Lake Community Church, Alexandria MN

We are going to discuss a question and objection almost every person in the world has asked about God.  It doesn’t matter if you lived 4000 years ago or today, this question has haunted mankind from the beginning of time.  

We rarely choose to do something hard when there is an easier way. Our natural tendency is to pray for good days and simply endure the hard days.  This Sunday we are going to talk about Ecclesiastes 6:10-7:12.  Solomon gives us a different perspective on death, speed, patience, and wisdom.  The contrarian wisdom in this passage will fly in the face of our natural way of thinking and help us understand that the more difficult path is worth the work.

Stuff.  If you have ever had a garage sale you know that by the end of the day, you just can’t wait to get rid of the stuff you were trying to sell.  In the beginning, you haggled and negotiated for the best price but by the end, you are willing to give it away.  After it is all over, you swear that you will never fill your garage with stuff like that again. 

Scripture is packed full of proverbs and stories of people who have struggled with the possessions of this world.  We wrestle with that still today.  We know it can’t bring happiness, yet we strive to collect as much stuff and possessions as we can.  We sometimes go to one of two extremes.  One extreme is that we seek after more stuff thinking that this will satisfy us and we can find true enjoyment in the number of toys we have at the end of life.  OR we go the other way and live a minimalist life feeling guilty or wondering if we should have nice things.  Is it wrong to have nice things while others go without?

Solomon is going to address the theology of stuff.  While that’s not a term you would see in most or any scholarly works, stuff dominates our lives yet we go back and forth as to how God feels about it.  In this passage, we see God mentioned six times and he has a clear perspective as to how we should view stuff.  

Last week we learned that we will not find lasting comfort, contentment, and true community here under the sun, but we can find it in a relationship with Jesus Christ.  We have the opportunity to experience meaning by living our lives for Him.  But how do we approach and get to know God?  
Ecclesiastes 5 addressed this head-on with instructions on how we are to enter into the house of God.  Don’t you wish you could hear the voice of God more clearly or experience more meaningful worship?