WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 The title of this sermon is 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:11.000 Pleasure, Why Not? 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:12.000 It's worth asking. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:15.000 It's a real question. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:20.000 If you want to know, as a Christian, 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:22.000 what the biblical worldview is, 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.000 biblical worldview 101, where do you go? 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:27.000 Well, you turn to Genesis. 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:29.000 You turn to the first few pages of Genesis. 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:33.000 That's where it all begins. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:35.000 If you want to know what we're on the earth for, 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:37.000 what it all means, and how to live well, 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:40.000 that's a great place to start. 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:44.000 And the preacher of Ecclesiastes, 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:49.000 he must have had Genesis 1-3 open. 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:52.000 The scroll laid out before him on his writing desk 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:56.000 as he was writing the book of Ecclesiastes. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:03.000 The language of Ecclesiastes is dense with Eden. 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:05.000 So Adam and Eve were put in a garden 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:10.000 in the midst of a good creation, a world created good. 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:14.000 And some of that creation was given to them as a gift. 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:17.000 Some was off limits. 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:21.000 And death entered the world when Eve looked at what was off limits, 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:25.000 and she saw with her eyes that it was pleasant. 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:31.000 She saw that it was good, and she desired it. 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:36.000 And she did not deny herself what her eyes saw and delighted in. 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:41.000 She took day eight, and we died. 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:45.000 The preacher of Ecclesiastes tries the same tactic. 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:47.000 Look at verse 10, 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:50.000 Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:52.000 I kept my heart from no pleasure. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:54.000 For my heart found pleasure in all my toil, 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:59.000 and this was my reward for my toil. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:02.000 So he basically said, I've worked hard. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:05.000 I deserve that. 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:08.000 He was trying out this nihilistic creed 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:12.000 of eat, drink, and be merry for this is all there is, 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:15.000 life under the sun. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:20.000 And he applied three tests to his heart. 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:22.000 Verse one, I said in my heart, 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:25.000 come now, I will test you with pleasure. 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:28.000 Enjoy yourself. 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:34.000 He tests his heart with wine, with possessions, with sex. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:38.000 And he says, will this gladden my heart? 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:41.000 Will this make me matter? 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:45.000 Will this satisfy me finally? 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:49.000 In other words, the preacher wants to know how he can gain, 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.000 how he can profit. 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:53.000 And in chapter one, the first sermon in this series, 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:55.000 we talked about this question. 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:59.000 He says, what does man gain by all the toil at which he toils 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:01.000 under the sun? 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:06.000 When all is said and done, what will add to us? 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:08.000 What will we have to show for it? 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:11.000 What can fill this emptiness? 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:14.000 What can ultimately satisfy? 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:18.000 So he says, let's turn to pleasure and give it a go. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:20.000 We'll see what comes of it. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:24.000 So he tests his heart with wine, possessions, and sex, 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:28.000 like a clinically depressed man testing out a new medication. 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:31.000 You take the new medication and you think, 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:33.000 let's see how this makes me feel. 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:35.000 What will its side effects be? 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:38.000 Will I feel happier but lose sleep? 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:45.000 Or will I just sleep constantly and feel sadder than ever? 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:47.000 And what does he find? 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:51.000 So look at verses one to two. 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:54.000 I said in my heart, come now, I'll test you with pleasure, 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:58.000 enjoy yourself, but behold, this also was vanity. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000 I said of laughter, it is mad, and of pleasure, 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:03.000 what use is it? 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:08.000 So pleasure, like the rest of life, is vapor. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:10.000 What's the point? 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.000 Robert Burns actually came to the same conclusion. 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:18.000 He wrote, but pleasures are like poppies spread. