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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 2:18-23
Well, this morning we return to Ecclesiastes chapter 2. We're nearing the end of the chapter. We'll actually conclude it next week with verses 24 through 26. That'll be the first of a series of what we've called the Carpe Diem statements.
That's not my term. That's how commentators and interpreters of Ecclesiastes have summarized these statements about the good that we can find under the sun, the good that God has given to man, and the way that we can find joy and even satisfaction in this life.
But we're not there yet, and even as we pitch toward that, we want to return to some of the points we laid out at the end of last week's message. Over the past several sermons we've looked at the folly of wisdom, the pain of pleasure last week, the hatred of life.
It's been rather gloomy from week to week in terms of this focus. But this is the results of the quest that the preacher has sought, the king over Jerusalem has sought from chapter 1, verse 26 and following.
And as we concluded last week, he hated life. He hated what his life had amounted to as a result of this quest. And we find that repetition beginning in verse 18. He also hates the labor in which he toiled under the sun.
So we see there's a chain connection between where we left off last week and where we're picking up this morning. And this morning we're going to tie last week's message to this focus, which is really the summary of this whole section, which I've titled The Loss of Game, Ecclesiastes 2, beginning in verse 18.
Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he'll be wise or a fool. Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I've shown myself wise under the sun.
This also is vanity. Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. There is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it.
This also is vanity and a great evil. For what has man for all his labor and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his days are sorrowful and his work burdensome.
Even in the night, his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity. Let's just look at verses 18 and 19. I want you to notice the repetition. We're going to see repetition within these verses and repetition of these verses.
In other words, we're going to see in a moment that there's a parallel going on between verses 18 and 19 as well as 20 and 21. But looking at verse 18, then I hated all my labor. So this is a summary of the result of this inquest that began in verse 26.
He surveyed it all. He sought after wisdom and madness and folly. He pursued pleasure with reckless abandon. He pursued that stoic way of managing his life and ordering everything according to a stringent wisdom in both directions.
He came up short. He came up empty. So this is not just saying then as a successive moment, but then as a summation of this whole quest, the king over Jerusalem has come to see. Then I hated all my labor in which I toiled under the sun because I must leave it to the man who will come after me.
And who knows whether he'll be wise or a fool. But he's going to rule over my labor in which I toiled under the sun. Even when I showed myself wise in it. This is vanity. Now what do you notice by way of repetition?
Just in these two verses. Look at the repetition. And remember in Hebrew, emphasis is made by repetition. I hated all my labor in which I toiled, yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled. We're going to see the same thing in the next several verses.
The whole focus is on labor, on toil, on the fact that he must leave it. The term here for toil, the Hebrew amal, it's repeated throughout. The interesting thing is that the labor or the toil is functioning as a metonymy.
It's a fancy way of saying that the focus is not so much on the toil, but rather on the fruit of the toil. That becomes clear when we look at the larger context. It's not I must give my toil to my successor.
No, I must give it. Give what? Give the fruit of my labor. Give the increase, the gain that I had under the sun, the gain with which I built wisely. I must leave it. What's the it? The toil? The work?
No, it's the fruit of the toil, the fruit of the work. I have to give it to someone who didn't work for it. Didn't work for what? Didn't work for the fruit, for the reward, for the gain. So that's the metonymy that's going on here.
In fact, our translation doesn't pick up on this. It's a little more strict, but some translations do. The NASB, I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labor. That's an excellent insight. That's what's going on here in this passage.
NIV even gets it right in a way. I hated all the things I had toiled for. I hated the product of my labors here because it goes to someone else who didn't labor. I hate the fruit of my toil because it goes to someone who didn't toil.
I'm not around to enjoy it. I'm not around to protect it. It's simply given over and who knows what will happen to it, whether it will be used wisely or foolishly. We're thinking of Solomon and that historical register.
Rehoboam is a fool. He does not build wisely with what he received. The question is, has Solomon himself built wisely with what he's received from his father's hand? And so, of course, this is the nature.
This is the cyclical rhythm of life that we receive that which we didn't work for, whether a build with or burn down. That's beyond us. We're not able to contain it or secure it. And we see that word leave.
Interestingly, it's also a word translated elsewhere, rest. It's the word nuach. Think of the prophecy that Lamed gave of Noah. Again, nuach. This one will give us rest. The idea is you're leaving or resting something.
You have to leave it. You have to put it to rest. That's the idea here. I have to leave it. I have to drop it. Someone who didn't toil, someone who didn't earn, someone who didn't labor under the sun, they receive it without lifting a finger.
And I can't control that. There's nothing I can do about what will become of the fruit of my labor. And again, as was said, Ecclesiastes is a running commentary on the reality of the fall, the reality of God's judgment on sin working through the power of death.
How there's this corruption and this fatigue and this weariness that all that God intended at creation has been corrupted by the fall and is in need, in dire need, of redemption. We have it in that word leave.
Not a lot of commentators see emphasis here. I think it's a huge emphasis. Why does the king have to leave his work? Mankind wasn't created to not enjoy forever the fruit of their labor. When God planted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, His intention for humanity, speaking at a surface level, was so that they could labor in His goodness and extend His glory and dominion to the ends of all that He had made.
They were to perennially be around the fruit of their labor, to enjoy God by enjoying all of His goodness reflected and refracted by all that He had done. They were never to leave it. They were never to leave His presence, never to leave His dwelling place.
The fall forced them, expelled them. They were forced to leave. And as a result of death, now we must ever leave the fruit of our labor. We must ever leave the presence, the dwelling place, the place that God has apportioned us.
So leaving is an effect of the fall. Of course, the king enjoyed the fruit of his labor. He says, I built wisely. As we saw last week, that's a virtue. It's better to have wisdom than to walk in folly.
It's better to have eyes in your head than to be in darkness. And he says, I walked in wisdom. I built wisely. I labored wisely. But even still, I could not escape the effects of the fall. I have to leave it all behind.
