God Is Sovereign--So Enjoy Life (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author Dr. Mike Abendroth.

Today on No Compromise Radio we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message

he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures verse by verse

with No Compromise.

Theologian and actor Jim Carrey said,

everyone's a theologian, I think everybody should get rich and famous and do

everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that that's not the answer.

What is the answer?

Does theology determine methodology?

If God's not in charge of everything, why bother?

But if God is in charge of everything, why bother?

If God is sovereign over times and places and events and everything, he

determines whatsoever comes to pass, what should we do?

Why bother?

If God is sovereign, why is man responsible?

If God determines and decrees and appoints and elects and selects and determines, then why

pray?

If God is in charge and he's the king of kings and the lord of lords, out of all those kinging he's the king of

kings, why pray?

Why evangelize?

Why do anything?

If God isn't alive, then we turn in on ourselves like Jim

Carrey says.

But if God is alive and since he is alive and is sovereign, how do we live?

What's the response of the Christian who knows God is sovereign?

You could say comfort, that would be true.

But today we're going to look at a different response and I think it's going to shock you.

The response for the person who believes that God is sovereign, according to Solomon,

is you should enjoy your life.

Should enjoy your life.

Friends, I don't like to say this word that often because it has negative connotations sadly, but I'll say it this morning.

Calvinists should be the happiest people in the world.

If you believe in the sovereignty of God, if you believe God is high and lifted up and worthy to be praised and

he determines places and times and epics and ages and people and skin color and parents,

then you should be the most happy, joy filled person in the world.

Sadly though, people that believe in reformed theology and sovereignty of God and salvation,

sometimes you know what?

They, I'll even say me, sometimes we.

We're just curmudgeons.

We're dour.

We're sour.

We're not enjoying life that God has given us.

Let's turn our Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter three this morning.

Ecclesiastes three, I changed this at the last minute, will be in Matthew eight, most likely next week.

Ecclesiastes three, since God is sovereign, enjoy your life with an eye towards fearing him.

That's Ecclesiastes chapter three.

Let me put it this way.

The catechism says, of course, you know the answer to this, both the question and the answer.

What is the chief end of man?

Man's chief end is to glorify God and, and enjoy him forever.

What do you mean?

If I was writing that, man's chief end is to glorify God and to serve him forever, to

obey him forever.

Why did the catechism writers say to enjoy God?

Something off there.

I mean, there's too much enjoyment here in the Christian life.

Got to stomp that out.

Puritans weren't too far away from the coast here several hundred years ago.

And Solomon asks and answer the question, since God is sovereign, how

are we to respond?

And I think you'll hear echoes of our Lord's words found in John 10.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

But I came that they might have life and they might have it, what?

Abundantly.

That's exactly what you're going to see here.

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

The sovereign God who's portrayed in scripture intends for your life to be satisfying and

fulfilling underneath the banner of the sovereignty of God with an eye toward fearing him.

I'm not talking about hedonism.

I'm not talking about you live for pleasure.

I'm talking about when you understand God is sovereign, instead of trying to fix every

tiny, tiny little mental closure you've got in your mind from the tangent of the sovereignty of

God and the responsibility of man and the deity of Christ, is he fully God?

Is he fully man?

How can they be reconciled?

Some of these things you're not meant to know.

I'm not meant to know.

So how do I respond in a world full of enigmas and riddles and theological things that I can't

get my mind wrapped around?

Why does God ordain evil?

Why does God ordain sin?

Why does God allow it?

Why does God permit it?

Whatever word you want to use to try to soft pedal it, if God didn't want sin in the universe, it wouldn't be in the

universe.

So why is it there?

I can't seem to get it.

I can't wrap my mind around it.

And so here's what Solomon does.

With poetry, he reminds us that God is in fact sovereign, and the response should not be to

try to solve every riddle, but to do what we do know, and that is we can enjoy the gifts that God has given us

today.

To enjoy God, because you know he's sovereign.

There's something about a little kid who's worried and anxious and doesn't understand the universe, when the daddy

or mommy picks him up and says, everything's okay.

I used to pick up my kids when they would cry, and I would pick them up and I would sing them a little song.

I can't really sing, of course, as most of you know, but I would sing a little song.

Everything's all right in your father's house.

I could be singing to them.

