Enjoy Life...Now!

A lot of folks have the idea that if you're really spiritual then you'll be very serious that you'll have that kind of long face that's pictured in this well-known painting on the screen. Certainly you will not smile very much. Rarely would you ever laugh. Certainly you wouldn't think about laughing at a joke or certainly not telling a joke. That would be below someone who is really spiritual. If you're really spiritual some people think you're the kind of person that you walk into a room and you have those words to say that just create a holy hush over everyone. That seems to be the idea of many people as to what those in spiritual leadership should be especially. You know those who are deacons and pastors, you ever heard the expression, he's a sober as a deacon. You ever wonder where that came from? It came from the idea that church leaders are supposed to have this stooped shoulder, long faced, tired blood overextended. I'm bearing such a heavy load look. I heard a story one time of a lady who was in a grocery store in gentleman behind her very serious dignified looking man and she turned to him smiled, said, are you a minister? He said no, but I have been sick lately. And sometimes that may explain it. That look. What a terrible way to have an effect on people for the glory of Christ. To be able to communicate or to communicate to them that you get what we've got and your life will be miserable. Promise you. It's not a very effective testimony. I want to remind you that in the later part of the book of the latter part of the book of Ecclesiastes as we've been seeing Solomon is pulling together as Al said many of the strands of truth that he's developed throughout the book. He has told us that life is to be lived primarily on the basis of a relationship with God and we know this side of the cross that comes through a relationship with Jesus Christ as our Savior. And then understanding that God has a perfect plan and purpose for everything that happens in life and learning to see life from his perspective, Solomon then draws all of that together and says, okay, here is how you should live life. You should live life first of all by being joyful. We saw that in chapter 9. Be joyful. See all of life as a gift from God, a good gift to be enjoyed thoroughly. Find joy in the blessing of the good life that God has given you. And then he says we should live by being enthusiastic. He says whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. You only have one opportunity at this day, this week, this month, this life. You only have one opportunity at that. He says, and so grab whatever God puts in front of you each day and live with enthusiasm. And then he says, live with involvement. Be involved in life. He says in chapter 9, the race is not always to the swift. The battle is not always to the strong. Life is unpredictable. You can't always determine or know ahead of time how it's going to turn out, how anything may turn out that you do. But don't let that stop you. Don't let that paralyze you. Stay involved. Stay engaged in life. And God will bring good things and reward and blessing your way. If you stay faithful and committed and involved in life. So live by being involved. He says, and then he says be realistic. As you live this way, there will be people who do not understand or appreciate your efforts or the way you're living or what you do for Christ. And so even your wisdom may not be appreciated sometimes. And he says, don't let that stop you. It's still right to live for Christ and to live with wisdom. And so stay realistic about others' appreciation of your efforts. And he says, live with wisdom. There should be the absence of folly and a calmness and a caution and a discipline and a discernment that speaks of wisdom in your life. And then we saw last week, he says, live with boldness. Be willing to cast your bread upon the waters, be willing to take some risks in faith, be willing to step out even when you cannot be assured that everything is going to work out right, be willing to take some of those risks in faith. Then this morning in chapter 11 of Ecclesiastes verses 7 through 10, we come to kind of a repeat principle. Once again, Solomon will say, be joyful. We've already seen that in chapter 9. And so it might seem kind of strange that Solomon would take one of these and repeat it. But when you remember that this is a common theme throughout the whole book, in fact, it is the strand that I believe ties the book together. We've seen it on six or seven occasions already, this theme of being joyful or enjoying life. Then it's no surprise that Solomon would deal with this one twice when he's talking about the proper approach to life. The little twist he adds this time is that we should enjoy life now. We should not be waiting for something to come around the corner that will give us joy or make us happy in life. We should enjoy life now. And so since God wants us to enjoy life, Solomon in this passage gives us six imperatives for a joyful lifestyle. Six commands, six things we must do. These are imperatives for a joyful lifestyle. Let's look at them this morning. Please ask these chapter 11. We pick it up in verse seven. The first imperative for a joyful lifestyle is this. Develop a positive outlook. Look at verse seven. Light is sweet and it pleases the eyes to see the sun. Now we all recognize the truth of this, the joy that a sunrise brings, or the sun breaking out from the clouds, or a beautiful sparkling sunny day that comes on the heels of a string of gray overcast days. We all enjoy that. We all enjoy seeing the sun. But Solomon uses this blessing of nature to describe more than just enjoying sunset