Living The Good Life

Living the good life, well what is the good life? That's the real key question. That's what we need to understand and that's where we're going to do some redefinition today. Because the culture, the media tells us and some preachers tell us that the good life is kind of the American dream. It is the life of ease and of plenty and of pleasure and abundance of material possessions. It's beautiful homes, pool in the backyard, tennis court in the side yard. Latest appliances, assets and investments just more than you could ever use. Latest entertainment systems and the best that money could hope for and money can buy. That's what the good life is. In America that's what we describe it as. But we need a redefinition because what I have just described is exactly what Solomon said in chapter 2 of Ecclesiastes he had. And he said you will not find peace, fulfillment, meaning and purpose in life there. You will not find it there. And so what Solomon does is he tells us where we can find the good life and how we can find the good life. But first of all we have to redefine it. We are in chapter 5 today. It has actually been five weeks since we have been in Ecclesiastes because of numerous things. But in chapter 5 verse 18 Solomon introduces to us the good life. Notice what he says. He says this is what I have observed to be good. The word good here is a word which means the joy of life or enjoyment of life. This is what I have seen to be the way that you enjoy life. That which is good in life. And then notice the next word that it is appropriate. Now we will see what is appropriate later. But the idea of the word appropriate literally means that which is beautiful in outward appearance. In the Old Testament when the word is not used of material objects or of people it means that which is excellent or useful. That which is morally attractive. That which everything fits together properly. So Solomon says there is a way of living that is good and appropriate. There is a good life. It is a life which brings joy and where the pieces of the puzzle do fit together. That is what he is introducing to us. But we have got to redefine what it means. And I think to do that we need to place this passage in the broader context of the book. So let me just take a moment to review a little bit with you. The first two chapters of Ecclesiastes. Solomon has been talking about the search for meaning in life. And he has talked about the fact that people search in a lot of different ways to find ultimate meaning and purpose and satisfaction in life. They may serve with or they may search in a passionate thirst for knowledge or maybe through pleasure or material possessions or maybe through throwing themselves into their work. So that they become workaholics thinking that will provide ultimate meaning in life. Solomon said it is not found in any of those. He closes the first section of the book chapter 2 verses 24 to 26 by saying ultimate meaning and purpose in life is found first of all in a relationship with God. And then it is only as your life is pleasing to him that you will find ultimate meaning and purpose in life. It will not be found. All of those other streets are dead in streets. So then in chapters 3 through 5 he says the next step in this whole thing of looking at life the way God does is to understand God has a plan for life. That is chapters 3 through 5. He introduces the reality of God's plan, the fact that God does have a plan and a purpose for everything that happens, both the good and the bad. And he fits it all together to become beautiful in his time. And then Solomon says I know what you are thinking there are lots of bad things in life, lots of hard things in life that don't seem to fit that idea. And so he says I am not unaware of those. In fact I am going to address those and how we should view them from God's perspective. And so he goes through 8 of those hard realities of life. Injustice, death, oppression, competition, people ambitious to beat the other person out. Isolation, fleeting popularity, empty religion and burdensome wealth. And he says all of those things in people's lives seem to go against the idea that God has a purpose for everything, a plan for everything and he makes everything beautiful in his time. So he says you can live life with enjoyment even though there are hard realities in life. And now he comes to the conclusion of that section on God's plan, overall sovereign plan and purpose for life. And the conclusion that we see today is basically the same conclusion he added at the end of the first section. We will see it again in the book. It is the theme of the book. It is the thread that ties the whole book together and it has to do with enjoying life. Finding meaning, purpose, fulfillment in life. Yes there are hard realities. Yes there are difficult and even tragic things in life. But even in the midst of that we can find fulfillment and purpose and meaning in life. How do we do that? In short this is what Solomon is saying. In summary in these three verses he is saying this, we must have a totally different perspective on life that lifts us up above this earthly plane to see life as God intends us to live it. We have got to take a whole different approach to life, a whole different view and perspective of life above what is right in front of us and what is happening around us, above this earthly plane and look at the larger perspective from God's perspective and see life as God intends us to live it. That is what he is saying in summary. Now he takes three verses to say that and he packs a lot into those three verses