To my family and my LA church family,

who ask more questions than any other group of people I know.

CONTENTS

Cover

INTRODUCTION

1. A TALE OF THREE PREACHERS

2. SOMETHING NEW

PART ONE: ASPIRATIONS

3. IF I ONLY KNEW

4. IF I ONLY HAD

5. IF I ONLY DID

PART TWO: ASSETS

6. MONEY

7. TIME

8. COMMUNITY

9. POWER

PART THREE: ATTITUDES

10. RELIGIOSITY

11. ENVY

12. DISCONTENT

13. WORRY

14. JOY

EPILOGUE

15. DEATH

16. THE LAST WORD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Extras

Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.

—Florence Nightingale

INTRODUCTION

1

A TALE OF THREE PREACHERS

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

—Ecclesiastes 1:2

Why is vanity such a story-killer?

—Jonah Sachs

Life not working out the way I thought it would turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

I used to daydream about taking my guitar in for fifth-grade show-and-tell. I pictured myself placing my amp on the teacher’s desk, flicking the switch, and tossing my hair out of my eyes. The crowd (a.k.a. the rest of my class) would hush in anticipation. And then I would play. The jaws of the crowd would drop in awe. This would be the moment where my musical genius would shine, confirming that I was a musician, that this was my identity, and that from this day forth my life would never be the same.

As far as I can recall, these daydreams were the first moments in which I thought about how my time on earth might work out. They were my first attempts to write a script for my life. Soon I would evaluate every circumstance and every life change in light of that script. Needless to say, it did not take long before this way of thinking created certain expectations for myself, others, and life itself.

We all write our autobiographies long before we live our lives. Sure, we make some edits and revisions along the way, but even in our youth we quickly develop ideas of how things should go, how our lives ought to play out. This vision of our life stories helps us determine and then track our dreams, goals, and expectations. After all, we are all living for something, right?

Living in Los Angeles, I hear a lot of people’s stories. I’m familiar with this particular script: “I was born into obscurity in ________ and forged through tough years at _______ school, and then I made the bold move to Hollywood, where I will be misunderstood and underappreciated for three years before rising from the ashes like a phoenix in glory and success!”

Driving much of this is what cultural critic Neal Gabler calls the new American Dream.[1] The old one was based on seizing opportunity, but the new dream is about realizing perfection. Perfect skin, perfect abs, perfect career … perfect you. But things don’t always go according to our plans. Especially not in Hollywood. In fact, most of the frustration and bitterness I see in people stems from unmet expectations. Most of the angst that people voice about their lives comes through claims that sound like this: “If there is a God, He didn’t come through for me. He didn’t follow my script! He didn’t fulfill my dreams!” Some of these people may have gotten exactly what they wanted, and yet the prize turned out to be fool’s gold, leaving them jaded and cynical.

Has everything been in vain?

I never did get to display my guitar talents in the fifth grade. By the time I reached high school, I began to realize that life was not going to work out as I’d hoped. After all, I came across plenty of other great musicians, so many excellent songwriters, and far too many better bands. But still it hurt when my own band lost the talent show in my freshman year. Aside from the humiliation I felt, the greater pain was the realization that my script had failed me. This was not how it was supposed to go! I always looked for something better than what I already had.

This feeling of frustration only intensified as I got older. Relationships seemed much more complicated and unsatisfying than what I had in mind, the escape I sought in various substances wore off too fast, and realistic career options were always at odds with what I really wanted to do.

Eventually my fifth-grade dream, along with many others, evaporated completely, and today I am a preacher. I have a family. I live in LA. I am a Christian. I teach the Bible at a church we started in 2006. Nothing could be more different from what I pictured for myself earlier on in life. And the truth is, I couldn’t be more satisfied and more at peace. And that is because God taught me to doubt.

Yes, doubt.

Most people would not associate doubt with Christian faith, but there is a kind of holy doubt, a sacred skepticism that asks hard questions about life. While many people spend time questioning the Bible, it may come as a surprise that the Bible actually questions us:

What do you expect out of life?

What if your expectations are wrong?

Where did your expectations come from?

You and I often get anxious when we hear questions like these, but they can lead us to find out what really matters.

As a pastor in Los Angeles I come face-to-face with the harsh reality of the quest for success and fulfillment. The woman in tears whose acting career is over because the other actresses always stand out more. The frustrated man who gained recognition for his musical talents but is now in danger of losing his record deal. I see the constant anxiety that stems from unmet expectations in a culture that promises so much.

I know that you will face detours and dead ends—and it’s possible that life may not work out the way you hoped—but I also know that you can still enjoy peace and joy in this world. It just comes down to the script you wrote for yourself … and one simple yet colossal question.

Are you willing to have your script reworked?

What if there was a way to see the detours and dead ends in advance? What if someone could help us correct the script before it gets exposed as a lie? What if there was a guide or mentor who could point us toward lasting peace and a vision for a life that really matters? What if someone had traveled through this life and knew it well, and what if this person didn’t wear rose-colored glasses or deal in naive sound bites? What if this someone could give us straight-up truth and wisdom that would prepare us for the unknown that lies ahead? It may very well be that the reason we haven’t found what really matters in our lives is because we’ve been asking the wrong questions.

ANOTHER PREACHER

Enter Ecclesiastes, that strange and famous book—which, oddly enough, is found in the Bible. The author is a skeptical man by nature, the sort who asks hard questions and shrugs off easy answers. The author was certainly at the center of ancient Israel’s political and religious life. In fact, many believe he was the great King Solomon, though in the book he is simply called “the Preacher” or “the Teacher,” because he has something to say and he wants all of us to listen.

The Preacher blows our cover. He says that even though he is not able to give us joy and peace himself, he can certainly prepare us to receive it by challenging our cherished expectations in life. He blows our cover by sharing hard lessons and difficult truths. He has no time for half-baked hopes or whitewashing—and nor should we. He is always in search of that which is better, a word he uses again and again throughout his journey. He helps us observe what is often hidden in plain sight, gets us to ask the questions we are afraid to ask, and sets us up to receive what can come only from beyond ourselves.

Pierre Huyghe—a French artist—believed that “being an artist means asking questions about the reality of existence.” Huyghe’s work has followed this line, which led Time magazine to call him a “question maker.”[2]

Well, the writer of Ecclesiastes is our Question Maker. He’s the one who exposes the plot holes in our prewritten stories, the man who looks us in the eye and asks, “Is that really what you think matters in life? Where did your assumptions come from?”

A lot of people have said a lot of things about Ecclesiastes. Herman Melville, author of the classic novel Moby Dick, called it “the truest of all books,”[3] while the medieval thought it a “dangerous book.” Which opinion is right? In my mind they’re both on to something, and Ecclesiastes is especially dangerous if you are content with a superficial life. The Preacher calls life as it is: the good, the bad, and the ugly. That’s why it’s so refreshing.

Ecclesiastes was one of the first books of the Bible I read when I became a Christian. I’m thankful for it in the same way I’d be thankful for someone who sat me down and said, “Your guitar playing is decent, but you’re not good enough to make it.” The words could either destroy my fragile world or encourage me to examine the problem and move forward in the right direction—which is what the Preacher did for me. He helps us all to examine the problem by looking at the common approaches to life and pointing out the dead ends so that we can avoid them.

“Vanity, Vanity, all is Vanity!” he writes (Eccles. 1:2, author’s translation).

The Preacher’s words have become famous and are often misunderstood. The way he uses the word vanity has less to do with mirrors and makeup and more to do with the meaning of your life. He says, in essence, “If this life is all there is, if you are only living for the temporary and transient, then it’s all vanity—it’s all pointless.” Doesn’t it seem to contradict everything else in the Bible? Aren’t God and His creation the opposites of vanity, the antidotes to futility, folly, and meaninglessness? Why is the Preacher writing in this way? Is he trying to depress us so that we’ll give up?

I don’t think so.

In fact, my goal is to show the opposite. I believe that, as philosophy professor Peter Kreeft once said, “Ecclesiastes is the question to which Christ is the answer.”[4] Ecclesiastes helps us ask the right questions, the ones we often avoid, and thereby sets us up for the hope that the rest of Scripture brings. The Preacher is right. If there is “vanity” in what we live for, then we should be living for something else. Something better.

When we see Ecclesiastes as a kind of provocateur, it gives us the key to understanding some of the more scandalous phrases found in the book. Like this one:

Bread is for laughter,

and wine gladdens life,

and money answers everything. (10:19)

Now, before you get too excited and think you just discovered the best-Bible-verse-ever, listen to what he writes afterward:

But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. (11:9)

Contradictory? Perhaps. But then again, life seems contradictory at times. The Preacher is sharing different opinions from different perspectives on life. He has gone on a lifelong journey, the greatest of all road trips, and all the while he has searched for meaning and purpose, for something better in each area of life. Verses like the one about bread, wine, and money are part of his report back. There very well may be a time in life when cabernet sauvignon, carbs, and cash seem to be all we need. But that time and that script change the moment we face the harder questions that life will inevitably throw at us.

The Preacher adopts the perspective of a secularist, not necessarily denying God’s existence but trying to make sense of life as though God were optional. It’s actually where most of us begin when we write our life script anyway. Most of us work out what we want in life before we add God in as an afterthought, viewing Him as some kind of cosmic vending machine. He’s just there to help us get what we really need.

But the Preacher calls us out.

He’s already tried the popular routes to find meaning and purpose. If, for argument’s sake, we take God out of the equation and assume that life ends with the grave, then all we are left with is what is found “under the sun,” a common phrase used in his teaching. That phrase represents everything “as it is.” And when we look at what we have around us, when we explore and expose the assumptions on which we have built our lives, we begin to see that so much of what we thought really mattered is called into question. If nothing lasts, and even we don’t last, then what is the point?

This is why we need to hear his preaching: if we don’t doubt the perspective of “life without God,” then we won’t appreciate the truth of “life with God.” And that is my goal in writing this book.

THE ULTIMATE PREACHER-KING

The Preacher of Ecclesiastes pushes us to look beyond life under the sun. And he paves the way for another Preacher-King who comes along centuries later, one who not only asks the hardest questions of all but also gives the greatest answers the world has ever known. This man is Jesus, who is the grand subject of the entire Bible, the Savior of humanity.

We will explore all the connections between these two Preachers in this book and what they mean for our lives today. This, I believe, is the best way to read Ecclesiastes. We must let it help us discover the power of Jesus in a world of vanity. To discover how His life, death, and resurrection actually change every part of our lives. We will see that it is possible to have a vision of life that is neither naive nor cynical but instead realistic and hopeful. And we need that more than ever. I wonder if the reason why so many people ignore Christianity these days is because so many Christians appear not to have wrestled with the hard questions at all. The church itself seems to have abandoned this essential responsibility. It must be reclaimed. If ever there was a treatment for superficial Christianity, Ecclesiastes is it.

And so Ecclesiastes is for everyone. It is for the Christian and the non-Christian, the professional and the amateur, the old and the young. The Preacher helps every single one of us to rework his or her personal life script in light of hard truths. And though he may be ancient and dead, his wisdom still speaks, encouraging our eyes to focus above the sun and helping us to come alive here on earth.

We will take the journey with this Preacher through some of the major sections of his book, looking at three main categories of life before the final conclusion. First we will look at our aspirations, or what we are expecting out of life. Then we will move to our assets—how we use some of the things we have in life. And finally we will turn to our attitudes, or how we respond to what life gives us. Money, work, sex, friendship, anxiety, power, religion … they’re all here in Ecclesiastes. They all overlap, of course, but each one deserves its own inspection. Along the way we will discover where our perspectives on life have been on the right track and where we’ve been wrong, as well as how to put things right by making the connection to the rest of Christian Scripture. I hope that we will even discover where we’ve written destructive elements into our stories and how they can be redemptively rewritten.

This is exactly the kind of transformation that has taken place in my own life. That’s why I am so passionate about preaching through this book. I never would have thought in my younger years that today I would be a pastor teaching the Bible in the heart of Hollywood, but it has become one of the greatest experiences of my life. I’ve had the privilege of seeing so many people’s lives changed from the inside out, brought from fear to fearlessness, from despair to hope as they discover that God is the great author of hope for their individual stories.

I pray that the same happens for you.

I pray that the same happens for the church.

Together we will expose the myths that often form our thinking in life and discover an alternative that is actually much better. We will ask, “What if we’ve been building on the wrong foundation?” What if God actually does exist and everything we do does matter? And what if my not winning that high school talent show was a good thing?

The great script revision begins now.

NOTES

1. Neal Gabler, “The New American Dream,” Boston Globe, March 31, 2011, http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/03/31/the_new_american_dream.

2. Ann Morrison, “The Question Maker,” Time, September 26, 2006, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1539182,00.html.

3. Herman Melville, Moby Dick (Boston: The St. Botolph Society, 1892), 400.

4. Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 56.

2

SOMETHING NEW

“Is that all there is?” [is the question] my generation is asking of a world that seems increasingly meaningless despite our outward progress and technological development.

—Dimitri Hamlin, “Is That All There Is?,” The Huffington Post

What has been is what will be,

and what has been done is what will be done,

and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,

“See, this is new”?

It has been already

in the ages before us.

—Ecclesiastes 1:9–10

Nearly every day I drive by one of LA’s biggest ironies, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Hundreds of well-known actors and actresses are buried in the earth between Melrose Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, but what about them is forever? Each time I zip past the gates I think about how odd we are as people—so aware of death and yet so desperate to last beyond it. All of us press on, making mental notes for our careers and bucket lists, hoping to find something different from and fresher and better than what others did before us. We have a need for newness.

But let’s get philosophical for a moment. (We need to in order to set up the rest of the book.) Whatever has happened will happen again. Societies will rise, and riots will tear at the walls. Economies will crash, and workers will rebuild. Technology will advance, and cultures will adapt. Someone will find a cure for the common cold, but illness will remain. At the end of the day, you, I, and the rest of the almost seven billion of us will all die. Period.

Yes, you might say, but nobody has ever lived in times quite like these. We stand at history’s summit, don’t we? We have all these new gadgets—touch screens, cell phones, and pilot-less drones—all this connectivity and possibility. Surely no time in history has ever been quite like this!

True. However, technology comes and goes, and new advances arrive and change the way certain aspects of our lives play out, but people are the same. The medium of film may be relatively new to history, but great actors are not. While our costumes change, often the story remains the same. Nothing new.

SPARKS AND VOIDS

I don’t want us to misunderstand the Preacher; he’s not a depressive out to kill our buzz. Well, not entirely. He wants us to enjoy life, to become fully alive to everything it offers. But he will not allow simplistic answers, meaningless distraction, and mundane ignorance to be held up as a way to live.

If this life is all there is, then our attempts to attach significance to our acts are ultimately dead ends. Who will remember us when our sparks burn out and we are once more reunited with the void? Perhaps those with whom we lived will recall us, but only a handful of people within each generation can hope to be remembered centuries after their passing. And what does “remembered” count for anyway? Aren’t we driven by a desire to be known and loved rather than merely recalled as a fact of history?

At some point by now you should be asking why. Why entertain these questions in the first place? Why give these fears the time of day? The reason is because God intends for us to face these fears and worries. He means for us to feel this way. He made us to question the meaning of life. He wants us to fear—to rebel against—the notion that life is meaningless. He means for us to shudder with cosmic anxiety. He means for us to long for “forever” when we see a cemetery.

Remember the word vanity? Though we often associate it with self-centered beauty, the Hebrew word in Ecclesiastes is much more nuanced. Depending on the context it can mean “transient,” “absurd,” or simply “meaningless.” And it’s used in all three ways throughout the whole book. What does this have to do with the rest of the Bible?

The word vanity or futility is used only once in the New Testament, but when it is used, Paul the apostle delivers it with full force:

For the creation was subjected to futility [vanity], not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Rom. 8:20–21)

Paul paints a picture of everything in this created world deteriorating. Paul knows that it has been diagnosed as futile, as vanity, as heading for a crash.

Why does Paul do this? He gives us this bleak portrait because God subjected the world to vanity as right judgment for sin.

This is the way the Bible frames the world: men and women are the pinnacle of creation, given responsibility over the world, and yet we have rebelled against our Creator and this responsibility. Scripture calls these attitudes and actions sin. That is why the great British preacher John Stott described sin as “not only the attempt to be God [but] also the refusal to be human.”[1] So God has allowed the world to suffer the consequences of the decision that we’ve made from the beginning. And when the Bible recounts this fall for us, it does so on a cosmic level, laying the responsibility on our doorstep.

The truth is this: our fear that life may be futile is the first step on a vital journey. This fear awakens us to our need for someone to step into the darkness and allay our fears. And the Preacher of Ecclesiastes tells it like it is.

Paul goes on to say that this cosmic anxiety need not be a permanent condition for any of us. It can be eased by the fiercest brand of hope that you could ever imagine; the 100 percent proof variety that comes from Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.

By coming to earth as a human, God broke the cycle. He did something utterly new and unique, something that will last forever. By subjecting Himself to the vanity that is mortality, He evaporated the status quo. By rising back to life and beating death, He broke vanity’s curse and made a path through the void. That’s why Jesus is known as the hope of the world. He is its greatest hero. Though the world was subjected to the judgment of futility in order to wake us up, God subjected Himself to this world of futility as our Savior to raise us up. There is no better hope.

THE NEXT STEPS

Our dead Israelite skeptic goes on a journey, the ultimate road trip. Few of us have the resources, the time, or the guts to walk in his footsteps, but all of us can learn from his discoveries. With him, we can all test our life script, question it, pull it apart, and examine it with a clear purpose in mind—to know for ourselves what truly matters in life. He will not accept simplistic answers, and neither should we. The book of Ecclesiastes follows one man’s attempt to ask the big questions of life, but his findings can take us only so far. As we will see through this journey, the link between this book, the rest of the Bible, and our lives becomes more and more clear. And more important.

What do we value? What are we pursuing? What balance will we find? What choices will we make today, tomorrow, and when our breath leaks from our lungs for the last time? How will we live, and how will we die? Whatever the state of our faith—these are questions we ignore at our peril.

Whether you know Jesus to be the answer or whether you’re still trying to work out your questions, the Preacher refuses to let you hide or cower in the darkness.

Instead, whether he realized it or not, he pushes you toward the light.

NOTE

1. John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 103.

PART ONE: ASPIRATIONS

WHAT DO WE EXPECT OUT OF LIFE?

3

IF I ONLY KNEW

We have found that the men who know most are the most gloomy.

—Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, “The Russell-Einstein Manifesto”

I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

What is crooked cannot be made straight,

and what is lacking cannot be counted.

—Ecclesiastes 1:14–15

How many of us have had this thought: if I were smarter and wiser, everything in my life would be better?

In the film Limitless, Bradley Cooper plays a writer who gets access to a pill that exponentially expands his intellect. Overnight, he’s a genius at everything he turns his mind to, thinking at such a rapid-fire rate that it seems like magic. Yet his character soon learns that near-infinite knowledge does not necessarily cure life’s problems. In fact, with his dramatic increase in intelligence comes great pain. Rather than being a key to happiness, his mental abilities become crippling burdens. This part of the film heartily agrees with Ecclesiastes—and the idea that with great knowledge comes great pain.

I’ve got to admit that I’m a little guilty here myself. Give me an “intelligent” book in hand, NPR on the radio, and a freshly posted wise saying on my social-media site, and I start to feel like I could solve all of life’s problems.

But the Preacher helps us look more closely at intellectual pursuits. He shows us that wisdom and knowledge are right and good but questions whether they can be enough. Are they really the magic missing ingredient that will transform our lives?

We need the Preacher to help us. We need to hear from someone who has the credentials, someone who could say:

I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. (Eccles. 1:12–13)

So begins the Preacher’s lesson on wisdom and knowledge. Here he outlines his credentials, and you can’t deny their weight. He has done it all, seen it all, and studied it all:

I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” (1:16)

And his verdict?

All is vanity. (1:14)

Sounds a little like Einstein and Russell.

We may obsess about the search for answers “under the sun,” but this mission is futile and flawed. Why? Because the more we explore life, the less it seems to make sense. Even if we dedicate ourselves to understanding the how of the universe, the why continues to elude us. No matter how many PhDs we hang on our walls, our knowledge, wisdom, and attempts to understand the universe are limited and lacking. Life’s complexity is beyond our comprehension, and if the Preacher cannot make sense out of life, then what hope could we possibly have?

The Preacher rounds off the first chapter of Ecclesiastes with this thought: “With much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief” (v. 18 NIV). Two and a half millennia later, T. S. Eliot landed on the same truth: “All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.”[1]

Perhaps you could even add your own version of this truth. Perhaps you’ve been at this whole entertainment, retail, fashion, banking, education, manufacturing, or real-estate game long enough to glimpse behind the curtain. You’ve read, studied, and learned for years. Maybe you already know that no matter what people say, none of these things can promise eternal life and ultimate satisfaction. Perhaps you know that the self-help gurus aren’t quite what they pretend to be. The more you know, the more it tends to hurt. This is true not only about the present but especially about knowledge of your past.

So many nights I’ve stayed awake thinking about things that have gone wrong—mistakes I’ve made or opportunities I’ve missed. But in my attempts to rewrite my script I’m essentially saying to myself, “If I only knew then what I know now, things would be better!” But won’t I be saying the same thing five years from now? I suggest that having a greater awareness of our pasts can sometimes leave us feeling less comfortable, more embarrassed, and acutely aware of our own inadequacies. Sometimes, the more we know about history—our own and others’—the harder it can be to move on. Nietzsche understood this, which is why he suggested that the art of forgetting was one of life’s essential lessons to learn. He said that remembrance of the past “is harmful and ultimately fatal to the living thing”[2] and that “man … braces himself against the great and ever greater pressure of what is past: it pushes him down, or bends him sideways, it encumbers his steps as a dark, invisible burden.”[3]

I’ve known so many people who are tormented by the “invisible burden” of their own history. The more knowledge they possess about their past, the worse off they seem to be. However, we can’t forget the past without pretending it didn’t happen. So how does this fit in with Christian teaching? Here is a start: we must accept what we cannot change and acknowledge that we are not in control as much as we think we are. We must learn our place and face the facts that while we might feel like the kings of wisdom, we just aren’t. And here’s why.

THE END OF WISDOM

Human wisdom comes with certain unbreakable limits. That which is crooked cannot be made straight, the Preacher says, and true control through wisdom and knowledge can never be found in this life. Which leaves us with a choice: we can either face this truth or run from it.

H. G. Wells wrote that “the end of everything we call life is close at hand and cannot be evaded. Ours is a closed universe, yet we need something beyond it…. Man must go steeply up or down and the odds seem to be all in favor of his going down and out.”[4]

So what’s the deal here? What are we supposed to make of all this? Should we run from wisdom and dive into the life foolish? I certainly went this direction in my younger years, and maybe you did as well. Perhaps some of you reading are doing it now.

The Preacher tells us that this would be a mistake. He had a go at “madness and folly” himself and says that there’s nothing to be gained by putting your head in the sand. He says that the fool is foolish because he doesn’t even look at the problem. He says that the fool finds himself in dangerous territory and greater risk because of his actions.

The Preacher also says that wisdom and knowledge are not entirely worthless. In chapter 7 he suggests that “wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city” (v. 19).

While the fool lives in ignorance of life’s problems, those who are “wise” see them. The unfortunate issue is that the wise see life’s problems all too well, tormented by the fact that they cannot really do anything about them. Wisdom, says the Preacher, is better than foolishness but will only ever get you so far. As they say, “The more you know, the more it hurts.”

All of which leads us to some big questions: When human wisdom and human knowledge are subject to human limitations, what hope can they ever really offer us? Without the promise of life after death, what can we ultimately expect from life except death itself? Without a Savior, how can we hope to be saved? These questions might not make us comfortable, but they will make us better. They will help us own up to the fact that life without God is hard. Life without God is lonely. Life without God is overwhelming.

The Preacher tells us that we put too much value on wisdom when we think that it alone can save us. When we do that, we try to play God. Sadly, we’re still hard at it, blindly believing that there is wisdom in taking control of our own futures, becoming our own promoters, stepping up, making our own luck, and commanding our destinies.

Playing God never works out well for us mortals. Remember the fall? How we bought into the first lie that we could be like God? Yet the words that describe the early days following creation so accurately describe us today, constantly on the search for self-made significance, forever trying to retell the story with ourselves at the center. We reach for the fruit of the tree because we hunger for wisdom, but it seems to rot the moment we sink our teeth into it.

Human wisdom and knowledge cannot stand on their own. Those things will only ever take us so far, to the point of frustration and grief. When we stand at the end of our lives, we can be sure that intellect, experience, innovation, or self-awareness alone will not have the power to get us across the water.

And yet those waters are not impassable. The first step is this: accept the limitations of wisdom. We must recognize that human wisdom—all our intellect, innovation, and self-awareness—will get us only so far. And in one of those beautiful paradoxes that come up so often in life, this acceptance of wisdom’s limitations serves as a first step toward a different kind of wisdom.

While the Preacher trashes the idea of human wisdom’s ultimate power, he starts to introduce the concept of a far stronger and more reliable brand: divine wisdom. In chapter 2 he writes:

For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy. (v. 26)

This is vital. If we are to move on from the infant formula of human wisdom to the fully satisfying milk of divine wisdom, we must learn to see that true wisdom—the only sort that answers the eternal why—is not man-made. It is not human beings who give meaning to this life; it is God and God alone. God alone opens the door to this “closed universe.” God alone opens His hands and reveals true meaning to this life.

WISDOM—GIFT AND GOAL

We should not hold on to wisdom itself. We should not trust our life script to the hands of human wisdom alone but instead look to the Source. It is at the Source that we find true meaning, purpose, and value.

Instead of looking to the gift, look to the Giver.

Why? Because God is the goal, and He gives His wisdom the way He gives so much else: as a gift. We cannot earn and cannot replicate it—despite our efforts to prove otherwise—and we cannot find true meaning without it. God’s wisdom sets straight what is crooked and supplies that which is lacking. The way He gives wisdom brings us closer to an understanding of who He is and how He works in our lives.

The wisest thing this wise man of the ancient world could ever say is this: the problems of life cannot be solved under the sun, because we are not God.

In a world where politics, economics, and justice are twisted, where there is so much that is obviously lacking, God is the source of all answers—a theme echoed throughout Scripture. It’s a theme we will explore throughout the rest of this book as we see humanity attempting to build the world using human wisdom, only to veer off track. Then we read how God sets things right through His wisdom—by sending His Son into our crooked and broken world to redeem us.