since sunrise is in sunny days. That's not really his point. His point is to use that terminology as a word picture for an approach to life. And here's why I believe he's talking more about just the blessing of seeing the sun. He's talking about an approach to life. Often in the Old Testament, the word light is used in parallelism with joy or life. Real life or joy is described in terms of life. Look at a couple of examples. Job, chapter three, and verse 20 on the screen. Why is light given to those in misery and life to the bitter of soul? Now this is good Hebrew poetry. Good Hebrew poetry doesn't rhyme, but it is parallel in structure. And there are usually two parts to a verse or to a thought, and those parts sometimes contrast one another. They sometimes complete the first, where sometimes they are really parallel in the sense that they say the same thing in different words. This is a good example of that one. So light is equivalent to life. Those in misery is equivalent to those bitter of soul. So he's saying the same thing, but he's saying it in two different ways. So light is used for life. Joyful life. Also in the Job, chapter 30, Job uses this again. When he says, yet when I hoped for good, evil came. When I looked for light, then came darkness. Again, parallel thoughts saying the same thing using different words. So here, light is equivalent to that which is good in life. I looked for good. I looked for light. So light means that which is good, but notice this one in Psalm 97, where it's very clear. Psalm 97, light shines on the righteous and joy on the upright in heart. Light is equivalent to joy. So sometimes in the Old Testament, particularly, the word light is used to symbolize or to communicate this idea of a good, joyful life. Those words kind of come together with the word light. And I think that's what Solomon's talking about here, because he says this light, this joyful approach to life, he says, is sweet and it pleases the eyes to see the sun. Again, the word picture is that this approach to life is both sweet and pleasant or good to the eyes. Two thoughts there, the word sweet, that word is often used in the Old Testament, most often used in the Old Testament of honey, something that is sweet to the taste and to be savored. Honey is sweet and you savor that taste. And so what Solomon is saying here is that a joyful approach to life, life is to be seen as something sweet, something that is joyfully given to us by God and is to be savored, to be enjoyed moment by moment. And then it is pleasing to the eyes pleasant or good in and of itself. A joyful approach to life means that we see life this way. It is a gift from God to be enjoyed, savored, just like savoring sweet honey. And it is good in and of itself. It is pleasing to the eye. So that is to be our approach to life. Now we have talked about that before. But I want you to understand, I want to make sure that you see, this is not some kind of self-help, positive thinking, pop psychology stuff. This is not what we are talking about here. This is not written by Norman Vincent Peel or someone like that, this is written by God. And what God is saying is that you choose to focus on what you have to be joyful about. That is what I mean when I say develop a positive outlook. I am not some kind of self-help, positive thinking person. But I do want to be a biblical person. And biblically, what Solomon is saying and what God is telling us is that you can choose to have two different outlooks on life. You can choose either one of these. You can choose to focus on that which is negative, that which is hard, that which is painful. You can choose to focus on that or you can choose to focus on that which is joyful in life. And seeing life as a good gift of God will see just a little bit later even the pain of life can be seen in that light. You can choose how you will approach life. You can choose your outlook on life. And what Solomon is saying is that ought to be one characterized by a light joy. We can focus on that which is joyful. So develop a positive outlook as an imperative for a joyful lifestyle. The second imperative is this. Enjoy every stage of your life. Enjoy every stage of your life. And this is one that increasingly challenges me. Enjoy every stage of your life. Look at how Solomon says it in verse 8. He says, however many years anyone may live, let them enjoy them all. Do you see what he's saying there? This is the basic principle. No matter how many years you live, no matter how long you live, Solomon says God is telling us the proper approach to life is to enjoy all of those years. Enjoy every phase and stage of life. In fact, he will go on to mention at least four stages of life in these next few verses. Look at this carefully. Verse 9. He says, you who are young, be happy while you are young and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. The word that's translated young and youth here is a word which basically spanned the time period of life and the Old Testament from infancy through young adulthood. So we might say this covers at least two phases or stages of life, your childhood and young adulthood. Now look at verse 10, the end of the verse says, for youth and vigor are meaningless. I will see a little bit later what that idea of meaningless means. It doesn't mean that it's bad or that it's empty and futile. There's another idea here. We'll get to that in a moment. But I would just want to pick out the word youth and vigor. The word youth again summarizes that childhood, early adulthood, young adulthood phases of life. But the word vigor really is a word which communicates the prime of life. You're not a young adult anymore, but you're