so let's unpack it. Let's see what he has for us here. In verse 18 Solomon will give us the approach to the good life, what it means to live the good life from God's perspective. In verse 19 he will tell us the ability to live the good life. How do we get that? And then in verse 20 he will tell us the advantages of living the good life. Let's begin with verse 18 and look at the approach to the good life. We want to stress this is so vitally important that we understand the good life is basically an approach to life. It is basically an attitude about life. It has nothing to do with the number or amount of possessions or the kind of job you have. It has nothing to do with that. The good life is everything about your attitude toward life, your approach toward life. The key to the good life, the key is to change our thinking about what is important in life, to change our thinking about how we look at life. It is possible to live the good life whether you have abundance of things or very little. Whether you have a pretty easy and secure life or whether your life is very difficult. On both ends of the spectrum it is possible to live the good life because the good life is not about those things or circumstances in life. The good life is all about how you approach life, your attitude toward life, your perspective and how you view life. So Solomon lays it out for us in verse 18. Here is the right approach. It is a forefold approach. Number one, the good life is an approach, a simple approach to life. A simple approach. Look at what he says in verse 18. This is what I observed to be good, joyful, enjoyment. This is appropriate or excellent fitting for a person. Here it is, to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toysome labor. You will find that expression. We have already seen it a couple times in Ecclesiastes and you will find it repeated throughout the book. It occurs in most of the conclusion type, the threads that I talked about tying the book together, the real theme of the book. Solomon uses those words to eat and drink and find satisfaction in your labor, basically to describe a simple approach to life. It is an approach that sees the very act of eating whatever God has given you and enjoying the drink that God has given you and finding joy in your work, whatever it may be. The act of simple things to find the real enjoyment of life and those things. It is a simple approach to life. It is the opposite of driving and pushing for more and bigger and better and newer to keep up with the latest trends of everything and what everybody else is doing and getting and accumulating. You have to have all of that whether it has to do with a house or cars or furniture or clothing or appliances or entertainment systems or whatever it may be. Technology, whatever. The simple life is finding enjoyment in the simple things that God has placed there before us and not always be looking across the fence. It is something else or someone else or some other kind of lifestyle or some other kind of job. To be able to see what God has placed right in front of us, if you live the kind of life that most people live, which is not a simple approach to life, which is the longing and passion and ambition of craving for more and bigger and better and newer, if that's the way you live, you will never find satisfaction and enjoyment meaning purpose in life has got intended you to because you will never have enough. You will never be satisfied. So Solomon is saying in the very simple act of eating or drinking or finding satisfaction in your job. There is enjoyment to be found there. What he is saying is the kind of life we should live is to find beauty, to find God's good gifts in everything he gives us, each moment he gives us, each relationship he gives us, each part of his creation. That's the simple approach to life. Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book a few years ago called, when all you've ever wanted is not enough. He's written a couple of books. I don't agree with his theology, but he had some good things to say in that book. In the book, when all you've ever wanted is not enough, he talks about Solomon and he talks about ecclesiastes and he uses that as an illustration for his point in the book. He says, life he Solomon instinctively sensed is too sacred, too special, too full of possibilities to have no meaning. He found his answer not in a few great deeds, but in thousands of little ones in living each day as fully as possible. When we stop searching for immortal deeds, as he says it, that will give our lives meaning and concentrate instead on filling our days with small moments that gratify us, we will find the only possible answer to the question, what is life about? It is not about writing great books or a mashing great wealth or great power. It is about loving and being loved. It is about enjoying food and sitting in the sun rather than rushing through lunch and hurrying back to the office. It is about savoring the transitory beauty of sunsets, the leaves turning color, the rare moments of true human communication. I think he said it beautifully and he says, what Solomon is saying? With that expression that comes up over and over again in the book, where do you find enjoyment in life when you get the newest thing? No! It is when you realize what God's given you right in front of you and the simple act of eating and drinking and enjoying whatever work he's given you. That's where enjoyment is to be found because it is a simple approach to life. I'm not saying you should sell everything you have and join a convent or a monastery