The New Testament describes this rescue plan in action:

Every valley shall be filled,

and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall become straight,

and the rough places shall become level ways,

and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. (Luke 3:5–6)

We now begin to see the connection between Ecclesiastes and the rest of Scripture. The Preacher recognizes that without God, everything is crooked and empty. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, sets straight what is crooked and brings to completion that which is lacking. He is the gift that changes everything. First Corinthians 1:24 reminds us that He is “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” He straightens our crooked hearts; He provides that which we lack; He changes our definition of success by connecting our story to His. And as we get to know Him, we will notice that our use for wisdom also changes. Why? Because our idea of success changes. Wisdom is no longer the climax of the story or the mountaintop goal, just as we are no longer the principal characters. Instead we see that what we learn and experience in life can all be used for different purposes—Christ’s purposes.

The way that we look at the past is also transformed. It might not be possible to change what happened before, but we can see our lives redeemed, guilt removed, and shame released. That’s precisely the type of power at work when you hear someone talk about the transformation that comes from meeting Jesus. The skeptic sees it as impossible, but to the one who knows the power of divine wisdom, nothing could be more natural. In God’s great wisdom, He made a way to take the poison out of our past and the pessimism out of our hearts.

And so here—right at the start of this eye-opening journey—let us agree on this: we will not lean on our own wisdom but will instead look for God’s. Let us learn to recognize that the moment we become aware of the limitations of human wisdom, we stand before an invitation to lean on divine wisdom and Christ Himself.

When we reach that point, we find ourselves at the start of the greatest journey we could hope to take. Once we learn to discern what true wisdom is—and the One in whom it can be found—we are on the verge of something truly revolutionary. When we open up to Jesus’s wisdom, we enter the realm where every aspect of our lives can be changed for the better.

This is where our journey begins—with an acceptance that some of what passes for wisdom these days needs to be cross-examined. We start not with the answers but with the questions: What myths about success, satisfaction, and status have we accepted? What does God need to call us out of so that we might more fully appreciate this life?

Great beauty, truth, and fullness of experience await us as we discover together through Ecclesiastes that the “something missing” in every part of our story is Jesus.

NOTES

1. T. S. Eliot, The Rock, quoted in Kenneth Asher, T. S. Eliot and Ideology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 79.

2. Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 62.

3. Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, 61.

4. H. G. Wells, Mind at the End of Its Tether (New York: Didier, 1946), 1, 12, 30.

4

IF I ONLY HAD

If you want it you can get it. And I want it all.

—David Geffen

What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?

—Ecclesiastes 2:22

The first question we usually ask when we meet someone is, “What do you do?” Leaving aside for one moment how weird it is that our résumés have become so significant that they’re often the first thing that we choose to share with others, there’s actually another, much better question that we should ask: not what do you do, but why do you do it?

We work for at least forty-five years of our lives, each day spending more time with our coworkers than we do with our friends and family. We say that it pays the bills, but we all know that our work is about more than bills. Nobody moves to a place like Los Angeles just to pay the bills (in fact, many people in Hollywood can’t pay their bills). We work really hard at what we do, talk a lot about what we do, and stress a lot about what we do, but when it comes to providing us with purpose and meaning, our careers are a struggle to make fit. So why do we work?

A life defined by toil is nothing new. The Preacher understands our circumstance, and in Ecclesiastes 2:18–26 he addresses it head-on. With God somewhat out of the picture, he wonders about the point of our toil, questioning what all this work is worth at the end of the day. Before we look at the connection between Jesus and our work, we need to ponder the hard questions Ecclesiastes asks us about the purpose of our labor, questions that we are often too scared to face for ourselves.

It seems that most of us work for one of two things: an “outer” reward or an “inner” reward. Can either give us what really matters in life?

THE INNER REWARD

Many of us favor the idea of an inner reward for our work. We say that we work for the satisfaction of a job well done. We work because we like the feeling of knowing that we delivered what we said we would, when we said we would.

The Preacher pauses.

Sure, he says. Why not? Let’s say that working for dignity isn’t such a bad idea after all.

And then he pauses again. There’s a problem.

The problem is, he says, there’s that little matter of death. No matter how much we exercise, no matter how many pills we take or how much Smartwater we drink, all of us—the wise and foolish alike—are some day going to die. Whether we work hard and gain satisfaction from our labors or spend every ounce of our energy on bad debts and unpaid bills, we all end up in the grave or the furnace. And neither of those places pays any attention to the inner reward of a job well done.

A little while ago, I read a piece of a college student’s paper online. The student was formulating his philosophical foundation for his future career, which he explained to his readers:

I have lived my life with one main philosophy.… In my life it has proven to be the one thing that keeps me equal to everyone else. Working hard is the only thing people can control. Whoever works the hardest will be the one with the most success.[1]

Well, Mr. College Student, says the Preacher, there’s one more thing that makes you equal to everyone else, but you can’t control it: death. If work is only about the inner reward of feeling equal to others, that fact is that we don’t need it; death does that just fine. So what’s the point of working hard, again?

It’s a weighty truth, heavy enough to bring even the Preacher’s buzz down. Remember, he was an expert in many fields. After all, he was a king. He devoted himself to every pursuit that he chose, and he excelled at every turn. And this fact was enough to bring him to the point of despair. He even questions in verse 22 why he valued work in the first place.

What on earth was the point?

I’ve read countless magazines that weigh in on the whole issue of work, digging deep and coming up with their finest cuts of wisdom. In response to the common question “I hate my job; what can I do about it?” the magazines often suggest that employees put extra time into enhancing the skills required for their current, detestable job so that they can go into their next one better equipped.

Is that it? Not exactly inspiring.

The usual line given to the reader is this: if you know deep inside that you’ve worked hard to be a success, then that’s all that matters. Really? Trying hard is all that counts? Try telling that to everyone living in a place like Hollywood. “Hey, don’t worry that your career just tanked. At least you can go back home and tell the folks that you tried.” That never settles well with anyone, does it? So much for the inner reward.

THE OUTER REWARD

If dignity by itself doesn’t have the legs to get us all the way across the finish line, what about the outer reward of legacy and riches?

In ancient cultures, like the one the Preacher lived in, remembrance was everything. If nobody remembered you after you were gone, then your very existence was invalid. Perhaps we don’t quite share the same hope that others will recall us, but we do have a weakness and desire for recognition. We want to be known for what we have done—the guy who wrote the jingle, the mom whose daughter did that thing at the White House, the kid who beat all those others to a place in the final championship game. We each want to be known, recognized, and—well, yes, now that you mention it—remembered. That wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Some of us are working for the idea of a family legacy—the prospect that one day our little ones will grow up, turn around, and post some beautifully edited viral piece that expresses just how much they now realize we were

great

intelligent

always correct

Maybe it’ll happen at your child’s wedding. One of your kids will grab the glass of champagne and say to the gathered masses:

You know what this is really all about? It’s about my parents. Mom, Dad, you did everything right. You. Did. Everything. Right. Those times when I complained about you, argued against you, disagreed with you—these are the only regrets I have in my life. So here’s to you, Mom. Here’s to you, Dad.

As a pastor, I perform a lot of weddings. At the reception, I see the parents just waiting for the speech, wide-eyed with anticipation. Here’s how it usually goes:

Mom, Dad, you guys made a lot of mistakes. You got a lot of things wrong—a lot of things wrong. But you were right about one thing: keep pushing forward even if life is tough and there are fools around who disagree with you. I really appreciate that, so here’s to you.

The Preacher must have been to some weddings in his time, for his comments in Ecclesiastes echo this same truth:

And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! (2:15–16)

We won’t be remembered like we want to, and death annuls all. Life under the sun is terminal, and no amount of shuffling the deck chairs can alter the fact that this ship is going down. We won’t even get to enjoy our best shot at being remembered well—our funeral will take place without us. As one commentator said, if death comes to all and if life is all there is under the sun, then every person’s work is robbed of its dignity and every project of its point.[2]

But we must address a second aspect of the outer reward: wealth. Could we measure the value and worth of work by the sheer amount of stuff that it helps us accumulate?

This is a cliché—but it’s still the truth: you can’t take it with you. You have to leave it all behind. You never see a U-Haul following a hearse.

The Preacher is clear on this point:

Because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. (Eccles. 2:21)

He is basically saying that the fact that you can’t keep it all is bad enough, but do you know what’s even worse? Some fool might get all your stuff. You work hard all your life, and then some fool will be the master over all your goods. How infuriating is that? They didn’t earn it, so who are they to get your stuff?

That’s why some people on the brink of death will do whatever they can to sabotage their estate. It’s a rude awakening when they discover that their hard-earned wealth is the promise that lies. At first, it looks like it’s going to last forever, but it doesn’t.

Even if we attain notoriety and wealth, we’re trapped in the need to maintain them, leaving us always working. Or we lose our jobs, and we stress and struggle about that loss, putting in the mental toil if not the physical. If you look only at life under the sun and question the meaning of work, then, like the Preacher, you will arrive at this same conclusion:

What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. (Eccles. 2:22–23)

Work is not just about what you do with your hands; if you look closely, you will find that your heart is always working for something. The Preacher says that even in the night, the one time when you should stop working and rest and get rejuvenated for the next day, there is still work being done.

Maybe you had a terrible day, and you’re freaking out as the night slips away. You fear that tomorrow will be the same, and without that raise or that promotion or that complete Hail Mary of a career change, nothing can ever be any different. But how are you going to manage it with the economy being the way it is these days? You ditch the idea of sleep and decide to send out some emails and get that whole job hunt started right away. And since you didn’t get any sleep, you’re miserable about your job the next day and stress out the next night because you didn’t get any sleep the night before. Your job sucks and you’re still stressed out, and day after day your heart keeps on working long after your body cries for rest.

According to statistics, most adult Americans suffer from work-related sleep problems. The Preacher could have told you that thousands of years ago. He knew all about the way the heart struggles to sleep, and if we walk in his footsteps, we will see that every job we do demands toil, huge effort, and endurance. Such knowledge unearths a deep unrest in the human soul, something that he calls the striving of the heart. How can we not end up disillusioned?

Here’s the truth: if you work for dignity, legacy, and wealth alone, you end up with nothing in the end. That desire for permanence, significance, and connection cannot be satisfied in this way. We long for things that will endure, but what we get from work cannot provide them. Remember Genesis? It described what life was like before the curse, how God created the world, made it good, created man and woman, and gave them jobs. When sin came into the world, work changed. It became toil, and it threatened to leave us trapped in its chains.

Jesus refers to this point by telling a story to all the people gathered around Him one day.

And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16–21)

Relax, eat, drink, and be merry because you’ve worked so hard. Isn’t that the kind of advice we get much of the time? Take it easy, acquire more stuff, build bigger barns, fill them with more possessions, and then get back to the business of relaxing, eating, drinking, and making merry.

What we gain from our work is not enough to validate our lives. We might not like it, but we know it to be true, don’t we? And so we find another layer added to the paradox of work: the fact that even though we are compelled to toil, we are aware of its limitations. We experience a deep unrest that stains our enjoyment of the simple things in life.

Could there be some other value to work? Might there be some higher purpose to all this toil? Could it be that our dissatisfaction and frustration with the limitations of work might drive us toward a higher view of things?

And that’s the point of the Preacher’s argument: our frustration is meant to lead us to a third way. A way that Jesus opens up for us here and now.

THE UPWARD REWARD

Having unloaded a truckful of criticism on all that is vanity and meaningless, the Preacher pulls back the curtain in 2:24–26 and allows a little light to shine in. He starts what the rest of the Bible completes:

A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (NIV)

Oh the irony! All this hard work and toil, and it turns out that what we truly need is something that we can’t earn. Why? Because true satisfaction and enjoyment are a gift. The upward reward is actually a gift from God.

We can earn money, we can earn a legacy, and we can even earn dignity, but the truth is that no human being can earn or create true enjoyment and deep satisfaction. Only God can provide that. While we deserve a good wage for hard work, enjoyment is a gift that we cannot earn. It’s given to the one who “pleases God.”

That reference to “the person who pleases [God]” and “the sinner” is interesting. How do I know which category I’m in? How do I know on which side of the line I fall? Look closely enough at the text, and it’s clear: the one who pleases God is the one who receives from God. So how do you please God? By receiving His gift. Can you earn it? Nope. You just have to receive it. Likewise, how do I know if I’m in the sinner’s category? Reject Him; that’s how you know. After all, that is precisely what sin is: a rejection of God. Sin is our unwillingness to come with empty hands and simply receive. Sounds simple, but it’s incredibly humbling.

Perhaps you find this infuriating. After all, we have a natural tendency to think that we must earn God’s favor through hard work. Gifts? No, those are for weak people who can’t work for themselves.

How many times have you heard Christianity trashed for being a crutch? This criticism betrays more about the one making the statement than it does about the one at whom it is directed. Whenever I hear this argument, I have two internal responses. First, why do you have to be a crutch-hater? Second, why are crutches so bad? If I have a broken leg, I need both the crutch and the humility to own up to my weakness so I can use it.

But tell life’s great achievers that ultimate meaning cannot be earned, that it can come only as a gift, and they’ll wince. No way, they will say. Just look at what I’ve done.

Our sense of self-sufficiency bruises easily. For achievers, the need to be seen as achievers calls out their need to be validated, remembered, and loved. As such they spend their lives as their own observers, continually asking how they appear to others.

Is this the right sort of house for someone successful? What about my car? Is my kids’ education saying the right things about us? What about where I shop and the baggage I carry? Is it right? Am I presenting the best me that I can? How can I be more of the me I want to be? I have to be more than this, surely? What about lunch? Can I buy a chicken sandwich from that place, or should I really be eating my lunch with the big boys and girls by now?

This is nothing short of a search for salvation.

The myth that we can earn our own salvation actually robs us of enjoyment. When we try to earn our own satisfaction, even choosing where we go out for dinner tonight becomes a complex emotional proposition, one with potential consequences that could send us up or down the ladder of success.

So many of us feel as though we are in some way entitled to getting what we want. And why wouldn’t we, if we’re convinced that we earn our own way to satisfaction? But there’s a huge difference between going through life like this and approaching each day as a gift. The former feels entitled; the latter is grateful. And guess which one is freed up to enjoy the simple things in life?

That’s precisely how Ecclesiastes drives us to live. It’s telling us that enjoyment comes when we stop trying to earn God’s gift and start receiving God’s gift for us. Jesus said it too, when preaching His Sermon on the Mount. He said that the meek shall inherit the earth. Why? Because the meek are the ones who realize they don’t deserve it.

Do you want to know what the Bible says we deserve? Death and judgment. We don’t even deserve to enjoy the food that we consumed earlier today. Even that was a gift because the Bible says the sun shines and the rain falls on the just and the unjust as part of God’s common grace. What we need is not treasure but to be treasured by the One who created us. Because of sin, there is no way we could earn this. This pleasure and enjoyment are His gift to humanity made available in the gospel. We may be able to earn and receive in the world of commerce, but when it comes to God, our greatest responsibility is to receive. Are you a receiver?

Yet again we’ve arrived at the meeting point of the Preacher and the Son of God. Jesus Christ, the true Preacher-King, came into this world to work. He learned, grew, and spent most of His life working as a carpenter. What does that tell you about work? God built dignity into even the smallest tasks, and we should not despise them, knowing that they are connected to a greater purpose. And the best kind of work is redemptive.

Jesus’s ultimate work was to provide salvation for you and for me through His perfect life, His substitutionary death on the cross, and His resurrection. His life freed us from vanity, freed us from futility and meaninglessness. In the end, as Martin Luther once said, you are saved by works … just not yours.

That has huge consequences for those of you who are frustrated in your jobs and daily tasks. You may not need a new job, but you do need a new boss. You need Jesus to reorient your values, remind you of what matters in life, redirect your gaze away from the inward or the outward reward, and help you look at the reward that comes only from receiving God’s gifts.

THE GOSPEL CHANGES YOUR WORK

When you first realize that the most important thing in life is appreciating that you are treasured and remembered by God as a gift of His grace through Jesus, everything about your work starts to change. Your attitude changes. Your focus changes. You begin to daydream about how you can work to bless others because you’ve been so blessed by God. When you root your value and worth in Him, then your view of your work cannot help but be transformed. Instead of defining us, our work becomes a tool through which God can both use us and bless us. This happens when we make it all about Jesus.

Second, we need to store up treasure in heaven. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean that we stop working here and now, but it does mean that we learn to enjoy and encounter things in this life with an eternal perspective. Wall Street works under the assumption that this is the only life there is—but for the Christian, eternity follows this life. That means that the way we use our time, money, and other resources has an entirely bigger purpose. What’s more, God’s economy is in play right now, and we can use the things we gain to serve others and build for God’s kingdom.

Third, we need to serve the Lord with all of our hearts. Yes, even in that awful job. If enjoyment is a gift and our resources are full of opportunity, then work needs to be seen as having the potential to express our love—our worship—of God. You might have all those difficult people around you at work, and perhaps there’s a reason. Could it be that God has placed you there for a bigger purpose than to simply rattle you? Could you be there for something grander or more heaven-sent? You may not have that job forever, so use it and use it well. Reflect the love of Christ to the people with whom you work. Those difficult situations are not obstacles but opportunities. God uses them to change you and grow you. Remember what difficulty Jesus endured for you. For this reason, Christians should be the most grateful workers.

Everything changes when we realize that we deserve nothing but have been given everything we need. If we’re bitter about our careers or if we’ve discovered a deep unrest in our hearts, Jesus alone provides the rest we need.

One last thing: nothing that we do for Jesus Christ is in vain, because He rose from the dead.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Cor. 15:58)

We have an inheritance in Jesus. The things we say, the things we do have eternal significance and importance. We need to stop trying to get what we deserve and start enjoying what we don’t deserve: the gift of God, the gift of life, even this evening’s meal and sleep and stillness.

We don’t deserve any of it.

So just enjoy it, and remember that it is a gift from God Himself.

NOTES

1. Brady Jones, “Philosophy Paper,” Manchester University, http://users.manchester.edu/student/bajones/ProfWeb/R3.pdf.

2. Derek Kidner, The Message of Ecclesiastes (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1976), 34.

5

IF I ONLY DID

I don’t stop eating when I’m full. The meal isn’t over when I’m full. It’s over when I hate myself.

—Louis C.K.

I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.

—Ecclesiastes 2:1

It was the ultimate night out. Nobody pursued pleasure larger or longer than the Preacher. Nobody spent more, drank more, conquered more, or laughed more than him.

And why not?

After all, isn’t happiness supposed to be one of the most laudable goals we could aim for? Aristotle described it as “something final and self-sufficient, … the end of action,”[1] and the founders of America built this country on the assumption that we value life, liberty, and “the pursuit of happiness.”

While this culture of ours encourages us to chase down happiness, it doesn’t offer much advice on the steps we might take to actually achieve it. Yet maybe it doesn’t need to. Who needs a tutorial on how to be happy when all our compasses seem to automatically spin toward the obvious answer: pleasure.

We all pursue pleasure in one form or another. But it becomes an entirely different story when we give pleasure ultimate and central significance in life. When I was growing up, illness and physical pain plagued my father, which had a huge effect on me. I was not a follower of Christ at the time, and I needed an escape to deal with the sobering reality of suffering. And for me, that escape came in the form of pleasure.

A lot of people move to cities like Los Angeles, New York, and London because they see those places as urban playgrounds for adults that provide all the pleasure anyone could need. Others flock to the suburbs in hopes of remodeling their dream homes, searching for maximum enjoyment. You could even say that in many ways our culture shapes us to think this way, educates us to believe that if we could do it all, then our lives would be perfect.

But try telling that to the person who chased pleasure his whole life. Try telling that to the Preacher.

I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” (Eccles. 2:1)

THE NIGHT OUT

Despite the fact that “if it feels good, do it” is quite possibly one of the worst mantras one could ever choose to live by, the Bible devotes a fair few verses to showing precisely what happens when we live that way. Ecclesiastes takes a different approach to books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy—with their extensive lists of rules for effective living. Instead the book of Ecclesiastes asks, “Okay, what if you spent your whole life pursuing pleasure? Where would it lead you?”

The Preacher sets out to do what innumerable students do every spring break (or what thousands in Hollywood do every weekend): he puts all thoughts of social responsibility, work, and God Almighty out of his mind and dedicates himself to pleasure.

Whatever your tastes, the Preacher’s already been there—and he’s gone a good deal further down the track than you ever could: high culture and low culture, sophisticated and freaky. He’s been from the opera house to the brothel; whatever your brand of pleasure, he’s already tried it. And he gives his verdict in one word:

“Meaningless.”

In his defense, the Preacher goes about it all thoroughly, hoping to discover in pleasure the secret to lasting meaning and joy, because if he didn’t, some of us would be tempted to say, “But he didn’t try …” He even takes notes and writes up the whole assignment for us in Ecclesiastes 2:1–11, which I will summarize here.

First he tries laughter.

He joined the hordes of people taking the Monty Python route through life and saying, “When you’re chewing on life’s gristle, don’t grumble, give a whistle.” Now, there’s nothing wrong with laughter, nothing wrong with comedy, but when it becomes a way to avoid life’s questions, then we’re in trouble. As Smokey Robinson observed in “The Tears of a Clown,” the smile on our faces could actually mask our sadness. For myself, laughter is often a way of avoiding the serious things I need to deal with. Perhaps you are the same. It’s once been said that the life of the party is often the loneliest soul in the room. The Preacher works this one out pretty quickly, later commenting that “as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity” (Eccles. 7:6).

With laughter checked off the list, he moves on to fine wine. We’re not quite sure whether he was a connoisseur or an open-up-the-keg kinda guy, but I’m not all that sure the difference really matters much. I went to high school in the beautiful Sonoma Valley wine country, and though the “upper crust” of society visiting the wineries on holiday would often look down upon me and my friends, who drank cheap beer, we all got hammered just the same. And though my crew paid less for drinks, we all sought the same thing: escape through alcohol. The Bible does not see alcohol as a sin in itself but points to the abuse of it as a thing to avoid. When we use it to medicate the soul, we end up in trouble.

So then the Preacher moves on to creativity and innovation. He builds houses, plants vineyards, and sculpts gardens and parks and orchards. He commissions great architectural projects—redirecting watercourses and replanting forests. He creates a miniworld that bears his fingerprints, and in the space of just three verses we read, “I … I … myself … I … I …” Creating is good, as are building and reordering and replanting, but there will always be a question as to why we build. Is it just for the sake of good architecture, or is it a monument or a memorial to our own fame? Is all our creating driven by a love of the common good or a selfish streak in our egos?

Next up is power.

There’s no point in trying to hide it, and the Preacher is as blatant as they come. He “acquires” whatever he wants, and in this case his eyes fall on servants. So he buys people—both male and female—and breeds them. Perhaps today he would boast about his social-media-follower total or concentrate his efforts on building his corporation. Whatever the expression of power, the root is the same: a desire to be known and respected because of the power we wield over others.

How about a little retail therapy? (Los Angeles loves this one, by the way.) Here the Preacher heads deliberately into a period of unbridled materialism, of consumerism with the hand brake off—something that (worryingly) might appear slightly unremarkable to the modern Western reader. He buys livestock, precious metals, and more. You can almost hear the hollow feeling in his voice as we read his report.

So what about entertainment? Can that help? He throws himself into the beauty and power of music, embraces art and culture, and scores season tickets to all the best shows, but the write-up barely spans a single line of Scripture.

Sex, perhaps? Well, he certainly gave it a good try. If King Solomon was the writer of Ecclesiastes, then the author had three hundred concubines in addition to his seven hundred wives. So, yes, I think we can say that he had a lot of sex. Perhaps this creates a gap between us. After all, who among us has been with that many partners? Can you still really get concubines in the twenty-first century? How can that level of promiscuity be possible?

You can, and it is. Porn makes polygamists, pimps, and traffickers of us all. But for those who may not go so far, there is still the deceptive belief that what you’re really missing in life is sexual release. So great is this perception that it has taken on almost religious proportions in our culture. Self-denial in the area of sexual appetites is seen as the new immorality, and celibacy is seen to be a form of hell. But what does the Preacher say after countless sexual encounters?

Vanity.

And so concludes his night out, and it is a picture of the hedonist in action.

THE MORNING AFTER

I can’t even recall how many times in my younger years I would wake up after a night of pleasure-pursuit feeling twice as empty as I had before. Only it wasn’t just one night. It lasted several years. I see this happen often in my own church. Giving in to the constant lure of escape-through-pleasure, church members will disappear for several months only to return wounded and twice as empty. The Preacher appears to know this feeling as well. He pursued sex, drugs, and ancient choirs, and he did everything bigger and bolder than anyone else. But after the party has ended, the Preacher delivers his verdict:

So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. (Eccles. 2:9–11)

Nobody can say to the Preacher, “You just didn’t get high/rich/creative/entrepreneurial/wasted/crazy/powerful enough.” Nobody can accuse him of paddling in the shallow waters. Nope, he did it all, and still he came to the same conclusion as many of the rest of us: none of it can save us, and none of it can sustain us beyond the grave. None of it is anything other than vanity.

Don’t we all in some way know this to be true? We might not go as far, but haven’t we all noticed the decline of the buzz that used to keep our eyes wide and hearts beating? That’s why pleasure as an end in itself is vanity, why it is ultimately meaningless and deceiving. It is full of promise right up to the point when we taste it. And the more we taste, the more we need to keep the pleasure levels up.

Pleasure “under the sun” never truly—or consistently—satisfies. That’s why, when he was asked the question “How much is enough?” America’s first billionaire, John Rockefeller, answered with these words: “Just a little bit more.”

Our appetites for pleasure are insatiable. We can be addicted to things under the sun, but they always fail to satisfy. Pleasure is not the same thing as joy. Pleasure does not always equal happiness. We are no more able to make ourselves happy with pleasure than we are able to fly.

Isn’t that a little unfair? I mean, here we are, trapped on this temporary earth with all these temporary pleasures; what will see us through? The Preacher presses us when he answers this question:

Why should pleasure be permanent when we who chase it are not?

Our vineyards will rot, and so will we. Our highs will fade, and so will we. Our monuments will decay, and so will we. Why on earth would we think that pleasure could be anything other than a temporary distraction?

THE PLEASURE SEEKER’S PROBLEM

The real problem is that pleasure by itself has no lasting purpose. Yes, it can alter the moment, but it can too easily become a distraction from what we know to be true. Remember what the Preacher had to say about the garden he created? There among his allusions to Genesis, the Preacher creates a secular garden of Eden, his own version of paradise. He creates a garden without boundaries or limits, but also, as he writes, a garden without purpose.