really in the prime of your life. It's middle age. But then he talks about the fact that these are meaningless. We'll see later that that means they are fleeting. They pass quickly. And so implied in that comment is old age as well. And so Solomon really is painting a picture for us and he will develop the old age one as he goes on into chapter 12. We'll see that next time. But he's really developing for us here four different stages of life. Childhood, young adulthood, the prime of life and old age. And what he's saying basically foundationally in verse 8 is no matter what stage of life you are in, no matter how many years you may live, enjoy them all. Enjoy them all. In other words, enjoy them as you pass through them. Don't wait thinking that joy comes around the corner in the next phase of your life. Enjoy it now. So let me say this to all of those who are here who are younger and I realize the younger children are downstairs in other parts of the building. But for those of you who are younger and I'll say this to parents as well, enjoy your childhood and parents let your children be children. We live in a culture today that pushes our kids to try to be adults by the time they're 10. If we don't have a superstar or a child prodigy or a brilliant Einstein in our hands by the time we're 10, we feel like we failed. As a parent those kind of kids are rare. Little weird too, but they're rare. Sorry. Let your kids be kids. Let them be children. I recognize there is a part of parenting which stretches and trains and teaches and pulls them up to the next level. I recognize that. I understand the whole tiger mom concept. I'm not into that. Not a mom for one thing, but I'm not really into that kind of parenting, but I understand the concept of stretching your kids and helping them to learn and grow and so forth. But if your child and it starts, it starts really young, doesn't it? If my child is not walking by the time they're a month old, something's wrong, you know, and we got to push them and push them and do things faster than anybody else in recorded human history. That's crazy. Let your kids be kids. Let them enjoy their childhood. You know, a genius in the face of life. Now our kids are grown and gone and and we miss. We miss. Believe it or not, the noise in the house and the mess in the house. We miss that. Now I know what some of you are thinking. I'll bring my kids over Tuesday night. You can have them all evening. I'm not offering that, but you know, we kind of miss that. And so we love when the grandkids are over. We've got a grand kid corner in our house. It's toys and we don't care what they do with those toys. They can throw them anywhere, put them all over the floor after all. We get to send them home after a couple hours. So we just let them have fun. We miss those childhood years of our kids being little. Don't fly by those years without letting your kids be kids. I will never forget something that happened when Amy and Ruth, our older two, were young children. They were not yet in their teens and this was in the middle 80s. I was pastoring in Indiana. We were living there. Jeannie had just started work at Grace College and Seminary in the financial aid department. And I was full time in Seminary and full time pastoring a church. And so kind of it was a busy time of our lives. And Amy and Ruth were young. They were not yet. I don't think 10 years old yet. At least Ruth wasn't. And it was summertime. And in the summertime when Jeannie was working, we would sometimes have a lady in our church keep the girls for a few hours by the name of Bonnie Sleaster. And I remember this one day. I had a funeral that day and I decided to take Amy and Ruth with me. I thought, you know, real teachable moment where I can impress upon them the really deep and important lessons of life and death. And there are wonderful teachable moments like that that should be seized by every parent. But I'll never forget on this one occasion, Ruth was always a straight shooter. And she still is. She always just says it like it is. And so she looked up being she said, daddy, I don't want to go. I don't like seeing dead people and Bonnie has puppies at her house. You know, how do you argue with that? You know, I mean, there is a time for children to learn those difficult lessons of life and that life has stages and so forth. But you know what, there's also time for them to play with puppies. And let them play with the puppies. Don't force them to grow up too quickly. Enjoy your childhood. And then I would say this, teenagers, enjoy your teen years. Enjoy, I know that they are full of painful adjustments. I know they're full of growing experiences and uncertainties and doubts. I know that. One of the reasons why I don't believe in purgatory is I went through the middle school years. You know, I understand that I don't believe in purgatory for other reasons that are a little more theological, but that's one reason, for sure. I know there are challenges. There are times of doubt and insecurity and all, but enjoy those teenage years. You only have one opportunity to live those. Enjoy those years. And parents, don't get so bent out of shape and uptight over everything. And I did my share of that too. Looking back on it now, I think I did too much of that. Enjoy those teenage years with your kids. And then enjoy a young adulthood. It doesn't matter where you are in that phase of your life. If you're single, don't live as though joy will only come when I find Mr. Ride or misperfect. Enjoy the years that God's given you, where you are now and as you are now, let him bring along the other stages in his own time and his own way. If you're engaged, enjoy that. If