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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 5:10-12
Well, this morning we return to Ecclesiastes 5, and you'll notice I've sort of titled this part one, and that's simply because, again, I want to hold together verses that we're not necessarily working through at the same time, and really, verses 10 through 12 belong with verses 13 through 18, and I'm hoping we'll see how this all fits together week by week, but I've sort of entitled this little section in Take and Give in the same way that I flipped Supply and Demand to Demand and Supply last week.
I want to somehow disorient us a little bit, and the idea is we're gonna be looking at both giving and taking, especially next week, but before we get there, there's sort of a preamble, an introduction that will prepare us to understand the weight and the significance of where we're going beyond verse 12, and so this is very much an introduction to the remainder of chapter five, and I think a very important introduction in that way, and so though this is introductory, I think it's also very practical, and we have three verses in Ecclesiastes 5, 10 through 12, and we'll look at that in three parts.
You'll notice, and I'll try to keep showing you this morning that each of these verses in its own way circles around and emphasizes the idea of increase or of gain. Our translations often try to avoid being redundant, in other words, needlessly repeating the same words.
That's usually a helpful thing. It's a good thing to have a variety of synonyms in a language. It allows there to be music and color in the way that we speak. It's like having many spices in the cupboard.
It's a good thing that we have more than just pepper when it comes to seasoning food, and so it is with synonyms. It's a good thing that we have a lot of different words that we can use to convey the same idea, but when it comes to wisdom literature, sometimes that masks the structure or the symmetry of what's going on in a passage, and I think by just conveying the sheer amount of repetition of the idea of gain or abundance or increase, you'll see how important this is and how it fits to where we're going.
Ecclesiastes 5, verses 10 through 12. He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with increase. This also is vanity. When goods increase, they increase who eat them.
So what profit have the owners except to see them with their eyes? The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not permit him to sleep. Again, I think the key there is increase.
In fact, if you'll allow me to give a sort of crude paraphrase, let's just look at those verses again. When we come across a word related to gain, abundance, or increase, we'll try to tie it to increase.
He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves increase with increase. This also is vanity. When goods increase, they increase who eat them. So what increase have the owners except to see them with their eyes?
The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or has increase, but the increase of the rich will not permit him to sleep. Do you see how cohesive and emphatic that word, that idea of increase is?
Well, let's look at it verse by verse with three points. The first point will be the desire for increase. The second point will be the demand of increase. And the third point will be the dilemma of increase.
So desire, demand, and dilemma, beginning here in verse 10 with desire. He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with increase. This also is vanity. The idea of satisfaction is a very important part, not only here in Ecclesiastes 5, verse 10, but also in the whole book.
The idea of satisfaction also leads to rest. The idea of gain is the plateau of being able to no longer toil under the sun. And so the desire for increase very much is a desire to be satisfied. We could sum up the point of verse 10 with the lyric, I can't get no satisfaction.
There is no satisfaction in silver. In fact, if you set your heart on abundance, you will not find it. The odd thing about pursuing abundance under the sun is you become more empty as you pursue being more full.
The same thing with silver. The idea is it cannot satisfy, though it seems to hold out every promise of satisfaction to us. Even the pagans were aware of the dangers of wealth. It's a topic we saw at many a times.
Thinking over 12 years ago now, preaching through James and coming to James chapter five, where there's rather earth-rattling warnings about the dangers of wealth. We think of Jesus' words in the Gospel of Mark or in the Sermon on the Mount even, where he gives great warnings about the dangers of wealth.
Horace, a Roman writer, said, to paraphrase, silver will either be your slave or your master. You'll either understand how to use it and employ it rightly and soberly and wisely, or it will own you and drive you and control you.
The Puritan Thomas Manton said, wealth in this way often ends in pride. That's really the danger. It's not wealth in and of itself, nor silver in and of itself. Use unrighteous mammon righteously, the Lord Jesus would teach.
The problem is how it attaches and attracts our pride. And wealth often ends in pride. Gain, increase, abundance often stews us in pride. J .C. Ryle very helpfully says, it's possible to love money without having it.
