We are exploring what Ecclesiastes says about success. Yesterday we saw that success, “under the sun” does not bring satisfaction…we think we have achieved it, and yet still we are empty.
II. Second, success under the sun, or the pursuit of these things instead of promoting satisfaction and serving man, becomes the master and produces slaves. 5:10-17
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.11 When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes?12 Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep. 13 There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt, 14 and those riches were lost in a bad venture. And he is father of a son, but he has nothing in his hand. 15 As he came from his mother’s womb he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand. 16 This also is a grievous evil: just as he came, so shall he go, and what gain is there to him who toils for the wind?17 Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness in much vexation and sickness and anger.
Solomon argues that all you get out of accumulating all of this is bigger insurance premiums. What benefit is all of this? You get to look at all you have, you get to stand over your possessions, like Nebuchadnezzar did and say to yourself, ‘Look at all I have accomplished, look at all my glory’…and in doing so, you blaspheme God.
Solomon says, you can’t take it with you, a cliché to be sure, one which is often used and more often ignored. You build your successful life and where do you end up? Either like Nebuchadnezzar, a brute beast, not enjoying what you have, OR being a slave to whatever success you perceive to have. You don’t own your success, your success owns you.
Verse 12 says that riches often become such a burden that man cannot even sleep. The simple man, who works hard and is content in the Lord, sleeps great, but with all the so-called success comes all this head-ache. Even to the point that verse 13 tells us that the rich man is destroyed by his own blessings. Have you ever thought about that? How is it that a blessing would destroy you? It destroys you when it, the blessing, becomes the point, becomes the blessing becomes the end…when the blessing is what you are seeking instead of the Giver of the blessing…for then the blessing is the god…and then your idol, your “blessing” will turn around and destroy you.
Listen to this summary: “A man arrives without possessions and he leaves without possessions. In the interval, while he does have all his stuff, he cannot sleep because he worries about it. What a deal! But if he works hard and frets and worries a whole lot he can make sure that his fine clothes for the short time he does have them, are nothing but nice wrapping paper for his ulcers.”
So, you set this world and its view of success before you and you end up having all that you have set yourself to attain… or, so that we don’t miss the point, WANTING just a little bit more, whether it be things, or the applause and approval of man, or a place at the table…we promote in our hearts and in the hearts of our children a view of success, purpose and identity that is bound to this world! You might be thinking, Pastor Skogen, all of this has been very negative. And you are correct. As Solomon reflects on man’s life without God, without Christ, there is nothing but vanity and emptiness, of course that is negative. But he does have a response, he does tell us briefly what we are to think, be and do. The answer to this comes to us in verses 18-20, and we must listen carefully.
Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment[h] in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. 19 Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.20 For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.
Every one of us is tempted to the very things that Solomon has been speaking of. What success do you dream of having? What is it based on…is it motivated by giving glory to God, or is it about you? Is success how many people know your name, the bottom line, your savings account, your lifestyle, the silencing of your critics, looking prettier, being more popular, being a people pleaser so that no one ever is mad at you? Do you want people to think well of you, that you have made it, that your life has meant something? Do you crumble at the thought that someone might conclude that you have failed?
Verse 20 especially puts it to us. God, as a God of grace, keeps a man busy with joy, with the joy of seeing life correctly, the joy of knowing the Lord and what it really means to live by faith, to respond by faith…our minds and our hearts are truly set on other things. And so filled with this joy, discontentment and the pursuits of this world and its trinkets are pushed aside.
We ask ourselves do we really know what is meant by saying that the “joy of the Lord is our strength”? What does it mean? Is the joy of the Lord YOUR strength? Or, “everyone who is in Christ is a new creation”? What does that mean? You are NEW, what then is the old, and how is it contrasted to this NEW? We have died to this world and its lusts…we seek those things that are above where Christ is…our minds are set on things above, not on the things of this world. We have been talking about these things for years in this church. How real is it to you? Is this really your life? Does this define you and identify you?
Solomon says: This man, this woman does not dwell unduly on the days of his or her life, because the Lord keeps him busy with joy. I love that. We don’t get ourselves unduly caught up with the things of this world, they do not define us, nor do they motivate us…simply because we are too busy rejoicing in what the Lord is doing in us and through us…regardless of the circumstance.It is a fascinating conclusion.
It is good and right that we lift up the cup and that we enjoy good food. It is good and right that we receive our portion of labor under the sun and receive it gladly. It is good and right for us to be diligent in the tasks the Lord has set for us, and that at times might produce the kind of success that the world can relate to, but it is not the kind of success that defines us.
