Speaker 1: Hear these words from Ecclesiastes 5 1 through 7. Guard your steps when you go to the house of god. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God. For God is in heaven, and you are on earth.
Therefore, let your words be few. For a dream comes with much business and a fool's voice with many words. When you vow a vow to god, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.
Let your mouth lead you into sin and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity, but god is the one you must fear. This is the word of the lord.
Speaker 2: Would you pray with me? Our lord and our god, we come before you this morning with fear and trembling. You are the one that we must fear. There is no one like you, and there is no God but you. So I pray for my brothers and sisters in this room or for those who do not yet know you, that you would give us ears to hear from you.
We say like Simon Peter did before you, Jesus, where else would we go because you have the words of eternal life? Or there is no one here this morning who needs to hear the words of a mere man. We are here to hear from you because your name and your renown, those are the desires of our hearts. So speak to us, we beg. In the name of the father, son, and holy spirit.
Amen. So this morning, I'm not going to pretend to be anything other than where I am. Yesterday was one of the most surreal days that I've had in a very long time. My 8 year old son, Ezra, is playing baseball this summer with the Southside All Stars, and he is very, very accustomed to losing, largely because I have been his coach his whole life. Yesterday's tournament started off with a win.
1 of the parents came up to me and said, you know, I think we've had enough character building. This winning thing feels pretty good, and it felt great. And the next game, Ezra and his team, they they came from behind, and they were headed to the championship game. For the same time, my son was getting ready for championship game. My youngest son, Amos, who had been playing in between two fields, had taken a foul ball to the back of the head.
First, it seemed like he was okay and that he was just crying, but then his speech started to slow down a little bit and he told us he was needed to throw up. So we took him over to Children's Hospital. We loaded up the van with my wife, my daughter Sarah, Amos, and me. Left Ezra to be watched after with some other parents there and dropped Aaron and Amos off for Amos to get a CT scan to figure out what was going on with him. Praise the Lord.
I didn't do this in the 8 AM service. It looks like he's going to be okay, but he did have a concussion and a fracture in the back of his skull. And so my wife and son, they're still at children's this morning because he hasn't been able to keep anything down until the last hour or so. And so we're waiting on the results of a CT scan. At the same time, my 8 year old is playing in this championship game, and I'm sitting there with my phone waiting to hear if my 6 year old is going to need surgery on his skull.
I watch Ezra rejoice as he wins, really, for the first time in his whole life. He gets a ring, and he is so ecstatic. And I tell him how excited I am for him, how proud I am, and then we gotta go pick up or head back home, and then I gotta pick up stuff and and take it because mama's gotta stay at the hospital with your brother. So even this pleasure, this dream of dreams for a kid who eats, breathes, and sleeps baseball was He enjoyed it for a moment, and then it was gone blown out like smoke. Right?
And while Saturday was surreal, my Saturday, 2 Saturdays before was maybe even more surreal. We loaded up the van, we headed over to Avondale Park for a baseball game, but my boys and my daughter had two changes of clothes in the back. Because right after baseball game, they were headed to the funeral of 1 of their friend's dads. And after that, they were headed to a pool party. So they were dressed in baseball clothes with their best clothes in the back and swim trunks.
And that day, I went to a baseball game, a funeral, a pool party, a funeral, a baseball game, and a baseball game. Now how is that for a Saturday? Maybe over the last 6 weeks of of you being here and us diving into Ecclesiastes, you have realized that living for pleasure or living for achievement or living for a relationship will never satisfy that at the end, the best of these things are meant to be enjoyed only for a moment. And maybe you were here last week and you heard Joel or Jeff speak about death. You heard Joel's questions.
And? And? And if at the end of all of those things, the final and then is that you and I will die and be forgotten. What does it profit a man? What does a man gain for all of his toil underneath the sun?
Maybe the reality of death has appropriately sobered you to think about what the most important things in life really are. But what are the most important things about life if in the end, this is all there is? You and I will die and the sun will one day burn out. Can anything be meaningful if death swallows all hope and meaning under the sun? And maybe facing that reality, you instead have decided to show up at church on Memorial Day weekend, or maybe you just don't have a friend with a lake house.
