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Sermon by Cory Platt from Ecclesiastes 5:1-7.
Guard your steps as you go to the house of God, and approach to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Do not be quick with your mouth or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God, for God is in heaven and you are on the earth.
Therefore, let your words be few. For the dream comes through much effort and the voice of a fool through many words. When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it, for he takes no delight in fools.
Pay what you vow. It is better that you not vow than vow and not pay. Do not let your speech cause you to sin, and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands?
For in many dreams and in many words, there's futility. Rather, fear God. Bow your heads with me. Father, we come to you this morning. We thank you for waking us up, for bringing us here. Lord, we thank you just for your word, all that we've learned so far in Ecclesiastes.
Thank you for giving us more wisdom. Lord, we pray that you'd use Corrie this morning to give us more wisdom as a church, Lord. Use the preaching of your word to sanctify us. Lord, bless Corrie. Lord, give him the words to speak.
Lord, bless our time of worship this morning. We love you so much, amen.
Today's sermon is titled Loose Lips, Living God. I have a story for you that I'd like to start with. Hopefully, many of us can relate. It's gonna be a little lengthy, but listen. The alarm went off at eight, Mark was up.
He started the coffee, let the dog out, woke the kids up. Then he sat down at the kitchen table with his mug, opened his phone for just a minute. A headline about interest rates, a video of a man restoring an old truck, fantasy football stats.
By the time he looked up, it was 8 .35. Jenna, his wife, came down the stairs already dressed, phone in hand. The women's meal train chat had 43 new messages. Someone needed a meal sign up for a family with a new baby.
Someone else had sent a prayer request, and then a correction to the prayer request, then emoji hearts to everyone's replies. Her mother texted asking her what she was bringing for Thanksgiving. She came downstairs and asked, kids up.
Up, Noah's looking for his shoes. He's been looking for those shoes since Thursday. So Mark made eggs while Jenna braided Lily's hair. By 9 .30, Lily had syrup on her dress. Jenna scrubbed it with wet paper towel.
Mark found Noah's shoes under the bed in about 30 seconds. Tied his tie for him and herded both kids to the door. Five minutes. I'm coming, Jenna answered from upstairs. She wasn't. She was answering her sister.
They pulled out at 9 .51. Church was 15 minutes away on a good morning. When they got in the car, Mark asked, did the roast go in? I thought you were doing it. Well, I said, I'd do it if you got it out of the freezer last night.
Well, I forgot to get it out of the freezer. Then I guess it didn't go in. You don't have to say it like that. Like what? Like that. In the backseat, Noah and Lily were quiet for the moment. At the stoplight on Walnut, Mark glanced at the windshield sticker.
The registration had expired at the end of September. He'd meant to renew it online every night for two weeks. And every night he'd ended up on his phone doing something else. Jenna was thinking of Noah's field trip permission slip.
It was due Friday. It was still on the counter signed, but never sent back. She'd meant to put it in his backpack all week. Mark caught Noah's eyes in the rear view mirror. Son, you got your memory verse for Sunday school?
Mostly. Well, let's hear it. After Noah stumbled through the verse, Mark realized he hadn't gone over it once with them all week. He'd meant to after supper on Wednesday. They turned into the church parking lot at 10 .05.
Music already started. Mark took Lily's hands and Noah's shoulders and walked them on in. They slid into a pew during the second verse of Great is Thy Faithfulness. Mark sang the first line and meant it.
Then he thought about the registration. Then about his brother he hadn't called back. And then about the gutters. Jenna lifted her hands during the chorus. Closed her eyes. And as she tried to imagine the throne of God, she saw the frozen roast she forgot to put back out.
Then the meal signed up that she hadn't filled out. When the music ended, Pastor John stepped into the pulpit and asked the congregation to open their Bibles. Mark opened the app on his phone and a notification was waiting at the top.
He swiped it away real quick though, and he lost the first two verses doing it. He tried to follow, caught a line here and there. Something about the heart. Something about where a man's treasure is. Then his mind drifted to the registration again.
