Link to Video of Church Service 10/21/2018

Faith in Action:
Is Content
Ecclesiastes 5:10-20

 † I.H.S. †

 May the grace, the mercy and love of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be so revealed in your life, that you find yourself dwelling, content in His presence!  AMEN!

1.6 Billion dollars…. For what?

On Friday, I stopped by the local 7-11.

The parking lot was full, there were three clerks working instead of the usual one.  There were people in line, and another line over in the corner, waiting for little pieces of paper to make little marks that they would put their hope in…

Seriously, putting all your hope in some little marks on a piece of paper.

And they will do it again this week, looking for a change in life because of that piece of paper, those little marks. Enough people doing so that the Lottery can easily put less than half the money back, and still raise the prize some 600 million dollars.

Some people buy those tickets out of curiosity, others buy them in despair and desperation. There was one guy, running through the “have you won scanner” what looked like 50 such pieces of paper.

I wonder how many of them realize what Solomon said some 3000 years ago,

¹⁰ Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness!

We aren’t going to find contentment in things, we can only find contentment in something we have more than enough of…. But how do we realize it?

The Idol of Wealth

Solomon talked of reasons why wealth doesn’t breed contentment. The reasons it doesn’t bring happiness, why it doesn’t provide a beautiful life.  I mean these reasons aren’t rocket science,

• You can never have enough.  (Solomon would know!)
• The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it.
• You can watch it slip through your fingers
• Investments can sour, and the money is lost
• We eventually end up the way we started, ashes to ashes, dust to dust
• You can’t take your riches with you
• You don’t make a lasting impact on the world.

And yet, we will, as a country spend 3 or 4 billion dollars on the lottery.  And we still won’t find contentment, even the one who wins.

Or we will struggle and put ourselves into debt, trying to get the right college education, or the right career options, playing all the games and work our fingers to the bone, trying to get ahead.

And we won’t find contentment.

But that won’t stop us chasing wealth, riches, fame, and all its accouterments.  For we make these things our idols, we put our hope in them, thinking that if only we get the right numbers for the lottery, the perfect job, or health plan, the perfect home or spouse and family, everything will be okay, and we can finally be content.

But idols can’t buy happiness, even if we could gain them all.  But Solomon, the richest, wisest man of his day, tells us we can never get enough.  Our hunger will never be removed, the idols will just hold out their empty promise… and we will line up to give them what we’ve worked so hard for in life

it’s like chasing the wind.  Except that we do it all too often.

The Gift

There is an option, there is a gift that God gives us, the result of the gift is seen in verse 19,

To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life—this is indeed a gift from God.

He says it there, whether you are the CEO or the janitor, there are people who find contentment in their work and their life because they realize it is a gift of God.

That’s hard for us to understand, hard for us to deal with at times.  Doesn’t God realize what He’s putting us through?  Doesn’t he realize the pain, the grief, the anxiety that comes with our lot in life, this place He’s put us in?  Doesn’t He know our struggles?

Yeah, he does, and that is why Solomon says finding contentment is a gift.

A supernatural gift, and ability that isn’t natural to us, but divine grace that is poured over us, allowing us to find the beauty in our lives, to find that elusive contentment.

A contentment that comes as we have faith in Him, as we grow in our trust and dependence on Him. As we go to him with our failures and sins, as we abandon the idols that cannot bring us contentment, and we hear Him, welcoming us into His presence.

That is what the cross and the resurrection is all about, to free us to live in the presence of God, a presence where all our troubles are taken from us, as God promises us life everlasting in His presence.  For there, in the presence of God, we find how incredibly He loves us, a love we are told every week this year that we can’t understand, but that we can experience, and we do.

Contentment, true happiness, or having what in Hebrew can be translated best as “the beautiful life” comes not what we have in terms or worldly value.  It comes from finding out we are loved, loved beyond measure. Loved even when we failed to love in return, as God picks us off the ground, saving us to Himself.

And knowing we are loved changes everything, adding color to a gray landscape caught in the darkness before dawn. Bringing life that is gloriously eternal to a life that was once going to end with nothing.

And with our eyes on Him, on the Lord who loves us, we come to know that life Is incredibly beautiful, a life in which we find contentment, a life in which we dwell in the incredible peace of God…..

And so I end with the prayer of blessing we began with….

May the grace, the mercy and love of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be so revealed in your life, that you find yourself dwelling, content in His presence!  AMEN!