Been There. Done That. Now What?
05/28/2006 - The Bottom Line
A well known pastor tells about an experience that he had when he was a young man that radically changed his life. He admits that he was a child of privilege. He grew up the son of a successful businessman and had everything that he could ever want … challenge, opportunity, promise, money. His family had lots of toys. Ski boats. A summer cottage. A forty-five foot sailboat. A Harley-Davidson. A shiny black Pontiac GTO. A family airplane. Credit cards. Trips to Aspen, Europe, and Africa.
When he was about twenty years-old he took a trip by himself to South America to try and figure out what he wanted out of life. And while he was there he visited a number of missionary friends of his father. And near the end of the trip he had dinner on the top floor of a restaurant overlooking the famous Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro which at the time was considered the jet-setting capital of the world.
And while he was sitting at a table pondering the restless yearnings of his soul and the direction of his life, he overheard the conversation of a couple in their sixties that was sitting nearby.
The man said to his wife, "Well honey, I guess it's all been worth it. All the years of working and saving have finally paid off now that we're on this vacation and spending this night in Rio."
And when the young man heard that he was overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all. Is that what life is about? You spend years and years working hard so that one day you can eat a meal in a restaurant overlooking Copacabana Beach? He finished his dinner, went back to his room, got down on his knees and said, "God, there has got to be more to my life than this."
Sound familiar? Sure it does. It sounds like another child of privilege, a young man named Solomon who grew up the favored son of King David surrounded by all the perks and privileges of palace life. He had all the money he would ever need. All the women he could ever want. All the toys and trinkets, power and prestige that go with being the richest, wisest, most powerful man on earth. And yet it left him empty. "God, there has got to be more to my life than this."
This morning we conclude our fifteen part series in Ecclesiastes called Been There. Done That. Now What? with a teaching I've called "The Bottom Line." If you have a Bible meet me at Ecclesiastes 12.
Throughout the series I've told you that Solomon draws two conclusions during his quest to find meaning and purpose in life. His first conclusion is to enjoy life. Even though life is a riddle, wrapped up in a mystery, inside an enigma, it is still a wonderful gift from God and meant to be enjoyed. Again and again throughout his journal he commends the enjoyment of life. In many ways life doesn't make a whole lot of sense, it's so random at times, but don't let that rob you from enjoying it.
But he saves his second conclusion, his bottom line, for the end of his journal, the final chapter of the book. And that's what we want to look at today. Join me at Ecclesiastes 12:1, Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, "I find no pleasure in them"—
Solomon is in the midst of a discussion on youth and the advantages of being young. It's great to be young, he says. You're only young once so follow your heart. Pursue your passions. Enjoy life. Have fun. But don't forget God. Remember the one who created you.
You have a Creator. You didn't just emerge from some primordial ooze. There is a God closer than you think. And he made you. And he knows you. And he loves you. And he has a purpose for your life. You are his treasured son or daughter. And he wants you to remember him. Don't waste your life on what is meaningless.
The word "remember" doesn't simply mean to casually think about God every now and then. The Hebrew word "remember" literally means "to act decisively on behalf of someone." Solomon is saying, "Act decisively on behalf of God while you are young." In other words, put God first and foremost in your life. He's the one who made you and the only one who can satisfy you. Which is exactly what that young man did when he went back to his hotel room in Rio de Janeiro and got down on his knees and said, "God, there has got to be more to my life than this."
For me it was a car accident when I was sixteen years old that put me in the hospital for a month flat on my back and then in a full body cast for another two months that first got me asking the bigger questions about life.
I love the way Hebrew scholar Derek Kidner puts it when he says, "To remember Him is no perfunctory or purely mental act. It is to drop our pretense of self-sufficiency and to commit ourselves to Him."
Now is the time to stop pretending to be self-sufficient. We're not. That's what the car accident did for me. It rocked my little world! Don't wait until you're older to act decisively for God. Eighty percent of Christ followers enter into a relationship with Jesus before their eighteenth birthday. Now is the time to put him first and foremost in your life, no matter how old you are, because time passes so quickly. And before you know it the aging process is well underway.
Look again at verse 1, Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, "I find no pleasure in them"— 2before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain; 3when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim; 4when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when people rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint; 5when people are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets; when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags itself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about the streets.
In this passage Solomon launches into one of the most poetic images of aging anywhere in literature. But before we look it I've got to share this story on aging that I read this week. Apparently, the President of the United States was visiting a nursing home on his campaign trail to get reelected. And when he entered the home along with his entourage of security guards and media types he created a quite a stir and the residents were delighted to see him.
He went around from person to person working the crowd and greeting everybody he could. But after a while he noticed a woman in a wheelchair who seemed totally disinterested in the whole thing. And so not wanting to offend her or lose her vote he went over to the woman and smiled, patted her on the shoulder, and gently squeezed her hand. She smiled back, but didn't say a thing.
So the President bent down and said, "Do you know who I am?" And the lady looked at him in the eye and said, "No. But if you ask that lady at the nurses' station over there, she'll tell you who you are!"
Someone has said that there are four stages of life … infancy, childhood, adulthood, and "My, you look wonderful!" Well Solomon is going to describe the "my, you look wonderful" stage in this passage and it doesn't sound so wonderful. Instead, more like a candidate for the Discovery Health channel.
Serve God when you're young, he says, when the days are bright and sunny. When you have the energy to go on mission trips and have people into your home and you can serve on the setup team or in Valley Kid's. Because the days are coming when the clouds gather and the sun and the moon and the stars grow dark. Solomon portrays the aging process as a gathering storm.
