SPEAKER_00: In my family, we're pretty big fanatics of Cedar Point.
SPEAKER_00: Have you got any other fans of Cedar Point out there?
SPEAKER_00: Alright, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not familiar with Cedar Point, it's uh an amusement park ride in Sandusky, Ohio.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I haven't been able to confirm this with the internet, but I'm pretty sure it's the only good reason to go visit the state of Ohio.
SPEAKER_00: But um it is great.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good place to go to.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I would highly recommend it.
SPEAKER_00: I I've actually been, you know, numerous, numerous times.
SPEAKER_00: Uh growing up, we had kind of a tradition.
SPEAKER_00: My dad would take my siblings and I, and and two of his sisters, and we would go every single year.
SPEAKER_00: And lots of very fond memories uh from those trips.
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, as you get a little bit older, so then my wife and I start dating and we get married, and she and I go with friends and family and different things like that.
SPEAKER_00: And then eventually, my kids they get old enough that they graduate from Michigan Adventure.
SPEAKER_00: That's like the kiddie version, right?
SPEAKER_00: So they graduate out of Michigan Adventure and they they can start going to Cedar Point because they're tall enough and all the things.
SPEAKER_00: And it turns out all five of us in our family, man, we're all into amusement parks.
SPEAKER_00: Like we just we enjoy it, it's fun, there's nobody that's like left out really.
SPEAKER_00: And and all that has been true until a couple of years ago when I started noticing some changes for me.
SPEAKER_00: Seems that I might not always enjoy amusement parks like I used to anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Because I had this one particular experience.
SPEAKER_00: I remember very, very, very vividly, we were going there.
SPEAKER_00: It was, I think, Carter's very first time.
SPEAKER_00: Carter's the youngest, it was his very first time at Cedar Point.
SPEAKER_00: He was maybe 10 or 11, uh, shorter than he is now.
SPEAKER_00: And so, therefore, he couldn't ride all of the rides.
SPEAKER_00: He ride a lot of them, but he couldn't ride all of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so we got there, whatever, and somehow we ended up we were gonna ride the Maverick ride first.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I just want you to know, uh, you may be wrong about this.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to argue, you can, but Maverick is the best ride at Cedar Point, okay?
SPEAKER_00: All right, all right, hey, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: A little love for that.
SPEAKER_00: That's good, good.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it is the best ride.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, we go to ride.
SPEAKER_00: Carter can't ride, though.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's not quite tall enough.
SPEAKER_00: So I say, hey, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go find another ride to ride.
SPEAKER_00: So he and I are gonna go ride some of the ride, everybody else is gonna ride some effort.
SPEAKER_00: And so we get ready to go do that, and there's uh trying to find a ride that he can ride that's nearby, but we come across Skyhawk.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not familiar with Skyhawk, here's a picture of Skyhawk.
SPEAKER_00: It is a giant swing.
SPEAKER_00: And when I say giant, I mean giant, right?
SPEAKER_00: This thing is like 125 feet up when you get to the top.
SPEAKER_00: Yep, about right there.
SPEAKER_00: 125 feet up.
SPEAKER_00: When it swings through, it's going at at its fastest 65 miles an hour.
SPEAKER_00: This thing is a no-joke swing.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Now, there are probably people out there right now that are like, I have no desire to ever get anywhere near that thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: That might be the case.
SPEAKER_00: But real amusement park enthusiasts go, pfft, boring.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not anything fancy.
SPEAKER_00: It's a swing.
SPEAKER_00: Like, how can you get worked up about a swing?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I would have firmly put myself on this particular day, I would have firmly put myself in the first group, or in the second group, rather, boring.
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is not that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then I got off the ride.
SPEAKER_00: And my 10-year-old or 11-year-old, whatever, he was like, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: He was loving it.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, where is the nearest bench?
SPEAKER_00: Because I need to sit down.
SPEAKER_00: It was as close as I've ever been to nearly vomiting after getting off a ride.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't believe it, and I'd never experienced it before in my entire life.
SPEAKER_00: I was nauseous, I was disoriented, I had a headache.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what is happening?
SPEAKER_00: I rode Skyhawk.
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's not that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_00: But as it turns out, that was just the first of many experiences where I'm just not quite as good as I used to.
SPEAKER_00: I used to be able to ride them like crazy.