He wondered whether an officer could see his expired tags in the parking lot. Jenna had her Bible open in her lap, a real Bible, and her phone tucked inside it like a bookmark. She wasn't reading her phone, but it was there.
Lily leaned against her father's arm. Noah sat up straight because his dad told him to, but his eyes were on the ceiling fan. Jenna leaned towards Mark. I'll get the permission slip tomorrow. And Mark said, I'll do the registration tonight.
They both meant it, and they both meant it last week. Pastor John closed in prayer, and when the amens had settled, he stepped down to the table at the front of the sanctuary as he did every Lord's Day.
As we do each week, church, we come now to the Lord's Table. He opened 1 Corinthians. Let a man examine himself. And then Mark took a small piece of the bread, and he thought, examine yourself. He tried.
He thought back over the week, and what came to his mind wasn't sin, necessarily. Beside him, Lily whispered, dad, can I have one? Later, I'll explain it to you. But she'd been asking the last three Sundays.
He said the same thing those previous Sundays. He was the head of his household, and his daughter still didn't know why the church ate the bread. So after they ate the bread, Mark had done this every week for years, and he realized he had done it this morning the way he did it most mornings, out of habit, thinking about something else while taking the bread.
Jenna had her head bowed, but her mind was elsewhere. Now came the wine, and Noah watched him closely. This cup is the New Testament in my blood, he said. And so they drank. They sat the empty cups in the holders on the back of the pews.
For one moment, Mark felt that stillness that he'd been missing all week. There, then gone. On the drive home, the car was quiet. Lily hummed. Noah looked out the window. Mark checked his phone at the red light, and Jenna answered three texts.
That was good, said Mark. It was, said Jenna. Neither of them could have told you what Pastor John had preached. Now, I don't know about you. You might be pretty holy people, but I feel like I've been there, and I know we have excuses for why we've been there.
Yet, as we all proclaimed earlier, God is a consuming fire. He is not a trifle to entertain our excuses. Today's text speaks directly toward our irreverence. So may the Lord give us wisdom in being reverent.
May the word guide and the Holy Spirit sanctify us on how we approach the house of God. So to get through this text, we have some foundation to lay. 5 .1, I want you to think about just this first part of verse one.
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. We know the house of God at this time was the temple of Solomon. And it's really interesting that the author of this book, who built this temple, is telling you to guard your steps as you go there.
And he's instructing his progeny, his children. There could be a thought, a little bit of pride, I'm like, I built that. I mean, you know, you can kind of do what you want. I built it, maybe I can tear it down.
There could be a little bit of swollen pride there. But Solomon examines this passage, and he gives directives very different than previous parts of Ecclesiastes, mostly observations, mostly telling you how things are.
But here, he's telling you what to do, or his progeny, what to do. Now, think about this temple. I know you've all seen photos of it. I know you've seen it in the backs of your Bible, or maybe you've been to a Bible museum, and they have Solomon's temple laid out.
You can kind of see it. But some things to remember about this temple. 180 ,000 men contributed to building this temple. It was a big deal. So holy, its own stones could not be quarried within earshot of the mount that it was built on.
So holy, one man could enter once per year into the Holy of Holies. So holy that David himself, the throne of whom Solomon sits, was barred from building it. Worshippers, worshippers, worshippers came to the temple to worship God at this time with prayer, with singing.
There was scripture reading or reciting the law. There was animal and grain sacrifices and priestly blessings. It was mostly silent on the worshipper's side. To give their repentance and sacrifice, their praise and song, they listened to be instructed and commanded by the law.
They were issued blessings by their God through mediators, their priests. Something about that order probably sounds familiar. You're like, oh, it's kind of what we do a little bit. Corporate prayer, congregational singing, scripture reading, preaching the word, the sacraments, benediction and offerings.
Today, we do worship the same God, obviously, but in a new and better covenant. And so that you see the transition so that we would know some application as we're getting through this. The gathering of believers is the house of God.
