I promised you I'd start each sermon in the Ecclesiastes series with a classic rock song, but I failed this morning.
! In a Barna survey of former churchgoers from 2014, Kerry Newhoff reports that these are the top reasons why people no longer attend church.
First, irrelevance, hypocrisy, and moral failure. Second, God is missing in church. Third, legitimate doubt is prohibited. Fourth, they're not learning about God. Five, they're not finding community.
Now, this is a survey that focused on those who were former churchgoers, those who had attended for a while and experienced these disappointments.
They went to church seeking meaning, hope, love, forgiveness, something, spiritually hungry, and they found that they did not find what they were looking for.
And the disappointment is doubly so, right? Because if you can't find those things in church, good heavens, where can you find them?
This, of course, is the experience not only of those who have been to church, but also of those who visit churches, those who have a spiritual interest or hunger.
And they're looking and they sometimes go to church and find these similar dynamics.
Raising a question in our hearts when we walk into the house of God, what might we find?
This is the question that the writer of Ecclesiastes wants us to wrestle with this morning.
So, we're going to look at the beginning of chapter 5, verses 1 through 7.
And that's on page 520 in the Pew Bible.
If you want to turn there, that's where you can find it.
And remember, as we turn there and look to the Scriptures, that what we've seen in chapters 1 through 4 is this.
The writer of Ecclesiastes is leading us on a journey seeking for meaning.
And his conclusion may be summed up in chapter 1, verse 14, where he says this,
I've seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
He keeps looking in different places in work and pleasure and wisdom, understanding, even in the halls of justice.
And he finds not substance, not meaning, not life, not eternal things, but empty, meaningless, insubstantial, and ephemeral life.
And he's on this journey going, where can I find this?
And where do I go?
And what do I do?
Will we find vanity?
Or is there something better?
And today he says, when I go into the house of the Lord, will I find vanity or will there be something better?
This is what we're talking about this morning in our passage.
So let's pray and ask for God's help, and then we'll read the passage together.
Lord, we do come to you this morning, Lord, humbly acknowledging how easily, Lord, we don't worship you.
How easily we fall short of what you would have us do.
And Lord, we also confess our disappointments, Lord, and our struggles.
Lord, where we have come and left feeling empty.
Lord, we pray this morning that you would help us through your word.
Lord, I pray for your help that you would help me to speak the words as I ought to.
Lord, that we would together sit under your word and receive it and respond to it as you would have us do.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Ecclesiastes 5, 1 through 7 says this.
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 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?
For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity.
But God is the one you must fear.
In the house of God, will we find vanity or something better?
As with these other topics, as we've tried to explore them as he leads us on this journey,
the writer Caholet, if you remember, that's what his name is, preacher, teacher, whatever,
in chapter 1, however you want to translate it.
He gives us a realistic view of the house of God under the sun.
He describes the vanity of religion, and he suggests that there may be something more for us to find.
So, we're going to look at those two things in sequence.
First, in the house of God, you will find vain religion.
Now, I wanted to find my term here because religion is a word that might be used in various different ways.
It might be used to say religion reflects the basic human impulse to seek spiritual truth.
It might be the formal communal belief system.
So, a religion would be Islam or Hinduism or Christianity.
If you read older Christian writings, the Puritans and people like that,
they will talk about religion in a very positive way as meaning faithful Christian orthodoxy.
So, we just need to be careful.
I don't mean really any of these things.
What I mean by religion is the human activities that one might do in order to achieve a standing before God or other human beings.
Religion is spiritual practices that are doing things in order to gain something from others.
And, of course, it's challenging because as we look at people from the outside, we don't know why they're doing it.
So, we always need to be careful and humble about our judgmental attitudes towards others when we see them.
But we need to recognize that there is this religious impulse to do things in order to gain meaningful life in the words of Ecclesiastes
or in the broader words of the Scriptures to gain our salvation with God.
And Kohelet is warning us about the reality of vain religion in the house of God.
He talks about three things.
He talks about sacrifices.
He talks about prayer.
And he talks about vows.
In verse 1, he talks about the sacrifices of fools.
And why are they foolish?
Because they don't know what they're doing and they don't know why they're doing it.
And I think that underneath it, there is an impulse.
We do these sacrifices not coming to God knowing our desperate need and wanting to receive from Him,
but rather to perform for God to build ourselves up by doing the things that we would do.
And we might do this consciously.
I know God needs me to do these things so that I'm okay with Him.
God requires this.
It may be that we do these things because we don't know any better,
because we're just following along with the traditions that we grew up with.
All of these things are possible.
Think about the sacrifices that we bring in our modern Protestant church,
our singing, our giving, our listening to the Word of God.
Do we do this with the spirit of saying,
I checked a box today.
