WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.759 You know, it's amazing that a little sleepy seaside town in New Haven has the privilege of 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:16.160 ! having people like Kalou and Gigi be a part of our congregation. I just want to affirm and say we are 00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:23.920 ! you are so welcome to be a part of us and it is a blessing to us to have you with us. So thank you. 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:30.080 And we give thanks to the Lord this morning for that. 00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:41.200 I want to ask you a question as we begin our exploration this morning into God's Word. 00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:50.560 Do you often dream of living a more rewarding life? Do you aspire to a better job, a stronger 00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:56.080 marriage, a happier home? Do you wish for more gratifying relationships with your family and 00:00:56.080 --> 00:01:03.520 friends? Perhaps you simply want to accomplish more and leave a lasting legacy for future generations. 00:01:04.240 --> 00:01:10.560 How do you break out and experience the full potential that God intended you to have? 00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:21.120 These are the questions that are on the inside flap of a famous book by Joel Osteen, Your Best Life Now. 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:30.480 He promises seven easy steps to attitude adjustment to achieve this life. I don't recommend Joel Osteen's 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:36.480 answers. You may be surprised by that, but I'll just say it really bluntly. I don't believe he brings a 00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:46.560 biblical perspective even though he is a pastor. But he raises a question, does he not, that is deep in our own hearts. 00:01:50.960 --> 00:01:59.520 Don't we want a better life? How do you respond to those questions? Do they resonate with your heart desires? 00:01:59.519 --> 00:02:08.799 And when we look around the world, wouldn't we say, yeah, we all want that. We all want a better life somehow. 00:02:09.199 --> 00:02:15.280 This is a common human desire. We see it, its fingerprints in every aspect of our culture. 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:22.479 Think about the social movements that we've experienced in the last six years. Black Lives Matter, 00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:31.280 Me Too, Greta Thunberg's Fridays for the Future. They're all seeking to say, can't we have a better 00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:38.319 world than we do now with regard to sexism or racism or environmental and climate change? And you don't 00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:44.319 have to agree with anything they say or promote to know that you can see that their heart is still the 00:02:44.319 --> 00:02:52.159 same. A desire for a better world. If you go to Barnes and Noble and go to this help self-help 00:02:52.159 --> 00:02:59.280 section, you might find 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson, Limitless by Jim Quick, or Build the Life 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:08.800 You Want by Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey. I think if you look at our political landscape today, 00:03:09.439 --> 00:03:18.400 you see on both sides, right and left, a desire for a better world. Divergent, even conflicting visions, 00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:22.640 but the same desire. Can't we have a better world than this? 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:34.319 Even to the point of impatience and frustration and anger that we can't achieve these desired goals. 00:03:36.480 --> 00:03:41.360 I was thinking about just the prevalence of gyms in our city. You could go to Orange Theory, 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:45.040 you can go to circuit training, you can go to Peloton, you can do all 00:03:47.920 --> 00:03:53.120 on the goodness or badness of any of the particular targets of these things. There may be lots of 00:03:53.120 --> 00:04:00.240 common grace, goodness, and all of these things. But what I want you to see is all of us, societally and 00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:08.160 individually, are prone to have this desire. We want a better life now. In our modern progressive world, 00:04:08.159 --> 00:04:14.079 we have deep expectations that life can get better, that we can work for a better tomorrow. And we need 00:04:14.079 --> 00:04:19.920 to say it, this hasn't always been true in humanity. There are other cultures and other world views that 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:25.279 don't actually believe that life will get better. They don't actually think that there's a better tomorrow. 