Liking Life For The Love Of God - Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 Series

Ecclesiastes 2:24 There is nothing better for man than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. I have seen that even this is from God’s hand, 25 because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from Him? 26 For to the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy, but to the sinner He gives the task of gathering and accumulating in order to give to the one who is pleasing in God’s sight. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Introduction

Recreation? Only if it glorifies God

I hope no one in this room has the attitude that says, “Christians should find a healthy balance between glorifying God on the one hand, and enjoying earthly pleasures on the other.” There is no healthy balance between glorifying God and anything else because we are commanded to seek God’s glory in everything we ever do.

“Even in drinking a glass of water?”

Yes!

1 Corinthians 10:31 whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

There is never any moment in your life in which it is acceptable to spend any time or money on anything that does not glorify God. If your employer pays you for 40 hours of your time, then those 40 hours belong to your employer. Anything unrelated to work has to be done on your own time, not during those 40 hours. But God has purchased your whole life - every second of your time every day.

1Corinthians 6:19 You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

There is no free time. Every second belongs to God, and so if there is ever a moment when you are not serving God, you are robbing God of what He purchased. So what are the implications for enjoying the pleasures of life?

Pleasure: Yes or No?

No!

People who are into asceticism would say, “We should never seek pleasure. Seeking pleasure is always selfish, and so it’s wrong.” And they would point to passages like 2 Timothy 3:4 which says there will be terrible times in the last days because people will be lovers of pleasure. And in James 4:3 he says that the reason they don’t get their prayers answered is that they pray with the wrong motives – that they may spend what they get on their pleasures. Pray for things to enhance your pleasure and God will not answer. That is just two of a number of passages in the Bible that speak negatively about seeking pleasure. So does that mean it is wrong for me to spend hundreds of dollars on a vacation? Or for that matter, if I am by myself in a room with a comfortable chair, should I sit on the floor? If I sit in the chair just because it is more comfortable, isn’t that seeking pleasure - self-indulgence and luxury? If I go to a restaurant, should I order whatever item on the menu sounds the least enjoyable? If I pick out the things I like, am I not seeking pleasure?

Yes!

Ecclesiastes: Enjoy Life

If that were the case it would collide head on with the message of Ecclesiastes. The message of Ecclesiastes is not hard to spot.

2:24 There is nothing better for man than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work.

3:12 there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil--this is the gift of God.

3:22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work

5:18 Here is what I have seen to be good: it is appropriate to eat, drink, and experience good in all the labor one does under the sun

8:15 So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.

9:7 Go, eat your bread with pleasure, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God has already accepted your works. ... 9 Enjoy life with the wife you love all the days of your fleeting life, which has been given to you under the sun

11:8 if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all ... 9 Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth.

It does not take a PhD in Bible interpretation to figure out that God is telling us in this book to enjoy life. Enjoy your work, your spouse, your food - enjoy whatever God gives you in this life. We have a whole book of the Bible commanding us to seek enjoyment. Some people have tried to solve this tension by coming up with some way of interpreting Ecclesiastes so that it does not say what it seems to say. They say, “The passages against living for pleasure are clear, and therefore Ecclesiastes is obscure, and so we’ll interpret the obscure in the light of the clear” and so they come up with interpretations that say it is not really telling us to enjoy life (even though it says that over and over).