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 Bibles, I want to welcome you to open them,
those joining us at Olive Drive and online, to Ecclesiastes chapter 11.
Okay.
Now Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes is talking about
how to live life in a broken world.
The Bible says that this world has been affected by sin.
It is fallen from the way that God intended it
and God created it.
And two aspects of life in a broken world
are that the future is uncertain
and that things often go wrong within your life.
Have you ever experienced those things?
Well, one of the ways that we often cope with that reality is we begin to worry about the future.
And Solomon is going to tell us in this passage that that's not a healthy or wise way to live
because it keeps you from making good decisions within your life,
but it also sucks out all of your emotional and mental energy,
and it keeps you from really enjoying the life that God has given you.
And so what Solomon is going to say, and I think it's really kind of the big idea,
is that worry is born out of a desire to be in control, and it is born out of not trusting God.
And so let's look in verse number 1.
Solomon says, cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.
Now this is an old Arabian proverb related to commerce, that you would send your grain
out on a ship in order to sell it in the international markets and you would make a profit.
But there's a risk.
I mean, the ship may sink, there may be a storm,
robbers may steal your grain.
But if you wait to act until there's no risk,
well, then you'll never really act.
Because there's always a risk to life.
Now, sometimes uncertainty keeps us from taking action, doesn't it?
But Solomon says there are times when uncertainty should motivate us to take action.
In many ways, that's the difference between worry and concern.
Worry focuses on uncontrollable difficulties and results in inaction.
Concern focuses on probable difficulties and takes action.
Now, worry is always asking what if.
What if there's an earthquake?
What if I get sick?
What if I get cancer?
What if the stock market crashes?
Well, those are things that you can't control in life,
are they, can you?
The Bible says don't be stressed out about things
that you cannot control within your life.
Now, Solomon says don't wait around and wait for life to be certain because it never will be certain.
There's always going to be risk.
Instead, make the best calculated decision that you can and then trust God with the outcome.
Look what he says in verse 2.
He says, give a serving to seven and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth.
Solomon says, life is uncertain, so live generously.
The stock market may crash.
A recession may come.
A war may start.
Those are risks in life that sometimes can cause us
to be stingy and become self-focused.
But instead, Solomon says, do the opposite.
Live while you can.
Love while you can.
Give while you can.
Live the life that you can.
Say what you need to say or what you ought to say
while you can say it.
In the movie Braveheart, William Wallace says,
"'Every man dies, but not every man really lives.'"
Solomon is saying, you don't know what's going to happen
in your life, you don't know how long you have.
In fact, he says life is like a vapor,
it's here one moment and it's gone the next.
So he says, be generous with your time,
be generous with your treasure,
be generous with the talents that God has given you.
Instead of worrying, go and live a generous life.
Live a full life, Solomon said.
Now, if you seek to control your life, you will lose it.
But if you surrender control of your life to God, then you will gain it.
I have learned that when I try to be in control, I get what I can do.
But when I surrender control to the Holy Spirit, then I get what the Holy Spirit can do within my life.
Notice what he says in verse 3 and 4.
He says that the clouds are full of rain.
They empty themselves upon the earth.
And if a tree falls to the south or the north in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie.
He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.
Solomon says anxiety has no advantage and worry doesn't work
because it keeps you from doing the things
that you know you need to do.
You can't control the wind, you can't control the weather,
and so just take action when you need to.
You see, the anecdote for worry in many ways is action.
We often worry because there's something that we know we need to do that we're ignoring or neglecting within our life.
I know I need to confess this sin, but I'm afraid of the consequence.
I know that I need to have that hard, courageous conversation with someone else, but I'm afraid of how they may react.
Solomon says you need to move forward sometimes.
My dad used to say that no decision is a decision.
You know, sometimes we think, well, you know, I'm just not going to do anything because it might not be the right time.
Well, you never reap if you never sow.
At some point you have to make a decision.
And sometimes a good decision made at the right time is better than the best decision made too late.
Sometimes the best cure for our struggle with worry
is action.
You're worried about the test.
then study.
You're worried about your health,
well then eat healthy and exercise.
You're worried about dying and facing God,
well then give your life to Christ.
Be cleansed by his blood, be confident in his salvation.