When we become addicted to the pursuit of pleasure, we are not only experiencing a psychological problem and a physical problem but ultimately a spiritual one as well. As the Preacher goes on to say in chapter 7, “God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes” (v. 29). We were made to lift our eyes above simple pleasures. When we make pleasure seeking our primary purpose, we alienate ourselves from God. That’s called idolatry, and—according to the legalist religious person—it’s precisely why we should avoid all pleasure. To the legalist anything involving pleasure is evidence of sin.

That is a common perception of Christians. H. L. Mencken once joked that Christian Puritans were those people with “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time.” Unfortunately, this kind of thinking is still seen as a viable and laudable alternative to the pleasure-focused life.

I knew a man who would frequently attend our church services on Sundays in Hollywood, but he didn’t come to learn about Jesus. His goal was to tell as many people as possible that they were wrong. He would look for any hint of immodesty among the women so that he could condemn them. He would speak to any guy he saw just for the chance to tell him that he wasn’t holy enough. In this man’s mind, everyone needed to be like him. If everyone in LA could just live like me, he thought, then they would truly be free. He was a legalist.

But the irony that I would like to point out here is that the legalist and the hedonist have much in common. They are equally self-centered and driven by ego. Being proved right is pleasurable. Being better than others makes them smile. The next high is found in showing themselves to be more righteous than someone else. The kind of person who deals in legalism uses God as a tool, a useful device for easing his or her conscience. (Once I preached on this, by the way, that guy stopped coming around.) Legalists are the worst advertisements for the Christian faith because they are just hedonists in disguise.

Chances are that you’re not a drug-snorting, prostitute-paying, or empire-building hedonist, nor are you a sour-faced-looking prude in uncomfortable shoes. You’re probably like me—between the two extremes of hedonism and legalism. You try to enjoy the things God made but experience guilt when too much of that pleasure takes your eyes away from our Father. We’re all guilty of making choices that take us in the wrong direction, all guilty of getting our priorities wrong.

Jesus was right when He asked, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matt. 16:26). We can experience all the pleasure that life can offer under the sun, yet without God there can be no true satisfaction, no way to avoid the threat of the spiritual death that will inevitably follow our physical decline.

The morning after is a terrible place to live.

THE NEW DAWN

God does not play games. He did not create pleasure as a trap or a rabbit trail. Instead He created the garden for our enjoyment and pleasure for a purpose. Food, drink, intimacy, and creativity are all here to be enjoyed, each a gift from our Creator to be used in ways that honor Him.

The human heart’s appetite for pleasure is not inherently wrong. The problem comes when our appetites turn us away from God. We all have desires, desires given to us by our Creator God. Our hearts need satisfaction, and our souls need connection. God does not forbid pleasure; He simply reminds us of the vanity of trying to find purpose in pleasure or trying to find pleasure in the wrong ways.

Read what C. S. Lewis had to say on this:

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.[2]

How strange it is that we often declare some desires good and some desires bad without considering God’s opinion. The Bible declares that it is God who is the Creator of pleasure, and true happiness can be found only when we learn to live the way that God called us to live—and observe the boundaries He put in place. Contrary to popular opinion, that b-word is not a bad word at all; rather it’s a sign of God’s love and care for us. Every musician knows that it’s hard to enjoy playing with another musician who fails to stick to the same key and rhythm, and the same is true of life in general. By observing and obeying God’s own boundaries, we find ourselves on the path to lasting happiness.

To make this practical, try answering the following questions:

What do you enjoy doing?

How can those things draw you closer to God?

How can those things take you further away from Him?

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to enjoy the things we love the way that God intended? How much better would it be if we could have money but not live for it, if we could be artists but not build our existence on that identity? When we learn to enjoy things in right relation to God, we actually find that our sense of fulfillment increases. We find that while we might all live in a world of vanity, we do not have to live according to vanity. How we do this all comes down to perspective: we must learn to see through the eyes of the Creator.

THE TRUTH ABOUT HAPPINESS

We started with a slight complaint about the fact that a whole nation can be built on the pursuit of happiness without any explicit mention of which direction the search party should be sent. But have you heard the words that Jesus spoke to the woman at the well?

Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (John 4:13–14)

Jesus is the true Preacher-King who brings the joy we need. He is the One who brings the enjoyment that we missed in the garden, because He brings us into right relationship with God. He is the source of true intimacy, true pleasure, and true joy.

And Jesus knows the pressures of life under the sun. He was tempted to live for vanity—to place pleasure above His Father—but He resisted. Why? Because He knew the truth about pleasure. As God in the flesh, Jesus saw through the lie of the pleasure-as-purpose approach. We experience true pleasure by pleasing God, and Jesus came to live, die, and rise so that this would become true of us. Even though our sin for abusing pleasure made us guilty in God’s sight, the Father sent the Son to redeem and make us beautiful in His sight. Knowing that God delights in us despite who we’ve been is the greatest pleasure in the universe. That’s why we can live the way we do, enduring hardship without being crushed and knowing the passing of pleasures without defeat.

All this talk of abusing pleasure may have triggered a sense of guilt and shame in you. You need to know this: Jesus died for it all. You can rest in the forgiveness granted through His redeeming work and move forward by His redeeming power.

New York City Pastor Tim Keller once said that the legalist sees God as useful (and I would add that the hedonist sees God as optional), but the Christian sees God as beautiful. Once we grasp this final truth, we can see God’s beauty and pleasure in all things that bear His fingerprints. To quote Lewis again: “Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”[3]

The Preacher has urged us to look at wisdom, at work, and now at pleasure. At every turn he reminds us of the limits attached to each of these elements. Our own DNA locks human wisdom into place. Work cannot grant us access to a life beyond the grave. Momentary pleasures will end, just like each and every one of us.

Maybe you’re happy just going down whistling like the end credits of a Monty Python movie, but doesn’t something inside you rebel against such futility? Instead of amusing yourself to death, why not allow your journey to be radically redirected by the truth revealed by God?

You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Ps. 16:11)

This redirection changes everything in life, both big and small, spiritual and practical. Next we’ll take a good look at the assets at our disposal and how they impact us. The Preacher won’t allow us to stick to big-picture answers; instead he takes us down to the day-to-day stuff that clutters our hearts.

NOTES

1. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book 1, section 7.

2. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 26.

3. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 116.

PART TWO: ASSETS

HOW DO WE USE WHAT WE HAVE IN LIFE?

6

MONEY

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

—Oscar Wilde

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.

—Ecclesiastes 5:10

John Wesley, the great evangelist of the Great Awakening in the 1730s, was once told by a friend that his brother had converted to Jesus. John responded immediately with mild skepticism and words along the lines of, “Hmm, very interesting. Has his wallet been converted too?” His concern was well aimed. The way we view money says so much about us.

What would it be like if there was just one test in life? Forget math exams, driving tests, and Little League games. What if the only thing God judged us on was the way we used money? What if our bank statements became the sole evidence we could submit in defense of our spiritual condition?

Money gets everywhere, further than we may be willing to admit. It’s in our politics and in our pulpits. Money informs our education, sets limits on our health care, and plays a significant role in our development. Money can bring happiness, despair, anxiety, elation, and more. The Bible reminds us that money affects our very souls, and if you want proof, recall the last time that your bank statement surprised you with an unforeseen overdraft.

Let’s be honest—most of us would be instantly happier if a giant suitcase full of money dropped onto our doorstep right now. It would certainly help put our life script into action. What does that say about how we view money?

Today, the words of Oscar Wilde about the importance of money carry just as much weight and power as they did in the nineteenth century. Admittedly, money can serve humanity well—it can build safe houses, provide clean water, and even educate a nation. But money can also break apart marriages, provide weapons to warlords, and bring entire populations to their knees. For most of us, how we use money is a mixture of the good and the bad.

Little wonder that so many books on money get published each year. We all know that we have things to learn when it comes to finances, and we want to get better. The question is, when it comes to money, what on earth does “getting better” look like? Well, first, what does the Bible say about money?

Let’s start with Ecclesiastes.

The Preacher again offers a hand and invites us to join him on the journey. He will not let us hide behind simplistic answers. This is life we’re talking about, and we’ve got only the one. It is for freedom that we must face the issues.

From Ecclesiastes 5:8 through 6:9, the Preacher blows our cover when it comes to money and challenges the ways we view and use it. He highlights our greed, our denial, and the awkward truth that money reveals about our spiritual state. That’s right. How we relate to money says an awful lot about the spiritual condition of our souls.

THE FIVE HABITS OF FINANCIALLY UNHEALTHY PEOPLE

The Preacher is clear and somewhat systematic, offering a thorough guide to the ways in which you and I can stumble and fall.

1. Moral Blindness

If you see oppression of the poor and denial of justice and righteousness in the province, do not be shocked at the sight; for one official watches over another official, and there are higher officials over them. After all, a king who cultivates the field is an advantage to the land.

—Ecclesiastes 5:8–9 NASB

How’s that for brutal honesty? Oppression, injustice, and self-serving greed—the unfortunate truth about all these things is that they are all to be expected when money is involved. But what do we do when profit becomes the ultimate and only goal? We turn away, ignore the truth, and redefine morality as the price of doing business. We deal in us versus them, rarely applying the same criteria to ourselves as we do to others. What we consider to be greed in another person we excuse as “investing for the future,” or “yes, but I just have a little weakness for new shoes” in ourselves. Let’s face it—when greed rules, hypocrisy abounds. There is greed within each of us, and moral blindness lures us all in. When we let greed and moral blindness take control of our lives, we find ourselves in trouble.

But owning up to greed is not enough. Jesus warned us to be on our guard against greed, although He didn’t issue a similar warning against adultery or murder. Why? Because those sins are obvious. Who, in the middle of an extramarital affair, throws back the sheets and cries: “Oh, wow! I’m committing adultery! I had no idea that the lust, the porn, the lack of effort in my marriage, the inappropriate friendship, the crossed boundary, the lunches, the texts, or the contrived excuses to spend time alone together would ever end up like this.”

Lust is obvious, just like anger. But greed is different from other sins. Greed is subtle. Greed knows how to hide in our blind spots. Greed lingers in most of us even though few have the guts to admit it.

2. Insatiability

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.

—Ecclesiastes 5:10 NASB

Some say that the fastest-growing religion in the West is materialism. We see material things as having the power to solve all our problems. After all, we say to ourselves, “If I just had more money, so many of these problems would disappear.”

It’s a common symptom displayed by those of us afflicted with greed: we can never get enough. The Preacher reminds us of the depths to which we sink—how we “love” money, how we “love” abundance. Yet this is a one-way relationship, and one that can never truly satisfy us. Does that sound like a healthy investment to you?

That’s why Mark Twain parodied Scripture when he wrote that “the lack of money is the root of all evil.” It might make us smile, but for some of us it resonates deeply. The things we feel that we are missing cause us real frustration and sorrow. Regardless of whether we have much or whether we have little, whether we are part of the so-called 1 percent or 99 percent, financial insatiability can affect us all.

3. Worry

When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look on? The sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much; but the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep.

—Ecclesiastes 5:11–12 NASB

Oscar Wilde seemed to have a thing for money and an understanding of its pitfalls. He said there is only one class in the community that thinks about money as much as the rich: those who are not rich. The sleeplessness that the Preacher refers to is the insomnia of worry, an inevitable consequence of greed, even if you don’t have money.

Don’t you just love the irony? We desire money, we love it, we’re constantly chasing it, yet once we get plenty of it, we worry about it. The more we have, the more we worry about it, the more problems it brings, the more people chase us for a slice of it.

Compare that to the one who has just enough to live on: the “working man.” In the ancient world, the average worker didn’t really have much of a career ladder to climb, so he never really had to worry about losing wealth that way. Yet those who have wealth have always had to wrestle with the constant threat of losing it. In other words, just maintaining wealth can be every bit as stressful as gaining it in the first place.

Think about it for a minute. We show greed not just by our love of money but also by the way we worry about it. Understanding this helped me realize for the first time that I struggle with greed. I don’t drive a Porsche or a Ferrari or live in a penthouse, but I worry about money all the time … and my anxiety betrays my greed.

What about you? Do you get that knot in your stomach or that tightening in your chest when you log onto your bank account? Does money cause you undue worry? If so, the issue may lie with your heart, not your income.

4. Hoarding

There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: riches being hoarded by their owner to his hurt. When those riches were lost through a bad investment and he had fathered a son, then there was nothing to support him. As he had come naked from his mother’s womb, so will he return as he came.

—Ecclesiastes 5:13–15 NASB

For clarification, hoarding according to Ecclesiastes is not the same thing as saving. Saving can be a very wise act. But hoarding is selfish, fear-based stockpiling. In this passage, the Preacher links hoarding to pain by means of money’s fickle nature. Economies can tank, we can make bad decisions, and money can be lost.

Hoarding is a fool’s game.

Then comes the reality check. Even if you don’t lose it in a bad venture, you’ll still end up like everyone else, losing all of your money when you die. The Preacher says that each of us will leave this world the same way that we came into it: empty-handed and without possessions. How can hoarding be anything other than vanity? People are dying for money, and they will all die without it.

5. Dissatisfaction

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun and it is prevalent among men—a man to whom God has given riches and wealth and honor so that his soul lacks nothing of all that he desires; yet God has not empowered him to eat from them, for a foreigner enjoys them. This is vanity and a severe affliction.

—Ecclesiastes 6:1–2 NASB

It might seem ridiculous and wrong, but wealth can lead to dissatisfaction. John Rockefeller, the richest billionaire of his time, spent his final seasons of life struggling with an illness that removed his enjoyment of basic food. A bit of coffee and a bite of food was all he could ever manage to keep down.

Yup, says the Preacher. That’s the way it goes with money.

We spend so much time weighing people by their apparent wealth, but judging in this way is not wise. Couldn’t it all be lost in a moment? Do they really have it so much better than you do? Is that extra zero or two on their bank balance the difference between your idea of success and failure? Is that how we judge a life?

TWO TESTS

I’ve stood at the front of many church services, and I’ve seen a lot of people come up to the front for prayer. If the call goes out for those struggling with sexual lust, anger, or the need for reconciliation, you can be sure that the lines will form fast and the tears will flow. But greed? People don’t often ask for prayer to deal with greed. There are only two possible explanations—and one of them has been shown to be wrong. Either greed is not a problem (even though it is), or we don’t realize that we’re greedy.

For most of us, money equals one or more of the three Ss: Status, Security, or Solution. For each of these potentials, there’s a corresponding crash. We get either depressed, anxious, or angry when money doesn’t come through. Not so? Try asking yourself how you respond when you’re around people who have what you don’t have. My guess is that if your relationship with money is not healthy, then somewhere along the way you will notice depression, anxiety, or anger creeping in.

Or here’s another test for you. Try asking your friends or your spouse if they think you’re too focused on money. Most people talk about money more than they realize. Maybe you’re one of them. Wouldn’t you like to know? Ask!

Jesus had more to say about money and possessions than He did about sex. When He talked about money, He used parables like the seed falling on fertile or thorny ground, describing the way we can block the truth of the gospel with the “cares of this life.”

He weighed in again in Matthew 6:24. He says no one can serve two masters. That person either will hate the one and love the other or will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Perhaps we wouldn’t attach religious terminology to money, and perhaps the idea of us serving money just seems ridiculous. But is it? Are you sure you don’t treat money as an idol? What kind of sacrifices do you make for the sake of earning a little extra? Family? Faith? Integrity? Health?

Read Paul’s description of the desire and the love for money:

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1 Tim. 6:9–10)

Paul writes that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”—not the root. Yet he makes it clear that greed is a sin. Why? Because it replaces God and corrupts the soul. Yes, our heart’s appetite for money is an indicator of our spiritual welfare.

Greed affects us all, regardless of our religious beliefs.

THE BETTER WAY

Whatever you do, don’t give up reading now. Not when the news on money is about to get a whole lot better:

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. (Eccles. 5:19–20)

Money itself is not the problem; rather our true weakness is our appetite for it. And just as it is wrong to abuse money, so it is also wrong to avoid it. Do you see the ray of hope that the Preacher provides in these verses? He highlights the hallmarks of a healthy attitude toward money: a right and proper enjoyment coupled with contentment. Most people who love money drive themselves into excessive debt by spending what they don’t have in order to live in the realm of what the “soul desires” rather than enjoying what is already in their hands. Where’s the enjoyment in that?

Don’t forget that the Preacher makes it clear that some people are blessed with riches while others are not. In verses 19 and 20, he describes someone who is not exempt from financial difficulty but does not base his or her entire existence on money. That’s contentment.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones called this idea of contentment “blessed detachment.” Being content means that your sense of self-worth, meaning, and faith do not depend on your bank balance. To be content is to view and use money in a right way. That means not seeing it as an end or as a goal—this too is vanity—but instead seeing money for what it really is.

And what is that?

Money is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. It is a morally neutral tool that you can use for either good things or bad things. It’s not an end in and of itself, but it can be a kingdom tool. Tomorrow’s purchases could link you to sweatshops in Bangladesh or microfinance projects in Burundi. You could invest in slavery or freedom, put your money in a bank that supports the arms trade, or take your trade to someone who builds local communities from the ground up. Money is a tool.

Los Angeles has the second-largest school district in America. Needless to say, right now it’s struggling in a time of economic crisis. The church that I pastor has always met in schools, and though other venues are always an option for us, we value the fact that renting school theaters and classrooms not only provides us with the opportunity to gather together on Sundays but also brings in much-needed income to help pay school bills and teacher salaries.

Here’s a more personal example: I budget money to take all my girls out on dates. No, I’m not a polygamist—I have a beautiful wife and three lovely daughters, ages eight, five, and one. I try to take my wife out weekly, and every Monday morning I take my two oldest daughters out to get hot chocolate before school. Could I make it at home with prepackaged Swiss Miss and save some cash? I suppose. But my daughters love the chance to do something special with Daddy, and I hope that every Monday creates special memories for them later on down the road. For me, that’s worth frequenting the overpriced LA coffee shops.

The same principle applies to your family and church: money is a tool. It can—and should—be something that blesses, helps, and encourages them to thrive. It’s not an end in itself, but it is a tool to get the gospel out, to feed and clothe the poor, and to provide for our families. These are good things to do—great things—and we should embrace them with God-given joy. I have had the wonderful opportunity to see great examples over the years of people who have indeed been blessed financially and yet use what they have in radically generous ways. They understand money as a kingdom tool.

FROM GREED TO GRATITUDE

The Preacher mentions God three times by name and once as the pronoun “He” in Ecclesiastes 5:19–20 (NASB). God is the focus of the passage, just as He is the source of all life.

The fortress of greed starts to crumble when we learn to view our life, once again, as a gift from God. And when we see our material wealth as a gift, that perspective can change how we see the wealth of others. If God decides to bless someone with money, it is for His glory, not because of that person’s spiritual superiority.

Too many Christians—especially in Western culture—sign up for a prosperity gospel (the idea that God makes everyone financially rich if they have enough faith). This idea used to be really popular, but I think the recession took the wind out of its sails a little, because evidently not everyone is going to get rich these days. But still, the prosperity gospel often blames poverty (or lack of wealth) on a lack of faith. Too much debt equals not enough faith. It’s entirely unbiblical because the Bible says that whatever wealth God gives is simply a gift of grace. Wealth doesn’t come to us because we deserve it—no, God gives it to us as He wills to be used for His purposes. And not everyone will get the same amount. And that’s okay.

The apostle Paul learned to be content when he had a lot and when he had nothing at all. I’m sure that each circumstance required him to learn a different lesson. Yet each one had at its core the truth that money—and life itself—is a gift from God, pure and simple. Your life expectations must allow for times of lack and times of plenty because there are lessons to be learned in both seasons.

Eventually, all this talk about life as a gift will cause something to click inside us, to help us see the ultimate gift of eternal life behind it all. If we can’t receive that one, then it will be impossible to avoid meaninglessness and judgment. Without the gift of eternal life—and the gift of God Himself in the gospel—none of this makes sense.

Remember Jesus’s prayer?

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

What we really need in life is satisfaction, not money. I’m not talking post-Thanksgiving full-belly satisfaction, but the type of satisfaction that goes to the deepest part of our hearts, leaves us at peace, and calms the urge to strive and struggle so much. Money and possessions will never give us that kind of peace. Only Jesus can do that.

Do you want to know the secret to finding contentment in life? It is being able to depend on and enjoy God. Ecclesiastes 5:20 reminds us how a person’s heart is occupied with God. The Preacher says that content people will not go back over their days of vanity but instead will allow God to keep them occupied with the joy of their hearts.

So many people miss this.

So many Christians miss this.

We leave God out of the picture when it comes to issues of money and possessions. We forget that God is almighty, that He is the ultimate source of satisfaction. We opt for weak theology instead of true God centeredness, and as a result, the way we use money suffers. Weak theology will produce weak men and women.

THREE STEPS

How do we keep our hearts from greed? We can finish this chapter with these three practical steps.

Prayer

When you go over to the home of that person who has so much more money than you, pray. Ask God to help you to view it rightly and to have a blessed detachment. Or what about when you have a raise or an inheritance coming? The principle’s the same—pray. And in your prayers, surrender your will to God’s. Ask Him to help you be content and appreciate all that He has already given you. Talk to God about your heart when it comes to money.

Instruction

Some people just need instruction about money and how the Bible says it’s to be used. Thankfully Scripture is full of wisdom and teaching on our finances, so read it. It helps guard against greed and teaches people how to advance gospel work, help the needy, bless our friends and family, and build community. The Bible communicates the proper use of money and will teach us how to rightly think about it.

Generosity

Make sacrifices, be generous, and give things away. And not just in the future when you’re rich; do it now. Today. I have a lot of college students in my church, and they often talk about how they don’t have a lot to give when it comes to money. But the point, I tell them, is to be generous.

For some of you, giving five dollars would be generous—so give! Why wait? If we don’t learn to be generous with what we have now, what makes us think we will be generous later? Generosity is supposed to be a mark of the Christian life, and God meant for us to be generous with our families—our nuclear family, our church family, and even our community. I know that there are times when we have more and times when we have less, but generosity is not about what we give away so much as it’s about what we keep back.

God enables us to enjoy temporary things when we keep them in eternal perspective, and He helps us see how those temporary things—like money—can be used for eternal purposes. Temporary things become eternal investments.

We’ve all received the gift of human life, but not everyone has yet received the gift of eternal life. If you’ve not received this gift from God, you need to receive it by faith now. It’s a gift for you, so take it. Don’t allow money to control you; instead allow the love of Christ to compel you. Sign up for a different economy: the economy of grace.

Maybe you need a change of heart concerning money. It’s going to happen only when you see that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, gave up the riches of heaven and became poor and died for our greedy sins so that we might become rich in Him. It’s only when you realize that He made you His treasure that you slacken the grip on the treasure in your own hands. Jesus alone gives you the ultimate status and security, because He is the ultimate solution.

That’s where it all gets better. The “road” in our script should be paved not with gold but with gratitude.

7

TIME

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.

—Mother Teresa

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

—Ecclesiastes 3:1

They say that it took five days and seventy-eight takes to get it right, but you can never really be too sure about these kinds of stories. What is clear about the Byrds’ hit single “Turn! Turn! Turn!”—its lyrics borrowed entirely from the book of Ecclesiastes—is that it struck a chord with 1965 America. As the Vietnam War continued to escalate, there was something powerful about those assurances that everything had its time. And the Byrds were right: peace would come, and the fighting would cease. Just not quite as quickly as everyone might have hoped. Does it ever?

Time plays an important role in our life stories. Even right now you might feel frustrated because the current season of your life has lasted too long—far longer than your script planned. Where I’m from, there are plenty of people who are convinced that they were on the verge of a breakthrough when the economy collapsed in 2008, which extended their seasons of difficulties.

There are also the moments when we realize that time is running out. The impact can be profound as we wake up to the fact that this moment, those hours, that year, or our childhoods are gone forever. Perhaps that leaves you sighing with relief, welling up with grief, or simply numb and immobile. Whatever the reaction, the truth remains the same. Those moments are never coming back. Time is the river that can never be diverted.

Almost impossible to define, yet observed and experienced by all, time is the next subject that we will explore with the Preacher. He’s considered our perception of wisdom, pleasure, work, and money. These are all practical, tangible things, so why step into the realm of the intangible?

So far the Preacher—having searched everything on offer under the sun—has found nothing that can add meaning to life. After all of this, who can blame him for getting a little philosophical and poetic and for producing one of the most beautiful and often-quoted passages of Scripture?

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal. (Eccles. 3:1–3)

You know how the rest of it goes, don’t you?

The Preacher takes a look at life under the sun and tells us what he sees. Life, death, friendship, hatred, creativity, destruction … he sees them all. And so will we in our lives. We should not be utterly shocked by his conclusions. This is where his experience helps us and points us toward what the rest of Scripture says about these seasons. He sees life as a series of events, often conflicting, sometimes painful, sometimes bringing joy, and sometimes completely and utterly out of our control.

How do we approach life when it throws so many conflicting seasons at us? How do we make the best use of the time we have?

WHAT TIME IS IT?

The year my father died was followed by the year my first child was born. Often in that season marked by the collision of grief and joy—and in the chaos of time’s passing—I felt confused and conflicted. Was I allowed to feel sad when my little girl was around? Could I legitimately experience excitement even though I had recently buried my dad? Time often throws paradoxes at us, and the Preacher understands:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (Eccles. 3:11)

What does it all mean when added together? Well, here are a few things the Preacher knows and observes about time.

He sees that time is both beautiful and burdensome. Call it a rhythm, a sense of order, or a divinely orchestrated dance—time appears to have some structure or purpose behind it. And that is beautiful.

But the burden is also clear. Those seasons come and go with apparently increasing speed. Every breath we take is a breath closer to our last, and every year brings the same news cycles of war, famine, hatred, and evil. These times weigh heavily upon us all.

The Preacher describes you and me well in these verses quoted above. He sees humans as longing and yet limited creatures. We have an innate, God-placed desire to know what is beyond us and an innate, God-placed inability to do anything about it. We hunger for God, yet we are powerless to control Him.

Derek Kidner, an amazing commentator, described it like this: “We are like the desperately nearsighted, inching their way along some great tapestry or fresco in an attempt to take it in.”[1]

We see enough of the picture to recognize its quality, but the grand design escapes us. For we can never stand back far enough to view the masterpiece as its Creator can. You and I can never see life from beginning to end, and beyond that, we will never fully understand all that God does.

So do we need to relax, let the cards fall where they will, and take life as it finds us? Well—to the extent that we need to acknowledge God as in control, rather than trying to control everything ourselves—yes, we do. We must learn to accept the limitations that God has allowed into our lives.

