Following and Influencing the Man (Pt 1)

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, please take out your copy of God’s word this morning and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter eight. As I promised a while ago, the goal is to finish this big stinking book by the end of the year. Since we’ve only been in it for a couple years, I figure we might as well go ahead and finish on year number three. Ecclesiastes chapter eight. And I can already tell you that this is going to be following and influencing the man part one. And we’ll have to come back and finish the rest of it next week. But look with me, Ecclesiastes chapter eight, starting in verse one, who is like the wise and who knows the interpretation of a thing.

A man’s wisdom makes his face shine and the hardness of his face is changed. I say, keep the King’s command because of God’s oath to him. Be not hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. For the word of the King is supreme, and who may say to him, What are you doing? Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way. there is a time and a way for everything, although man’s trouble lies heavy on him. For he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be. No man has power to retain the spirit or power over the day of death.

There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it. Verse 9, all this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done unto the sun when man had power over man to his hurt. And I believe that there is probably no more common frustration that we have, no matter who we are, than dealing with authority. And I’m going to say that again. There is potentially no more common frustration that we have, no matter what stage of life you’re in, no matter what responsibilities you have, there may be no more common frustration we have than dealing with authority. Now I can say I’ve never been frustrated by authority. I have always perfectly and happily, quickly, submitted. Anytime anybody has asked me to do anything, okay, that’s not true. In fact, I was thinking about it and nobody saw this, but last Saturday we’re at Disneyland on the Masters College trip. Disneyland, happiest place on earth, so they say. That’s the tagline.

That is where the trifecta comes into place. Happiest place on earth and we were trying to walk out of the park. There was a group of us where you’re getting ready to leave, trying to walk out of the park. And at like 9 30 ish, maybe nine o’clock. I forget what it was, but it must have been in preparation for the fireworks. They had closed off. They roped off one of the avenues that you could typically take. That would be quicker to get back to the front of the park.

And I remember the group of us walked up and they’re like these four or five ladies standing there in their official Disneyland garb and the rope was behind them and one of them kindly pointed out and said no you need to go back and go around and I’ll tell you what the amount of inside of me at that moment I kept it hidden I didn’t say anything back to the lady I didn’t communicate irritation or frustration to the people that I was with but nevertheless I promised you that the amount of like what do you mean lady in Disneyland stuff let us go through all that say I have been myself frustrated in dealing with authority. I’m anticipating that there are times when you yourself have been frustrated dealing with authority, but the reality is we, that is all of us, are almost always under authority somewhere from someone. Of course, we typically, especially in our culture, We typically dislike authority.

We oftentimes disagree with authority. Some go so far as to disdain and detest, like hate authority, and oftentimes we’re guilty of disobeying authority. And of course, all those things end up not really helping us, don’t they? Because when you have that kind of attitude towards authority, That never makes the authority go, oh, you’re right. We should loosen up. Do whatever you want. Now, when you demonstrate that bad attitude and that unwillingness to follow and submit, that typically results in the authority clamping down tighter and making the rules and the restraints even more restrictive, if not actually leading to some kind of punishment on you for not obeying or following that authority.

So it doesn’t even work to have a bad attitude back. But nevertheless, that’s what we typically convey. Yeah, authority and those who have it over those who don’t is as old as the creator and his creation. It really goes back that far.

That’s where we get the idea of authority because God is the one who has power over what he has created to do with whatever he wants and to demand from them whatever he wants. And God not only has the ultimate authority, but God has established, and I’m going to beat that drum like nobody’s business today, that God has established structures and systems of authority in our lives that we need to follow and submit to. I mean, we see those structures and systems of authority everywhere from your house. Who has got the authority in your house? That’s even the wrong way to ask that question, isn’t it? Because it ain’t your house. It’s your daddy’s house. Who has authority in your daddy’s house? You’re all thinking back to, remember the Titans right now, aren’t you? Yeah. Who is your daddy? Your Your mom and dad, your parents are the ones who have authority in your parents’ house.