Don't just sit around worrying about things
you can't control, take the action that you need to take.
Look what he says in verse five.
He says, as you do not know what is the way of the wind or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child,
so you do not know the works of God who makes everything.
Solomon says, look, you don't know the way of the wind and you don't know what your child's going to look like before they're born.
But God does.
And so humility helps us to overcome worry, doesn't it?
recognizing our own limitations.
When I worry, I'm saying that I would like to know
everything and that I would like to be in control.
Well, what's that sound like?
Well, that sounds like omniscience to know everything
and omnipotence to be in control.
Well, who is omniscient and who is omnipotent?
God.
And so kind of by definition, worry is saying,
I would like to be God.
I would like to be in control.
Isn't that the very first temptation in Genesis chapter 3, that you can be like God?
It's a desire to de-God God and take his place.
Timothy Keller said that worry looks at the future and says, God's going to get it wrong.
Then he said bitterness looks at the past and says, God got it wrong.
You see, humility begins by realizing that God is in control
and that I am not in control and that's a good thing.
That God is good and God is wise and God is working
and in your life you might not be able to see it all
but he is working his plan and his purpose in your life
that everything in your life is father filtered.
That there are no accidents in your life
when it comes to God's perspective.
Yes, there's accidental pregnancies,
but there's no accidental babies.
God's providence usually makes more sense looking back
than looking forward, doesn't it?
You look back and you say,
okay, now that makes a lot more sense.
Because I can see what God did and how God worked and what God brought out of that, the fruit of that in my life.
That he brought me closer to Christ.
That he made me more like Jesus.
That he did so many things within my life.
But in the moment, it doesn't really make sense.
And so we have to humbly trust God.
Look what he says in verse 6.
He says, in the morning, sow your seed.
And in the evening, do not withhold your hand.
For you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
Here's what Solomon says.
He says, commit your worries and your actions to God.
Make sure that you're trusting the Lord, that He's working in all of these different ways,
He says in verse 5, and so just move forward and trust the Lord.
Andrew called me on Tuesday and he told me about his foot and he asked me if I could
preach on Sunday and I said yes.
And then after I got off the phone I started to think, well, I've already lost a day.
And it took me five days to figure out
some of the verses last week, you know?
And so I started to get a touch of worry and anxiety.
And so I prayed, I said,
Lord, I'm not capable of preaching a good sermon
three weeks in a row.
I haven't done that in a long time.
And so I said, Lord, I know you're capable.
Would you help me?
And suddenly the peace of God flooded my soul.
And this confident trust in the Lord came over me.
If it's small enough to worry about, it's big enough to pray about.
And when you're not in control, trust who is in control.
When you're not capable, trust who is capable.
Paul says, I glory in my weakness
because in my weakness I depend on God
and his strength is made perfect in my weakness.
When you don't know the future,
commit the future to the one who knows it
and is in control of it.
You know, sometimes worry is an insult to God.
A dad promises his family that he's going to take them to Disneyland on Saturday, and
his eight-year-old boy says, well, what if we run out of gas?
What if we can't find it?
What if we get lost?
What if we don't have enough money?
It's kind of an insult to the capability of the Father.
And the Father may say, well, I am a Father.
I can take care of all of those things, Son.
Of how much more is our heavenly Father capable
than our earthly Father?
And when we are filled with worry within our heart
and within our mind, then we're calling God a liar.
God says, I will supply all your needs according to my riches in Christ Jesus.
And worry says, well, what if he doesn't?
What if he doesn't do that?
God says, I won't allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able,
but I'll make a way of escape so that you might be able to stand.
And worry says, well, what if he doesn't do that for me?
God says, all things will work together for good to those who love God
and are called according to his purpose.
And worry says, well, that might not be true in my case.
Jesus said, God cares for the birds
and he cares for the flowers and he says,
you are of much more value than them.
Don't you think that he can take care of you
and that he will take care of you,
oh you of little faith.
But notice Solomon encourages us to trust in the Lord,
but he also says that trusting in the Lord
is not an excuse for an action.
God's sovereignty is meant to comfort us, not to excuse us.
And so the purpose of God's sovereign control
is not so that you will lean against a shovel
and pray for a hole.
The purpose of God's sovereignty
is not so that you will pull out without looking both ways.