Verses 20 and 21, therefore, I turned my heart in despair of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. Again, now he's turning and surveying everything we saw from the past chapter. There's a man, now he's speaking somewhat removed, likely indicating himself.
There's a man whose labor is with wisdom. That was certainly the king in Jerusalem. Knowledge and skill. But he has to leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.
Again, you notice that repetition. I turned my heart in despair of all the labor in which I toiled. There's a man whose labor is with wisdom. He must leave this heritage to a man who has not labored for it.
Do you see the emphasis again in the repetition of that word leave? He must leave his heritage. There's no rest. There's no fulfillment under this sun as a result of the fall. And look at the despair.
This also is vanity and a great evil. He just is calling a spade a spade. This is not how it was meant to be. This word evil, it won't be the only time we see it in Ecclesiastes. We're getting at the idea of injustice, a grave injustice, a woeful misfortune.
That's the idea. One translation, the New English. This is a utter wrong. It's an utterly wrong. Wasn't supposed to be this way. That's how he's feeling. Everything that he built, everything that he achieved through all of this wise, skillful labor is left for someone else.
As one said, this verse reveals a shift from pleasure-driven despair to legacy-driven disillusionment. That's excellent. This verse reveals a shift from pleasure-driven despair. Remember how he sought pleasure?
There was nothing he restrained himself from. And he despaired as a result of that pursuit. He realized there wasn't ultimate lasting pleasure under this sun. So then he turned, well, if I can't find pleasure under the sun, maybe I can find satisfaction and fulfillment in laying down an inheritance and leaving a legacy.
But he finds there a disillusionment. I can't control it and I won't be around to see it. Now there's going to be a counterbalance to this, as we'll see throughout Ecclesiastes, where he states something and we think we finally understand it and have settled on it.
And then a few chapters later, he's going to throw us off balance again. We're going to see this disillusionment about his legacy is going to have an answer in chapter 4 and again in chapter 9. So we have to be patient with this book.
We want to be settled where he's settled so that we can follow the things that he's surveying and seeing. If you could put it this way, the king in Jerusalem has fully entered his midlife crisis. I wonder if some of you have fully entered your midlife crisis.
I don't know if I have. I don't know if I will. I hope to God I don't. I've seen some of the things that men do when they enter that stage of life. All of a sudden, a cherry red Mustang is in the driveway.
Some foolish decision. I've gone back to stamp collecting. I just sunk our 401k into it. What? This is the thing. This is the thing that will give me meaning. And sociologists that study the phenomenon of midlife crisis recognize this shift where in the first part of a man's life, he's generally bent on pursuing the things that will make him successful.
It doesn't matter what kind of career, what kind of job he's doing. He's looking to have success. He wants to merit. He wants to earn. He wants to establish himself. So the first part of his life is largely driven by a hunger, a need for success.
Having been successful, the second half of a man's life often then shifts to a hunger or a need for significance. And you can see that shift here with this king in Jerusalem. I sought to expand my borders farther than anyone before me.
I built more hanging gardens and pleasure palaces than anyone before me. I had more wisdom and pursued more knowledge than anyone before me. I was more successful than anyone who had ever come before me.
And he realized there wasn't any significance there. Midlife crisis. Now he has a hunger for significance. Where is it all going? What will it all mean? What will my name carved in granite actually accomplish?
He's wondering if under the sun, all that he's amassed, all that it's amounted to has essentially been a waste. Again, it's not the full answer. That's where he is right now. I remember this scene. It's nothing edifying to watch here, but it just sticks out to me.
I remember in high school this episode of The Simpsons where you have comic book guy. He's like this, you know, grown adult and he just collects comic books. His whole life is in the lore of comic fandom.
And in the episode, there was something like a missile got launched and was heading to Springfield and it was going to blow up the town. And he's walking down the sidewalk and he's reading his comic. His whole life has been in comic books.
And he goes, no, Aquaman, you can't marry a woman without gills. You're in two different worlds. And he looks up and he sees the rocket coming and he goes, oh, I've wasted my life. Just love that scene.
Instant recognition. Oh, this was not worth it. And that's this king in Jerusalem. He's surveying everything around him. And now he's laser focused on the reality of his mortality and he goes, have I wasted my life?
Success? Significance? Verses 18 and 19 are parallel to verses 20 and 21. Let me just show you some of that structure. They both begin, look at verse 18 and then at verse 20 with a lament, with a sort of fatigued sigh.
I hated all my labor in which I toiled under the sun. That's verse 18. I despaired of all the labor in which I toiled under the sun. That's verse 20. So you have that repetition. Then the reason for that.
Because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. Verse 18. He must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. Verse 21. And then the conclusion. This is vanity. This is vanity again and a great evil.
So you see this mirrored repetition between 18, 19 and 20 and 21. And then verse 22 comes as a summary of the whole quest that began from chapter 1, verse 26 till now. What has man for all of his labor, for the striving of his heart with which he's toiled under the sun?
What does that sound like? That sounds like already a foray that began at the very beginning of this book. Verse 3 of chapter 1. What prophet has a man from all of his labor in which he toils under the sun?
Now we're at the end of the second chapter and he's back at the beginning question. What prophet is it? What has all my labor under the sun amounted to? What does a man have from all of his labor? My heart was striving after it.
What can I show? What can I gain? What can I hold from it? And you see where this leads him as we head to verse 23. This striving, this toil that didn't just consume his day, but it even takes up his night.
He says all his days are sorrowful, his work burdensome. Even in the night his heart has no rest. This also is vanity. So even when he's not working, he can't find rest. He can't find replenishment. He perhaps is up at night with worry.
What's my work going to mean tomorrow? What do I have to do? What do I need? What do I have to get done? How is that going to get done? His heart has no rest. It's literal in the Hebrew. His heart finds no rest.
