Tomorrow, I begin my second sabbatical, which you’ve graciously allowed me to take every 7 years. Over the next 7 weeks, I’ll be resting a little, reading a lot, and prayerfully pursuing the direction God would have us to go in the years to come. And while I look forward to spending that time to seek God through prayer and His word, in some ways I already know what I’ll find, and what the vision for our church will be in the years to come, because it’s the same vision that God has given every church, all the time: to preach the gospel of grace, sharing Jesus with a lost and hurting world.

When you read through the Bible, you find that the Bible calls unbelievers many things. Among other things, unbelievers are called lost, unrighteous, dead, and fools. And that sounds pretty harsh, right? I mean, how are we going to build a relationship with the lost in order to share Jesus with them if we offend them by what we call them? So some churches have sought to rename unbelievers so as to not offend them.

There’s a trend in many churches to call unbelievers less offensive things such as seekers or even pre-believers. And I don’t think these are necessarily bad terms, because there’s some truth to both of them. While unbelievers aren’t necessarily seeking God, because the Bible says that no one seeks God apart from the Holy Spirit drawing them, everyone who’s ever lived has certainly sought peace and fulfillment in life, and the only true fulfillment for these things is in Jesus. And while I do believe every unbeliever is a pre-believer, I think the motivation to not offend lost people is misguided since the Bible itself isn’t at all afraid of offending any of us.

In fact, God seems to have orchestrated the gospel story in order to offend us. It offends our righteousness, because we must admit that we’ve sinned. It offends our pride, because it tells us that we cannot save ourselves. And it offends what we think is our moral and intellectual superiority, because we think there must have been another way, but the Bible is clear that Jesus dying on the cross for our sins is the only way. And that’s offensive.

Many unbelievers say that they would never worship God, even if they found out that God was real, because they believe that God sending His Son to the cross in order to die for sinful humanity was just about the worst thing He could have done. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? It’s offensive, and God wanted it to be offensive, so that we would finally stop trusting in ourselves, and begin to trust in Him.

Because without Jesus, we’d all be lost. We’d still be dead in our sins. But with Jesus, we’re found. We have life. And because we have life, we have the privilege and responsibility to go into all the world and preach, so that the dead would come alive.

Ecclesiastes 9, starting in verse 1.

Indeed, I took all this to heart and explained it all: The righteous, the wise, and their works are in God’s hands. People don’t know whether to expect love or hate. Everything lies ahead of them. Everything is the same for everyone: There is one fate for the righteous and the wicked, for the good and the bad, for the clean and the unclean, for the one who sacrifices and the one who does not sacrifice. As it is for the good, so also it is for the sinner; as it is for the one who takes an oath, so also for the one who fears an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: there is one fate for everyone. In addition, the hearts of people are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live; after that they go to the dead. But there is hope for whoever is joined with all the living, since a live dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead don’t know anything. There is no longer a reward for them because the memory of them is forgotten. Their love, their hate, and their envy have already disappeared, and there is no longer a portion for them in all that is done under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 9:1-6)

Father, You know how often we’ve gotten disillusioned by the seemingly meaninglessness of so much of life, to the point that we’ve wondered what the point of any of this is. And yet, we know that You’ve loved us, even when we’ve doubted. So help us to trust in Your love, which is the point of it all. Help us to trust in Jesus. In Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.

So far in the book of Ecclesiastes, we’ve seen how the writer, probably Solomon, sought to understand all of life under the sun, on the earth. And we’ve seen how if we’re looking for meaning in life apart from God, from a purely humanistic point of view, there is none. We can try to create our own meaning in life, whether through happiness, or achievements, or whatever, but we find that all of these things in and of themselves are meaningless because any arbitrary meaning that we invent on our own isn’t, by its very nature, the ultimate or objective meaning of life.

So one person may very well say that the meaning of life is to love one another, and they would be free to do that, but then another person could very well say that the meaning of life is to gain power even at the expense of others, and they would be free to do that also. Without God revealing to us the meaning of life, all we have are our individualistic subjective opinions, and no one person’s opinion would be any more correct than anyone else’s opinion. They would all just be personal preferences.

Which means, of course, that outside of belief in God, who is the very essence of true meaning and goodness, there’s no such thing as meaning or true evil. Without God showing us what good and evil are, the most anyone would be able to say is “I don’t like that,” or “that’s not my preference.” So when Hitler killed 6 million Jews during the Holocaust, the consistent atheist would have to say, “Well, that wouldn’t have been my preference, but it’s not objectively morally wrong.” But almost no one actually talks that way, and even fewer people actually live that way.