Just because you lack something doesn't mean you're not in love with it. Sometimes the things you love most are the things you can't have. It's possible to love money without having it. It's also possible to have money without loving it, but wealth is no mark of God's favor, and poverty is no mark of God's displeasure, yet wealth ruins far more souls than poverty.
And if you've known anything about the biography of J .C. Ryle you know how intimately he acquainted, he was with wealth and with the loss of wealth. He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver.
That immediately goes to gain or increase or the things that equal abundance or fullness to us. So we're talking about a lot more than just silver. He who loves increase, he who loves gain, he who loves to get ahead, he who loves to look ahead, he who loves to have fullness, this is vanity.
It does not satisfy. And of course it's not the fullness or the wealth, the silver per se that's the problem, it's the love of it, that's what's vanity. He who loves silver, that love is a vain thing, that pursuit, that quest to be satisfied by it, that's what's chasing for the wind.
Jesus puts it this way, don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. Thieves break in and steal, moths feed upon them, rust corrodes and crumbles. In the ancient world they would bury their treasure in the earth, that was, if you didn't have a strong box and servants that you could trust, that was the best thing you could do, go put it by the tree and hope you don't have short-term memory loss.
It'd be a very stressful time digging a lot of holes in the yard to remember exactly what patch you planted your 401k by. Jesus says, don't think in that way, don't bury the things that ought to be sown, don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.
Whatever you lay up for yourself, the idea is you can't ultimately preserve. A thief may not get it in the short time, moths may not consume it if you've called your local exterminator and you've been on top of that.
You may actually have WD -40 in a sort of circulating system and so there's no rust, but the point is you live under the sun, there's no way you could preserve that kind of treasure under the sun. It won't satisfy you, it won't complete you.
Of course the idea here is not to be careless with money, we have many scriptures that talk about the importance of good stewardship and wise use. Go to the ant, thou sluggard. A verse I often heard as a boy when I would get lazy and I would only mow half the lawn.
And then I was told, look to the ant, thou sluggard, and get back and finish that lawn. Jesus wants us to be wise about how we view our possessions, how we view our desire to get ahead or to gain. He does not want us to lay up that which must pass away.
And so really what he's warning against, as he'll tell us, is covetousness which is idolatry. That's what he's warning against. Please notice what verse 10 is saying. He who loves silver, he who loves silver can't be satisfied by it.
He whose sole desire is for gain will not have gain. He whose heartthrob, whose quest and thirst that he can't help but sate is to get ahead and to have that fullness will not find it under this sun, not in this fallen order.
That's covetousness, that's idolatry. That's the idea. Look at how Paul teaches it to Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter six. Now godliness with contentment is great gain. We brought nothing into this world. It's certain we carry nothing out.
And having food and clothing with these few things, we will be content, but those, key word, those who desire, those who love, those who seek, those who quest, those who thirst to be rich fall into temptation in a snare and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown them in destruction and perdition for the love of money is the root of every kind of evil.
Notice again, it's not the silver, it's not the money, it's not the desire, it's the greed, it's the covetousness, it's the idolatry. This is what pierces us through with many sorrows. And so we have to deal with wealth, with gain, with increase.
Jesus knows that we need to be clothed and we need to be fed and his eye is on the sparrow. He commends us to his father who knows how to give good gifts and yet we have these stark warnings throughout Scripture that because of the corruption of the world around us and the flesh within us, we often have disorder desires.
We want these things to mean something they could not mean, to bring something into our lives that they cannot bring. In other words, Jesus warns us not to cling to that which crumbles. That's essentially what Ecclesiastes five is saying.
Don't cling to what must crumble. It's not wrong to possess things as one said but it's wrong for things to possess us. The one who loves silver will never be satisfied. Scrooge McDuck might seem like he has it all put together but he's Scrooge for a reason.
The one who seeks gain and increase will be sure to have nothing but, not under the sun, not from the goods of this fallen world. We walk as Christians in a newness of life. We have a new awareness. We have a new orientation to the world because we have a new center in our lives and in our understanding of what life is for, through whom life comes and how we are to live life as a result.