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:35.120 But we do. And some of that comes from the Christian story, does it not? We understand where 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:42.959 this longing comes from. Because the Bible tells us that humanity was created to live in Eden in 00:04:42.959 --> 00:04:49.360 fellowship with God. We were meant to live in the best of all possible worlds with God providing 00:04:49.360 --> 00:04:57.439 everything we needed. A world of surpassing goodness that we can't even imagine. 00:04:57.439 --> 00:05:06.000 But the reality is that we don't live in that, do we? Instead, we live exiled from it, estranged from 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:12.800 God and from His plan and His goodness. And so, we live with this desire for what was lost 00:05:13.519 --> 00:05:15.680 and a hope that it might be regained. 00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:25.600 So, the Bible actually explains why we have this desire. The question is, what do we do with it? 00:05:25.600 --> 00:05:35.600 And this is actually, I believe, what the author in Ecclesiastes chapter 7 is going to give us. 00:05:36.400 --> 00:05:41.680 Answers, I don't know if answers is the right word. Ecclesiastes is hard, and this chapter is particularly 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:47.600 hard. I'll just tell you up front. Commentators are all over the place on how to structure it and what the theme is. 00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:53.280 So, but we're going to explore it this morning. We're going to go on a journey. Because if you remember, 00:05:53.280 --> 00:05:59.280 we're in our series in Ecclesiastes, and the writer of Ecclesiastes is exploring what does life look like 00:05:59.280 --> 00:06:05.280 under the sun that is without reference to God? What does our human experience actually look like, 00:06:05.280 --> 00:06:11.200 and how do we navigate it? If you want to turn in your pew Bibles, we'll be looking at it in just a minute. 00:06:11.199 --> 00:06:21.279 In page 521, we're looking at Ecclesiastes 7. And what he says about this desire for a better life 00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:29.519 is something I think will surprise and challenge us this morning. So, if you pray with me before we look at 00:06:29.519 --> 00:06:40.620 God's Word, that'd be great. Let's pray. Lord, we come to You this morning, and I ask that by Your Holy Spirit, 00:06:40.620 --> 00:06:52.740 Your Word would speak to us. Lord, that You would help us navigate. We confess these desires are true and 00:06:52.740 --> 00:07:00.220 real. And Lord, we know that in some ways they come from You, and yet we also know that we don't always 00:07:00.220 --> 00:07:10.459 handle it well. So, Lord, we ask for You to work in us. Lord, I pray that we would sit under Your 00:07:10.459 --> 00:07:18.779 Word, and I pray for Your help. Lord, that I might speak as I ought. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. 00:07:20.139 --> 00:07:30.279 So, I want to begin this morning by actually looking at the middle of the chapter. Verses 13 and 14, I think, 00:07:30.359 --> 00:07:37.639 in some ways, are the crux of the question that the writer is asking as he looks at this. 00:07:37.639 --> 00:07:42.279 And so, I'm going to read those two verses and reflect on them for a minute and see the big idea, 00:07:42.779 --> 00:07:50.599 and then we'll zoom back out and look at the whole chapter in light of that. So, verses 13 and 14 of 00:07:50.599 --> 00:07:52.599 Ecclesiastes 7 says this, 00:07:52.600 --> 00:08:22.580 The writer of Ecclesiastes wants us to see this, that our search for the 00:08:22.579 --> 00:08:30.979 best life now will be a futile and fruitless one. How's that for good news, right? You ready for this? 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:35.819 Here we go. Ecclesiastes. We'll get there in the end because we'll look at the… we'll look at the 00:08:35.819 --> 00:08:42.000 gospel hope. But what Ecclesiastes is saying is futility and fruitlessness is what we will see. 00:08:42.340 --> 00:08:48.439 In verse 13, he asks us to consider. Consider what God has done. It's… the writer is writing with an 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:53.040 assumption that there is a God, that He has created the world, and that He is sovereign over everything 00:08:53.040 --> 00:09:00.740 that happens. And he says, life under the sun is crooked, and God has allowed it or made it that way, 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:03.680 and can we change what God has done? 00:09:05.900 --> 00:09:10.060 It exposes the cry of our hearts. We want the crooked to be made straight. 