Verse 3, when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop. In other words, when our arms and our legs start to shake and our back and our shoulders start to slump and we say, "I used to be 6' tall, but now I'm up to 5' 8"." What do athletes say? The legs are always the first thing to go.
When the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim. In the days before dental care and eye glasses the grinders, your teeth would start falling out, and your eyesight would fade. Thank God for crowns and caps and dentures and laser surgery that's bought me a few more years before bifocals and trifocals.
Verse 4, when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades. As we get older not only does our vision go, but our hearing goes as well. The grinding of grain was a common sound in Solomon's day, like traffic is today. But the older we get the louder the TV.
When people rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint. In other words, we don't sleep as well anymore. We nap a lot more when we're older, but we sleep a lot lighter. We don't crash like we did when we were teenagers and could easily stay in bed till noon.
Verse 5, when people are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets. The older we get the more we worry, Solomon says. We don't go to places that we used to go when we were younger and more daring and naïve. We stay closer to home.
When the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags itself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about the streets.
As we get older our hair turns white, if we still have hair, the color of almond tree blossoms. "Almond tree blossom white," that'll sell. It sounds a lot better to me than gray hair.
He says the grasshopper that used to jump now drags himself along. As we get older it takes longer to get from point A to point B. And the desires we once had when we were young, the sexual desires, the appetite for food and drink, no longer have the same intensity. And soon we die and go to our eternal home and people mourn and grieve our departure.
Solomon's not trying to be morbid here. Instead, he's trying to paint a picture of reality for all of us. Life expectancy goes up every year in this country. And cosmetic surgery is a multi-billion dollar industry. We can delay death and we can look pretty when it comes. But it will come.
It was interesting to me that as I was working on this very passage this week a dear friend of mine called and asked me if I would do his mother's funeral. He's a childhood buddy and I've known his family since I was in elementary school and right now he's watching his mom slowly fade away. And it's been an exhausting, agonizing process. She's battled dementia for the last few years, fell and broke her leg on the day after Christmas, went to the hospital, then was in rehab, then in a nursing home, and now she's in hospice care where she hasn't eaten in three weeks and they're just keeping her comfortable until she goes to her eternal home. But praise God she has an eternal home because she's been a follower of Jesus most of her life. And that is the hope we have in Christ.
Someone has said, "I know lots of people who plan their retirement in great detail. They anticipate their exact financial needs, coordinate their resources, plan how they will use their time, and prepare for all of life's contingencies. But retirement is not inevitable. Death is. Our retirement is 'iffy'. But our graduation to our eternal home is a sure thing."
So in verse 6 he continues by saying, Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at thespring, or the wheel broken at the well, (all ancient metaphors for death) 7and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. 8"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Everything is meaningless!"
Make God part of your life before you slip out of life without him. Put God first and foremost. The Bible says you can either be born once and die twice. Or be born twice and die once. I like the second option better. And the process of aging is the process that God uses to prepare us for our eternal home. Remember God now and you'll come to the end of your life with no regrets.
And now here's the conclusion of the matter. Look at verse 9, Not only was the Teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. 10The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true. 11The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one Shepherd.
The Teacher, of course, is Solomon and the one Shepherd is God. The people to whom he originally imparted knowledge were the people of Israel and now they are us. He set in order many proverbs and wrote what was upright and true. Solomon was a brilliant, prolific writer. He wrote three books of the Bible, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs. Scripture says he penned 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs all given to him by the one true Shepherd.
The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails.
A goad was a long stick with a metal tip on the end, kind of like a spear, that farmers used to prod and steer their oxen. It kept them moving in the right direction. That's what God's wisdom is designed to do for us. It's meant to keep us moving in the right direction.
Firmly embedded nails were like stakes that held a tent in place tight to the ground or like pegs that were driven into a wall to hang something on. That's what truth does. It nails things down and gives us a solid base on which to pitch our tent or to hang our life.
The New Testament equivalent to what Solomon is saying is found in Hebrews 4:12, The Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Verse 12, Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them.
So beware of all the other stuff that's in print. Be discerning with what you read. That's what we've been hearing about lately with The Da Vinci Code. If you have a solid base in the truth you'll recognize it for what it is brilliant, entertaining fiction. That's how I see it. It's a fascinating read, but there's no need to be threatened by it.
Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.
And every student out there went "Amen!" I can relate to this guy. Much study can wear you out. And the making of many books just keeps increasing. Even with the explosion of electronic media and hypertext and websites and CD-ROMS one article I read this week said that book publishing is still on the rise. Ten years ago we thought books were done, but not now. There's a new book published somewhere in the world every thirty seconds. A tidal wave of information comes our direction every single day.
So what's the bottom line after Solomon's exhausting quest for meaning and purpose and satisfaction in life? Here it is in verse 13, Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of every human being. 14For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
Fear God and keep his commandments. His first conclusion was to enjoy life. His second conclusion is to fear God and do what he says. I love how anti-climatic the bottom line is. There's no drum roll or fan fare or firework's grand finale, just a simple statement to take God seriously and do what he says.
Why? Because God made us and God loves us and God knows us. And God is for us and his commandments are tender commandments meant to protect us. Solomon stepped outside the foul lines and it cost him years of anguish and torment. And he doesn't what us to follow him down that road.
And he wants us to know that our life matters. What we do everyday counts for eternity. It matters so much that one day we will give an account to God for every deed done, whether good or bad.
Solomon was right. Words are wearying. But there is a Word that is life giving. His name is Jesus. Solomon didn't have the last word. Jesus did. And Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me … I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.
Jesus is God's final word. He is the way and the truth and in him we have life and life to the full. Do you know Jesus? Have you trusted him? He is the meaning of life.