Sermon Series: The Nobility of God's Nobodies

"Why?" is the Wrong Question to Ask ~ Solomon

Ecclesiastes 8:16-9:10

PSBC 11/12/00

In a nutshell: When the difficult times come that naturally make us want to ask, "Why", we can be powerful messengers of the Great Commission when we follow the advice of an ordinary man, whom God made wise--Solomon. 1. We will never know everything; 2. Learn to live with mystery; 3. Put things in the context of your life purpose; and 4. Stay focused on doing something significant.

I. Introduction

A. My mom

I wish you could have known my mom. Caryl Rietveld was an energetic woman. The wife of a farmer, and the mother of three boys. Mom could cook and bake with the best of them. Her pies, her homemade rolls and her coffee cakes were legendary. Mom was in charge of the kitchen at church. She tried teaching Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, once, and hated doing it. Teaching was not her gift, but organizing and demonstrating hospitality certainly were. I can barely remember a Sunday afternoon that we didn't have some person or some family over for dinner. And holidays were just an excuse around our home to have more people over for good food and fellowship.

When I was in college, I once brought home the entire starting offensive team–11 guys who had gone the entire fall without a home cooked meal. They descended on our house and mom fed them a pork roast dinner that filled every guy to the brim.

Thanksgiving was an event that got bigger and bigger every year, as we invited more and more friends and relatives to our home for an incredible Thanksgiving feast. It got so big, that eventually we couldn't hold everyone in our house. So we used the fellowship hall at our church, to host as many as 40 people during the course of the day. Mom really enjoyed cooking and entertaining. And she had a knack for making relatives and strangers feel equally at home.

My mom worked harder than any person I knew. She'd be up early in the morning, and go to bed late at night. She helped dad on the farm when he needed an extra hand, and she was always canning, freezing or preparing something from her large garden or from the peach, blueberry or strawberry picking-excursions she went on with her friends.

Then, the winter of 1984, I was working for Gospel Light Publications in California, and was in Chicago to speak at a Conference. My dad called my hotel room with some unbelievable news. Mom had been diagnosed with a disease called ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. A horrible disease for which there is no cure, and one that almost always meant death in about two years time.

Over time, mom started losing the ability to control her extremities. Her use of her fingers, hands, toes, feet and tongue began deteriorating. He speech became slurred and she had to use an electric three-wheeled cart to get around. The disease eventually spread to the rest of her body, and on the last Sunday in January, 1986, mom died at home--after only 56 years on this earth.

B. Transition

The question I asked throughout that entire ordeal was "Why, God?" Why my mom? Why this woman who was so loved by her church and community? Why take this woman who had the potential to do so much good? Why take her now, before her grandchildren can get to know her? Why, God, why?

By asking those questions, I was tring to make sense out of something that just didn't make sense. I was trying to understand a mystery of life--why do bad things happen to good people? Have you been there? If you haven't, you will. Because that's part of living.

As people whom God wants to use to do Great Commission work, we need to know how to handle life when it doesn't make sense. So, this morning, I want to look at the wisdom of a guy who wasn't anything special, until he asked God to give him wisdom. After that encounter Solomon became the wisest man on the face of the earth. And he has something to say to us about handling life when it doesn't make sense.

II. Exposition

A. Background

I'm going to ask you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 8. Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon about in the middle of his 40 year reign as king of Israel.

The basic premise of the book of Ecclesiastes is that significance in life is found only in a daily contact with the Living God. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon examines all aspects of daily life. He was out to try and find, through his incredible wisdom, the answers to all of life's riddles and questions. And he came to the conclusion that outside of a relationship with God, life was meaningless.

In this section, that begins with chapter 8:16, and goes through 9:10, Solomon tells us that we are to take life as it comes, and we don't have to solve all of life's mysteries. The "Why" question is the wrong question to ask. And in this section he gives us four good reasons for not needing to know why, and for not trying to solve all of the problems and questions that life throws at us.

The first reason is found in the last two verses of chapter 8...

B. The four reasons for not asking why...

1. We are never going to know everything

Eccl 8:16-17
16 When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe man's labor on earth-- his eyes not seeing sleep day or night--
17 then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it.

