The Myth of Control

Introduction

When we begin this morning reading in Ecclesiastes chapter 7, beginning in verse 13. Ecclesiastes 7, in verse 13, it says, Consider the work of God, who can make straight, but he is made crooked. In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider. God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil doing. Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time?

It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand. For the one who fears God shall come out from both of them. Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who were in a city. And surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me. That which has been far off and deep, very deep, who can find it out? As I was thinking, I’ve been thinking about this sermon or this theme since I began this work through Ecclesiastes from the pulpit a few weeks back.

Those of you who are visiting, we’ve been working through the book of Ecclesiastes with different themes. And part of this is the idea, a main part of what the teacher is getting at here is the idea that all is vanity. And that doesn’t just mean meaningless or empty or futile. That word actually is pretty nuanced. It can mean temporary, it can mean life as a vapor, it means life is a mystery. And so depending on the context, it can have slightly different meanings. And when we talk about this idea of control, I would say it’s more on the line of mystery or paradox. We see things one way, but then we realize sometimes they’re a different way. And it’s confusing, and there’s just a lot that we don’t understand in life.

And coming to grips with this can be very difficult. But it’s an important part of understanding life under the sun, which is why this teacher talks frequently about this. As you’ve noticed on the screen, there’s quite a few verses listed there. I just read part of chapter seven, and one of the difficulties here this morning was limiting what we’re going to read. And we can’t possibly read all the aspects of Ecclesiastes that deal with this idea of control. In fact, one of the things I did as I was working through this was just sit and read through the entire book and know all the different places where some aspect of control or lack of control is being discussed about life. And so it’s just all over the place throughout the book.

And so I want to sort of summate that as best I can. And for the young ones maybe taking notes, the three points are going to be in six words this morning. That’s it. Six words. So you can have point one, two, and three and put little underlines and just six of them, and that’ll be all the points in those six words. So maybe that’ll help you a little bit. Try to simplify this idea about the concept of control. I’ve called it the myth of control because a lot of what we deal with as humans is this idea that we have so much control. We think we have a lot of control, particularly, I think this is a human condition, but particularly within the American thought, really feel like we have a lot of control over a lot of things.

And this goes into all parts of life that I’m not even going to get into this morning, about things we’ll complain about all kinds of things, even natural disasters. People think we control those. I mean, there’s all sorts of things out there, thinking that we control things that are on the level of God’s work. And the writer of Ecclesiastes has some things to say about some of that, but I want to break this down, and there’s probably more of these, but I want to give you at least three myths that we have to deal with when it comes to control. And I think probably all of us to some degree deal with these. We wrestle with this. We have to realize, okay, I’m I’m thinking I have more control than I do, and we kind of work back and forth through this in our life.

And so I just want to come straight out and say these are this is what it is. The first myth is that I have the ability to control much of my life. I’ll just be the first to admit day to day, I struggle with this. I feel like, well, I can control a lot of things. And then life happens, things take place, and you realize, if you’re observant, how many things you actually do not control. Right? And then the second of these is that if I can just get more control, right? There’s going to be a cycle to how this works, by the way. If I can just get more control, then more will be okay. You know, if I can just control things, then my life, everything’s gonna be alright.

And so deep down, often these are the kinds of things we believe that I have a lot of control, and if I can just harness that control, if I can learn to be more controlled, then it’s I can make everything okay in my life. But then that leads to this third myth, which is that the problems in life are my fault. I mean, think about it logically. If you believe you have a lot of control, right, and if you believe that if you can harness that control or hold of your control, then your life will be okay. That inevitably means that when things are not okay, it’s your fault. And so then what happens? Well, then we have a greater hunger for control, and this whole cycle then just continues to sap us of all joy in our life.