You go home today, you’re going to interact with some authority. In fact, most of you will probably be interacting with that authority because you’ve been late getting back to the car after second service and that has irritated your authority to begin with let alone when you get home. You got authority at home. Almost all of you are in school taking classes in some way, shape, or form. This is student ministries, and it seems odd, but it’s true that there are authorities in your local place of educational instruction, are there not? They’re typically identified as teachers or administration. And it’s a funny thing, but they actually expect you to do what they say.

They expect you to fulfill the assignments that they give. They expect you to adhere to the various rules on the campus, whatever they might be. There are authorities in the place where you spend most of your time. Obviously, we have local law enforcement officers who have authority. We have federal and national representatives and officials who have authority in the United States all the way leading up to the president. You simply cannot look at any family, any organization, any business, any government without recognizing that God has made authority and put in authorities in place over those who don’t have it and who need to follow.

Now in a perfect world, and that perfect world does not exist, but in a perfect world with perfect authorities, only the really rebellious would have a problem and kick against that. In a perfect world where all of the authorities were just all about using their authority in a kind, loving, gracious, gentle, and yet meaningful way, only the really wicked, hard-hearted punks would have trouble with authority. We don’t live in a perfect world and I’m going to let this is one to grow on. This is a secret of life. Okay. Are you ready? There are no perfect authorities.

There aren’t any except for God. All of the ones he’s established on this planet are imperfect in some way, shape, or form. They will make a bad decision. They will do something. You don’t like. Every authority on this earth is flawed in some way, and they will make some kind of mistake. And some of them not only are just flawed, some of them are vigorously using their power and authority to cause hurt to other people. Look down at verse nine again. Verse nine, and we’re not going to get to the actual exposition of it this morning, but verse nine is really the context for the whole paragraph. saying, I’ve observed all of this that he says in verses one through eight, I’ve seen all of this while trying to pay attention and learn from what I see specifically then when man had power over man to his hurt.

When some figure who had power and authority put that hurt on somebody who was under him. That’s the context and we are going to run into that. You are going to have opportunities, maybe today or this week at least, to follow authorities who are flawed, who are imperfect, and perhaps even some of them who are trying to cause you harm and hurt. How do you respond to that? What are you supposed to do? There are no perfect authorities. Oftentimes, those in authority make it difficult, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Some people seem to get, is this not true? I’ve not lived a horribly long time, but I’ve lived long enough to interact with enough authority in various ways, either in their office or outside of their office throwing things at their window.

But I have lived long enough to know that some people who are thrust into positions of authority and power seem to like lose their head when that happens. Like all of the sense goes out of their brain when they get put into that position of authority. Other people never deserve to get put into that position anyway. Don’t you wonder sometimes how various people get into some positions. Am I the only one who wonders how in the world, and I would have to speak nicely if they were my authority. I just am curious, how did you get in that position?

So some people get crazy, when they get put in authority, other people’s never deserve to be an authority in the first place, and certainly there are times when those of us as followers are convinced that the authority in our particular situation does not have all of the information that they need and we typically then take it upon ourselves to make sure that they have all of that information so that they’ll make a decision. Most of the time, we’re not concerned that they make the right decision, we’re concerned that they make the right decision for us. But nevertheless, we feel they don’t have all the information, so we try to give that to them, or maybe they’re just not good communicators and that kind of irritates us.

We don’t like how they make their decisions or how they communicate that. We don’t like their attitude or whatever else we can come up with. But when it comes down to it, if they have the authority, then what is our responsibility? It is to submit, to obey, to follow, and to respect.

That’s the bottom line. If somebody has authority in your life, God has put them in that position, and you have a very simple responsibility, and that is to submit, to follow, and to do what they say with a happy heart. That’s what I still like to tell my kids. I want them not just to obey, I want them to obey with a happy heart. Now out of all the people who understood this system, do you not think Solomon probably had some perspective on this whole idea of authority? This was a guy who for his entire life lived in the King’s palace. There is nobody on earth in a system of authority who has more than a monarch, than a king.