So this new awareness breeds thankfulness and acknowledgement. It brings about humility and the simplicity of heart, the ability to live in a contented order because we recognize the form of this world presently is passing away.
We see that it's crumbling because we've been taught by the Spirit to look above to the skies, to wait upon the Lord for that coming day. And so this is not some warning about silver like some call to monastic asceticism, this extremes of life.
Touch not, taste not, handle not. No, Ecclesiastes says eat, drink, enjoy the goodness that God gives you under the sun but don't love it and desire it as if it can be more than that. Let food be food and let drink be drink.
Let work be work and let rest be rest and let joy be joy until he comes. It's essentially the wisdom of Ecclesiastes in a nutshell. The problem is the lust of our eyes, the lust of our hearts and the pride of life wants all those things to be so much more than they could possibly be.
The one who loves silver will never be satisfied. Certainly God made us with a desire to possess. There's a reason that we want gain and we want increase. We already saw that reason in Ecclesiastes 3, verse 10.
God put eternity in our hearts. We wanna possess outside of the veil that which alone is within the veil, but we have hearts that wanna possess. That desire for possession, for increase, for a gain that's satisfied, it's not something corrupt or alien, it's something that has been corrupted.
This is what C .S. Lewis meant when he said the problem is not that we desire too much, it's that we don't desire enough. We fall short and we look short. Our desires aren't strong enough to pierce into the heavenlies where alone satisfaction can be found.
So we try to possess the wrong things in the wrong ways for the wrong reasons. This is why the Apostle John says, do not love the world or the things in this world. Silver can't satisfy, gain won't come under the sun.
It's vanity. It's grasping for wind. It's walking toward the mirage. Don't love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. John is telling us that the love of the Father transforms and elevates our affections in the life.
There's something about the love of the Father that trains us and teaches us to love something higher, to desire something more sure, a heavenly country to be gained. And soon, the vanity fair that surrounds us begins to fade and drown amidst heavenly anthems that beckon us to a hope that is sure.
All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, this is not from the Father, this is from the world, and the world is passing away, and the lust of it. That's what Ecclesiastes 5 .10 is focused on.
The lust, the covetous desire, the strong affection, that love, that desire to have possession, to have fullness, to have satisfaction. Jesus says, if that's where your treasure is, then that's where your heart is too.
Because where your treasure is is where your heart is, always. This is gonna connect to verse 12 in a very important way. It's the reason that the wealthy can't find sleep. Because where your treasure is, your heart is.
And if your heart is for something that can crumble, that can fade, that can be jeopardized, that is vulnerable, that is not kept for you in heaven, then your anxiety and your concern and your worry and your need, your idolatry will drive you to anxiety.
So there's no freedom, there's no liberation for the one who lusts after increase. That desire for increase will be the ruin, the shipwreck of their faith. Was it not Demas that departed the way, why?
Because he was in love with the present world. And you're probably thinking like I'm prone to think, listen, my faith can waver just like anyone else's in a given season or in a given trial, but if I was next to the apostle Paul and I saw the things that he did and what the Lord was doing through that apostolic ministry and I saw the miracles that were performed at the name of Jesus and I saw pagan Gentiles bow their knees and confess with their tongues that Jesus Christ of Nazareth is Lord over the cosmos, I would never depart.
It's like that same logic. If you would just speak, I would believe. And it's like, as Jesus said of Lazarus' family, that they have one who speaks from the dead. They don't believe him, they won't believe even if they see with their own eyes the miracle.
And we think, I would never be a Demas if I was with Paul. Don't you see the power of the lust for gain under the sun? Demas, in love with this present world, has departed me. Psalm 62, verse 10 warns, if riches increase, if treasure abounds, don't set your heart on it.
One of the things that chapter five is wanting to teach us as we look at the idea of taking and giving, we're going from people who want to seize and procure and hold and grasp, squeeze something out of the wind under the sun and rather, we need to have our hands loose and open because increase comes and increase goes and so it is under the sun.
You don't know when that day of trouble comes and loosening your hands from hands that grasp and seize to hands that are loose under God's good control, under God's wise faithfulness, will become hands that can give.