It’s just this cycle that continues if we allow ourselves to believe these myths. Now, if you read the disclaimer on the previous slide, you’ll see there are things we can control. So, just like in wisdom literature in general, there’s they’re speaking a lot of times of generalities. And yes, there are decisions, and I’m gonna talk a little bit about this later. There are decisions we make, and there are some choices we make, and there’s areas of life which we do control, but it is a myth to think that we have a lot of control over the things that are happening in our life. And if you’ve lived long enough, you have experienced that. You thought you were gonna do this thing, and then it didn’t happen, or it couldn’t happen, or something else happens to you that you didn’t expect.

These are the kinds of things that happen all the time, which is why it seems kind of strange sometimes when we read some of the wisdom of this wise man in Ecclesiastes. And I would like for him to be more specific, but then I just did the same thing just now. So I’ll let me read this thing he says here, right? Verse 18. He’s trying to kind of explain the nature of life and the decisions we make and the way this works. It is good that you should take hold of this. Of what? What are you talking about? And he’s just speaking general, right? He’s speaking in a general way. The decisions we make and the things that we do, it’s good that you do whatever that thing is, okay?

And from that, withhold not your hand. Right? He’s just trying to speak in a general way. The decisions we’re going to make, sometimes we work really hard to make the right choice. We will kill ourselves with research and investigation to make sure we have made the absolute best choice possible. And of course, the whole reason we’re doing that is to gain as much control as we possibly can. Because if we can gain that control, then everything will be okay. Do you feel that? Have you ever experienced that yourself? You know, if I could just, I can tell you what, we’ve experienced that. If I could just figure out this thing or that thing, then my kid wouldn’t have gotten sick. Right? This is how we think.

Or if I wouldn’t have done this or I wouldn’t have done that, or eaten this, then I wouldn’t have had this miscarriage. Like, we don’t like talking about this kind of stuff. Because we like to think we have control, but then it’s uncomfortable to talk about. And the reality is there’s just so many things we don’t control. We so desperately want to. But at the same time, I want us to also consider is that actually really what’s best? If we could control everything. I think the preacher would tell us, we’d make a mess of it. Do our do I really want to have all the control? I mean, think about how many things in life I thought should be a certain way. And then maybe days later, even, but months later or years later, I realize if it had been that way, it would have been an absolute disaster.

How much better to understand there’s someone who governs the world, someone who is sovereign, who truly understands the ins and outs of everything. And though all I can’t see it often, and it doesn’t make sense to me. It makes sense to him in ways I will never comprehend. So I have to be very careful about the desires I have for control in my life and then what that looks like. I posted an article on the member page, I think it was Friday, maybe, that had some really good thoughts in it. It was a psychology article, and so there’s probably things in it I would not agree with. But some of the overall thoughts were really good, and part of it had to do with this idea of control.

So it’s it’s not, it’s in all aspects of our life, even from a psychological standpoint, that when we are seeking control, and that was the theme of the idea, the problem with control, seeking after control, trying to gain control to then gain control of your life. It’s this whole concept that is all over the place in our culture. The problem with that is that it just doesn’t work, first of all. We can’t do it. But then the author went on to say this the problem with seeking control is that it fully externalizes the conditions under which you can be okay. It bases your well-being on factors outside of you. The one place where you have no control. In other words, for all of your efforts to be in control, it is not control you are gaining.

It is only more stress and anxiety. Now, wise people throughout the history of mankind have understood some of these ideas. Stoic thought has a lot of good concepts, even aligns in some ways with the Apostle Paul and some of the things he says. It’s way off on other things, but one of the things that Stoic thought understands is things are the way they are, and you can’t force change on the world. Something that Ecclesiastes talks about. You know, God makes something a certain way, He makes it crooked, you can’t make it straight. He makes it straight, you can’t make it crooked. And why are we working so hard to control things that are on God’s level, not ours? And when we seek that, what’s ultimately happening is we’re just bringing more stress and anxiety into our life because inevitably we will realize there are just things we cannot control.