Solomon says, do what you can
And then he says, trust God is in control of the outcome.
Look what he says in verse 7.
Truly the light is sweet and is pleasant for the eyes to behold the sun.
But if a man lives many years and rejoices in them all,
yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many.
All that is coming is vanity.
Solomon says there's some wonderful gifts
that God has given us.
He's given us the sun and he's given us light
and he's given us warmth and all of that
is a matter of his goodness and it's a matter of his grace.
But he says, recognize that even with all of this good
that you experience in life,
that there's gonna be a lot of bad as well.
In other words, expect to experience suffering,
but also expect to experience God's grace in your life.
Now, Solomon says the only way to really enjoy life
is to be a realist about how hard life is.
And then he says, you also have to be a realist
about how good God is.
Now, if you expect that your life is always gonna be easy,
You know, you're always going to be sleeping in a room of cotton balls, you know, under you or something.
I don't know what it is.
But when you start thinking that life is going to be easy, then you're going to be miserable.
Because that's not real.
That's not the world that the Bible describes that's broken by sin and affected by the fall.
And so if you feel entitled to an easy life, then you will never enjoy the grace of God within your life.
Because you'll feel like God betrayed you.
You know, I think it's important that we start simple and start small.
Because if we can't be grateful for the small and simple things in life,
then it's really hard to be grateful for anything in life.
We have to start small.
So Solomon is saying, if we are suffering, it doesn't mean that God is not gracious.
Grace does not mean that your life is going to be easy and comfortable.
It means that God is going to be with you in the difficult and dark days,
and he is going to get you through those days within your life.
And so don't be entitled to an easy life.
So that when the good things in your life come, you can enjoy them for what they really are.
And that is a gift of God's grace.
You see, if we feel entitled to an easy life, we can't really enjoy life because that's not real.
We have to face reality, and we have to live it in light of the grace of God in the midst of our sin.
Notice what he says in verse number 9.
He says,
Rejoice, O young man, in your youth.
and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth.
Walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes,
but know that for all these,
God will bring you into judgment."
Solomon says, know that God is going to settle all accounts.
That you ought to live life to the fullest
You ought to go out and live as full of a life as you possibly can,
but recognize that in the end, God is going to settle all accounts.
And that gives meaning and purpose to our life because it's not just here and then gone,
but it's an eternal life, that it matters not just now, but it matters for all eternity.
You see, part of the way that we deal with worry is we look past this life to the next life.
In fact, Solomon says it doesn't increase our enjoyment,
it increases our enjoyment because it keeps us
from making foolish decisions within life.
We live a full life without a stupid life.
That's a pretty good deal.
And so live your life to the fullest, Solomon is saying,
so that you can talk about what you did,
not what you should have done.
So that you can look back in eternity and say, you know what, I lived a full life.
I pursued God. I lived for the Lord. I loved the Lord.
And I'm so grateful that I made that choice.
You know, some people are anxious and worried because there's so much injustice in the world.
The world's a broken place.
And so Solomon's trying to help us grapple with the reality of the brokenness and injustice of the world.
And what he says is he says, God's going to settle all accounts.
You can't look for justice in this world completely.
I mean, where is the justice for someone who kills a bunch of people and then kills themselves?
It's not in this life.
You have to look to a good God.
to find justice.
And so wisdom says, I don't have to settle
every account within my life or within the world.
I don't have to handle every situation
of injustice within my life or within the world.
I don't have to carry that weight
because I know God can and I know that God will.
Look what he says in verse 10.
And then the first verse of the next chapter, he says,
"'Therefore remove sorrow from your heart
"'and put away evil from your flesh,
"'for childhood and youth are vanity.
"'Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth
"'before the difficult days come
"'and the years draw near when you say,
"'I have no pleasure in them.'"
I love what Solomon does right here.
He goes from worry to worship.
He says, when you're worried, go to God.
When you're anxious, spend some time in worship
of who God is and what God has done within your life.
Pursuing God is the greatest antidote
to worry within our life.
Now the reason that we get worried about the unknown
and the future is because we don't know God well enough.
Our view of God is too small,
and our view of man is too big.
We need a bigger view of God.
That God is bigger than our suffering
and that he's better than our sin.
