God Is Sovereign--So Enjoy Life (Part 2)

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.

The Sovereignty of God in Ecclesiastes 3

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, 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.

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've 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, 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, seize 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.

Enjoying God’s Gifts with Joy and Thankfulness

Enjoy God, enjoy your life. Kind of crazy that it's here. Too much Christian joy. Now enjoy life without 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, it's 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. This is fascinating. Verse 12, I perceive that there is nothing better for them than to be what? Joy? It's like it shouldn't be here. To enjoy your life. How often do we teach that lesson? I teach the lesson, God is sovereign, you can take comfort in that.

When Luke's born and they say, we don't know if he's going to live and they've got to take him to the NICU and off we go. My first thought is, God's sovereign and I can wrap myself underneath his wing of sovereignty and I'm comforted.

There's so many bad things going on in the world. The other response, or one of the other responses to the sovereignty of God is to be joyful. Why? How does that work? Let's find out. And to do good as long as they live.

Sovereignty of God and responsibility. God's sovereign, what do you do? You're to be joyful, you're to do good as long as they live. And also that everyone should eat, drink, take pleasure in all his toil.

This is God's gift to man. Yes, life is fleeting. Yes, life is full of trouble. Yes, life has many difficulties. But God is to be trusted. Trust the Lord with all your heart. And when you can trust on this sovereign God's abilities, there's enjoyment.

There's happiness. There's pleasure in life like drink and food and work and family. Say, well, yeah, but once I get sovereignty of God and human responsibility, free agency, moral accountability, once I get who wrote scripture, was it Paul or was it the Holy Spirit?

Did they take turn writing verses? Once I get fully God, fully man, all that figured out. Once I get through, how does God work through prayers? Does prayer change everything? Does prayer change anything?

Once I figure all that out, then I can be happy. Well, friends, let me tell you something. Don't force mental closure. Because I know what will happen to you if you do. You're going to get the joy robbed from you.

Because you're going to try to do things that you can't do. You're fallible, frail, sinful, finite, of course, along with me. And we can't get there. So what does God say? Trust that I'm sovereign and enjoy the little things in life as a gift from God.

Boy, this ice cream social tonight after church is going to be tasting so good right now. To enjoy God. I'm not saying stiff upper lip because you're at a funeral. I know there's hardship. I know there's pain.

But God is sovereign. There's nothing better. That's amazing. There's nothing better than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live. I go back to my earlier point. If you believe in the sovereignty of God, you ought to be the happiest.

Okay, let's not use happy. Let's use fruit of the spirit. You ought to be the most joyful. Starts with enjoying God himself. Jonathan Edwards said, how good is God that he has created man for this very end.

To make him happy in the enjoyment of himself, the Almighty. Who was happy from the days of eternity in himself. That he might make them blessed in beholding of his excellency. And that this might glorify himself.

We can't figure out some things. Ecclesiastes 11 .5. You do not know the way the spirit comes into the bones in the womb of a woman with child. So you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

So I say uncle theologically. But I also say everything else in my life. Here's what I do know. I can't reconcile sovereignty and responsibility. By the way, as Spurgeon said, who needs to reconcile friends anyway.

So I'm just done doing that. Both are true. But you know, there are some things I do know. I know my wife is a gift from God. I know my taste buds are a gift from God. I know Christian fellowship is a gift from God.

I know singing is a gift from God. I know my kids are a gift from God. I know work is a gift from God. I know money is a gift from God. And my response is, I'm supposed to enjoy it. One thing I learned growing up, even from a father who wasn't a Christian and a military guy.

If I didn't say thank you, it doesn't cost you anything to say thank you. Yes please, no thank you. I mean now if I were to get pulled over by a policeman, I'm sure speeding, he'd give me a ticket. It's just a knee jerk, knee reflex.

Thank you. Thank you for what? I'd say thank you for your ministry as an officer of God in Romans 13, but just say thank you. And so all these things I do know, every good gift I have is from the Lord.

Every good thing I have. I don't care if that's a dog. Even for some of you cat lovers, I'll let you just use this just for today only. You can enjoy your cat as a gift from God. Just today, dogs don't have souls, but cats are demon possessed.

I can't figure out a lot of things, but I can figure out I deserve hell, punishment, eternal torment, and God has given me this. He's given me everything. Everything I have. Everything I own. The linking of the sovereignty of God with enjoyment is his point.

