Enjoying the Process Redux

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you know, I was thinking this week, maybe it was just time to give up on Ecclesiastes. I was thinking that, especially after the last few Sundays, where we’ve been focusing on the proper perspective on money and personal wealth. And as I am teaching, and I’m looking out, and I’m seeing your faces, and I see so many of you checked out apparently not thinking that it applies to you. And apparently a lot of you are thinking it doesn’t really apply to you because you don’t really think that much about money. And in fact that’s exactly what a lot of you told your small group leaders last Sunday morning during your small group time is that you just don’t think that much about money.

And of course, I mean most of you, you don’t have jobs. You’re not earning a paycheck. You’re not expecting that every week. You don’t have a lot of bills necessarily to pay. I am guessing that most of you probably don’t have large bank accounts. If you do have a bank account that your mom started for you when you were three so that all the money your grandma gave you or whatever at Christmas time could start accumulating that three cents of interest a year that you’re getting. So again, I understand most of you don’t have large bank accounts or managing major investment portfolios and all those kinds of things.

So maybe we’ve gotten everything out of ecclesiastes that we can. Maybe we’ve sucked it dry. Or maybe at least we should kind of hurry over the rest of this section on money and skip on to something else. since really you don’t think about money. I really am not playing when I say those are many of the thoughts that have gone through my mind this past week. I was definitely tempted to change something, but one word kept coming into my head over and over and over. This word kept coming into my head like the bells, the Salvation Army bells outside the grocery store during the month of December.

kind of always there and always annoying. This word just kept coming back to my mind over and over and over this week. And the word that kept coming back to my mind was baloney. It is a bunch of Oscar Meyer baloney that you are not thinking about money that much. Give me a break. You almost had me convinced. And perhaps you went far to try tried to convince some of your small group leaders, and there is no doubt that maybe you’ve convinced yourselves, but that’s baloney. Let me give you a couple of reasons why I don’t buy it. You notice that little play on words there? Talk about money, I don’t buy it. First, I don’t buy that you are not thinking about money based on all the things you’re buying.

You cannot convince me that you are not thinking about money based on how much of you are spending. I came across an article this week, I blogged about it if you saw my blog later in the week. You read some of it. This article said, teenagers spend about $195 billion every year on clothes, eating out cars, movies, and cell phones, and of course the list could go on. That’s b-b-billion. My daughter is learning phonics where you sound it out, and especially she’s still with some of the smaller words, and so you start at the beginning and that consonant, that first consonant always gets some extra work in there. That’s b-b-billion, not million or thousands or hundreds.

That’s $195 billion every single stinking year that teenagers are spending on relatively silly things, not bills, but on just stuff. We can go right down this list and even add some, and I don’t care how loudly you protest that you are not thinking about money baloney. Clothes. Some of you obviously spend more time thinking about your clothes than others, or maybe I should say it, some of you obviously don’t spend as much time thinking about clothes as others do. Nevertheless, you are all wearing something this morning, for which I am thankful. How did you get those clothes you’re wearing? Do you like them? Do you wish you had different ones?

Do you wish you had newer ones? Do you think about having nicer ones or a greater array to choose from? Clothes are a commodity that are obtained with money. Whether you saw that money in your hand, passed from your hand to the person who’s taking it or through the magic of some electronic means you have this plastic card and it swipes through a machine and somehow all of the money gods are now pleased and you can take the thing out of the store or because your mom is the one who is holding the money. Whatever it is, the clothes you’re wearing and all the clothes you dream about having and all the clothes that sit there lonely in your closet because you don’t like them anymore, All of those clothes cost money as well.

Somewhere, somehow, it costs money to make them. It costs money to pay the person who made them, and it costs it to ship them and store them and sell them and for you to store them in your own house. That all takes money. How about eating out? Likewise, this is something that impacts some of you more than others. I know you. I do. I know you. But I know that you expect there at least to be enough cash in your hand that on Friday night you can go fill up at the Taco Bell. I know that. You almost never leave your house except for maybe to go to school or church without needing to think to some degree or another about money, about what you’re going to take to that Christmas party.