So he has to leave. He feels, as we said last week, that pressure of mortality. He's done a lot to outpace it, a lot to numb himself to it, a lot to be distracted from it. But the reality is it's now crept up unawares in his life.
He thought he was out far ahead, more wisdom, more knowledge, more gain, more royal prowess, more potential, more wealth, more splendor. He thought he could outpace it. He thought he could find that secret to the center of the universe, that fulfillment in life under the sun.
He thought he had enough of a gap there, but it just kept pacing and pacing and pacing. Death is like the New York Knicks in the fourth quarter. You think you're out far enough, and it doesn't matter.
They just catch up and overrun at the end. That's death. Frankly, the king cannot believe he spent so many years of his life working for something that will fall out of his hands instantly into someone else's, who didn't even spend a day working for.
He says, what's the justice in that? Eric Ortlund summarizes it so well. In these three searches, he seems to be putting infinite demands on finite things. I want something steady, something sure, something solid.
I want something so satisfying. And he looked in every way, in every direction in life under the sun, and he could not find it. He was putting infinite demands on finite things, asking them to satisfy him in ways that they were never intended to.
Isn't that what we do, brothers and sisters? We put infinite demands on finite things in life. I need this to be solid. I need this to be true, solid gain. I need this to be soul-satisfying. And whether we never arrive or achieve, or even if we do arrive and achieve, we're bitterly disappointed.
The whole conclusion of chapter 2 up to verse 23 is bitter disappointment. As Jack Elol put it, in order to be prepared to hope in what does not deceive us, we must first lose hope in everything that does deceive us.
That's the encouragement of where Ecclesiastes is going. He's spreading that black velvet that he's going to put gemstones on because he wants to lose hope in everything that would deceive us or distract us from what is actually hopeful, what is actually glorious.
He reminds us the thrust of last week's message, despairing the effects of the fall upon life under the sun, the way that the fall, the way that human sin and rebellion corrupted God's good design, God's good intention for humanity, the power of death working through sin that has cursed our labor, cursed our rest from labor, cursed our blessedness, cursed the entirety of life under the sun.
Or as I had mentioned this some weeks ago, this conclusion by Zach Eswine, the preacher wants us to see how far from Eden we have come. Once it was enough for a man and a woman to have God and the good gifts that God gave, even if it meant there was a tree and fruit that existed but not for them.
Now even though we're surrounded by opportunities to laugh and drink, work, make money, none of it's enough, we're not satisfied and then death comes and stomps over all of it. Eswine says, death did this to us.
We did this to us. And God let it be. He will have to take care of death and all that has flown from death. And in time he will, in time a promised one will come, a cross will stand, a tomb will empty, and death itself will die.
So we've laid out the despair of chapter 1 and chapter 2 and in some ways now we come to where I closed last week, that contrast between the dying thoughts of an atheist and someone like Ben Sasse, a run-of-the-mill Christian who has understood the reality of Christian hope as a result of looking death squarely in the face.
It's only then that we can even begin to understand the way that this tireless fatigue of toil and labor and anxiety of having no rest by day or by night is answered fully and finally by the Lord Jesus Christ.
We might have it on a fridge magnet, we might have it on a postcard or even a desktop screensaver, but we haven't quite grasped the beauty and the truth, the gritty truth of Jesus' words, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
If that's a passage you can yawn at, you're not where the King in Jerusalem is. That is music, that is gospel music. For someone whose days are consumed by despair and fatigue, whose nights are driven by anxiety and worry, who feels that there's nothing solid or soul satisfying in this life, there's just the weariness, the labor, the heavy laden sense of fatigue and exasperation, and against that Jesus says, come to me.
Don't keep going out there in those directions, don't keep those quests going that occupy this man for so long, come to me. If you're laboring and toiling under the sun, if you're heavy laden, if you're despairing and feeling there's no peace, no rest, no comfort, I will give you rest.
He spells it out again, take my yoke, learn from me. I'm gentle, lowly in heart, you will find rest. Jesus assumes that the one who comes to him is the one who's been searching for that kind of rest for their souls.
And he's saying you're looking in all the wrong places if you're not looking to me, if you're not coming to me. Come to me if you want that rest. Come to me if you would find something to satisfy your soul.
Don't keep searching elsewhere in other things. It's only Christ that can give us something to satisfy our souls, to give us respite along the way of a weary world. He himself had to live by faith in his Father's will in that very way.
In the midst of that kind of heavy fatigue and despair and sense of hopelessness, of hating his life as it were, compared to his love for his Father, of being able to take up his cross and die to himself every day.
And in that communion with his Father, finding rest and encouragement, even joy for his soul, so that though he was a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief, he could also say in prayer his great desire was to share the joy he had with his Father to his own.
To make that joy complete. So we recognize that the glorious hope of the Gospel is that Jesus is the one who endured the hostile powers of death, endured the corruption and decay and rebellion of the fall in his own body, and ultimately paid the price for it on the tree.
And as a result of that, he abolished death, as 2 Timothy says, and brought light and life. So we asked the question last week, and I cautioned, please do not answer too quickly because as Christians, one of our big problems is we answer too quickly.
We've almost been catechized too well. One of my great encouragements and hopes is that as our society is becoming increasingly biblically illiterate, they don't understand the Bible, they haven't heard the famous passages, they don't understand some of the most basic assumptions of previous generations, that's actually an encouragement to me.
Because they won't have preformed answers, they won't have hasty conclusions. It'll actually strike them in the way it ought to strike us. Paul says, for me to live is, and we said, blank, fill in that blank.
Well, let's dive into that. That's from Philippians 1, of course. The context of Philippians 1 is he's writing this letter, and quite literally he's awaiting a verdict of impending death or of restoration.
He doesn't know which way it will go. He says in verse 20 of chapter 1, According to my earnest expectation and hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness as always, so now also, Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.
Those are the straits that he's in. I don't know if I'm going to continue to live or if the Roman sword will take my life. Whether by life or by death, what my life has been about will continue. Christ will be magnified.