Now, don’t make a mistake. The Preacher is not saying that this is some kind of hard determinism. We still have responsibilities. We make choices that matter. We are allowed to dream up a life script. But his point is that no one can control God or the times and seasons that come and go in our lives. And yet God has put within us this longing to know more than we currently do. Why? Why would He do that? Why create something with an innate frustration?

The fact that we are longing is a clue in itself. C. S. Lewis worked the puzzle out like this: “If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”[2]

The longing is a clue, and the answer is found in our God.

I perceived there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

I perceived that whatever God does endures forever. (Eccles. 3:12–14)

What time is it? It’s actually a very simple question with a very simple answer: it is time to make the best of what we have been given before God and humanity. That might mean that we’re bent over, fighting for breath through the tears, or perhaps we’re standing tall on the edge of the hill, arms flung wide and lungs unleashed in praise and thanks to God. Either way, this time has a purpose, this life has meaning, and we find purpose and meaning when we acknowledge that God is above it all.

So much of our frustration with the passing of time comes from our misplaced assumption that we can control our lives. Compared to real life, our self-penned script allows far less time for the difficult seasons and far more time for the victory laps. Whatever place we’re in now, the Preacher’s advice is that all of this can—and should—drive us toward God, the only One who can control things. If we want to understand the times and seasons we’re living in, we need to see them through the eyes of the Creator, and the second half of verse 14 helps us see more clearly. We are reminded that things are the way they are so that we will fear Him. Okay, perhaps the f-word there is a little confusing. A better translation of the word fear in this passage would be “approach with reverence or awe,” meaning that God puts time beyond our control so that we learn to trust Him. There’s a freedom that comes from realizing that we are dependent on God, that there’s nothing we can do to change His plans.

This is where we have a choice.

We can humble ourselves before God today and recognize that He is in control, or we can choose to stand against Him. Humanity made its choice long ago, and we opted to go our own way.

THE TIMELESS GOD

In the thousands of years since Ecclesiastes was written, people have been born, felt as though they were making some progress in life, and died. The times have changed, but the experiences remain the same. All you can ever do is everything that everybody else has ever done, either a little different, a little better, or a little worse. There’s nothing new under the sun.

But look out beyond the sun, and everything changes. There we see God, unbound by our physical laws of decay, immortal and invincible.

In some ways it’s quite a frightening prospect. The idea of God being timeless, of Him being so other, so much bigger than us—I mean, how can we ever hope to relate to a God like that? Can a timeless God also be personal?

According to the rest of the Bible, the answer is a resounding yes. Remember the words that Jesus used to announce the start of His public ministry? He said:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel. (Mark 1:15)

What follows these audacious words is the gospel—the good news about the timeless God who stepped into our world of time, endured the suffering and frustration of every season in order to free us from its vanity. He came at just the right time. Read through Jesus’s life and work, and you will see that He always knew the right time for everything. Even if it seemed unorthodox to the public, Jesus’s timing was impeccable.

When somebody spends time making a gift of some kind for you, isn’t it touching? Visit me in my home, and I will proudly show you any number of artifacts and installations made for me by my daughters. These things are a beautiful collision of art, imagination, hours of concentration and effort, feathers, glue, and whatever else the girls found in the kitchen drawers. Every time I look at the art, I feel special. My daughters spent their time for me.

Let’s be clear about this. Jesus spent His whole life for you. He spent His time for you, living rightly in this world, suffering on the cross. Naked, tortured, broken—it was His choice to endure these things for you, to pay the penalty for your sins. And it gets better. Jesus still spends His time for you. He rose again for you, and forever He lives at the right hand of the Father to be your mediator, representing you perfectly before God. No agent in LA would ever or could ever do that.

Time is currency, and Jesus Christ spent His entire life in this world for the ultimate redemptive purpose. He used His time so that we might have a relationship with the eternal and timeless God, allowing us in the process to discover the satisfaction for which we long.

If we are serious about avoiding a life of vanity, we need to approach our time the way that Jesus did. When great opportunities arrive, what will we choose? When we are faced with great trials and tragedies, how will we respond? When the seasons are defined by growth or scarred by death, will we choose to see through God’s eyes or limit our sight to our own senses?

THE ART OF BEING TIMELY

If that was the big picture, what about the detailed, practical view? I mean, it’s all well and good to write something like, “We need to approach our time the way that Jesus did,” but what are the steps we must take in order to live that out?

Now is a good time to ask.

The first point: do not be surprised when bad seasons come. Though we probably didn’t draft a ton of difficult seasons into our life script, they are all a part of every life lived. That is why so many people have related to the beautiful poem in Ecclesiastes. Are we to imagine that hard times won’t happen to us? They will.

The second point is this: you will know how to respond rightly to the many seasons of life when you respond rightly to the God who created them.

Okay, but how?

Remember that line about awe and faith? Paul the apostle says in Ephesians 5, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (vv. 15–17).

We might not be responsible for the times and seasons that have come into our lives, but we are all responsible for how we respond to them. So how are we responding? Are we wrestling with God or demonstrating our trust in Him? Are we obsessed with knowing the details of His plans or facing the seasons with awe and humility?

The third point comes in here: we need to equip ourselves. We can be so like the disciples, who—after Jesus died and rose again—barraged Him with questions. They asked Him when exactly they could expect Him to restore the kingdom. They asked whether it would be soon-like-next-month, or soon-like-next-year because, you know, it would really help with their planning.

And what was Jesus’s response?

“It is not for you to know” (Acts 1:7).

We always want the itinerary. Perhaps we’d settle for a scaled-down, simplified version, but we still want the outline of things to come. We want to know how these seasons will work out.

What does Jesus say?

“Now is not the time for you to know.”

His reasons belong to Him. He does not always give us the details, like He didn’t give all the details to His disciples. He said that the times and seasons for these things are not for you to know. But here’s what Jesus did tell the disciples: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). In other words, you’re not going to know all the details, but you are going to have the power of the Holy Spirit so you’ll be able to respond to whatever happens. We will be able to respond correctly to the seasons we face only if we are reliant on God’s Word and His Spirit for guidance. Without them, we end up like the disciples, asking the wrong questions and feeling confused.

Wouldn’t you rather have the power of the Spirit with you than a PDF of the plan? The Holy Spirit enables us to live in a way that we could never manage on our own. He enables us to live redemptively, in strength, in wisdom, and to be able to respond to the time at hand. All without knowing everything that’s going to happen tomorrow.

Then there’s the issue of God’s Word. Scripture is our guide, and it leads us in how we are to live. Are you looking at your current situation in light of Scripture? Are you responding appropriately?

If things are going well right now—say you got a pay raise, or some of your living costs dropped—are you thinking only about what you can do to treat yourself? What if we paused and looked to Scripture for guidance? Look at something like 1 Timothy 6, which reminds us that if we’re blessed with riches, it’s not an evil thing to be rich, but that we’re to be grateful and generous. So plan to give as well as save.

What if your finances have gone the other way and you’re struggling right now? Check what the Bible has to say to you. Look at Paul the apostle, who was in prison, writing a letter to a church: “I’ve learned to be content whether I have a lot or I have nothing. I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:12–13, author’s translation).

Remember when Jesus said that not one sparrow falls to the ground that our heavenly Father is not aware of? It’s a beautiful, comforting passage, but let’s not forget that sparrows still fall. God never promised any of us that bad things wouldn’t happen. But He did say that when bad things do happen, they will not be outside of His sovereign care, and He is working all things together for our good.

Lastly, we’re equipped to redeem time with the help of community, a topic we will turn to in the next chapter. We are to do this life together. We are to redeem our time together. It means that you and I help each other respond to each occasion in a way that represents Jesus. It means that we keep the conversations open, always asking each other for input, wisdom, and advice through the various seasons of life.

Fresh perspective is always helpful. There are several people I turn to on a regular basis who help me discern my current season, because sometimes I am so close to the present situation that I can’t see clearly. As friends we must respond to those who share with us by giving good advice (obviously) and by pointing people to consider what it would look like to follow Jesus in this particular time and situation. It means keeping Scripture close and being consistent in our advice as well as our friendships.

YOUR HANDS, GOD’S TIME

The husband who wants to be the type who will hurl himself into danger’s path to protect his wife gets to be the hero only if he gets up off the couch and offers up countless smaller sacrifices every day.

What we choose now will shape what we are able to choose in the future. So it’s vital that, from time to time, we pause and ask ourselves what we are doing with our time. Are we being lazy and wasting it on things that do not matter? Or are we soaking up wisdom from those further along and then passing our wisdom down the age line to those behind us?

How much time do you have? If you have a spouse and children, that’s great; are they getting enough of you? Are you using what little time you have left over in the very best way possible? Start making plans today! And what if you are single? Are you nodding when you read what Paul writes about you in 1 Corinthians 7: “If you are unmarried, you’re free! Use it well” (vv. 8–9, author’s translation).

All of us need to face these questions.

Are you ready for what God has placed before you? Are you here, present and listening, ready to act? Are you fully engaged in whatever opportunities you have for Christ’s sake? Being ready does not mean you fully understand all the details; it means you fully surrender to the God who plans them.

For those following Jesus, the times and seasons of life are not enemies; they’re opportunities. These seasons are opportunities for us to respond positively, to do what is good, and to live like Jesus. If we depend on the Holy Spirit, we can expect that in every season under the sun we can know when to speak and when to remain silent, when to celebrate and when to weep.

Jesus will come a second time. He will judge the living and the dead, and on that day, all the pain and loss and frustration we’ve experienced in this life will be no more, for He will make all things new for those who trusted in Him. Remember that Jesus gives us the power to respond well now, and—here’s more good news—forgiveness for when we don’t.

Maybe you don’t know why the difficult season landed upon you. But know this: that season has a purpose. You may not know all the details of that purpose, but you have the power to respond well. These script revisions are okay because you have a heavenly Author who loves you.

Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us that the time on our hands isn’t really ours at all; it is God’s time and it’s in God’s hands. Like the psalmist says in Psalm 31, “But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hand” (vv. 14–15).

Can you say that? Can you say that about your whole life? Have you recognized that you’re not in control? Would you rather no one be in control? Or would you rather know that a God who loves you with an everlasting love and gave everything up for you is in control?

This good news has comforted men and women for centuries. May it comfort you, too. May you trust Him with your life and know what it is to experience that same comfort.

The time is now. You will not get this moment back. How will you spend it? And with whom will you spend it?

NOTES

1. Derek Kidner, The Message of Ecclesiastes (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1976), 39.

2. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 136–37.

8

COMMUNITY

Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life.

—Anne Hathaway

Two are better than one … and … a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

—Ecclesiastes 4:9, 12

We bought into the myth. We signed up for the idea that if we just served our own needs, then all would be well. In the process, we downgraded the value of local community and upgraded to the cult of the individual. Yet individualism has brought us here, to the place where we can go bowling alone.

Bowling Alone is a book that tells the story of the decline of the value of community. Retail moved out of town, front porches moved to the back, and the idea of bowling as a team sport with leagues, laughter, and community was replaced by ranks of individuals merely trying to set another personal best.

We may have thought that our life story featured a single protagonist, but where do other people come into it? Are they mere stagehands in the great story of “me,” or are we all part of something greater, something better? What does Scripture say about friendship and community?

There might be four million people living in Los Angeles (seventeen million if you count the wider metro area), but for many of them this place can be one of the loneliest on earth. There’s a similar sense of irony when you consider that we are seemingly more connected than ever. Social media prevents location from barring connection, and the ease with which we can broadcast and share the edited highlights of our lives is staggering. And yet more and more of us feel disconnected.

Why not just settle for being disconnected and lonely? Can’t we just invent something else to numb the pain or distract the mind? Not according to the author Norman Cousins. He said, “Our eternal quest as human beings is to shatter our loneliness.”[1] I think he and the Preacher would have gotten along well.

The Preacher calls us out, and we know this by now. His words open our eyes to the fears we have about our meaning and purpose, questioning our wisdom, raising an eyebrow at our pleasures, and sighing heavily when we get overeager about work’s potential to save us. A lot of what he highlights makes us feel awkward and uncomfortable, but when it comes to the subject of loneliness, there are plenty of us who are ready to wave the white flag.

THE NEED

Then I looked again at vanity under the sun. There was a certain man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, “And for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?” This too is vanity and it is a grievous task.

—Ecclesiastes 4:7–8 NASB

The Preacher describes a man whose loneliness is beyond his control. Without siblings, he has no extended family, and there’s not a single thing he could have done to change that fact. Many of us are in the same position, unable to control the loneliness handed out to us, either by family choices or by the nature of the area in which we live. You might live in a city crowded with people but feel utterly powerless to break down the barriers. In fact, in urban centers people don’t have the built-in support structures like they do in other regions. You might be surrounded, but the loneliness feels unbreakable.

However, some of the isolation that this man in Ecclesiastes 4 experiences is within his control. He’s a workaholic, a guy with no time for friendships. People in my city and my church tell me all the time how lonely they are, and many believe it to be the fault of other people … but is it? Too many people deliberately isolate themselves—even with something as innocent as a spa day designed to offer some “alone time.” Maybe our parents didn’t do facials and seaweed wraps, but they were just as absent as we are now. So many people I meet just repeat the same patterns of their own families. They try to justify the eighty-hour weeks as “giving the kids the very best in life,” but damage is being done.

Let’s read on a little:

A poor yet wise lad is better than an old and foolish king who no longer knows how to receive instruction. (Eccles. 4:13 NASB)

There are so many people around today who—like the workaholic that the Preacher highlights—refuse to be questioned on the reasons why they make isolation-inducing choices. They end up like the old king in verse 13. They reject advice and any opinion other than their own. They avoid the hard truths and settle for the loneliness that results. They’d rather surround themselves with yes-men and yes-women, the sort of people who only ever tell them that they are beautiful, clever, inspiring, and the best friend someone could ever enjoy. But is that what friendship really is?

Then there’s the fact that so many of us are happy to settle for a parody of true friendship rather than excavate down deep enough to get to the real thing. We call them friendships and even believe it when a social-networking site tells us that we’ve got one thousand of them, but if we truly believe that, we’re fooling ourselves. These are not friends; these are acquaintances (if even that).

The same is true for popularity. We will explore this in the chapter on envy, but there is an opportunity for us to touch on it now. The truth is that popularity does not equal community. It doesn’t matter how many people claim to know you; the truth stands, and popularity does not—cannot—equal community. Just because people know about you and know who you are does not mean you’re living in community with them. Just like the actress Claire Danes said, “Fame doesn’t end loneliness.”

Look all the way back to the book of Genesis, and you’ll see the account of the first man waking up to the fact that he didn’t want to be alone. He wanted companionship, community, and relationship, so God created woman. It is a picture of marriage, yes, but it is also the first picture of friendship and community in the Bible. Whether we are married or single, all of us need to understand that God created us for friendship and community. In fact, I believe that we have so elevated romantic relationships in our culture that we have unintentionally downgraded friendship. God created us with a need for others, not self-sufficiency and isolation. Loneliness is the first thing defined in Scripture as being “not good.”

Loneliness is a profoundly unhealthy state to live in. God said so.

There are bigger themes at work here. In the same way that intimacy describes the relationship of the triune God, our alienation describes our current state as being separated from Him. The struggles with loneliness that we experience on a social level speak of a much deeper alienation from God that can be reconciled only through what He provides in a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. As we have seen in so many other elements—from work and the desire for pleasure—loneliness points us to our need for God.

THE ADVANTAGES OF COMMUNITY

I think we are well aware of the struggles we face when community is absent. But what’s the draw? What are the advantages of community? If we could go searching for a living, thriving, life-enhancing community, what sorts of things should we seek?

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart. (Eccles. 4:9–12 NASB)

A lot of Christians often quote this passage at weddings, but to do so is to miss the main point about friendship in general. Do you see all that mutual benefit outlined in this passage? The economics are better, the resources are better, the relationships are better, and the environment is better. Even our defense capabilities get a bump when there are two instead of one.

How many times have you started a project on your own, only to realize that you actually need a little help? If only you hadn’t been so smug in the first place—you wouldn’t be calling the emergency plumber while simultaneously trying to prevent the bathtub from floating down the stairs. Reaching out and building friendships with people means not sitting alone in the chemo-treatment ward or nailing another personal high score on your favorite video game.

A friend loves at all times,

And a brother is born for adversity. (Prov. 17:17 NASB)

But this issue is not only about entertainment and economics; it’s also about trials. If we want to cultivate a realistic view of friendship and community, we must understand that we will face hard times with other people. Life will not be easy, and in many ways our trials will show us who our true friends are. That’s why true friendship is about more than randomly knowing a bunch of people; it’s about building a deeper connection with people, the sort of connection that will stand in the face of storms. We’re each vulnerable to all kinds of threats and temptations, from crime to self-centered living. Community helps guard against these vulnerabilities.

I know a guy who refuses to make friends with anyone over the age of forty. Once, I asked him why. He said that guys over age forty think they know everything and can’t resist reminding you of the fact.

He has a point. Then again, he is over forty himself. The aversion to instruction should unsettle us. It seems that we would rather have friendships that don’t feature conflict, disagreement, or correction. But if you take those out of a relationship and build a relationship on only agreement and affirmation, can it still be called a friendship?

Proverbs reminds us that an open rebuke is better than hidden love—that the wounds of a friend are faithful, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy. The currency of friendship is honesty and truth, not silence and compliance.

If you’re like me, you probably have gone too far or fallen too short in one—or each—of these three areas. You might have leaned too heavily toward the rebuke and forgotten to offer any real encouragement. We can get a little negative when we’re in this kind of mood, and everything appears wrong: the church, the people, the economy, the neighborhood. The legalist, the self-righteous Pharisee, sees the wrong in everyone else. Ask them to come up with something encouraging, and you’ll be met with silence.

Or, on the other side of the coin, we are sometimes guilty of bringing only encouragement and never sharing correction. Perhaps we dress it up politely—trying to be open-minded or politically correct—presenting the world as a series of relative truths and no moral absolutes. How can we criticize someone when all truth is relative? The trouble is, that’s not the way the Bible sees life, and it lists many, many sins that are in need of correction.

Some of you neither rebuke nor encourage, and right now you feel pretty good about yourself. This has got to stop. The gospel tells us that God empowered and enabled us to speak the truth. But remember that the truth must be spoken in love. Holding back is not an option, nor is speaking without grace. Ephesians 6 reminds us that this spiritual battle is against an enemy who would divide us in an attempt to weaken us—how will we survive if we have no unity or strength among us?

Purpose

The biblical version of friendship leads us to be faithful, helpful, and encouraging, offering correction in love when it is needed. But there’s more. We can’t just have a friendship for the sake of it. Friendship and community always have purpose.

“The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends,” said C. S. Lewis. “There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice.”[2]

Lewis nails it: friendship for the sake of friendship is incomplete (not to mention awkward). But friendship built on mutual value, aims, or purpose has huge potential. The Preacher picks up on this in 4:12:

A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart. (NASB)

The language in verse 12 refers not to segregated threads but rather to three threads coming together for a purpose. Friendship needs something to bind us together, a shared focus and destination. We can help each other on a journey only if we are going the same direction. What’s more, it is often only through that friendship and community that we discover how significant the purpose and how strong the rope is that holds us together. What starts out as an instinctive response to kindness and support can quickly become a vehicle through which God develops our skills and puts us to work in ways we never would have imagined.

Questions

Do you have friends? Do you have people to whom you can express your thoughts openly and honestly without fear of looking like an idiot? Do you know someone right now who would stand with you if you fell morally, if you sinned? If you are married, are you allowing friendship between you and your spouse? Are you allowing community in your life, or are you content to live as an isolated individual?

You need to give several people in your life permission to point out sins and shortcomings. You also need to give people permission to support and encourage you. But are you holding everyone at arm’s length? Are you building a fortress or opening yourself up to allow others to build something better within you?

Have you given your spouse permission to call you out when you’ve gone off track? Are you asking each other the hard questions that need to be asked? Are you allowing others to ask you hard questions? We must learn to be people who will listen carefully when others speak into our lives. And we must learn to speak into the lives of others when the time comes.

How are you getting on when it comes to building community? Are you still waiting for the church to build it for you, or have you worked out the role that you alone can play? It is up to us to take responsibility and allow people to be direct and honest in how we live our lives. The Bible says that your friendships are one way to measure your spiritual health. So how are you doing?

Are you willing to give up some of your independence and convenience for friendship and community? Can you honestly say that you’re a friend? Can you say you’re in community right now?

THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY

We’ve seen how God made us for connection and community and how community and connection are more than optional extras but vital ways through which God works. History tells us that we fail at this more often than we succeed, but it also reminds us that God sent Jesus, His Son, not only to show us the potential for community and connection in human form but also to make it possible for us.

Jesus is the faithful friend who speaks the truth, protects, provides, and comforts. He gave up independence, convenience, and His life for your sake and mine, experiencing the ultimate loneliness of the cross in the process, all in order to bring you into friendship with God.

We cannot earn friendship with Jesus. We’ve all failed Him. The only way toward friendship with Him is to accept the fact that He gives it to us. The only way to connect with Him is through faith.

Sounds hard, doesn’t it? Perhaps it is all too much for the mind that views friendship as a means of boosting popularity or avoiding harsh truth. But there is such potential here, such incredible potential for growth, fulfillment, and truth.

You see, because Jesus deals with the truest and deepest need of every individual, He alone has the power to bring and bind us individual strands together. No matter how unlikely the collection of strands, Jesus can unite us. No matter how different our backgrounds, Jesus can—and does—bring us together for His purposes.

If Christ is the power that drives your friendships and the focus of your community, both will go to the deepest level. Some of us miss out on community and struggle with loneliness for this precise reason: we do not allow Jesus to be our central motivation. We deal in guilt rather than grace, keeping score as we go. It is tempting to withhold forgiveness and truth from people when Jesus is not the focus, and this leaves our bonds weak and fragile. Do you realize that the marriages, friendships, and emotional bonds you make in Christ will go on into all eternity? This is incredibly comforting when you live in a transient city like I do. The investments made in Christ-focused community last eternally.

Jesus models perfect friendship. And He also empowers us to live better and stronger in our friendships with each other. He will never leave you or forsake you. He will always pick you up when you fall. He will protect you, and no matter how many times you sin against Him, He will always forgive you, always be there for you. Even when others are not.

The sociologists are right when they say that we need breadth and depth of connection in our relationships. Well, there is no greater depth and breadth of connection to be had than with Jesus Christ and His people.

We’ve seen it with money, we’ve seen it with time, and we see it here with community. We each have at our fingertips the assets we need to discover the best form of life we could ever hope to experience. If we want to know what it truly means to be alive, then how we navigate each of these areas is of vital importance.

But the Preacher is far from done. Each of these areas involves a certain amount of power. How we use that power is truly a measure of our character.

NOTES

1. Norman Cousins, Human Options (New York: Penguin, 1986), 172.

2. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 1991), 66.

9

POWER

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

—Pittacus

All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.

—Ecclesiastes 8:9

My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but I recognized the voice. It belonged to a man from our church, but he sounded startled—even in the first few words of his greeting. Then he told me that something terrible had happened.

“My wife has been taken by the North Korean government,” he said.

In that moment I thought I was in some sort of spy-thriller movie. It didn’t seem real. I’m sure he felt the same way. His wife’s name is Euna Lee, and her story is now well-known. While she was working as a journalist near the Chinese–North Korean border, the North Korean government officials detained her and her colleague. She spent six months in captivity and was eventually returned home. During those months, our church and many others prayed daily for the safe return of Euna Lee and her colleague. The enormous power of a government never felt so real.

We all know power. We all have a measure of it, and we’re all under it to some extent (some more than others). Power is a familiar asset, and whether you are a parent or a president, what you do with it matters. But in chapter 8 of Ecclesiastes, the Preacher goes a little further than simply name-checking power. Instead he spends one entire chapter observing the misuse of power. Ecclesiastes 8 is a survival guide for life in a world in which everyone—from politicians and pastors to parent-teacher committees and governments, even you and me—uses power, rightly or wrongly.

Our expectations in life may appear to be simple: we want recognition for being successful at what we do. Why? It may not be for money or fame. It may be that we want to change the way people relate to us. The roots are the same for so many of us. We all want to be influential, but this drive could turn out to be really good … or really bad. It all depends on why and how we use power.

A WISE APPROACH

In my teenage years I played in some punk rock bands, and I was all about “sticking it to the man!” I disliked all authority. Yet whenever I would try to schedule practices, my bandmates would say, “Who are you to tell us when to practice? You’re just another authority figure.”

Needless to say, we weren’t very good. It made me think—maybe my hatred of authority was a little foolish. After all, we all have it, and we are all under it to one degree or another. I needed to hear the Preacher’s first advice on power: that we should all check our approach, examine our attitudes, and ensure that they are correct—especially when it comes to those in places of authority.

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?” (Eccles. 8:2–4).

We should be humble. Somewhere not too far away is someone with authority over us, and we should not be flippant or disrespectful when we interact with him or her. Ah, you might think, but what about those who abuse their power? Good question, and we’ll come to that later, but while we’re on the subject of humility, it’s important to acknowledge that some of our attitudes are in need of a little adjustment.

The other day we were having dinner. Nothing special—just a regular dinner with the family. At least that’s how it started. But somewhere between the recap on who played what with whom in the school yard and why getting a dog would not be a good idea right now, my eldest daughter put down her glass and looked at me.

“You,” she said. “Get me water!”

Internally I went through a few possible responses and settled on humor-with-a-hint-of-don’t-cross-that-line:

“I’m your father, not your servant,” I replied.

“Well, Daddy,” she says. “Actually, you kind of are my servant.”

At which point I realized that we would need to have a slightly longer conversation about things.

It’s not that rare to find someone who struggles against authority. I think that all of us struggle with authority to a degree. But the Preacher cautions us to be careful how much we feed that particular beast. We need to humble ourselves and recognize that there are legitimate uses of power and places of authority.

But what about when someone abuses authority? What then? Do we simply submit, blindly agreeing like oppressed subjects in some despotic regime? No, but there is a certain way of going about dealing with these situations, according to verse 5:

Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way.

The proper time and the just way. That’s what we need to know. In addition to humility, we need discretion and the wisdom to navigate what we do and when we do it. Just before Jesus sent His disciples out to work among the community, He warned them that they were going “as sheep among wolves” (Matt. 10:16 NLT). The issue of power was at play, and, to be honest, it didn’t look too good for the home team. After all, if it was a battle between a sheep and wolf, who in their right mind would back the sheep to win?

But Jesus saw the bigger picture and knew the power of wisdom. He advised the disciples to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt. 10:16), and, like the Preacher, urged them toward discretion.