John 4 reads, Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain, their high place, nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. And then 1 Corinthians 3 says, do you know that you are God's temple, plural, and that God's spirit dwells in you?
If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy and you are that temple. So the oracles of God make it clear in the New Testament, the gathering of believers is the house of God.
But scripture also warns us something very particular with worship, to not worship in ways that we find acceptable. The distinction between God and his creation is so vast that we cannot fathom what pleases him outside of what he tells us.
And I can prove it. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire to God. And he offered strange fire right back to them. Extra crispy. Jeroboam built temples in high places still to the Lord, but he issued non-Levitical priests, and then he made an altar of God in Bethel.
So God sent a man of God to him to condemn his actions and withered his arm. King Saul sacrificed to God unlawfully when Samuel told him to wait on him. King Uzziah burned incense in pride on an altar and God gave him leprosy.
Our betters help us summarize what the oracles teach us. So listen closely to this. It's from our confession. The light of nature shows that there is a God who has lordship and sovereignty over all, is just, good, and does good to all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all heart and all soul and with all might.
But the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself and so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations or devices of men. Nor the suggestions of Satan under any visible representations or any other way not prescribed in holy scriptures.
Summarizing, this bit of the confession is called the regulative principle of worship and we try to follow that same tradition. So house of God was the temple. I'm trying to show you that it is the congregation of believers now.
And then trying to bring you to what is acceptable worship to the Lord. We don't get to just invent it. So I'll get to my actual first point. Prostrate your ears. Just go ahead and lay on the floor, everybody.
Prostrate them. Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. When the temple was built, the steps were real funky. When you went to climb them, they weren't the same size for you to have a normal stride.
The steps were 15 inches and then 35 inches and then 15 inches and then 35 inches. They were intentionally made that way to make you contemplate when walking up there that you would literally guard your steps.
It was a mode of reverence to move your thoughts away from the things that plague your mind during the week and to prepare your hearts for reverent worship. It was awkward, it broke your stride. But what's he really mean here?
He really means by guard, other words he uses. Watch, keep, be careful, observe. All these are mentioned roughly 250 times in scripture talking about keeping the commandments. Guard yourselves, keep them.
Be faithful. They all allude to this same thing. So he wants us to guard our steps, to contemplate as we approach the house of God. And then he says, draw near to listen. Draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools for they know not that they are doing evil.
The word here for listen is shema and you're probably familiar with that term because we usually refer to the greatest commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. And then Christ added mind.
Shema simply just means to hear and obey. So when it says listen, it means hear and obey, do. It's not an optional listening. Do. Second, in Samuel, he writes, has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. Laney, you said that this morning in our prayer. Thank you, brother. And to listen than the fat of rams for rebellion is the sin of divination and presumption is the iniquity of idolatry.
Presumption. Imagining devices to worship God. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king. This is that same instance that we talked about with Saul. So here's our contrast.
We have listen and then we hear the sacrifice of fools. Guard your hearts as you approach the house of God. Walk in his commandments as you reverently approach his house. And then you hear listen. Obey, hear and obey.
But then we hear what the sacrifice of fools is. And if you're confused, the text will tell it to us, the text will tell us. It says, rashness in speaking, hasty to speak before God. Worship without obedience and deference, maybe?
God isn't rejecting their mode of sacrifice. He's not rejecting what sacrifices are. He's just flat out rejecting them because they're fools, because they don't walk in his commandments and expect sacrifices to save them.
He actually demands sacrifice during worship at that time. For God is in heaven and you are on earth. I know a lot of us probably hear from friends in different traditions. And maybe some of us struggle with this, but let's kind of lay some of this out clearly.
God is not your buddy. He's not your therapist. He's not your vending machine. He's not your life coach. He's not your affirming cheerleader. He doesn't sit on trial to explain his actions either. What do ants have to do with judging a man?
How much further do humans have to do with judging their God? Our words are like vapor. I say them and then they're gone. And you might hear 10 of them. God's mouth breathes out stars and swallows the earth.
