Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.
We're so glad you're here, and we hope this message inspires you,
builds your faith, and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.
Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible
and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.
So welcome and enjoy the message.
If you have your Bible, please open it with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 7,
and we're going to learn about why we need a Savior.
Okay.
King Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, and he really had experienced the best that this world has to offer.
He had untold riches, he had a thousand wives and concubines, and he was unbelievably accomplished.
And yet, throughout the book, he keeps saying, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
And what he means is, life without God is empty.
And he's right.
We're all going to die someday, and if there is no God, that means that nothing in your life actually mattered.
Jesus said, what good is it if a man gains the entire world, and yet he loses his own soul?
We're all going to die, and if there is no God, then life has simply been a cruel joke.
Now, there's a reason that Ecclesiastes is right in the middle of the wisdom section of your Bible.
It's chocked full of practical wisdom about how to enjoy life.
Now, much of it is a depressing read about how not to enjoy life.
But here and there, Solomon sprinkles a few verses in about how to enjoy life.
And he says the key is to fear God and to enjoy the life he's given you.
Now, the immediate context is Solomon has just told us that bad times aren't always bad
because God takes those bad times and he uses them to build within us the character of Jesus.
And one of the things that's so refreshing to me to the book of Ecclesiastes is that Solomon, he doesn't ignore the hardest questions of life.
He addresses head-on issues such as oppression and evil and suffering.
How can a good God allow evil and suffering into the world?
How could things be so unfair?
Solomon continues in verse 15.
He says, I've seen everything in my days of vanity.
There's a just man who perishes in his righteousness,
and there's a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness.
Here we see that life often seems unfair, doesn't it?
There's an old saying in our culture, only the good die young.
Well, Solomon's struggling with that.
Why do righteous people often suffer and sometimes wicked people, they end up prospering?
The prophet Habakkuk in the Old Testament
asked God that very question and God responded to him,
"'The just shall live by his faith.'"
In other words, Habakkuk, trust me.
Nearly every week I run into people who say,
"'Pastor, I still can't believe what happened to your dad.
"'Why would God take someone like him
And we've all struggled with that, right?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
It seems so unfair.
And yet I understand the question,
but I think we're going to see from this chapter that the question's flawed.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Well, they don't.
Not when the goodness, the standard of goodness is Jesus Christ.
None of us are good when he's the standard.
I think our problem is that we start thinking that God in his judgment, you know, sort of grades on a curve, right?
We've all failed the test, we know, but you say, hey, I got a 16% on the test, but that guy over there got a 3%.
I think I'm good.
No, you still fail.
The standard isn't that guy's 3%.
The standard is Jesus Christ.
100% goodness.
Solomon says in verse 20, he says,
for there's not a just man on the earth
who does good and does not sin.
Solomon's reminding us that, you know,
that just guy who perishes in his righteousness
isn't actually just.
Romans 3 23.
It says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Now, the word sin in the scriptures is an archery term.
It's the picture of a guy shooting at a target.
And the bullseye that we're aiming at is the moral perfection of God.
And we've all missed, not only the bullseye, we've missed the entire target.
We're not even close to the moral perfection of God.
When my dad was dying of cancer, he appealed to James chapter 5
for the elders of the church to come and lay hands on him, anoint him with oil,
and pray for him that God might heal him.
Well, he had some words for us before we prayed.
He said, I want you guys to know that God doesn't owe me anything.
He said, God's treated me so much better
than what I deserve.
You can ask God to heal me,
but just know God doesn't owe me healing.
See, my dad understood that while it may seem
like his cancer was unfair,
that it might seem like his impending death was unfair,
it only seems that way.
God had actually treated my dad a whole lot better
than what dad deserved.
Verse number 16.
He says, do not be overly righteous, nor be overly wise.
Why should you destroy yourself?
That's kind of a strange verse.
In fact, I think it's one of the most misunderstood verses in all of the Bible.
Some quote it to justify having a lukewarm faith.
They say, well, you know, I must not, you know, God must not want me to be too godly because of this verse.