And the reality is that’s probably good. Probably a good thing that there’s things that I can’t control that are above me, that I can’t quite comprehend. And so this concept that we see around us in the world is covered even in the pages of scripture and inspiration through wise people like the writer of Ecclesiastes. But actually, Jesus himself talks about this very thing in Matthew chapter 6. In Matthew chapter 6, he’s he’s telling the listeners here in the Sermon on the Mount to be careful, be careful about their desires, be careful about their thinking, be careful about anxiety and worry. And of course, anxiety and worry is often tied up in what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen in the future? What’s tomorrow going to look like?

And so we begin worrying about all the things that are coming tomorrow and the next day. And he says, don’t be anxious about your life, verse 25. This is Matthew 6, verse 25. Don’t be anxious about your life. Sometimes we get really worried about what are actually fairly simple things, especially for us. He says, what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will put on. That’s a lot more complicated for them. I mean, they live way more day-to-day than we do. But we feel that too. I mean, you wake up and you got no food in the house. What are we going to eat today? And we got four kids to feed, everybody’s saying they’re hungry. What are we going to do about this?

So we feel the pressure. We don’t want that, and so we worry. How am I gonna plan this? This is very simple stuff. Now, for them, they’re having to make all their food. And so this is a very real sort of situation Jesus is speaking to them about here. But don’t be anxious about this. Focus on the things that truly matter, he says. Verse 33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Now, what he’s not saying is, you know, just sit in your house and pray all the time, and food’s just gonna show up. And that’s not the point he’s making here. But what he’s saying is that to emphasize and focus the things in life that truly matter, and just realize the things of temporary life is heavily, life is futile, it’s temporary, it’s vapor, it’s enigma, all the things that we sometimes worry so much about in life that take our attention away from what really matters.

We need to get rid of that as the focus of our life and focus on what truly makes a difference. And that is seeking God’s kingdom. All the other things will take care of themselves. We’ll figure out what we need to eat. We can make it to the store, we can go to McDonald’s and get fast food. Not suggesting it, but you can do it. All right, it’s very easy for us. And then he closes with this therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Jesus is talking about the same thing. Why is it that I’m anxious for tomorrow sometimes? Because I so badly want to control it. I want to make sure it is what I want it to be.

1. Accept Limitations

And what Jesus is warning them about is not that you should never think about anything in the future or worry about any of that, but it’s this kind of undue concern or anxiety and wanting to control the outcomes of things so much that becomes the focus of life. So, how can we control these myths that find their way into our life that sneak into our thinking? What are some ways that we can think through this to help us? I told you, two words, each point. Accept limitations, accept the limits that we have as humans. Some of the content we’ve looked at already in the book of Ecclesiastes speaks to this sort of thing. Right? Well, we talked about time or we’ve talked about stuff, possessions, money.

There’s only so many things we can do with all of this. We can’t make a day longer. We can work and work and work, and then it’s all unpredictable, and maybe it all goes away, and or somebody else gets it, or whatever may happen. We can’t control so many different things that we like to think that we can control, or things that maybe we feel some security in, right? Like if I make a lot of money and I store it all away, that gives me some sense of security and protection. But as we well know, we hope it doesn’t happen to us, but as we know, that can all be wiped away in a moment. And so it’s not quite as secure as we would like to think.

But the proper way to think through this and to understand how these myths take a hold of our life sometimes is to begin the process of realizing and telling ourselves over and over there are limitations to what I can do. The first of these is that wisdom and skill itself have limitations. Chapter 8, verse 16. This is kind of within that section. There’s all these sections kind of scattered through Ecclesiastes that then point you back to the way you should be thinking, enjoying life, enjoying life in the moment, because it’s the gift of God. And this is in the midst of that. And he still throws in some little bits of difficulty and reality in life, even in those kind of summation sections. He says in verse 16, when I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one’s eyes see sleep.