Our eyes change nothing. His glance trembles the earth. Our touch, it leaves weak prints and his touch sets mountains on fire. You shout while a wave crashes over you and he whispers for a hurricane to cease.
Your face is utterly unimpressive and his face will kill you. There is a distinction here. Your God is unapproachable, pure and holy, set apart. The floor of his court is sapphire. The rainbows of emerald surround his throne.
His clothing is light itself. Thunder and lightning spew from his shoulders and his throne is on fire as it pours out like a river in his throne room. This great God is not simply what we imagine him to be or would like him to be.
Our God is higher. So we ought to hear what he has to say. We ought to listen to his commandments. He's higher. It's not optional. When we take our sin to be so optional and we say, Lord, I promise I won't do it next week.
Weak, lame, irreverent. You beckon God's forgiveness. Lord, deliver me and keep me from this sin. Don't make promises to God that you won't keep. And we're gonna get to that. Think of how you speak to your creator.
How do I pray to him? Do I say, I pray to him while I'm about to fall asleep. Yeah, I'll give you all my attention, Lord. If you were invited to, let's just say Donald Trump's White House, and you went, no one cares about your input, but you do listen.
No one there cares about your unqualified input. This is a holy God. Therefore, let your words be few, for a dream comes with much business and a fool's voice with many words. Church, let us contemplate our words on how we speak to a holy God, not our life coach, not our buddy, a good father.
So prostrate your ears and listen to his commandments and do. My second point is, are you sure about that? When you vow a vow to God, do not delay in paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow.
So what's a vow? Promise to God, initiated and volunteered by you. No coercion, and you're not required to make vows to God. It's a form of worship. They're not required. Deuteronomy tells us that. We see instances of vows with the Nazarite vow, Samson, maybe Samuel, John the Baptist, Paul, and you can set a vow for a particular set of time, kind of like a fast.
So this might introduce some other questions that you have. Oh, what? Oath, what's an oath? Oaths, they're swearing truth with God as witness. Again, another form of worship. Our court system often uses this for testifying.
And then divine covenants. Let's just go ahead and cover that one real quick too. Voluntary condescension of God to bind himself to men with terms he defines. Just wanted to clear that up, because I often hear us throw in those words synonymously.
So we're talking about vows. Vows are not quite part of Baptist tradition. That's something that is kind of nice for us in this passage. Our forefathers did give us proper fear. They just go ahead and didn't really even include that in our lives.
You guys ever make vows? What's interesting about vows is that they're either worship if you keep them, or sin if you don't. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake.
Why should God be angry with your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity. But God is the one you must fear. So from this passage, some things are laid bare, clear.
Unkept vows are sinful. The anger God, he might even destroy your dominion. And then he makes it clear with the messenger that your excuses are not excused. They can be repented of, but it doesn't mean that they don't bear consequence.
So we may not make formal vows like the Catholics do. Our confession's pretty clear on what vows are not good to take. But like I said earlier, we often like to do this repentance thing where we say, God, I won't do that again.
What is that? We're making a promise. We're also leaning on our own willpower. Does God sanctify you or do you sanctify you? One of my favorite quotes from That 70s Show. How do you get off ink with more ink?
How do you sanctify yourself? You need the Lord to sanctify you. The Lord sanctifies you. The Lord grants you repentance. That's the beauty of that. So yes, our tradition may not struggle with vows so much, but I think our mode of repentance often does.
Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart utter hasty words. You know, the context obviously follows the vows, but I think there's more here. We're talking about the house of God, but I cannot tell you how many times I've given my wife my word and not followed through.
It's a shame to me. It's a sin to her. I told her I would do something, and I made a liar of myself. We struggle with that. We sin in that. Maybe our words should be few. I want to tell you about an instance in Scripture where it's good to not keep your vow.
You know where I'm going. Jephthah. Jephthah. Should have been that story. He made a vow to God to sacrifice whatever came out of his home. And in keeping that vow, he was asking God to deliver the Amorites over to him.