That God is capable and God is caring.
You see, in the Bible, God is both ultimate
and he is intimate.
He is above all and he is ruling all and he is over all.
And so the first thing that you need to know
to fight worry is that God is big,
that God is in control and that God is good.
The second thing you need to know to fight worry
is that God cares for you.
Some people believe God is big,
but they don't believe he cares.
Others believe that he cares, but he's not big.
But the Bible teaches both, that he's in control and that he cares for you.
The Bible teaches that God has a mighty hand and he has a caring heart.
You know, worry is meditating on the wrong things.
Faith is meditating on the right things.
Worry is meditating on the future minus God.
And that's a scary thought,
to think of the future without God.
But faith is meditating on the future with God.
And that brings a great comfort to our heart.
Now, Solomon gives us three ways
that we pursue God within our life.
And the first, he says,
is that we release our worries to God.
Often our worry and our lack of trust in the Lord,
trusting God with our problems, with our sorrows,
with our hurts, keeps us from really having
an intimate relationship with God.
And so as he says, the first thing you need to do
is you need to remove sorrow from your heart.
You need to release your anxieties and your worries to God.
Now this word sorrow is sometimes translated vexation.
And sometimes we experience vexation because we're trying to control our existence instead of trust God with it.
Now, this word is kind of hard to translate.
It could mean bitterness.
It could mean fear.
It could mean worry.
But really, I think the idea is anything that is troubling your heart, you need to give it to God.
In fact, the Bible says, cast your anxieties and your cares upon him.
Why?
Because he cares for you.
Now, 365 times in the Bible, we are told to fear not.
It's the most repeated command in all of the Bible,
and it's just another way of saying, give God your anxiety.
Give God your worry.
Now, if we don't give God our anxieties, if we don't give God our worries,
and we don't give God what's troubling us,
then we end up trying to find a functional Savior to deal with them.
The reason so many people struggle with alcohol, number one abused drug in the United States
is because they're trying to deal with their anxiety.
They're trying to drown it in alcohol.
They're trying to bury it.
They're trying to deal with the hurt that they have.
They're trying to deal with the troubles that they have, the bitterness that they have.
Instead of going to God and releasing those things to God, they're just trying to numb
the pain.
Or maybe it's not alcohol, maybe you just sleep a lot
because it's too painful to be awake.
Or some other addiction,
where you're seeking to escape reality
If we want to really pursue an intimate relationship with God, then we need to confess our worries
and we need to confront our worries, our sorrows, and our pain.
And then we need to voluntarily and incrementally surrender them to God by faith and by His grace.
And as we give those to God, he begins to heal our heart,
and we begin to draw closer to him because we finally trusted him,
not only with our soul, but we started to trust him with our life.
So he says the first thing you need to pursue God is you need to release your sorrows and your worries to him.
The second thing is you need to run from sin in your life.
You need to deal with the sin that is obstructing your fellowship with God.
See, we think that we can get away with sin.
But what we learn from Scripture and history is we never really get away with anything, do we?
Sin will sear your conscience and it will quench the Holy Spirit within your life,
which will keep you from really enjoying God, and it will keep you
from really pursuing God within your life.
Now, the third thing that he tells us is he says, stay connected to God.
He says, remember your Creator.
Another way to say that is put God first in everything and every area of your life.
Whatever's troubling you, put God first in it.
Whatever's going on within your life or the world, put God first.
Recognize the creator and the creature distinction.
And so Solomon, I think, is saying live with a sense of utter dependence upon God.
And he says do it while you're young.
In other words, do it now.
Don't wait to pursue God.
Do it today.
Solomon, I mean, it's as if he's saying, what are you waiting for?
Are you waiting for everything to be just right?
Well, that's never going to happen in your life.
Are you waiting to have enough things and possessions?
Well, guess what?
It's never going to be enough, Solomon says.
You're always going to need one more dollar.
No matter how much you make, you're always going to want more.
Are you waiting until you achieve certain things within your life?
He says, look, it's never going to be enough.
You're never going to do enough.
And so what Solomon says is don't wait.
Put God first now.
Put God in the driver's seat.
Solomon's saying, look, if you leave God out of your life, I can't help you.
There's not enough Proverbs.