That's the point. If I can loosen that grip, if I can combat that lust that comes from my eyes and the pride of life, then I can be the kind of person that does not take but can give. The issue we have is with what we treasure, what we love, what we lust for, what we covet, which is increase.
What are you seeking here this morning? More than you have, more than you are. In good ways and in not so good ways, we're all seeking more, we're seeking gain, we're seeking increase, we want a direction in life and the issue is how that has impacted the way we live our lives and the way we hold our hearts to the Lord.
Luther put it this way, what a man loves, that's his God. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your mind, with all of your strength. What a man loves first and foremost is his God.
The first commandment and the foundation for the rest of the commandments is you shall have no other God before me. You shall love me. What you love is your God. This is why Paul can characterize the enemies of the cross as those whose belly is their God.
It is love gratifying their instant desires, their pulls, their appetites. We carry around treasure in our hearts, treasure in our daydreams, treasure in our hopes, treasure in our fears and anxieties.
You can trace your treasure with what consumes your thoughts, consumes your energy, consumes your drive, what floods your fears, what fills you with terror as much as it might fill you with hope. That's what you treasure.
What is precious to you? What's definitive for you? What is that without which you are not? If anything else can fill that but God, we have robbed God of the glory that he is due, of the thanks that he deserves, of the delight that we were made to not only offer to him, but to receive from him.
John Calvin put it this way. We know how carefully the philosophers conducted their inquiries respecting the supreme good, right? It wasn't just Christians who were wondering at what is the good and the true and the beautiful.
If honor is reckoned the supreme good, then the minds of men will be wholly occupied with pursuing honor. If money, then men will be covetous. If pleasure, then it will be impossible to keep men back from brutal indulgence.
We all have this natural desire to pursue happiness, and the consequence is that false imaginations carry us away in every wrong direction, but if we were honest and firmly convinced that our happiness is found alone in heaven, it would be easy for us to trample through the world, to count anything earthly as but little gain, and to rise toward heaven.
If you know about the life of Calvin, you know how true that was for his own life. He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver. He who desires abundance will not be satisfied with increase, it's vanity.
So that's the desire for increase. The second thing we see in verse 11 is the demand of increase. When goods increase, we read, they increase who eat them, that's a demand. So what profit has the owner except to see them with their eyes?
Let me give you some alternate translations here, just to, it doesn't go against us at all, but I think it helps illustrate it. Where there are great riches, there are many to devour. As goods increase, so do those who consume goods.
When goods increase, those who eat themselves increase. So the idea is, you've got more goods, you've got more gain, you've got more increase, you've got more demands. You've got more mouths to feed, you've got more hands out, that's the idea.
But we know that just by being citizens in a state like Massachusetts, right? What happens, the more increase you have, the federal paws come out, don't they? Oh, you have that much now? It's time for even more.
And it seems like the more you have, the more that gets taken from you. There was that great viral video some years ago of a young boy playing Monopoly, and he's in a fit of tears. And the adults are finding this so humorous, and so they turn the video to him, and he's just beside himself, tears flowing down his cheeks, and they go, why are you crying?
And he says, taxes. And he has all the Monopoly money scattered around. He says, it's the worst part of the game. And they're laughing, like, yeah, tell me about it. That's just life. More money, more problems.
The increase brings about demands. It's not just the inevitability of taxes. If you think of where that increase would come to, if you have more abundance, more increase, you need an agrarian society to hire more help, to maybe like the rich fool of Luke chapter 12, to build more barns, and then set your heart in safety, and the fact that you have bigger barns, you've had a good crop, that's what's foolish about the wealthy fool.
You find that there's infrastructure now that's required, and that costs money. There's capital that is needed to now handle the increase that you've received. So more money, more demands. More money, more bills.
More money, more problems. A parable to this effect is sometimes just you, even seeking to be good, and honorable, and noble with money can lead you to great sorrow. There was a man named Billy Bob Harrell.
