The End of the Matter
Download MP3This morning, we bring the book of Ecclesiastes to a close. But before we get started, I want to kind of get a feel as to the age of our church. I recently read that the life expectancy of those living in the US is 78, or 76. Excuse me. And so those of you who are 38 years old, you're at midlife.
Joel Brooks:You look a little more healthier, so I'm gonna I'm gonna kinda divide things, I think, around 40. But first, what I want to do is, those who are in your teens or twenties, if you would stand. Yes. It's the generation that's not going to church. Stay no.
Joel Brooks:Stay safe. And if you are in your thirties, if you would stand. Okay. Alright. Y'all can sit down.
Joel Brooks:So y'all have not reached midlife yet. Those of you who are in your fifties or older, if you're able to, I invite you to please stand if they need assistance, those around, you would help them. I love it how everybody says there's no one over 50 here. For 1, I just want you to look and see, and also all up in the balcony. If you're in your forties, if you would also stand.
Joel Brooks:Okay. Try not to pull a muscle. Okay. You you can you can sit down. Now for those of you who are midlife or older, everything that we're about to go over, for the next 30 minutes or so is gonna deeply resonate with you.
Joel Brooks:You're gonna be like, amen. Uh-huh. I mean, it's gonna deeply resonate, for you. But for those of you who are younger, you're gonna have to listen to this podcast 20 years from now and think, why didn't I listen to that during this time? Spare yourself the pain.
Joel Brooks:Listen now to what Solomon has to say about life as we get older. If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Ecclesiastes, chapter 10. And 12. And we're gonna be working through it verse by verse. But let me pray for us as we get started.
Joel Brooks:Father, I ask that, during this time, as we open up your word, you'll be so kind as to speak to us. That we would hear from you, not hear from me. Write your words on our hearts, that we might be able to enjoy you all our lives. So I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, lord, may your words remain, and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. We're gonna begin in chapter 11 verse 7. And once again, I'm just gonna kinda walk through verse by verse and see what the preacher, preacher remembers the word, Ecclesiastes, what the preacher has to say to us. Verse 7.
Joel Brooks:Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. Here, Solomon is saying that not every day, in the life we live underneath the sun is is hot and full of toil, there are some days that are just really pleasant. I'm picturing, you know, it's a a fall day, low humidity, maybe a high temperature of 70 degrees. Solomon's in his convertible, you know, just driving. There's there's no work drama happening.
Joel Brooks:There's no relational drama happening. He's probably just on his way to meet some friends and to watch a game, and life is just good. And we've all had some days like this. No worries, just enjoying the moment. But then Solomon needs to remind you that this is the book of Ecclesiastes, and so that's about all the good he's gonna give you, and now he's he's gonna bring it down.
Joel Brooks:Verse 8, so if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. But let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is hevel. Solomon says, yes. Today, enjoy it.
Joel Brooks:Today, life is sweet. Today, Georgia just won 2 national championships, But dark days are coming. It's not always gonna be that way. In front of us is this life full of Hevel. But notice that he tells us to rejoice in every year.
Joel Brooks:So we're to rejoice in the good years, and we're to rejoice in the dark years to come. Rejoice in the light, rejoice in the darkness. He kinda sounds like the Apostle Paul, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. His point is no matter what comes our way, we are a joyful people.
Joel Brooks:In other words, don't always be planning for your happiness, but never actually happy. Or are you one of those people who always says, how you can't wait for something? You just you just can't wait for this. I can't wait until we have this. I can't wait to enjoy this.
Joel Brooks:And you're always so future oriented, you don't get to enjoy the present. You can't wait until you have a car. And then, you can't wait until you graduate. And then, you can't wait until you get married. And then you can't wait until you get to go to the beach, then you can't wait until you get to move into your new house, and then you can't wait until you get that promotion, You can't wait until you retire.
Joel Brooks:And because you are always planning for a future happiness, it's inevitable that you will never actually be happy. If you cannot rejoice in the small things now, you will not be able to rejoice in anything, big or small, in the future. Because you don't achieve joy. You don't work towards joy. Joy is something you receive.
Joel Brooks:You receive from God every moment of your life. Lauren and I, we a few years ago, we got to go up to California, and we, we spent a day in the wine country there. Then we were, like, you know, one of those obnoxious people who always comes back from that, and they, like, hold up bottles of wine like they know what they're looking at. You know? Yeah.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. I have no idea. But we brought back a really nice bottle of wine. By nice, it was $35. It's the nicest we have ever bought.