I got the whole world in my hands.

I'm in control.

I'm the dad.

And the kid, you could just kind of sometimes feel them as I would hold them tightly and kind of just sing them to sleep.

You could just feel their bodies just kind of go, okay.

Since God is sovereign, life does have meaning.

Since God is in control of everything, there are no haphazard events.

There's no chance.

There's no fate.

There's no fortune.

There's no serendipity.

How do we respond?

Well, comfort, yes, praise, yes, but for Solomon, enjoy God then.

Enjoy God with an eye toward fearing him.

And what he's going to do in verses one to eight is give us a definition of sovereignty, but it's going to

be in the form of poetry.

I'm kind of a propositional guy.

I'm a black and white guy.

I'm not really a poetry guy.

I even think of the song growing up in the 70s.

I think probably Phoebe Snow or somebody.

I'm a poetry man.

I hated that song.

Kids in Nebraska growing up don't like poetry if you're a man, but you know what?

Even if you look at your Bible, if you've got the ESV and some other translations, notice all the white in the margin in

verses one through eight, especially two to eight.

You see chapter two, wide columns, no margins really there, and you see lots of white

stuff in your margins in verses two through eight in chapter three.

Why?

Because it's trying to tell you different genre, poetry.

This is poetry.

So how do you describe God of the universe, sovereign control in poetry?

We look at Romans.

Excuse me, Romans.

We've been in Romans for a long time.

In Ecclesiastes chapter three, Nebuchadnezzar said his dominion is an

everlasting dominion.

He does according to his will and the host of heaven, and none can ward off his hand or say, what have you done?

But Solomon says it a little differently.

Isaiah says the Lord of hosts has planned who can frustrate it.

As for his stretched out hand, who can turn it back?

But Solomon says it differently.

There's a big debate in evangelicalism.

Is this book, Ecclesiastes, mainly a negative book, pessimistic, or a positive book,

optimistic?

I think there are strains of both, but this was read on feast days

traditionally in the Jewish synagogue.

Happy times at the end of September, early October, feast of the tabernacle, feast of the

booth.

I'm not so sure it's as pessimistic as some might have you believe.

Havelock Ellis said you may spare yourself some unhappiness if beforehand you

slip the book of Ecclesiastes beneath your arm.

And this is a book dominated by the word God.

Not Yahweh, personal covenant keeping God, but Elohim, the sovereign creator.

He's in charge of everything.

And Solomon is going to try to convince you that if you don't see the world above the horizon of

humanity, then you don't see the world rightly.

Let's take a look at verses one to begin.

Let me give you Westminster Shorter Catechism definition of sovereignty first since it's so opposite of the

poetical way Solomon does it in Ecclesiastes 3.

Definition of sovereignty, Westminster Shorter Catechism.

His eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will, whereby for his own glory

he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

That's kind of poetry to my ears, but I think you'll find this better.

Do you really believe that God is sovereign, Ecclesiastes 3 .1?

For everything, there's a season.

NAS says there's an appointed time for everything.

And a time, that's going to be a key word here, used many, many times.

For every matter under heaven.

Things are either under the sun, God's not to be seen, or they're under heaven.

I recognize this is God's world and everything is under heaven, under God's

watchful, sovereign eye, controlling every event.

And everything has a set time.

Everything exists for some reason.

But the way it's delivered, as one writer says, the poem ensnares the reader with its lilting

rhythm.

And he uses 14 pairs of opposites, 7 verses, verses 2 through 8,

with 14 pairs of opposites.

And he uses the form of a merism.

Remember what a merism is?

M -E -R -I -S -M.

When I meet young men, they want to be in ministry, the first thing I tell them is to go take an English class.

Learn what a merism is.

A merism, easy for me to say, a merism

states two different opposite poles, but makes you think that everything in

between is also covered.

So the first one's going to be there's a time to be born and there's a time to die, and the merism structure of the poem is, and

everything else in between.

So two extremes, but everything in between is covered.

And look at how he illustrates in verses 2 through 8 his thesis of chapter 3,

verse 1, with appointed times, ordained times, sovereign times.

There's a time to be born and a time to die.

And there's also a time to rescue this passage from the 1968 Bird Song, and I'm going to

do it right now, the younger generation.