you're married with young children and you'll feel like you'll never, ever in your life get another night of sleep, enjoy that because there will come those days. Believe it or not, when you will miss all that noise and activity around the house. So enjoy those years, those young adult years. And then enjoy the other phase that Solomon says, he talks about, the prime of life or old age. And by the way, those are really the same. Prime is what you call it, old age is what everybody else calls it. I'm in the prime of my life, I know. Enjoy those years. I know they have their share of pain. I know they have their share of physical challenges, emotional challenges, just life phase challenges. But don't become cynical, don't become negative. Enjoy those years from the perspective of being able to look back on a lifetime and of being able to enjoy what God has for you now and seeing what he has for you in the future. Enjoy those years. That's what Solomon's saying. Enjoy every stage of life. Don't live your life thinking of what it's going to be like in the future and thinking joy is just around the corner. God intends for you to enjoy life and take it a day at a time as he's given it to you now. That's the only way you will invest your life wisely and use it for his glory. If you're always waiting for the next stage thinking that's when I'll really make something. I'll really count for God then. I'll make a difference then. You will never end up doing it. Use your life for God's glory right now. Where you are, wherever he has you, whatever phase of life it is. That's a very important imperative and principle for a joyful lifestyle. Third one is this. Also in verse 8, be realistic about the dark days. Here's some balance. Here's some balance. Be realistic about the dark days. Verse 8, however many years anyone may live, let them enjoy them all, but he says let them remember the days of darkness for there will be many. Everything to come is meaningless. What does he mean by that? Well it's obvious that he means first of all there will be some dark days. Not everything in life is enjoyable. Not every experience is enjoyable. Not every experience in life feels good or looks good at the time. There are some dark days. Solomon says there will be many of them. They may be dark emotionally. They may be dark physically. They may be dark spiritually. But they're dark days. Be realistic about those. You will hurt. You will have days of pain and difficulty and trial. And when Solomon says everything to come is meaningless. He's not saying that it's all empty. The rest of life is empty. Now this is a word that he's used often. He's used 31 times in the book of Ecclesiastes. And it can be it has different shades of meaning. Sometimes it means empty or vanity or meaningless as it's often translated. That's the main meaning. But it also has a few other shades. It has the idea of being a vapor, of being something that comes quickly and then passes quickly. So it can mean fleeting, which I believe it does in verse 10. Here I believe it has the the idea of unpredictable. It's like it's here and it's gone. You're really not sure what's going to happen in the future. The days ahead are unpredictable. There are dark days. Yes, no matter how many days you live, he says, enjoy them all because there will be some dark days and you have no way to predict which is coming in the future. That's what he's saying. Everything ahead is unpredictable. So seize the joy of life that God has given you now and recognize realistically there will be some dark days. That's going to happen. But wait a second, for the believer, you can find joy even in the dark days. Can't you? Isn't that what James says? And James chapter one verses two through four. Look at it. James chapter one on the screen. Consider it pure joy. My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. Okay, now let's stop right there. You see that the juxtaposition of those two ideas, you see the balance of those two ideas, joy on the one hand, but trials on the other. And he says, when you are in the trials, you can consider it to be a joyful experience. It doesn't feel joyful. It doesn't look joyful. It's a dark day, but you can consider it joy. How can you do that? Read on. He says, because, because, here's how. Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. That's strength. That's the ability to hold up under the pressure. And he says, let that perseverance finish its work. In other words, God is using the trial to produce that patience, perseverance, bearing up under the load. Make you stronger. You know, it's like lifting weights. The load pushing against it will make you ultimately stronger. Let that finish its work. Let God do that. So that here's the end result so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Here's what God's saying. I lay some heavy trial on you. It's like a weight. It's like a burden. It's hard. It's a dark day. Yes. But what I'm doing is I'm developing your strength. I'm developing your perseverance. And if you will let that continue to work, if you'll lean into it, if you'll push, if you will, if you will persevere, stay in there. Trust me. Rather than bailing out or getting bitter against me, then you'll find yourself stronger, more complete, more mature, lacking nothing, which means you are well-rounded in your character spiritually. God can use the dark days to develop you spiritually so you can consider that experience to be joyful even when you're in the middle of it. Ah, that's the genius, the beauty of knowing Christ. Yes, there will be dark days. Solomon says, live every phase of your life with joy. Being realistic about the fact there will be some hard