Ecclesiastes 2:1-25
The Key To Your Dreams
Woodlawn Baptist Church
October 8, 2006
Introduction
Show slideshow of billboards.
What are your dreams? Almost all people have dreams of what they’d like to be or do or own. Last night I heard a lady say that she had dreamed of becoming a great speaker. Another man gave a speech about his dream house. Last week I was out at Texoma Ford getting the oil changed in the church van and decided to enjoy the beautiful day outside. Now you need to know that I never, and I mean never walk through car lots, but on this day I did. I headed straight for the big trucks and I began dreaming of what it would be like to own one of those $40,000 four-door F250s. I thought of all the things wrong with my truck and how clean and comfortable a new one would be. I rationalized about how I deserved one and needed one.
After looking at the new ones I walked through the used trucks and did the same thing. Then I talked to one of the sales people who was in the middle of a sale. She told me that she thought she’d be closing the deal on a $90,000 sale that afternoon. As she told me about the buyer and the car my mind began wandering. I didn’t want the car she was selling, but I dreamed what it would be like to have $90,000 to spend on a car.
In the billboard I’ve shown you this morning, American Bank’s marketing team has done a great job of capitalizing on people’s dreams and emotions by saying that they are the key to our dreams. Want a new car? They can loan you the money. Is it your dream to build a new house? To buy an old one? They have the key to getting you into those homes. Maybe you want to travel – they can help. You need to finance your schooling? There they are. Retirement savings? Get your Roth IRA today. Is it your dream to send your kids or grandkids to college? Take out a college savings plan this week.
You may be more spiritual than me. Maybe you dream of a storybook marriage. Maybe you dream of the perfect job or position in the company. Do you dream of owning your own business? Do you dream of better health? A more secure retirement? Want to travel? Go here or there or do this or that?
Sometimes it is not stuff at all. It may be a quality of life – as in an excitement that is missing. Teens and young adults, even some families can get trapped by this. What’s the next thing we can do to keep some level of rush? Let’s get off to this concert or that retreat. Let’s go to Six Flags or the ball game. Anything short of that is boring, so we dream of a Walt Disney sort of life complete with the magic carpet ride.
Others dream of being noticed, of being the life of the party or just being noticed for being alive. The point I’m trying to make is that American Bank and the rest of the world, even most of us here today have come to see that the acquirement or accomplishment of some thing in our lives is the key to our dreams, but is it? If we were to get all we dreamed of, own all we ever wanted, do all we set out to do, would we really come to a place in our lives where it was satisfying? That’s the question we have to answer today. What is the key to your dreams? It is not American Bank, or any other bank for that matter. But there is an answer.
This morning we’re going to consider what happened in Solomon’s life as he set out to answer this same question. What is the key to our dreams? We’re going to answer that question by asking two other questions.
Are you holding the right key?
We’ve all seen those contests where some car lot gives out dozens, even hundreds of keys that may or may not fit some car on their lot. Only one key fits that car. Kathy was part of such a contest a few years ago. She drove up to the lot, and when it came her turn she hopped in the car, put her key in the ignition, only to find that it did not work. Of course, she had little expectation that it would, so there wasn’t much let down.
But the stakes are much higher in life. Are you sure you’re holding the right key? Do you know what it is that will open the door for you to experience what you’re after in life? It’s not accomplishing some thing. It’s not accumulating a lot of anything. It’s not by doing anything at all.
That’s the mistake that most of the world and many of us make. We assume that if we do this thing or get that thing we’ll find what we’re after.
If you’ll look with me in Ecclesiastes, you’ll see that King Solomon set out on a quest to find the key to his dreams.
· In 1:17 he tried to fulfill his dreams through educational pursuits. Learn more and more; study all you can and surely that will lead to great fulfillment, but it vexed his spirit.
· In 2:1, he decided that fulfillment must come through the pursuit of pleasure. But that left him hopeless.
· In 2:3 he tried cheering himself with wine. Life is short, enjoy it all you can while you can! But that wasn’t satisfying either.
· In 2:4 Solomon began great building projects of homes, orchards, vineyards and even lakes. None of those things gave him what he was after.
· He began accumulating stuff in verse 7. He bought slaves, so many in fact that they were having children together right in his own home. He bought herds of cattle, more than anyone had ever owned before. He gathered silver and gold, spent his money on the finest entertainment that could be found.
· Verse 9 says that Solomon was great, greater than all others, being so fabulously wealthy that there wasn’t a thing in the world that he didn’t or couldn’t experience or have.
· In verse 17 he even said that work: doing a job day in and day out was a vexation of his spirit. Why bother after all? None of it will really last, and even if it does, who’s going to care enough to remember you when you’re dead and gone?
Solomon experienced what all of us experience at some point in our lives, and if we’re honest, something we experience frequently in life – a frustration that comes when we discover that all the stuff we think is going to make us happy never keeps us happy for very long.