That was his driving concern. He was driven by the reality that there was this upward call, this hope of glory, that existed as a result of him knowing and walking in the light of Christ. So his whole view of death, his whole view of life, has been transformed as a result of that.
Death itself and the prospect of all that he had suffered, he likens to a light, momentary affliction. Why? He's holding it against a scale of eternity. He knows that the decisive victory has taken place at the resurrection.
Death no longer can hold me down because Christ rose victorious. So he recognizes that's the first fruits of my hope. What he is, I too will be, and I will be like him when I see him. We come to the great statement of verse 21.
For to me, he says, to live is Christ, and therefore to die is gain. If we back up to the very beginning of the letter, Paul has viewed himself as a slave of Christ, meaning I belong completely to him.
My whole body is subject to his will. My whole life is in his hands. What he desires, what he commands, I do. I belong to him. I'm his, completely. That's not simply a sentiment. Christ is not an accessory to Paul's life.
It is Paul's life to be a Christian, to commune with Christ. In fact, we have to spell out the translation. Literally, it's just to live, Christ, to die, gain. As so often in the Greek, you're supplying verbs, verbs that are implied.
To live, to have a life, Christ. So then what's death? If Christ is life, what's death in this view, in this perspective? Gain. Because the one thing that's holding me back from enjoying that undiminished presence of him who is my life is the fact that I'm still in this body under this sun.
So death to me is gain. What's the one thing that the king in Jerusalem has been searching for in chapters 1 and 2? Gain. What is there to gain? What kind of gain is there? Is there anything in life under the sun that I can call gain?
Where is Paul as he's writing this letter to Philippi? You want gain? You won't find it in life under the sun. The gain is dying in order to be with Christ. That's gain. The totality of what was driving Paul, of how Paul understood himself and everything around him, In other words, the totality that's embedded in this word life is simply summarized for Paul as Christ.
What's the meaning of it all? Christ. What's the purpose of it all? Christ. Where's it all going? Christ. Why is it? Christ. Lots of other things matter and flow downstream from that, of course. Paul recognizes the source, recognizes the summit.
Whatever else might be needed, as he says in a few verses later, the Philippians have needs. It's needful for them that Paul stays. But Paul has such an exalted view of Christ, he knows the sum total of life itself is Christ.
People wonder what the point is today. What's the purpose of life? What are we here for? What is life? What kind of answer do you think they're picking up from our lives? It's one thing to have as a blank for me to live is, and just assume.
I'm a member at GRBC, of course. Christ. Just assume. Do the people around us, the people in our neighborhood, people in our workplace, the children in our home, would they fill in that blank as easily, as readily?
Oh, without hesitation, for them to live is Christ. Or would they actually have some other potential answers? Well, Christ is certainly a part, Christ is present, but Christ the all, Christ the whole?
Christ the burning center, Christ the driving force? Christ the before and the after, the beginning and the end, or is there something else in between? Perhaps we're blinded to, but others who know us well can see there's some other need, some other drive, some other distraction that fills in that blank far more honestly than we do.
We're surrounded by people who are questioning what the purpose of life is. I've been failing, perhaps, but attempting to minister to a young man whose testimony and walk I can only describe as a roller coaster of a step forward and two steps back.
And I've been praying for him, excited, hopeful. I've been seeing a lot of myself in ways that I'm not able to communicate or give the things that I so desperately want to. But he reached out to me yesterday and he said, after a long delay of communication, this just isn't for me, you know, it's just not for me.
This Christian life, Christianity, it's not for me. And in that moment, I can't help but think, you are around people and aware of enough to have some semblance of what Christianity is. You think you understand it.
You could almost be described as the Jews. You search the Scriptures because you think in them you've found life. But what's the thing you haven't known? More importantly, who is the relationship that you're lacking?
Jesus says in that passage, you won't come to me. The Scriptures testify of me. I am life. And you can realize very quickly that Christianity becomes an accessory, a potential opportunity, a new direction, a needed change, something to try.
Yeah, it seems really sensible. A lot of the people that I know, they seem to have their lives put together well. They're Christians. But there's a missing dimension. There's something absolutely void at the center of it all that could never be said of Paul.
Paul could not allow others around him to see that Christianity was something that could neatly compartmentalize into your life, to be one of many other pursuits and ambitions and drives. For me, life is Christ, Paul says.
In fact, I'm only here to do His will as His slave. I actually just want to die and be with Him. Death is gain to me. That's how much I love Him. How much I long to be with Him. How much the sting of death has been removed from me.
What's our answer to that, brothers and sisters? What is life? What is life? What is living? What does it mean to us? What is it all about? Paul has stood face to face with the same question of the king in Jerusalem in Ecclesiastes 2.
And he's found the real gain. And the real gain is not in any drive or directive. It's in a person. It's in a communion with this person. It's in the glorious hope that comes as a result of this person.
It's, in short, Christ. The Christian knows the answer to these questions. There's a purpose to life. That purpose is that Christ will be magnified. That Christ will be glorified. Now, I do not want that to come across as some baton that I'm beating you with.
Which is often how I read it and apply it to myself. Is Christ my life? No, it's not. Well, you wicked sinner. Christ isn't your life. You're not like Paul. Get ready for another beating. And then I just, okay, I'll try better.
And I try to manufacture Christ being the center of my life. I try to put it on. Yes, I just need a little bit more effort, a little bit more zeal. I can put these things into place and really prove and show to others, if not myself, that Christ is the center.
Do you see that Paul doesn't have to manufacture that? This isn't a baton to be beaten with, brothers and sisters. This is just a mirror held up to us to say, have we really understood who Jesus is? When you've known Jesus in this way, when you're pursuing Jesus in this way, Paul's reaction is the natural outflow.
Have you not found that to be true in your life as a Christian? That when other things clear away and you find yourself in His presence, any desires for the world or the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, it becomes loathing to you, loathsome to you.