Even our president does not have the same kind of authority as a king would. The president has checks and balances on his power, but a king has no limits. King can do whatever he wants. And Solomon would have seen that with his father David, and certainly then as he himself was king over Israel for much time. No doubt Solomon watched his dad make some really amazing, wise, good decisions. And no doubt he saw his dad make some pretty dumb choices as well that the people were irritated by. No doubt he saw both.

doubt in his own authority and his own being king, that there were some things he did that got other people’s goats and there were some things that really received their approval, both sides. As somebody who in various situations has you know limited amounts of authority, it’s unbelievable how many people have suggestions and input slash criticism and various other choice words, reactions, responses to decisions. Solomon would have seen all of that. And in this first half of Ecclesiastes chapter 8, Solomon gives advice for those who are under authority and specifically then it would have applied to those who are under his authority. And specifically Solomon is going to tell us about the importance of following authority, some insight into how we can influence, how we can influence those who are in authority over us, and some perspective for when it’s difficult to follow authority. And so the title Following and Influencing the Man, whereby the man, I have in mind the person who’s in authority,

And that could be a lady, but that’s just the way you talk about it, the man. You got to submit to the man or the one in authority. Verse number one gives us the possibility of influencing authority. This is really the first bookend. Verse one and verse nine kind of provide context for us that help us see what it is that Solomon is talking about. If you don’t get the context that what we’re dealing with is Solomon as king thinking about how to respond to counselors and others in the king’s court. If you don’t get that in your mind from the context in verse one and verse nine, a lot of what he says doesn’t really make sense.

And so this first bookend kind of tells us where we’re at. This is something that’s taking place related to the king and then by application to all kinds of authority, but specifically in reference to the king, his counselors, his advisors, those people who would have been closely connected to him. Solomon was pretty pessimistic coming out of chapter 7, was he not? You remember that he claimed that he could find no woman, no upright or virtuous woman, and only one man out of a thousand was upright that he could find. I’m I’m telling you that his first circle of search would have been those who were most close to him, would have been those people who were in his palace, who were part of his king’s court.

And so he clearly has that group of people in mind from whether they were his closest advisors to whether they were those people he would just see and pass by in the hallway. He couldn’t find upright men. He found no upright women at all. These are the people that he has in mind as we come into how you are to respond to the king and to authority. And in the form of a proverb, verse one starts out with a couple rhetorical questions and then some potential positives of what it’s like when the king, when the authority finds some wise counselors, even though, like I said, in Solomon’s own experience, those wise counselors were a rare commodity.

Look at verse one, who is like the wise? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man’s wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed. When he says, who is like the wise, I think we could say, in other words, who is like a wise counselor? I mean, there is great benefit in finding a wise advisor. Who is like the wise? How great are they? Who knows the interpretation of the thing?

Or who has discernment and insight, perspective on situations and people that they can share that are truly beneficial and helpful advantageous for the king. The implication of these questions, who’s like the wise and who knows the interpretation of a thing, are that wise counselors are very valuable and extremely rare. Consider the outcome of this rare but valuable person, a man’s wisdom makes his face shine and the hardness of his face is changed. Now I think when you first read that you’re tempted to think that we’re talking about the counselor. We’re tempted to think a man’s wisdom makes that man’s face shine. Makes the counselors, the advisors face shine or that the hardness of his face being the counselor, the advisor’s face is changed. And I don’t think that that’s true. I don’t think that that’s the context of verses 1 through 9. I don’t even think that’s the best way to interpret or understand the phrase here, makes his face shine. Let me tell you about that. A man who influences his authority with wisdom makes the face of