In his hometown, he was known as Santa Claus. Because in the late 80s, he won a $31 million lottery jackpot. And he started paying bills for loved ones, and family, and friends, and he bought them new cars, and he bought them new homes, and he started giving money to the poor, and in less than two years, he was bankrupt, and he ended up taking his own life.
With that increase came demands, and demands, and demands. In fact, I was reading, nearly one third of lottery winners declare bankruptcy within the first three years of winning. Isn't that fascinating?
That's the demand that comes with increase. And notice what our verse is even asking. Verse 11. When goods increase, they increase who eat them. So what increase have the owners except to see them with their eyes?
The owners there, we have that as a plural. That's perfectly fine, it's plural. But sometimes in Hebrew, a plural is a way of emphasizing the importance of someone. It's why God is always plural in the scriptures.
And the idea is here, the emphasis, the importance is the owner. I think it should be a singular. And it's almost like putting a highlight on that. When goods increase, those around increase who eat those goods.
So what increase does the owner have? He's just watching it happen with his eyes. There's nothing he can do about it. He's watching it all dwindle away. I think that's the idea. But essentially, our verse is asking this.
Goods increase, and then demands increase. So what increase is there really? What's the net gain at the end of it all? And this is meant to unsettle us a little bit. Eric Ortland, in his commentary, he has some really good observations about how this ought to unsettle us.
He says, it's interesting in America, we do not tend to view a lawyer who is struggling to make ends meet as equally skilled as a lawyer who is very wealthy. If you've got the flashy car and the flashy suit, that's the lawyer you want.
You don't want a lawyer that has half his shirt hanging out and he's got a cowlick and he shows up and goes, what courtroom are we in today? He's like, ooh, I don't want that. So if you met your lawyer in his office and he got out to a car with a donut and it's got all these rust patches, you're going, I'm a goner, I'm toast, right?
We equate, somehow, abundance or increase with skill. And there's a certain way to understand that. He must be good if he can maintain that kind of clientele. He must be successful if he can run a law office that's run in that way.
But the idea is we start to apply that to every other area of life. They must not be skillful. They must not be a good worker. They must not have a good work ethic. They would be rich if they were living life well.
That is a very dangerous way to view people in life. And it bleeds into how we talk. As Eric Ortlund says, we use economic language to speak of relationships. We value relationships or we invest time in relationships.
You see, this money talk ends up permeating the way we think about our neighbor, think about each other. What's worth my time and what's not? And yet, those who desire silver the most tend to be those who enjoy it the least.
It doesn't mean that much to them. And as we'll see in verse 12 in a moment, it drives them from rest. Everything you work so hard for, as we'll see at the end of these verses heading toward verse 17, it can disappear in a day.
That's Jesus' rebuke to the wealthy man in Luke 12. Fool, your life is required this night. You have your seven-year strategy and you never even counted upon the fact that your life is not your own. The wise take this to heart.
When goods increase, they increase who eat them. The demands increase. And so what increases there really? Well, let's look at the dilemma of increase. And this is verse 12. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich, the increase of the rich will not permit him to sleep.
That's the dilemma. There's no rest. There's no rest. We see the laboring man content in his toil, unburdened by all the demands of increase that we see in verse 11. He's just there to put tile in, right?
He's not trying to hold it all together. He's not trying to manage it all. He's not worried about what's gonna happen. He's not tracking the Wall Street ticker tape. He's not thrown about and planning seven years ahead and biting down his fingernails to the nub because he's wondering how it's all gonna play out.
He's actually able to sleep. He puts his time in. He has enough for the day, maybe enough for the week, and he can actually rest. And the king in Jerusalem who had more wealth, more splendor, more dominion than all before him says, that is a blessing from God.
Let me just make a minor point before we move on. It's a point that John Piper makes, and I think he makes it very well. I think it's a very important point. The first point to say is that there is a place for labor.
This is not saying, yeah, see, this is why I don't really work that hard. This is why I just kinda, no, no. Don't use this as a reason not to have a strong Protestant work ethic, not to cast your bread on many waters or put your back into your work.