00:09:10.059 --> 00:09:17.479 But if God's sovereign creator God has allowed it to be otherwise, then what do we do with that? 00:09:18.819 --> 00:09:25.379 Only God could set it straight, and He hasn't. This is what life under the sun seems to look like. 00:09:25.979 --> 00:09:31.419 And then in verse 14, he goes on again, and he says, consider again what God has done. He says, 00:09:31.419 --> 00:09:37.899 hey, if you've had a great day, if you have a day of prosperity, be joyful, be thankful. 00:09:39.339 --> 00:09:45.179 Take it all in and say, wow, I'm so glad I had a good day. But recognize that in the day of adversity, 00:09:45.719 --> 00:09:47.559 God has given us both. 00:09:50.919 --> 00:09:58.659 God has given not what we expect, and not what we want, and certainly not our formulation of our 00:09:58.659 --> 00:10:07.899 best life now. And he's done this so that we can't always grasp. The end of verse 14 is really 00:10:07.899 --> 00:10:13.199 interesting. So that man may not find out anything that will be after him. So that we can't grasp, 00:10:13.799 --> 00:10:20.259 control, somehow manipulate our life in order to get our best life now. 00:10:22.679 --> 00:10:26.379 We can't predict it. We can't understand it. And we are confounded 00:10:26.379 --> 00:10:33.740 in our search for our best life now. So I think this is the core of what he's saying in this passage. 00:10:33.899 --> 00:10:38.960 Let's look at the rest of it to expand this, and then we're going to, I promise you at the end, 00:10:39.019 --> 00:10:45.419 we're going to look at the bigger answer that the Bible gives to this not very encouraging word. 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:52.799 So in verses 1 through 12, we'll see that the writer exposes the futility of seeking a best life 00:10:52.799 --> 00:10:59.439 now. And in verses 15 through 28, we'll see the futility in seeking to understand what God is 00:10:59.439 --> 00:11:05.219 doing. And then we'll look at the gospel to speak into this longing. So this is what we're going to 00:11:05.219 --> 00:11:13.679 do. Verses 1 through 12, let's look at it together. Let's read it as we explore it this morning. 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:21.819 Ecclesiastes 7.1, a good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the 00:11:21.819 --> 00:11:27.459 day of birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, 00:11:27.539 --> 00:11:34.599 for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, 00:11:34.819 --> 00:11:41.299 for by sadness the face of the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, 00:11:41.299 --> 00:11:46.839 but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the 00:11:46.839 --> 00:11:54.559 wise than to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter 00:11:54.559 --> 00:12:02.039 of fools. This also is vanity. Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts 00:12:02.039 --> 00:12:08.740 the heart. Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than 00:12:08.740 --> 00:12:15.039 the proud in spirit. Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of 00:12:15.039 --> 00:12:22.399 fools. Say not, where were the former days better than these? Or why were the former days better than 00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:29.620 these? For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage for 00:12:29.620 --> 00:12:35.100 those who see the sun, for the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of 00:12:35.100 --> 00:12:39.840 knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it. 00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:50.560 So, in this section, the writer shifts gears in his literary genre. You see that right from the start. 00:12:50.920 --> 00:12:56.460 What he's written before is sort of an argumentation. He's giving his observations in a more narrative form, 00:12:56.740 --> 00:13:02.879 and the formatting in the ESV points out, hey, we've just changed formats, right? He's now writing not 00:13:02.879 --> 00:13:09.559 as narrative of teaching, but as proverbs. And the overall theme of this is the better than principle, 00:13:09.820 --> 00:13:16.720 right? This is better than that. Six times in ten verses we see…in the first ten verses we see this 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:24.240 pattern. And the overall point is that our expectations for a better life in the way that we 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:31.639 typically formulate it is vain. Because what he says is what is actually better is far more sobering and 00:13:31.639 --> 00:13:39.460 not pleasant than what we want. So, he says it's not birth that's better, but death. It's not feasting 00:13:39.460 --> 00:13:46.360 that's better, but mourning. It's not laughter that's better, but sorrow. It's not mirth, but mourning. 00:13:46.360 --> 00:13:56.620 Why does he say this is better? I think he says this because our expectation of the better life, 00:13:57.379 --> 00:14:04.240 the sense that laughter and life and mourning is really what we all should expect and look for and 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:13.240 experience in an unceasing way, it is not reality. It denies the reality of our lives under the sun. 00:14:13.240 --> 00:14:22.680 This is why verse 3 says that the sadness of heart will make…or the sadness of the…let's look at it. 