Here's Solomon's first reason. We are never going to know everything.

Life is too complicated, too vast, too filled with conflicting "stuff", for any one of us to figure out all the answers. Even sleepless toil will not solve all life's mysteries. Even if we would stay up all night and all day, trying to think through and understand the complicated events that affect our lives, we will never fully understand everything.

Solomon is not taking an anti-intellectual position here, and asking us to stop using our minds to reason and find answers. But he is saying that no matter how much you think and reason, mysteries are going to remain, because God is so big, His plan for the ages is so huge, and His scope is so timeless, that the totality of what He does will remain a mystery to human beings. We don't have enough data, nor do we have the capacity to hold enough data in order to see life from the Big Perspective that only God has.

We have to be content with some degree of mystery. I like what M. Scott Peck wrote, "Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult." That's shows an understanding what Solomon is essentially saying in these two verses, "We are never going to know everything. And when you come to accept that, life won't be so difficult."

2. Learn to live with mystery

The second reason for not asking "why" is found in verse one of chapter 9...

Eccl 9:1
1 So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him.

Let me paraphrase what Solomon is saying, "I have been meditating on this for a good long time. And I have come to this conclusion... the events of your life are not the final measuring stick of God's approval or disapproval."

This is concept is taught throughout the Bible...
–Solomon says in another part of Ecclesiastes that prosperity is not always a sign that God is particularly happy with you–because even the wicked prosper at times.
–In the book of Job we find an example of something terrible happening to a good man. Job's three friends thought that the bad things that happened to Job were because he did something terribly wrong. But at the end of the book, we see that that was not the case at all. Suffering and personal problems don't always come as a result of God's disapproval. To paraphrase a bumper sticker I've seen, "Stuff" happens!

Solomon's second point is this, learn to live with the mystery.

Illustration: You see, friends, we are not smart enough, we do not see enough, we are not aware enough, and we do not understand enough to figure out God. Not one of our Pentium III computers with 900 megahertz speed, 128 megabytes of RAM and 20 gigabytes of hard drive memory will answer all of life's questions. Eventually we have to agree with God's statement in Isaiah...

Isa 55:8-9
8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

When it comes to God, we know for sure that He will never act contradictory to His character, and He will never violate what He says in His Word. But beyond that, we are just not smart enough to figure Him out, or anticipate how He will choose to work.

3. Put things in the context of your life purpose

The next two verses may seem a little morbid, but it sets up what Solomon is going to say regarding the third reason for not asking "why"...

Eccl 9:2-3
2 All share a common destiny-- the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. As it is with the good man, so with the sinner; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them.
3 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.

The common destiny of every human being is that we are all eventually going to die. No matter how good you are, not matter how bad you are. No matter what your social position, no matter what your lifestyle. No matter your religious affiliation or practice..., you are going to die. The purpose of these two verse is to force us to face reality. Now that you've been set up, Solomon gives the third reason not to ask God "why"...

Eccl 9:4-6
4 Anyone who is among the living has hope–even a live dog is better off than a dead lion (good point)!
5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun.

One of the sub-points in these verses is that the purpose of your life is decided while you're alive--not when you're dead.

So, when bad things happen, or you're confronted by one of life's mysteries, the question to ask is not, "Why are these things happening?", rather, you need to ask, "What bearing do these things have on the purpose of my life?" Which means, that if you're going to determine how something affects the purpose of your life, then you must know the purpose that your life has. Or to ask it more bluntly, why do you exist?

At the half time of my life, when I was in my early 40's I asked myself that question. It took me almost a year of prayer, study and talking to older Christian men who knew me and whom I respected. And from that year of sincere searching and waiting on God, I came to this simple conclusion that I've taped in the front of my Bible... I exist as a Christian leader to do two things: 1. Guide people into a growing relationship with the Living Christ so each one will be a FORCE for Him in their homes, work and community; and 2. To train young men to be effective leaders in God's church.

Now, putting all this together, here's the third point Solomon is making regarding not asking God "why"...When you understand why you exist, the circumstances that come into you life can be viewed in the context of that calling, not just the context of your convenience. Or to put it in a simpler form– Put things in the context of your life's purpose.

