Who You Are in Christ

Listen Online:

Transcript:

We’re going to be in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 this morning. we will probably next week come back to what we’ve been talking about about the Holy Spirit but felt like the Lord sort of led me in a different direction this morning so if y’all don’t mind we’ll just take a detour today it is as it has already been mentioned this morning World Mission Sunday and we’ve already taken up the offering but if you forgot about it I’m sure the church would be glad to take your money later on, not to keep. I’ve said this for years every church I’ve been at.

I hate asking for money, but I have no problem asking for money that we’re just going to give away. So anything that you give toward the missions department, we don’t keep a penny of it. And I will tell you too, also don’t stop using the prayer calendars that you’ve gotten just because today’s the end of 50 days.

You know, they used to, when I first came to the BMA, goodness, what, 12 years ago? It seems like they printed dates on the calendars. And so you’d start early in January.

Okay, y’all remember that too. I’ve slept since then. But they would print dates on the calendars.

So you would start on a certain date in January, and then you would go through a certain date in February, and then you were done. Well, they’ve made them now without dates on them, which doesn’t help me because some days I forget to change it. Okay, what day am I on?

Or I forget that I’ve already changed it and changed it twice. Okay, now I’m not praying on the same date as everybody else, but you know what? All of our missionaries need prayer every day, so if we’re all praying for different people on different dates, you know what?

There’s not a problem with that. I would encourage you to keep going through it. If you miss a day, that’s fine.

Pick up where you are. If you feel like you need to stay on a page for a couple days, you go right ahead. I’ll be honest with you.

It’s not that I don’t think the others need prayer, but I’ve been very burdened for Jeff and Colleen Franks and the work that they’re doing in Ukraine for two reasons. I’ve met them. I’ve talked with Colleen frequently on Facebook.

They’ve got all sorts of challenges coming at them in Ukraine with what they’re dealing with in Russia, or with Russia, and also they are right here in our own state. They’re from the same church I came out of. So I felt a real burden for them.

My prayer calendar is sitting on my desk at school, and it’s been on Jeff and Colleen Franks since the day I got it. And that’s not to say, you know, to the neglect of everybody else, but I come in every morning and sit down and start grading papers, essentially, And look at that, and I’m reminded to have prayer for them. So however you use the prayer calendar, use the prayer calendar.

Keep it going. Keep flipping through it until we get the next one. And remember our missionaries in prayer.

They certainly need it. And as I mentioned earlier, if you came and you forgot today was World Mission Sunday and didn’t come prepared to give or you want to give something later, you’re more than welcome to do that. We can get that.

I’m speaking for Brother Dacus here, but I’m sure he doesn’t mind to send another check off to the missions department. And I will tell you, they are doing some incredible work. They’ve done some things that I kind of questioned at first. One thing they did was starting a couple years ago, any new missionaries coming on the field had to raise 65% of their support, whereas we had paid their whole salary before that.

And I thought, how is that going to work? and they were supposed to raise 65% of their support from the churches, and then the missions department would kick in 35%. That seems like an insurmountable challenge, and yet all of our new missionaries have been able to do it.

I know by the time I left Fayetteville, we were supporting a half a dozen missionaries directly just out of that church who would come, and we’d give them $100 a month or something like that to help toward their support, and I know they were going around to several churches. It’s a good thing to give us a connection to those missionaries where we feel like we’re more involved with them and more connected to them than just sending off one check to Little Rock. And on top of that, we now have more missionaries on the field than we’ve ever had.

And we can praise the Lord for that. So I want to encourage you to give to our missions program, but also if you feel led to give through the church or to send a check directly to the missions department with a missionary designated, if you see somebody on that prayer calendar that you’re particularly burdened for, you are more than welcome to support their work directly. and I know that they would appreciate that.

We’re going to be in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 today. There was a man named Solomon, I’m sure most of you are familiar with. He was the son of King David, and when King David died, Solomon took his throne.

And whereas David had lived a life of struggle and of war, King Solomon came in and ruled in what was sort of a golden age after David, A time of peace, Solomon completed the building of the temple. There were not the extended wars that David suffered through. We don’t see record of Solomon’s family life falling apart as David’s did.

And I’m not saying all this to not David. I’m just telling you what the Bible tells us. Solomon reigned over a time of relative peace and security in Israel.

As a matter of fact, his name, Solomon, is connected to the Hebrew word for peace, shalom. There’s a connection there. They come from the same root word.

Solomon ruled over a time of peace and prosperity. If we were looking at it in our terms, we could say the 90s in America. For all the other problems that we had in this country at the time, the economy was doing really well, and we had relative peace.