Joel Brooks:And, we keep saving it for the special occasion. Saving it for the for, you know, for some event that is gonna be worthy of, like, yes. That's when that's that's when we're gonna drink this. We're waiting for that future happiness. I'm telling my wife at the next service, we're popping that thing open this week.
Joel Brooks:We're enjoying the moment, the present moment that God has given us to live. This theme of of joy and rejoicing is going to go into Solomon's final conclusion that he's gonna give us of all of life. Here it is. We've been building all the way to this for 11 chapters now. Verse 9.
Joel Brooks:Rejoice, oh young man in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. So Solomon's conclusion here is that, while you are young, you should rejoice. And then he tells us to follow our hearts.
Joel Brooks:Walk in the way of your heart. Follow your hearts. Do do you see or hear the incredible freedom that's there in Solomon's word for us? I mean, often we we fret over every little decision we have to make in life. Does God want me to do this?
Joel Brooks:Does God want me to do this? We fret over every little thing and Solomon, he releases us of that. He says, what do you wanna do? Do it. What looks good for you to do?
Joel Brooks:Do it. Don't always be talking about what you want to do, or just thinking about what you want to do. Go and do it. Now of course, Solomon, he assumes here that you were following the Lord and that you have his word in your heart. He's gonna get to that later.
Joel Brooks:But first, I just want you to hear the incredible freedom. Just relish that freedom that Solomon lays before us and how we can live. He says, God's given you a heart. He's given you eyes. What looks good to you?
Joel Brooks:Do it. So enjoy the life that God has given you. But but know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. Like, It sounds like I don't know about you, but it sounds like, you know, Solomon's kind of, you know, pulling a son aside. It's like, hey, I want you to have fun at Daiga this weekend.
Joel Brooks:I want you to just go I mean, you just have fun, have a blast, enjoy friends, but hear me. Don't have too much fun. Does that sound like what he's saying? Hey, just have have fun, but not too much fun. Remember, God's watching.
Joel Brooks:That's not what Solomon's saying here. Not at all. He's not saying, I want you to, you know, go party, but don't party. Like, he's not at all. His theme here has been joy.
Joel Brooks:His commandment here has been to enjoy or to be joyful. What he's getting at is your enjoyment of this world is how you will be judged. Did you enjoy it? That's your judgment. Remember, joy is not only permitted by God, It is commanded by God.
Joel Brooks:Rejoice. So when you stand before God, he's gonna ask you, did you enjoy the life I gave you or not? There's your judgment. One of the commentators I read said, ignore pleasure at your own peril for failure to enjoy is not merely an oversight, it is an offense. Grumpiness is a sin.
Joel Brooks:So, we'll be judged by whether we truly enjoyed this life or not. And here's the deal, we will not enjoy this life if Jesus is not the center of it. We will not enjoy this life if we look to the things themselves to satisfy us. If we treat things as gods, instead of gifts from God. If you always have to have more of something or if you absolutely have to have something in order to be happy, then just know that you will never be happy.
Joel Brooks:If you think you have to have money to be happy, you'll never have enough money. If you think you have to have sex to be happy, no, you'll never have enough sex. If you have to achieve great things to be happy, you will never achieve enough. You can only truly enjoy those things when you don't have to have those things. When you don't put have to put too much weight in those things, something that they cannot carry.
Joel Brooks:That's why Joseph's gonna be, did you enjoy it? In other words, did you make me the center of your life? And when I was the center of the life, you were able to enjoy these gifts as just gifts and not treat them as gods. This is why joy is what we will be judged for. Verse 10, remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body.
Joel Brooks:For youth and the dawn of life are vanity or hevel. Remember also your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them. Most of you likely, if you have your bibles, you have a little footnote in your bible that says the word that's translated as pain. There in verse 10 is actually the Hebrew word for evil. You are to put away evil from your bodies.
Joel Brooks:What Solomon is doing here, he is speaking to those of us here who at the the dawn of their life, those early years. And he says, hey, while you were young, go ahead and deal with that sin that needs to be dealt with. Deal with it now before it takes root. Repent now before it grows anymore. Your dumb decisions you make now are gonna have massive repercussions 30 years from now.
Joel Brooks:So if you struggle with body image now or pornography or treating a girl with respect or using shopping as a form of therapy, or letting social media fuel envy and dissatisfaction in you. Solomon is saying, repent of those things now. Because those things do not go away on their own. They only grow on their own. They're just gonna keep growing and growing if left unchecked.
Joel Brooks:And that little secret sin that you have that you keep feeding from time to time, it's gonna become a monster later. Get rid of that evil now. The reason that pain and evil here are the same Hebrew word is because if you do not remove that evil from your life now, it's gonna cause a lot of pain later. I did college ministry for 8 years before becoming pastor at this church. And one of the things I've noticed is that we all deal with the same issues.