I went to church.
God is pleased with me.
I gave.
Isn't that good enough?
I served.
Isn't that good enough?
I sung.
Isn't that good enough?
God, now aren't you pleased with me?
Will you now give me what I want?
This seems to be the heart that Koholet is revealing in the sacrifice of fools.
And we need to ask ourselves, do we do the same?
Now, Koholet's audience is not just words.
It seems that he's getting at the thought that is common,
that if we pray more or pray louder or pray with more energy or more ecstasy or more fervency,
that God listens to us more because of our more words.
But this reveals to us, doesn't it, that we think that our prayer is somehow going to manipulate or move God to do something that he wouldn't want to do.
Or it's to look good before God or others by saying, look at what a great prayer I am by my many words.
And then he goes on in verses 4 through 6 and he talks about vows.
Now, vows in the Old Testament often came along with sacrifices.
The thought was, if I make a sacrifice and I make a vow to worship God or to do something for God,
then he will respond to me.
The idea here is a little bit of like the foxhole vows that we make.
God, if you get me out of this circumstance, I will do X.
I will stop drinking.
I will go to church every Sunday.
I will give 50% of my income to the church.
I will, whatever it is, we make these outrageous vows
in an attempt to get something from God.
Now, look, it's great to be zealous.
And there are times when God calls us to make commitments for Him,
but we need to be careful.
I am a card-carrying member of the Bachelor to the Rapture Club.
When I was a sophomore in college,
me and my friends founded the Bachelor to the Rapture Club
because we thought it was the vow that we needed to make to really focus on Jesus
and not think about girls at all.
It's ridiculous, right?
This is a rash vow.
I do not recommend this as a path for those of you young men who are thinking about it,
or young women who are thinking this might make sense.
Look, I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole.
I'm just going to say, this was a rash vow.
Within a year, I was dating.
Maybe you have made vows like New Year's resolutions.
I'm going to read the Bible every day.
I'm going to read through the Bible in a year.
We need to be careful because this zeal,
though it is a normal human impulse,
it is not actually worship to God,
but it is vain religion
because it ends up being about,
I need to perform this.
And when we fail,
we dishonor God.
This is what he says in 4 through 7.
If we fail,
we don't reflect a God who keeps His promises,
a God who is truth,
a God who always is yes and amen
to the things that He has said that He would do.
And we, we have a tendency to say,
oh, I didn't really mean that, God.
We excuse it.
When someone challenges on,
did you follow through with it?
So he says we need to be careful
because these vows are so often
another expression of this vain religion.
religion, this vain religion that says,
if I do these things,
God will see me
and He will think something of me
because I do them.
I will gain standing with Him.
I will gain even my salvation with Him.
Right?
There are some churches that would teach,
you must do certain rituals,
certain practices in order to be saved.
There are certainly world religions
that would say the same thing.
This is the heart for Koholet
of vain religion.
So we've been warned
when you come into the house of God,
and I don't mean out there,
I also mean in here,
we've been warned of the danger
of vain religion.
How do we respond to this?
Now, some of us
come to church,
and we've found it to be
an incredibly wonderful,
life-giving experience.
And we respond to this kind of description
defensively.
No, no, that's not what it is.
That's not what I've experienced.
Church has been life for me.
It's been such a wonderful place.
I worship God when I go to church,
and it's been such a good thing.
And while I am sympathetic to this response,
and I pray that this would be true
of our church and of our gathering,
I want us to reflect and ask the question
that Koholet is asking us.
To what degree is our worship vain?
Are our church practices empty?
Do we gravitate towards checking boxes
or worshiping that's more about me
than about God?
It's more about my experience
rather than the reality of God.
It's more about my preferences
than the Word of God.
It's more about my reputation
than the reputation of God.
It's more about my spiritual success
than the glory of Christ.
We need to ask ourselves that question
in our own hearts individually
and for ourselves corporately.
Do we promote or do we cherish
or do we allow our hearts
to fall into this vain worship?
But secondly, there are some of us
who are here,
but we've already felt the sting
of disappointment
because we've come to church
with high ideals,
great expectations, desires,
and we come in here and we think,
oh no, this church isn't that at all
or it's not enough for me
and I feel disappointed.
I feel hurt because I thought
this church was going to give me something
that I wanted it to give me
and it didn't.
And to you, I would say,
recognize that Kohelet
is warning us
this will be true.
Now, there's hope for you.
We'll get to that
as we go on in our sermon.
But recognize that your idealism
may not reflect the reality
of life under the sun.
And if you remember in Ecclesiastes,
life under the sun
is without reference to God.
And in life under the sun,
we do live under it
and we may be subject to it.