We at least didn’t have the threat of the Soviet Union breathing down our necks, and it was before Al-Qaeda. So it was a time of relative peace and prosperity that a lot of people nowadays look back fondly on and say, well, the 90s weren’t so bad after all. Solomon ruled over this time, and Solomon was one of the wealthiest men of his day.

Solomon was perhaps the wisest man who’s ever lived. One of the great stories that many of us remember about Solomon is that God offered to give Solomon whatever he asked for. And guys, when God promises something, he always delivers.

He may not deliver in our time. He may not deliver in the manner of our choosing. But when God promises something, he always, always delivers.

So God promised Solomon, you ask me for whatever you want, and I’ll give it to you. Solomon asked not for riches, not for power, not for fame, But he asked for wisdom that he might be able to rule the people well, that he might be able to do well the task that God had given him. And God, I want to say God was impressed with that.

But please understand what I mean by that. Even our good works don’t impress God. That’s not what I mean.

But God’s going, oh, you really are. You really are okay. I guess I like you all right.

Now, from God’s standpoint, we’re still fallen sinful men. But in a manner of speaking, God was impressed by that. And I always say impressed because I can’t think of a better word.

And God said, you know what, you could have asked for wisdom. I’m sorry, you could have asked for riches. You did ask for wisdom.

You could have asked for riches. You could have asked for power. You could have asked for any number of things that your heart desired.

And you asked for wisdom. And he said, so I’m going to bless you with the wisdom. And I’m going to give you everything else on top of it.

Solomon was extraordinarily blessed by God. And yet Solomon was somebody who wandered away from what God intended for him. Part of the tragedy for Solomon was when he started getting married a bunch of times.

And I’ve said for years, I don’t understand what’s wrong with polygamists. Because any sane man realizes he does well just to handle one member. Some of the women are giving me evil lips on that.

I mean, it’s just, yeah, it’s more than one man could handle. And on top of that, God had said, don’t multiply wives unto yourselves. And he had forbidden, specifically, he had forbidden them from intermarrying with the pagan tribes.

And I don’t know if any of you have ever seen this movie. It came out when I was in high school. It’s called My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

There’s a line from the movie that I’ve always loved and has always stuck with me. They’re talking about the father and him putting his foot down. And the mother says, yes, the man is the head, but the woman is the neck and can turn the man any which way she chooses.

There’s a lot of truth to that. And God, you know, I’m not saying that movie was divinely inspired by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that’s true. And God, knowing that that’s the case, that women often can turn men from what they’re set on doing, said don’t intermarry with the pagan tribes.

Well, Solomon did it. Solomon had hundreds of wives and hundreds more concubines on top of that. And it wasn’t that Solomon began to worship false gods at first, but in order to appease his wives and his concubines, he allowed them to worship false gods alongside of his God.

He allowed pagan temples to be built in Israel because you have a strict monotheist king who says, no, we’re going to worship the Lord God, as he says. And along came these pagan women and whispered sweet nothings in his ear until he gave in. And Solomon departed from the way of the Lord.

He allowed pagan temples to be built. He allowed pagan altars to go up. He allowed pagan worship not just in his country, but in his home.

And he departed from what God had commanded. And what he found in departing from the way of the Lord and seeking a life of wealth and pleasure, no longer concerned so much about the wisdom, but about the wealth that God had given him on top of it, the power, the prestige, the pleasure, all of the things that he could have sought for in the beginning. When he began to seek those things instead of God, what he found was emptiness.

What he found was a life of vanity, as it says all throughout Ecclesiastes. And so we go to this passage in Ecclesiastes, where he’s come toward the end of his life and he spent his life searching for meaning. And where is there meaning?

Many of you have read through the book of Job, or at least know the story, and Job throughout that book dealt with, how do I find meaning in my suffering? Solomon, on the other hand, in Ecclesiastes, looked for, how do I find meaning in my prosperity? He came to the conclusion that apart from walking with God, there is no meaning to life.

In Ecclesiastes 12. 1, it says, remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, While the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. While the sun or the light or the moon or the stars be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain.

So he’s telling them, Solomon, after his years of searching, is telling the people he writes to, Seek the Lord early. Remember, he says, not just remember thy creator. I have a tendency to quote that verse and say, Remember thy creator in the days of thy youth.

He says, Remember now thy creator. in the days of thy youth. Think about God and godly things now.

He says, while the evil days come not, while there are good days and not bad, seek God now. You know what? We say a lot of times that people in bad circumstances will either be driven to God or away from God.