Joel Brooks:College students, adults have the same issues, same relational issues, same struggles with anger, or with gossip, or with lust, sins. However, the consequences are massive as you get older. You sleep around in college, there's consequences. It's a terrible thing. There will be some pain there.
Joel Brooks:If older, you sleep around, if you're married and you have kids, it's devastating. This is with all the sins. The consequences as you get older are greater. Solomon's trying to spare you of that pain. Deal with it now.
Joel Brooks:Don't let this this thing take a hold of your life. If you remove this evil now, then you get to enjoy all of life ahead. Remember your creator. Remember that there's a God who created you. He created you this beautiful world that you live in.
Joel Brooks:And if you wanna have a life that is filled with joy, live it according to his design. He's pleading with those who are younger here not to make the same mistakes that he made, but to make Christ the foundation of their life now. And then, Solomon, he's gonna transition here to what life ahead is going to look like. He he actually ends his thoughts with a poem on aging. And this poem it's it's fairly long.
Joel Brooks:It's 8 verses long, but actually in Hebrew it's just one sentence. And the point is this, if you say it as one sentence at the end, you are completely out of breath. Your breath is gone. And that's his point in writing it this way, as it moves us towards the end of life. So start verse 1.
Joel Brooks:He says, remember also your creator in the days of your youth before the evil days come. And years draw near of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them. The sad truth is here that if you live long enough, there's gonna come a time in which there are very few pleasures left for you to enjoy, if there are any. We've all know people who have aged and gotten older. Maybe it's their parents.
Joel Brooks:You spend your life squeezing in doctor visits in between the funerals of your friends. There's gonna come a day in which you wake up and you're disappointed Because there's no pleasure for you in that day. Verse 2. Before the sun and the light, and the moon, and the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after rain. Solomon says that growing old is like losing daylight.
Joel Brooks:Storm clouds, they come in and they block the sun. And then when the storm finally, goes away immediately another storm hits. It's just cloud after cloud. In other words, your back when it's hurt, when it finally heals, your knee hurts. When your knee finally heals, your hip hurts.
Joel Brooks:When your hip finally heals, your neck hurts. But it never ever goes away. It's just thing after thing after thing. Verse 3. And the days when the keepers of the house tremble and the strong men are bent.
Joel Brooks:Here's Solomon, he's gonna change his metaphor from a storm to that of a house and those who live in it. And here the image is one of arms and legs beginning to tremble. You have a hard time as you age doing simple tasks like buttoning your shirt, pouring your coffee, putting on your pants in the morning becomes a major chore. I already know that's how I'm going out of this world. It's it's gonna be on some morning.
Joel Brooks:Right? I can't touch my knees in the morning. Honest to true, I can't touch my knees. It takes a while, and so as I'm trying to get dressed, it is a catastrophe waiting to happen. I'm gonna fall someday, hit my hit my head, it's gonna be an embarrassing way to go, and you're all gonna remember, he actually said that from the pulpit.
Joel Brooks:But things like that become a major chore. He says, and the grinders cease because they are few. What are the grinders? Yeah. Your teeth.
Joel Brooks:As you get older, you lose your teeth. And those who look through the windows are dimmed. What are the windows? Your eyesight. You get cataracts.
Joel Brooks:Your eyesight dims. You can't read the menu at restaurants. You can't read the worship guide in front of you right now. You no longer like to drive at night. My kids, they gave me these yellow glasses to wear at night.
Joel Brooks:I'm actually tempted. Verse 4. And the doors on the street are shut when the sound of the grinding is low. I'm not entirely sure what this is alluding to. Commentators are all over the place.
Joel Brooks:It could be, an allusion to one's mouth remaining shut as they lightly chew food with their few teeth. It could mean that they never go out to eat anymore. We're not really sure. Next, he says, one rises up at the sound of a bird. Sleep is going to become a real issue as you get older.
Joel Brooks:I like to picture sleep, going to bed is like going to war. It's just going to hurt all night long. You you just try to survive sleeping. I mean, you should see me as I'm getting ready for bed. And I'm only 50, but I'm stretching.
Joel Brooks:I'm doing all this, and, like, you're running a marathon? No. I'm just getting ready to to lay down. Like, just trying to make it through the night, you know. It's hard to make it through the night.
Joel Brooks:You can't. You wake up at the slightest sound. Solomon then says, and and all the daughters of song are brought low. And here he's talking about losing your hearing. You no longer hear those beautiful sounds of life.