SPEAKER_00: I can still do it, I just have to pace myself.
SPEAKER_00: That's just where I'm at in life.
SPEAKER_00: I just have to pace myself a little bit, take it little by little.
SPEAKER_00: I have definitely totally given up on anything that spins me in circles.
SPEAKER_00: I have no desire to do that at all.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the ones that turn you upside down, I can do that, but just in in little bits.
SPEAKER_00: And so I still enjoy going, but I don't have the stamina I once had.
SPEAKER_00: But I tell you that story because I think I think it in some ways kind of illustrates a picture for us in life in general.
SPEAKER_00: As it turns out, life is often chaotic.
SPEAKER_00: Life is often full of barrel rolls, uncontrollable spins, ups and downs, quick inversions.
SPEAKER_00: And it can often leave us feeling just like I was that day on that bench, disoriented, frustrated, exhausted.
SPEAKER_00: But I think if you engage with me this morning, what we're gonna see is that God's word offers us some thoughts on how we might remedy that a little bit, how we might make that a little bit better and enjoyable in this life of ours.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Nate.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful to be able to be here with you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being with us as a part of our service today.
SPEAKER_00: We are continuing on in our series from Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Ecclesiastes, it's called Under the Sun.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you're familiar, we've been working through this for a while now, and we're gonna continue on.
SPEAKER_00: Today we're in Ecclesiastes chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: So, just like we tell you every Sunday, you're gonna want to grab your Bibles because we're gonna be using them.
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: Grab the seatback Bibles in front of you if you want to.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have them with you, pull it up on your phone, whatever works for you.
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes, middle of the Bible, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes right there toward the middle.
SPEAKER_00: But as you begin kind of turning there and getting yourself acquainted with Ecclesiastes chapter 10, I want to just give you a little bit of quick background from Ecclesiastes, what we've been seeing over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Because so far in this series, Ecclesiastes has offered the Christian person an opportunity to understand the emptiness and despair that those who do not know God grapple with.
SPEAKER_00: That's a very real part of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: The world under the sun, apart from God, is frustrating, it's cruel, it's unfair, it's brief, and it's utterly meaningless.
SPEAKER_00: But with Christ, life is but a shadow of the glories to come in a heaven that is only accessible through Him.
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes is a very real book.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't sugarcoat much, it forces us to deal with our mortality and what we are doing with our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And chapter 10 is going to stay right there in that theme.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to go anywhere different.
SPEAKER_00: Much of that theme continues.
SPEAKER_00: We know that the preacher has said over and over and over again that life is heavel, it's vanity.
SPEAKER_00: And part of that, like we talked about a couple minutes ago, is that it's a jumbled-up mess.
SPEAKER_00: It spins us around, it flips us upside down, it leaves us disoriented.
SPEAKER_00: And we can see that here even in chapter 10, when we start in verse 5, the preacher picks up with that same concept.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This there is an evil that I've seen under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: As it were, an error proceeding from the ruler.
SPEAKER_00: Folly is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen slaves on horses and princes walking on the ground like slaves.
SPEAKER_00: And so the preacher picks up with this theme that we've been talking about.
SPEAKER_00: There's an evil under the sun that he is seen.
SPEAKER_00: We all recognize that phrase.
SPEAKER_00: It's been throughout the book of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: It's why the series is named what it is.
SPEAKER_00: As he's pointed out before, life under the sun is far from perfect.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the preacher says there's an evil that he has noticed.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what evil is it that he has noticed?
SPEAKER_00: He says that there's an error proceeding from the ruler.
SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, he says right from the get-go, listen, there's going to be problems with our leaders sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be poor leadership.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be part of our human existence.
SPEAKER_00: But he then goes on to explain a little bit more what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: He says, folly is set in many high places.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_00: Why would foolishness be the thing that gets elevated?
SPEAKER_00: Why would we ever elevate the fool?
SPEAKER_00: But instead, the rich sit in a lowly place.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen slaves on horses and princes walking on the ground like slaves.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_00: If you were a prince and you're traveling somewhere, you're not going to walk as your servant sits up on your horse.
SPEAKER_00: That's totally backwards.
SPEAKER_00: That makes no sense.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody would do that normally.
SPEAKER_00: And so he just keeps giving these examples, basically just trying to say, listen, uh, things aren't working out the way they really should.