One of the rules of interpreting the Bible is that we should always interpret Scripture in light of other Scripture.
So with that in mind, obviously, this verse does not mean we shouldn't be too godly,
because the whole rest of the Bible says the opposite of that.
Instead, here's what it's saying.
It's a warning against self-righteousness.
It's a warning against the person who flaunts their righteousness.
They flaunt their goodness and their piety for everyone else to see.
They flaunt their Bible knowledge and all of their wisdom.
This verse is addressing the Pharisee type person who Jesus said.
He said, you're like whitewashed tombs.
You're all pretty on the outside, but inside are dead men's bones.
That's the person who is all about the externals of religion,
all about keeping rules and rituals, and inside they're spiritually dead.
Solomon says, if you live life like that, you're going to destroy yourself.
You see, self-righteousness will always destroy your life.
Now, the Pharisee types, they love attending church.
Did you know that?
Sometimes they're hard to spot at first, but most of the time, eventually they service.
Most of the time, you can smell them before you can see them.
And here's what I mean.
You'll smell the stench of their arrogance before you're able to see the nastiness of their heart.
I was writing this message.
I started down this long path of warning against the Pharisees within the church.
But then I got to thinking, well, I've got more to say in the message.
Can't just tee off on the Pharisees.
And the other thing is, I really think we need to come to grips with what this means for us.
Because the truth is, all of us are capable of being self-righteous.
And so I think we need to honestly deal with this passage.
Self-righteousness, at its core, is a focus on doing rather than being.
Really, that's the motto of every world religion outside of Christianity,
that in order to be saved, in order to be right with God, I must do something.
I must keep this ritual. I must do something good.
Right?
Proverbs 3, verse 7 says,
"'Do not be wise in your own eyes.
"'Fear the Lord and depart from evil.'"
That's basically what Solomon's saying in our passage today.
Now, if you ask the average person on the street,
do you think you're gonna go to heaven when you die?
Most of them will say yes.
And they'll say yes because I'm a pretty good person.
I've never killed anyone.
I do the best that I can.
That person is wise in their own eyes.
They are self-righteous, relying on the righteousness, the goodness of their self to earn favor with God.
That mentality will not only not earn you favor with God, it will be destructive within your life.
Because no matter how much good you do, you'll always wonder, is it enough?
Have I done enough to earn favor with God?
You see, that person will never live with the peace and the joy of having an intimate relationship with God who saved them.
Now, verse number 17.
He says, do not be why.
Verse 17.
Do not be overly wicked, nor be foolish.
Why should you die before your time?
We see here that self-indulgence also will destroy your life.
How many young, promising people have died before their time because of some stupid act of wickedness?
They were drunk and they got in an accident.
They were angry.
They got in a fight.
Someone pulled out a knife and stabbed them.
They were on drugs.
They accidentally overdosed.
Sin's going to destroy your life, and sometimes it'll even cause you to die before your time.
So Solomon here gives two extremes, and he says both are going to destroy you,
self-righteousness and self-indulgence.
In Luke chapter 15, Jesus told us a story about a father who had two sons,
and the younger son came to his dad and said,
Dad, I'd like my inheritance early.
And he gets this inheritance, all that money, and he goes and he just blows it on this wild party lifestyle.
And he blows through all the money, and eventually he's found and he's in a pig pen.
He's desiring what those pigs eat, and finally it says that he came to his senses.
And he thought, man, maybe if I go back home to my father, he'll treat me like a servant.
I'll have it better off than I currently do.
And so he goes to his father.
And Jesus said the father saw him from a long ways off, a distance off on the horizon.
And the father goes running to his son and he embraces him.
He picks him up.
He kisses him on the neck and he forgives him.
He throws this big old party.
It's a wonderful story illustrating God, our Father's love for us and how he accepts us as sinners.
We often forget that there's two sons in the story.
There's the younger son who lived in self-indulgence,
but there also was the older son
who lived in self-righteousness.
And when his younger brother came home
and dad threw a party for him, it made him really mad.