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000 You seize the flower, the bloom is shed. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:24.000 Or like the snow falls in the river, 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:26.000 a moment white then melts forever. 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:32.000 Or like the rainbows' lovely form vanishing amid the storm. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:34.000 It's heavell. 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:39.000 Pleasure too is fleeting and vapor. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:43.000 Now what does Christianity have to do with pleasure anyway? 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:45.000 Many will think nothing. 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:48.000 Christianity has nothing at all to do with pleasure. 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:52.000 In fact, isn't Christianity about denying yourself pleasure, 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:57.000 about abstaining from things that bring some sort of worldly pleasure? 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:02.000 Well, actually our catechisms say otherwise. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:05.000 And from Scripture they say, they come to this conclusion. 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:08.000 When we ask what is the chief end of man, 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:14.000 it's to glorify God and what? To enjoy him forever. 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:22.000 So joy and pleasure are eternal realities of the Christian. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:27.000 In other words, if you love, trust and follow Jesus, 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:30.000 eternal pleasure is your destiny. 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:32.000 It's your future. 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:36.000 The pleasure to which all pleasures point. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:41.000 And so the shadows cast by the glory of the real thing. 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:44.000 Now the preacher of Ecclesiastes probably knew this, 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:45.000 but he still wanted to know, 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:47.000 okay, but how does that affect my life here and now? 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:50.000 How does that actually change the way that I live moment to moment? 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:54.000 And how can that, you know, maybe I'll feel satisfied down the road, 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:56.000 but I want to feel satisfied now. 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:59.000 So he tested his heart with pleasures. 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:01.000 And so do we. 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:05.000 There's really nothing new under the sun. 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:09.000 Let's think about those three tests together. 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:11.000 Wine possessions and sex. 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:14.000 And it'll just be a time of real talk. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:17.000 Let's be candid with ourselves. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:20.000 So he starts with wine, test number one. 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:25.000 He says, will this gladden my heart? 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:28.000 Wine can gladden the heart. 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:30.000 It can depress the heart too. 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:33.000 After all, alcohol is technically a depressant. 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:37.000 That's the general effect it has on us physiologically. 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:39.000 So it doesn't sharpen us. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.000 It dulls us. 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.000 It doesn't make us feel alive. 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:46.000 It makes us feel drowsy. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:51.000 So he discovered what so many of us have discovered. 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:55.000 That if we turn to alcohol to fill the emptiness, 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:58.000 it won't just leave us empty. 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:02.000 It'll make us slaves. 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:04.000 Now, you do feel pleasure. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:05.000 You get a tingle. 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:08.000 You get a buzz, but it's over in an hour. 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:12.000 And if you chase that feeling, looking for more satisfaction from it, 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:15.000 you'll wake up with a stomach ache tomorrow. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:20.000 And then you'll go back for more and more and more. 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:23.000 And it'll always leave you empty. 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:27.000 Now, the preacher isn't making a case that wine is good 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:29.000 or that wine is bad. 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:32.000 It's not a case that wine is vapor. 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:34.000 It's heavily. 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:35.000 It's fleeting. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:36.000 It's vanity. 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:39.000 It's pleasures will always evade your grasp, 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:42.000 like chasing after the wind. 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.000 So much for wine. 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.000 So let's look at test number two, possessions. 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:52.000 Let's read the verses four to seven again. 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:54.000 I made great works. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:57.000 I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:01.000 I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:05.000 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:09.000 I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house. 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:11.000 I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:15.000 more than any who had come before me in Jerusalem. 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:19.000 So he's making a list here of everything that in his day, 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:26.000 so many thousands of years ago, would be the mark of class and luxury. 