Ecclesiastes 5:8-6:9

Enjoy God’s Gifts

Sermon Text: Ecclesiastes 5:8-6:9

Sermon Theme:  Enjoy God’s daily provision instead of pursuing more wealth. 

1. Those that pursue wealth will not be satisfied (vv. 5:8-12, 6:7-9)
2. Those that look to wealth for joy experience harm (vv. 5:13-17, 6:1-6)
3. Those that daily trust God experience joy (vv. 5:18-20)

Sermon Reflections:

Replace your grasping self-sufficiency with a constant trust in the fatherly providence of God. If you see oppression or suffer wrong, if your schemes are thwarted and your enterprises fail, you need not lose the quiet repose and settled peace which spring from a sense of duty discharged and the undisturbed possession of the main good of life. God is over all, and rules all the undertakings of man, giving each its season and place, and causing all to work together for the good of the loving and trustful heart ‒ trust in Him. For life is God’s gift. We must not view our calling as a drudgery, but take pleasure in the calling where God puts us. A cheerful spirit is a great blessing; it makes employments easy, and afflictions light. Having made a proper use of riches, a man will remember the days of his past life with pleasure. The manner in which Solomon refers to God as the Giver, both of life and its enjoyments, shows they ought to be received and to be used, consistently with his will and to his glory. Both the rich man and the poor man may “enjoy the good they have” rather than “crave a good beyond their present reach.” But, if they mistake that good for the Supreme Good, neither their poverty nor their wisdom will save them from the misery of a fatal mistake. For they too have souls, are souls; and the soul is not to be satisfied with that which goes in at the mouth. Wise or foolish, rich or poor, whosoever trusts in riches is either like the burro whose back is bent with a weight of gold, or he is worse than the burro, and longs to take a burden on his back of which only death can unlade him.

• Does man fret over the brevity of his life—it is not much, or often, or sadly in his thoughts?
• What occupies you—a jubilation God-given life of faith and joy or the vanity of life filled with vexations that tear at you mind and heart?
• Do you view your tranquil enjoyment of life as a reflection of the Divine peace?
• Are you trying to feed your soul by feeding the senses? Does your soul crave an eternal sustenance? Can you rest till it gains access to “the living water,” and “the meat which endures,” and the good “wine of the kingdom?”
• Does the rich man who trusts in his riches, and not in the God who gave them to him, carries within him a hungry craving soul that is restless and unsatisfied? Are you using whatever wealth you have to dull the pain of life?
• Is God showing us the need for Him by the frustrations of oppressive bureaucracy with its endless delays and excuses, with justice and righteousness being lost between the tiers of the hierarchy? Government officials all the way up to the king use their position for their own advantage, with the result that the people suffer. Is this what human nature is like?
• Are you making sure you do not gain any wealth or power by oppression?
• Are you cultivating the people who work with or under you?
• Do we use whatever wealth we have for our own and our neighbors’ good—pursued in the right method, from the right motive, with due moderation and reserve?
• Is your wealth building your kingdom or God’s kingdom?
• Have you experienced excessive devotion to business affairs which bring on anxiety and care that threatens to become pronounced and to infect all healthy conditions of the soul?
• God is said to have made everything beautiful in its time; now what is beautiful is the “portion” that comes to a person as a divine gift. Are you thankful to God for the portion He has given you?
• Do you recognizes the source of your wealth and reflects upon this divine generosity?
• Do you question the Providence of God, of the care with which He had arranged for your general well-being?
• Are you in control of your attitude to wealth rather than your attitude to wealth in control of you (Philippians 4:12)?
• Will your last memories as you go out of the world naked be of a righteous life lived for the Lord or of all but guilt and rich in nothing but the memory of frauds and wrongs? We only go with our character and our conscience.
• Are you living today so you do not look back with disappointment for the days of your life?
• Do those who set the acquisition of money as their highest goal in life have a never-ending task? Is there any ultimate meaning in wealth?
• Are your worries or headaches related to accumulating too much stuff that you must look after?
• Do we live on the fantasy that having wealth and power would result in satisfaction?
• Is what one presently has in hand much better than what one only desires and does not have?
• The one who sees something has an object in view, whereas the one who is locked into desire, by definition, has not attained the desired. Vision is a kind of possession, a state of rest in contrast to insatiable desire. Do you have insatiable desires?