Why?
because he in life was focused on rules instead of relationships.
He was self-righteous.
Both of those brothers illustrate, I think, what Solomon is warning against.
Solomon is saying, do not live a self-centered life,
whether you're self-righteous or whether you're self-indulgent.
Both are terrible ways to live.
Verse number 18, he says, it's good that you grasp this.
I think that's verse 16 about self-righteousness.
And it's also not remove your hand from the other.
That's verse 17 about self-indulgence.
For he who fears God will escape them all.
Wisdom strengthens the wise more than ten rulers of the city.
Here's what we learn.
Trusting God will save your life.
It's good to come to grips with the fact that self-righteousness is a miserable way to live
and self-indulgence is a dangerous way to live.
Here's what you do instead.
You fear God.
Don't trust yourself whether you're good or whether you're bad.
Don't trust yourself.
Trust God.
Then he says, wisdom strengthens the wise, more than ten rulers of the city.
In the book of Proverbs, when Solomon was a younger man, he said, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
You see, whenever you fear God, whenever you trust in the Lord, you're going to be given wisdom from above.
And you're going to be a whole lot better off than the most powerful rulers of a city.
Why? Because those rulers might be rich and yet they're still miserable.
They might be self-righteous and yet they're spiritually dead.
They might be self-indulgent and yet spiritually or physically compromised.
But the person who fears the Lord, he shall be praised.
Jesus said in Luke chapter 9, verse number 24, he said,
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it.
Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
That's a strange verse.
It's what's called a paradox.
It seems like it couldn't possibly be true, but it is.
If you hold on to your life and self-righteousness or you hold on to your life and self-indulgence, you're going to lose your life.
But if you choose to lose your life to Jesus, then you'll save it.
And what Jesus means is if you surrender control that you have of yourself, which always is going to lead to destruction,
if you surrender that control and you give that control, you hand it over to Jesus, he'll rescue your life.
Verse 20.
Also, do not take to heart everything people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you.
For many times also your own heart has known that even you have cursed others.
Here's what we see.
None of us are as good as we think we are.
Solomon says, don't take it to heart when people say all these bad things about you.
Now, that's easier said than done, isn't it?
I struggle with this because I like when people like me.
I like when people say good things about me.
It's really hard when people criticize, right?
It's hard for me not to take it to heart, for it not to affect me more deeply than it should.
Now, whenever we're criticized in life, we should always consider the source.
It's wise to do so.
Whenever I receive a critical note from anonymous person,
I take that very differently than if someone signs their name to it, right?
Yogi Berra says, I just make it a practice.
I never respond to anonymous notes.
You know, me neither.
I wish I could sometimes, but I don't have that opportunity.
When someone says something bad about us, we should consider the source.
But Solomon also says, ha ha.
Be sure you recognize that you also have said some bad things about other people.
In other words, remember, you're no saint.
Solomon's reminding us of that.
We tend to hold other people to higher expectations than we hold ourselves.
And Solomon's pointing that out.
George Whitefield, who was an 18th century preacher in the first great awakening, he was often criticized.
And in one of his responses to a critic, he wrote this.
He said, thank you for your letter.
As for what you and my other enemies are saying against me, I know worse things about myself than you're saying.
Right?
Isn't that the truth?
I'm sure glad that none of you,
only the Lord Jesus knows some awful things
I've ever thought or done, right?
None of us are as good as we think we are.
Verse 23.
Here we learn that none of us are as wise as we think we are.
Now Solomon, he's the wisest man in all the world.
God had granted him one request.
He said, anything you ask, I'll give it to you.
And Solomon asked God for wisdom and God gave it to him.
And yet here we see that the wisest man in all the world realized there were significant limitations to his wisdom.
There were some issues that were so deep.
There were questions that were so big
that he could not fully explore them.
You know, one aspect of wisdom
is that you recognize the limitations of your own wisdom.
Because for every answer that wisdom provides,
there are new questions it raises.
The more that we know about God,
the more we realize there is to learn, right?
My dad used to say,
it's what you learn when you know it all that really counts.