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:30.000 So a modern list would look different, wouldn't it? 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:32.000 It might be something like, 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:37.000 I acquired every video subscription service under the sun, 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:40.000 Netflix and Disney Plus and Hulu and all of it. 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:43.000 I have holidays abroad. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:47.000 I have a thriving nightlife with beautiful people. 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:52.000 I'm an Instagram influencer with 20,000 followers. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:55.000 I have a winter home and a tropical climate. 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:59.000 We have our own lists. 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:01.000 Now he worked hard. 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:04.000 He toiled to attain that list. 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:07.000 But look at verse 11, 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:10.000 then I considered all that my hands had done 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:13.000 and the toil I had expended in doing it, 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:16.000 and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:20.000 and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:23.000 In other words, it didn't come out in the balance. 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:26.000 The amount of work he put into it 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:31.000 wasn't worth the amount of pleasure he got out of it. 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:35.000 You can work a high-demand, high-paid job to attain a lifestyle, 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:38.000 to afford a certain lifestyle for you or for your family, 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:40.000 and that job will demand your everything 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:47.000 so that you never actually get to enjoy the pleasures it affords. 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:50.000 So much for possessions. 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:53.000 Now the third test is sex. 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:55.000 Look at the end of verse 8. 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:57.000 The preacher says that many concubines 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:00.000 are the delight of the sons of men. 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.000 Surely this is the pinnacle of pleasure. 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:10.000 Why would he deny himself such exquisite pleasures as all that? 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:13.000 This is a generation, ours today, 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:18.000 obsessed with sexual freedom. 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:20.000 Love is love. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:23.000 Why be trapped in the restricting bounds 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:26.000 of a monogamous heterosexual relationship, 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:29.000 let alone marriage? 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:31.000 Two things I want to say here. 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:40.000 First of all, freedom is not a lack of restrictions. 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:45.000 Is the fish more free when it's restricted to water 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:49.000 or when it's liberated from those restrictions 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:52.000 and set on the grass? 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:54.000 Freedom is not a lack of restrictions. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:58.000 Freedom is finding the restrictions which suit our design 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:02.000 and help us flourish. 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:06.000 And human flourishing by God's design 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:10.000 is for committed, monogamous sexual intimacy 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:16.000 in the bounds of marriage between one man and one woman. 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:20.000 That's the water that we were designed to swim in. 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:23.000 And any other sexual pursuit, 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:26.000 whether it's same-sex relationships, 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:30.000 sexual promiscuity, or pornography, 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:37.000 is destructive, like freeing a fish to the grass. 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:40.000 The second thing I want to say about this is that, 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:47.000 like all other pleasures, sex will not fill the emptiness. 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:50.000 We all pursue some pleasures for ultimate satisfaction. 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:55.000 We all do it, even if it's the pleasure of saying no to pleasures, 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:57.000 that self-righteous pleasure. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:00.000 We have no right, therefore, to look down on others 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:02.000 with a different sexual ethic, 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:05.000 and we have no right to regard anyone else as second-rate, 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:12.000 because we are all sexual sinners, friends, all of us. 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:17.000 Even sex in a Christian marriage, in the boundaries that God has set, 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:22.000 if done for its own purpose, for our own ultimate satisfaction, 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:27.000 even that will leave us empty. 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:32.000 So much for pleasure. 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:37.000 Now, after testing these three new medications to his heart, 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:40.000 the preacher says, 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:42.000 I hate life. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:45.000 Look at verse 17. 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:50.000 So I hated life because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:55.000 for all is vanity and a striving after wind. 00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:59.000 Grasping after pleasures of any kind to fill you 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:02.000 is like grasping after smoke or vapor. 