And there’s some truth to that. But more often than not, what we see is that when people, ourselves included, when we run and seek God in bad times, when the bad times go away, we go back to what we wanted to do in the first place. I would suggest to you that if we are not willing to seek God during the good times, then the times when we seek God in the bad times will be superficial and they will not change us.

He tells them to seek God now during the good times. While the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. Do it while there’s the sun and the light and the moon and the stars that are not darkened.

Do it in a time when the clouds are not returning after the rain. In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened. And the door shall be shut in the streets when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.

And when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail, because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity.

Okay, so what he’s saying here is after this life spent, at least toward the end, in search of pleasure, he has looked for some semblance of meaning in life and he’s come to the conclusion he’s come to the conclusion that life apart from God and the pursuit of God’s will is emptiness it’s vain and so he tells the reader seek God now seek God in the good times don’t wait for the bad times to come and he paints a very bleak picture of these bad times apart from God Now there’s a lot about this that we might understand it, but we don’t immediately identify with. Because we don’t have these times when we’ve got the grinders in the city, and we’re going to the cistern and looking for the golden bowl. I hear these things on the radio where they talk about things that could happen to us in the future that would totally upset the world that we live in.

They talk about nuclear war. They talk about electromagnetic pulse bombs that would shut off all of our electronic equipment. No more cell phones, no more TV, even worse than that.

No more electronics running the municipal water supply. Everything as we know it would come to a grinding halt. That’s kind of what I think of when I read this.

They were in dark days where everything that they used for their lives and for their livelihoods were broken or scattered. And life as they had known it was no longer possible. Well, who wouldn’t seek God at a time like that?

I have a feeling that when things get really dark, when and if things get really dark in the future of our country, we will see at least the appearance of revival. Who doesn’t seek God when times are dark? But when the sun comes back out, do we stay on the path we’ve found with God? Or do we go back to doing things our way?

Solomon says, don’t wait for the skies to darken. Don’t wait for the days when people shut themselves in their houses away from the dark. When they close the windows.

When they close their doors. When the birds and their songs are brought low. And the people are fearful.

And the grasshoppers eat up all the crops. and man goeth to his long home. It’s a very poetic way of saying that.

We go to our long home. We are all destined for eternity. He’s talking about a day when men will go to their long homes and the mourners will be in the streets.

You know, we could read through this probably for the rest of the day and pick it apart and look at the details and see the picture that it paints and come up with all sorts of details and apply them to our lives. But the bottom line is that he paints a bleak picture of a place and a time where I don’t want to live in that time. It’s an unpleasant time that nobody would choose to be in.

It’s a time when people will seek God, at least temporarily. And Solomon says, don’t wait for it now. Seek God now.

And some of you may be thinking, well, seek God now. I’m already in the dark time. This is true.

It could always be worse, though. None of us, I think, are in this time. Solomon says, seek God now while you have the opportunity.

Seek God now. Because anything else is emptiness. The pleasures of this life, the pleasures of this world will not bring us hope.

They will not bring us fulfillment. We will not find hope or fulfillment in the iPhone. We will not find hope or fulfillment in relationships.

We will not find hope or fulfillment in a bottle. We will not find hope or fulfillment in a political candidate, in movies, in TV, in money, in the latest fashions, in anything that people seek to make themselves happy. We will not find hope or fulfillment in this life in anything but God and His will for our lives.

I want to share something with you that I wrote for my students at the school along these lines about this idea of fulfillment and emptiness. When I was thinking about this verse, each person is a unique individual created in the image of God and loved by Him. We are not, as the atheists and the Marxists and the materialists teach, a collection of matter that developed from nothing, directed by no one, and careening toward nothingness.

We are a part of something greater than ourselves. We were created to worship, love, and serve the God who holds the universe together. And even when we rejected him, he paid the price in blood to purchase our freedom and adopt us as his children.

We are his. We need to believe this. We need to act like it.

and we need to start early while there is time to do so. Nothing else can fulfill us in this life. Anything less is vanity.

Guys, imagine the hopelessness of a life devoid of God. I have tried to picture what life would be like if I held the view that so many in our society do, that we just evolve from nothing, and spiritually we are nothing. We really are nothing but matter, material, the physical entity.

what we do here is all there is there’s nothing beyond this and it really doesn’t matter we’re essentially animals or faceless cogs in a big machine many of you have to deal with the social security administration you’re nothing but a number or the IRS we all have to deal with the IRS you’re nothing but a number or sometimes big banks or educational institutions you’re nothing but a number is it a good feeling? you’re just a part of a big machine a faceless entity without an identity. That’s not what the Bible tells us is true.