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:27.759 For it is better to hear…nope, that's not the right verse. Here we go. Sorrow is better than laughter, 00:14:27.980 --> 00:14:35.960 for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. What a weird statement in the Bible. 00:14:35.960 --> 00:14:45.280 But he says this to say living in reality that includes sorrow is better than living in some 00:14:45.280 --> 00:14:53.519 utopian, everything's going to be fine, everything's going to turn out kind of way. He says when we live 00:14:53.519 --> 00:15:01.340 like that, we're like fools. We're like thorns under a cook pot. Now, I didn't know what this meant 00:15:01.340 --> 00:15:07.759 either, but I think what it means is thorns burn fast, and when they burn, they pop and they crackle. 00:15:07.759 --> 00:15:13.879 They don't create heat. They don't create the fire you need to cook anything from. So, there…it's just 00:15:13.879 --> 00:15:23.060 lots of noise and brief pleasure, but no actual substance or usefulness. It's meaningless. It's 00:15:23.059 --> 00:15:32.639 vanity, which is what we've seen in the book of Ecclesiastes over and over again. It says this is 00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:43.439 what our pursuit of the Joel Osteen best life now is like. It's fluff. It's not reality. Life under the 00:15:43.439 --> 00:15:50.759 sun isn't like that. And some of you are feeling relief right now because you've lived under the 00:15:50.759 --> 00:15:56.720 pressure. You've felt that everyone else is saying, this is what we should be going. This is what our 00:15:56.720 --> 00:16:02.100 lives should look like. And you just think, my life doesn't look like that. My marriage is falling 00:16:02.100 --> 00:16:08.539 apart. My children are estranged. My physical suffering has prevented me from pursuing my dreams. 00:16:09.299 --> 00:16:17.799 Death and loss have been more milestones in my life than success and joy. This is life under the sun. 00:16:17.799 --> 00:16:27.099 And the writer says, this is the better life, to acknowledge the reality that life under the sun 00:16:27.099 --> 00:16:36.519 is not our best life now. It is actually difficult. Verses 7 through 12 then go on and explain what 00:16:36.519 --> 00:16:41.179 happens in our hearts as we face this failure of our best life now to give us what we want. 00:16:41.620 --> 00:16:46.740 Verse 7 talks about the corruption, how even the wise can be corrupted by the power of money. 00:16:46.740 --> 00:16:55.279 Verse 8 says that our insistence on having things now is an empty and futile one. And verses 9 talks 00:16:55.279 --> 00:17:01.200 about frustration and anger. When we can't get what we want, we become more and more impatient 00:17:01.200 --> 00:17:08.120 and demanding and judgmental and angry because we want to grasp and take hold of this thing that we 00:17:08.119 --> 00:17:19.599 desire so much. This hope for a better life now betrays us and it reveals all sorts of ugliness in our hearts. 00:17:20.659 --> 00:17:32.239 It's like Anna in Frozen meeting Hans. Do you remember Hans the prince? For the first time in forever, 00:17:32.240 --> 00:17:42.640 I'm going to have who knows what, the best life ever, right? Spoiler alert, he was using her. 00:17:43.720 --> 00:17:51.359 He betrayed her and left her to die in the end saying, if only there were someone out there who loved you. 00:17:51.359 --> 00:18:05.979 The broken promise of a better life is such a bitter betrayal that it makes us cynical and angry and despairing 00:18:05.979 --> 00:18:15.859 and frustrated people. And the writer of Ecclesiastes wants us to say it is better for us to live in reality 00:18:15.859 --> 00:18:22.419 than to live with this empty dream that then twists and destroys our souls. 00:18:24.619 --> 00:18:30.599 Our life is in a crooked world. And we do cry out, God, can even you change this? 00:18:32.419 --> 00:18:37.719 We don't understand what's going on. And that's actually what leads us to the second half of this 00:18:37.719 --> 00:18:44.759 chapter. Because in verses 15 through 18, we see him explain the futility of actually trying to 00:18:44.759 --> 00:18:52.779 understand what God is going on. What is wisdom? And what good is wisdom in the world? 