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:04.000 It will always elude your grasp, 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:10.000 and it will always leave you empty. 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.000 Now, there's an ancient story about a woman who lived in a town called Sychar 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:20.000 about 2,000 years ago, the empty woman of Sychar. 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:25.000 She felt deeply empty inside, and to fill that void, 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:30.000 she chased after men, relationships, 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:36.000 and she had partner after partner after partner. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:38.000 And what did she get for it? 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:44.000 Well, shame, social stigma, a lack of stability, 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:49.000 lots of bad things but no satisfaction. 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:51.000 She felt deeply empty. 00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:57.000 And one day at noon, when she knew no one else would be at the well, 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:00.000 she went to draw some water, 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:04.000 and she ran into a man from Nazareth. 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:09.000 And this man promised her that he could give her water, 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:17.000 which if she had a drink would satisfy her thirst forever. 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:20.000 She'd never thirst again. 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.000 And he wasn't just talking about water and thirst. 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:25.000 He said, 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:30.000 Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:34.000 The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:38.000 welling up to eternal life. 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:42.000 She said, Sir, give me this water. 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:49.000 Of course, that's the story of Jesus and the woman at the well in John chapter 4. 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:53.000 And it shows us that every ounce of longing in your heart, 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:55.000 every inch of emptiness, 00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:00.000 exists to be filled by Jesus. 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:02.000 G.K. Chesterton once said, 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:08.000 Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is really looking for God. 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:11.000 The desire below our desires, 00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:16.000 the hole that lays below our longings, 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:20.000 is too big to be filled by anything in this world, 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.000 short of Christ. 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:27.000 When Jesus met the woman from Sychar, he was hungry. 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:33.000 And so he'd sent his disciples off to get something to fill his empty stomach. 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:35.000 Then he encountered this woman. 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:38.000 And his disciples returned, bringing food, 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:39.000 and they urged him to eat. 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:42.000 And he said, I'm all right. 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:45.000 I have food you don't know about. 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:47.000 So of course, they were very confused, 00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:50.000 and they thought maybe he'd stashed a bag of crisps in his cloak somewhere. 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:58.000 And he said, My food is to do the will of my Father. 00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:02.000 Derek showed us a couple of weeks ago that the end of the matter, 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:06.000 the end of the matter is a key to understanding Ecclesiastes, really. 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:08.000 At the end of the book, the preacher says, 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:10.000 The end of the matter all has been heard. 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:12.000 Fear God. 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:14.000 And keep his commandments. 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:18.000 For this is the whole duty of man. 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:19.000 Jesus knew that to be true. 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:27.000 He knew that if anything would physically, emotionally, and spiritually satisfy him, 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:33.000 it was to do the will of God, to fear God. 00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:40.000 Look back with me at Ecclesiastes 2, verses 24 to 26 again. 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:45.000 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:51.000 This also I saw is from the hand of God, for apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:59.000 For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy. 00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:03.000 To the one who pleases him. 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:06.000 How do we please God? 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:13.000 Two ways, we fear and obey him, like Jesus said, to do the will of my Father. 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:24.000 And two, to receive from the hand of God the good gifts of this life and enjoy them. 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:32.000 The atheist is forced to say, Eat, drink, and be merry, for that is all there is. 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:38.000 The preacher is teaching us to say, Eat, drink, and be merry, for that is what there is. 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:41.000 Do you see the difference? 00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:48.000 The pleasures of this life really are to be enjoyed. 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:55.000 But as gifts, not as ends of themselves, they will never fill you. 00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:59.000 But they're from the hand of God who can fill you. 00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:06.000 He can satisfy the longings. He can fill the emptiness. 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:15.000 So these pleasures, they're good things and they are from God, but your insatiability is from God too. 00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.000 Appetite for pleasures is a gift. 