Introduction
- We have seen the value of community followed by the proper way a community is to approach God, namely with reverence.
- Here, we add another essential ingredient to the fulfilled life—joy.
Read Ecclesiastes 5:8-20
- Periods of transition create anxious feelings. Mostly revolve around uncertainty about the future. I get worried when things are out of my control, almost everything is!
- We all have guilt and emotional baggage. We perpetuate the cycle of guilt by repeated failure. Since we’re so uncomfortable with those feelings we tend to suppress them.
- We do this with God and others.
- Although they often drive our decisions…status and wealth will never provide the joy that flows from a grateful heart.
- Power, wealth, bankruptcy, but the underlying emotional damage is universal:
- You Can Be Filled With Anxiety (8-12)
- You Can Be Filled With Shame (13-17)
- You Can Be Filled With Joy (18-20)
You Can Be Filled With Anxiety (8-12)
- Trust in the government (8-9):
- 8 Officials support one another = oppression. Not condoning oppression, but shouldn’t be surprised.
- Maybe you don’t feel oppressed, but you feel unheard.
- 9 Still a corrupt ruler > anarchy, because they ensure production (food and jobs).
- Our hope is in a righteous Ruler (Isa. 9:6-7).
- Trust in wealth (10-12):
- 10 The lover of money accumulates goods to no end. Never satisfied.
Kidner If anything is worse than the addiction money brings, it is the emptiness it leaves.
- John D. Rockefeller was asked how much money was enough, to which he responded, “Just a little bit more.” Money never satisfies our craving for more. The same could be said for power. Those who have it always want more.
- 11 Increased goods = increased consumers (government, children, freeloaders).
- 12 Laborers sleeps sweetly. Rich can’t sleep because they’re bloated and gassy.
- Some of you, clearly don’t get enough sleep. Always nodding off right about now.
- Insomnia in America:
- 30-35% suffer briefly
- 15-20% disorder 3mos
- 10% chronic (3x/wk)
- Women > Men (twice)
- Cause: Worrying (work, family, money)
- Cannot serve God and wealth (Matt 6:24).
- Maybe you aren’t chasing more money, but you haven’t been able to sleep.
- Here this promise from Psalm 127:2.
Anxiety often gives way to…
You Can Be Filled With Shame (13-17)
- Lose everything (13-15):
- Someone works and stores up his wealth and loses it all with one bad decision. No inheritance.
- He dies naked, just like he came into the world.
- What’s the gain for someone like him? This is a tragedy without a happy ending.
- It serves as a warning. Don’t let this happen to you.
- Implication: Do your best to leave something for your children (Prov. 13:22)! But don’t let that mission become your ultimate mission.
- Live in isolation (16-17):
- Unable to enjoy the fruit of his labor, filled with “vexation and sickness and anger.”
- Close yourself off from everyone. Pain of own conscience.
- Does the shame of failure keep you isolated? Shame discourages community. Only those secure in their relationships can be vulnerable. Where vulnerability lacks, shame increases. Unexpressed shame compounds itself.
- All of us at various points experience seasons of oppression, sleepless nights, and shameful loss.
- How do we cope with that? Do we suppress it? Do we run away and hide? Do we retaliate and lash out against anyone who “makes” us feel those things? All of those reactions are common, but not healthy.
- The solution to anxiety and shame is not to strive harder to maintain power and hold onto the wealth.
It’s much more simple than that…
You Can Be Filled With Joy (18-20)
- Consider the gifts of God (18-19):
- 18 Contrast with those who can’t enjoy their wealth (6:1-6).
- 19 Regardless of your status/possessions, enjoy the work and reward.
- Wealth and position can enhance joy when it is not your purpose for living (1 Timothy 6:17).
- Solomon received wealth and honor because he didn’t ask for them.
- “Eat and drink” > companionship. Joy > community.
- Enjoy them without reservation (20):
- Gratitude journals aren’t “new.”
- Laugh now, analyze later.
- Capture the moment, not the selfie!
- The Soul of Shame by Curt Thompson:
The defining relational motif for humankind is not that we need to work as hard as we can, or at least harder than we are. It is not to do our best or to guarantee that our children will have a better life than we had. It is not about being right or the acquisition of power. Each of those (and other visions like them) play into the hand of shame’s anxiety. No – rather, we were created for joy. Not a weak and watery concept of joy that merely dilutes our sadness and pain. Rather it is the hard deck on which all of life finds its legs, a byproduct of deeply connected relationships in which each member is consummately known.
- Joy = feeling accepted for who we are.
In…
Conclusion
- We become such experts at suppressing anxiety and shame we don’t notice our lack of joy.
- But Jesus knows.
Isaiah 53:3-4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
- Jesus felt your anxiety, bore your shame, and carried your sorrows on the cross.
- That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t feel them anymore, but you know there’s no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.