How are you getting that bag of chips? How are you going to McDonald’s and some others of you when you are happily like me plopping down your four dollar bill for that latte at the only place to get a decent cup of coffee in town? When that happens, that involves money. Movies. I actually have in my notes right here the word sheesh. It says movies, sheesh. I bet that more than half of you in here spend more than $100 just yourself every year entertaining yourselves with fictional pictures that move.

And or the popcorn and the butter on the popcorn and the, you know, tankard of soda that they they sell you, but you don’t think about money. No, not you. Cars. I’m just going down the list here. Cars, yeah. No, none of you with your own cars think about money or think about gas money or think about insurance money or think about how much money it would take to get a better car than the one you have that would actually work or that would actually provide you with heat or air conditioning or a radio that worked or whatever. Those Those of you who are right on the bleeding edge of getting your license, you’re not at all thinking about how you can persuade your parents to spend their money to get you a car and how that would help them in the end because then you could drive yourself to the Taco Bell on Friday night without them doing it for you.

No, you’re not thinking about money or how you can get more or what you can spend it on. Cellphones. Oh, no. You don’t understand. Mom and dad pay for my cell phone. Oh, really? With what? I was thinking about this. What magical power are your parents holding over, sprint or singular or whatever it is, that somehow works you minutes into your plan without money? That doesn’t happen. They have no magical powers. They pay the bill. if it’s your parents that still takes money and it keeps going. You know what, the same article said that in 2006, one third, one third of American teenagers reported that they owned an Apple iPod.

And it specifically said Apple Computer iPod. And while I’m thankful that at least one-third of the people have a quality product, because that doesn’t even count your scab eye rivers and your imitation wannabes and your chocolate or your whatever, I don’t even bother knowing the names of the inferior things. While it is true that apples grow on trees, iPods don’t. The CDs that you buy to put onto that iPod, the tens or hundreds of CDs, your video games, your laptops, your basketball shoes, your watches, your jewelry, your whatever, that all comes from money. But no, you guys don’t think about money. This doesn’t apply to you.

In fact, Solomon is probably just out of his mind. He has probably just lost it, thinking that young people, clearly who he is addressing in the book of Ecclesiastes, he’s just out of his mind thinking that young people need to learn about money. For all of his wisdom, this is probably just a blind spot. He just doesn’t get it.

Now this doesn’t take into account that the young people he would have been thinking about didn’t have a tenth, maybe even a hundredth of what we have access to today. So even though that was the kind of young people he was probably thinking about who had access to so much less than we do, he was probably just off his rocker while he was writing this longer section on money. Because you know there are some parts of Ecclesiastes where he kind of gets into the subject and gets back out pretty quick. But this one is like from chapter five verse ten all the way to chapter six verse nine at least. Or he does get it and you are thinking about it and it is important to go through. You know I think there’s a second thing that makes me disbelieve your claim that you’re not thinking about money.

So one is just what you’re buying and how much of it you are buying. That’s one thing that makes me just say baloney to this profession and protest that you don’t think a lot about money. The second thing is you’re just complete lack of happiness. Now of course lack of happiness can be attributed to many things, not just money or the lack of it, but it might be possible that one of the reasons your singing is so weak on Sunday mornings is because you are in love with stuff of this world, not the one who has made the world. It is just possible that your minds are so full of love and affection for stuff that is passing away that you don’t have time left or space left to consider the greatness of God and how much He deserves to be worshiped.

And it is no surprise that you’re miserable because you’re pursuing satisfaction in something else. You know, I think it was Jesus who said something about not being able to serve two masters. You can’t love both. And just because you aren’t desperate for money doesn’t mean you’re in the clear here. Just because you don’t wake up thinking about your bank account or checking how much interest you’ve gained overnight. Just because you’re not desperate for money does not mean you are less dependent on it. And if you are dependent on it, which probably the majority of us are beyond just to pay for the things that we need, if you are dependent on it, it is just as much your master as if you are desperate for it.