Some of us desperately need wisdom to know how to respond to issues at work, school, home and in our hometowns, cities, or governments. And in times like this, James 1 brings great comfort: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally without reproach” (v. 5 NKJV). God does not hold back on wisdom when we ask for it. But we must ask. We must pray.

I get asked a lot about the point at which we should not obey someone in authority. When is it okay to turn around and say no? The simplest answer I have is that we should not obey when the authority forbids what God commands or commands what God forbids. If we’re getting pushed to go against God’s laws, it’s time to stand firm.

Finally, we need patience, because the wisest way usually happens to be the most time-consuming way: “For 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?” (Eccles. 8:6–7).

Alongside Martin Luther King Jr., John Perkins was a key leader in the civil rights movement. In his incredible book Let Justice Roll Down, he described those times when he endured abuse and wanted to give up the effort. Yet every time, God reminded him of the patient endurance of Christ, and that reminder strengthened him to deal with the ever-growing challenges that he faced. Those truths kept him going and helped him become an influential man during those crucial years. The lesson is, don’t give up too soon.

We all need patience, and we must turn to God for it—not to ourselves. I am not the source of humility, wisdom, or patience—as my wife can readily confirm. I’m the impatient husband who is already in the car with the keys in the ignition, wondering why the rest of my family hasn’t gotten in yet … even though we don’t have to leave for ten more minutes. We all need supernatural patience, especially when it comes to things that really matter. Only God will provide what we need if we are to approach power with wisdom.

A REALISTIC PERSPECTIVE

All of us need a realistic perspective on life, including human authority. Scripture is clear that there is a God-ordained element to having authority over others, and therefore human governments must be agents of justice and righteousness. In other words, God appoints human authority to curb evil and correct disorder.

Where I live, the police cars all wear the words “to protect and to serve,” and though unfortunately these words may not always be followed, it seems to me that this is what the Bible has in mind. Human authority should serve and protect those falling under its influence. And yet there are a few caveats to add to that.

While God ordains the concept of government, He does not endorse every particular brand of government. Jesus did not say, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s because I really dig that form of government in which the leaders act like they’re gods and treat everybody like slaves.” He didn’t say that, did He? He simply acknowledged that there should be a government and that taxes should be paid, because according to the Bible, government is better than anarchy.

Some of us dislike paying taxes (for more reasons than one), but I find it helpful to think of it like this: when we pay taxes, we don’t necessarily have to approve of the character of our current government, but we do approve of the function government serves. We acknowledge that governing authorities have a role to play in our society, despite the fact that there’s no such thing as a perfect government apart from God.

Along with a realistic view of human authority, we also need to cultivate a realistic view of the human heart when it comes to power. We can all think of those specific governments and leaders in history for whom it has all gone wrong. It even happens in the Christian community. In fact, some of you may have been burned by the church precisely because of the abuse of power in a church or ministry. We can probably all name those leaders who abused their power, but are we free to admit that we, too, have abused power and authority at some point in our lives? Every one of us has abused power in some way.

But why? Why do we all seem unable to resist the lure of misused power?

All of us operate out of an approval deficit. We all want people to praise us, to affirm us, and to see us as great. That is why there is always that point in our previously written autobiography, our life script, where everyone “finally” recognizes and acknowledges us. Deep down, on some very human level, it’s what we crave. And because power is always relative, we constantly compare ourselves to others—I’m somebody because I’m more generous, I’m somebody because I’m more successful, and I’m somebody because I have better looks/more money/nicer children than they do.

So power becomes not just about the potential to influence others and change things, but about our own sense of self-worth. No wonder we’ve all abused it! This then makes the idea of serving others particularly unappealing. Why on earth would we do a foolish thing like serve people if we don’t get anything out of it? Why would we voluntarily allow people to think less of us?

But we also abuse power in more subtle ways than simply avoiding being seen as a mere servant. We often want to be the source of all things awesome and resent it even when others appear to gain glory from our own great ideas.

Like the other night.

We gathered some people from the church together, and one woman told us how she’d been reading a book that she absolutely loved. She turned to one of the other guests and said:

“Scott, thank you sooo much for giving me the book. It’s been life-changing.”

Inside, my inner dictator started to rant.

Well, I thought, I’m the one who recommended the book to Scott in the first place. Who should be getting the accolades here? Clearly not Scott—no way. And listen, sister, you’re only loving that book because I—in my wisdom and foresight and discernment and knowledge—chose the book and decided to recommend it to my parishioners and then disciple them and show them in turn how to give it to others. Scott is the last one to thank.

And then I realized—my inner rant was due to my wrong and sinful desire for approval and influence.

In Los Angeles, there are so many currencies of power: money, looks, and reputation are such obvious ones to mention, and for good reason. In a recent article titled “Why Powerful Men Can’t Keep Their Pants On,” the author Rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote that the answer to that question is not because they have stronger sexual appetites than others. After all, so many of our male politicians who have been caught with their pants down are married men. Boteach suggested that instead of wanting sex for sex’s sake, these fallen leaders saw sex with partners other than their spouses as evidence of their own power. Sex with a relative stranger becomes yet another shot of approval, another indication that, yes, you’re still important and powerful.

Another currency of power is that which comes from giftedness. Leaders advertise their status and freak out whenever anyone threatens to rise above them. It’s easy to spot in churches, as church leaders are some of the worst offenders. Some will make decisions driven purely by ego, while others will even lie in an attempt to cover up something that could potentially damage their reputation as being in God’s favor. Driving all this is the loneliness, fear, bitterness, and alienation that result from our sin. We exist like empty cups, desperately trying to fill the void with a second-rate substitute.

Some of the most oppressive people in history have been among the loneliest. What dictator can surround himself with true friends? And more personally, have we been acting like minidictators? If we haven’t reconciled with God, then no matter how many people are under us, we will still fall victim to alienation and loneliness. This is what the Preacher writes in Ecclesiastes 8:9:

All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.

All of us are in on this power trip. We’ve all abused power and authority, and we’ve all been on the receiving end of that kind of abuse. Yet here the Preacher gives us a little room for optimism. Yes, humanity seems to have a proclivity for abusing power, but at least human power has its limits. As he says in verse 8, we can no more control the wind than we can avoid war, get rid of evil, or prevent death. But the wicked will one day be buried.

Even still, the grave cannot offer justice. Take a look at a graveyard, and there you will see the righteous next to the wicked, all laid out at the same end, regardless of what crimes or good deeds they accomplished while alive.

Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity. (Eccles. 8:10)

You can feel the frustration in these lines.

Viewed under the sun, with God airbrushed out of the picture, all of this is vanity, and none of it makes sense. The righteous lie next to the wicked, and people praise evil leaders in crowded funerals. Even if we turn to nature for solace, we’re going to see only the survival of the fittest—the weak torn apart by the strong.

There seems to be no solution. Our human perspective is limited. We cannot figure it out alone.

Unless there is …

A STRENGTHENING HOPE

As is so often the case, the Preacher’s frustrations act as a wake-up call. There is hope on offer, a hope that justice will be found for those who abuse power and authority. Look at Ecclesiastes 8:12–13:

Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow because he does not fear before God.

Listen to enough conversations, watch enough TV, and read enough novels, and you’ll eventually hear someone who has been horrifically and unjustly wronged say that while he’s not sure about heaven, there surely needs to be a hell.

Where else can justice take place?

Scripture spends a lot of time on the idea that there will be a final judgment. God is not a God of inaction, indifference, or injustice. He is a God whose anger rages at rape, theft, abuse, and corruption—just as He is against our sins.

It is right that we should fear divine judgment.

Hebrews 9:27 reminds us that “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” The Bible does not teach reincarnation. The Bible does not teach immediate disintegration upon death. The Bible teaches final judgment. But there’s more to add. If it’s perfect righteous judgment that we’re looking for, then all of us are guilty. If we ask for nothing but perfect justice, we’d all be on the wrong side of that law.

In that moment we beg for mercy. Perhaps that is why there seems to be such a delay of justice in the world—under the sun—because God is merciful. He has the longest wick in history; He is the last word in being slow to anger. Second Peter 3:9 says this: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

The next time you hear someone complaining that God is failing to act in the face of injustice, try explaining that God’s delay is merely a sign that He chose not to deal out perfect justice on us right now. You might also suggest that now might be a good time to repent, believe in the gospel, and stop abusing power.

Ecclesiastes 8 laments the absence of a righteous ruler, but the gospel proclaims His arrival. The perfect ruler came in the person of Jesus Christ. He lived a perfect, righteous, and just life, and yet He endured the ultimate injustice at the hands of the worldly powers. Why? He endured so that we could be reconciled to God and one another.

We began this chapter with the quote about how the measure of a person is how he or she uses power. The truth—uncomfortable as it may be—is that if we look at our lives and the world around us, we would probably agree with the statement that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But let me ask you this: Is it power that corrupts us, or is it our own sinful hearts that corrupt power? In the gospel we see Jesus Christ, who came in total power but who was never corrupted. He used His power to serve, to sacrifice, and to save.

In Jesus we finally see what our hearts long for: power controlled by love. That love does not discriminate, but handles each of us with mercy. Love breeds the change that we need in ourselves and in the world at large. And it can come only through the gospel because the gospel deals with both our injustices and the injustices of others. God forgives your injustices when you are reconciled to Him through faith in Jesus. The injustices of others will be settled either when they put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ or when they stand before God and give an account for their lives.

One way or another, justice will come.

Your expectations of life probably didn’t include such abuses of power. Neither did Euna Lee’s. Neither did mine. But the gospel enables us to face these abuses with wisdom and hope. We are forgiven our injustices, but that’s not the end of it, because we also must forgive others.

In fact, Jesus says that one of the tests to understand how much you’ve been forgiven is whether you will forgive those who have sinned against you. All those authority figures, abusers, betrayers, and backstabbers—Christ says you must forgive them. If you’re struggling, then turn back to the cross, and look at the love that He demonstrated for us while we sinned against Him. Look at the love that led Christ to die in our place. The only love that fulfills our greatest need and kills off our sinful addiction to power at the same time.

Jesus never advocated the mad scramble to the top of the power ladder. He talked of taking the least-important seat at a banquet table, of being a servant to all, of washing feet and accepting the friendship of people whose social status might cause others to wince in disapproval. Why? Because once we realize what Jesus has done for us, we simply won’t need any of those false badges of importance and power. We won’t need the approval of other people, because all we need is found in the love of God.

Jesus took the lowest place and lifted us up with Him. That is the hope we need. That is the script worth following.

PART THREE: ATTITUDES

WHAT DO WE RESPOND TO LIFE WITH?

10

RELIGIOSITY

Nothing comes from nothing / nothing ever could. / So somewhere in my youth or childhood / I must have done something good.

—Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music

Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

—Ecclesiastes 7:20

It’s one of the most widely held beliefs: if I do good, good things will happen. This sentiment is certainly the moral of many stories—and not just quaint Julie Andrews musicals. For example, consider the film Amadeus. The cinematic feud between composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri might not be the best-known film rivalry, but I think it’s one of the most enjoyable ones to watch. In the film, we observe the systematic destruction of one man by another. Can you guess which man believed that God was on his side?

Amadeus is the fictionalized account of the relationship between Mozart and his less-talented rival, Salieri, a devout Catholic who is continually frustrated by the gulf in skill between him and the young genius. Salieri prays with persistent dedication, attempting to bargain with God.

“Lord, make me a great composer,” he prays with fervor. “Let me celebrate Your glory through music and be celebrated myself. Make me famous through the world, dear God. Make me immortal. After I die, let people speak my name forever with love for what I wrote. In return, I will give You my chastity, my industry, my deepest humility, every hour of my life. Amen.”[1]

It never happens, of course. Salieri remains a moderately gifted composer, but his soul is twisted by religious-themed bitterness, while Mozart remains obscene in his behavior yet blessed with incredible skill. One religious, one lawless—much like the audience that the Preacher addresses in Ecclesiastes 7.

And much like us.

In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in evildoing. (Eccles. 7:15).

Many things haven’t turned out the way we thought they should at this point in our life stories. Some people become more bitter about this than others. We may feel bitter because we believe we’ve paid God with some good behavior and He hasn’t come through on His end of the bargain. Perhaps the very notion of being either religious or lawless seems foreign, but the Preacher urges us to look closely at ourselves and face some hard questions.

Are we like the religious person who thinks he is in the right and should therefore be rewarded by God for all his right behavior?

Or have we given up on God, Christianity, and religion and started to allow lawlessness to creep into our lives?

These may seem like contrary positions, but the Preacher tells us that they have more in common than we think. What’s more, they’re found much closer to home than each of us might like to admit.

WE SHARE THE SAME FRUSTRATION

This life is uncertain, and that uncertainty hovers above us all. We each respond to it in different ways, of course.

For those who are pressing ahead with life on their own lawless terms, it’s tempting to assume that the absence of any lightning bolts or divine judgment thus far equates to the approval of a higher power. This is a dangerous mistake to make, however, because God’s patience does not indicate His approval. But final judgment will come, and for the lawless, judgment should come as no surprise at all.

For the religious, the default assumption is that every good thing that falls at our feet comes because we earned it. Every bad thing that happens to all those other people is a direct consequence of their own bad behavior. They’re bad; we’re good. Period. But that’s not Christianity. That’s a cartoon version of karma, and it’s bankrupt. Take a look at life, says the Preacher, and see those good people who have bad things happen to them, as well as the wicked people who look as though they get away with everything.

This version of theological karma sneaks its way into the church far too often. There are too many Christians who believe, for example, that all sickness is a payment for sin and that health is a reward for the righteous. But that’s not how Scripture sees it.

Sure, there are times when consequences follow our actions, but for every parking ticket for the car parked in the red, there are just as many seemingly inexplicable events where we don’t see the consequences. The Bible tells us that sometimes good things and bad things happen regardless of whether a person’s behavior is good or bad. It confuses us just as it confused the disciples the day they encountered a blind man (John 9). They asked Jesus whether the man was born blind because he sinned or because his parents sinned.

“Neither,” Jesus replied.

Presented with a straight choice between answer A and answer B, Jesus opts for E. The man was blind so that the glory of God might be revealed, which—through Jesus’s healing of the man—it was. Scripture gives us a perspective that we all so desperately need. It reminds us that the religious person is the one who’s trying to be super-righteous. All that Bible reading, all that church attendance, and all that good living—if motivated by a desire to be in control of life—only makes us another religious fool. Inevitably that leaves us feeling better than everyone else and unable to sympathize with those who are struggling.

That is why, it seems, the Preacher says this:

Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? (Eccles. 7:16)

Those who are religious struggle to accept the blame. “God,” we say, “I did everything right. I did all this righteous stuff. I showed up and I hung out, and I went to that church group with all those lame people. I did all that stuff You wanted me to do, and yet You didn’t give me the job I wanted. Or You didn’t make me who I wanted to be, so I’m mad at You!”

The Preacher warns us against feeling superior, against displaying our better qualities in full view of others in order to boost our egos, against trying to control everything in life through our own actions.

But let’s not go to the other side of the scale either:

Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? (Eccles. 7:17)

Wait. Don’t be too wicked? That seems like strange advice, doesn’t it? But let’s not misunderstand the Preacher. He is not saying, “Hey! Go be wicked, just not too wicked.” He is saying that none of us can avoid being wicked. Why?

WE SHARE THE SAME PROBLEM

Both religiousness and lawlessness share the same problems: overconfidence and unrighteousness. “Why do bad things happen to good people?” we might ask—the very question that betrays our misplaced assumption that we somehow deserve a good life. The Preacher’s words should sober us up fast:

Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. (Eccles. 7:20)

There are no perfectly righteous people. We are all unrighteous. In fact, the really significant question is not why do bad things happen to good people, but why does anything good happen at all?

I suspect that lawless people have an easier time accepting this than the religious. The former can revel in their unrighteousness, but the latter are on a quest to prove their worth, their very goodness. The presence of hardship and struggle in their lives reads like a condemnation of their very souls. Despite all that effort, hard work, and control, it’s not enough to stop life from turning sour.

The truth is that we are not righteous. Listen carefully to what comes out of your mouth over the next twenty-four hours, and you’ll have plenty of evidence to support the claims laid down in the book of James. He writes that we all stumble in many ways, especially when it comes to our words:

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. (3:7–10)

We might get easily offended by the harsh words of others, but the Preacher stops us in our tracks. He asks whether we have said the same things to others:

Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. (Eccles. 7:21–22)

While we might try to justify the harsh words we’ve uttered—labeling them prayer requests, being honest, or necessary correction—what comes out of our mouths shows just how much decay there really is within.

At times we assume that overconfidence works like armor. If we want to continue being super religious and awesomely self-righteous, we should never confess our sin and never confess our wrongdoing—or, if we do confess to sin, we should confess only to something committed way back in 2003. Another pastor told me once that I should never confess that I’ve struggled with anything or that I’ve ever sinned. I asked him why. He replied that if I did confess, then nobody would want to follow me. I thought to myself, Wow, if the health of my church is dependent on my being perfect, then we’re all going down!

We need to confess our wrongdoing, repent of it, and ask for God’s grace. And we need to absorb the truth of Ecclesiastes 7:29:

See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

In essence, none of this mess is God’s fault; rather, it’s our fault.

The Preacher looks back to the Genesis account when God made man and woman in His image. God made human beings upright, but we began to scheme for our own benefit. Whether we’re the lawless or the religious, we’re all schemers.

Paul expresses it this way in his letter to the Romans:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. (7:18–19)

This is the place to which the Preacher brings us: we recognize now that we all share the same problem. None of us have earned a place on the podium—especially not through our fearsome independence or our fragile displays of righteous living. But even despite this reality, there is good news.

WE SHARE THE SAME SOLUTION

There’s far too much self-righteous religiosity that gets passed off as Christianity. Perhaps it’s because many people inside and outside of the church think Christianity is about being good and not sinning. Trusting Jesus? That usually comes in a distant third in many people’s minds. And yet that is the very center of the Christian faith. Without trusting Jesus, we are all religious frauds and lawless outcasts.

Understanding that we share the same problem should cause us to recognize that we also share the same solution: the righteousness found in Jesus Christ alone. The Preacher established our guilt, and Christ came to establish our righteousness through faith in His righteousness. Christians are not people who think they deserve righteousness but people who know that they don’t.

The gospel is not an extended piece of good advice. The gospel narrates the story of what God did for us. It’s about our inability to earn God’s affirmation or favor and how we can receive both as a gift. The gospel means that we can happily agree with what the apostle Paul writes in Romans 7:24–25: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The gift, the righteousness of Jesus, is our one and only solution—Jesus is the only One we can rely upon, and the only solution we will ever need.

We should pursue righteousness, but not the sort that we struggle in vain to create for ourselves. Only the Holy Spirit—working through us—produces true righteousness. For all of us, from the most religious to the most lawless, this is the only solution worth trusting. The truth is that the gospel propels us toward a better way of living—one with less sin in it.

Whether you’re sleeping with your boyfriend or girlfriend; addicted to pornography or substances; or dealing with greed, pride, gossip, or anger, do not mistake God’s patience for approval. God is righteous, and He hates sin. It grieves His heart, and He calls you to repent.

Likewise, the fact that your life contains good things does not indicate that you are anything other than the recipient of God’s almighty grace. His common grace is the thread that leads toward an even fuller experience of His love and goodness. It is always good to remember Acts 17, when Paul spoke to the philosophers, declaring that God gives rain and crops and food, all to point people toward Him.

The myth of God-less humanity is that we can shoulder the burden of our own failings. We can’t. We are too weak. In that way, confessing our sins is far less of a loss than we might think. Telling the truth, demonstrating that we really believe in what Jesus has done for us in His great love, really does set us free.

Like the Preacher, we may not fully understand everything that’s going on in our lives, but God promises us wisdom. And because of Jesus, there’s always a righteous option open to us in every situation that we come across. If we allow the gospel to adjust the way we view our circumstances, our paths will improve. That might mean that we don’t ever know why we lost the job, experienced the suffering, or felt like we were going under. The righteous option lifts our eyes from the short term and raises them toward the distance. Look up to see the loving Father calling us toward Him, asking us to look not at our bruised feet but up into His face.

Our standing with God is not based upon how well each of us performs. Our standing with God is based upon how well Jesus performed—and He performed perfectly.

NOTES

1. Amadeus, directed by Milos Forman (Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers, 1984), DVD.

11

ENVY

Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.

—Gore Vidal

Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

—Ecclesiastes 4:4

You know how it is with teenage boys and electric guitars. Well, that was me as a teenager. Obsessed. Fanatical. And if I do say so myself, pretty good. I might have been too young for tattoos, but when I plugged in and opened the garage doors wide, I brought heavy metal to the neighborhood. And my friends all knew it. At least, they did until one day—when, just as I was midway through one of my sidewalk performances, one of my friends spoke up.

“Do you know Joe?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so. Why?”

“Oh, man, well, you should,” my friend replied. “He plays all the parts that you can play. But better. And you know how there are all those parts that you can’t really play? Well, Joe can play them all. And he can play them fast.”

So I stepped out of my garage and walked the few blocks over to Joe’s house. And my friend was right. Joe could play them all. Every single note. He could play so fast my eyes could barely keep up with his fingers.

If Gore Vidal had been standing next to me outside Joe’s garage in the North San Francisco Bay Area that day, I would like to think he would have given me a nod.

Because a little bit of me had just died.

The Preacher knows all about envy. He knows what Gore Vidal understood and what I found out for myself outside Joe’s garage: envy is a profoundly powerful thing. It may be the very thing fueling your efforts right now.

As he moved through human existence, looking for meaning and purpose, the Preacher hunted for the truths behind human behavior. As a result, his wisdom questions our life script and uncovers what really drives us.

In keeping with the rest of Scripture, the Preacher gets to the heart of the matter, brings us in front of the mirror, and forces us to take a good look at what we see deep within. Then he places all those hard questions before us.

But envy? Really? Isn’t that what those shallow city socialites deal in? How can it apply to regular people like you and me? Even those of us who once struggled with envy can claim to have grown out of it. Yet ask yourself this: How often do you feel a small stab of pain in your heart when someone else in your circle of influence succeeds? The news of an engagement, the announcement of a pregnancy, the photos of a rewards ceremony, or that person’s perfect life. Don’t we all wince in some way when others succeed?

Okay, perhaps you don’t throw parties when someone fails; maybe it’s not that bad. Maybe you don’t necessarily want them to fail; you just don’t want them to succeed more than you.

You’re not alone.

The Bible details a long history of actions motivated by envy. In fact, envy lies behind the first recorded human crime. Adam’s two sons Cain and Abel both made offerings to God, but Cain’s sinful, self-sufficient attitude ruled out the possibility of God accepting his sacrifice. So Cain got mad, received a warning from God, but gave in to his envy-fueled rage by killing his brother.

Most of us don’t have literal blood on our hands, but envy and its cousins jealousy and covetousness are common to all. Each of them shares the same root: covetousness wants the thing in the neighbor’s hand, jealousy desires to be the neighbor, and envy wants to take away whatever it is that the neighbor has in his or her hands.

But wait, is envy really such a bad thing?

According to the late atheist Christopher Hitchens, envy has some pretty decent benefits when viewed from an economic perspective. Envy motivates people to work harder, raising tax revenues, employment levels, and income in the process.

True. But that does not make envy good. Not even close to being good, in fact. Envy is not just one of those things that fall into our imaginary “gray sin area.” It is not insignificant or inconsequential. Envy is an affront to a holy God and is listed as a forbidden sin. The Preacher forces us to wake up to this fact.

WHAT ENVY RESENTS

I don’t get envious when I go to see a baseball game at Dodger Stadium. I don’t struggle with those moments of inner death when one of my friends bags a medal in a running race or wins a sporting event of some kind. Why? The answer is because I’m not really the “sporting” type. I say things like, “Good for them … this is fun … I have no desire to do what they do.” No, the temptation toward envy doesn’t usually come in regard to those to whom you don’t relate, but in regard to those you do.

Envy is often linked to status. When we encounter another’s success in an area that we value, that’s when things can get messy. If we value wealth, beauty, skill, influence, or reputation, then it stands to reason that when we encounter someone who is praised for his or her wealth, beauty, skill, influence, or reputation, we will pay attention. And when that person is someone we identify with—most often a peer or member of our professional or social circle—then the temptation of envy presents itself. Not that it’s a sin to notice someone else’s job promotion, perfect abs, or marital bliss. It’s what we start to tell ourselves after we’ve noticed that gets ugly.

Let’s be clear, envy isn’t just the knee-jerk reaction to the success of someone you relate to in an area you value. Envy is what happens when you start to ask yourself certain types of questions:

Why should he or she get all the attention?

Why didn’t I get asked to do that?

Don’t I do that better than that person?

How come he or she didn’t ask me?

How come I didn’t get invited?

Why didn’t I get that part?

How come I didn’t receive that offer?

It’s Cain and Abel all over again. Envy means we resent the success of another.

Maybe you feel that envy just isn’t one of the things with which you struggle. You’re a good person, maybe a Christian with a God-directed compass and a genuine desire to do good. And that’s great, but life experience suggests that you struggle with this stuff as much as the next person. You might want to simply do a good job, make beautiful art, or play great guitar, but I’m guessing that somewhere deep down, what’s driving you toward that excellence, beauty, or art—or those amazing guitar skills—is the desire to do it better than someone else. I think that all of us know what it is like to stand outside Joe’s garage and feel our self-esteem crumble as we fail to measure up. Envy always looks at the difference between you and another person in an unhealthy way.

If you take a trip back to your hometown and attend a class reunion, I’m confident that these things will become even clearer. If money’s your thing, you might not be crass enough to actually talk about your salary, but you’ll be looking out for those telltale signs of wealth in others. If you notice the former class misfit sporting a more expensive brand of car, better cut of suit, or more significant jewelry, will it rattle you?

Or what if you’re desperate for success? You’ve worked out how to drop into the conversation the fact that you’ve had a part in a Shakespeare play that tours regional theaters every three years, and then someone spikes the conversation with the news that some other attendee just landed a lead role in an off-Broadway show.

Oh really? How far off-Broadway? you ask. Iowa?

Perhaps you get caught up in looks and beauty. I’m not talking about being the kind of person who says, “I love your shoes!”—really, there’s nothing wrong with liking shoes. But where it goes wrong is when “I love your shoes” becomes “I have to have those shoes” and then “because I don’t have them, she shouldn’t have those shoes either.”

It’s not just possessions that snag us. We can easily be envious of circumstances, asking why it is that we don’t have a girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, the ideal home, the perfect car, the warm glow of contentment that all married folk seem to exude, or the mighty buzz of excitement that all singles enjoy. Perhaps you’re wondering when your children are going to start making something of themselves or stop making a mess of life.