Then I saw all the work of God that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much a man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out. Man, that is tough to accept. Got a lot of really smart people in our world. And they’re discovering all sorts of interesting and neat things. But what the teacher’s telling us as one who is wise, he has wisdom above all others around him is no matter how much wisdom you have, no matter how much skill, no matter how much work you put into this, there are just still going to be things you don’t know and you can’t understand. And so this pursuit of human knowledge and wisdom, it’s always going to leave you, if that’s all it is, if that’s what you’re after, it’s always going to leave you empty.

Because the critical things of life, you know, where did we ultimately come from, right? If we’re looking for scientific evidence of that, you will never find it. One thing that scientists will never discover if they’re trying to look for this scientifically is first cause. They can’t do it. And so we can have all sorts of theories and ideas, and people do trying to step away from the message of a place like Genesis 1 and the creation of God. All sorts of ideas about how we ended up here, but they cannot explain how something came from nothing. There is no explanation. They will never find it out.

And so we can beat our heads against the wall over and over trying to do this, and we will always come up empty. That’s just one example. But that’s the sort of idea that he’s getting at here. So if we’re just pursuing wisdom for wisdom’s sake, or knowledge for knowledge’s sake, there are limitations to what we can find and discover. Actually, the book of Job, which is a very interesting book and ties into some of what we’re doing here, that’s actually like the main point of the book. Now we think the main point of the book is suffering. But there’s sort of kind of this inverse relationship to the content, and it all points to chapter 28. Chapter 28 is about where you find wisdom. And the ultimate answer is that wisdom is found in God.

You can’t dig into the earth, you can’t mine and pull it out like you do gold or other precious metals. The only way to truly find it is in God Himself. He is the source of wisdom. He is wisdom. Wisdom was with him when he created the world. And so all the things we do in the world around us, some of them are very good and very beneficial. There are limits to what can happen through wisdom and skill. And beyond that, we cannot change the things of God. We can’t affect his sovereignty. This is the point of a number of verses here in the book of Ecclesiastes. One of them is up here on the screen behind me, but very similar things are said in chapter 1 and verse 15, or chapter 3 and verse 11, or chapter 7 and verse 24.

That as hard as we try, there are things that are on God’s level that I will never grasp, and you will never grasp. I don’t care if you have the highest IQ that has ever existed in human history. It is just no comparison to the mind of God. And there are limitations to what we can actually understand. And so the wise man warns us be not rash with your mouth in chapter 5. Nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. I gotta be really careful before I start questioning God. Our culture should be very careful before they start questioning God. It’s a reminder from the preacher of the difference between my position and where I am and where God is.

We can know a lot. And God has blessed us with wisdom and insight and knowledge, and that’s wonderful, and he wants us to use that. That’s why he gave it to us. But there are limitations. There’s only so much we control, and that’s done purposely so, I believe, from a divine creator. And there’s just problems we can’t fix as much as we would like to fix all the problems around us. There are limitations to the things that we can actually fix. There’s only so much we can do. Life is temporary. This is not meant to be paradise or a utopia, and no system is gonna be perfect and fix this. And so the idea sometimes, the human concept, if we just had the right programs in place or the right people and power, they could solve all these problems like poverty and oppression and sickness.

It’s not gonna happen. It’s just part of a fallen creation. And that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go after the things we can and try to figure out what we can figure out when it comes to things like poverty and oppression and sickness. But at the same time, we are gonna drive ourselves crazy if we don’t understand there are limits to what we are able to do. And we don’t even understand the fullness of the whole picture. We don’t know why God is doing everything that He’s doing. It is not our place to understand that. And so we have to start out with this myth of control and breaking that and busting those myths with the idea that we have to accept the limitations that we have as creatures rather than creators.

The wise man wants us to understand that wisdom is good. Wisdom is better than foolishness. But you know what? You can’t force people to be wise either. I mean, I can’t fix all the problems, even the problems I see. Certainly the problems that aren’t around me. Can’t fix those, and we get wind of all that now because we’re so interconnected with everything in the world. We just can’t fix all that. We are going to drive ourselves mad, trying to think we can do that. We also can’t fix people. They have to decide they want to be wise. And the wise man goes into this. There’s only so much we can do to help someone if they don’t want to make wise choices. And he tells a little story here at the end of chapter 9.