Joel Brooks:That sweet conversation that you used to enjoy happening around the dinner table is now muted. Yet at the same time, everything is loud. All the music is loud. Church music, loud. The car next to you at the at the traffic light is playing their music way too loud, And yet, you can't understand any of the words.
Joel Brooks:It's just pure volume. Just just volume in it. It hurts. Solomon's point in all of these things about aging here is to teach us that all of those joyful little things that make up living. The sights, the taste, the sounds, all of them begin to fade.
Joel Brooks:And you begin to find yourself in a world that you no longer are fully a part of. You're in it, but you're not really in it. This is God's way of preparing you for the next life, but withdrawing you from this one. As I was studying this poem this week, I kept thinking of the song I grew up singing, turn your eyes upon Jesus. And that line, the things of this world will grow strangely dim.
Joel Brooks:Dimming of the hearing and of the sight, the taste, the touch, it all begins to fade away. Verse 5, they're also afraid of what is high and terrors are in the way. This is his way of saying as as you get older everything becomes an obstacle to you. Walking on an uneven sidewalk is as difficult as trying to scale a wall. You're fearful to go outside because you think you might fall, the the outside world just becomes scary.
Joel Brooks:You become a person who prefers to watch the 4th July fireworks on TV, because you don't wanna brave going outside to watch them. The almond tree blossoms. This is talking about your hair turning white. The grasshopper drags itself along. The this little insect that used to be so light and just went around just like jumping jumping jumping.
Joel Brooks:And, I was just dragging. If I could relive my glory days before you, I used to be able to dunk the heck out of a basketball in high school and college. Like, I don't think you could slide a dollar bill under my feet if I were to jump right now. Just you just cripple and drag along. Why?
Joel Brooks:Because I just got older. It happens. And lastly, Solomon says, and desire fails. The word desire here is actually the name for a berry. It's a caper berry.
Joel Brooks:And these berries, back in Solomon's day, they were a stimulant and aphrodisiac. In other words, he is saying this, a day is coming when no amount of Red Bulls, no amount of monster drinks, no amounts of Viagra are gonna make any difference. Desire is going to fail. And then, after desire fails, we die. He says, man is going to his eternal home and the mourners go about the streets.
Joel Brooks:And then, he uses all of these images before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. All of those are just pictures of something beautiful or functional finally coming to an end. And now, an image that Solomon does not give us in this poem is one of dementia or of a mind that begins to deteriorate. This was likely because, back then, people's bodies failed way before their minds. People didn't live as long.
Joel Brooks:Their bodies gave out. Now, we're actually finding the opposite to be true. With our advances in health care and nutrition and fitness, people are living a lot longer. Their bodies are living a lot longer. But their minds reach a point where things begin to fade, memories fade.
Joel Brooks:There might even become a point where you cannot even recognize your own spouse. Verse 7, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. From the dust we came, and to the dust we shall return. I know we we live in a culture that prides itself on independence, that's self sufficient in all of this, but know that your very own soul, your spirit does not belong to you. It is on loan to you, but you have to return your spirit to God.
Joel Brooks:And then, the final words of the preacher are in verse 8. Hevel of hevel, says the preacher. All is hevel. Solomon ends his his sermon with the exact same words that he began his sermon with. But aren't don't you hear them a little differently now?
Joel Brooks:I mean, after 9 weeks, you're a different person as you hear these words again. Hevel, hevel, says the preacher, all is hevel. And this ends the words of the preacher, but doesn't end the book of Ecclesiastes. Now, that anonymous author is gonna step in, the one who compiled the teachings of the preacher, and he's gonna speak to us for just a few verses. Let's read verses 9 through 12.
Joel Brooks:Besides being wise, the preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing, and studying, and arranging many proverbs with great care. The preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly, he wrote words of truth. The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings. They are given by one shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these.
Joel Brooks:For the making of many books, there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. This father here, he's speaking to his son, and he says, alright. I'll let you listen to the preacher. Just know that his words were true. His words were true, and they were also full of delight.
Joel Brooks:Now, you might be thinking, yeah. Delight and true. But then he says, while at the same time, like, it also felt like you're being poked by a sharp stick. And you're like, okay, I can resonate with that. I did feel like at times, Solomon was just poking us with a stick.
Joel Brooks:But they were words of delight and truth. They were designed to keep us moving in the right direction. And I know over the last 9 weeks, you've you've felt pricked a little bit. But it's all been to move you a certain way. To move you towards a life of purpose and a life of joy.
Joel Brooks:That's been his point. Can I just say that for those of you who are older, those who are in their second half of life, in your forties, fifties, or more, you need to be like this father here? And you need to find ways to pass wisdom down to the younger generation to help them as they try to navigate through life. Ecclesiastes, it has given us wisdom for every stage of life from youth to being old. But as any person who is older can tell you, there is no teacher like experience.