days, some difficult days, some dark days. But even in those, I can trust that God is doing a work in my life to produce Christ-like character. And thus, even in those days, the question then becomes for the believer not why, but what? Rather than saying, why, Lord, why, Lord, why, Lord, ask him what? Lord, what is it that you're teaching me? What is it about my character you're wanting to sharpen and make more like yours? And I'm going to look forward to that. It's not easy getting there. I'll admit that, Lord, but what is it you're wanting to teach me? What is it about you? You want me to see the question then becomes not why, but what? It's not a question of anger against God. It's a question of anticipation of what he's seeking to do. Now, I'll be the first to admit that's a lot easier on paper than it is in the middle of the trial in your heart. But isn't that what Christian growth is all about? God says we are transformed from the inside out by doing what? Renewing our minds. We learn to think biblically. And rather than thinking naturally, our first response, why? It's difficult, it's dark. We begin to train ourselves to think biblically. What, Lord, what? What are you teaching me? What is it about you that I can learn? What is it in my life you're wanting to produce? Lord, you said in your word that you were going to teach me well-rounded me spiritually, develop me in maturity if I would stick it out through this trial and trust you. I'm looking forward to what's on the other side. What is it you're going to do? Be realistic about the dark days, but even in those you can find joy. Imperative number four in verse nine. Do the things you really enjoy in life. Now, if you about ready to go to sleep, wake up. Wake up because if you don't, you'll misunderstand what I'm going to say here. Do the things you really enjoy in life. Now, this first of all, see how Solomon says it, then we'll unpack it a little bit. Verse nine, you who are young, be happy while you're young, let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, there's the phrase right there that I'm looking for, that middle part of the verse. Now, I know some of you are already jumping to the end of the verse and you're saying, oh, wait a second, notice how it ends, but know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. Now, if you're not careful, you'll misunderstand that. If you're not careful, you're think that Solomon is saying, well, just go ahead, do whatever you want to, and God's going to get you for it, too. That's not what he's saying. Put the whole verse together. He begins by saying, you who are young, be happy while you're young, let, now notice this phrase, let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. What he's saying is find your joy, the kind of joy that comes from within, from your heart, in the scriptures, that kind of joy is the kind of joy that begins with a relationship with God. It's what he's focused on in the early part of the book. Where do you find joy, meaning purpose, fulfillment, all of those things in life? Where do you find it? He dealt with that in the very first part of the book. You don't find it in more knowledge, you don't find it in more possessions, you don't find it in more pleasure, you don't find it in more fun, you find it in a relationship with God. That's where joy comes in the heart. And so what he's he's he's packing all of that early meaning that he's already dealt with into this expression. And what he's saying is when I'm talking about letting your heart give you joy, I'm talking about the kind of joy I was talking about in chapters one and two. I'm talking about having a relationship with God that puts him first in your life that seeks to do his will, whatever he wants, whatever pleases him. And if you're doing that, then you read the next part of the verse. Follow the ways of your heart, whatever your eyes see. Now if you desire in your heart and life out of a relationship with Christ to please and honor him, to live your life to his glory, and that is truly the delight and desire of your heart, then you can do what your heart desires. And whatever your eyes see to do, and it will be pleasing to God. But you've got to have that first part in place. Now we'll see how the last part of the verse does put a check on that, but please understand what he's saying here. He's saying your heart is right with God, then do what's in your heart. David said it this way in Psalm 37, one of my favorite passages. He says, take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. David is saying the same thing, Solomon's saying. He's saying your goal in life, young people please, please hear this, your goal in life is not necessarily to find the will of God. Okay, now follow me, don't, don't lose me here, or no, let me lose you. Your goal in life is not necessarily to find the will of God. Your goal in life is to live in such a way that your heart is focused on him and you delight in him and you seek to glorify him with your whole life. Otherwise what John Piper talks about, I'm not wasting your life. Your goal in life is to glorify him. If you delight in him, then he will give you the desires of your heart. In two ways, first of all, he will place within you desires in your heart. He'll give you in that sense the desires of your heart. The desires of your heart then will be those that are placed there by him and then he will give them to you in the sense that he will grant them. He will help them to be fulfilled. So you see, the will of God is not, is not some mysterious purpose and plan out there that I've got to find exactly what the steps are. The will of God basically is to delight in him, to focus up on