And there are some of us,
and of course, this is a danger
because I'm probably preaching
to the wrong people about this,
but there are some of us
who will dismiss church altogether
because of that disappointment.
But there probably aren't here.
But if you are here
and you're tempted
because you see the whole thing
as a show of hypocrisy,
because you have experienced
the depth of that disappointment
to a point where you just think
you want to cast it all off,
recognize that what Kohelet is saying is
be prepared for the reality
of what you will find,
but also hear the call of God
and what God's Word says
about what it can be
and what it should be.
Because God's Word says more
than just this
about entering into the house of God
and what we will find.
So, for instance,
regarding sacrifices,
hear what David wrote
in Psalm 40, verses 6 through 8.
He said,
In sacrifice and offerings
you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
And then I said,
Behold, I have come
in the scroll of the book.
It is written of me.
I delight to do your will.
Oh, my God.
Your law is within my heart.
Now, David lived
in the time of the temple.
He sacrificed at the temple.
It's not that temple sacrifices
didn't happen.
But what David shows
is what God really cared about
in the Old Testament
as well as in the New Testament
is our heart posture
to delight to come to the Lord,
to receive from Him,
and to do His will
because He gives us
and instructs us
and shows us
the path of life
that He has given us.
Or remember the words
that Jesus spoke
in the Sermon on the Mount
regarding prayer
in Matthew 6,
verses 5 through 8.
And when you pray,
you must not be
like the hypocrites,
for they love to stand
and pray in the synagogues
and at the street corners
that they may be seen
by others.
Truly I say to you,
they have received
their reward.
But when you pray,
go into your room
and shut the door
and pray to your Father
who is in secret,
and your Father
who sees in secret
will reward you.
And when you pray,
do not heap up empty phrases
as the Gentiles do,
for they think
that they will be heard
for their many words.
Do not be like them,
for your Father knows
what you need
before you ask Him.
You see,
vain religion
isn't about relating
to a heavenly Father.
It's about trying
to please
some divine monarch,
some dispassionate ruler.
But Jesus says,
you come
and worship
a heavenly Father
who hears your words,
who knows what you need,
and who loves.
So come to Him humbly,
knowing that you can't
manipulate Him
from your prayer,
but that by your prayer
you express your need
for Him
and allow Him
to meet you
in that moment.
So the Bible says
there's something better.
There's something better
with God.
The passage
that George read earlier,
the parable
of the wheat
and the weeds
is a really striking one,
right?
Because the parable
is about
God planting
the seed
of the good news
of the kingdom of God
in the world
and in the church,
and then
as He plants it,
there's another seed sown,
and so the wheat
and the weeds
grow up.
And the servants say,
well, should we just
destroy it all?
Should we try to purify
this now?
Should we clear this field
so that it can be
only wheat?
And God says,
no, because if we do that,
the wheat that is there
will be destroyed.
So instead of destroying
that wheat,
we will allow the weeds
for a time,
and then
in the harvest,
when it comes,
we will separate out
the wheat
and the weeds,
and the weeds
will be burned up.
They will suffer
judgment
and condemnation.
But for the wheat,
there is a gathering
into the barns
of the Master
brought into
the household
of God.
And this is the picture
that He gives.
Jesus says in the end,
God will judge
all vain religion.
And He will
recognize
true worship.
And He goes on
to say,
and the kingdom
of God,
that true worship
is like a mustard seed
that grows
unseen
and unlooked for.
But it will produce
a harvest
unbelievably great.
And God
is doing
these things.
And so,
as we go back
to Ecclesiastes,
does He say
these things?
Does He point us
in these directions?
Well, I think He does
in two places
in our passage.
Look with me
in 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.
God is the
sovereign creator
of all things.
And He hates
vain religion.
He hates
your posturing,
your pride,
your religious performance.
He hates
the religious pretense.
And He will
shut the mouths
of those
who babble
foolish prayers.
He will reject
the sacrifices
of those
who do not listen
and obey
His Word.
in chapter 5,
verse 7,
He says,
for when dreams
increase
and words
grow many,
there is vanity,
but God is the one
you must fear.
And we will see
this thread pulled
throughout all
of Ecclesiastes
that though life
under the sun
is full of vanity
and emptiness,
there is a way forward
and it has to do
with God
and with fearing Him
and fear not
in an abject,
terrified way,
but in an awe-filled
wonder
at how great
the God
who is the creator
and the sustainer
and the redeemer
of all things
is.
He is altogether
righteous
in His judgments.
He is awesome
in His majesty
and His power
and we stand
in awe of Him
because He is not
under the sun,
but He is the one
who created
all of life.
And He is not only
the creator and judge,
but He is the redeemer.
In the fall,
our hearts are bent
towards vain religion.