00:18:53.460 --> 00:18:59.160 And overall, while he says, look, wisdom is not terrible. There is goodness in wisdom. He's saying 00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:04.900 wisdom is extremely limited. And his focus on it is actually in its vanity, that even wisdom 00:19:04.900 --> 00:19:11.440 cannot give us a better life now. And if you remember, as we've looked at the biography or the 00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:18.500 supposed biography of the writer of the… He's experienced it all. He's explored the best life 00:19:18.500 --> 00:19:25.519 now in all sorts of different ways, in pleasure, in power, in religion, in wealth. He's explored it, 00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:33.440 and he's seen that it's empty. And he thinks maybe wisdom… And he's reflecting that even wisdom 00:19:33.440 --> 00:19:41.559 has not brought what he wanted again. When you look at verses 15, 16, and 17, you see that 00:19:41.559 --> 00:19:47.200 the pursuit of wisdom didn't produce anything. Though it's good, the wise and the foolish, 00:19:47.320 --> 00:19:53.019 what happens? They both die. As a matter of fact, he says, sometimes the wisdom… The wise person dies 00:19:53.019 --> 00:19:59.360 early, and the foolish person flourishes for a while. But in the end, they all die. Nothing good 00:19:59.359 --> 00:20:04.159 comes out of it. Oh, we forgot to read the passage. Let's read this passage together, and then we can 00:20:04.159 --> 00:20:06.939 talk about it more. Verse 15, 00:20:07.019 --> 00:20:12.359 In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, 00:20:12.579 --> 00:20:17.740 and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil doing. Be not overly righteous, 00:20:17.919 --> 00:20:23.599 and do not make yourselves too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, 00:20:24.039 --> 00:20:29.319 neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take 00:20:29.319 --> 00:20:37.839 hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both 00:20:37.839 --> 00:20:45.000 of them. Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in the city. Surely there's 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:51.579 not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Do not take to heart all the things that 00:20:51.579 --> 00:20:58.119 people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself, 00:20:58.119 --> 00:21:05.000 you have yourself cursed others. All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, I will be wise, 00:21:05.099 --> 00:21:14.099 but it was far from me. That which has been is far off and deep, very deep. Who can find it out? 00:21:14.859 --> 00:21:20.899 I turned in my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things and to know 00:21:20.899 --> 00:21:27.539 the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness, and I find something more bitter than death. 00:21:27.539 --> 00:21:35.539 The woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, 00:21:35.659 --> 00:21:41.559 but the sinner is taken by her. Behold, this is what I found, said the preacher, while adding one thing to 00:21:41.559 --> 00:21:48.180 another to find the scheme of things, which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. 00:21:48.680 --> 00:21:54.539 One man among a thousand I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found. See, 00:21:54.539 --> 00:22:01.920 this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. 00:22:04.519 --> 00:22:10.379 The first half was hard. This one's harder. I'll just say it, but I think there's a theme here. 00:22:10.639 --> 00:22:17.680 Let's see if we can explore it. Wisdom is not the answer to the better life, right? Verse 15 says that. 00:22:17.680 --> 00:22:24.440 Verse 16 and 17 talks about. It's weird, right? He says, don't be too righteous. I think what he's 00:22:24.440 --> 00:22:29.960 saying is if you think that by being wise or by being righteous, you will be able to control the 00:22:29.960 --> 00:22:36.480 outcome of your life, it won't. You can't do it. And foolishness, which is still no good, it's going 00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:43.560 to lead to destruction. So both of them are going to lead in the end to a crushing life by pursuing this 00:22:43.559 --> 00:22:51.200 better life now through these means. And so he's saying, don't pursue them. He goes on in verse 20, 00:22:51.259 --> 00:22:59.700 and he says, you know, even the wise are not going to be righteous. In verse 23, he summarizes by saying, 00:23:00.019 --> 00:23:07.200 all this wisdom, it's beyond us. We can't, it's too deep. It's too much. God is great, and we are, 00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:15.360 and we cannot do it. We cannot grasp onto it. And then in verses 25 through 28, which is sort of a 00:23:15.360 --> 00:23:23.779 shocking passage that strikes our ears as incredibly sexist, but I think it's actually, here's what he's 00:23:23.779 --> 00:23:29.680 doing. He's saying, I sought to understand the scheme of things. Did you see that phrase? It's like 00:23:29.680 --> 00:23:34.840 four times in those four verses. The scheme of things is, I want to know how things work so I can 00:23:34.839 --> 00:23:40.000 figure out how to manipulate this for my own good. I think that's what he's saying. He's saying, this 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:48.119 is the desire for the best life now. And he uses the imagery, my temptation to pursue that was so 00:23:48.119 --> 00:23:55.699 compelling. It's like a man in the face of a woman who seeks to entrap him through sexual temptation. 