A hunger for social status starts out innocently enough—just a wish to be connected, to make friends, or to be known. But soon enough it twists and gets toxic as we resent others who we consider to have more influence, followers, name drops, or excitement when their names come up in conversation. It’s toxic, and our souls struggle to process the poison. And it’s toxic for our communities as well, because when we’re running on envy, we stop seeing other people as God’s creation and start to see them as rivals.

Envy does not just leave us feeling bad. We become its slave, paying out the prices it demands. So we toil to bring in more money, we amass debts to fund the lifestyle, we push ourselves harder to make certain goals, and we cover up those parts of us that don’t fit the plan. We’re not out to enjoy life anymore or even merely invest in a career; we’re creating and sustaining a reputation, an identity … a legacy. But those who appear better off always threaten to derail our plans.

WHAT ENVY REVEALS

Envy shows two vital things about us. First it highlights a powerful desire to prove ourselves through our own efforts and abilities. And what drives that desire? Fear. Fear leads us to script some outrageous lies:

If I’m not beautiful, then I’m nobody.

If I’m not rich, then I’m nobody.

If I’m not known, revered, talked about, or praised, then I’m nobody.

In order to avoid the prospect of being insignificant, many of us chase after the lure of making ourselves the envy of others. That’s why we pepper our script with epic turning points like “then I got beautiful!” or “then I got the record deal!” or “then I got married, and everything changed for the best!” But we mistakenly think that this will satisfy us, that we will find fulfillment when someone says to us:

“Oh my gosh! Look at you! You look a-ma-zing!”

“Stop it! These old clothes?” you will reply.

“Oh, but still—you look fantastic!”

It’s like the Oscars and the Grammys all rolled into one, except it’s probably just taking place in the parking lot outside the local coffee shop. Oscar Wilde understood this. Allow me to paraphrase him: “The number of those who envy us confirms our capabilities.”

Envy becomes not just a fuel but a tool to measure our worth. If lots of people envy us, then we must be doing well. But with our internal landscape mapped out like this, how can we ever hope to be satisfied? How can we ever expect to be anything other than caught up in unrest and discontent with ourselves, others, or God?

Perhaps you think that envy has nothing to do with God. Perhaps you think that envy is just between you and yours, that you can hide it away from God. But in a universe created by God, where all good things come from Him, we cannot keep envy to ourselves. Remember Cain and Abel? Remember how Cain complained that God blessed his brother Abel and not him? Who is he arguing with in that passage? Who is he arguing against? He is arguing against God.

The reason why envy is so wrong in God’s eyes is because it is a complaint against Him—as if we are saying, “I needed that, God. You didn’t give it to me; therefore You hate me and I’m mad at You.”

Envy always looks at what God hasn’t given us. Envy turns God into the enemy. I know that sounds strong, but it’s true. Wherever we struggle most with envy, there we will be tempted to see God as our enemy, the one blocking our plans. We didn’t get the house we wanted? That’s because God gave it to someone else, failing to solve our problems and giving us a whole load of new ones. Therefore God is part of the problem.

At its root, envy is a form of unbelief. We might think that it’s just a consequence of a less-than-perfect life, but our envy, jealousy, and covetousness are nothing less than attempts to push God out of the picture. The truth is that we’re the problem, not God. Christian or not, when we look to something other than God for our ultimate satisfaction, we end up striving after the wind, as the Preacher says.

If you’re not convinced, read this:

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. (James 3:16 NIV)

Or this:

A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot. (Prov. 14:30)

Or how about this for clarity:

Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? (Prov. 27:4)

If left unconfessed and unaddressed, envy will rot you from the inside out. The church really needs to hear this. We repent of and turn away from the more obvious sins such as violence and sexual immorality, but at the same time we allow envy to drive so much of what we do in our churches. We wrap it up in terms like ministry, serving in the church, and just using my gifts for the Lord, but we can still run on nothing but pure envy. And if that’s you, it’s rotting you away on the inside right now.

WHAT ENVY REQUIRES

So what do we do with this knowledge? How do we get rid of envy?

We must confess it. And for that to happen, we have to take the initial step of recognizing it within us. As I spent time thinking about the topic, preparing to preach and then write on it, I went on an internal journey. At first I felt sure that envy was a good topic to explore with my church, but perhaps not one that was especially relevant for me. How wrong was I? Over the days spent preparing the sermon, I realized just how deep envy snaked within me, and admitting that to God and others was hard. But I believe that part of the strength of the church is built on honest confession.

Simple enough, perhaps. But why is it so hard?

Confessing to envy makes us look weak. Confessing to worry and anxiety, on the other hand, makes us look somewhat busy, even active. A struggle with envy speaks of inner struggles that are not in any way attractive or admirable. But once again, that’s what Ecclesiastes does: it reveals. We cannot hide behind slick religious habits or self-delusion, and the Preacher will not let us shrug something like envy off as a relative insignificance.

Can God forgive us this sin? Yes, He can. When Jesus Christ came to earth, something terminal happened to envy. The wise author of Proverbs was right to ask, “Who can stand against jealousy?” leaving room for the answer: Jesus could. And He did. By resisting all temptation, Jesus stood against envy, covetousness, and jealousy. In fact, His death and crucifixion were a direct result of the envy in other people. Read through the Gospels, and you’ll see how many times envy is the fuel for the religious leaders who falsely accused Jesus and put Him to death. Envy put Jesus on the cross. Not just theirs, but ours, too.

Abel was innocent regarding his brother, but Jesus was more righteous than any person in every way possible. And Jesus came to take the place of the guilty Cain, the guilty you, and the guilty me. After His sacrifice, we received the blessing of the righteous, making peace between God and us, as well as between us and other people. Jesus came to reconcile Cain and Abel, God and us, and us and others.

But dealing with envy goes a little further than that. Envy requires repentance, yes, but envy also requires replacement. Ecclesiastes hints at the remedy for envy: “One hand full of rest is better than two fists full of labor and striving after wind” (4:6 NASB).

According to the Preacher, people motivated by envy have their hands full. They struggle with their burden of toil, trying to work their way toward wealth, security, or superiority. But the answer is not to stop doing anything altogether. Better to hold on to work in one hand and peace or tranquility in the other and to know that God will calm the unrest in our hearts. All our work should flow from a place of peace and contentment, yet so much of the world remains at odds with that concept.

I got my first job at age fifteen, serving food and busing tables at a small Chinese restaurant. The owners never gave me an employee meal, so as I served through the dinner rush, I was always starving. I served one delicious plate after another, wishing I could just take a seat and eat with them. I felt frustrated because I constantly gave away that which I wanted. I finally worked out that I needed to eat early, before going into work, and it did wonders for my attitude. I no longer gave away what I needed. I was able to serve while also feeling satisfied.

The remedy for envy isn’t getting the thing we’re envious of; rather it is peace, inward satisfaction, and a knowledge that God gives us all we truly need in life. Think about it: How would you function over the next twenty-four hours if you already had everything you needed? How would your choices, reactions, behavior, and language be different if you knew beyond a doubt that there was nothing on this earth that you needed that you didn’t already have? We would be able to create without the need to compare, give without the need to get, and serve without the need for status.

Fantasy, you say? No. The Bible is perfectly clear that this way of living is absolutely possible. We just have to realize that Jesus is all we need. We need to learn to look at what we have in Christ. According to Paul in Ephesians, we have innumerable blessings, a spiritual family, and an incorruptible inheritance in Christ! The rest of Scripture sings the same tune, showing the way that God lavishes His love upon the world He created. Trade in envy for a deeper understanding of God, and life cannot fail to improve. Pray more; study Scripture more; meditate on God more—there’s no substitute for getting to know God in this way.

TELL YOURSELF A BETTER STORY

So much of envy is tied in with the stories we choose to tell about ourselves. I deserve this, I don’t deserve that, and so on. For the recovering person struggling with envy, it is vital to learn how to tell a different and much better story. When you’re standing outside the equivalent of Joe’s garage (whatever that is for you), hearing him shred through numerous incredible guitar solos, it’s important to have something new to say to yourself.

First, you can remind yourself of the doctrine of saving grace. You’ve been rescued from sinful, lustful desires, and even though you deserve hell, God gave you heaven.

Second, remember the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. God gave you new power, new strength, and new desires by the power of the Holy Spirit. If you trust in Christ, you have the Spirit dwelling in you. He changes you from the inside out. That’s the only way to truly conquer envy.

Third, don’t forget the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. Remember that God distributes gifts and abilities as He wills. So when you see someone with something that you want, tell yourself that God gave him or her that gift and that He’s given you another gift or ability for His own purposes. Internalize that deep down, and remember that God’s love toward us is not measured by the amount of gifting or ability we have. It’s measured on the cross of Christ.

Lastly, remember the doctrine of the church. As the body of Christ, we’re all one, all on the same team, each one of us with a job to do. When it comes to the church, connection is better than competition any day of the week.

Hear the words of Jesus calling from Matthew 11:

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. (vv. 28–30 NASB)

Our responsibility is to approach Jesus and accept the peace and rest He gives us. We cannot be satisfied with anxious, bitter, or raging souls; instead we must accept nothing less than the pursuit of God-given peace.

We need to drop the mask, call envy what it is, confess it, repent of it, and embrace the full, beautiful truth of all the goodness God gave us in the gospel.

12

DISCONTENT

Life is beautiful, terms and conditions applied.

—S. Nirmal

For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow?

—Ecclesiastes 6:12

Woody Allen’s film Midnight in Paris depicts a writer visiting Paris, dreaming about the city’s former glory days. If I could just go back there, it would be so great, he thinks. Enter: a mysterious time-travel vehicle that takes him back to meet all the famous writers and artists he admires from Paris’s past. What he discovers upon meeting them, however, is that they’re also all longing for the previous golden age.

It has been said that those who think the “old days were better” suffer from a bad memory and a great imagination. When things are tough, we tend to long for the golden days, only to discover they weren’t that golden after all. But if going back isn’t the answer, how do we move forward? The need to deal with our discontent is clear, but how to deal with it is often a mystery. Life is hard, and when it is hard, the search for good can feel like an impossible task. There at the bottom of the ravine, it can seem as though we will never escape the depths.

We’re not alone, either. The Preacher knows exactly how we feel. After many chapters spent chronicling his search for meaning in a life without God, he’s had enough. The experiment failed, and the journey is almost over. Perhaps some of us, like him, have simply tossed the script away altogether. He arrived at the intersection of questions and silence and found life under the sun meaningless.

But that’s not entirely true. He hasn’t been able to stick entirely to his experiment: somehow joy seems to creep back in, and when it does, life is beautiful. For now, however, we find him at the bottom of the ravine, hemmed in on all sides by the simple truth that life can be tough.

So what do we do when the truth lands on us like this? How do we cope when we realize that life is hard, when we’re in the thick of discontentment? Well, typically we respond one of two ways: despair or denial. Most of us have gotten pretty good at either seeing nothing but bleak storms and horror or pretending that everything is peaches and cream.

But are those the only two options? Our guide urges us to wake up to one of the most pivotal truths in life: we learn some of the greatest lessons in the hardest of times. We might long for prosperity, but we learn the most in adversity. We might not like it, but it’s true. It might not come naturally, either, but learning to look for good things when everything seems bad, learning to be content, is an essential discipline.

But it’s going to take some rethinking on our part—and some essential ingredients.

HUMILITY

Why do we take bad news so personally? We may not think we do, but it becomes clear almost every time something goes wrong. Try these scenarios on for size:

You get a flat tire.

God hates me!

You lose your job.

How can God exist?

You’re in debt.

I hate my life.

Taking bad news personally is so hardwired into us that it’s hard to imagine responding any differently. Take that flat-tire scenario, for example. Imagine you’re in the car with friends, on the way to a wedding or concert or whatever, and you hear that familiar dull flapping sound coming from the back of your car. You pull over to check the tire and have to deliver the news that you have a flat. But instead of a scowl, you’re wearing a smile a mile wide.

How great is this? What level of adventure and blessing awaits us as we experience this divine intervention in our journey?

Probably not going to happen.

The search for good when difficulties arise must begin with humility. And humility, the Preacher tells us, comes from recognizing our limitations.

First, he reminds us that we are not God. “Whatever exists has already been named” (Eccles. 6:10 NASB), and not by you, me, or any human stained by sin. We cannot contend with God, and any attempt to rename or reconstruct the world according to our whims is nothing other than vanity.

Second, we don’t know the future. We don’t have a clue what will come after us, so why would we be so quick to raise our fists toward God? Why be so hasty to conclude that flat tires have no place in God’s plan? Our pronouncements are just guesses, and our perception of the future is minuscule and obscured compared to the view of our eternal God.

Our pride makes us allergic to weakness or limitation, and it’s nothing new. Romans 9 contains the following verbal rebuke from the apostle Paul: “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (v. 20).

The Preacher is not warning us against asking questions, and it’s not at all bad to search for answers. But we can ask the question why with both hands open or with fists clenched. It’s probably best if we avoid the latter.

WISDOM

If we can cultivate an attitude of humility—the sort that keeps us from foolish, unnecessary speculation—we will find ourselves approaching the second of three essential traits: wisdom. If we want to learn how to find contentment when things seem bad, we need wisdom. Wisdom recognizes that something can be learned in every aspect of life, especially in a season of adversity or discontent. Chapter 7 of Ecclesiastes is full of wisdom and truth that can help us gain a clearer perspective on our frustrating circumstances.

Digest Grief; Don’t Divert It

A good name is better than precious ointment,

and the day of death than the day of birth.

It is better to go to the house of mourning

than to go to the house of feasting,

for this is the end of all mankind,

and the living will lay it to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter,

for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

—Ecclesiastes 7:1–4

Excuse me, but how is the day of death better than the day of birth? He’s saying it’s not just how you start that counts—it’s how you finish. It’s what actually happens in life, not what could have happened, that determines your reputation. Action is better than potential. In the end we show what kind of person we really are. Will our name be an example to follow or a cautionary tale to avoid?

Death has had a profound effect on who I am today. When I was in high school a friend overdosed on acid and tragically died as a result. At his funeral, in what the Preacher calls the “house of mourning,” I took it to heart. I knew I loved my friend, but there was no way that I wanted to live like he had.

Then there was my father. He suffered pretty much my entire life and was bedridden for most of the last ten years of his own. And yet his faith was strong. Even when I hated God as I watched my father suffer for years with his health, I knew that I was seeing great faith and wisdom in front of my very eyes.

This is not about being morbid; it’s about being healthy. Let’s not live in denial. Allow yourself to learn what you can from the pain of grief.

Sorrow has a way of removing superficiality, and for some of us that’s exactly what we need. Not that you need to have some bad thing happen to you; more, you need to allow yourself to experience the full weight of the troubles that are present. Forget denial, superficiality, and theorizing about the purpose of suffering. Learn how to learn from real life.

Receive Correction; Don’t Reject It

None of us like to be corrected, but correction is a vital requirement if we are to know joy in the midst of suffering. But because we recoil from correction, we unintentionally build a life that resists it. We subtly position ourselves in relationships or community in such a way that people do not tell us what we don’t want to hear. As a result, we become lone rangers, keeping everyone at arm’s length, avoiding accountability, and resisting authority.

But listen to the wisdom of the Preacher:

It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise

than to hear the song of fools.

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,

so is the laughter of fools;

this also is vanity. (Eccles. 7:5–6)

When you receive correction, you’ll notice this truth: when superficiality is removed, we are prepared to experience real joy. Why? Because the joy that comes free of superficiality is the type of joy that is deeply rooted in reality.

To remove yourself from wise counsel is to say, “I don’t want to be healthy.” Yet we only ever fill that need for health with some other foolish substitute. Like the Preacher says, the house of laughter and the song of fools can never truly change our lives. The Preacher’s choice of illustration is important. If you think about a fire made from burning thorns, the heat and potential are limited. Brief flames, little heat, and lots of noise. What can you cook on that kind of fire? Nothing. So it is when you end up settling for a life without wise counsel. Crackling thorns might entertain us for a while, but the fun will pass.

Proverbs 12:1 says it best: “The person who loves correction loves knowledge, but anyone who hates a rebuke is stupid” (ISV) (and no, that wasn’t rephrased).

Develop Patience; Don’t Despise It

Patience does not just mean learning how to wait. We can wait impatiently, and I often do. I’ll be sitting in the car, engine running, waiting for friends to join me at the prearranged departure time of 2:14 p.m., which we all agreed on earlier that day. It has to be 2:14 p.m., because if we leave one single minute later we will end up having to park at least three rows farther away from the optimal entrance to the movie theater.

So I sit and wait in the car. But there’s not a single fiber of my being that is patient.

Better is the end of a thing than its beginning,

and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

Be not quick in your spirit to become angry,

for anger lodges in the heart of fools. (Eccles. 7:8–9)

Being patient is utterly different from simply waiting. Being patient is about the attitude of the heart. We also face the temptation to take shortcuts—to doubt whether we have the resources to make it all the way to “the end of a thing,” but shortcuts and knee-jerk reactions do not serve us well. We need to keep the big picture in mind, to wait for the outcome rather than jump to anger.

When we cultivate patience, we become less like a match and more a candle. We can sustain our input, maintain our work. We can be consistent rather than burning brilliantly for a fraction of the time before dissolving into smoke. As it says in 1 Kings 20, there’s wisdom in knowing that the one putting on the armor should not brag like the one taking off the armor.

Learn from the Past; Don’t Live in It

Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?”

For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

—Ecclesiastes 7:10

We long for our own personal time machine to go back to the “good old days,” but like Woody Allen’s protagonist in Paris, we realize that nostalgia is vanity. The Preacher calls us to be realistic. He warns us that flying back into nostalgia only keeps us from dealing with the here and now.

And some of you are living in the past. Learn from it, he says, but don’t take up residence. What’s better is to be wise:

Wisdom is good with an inheritance,

an advantage to those who see the sun.

For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money,

and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it. (Eccles. 7:11–12)

Wealth comes and goes, but wisdom remains. Wisdom guides you in how to use your resources properly. In the face of difficult times and hard circumstances, these truths remain key to becoming wise: don’t live in denial, receive correction when it comes your way, develop patience, and embrace wisdom.

FAITH

Right about now, you might be thinking that this is all good content, but don’t we need a little more? Aren’t we a little close to fortune-cookie land?

As well as humility and wisdom, we need faith to help make sense of the hard seasons in life. Not some kind of generic, off-the-peg version of faith, and not faith in an object or idol like the economy, the government, or your lucky rabbit’s foot. We don’t need a plastic faith. We need faith in God.

Consider the work of God:

who can make straight what he has made crooked?

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. (Eccles. 7:13–14)

The Preacher has told us that life without God is meaningless—and we know that life without God is no life at all. God designed this life for us to enjoy and experience with Him close by. Only He can make straight what is crooked, and only He can give us meaning and satisfaction. He allows seasons of prosperity and adversity, and we must always remember the limitations of our own wisdom.

The irony is that we don’t know it all—in fact, we barely know ourselves, let alone the world around us or the future it contains. However, despite this fact, we manage our lives as if we really do know it all. That’s why the Preacher calls us to invest in humility, wisdom, and faith. It’s the only way we’re ever going to see what’s ahead of us.

Think about the ways in which the gospel shows how God transforms bad situations into good—from His Son’s birth into a world of poverty and danger, to Jesus’s public ministry that sees Him tortured and crucified like a common criminal. If you were to judge by the circumstances of Jesus’s death, you might conclude that God had vacated the project. But that’s not the way the gospel works.

The gospel invites us to go even further to the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, asking each of us some very simple and yet powerful questions: What do you think now? Do you see how all of these things have worked for your good? Do you see how it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer? He offered Himself as a sacrifice for all of our evil and wicked sins. Do you see how even though we disregarded God in our hearts, He rose again and conquered the grave to give us everlasting life so that we might be brought into glory?

If God’s own Son suffered this way, why would you consider it strange that you go through hard times? Augustine, the early church theologian, said, “God had one Son on earth without sin, but never a Son without suffering.” Suffering is inevitable, but it is also always linked to God’s glory. If you believe in Jesus, then both suffering and glory are inevitable and inseparable. But most importantly, they are incomparable. When you reach the end of your life and place all your suffering on one side of the scale and the glory of your salvation on the other side, the glory of your salvation will far outweigh your suffering every time. And right about that time, you will nod with a smile as you recall the words of Paul in Romans 8: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (v. 18).

It’s not even worth comparing. So don’t be too quick to look at your circumstances and say it’s not fair. Was the manger fair?

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:16–18)

We find hope in the pursuit of Christ, but that hope does not come free of difficulties. Instead our hope comes through the redemption of suffering. God calls us to stare our difficulties in the face, not to raise the fist but to open the hand as we ask why this happened. Instead of asking, “What have You got against me?” we should ask, “What do You want to teach me? What is it that You want me to learn and do as a result of this time of adversity?”

Remember the empty tomb? The tomb was a place in which death was meant to fill the air; however, it became a stage for the greatest event in the history of humanity. Remember the tomb as it was—as it still is today: empty. Unclench your fists and recognize the good found in the midst of the pain.

“I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist,” Lesslie Newbigin once said. “Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.”

13

WORRY

When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.

—Winston Churchill, Their Finest Hour

Remove vexation from your heart.

—Ecclesiastes 11:10

Not everyone will find their thought life hijacked by anxiety. Perhaps it’s not true for all of us that worry breaks in like a thief in the night, robbing us of sleep, ripping out our inner peace, and making off with our ability to trust. We don’t all react the same way to the same stresses. But I suspect that all of us, in some way, would be happier living without worry.

Most of us spend a considerable chunk of our lives dealing with stress. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing. After all, adrenaline and the fight-or-flight responses can be useful and occasionally life-saving reactions to external threats. The trouble is, many of us spend far too much of our day staring down those threats—especially the sort of threats that don’t exist in flesh and fur. The stress turns unhealthy and breeds constant anxiety. We can feel as though we are constantly in danger, constantly under threat. Often we worry about things that haven’t happened yet, but at times we trawl the past for worry, returning again and again to the scene of the crime, the humiliation, or the hurt. The past plagues us, the future paralyzes us, and the present just gets lost in the mix. We become risk averse, hesitant, and cautious to the point of retreat. “Seize the day” can become a taunt and not an encouragement.

And this is precisely where the Preacher wants us. At the end of Ecclesiastes 11, as his wisdom-related experiment comes to a close, he urges us to do this:

Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. (v. 10)

Perhaps every single word that the Preacher wrote before this brought us to this point, to the place where we can put aside anxiety and brush away worry. But while his previous words dealt in warnings and exposed our flaws and follies, the Preacher takes a different approach by the time he reaches these final stages of the journey. Time is limited, so he becomes preoccupied with sharing the practical steps we can take going forward. He is desperate to teach us how to seize the day before it seizes us. It might not be the smoothest of rides, but—for Christians and non-Christians alike—what the Preacher writes next could help shake us out of a life consumed by anxiety and worry.

LIFE IS UNPREDICTABLE

The Preacher often explores the obvious before dispensing wisdom, and he begins here by urging us to acknowledge that life is unpredictable. This does not mean he wants us to retreat. Rather, he calls us to radical risk, to live abandoned in our God-given abilities.

Cast your bread upon the waters,

for you will find it after many days.

Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,

for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. (Eccles. 11:1–2)

It goes against the grain for so many of us. We store up, we save, and we hoard our way through life, thinking that the more we store up, the safer we are. And the Preacher, against all the usual wisdom of that day or this, looks at us and says this: be generous.

Generosity may not seem like the obvious response to cultivate in an uncertain world but it’s precisely what he calls for. Admittedly, it is counterintuitive. Most advice suggests that we should circle the wagons when threats loom on the horizon, but the Preacher says otherwise. All of it—our finances, our time, our talents, our spiritual gifts—should be considered gifts we merely pass on. After all, economies tank and disasters strike: Do you really think you can hoard enough to keep you safe from the aftershocks?

The Preacher says no. Better by far to fail because you’ve been too generous than to choke and die because you’ve been too selfish.

Christians betray their very title when their hearts are not full of generosity. The Bible instructs us to give to the poor and needy. We’re told to give to the work of the ministry and the advancement of the gospel. We’re compelled to give and share with other brothers and sisters in need. We’re commanded to be generous with our families, sharing with them whatever we have. Generosity is not an optional extra for “heavy users” of the Christian faith.

In addition, we cannot put off generosity until later on. We need to start now, give more now, and share what we have now. Why? Because generosity is first and foremost a demonstration that God has touched our hearts and lives. Why would we stay silent about that?

But because life is unpredictable, the Preacher has another piece of advice for us:

If the clouds are full of rain,

they empty themselves on the earth,

and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,

in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.

He who observes the wind will not sow,

and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. (Eccles. 11:3–5)

He’s talking about worry. He’s describing the utter futility of questioning why a certain tree falls a certain way. Admittedly, it does seem a little ridiculous: the tree just fell. Why did it fall? What if it fell to the north? Why did it fall to the south? What if it hadn’t fallen at all?

But isn’t that the kind of anxiety many of us experience on a frequent basis? Even though we may be powerless to change things, we still worry about them, even if they’ve already happened.

While obsessing about the tree (insert worry of choice here) might be good for our creativity—leading us to write endless poems and prose titled “Why the Tree Fell and Made Me Sad”—it’s completely unhealthy for our souls. When we spend mental and physical energy on what we can’t change, our presents suffer as a result.

Look at the way the world works, says the Preacher, and realize the futility of worry. Sure, we could study the clouds all day long, but we can never make them rain. Worry makes us like the hesitant farmer, frozen into inaction because of our desire for perfection or our concern that things might be about to get worse.

Don’t try predicting where God will move next, not unless you want to be proved wrong. Instead, learn how to trust in what God has already revealed. Even though you may not know every detail about the world—and you certainly don’t have a clue about the future—you can still trust God. Like Charles Spurgeon said, “When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.” There are so many things outside of your control, but trusting God will see you through.

Trust, however, is not the same as apathy or inactivity. The solution to worry is not taking up residence on the couch with a multipack of chips and high-speed Internet access, doing nothing. Trust is a verb, an active word with clear evidence of its use.

Which means that the third piece of advice the Preacher offers us is this: take every opportunity you can. “In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good” (Eccles. 11:6).

Yes, there are things beyond our control, and there is no such thing as a risk-free life. There is a difference between leading a dangerously irresponsible life and choosing to take risks in life. Nobody would suggest that your first driving lesson be conducted on Interstate 405 in Los Angeles, but are the risks associated with suburban streets too much for the first-timer? If you think so, you will never drive.