There was a little city with a few men in it, verse 14, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siege works against it. But the risk found in it, a poor wise man. Let me just point out that there’s a poor person here who’s wise. Sometimes we think, oh, it’s the rich people who are wise. Maybe he’s purposely pointing this out here. Sometimes there’s wisdom found in places we as humans wouldn’t necessarily assume. But there’s this poor wise man. And he by his wisdom delivered the city. Isn’t that great? This poor wise man comes, he has some wisdom, he delivers the city, and you know what happens? They build a monument to him, and everybody No, he’s totally forgotten. This is how life works.

Nobody remembers. We talked about this earlier in the book, limitations, right? To even legacy. And so we think, oh, that’s terrible. You know, this is the sort of thing that happens sometimes, right? This guy, he helps the city, and then nobody remembers him. He gets no attention for the wisdom he offered. Verse 16, but I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man’s wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. I mean, wisdom’s great, but the reality is often it is neglected and completely ignored. So just understand that. I mean, that’s what he’s trying to say here. And this is why wisdom brings vexation, chapter one. Knowledge brings sorrow. It’s not always that gaining more wisdom suddenly makes you feel better about life.

Sometimes when you gain wisdom, you realize people are just neglecting it and they aren’t interested in doing things a wise way. And that’s hard to deal with. And they’ll even put off a guy like this poor wise guy who’s got great things to say. Ah, we don’t want that. You know, they’re gonna choose chaos and violence, they’re gonna choose something else. The words of the wise heard and quiet are better than the shouting of ruler among fools, right? But what’s chosen sometimes is that fool who shouts and is loud rather than the quiet wise man. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. It would make a lot of sense to follow this poor, quiet, wise man, but you know what happens often in life?

The loud, destructive person gets followed. It’s not fair. Life just isn’t fair. You know, and there’s only so much we can do about it. And so we look around at the world and we see these sorts of things, don’t we? I mean, often we see it in our politicians or people who are running companies or whatever it might be, that they act in ways that are evil, and we think that’s not right. And but then we don’t have a whole lot of control over what happens with that, do we?

2. Avoid Extremes

And I’m not saying we can’t ever call those things out or say that shouldn’t be the way it is or any of that. We can do that. There’s times that should happen, but at the same time, we just have to accept in a fallen world with evil people that bad things happen, and that is not the answer to contentment and joy and peace. It’s not trying to fix it all. That’s not what’s going to give me peace in life. Number two, as we accept the limits of human capability, we also need to be the kind of people who avoid extremes. I’ve always, you know, even since I was a little kid, coming through Ecclesiastes and reading chapter 7, this strange verse, you know, don’t be overly righteous.

What does he mean? I thought we were supposed to be as righteous as we can be. What does he mean here? Don’t be overly righteous and don’t make yourself too wise. Well, I think I’ve touched on it a little bit here and there. But I think what he’s getting at here is that there’s a lot of problems that kind of come together with this idea that if I just obey enough, right? If I’m just good enough, what do we think? Or at least tempted to think. If we didn’t have the book of Job to instruct us, especially. Well, if I just would do it all right, then I’d be blessed, and good things would happen. And so there’s some, I mean, we have different personalities, and we all struggle with different things.

I mean, there’s some who beat themselves up trying to do everything right, making the right. This is where all the research and all the that article talked all about this, right? You spend hours and hours researching and studying so you can make the right choice because that’s going to control everything, and everything will be okay. Or God will have to bless me. If I just do the right thing, if I’m obedient in every circumstance, if I always keep the rules. And the wise man is here to tell us that’s just not how life works. Now he’s not saying not to try to be righteous, not to try to be obedient and follow the will of God. The message is not that you do that, but it’s not to misunderstand how this works in life.