00:23:56.659 --> 00:24:03.379 And he's using a common image in the day, writing as a man. He's not speaking about people of all 00:24:03.380 --> 00:24:11.200 everywhere. And he's using a common, I think what would be a common image in the ancient world that 00:24:11.200 --> 00:24:18.400 we probably wouldn't use in the same way today to help us see. This was a driving force for him to 00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:24.800 understand the scheme so that he can control it. It was like the power of sexual temptation 00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:32.079 in his heart. But in the end, it was fruitless. And it produced nothing. Because 00:24:32.079 --> 00:24:40.200 sinners fall into the trap. And then he says, and I look for a righteous man. And he uses these 00:24:40.200 --> 00:24:45.180 phrases, right? One in a thousand or none at all. One in a thousand in men and none in women. 00:24:45.639 --> 00:24:50.519 But I think what he's really saying is, what we would say today is, that's like one in a billion. 00:24:50.519 --> 00:24:57.639 It basically means it's statistically inconsequential. Nobody will do this. And the reason why I think 00:24:57.639 --> 00:25:03.119 that's what he's saying is because that's what verse 29 says. Verse 29 says, God made man upright. 00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:11.660 That is, God made human beings to walk with him. But we have all fallen. Men and women. 00:25:11.660 --> 00:25:23.900 We have all failed to live rightly before God. And this is critical for us because it's not only 00:25:23.900 --> 00:25:34.820 that we failed to understand the scheme of things, but it has created this problem of, 00:25:34.819 --> 00:25:42.480 if we're pursuing the best right life now, and yet all of us are sinful, this is doomed from the start. 00:25:43.159 --> 00:25:48.639 We will never get to what we want. We will never be able to accomplish it. 00:25:51.359 --> 00:25:58.839 He says, this is the vanity. This is the vanity of our pursuit of our best life now. 00:25:58.839 --> 00:26:10.199 There's some wisdom here. Life is best lived facing this reality. Understanding that life includes pain, 00:26:10.399 --> 00:26:17.379 sorrow, and death. Understanding that we can't control or manipulate our outcome. Even wisdom 00:26:17.379 --> 00:26:25.339 cannot give it to us. And that this problem isn't just by our finite creatureliness. It is not simply 00:26:25.339 --> 00:26:33.459 because we are human and weak, but it is because we are rebellious and sinful. Because in our heart of 00:26:33.459 --> 00:26:43.599 hearts, we reject God and seek to gain our best life now with our own parameters, our own schemes, 00:26:43.599 --> 00:26:51.519 our own ideas of how to do this. We have rejected God's way, and thus we live in the crookedness 00:26:51.519 --> 00:26:59.700 of life under the sun. Thanks for coming. It's been great to be here. Let's go. 00:27:02.879 --> 00:27:14.160 What do we do? Do we abandon our pursuit of the best life now? Well, yes and no. Here's what the rest of 00:27:14.160 --> 00:27:23.620 the Bible says. Yes. Yes, we need to abandon our Joel Osteen approach of seven attitude adjustments to 00:27:23.620 --> 00:27:28.920 get you to your best life now. Or all of the other things that we talked about at the beginning that 00:27:28.920 --> 00:27:34.040 we tend to put our hope in and think, if we can do these, if we can get these right, then we will get 00:27:34.040 --> 00:27:39.560 our best life now. Whether it be our social movements or our political movements. And look, 00:27:39.559 --> 00:27:44.419 this doesn't mean we can't still do good in the world and love our neighbors, but we need to abandon 00:27:44.419 --> 00:27:50.759 the hope that this is going to create a utopia, that this is going to get us to our best life now. 00:27:51.019 --> 00:27:58.339 It won't. So we need to abandon it. We need to abandon the idea that we can be righteous enough 00:27:58.339 --> 00:28:05.399 to accomplish all these things. We need to abandon our rosy but ungrounded optimism. 00:28:05.400 --> 00:28:14.480 And we need to admit the danger of our insistent utopianism. So yes, we need to abandon our project. 00:28:14.680 --> 00:28:22.700 But no, we don't need to abandon hope because the rest of the Bible tells us of a better story. 00:28:23.360 --> 00:28:32.720 Because God is not under the sun. God is the sovereign. He is the one over all. And we look to Him 00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:39.539 for a life that we long for but cannot achieve on our own. And we look to Him for a better world that 00:28:39.539 --> 00:28:46.160 we cannot create. And we look to Him for a hope that will fill the void of our futility. 