And so that did happen. He comes home. As he's walking to his house, a celebration unfolds. And his only child, his daughter, comes dancing and singing out. And then he realizes, and then he rips his shirt and grieves.
His daughter sees that there's something wrong. He tells her he made a vow, and she tells him, you need to keep it. So he gives her two months to mourn her virginity. And then he goes through. Presumptuous, though, because we don't get to do human sacrifices in worship to the Lord.
So in his hasty words, he sacrificed his daughter, committed murder in doing so. And this was supposed to be worship to the Lord because he made a vow. It would have been proper for him to lay prostrate before the Lord and repent, break his vow, deal with the consequences of whatever may unfold.
But it's not acceptable worship to sacrifice humans. Interesting thing about that story is that you might be hasty to make a vow if you ever choose to be so bold. And the Lord might destroy the work of your hands if you break it.
But like Corinthians says, you might escape by the edge of your teeth through the fire, but all your works be burned up. Better so than to keep a vow that'll sin against the Lord, your soul or your treasure.
There's some things I want you to understand as we're kind of wrapping things up. Psalm 51, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise. Isaiah 57, in the high and holy place and also with him who is of contrite and lowly spirit.
We talked about this terrifying God and how we must watch our steps when approaching him. So obey his commandments. He is far above us. But the beauty about the new covenant that in Christ he saves all who believe.
God himself imputes his own righteousness to you so that you can now boldly approach that throne, boldly approach that terrifying, horrifying throne. If you thought angels were scary, that throne is scary.
But the only reason we can approach it is because Christ covers you with his own righteousness. The wrath and majesty of God no longer kills us to look on his face, but we have perfect peace with our God.
So let our reverence for our great God overflow into his great house here. Have reverence not only for who he is, but that he covenanted with you to bless you for his glory. He's already worthy of it all.
He already made you. He already made all of creation. And all of creation doesn't disobey their God, only us. The dirt does its function. The sheep, although dumb, do their function. But we're the ones who sin against him.
But now we're covered by the righteousness of Christ, imputed righteousness. So as you pray, as you worship, think about this terrifying throne and behold its majesty, that this God would condescend and save you and desire to commune with you for all eternity.
If you come into the house with irreverent heart, partake of the body and blood with irreverent heart, don't be surprised by the consequences. But church, you're not fools. Let us all practice this reverence.
Let us all desire this reverence. And then things of this world would just not seem so big. If the Lord can breathe out stars, man, what does that tax bill coming up matter that much? And the closer we cling to him, the more faith we have, which is in opposition to fear.
So you don't have to fear about the worries of this world as much. As you cling to his promises and trust and faith with him, ask him for it, plead with him for it. Ask him to help us be more reverent.
We're growing in this together. We edify one another. As your reverence grows, my reverence will grow. So let us practice this with our gifts together, with our all together in singing praise loudly, boasting in Christ.
I wanna think of some applications for you. Get your affairs in order. He didn't pay his registration and she didn't submit the stinking certificate thing. Whatever. Get your affairs in order. Handle things.
Lead your home in order. Men, lead your home. Prepare for the Lord's day before Lord's day. We've all failed in that. Repent of sin. Pray with reverence, speak slowly before your God and ask him to train you how to speak to an almighty God.
Look at how prayers are followed in the Psalms. Look at Jesus's model prayer. These are beautiful ways of how you speak to a holy God. You don't speak to God saying, well, God, I've been predisposed because I'm in Enneagram five and that means I'm disposed to these things.
Lord, can you sanctify me as I become my more perfect self? That's not what we do. I'll wrap it up there. Bow your heads with me. Lord, you are holy. You are high and above us. We thank you for Jesus Christ.
We thank you for the righteousness he gives us. We thank you for the faith that is a gift to us. Lord, help us edify the body. Lord, we thank you for your spirit that ministers to our souls and sanctifies us both personally and corporately.
We praise your holy name. In Jesus's name, amen.