And that's true.
Really wise people are people who are always learners.
They never arrive in life.
Why?
Because the more that they learn, the more they realize how much they don't know.
Verse 25.
He said, I applied my heart to know, to search and seek out wisdom and the reason of things,
to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness.
Now remember, throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon has been taking us on a journey for his pursuit of purpose.
He's telling us about his quest for meaning and significance in life.
And he experienced and tested everything under the sun, everything that life has to offer, luxury and riches.
Parties, entertainment, women, accomplishment, knowledge, even wickedness and foolishness.
He tried it all, trying to find out what is the purpose of life.
And so he's reminding us here in verse 25 of that.
And now in verse 26, he tells us the most miserable experience of all.
He said,
I think it's safe to say that Solomon had a women problem in more ways than one.
Instead of loving the wife of his youth all the days of his life, he traded love for lust.
And he had a thousand wives and concubines, and yet Solomon knew better.
We know that because as a younger man, he wrote in Proverbs 5, verse 3,
he says,
So Solomon, he clearly knew better, but he rejected his own advice.
Many men, even men who should know better, are destroyed by their lust for women.
And women, you're not immune from this.
I'm counseling more and more couples who the woman's fallen into a lustful trap.
Now here's the deal about the snare of sexual temptation.
It's especially destructive.
Yes, it's certainly a luring, but just like a lure that a fisherman uses to fish, there's a hook on it.
Now, the fish, it only sees lure.
It only sees the bait.
It looks so tasty.
It looks so appealing.
So it strikes it.
And with the lure comes a hook.
It comes death, it comes destruction.
It's the same with sexual sin and sin of any nature.
Solomon, I think, is reminiscing about perhaps
his greatest downfall in life, and that was sexual sin.
Look at Proverbs 26, verse 11.
It says, as a dog returns to his own vomit,
so a fool repeats his folly.
Solomon kept returning to his own vomit.
destroying himself over and over again with the same exact sin.
Verse 27, he says,
Here's what I found, says the preacher.
He often referred to himself as the preacher.
adding one thing to the other to find out reason, which my soul still seeks, but I cannot find.
One man among a thousand I've found, but a woman among these I have not found.
Truly, this only I have found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.
Now, this is autobiographical on Solomon's part.
It's hyperbolic language.
It's poetic language to make a point.
I don't think he's saying there are no good women out there.
He's saying he never found one.
And he's also saying, I don't think that he's saying that there's only one good man.
I think he's trying to make poetically the point there's no one that's good.
We're all really, really messed up.
The world is broken.
Now, remember, this is Solomon's experience.
And he keeps saying, I experienced everything that life had to offer, and it all left me bitter inside.
Here's what we learn.
Exploring all the schemes of man will leave you empty and bitter inside.
Solomon ends this chapter by saying, this one thing I know.
God made man upright.
He made man perfect, but we have pursued many schemes.
Isn't that the truth?
Sometimes we get so upset with God,
we shake our fist with God, at God.
How could you allow such evil and suffering into the world?
Listen, God didn't make the world this way.
The Bible's clear, God made man upright,
perfect in his sight, in the book of Genesis.
After each thing that God created,
there's this little repeating phrase that says,
and it was good, and it was good, and it was good.
And then finally he created man and woman,
and he said, and it was very good.
God's not to blame for the condition of our world.
We are to blame.
But here's what Solomon is saying.
He said, I sought out wisdom and understanding by experiencing all this sensuality
and everything else the world had to offer,
and it all left me bitter and also realizing this world's really messed up.
We've all pursued schemes of destruction, and he's right.
Now the word scheme here refers to crafty and clever plans that go against God.
Each one of us, we have our own schemes, individual schemes against God,
but there are also, I think, some worldwide schemes against God.
Schemes of man and what Ephesians 6 calls schemes of the devil.
When I think about the dominant worldview that's
being taught to our young people of naturalism and evolution,
I think, what a scheme.
The evidence is simply not there,
and yet it's presented in such a crafty and deceptive way
that millions of young people are falling for it.