They're all gifts from God. The ESV study Bible has a great point. It says, rather than becoming embittered by what God has not granted human beings, namely the ability to comprehend all of reality, one should enjoy the gifts that God has given.

Enjoyment in Ecclesiastes 5, 8, and 9

Go with me, if you would, to chapter 5, and let me show you this theme of understanding things are given by God. Yes, there's pessimism and ecclesiastes. I'm not going to say there's not. But laced through there like a gold vein in a mountain off California Highway 41, 49, you see these things.

Chapter 5, verse 18. Ecclesiastes 5, verse 18. Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink. See, this shouldn't be in here, because how do you control the masses? Tell them to enjoy themselves?

And find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them and accept his lot and rejoice in his toil.

This is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. Friends, could it really be that those who struggle with joy, could one reason be they're really not remembering the sovereignty of God and what that implies?

Go to chapter 8 with me if you would, please. And I want to continue this theme about seeing things as the gift of God. And I think that will be helpful. Here's our society today. The world deserves to give me this much.

But the world doesn't deliver. It's a bad advertiser. And the difference is for many people being down and depressed and moody. But you know what? If I realize I deserve this, like if I could go underneath here and go down to the gates of hell, that's what I deserve.

I've earned it. And then I get the heavens. The difference between those two is joy. What do I deserve? I deserve nothing. That's why when I tell people at the stores, they say, how are you doing today?

I go, compared to what I deserve, I'm doing great. Because the world says you get this. I never get what the world says. And I'm glad. Ecclesiastes 8 .15, and I commend, uh-oh. See, you shouldn't say these things to church members.

Solomon, should you say to his readers, I commend what? I commend joy. That should be a good new slogan of Bethlehem Bible Church. Some people have probably listened to No Compromise Radio. They thought they were going to get whacked today, and here I am saying, I commend joy.

To you, I commend joy. I commend joy. For man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and to drink and to be joyful. For this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him.

Then one more passage to look at while we're in Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 9, chapter 9, verse 7. I love these verses because I'm to take pleasure in the simple things of life. Food, family, fellowship, wife, children, friends.

Ecclesiastes 9 .7, go, eat your bread with joy. Drink your wine with a merry heart. For God has already approved what you do. Let your garments always be white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun.

True or false, God is a cosmic killjoy. True or false, God doesn't want you to have any encouragement, any joy. True or false, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. See, I got you on that one because that's James chapter 1.

Every good gift and every perfect gift. The comprehensiveness and the inclusiveness. Easy for me to say. Comprehensiveness and inclusiveness of God's goodness. Everything, everything. And friends, when I read Romans chapter 8, verse 32.

He who did not spare his own son. God's most precious possession. Using language of Genesis chapter 22 about sparing Isaac. When God didn't spare his own son but gave him up for us all. Think about it.

When we were unbelievers, enemies, reprobate people from the human perspective. Helpless, ungodly. Whatever God was like, we were just the opposite. And he gives his best. So then he says, if God gives his most precious possession to us as enemies.

What will he do for his children? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us what? All things. The argument is from the greater to the lesser.

Would God do less for his children than he would for his enemies? We get the greatest gift. Salvation. Forgiveness. We are justified. We are redeemed. We are reconciled. God has propitiated all because of his free and sovereign mercy.

Distinguishing sovereign grace did it. We earn nothing. We are the recipients of this. We are passive in regeneration. God did it all and if God does the best for his enemies and now you're a child. What will he hold back?

Christ's death shows his generous giving of his best. The verse before that was Calvin's life verse. What should we say then to these things? If God is for us, who could be against us? And God should be against us but he's not.

All because of what Christ has done. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 2. It's just earlier in the section here. Ecclesiastes chapter 2. Can you imagine? Before I was saved, I knew I was a sinner and I knew I was going straight to hell if I wasn't forgiven.

And so my life was consumed with how am I forgiven. And in my particular case, it was through baptismal regeneration. Doing good things. Plus Jesus' death. But there's some truth to the fact that I knew I was going to die and go to hell.

And there was no bigger priority for me than to making sure that when I went to heaven, I mean when I died, I went to heaven. Everything else was secondary. But now I'm going to read these verses here and I want you to see them in light of the cross and in light of progressive revelation.

But since we have that taken care of for us by the work of another, our substitutionary, sin-bearing Savior who was raised from the dead. Now I get all the rest. I don't have to pine away for all the others because I know where I'm going.