We are each unique individuals. We were created in the image of God. And as I shared with you last month when I talked about abortion, each of us has value to God.

I don’t understand why. When you think about the fact that we’re sinful, that we’re fallen, we’ve rebelled against God, we’ve done everything we could to distance ourselves from God, The idea of why he would still love us and care about us is a question I still have not answered in my mind with any satisfaction. But the fact is the Bible tells us that he does love us.

He does care for us. He does value us. We are worth something to God.

That’s a much better feeling than this idea of we’re just a pile of matter that comes into existence and goes out of existence and nothing ever happens. Nothing ever matters. But he created us to love him.

He created us to serve Him. That is what we exist to do. Anything else is emptiness.

Anything else is meaningless. I got another phone on Friday night because I’m going to say it was Wednesday at school. I spilled ranch dressing in my other one.

And it was still working. I had trouble hearing out of it, though. I was due for an upgrade anyway, so I thought, well, why not?

You know, they say in Oklahoma, everything goes better with ranch, not the iPhone 4. So I went Friday and got another phone. Took it out of the box and hooked it up to the computer and did what I needed to do to get it running so I could actually use it.

And I was thinking about this. That was somebody, they have gone through a lot of engineering. They’ve gone through a lot of testing and studying and figuring things out and trying this and maybe this will work.

and they’ve put millions of dollars into engineering this thing right here. I mean, not this specific one. A lot has gone into this to create it for a purpose.

Now, the purpose of it is to make phone calls, first of all. That’s actually what I use it for at least. I hate using the telephone. But I use it to check email.

I use it to text people because I’d rather do that. I’d rather do that. I’d rather communicate in writing or face-to-face than have a telephone conversation.

I am so awkward on the telephone. But it was created to be used, and to be used for those purposes. Not to be left in a box, not to be put in that box on the shelf or in somebody’s closet, or used as a doorstop, or a bath toy, or a receptacle for ranch dressing.

It’s not meant to be used for any of that. And if we don’t use it for what it was created for, it’s wasted. It’s not living up to its potential. Now, I just went from saying we are not faceless machines to comparing us to a faceless machine, but I hope you get the point of it.

God has created us for a purpose, just like the iPhone was created for a purpose, just like our car was created by somebody in Detroit for a purpose, if they even still make cars in this country. It was created by someone for a purpose. My son makes me drawings all the time.

He creates them for a purpose to be looked at and enjoyed. If I just shove them in a drawer, which as He makes more, eventually some of them are going to be put in drawers. But if they are never looked at, then they are not living up to their purpose.

We have a purpose that we were created for and anything else is a waste of the life that He’s given us. And that purpose for which we were created is to love Him, to worship Him, to serve Him, and to enjoy Him. So some things that we need to focus on out of this passage.

He tells us of the emptiness of anything less than that life where we recognize that we were created by God to serve Him. And the emptiness of pursuing anything that does not help us down that path. I want to share with you briefly this morning four things I see just out of this first verse.

As I started looking through this verse 1, Because I think going all the way through verse 8 as we did today, all of that sort of reinforces what we see in verse 1. I think verse 1 really is the main point of the passage. Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw not.

First of all, you are God’s workmanship. We’ve already talked about this a little bit, but you are God’s workmanship. It says in Ephesians 2.

10, For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Now that comes right after the two verses about salvation. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not by works, lest any man should boast. So he explains that God has saved us by grace, by his free gift that we can’t earn or deserve, Through faith, we take hold of that salvation simply by believing that God’s promise is true, that because Christ died on the cross, that He offers pardon, He offers forgiveness of sins. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, lest any man should boast. That there’s nothing for us to earn or to deserve. And then he goes on in verse 10 and says, For we are His workmanship.

It does not stop there with salvation. Our relationship with God does not stop with salvation. it is not excuse me salvation is not the end of that relationship it’s really the beginning of the relationship that we’re supposed to have with God we’ve got to get away from this idea that God God wants to save us and then we can go do whatever we want to do you’re on your own there salvation is not fire insurance salvation is the jumping off point when God offers forgiveness we talk about salvation in church and we rarely define what it is three things that the Bible conveys.

It is forgiveness of sins, it is a relationship with God or the ability to have a relationship with God, the Father, and it is a hope of eternal life in heaven. There are those three parts to salvation that He offers us through Jesus Christ. But that relationship begins at salvation. We are His workmanship.

He created us in His own image and I know I’ve already talked about this a little bit and so I feel like I’m belaboring the point, but it’s so opposite from everything we’re taught in society and yet it’s so vital for us to know that I feel like I have to hammer it in until we all get it. We were created by Him in His image for a purpose. And you know what?