It pales away. You feel that heartbeat of Paul. Christ is glorious. Christ is my life. It's this upward call. If you could put it this way, it's a natural response. And so it's more of a burning question.
Why would I live for anything else? Why would my life be characterized by anything else? Why would I pretend life exists in anything when I've already known the source of it is Christ? All that emanates that's good from God is a result of Him, and everything that's good is made for Him.
Everything that is is through Him. Why would I chase rivals, competitors? At the church retreat, we spent a lot of time looking at idols of the heart. Haven't you found it true when you return to your first love, have all other loves become hates?
You're like, Peter, I spent enough time running in the lust of the Gentiles. It's like, I'm not going in that direction anymore. I'm not trying to straddle that direction. You end up realizing these people that straddle love for other things and try to fit and accommodate Christ into that, to justify that, to validate that, have not understood Christ, have not known Christ.
And I can tell you this, it's the most wearying, exhausting thing in the world to try to straddle Christ. He doesn't admit rivals to His throne. He doesn't have a wide enough seat for other loves. And so the spirit is Ichabod, it's departed, and people go on for some time in their natural strength, whether through peer pressure or whatever, to hold these things together, to try to maintain this straddled affection between the semblance of Christianity and their actual love, their actual drive for the world.
It always becomes so fatiguing, you don't care what the cost is, it must have out. Think of how Ecclesiastes-like Paul's meditation is. He's found the real gain, which is Christ Himself, which is the meaning of life, the purpose of life, the goal of life, the fullness of life, the splendor of life, the source of life.
It's life Himself. I am the life, he tells Martha. We go on to the next verse. Paul says, if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor. That's another vexing question for the preacher in Ecclesiastes, isn't it?
What fruit is there that I can enjoy from my labor? For Paul, there's all sorts of fruit from his labor that he can enjoy. Anything done unto Christ is a lasting fruit that brings a lasting reward. Paul recognizes, though death will separate him from his fruit, though his labor will be, at some point, stood still, the fruit will remain, and it won't be lost because of him who lives forever.
So Paul recognizes, because of this relationship for Christ, because of this supremacy of Christ, there really is fruit to my labor, just like there really is gain. So he doesn't view death as the end.
He says, whether I live on in the flesh or if I live on in a different way, there's going to be fruit from my labor. He has a sense of resolve, not just peace, but resolve about dying. He says, in fact, I don't know what I would choose.
It's not up to me. It's appointed for men to die once, and then comes the judgment. Paul recognized, it's not up for me to choose that judgment day. But he says, if it were up to me, I don't even know what I would choose.
I know if I stay here, there will be fruit from my labor, but to depart, to be with him who loves my soul. Again, time for an honest answer. Have we gotten to that focused reality of death and therefore answered the ultimate meaning of life in such a way that we could say, yeah, if it were up to me, I don't know if I would choose life or death.
Let's just be honest. Don't we always know what we would choose? Life. I will always choose life, not death. So the question is, what does Paul know of Christ that says it's actually hard for me to choose between the two?
To be honest. What has Paul's faith brought him to see of the glory of Christ that it's almost a toss-up for him? It's hard to choose. Have you honestly felt that way? We're not ready to die. Why are we not ready to die?
Let's think it through even a little bit further. Well, on the one hand, we're not ready to die because there's so much of the world and the things of the world that we want to see through. How many of you have a bucket list?
Wouldn't it be great to do that? Wouldn't it be great to go there? Wouldn't it be great to at least see this? We want to see certain relationships form. We want to see certain relationships deepen. We want to see certain relationships repair.
We want to untie strands that are knotted and knot together loose strands. We have ambitions that are left unexplored, if not unfulfilled. We want another shot. More time. Choose life. On the other hand, we're not ready to die because, if we're being honest, we feel we have been wasting life.
We haven't really been living in the ways we ought to live. We just need a little bit more time to seal the deal of our faith, to really earn something and make something out of our walk, to lay down a life that's a little more worthy of glory, which shows just how absolutely far we are from what Paul understands about the gospel of the glory of Christ.
If we're honest with ourselves, we would choose life and delay death for this very reason. We don't have a sense of peace. We don't have the resolve because we need a much more exalted view of Christ than we have.
What causes Paul's dilemma about continuing life in this flesh is not the things that he never got around to experience or a sense of guilt for not having done enough for the Lord. That's nowhere on the pages of Paul.
A desire to chase down some loose ends with ventures or schemes or relationships or even to lay down a legacy. Paul's dilemma does not stem from himself or from a sense of personal loss. His dilemma actually grows out of his love for and desire to glorify Christ.
I want fruit for my labor for Christ if I continue in life, but I also know Christ will be magnified if I die. I don't know if I should live or die. I just love Christ and I want him to be supreme overall.
That's Paul's heart. Coming off the heels of verse 21, to live is Christ and to die is gain. He knows what it means to have a Roman sword jabbed through his neck. If I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit for my labor.
But if not, he was the one who taught the Ephesians were created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand. He knows there's not only work we're called to do, but that work will bring about fruitfulness, will have a good reward.
God who is at work in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Paul recognizes anything I have of value, anything that I can do that will bear fruit as a result of God's work in and through me.
I just want to be with the source of it all. Think of what he says in Colossians 1, the word of truth of the gospel which has come to you as it has in also all the world and is bringing forth fruit. He recognizes this is the fruit not of my labor and toil under the sun, but the fruit of God's effective working, working through the glory and hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And Paul's not a peddler of that gospel. He's a believer in that gospel, which is why he says, I just can't wait to be with him. I'm not just a vessel for the good news. I'm a participant in the good news.
It's like Luther said of the Reformation in Wittenberg. He said, I just sat around drinking beer with Philip of Amsdorf. The word did everything. We didn't do much. The word did it all. Of course, Luther labored, but he recognized where the effective working, the fruitfulness of the work was coming from.