SPEAKER_00: Things are backwards.
SPEAKER_00: Follies being exalted, princes taken off their horses and made to walk.
SPEAKER_00: The preacher is saying that life under the sun is upside down.
SPEAKER_00: It makes no sense.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us a couple more examples in eight through ten.
SPEAKER_00: He says this he says, He who digs a pit will fall into it, and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall.
SPEAKER_00: He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them.
SPEAKER_00: If the iron is blunt and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength.
SPEAKER_00: I know that's like, what is he talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Just he's just giving these other examples of how the world just doesn't really always make sense.
SPEAKER_00: It's backwards, it's it's upside down, it's not making a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_00: He says, listen, people who are working hard, they're quarrying stone or they're splitting logs, they're gonna get injured when they do that.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_00: They're working hard, they're trying to do what they're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: You dig a pit for some reason, you're gonna end up falling in it sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Life just doesn't always make sense.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say, like, if you you make some tool, you got this tool, but but if you don't keep the the edge of the tool sharp, then in the end you just end up using more strength than than you should have.
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't make a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_00: He just keeps giving these examples of how the earth is just, it's weird.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like he's saying, he's pleading, why does life have to be so hard?
SPEAKER_00: Why does life have to be so hard?
SPEAKER_00: We can all relate to that question.
SPEAKER_00: But under the sun, our life is marked by asking, what in the world is happening?
SPEAKER_00: What in the world is happening?
SPEAKER_00: How did we get here?
SPEAKER_00: I know you feel that question.
SPEAKER_00: How do we get here?
SPEAKER_00: We can relate to it so easily.
SPEAKER_00: If we just look around ourselves, from poverty that ravages far too many parts of the world to the complete death of the family unit, we see selfishness and love of money ruling the day.
SPEAKER_00: There's the fact that the church, the church of all places, far too often is a place where people get hurt and walk away weary.
SPEAKER_00: When we have young people who die from childhood cancer, we have substance abuse that rages as people try to cope.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to look very far to see that this earthly life of ours is far from the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_00: It's utterly and completely upside down.
SPEAKER_00: And to bring it back to what the preacher said at the beginning, regardless of your political affiliation, I think we can all agree that there are times where we have rulers of folly in high places.
SPEAKER_00: So, what do we do with that information?
SPEAKER_00: What are we supposed to do then?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, I want to just emphasize that there's really only one solution to this upside-down world, and that is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's the only way to live.
SPEAKER_00: Understanding who he is and what he's done for you is the only way to live, at least somewhat right side up.
SPEAKER_00: For all the vanities described in the book of Ecclesiastes, the answer is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's the only one who can make uh sense of this meaningless world and give it purpose.
SPEAKER_00: He's the only one who can bring joy to the chaos.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Ecclesiastes is so important.
SPEAKER_00: Because it reminds us who follow Christ, it reminds us how difficult and depressing life is for those who don't have the hope of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And it should light a fire underneath us to say you've got to go help these people understand the chaos of this world.
SPEAKER_00: Our family, our friends, our coworkers, the people at the ends of the earth, we've got to help them understand Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's the only antidote for the world that we live in.
SPEAKER_00: But as much as that is true, that Jesus is the only solution to this topsy-turvy world, the honest truth is that the full realization of that solution hasn't come yet.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're left with the question of what do we do in the meantime?
SPEAKER_00: What do we do in the meantime?
SPEAKER_00: And the preacher, he he gives us some direction for what might be important.
SPEAKER_00: You see, after reading all that we've read so far, five through ten, we see this idea of this upside-down world and things aren't the way they're supposed to be, but he gives one big clue at the end in verse 10b.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna reread this whole thing and then we'll add it in at the end.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about how people who dig a pit and they fall into it, a serpent will bite and he will break through a wall.
SPEAKER_00: He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is in danger by them.
SPEAKER_00: If the iron is blunt and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength.
SPEAKER_00: But wisdom helps one to succeed.
SPEAKER_00: In light of all that other stuff that doesn't make any sense, he says, but wisdom helps one to succeed.
SPEAKER_00: So that's gonna be our first point this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be our overarching theme for the entire morning.
SPEAKER_00: But number one, this morning, wisdom helps one succeed.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see the preacher kind of show this out in a few different examples as we go through our text this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's really the entire theme.