00:28:47.740 --> 00:28:54.200 And friends, the good news of the rest of the Bible is that God has acted so that we might not be 00:28:54.200 --> 00:29:04.200 completely overwhelmed by this emptiness and this vanity, but by what He has done, there is something 00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:10.160 better. The Bible is a storyline of God's redeeming the world from its brokenness. 00:29:11.160 --> 00:29:19.799 In Luke chapter 3, verses 4 through 6, he's describing what John the Baptist was announcing 00:29:19.799 --> 00:29:24.299 about the coming of Jesus. And he said this, 00:29:24.700 --> 00:29:29.619 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 00:29:30.139 --> 00:29:35.519 prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, 00:29:35.839 --> 00:29:42.139 and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, 00:29:42.140 --> 00:29:50.280 and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. 00:29:51.600 --> 00:29:58.360 God has not abandoned this world to its crookedness forever. We do not need to give in to despair and 00:29:58.360 --> 00:30:07.680 cynicism because Jesus has come to make the crooked places straight again. The redemption of the world will 00:30:07.680 --> 00:30:16.500 come because Jesus has come to set the world right. And He has done it in two important ways that leave 00:30:16.500 --> 00:30:22.860 us in the now and the not yet of our life under the sun, but it's important to get these right. The first 00:30:22.860 --> 00:30:29.600 one is referring to the passage that Sophia read earlier in Romans. I'm just going to shorten it a little 00:30:29.600 --> 00:30:36.880 bit and look at Romans chapter 3, verses 21 through 25a. I'm going to read this for you and just talk about it 00:30:36.880 --> 00:30:43.280 briefly. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law 00:30:43.280 --> 00:30:48.780 and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who 00:30:48.780 --> 00:30:54.540 believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are 00:30:54.540 --> 00:31:02.260 justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward 00:31:02.259 --> 00:31:10.960 as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. So, Paul says, all have sinned and fallen short 00:31:10.960 --> 00:31:18.019 of the glory of God. Ecclesiastes says, there is no one righteous, not one. We're in agreement. The problem 00:31:18.019 --> 00:31:25.759 is the same. Human sinfulness, our rejection of God, we are under God's judgment and condemnation because 00:31:25.759 --> 00:31:33.220 of that. And there is no best life now in the fallen world. Yet God has come to make that straight, 00:31:33.379 --> 00:31:39.480 to justify us. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but do you…because we read this word 00:31:39.480 --> 00:31:44.579 in Romans and we think theological categories, but do you ever think about where else you use justify, 00:31:45.220 --> 00:31:51.140 right? You justify your intentions when your friends ask, why did you do that? I want to show that it was 00:31:51.140 --> 00:31:59.060 right, you know? Or in your word processor, it has a justify. I want to line everything up according to 00:31:59.060 --> 00:32:04.500 a certain margin. So, I'm going to justify everything on the right or on the left or in the middle, you know, 00:32:04.540 --> 00:32:12.440 whatever. So, what justification means is showing and demonstrating that something is made right. 00:32:13.120 --> 00:32:20.100 This is what the blood of Jesus does for sinners like you and me. It justifies us. That is, 00:32:20.099 --> 00:32:28.019 by paying the penalty, the judgment for our sin, which is death. Jesus takes that death for us 00:32:28.019 --> 00:32:35.500 and then gives us instead His righteousness, the righteousness that's apart from our performance, 00:32:35.659 --> 00:32:40.139 apart from the works of the law, according to Romans 3, apart from anything that we do, 00:32:40.639 --> 00:32:46.859 a righteousness that is Jesus' righteousness in His perfect obedience that is then given to us 00:32:46.859 --> 00:32:54.379 when by faith we abandon all of our other salvation plans and say, Jesus, You alone can make me right 00:32:54.379 --> 00:33:03.240 with God. You alone can fix this crooked heart by forgiving me of my sin, by renewing in me a new 00:33:03.240 --> 00:33:12.139 heart and a new spirit that can actually love and worship God. This is what Jesus has done 00:33:12.140 --> 00:33:20.680 in His justifying work. He has made something crooked straight, and His primary work right now 00:33:20.680 --> 00:33:26.880 is doing that in the hearts of men and women. And this is the most important thing. He doesn't make 00:33:26.880 --> 00:33:35.660 all of our lives uncrooked. We all continue to live under the sun where suffering and death will be a part 00:33:35.660 --> 00:33:43.720 of it. We can bless the world as much as we can, and it will never become Eden again in our power or in our work. 00:33:45.220 --> 00:33:53.460 Right? So the first thing that Jesus does, He justifies the