It's the effective working of the gospel of Jesus Christ. More time, a delay of death, a do-over. That's not in Paul's mind. If he wants any more time so that he can continue to labor in preaching Christ and him crucified, more time to see men and women maturing in the faith, children brought out of darkness into the salvation of light, churches exhorting, being corrected, helping one another mature in unity of doctrine and love.
If you were in chains awaiting the verdict, could you honestly say that's how you would be looking at your situation? The point of it all is simply this, that Christ is so glorious in Paul's perceptions and experience that everything Paul does is simply as a response to that glory.
He's not trying to achieve it. He's not trying to earn it. He's not trying to amass it. He's not trying to prove it. He's simply responding to it. So the issue is not what we can do, what we can manufacture, what we can bring together.
The issue is do we see enough that we're able to respond? Do we perceive enough of who Christ is and what He's done that our lives can be lived as a response to Him? Only then can we say we have found the real gain, the real fruit for labor.
Everything else is hay and rubble and straw that gets burnt at the last fire. The things we do with this response to the glory of Christ, that's building with silver and with gold and with platinum and with precious gems.
I suspect that we're all a lot like myself. If I was given divine insight of an impending death, this coming week would not be lived in the way I lived last week. We're all dying. As our brother said last week, we're all dead men walking.
And yet that truth hasn't borne down enough into our conscience that it's effectively changed the way we live each day because the reality is if you got that Ben Sasse terminal diagnosis today, you'd be living a very different life tomorrow.
Paul is in this place, and he's worked through it all, and he recognizes the source, the gain, the purpose. It's Christ. Look at Philippians 3. We have this list of things that Paul pursued, his own version of the king over Jerusalem, seeking to amass purpose and meaning and direction for his life.
That was once gain to him. That was once profit in that Ecclesiastes-like way. These are the things that I put my hat on. These are the things that I had as a chip on my shoulder. These things really were gain to me.
He says, you know, the very things that you want to be a chip on your shoulder, a feather in your cap, he's speaking to the Philippians, warning them of the dogs, the mutilators that are coming in, the false teachers that are coming in amidst them.
He says, you know, they're parading around their Jewish ancestry. They have as a chip on their shoulder this sense of lineage, and they're trying to put you back under a yoke of bondage. If they're going to boast, I can boast too.
I too was circumcised the eighth day. I'm of the stonk of Israel. I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews concerning the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church. These are the things that they're touting around.
Here's the real gain. Here's the extra. Here's the elite status. Here's what it really means to be close, to have that sort of influence. This is the profit. This is the gain. This is what you Philippians should strive for.
This is the high life. This is the good life. Paul says that's gain. Well, I have it, and let me tell you, those things that were once gain to me, I've counted it all loss for Christ. Do you see how he reverses the values?
The things that were gain, I count loss. I hope you see the connection between chapter 3 and chapter 1 there. Because Christ is life, death is not loss. Death is gain. Death hurdles me into the presence of my Savior.
Death isn't loss. Death is gain. If there was anything else in this life that separated me from Christ that I once counted as gain, now I count that as loss and good riddance because I found Christ. And only in Christ is there gain.
Only in Christ is there something soul satisfying. Only in Christ is there rest for weary and heavy laden souls. So he lines up everything. He says whatever it was that I once counted gain, now that's loss.
It's loss because I once took pride in it and made it my boast. It's loss because I used to look down on others as a result of it. Look down on my neighbors. Look down on my brothers or sisters because I have this.
I have this chip, this gain, this boast. It's loss because I once looked at everything through the prism of that gain. I played identity politics with it. It's one of the things that drives me nuts about reading YouTube comments is almost every comment under a news article or so on tries to validate their opinion or assertion based on some identity grab.
Well, speaking as a Latina dairy worker, it's like that has no relevance to your assertion. We will decide whether your assertion is right or wrong, good or bad. That has nothing to do with your vocation or ethnicity.
That offers nothing to the validity of your assertion. We can do the same thing. Well, speaking of course as a reformed Baptist, five-point Calvinist, we do the same, we have the same little tokens and chips on our shoulder.
We play the identity politics better than most. Paul can see that hunger, that appetite in the Philippian congregation and he says, I want you to, remember what he said in chapter two, I want you to have the mind that Christ had.
And that kind of mind is able to discern what is actual loss that the world calls gain and what is actual gain that the world calls loss. Have that kind of mind that you're willing to lose everything as we saw last week, to hate your life also in order to take up your cross and follow me because you recognize in finding me you found life.
That's the difference between the loss of gain, speaking from Ecclesiastes 2, and the gain of loss, speaking from Philippians 3. There's an actual gain of loss. I have three quick points as we come to a close.
And the first point is this. The first point is you will not count gain as loss where the love of Christ is not cherished. I hope that's just crystal clear to you from what we saw in Philippians 1, 21 and 22.
The only reason Paul can speak in this way is because of the glory he has recognized in Christ. It's animated and shaped his whole life. There's some people that allegedly walk the walk and talk the talk.
And I can only describe their conversion as a car that got dented. Maybe they were driving or maybe they were just in a parking lot and something ran into it and it put a dent. Does that dent change the car?
Yeah, sometimes a dent can alter the performance of the car. Things start rattling and creaking. It's noticeable, it's present, it's there. Some people drive around the Christian life with a big dent and they go, yeah, I'm a Christian.
Look, my life's very different. See the dent? I love Rosaria Butterfield's testimony because she describes her conversion to Christ as a fatal car crash. Whatever my life was, was absolutely sandwiched and wrecked and convulsed and it had to be completely something other.
It was a car crash. Paul's conversion was not a dent, it was a car crash. I once hated the truth and now as a result of the truth conquering my heart, I have no other love, no other affection. My whole life is about this.