You know, most of us, maybe not all, but most of us really would not be sure what to do if for some reason our family lost all of the money. I thought about that statement a lot last night. Because I don’t really want to have to prove to you, by God taking away all of my money, that my world wouldn’t be turned upside down if we lost all of our money. I really don’t want to have to learn that the hard way. I want to get that, and I want to have my dependence in the right place. where he doesn’t have to prove that to me or prove to myself that that is the case. But you know what? I gotta be willing to have that be the cry of my heart, not just the call of my message to you.

Most of us would have our worlds turned upside down if our families lost a significant portion, let alone all of our money. Why? Well, some of it is potentially because we’re dependent on it. We are dependent on the stuff we have rather than the God who gave us the stuff. Depending on stuff for happiness is just as big a problem. Really, the problem is not money itself. The problem is not really almost $200 billion a year spent by teenagers between 13 and 18 on silly stuff. Those aren’t really the problems. Really, the problem is, as always, the loves of your heart. It comes right back to what you’re looking to, trusting in, and drinking from for satisfaction.

Same article that a lot of this comes from. TotalPaganNewsSite described this related to how many people own iPods. said this, their love of music is second only to their love of friends and even ahead of their love for family, which if you’re keeping score at home means that at best God is for, even if he’s in the picture at all, which I’m anticipating he’s not even on the scoreboard for most of the people that this article is talking about. And yet look at the word that is used, pagan news site, to describe the attention and the attraction that we have towards stuff under the sun. It’s a love. And so, your wallet naturally goes where your heart does.

Whether you get three cents a week or $300 a week, most of us are scheming, planning, how we can get the next thing that we want. We think it’ll make us happy. The article says, quote, Americans aged 13 to 18 spend, I’m still quoting, spend more than 72 hours a week consuming electronic media, unquote, more than 72 hours a week consuming electronic media. Some of that, they’re counting at the same time because you’ve got the TV on with your iTunes playing, with your instant messenger program on, with your email receiving every 30 seconds. Even if it was half of that. 36 hours a week. Are you kidding me? It’s because our love is on something under the sun.

Now obviously, I like email. I think it’s great. I have an iPod. I occasionally watch movies. I’m not against cell phones. I don’t have a problem with using those things. I don’t think we should all move to Utah and cut off our electricity and only use quills and ink bottles. But most of us are not too far on that side. And it’s because of our love. And so our weak worship and our banal conversations are half-hearted affections unmask that the strongest, most dominant loves in our heart are for things under the sun rather than the maker. Your lack of joy exposes that you aren’t enjoying the process because you’re not in step with the one who is in control of the process.

And your heart is absolutely where your treasure is. And it’s no wonder you’re so miserable. And you’ll be miserable after you open all of those fancily wrapped presents that are under your tree right now. now, you’ll still be miserable after opening all of those, the buzz will have worn off, the excitement of and the smell of scotch tape will quickly disappear and in moments you’ll be thinking, oh, I didn’t get that thing. That’s not the one I really wanted. Please do not try to tell me that you don’t think that much about money. Bologna. You might not be doodling dollar signs all over your notebooks and your textbook covers, but just because you’re not doodling dollar signs does not mean you’re not thinking about money because if you are not pursuing Jesus as your treasure, if you’re not pursuing the kingdom of God and his righteousness first, then it’s pretty possible you are trying to purchase your pleasure somewhere else under the sun.

I told my wife last night I was gonna try to cover two paragraphs this morning. I was kinda really excited about it. Been thinking this for a while. Because 518 through 20, the first paragraph, and 61 through six, the second paragraph, They’re really opposite sides of the exact same coin. On one hand, you’ve got joy in toil, and on the other hand, you’ve got misery in toil. And it’s just the positive and the negative. But you could be looking at the exact same person. There’s really only one thing that makes the difference. And in the first paragraph, he’s got it. In the second paragraph, he doesn’t. And the first paragraph, chapter 5, 18 through 20, is where I got the title for this morning’s message, which is enjoying the process redo.