Joel Brooks:You just can't learn some things. You just have to live some things. I mean, think of it this way. If all of you right now could go back to high school, you could go back to high school, I mean, with having a high school body, but carry with you all of your wisdom and experience of the years. Do you know how easy high school would be?
Joel Brooks:Do you know how easy walking through the halls of a junior high would be? If you could carry the wisdom of years with you back. I mean, all of that relational drama that you thought like that it was the end of the world. You'd be like, The huge importance you put on your like the game with your arch rival or the like your whole life depended on this one test. Just think how you would go through life with those things now if you could walk through those halls again.
Joel Brooks:There's no experience or there's no teacher like experience. We would just laugh at those things now. So, those of you who are older, you need to be teaching from your experience to those who are younger. And I guess I need to add to that. Those of you who are older and who love Jesus and who have been shaped by his word, you need to be pouring into those who are younger than you.
Joel Brooks:And those of you who are younger, you need older people in your life. I mean, I remember when I just got married, I didn't have a clue about anything. Lauren didn't have a clue either. I mean, we just we felt like fake adults. That's all you do.
Joel Brooks:You're just faking it. You know, like, maybe people are gonna find us out. But, what we did is we found this other couple that was just a few years ahead of us and we just grabbed on. Like, would you guide us? Would you just take us through we have no idea how to do these things.
Joel Brooks:We've been reading the, like, house mortgages for dummies. We've been reading a lot. We but, we still don't get it. We're that low. And, like, we we just we just grab people and they guided us through it.
Joel Brooks:We just followed in their wake. Some of you are in the stage right now where, you know, you have young children, and I watch you walk through these doors on a Sunday morning and you're just like dazed and confused like you just woke up, but you've actually probably been up since 3. A little spit up that's there, like, I mean, you're just you're here. Praise God, you are here. You're just trying to survive.
Joel Brooks:But you have no idea to do what you're trying to do. You have no idea because you have to live it to learn it. You have no idea what it's like to to raise kids, to be a loving husband or a loving wife, to try to pay the bills, to keep making friends, to also have time to take care of your body, while also reading your Bible and growing in spiritual knowledge. You seem like you're failing at everything, and sometimes all you need is just someone who's older to come alongside you, and just say, you know what? It's gonna be okay.
Joel Brooks:And because you look at them and you've seen, they've actually gone through it. And they still have joy. You're like, so some of you are older. You you need to come along some So it's just it's gonna be okay. Or or maybe, hey, everything you're doing is wrong.
Joel Brooks:What if you were to try this? You know? You know, maybe maybe you're that stick within the, you know, the the nail, and you have to poke them a little. But speak truth into those who are younger than you. Build those friendships.
Joel Brooks:And if you're younger, find someone who's older, make them a part of your life. And I realize it's harder to build those friendships, to build those relationships. A phrase that keeps bouncing around in my head, it's been bouncing around for weeks now as I've been thinking of this, this poem, is that I want us to be a church where every age group fights for the other's joy. I want those of us who are younger to fight for the joy of those who are older. And I want those who are older to fight for the joy of those who are younger.
Joel Brooks:Praise God for the way that we do our home groups. And it's not just you know, the same demographic all around, but we we try to connect those who are older and who are younger. Take advantage of that. Fight for one another's joy. So here, finally, the author's final conclusion.
Joel Brooks:The end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. So the author's conclusion is the same as Solomon's. We kept asking the and and, well, he says, when you die, and, yes, life continues.
Joel Brooks:There's a judgment. You will stand before your creator, and you will be judged for every deed, even the deeds that no one ever saw you do. Even the deeds you just thought in your mind, you will be judged for. And what that means is everything matters. Remember, we started Ecclesiastes, a possible title was nothing matters.
Joel Brooks:And he turns, he goes, no. Actually, everything matters. Every thought, every deed matters. And remember this. You might not be remembered for very long after you die.
Joel Brooks:You're not gonna be remembered by anyone under the sun, But everything you do will be remembered by God. You will be remembered by God. Fear God. Keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. I actually love it.
Joel Brooks:The translation I hate because the word duty is not there. He actually just says, for this is the wholeness of man. You wanna know what it's like to be a whole complete person? Fear God. Keep His commandments, make Jesus the center of your life.
Joel Brooks:You have eternity in your hearts. Nothing else can fill that hole in your heart, only Jesus. You want to be whole? Make Jesus the center. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Father, I pray that you would write these words deep on our hearts. We pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.