None of us know what disaster may fall upon us or when, just as none of us know which investments will prosper and which will not. So we should sow our seeds, risk being generous, stop worrying or waiting for the perfect moment, and instead make the most of every opportunity. Never underestimate the opportunities right in front of you.

Moving my family to Los Angeles to start a church in 2006 was a risk. There was no guarantee that anything would come of it. But my wife and I sensed God calling us to do it, regardless of the results, and we wanted to be faithful to that call and trust Him to bring the fruit. When I look back over the past seven years and see all the lives changed through the gospel at work in our church community, it blows my mind. I’m glad that God helped us to take the risk.

Life is unpredictable, but God never changes. We may not always know what He is up to, but we can know what He is like. This means that our plans can shift as we respond to the changes that face us. But our trust in God’s strength allows us to be bold, wise, and generous. So we should all take risks, though not for selfish gain. We should take them for the sake of others.

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

Maybe you think that all this talk of vanity and meaninglessness would make the Preacher a negative person when it comes to life, but that could not be further from the truth. He cannot get away from the beauty that he sees on display around him. We can see it too, if only we know how to look. The trouble is that we spend so much of our lives anchored to anxiety and selfishness that we miss the pleasure offered by life’s simplest things. And the Preacher does not want us to miss a second of God’s good creation.

Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. (Eccles. 11:7)

Most of us walk by a thousand miracles every day without even noticing, missing out on a constant stream of celebrations of God’s goodness and care. Yet we continually overlook the good because we’re otherwise preoccupied with our worries. How different would life be if we learned to enjoy every detail and cherish every moment?

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 vanity.

Rejoice, O 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. (Eccles. 11:8–9)

Who would disagree with him when he says that every moment is a gift? We instinctively know it to be true. And even though we don’t always know it at the time, there is something lavish and wonderful about the gift of youth as well.

Don’t be too hasty to ease off into retirement. In God’s economy, there is no time allotted for winding down until death. Life is filled with purpose and potential, right up to—and beyond—our final moments here on earth. Throw off the shackles of anxiety, worry, and lethargy; there’s a whole world out there to enjoy.

But what does it mean to walk in the ways of your heart? Back in ancient times, they did not see head and heart as separate the way that we do. We think of the heart as the place where we experience our feelings, but in the ancient world, people believed that they processed and worked out issues in the heart. Which means that the Preacher is not saying, “If it feels good, do it”—he’s encouraging people to carefully think through their choices.

By the way, his earlier mention of the “days of darkness” isn’t the Preacher going off and getting morbid and depressing again. No, he’s simply being realistic and honest. We shouldn’t try to enjoy life despite the dark days of the grave ahead but because of them. We need to enjoy our lives with the bigger picture in mind.

LIFE IS ACCOUNTABLE

I’ll admit that we glossed over one point back there, and it was the word judgment. That word is in there for a reason, and it brings up the third point about life, which will help us see things the right way up. Life is accountable. Everything we do matters to God.

Our Creator God set boundaries around the things He made, and we need to live accordingly. Enjoyment cannot be separated from goodness or justice, and it won’t be enough for us to stammer bleakly when God calls us to account for ourselves (which, in case you were wondering, is not a fairy tale but one of the most-taught doctrines in the Bible). When God calls you to speak, what will you say?

Well, I was true to myself. Does that count at all?

This is God’s world, and He will judge us on the basis of His standards, not ours. The Preacher already blasted the fool elsewhere in Ecclesiastes, and I think it’s about time that we cleared up a misconception about God’s love. When Scripture says, “God is love,” it does not mean that He totally affirms every desire of your heart. Most people see “God loves you” as an all-access pass, but there are boundaries that should not be crossed.

God’s law is not supposed to rob us of joy. God’s law is meant to deter us from evil and bondage. The concept of judgment usually brings fear for us because we know we’re not righteous, but on the positive side, judgment demonstrates that this world does have meaning, purpose, and both a right way and a wrong way to live. One of the greatest ways that God reminds us of our dignity as human beings is to hold us accountable for our choices. They matter.

Derek Kidner, the great commentator who passed away several years ago, said that “joy was created to dance with goodness, not alone.”[1] What the Preacher is really calling us to do here is to live in light of the future. It goes against the grain of much of Western culture, as most people tell us to “live like there’s no tomorrow.” Not our man. The Preacher says to live like there is a tomorrow, because tomorrow also gives today its meaning. Live fully today, knowing the final judgment that awaits us all.

There’s a misreading of Jesus that goes like this: the Old Testament shows God getting angry when things go wrong; then Jesus comes along and tells God to calm down and makes it all better.

I might have oversimplified this caricature a little, but you get the point. In opposition to this, Jesus says that there is a final judgment and that in fact He is the judge—and if you’ve read His parables, plenty of them illustrate the fact. In Jesus’s parables, we see sheep being separated from goats, an outer darkness for those who reject Him, and an inner joy available to those by His side. But right alongside that pronouncement of judgment He also offers hope, joy, peace, and eternal life. How? As pastor and author Tim Keller often puts it, Jesus came the first time not to bring our judgment but to bear our judgment.

Can you see how, in light of such a life, the call to generosity makes perfect sense? And Christ’s sacrifice reinforces His advice not to worry. Thanks to Jesus we’re now no longer looking for a reward from finite things but instead looking to the reward of Jesus Christ Himself. Just look at the advice that Jesus gives in Luke 14:

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. (vv. 13–14)

Jesus Christ ushers in a whole new reality. We can risk radical generosity for something even greater than the Preacher could have imagined: the reward that comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Even when there’s no chance someone will repay us here on earth, our new perspective allows us to give without care for earthly rewards. And the same is true of earthly fears; we should not worry about the fallout of sharing the gospel when there are eternal rewards at stake. Living in the light of what Jesus did for us means that we can make the most of the opportunities available to us, leaving the results up to God.

And what about worry? In Matthew Jesus doesn’t suggest that we try avoiding it; He simply commands us not to worry. Why? We should not worry because even though we will have trouble in life, He will always be with us. And He has already overcome the world and all the worries that threaten us. For you Christians, know that there is always risk involved in following Jesus. You will risk losing the praises of other people, and some of you will risk your jobs and social status. And what does Jesus say to you? Do it. Yes, it may cost you, but the Christian life is no stranger to cost. What you risk is something earthly and temporary, but what you gain is something heavenly and eternal.

Press on. Risk it. Seize the day—don’t sleep through it.

There is no neutral ground for fence-sitters in the gospel. Either you follow Him, or you don’t. Make the choice, and the shadow of death will not have the final say in your life, but instead the light of Christ will mark you.

For those not yet embracing Christ, I say to you: risk it! Follow Him! What, you’re waiting for the ideal time? Great. Jesus says any time is the perfect time, and if you’re going to trust Him with your life, you might as well trust Him with your calendar. Take the risk and lose it all, because that’s the only way you will be saved.

Corrie ten Boom, the Holocaust survivor, once said, “You can never learn that Christ is all you need until Christ is all you have.”

Take the risk. He grabbed hold of you, so let go of whatever you’re holding on to that holds you back. Let’s be the sort of people who, in the words of Stanley Hauerwas, “can risk being peaceful in a violent world, risk being kind in a competitive society, risk being faithful in an age of cynicism, risk being gentle among those who admire the tough, risk love when it may not be returned, because we have the confidence that in Christ we have been reborn into a new reality.”[2]

NOTES

1. Derek Kidner, The Message of Ecclesiastes (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1976), 100.

2. Stanley Hauerwas, Against the Nations (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 118.

14

JOY

Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.

—A. Sachs

Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart.

—Ecclesiastes 9:7

When I look around at all the people in my city, I see so many panic-stricken faces that I have to ask myself: Everybody dies, but does everybody really live? It seems that we all want joy in life; isn’t that why we set out writing our life story in the first place?

If the book of Ecclesiastes is about one thing, it is about the search for a life lived the right way. Ralph Waldo Emerson biographer Robert Dale Richardson, quoting Emerson’s work, offered another vantage point: “The wise skeptic does not teach doubt … but how ‘to look for the permanent in the mutable and the fleeting.’”[1] Our guide, the Preacher, has helped us do just that. We know he is a skeptic, but he is not cynical, and his challenge to us throughout Ecclesiastes is clear. He wants us to base our hopes on that which is truly real. The previous chapters have looked at how to deal with the negative, but here we explore the pursuit of the positive: joy.

Contrary to what you might think, the Preacher has a lot of time for joy. The brand of joy that he longs for is the sort anchored to reality, not superficiality. There’s a lot of talk about death in Ecclesiastes, but you must be used to that by now. You know that if we listen to the Preacher, and then to what the rest of the Bible says, we will find ourselves directed toward a brand of joy that is true, lasting, and fully capable of withstanding the pressures of life.

THE JOY KILLERS

The Preacher wants us to recognize the obstacles that stand in our way. We have touched on some of them already, but there are three obstacles that he highlights within the specific context of joy.

Death

This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all.

—Ecclesiastes 9:3

Here he is talking about death, and there is no doubt about it—death is a threat to joy. Most of us respond to it as Christopher Hitchens did: “I am, as everyone is, reconciled to everyone else’s death but their own.”[2] We all know that death happens, and we have already spent time reminding ourselves that when it comes to our own mortality, it’s tempting to embrace superficiality and avoid the hard facts.

Uncertainty

Time and chance happen to them all. For man does not know his time.

—Ecclesiastes 9:11–12

Joy also struggles in the face of the unknown. Have a look at these verses, and you will see the Preacher say that regardless of how smart or successful you are, you can never have all that much certainty under the sun.

Time is out of our hands, and the uncertainty that results can be toxic to our souls. I could list the ways in which uncertainty unhinges us, and that list would have to include the economy, money, the law, politics, relationships, the weather, community, and culture—just to get us started. And if one of those words raised your pulse even a fraction, you are well aware of how fragile joy can be in the face of uncertainty.

Injustice

All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

—Ecclesiastes 9:2 NIV

In addition to death and uncertainty, joy dies in the face of injustice. If this is all there is, then what is the point of life? If we simply come from dust and end up as dust, what does it matter how we live in the meantime? What’s the point of morality if we live in a world devoid of ultimate justice?

If this is all there is, then the odds are stacked against us. The Preacher comes to the conclusion that, in a life lived wholly under the sun, there is no hope of happiness. But what if he’s wrong?

JOY’S POSSIBILITIES

As we’ve already seen, the game is up for the Preacher. Life under the sun doesn’t make sense for the simple, eternal reason that life under the sun is not the whole picture. When the Preacher comes to a dead end, he looks up. He comes to recognize that life has a Creator, just as joy has an Author:

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil…. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. (Eccles. 9:7–8, 10 NIV)

Before we move on, we need a little theology here. Two doctrines summarize what the Preacher faces in Ecclesiastes 9: the first is called common grace, and the second is called the doctrine of the fall. The doctrine of common grace suggests that there is good in the world because God is a good Creator who gives us good things as signposts that lead us to Him. The doctrine of the fall suggests that the reason life is bad and death and suffering exist is because God has leveled a sentence against our sin. We’ve rebelled against our Creator, and we all live in sin, harming one another and leading self-centered lives. That paves the way for death, tragedy, suffering, and evil in the world. This doesn’t mean that we’re all as evil as we can possibly be but simply that we’re tainted by sin.

If misunderstood, these two lines of thought can lead us to errors when it comes to enjoying life. The first error—rooted in a mistaken view of the doctrine of the fall—suggests that we should forbid all joy in life. We’re particularly good at this in the Christian world. This is a form of legalism that is not just bad; it’s demonic. Paul says as much when he writes to a young pastor named Timothy, telling him not to forbid people from enjoying created things in the way that God intended them to be enjoyed (1 Tim. 4:1–5). God is actually pleased when we enjoy things the way He intended. Can you imagine me giving my daughter a gift and getting angry because she enjoyed it? Of course not. I want her to enjoy it rightly, just like God wants us to enjoy His gifts.

Here’s the second error: enjoying life in a way that God did not intend. Though I want my daughter to enjoy her gift, there is a chance she may use it sinfully (like using it to hurt her sister, which is not uncommon in my house). When we give in to gluttony or immorality, we wander off course. We need to avoid both of these errors. What are some ways we can enjoy life as we connect it to the big picture?

A BETTER WAY

The Preacher lays out a few signposts of his own to help us navigate toward a better way of enjoying—but not abusing—the good things in life. As ever, he’s practical but pulls no punches.

First up, sustenance. He mentions food and drink in Ecclesiastes 9:7, reminding us not to take it for granted: “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart.” In the midst of all this uncertainty, we should not forget the goodness that comes from enjoying a simple meal.

How did you enjoy the last meal that passed your lips? Did you relish it, celebrating the way that the flavors gave you pleasure? Almost without exception I’d say there is potential for thanksgiving right there on your plate. The Preacher is not saying that we should abuse food or drink. He is saying we should learn instead to properly enjoy them both. The Bible does not say that alcohol is a sin, but abusing alcohol is a sin. The Bible does not say that enjoying food is a sin, but gluttony is a sin.

Second, we can find joy by learning what it means to truly celebrate. It’s all there in verse 8: “Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.” Here he’s talking about wearing the ancient equivalent of party clothes. He’s talking about making a deliberate choice to remember all that is good in life and to celebrate as a result. Yes, there is a time to weep and there is a time to mourn, but there is also a time—and reason—to celebrate. Christians really need to learn how to throw better parties. Getting out the good threads is a wise course of action, especially if you’re prone to despair.

Next up is companionship. Verse 9 says, “Enjoy life with the wife whom you love.” Even though he refers to marriage, the principles he outlines speak equally to friendships. But why single out marriage? Back in those days, in some cultures, there was a tendency to view the desire for marriage as a sign of weakness. The truly “spiritual” people didn’t need it. Yet Scripture constantly affirms marriage as something created for us to enjoy. Even Jesus, who lived His whole life single, made it clear that marriage is good.

Today, however, we are in different territory, facing different dangers. We can fall into the trap of idolizing marriage or disregarding it altogether. That wedding ring doesn’t make you 100 percent complete any more than the absence of it makes you superior. The truth is that marriage is a good thing, so—men and women who are married—you need to consider how much goodness you bring into your marriage. Are you doing all you can to make it possible for your partner to thrive?

And what about those who are not married? Well, we need to stop assuming that friendship is second-rate. Technically marriage ends when you die, but friendships go on into eternity. Friendships are deep and wonderful, and they were deep and wonderful enough for Jesus. So let’s not devalue friendship; instead let’s invest the best we can in our friendships, aiming to realize their full potential. If you are married, recognize the beauty of friendship in your marriage.

Finally, says the Preacher, we come to the last element that can enhance our potential for joy: creativity and work. We see this reference in verse 10: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.” In life under the sun, there won’t be any more opportunities to do that stuff once you’re dead, so enjoy it while you can. After all, God created work—it is not a product of the fall. It was only after the fall that it turned into toil. But good, honest work remains a good, honest source of joy and satisfaction.

We spend so much time complaining about our jobs that we can risk missing the joy that comes from creating something, providing resources, and working alongside others. Find whatever your hand can do, and do it with all your might. Put aside laziness, and embrace the potential joy that comes from work.

For some of us, this is all going to require a change in attitude. Put down the complaining, backbiting, gossiping, and general air of gloom and self-pity. Work diligently, put on that garment that makes you smile, and enjoy the time you have together with your friends and family. This is a massive change for some, but so worthwhile.

BUT …

While we should see the potential for enjoyment in food, celebration, companionship, and work, none of the above are the true source of joy. Instead, they are just great vehicles for it. Of course, lots of people like to stop here and take up residence, hoping that the experience of pleasure will be enough to flood life with a sense of purpose and joy.

However, disconnecting pleasure from purpose takes all the glory out of it. C. S. Lewis wondered “whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy,”[3] and I think he had a point. We can end up in a strange place that I call dissatisfied satisfaction: the minute we have fun we start to crave something else.

Lewis continued in this vein when he said: “[Joy] is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still ‘about to be.’”[4] Even though there’s something right in front of us that is beautiful and creates enjoyment, it also increases a longing for further enjoyment at the same time. This leads to the type of pain that Lewis called “the stab of Joy.”[5] We know things are good, but isn’t there more to life than this?

These stabs of joy cause us to ache, but they also whisper to us that there is something more. There has to be something more. After all, how—if you believe only in life under the sun—would you ever be able to carry on? These stabs of joy are the trail that our hearts cannot help but follow. There’s something more; that’s what they tell us. Always something more. And that is precisely what Ecclesiastes does—it points us toward the something more, something missing, something better.

Lewis says that joy surprises us because these stabs arrive unexpectedly, leaving behind the pain, the inconsolable longing. And the Bible says that God created the stab. God created us with our longing for joy, and He also allowed the world to be incapable of truly fulfilling us.

A sign of failure on His part? Not quite.

JOY’S FULFILLMENT

We all want the same thing in life. Man or woman, secularist or believer, we all want a sense of fulfillment and joy. We go about it in so many different ways, but the Preacher gives us two clues about where it can really be found.

Read verses 7 through 10, and the first clue should be obvious: we must recognize God as the source of joy. But the second clue can be found in a story. Specifically the strange little story in verses 13 through 16:

I also saw under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me: There was once a small city with only a few people in it. And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siege works against it. Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom. But nobody remembered that poor man. So I said, “Wisdom is better than strength.” But the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer heeded. (NIV)

Whether the author realized this or not, his words point toward the greatest story in human history: the story of the world itself. We are overcome and besieged by sin, Satan, and death. We are controlled. But a poor, wise man left the glory and riches of heaven to come to our city. He used His wisdom to save the city, though no one recognized Him, though no one would listen to Him.

This brings us face-to-face with the gospel.

Jesus, who was ultimately wise, ultimately rich in heaven, gave up everything and came into the besieged city to serve and save us. Jesus experienced the hell and wrath of the cross for us so that we might be saved, so that we might have joy. On the cross Jesus gave up the joy that this world can offer so that we might gain the joy of heaven.

And here’s the point of the story. We all long for joy, every single one of us. To find it we must recognize that the source is God Himself and that we can never attain joy on our own. The Source came to you. That poor, wise man came to you. He gave that gift to you.

How can we find joy when it seems like everything is against us? We trust that Jesus Christ changed everything. We trust that all meaning is found through Him, the One who created the world we enjoy.

TRUE, CHRISTIAN JOY

G. K. Chesterton once said that joy is the gigantic secret of the Christian life,[6] and there are far too many Christians alive today who would be surprised by his words. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit and a sign that God is at work in us. Before we end the chapter, let’s break down Christian joy.

First, Christian joy cannot be earned. Some would tell you that joy is a reward for wisdom, wealth, or intellect, but true joy is a gift. Thanks to Jesus, all of us, no matter what the circumstance, can know joy. It’s the reason Paul and Silas could sing like crazy in prison, because joy is given, not earned. Trust Christ, and joy is yours to tap into in abundance.

Second, Christian joy is eternal, not temporal. It’s not something that is fleeting but that instead will last throughout all eternity. Okay, so we might not savor the food we eat forever, but if you know that God is the source of joy, this fact connects your temporal joy to eternal joy. Suddenly, enjoying something temporal like a meal becomes an echo of the greater joy of knowing God.

Third, joy and sorrow will appear in your life whether you’re a Christian or not. You’ll see both joy and sorrow throughout your time on earth, sometimes right alongside each other. The question that we each need to ask ourselves is, which one will win out in the end? Will joy win out, or will suffering?

According to the gospel, if we do not trust in Jesus, then sorrow and death will have the victory. But if we trust in Christ, then eternal joy wins. Death ceases to be something that we need to fear, and joy marks the start of a new beginning.

Fourth, Christian joy is deep, not shallow. It gives even the small things in life a deeper meaning. Remember that Colossians 3:23 tells us that whatever we do, we should work hard at it, not forgetting that we work ultimately for God and His glory. Everything has purpose for the one who knows Christian joy.

Here’s another thing about Christian joy. It is God centered rather than self-centered. That means we’re not just grasping for what we can get from other people like rampant consumers. No, our joy finds satisfaction in God; therefore we can be generous toward other people.

Finally, Christian joy is indestructible, and not fragile. A hope that the grave can destroy is not a hope worth having, but a hope that can destroy the grave is. Look at the poor, wise man who gave everything to save the people who were under siege. Remember what Jesus did for you, and remember what He said. If you do not have this eternal, indestructible gift of joy, then you simply have not yet met Jesus. What you have in your heart is a case of divine homesickness. Maybe you’ve looked at everything under the sun in search of a home, but your bags remained packed and your shoes laced. Your restlessness is a sign that there is something yet to be discovered. Trust in Christ, the poor, wise man who gave everything for you, the Source who came to you so that you could have joy and have it to the full.

For those unsure about their grasp on Christian joy, remember that God is both the source and the enabler of joy. Ask yourself whether you’ve allowed anxiety and worry to put something else in God’s place in your life. Perhaps you feel trapped, besieged, lost. I wonder whether the problem is that you have forgotten Jesus. Forgetting doesn’t necessarily mean that it escaped your mind but that you are not choosing to look at your life through the gospel. You forgot to look to the One who gave everything for you, who became poor so that you might become rich.

Maybe the odds seem stacked against you as you search for joy. Perhaps you deal daily with worry, discontent, envy, or religiosity, but here’s the good news: Jesus destroyed the odds. Jesus is alive; He gives us His Holy Spirit; He makes us new. Thanks to all the work He did, we are on our way home. Are we alone on this journey? No, we’re dragging every man, woman, and child with us so that their hearts can also find home in God.

Everyone dies, yes. But now, everyone can truly live.

The Preacher took our life scripts and—perhaps against our fear-led instincts—did not throw them away. He kept them, handled them carefully, smoothed them out, and urged us to come alongside for a closer look. We may feel as though we got it all wrong, but I hope you also began to realize one essential truth: God made you. He made you with aspirations, made you to know what to do with these assets, and made you to flex these attitudes.

We were made to be alive. Fully, wonderfully alive. Even in the face of death.

NOTES

1. Robert Dale Richardson, Emerson: The Mind on Fire (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1995), 416.

2. Christopher Hitchens, quoted in Windsor Mann, ed., The Quotable Hitchens (Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press, 2011), 85.

3. C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 1966), 170.

4. C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 78.

5. C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 130.

6. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: John Lane Company, 1909), 298.

EPILOGUE

HOW DOES IT END?

15

DEATH

I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

—Woody Allen

All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.

—Ecclesiastes 3:20

As I sat in the chair, wearing a suit that was a bit too big for me, I went through my final preparations before speaking at my father’s funeral service. His health had declined over the last ten years, and he finally passed in 2003, when I was twenty-three years old.

I waited for the service to start and thought about the last memorial I’d attended: the one for my young friend who a few years before had swallowed too many drugs and tragically died. My friends and I had held a small, somewhat informal service in a public park. We shared our memories of him and speculated about where he might be now. I wasn’t a Christian at the time and was unsure about what I even believed about death. Apparently, everyone else felt the same way. When it came to what happens after death, none of us had anything to say.

Recently I read about someone who murdered a young woman while she was away at a university in Italy. You probably know the case because another young woman, Amanda Knox, was, after a long trial, acquitted of murder. The report I read featured an interview with the victim’s father, who explained how, after the trial, the family’s grief doubled; not only was their daughter gone, but also justice appeared to have failed them. All their questions were unanswered. What hope could they have?

But the report was not totally bleak. In the course of the interview the father revealed a source of comfort that had sustained him and his wife. He called it the white-feather phenomenon. He first encountered it one summer as he sat in his garden when suddenly an “absolutely white feather” landed next to him. He looked up, but there was no bird in the sky. It gave him hope that somehow his daughter Meredith was still present.

“I often look at photos and say to her, ‘Send me a white feather.’”[1]

We treat death with such caution, yet we know it’s a nonnegotiable element in our life story. We wrap it up in euphemisms, and we close our eyes and ears and hope that it might go away. And yet it will happen to every one of us, Christian and non-Christian, saint and sinner. Death is our promised end. It’s a part of everyday life, and yet we still feel outraged when it happens.

But what if we didn’t have to ignore it, avoid it, or treat it like the elephant in the room? What if we could learn something from it? What if reflecting on the end of our lives could signal the start of something new? Steve Jobs said this a few years before his death:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.… It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months.… Sorry for being so dramatic, but it’s quite true.[2]

Don’t we all in some way nod when we hear someone talk about how grief has “put things into perspective”? Maybe this isn’t such a radical idea after all. But while we might know what we’re supposed to say about death, most of us are unsure about what we believe.

Many of us live practically as secularists, believing that life is what we make it but taking out some after-death insurance just in case. We pin our hopes on being “a good person” or draw comfort from white feathers, yet God made us for more than this. We need to know what Scripture says.

We start again with Ecclesiastes.

The Preacher’s experiment sends him searching the earth for meaning—imagining what life is like without God in the picture—and the search eventually brings him around to death. While he has found things like money, envy, and work frustrating, when it comes to death he is heartbroken. He wonders whether it is enough to simply hope for the best or believe in some off-the-shelf cookie-cutter divine deity that we customize to suit our requirements. What about those tragic situations when a life is taken unjustly? How do we deal with those?

The Preacher is desperate to break through, desperate to bring us out of denial and ask the hard questions. Even if it humbles and troubles us. In fact, it may just help us. To the non-Christian he says: Have you asked hard questions about what you believe? Have you thought about those things on which you’re basing your life? Are you sure enough to risk being wrong?

To the Christian his questions are just as urgent: Have you really wrestled with death? Do you live today like you are aware of it? Do you let people settle on simplistic answers and fairy-tale fantasies for the sake of not having to disclose your real thoughts about what they believe? Does your fear of disapproval trump your fear of death?

THE PROBLEM WITH DEATH

We all dread the call, the day that someone close to us dies, but we know it will eventually come. Some of us have rehearsed our responses and reactions, trying in some way to prepare ourselves. Who are we kidding?

It is only right that death changes everything. Death should stop us in our tracks and force us to rethink everything about our lives. Why? Because death is full of problems, and the Preacher will not let us go without facing them head-on.

First of all, death presents problems relating to justice. Ours is a world where, day after day, people commit evil, sinful acts. We hear of crimes and abuses and are left asking, “Where’s the justice?” The Preacher nods in agreement and presents the thought of a “final judgment” as being somewhat comforting:

I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. (Eccles. 3:17)

But then he immediately wonders if we can really be so sure about justice:

For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. (Eccles. 3:19)

The Preacher’s not against justice—in fact he’s an advocate for it. He’s heartbroken and frustrated when injustice appears to triumph. And we should feel the same way. The world said “never again” after the Holocaust, only to see genocide continue in Cambodia in the ’70s, Rwanda in ’94, Srebrenica in ’95, Darfur in 2004, and the DRC throughout the 2000s. Shouldn’t we join the Preacher by raging, calling for judgment and retribution? When so many taste death so quickly, how can we not cry out for justice?