The Damocles sword is over. Ecclesiastes 2 verse 24. There's nothing better for a person than he should eat, drink, find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God. For apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment.

Literally outside of God, who can eat or who can have enjoyment. But flip that around for a second. But with God, you get enjoyment. You get to eat and to drink and to do all those things. Without God, no enjoyment because you better be pining away for how do I make myself right in God's eyes.

What's the solution to my problem? But since I've been declared righteous by the work of Christ, I can have enjoyment. Speaking of material riches, Paul goes on to say in 1 Timothy chapter 6. But hope on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

Say yeah, but people are going to push this too far. This is going to be some kind of sinful hedonism. Well, let's add verse 14. God is sovereign and in light of his sovereignty, Solomon teaches us to enjoy God.

We don't have to figure everything out with an eye to fearing him as well. And boy, this is sure good. Don't miss verse 14. In a life of temporal, vain, transitory, short-lived, half-lifed world, God remains rock, redeemer, fortress.

I perceive that whatever God does, for us it's all vanity. Whatever God does, it endures forever. Nothing can be added to it. Nothing nor anything taken from it. God has done it so that people fear. And the ESV does an excellent job here.

Proper translation. They fear before God. They fear in God's presence. Awe-inspiring presence. I've been to some awe-inspiring places in this world. You probably have too. Ever been to Niagara Falls?

I mean, it is just awe-inspiring. You can use the word awesome there, actually, I think. And you can hear it, you can feel it, you can taste it, you can see it. You go to the Grand Canyon, and you're just like, this is, you know, I feel so stupid.

I'm going to take my camera out and take a picture. It's never going to work. It's going to be like this big. This picture doesn't do the story. Redwoods of California. You just stand there and look, and you just think, I'm going to take a picture of this, but it's not going to do any good.

I'm just inspired. You go to the Swiss Alps, and you just have to stand there. And your mouth's just kind of, you think, God is so sovereign, and he's let me enjoy things even as a saved sinner. This is just an awesome, reverential fear, and I am to enjoy life, but I am to enjoy it with an eye to God's glory.

That's why the catechism says to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. God, of course, is going to bring every action to judgment, even for the Christian. Not for our sins, but our works, our deeds. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10.

And a theme of Ecclesiastes is to fear God. Chapter 5, chapter 7, chapter 8. Fear him openly with a reverence for his greatness. And a fear of a God who fulfills his vows and is faithful is provided atonement in his Son.

Can you say with the Old Testament scholar, I know that these things must play their part in God's plan. He's talking about sickness and evil and sin and Satan. I long to know what the plan is and to see it as a whole.

I shall always go on trying to see it. But in the meantime, I will live my life one day at a time. Believing that in the common round of life, I am doing the will of God. I will be content with what God gives me and take my life from the hand of God.

Don't you love the story of Corrie Ten Boom when she was in Europe before they were put in a concentration camp? And she's with her dad, the watchmaker. I'm sure you know the story, but it's so apropos.

She's a little tiny girl. They're on the train. He's got his big, looks like a medical doctor's kind of briefcase with all his watchmaking tools on it. And she's reading a newspaper. And she sees something in the newspaper as a little tiny girl.

And she said, Dad, you know, what's this? And the two words were sex sin. They don't usually write about those kind of things now using those terms in the newspaper. But in those days, they did. Dad, what's a sex sin?

No comment. Didn't answer her. They finally get to the destination. And he says, Corrie, pick up your father's tools and meet me at the end of the platform. She goes over, tries to pick the thing up. Can't pick it up.

Too heavy. But Daddy, but Father, it's too heavy. And he said, Corrie, that's just like sex sin. Some things are too heavy for you to handle. And I think to myself, the world of theodicy and evil, the world of sin and sickness and despair, the world of does God author sin?

Does God ordain sin? Is God behind sin? All these kind of issues, friends, it's too heavy. I can't do it. So I trust my father to carry it. And you know, I do know this. The reason why God did it, it's a good reason.

And the maker of the universe does the right thing. And my response isn't to put him under my thumb. My response, and may you say with David, many, O Lord, my God, are the wonders which you have done.

And your thoughts towards us, there is none to compare with you. If I were to declare and speak to them, they would be too numerous to count. May you walk by faith in a sin-cursed world, knowing that King Jesus is on the throne and he will return.

So enjoy your life. 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.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.