We seek to make ourselves
right before God,
but He has been working
out a plan of redemption
that would do something
remarkably different
to redeem us
and to free us
for true worship.
So, Jesus reminds
the Samaritan woman
in John 4,
you remember,
He meets the Samaritan woman
at the well
and she,
after having had her sin
exposed by Him,
she's like,
well, what about worship?
Where can we worship?
And Jesus says to her,
woman, believe me,
the hour is coming
when neither on this mountain
nor in Jerusalem
will you worship the Father.
You worship
what you do not know,
we worship what we know,
for salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming
and is now here
when the true worshipers
will worship the Father
in spirit and in truth,
for the Father is seeking
such people to worship Him.
God is spirit
and those who worship Him
must worship Him
in spirit and truth.
And the woman said to Him,
I know that Messiah is coming,
He who is called Christ.
When He comes,
He will tell us all things.
And Jesus said to her,
I who speak to you
am He.
You see, friends,
this is God's plan.
This is God's hope
for His house
is that Jesus has come
to make a house
that is full of people
who worship Him
in spirit and in truth
to rescue us
from our vain religion.
How can He do this?
Because of what the writer
in Hebrews 10,
5 through 10 says.
Listen to these words.
Consequently,
when Christ came into the world,
He said,
sacrifices and offerings
you have not desired,
but a body you have prepared for me.
In burnt offerings
and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said,
behold,
I have come to do
your will, O God,
as it is written of me
in the scroll of the book.
And when He said above,
you have neither desired
nor taken pleasure
in sacrifices and offerings
and burnt offerings
and sin offerings.
These are offered
according to the law.
Then He added,
behold,
I have come to do your will.
He does away with the first
in order to establish the second.
And by that will,
we have been sanctified
through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ
once for all.
This, friends,
is the good news of the gospel
that Jesus has come
and done the offering
that is necessary
for us to be right with God
so that we no longer
have to work
and our worship
is no longer performance
but response
because Jesus went to the cross
and died on the cross
for our sins.
He did the work
that was necessary
for our forgiveness
and for our redemption.
Because He rose from the dead,
He is able to give us
new and spiritual life
which will last for eternity,
which frees us
from the deadness
of human religion
so that we can worship Him
in this new life
filled with the Holy Spirit
so that we might worship Him
as we ought to
in response to all that He has done.
This is the good news
of the gospel.
And this is our freedom
from vain religion.
And Lord, may it be true
that Trinity is a house
where this gospel truth
is like a fountain
that overflows
in our hearts
individually
and as a community.
Now, as we close,
we're going to observe
the Lord's Supper.
And I want to take
a few minutes
to talk about
the Lord's Supper
because
is there no other place
in our worship service
that we are most prone
to vain religion
than this?
Right?
It would be so easy
for us
to come
and to eat the bread
and to drink the cup
believing that God
accepts us
because we are
taking communion
rather than
taking communion
because God
has already accepted us.
It would be so easy
for us to believe
that taking communion
will move God
to bless us
and do good for us
and answer our
particular prayers
rather than taking communion
because He has already
blessed us
with every spiritual blessing
in Christ.
It would be easy
for us to
not take communion
because we think
I'm unworthy.
I'm too unperfect.
My sin
is great
and
I don't think
I can do this
rather than coming
to the very place
where we
recognize
and remember
the forgiveness
of our sin
achieved in Christ.
It would be easy
for us
to think
that we
take communion
because if we don't
God won't save us
rather than
taking communion
because
He has
saved us.
Listen to the words
of institution.
This is what Paul wrote
in 1 Corinthians 11.
For I received
from the Lord
what I also delivered
to you
that the Lord Jesus
on the night
He was betrayed
took bread
and when He had
given thanks
He broke it
and said
this is my body
which is for you
do this
in remembrance
of me
and in the same way
also He took the cup
after supper
saying
this cup
is a new covenant
in my blood
do this
as often
as you drink it
in remembrance
of me
for as often
as you eat
this bread
and drink this cup
you proclaim
the Lord's death
until He comes.
This is why
we do this
to remember
His body
broken for us
His blood
that was shed
for us
and the redemption
that He has done
and as we respond
we ought to ask
the Holy Spirit
to help us
maybe we will feel
joy
because we have
remembered
that God
has rescued us
from sin
in Christ
we may feel
thankfulness
because of the
costly love
that Jesus showed
we may feel
conviction of sin
because we haven't
put God
in the middle
of our lives
or in the middle
of our worship
we may feel
strength
in God's presence
that God
who has rescued us
will continue
to strengthen us
to pursue Him
even through
great trials
whatever it is
the heart
not the ritual
is the goal
and as we come
to the table
my prayer is
that we will
worship Him
in spirit
and truth
this morning
is the