It's Christ. I've been reborn, remade. I'm a new creation. Whoever Paul was, he's died. My life now, it's hidden with Christ and God. Christ is my life. His life is within me. I don't even know if Paul's alive anymore.
I think it's just Christ in me that's alive. He's starting to lose his grasp of his identity. He's so caught up in Christ as the source, the eminence of it all. You see, brothers and sisters, we will not count the gains of this world as something worthy of being lost if we don't have that same kind of love for Christ.
When we're cherishing Christ in this way, we find that all the things that formerly made our hearts shrunken and cold and weak because they were feeding on the wrong things, chasing the wrong things. When my heart is shrunken and cold and weak, I have been feeding it, I have been allowing it to pursue and chase things outside of or apart from Christ.
Have you met, I aspire to be like this, have you met believers who their walk is so consumed with affection for Christ that you could almost describe their face as glowing like Moses? And you'll know it because like the Israelites, people that aren't believers are freaked out by them.
They're like, please get away. It's like, well, you know, they have a verse behind every sentence, everything they say. They just exude it, this love for Christ. It's so natural. You would never say they're trying to put it on or manufacture it or check it off like a duty.
What are they doing? They're simply responding to what they see, responding to who they know. Would it be for us to have that shining face that we've seen to the glory of Christ? And therefore, in every sphere of influence, we are either a fragrance of life or a fragrance of death.
I see in my own life when my affection for Christ is weak and fragile and cold, that didn't just happen. I didn't just wake up one day with a cold heart. It was the icy, wayward loves of this world and this life that began to creep in and compound the throne of Christ in my life.
The second point is, related to that, that we will not count gain as loss where we're cherishing the world. Remember what we saw from John, I believe it was chapter 11 last week. You must hate your life in this world if you would have eternal life.
Something about living for this world that's incompatible with what Paul's describing in Philippians 1. He's not trying to squeeze all he can out of this life. He doesn't even know if he wants to continue on in it.
He could easily let it go. Why? Because of the surety of his conviction of what's to come. Of course, as we'll see in Ecclesiastes, even next week, this love for Christ actually enhances our ability to appreciate the world.
We're actually able, perhaps for the first time, to truly understand what it means to eat and to drink to the glory of God. It's not this hatred for life because life reflects the glory of God and the wisdom and goodness of His nature is refracted through creation.
So rather this hatred of the world as it is, it's a hatred for the world in what it's become. A hatred, again, of the effects of the fall on life. That means though there's so much that we glory to God in living in life and seeing the goodness of His design, we also see the treachery of Vanity Fair.
We see the beast of the city, of the harlot, chewing up men's and women's souls. We see the animus, the hostility, the degeneracy, the rebellion, the counter-creational impulse of fallen man. And frankly, we get the ick factor.
Like Paul in Acts 17 when he saw all the idols in the agora and we read he was vexed within himself. If we're not vexed by the world in its throes of rebellion, how could we possibly be having these moments of affection for Christ?
I've never had a more pure contempt for the world than when I've had a pure love for Christ. And by the same token, brothers and sisters, I've never had a wallowing adoration for the world more than when I've had a cold, straying affection for Christ.
Don't take me yet, Lord. There's so much more filth I want to roll around in. And the third point, and perhaps the most Ecclesiastes-like point, is this. The gain of Christ does not pretend, not even for a moment, that loss is not difficult.
When Jesus calls his people to take up their cross, he knows what he's asking. He did it. He knows what it involves. He did it. He knows what it requires. He did it faithfully to the last. We drop our crosses daily, don't we, brothers and sisters?
He never dropped it. He winced and he groaned and he staggered under its weight to the degree that he even needed Philip to come and shoulder some of that as he was at the pitch of Golgotha. But he never let it off.
He never dropped it. He never said, enough is enough. He bore it faithfully until he was on it and drew his last breath. I don't know about you, but sometimes I count the loss of things in this life a cross too difficult to bear.
It would be like me. I'm so pathetically weak in my upper torso. If I went to a gym and went up to just a modicum weight, I would probably be like, nope, and just walk away in shame, never to return. No gym is getting $10 a month out of me.
I know my limits. And sometimes I can approach the cross in the same way. Nope. Nope. Too difficult. Too demanding. Too costly. I can't do it. And Christ in no uncertain terms says, then you can't follow me.
You can't come with me. You can't enter into my kingdom. My kingdom is filled with cross-bearers. Remember what we saw, brothers and sisters, in Matthew 5, in the Beatitudes. Christ understands what he's asking.
As Bonhoeffer said so well, when Christ bids you to follow him, he bids you come and die. It's the mourners. It's the grievers. It's the starving. It's those who are wasting away and fatigued and exasperated who recoil at the injustice of life that will be blessed, eternally blessed.
Christ knows what he's asking when he calls us to take up the cross and follow him. And our weakness in bearing the cross does not repel him. It attracts him to us. He sees us as a good husband sees a wife.
The need is something that draws his strength. Because you're a weaker vessel, because you need me to be your head, your strength, your provider, I'm drawn to provide what you need. That's Christ for his people.
I know you'll throw off the cross as soon as it begins to pinch your flesh. That's why I'm giving you my spirit to compel you to pick it up again in repentance and faith and follow me. You can't do this apart from me.
You can do nothing apart from me, Jesus said. So Jesus recognizes the cost. The cost of losing in this world that we might gain beyond it. The cost of losing opportunities. The cost of losing abilities to use your gifts, your potential to unleash it, to build your empire, to lay down your legacy.
He knows that cost. Every follower of Jesus drew near to him, expecting him to be a moment away from enthroning himself and sending forth armies over the Romans. That constant pressure to say, unleash your potential.
You can do it all. You can have it all. Isn't that how the serpent sought to tempt him? You don't have to bear a cross. You just have to bend your knee to me. See how much better I am than God? He wants to take from you.