That should not be at all the takeaway from Ecclesiastes 5, 10 through 12. The idea is that because you work hard and you trust God, you will have a sweet sleep. That sweet sleep, in other words, will be a rest.
You may have natural worry, as we have natural needs and cares, and our Father knows the needs that we have, and He invites us to cast those cares upon Him. And yet, there is a rest, there is a peace that holds us.
Even in the midst of vulnerability and want, there is a peace and a sweetness to the sleep of a Christian who's cast their burdens to the Lord and trusts that He will provide in due time. But the one who loves silver does not look to the Lord in that way.
They're looking to their own supply. Their own wise management, their own work ethic. It's what my hands do. It's to toil the extra mile that I go, the extra ounce that I give. That's what makes the difference between safety and security.
I can't rest because I've gotta go a little bit further, or I'll never be safe, I'll never have enough. That's the mindset that's being warred against here. So the point is, we do have to have a strong worth.
God didn't create us to be idle. In fact, when we give ourselves over to being idle, when we're not productive, when we don't work, for six days, that we may rest on a seventh, we find that we lose the very joy of how God created us to be.
We find that somehow even rest is not restful. There is a satisfaction that comes with labor. Just think about all these little projects we've done in the condo over the past month and a half. There were some satisfying moments that came with that.
There was a bear hug involved when a cabinet finally dropped into place after many nights of blueprints and missed cuts. And here's the point that Piper makes so well. People who spend their lives mainly in idleness or frivolous leisure are rarely as happy as those who work.
And we should help each other in this with the whole problem of not engaging in work, because it's not an economic problem. It's a theological problem. That's the great insight. It's a theological problem.
We're created in the image of God, and God planted us in the garden to work even before the fall. The fall doesn't create work. The fall curses work. The fall curses the land upon which we work. But we were created to work, and in glory, in the consummate redemption, we will be working still, yet without sweat, yet without thorn or thistle, yet without sorrow or travail.
So the idea is this is not an excuse for idleness or saying I'm not trying to grow my business or I'm not trying to work harder and seek that promotion. This is not a blanket endorsement for that kind of mindset.
Work and work hard. If you're a Christian, work hard. Have a good work ethic. And even if you're retired, find ways to be productive. Work is not just that uniform that you put on or that nine to five.
Work is anything that you're doing when you're not resting. So redeem the time because the days are evil. But you notice again, the focus on our passage is on the rest of the laborer, whether he lacks or has increase, as opposed to the one who has all the increase and yet has no rest.
And I want you to notice it's the increase, it's the silver, it's the lust that is making the demand on the laborer. The laborer sleeps, whether his food is lacking or increasing, he knows he can work, he'll get by, he's been here before, he'll be there again.
He's able to rest. The Lord has taught him and trained him to be content to work with his hands. Having food and clothing with these will be satisfied. But the one who's hit it big, the smog over the gold hoard, that's the one who can't rest.
That's the one who hasn't been trained in contentment. And it's that increase that's making the demand, that's refusing rest. That's what the verse says. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not permit him.
What's not permitting the wealthy man to sleep? It's his abundance. The abundance is almost personified. Wake up. Aren't you worried that I'm about to slip away? Wake up. Don't you realize I could be so much more?
Wake up. Stop sleeping, stop trying to rest. There's more to be had, there's more to be done. It's the lust that's beginning to have a voice through the increase. It's the desire for gain that is beginning to disorder the love.
That's the point. This is why you see covetousness as idolatry. Idols always offer what seems to be the fastest, the easiest, and the cheapest form of satisfaction. But the one thing an idol can never give you is satisfaction.
An idol says, my yoke is so much easier than the way you've been living, Christian. Do you want to look like an idiot? Don't live that way. Don't look like that. Don't you know there's lots of other Christians that don't look like idiots?
Don't you know there's lots of other Christians that aren't doing half the things you're trying to do in order to fulfill this upward calling to God? Let me give you a light yoke. Let me give you an easy burden.
Let me give you that cheap satisfaction and rest. And you know what? You find no rest for your weary soul. Satisfaction is the one thing that idolatry cannot bring about. Again, it's not the silver. It's the effect the silver has on our hearts because our hearts have been imbued by God with eternity.