Even though we are fallen and we are sinful, we are the crowning of all of His creation. Do you realize that we were the last thing created in the Garden of Eden? Because God made the earth and God made the moon and sun and stars and I know I’m not going in order and he created plants and I’ve always had I need to research this, I’ve always had questions about how were the plants created the day before the sun was but somehow or another he worked that out and he made all the animals and then he said I could do better, there’s something missing and I’ve said for years also that God created Adam and said I could do better still and created Eve but when he created us He gave us dominion over the rest of His creation.

We are the masterpiece of His creation. And we fell into sin, yes. But then He saves us, He cleans us up from the inside out, and He spends the rest of our natural lives trying to make us to be more like Jesus Christ. More like the way we were supposed to be in the first place.

As the Bible says, that we were predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. It was His plan throughout all of eternity that once He saved us, He would shape us to be more like Christ. We are His workmanship. If you start to feel like your life is empty, if your life is worthless, your life is not amounting to anything, you need to be reminded today that you are God’s workmanship and you are worth something to Him.

And what you do in this life matters. Not just here on earth, but matters in eternity. The choices you make today matter.

They matter for the rest of this life and they matter for the life to come. Second of all, you were created to serve God. I know I’ve already said this, but you were created to serve God with the best that you have to offer.

See, we’re reminded in verse 1 about being his workmanship by the phrase, thy creator. But he goes on after that and says, in the days of thy youth. Guys, we are created to serve God with the best that we have to offer.

Now, you may be thinking, I’m not young anymore. How does this apply to me? You are younger now than you will ever be again.

Whatever best years you have of your life, use those to serve God. Now, I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining too much because I know I’m one of the youngest ones in here. But I feel older than I did 10 years ago.

I tell you what, my kids came along and people questioned sometimes whether, what do you think of having kids so young? And I sort of questioned the wisdom of waiting until you’re older to have kids. I’ve said, you know, I used to say when Benjamin came along, I’m, what was I, 26, 27, somewhere in there.

26, I can’t imagine doing this at 46. I’m exhausted now. I’m exhausted now already.

Having kids this age in 20 years, I know there are some people who wait to do it, and you know what? I’m not judging them a bit for that. I’m just saying I couldn’t do it.

There’s a reason. God gave us the ability to have kids in our 20s when we’ve got the energy to do it. And I’m slowly realizing I’m 29 years old now, so please don’t think I’m complaining because why do you have to complain about it?

You shouldn’t be tired. I’m not saying I’m as tired as I’m going to be. I’m just saying I get tired more easily than I did 10 years ago.

When I was 19, I could go out and run a mile. I might be winded at the end, but I could run a mile. I can’t run a mile winded or otherwise, I’m sure.

Just going up the stairs at school takes me a little bit, just a little bit, but a little bit longer than it did 10 years ago. I can’t just run up the stairs. I can still make it at a pretty brisk pace.

I know in 10 years I’ll probably have to have one of the kids carry me. But I don’t make it quite as fast as I did. And I know that strength only declines.

You know what? It’s a little harder to go from working all day on Wednesday to going to church on Wednesday night. I’m so tired.

Ten years ago, it wasn’t a problem. I deal with the kids at school. I’m not as fun.

I’m going to be honest with you. I am not as much fun as I was ten years ago. Now, didn’t say all that to complain because I’m sure we could compare stories and y’all would have me beaten.

But I’m telling you, I’m starting to notice for the first time in my life, I’m not as young as I used to be. I’m still young, but I’m not as young as I used to be. And I think, oh, to have the energy that I had 10 years ago, what I could do for God today with that kind of energy.

Folks, we will never be this young or this strong again. We will never have these years back to serve God. We were created to serve Him with the best that we have to offer.

Whether it’s the years of our strength in our youth, Whether it’s the money that we have, whether it’s the resources, whether it’s the time. Guys, I’m not just talking about youth here, but when he says, in the days of thy youth, I thought about that strength and the best that we have to offer and how that strength fades over time. Are we serving God with the best we have to offer or are we offering Him the leftovers?

And the story comes to mind, the stories come to mind that I’ve heard from missionaries who will get boxes from people in the states who will sit and think, oh, I bet the missionaries can use that. And they’ll be full of garbage. They say, we’ve got to find some way to get rid of all this stuff.

They’ll just send them trash. And I think to myself, why would anybody do that? If I can’t use it here, they can’t.

Why could they use it here? And they think, we’re giving to missions. You’re giving the trash th

Powered by atecplugins.com