There's not enough wisdom.
There's not enough advice that I can give you.
Because the meaning of life is to be connected to God.
That's it.
Now there is no one who is as wise as Jesus.
There's no one who is as humble as Jesus.
Jesus humbled himself.
God the Son humbled himself to become a man.
That's a tremendous amount of humility.
But then he lived as a servant.
He said, I didn't come to be served.
I came to serve.
And then he went to the cross and he humbled himself on the cross to pay for our sins.
Jesus, nobody trusted the Father as much as Jesus did.
Nobody ran from sin as much as Jesus.
Nobody stayed connected to our Heavenly Father as much as Jesus did.
You see, Jesus took all of our sin and paid for it on the cross.
Why? So that he could release us from the burden of sin and the burden of sorrow.
He died for our sins. He also died for our worries.
He died for our sins, but he died for our future.
And not only that, but he settled every account.
Sometimes we worry, well, what about this sin or that sin?
Well, Jesus paid it all, and all to him I owe.
The Bible says if you will trust in Jesus today, he will give you an eternal future,
and you will forever be connected to God.
Let's bow our heads as we prepare for God to move in our hearts.
Would you be praying right now?
Let me ask you, what's troubling your heart?
Is it worry?
Is it uncertainty of the future?
Is it the pain of the past?
Is it some injustice in life or some problem that you are not in control of?
I want to encourage you, whatever is troubling your heart,
right now to go to the Lord in prayer and say,
Lord, I want to give these things to you.
I want to trust you with these.
Maybe it's sin that's troubling your heart and you need to run from it.
The Bible says resist the devil, but it says run from sin.
You can't fight that battle.
You're going to lose.
So maybe there's some sin that you need to give to the Lord,
and you need to confess, and you need to confront,
and you need to cast at Jesus' feet.
Whatever it is that's keeping you from pursuing Christ,
I want to encourage you to give it to God today.
He wants to carry that burden for you.
He wants to take that hurt and heal it.
He wants to take that pain and carry the load.
Maybe this morning you haven't given your life to Christ and you would come and you'd say,
I need Jesus.
I've been following all kinds of other functional saviors, but none of them work.
I've been looking to myself to save myself, and then I get all worried and anxious because I realize that I can't do it.
I've been looking to sin to bring me comfort and escape instead of running to God.
I want to encourage you today to give your life to Christ.
Jesus died for your sins and he rose from the dead to give you victory and eternal life.
Would you give your life to him today?
Maybe the Lord is leading you to be baptized.
We want to invite you to come and to make that decision, set up a time for you to do that.
Maybe the Lord is leading you to join this church, to be a part of this faith, spiritual family.
We want to invite you to come.
We would love for you to be a part of our family.
But here in a moment, there's going to be prayer partners here at the front.
There's going to be people, and we want to invite you to come and to pray.
Sometimes we need the help and the encouragement and the example
and the prayers of other people for us to take that next step in our relationship with God.
So I want to invite you to come and allow someone to pray with you,
someone to pray over you,
to help you release your worries to the Lord
and to begin to pursue God without inhibiting or quenching
what God wants to do.
Our Heavenly Father,
We thank you for this time of worship.
We thank you for your word.
We thank you for prayer, Lord, that we can come boldly to the throne of grace
because of the cross of Jesus Christ from which your grace flows.
Lord, I pray if there's anyone that doesn't know Christ today that they would be saved.
I pray, Lord, if there's anyone.
that's bound up with the chains of worry, Lord,
that today that you would just help them take that next step.
And Lord, I know so often in my life when it comes to worry,
it's incremental.
It's not all at once.
It's a little bit here and a little bit there
until I get to that point by your grace
to where I'm able to fully and completely trust you with my problems.
And so, Lord, would you just help us take that first step or that next step?
Lord, would you help us to give the load to you and you take a little bit of it off of our shoulders?
And maybe we've been doing that, but there's still some there that we need to give to you, Lord.
Help us to grow in our faith deeper and deeper and deeper in our heart
so that we can trust you completely and we can experience your peace and grace.
So Lord, work in this invitation.
Draw us close to you.
In Christ's name we pray.
Amen.
Thanks for listening today.
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know that we love you, we're praying for you, and we can't wait
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