So we have to return to dust. There's a curse upon our land and there's a curse upon our labor, and that means the rest I'm looking for and the gain I'm seeking cannot exist under this sun. It simply can't.
But the one who has found rest in Christ, he's through the heart-twisting lie of idolatry and is able to have sweet sleep. That doesn't necessarily mean you have eight hours. Some in this room rarely do.
It doesn't mean you don't have heartburn or foot cramps or other things that make you hobble out of bed in the middle of the night. But it means in a profound way that goes beyond the tempur-pedic, you have a sweet rest in the provision of your God, a sweet sleep.
You're not trying to drive your life and your labor for more than it can be. It's what Psalm 127, verse two says. It's vain for you to rise up early. It's vain for you to stay up late. It's vain for you to eat the bread of sorrow.
He gives his beloved sleep. He brings rest. Translations differ on this. Some could say he gives to his beloved even while they sleep, which I rather love. He's their provider. They can afford to rest because he's providing for them.
They were never providing for themselves. Though they were called to work and they had to work hard, though there were bills to be paid and belts to be tightened it was always God who was providing. That's what gives the laborer the sweetness of sleep.
He's giving even while they're resting. He's providing even while they're not working. The Father's always working. Sleep is a precious thing, isn't it? Let me ask you. Is your sweet sleep what it ought to be because of your faith in God's provision?
Are you sleeping well? Are you sleeping well? Maybe we're not talking about physical sleep at night but maybe we're just talking about this. Is your mind at rest? Or do your worries and your anxieties start to haunt you as you circle around all the things that have to happen but how are they going to happen?
Has the Lord given you rest? Is your mind at ease? Are you like a weaned child seated upon your mother's lap? Sleep is a precious thing that he grants his own. Love for silver can't satisfy but in this way Jesus says, are you weary?
Come to me, I will give you rest. He gives his beloved sleep. You're still gonna have to work and there's still a yoke to bear but that burden is easy. That yoke is light. I will give you rest along the way.
I won't whip you down to some skeletal frame and then stomp on you when your bloodied hoofs can't pull any further. I will give you rest. There's a burden to bear, there's a cross to be borne. You'll have to actually work in this life but I give my beloved rest.
Have you found that rest, Christian? You think of Jesus and the things that he had to pull when he began his ministry. What kind of storms was he facing mentally? Knowing the scriptures from a young age and having poured his human mind and intellect and powers of unfallen, uncorrupted learning upon the holy revelation that spoke of him and his identity and of his messianic calling and what kind of storm clouds did that bring to his awareness?
And no one else around him could see it. And he was finding rest from his father in the midst of the storms of what was coming. And that's why he could literally be in a storm, in a boat that was being thrashed by waves and filling with seawater and the disciples are panicking and Jesus is asleep.
He was finding rest in the middle of the storms throughout his whole ministry, his whole life. Such was his trust in his father. Such was his ability to do the work that was immediately in front of him and receive the rest that his father gave him.
And you don't think the storms you're facing in this life, the pinches, the hurts, the harms, the sorrows, the nightmares, you don't think he can give you that same rest? There's a lot hanging on Jesus' invitation.
Come to me. Come to me. All you who labor, all you who are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me. I'm gentle. I'm lowly in heart. You will find rest for your souls. You will find satisfaction for your soul.
You will find abundance for your soul. It's not under the sun. It's not in this life. It's in me. It's the beauty of what Jesus is teaching us. He has found what Ecclesiastes 5, 10 through 12 is pointing to.
He lived it. And then he says, I'm the answer. I'm the hope. I'm the way you can fulfill Ecclesiastes 5, 10 through 12. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we're of all men most pitiable. Having this understanding that the satisfaction we desire, the possession that God gave to us, that we are driven by in life under the sun, that that is all meant to draw us toward Christ.
That stronger desire, that greater affection, that rest that we're always seeking beyond the silver, that we're lusting after, that rest is actually what Christ comes and offers freely. He gives it freely.