Bigger isn’t necessarily better. More isn’t necessarily an advantage. Ecclesiastes says such things, like the Lord makes straight things crooked…later He will say that the race doesn’t always go to the fastest…We think it does, we assume that the fastest wins the race, every time, but the Lord who makes things crooked, says, no, it doesn’t always work out the way YOU think it should…that is the perfected crookedness of God.
Take all of your formulas for successful living, and throw them out the window. Instead, look up, seek Me, seek to please Me and live in joy and in the success of heaven. And don’t be surprised, it might just be seen most profoundly, in the small things…the things that no one sees, and no one will ever cheer you for.
Are you ok with that? The Lord being pleased and no one else ever knowing? The LORD saying well done, my servant…you were successful unto me?
Some time ago there was an article by Joel Belz in WORLD Magazine, entitled, “Think Small”, it is a great piece and of special interest to this church. Mr. Belz tells the story of evangelical author Bruce Wilkinson, and how, true to his Prayer of Jabez philosophy, he is always thinking bigger.
Mr. Wilkerson went to Africa over the last couple of years with a plan of building 50,000 cottages for a million orphans of AIDS in Swaziland. His plan was to charge Americans $500 a week to stay in those homes while getting to know and helping the children. There was a theme park, and golf course for tourists, and a program for the kids to put on rodeos and serve as guides in the wild game reserves. The first phase of this plan was to cost $50 million, and as Mr. Belz points out, that would take a lot of Jabez type praying. This is big, this is the kind of thing the Lord would certainly get behind, look at all the exposure this could be for the cause of the Gospel.
And if truth be told this is the way many, possibly most Christians think. If I am going to do something, I am going to make a splash big enough to get all those standing around, soaking wet. But, where in the church do we see ministries built on becoming less, on decreasing that Christ might increase…Or upon serving and giving life away in humiliation knowing that resurrection only comes after death?
Well, that is the point, we don’t see them, oh they are there, the faithful church lives this way in the world, but of course we don’t see them very often, because they are not concerned with us seeing them. How do you think Mr. Wilkerson’s enterprise fared? It failed.
In contrast the article spoke about a young man who worshiped in the church on the mountain that I served. His name is Peter Brinkerhoff who serves the Lord in Africa. If not for Mr. Belz we would never know what the Lord was doing through Peter, he certainly would never boast of it.
Listen to what Peter did as World tells the story: Peter… a Covenant College graduate was to recruit half a dozen young men and women whom he would train over several weeks as his loan officers. He prays with them and teaches them biblical principles. He has his own small team, made up of the power of being nobody. These young people would then hit the streets of Kisangani looking for folks eligible to sign up for tiny, short term loans that would enhance their financial situation. For example a $40 loan was extended to a woman who sold pastries off a tray on the streets. The $40 accompanied with a little business counsel…let her expand the variety of her offerings and buy her product at lower cost.
Over the next few weeks…her bottom line improved. At the end of the 16 week cycle her loan was totally repaid at 16% interest. And she was ready for a larger loan to propel her to a new level in her little business and to provide for herself and her family.
Some people might not look at this as very successful, in fact might conclude it to be tiny and insignificant? Perhaps. But in the time Peter was there on his first stint, over $50,000 was issued for these kinds of loans and at the 95% rate of timely return. Joel Belz concludes: “It’s hard to think of an effort better calculated to reach into the warp and woof of a needy society. And all because someone had the vision to think so very small.”
It is a neat story, isn’t it? Joel is right, this is the ministry of the gospel, in word and deed, to the poor and is exactly what the Lord fills with His Spirit. So, how small is this…to Jesus? Now, fathers and mothers, you have smiled at that story but how many of you would love YOUR son or daughter to be so successful?
How many of you would rejoice because you have taught your son or daughter that such is the heart and soul of success in God’s Kingdom? What if your son or your daughter gave their lives to thinking so very small? Please, don’t misunderstand, I am not saying, Solomon is not saying that Peter Brinkerhoff serves Jesus and that the local Christian brain surgeon or business man does not. That is not the point at all.
The point is what is success? How do you measure it? Under the sun, or do it see it shining brilliantly AS the sun…in the small things and thereby find your life filled full…because the Lord has kept you busy with the joy of your heart? And what is the joy of your heart?
Prayer: Father, help me to think small, help me to find success in the joy of everything in this world fading to the background and the simplicity of Your love and mercy being all I see and all I want. May I see the greatness in Your calling me to serve my family, my brothers and sisters and those you bring to me, right where I am, in Jesus name, Amen.
Song: Is He Worthy