See, every scheme of man, every scheme of the devil will leave you bitter and empty inside.
There's no substance.
The reality is not there.
The truth is not there.
It will leave you bitter.
So Solomon's thinking, we think we're so good, but we're not good.
We're broken.
Now, here's what I think is underneath these verses.
We need a Savior.
That's what's behind these verses.
We need someone to do something for us that we couldn't possibly do for ourselves.
And that is the message of the Bible, that God loves us so very much,
that he sent his only eternal son of God to take on human form and flesh.
And he became one of us, and he dwelt among us,
and he lived the perfect life that we have all failed to do.
He was good for us.
He was righteousness for us by becoming sin.
for us. He took on our sin upon a cross, a criminal's death, and He died for us so that
we could live and have forgiveness. And it is only by faith in Jesus that a person can be saved
from the impending destruction of self-righteousness or the impending destruction of self-indulgence.
Now, speaking of Jesus, hundreds of years before he was ever born,
the prophet Isaiah prophesied about his coming and the cross.
In Isaiah chapter 53, verse 3, it says he, speaking of Jesus,
He's despised and rejected by men.
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from him.
He was despised and we did not esteem him.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
Yet we esteemed him stricken.
smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, that is our sin.
He was bruised for our iniquities, that is our sin.
The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep, we've gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way, his own schemes.
And the Lord has laid on him, that's Jesus, the iniquity of us all.
Friends, we are all great sinners, but Jesus is a greater Savior. Amen?
I heard about a little boy who was begging his dad to go outside and play with him one afternoon,
but the dad was very busy doing paperwork at the desk.
But the boy kept persisting to go play,
and so finally the dad took him down the hallway to another room,
and he said, here's what I want you to do, son.
I want you to put this puzzle together.
And when you're finished with it, then we'll go outside and play.
Well, the puzzle was a detailed map of the world.
This is the little guy, so he's thinking, it's going to take this guy hours and hours to put this puzzle together.
He goes back to his paperwork, and a few minutes later, the little boy came out and said,
I'm all done.
And the dad said, okay.
So he goes in and he checks.
Sure enough, the little guy had finished the puzzle, put together this complicated map of the world.
So he says, how in the world?
How did you do that so fast?
He said, well, Daddy, I turned the puzzle over, and on the other side was the face of a man.
And when I got the man right...
The world became right.
The world is a very broken, complicated mess, isn't it?
When you get Jesus right.
The world becomes right.
It begins to make sense of how God created,
how we have sinned and fallen and how God is restoring it starts to.
come together and purpose starts to emerge. You see, you're never going to piece together the
meaning of this broken world apart from Jesus. Without Jesus, it will remain vanity for you.
It will remain empty. Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing.
Now, on one occasion, Jesus said, I came, and he told us why.
He said, I came to give you life, and life more abundantly.
Maybe you're listening today, and you say, that's exactly what I need.
I need some life. I'm living, but man, I'm not really living.
You say, I need some life. Well, guess what? Jesus offers you life today.
Maybe you say, Pastor, I need some purpose. Jesus offers purpose in spades.
Maybe you say, you know what? What I really need is forgiveness.
Oh, that's Jesus' specialty.
He loves forgiving sinners.
Sinners that will come back to Him.
He looks from a long ways off,
and He sees you,
and He loves you,
and He'll come running to you,
and He'll embrace you,
and He'll kiss you,
and He'll throw a party for you
if you'll just give your life to Christ.
See, whatever it is,
Jesus has the answer.
Jesus is the answer.
Let's bow together in an attitude of prayer.
Both here and at Olive Drive.
This is not simply a formality.
Please don't see it that way.
This is a moment in time that God has orchestrated.
I don't think it's an accident that you're here today.
I don't think it's an accident that you're tuning in right now.
In just a moment, I'm going to pray.
And when I finish praying, we're going to stand to our feet.
We're going to sing a song together.
There's going to be pastors and leaders here at the front of both campuses.
And we're going to ask you to give your life to Jesus.