Most of you are pronouncing that redux. No, it’s redo. That is again, or brought back up to deal with one more time, revived. It’s like a cow regurgitating its food to chew on the cut again. Chews on it, digests it, then brings it back up to chew on it some more. That’s exactly what we’ve got here. is enjoying the process redo. So Solomon brings back for us the superlative prospect of joy and toil, enjoying the process just like we saw in Ecclesiastes chapter 2 verses 24 through 26. Let’s read the first paragraph together in chapter 5, starting verse 18.

Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil, this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. So much of this is similar, as I said, it’s the bringing back up of much of what he already told us earlier in chapter two, but to go through this paragraph, first we see his observation of joy in toil, the beginning part of verse 18, behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting. This is another reflection by the preacher on something he has seen. This is not a fictional account or some hypothetical situation that is elusive. The preacher has seen this. He has observed it take place.

Joy in toil. True happiness and satisfaction under the sun is a legitimate possibility. You may not have experienced it yet, but that doesn’t mean because you haven’t experienced it that it isn’t legitimate. This isn’t just a fanciful hope or some fictional hypothetical account. This is what he has seen and what he has observed. It is real and visible. Solomon is about ready then to share his own experience, his own reflection as he calls us to behold and to learn what is good and fitting, what is right, what goes together, what isn’t rubbing what is it rubbing the cat’s fur the wrong way? And here it is, to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun.

And as we talked about, do not isolate the word toil out from everything he’s talking about here. That is why I continue to refer to it as enjoying the process. What is good and fitting where legitimate joy is found is not in avoiding the process or switching to a new process. It is right in the middle of the work that you have to do. It is not changing your work. It is not getting somebody else to do your work for you. Solomon says it is joy in the process, joy in toil under the sun. It comes in the normal day-to-day rhythms and responsibilities of life. That’s eating and drinking and working. That’s what it’s about.

Eating, drinking, the most mundane kind of things you can do on a daily basis and working. It doesn’t come in getting out of those. Not on getting out of work, but it comes as you work. Not on what kind of work or how successful you are in your work or what your paycheck is or how much recognition you receive. You can enjoy the process the few days of your life that God has given you. However many that is, sometimes they seem longer than others, but ultimately in light of eternity, 70, 80, 90 years is still pretty short compared to forever. The short days we have here under the sun, we can have this joy for this is our lot.

Lot is kind of the idea of an inheritance maybe even that somebody passes to somebody else. And in this case, this is what God gives us. He gives us days unto the sun, however many it is. He gives us days to eat and to drink and to work. That’s our lot. But more than just this observation of joy and toil is the provision of joy and toil. And there’s a few parts about this for us to look at. First of all, the gifts. Beginning part of verse 19, everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil. I think there are at least four gifts here.

First is stuff. That’s the wealth and possessions. It’s a bank account and all the stuff you’ve already purchased out of your bank account. Wealth and possessions. The first gift to this person at least is stuff. But the second and distinct gift is ability to enjoy that stuff. The third gift is contentment. That’s to accept his lot. And number four is the power to ETP. So here are the gifts. Again, number one, stuff. Number two, the ability to enjoy the stuff. Number three is contentment. Number four is power to ETP, to enjoy the process. You may remember this quote from when we went through Chapter 2, 24 through 26, but it so applies here, God is the one who gives things and God is the one who gives the power to enjoy things.

These are distinct gifts just as a can of peaches and a can opener are distinct gifts. Only the first is given to the unbeliever and we’re going to see that guy in chapter 6, 1-6, who has got all of the stuff lacking nothing that he desires. He’s got it all except for the gift to be able to enjoy it. They are distinct gifts. Only the first is given to the unbeliever, the believer is given both, which is simply another way of saying that he has given us the capacity for enjoyment. He’s given us the power to be content, the power to enjoy the process. That means, by the way, it is possible to have joy and money. But too many of us make them equal.

I will have joy if I have money. If I have money, I will have joy. But they’re two separate things. It’s possible to have both, but having one does not equal having the other. Money is not the same thing as having joy. And secondly, money doesn’t give joy. God does. That’s why when your head is stuck down in that broken, dirty, empty cistern trying to suck satisfaction out of there, you can’t get it. Because the broken cistern is not where satisfaction comes from. You can try to get satisfaction out of it, it’s just not going to happen. And money is a empty, broken cistern. You might be drinking from the living fountain as well as have money in your wallet, but what is providing you with the satisfaction? Not the money in your wallet, the living fountain.