his authority shine. That’s key. A man who has wisdom and insight and shares that with the one who is his authority makes the face of his authority, in this case, the King’s face shine. I say that for a few reasons. First and most importantly, the immediately following thought in verse 2 concerns the King. This is how to respond and interact with the King or with those who are in authority. This is not just instruction for the person who needs to submit and follow the king, though it obviously is instruction for that person, but it’s instruction so that they can make their authority happy. That’s the whole context of the paragraph. Verse 2 makes clear that the king is the one that we’re concerned about, and so obviously if you are wise, that’s going to have benefit for yourself. I mean, that’s obviously true. The whole point is how we influence and encourage those who are over us. The context all the way through verse 9 is about how we influence and interact with the king or with authorities. The second reason that I say this

is because if a man’s own face is hard and by hard that’s a way to signify inflexible or rigid, irritated, upset, tough to deal with. You know what it’s like when you see, when you go home for example, and you know the difference between whether your dad’s face is shining or hard. And I don’t mean whether he has exfoliated earlier in the day so that it’s bright and shiny or he’s got a bald head and the light is shining directly down on top of him. That’s not what it means by a shining face or hard face is not you know he’s got the five o’clock shadow at 10 a.m.

or whatever you know because he’s just Fred Flintstone hard face kind of been working in the steel mines for the last 25 years of his life. What it refers to is a figurative way to describe inflexible toughness or kind of a happiness and openness. But the goal here is if you are wise, yeah that’s probably going to change your own face, but who really cares about your face? And I say that lovingly. But who really cares about your face? What matters is the face of the king. What matters is the face of the authority. And so who cares if the counselor has a stiff face or an unyielding or an irritated attitude, it is the king that we’re concerned about, so watch out how you act to influence him. But then third, the phrase itself makes his face shine. That is almost always used in the Old Testament with reference to the look of a superior to an inferior, the look of one in power to one who is not in power. For example, we pray that God’s face would shine on us in Numbers chapter 6 verse 25. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious

to you. Also in Proverbs chapter 16 verse 15, in the light of a king’s face there is life and his favor is like the clouds that bring spring rain and so there’s a comparison there. The parallel between the first and the second half is the light of his face. The shining of his face is like favor. And obviously that’s what we’re wanting from God when we when we pray. May the Lord make his face shine upon you. What we’re wanting is favor from the superior. Favor, graciousness, kindness to us who are the ones needing to submit. And so the point of verse 1 is talking about the potential of influence that you can have with even the king. And imagine if you could do this with the king, certainly you’d be able to do it with other people in authority over you as well, but by your wise interaction with authority, you can cause their face to shine on you and even then on to others as well. You can change their attitude and their outlook and their perspective by how you interact with authority. Now

that’s a pretty exciting potential. Let me say before we go on that most of you apparently have not really ever considered how to do that. The way to to cause your authority’s face to shine upon you is not arguing with them. Who would have thought that? I apparently have thought many years in my life that the sure way to influence my authorities to do what I wanted was just to argue with them in a vehement, vigorous kind of angry manner and act like how dare they not do what I want. But it’s interesting and I think you’ll find as you go out there that that does not make their face shine that makes their face more hard. But there is a way again and we’ll see more in verses 5 and 6 there is a way that you can influence your authority even the king you can influence in such a way as to cause their whole perspective on you and the situation to change. And so what a valuable thing to find that kind of influence, but what a rare thing to find the influencer who can do that, change the king’s whole outlook. Well let’s move in just to verse 2. Just say a few

more things before going off to small groups, because if verse 1 is telling us about the possibility of influencing authority, verses 2 through 8 give us the responsibility of honoring authority. And we’re gonna see four pieces of instruction that Solomon gives towards this idea of honoring our authority. We’re just gonna talk about the first one. If you want to influence, if you want to change the face, so to speak, the whole perspective, the whole outlook of your authority, if you wanna change that, how do you do it?