SPEAKER_00: He keeps contrasting wisdom and foolishness, and he emphasizes that wisdom is far better.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the preacher suggests that much of the problem with this world of ours is foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we think about foolishness or folly, we think about maybe just a lack of knowledge or lack of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: We know that they're kind of opposites, wisdom and foolishness, but we might think about it just within the worldly context.
SPEAKER_00: But I think when we look at scripture and we look at the whole picture of scripture, I think really that folly or foolishness is really not just a lack of knowledge or wisdom, but rather a lack of understanding God.
SPEAKER_00: That's true foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: Lack of understanding God.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what the preacher is getting at throughout chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: When he refers to a fool, he's really referring to someone who disregards God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Someone who doesn't understand it at all, has never seen it, or just disregards it.
SPEAKER_00: That is what he's looking at when he talks about a fool.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the way I like to think about it God has designed life to be lived a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: When we make choices that don't align with God's design, which we all do from time to time, well, there's consequences to that.
SPEAKER_00: That that's foolishness, and it's got consequences.
SPEAKER_00: It leads to conflict, it leads to bitterness, it leads to contempt, it leads to people being uh in grief, it leads to people being hurt, it leads to people feeling alone and helpless.
SPEAKER_00: It's why Proverbs chapter 9, verse 10 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we start.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the ground floor.
SPEAKER_00: The fear of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Reverence and respect for God is the beginning of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: When we open ourselves up to what he has to say about himself, we just start with wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: And so the preacher here seems to be lining up with that suggestion that wisdom, specifically understanding God through his word, is the basic way to success in a chaotic world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the rest of Ecclesiastes 10 is kind of all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna be honest with you, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit proverbish, it's like bounces around a fair amount.
SPEAKER_00: So he talks about wisdom in a few different areas.
SPEAKER_00: We know that wisdom is key to success, we've already seen that, but we're gonna kind of look at he hit some other ways that wisdom might be important.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna hit those as we jump through the rest of our outline this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Three other ones.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, number two, wisdom is easily drowned out.
SPEAKER_00: So wisdom helps one succeed.
SPEAKER_00: That's the overarching concept.
SPEAKER_00: But another thing we need to pay attention to is that we wisdom is easily drowned out.
SPEAKER_00: We read verse one.
SPEAKER_00: It says this dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench.
SPEAKER_00: So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.
SPEAKER_00: Now I don't know about you, but I I generally keep my caps on my ointment.
SPEAKER_00: So I've never had a problem with a bunch of flies hanging out in there, but I get the idea.
SPEAKER_00: The point is, well, maybe think about it like this it's a nice summer day, you're at the family reunion or a little cookout, you got that bowl of potato salad, delicious, and all of a sudden a fly comes and lands in the potato salad.
SPEAKER_00: How quickly is the potato salad ruined?
SPEAKER_00: Pretty much right away, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like you're not going, oh, it's just a fly.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, have a scoop of that.
SPEAKER_00: No, probably not.
SPEAKER_00: It it's kind of gross pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Paul uses the same example, he uses yeast.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about how uh yeast, sin is like yeast.
SPEAKER_00: When you make a loaf of bread, you don't need very much yeast.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the smallest amounts of ingredients that you put in the bread, and yet that little bit of the yeast makes the entire loaf of bread rise.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, so in the same way as sin in our lives, it doesn't take much to ruin what you got going on.
SPEAKER_00: And the preacher says the same thing here about folly.
SPEAKER_00: How quickly all the wisdom we have about who God is, who he claims to be, how he's proven us to be, how quickly we let that go by a little bit of folly.
SPEAKER_00: By that situation in life that you weren't expecting.
SPEAKER_00: By not being able to predict exactly what's going to happen next.
SPEAKER_00: It's like we just forget everything we knew about God.
SPEAKER_00: It makes me think of the parable of the soils.
SPEAKER_00: This is Matthew chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells this parable about a farmer who's spreading seed.
SPEAKER_00: And he's spreading the seed onto four different types of soil.
SPEAKER_00: And the third type of soil is described as having thorns growing in it.
SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is the the farmer he spreads the seed, it starts to grow in that soil that has the thorns in it.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is, though, that as that good plant starts to grow, uh, the thorns choke it out.