We just confuse those things too many times. And if you have God, and if God gives you joy, it actually won’t even matter whether you have money, a little or a lot. And don’t Don’t miss, by the way, that the means of getting the money here is still in toil. Don’t miss, look back at verse 19, everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil.

The gift here is not God giving you possessions and power to enjoy those possessions while walking around your house all day in a bathrobe, checking out your flat screen, drinking Frappuccinos while everybody else is doing the work around you. That is not the lot. That is not the gifts that God gives. He may give wealth and possessions, power to enjoy them, contentment and the ability to rejoice in your toil, which then enables you if he desires to make you successful. We’ve already talked about it, but let’s make sure that we understand that the giver is in mind. Verse 19, again, this is the gift of God. Just like in chapter 2, 24 through 26, just like we were able to get our heads up out of the water for a little bit in all of the dismality that Solomon is presenting. One of the key reasons why we’re able to do that is because God invades the paragraph. God is back in the picture in 224 through 26, and you know who has been noticeably absent in the section on personal wealth so far? God! And it’s no wonder then that we’re disappointed and upset that we

can’t take it with us and that life is more than money because we think that’s all it’s about. But just as joy comes back into the picture here, so God comes back into the picture. He is back and so is the possibility of ETPing. This joy and all of the gifts for that matter. Those are things that God gives you. Yes, He may use your abilities or He may just frustrate the dickens out of your abilities. He may have given you all kinds of talent and frustrate your use of those perpetually. He may give you all kinds of talent and you get to use it and that then is part of how you then get the money. Maybe, maybe not.

You know who it’s up to? Not you. It’s up to him. It’s a vain thing that some idiots, some morons are out there and they’re just rolling in the dough. So the fact is it just points us back to, God is the one who’s in control of this thing, not us. And while He may choose to use natural means of our abilities and our talents and our wisdom, He may not.

And it can go either way. Beautifully, we see the effect here in verse 20. With those with those gifts from the right giver, here’s the outcome or the result or the effect, for he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. And so this person doesn’t think about how hard life is all the time. This person is not whining and complaining about how short life is, and how hard their work is, and how miserable everything is. Verse 20 says that the pain of this life is more than just dulled. This is not just an anesthetic. This is God provided pleasure and joy. It’s not just forgetting.

It’s not just the absence of the pain and the bitterness and the frustration and the misery, it is the presence of God-given pleasure and joy. That is possible. I know very few people who have it, but it’s possible. They say, and undoubtedly you’re thinking of this in your head, time flies when what? Time flies when you are having fun. Let’s make that just a little bit more theologically accurate, and say that time flies when God gives you joy and toil. It flies. And whether you live 27 years or 87 years, you will not be filled at the end of your life with bitterness and regrets and disappointments and frustrations and misery because of how hard it was, you’ll have thought it went just like that, if God gives you joy in the process. This is quite a gift, really, when you think about it. To know that life is more than money and still work to get money is a tough line to walk.

It would be really easy if we could just know that life is more than money and then not have to deal with money, not have to touch it at all. But it’s so attractive and it’s so addicting even that the best of us can know ahead of time that life is more than money. We can go into a situation like that and then we actually get some and we start to be drawn that way. And then we fall or whatever, not fall morally but just fall for or the temptation to get satisfaction and money. So to know that life is more than money, yet we still have to work to get it, to know that you can’t take it with you, and yet our whole lives are this cyclical process of working and getting, and then working so we can get some more, and working so we can get some more, and then when you move after you’ve lived in the same place for 20 years, you realize how much you actually have accumulated.

To work and go through that process and yet know that you’re not taking any of it with you. To the person who doesn’t have the can opener, that is really miserable. They can’t open up the peaches to get to them. To know that this whole process is hard and then you die, to know the truth of that, and to know that a stranger or a moron might enjoy all the stuff you’ve accumulated after you’re gone, and yet, still, ETP? That’s untouchable if it is the gift of God given to you. You know what, when you get this gift, you’re not looking for the next one under the tree. When God gives you the power to enjoy, when He gives you the gift of contentment, when He enables you to enjoy the process, you don’t need anything else.