So do you see how only faith in God leads to having a logically consistent view of morality?

And this same reasoning applies not just to morality, but to happiness, and anything that we seek meaning in under the sun.

So Solomon writes at this point at the beginning of chapter 9 that he’s explained it all. He’s looked at every angle. He’s considered every motive. And when it comes down to it, he writes, in verse 1, the righteous, the wise, and their works are in God’s hands.

In other words, when we seek to be righteous, or wise, or to do good works because of the grace that God has shown to us in Jesus Christ, we’re rejoicing in the truth that we are firmly safe in God’s care. His mighty hands will hold us, and as Jesus said, God is powerful, and nothing can snatch us out of His hand.

And yet, this life is still full of questions and insecurities, isn’t it? Even if we’re sure of God’s good nature, we don’t know what that means for us in this life. We don’t know whether to expect love or hate from others. We don’t know whether we will have health and wealth or sickness and poverty. We just don’t know! In fact, those who trust in God often experience more persecution in this life because of their faith.

Even with God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, as our Father, and His Son Jesus as our Savior, we can’t be sure if this is going to be an easy life, or even a fair life. But whether a person has Jesus as Savior or not, Solomon goes on to say that we can all be sure of one thing, because it’s true of every single person: we will all die. Solomon writes that this is the one fate that awaits us all, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad, clean or unclean. In verse 3, it says, “This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: there is one fate for everyone.”

And Solomon says that from a human standpoint, this is an evil: that both the righteous and the wicked go to the same place. And he’s not talking about heaven or hell, he’s simply talking about the grave. We will all die. This is the reality.

And we think this an evil thing, because we think that we, the righteous ones, should get something better. But to immediately squash this idea, Solomon continues in verse 3: “In addition, the hearts of people are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live; after that they go to the dead.”

So, just as Solomon wrote in chapter 7, there is not a righteous person on the earth who always does good and never sins. When God looks down on us from heaven, He isn’t impressed with our righteousness. We’ve all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And the Bible is clear that the wages of sin is death, just as God promised Adam and Eve, talking about taking fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.” And since we’ve all sinned, there’s one fate for everyone: death.

So, if that’s the case, you might be wondering what’s the point of trying to do good? What’s even the point of being alive today if we could just die tomorrow? Solomon addresses that in verse 4 in which he writes that there is hope for whoever is joined with all the living, since a live dog is better than a dead lion.

If you were to see a dog and a lion fighting, it would be no contest. The lion would win every time. Lions are strong, and ferocious, and dogs just don’t have the physical ability to beat them. And yet, a dead lion has no strength whatsoever. So we see that death humbles the proud, and brings low even the mighty.

So if you ever worry about how it seems like you just don’t have as much as others, or others have more happiness, or have achieved more than you in this life, don’t worry about it. All those people that you’ve envied so much in this life will die. All of their possessions and achievements will be forgotten, and they won’t have any rewards for having gathered more of those things in this life.

There’s a scene in the first Batman movie with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson in which the Joker just kills a man with an electric hand buzzer, and then he pulls the skeleton of the man he just killed over to him and says to his old enemy, “I’m glad you’re dead.”

Should that be us? Jesus taught us to love our enemies! The Bible instructs us to rescue the perishing and share the gospel of Jesus with them so that they might be saved! And yet, we should rejoice that God strips away all of the things that we cling to in all of us so that we would see that He is all that we need.

David prayed in Psalm 17, talking about his enemies:

They are like a lion eager to tear, like a young lion lurking in ambush. Rise up, Lord! Confront him; bring him down. With your sword, save me from the wicked. With your hand, Lord, save me from men, from men of the world whose portion is in this life: You fill their bellies with what you have in store; their sons are satisfied, and they leave their surplus to their children. But I will see your face in righteousness; when I awake, I will be satisfied with your presence. (Psalm 17:12-15)

But I don’t think David was praying for their demise because he wanted to gloat over them or because he was being vindictive. Rather, he wanted those who see their portion as being in this life to see that this life is temporary. Because he recognized that when he himself awoke, he would be satisfied in the presence of God.

You see, our hope isn’t in the deaths of others, because they’re not even really our enemies. It’s been attributed to many people over the years, such as Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln, but there’s a great piece of wisdom that says, “The only safe and sure way to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend.”