If you only knew what an 8 -track was, you would know.

The two opposites and everything in between, there's a time to be born, God's sovereign over your birth.

God chose when you would be born, to whom you would be born, where you would be born, God is sovereign over your

birth, and a time to die.

Your birthday is ordained by God, your funeral's ordained by God, and everything in between.

In our world, where people have all kinds of abortions and mercy killings and

seemingly somehow in control of death, Job 14 says, his days are

determined and the number of his months is with you, and his limits you, God, have set so that he cannot

pass.

The psalmist said, my times are in your hand.

He says, well, the same is true for the plant world.

Verse 2 goes on to say, there's a time to plant, it's true even of

vegetables, and a time to pluck up what is planted.

The Jewish agricultural mind would get this season, spring, fall, summer,

harvest, year after year.

Yes, there's a time for that, and God is sovereign over it all.

Verse 3, there's a word in Hebrew for kill, and there's a word for murder, this is to kill.

There's a time to kill and a time to heal.

There's a time to put someone to death in capital punishment, there's a time to kill someone in self -defense,

there's a time to kill with marauding armies, there's also a time to

heal.

And Solomon is crafting here the sovereignty of God with poetry.

There's a time to break down and there's a time to build up.

I don't think this is metaphorical for relationships, I think this has to do with nations and

building houses and tearing down houses, beginnings and endings.

Same is true for emotions.

Verse 4, there's a time to weep, there's a time to laugh,

and everything in between.

There's time to mourn at a funeral and other times, and there's a time to dance at

a wedding, and everything in between.

God's sovereign over it all.

There's a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones.

There's some debate with this, has some sexual connotations, I don't think it has to do with that at all.

Nothing else in this list seems to be figurative.

So what's the literal meaning of cast away stones, a time to gather stones?

Well, I think the answer is found in New England.

It's said of a funny traditional story, of course it's not biblical, that when

God created the world, he gave some angels a bunch of rocks and a big sack, and when the

angels got to Israel, they tripped and stumbled and let all the rocks go, because there's

rocks everywhere.

By the way, my favorite story of rocks, all time, is when I was in Israel the first time, and

we went to the place where David killed Goliath.

It was by a little river bed, and of course I wanted to get some rocks.

You know, how many stones do you pick up to put in your pocket to take back, and can I get them through the

Israeli customs?

And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I

look down the way in the creek bed, and there's a huge truck backing up to dump all the other rocks for all the other

millions of tourists that are going to come.

I got my special rock that David used.

One thing you'll notice in New England, you'll notice all these stones put up

to make fences because they get them out of the middle of the field, because if you're going to farm at all and have stones in the field, it's not

going to go so well for you.

Let me just read to you 2 Kings chapter 3, I think you'll get the idea of how you ruin someone's field

with stones.

This is a light thing in the sight of the Lord, 2 Kings 3, He will also give the Moabites into your hand, and you shall

attack every fortified city and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop up all the springs of water,

and ruin every good piece of land with stones.

The text goes on to say, and they overthrew the cities, and on every good piece of land, every man threw a stone

until it was covered.

They stopped every spring of water and felled all the good trees until only its stones

were left.

There's a time to clear out a field, there's a time to fill it full of rocks.

Verse 5, be a time to embrace, this could mean a lot of different

things.

The Hebrew would mean sexual love within marriage, Song of Solomon 2 .6.

It could mean family love, caring for one another, or it could be just two friends in the

Near East who haven't seen each other for a long time, and they embrace with affection.

There's a time to embrace, and all three of those would certainly be true in the course of God's sovereign plan, and a time to

refrain from embracing.

As one man said, there's a time to say hello, there's a time to say goodbye.

There's a time to seek, and a time to lose.

Probably with investments and real estates and economics, there's a time to get new investments, there's a time

to lose what you have.

Man is active in gaining, man is active in giving, away.

There's a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

Verse 7, God's sovereign and providential over sadness and joy, there's a time to

tear and a time to sow.

Well, why did you tear clothes back in the Old Testament?

You tore clothes because you were sad and you wanted to repent?

Or most likely what it's talking about here, you were sad and grieving because somebody died.

David tears his clothes because he mourns for Saul and Jonathan.

Job tears his clothes because he loses his children.

Verse 7 says there's a time to be silent and a time to speak.