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:23.000 He made you this way on purpose. 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:29.000 The preacher says later in the book that God has put eternity into the heart of man. 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:41.000 He's given us longings that only the eternal can fill, so that every bit of longing and emptiness would point us to the only one who can ultimately satisfy us. 00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:47.000 Jesus is the one thing. Listen, this changed my life. 00:18:47.000 --> 00:19:00.000 Jesus is the one thing in the world you can go to for pleasure again and again and again without doing yourself and others harm. 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:02.000 Do you ever think about that? 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:06.000 You can always go back for a second helping with Jesus. 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:14.000 Our seemingly endless appetites were made for him. 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:23.000 What broken cisterns? What cheap wells are you going to be filled? 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:28.000 Go to Jesus. That's so much better. 00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:35.000 Earthly pleasures just won't fill us because they were never meant to. 00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:43.000 See, as Lewis said, all joy reminds. It is never a possession. 00:19:43.000 --> 00:20:02.000 Every pleasure is actually meant, every pleasure that we experience here and now, a good meal or whatever it is, is actually meant to set our hearts singing for Jesus, to point us beyond the thing to Christ, to point us beyond the temporal to the eternal. 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:16.000 Every phenomenal meal, every good glass of wine should set our hearts singing for the marriage feast of the Lamb with Christ in eternity. 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:21.000 My wife and I took a walk with the kids this morning. The leaves were stunning. The colors were beautiful. 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:37.000 Every beautiful autumn leaf should set our hearts singing for something eternal, for the leaves of the tree of life and eternity whose leaves are for eternal healing. 00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:57.000 Every moment of intimacy and pleasure should point us to the reality of being fully known and fully loved by the most beautiful person in the universe and the union that we have with him through his spirit. 00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:00.000 What a gift. 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:16.000 So we return then to the preacher's big question, what can man gain? And we answer Christ. That is our gain. Jesus is our eternal possession. Jesus is our lasting treasure. 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:22.000 He is our inheritance. And that is where ultimate pleasure is to be found. 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:32.000 Psalm 16 says, in your presence there is fullness of joy, not partial joy, not fleeting pleasure, not fleeting joy. 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:38.000 Fulness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:46.000 Psalm 36, how precious is your steadfast love, O God, the children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:56.000 They feast on the abundance of your house and you give them drink from the river of your delights. 00:21:56.000 --> 00:22:08.000 What gain? What a gift. It is a free gift, but it is not a cheap gift. 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:18.000 We have all died in Adam. We've all reached out and plucked that fruit, deciding for ourselves how to live, haven't we? 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:28.000 We've sinned by calling death freedom and by living for the gift rather than the giver. 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:42.000 And for all that, Jesus paid the price with his own precious blood. His loss was our gain, and he purchased for us pleasures forevermore. 00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:53.000 Eternal life with God. That doesn't always feel like our reality. Our experience and our emotions do not always line up, do they? 00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:02.000 And so temptations come. Temptations to chase pleasure, to seek our satisfaction in something other than Christ. 00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:09.000 So what do we do then? Well, I want to give you a tool for temptation in regards to pleasure. 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:12.000 And this is personal. This has helped me. 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:22.000 When faced with something that you suspect may be a temptation, ask yourself, not hypothetically, really ask yourself, what is the gain? 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:38.000 Often an honest answer is momentary pleasure and then lasting shame, or physical discomfort, or relational distance, 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:46.000 or a sense of separation between me and God, a darkening of the clouds over the sun. 00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:56.000 Conversely, ask yourself, if I don't do this, if I instead seek Christ, what is the gain? 00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:05.000 The pleasure of God's pleasure to be fully alive to God by the power of the Spirit. 00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:16.000 So the fear of God and the delight in Christ is not just the key to ecclesiasties, it's the key to the life of holiness and joy. 00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:25.000 Adam and Eve in the garden chose the fleeting pleasure at the expense of the eternal pleasure of God. 00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.000 And what did they gain? 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:33.000 Let me close with the words of a hymn from Francis Bevan. 00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:38.000 I sighed for rest and happiness, I yearned for them, not thee. 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:43.000 But while I passed my Savior by, his love laid hold on me. 00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:47.000 I tried the broken cisterns, Lord, but the waters failed. 00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:51.000 Even as I stooped to drink, they fled and mocked me as I wailed. 00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:55.000 Now none but Christ can satisfy, no other name for me. 00:24:55.000 --> 00:25:02.000 There is love and life and lasting joy, Lord Jesus found in thee. 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:18.000 So go, eat, drink and be merry, and think of feasting with Christ in the new heavens and new earth, and raise a glass to the King. 00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:22.000 He gives such good gifts. 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:32.000 Amen.