I don't know. But I'm glad you're here. And you turn to the one who holds the keys of life and death. But something really interesting happens as we turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 5. For the very first time in this book, the preacher directly addresses his audience, and what does he say in verse 1?
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. He is speaking, and who is he speaking to? To those of you in church, to draw near, to listen is better to than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few.
This morning, we're going to look at what it means to guard, what it means to listen and obey, and what it means to fear. So first, what does it mean to guard? See, there is a way. I wanna take that back. Hold on a second.
One of my favorite poets, great 20th century English poet, TS Eliot, he wrote a play called Murder in the Cathedral, about the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury. And Becket, he excommunicated, some of the best friends of King Henry the second, and in response, King Henry has sent his knights to kill Thomas Becket in the cathedral. So the play takes place as Thomas Beckett knows that these knights are coming to kill him, and he gets visited by these 4 tempters. So the first tempter comes in and he offers Beckett safety. He says, take a friend's advice, leave well alone, or your goose may be cooked and eaten to the bone.
In other words, hey, Thomas. Everyone would understand. If you're gonna die if you don't take this back, just take it back and you will be safe. And Thomas says, I'm not gonna dishonor the lord like that. No.
So the second tempter comes in and he offers Thomas Beckett power. He says, imagine all the good that you could do if you were the king's friend. Imagine how you could care for the poor. Imagine what it would do for the church. Thomas Beckett says, no.
The third one comes in and says, okay. Everyone knows that King Henry the second, he is evil. So declare war against him. And who knows, maybe God will be on your side and this will lead to a transformation for all of England. Becket says, no.
But the 4th tempter comes in, and he says, Thomas, do you know what you should do? You should be a martyr. And Thomas is, at first, a little confused and taken aback, says, well, I I I think I'm about to be a martyr. Says, that's right. Because kings die and they're forgotten.
People in history are gonna look back at King Henry the second and realize how evil he was. But everyone forever, they are gonna talk about what a great man of God Thomas Becket is. So you should be a martyr. And Beckett, he trembles, and he utters these lines that I've never forgotten. He says, the last temptation is the greatest treason to do the right thing for the wrong reason.
Brothers and sisters, do you know that there are 2 ways to run from God? You can run from God by chasing after life in meaning and purpose and delight, in everything under the sun, running as far away as you can from god. But you can also run from god by doing the right thing for the wrong reason. And the difference, as one of my heroes, Tim Keller, used to say, between religion and a gospel changed heart can be so subtle. Because outwardly, in action and appearance, they can look exactly the same, but the weight of your existence hangs in the very balance.
I can prepare this sermon because I want you to know God, or I can prepare the sermon, say the exact same words, say it in the exact same way because I really want you to think that I know God. Do you see how dangerous and deadly and subtle this can be? So brothers and sisters, let us guard. Let us listen and obey, and let us fear. Let us guard.
There is a way to approach god that reveals that we have absolutely no idea who it is that we are really coming before. That is why the preacher says, guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Look back for just a minute at our opening scripture this morning from Isaiah 40. Verse 12 says, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span. Everybody hold up your hand just like this for a minute.
Now take a look at it. That tiny, tiny, tiny little bowl that you just made, that's the hollow of your hand. Now I am one of the worst swimmers that I know. I cannot drown, but that's about it, and that's only a matter of time. When I was in college, a handful of my friends and I made one of the most foolish decisions I've ever made in a lifetime of foolish decisions.
So we were down in Florida, and we heard that tropical storm Alberto was about to hit the coast where we were, and and we decided we wanted to see what it was like. There was 50, 60 mile an hour winds, and we went out to the ocean shore. And the 3 of us decided to wade in. We walk in to where the water had just been, and felt it rush underneath our feet, and it felt like a rope burn underneath. Like rope was being pulled underneath our feet.
The water was moving that fast. And then just a couple seconds later, it would crash a couple feet over our heads. It was the most awesome, terrifying experience of my entire life. I realized at that moment, I was completely powerless and I was probably going to die. And I deserved to.