See, God loves you so much.
Yet we have sinned, haven't we?
And maybe you're coming to grips with that today.
That is a good thing to come to grips with.
The Bible says if you confess your sin,
he, that's God, is faithful and just to forgive you of your sin
and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
See, we have failed God, but God still loves us.
While we were still sinners, the Bible said Christ died for us.
The Bible says if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus
and we believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead,
we will be saved.
And that's what we need, don't we?
We need a Savior.
The Bible says,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son
that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish,
shall not experience destruction, but have everlasting life.
Maybe today you know you're in need of some everlasting life.
Well, Jesus offers it today.
But maybe you're here today and you recognize, man, I need life right now.
I'm at the end of my rope.
I don't know how much longer I can hang on.
Listen, Jesus is here to carry you, to lift you up and do for you what you can't do for yourself.
It's called grace.
Grace means unearned favor.
It's when God shows us favor even though we don't deserve it.
It's when he loves us and forgives us even though we couldn't possibly earn it.
In just a moment, I'm going to ask you just to step out where you're at and walk down one of these aisles or walk down one of these staircases and say, I want to trust Jesus as my Savior.
I need him.
These folks aren't going to embarrass you in any way.
They're going to know how to help you.
They're going to help you.
You may say, I want to be baptized like others today to go public with my faith.
Or I'd like to become a part of this church family.
I'd like to become a family member here formally.
You come.
Let us know.
We'd love to visit with you about that.
Or maybe you say, Pastor, I don't really need to talk to anyone other than the Lord.
You can come to these steps, both here and at Olive Drive.
It's a wonderful opportunity for you to kneel at these steps.
Let them serve as an altar, a meeting place between you and the Lord.
You just do business with God.
You can rededicate your life to Him.
Maybe you want to pray for someone else, however God leads.
Maybe you want to come and ask one of our leaders or our pastors to pray for you.
You want to renew your faith and your walk with Jesus.
We're here to help you.
However God leads, you come in just a moment.
Let's pray.
Our heavenly Father, thank you so much
for your grace in our life.
We're reminded today from this passage
that we owe everything to you.
We've blown it, Lord.
And sometimes even when we've blown it,
we point the finger at you.
We get upset when things don't go our way.
We get upset when things are broken.
And really, Lord, it's not your fault that they're broken.
It's our fault.
Thank you, Lord, for not wiping your hands clean of us,
but Lord, instead, becoming one of us,
taking on human flesh,
So you could identify with us.
So that you could be one of us.
So that you could die for us.
Thank you for finding a way.
The way.
Jesus dying on the cross and raising the third day.
Help us, Lord.
Live with the hope that you've given us.
Help us, Lord.
Live with the humility that a passage like this should bring to us.
And I pray, Lord, that no one in our church family,
that you would help all of us not live here,
but that this would show us where we were
and where you want to take us,
that we have a new identity in Christ,
that we, you tell us that there were new creations in Christ.
Jesus, all things have passed away.
Behold, all things have become new.
Help us live in light that we have been saved.
that we have an elevated, exalted, privileged position as your sons and your daughters,
that we've been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places that
awaits us, an inheritance that is unimaginable. Help us, Lord, live with that in mind.
Father, I pray for our church family,
but I also pray for those who are at the fork
in the road of their life, of their eternity.
I pray, Lord, that you would touch their heart
and their mind in such a way that they,
you make it easy for them to choose you.
Show them how amazing you are, Lord.
Help them see your love that you have for them.
We ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thanks for listening today.
We hope you enjoyed this message.
And if you did, we would be so grateful if you left us a review.
Also, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast
if you would like to be notified when a new sermon is released.
If you feel the Lord calling you to take the next step in faith
through salvation, service, or giving,
don't wait.
reach out to us by texting podcast to 88988.
That's podcast to 88988 or connect with us
on one of our social media platforms.
You can also visit our website, valleybaptist.org
to find even more great resources.
No matter where you are in your journey,
know that we love you, we're praying for you
and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.