somewhere, not saying that. But whatever God has given you, whether it is little or much, to find the joy and the simple things that God has placed all around us is the approach to finding true meaning and fulfillment and enjoyment in life. It is a simple approach to life. Secondly, Solomon says, it is a positive approach to life, a positive approach to life. This is not some Norman Vincent Pill positive thinking deal here. Notice what Solomon says in verse 18. This is what I have observed to be good that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their poilsome labor under the sun. Again, very interesting choice of words to find satisfaction. You've got that word here and then to find satisfaction in your poilsome labor. Two opposite ideas, two ideas that may seem polar opposites, satisfaction, poilsome labor. And he puts them beside each other and says you can actually find satisfaction in your poilsome labor. Now, there are three different words, Hebrew words, that Solomon could have chosen to express our work. He purposely chose the one that has to do with the poilsome, drudgery, back breaking, frustrating aspect of work that makes us want to throw up our hands and quit. And he couples that with the word for trouble and sorrow. You can find satisfaction in the drudgery, back breaking, frustrating kind of work that brings you sorrow and frustration in life, poilsome labor. How do you put those two things together? Solomon purposely, I chose a word that identifies the grievous, unfulfilling aspect of work, the frustrating day by day grind of work. And says you can find satisfaction in that. How? The point is this, you can enjoy whatever God has given you to do if you see it as a gift from God. You know, there are poilsome aspects to everybody's job. Again, you look across the fence at the other person's job, they're a boy, which I had that job. Well, you don't know what that job is like. There are poilsome drudgery aspects of everybody's line of work. Back in the 50s and 60s, I guess it was in most major cities in the United States, they had a lot of traffic cops, didn't have as many traffic signals, so major intersections they would station, a police officer, and police officers would direct the traffic to stop and go at appropriate times through those intersections. There was a guy in Pittsburgh who decided that that would not be drudgery for him. I mean, I can't imagine a more routine mundane, unfulfilling kind of job and standing in the middle of an intersection and waving traffic by for hours. But this guy decided that he would he would enjoy it. He became a sensation back in the 50s and 60s. In fact, he was on one of the initial episodes of candid camera. We've got that clip for you. I want you to see it, okay, because it is classic. We have to dim the lights in order to get because it's black and white. But let's look at this guy. I love that. Isn't that great? That's a classic. Here's a guy who had the most mundane routine job in the world and he made it enjoyable. You see, what Solomon is saying is that if you take a positive approach toward whatever job God has given you, even your frustrating, toilsome aspects of your labor, you can find satisfaction in that. You can see it as a gift from God. What we tend to do is to see the grass on the greener grass on the other side. You know, to see that it looks greener at least. I heard about one guy that kept seeing his neighbor's lawn and the greener grass on the other side and he decided finally just to go over and examine it more closely. So he walked over into his neighbor's yard and you know when he got over there, it didn't look quite as green as when he was looking from his yard. He looked back at his yard and it looked pretty good. It looked greener than where he was standing and he went back over, back and forth and kind of compared to him. He came to the conclusion when you're standing right on top of your own yard, you see a lot of the dirt. And you see the weeds. You don't see that in your neighbor's yard. You just see what looks like lush green grass. You see that's the trap of always looking toward greener grass. Whatever God has given you to do, whatever your vocation or occupation is, there are things about that that you can make enjoyable, find to highlight and heighten them and enjoy them. That is a positive approach to life rather than always looking for something else. So Solomon says the way to enjoy life, to live the good life is to have a simple approach, a positive approach, but also thirdly a realistic approach to life. Look again what he says in verse 18. This is what I have observed to be good, that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction and to toil some labor under the sun. Notice the next words. During the few days of life God has given them. Now this is not some pessimistic E-Your kind of look at life. A few days of life that I have on this or it's not E-Your. This is Solomon being realistic about life. In the eternal perspective we only have a few days on this world. It is really a brief time that we have here to live and what Solomon is saying is don't waste your moments, don't waste your days and weeks and months and years by fretting them away. Wishing you had done something different, wishing you could have this over there, wishing you could be more like so and so or you could have their job or what they do or what they have always wishing for something else. Don't spend your life that way. Life is too brief for that. In eternity's perspective we only have a few days. We only have a little time on this earth. Use it well. It is exactly what