Right? Our best chance at survival was just to let the current pull us down the shore, and pull it down pull us down the shore. It did. A couple minutes later, we found ourselves about a half mile down the beach, but we were safe and sound and learned never to do that again. Now the ocean could have crushed me.
Right? Not because it had any ill will against me, but because it was so great, it was so glorious, it was so magnificent, and in comparison, I was so small, so powerless, so insignificant, and that was one tiny fraction of that tiny bit of the gulf in that ocean of all the oceans in the world, and god says, it's in the hollow of my hand. God says that he measures the heavens by a span. So everybody hold up your hand like this. The distance between your thumb and your pinky is a span.
We have no real idea how big the universe is except that it keeps getting bigger. That there are billions upon billions of galaxies, and each galaxy has billions upon billions of stars in them. God says, I see the universe, every atom in it moves at my command. I call every star out by name and nothing can go against my will. The universe, I hold it right here.
He says the nations are a drop in the bucket. We worry ourselves with economic crashes and crises. We worry about wars and rumors of wars, and god says the nations drop in the bucket. I weigh the mountains on scales. So to whom then will we liken this god or what will we compare him to?
There is nothing in no one. When we fail to guard our steps as we come into the house of God, or before we come before his word or prayer, we fail to remember how glorious and powerful he is. That he is beyond our understanding, infinitely so. God is in heaven. We are on earth, so we ought to let our words be few.
2nd, let us listen and obey. Verse 1 once again. Guard your steps when you go to the house of god. To draw near, to listen, is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. The preacher is telling us that there is a way to draw near to God, that is to offer the sacrifice of fools, and it is not just foolish, but he uses the word evil.
And this Hebrew word, listen, it doesn't mean just to hear with your ears. It means to hear with your ears and regard as true and then to obey. So the preacher is telling us, draw near, listen, and be ready to obey. Verse 2. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth.
Therefore, let your words be few. For a dream comes with much business and a fool's voice with many words. When you vow a vow to God, do not delay in paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.
Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? The preacher is saying, if you, in a moment of crisis or panic, when you have no one else to turn to, you make a vow to God saying, if you do this, then I'll do that, then you should make your vow. You should fulfill your vow. But it is better not to make a vow at all.
Now the last few weeks have been pretty wild and busy for me both here and amongst family and friends. And a couple of nights ago, Erin and I had a conversation where we were just kinda checking in on each other, seeing how we were doing. And she said, I understand. I want you to know, you know, love you, trust you. We're here.
Just take me on a date soon. And I said, yes ma'am. And part of me telling you that this morning is so that I will, on the record, remember that, and then go set up a date and a time for us to go on a date. So the last few weeks, because they've been crazy let's say I I I make a date for 2 weeks from now, 2 Saturdays from now to take Erin out to her favorite restaurant, Botola. Let's say I get my parents to watch our kids, and we get some nice night away at Ross Bridge or something.
But let's say a week from now, one of my best friends calls me and he says, you're never gonna believe this. I just scored the opportunity of a lifetime. 2 Saturdays from now, you, me, Braves Stadium, all of your favorite players ever, they're gonna pitch you batting practice. And I think, yes. 100%.
This is exactly what I'm doing. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. And then I think for a minute, I made a promise to my wife. And so I tell my buddy, and he says, I mean, yeah, but this is the Braves, Matt. And I think, you're right. I know where I'm gonna be.
And so, what do I do? I go to Norton's florist. And I think, You know what my wife needs? Some flowers. Who doesn't love flowers?
She doesn't really love jewelry, but she loves to read. So I go to little professor, I pick up a couple books, I get a nice gift card, I write the sweetest note telling her that she is the greatest mom in the history of the earth. It would make a statue weep. Okay? That's how good this note is.
And I show up at home. I've got my flowers. I got my books. I got my gift card. I got my note.
Erin opens the door, and she says, Are these for me? I said, Of course they are. Do you know how much I love you? Do you know how great you are? Do you know how patient you've been these last few weeks?
And then I pull out, here's the note, she starts weeping. Of course she does. It was perfectly written. And then I say, Aaron, I know you we've been through a lot these last few weeks, and I want you to know how appreciative I am of you. I really am.