This life is temporary, it’s heavy. It’s a mystery. We don’t understand the fullness of it. We can’t harness it, we’re not going to control it. And there’s something much bigger than that’s going to go on in the world than what’s happening here and now in this very temporary world we’re living in. We’re working for something far greater. Being with God for all eternity is far more than the small amount of time that we’re here. And even in saying that, we can’t even quite comprehend the fullness of that reality. But what he goes on to say here is there’s a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness. And there’s a wicked man who prolongs his life even in his evil doing. And haven’t we seen that? We kind of have this idea of, well, I just don’t deserve this.

I’ve tried to do right, I’ve tried to follow God. Have you ever had this thought run through your mind? I’ve tried to be obedient and faithful. And then our spouse dies young. Or we lose our job or our child gets sick or whatever the thing is, I don’t deserve this. But do we think that when we’re blessed? Do I deserve the blessing? And see, our human thinking deceives us. And the same things happen to the righteous and to the wicked. Now, this is from a kind of an earthly perspective as the wise man’s looking at this. He looks out over the world, you know, the rain falls on the good and evil. The good and evil people are blessed often with the produce of the land and with wealth.

And it there’s no kind of priority given to righteous people to make sure everything in their life is comfortable. Maybe there’s a lesson in that for us. That God is not super interested in the fact that his people are just comfortable all the time. James has some things to say about that in chapter one. That trial actually helps us. Going through difficulty kind of shapes our faith. And so maybe God wants to allow some of those things to take place to challenge us, to build us up in our understanding and our knowledge of Him and who He is and what life is actually about.

In the day of adversity, consider.

I’ve tried to be faithful my whole life. Before we jump to those sorts of things, thoughts, he says to consider. To be thoughtful. Time and chance happened to them all, it says in chapter 9 and verse 11. All throughout the book, a number of times, he points out that at least from an earthly perspective, it seems like the same things happen to the righteous and the wicked. Now, ultimately, his conclusion is going to be that’s not entirely true. But from a this world perspective, it’s pretty true. There’s things working behind the scenes. There are things happening kind of in the unseen realm that are different, that make this not exactly the same. But when it comes to earthly life, for the most part, that’s how it works.

Now, there’s the other side of this. Do not be overly wicked, neither be a fool. Now he’s not saying go be a little bit wicked. That’s not the message here. But what he’s trying to get us to understand is, yeah, there are choices you can make. There are things you can do that have consequences. And so if you want to go and be a fool, you can end your life earlier. That can happen. Right? So don’t kill yourself trying to be the most righteous person that’s ever lived, to obligate God to bless you in life. Don’t do that. But also, don’t be overly wicked and be a fool and die before your time. Now we don’t know when our time’s gonna be, right? This is part of the limitations.

We don’t understand when our life is going to end. This is what’s mentioned multiple times in the book, but we can do some things and make really poor choices to make that come along a little faster. And he’s saying, don’t do that. You do have some control. But don’t be apathetic. Don’t say, well, if I just can’t control anything, I’m just gonna do whatever I want. That’s not the answer. Apathy is not the answer to life that gives joy. But some are we ever tempted to feel that way? Maybe we feel it a little bit more like in a marriage, like with our spouse. You know, we do some things and they’re not happy with what we do, and we’ve tried to make them happy.

Well, if I can’t make them happy, just forget it. Ever felt that? Or maybe a friendship, a close friendship, where you’re trying to do some things to show you care and you don’t get much gratitude in return. Well, if they’re if they’re not going to show gratitude, then what is this all for, anyway? As humans, we’re tempted to think that way sometimes. And he’s trying to help us to see that is not the answer to life. But to not go to these extremes, not to kind of go to this holier than thou sort of direction that I’m going to be as righteous as I possibly can to make God bless me and make everything work out. You can’t do it. We don’t have that level of control.