SPEAKER_00: And it just can't grow.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus explains this parable, he says that this thorny soil represents a person who hears the word, who hears what God is about, who hears details about who God is, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke all that out.
SPEAKER_00: The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke all that out.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the world is always going to be full of things that divert our attention away from the truth of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe you're like me.
SPEAKER_00: I I know this is true.
SPEAKER_00: How many times?
SPEAKER_00: How many times do you go to your phone because you you have something you need to do?
SPEAKER_00: You need to message somebody, call somebody, look something up, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: You go to your phone, you pick it up.
SPEAKER_00: Ten minutes later, you put your phone down.
SPEAKER_00: You have not done the thing you went to your phone to do in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because there were 17 notifications on there that you didn't realize.
SPEAKER_00: So you read an email, you checked that score on ESPN, uh, you would whatever, and then you put your phone down and you walk away, you go, oh, I was supposed to do that, and you go back to your phone, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is the world we live in.
SPEAKER_00: To pretend like we don't live in a world that's gonna constantly distract us is insane.
SPEAKER_00: How easy is it for us to get distracted by whatever happens in this world to take us off of God's word and what he's told us about who he is.
SPEAKER_00: What about the worries of this world?
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it impacts us all a little bit different, but the truth is when we look around the world around us, we we often are worried.
SPEAKER_00: We're trying to figure out how this is all gonna work out.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're worried because you just heard about your family member who's gotten that medical diagnosis.
SPEAKER_00: That's like, okay, well, now what?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're worried because you're a young parent.
SPEAKER_00: And you're watching your kids grow and you're like, are they gonna follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're worried because you just don't know what the next phase of life looks like for you.
SPEAKER_00: We know this exists.
SPEAKER_00: And there's the riches of the world, we all know that that's a reality.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells us that we have to be watchful because the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches can choke out all we know about who God is and what he's done for us.
SPEAKER_00: But wisdom, wisdom, understanding God, understanding who he is in his word, wisdom means not allowing the light and momentary afflictions of this world to overshadow all that we know God to be.
SPEAKER_00: Hear that?
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom is not allowing the light and momentary afflictions of this world, that's what Paul calls them, the challenges, the trials that we go through, he calls them light and momentary.
SPEAKER_00: It's not allowing those light and momentary afflictions of this world to overshadow all that we know God to be.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you might be walking through right now, it may feel like it's insurmountable, but don't ever lose hope, the hope of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever lose the hope of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And so we needed this reminder from the preacher because wisdom, it can be so easily drowned out.
SPEAKER_00: It can be so easily drowned out by this world of ours.
SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the reminders he gives us.
SPEAKER_00: The next reminder, it's point number three this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom means controlling our words.
SPEAKER_00: So we know that wisdom is going to help us succeed.
SPEAKER_00: One area that we need to pay attention to is the fact that wisdom is easily drowned out.
SPEAKER_00: The next one is that wisdom means controlling our words.
SPEAKER_00: He says this in verses 12 and 13 the words of a wise man's mouth win him favor, but the lips of a fool consume him.
SPEAKER_00: The beginning of the words of his mouth, the fool, is foolishness, and the end of his talk is evil madness.
SPEAKER_00: The preacher seems to indicate that the fool often identifies himself by the words he chooses.
SPEAKER_00: What do your words tell people about you?
SPEAKER_00: This concept is certainly supported throughout Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of examples of it.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Proverbs tells us this over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a few of the things that it tells us about our words, 10 19.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is not ended by multiplying words.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get out of sin or problems by having extra words, but rather the prudent hold their tongues.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 12, 18, the words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 15, 1, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
SPEAKER_00: In the same chapter, verse 28, the heart of the righteous ponders how to answer.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 16, 24.
SPEAKER_00: Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, healing to the bones.
SPEAKER_00: In Proverbs 18, 21, death and life are in the power of the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't overly particularly familiar with Proverbs 15, 28, but man, that one hit me a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: I tend to have opinions.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm pretty willing to share them.
SPEAKER_00: But if I desire to live in a righteous way, maybe I should ponder a little more before answering.
SPEAKER_00: And James picks up on this as well.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know the book of James, it's in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It's fantastic, really good stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And he picks up on this, of course.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us, right, that we should be slow or quick to listen and slow to speak.