But it's so hard for us to loosen our hands and to turn our eyes and to soften our hearts and to receive it from him. Doubt not his willingness. It's our own fallenness, our own corruption that prevents us from receiving the rest he would freely give us after the toil of every day of our lives.
I think it's the beauty of that great line, and I think it just means a lot more to me now than it ever has before. Rich as I heed not, nor man's empty praise, which is a form of riches and of wealth under the sun.
Rich as I heed not, nor man's empty praise, and here's the conclusion. Thou, you are my inheritance. That's the only way I could not heed riches or covet praise. You're my abundance, you're my treasure, you're my inheritance, but here's the key.
That never meant as much to me before. Now, and all, you're not just my inheritance then. At the end, when I'm old and wrinkly, and on a day, you're not my inheritance at the very end. You're not my inheritance when that day comes.
You're my inheritance now. You're my treasure, my abundance now. Thou my inheritance now and always. That's the key. Is Christ your inheritance now? Is he your abundance, your treasure, your rest now?
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches. Let him who glories glory in this. He knows me. I was at a conference this weekend with a wonderful poet, Malcolm Gite, and he made this point in a keynote where he was just struck by the significance of naming from creation forward.
And naming is a way of not only showing relationship and authority in relationship, but also identity. Essentially, relationship is able to be because of a name. I don't know you and I don't have a relationship with you, but when I know your name, that's the entrance into a relationship.
I can say I know you, however much remains to be known. Without a name, I can't say I know you at all. And the point that Gite said was, who are we that God would make his name known to us? Who are we that God would condescend that we could summon him by name?
That's what Jeremiah 9 is saying. You wanna glory in something? Don't glory in things under the sun. Don't glory in silver. Don't glory in the pride of life or the lust of the eyes. You wanna glory in something?
You know my name. You know me. You understand me. Glory in this. I'm the Lord. Exercising loving kindness and judgment and righteousness in the earth in this I delight. Is that our inheritance now? And always.
Are we seeking satisfaction somewhere else? Do we hear the call of Jesus saying, come to me even now this morning. You've been troubled. You've been worried. You've been consumed by fears. You've been depressed because you feel like things just aren't going in your way.
You can't get ahead. Won't you just come to me and I'll give you rest? What do you think this life can offer you that won't find its fullness in me? One day, I will be all in all. He wants us to be his inheritance now, brothers and sisters.
That's a challenge for us. It's not a question you should too easily answer. I ask it of you in the same way I ask it of myself. Are my hands still tight? Is my heart still cold? Are my eyes still distant?
It is so hard to receive the rest he wants to give. That silver seems to offer so much more and so much more quickly and so much more easily. It is a hard thing to turn our hands over to Christ. But when you walk in the wisdom of that great hope, when he's your inheritance now, you'll find as Proverbs 3 says that you'll walk safely in your way and your foot will not stumble and when you lie down, you will not be afraid.
Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet. But he who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver. Nor he who loves abundance with increase. This is vanity. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for what you freely give. Forgive me, Lord, forgive us that we don't often receive what you freely give. Sinful and foolish and self-centered and easily deceived. We trudge on keeping our hands closed, keeping our lives walled up defensively rather than turning to you, receiving from you, being made more like you who resisted every storm and terror that was sent your way by living in the rest of a faith that was perfect in your Father's holy will.
Give us such faith and trust, Lord, that we might have such rest, that we would be laborers for your kingdom that know the sweetness of sleep, lifting stones that we are able to carry and resting for stones that we cannot and trusting that you are the one who's arranging and advancing your kingdom that will know no end.
I pray for myself, Lord, as I pray for my brothers and sisters here. Lord, prune from us the lust of the world and the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. Lord, cut off the tentacles that wrap around our eyes, our imaginations, our affections.
Lord, rightly order our loves for they're crooked and often bent against each other rather than for each other. Lord, help us. Just think of the Bolton topic this weekend, Lord. Help us to have communion with Christ, our Savior, and communion with one another as a result of that.
Help us to know what that means for each of us, Lord, to grow. We would be delighting in you so that you may delight in us, oh God. We pray this in your son's name and for his sake, amen.