But any time we ask whether justice was done, we need to put the same question to ourselves. Do we get what we deserve? If there is ultimate justice, on what side of it will we find ourselves?

The Bible says justice is not just an “us” and “them” problem—it’s an “all of us” problem. To be sure, we have not all committed the same kinds of injustices to the same degree. But how many of us know what we ought to do and do not do it? Ecclesiastes offers constant reminders of the fact that the world is crooked, all of us included. We are capable of dealing out so much injustice, but when it comes to the antidote, we are bankrupt, weak, and locked in a cycle of suffering.

If we look only at the grave, how much comfort can we find? We all share the same fate. If we leave God completely out of the picture or simply deem Him irrelevant, what difference is there between us and the animals? And if we eventually bring God back into the picture, how are we to understand the fact that both the wicked and the righteous seem to end up in the same place? These are tough questions.

Why does the Preacher bring this to our attention? He starts by saying that this uncertainty is evidence of God testing—or in the Hebrew, “exposing”—humanity. The Preacher recognizes that our uncertainty “under the sun” in this matter has a profoundly humbling effect upon our hearts. Perhaps many of us speak too soon when it comes to death.

Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? (Eccles. 3:21)

Let me ask you this: What will you say when you are called upon to speak at a funeral? What would your friends say? What would your family members say if they were asked to stand beside the casket and help the mourners make sense of the tragedy of death? I have both attended and officiated at a number of funerals in my life so far, and I’ve had to ask the same questions. It’s important that we do it now because reason rarely rules at the funeral—rather, emotion rules. We have a tendency to say what we do not actually believe. I don’t think I’ve ever prayed more in my life than when I’ve officiated at funerals. Imagine leading a service where someone comes to the front and says of the departed:

“She’s not gone; she’s playing racquetball with the big man upstairs.”

or

“He’s not gone; he’s just gone over into the other room, so don’t be sad.”

or

“Our dear friend has just become a star.”

I’ve heard many statements like these, and I’ve discovered that most of the people who say them don’t actually believe them for themselves. They just don’t know what else to say.

Death is so hard to face, and mourning is fast becoming a lost art. Little wonder we get tongue-tied and say anything remotely comforting as quickly as possible. That way we don’t have to think about it anymore. Before I was a Christian, I’d do exactly the same thing, especially when grief showed up. My plan was simple: go to a place, suck up tons of alcohol, and get drunk enough so that I didn’t have to think about it. At least that’s what I did. But I was bankrupt. Like I heard one philosophy professor say, “We’re all bankrupt; we just haven’t declared yet.”

Under the sun, none of us have the answer. But nobody’s declaring.

If we maintain the view that God is out of the picture, then the best we can do is what we find here in Ecclesiastes 3:22: “So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?”

First of all, the Preacher urges us to make the best use of our time and resources and to see that the good gifts of God show His grace. Even the fact that there is enjoyment to be found in this life is a sign of God’s goodness and care. We should make the most of every moment. But the question remains: “What will come after we die?” If what we see is all there is, can we ever know? The Preacher brought us to the point where we need to listen to the rest of the Bible for answers, because on our own, we don’t know. But at least he asks the right questions: Who will set things right? Who will bring us to see what is after death? And who will comfort us in sorrow?

The rest of the Bible agrees that death is a problem. Go all the way back to Genesis 3, right after God created everything in the beginning and declared it good. It was good right up until the point when humanity rebelled against God, introducing death to the world. Death is God’s verdict against sin, and our physical death is an outward sign of a spiritual separation from God. No wonder it feels so wrong. It’s an enemy.

C. S. Lewis famously said that pain, suffering, and death are God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Death helps us take the problems of the world seriously. But death also causes us to take God’s promises seriously.

THE PURPOSE OF JESUS

We’ve seen a pattern emerge throughout our journey with the Preacher. Whenever we come up against vanity and futility, the conditions are right for us to turn our attention toward God. When death brings us to the point of feeling fragile and genuinely scared, we can take comfort in the words we read in Matthew 12. Quoting Isaiah, the author reminds us that Jesus was “a bruised reed [who] will not break, and a smoldering wick [who] will not quench, until he brings justice to victory” (v. 20). According to Jesus, our hope for justice and healing is found not in a set of principles but in a person. Himself.

But how, when we’re all guilty, can He do that? The gospel tells us that He was denied justice so that we could be justified. He took the pain and shame for our injustices so that we could have the comfort and joy of His righteousness credited to our account. That’s why He went to the cross—so we can have the hope and promise that He will put all things right. Justice—one day—will be done. Jesus is the world’s judge. We’re all going to meet Him eventually; it’s just a question of whether we will meet Him clothed in His righteousness or found in our own guilt and shame.

Jesus came to bring life as well as ultimate justice. When the Preacher asks, “Who can show us what will be after death?” Jesus says, “I will.” And He can because He faced death Himself two thousand years ago and rose again three days later. He can bring comfort that no other human being could ever give, for He is the good shepherd. He is alive, and He promises to all who believe in Him that we will be raised with Him.

God does not always give us an explanation as to why each thing happens under the sun, but He always gives us promises and hope. He never said that we would not walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but He has promised that He will be with us when we do. He will be with us and bring us into eternal life, to the day when He makes all things new. No more death, no more suffering, no more oppression, no more cancer.

The new begins right now.

And it is because He makes all things new that we should be compelled to change the way we live every moment of every day. If Jesus took care of your death, will He not take care of your life? If He’s taking care of the worst fear, what makes you think He will not take care of you now and give you the comfort and strength that you need?

THE PERSPECTIVE OF JESUS

We know that death puts life into perspective, but the consequences of such a revelation should be so much more significant than an emotional high or a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. Because of what Christ has done, we can see everything through different eyes.

The perspective of faith brings brand-new priorities. The choices we make do matter. It does matter how we choose to live right now. In the light of the questions raised in Ecclesiastes 3 and 4, there are a few simple steps we should all take.

The first is to speak the truth with humility and boldness. We should not be silent about life and death, sin and forgiveness, love and mercy. We have the comfort of the gospel that must be shared with others. There are times to sit and listen and grieve with others, but there is also a time to speak. If we really do believe that Christ rose from the dead, let’s talk like it.

There are also things for us to do. Christians should be the greatest advocates for justice on planet Earth. Our God is a God of justice, and He calls us to be active participants in working for it and to offer comfort to those who have experienced injustice—providing for the weak, helping to set right those things that are wrong. Throw a party for the poor and deprived, Jesus says, because He will repay us at the resurrection! As one theologian put it, Christians are the ones committed to putting right all relationships in life, because they’ve been put right with God. We have been empowered to be the world’s best comforters because the tomb of Jesus is empty.

At the informal park funeral for my friend many years ago, when the grief was at its most raw, my friends said some of the things we listed earlier. Things like, “It’s okay; he’s up there somewhere,” or, “He’s not gone; he lives on in us.” I honestly could not agree, and I don’t think they really did either. But I stayed silent. I had nothing to say.

This was one of the memories I had in my mind as I got up from the chair at my father’s funeral years later. I had become a Christian, and everything had changed. My family, of course, was there in the church, as well as some of my old friends. As I took to the podium, I knew that I was mourning, but I was also at peace. And this time, I had something to say. And I said it.

“I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

When we consider death in light of Christ, life becomes more precious, more urgent. In Psalm 90:12, the psalmist says, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” The moments we have are few, and they are getting fewer by the day. Yet Jesus is alive. His resurrection means the beginning of the end for everything wrong in the world. Let us live like it.

The new begins now.

NOTES

1. Lucy Bannerman, “After Five Years, the Mystery of Meredith Kercher’s Murder Remains,” Times of London, April 26, 2012, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/article3395244.ece.

2. Steve Jobs (commencement address at Stanford University, June 12, 2005), http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html.

16

THE LAST WORD

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It’s that they can’t see the problem.

—G. K. Chesterton, The Scandal of Father Brown

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.

—Ecclesiastes 12:8

G. K. Chesterton was an influential British writer during the early half of the twentieth century, a well-known man of letters who spent much of his time engaging with how people thought about meaning and purpose in his day. As Western thinkers increasingly excluded God from their worldviews, Chesterton wisely saw that this would inevitably lead to an accompanying fall into despair. He was pointing out the problem that too many were not seeing. Without God, Chesterton said, human endeavors are ultimately meaningless. All that is left, as the Preacher would say, is “vanity.”

How does the gospel challenge vanity in the twenty-first century? It starts by asking really hard questions. This is perhaps the greatest lesson we learn from Ecclesiastes: it is the honest assessment of life under the sun. If we want to see change in our lives and in our churches, it starts here. Too many of us have been looking for answers without asking the right questions. If we are going to help others look above the sun, the church must reclaim its role as holy provocateur, not being afraid to ask these difficult questions, for they lead us to what can come only from beyond ourselves.

Without asking these questions, Jesus can be perceived as another optional extra, another commodity we add to our lives in order to reach our vain vision of perfection. But Christ Himself has showed us that this vision is flawed. What He has for us is true and better.

As we find ourselves in the final pages of this book, trawling through the closing thoughts of the man many people believe was King Solomon, we look back on our progress. We have been on quite a journey. We’ve looked at where we’ll end up if we view God as an optional extra within our life script. We’ve asked where we’ll end up if we don’t trust in the hope of the gospel. If anyone’s going to have some valuable last words for our journey, you just know the Preacher’s going to deliver. And for us to become more effective in speaking with others about what really matters, what must we learn from these last words?

THE DAWN

The Preacher closes with one key word: remember (Eccles. 12:1).

We should remember the Giver of Life in every moment of our lives. But remembering is not the same as daydreaming with a photo album open on our lap. The Preacher calls us to focus our minds on the One who creates and sustains, brings life into reality, and continues to give our lives meaning and purpose.

We’re all trying to find meaning and significance in life. We’re all driven by the need to question the purpose of our time here on earth and to find meaning that will drive our life script. We are curious about life after death, and all of us in some way rely on faith to back up the answers we stumble across. Great scientists and thinkers and even atheists rely on faith.

Think about it for a moment. Can you gather together enough observable, tangible evidence to prove that we are more valuable than rocks? You can’t. Can you prove scientifically that we’re of more value than a lump of coal? No. But we all agree that it’s true. It’s a belief.

One last time Ecclesiastes blows our cover. We cannot find meaning under the sun unless we are prepared to make that vital step of faith. And faith comes from somewhere beyond these rocks and stones.

So the Preacher concludes that we should do the right thing and remember—and draw strength from—the One who created us and sustains us. When things are good, turn to God. When life seems sweet, look to the One who dripped honey on the mountains. When joy steals your breath, remember the One who gave it to you in the first place.

Remember. Always remember.

Life is full of so much that can spark our joy: the beauty of a meal, the beauty of creativity, the beauty of human community, and the beauty of wisdom. But the Preacher warns us not to mindlessly indulge ourselves. There’s an urgency inherent in this passage that’s tangible. Why?

Because time is running out. We, like the Preacher, must help others to see this.

THE DARKNESS

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”; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut—when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low—they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets—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, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.

—Ecclesiastes 12:1–8

The book of Ecclesiastes ends as it begins: with poetry. Surrounding these words are metaphors found in the final chapter—old age, a house, an estate—each representing a winding down, a departure of goodness from the world. They represent the reversal of God’s intent for the world: de-creation. Here we are given a glimpse of the world as it truly is under the sun. It’s a portrait of the world left to rebel against God and suffer the consequences.

The poem has the sense of a funeral, the sense of an ending. The people search, but we all know that the game is up. Their songs are faint, and there’s too little life left in their lungs. They pick through the rubble, searching for meaning, but the game is up.

All is fading.

What happened here? The Preacher had it all. He had the knowledge, wisdom, wealth, community, land, and career. But in the end, here he is, a faded picture of a fading world. What has happened is this: he discovered the answer to his question. Under the sun, everything fades, and everybody dies. Even those trophies in the house will break: the golden bull shatters; the silver cord (our metaphorical lifeline) is cut. Meaninglessness reigns.

Los Angeles is far from normal at the best of times, but it all goes into overdrive during Oscar season. Those treasured (and slightly creepy) faceless statues are objects of desire and symbols of success and accomplishment for many in the film industry. But even in Hollywood there are moments of clarity, like when Jim Carrey opened up about the vanity of fame: “I wish everyone would get rich and famous and everything they ever dreamed of so that then they would know it’s not the answer.”

It takes guts to speak like this. There is a fear that comes when we admit that we don’t have the answers. Life can feel hollow and faded, and the “silver thread” that holds us in place can seem frighteningly weak and thin. And all these beautiful possessions in your house don’t quite seem worth all that sacrifice. That TV, those clothes, the cars, the jewels—none of them can give life true meaning.

Not that long ago, Richard Dawkins debated with the archbishop of Canterbury. At one point in the discussion, the atheist said this about the Christian worldview: “What I can’t understand is why you can’t see that the idea of life coming from nothing is such a staggeringly elegant and beautiful thing. Why would you want to clutter it up with something so messy as a God?”[1]

I’m convinced that if the Preacher had been in the other chair he would have shouted out loud like one of those strange people you don’t want to sit near when you go to the movies: “That’s precisely my point! If the origin is meaningless, so is the end!”

Yes, there’s elegance in the world, but what if that elegance was only ever going to fade away?

If this life on earth is all there is, then there is no point or purpose. The house will fade, the planet will die, and even our memories will disappear. In fact the New Testament picks up on this theme, saying that we deserve the darkness. Thanks to sin, that silver cord has already been cut. If you do not believe the gospel, you walk in darkness right now. You walk in spiritual darkness, and it’s only a matter of time before the clock winds down on your physical being.

If this is all there is, then the Preacher’s words have the final say: it’s all meaningless. But are you content to let your story end there? You intuitively know that there must be more to say. And that’s precisely why Ecclesiastes is in the Bible. It exists to wake us up to the truth about life, to be able to join Augustine when he wrote: “The house of my soul, O Lord … lies in ruins. Rebuild it.”[2]

Ecclesiastes leaves us longing to be rebuilt.

But that’s not the last word. Another ancient Israelite reads the Preacher’s manuscript and decides to add his own comment, a postscript on all that was written. He writes that our narrator—whom he calls the Teacher—was wise and “what he wrote was upright and true” (Eccles. 12:10 NIV). He goes on:

Now all has been heard;

here is the conclusion of the matter:

Fear God and keep his commandments,

for this is the duty of all mankind.

For God will bring every deed into judgment,

including every hidden thing,

whether it is good or evil. (vv. 13–14 NIV)

THE DISCLOSURE

I love the fact that Ecclesiastes tells the story of this remarkable man’s quest for meaning, but that in the end, the final words of his book are not his own. Another wise man, an editor, takes up the Preacher’s manuscript and tells us why it’s useful for our lives.

First, he tells us that Ecclesiastes matters because we all need to face the facts and look at life as it really is. It’s been said that where Ecclesiastes ends, Proverbs begins (although that’s not quite the way it’s laid out in the Bible). But the point is this: Ecclesiastes is truth, offering up a series of facts for us to face and wisdom for us to absorb. The editor writes that the Preacher’s words are like nails: a framework around which life can be built.

The editor also tells us that, while Ecclesiastes is a truthful book, it is a sobering book as well. And we need sobering up. We’ve all gotten drunk on the vanities of life and believed the lie that this life is what we make it, and we’re all terminal.

Make no mistake—it stings when you take this medicine. The editor describes the words that have gone before as being “like goads,” which were sharp pointed sticks used to direct animals in the way they should go. We need to be corralled and directed too. We’re so prone to wandering off, heads in the ground, with no vision or perception of time, danger, or threat. These verbal smacks wake us up.

Unfortunately, the church hasn’t always helped wake us up. The church is sometimes complicit in allowing us to avoid the truth, peddling the fun verses on the coffee cup, tweeting the pithy statement to keep us all feeling good. Much of the time the verses are taken out of context, airbrushing out the judgment or correction, glossing over the harsh warnings or the tough calls.

But these hard truths are the kind that we have a responsibility to share. Yes, we must do so in love and with discernment, but we need to share them nonetheless. The medicine might make us wince, but there’s healing on the other side.

Take a look back at the final two verses, and you will see that the editor introduces the idea of fearing and following God. To fear God means to recognize Him for who He is, stand in awe and worship, and acknowledge the truth about God and us. Fear God, and you will begin to know how to function in this world, without despair. Oswald Chambers said that the remarkable thing about fearing God is this: when you fear Him, you fear nothing else. However, when you don’t fear God, you fear everything else.

Fearing God means having a right relationship with Him. No other relationship needs to be fixed like this one, and it’s not just another optional extra. It is “the whole duty of man,” the best and fullest way of being a human.

Perhaps it’s ironic—but it’s certainly fitting—that through this mystery editor, God has the last word in the book of Ecclesiastes:

For God will bring every deed into judgment,

including every hidden thing,

whether it is good or evil. (Eccles. 12:14 NIV)

Every secret thing will be brought before Him. Nothing is hidden from His eyes. He knows every thought that you’ve ever had, every desire. Every word spoken, whether good or evil, every sarcastic remark, and every encouraging word. He knows every deed, every act, even the ones nobody else in your family knows about. Everything that is public and everything that is private are open before God.

Are you ready, right now, to give an account before a holy, perfect, and righteous Judge who does not smirk or laugh at sin? Are you ready to see it all laid out between you both and to give your answer to the question why.

The Preacher concludes that a world without meaning is in itself meaningless. But the law of God says that everything matters. It matters what you say to your friends, and it matters what you think about your boss. It matters how you treat other men and women, and it matters how you go through life.

Life is a gift, and this gift matters.

THE CONCLUSION

We must not waste life or live according to vanity, transience, absurdity, or meaninglessness. If we want to truly live, we must fear God and obey His commandments.

This is what it means to be human. But how should this truth change and impact our behavior?

First, we must repent of sin. When you and I engage in sin, we are working against God’s goodness. Whether it’s sex trafficking or domestic violence, thieving or pornography, lies or lust, anger or arrogance, we go against God’s created order. We participate in “de-creation.” And Ecclesiastes, in showing us all the dead ends and wrong turns, is a call to stop and turn away from that reversal. Repent and remember before the silver cord is snapped.

Before it’s too late.

Some of you need to hear this in particular: the time is now. I have never met a Christian who said, “I wish I would have waited before meeting Jesus.” If anything, I find the opposite is true. It is true for me, a champion of sin and de-creation before I met Christ. I never once think, Oh, I wish I had waited. My thought to this day is, I wish I had met Him sooner.

Repent and remember now so that you may find the truest of all joys in your Creator. The call to repentance is the invitation to live. The call to remember our Creator is the call to be wide awake. The end of Ecclesiastes says to keep God’s commands, and here is God’s great command: “Believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 3:23).

But you might wonder, How can I get from death to rejoicing, from dark to light when I’ve forgotten Him so often? I’ll tell you how. Your Creator remembered you even when you had forgotten Him. He came into our world, and He lived perfectly in the light for us … even while we sinned against Him. He experienced the ultimate cloud of darkness, doom, and death and felt the fullest blows of pain, sorrow, and isolation as He hung on a cross two thousand years ago. It was there that Jesus—the most precious item in the household—was shattered, so that you and I might be mended, healed, and made whole.

But the good news doesn’t end there. That “Good Friday,” as we call it, was like a communal mourning service. Everything in the world went dark when Christ died. Yet death did not have the final word. When Christ rose again, those doors blew open, delivering us from vanity and that dark cloud of death and despair and despondency.

In death He gave us life.

Death did not have the final word. Jesus has the final word. You see, our hope does not depend on our ability to remember God perfectly and rightly. How could we ever hope to manage that? No, our hope relies upon His promise to remember us. And God looks at us through the perfect righteousness of His Son, Jesus. That is the truth of the gospel.

One day you will breathe your last, and you will meet Him. Standing before your Creator, your life surrendered to Christ, you will know that Jesus already took the ultimate judgment. How else can we hope to make it through the judgment we deserve?

For the one who follows Christ, the judgment that you need to be concerned with is not punitive—it’s purifying. It is God’s correcting love, steering us in the direction we should go. Condemnation will not have the last word; instead God will judge us as a people purified by His Son.

That means hope does not end with a scene of death like it does in Ecclesiastes. The Preacher was good, but he wasn’t that good. He was wise, but he didn’t see Jesus coming.

When Christians consider their funeral, their final chapter, they really should consider a wedding instead. That’s how the Bible describes the process of God making all things new. When we see Jesus Christ face-to-face, and He makes all things new, it will be a party—the most magnificent party in all the universe, in all of history, because we will celebrate a marriage with our Creator, and all things will become new.

The last word of Ecclesiastes is not the last word on God. The Bible itself ends with Revelation’s description of life and resurrection:

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (21:4–5)

Maybe this journey has been a hard one for you to take. Some of the words of warning from the Preacher stung. Maybe you’re a little more tattered than you were at the start. Perhaps you’re scraped and bruised by the fact that you wrote your script with the wrong perspective on what really matters. Though being corrected hurts, it’s wonderfully healthy.

Let’s look once more to C. S. Lewis to help us out:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew those jobs needed doing, and so you’re not surprised. But presently, He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.[3]

Friends, this is what God wants to do in your life today, if He hasn’t already. God turns ruined homes into glorious palaces. Which leads us to one last question: What part of your house or your life still lies in ruins? What part of your life script, your idea of how your life should be, needs correcting?

For some of you it’s the whole thing, and you must accept Christ today. However, what about the followers of Christ reading these words? Are you so sure that your script is finished? What part of your life still resists God? Ask Him to get on with the glorious work of transforming you through and through. Give God the pen, and ask Him to be the ultimate Author of your life. As you do, you’ll have a new script that can stand up to anything.

What’s the point in life?

It is this: to know Jesus, be made more like Him, live as He calls you to live, and be with Him forever. Until we understand that nothing matters without Him, we won’t understand that everything matters because of Him.

Everything else is vanity.

NOTES

1. John Bingham, “Richard Dawkins: I Can’t Be Sure God Does Not Exist,” The Telegraph, February 24, 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Dawkins-I-cant-be-sure-God-does-not-exist.html.

2. Augustine, The Confessions (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), 8.

3. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 206.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my dear friends who pastor in the Reality family of churches for all of their love, wisdom, and encouragement. I would also like to thank all the humble genius leaders who helped me both understand and appreciate Jesus and the book of Ecclesiastes, including Professor Peter Kreeft of Boston College, Hugh Palmer of All Souls Church Langham Place London, and Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

BETTER

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The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of David C Cook, nor do we vouch for their content.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org.); NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved; NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved; NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com; ISV are taken from the Holy Bible: International Standard Version®. Copyright © 1996-2012 by The ISV Foundation of California. Used by permission of Davidson Press, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY.

The author has added italics to Scripture quotations for emphasis.

LCCN 2013943294

ISBN 978-1-4347-0523-5

eISBN 978-0-7814-1086-1

© 2013 Tim Chaddick

Published in association with the literary agency of

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The Team: Alex Field, Amy Konyndyk, Nick Lee, Caitlyn Carlson, Karen Athen

Cover Design: Jesse Bryan, BAJI Group

First Edition 2013

TIM CHADDICK is the founding pastor of Reality LA, a rapidly growing church in the heart of Hollywood, California. Reality LA is part of the Reality family of churches, a movement committed to relational church planting and serving the broader body of Christ. Tim and his wife, Lindsey, live in Los Angeles with their three daughters.

Visit DCCeBooks.com for more great reads.

What people are saying about …

BETTER

“Tim Chaddick’s Better is an important call to seek after God, as well as an insightful commentary on today’s media-obsessed culture. With characteristic passion and wit, Chaddick unpacks the book of Ecclesiastes for the modern leader and reader, engaging the hard questions and many paradoxes found in this Old Testament book. Here is a work stocked full of ancient wisdom for this age of seekers, skeptics, and young visionaries. Don’t miss it!”

Brad Lomenick, author of The Catalyst Leader and president and key visionary of Catalyst

“Tim Chaddick has written an important book. Not simply because it highlights the beauty of Jesus, but because it unmasks the temptations and distractions that leave us empty and unfulfilled. An insightful, thoughtful, and compelling vision of why life in the kingdom of God is better than life in a shallow, consumer culture.”

Jon Tyson, pastor at Trinity Grace Church New York, www.cityrenewal.org

“In this powerful book, Tim Chaddick winsomely explores how the writer of Ecclesiastes speaks to the human search for significance, calling us to face the cosmic anxiety of the meaninglessness of life without God and pointing us to the mind-blowing reality that Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection change every part of our lives. Chaddick is an important voice in the church who is doing fantastic work in Hollywood, and I am thankful for his ministry and for this book.”

Justin Holcomb, author of On the Grace of God and adjunct professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary

“Tim is one of my dearest friends and also one of my greatest teachers. His insights into God, people, culture, and Scripture always inspire and challenge me deeply. When Tim speaks, I listen, and now I look forward to years of reading everything he writes.”

Britt Merrick, founder of the Reality Family of Churches, author of Godspeed, and pastor for preaching and vision at Reality Carpinteria

“Tim Chaddick is a gifted young Bible teacher with a flourishing ministry in a tough urban context. I’m excited to see him connect the timeless truths of one of the most overlooked books of the Bible with the empty pursuit of lesser gods such as sex, money, fame, power, and possessions.”

Mark Driscoll, founder of Mars Hill Church and the Resurgence and cofounder of Acts 29

“Tim ministers in the city of LA, a place where searching for significance can easily take over families, careers, and even life itself. I know the message of this book has satisfied the souls of countless people because, as Tim’s close friend, I’ve seen this message change him as well. He’s one of the most helpfully provocative thinkers I know, and he practices what he preaches.”

David Lomas, pastor for preaching and vision at Reality SF and author of The Truest Thing About You

Table of Contents

Cover

INTRODUCTION

1. A TALE OF THREE PREACHERS

2. SOMETHING NEW

PART ONE: ASPIRATIONS

3. IF I ONLY KNEW

4. IF I ONLY HAD

5. IF I ONLY DID

PART TWO: ASSETS

6. MONEY

7. TIME

8. COMMUNITY

9. POWER

PART THREE: ATTITUDES

10. RELIGIOSITY

11. ENVY

12. DISCONTENT

13. WORRY

14. JOY

EPILOGUE

15. DEATH

16. THE LAST WORD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Extras