But also, don’t just go to the other side, be apathetic and say, well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just do whatever I want. It’s all going to be the same anyway. And so avoid the extremes that sometimes we feel in life. There are choices that we can make that do make a difference. And actually, he talks a little bit about this toward the conclusion of chapter 7. He said there’s something actually worse than death. The woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by here. This sounds a little bit like Proverbs. You know, you make some wise choices, you’ll avoid some of these negative things in life. And what he’s going to get into here is that it’s really hard.

It’s really hard to find a really good, honest man or a really good, honest woman. And the advice here is to be very careful. You know, there’s choices that we can make in life about the people we associate with, and that’s what he’s getting at here, right? Toward the end of this. One man among a thousand I found. But a woman among all these I’ve not found. It’s really hard to find good, honest, upright people. So be really careful about what you do in life. These are important choices that you make that do influence things. So, yes, there are choices we can make about who we marry or who our friends are that can make a big difference in our life. And yet, even in all of that, there’s just so many things that we can’t control.

3. Fear God and Trust Him

And so the answer is not to think that we can grasp control of all things.

That is not the answer to bring contentment and joy in life. The answer ultimately is that we fear God. This is what he keeps hitting on throughout the book that we trust him. We trust the one who is in control. What matters is not bending the world to me, trying to make it all work out in the things that I want, but trusting the God who governs the world in the way he sees fit. Because he is truly sovereign. God knows what’s best in a way that I will never comprehend. Trust, even when it doesn’t make sense, the wise man tells us. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, this is chapter 8 and verse 12. Yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him.

The wise man sort of vacillates back and forth between kind of a human perspective. He’s looking out, it’s all even. You know, the same things happen to everybody. But then he kind of offers like this divine sort of perspective. Even though it looks like that, this evil person, they prolong their life, they just keep doing evil, even though I see that’s happening, what I know because I trust God is that it will be well for those who fear him. And so rather than putting my trust in possessions or even in people, finding my security and my protection and all of that, the security and the protection and the peace and the joy I’m going to find in life comes from enjoying the things that God has given me, but more than that, putting my trust and dependence upon him.

Conclusion

Focusing on the things that I can control, like living faithfully and fearfully, even in the midst of the unknown, the things that I can’t comprehend in life. Living with wisdom. Because even though it looks like everything happens the same way to everybody, I know it’s better than folly. That’s what the writer says. And realizing and trusting and believing the very thing he says in chapter 3 and verse 11, that is that God makes everything beautiful, not in my time, not the way I want it all to work, but in his time. We just don’t always understand how it works from beginning to end. But he tells us the answer is to trust anyway. And so busting these three myths involves accepting limits, realizing that as humans we can only do so much.

It means we avoid the extremes, particularly in thinking. In thinking we can control everything if we do it all just right, or it just doesn’t matter since we can’t control it all. And then the final concept there is that we understand the need to just put our faith and our trust in God, commit ourselves to him, even when it doesn’t make sense, even as we walk through unknown circumstances, sometimes things that are troubling and difficult, that we realize, even if I can’t see it right at this very moment, that he is the answer and his way is the way. Can we help you with that this morning? You can give your life to Jesus Christ. That’s where the story is ultimately going. The wise man in Ecclesiastes is saying the whole duty of man is to fear God, to keep his commandments.

And God’s ways are going to the reach, the pinnacle of that is going to be reached. All things are going to come together into a head with Jesus Christ, Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1. He’s the answer. The things we want to fix in life, and we look around and we see things aren’t right. We wish they were better. The only way that’s ever going to be fixed is by God justifying everything, making everything right again. And he does that through his son. And in his plan, all things are going to work together in a way that is beneficial for all who follow him and love him and give themselves to him, and they will spend eternity with him. This temporary life is working that for us.

That’s what we’re trying to accomplish. So this morning, even you can give your life to Jesus Christ. You can be baptized, give up the Adam humanity, the earthly life, the material, and put on Jesus Christ and begin living for eternity. Can we help you do that? Come now as we stand and we sing.