And there’s four pieces of advice. Let me just give you the first one this morning. Number one, the right behavior. In verse two, I say, keep the King’s command because of God’s oath to him. Now, while it is true that we can have tremendous influence on our authorities. And like I said, we’ll see even more about that in verses five and six. Our general responsibility and obligation is really simple. And this is where it starts. You want to influence those who have power over you? Very simple. Obey them. Do what they say. It is almost unbelievable to me. It would be unbelievable if I didn’t have a heart.

Like if I didn’t have a sinful heart that myself just naturally, naturally welled up in irritation against people telling me to do various things. It is almost unbelievable to think that you’re going to win the approval and favor of somebody who is a legitimate authority over you, that you would win their favor and approval by disobeying what they told you to do. I’m not convinced that that even requires spiritual insight to figure that out. I think It requires spiritual power to overcome our desire not to do what they say, but I don’t think that’s a really difficult concept. You want to influence those who are over, over you and authority over you, your parents, teachers, administration.

It starts with obedience, submission, honoring what they say. I say, that begins verse two. I say is an emphatic way to highlight the bottom line nature of what’s coming. Here it is. This is what I’ve got to say. Here’s the bottom line. Keep the king’s command. Why? Because he’s in charge. He is the one who has the authority. He is the one who has the position and the right to make rules and to enforce those rules. realize the king has a way tougher job than you. The king actually has to think about what he wants people to do. All you have to do is just hear it and do it. That’s actually in some ways much easier than the king’s responsibility.

Those who are not the king have it easy. Do you see that? If you are not the authority, you have it easy. All you have to do is just obey. Now I would think that’s like freeing. That’s awesome. That’s so easy. Why didn’t I think of that? All I got to do is obey. Keep the King’s command. To keep means to pay close attention, to observe, to heed, to do, to follow the rules. And while obviously the point of this paragraph concerns the King, it certainly applies wherever there is an authority to follow, whether that’s on a large government scale or on a small household scale and everywhere in between. And the reason for this, don’t miss the reason why those who are not in authority need to submit to those who are in authority. The reason is because God himself is the ultimate authority and he has established the rest of the authority. God himself is the one who has put them in place. God is the one who makes kings. God is the one who makes presidents. God is the one who makes policemen. God is the one who makes

Disneyland people who tell you where you can and cannot go. God is the one who makes parents. God made your parents over you. He did it. That wasn’t just your parents looking for somebody they could boss around. Let’s have a baby so we can make them do stuff. God is the one who has established those structures and systems and the people who are in authority over you. With the King, Solomon specifically says, because of God’s oath to him. That’s the reason. Now Now, a lot of translations take it a different way. I think the extreme would be the NIV. Translates verse 2, Obey the king’s command, I say, because you took an oath before God.

The NAS translates it similar to that, suggesting that those who were in the king’s court were those who agreed, who took some kind of oath of obedience to the king. And while certainly that’s a possibility, Number one, the Hebrew does not require that translation, that we’re talking about the oath of the person to their authority. And that’s why the ESV even goes the opposite way and says because of God’s oath to him. And I think that that actually fits not only the paragraph, but the whole point of the book of Ecclesiastes best, that God is the one who has established those who are in authority. It’s God’s oath, specifically to the king.

It’s God’s commitment to establish and to require obedience to those He puts and places in positions of authority. Now we need to marinate a lot longer in this truth. Even though we don’t have a king, we have plenty of people that God has put in position over us that must be heated. is an anti-authority culture. There is no doubt about that, but understand that rebellion is not a cultural problem. Rebellion is a heart problem. If you have a heart, you likely have some struggle with this issue. Rebellion against authority is actually a pretty old sin. It goes all the way back to Adam and Eve.

who had it really simple. Not only did all they had to do was obey, they only had really one command to obey, or at least one thing that they were supposed to avoid. It goes all the way back to them and since then it is the nature of the human heart to rebel against authority. History is littered with authority haters. Wars are often brought to bear because of hating authority, which is ironically not hating authority, it’s just disliking those who are in authority because the people who start the war are just mad that what? That they’re not the authority. It’s not that I think authority is bad, it’s that they think it’s bad that they don’t have the authority. And that’s really what it is even when we argue with our parents. It’s not that we dislike the idea that there’s a rule, it’s just that we want to make the rules. It’s not that we’re against the idea of there being structures and systems, it’s just that we want to be in control of those. And you realize that that comes back to our attitude towards God as well.