You may get it, you may not, But you’re not finishing unwrapping that one in, hoping that there’s still something else. Though life is temporary, you enjoy the time you have. The fact that life is brief doesn’t have to make you bitter. Though no one will remember you, you don’t care. You enjoyed the time and the process that he gave you. You are too busy enjoying the process to be upset about it. You’ll get to the end of your life, whenever that will be, and you won’t be badgered by regrets and resentments, you will not much remember the days of your life. Not because of amnesia or Alzheimer’s, but because God keeps you occupied.

You are full. You are totally engaged and entertained by the joy that just overflows your heart. I mean, when God enables you to whistle while you work, And there’s nothing better than that. God makes it so that everything works to make your heart glad no matter what it is. This is joy in the heart. Not just some external facade or show. It comes right out of the heart. Well we’ll have to look at the next paragraph next week. Well let me tell you that what we’re going to talk about is not the gift of joy and toil, about the evil of misery and toil. In fact, look at chapter 6. We’ll at least read the paragraph. There is an evil that I have seen under the sun and it lies heavy on mankind, a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires yet.

he is the west coast distributor of cans of peaches here. He couldn’t want more cans of peaches. He’s got it. Yet, God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity. It is a grievous evil. If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his life are many. But his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he has no burial. I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he, even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good? Do not all go to one place.

Life is hard. You had everything under the sun you could possibly dream of, and no joy? It were better that you never even saw the sun than to experience that kind of misery and toil. You know, really when it all comes down to it, the value of your life is calculated by what between these two paragraphs? Your life is only as valuable as you have what?

Not stuff, not even honor or respect or position. The value of your life is calculated by how The value of your life is calculated by how much joy you have. It’s piper-esque. It’s Edwardian. It’s Solomonic. You know what more than that? It’s divine. Your life is worth as much as you have joy. And if there is no joy, Solomon is saying vanity. Your life is totally empty. And the thing is, my challenge to you, even over these next couple weeks where you have more free time on your hands, you’re all going to be looking for joy. You’re all going to be looking for what’s going to make you happy. And you’re going to say no to one party until you find out if there’s another one that’s better that’s coming up.

And you’re going to put back the ugly looking cookie in order to get the really big fat one with lots of icing on it because you want joy. And I’m telling you, most of you are going to get, we’re going to be here on December 31st staring 2007 right in the face a couple Sunday mornings from now and you will be overwhelmed and miserable because you pursued your joy in something other than God. I don’t care what that is. If your treasure is not in Jesus, then you are pursuing pleasure in something that is empty. It’s a wild goose chase. It’s like striving after the wind to try to catch up. And so as you think about money, as you think about how much you have, how much you don’t have, what you’d like to have in the future, as you think about all that, wrestle with the fact that God might actually honor your wishes to have everything you desire. If If He doesn’t give you power to enjoy it, you were better off not even being born.

Which means we have totally got to make sure that our hearts are devoted entirely and solely to Him. May that be the case whether we’re listening to our iPods or thinking about what we’re going to wear. Whatever we do under the sun, may it be because we are looking only to Christ who is beyond the Son. And Father, we do know that Jesus is, of course, the reason for this season. And more than that, He is the only hope, the only redeemer we can get out of this vain life. He is the one who provides joy in the process. You provide it through Him, and your Spirit then brings it to us. But if we’re worried about our possessions, what we eat or drink, or what we’re going to wear, let alone anything else.

Or if we’re wrapped up serving money or serving stuff, desiring to get it, if that’s our treasure, we’re going to end up missing it all. Not only will we miss out on your kingdom, we’ll miss out on all of these things. Help us by your word, by your spirit, by even our corporate fellowship and our interaction with one another, to have a distaste, a bitterness in our mouths for all of the stuff that is under the sun. Help us to look to Christ alone, to enjoy the process as a gift from you. We pray this in Christ’s name, Amen.