Do you have the right door?
Not only do we need to know that we’re holding the right key, are we even standing before the right door? The world is full of choices and opportunities, but only one will provide you with what your heart really longs for.
Think about what we really want in life. I don’t really want a new truck or house. I don’t really want popularity or fame or riches, nor do you. On the surface that’s what it looks like, but really there’s something bigger going on.
What we really want, and what Solomon really wanted were things much more significant, and the truth is that no accomplishment or thing I can accumulate can provide me or you what it is we’re after. If we’re honest with ourselves and we’ll think through the way we’re living right now, we have to conclude that all of us are after the same things. It may vary for men and women, but consider your own life and see if you are not being driven by one or more of these:
· Security – if you had your own home, a place to call your own, where you put the pictures on the walls and put down roots and call it not a house, but home. If you had a car that didn’t break down, if you had a little more money in the bank or in your 401K, if you had just a little more education to give you the edge over your coworkers you’d feel more secure.
· Acceptance – how much of what we do is driven by our desire to feel accepted by others, even ourselves based on some cultural expectations? We diet, not because it is the healthy thing to do, but because we don’t want others to think we’re fat. We spend money on clothes we can’t afford because that’s what others do. We make payments on cars and trucks that we can’t afford because of what someone will think.
I remember Michael telling me that as he picks up customers on sales calls, there is a psychological exchange that takes place just according to the car you pick them up in. An old clunker may get you around, but it won’t make the sale.
Some of you take jobs or go to school or spend your lives trying to be accepted by your families. Our actions and behaviors are dictated by our desire to be accepted by our church family. We harp on our young people for caving to peer pressure, but I suspect that as adults we have only learned to play the game in a more sophisticated and expensive way.
· Significance – will we be remembered? Typically this is a game men play, but women play it too. Do I matter? Is what I’m doing going to matter? Will anyone know who I am or even care that I passed through planet earth?
Are you driven by the need to feel significant? Look at what Solomon said in 2:12-16.
“What can the man do that comes after the king? Only that which has already been done. Then I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness. The wise man’s eyes are in his head; but the fool walks in darkness: but I perceived that one even happens to them all. Then said I in my heart, As it happens to the fool, so it happens even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity. For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how does the wise man die? Just like the fool. Therefore I hated life…”
What was he saying? “I want to know that my life matters – that I’m doing something significant.” How much of your life is spent in that pursuit?
· Satisfaction – we’re all subject to this pursuit. “If I could just get there…If I could just get that…If I could just get that promotion…If I just made a little more money...I’d be satisfied.” That’s what I was telling myself on the car lot. If I had that truck I’d be happy, satisfied. But it never lasts.
Remember, the question is this, Are we even in front of the right door? Will the things we’re chasing in life bring us security, acceptance, significance or satisfaction? The answer is no. Solomon found this out long ago, and many of you know as well that we can waste our lives looking behind all the wrong doors. The stuff has a way of pacifying us, but it does not last. In the midst of all our stuff and the people and a whirl of activity, we are still empty, confused and dissatisfied.
Conclusion
A man stopped at a travel agency and said he wanted to go on a cruise. "Where to?" he was asked. "I don’t know," was his reply. So the travel agent suggested that he take a look at a large globe that was in the room. He studied it for some time, then with a look of frustration he exclaimed, "Is this all you have to offer?"
The world in which we live has many things that appeal to us. Apart from what is sinful, we can and should enjoy its pleasures. A delicious meal graced with the good fellowship of friends warms our hearts. The beauties of nature inspire and fill us with wonder. Good music refreshes our souls. And work itself can be fulfilling.
Even in a sin-cursed world we can find great enjoyment. And yet these pursuits do not bring us our hearts deepest desires. In the end we will find ourselves agreeing with Solomon, that "all is vanity and grasping for the wind"
But there is an answer, and it is found behind door number One. In John 10:7, Jesus said this:
“I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
Without a lot of commentary let me simply say that the life you’re looking for: the security, acceptance, significance and satisfaction you’re trying to find can only be had in Jesus Christ. He is the door, and in fact He alone is the key to your deepest longings. He is the key to your dreams.
You can spend your life like Solomon, and many of you are, but you’re going to find that those doors only waste your life. In a room that really has only one door, Satan throws up many others to confuse you, to steal you away from the one thing that will give you all you’re after.
The key to your dreams is simply a love relationship with Jesus Christ: daily fellowship with Him. He loves you just as you are. He accepts you regardless of where you’ve been or what you’re like. It is in Him that we find true significance, and I want you to know that when you’ve been loved like Jesus loves you, you’ll know what it means to be absolutely secure in a world of shifting sand.
If you’ve never entered a relationship with Jesus Christ, listen to His words again. “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” Would you come to that door today?