There's a time to love, verse 8, and a time to hate.

Personal emotions, individual emotions, and now even

publicly there's a time for war and a time for peace.

Probably those same emotions except on the public level.

Go back to verse 1, remember his thesis?

He's just tried to illustrate it in the last seven verses.

The thesis is for everything there is a season and a time for every matter

under heaven.

Nothing is random.

You think about your life for a second.

God is sovereign over your life, true or false?

The answer must be true.

And why is it so obvious in Scripture that God shows his sovereign hand in the lives of people?

And the answer is because in our lives sometimes it doesn't seem so obvious.

You read Genesis 37 to 50 and you go, my five -year -old could read

Genesis 37 to 50 and say to themselves, looks like they had all these plans to do things,

but God was behind it all.

God was in charge of it all.

It's obvious.

37 to 50, the sovereignty of God.

But in my own life, and I think of trials and temptations and in your life and sickness and in health and all kinds of

other things, is God really sovereign?

And if he's really sovereign, why bother doing anything?

Verse 9, what gain has the worker from his toil?

If you really get that God is sovereign, it's got to go through your mind for at least a second, then

why?

You can tell when people grasp the sovereignty of God when they go, well, then why would I evangelize?

Why would I pray?

We have to teach them that God has means to his end and God has commanded that, and this is how we're supposed to do things

in light of who God is, that we have success in evangelism because of the sovereignty of God.

But I at least say to myself, they get it.

They get the utter, naked, alien fact that God is in charge.

They get it.

I'm glad for that.

But if God's sovereign over everything, what gain has the worker from his toil?

It's all predetermined.

He says in verse 10, I have seen the busyness that God has given to the children of man

to be busy with, the things that God has assigned to human beings to keep them active and

working.

He says in verse 11, a very famous verse and a wonderful verse,

he has made everything appropriate, NES says, ESV says, he has made everything beautiful.

Appropriate is probably the best rendering.

In its time, he's sovereign over everything.

His ways are good.

The beauty and loveliness and appropriateness of God's sovereignty, welcome it as sees it, espouse

it.

It's as beautiful as his love, but it says, and he has put eternity into man's heart.

Look at the Egyptian pyramids and you'll find out why people put so much effort into the afterlife

because eternity has made itself plain in the hearts of humans because

God has done it.

But the text goes on to say something.

He's put eternity into man's heart.

There's this longing for other, longing for purpose, longing for

these transcendent things.

Yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the

beginning, to use a little merism here again, from the beginning to the end and everything in between.

Could any sensible person who thinks about future life, purpose, meaning, everything else,

say that they understand things like God does?

No.

One writer said the creator has made him a thinking being and he wants to pass beyond his fragmentary knowledge and

discern the fuller meaning of the whole pattern, but the creator will not let the creature be his equal.

I want to know purpose.

I want to know destiny, theologically.

But his purposes are outside my realm of investigation.

I get my little magnifying glass out.

God's ways are too high for me.

So what do I do?

God's sovereign over everything.

Solomon said, I know you want to know, but God is God and you're not, and so what do I

do since God is sovereign?

And the answer is twofold.

Number one, the proper response to God's sovereignty in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 is, so

enjoy your life.

Enjoy God.

Enjoy your life.

Kind of crazy that it's here.

Too much Christian joy.

Now, enjoy life with an eye to fear him, then maybe people are going to go crazy.

But here to enjoy your life.

Look at verse 12 and 13.

This is so good for the Christian.

This is why people that believe in the sovereignty of God used to be the happiest.

We have a little saying in our house when you've kind of got a fussy looking face.

When I used to say to the kids when they were really little, do you have a fussy heart?

Well, how do I know they have a fussy heart?

Because their face is showing what their heart is like, and so I would say, do you have a fussy heart?

So then we would say, the other kids would chime in too, well, then maybe you better send a missionary to your face.

And so the amazing thing here is when you think about a big

picture and just pull back for a second.

You know, missionary to your face, anybody can just kind of smile on cue.

But how about the missionary, the person, the Holy

Spirit who comes and grants you fruit in your heart, and the fruit of the Spirit is

love, and what's the second one?

Joy.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston,

Massachusetts.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's

Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us.

Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m.

We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone

at 508 -835 -3400.

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