SPEAKER_00: That's James that reminds us of that.
SPEAKER_00: And then in chapter three, one of my favorite parts of the Bible, love this, he gives us these beautiful pictures of how important it is that we understand how powerful the tongue is.
SPEAKER_00: Our words.
SPEAKER_00: He gives a couple of different pictures.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, he compares the tongue to the rudder of a ship.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, when you compare the size of a ship to its rudder, the rudder is so small.
SPEAKER_00: It's this tiny little component.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, what does it have the power to do?
SPEAKER_00: Direct the entire path of the ship.
SPEAKER_00: So is the tongue for the body.
SPEAKER_00: Then he gives another example.
SPEAKER_00: He says, listen, uh, you don't even realize how big of a forest fire can be created by one small flame.
SPEAKER_00: And so the tongue has power.
SPEAKER_00: The tongue has the ability to direct a lot of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have to pay attention to that.
SPEAKER_00: And if God's word has so much to say about wisdom through words, to ignore all of that sure seems to direct us toward the path of foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: So we've seen a couple now.
SPEAKER_00: The preacher has one more key to wisdom this morning that we're going to notice.
SPEAKER_00: It's point number four this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom still requires faith.
SPEAKER_00: This is verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: It says, A fool multiplies words, though no man knows what is to be, and who can tell him what will be after him?
SPEAKER_00: You see, no matter how much wisdom we attain, no matter how well we align ourselves with the way that God designed life to be lived, at the end of the day, no one knows what is to be.
SPEAKER_00: No one knows what is to be.
SPEAKER_00: We will never know exactly what the next day will bring or if there will be another day.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody can tell us what will come after us.
SPEAKER_00: So we can gather wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: We can gather wisdom, we can gather wisdom, we can gather wisdom, and we should.
SPEAKER_00: We absolutely should.
SPEAKER_00: But faith will still be required.
SPEAKER_00: Faith will still be required.
SPEAKER_00: Faith that helps you understand that your past doesn't define you.
SPEAKER_00: Faith that helps you understand that your present circumstances are for you, and faith that reminds you that there is nothing in your future that God has not already seen.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have to have faith.
SPEAKER_00: We can pursue wisdom and we should, but we're still going to need some faith because no one can know what is to come next.
SPEAKER_00: You know, throughout this series, we've talked a fair amount about how the preacher stresses over and over again that despite the fact that life is heavily, it's just a breath, that we should still enjoy life.
SPEAKER_00: That it's a gift from God.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe in Ecclesiastes chapter 10, the preacher is helping us to understand how we might find joy in a broken world, is through wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's through understanding God and understanding his word and what it tells us about him.
SPEAKER_00: It's going back to that every single time you walk through the difficulties of life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not forgetting everything you know, but it's resting in what you've learned about who God is and what he's done for you.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to our big idea.
SPEAKER_00: Now we could do what we normally do and just put the big idea up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm looking out, I'm checking.
SPEAKER_00: Yep, you look like you're ready for a challenge.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so here's what we're gonna do we're gonna look at a few not big ideas.
SPEAKER_00: What is not the big idea that we could maybe take away from this that we shouldn't?
SPEAKER_00: So don't write these down.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be three of them.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll tell you when it's time to actually write down the real big idea.
SPEAKER_00: So our first not big idea is that godly wisdom makes sense of chaos.
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
SPEAKER_00: You can gather all the godly wisdom you want.
SPEAKER_00: There's a really good chance that you're gonna walk through something in your life that's gonna make you go, why?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Read the Psalms of David.
SPEAKER_00: He'll show you.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes life just makes you go, that doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna be able to completely get out of it with godly wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna make it make sense.
SPEAKER_00: What else is not the big idea this morning?
SPEAKER_00: That godly wisdom controls the chaos.
SPEAKER_00: It's not true either.
SPEAKER_00: We all know that we do not have the control.
SPEAKER_00: We all know that we cannot change what's gonna happen tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: And we can pursue godly wisdom and we should, and we should.
SPEAKER_00: Our final not the big idea, that godly wisdom corrects the chaos.
SPEAKER_00: Same thing, we can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, it's never been ours to fix.
SPEAKER_00: It's never been ours to fix.
SPEAKER_00: It's not up to you and I.