He wants your whole life to be lost. Not me. I'll give to you. I'll give to you the kingdoms of the world. All you have to do is bend your knee. Isn't that so easy? Brother, sister, isn't it so easy to bend the knee to the roaring lion?
So easy. And look what he'll give you. He can't give you anything. He can only take from you. Christ comes and he says, I'm going to take everything from you. I'm going to take your own life from you.
It's going to be a car crash if you're a follower of me. I'm going to put a cross on your shoulder. And it looks like you're losing everything to follow me. Like his disciples said, Lord, we've lost everything to follow you.
We've left it all behind us to follow you. And he says, yes, but you've actually gained as a result of that. There's no loss you'll experience in this life that will not be everlasting gain to you in the next.
Assuredly, he says, there is no one who has left house, or brother, or sister, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land for my sake or for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold. Paul knew that as a burning conviction.
It drove his whole life. And he said, Lord, you can keep the hundredfold. I just want you. Do you count losses gained, brothers and sisters? Have you had this value-shifting, priority-relativizing, self-decentering encounter with Christ?
Or were you straddled for a few years simply to say at the last repose, this just isn't for me. I can't keep juggling it or straddling it in the way that I have. And the response to that is, of course you can't.
He never knew you. You never knew him. Jesus says this in John 10, and I would encourage you to think about this deeply. Jesus says in John 10, verse 10, the thief, and he's describing the thieves in terms of false teachers, but now he describes the False One, I believe, capital T, Thief, if we could put it that way.
He says, the thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they might have life and that they may have it more abundantly. Do you believe that Paul has found the abundant life?
I do. Does that look like the king securing his empire, his dominion in Ecclesiastes 2? No, it looks like the king losing all of that and counting that loss as gain because of what he's found, a pearl of great price that transcends the value of everything else in the world.
He's found that there's nothing in the world that could replace the value of his own soul and therefore in having the fulfillment of his own soul in Christ, he can afford to lose the world entire. The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy.
We don't live as if that were true. Jesus has come so that we would have life and have it abundantly. We also don't live as if that were true, not consistently. Every time we throw off the cross, we're essentially saying, I think the thief has a better deal.
I think the Lord is the one who wants to steal the gains that I would have and the good that it would be for me and how this would all be able to fulfill and satisfy my soul. He wants to take that from me.
Maybe the thief, maybe that whispering serpent is right all along. The thief, notice, this is so fascinating in John 10 .10, the thief steals, the thief takes by giving. I'll give you the kingdom of the world.
I'll give you your heart's intent. You want that achievement? You want that bonus? You want that status? You need that relationship? I'll give it to you. Just bend the knee. Just throw off the cross. Just loosen up.
Just straddle. I'll give it to you. See how good I am? Notice that the thief steals and kills and destroys by giving. And notice what Paul realizes in Philippians 3. The Lord gives by taking. The Lord gives by taking away the pride of life.
The Lord gives by calling us to take up the cross. That's why Paul recognizes, as he says in 1 Timothy 6, godliness with contentment is great gain. When I see my whole life has been lived unto the call of Christ, the godliness that Christ requires, I've been content in what He sees to give and take away, that's gain.
Godliness with contentment is great gain. It's another variation of seeing loss as gain, deprivation as profit. So we come full circle as we close. How do we fill in the blank? For me to live is. Is that something we manufacture?
Is that a put on? Or is it a natural response? Is it something that flows out of the gospel that we believe, the Jesus that we adore? I ask myself what I ask you, what I asked even a few weeks ago. Have we returned to our first love?
I wonder if I got really close to returning and have begun to falter. For me to live is. What is it? What is it? There's been a lot of things I've used to fill in that blank in my time. I'm thankful that in God's good providence, He's crossed out most of them, but I keep writing them in.
For me to live is. Oh Jesus, when I think of Thee, Thy manger, Thy cross, Thy throne, My spirit trusts exultingly in Thee and in Thee alone. For me, Thou didst become a man. For me, didst weep and die.
For me, achieved Thy wondrous plan. For me, ascend on high. Just, I'm going to continue, I'm closing with this. This is a hymn by George Bethune. Did you just notice this? Oh Jesus, when I think of You, Your manger, Your cross, Your throne, the whole story of Christ's life, death and redemption.
My spirit trusts exultingly. I don't just trust You and go on in my way. I'm worshiping as a result of this knowledge. I'm adoring the God who's done this for me. For me, that's the key refrain. For me, You did become a man.
For me, You wept, You died. For me, You achieved the wondrous plan. For me, You ascended on high. Oh, let me share Your holy birth. So good. If You've made me a new creation, if I've been born again, I want my new birth to be as Your birth.
A holy birth. A God-honoring birth. A redemptive birth. Thy faith. Thy death to sin. I want to believe in the Heavenly Father like You believed. No matter how deep the valley or heavy the cross, I want to fight against sin and temptation like every day You grimaced and winced against the powers and assaults of hell.
And strong amidst the toils of earth, my heavenly life begin. Then shall I know what means the strain triumphant of St. Paul to live as Christ, to die as gain. Christ is my all in all. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word.
Lord, I pray for myself as I pray for each one here that we would consider very deeply, Lord, what it is for us to live. That we would search our hearts and our minds and our lives with that question and perhaps, Lord, even ask of others what they see in our hearts and our minds and our lives.
Do they see that we're living for You? Do they see that life and joy abundant in You? Do they see us occupied, drawn, focused on other things, on lesser things that will never satisfy our souls? Lord, give us the wisdom to feel this vapor of life slipping from the clock, to recognize that though much must be lost, all is gained for those who have loved Your appearing.
And may it result in prayers to be with You, the beginning rumblings of questioning whether we would want to continue on in this world, in this flesh, because of the all-surpassing power of Your glory in our sight.
Lord, do this work for us. And if there's one straddling, one straying, one trying to have the semblance or the outward form of Christianity but no Christ, might You reveal Yourself in Your glory to them, we pray.
In Jesus' name, amen.