hearts of humanity. But then He goes 00:33:53.460 --> 00:34:00.420 on and He says that He's going to justify the whole world. That is, He's going to make the whole world right 00:34:00.420 --> 00:34:08.860 again. Romans 8 verses 18 through 21 says this, For I consider the sufferings of this present time are 00:34:08.860 --> 00:34:15.880 not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager 00:34:15.880 --> 00:34:22.940 longing for the revelation or for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subject to 00:34:22.940 --> 00:34:31.400 futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will 00:34:31.400 --> 00:34:39.280 be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 00:34:40.220 --> 00:34:46.820 So do you see what Paul is saying here? The world was subject to futility, vanity. This is what 00:34:46.820 --> 00:34:56.120 Ecclesiastes has been saying. Paul agrees. The world is subject to this now. But one day, because God has 00:34:56.120 --> 00:35:05.260 subjected it to that, it also will then, like us in our hearts, the world along with us will be redeemed. 00:35:05.780 --> 00:35:11.960 And you know that the story ends in the book of Revelation where it says that God is going to remake 00:35:11.960 --> 00:35:17.559 the heavens and the earth. And He's going to take away all of the futility. And do you know what it will be? 00:35:17.920 --> 00:35:19.679 It will be our best life forever. 00:35:21.280 --> 00:35:27.099 Because it will be with God. And there will be no more sin. And no more sickness. And no more sorrow. 00:35:27.099 --> 00:35:29.760 And no more death. And no more rebellion. 00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:35.039 No more of the ugliness of our own sinful hearts. 00:35:35.039 --> 00:35:38.800 And no more of the ugliness in a fallen, broken world. 00:35:40.679 --> 00:35:43.480 But Jesus has come to redeem it all. 00:35:44.259 --> 00:35:46.519 And in the end, He will do it. 00:35:47.159 --> 00:35:49.119 And friends, this is our hope. 00:35:49.559 --> 00:35:50.820 And this is why 00:35:50.820 --> 00:35:53.300 a best life now can be 00:35:53.300 --> 00:35:54.719 a terrible 00:35:54.719 --> 00:35:56.900 promise and tease 00:35:56.900 --> 00:35:58.980 if we try to make it happen 00:35:58.980 --> 00:36:00.900 on our own right now. 00:36:00.900 --> 00:36:03.320 But if we see the long view, 00:36:03.480 --> 00:36:05.160 if we know what God has done, 00:36:05.700 --> 00:36:07.720 then this changes everything. 00:36:07.900 --> 00:36:11.099 It means that we can be free from cynicism and despair 00:36:11.099 --> 00:36:15.059 as we experience the disappointment of living in a fallen world. 00:36:15.579 --> 00:36:17.880 The reality of what it looks like. 00:36:18.260 --> 00:36:22.660 It means that we will not give in to the utopian idealism 00:36:22.660 --> 00:36:25.760 that is rampant in our world today. 00:36:25.760 --> 00:36:30.320 Saying we must now impose our idea of how we're going to make it all right today. 00:36:30.900 --> 00:36:35.900 Because God is being gracious with this world as well. 00:36:36.400 --> 00:36:38.079 He is being gracious with us. 00:36:38.260 --> 00:36:40.160 And He is being gracious with the world. 00:36:41.160 --> 00:36:44.139 He has not chosen to come and make everything right. 00:36:44.260 --> 00:36:46.220 Because when He makes everything right, 00:36:46.480 --> 00:36:47.500 it will be the end. 00:36:51.039 --> 00:36:53.220 And in the meantime, what is He doing? 00:36:53.539 --> 00:36:55.980 He is rescuing more of us 00:36:55.980 --> 00:36:58.340 from the crookedness of our own hearts. 00:36:58.340 --> 00:37:00.860 saving us, 00:37:01.220 --> 00:37:02.400 justifying us, 00:37:04.320 --> 00:37:06.900 and planting in us the seed, 00:37:07.059 --> 00:37:09.960 the beginning of our best life forever 00:37:09.960 --> 00:37:12.019 that is ours with Jesus. 00:37:12.760 --> 00:37:13.600 Let's pray. 00:37:13.599 --> 00:37:21.759 Lord, we thank You for this Word. 00:37:23.460 --> 00:37:24.860 Lord, we thank You for Jesus. 00:37:27.860 --> 00:37:29.279 Without Him, Lord, 00:37:29.480 --> 00:37:33.639 this world would be such a difficult, 00:37:34.380 --> 00:37:34.940 challenging, 00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:36.599 frustrating, 00:37:36.599 --> 00:37:40.179 and ultimately despairing place. 00:37:40.179 --> 00:37:43.899 Lord, where else do we have to go? 00:37:44.719 --> 00:37:47.099 You alone have the words of eternal life. 00:37:48.879 --> 00:37:50.519 Thank You, Lord, for this hope. 00:37:52.799 --> 00:37:53.659 Thank You, Lord, 00:37:53.699 --> 00:37:55.440 that You have come to rescue us 00:37:55.440 --> 00:37:56.639 from our crooked hearts. 00:37:57.919 --> 00:37:59.399 And thank You for the promise 00:37:59.399 --> 00:38:01.319 that You will make straight 00:38:01.319 --> 00:38:03.500 this crooked world one day. 00:38:04.559 --> 00:38:06.119 We pray in Jesus' name. 00:38:06.759 --> 00:38:07.199 Amen. 00:38:07.199 --> 00:38:07.359 Amen.