Friends, I would urge every one of you, regardless of your age, to come up with an answer to that important question, "Why do I exist?" Solomon says, "When you're dead, it's too late to answer that question." And it's only in the context of your life's purpose, can life's mysteries make sense.

4. Stay Focused on making your life count for something

The final reason for not asking "why" when difficult times come is found in verses 7-10..

Eccl 9:7-10
7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do.
8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil.
9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun-- all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun.
10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

Illustration: When I was in high school, we didn't have a football team at our school. The closest thing we had by way of fall sports was soccer. So, I went out for soccer. I couldn't run very fast, and I couldn't dribble the ball with my feet very well, so the coach put me in as goalie. I didn't have to do much, just stop the ball from going into the goal, any way I knew how.

Well, in one game, the ball was kicked in my direction, and right behind the ball were two guys from the opposing team who had broken free from our defenders. All I could focus on was getting that ball that was bouncing toward me before the other guys to kick it into the goal. I went charging for the ball, and the two opposing players were charging after the ball–we were on a collision course. I grabbed the ball in mid-bounce, just as the two opposing players ran into me, and my teammates said both guys fell to the ground.

I didn't even realize that we had collided. All I could focus on was going after the ball, getting the ball in my hands, and not letting the ball go into the goal.

And that's Solomon's last point. Stay focused on making your life count for something. When you do this, the mysteries of life won't trouble you. The mysteries and the "why" questions will bounce off of you, because you're so focused on enjoying your life by making it count for something significant.

In verse 8, Solomon tells us how to focus on making your life count...

a. First he says, "do your going, clothed in white." Clothed in white is a metaphor that indicates righteousness. When you eat, when you drink, when you enjoy your marriage and family, when you work, do all these things in righteousness. In other words, don't do them out of selfishness. Don't do them out of gluttony. Don't do them with greed or envy. Have pure motives. Operate like Jesus would operate if He were living in your skin and doing what you're doing.

b. Second, he says, "do your going with your head anointed with oil." Does that mean slicking your hair back? Does that mean looking like Pastor Darrell?!

No. Oil was a symbol in the Old Testament of the presence of God. What Solomon is saying is, "Keep God in every part of your life." Francis Wesley gave me a quote from a devotional a while ago. I like it so much that I keep it under my desk pad so I don't forget it's wisdom. It speaks directly to this point: "Lord, help me live each day so that at the end of it there is nothing that I did not share with you!" Don't compartmentalize your life. Include God in everything!

If you haven't figure it out, what we're talking about is the simple act of submitting to His Lordship in your life. You do that by making a commitment to be righteous in everything you do, and make the conscious effort to include God in every decision, every relationship, every situation, and every thing you find yourself in during the course of the day.

III. Conclusion

On the front of your bulletins this morning, I've included a quote from Henri Nouwen that I think is a good way to close this morning's message...

A careful look at the gospels shows that Jesus seldom accepted the questions posed to him. He exposed them as coming from the house of fear. ... To none of these questions did Jesus give a direct answer. He gently put them aside as questions emerging from false worries. They were raised out of concern for prestige, influence, power, and control. They did not belong to the house of God. (Henri J. M. Nouwen in Lifesigns. Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 4.)

Friends, God wants to use each person in this room to advance His Kingdom into the hearts and lives of the people we know in the Coachella valley. But He can't use people who question Him with the wrong motives or with a selfish focus. People who set themselves up as the center of the universe and demand from God that He explain Himself at every turn, reveal that they have nothing to offer anyone who is seeking to be reconciled to the God of heaven.

The longer I live and the more relationships I intentionally develop with non-believing people, the more I come to realize that one of the greatest ways we can be links in the chain of events to lead someone to faith in Jesus Christ, is for them to observe our calmness, peace, contentment and assurance when the difficult times of life come our way. When they see our trust that our loving heavenly Father knows what He's doing, they will want that same assurance for their lives, as well. So remember, when the "why" questions start to appear in your life...
1. Realize you will never know everything;
2. Learn to live with mystery;
3. Put things in the context of your life purpose; and
4. Stay focused on doing something significant.
Amen.