Moses said in Psalm 90. After he had watched a whole generation of Israelites die in the wilderness. It was a death parade in the wilderness. And at the end of that, Moses writes Psalm 90. And he talks about the greatness of God and that God is forever and man is so transitory and life passes so quickly. He is reflecting upon what he has seen and then he draws this conclusion in verse 12. So Lord teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Does number your days mean to try to figure out how many days you are going to have and then to start counting them off? And necessarily, although that might be kind of a wake up call, I have done that before. And if I live to what the Bible says, 70 or 80 years old, I don't have many days left in comparison to what I have already lived. I have lived 60 years of those days already. So I have a lot left. That is a good wake up call by the way. You know, it is not bad to be around someone who has been given a death sentence. Please, I am not trying to be cruel. Please understand what I am saying. The doctor tells someone you have got six months to live. Now obviously some people just give up. But there are people who say, okay, I have got six months, I am going to make those count. I am going to enjoy every moment with my family. I am going to do some things on the bucket list that I hadn't got to do. You know, I am going to do some things that I always wanted to do. In reality, all of us have a death sentence. We do not know when our reservation is. It is appointed and demand once to die after this judgment. I don't know when my appointment is. You don't either. So all I know is I have got this day. That is the perspective Solomon is talking about. We only have a few of them. So don't waste them with the approach to life that is negative and wishing for more all of the time. I love a song that Stephen Curtis Chapman does on his album Declaration. It is a song called The Next Five Minutes. And I am not going to sing it for you. So rest of these. But it goes something like this. It is called The Next Five Minutes. And it goes something like this. It says, When the next five minutes become the last five minutes, I am going to start all over living the next five minutes. I am going to live the next five minutes. And when those next five minutes become the last five minutes, I am going to start all over again, living the next five minutes. of five minutes God gives to us in a day, use those five minutes for his glory in a way that would honor and please him. Don't fret your life away. Don't wish your life away. How many times you hear your parents say that when you were little. Don't wish your life away. Have a realistic approach to life. And then fourthly Solomon says, have a contented approach to life. Look at it again, verse 18. He says, during the few days of life God has given them for this is their lot. Again, that can sound kind of like real pessimistic, but it's not. The word lot in the Old Testament is used of a portion or a share of something. Sometimes it's used of a portion or a share of treasure or a food or of land or of an inheritance. This is your portion. This is what has been a portion to you. This is your lot. This is what you're supposed to have. And what Solomon is saying, the portion that is talked about here is the portion or a lot that God has given us. What he has granted us, whatever he gives us in life and it applies to everything he said in the verse, whatever he gives you to eat, whatever he gives you to drink, whatever he gives you by way of your toil, your labor, your job, your occupation, how many days he gives you in your allotted or a portioned time on this earth, all of that and everything else, all the possessions you have, everything. That's what God has a portioned to you. That is your lot. It is all under the sovereign control of God. And so what he's saying is that is what God has given us. That's his gift to us. Don't wish for more, bigger, better, other, whatever. Realize that what you have is what God has given you. It's his gift and live it completely as his inheritance to you, his portion, his lot to you. What is your lot in life right now? Are you content with it? Doesn't mean you have to resign yourself to it for the rest of your life. What I'm meaning is this. Are you contentment? Are you finding contentment right now in life as God has designed it for you right now as he has a portioned it to you or given it to you as you're a lot? Are you content right now being single? That is the portion God's given you for right now. Are you contented right now being sidelined for a period of time? Are you content right now being obscure like your life really doesn't matter to anyone what you do for your living doesn't really make an impact? Are you content with circumstances that are very frustrating in your life right now? Again, this is not a blind resignation to some cruel fate like, oh, okay, I got to live this away the rest of my life. No, it is okay. This is what God has for me now and I'm going to wait on him to change it in his own time in his own way if he chooses to do so. But it's all in God's hand. I realize it's my lot. It's my portion that God has entrusted to me. Whatever he's given me is what he wants me to have. And so I will enjoy that. And if he chooses to change it, that's up to him. And I will wait on him to do that. I'm not going to keep looking over the fence to see where I wish I wish I could do or we should could have. Not the way I'm going to live. That's what Solomon says. It is a contented approach to life. The good life has nothing to do with how