I am convinced this morning that all across this great country of ours are there are people who are trying to put all the pieces of life together and they are coming up one piece short.
Have you ever worked a puzzle, maybe you spent hours on it, and you just about have it completed and it looks like it is really taking shape, and then you come right down to the end and you realize there’s a piece missing…and typically it’s the most important piece and despite all your work, all your effort, your puzzle just doesn’t look right without the missing piece…no matter how hard you try to substitute its just not the same…and eventually if your like me that puzzle will get tossed aside, no longer being the favorite to work because everyone knows there’s an important piece missing…
Did you know our lives sometimes are just like that jigsaw puzzle…we spend years trying to put it all together and for some of us here today no matter how hard we try, we keep coming up one very important piece short…?
The theme of this series on Ecclesiastes up to this point seems to be…Life without God is a boring, profitless, empty experience.
You, your neighbor, the guy you work with, the lady at the front desk, the other students in the classroom, the professor, all the way to the company president…if God is not present…the most important piece of the puzzle is missing.
King Solomon midway thru chapter three is still searching for that missing piece isn’t he? Today let’s pick up on the story in chapter 3…let’s begin at about verse 9…
9 What does the worker gain from his toil?
Of course we know the answer…absolutely nothing…now finally as we get to verse 10 we begin to get a breakthrough…perhaps a coming to ones senses…its almost like when Curt is leading us in a song and suddenly right out of the blue we change keys…Solomon begins to realize what the missing piece of life’s puzzle should look like…follow this closely …watch what happens from verse 9 to verse 10…we enter the living God…and dear heart when he enters the scene, all of sudden the puzzle is complete…things begin to make sense, life now has meaning, direction, purpose…and best of all we receive deliverance from our despair.
Let’s crack open this nugget of discovery that Solomon has made and I want us to look at a couple of things that we can learn about God.
With Gods help this morning lets first see what God makes, then what God lives and finally what God does… ready?... verse10…
10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
When God steps in and we begin to see life thru his eyes the first discovery that we make is this…
1. God makes everything beautiful in its time
When God takes charge, beauty emerges. Notice quickly that Solomon doesn’t say that everything is beautiful…rather he says it is beautiful in its time.
And listen…its easy for some of us to struggle with his time frame isn’t it…We may not live to see his time completely fulfilled…we may live our entire life and not see the answer, but can I tell you this morning thank God that his promise stands for all eternity…what he says he will do…that almost makes me want to shout this morning…He will make it beautiful in its time.
You see we focus on the wrong things….we see an old fuzzy cardboard colored cocoon, and all the while God is forming a beautiful butterfly.
We see just today…Gods sees eternity!
We get all caught up in the wrapping paper…while God is focusing on the Gift.
Your unemployment, your failure, your hospital stay, your battles, your lost romance, your heartache, your illness…he’s making it beautiful in its time….and let me just underline something here…God wouldn’t say everything unless he meant everything….and thank God this morning that includes whatever you are going thru right this moment.
Without him its hopeless, it’s meaningless, but with him involved…it ultimately makes sense
Let’s move on…did you catch that second half of verse 11… He has also set eternity in the hearts of men;
2. God makes everybody curious
Its God who gives us that itch to find out what’s coming next, what tomorrow will hold. That’s why we have a will to go on.
You see animals don’t find God, fantasy characters never find God, Robots don’t find God, computers never find God…but God has made mankind in his own image and every living breathing person this morning at one point or another in their life will come to a moment when they experience that inbred desire for their creator.
Lets quickly move on to what God gives… lets look at verse 12…
“I know that 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.”
1. God gives us the ability to rejoice and enjoy life.
I read this past week about the man who gave his business to God. Maybe you have heard the story. He had hassled and wrestled with the thought of surrendering his business to God for months on end. One day his pastor preached about the value of turning everything over to God so down the aisle he went and at the altar he prayed God its all yours take it and do with it what you want.
That very night his business caught fire and burned to the ground. He got the call went to the fire and just stood there watching it all burn to the ground. As he was standing there a colleague ran up and said; “man do something…your business its burning up and you are just standing here. What’s wrong with you?”
He replied very calmly; “I see that, but you know what its no problem. Just this morning I gave it to God and if he wants it burnt up that his business.”
Friend not even a fire can take the gift of rejoicing when you realize that God is the one who gives it!
2. God gives us the ability to do good in our lifetime
So many today are all about I will scratch your back only if I know you will scratch mine. God says do good even if you get evil in return…
If you know of a need and you can meet that need then do it…don’t worry about all the what ifs.
Oh that we would fully understand it’s the world that is out for fame and #1 and we who are Christians have had that selfish desire cleansed and replaced with the capacity to do good!
Wow what a change is occurring in the writings of Solomon…lets wrap it up this morning by looking at verse 14…
14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. 5 Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.
I like what God does don’t you?
1. God does permanent work
God doesn’t own a Band-Aid!
He doesn’t need super glue!
His work is solid…his word has staying power…it will be there tomorrow…The songwriter said it so well; “on Christ the solid rock I stand”
2. God makes everything complete
“…nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.”
Aren’t you glad his work is thorough…its never to little, or to much, its never to early…or to late and praise God there’s never anything missing!
When man does something its not uncommon for us to leave out something is it?
We repair the lawnmower and put it all back together and there’s this spring? Or we bake a cake and it doesn’t taste just right and we look and there in the bowl is the eggs we forgot to put in or whatever…you get the point…
But God doesn’t do that …what he does he does complete…nothing needs to be added….or taken away….and we look at it and admire the awesomeness of God!
So you see this morning…he is the missing piece of the puzzle….and the good news is he wants you to find him…he is right there…typically just where you put him…and today he is saying wont you come to me and be made complete…I want to give you eternal life….its available to all who want it?
Is that you this morning? Its free and available for the asking….you don’t have to read a series of books, you don’t have to be placed on probation, you don’t have to even understand it all, you don’t even have to know how to pray right…all you have to do is want him…whether you are the richest or the poorest person here today….the gift is for you….
Do you want your life to make sense, to be complete…then why not discover the missing piece this morning?
