well, I guess in the end, I'm just gonna grow old and die. That's the question.
That's the question. Really, it's the only question that matters. Is death the end or is it not? Is there anything after the grave? If there's not any life or any judgment after the grave, nothing matters.
But there is there is a life after the grave, everything matters. So which is it? Is it when we die? Is it just like a plug is pulled? The lights just go out.
There's no more consciousness. There's no more thought. No more existence or just nothingness. If so, hear me, nothing matters. Nothing.
Or does life continue? And can I just get real honest with you for a moment? I don't even I don't know if I have the time to do this or not, but I'm gonna do it anyway. I mentioned a few months back how for the first time in my life, I was I was hit with a moment of doubt. Never ever have I been hit with doubt.
I've never doubted the gospel, never doubted the existence of God, and then it just hit me out of the blue. It it it shocked me. To be honest, it wasn't just a moment, it was moments. Waves of doubt hit me. And, these doubts were never stronger than after I had preached.
So I would preach. I finished the 4th service, and I would sometimes, I'd I'd go to the truck, my truck, and before I would drive home, I would just cry. Just hit with doubt. Why am I doing this? Why am I killing myself doing this?
Does it matter? Does it really even matter? God, are you even real? I mean, when we die, do the lights just go out? And I have these moments of doubt.
And in this moments, God was so kind. I mean, I would hear a voice, not like an actual voice. You don't have to, like, call anybody. But like inwardly just this, so Joel, you feel pretty guilty about this, don't you? And he's like, yeah, I do.
Because you think there's a right and a wrong. And he's like, yeah, I do. Well, there's only a right and wrong if there's a law giver, and it's only right and wrong if there's a creator. I'm here. And I always felt, you know, I'd always preached that God's grip on us is greater than our grip on him.
I believe that. That's the first time I've ever felt it. Like, I actually just felt, God, your grip on me is greater than my grip on you. So never completely lost faith or anything, but the the the doubt would hit. It would hit.
And it was this these times that led me to Ecclesiastes. It's where I went there because you know what? I knew Solomon had those doubts. I mean, look at Ecclesiastes 3. I mean, verses 19 through 21.
This is this is why you don't invite Solomon to parties. Okay? For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beast is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath.
And man has no advantage over the beast, for all is hevel. All go to one place. All are from the dust and to the dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down to the earth? I mean, the preacher is he's looking around all life and he sees some animal die.
And I don't know if you've ever seen an animal go from living to dead. You remember it. I'm not just talking about seeing a dead animal or a dead person, but like seeing someone transition from life to death. You remember it. And he he sees us with the animal and he's just like, we're no different.
And then in a confession that is hard to believe is in our bibles, he says, and you know what? And when we die, do we really know what happens? Do we really even know? And so he he's he's on a low point here. I mean, he's he's just being really honest with us.
He has this low point. He doesn't stay here. We we know later that Solomon, he actually believes that there's life after death. He strongly believes this, and he's he's gonna unpack that later here, but that doesn't keep him from going through what I would call the the valley of the shadow of doubt because he certainly goes through this here. Now, of course, we have a resource to deal with death that Solomon did not have.
The preacher here, he didn't have this resource and this is the resource that I would go to over and over and over again whenever the waves of doubt would hit me, and it's this, the resurrection of Jesus. Solomon lived before Jesus walked this earth. But we know that Jesus came into this world. He lived, he died, and he walked out of the tomb. He defeated death.
Caleb Chancey: Can I
Joel Brooks: tell you this? As I have gotten older and as death has gotten closer and it's gotten closer for every one of you, every day you live is one day closer to your death. As as death gets closer, I've come to the conclusion that only one question matters, and that is, did Jesus walk out of that tomb? It's the only question that matters. Did Jesus rise from the dead?
If he didn't, we have no hope. If he did, we have all the hope in the world. If he didn't, nothing matters. If he did, everything matters. It's pretty dividing with our life, makes things pretty clear.
It all boils down to whether Jesus rose from the dead. And so I would go back, and I would restudy the resurrection. I'd go back to the gospels. I'd go back, and I'd I'd read other evidences, historical evidences of it. I'd read it, and it would just come out.
God, once again, he would remind me, yes, these things are true. And he'd remind me that his grip on me is far greater than my grip on him. And I just wanna say this, if any of you have any doubts or struggles about the resurrection of Jesus, I would love to sit down and just walk you through and just talk with you through those things. Now because Jesus did rise from the dead, we now eat and drink differently than Solomon. We have a different purpose.
I mean, the preacher here, he tells us, you know, we could do these things because it's the best we can hope for in this life. It's the best we could get out of it. But as Christians, we do it for an additional purpose. We do not eat and drink for tomorrow we die. We eat and drink for this is what we will do after we die.
We will keep eating and drinking. When we slow down and we take time to enjoy a feast with friends, what we're actually doing is practicing eternity. We're rehearsing for the life that's to come. I mean, you you see Jesus, when he came into this world, he taught us so much about the life that is to come. And it wasn't just in his dying and his rising again, it's it's how he lived.
Notice he is always eating and drinking with people. Jesus literally, he eats his way through the gospels. I mean, read it. It is a staggering amount of times Jesus slows down and he eats and he drinks with people. And the reason he does this is because he's actually teaching people and preparing people for eternal life.
Over and over again, not just in the old testament, but especially the new testament. The kingdom of God is described as a place of feasting, eating and drinking. We will enjoy the wedding feast of the lamb where we will sit down and we will eat and drink with the presence of Jesus. So in this life, the next time you're at the dinner table, slow down. If if your life is too fast to to do that, then then something's wrong with your life.
Slow down. Enjoy the family and the friends around the table, take time to eat as if time wasn't an issue, and give thanks to God for every bite you have, every sip of wine you enjoy. Listen to the conversation. Take it in deeply. Don't rush to the next thing.
When you don't rush to the next thing, you're rehearsing eternity. Because in heaven, there is no rush. There's no exhaustion from just racing from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. In heaven, you're not always planning and preparing for the thing you think is gonna make you happy. And that's what we spend our entire life doing.
We never enjoy the moment because we're always preparing to be happy. And as a result, we're never actually happy. But but in heaven, you live in the present, the great I am. Yahweh, He is the ever present one, and and we will become like Jesus. Time will be gone.
We will always be in the present enjoying the moment. And as much as you could do that in this life, you prepare yourself for the next. So if you trust in Jesus for your salvation, go, eat with joy, drink with a merry heart, Dress up nice. Go to work. Just enjoy being with people and talking with people.
I mean, no rush because that's God's gift to you and that's how you will practice what you will do for all of eternity. Eat and drink for you once were dead, but now you have been made alive through God's spirit. Do you believe this? Do you believe that this is the eternal future that Jesus has secured for you? Ecclesiastes says that God has put eternity in our hearts, and that means that deep, deep down, even in the midst of our doubts, we know that death is not the end.
Pray with me. Jesus, you have put eternity in our hearts. We know death is not the end. But, Lord, do you say after death, there will be a judgment. Some will go on to eternal life, and some will go to eternal death.
Lord, I pray we would choose life. We would choose Jesus. You have come that we might have life, not just for eternity, but have abundant life in this present moment through your spirit. For those who are struggling with that or who doubt that, would you be so kind in this moment to press these truths, to press the reality of who you are into their hearts? We pray this in the sweet name of Jesus.
Amen.