much or how little you have. The good life is all about how you view life, your perspective on life, your approach to life. And Solomon says the way to do it right is to take a simple approach to life, a positive approach to life, a realistic approach to life and a contented approach to life. If you do that, you will live the good life. You will have what he says is enjoyable. Good. The joy of life. You will have what is appropriate, what makes all the rest of the pieces fit together. That's what he means. That is the approach to the good life. Well, how do you get that? How do you change to see life differently like that? Verse 19, the ability for living the good life. Very simple. He says moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot in life and be happy in their toil. Notice all the things he's mentioned back in verse 18. He says, when God gives you the ability to enjoy that and to accept your lot and be happy in your, this is a gift of God. It's that simple. The ability to have that right approach to life is a gift of God. We're not talking about some kind of positive thinking trick that you play on your mind here. We're not talking about some kind of adjustment in your mental outlook. You know, you read Norman Vincent Peel's book, The Power of Positive Thinking. Now I'm just going to smile at everything. You know, it's not that. It is understanding life from God's perspective and accepting it moment by moment, day by day as a gift from him. And so what he says is, if God gives someone wealth and possessions and the ability to enjoy them. See, that doesn't always happen. We've missed the last four weeks in Ecclesiastes. So you may have forgotten that the last thing you talked about in verses 8 through 17 was the burden some nature of wealth and how wealth can really be a burden some thing, a yoke around your neck because of all the other things that brings with it. So now he's saying, if God gives you that, but also the ability to enjoy it. The old German Lutheran commentator, H.C. Loupold has an excellent comment on this verse. I can't say it as well as he does. So I'm just going to read his comment. Man is by nature, not free to enjoy in such a harmless fashion, whatever of earthly goods he may happen to have. The usual experience of men who have accumulated wealth is that they stand under the power of their wealth, not wealth under their power. Therefore, freedom from such domination and the judicious enjoyment of such things as are their own are possible only as a gift from God. By the way, he's right on target because you see verse 19, he says the ability to enjoy them. That word ability is a word which literally means to dominate or to have power over to subjugate. So what he's saying is the ability to be able to, whatever God gives you to have that in the right perspective and not have it controlling you, dominating you, the ability to do that and live that way, the ability to accept whatever lot God gives you in life, the portion that he's handed out to you, the ability to be happy in your toil, whatever job it may be, the ability to do all of that, he says this is a gift of God. It's the very same conclusion he came to at the end of the first section of the book chapter 2, verses 24 to 26. One other thing he adds back in that first section is that it only comes to those whose life is pleasing to God. Your life must be pleasing to God. So put all that together, it's a gift of God but it only comes to those whose life is pleasing to him. Now my friend in our terms today on this side of the cross, what that means is that your life is given totally to the Lord. And what that means is that you recognize that you came into this world a sinner that you cannot make your own way through life, you simply cannot do it and certainly cannot gain entrance into heaven. Because we're all born with a sinful twisted perverted nature that takes us down wrong paths and ends up ruining our lives. Proverbs says there is a way which seems right to a man but the end thereof or the ways of death. But God loves you so much that he sent his son Jesus Christ to pay for your sin on the cross. So that through faith in Christ you could be forgiven and pardoned from that sin and have that terrible guilt and load taken off of you to know that you have a whole many eternity with Christ with God forever through his son Jesus Christ. And once you come to no Christ as your Savior then to live every day with your life being that which pleases him, living in obedience to him, doing what he wants you to do. It is to those people that God gives this gift, the gift to enjoy life, to be able to see it from the right perspective, to be able to understand that it is a simple approach of positive realistic, contented approach to life. It is to those people who have committed their lives to Christ and who live to please him that God gives that to as a gift. So we are not talking about some positive mental trick you do to try to adjust the way you look at life. We are talking about being in a right relationship with God and receiving as his gift, meaning and purpose and fulfillment in life, the ability for living the good life. Is there any advantage to that? Yes, quickly look at it in verse 22. Advantage is number one, the absence of a worried lifestyle. They, speaking of those people who have come to understand the proper approach to the good life and accepted it as a gift from God, they have the ability to live that way, they seldom reflect on the days of their life. Again, interesting choice of words on the part of Solomon, the absence of a worried lifestyle. The word