We’re all in the same boat, here. We don’t win by destroying others or by taking their stuff. The truth is, we can have hope and joy in God our Savior, even if we have none of the things we often strive for in this life. Because if we have Jesus, we have everything we could ever need or want.

Verse 7.

Go, eat your bread with pleasure, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God has already accepted your works. Let your clothes be white all the time, and never let oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife you love all the days of your fleeting life, which has been given to you under the sun, all your fleeting days. For that is your portion in life and in your struggle under the sun. Whatever your hands find to do, do with all your strength, because there is no work, planning, knowledge, or wisdom in Sheol where you are going. (Ecclesiastes 9:7-10)

Solomon uses the word Sheol here, not talking about hell, but talking about the realm of the dead. Because we know that we will all die, and because we know that all of the things we often strive for in life ultimately aren’t the meaning of life, we should instead just be thankful. Be thankful to God because has provided for you, maybe not everything you want, but everything you need. So Solomon writes, “Go, eat your bread with pleasure, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God has already accepted your works.”

You know, when Jesus had the first Lord’s Supper with His disciples in the upper room, he could have used any two items to symbolize His body and blood. He could have used fish and water, or maybe lamb and milk. And I don’t know if Jesus had this passage in mind when He said that the broken bread represented His body, and the wine represented His blood spilled out for us, but it makes a lot of sense because Solomon tells us to eat the bread with pleasure, and drink the wine with a cheerful heart, for God has already accepted your works. It’s through Jesus that we’re accepted by God. It’s through His body broken for us, and through His blood shed for us, that we’re forgiven of all our sins, and we can live this life with the full assurance that God is for us, not against us, and we have eternal life in our future, both in this life, and in the life to come.

So Solomon writes, “Let your clothes be white all the time, and never let oil be lacking on your head.” In other words, be pure and joyful all your life. And if you think that’s impossible, remember what we just talked about. Rest in the grace of God given to you through faith in Jesus, and God makes you pure. He gives you reason to be joyful because He gives you His love and grace. And out of that relationship, you can serve Him with joy.

Solomon writes, “Whatever your hands find to do, do with all your strength.” So many of us at some point in our lives have an existential crisis, or maybe many times in life, in which we don’t know what we should do with our lives, or we don’t know if any of this really matters. And Solomon seems to have gone through that same thing. Being king, he had it all, and it concluded that none of it mattered. It didn’t matter that he had all the gold. All the power. All the accomplishments. None of that was worth anything in light of the fact that we all die.

But he did find that it was good to just enjoy the good gifts that God gives us and even enjoy our work. Whatever your hands find to do, do with all your strength. Serve the Lord with gladness. Do all to the glory of God. Serve the Lord, and not mere men.

“Because,” Solomon writes, “there is no work, planning, knowledge, or wisdom in Sheol where you are going.”

Some people look at this passage and others like it in the Old Testament and conclude that Solomon and the Jews didn’t really believe in an afterlife. But that’s not true. Ever since the opening chapters of Genesis, God promised the Jews everlasting life through an everlasting covenant. So when Solomon writes that we’re all going to Sheol, he’s just saying that even this life, before we go to the grave, matters. Even though eternity is long, and this life is so incredibly short, what we do in this life matters. Too often, I think we’ve all seen Christians who say they believe in Jesus, and can’t wait to go to be with Jesus, and are looking forward to spending eternity with Jesus, while ignoring how Jesus has given us a way to experience heaven on earth by serving Him with all our strength here, in this life. How we live today matters.

The great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon once said:

Man was not created to be idle, he was not elected to be idle, he was not redeemed to be idle, he was not quickened to be idle, and he is not sanctified by God’s grace to be idle. -Charles Spurgeon

It’s good and godly to be busy doing good things, not for the sake of busyness, but because God created us in such a way as to enjoy it. Which is why, I think, Solomon even brought up marriage in this passage. He writes, “Enjoy life with the wife you love all the days of your fleeting life.” Life is short, and because of the brevity of life, it’s actually more important that we simply enjoy the blessings God gives us rather than think that we need to constantly accomplish things in order to prove ourselves in life.

Life is not about what we can accomplish, it’s all about what God has accomplished for us. So at the end of our lives, God will not ask us what we did, even if we did it for Him. He’ll ask us if we trusted in what He did for us. God sent His Son to the earth to die for us so that we would have eternal life in Him. The Bible says that whoever confesses Jesus has eternal life. So, do you confess Him?