I love you so much. Oh, by the way, 2 Saturdays from now, I'm gonna need to reschedule. I'm so sorry about this. Something came up. I couldn't say no to it, so we're gonna go to Ross Bridge 2 weeks from now.
What do you think Erin's gonna think about all the gifts that I just gave her? Is she going to appreciate them, or is she gonna throw them back in my face? Every person in here knows exactly what my wife would do whether or not you know her. Because there is a difference between giving a gift to someone and giving someone something that you're really giving to yourself. There's a difference between a gift and a bribe.
And if I would do that to my wife, it is only because I misunderstand her heart and what she is really after. Yes. For the record, if that happened, my wife would very generously let me go, because she's the best and would deserve that note that I wrote. There is a way for us to do the very same thing with God. And one of the greatest temptations facing the preacher's audience in Ecclesiastes, and one of the greatest dangers for those of us in church is that we would come and show up, that we would clean up some area of our lives, that we would give some time or some money or some service, but that we would do it all not out of faith, not out of an abiding thankfulness and gratitude for the character and promises of God, but as a means of trying to gain leverage over this infinitely powerful and infinitely glorious God, because we, like Adam and Eve in the garden, don't trust the heart of God.
We think that he is withholding from us. We think that to get what it is that our hearts are really after, we have to manipulate and go around him and his laws. And after a while, if we start laying down some of the things that we really love, or really want to do in the name of quote unquote, loving God, we starts we start subconsciously thinking that God owes us. After all, since we are acting more moral than those people over there, since we've presented to god our service, our obedience, our offerings, then god should give us that promotion. God should give us that relationship or that house.
Healthy children, financial security, because he owes us. After all, look how much we have done for him. You see, there is a way to be religious, a way to obey that is just as anxious and as meaningless as the person who doesn't believe in God at all. We can obey God in part, but misunderstand his generosity, his kindness, because they are infinite. No one knows better than he does what it is that we really need and long for.
Finally, let us fear. Verse 7. For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is hevel, but God is the one you must fear. See, fear is an incredibly powerful motivator. I was thinking this morning about that tired movie trope that you've all seen, where the good guy finds himself in the climax of a movie, betrayed by one of his closest friends.
And what's happened? The bad guy has gained leverage over the best friend, and said something to the effect of, hey. If you don't do this for me, then I'm gonna reveal everything I know about you, or I'm gonna take away all of your money, or I'm gonna hurt your family. And so the best friend comes before the main character, and he says, I'm so sorry, but he did this. Fear is a powerful motivator.
It is a life rearranging emotion. One that can be birthed from terror or from someplace else. Another time when I was at the beach promise, I do have pleasant experiences at the beach as well. Aaron and I were there. I think we just had 2 kids at the time.
Maybe Amos was very, very little, and we were down at the ocean, with some of our good friends who had kids right around the same age. And me and the husband, we were talking back and forth for a little while, and then all of a sudden, we realized that his daughter, who was playing right at his feet, was no longer there. And so we looked around. We started calling her name. He ran to go get a lifeguard, to go look out in the ocean.
I ran back up to the hotel to see if we could get some security to start combing the beach or to see if somebody might have seen her, like, walk out or maybe, I don't know, if somebody had walked out with her. Both of our wives start going left and right down the beach, gathering people to come alongside us to see if we can find his daughter. 15 minutes go by and we don't know where she is, and we start fearing the absolute worst. Praise the Lord, there was this college student who saw a little 3, 4 year old girl who had been sprinting off by herself and thought, that's not right. And just started watching her and following her from afar, and she came back safe and sound.
And that's not always the story. Right? But it was for us in that moment. But you know what? I have no idea what Richard and I were talking about before that.
Because when that moment hit, it did not matter at all. Everything that we were concerned about before that moment, it receded back into the background. Fear hit. Where is this sweet little girl and nothing else matters until we find her? Not any problems we were having back at home or at work or our financial status.
Fear is a life transforming emotion that redirects everything towards one end. You see, there is a way to obey God out of fear that is just either terror, if I don't do this for God, what will he do to me? Or a means to try to get God off of our back, but it doesn't work. Because as we learn in our study of the lives of Saul and of David, God looks or man looks at the outward appearance appearance, but God looks at the heart. To obey is better than sacrifice.