reflect here is a word which means to think of or to call to mind or to ponder, but it is used here in the sense in a negative sense, to think, to call to mind to ponder, to mowl over, it is to worry basically, to worry. That is the idea in this context and people who worry about their life is passing them by. Look, I have lived this long, I am halfway through, what am I accomplished, what am I done? I want my life to count, I want to have some meaning and purpose in life. That is the kind of worry that he is talking about, reflecting, pondering on the years, on the days of your life, wondering if they have been enough, if you have done the right things, regret over the past, wishing for something different for the future. What I have described to you is the root of midlife crisis, it is the root of people's despair for their marriage, it is the root of people giving up on their lot in life, their vocation, whatever it may be, and just forgetting it all, turning away from God and everything else. That is not a problem for those who have come to learn to live the good life. With the proper approach to life, the advantage is you have the absence of a worried lifestyle. Secondly, you have the presence of a glad heart, the presence of a glad heart. Solomon says they seldom reflect on the days of their life because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart. The word occupied again, the key word occupied means to be busy or concerned with, to concentrate on, God keeps your focus on gladness of heart. When you learn to live the way that we have described in this passage, Solomon describes for us, then God will keep you busy, concentrating on gladness of heart. You see, because this person will find life utterly absorbing, if they really are seeing all the very simple things in life as a gift from God, they will enjoy them, whatever food or drink they may have, whatever job they may have, whatever possessions they may have, whatever green their grass is, they will enjoy that because that is what God has given them. So it is a gift from God and to be able to enjoy that, you are so occupied with that, so enthralled with life that anxiety and worry about regretting the past and wishing for more in the future is driven out. It is just driven out by the gladness of heart, totally absorbed in living each day, the next five minutes in a way that honors God. And when those five minutes become the last five minutes, we are going to start all over again, do again the next five minutes. What a great way to live. What a godly way to live. The story is told of John Philip Susa, who wrote a lot of great music, mostly March style music and patriotic kind of music. He was staying in a hotel one night in a city and he heard one of those street vendors outside on the street, one of those guys that had the crank organ, you know the handle, you kind of crank it and the music comes out. And the song that was coming out of that little crank organ was stars and stripes forever written by John Philip Susa. But the guy who was cranking it out was going real slow, just kind of leaning up against fence there on the street and kind of... And Susa couldn't take it. He ran out of the building across the street, startled the guy and said, that is no way to play that song and he grabbed the handle and turned it vigorously. And the music was coming out snappy and sharp and sounded great and he said, that's the way to play that song. So who are you and he told him of course who he was, John Philip Susa and Susa went back into his room and the next night, same thing. He hears the guy out on the street, but this time the guy is playing it in the right tempo, it's upbeat, it sounds great, it's snappy, it's sharp. And so Susa looked out the window and there's this guy playing and there's people gathered around and he's got a placard sitting beside him that says, people of John Philip Susa. Some of us today are just cranking out life, just trying to get to the next day, fed up, disillusioned, frustrated. Life full of regrets, always wishing for something different and you get up and live that way again the next day. That is not how God intended you to do it. Maybe God's showing up at your pew this morning and grabbed the handle of your life and said, come on, that's not the way to do that, it's not the way to crank out life. It's supposed to be this way, it's supposed to be a simple approach, a positive approach, a realistic approach, a content approach to see all of life the next five minutes as my gift to you and to live that with full enjoyment of whatever it is my lot that I've given you. And then do that the next five minutes, do it the next five minutes and every day of your life live that way. Are you living the good life? That is the good life, not the American dream, but it is the good life. It's pretty together. Father, thank you that you've made so clear to us what it really means to live life, what fulfillment, meaning, purpose, deep satisfaction in life really is. And Lord, we know that that can't even begin to happen unless we first of all know Jesus as our Savior, have our sin forgiven and know that our eternity has settled. But Lord, so many of us who know Christ are mired in the wrong approach to life and we've gotten caught up in the American dream and wanting all the stuff and bigger and better, newer, faster. Lord, I pray that you would help us to see that is not the way to live. May we live with the approach that Solomon says is the only way that will bring enjoyment to life and make the pieces fit together. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.