Because as we treat and think about those who are in temporal authority over us, that translates into what we think about God who has eternal and spiritual authority over us as well. And so it’s not that we’re against God, it’s just that we want to be him. And it’s not even that we would say, well, I want to be God. It’s just that we want God to do what we want him to do, which is basically then making ourselves higher than God, which is putting ourselves in his position. And that’s a significant problem because you realize when we bad mouth authority, they might not even be around us when we talk bad about our authority, talk bad about the king even when he’s not there to our friends, to our buddies. Certainly when we give bad attitude to our authorities, when they ask us to do something, when we act put out and mistreated and upset when they make decisions that we don’t like or that we don’t approve of, like it depends on you anyway.

You realize part of the point of being an authority is that you don’t have to ask other people before you make the choice. You might. That could be a wise and beneficial and profitable thing, but if you have a boss, who gets to make the rules? The boss. I know that that’s Probably something that goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyway because we don’t really live like this. Your parents may get your interaction and feedback on something. They may get your input on a choice that needs to be made. And I think that wise parents, especially as their kids grow up and take on more responsibility and show themselves more wise, do want to include them in that so that when the kids are parents someday, they know how to make those kinds of choices.

But when it comes down to it, it’s not your vote that matters. It’s not up to you. We have the great opportunity in this country to vote. We can vote for certain laws. We can vote for certain leaders and representatives and officials to be put into place. That’s great. You should take advantage of your opportunity. As you get older and you’re enabled to vote, certainly you ought to do that. But you realize when it comes down to it, that is what you get to do. And then you get to obey. You don’t get to vote, and then the vote doesn’t go the way you want it, and so then you just complain and whine the whole time. That’s typically what we do.

What is up to us is to follow. We are to obey and respect our authority like we obey and respect God because He is the one who gave them to us. Well, I have more to say about this next week, but I do want to add right before I send you off into small groups, then number one, if you do not submit to your authority, in this case, keep the King’s command by way of application, if you do not follow those who are in positions of authority over you, you have zero hope of enjoying the process. That’s exactly opposite of how most of us are trying to live life large and enjoy the process. If you are constantly setting your face against what other people, again, those who legitimately are in a position to tell you what you need to do, if you constantly set your face against them, you will not enjoy the process.

That is a demonstration that you don’t have perspective that God is in control and that God has put them in place. demonstrating no fear of God and it’s only God fearers who can enjoy the process. I’ll promise you this, you can enjoy the process submitting to unfair authorities who treat you poorly and cause you hurt and you can enjoy the process in the midst of pain more then you can enjoy the process getting out of or criticizing or bad-mouthing those people who are telling you to do something that you don’t want to do. You will have more joy, more happiness in the process if you do what you’re told.

That also will lead back to you being able to have influence on your authorities but we’ll have to talk more about that next week. But you will not enjoy the process if you don’t submit. You will also make zero impact. Man, zero impact. I’m gonna say next week as we start out, you cannot actually demonstrate that you’re a Christian unless you submit to authority even when that authority is unjust. You are no different than every other God-hating pagan unless you submit to your authorities, you make zero impact on them or on the world around us. Father help us to be different. Such wisdom and insight here that Solomon is giving us, but even before we really get into that insight into how we can influence our authorities, how desperately we need to just do the simple and the easiest thing first, which is to obey them, Respect them, not only pleases them, but pleases you.

That’s what we most want. Give us that perspective. By your spirit, give us power to submit. We pray all this in Christ’s name. Amen.