him and then he places in your heart what his desires are and he gives them to you. He fulfills them. So what is my goal to try to read all the circumstances of life like T. Leaves, to figure out what God's telling me to do? No. A God may use circumstances to confirm his direction in your life, but my goal is to place my delight and focus up on the Lord and then he will circumstantially arrange things and also place within my heart what he wants me to do. I think for too long, too many, too many times in the past, at least when I was a kid and through Bible college and so forth, we would often kind of communicate this concept. I certainly got it in Bible college. You need to be sold out to the Lord and seeking His will and when He asked you to do something, it's going to hurt. It's going to be miserable. It'll be the last thing you would have ever thought about doing. You would have hated it, but it'll be His will for you and He'll give you joy and pleasure in doing it. I think that's terrible advice. I think that's unbiblical counsel because I think we got a bigger God than that. I think the Bible teaches God shapes us before we're ever born in our mother's womb. Read Psalm 139. Part of those unformed parts he's talking about, literally part of it is the Hebrew expression for your personality, the way you're made on the inside and God shapes all of that to fit exactly what He wants you to do in life. Then He brings experiences into your life to shape that and mold that and give you certain desires and heart inclinations in life. And what the Bible teaches is that if you desire to follow Him with all of your heart, then He will place in your heart the desire for what He wants you to do. And it'll be exactly what you want to do because it fits best with your personality. It fits best with your heart inclination, your motivation in life, and He will use all of that to direct you in the way He wants you to go. That's what the Bible teaches. What is it? What is a call to the pastrid or a call to the ministry? You know what it is? You know what Paul says it is? First Timothy 3, 1. Look at this verse. Paul told Timothy, here is a trustworthy saying, whoever desires or aspires to be an overseer, overseers another word for pastor, desires a noble task. And then he says, okay, let's go on to see if you're qualified. Here's the list of qualifications. But it begins with a desire. And it's more than a passing whim. It's a burden. It's a growing desire, a conviction that this is what God has made you for and you can't get away from it. Now that I think is the biblical pattern of following the Lord and figuring out what He wants you to do. It's not some mystical reading road signs. It is focusing upon Him and letting Him bring to our lives who He's made us and what He's gifted us to do and the heart desires that He's placed within us. Those are the kind of questions we want to ask. Now, it is in that biblical framework that I say, do the things you really enjoy in life. I'm not talking about living it up to please your sinful nature. I'm talking about living to be exactly who God created you to be. And along with that is the passion and the burden and the desire that He places in your heart. For some people, for me, I identified it when I was 17 years old. It was to preach the word. And that has stuck with me for what is it 20 years now since then? Something like that. But it's never left me. It's never left me. And it is still my passion. And I hope it will be till the day I die. I may get to a point where I'll no longer be able to pass to a church. But I'm like Chuck Swindall. I heard him say one time, I want to die in the pulpit. My chin hit it on the way down. That's what I want to do. That's what I want to do. That's my passion. That's how God made me to be. I know that. Now, God may put a different passion and desire in your heart. It may be to be a welder. It may be to be a teacher. It may be to take the gospel to the far reaches of the world. The people who've never heard it. And your heart beats with that. And you're passionate for that. And you can't escape that. It may be to meet the physical needs of people in your neighborhood or a downtrodden part of town or part of the world that doesn't have the resources we have. You see, God places in our hearts the desires that He wants us to have if we are focused on following Him. Do the things you really enjoy in life. Just make sure you're focused on Him. But here is the caution. And it is imperative. Number five, remember your accountability to God in the verse nine. But know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. That is a caution. That is kind of a catch on the tendency of our sinful nature to say, oh, I can do whatever I want to. We, I'm free. I can do whatever I want. Man, I love sin. I love this. I'm going to do what I want. That's what the preacher said. Didn't he? No, that's not what I said. But just so that you don't read it that way. God puts that caution in there. Remember, remember, you will stand before God someday and give an account for how you lived out your life. It is a check on that statement. But I think it goes further than that. In the flow of thought here, I think what Solomon is also saying is he's giving us a reminder that God will judge how well we celebrated the good life he gave us. Did we live out our lives to the full, enjoying every moment God gave us? Did we enjoy the labor he gave us, the love he gave us, the life he gave us? Or were we always waiting for something different around the corner and wasted our lives? I think we'll give an account to God for that. And I think primarily that's what Solomon is talking about here. Quickly, number