God said elsewhere through his prophet Isaiah, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They're not doing these things because they love me. They're doing them because they think that they have to. To obey God without understanding his power, his glory, his generosity, and his heart is to miss god entirely. And my friends, that is what you and I have all done.
Have we not? And since god is as infinitely holy as he is infinitely powerful and glorious, his standard is absolute perfection. The bible tells us that any fault in us of motive or action is sin, and the wages of our sin is death, and eternal separation from the lord our god. So what do we do? We come to the end of ourselves and we confess that we don't deserve anything from this great and glorious and infinitely holy and infinitely generous God.
We come before him and we recognize that there is literally nothing that we could possibly do to ever atone for all of the ways that we have forsaken him and fallen short. We come and we confess all of the ways that we have looked for life and meaning and purpose under the sun where it was never to be found, and all of the faulty reasons we have done the right things. And we cry out, god be merciful to me, a sinner. We praise God that he is in heaven, that we are on earth, and we let our words be few because we know we have no case to make. And we fix our eyes on the one who made his case for us.
See, there's this amazing story in Luke chapter 7 where Jesus is dining at the house of Simon the Pharisee when a prostitute bust, busts in through the door. She starts weeping, And then she starts cleaning Jesus' feet with her hair. And she takes the most precious thing that she has, this alabaster ointment. Alabaster jar of ointment and and she cleans Jesus's feet. And Simon and all of his friends, they're completely appalled by what she is doing.
If this man really were a man of God, he would recognize what sort of woman this is. And Jesus says, a certain money lender had 2 debtors. 1 owed 500 denarii and the other 50. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?
Simon answered, the one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt. And Jesus said to him, you have judged rightly. And turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You give me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.
You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little loves little. Do you see the power and the glory and holiness and the generosity in the very heart, the gracious heart of the lord your god? Because there are 2 responses that you can have, and there is an infinite gap between Simon's response and this woman's.
He who is forgiven little loves little. He who is forgiven much loves much. Do not lose heart, brothers and sisters, that your sins are great. They are more great than you could ever imagine. But take heart that your savior is greater still.
Though you and I, though we have failed to trust and obey the lord our god. The lord, the word of god became flesh and dwelt among us. He listened to and perfectly obeyed in our place. Jesus guarded his steps perfectly before God, but he did not guard his equality with God as a thing to be grasped and held on to. But instead, he made himself nothing.
He took the form of a servant. He willingly presented himself as an offering for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous once for all. In the eyes of the world, he made the sacrifice of a fool. But in the eyes of God and in the hearts of those who've been given hearts to transforming sacrifice. 1st John 4 tells us that in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and that he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Do you see the heart of the Lord, your God? He loved you though you looked to everything else to give you life and meaning and joy and purpose. And even though you and I have tried to manipulate the heart of God to get what we really wanted. On the cross, Jesus looked at you in love. So that we who believe in him by grace through faith might know that our lives are hidden with him, perfectly and forever guarded in Christ.
That the God who was in heaven became a man on earth, and on the cross, his words were few. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And it is finished. There is nothing more that needs to be done for God and man to be reconciled. So that you and I, who had every reason to be terrified of this god, may now boldly approach the throne because we find it a throne of grace.
There is no fear in love because perfect love has cast out all fear. We love because he has first loved us. Do you know and do you see how Christ guarded, listened, obeyed, and feared god in your place? So that now you may guard and listen and obey in fear. Not in order to be accepted by God, but with gratitude and fear and trembling, knowing that in Christ, you already are, and there is nothing that can separate you from his great love.
Our Lord and our God, we come and we confess that there is no one like you and there is no God but you, for who else would save their people from their sins? Or we deserve nothing, nothing at all from you. And you have poured out grace upon grace upon grace upon grace to us. And so we come this morning before your table with great gratitude, thanking you for your love, in awe and wonder at who you are and what you've done. And we ask that that awe and wonder would transform our very lives, that we would go forward from this place, proclaiming your grace and your goodness, not only with our words, but our very lives.
We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.