SPEAKER_00: We can't fix what's broken in this world.
SPEAKER_00: It's not for us.
SPEAKER_00: So, what is the big idea?
SPEAKER_00: It's this that godly wisdom brings clarity to chaos.
SPEAKER_00: It brings clarity to chaos.
SPEAKER_00: I think of it a little bit like a visit to the optometrist's office.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever been to the optometrist office, you go in there, you look across the room, there's some letters on the wall across from you.
SPEAKER_00: Probably you can't read them particularly well because you're at the optometrist office.
SPEAKER_00: And then they bring this contraption up and they're like put it in front of your eyes, this like metal thing with knobs and dials and things.
SPEAKER_00: And they they show you the letters across the room, they're really blurry, you can't read them.
SPEAKER_00: And then slowly they turn dials and stuff, and they'll say, Okay, which one's clearer?
SPEAKER_00: One or two?
SPEAKER_00: Two or three.
SPEAKER_00: Have you been through this before?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, good.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the only one.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And slowly, hopefully, the letters come into better focus.
SPEAKER_00: Probably not perfect all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the times the adjustments make it worse.
SPEAKER_00: But I think that's a little bit of what godly wisdom is doing for us in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna make sense all the time.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna give us the control to fix it, it's not gonna allow us to correct it.
SPEAKER_00: But it should bring some clarity.
SPEAKER_00: To where we go, okay, listen, I don't love this situation that I'm walking through, but I know God's got it.
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't know what tomorrow's gonna look like, but I know God's got that too.
SPEAKER_00: So it brings clarity to the chaos.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to circle back because I would be remiss if I didn't focus in on for a second about the fact that we can't correct it.
SPEAKER_00: I told you it's not ours to fix.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to make sure that you understand that there's only one correction to this upside-down world, and that's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's the only correction there will ever be to an upside-down world.
SPEAKER_00: One day, Jesus is going to return.
SPEAKER_00: And when he does, Acts chapter 17 tells us that the day is coming when Jesus will judge the world in righteousness, wherein he will bring justice to a world filled with injustice.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that the day is coming when Jesus will destroy every rule, every authority, and every power.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the last enemy to be destroyed will be death.
SPEAKER_00: It's what allows us to say, oh death, where is your sting?
SPEAKER_00: O grave, where is your victory?
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, Mark mentioned this last week.
SPEAKER_00: The day is coming when Jesus will raise the dead to newness of life.
SPEAKER_00: Those who have died in Christ will be reunited to their bodies to live once again in him.
SPEAKER_00: And Revelation 21, the day is coming when Jesus will establish a new heaven and a new earth, a place where God's people can rightly dwell in his presence, and a place where every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That, only all of that will ever correct the chaos of this world.
SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, we enjoy life.
SPEAKER_00: We do so by pursuing wisdom, by understanding more and more about what is to come, by understanding more and more about what Jesus has already done for us.
SPEAKER_00: Because godly wisdom helps us understand who God is, it helps us understand how He designed life to be, it helps us understand how the world should be, if not for the curse of sin.
SPEAKER_00: There's one more thing I want to just mention real quickly that I find really encouraging about godly wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: There's always more to attain.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been following Christ for 70 or 80 years, you still have more godly wisdom you can attain.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe, God willing, somebody today says, you know what, I want to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There will always be more godly wisdom to attain.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of how long you've been following Jesus, there's more wisdom about God to pursue.
SPEAKER_00: We can always know Him better and walk with Him closer.
SPEAKER_00: So let's take the advice of the preacher and let's pursue the wisdom of God, a wisdom that helps us navigate this crazy world of ours.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for today and for this opportunity to be in your word.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for Ecclesiastes 10.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you, Father, that it reminds us that although the world is chaotic, although the world spins us around, turns us upside down, that if we understand you for who you are, there can be some clarity in that chaos.
SPEAKER_00: That hope is found in the fact that while we were still sinners, you sent your son Jesus here to die for us, to go to the cross that we rightly deserved to take our place in the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: And so we thank you so much for that.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to live, Father, with people who are faithful to you, not carried about by the winds of this world, by the ups and downs of what will come, but steadied.
SPEAKER_00: Steadied by you and by your word.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to do that, Father.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you so much for who you are, for what you've done for us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray all this in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.