six, deal with joy killers. Deal with joy killers. If you're going to live a joyful lifestyle, they're going to be things that will kill that, try to destroy it. You got to deal with those, verse 10. He says, so then, if you're going to live this way, so then banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body for youth and vigor. The prime of life are meaningless in the sense of they are unpredictable and they are fleeting. In other words, life passes by pretty quickly. And again, you can live in such a way that you are consumed with both mental and physical anxiety and pain. Or you can live in a different way. You can, as he says, banish anxiety from your heart, cast off the troubles of your body. What's he talking about there? He's talking first of all about mental and then secondly about physical joy killers. Mental ones, he says banish anxiety from your heart. The word anxiety is a very rich word. It carries several different ideas in the original language. It has the idea of anger, resentment. It can mean worry, it can mean irritation, it can mean vexation to be vexed because of that anger and irritation in your life. You can live that way if you choose to. You can get angry and vexed about everything that happens to you. You can be worried about everything that may or may not happen to you. You can live that way if you choose to. And you will destroy the joy of life. Solomon says, if you're going to live a joyful life, you've got the banish anxiety from your heart. Now sometimes that gets so deep rooted and there are so many root causes of it that it may take professional help. It may take you sitting down with someone that can help you dig all that stuff out and deal with it and learn how to reprogram your thoughts. Hopefully that is a Christian counselor because the only way a character transformation takes place, I will say again, is through renewing your mind, learning to think differently. Romans 12 too. So if you get some pop psychologists who just feed you a bunch of dribble, you'll never get your mind renewed. You'll never learn to think a different way. If it's someone who understands the scriptures and what the Bible teaches about real transformation from the inside out, then you'll get some help about learning how to think differently. Learning how to identify those worrisome, vexing, angry, resentful, bitter thoughts. Learning how to identify them and reprogram your mind to be renewed to think godly thoughts. You'll get help with that. So there's mental joy killers. There are also physical joy killers. He says, cast off the troubles of your body. You're thinking, John, I wish it were that easy. I wish it were that easy just to say, okay, I've got this terrible arthritis. Cast it off. It's gone. Really? No. Not necessarily what he's saying. Two things I think you may be saying here. Number one is there are things that we do to ourselves physically that cause us pain as we get older or even in younger years. Obviously there are some things we can put away lifestyle choices that we can put away that bring physical harm to our bodies. Alcohol, drugs, tobacco, too much food, wrong kind of food, the unbridled expression of sexual desire, even overwork and over commitment. Any of those things can destroy you physically. So obviously, saying cast off those things that bring physical harm. But he's also saying focus, focus as you grow older on joy and the blessings God has given you and how you can use whatever energy and focus you have even with the inevitable pain of aging. And with the aging process comes inevitable physical breakdowns. It's going to happen to all of us at some point. I mean, stuff's not going to work forever, right? Not here in this physical body. And so we're going to start suffering the effects of the aging process. And when that happens to cast off the troubles of your body, doesn't necessarily mean that you get rid of the pain, but the trouble that it causes you, the difficulty that it causes you, the desire to give up and quit that it may bring to your life, you can deal with that. Here's what Solomon's saying in closing. Are you enjoying life or are you just enduring life? That would be a good question for us to go home with today. Am I enjoying life or am I enduring it? You know what it's like to endure life? It's living life waiting for things to change. That's enduring life. It's waiting until Mr. Wright or Miss Perfect comes along. It's waiting until I have all that I want. It's waiting for real joy and fulfillment in life until I start a family or until I can change my boss or until things change at home or until I've achieved all my goals or until I reach a certain age. That's enduring life because you're always waiting for it to come around the corner to bring your joy. My friend, if you live life that way, then you will always be waiting for something to come around the corner until the day you die. You're just enduring life. Solomon says, I got a better plan. God says, I have a better plan. Enjoy life and enjoy it now. Don't wait for what's coming around the corner. Enjoy it now. Develop a positive outlook, choosing to focus on that which God has given you now. Enjoy every stage of life. Be realistic about the dark days, but in those times, stop asking the question, why start asking what? What do you want to teach me to round out my character, Lord? And then do the things you really enjoy in life. Focus on your relationship with God and he'll put those desires in your heart. Remember your accountability to God and deal with the joy killers, both mentally and physically. And you know what? You won't be enduring life. You'll be enjoying life as God intended you to. Let's pray.