All Is Tested by Wisdom

Brothers and sisters, I would like to start this morning by just looking at this passage, and we just referred to a pastoral plan for Nerang and for our congregation. And we talked about the balanced Christian life. Now, Ecclesiastes 7 is all about this. Having a balanced life in Christ. Having a balanced life and understanding balance and the difference of what a balanced life for a Christian as opposed to a non-Christian would be.

Balance is a fine concept. And I would like you to think about a gymnast walking on a tight rope and balancing themselves on this rope with that long pole trying to stay on the rope. And when we read in Ecclesiastes 7, we read about many bad things and we read about many good things in the life of everybody. And the great teacher tells us that there is no wise man, there is no man on earth that is in balance. There is no man that can claim that they understand God's word and God's wisdom and that they are altogether wise.

This does not mean that he doesn't encourage us to actually understand the concept of balance. On the contrary, he wants us to get a good grasp on it. Brothers and sisters, balance is something that's different for each and every one of us. Just look at your own lives and what you are doing. The things that you consider important in your life, and the things that I consider to be important in my life might be something that's totally different.

We see this at school age and our children. How so many of them find their balance in different things. Some of them are so into sport that they reckon to be balanced is to have 12 different sports and to balance their lives around their sport. Some other people pursue some cultural activities, and they are so involved in so many things. So many Christians are involved in so many Christian activities.

And they balance their lives with a lot of Christian things on the scale. And this balance and the way that we balance ourselves is actually like the old scale. The old scale when people walked into those shops where they wanted to buy some sugar and there was some balance on the one side of the scale with a weight saying this is one kg. So all I do is I put enough sugar in that's one kg on the other side. And as soon as the scale balances, I know I've got one kg of sugar.

So for a Christian, we just put one kg of Christian activities on our scale, and we think and we reckon we are all balanced. This is it. This is balance for me. Can't you see? My scale is in balance.

But then the great teacher from the book of Ecclesiastes comes to us and says, wait a bit. There are so many wise things and so many foolish things to consider before you even try to balance your scale. And he comes up with a number of things, and I would like to briefly touch on them. Until we read the eleventh verse, all of the other things, it looks like random wise and foolish things that he puts on our table. The first thing he says is a good name is better than perfume.

Something that I wouldn't come up with. It's something that I wouldn't think about. How do you actually balance and how do you see good and bad in perfume and a good name? He says a good name is better than perfume. Perfume is something that smells good.

We love perfume. And in a certain sense, we might be saying, my good name can be like perfume. It can be like when people speak about me or talk about me, it can be really important for me to have a good name. In the end, each and every one of us will die. And he brings a good name right on the same level as death.

And he says, please make sure wisdom is to have a good name on your last day on earth because it's really, really important. Then he goes on and saying, it's better to be in a house of mourning than in a house of feasting. When we listen to this, we think this surely cannot be right. But when he explains himself, we realise it is very true. In a house of mourning, you will find people confronted with the truth of life.

And they will have had an experience which will test them and bring about wisdom in their life on how to deal with what has happened to them. And that is better than having a short lived night of festivity, a shallow night of pleasure. He continues on in verse 5 saying, it's better to be rebuked by a wise man to listen than the song of fools. It sounds not right. Is it good to be rebuked?

I certainly do not want to be rebuked. How do we react to that? How do we react to it when people speak with criticism in our lives? Can you handle positive criticism? Is what the teacher of the book of Ecclesiastes asks of us in verse 5.

He says it's wise to understand that if I react to criticism, I will grow in my faith. I will certainly not stagnate, and that is a good thing. Therefore, being rebuked by a wise man has value to me. Every single time when we rethink it, it makes sense. Verse 7 reads that it has a lot of value to be patient with our ministry plan.

If we are patient and not trying to organise, operate or make it work or whatever the case might be in our own power, in our own might, but rather be patiently waiting on God that is wise. Verse 10 reminds us of the fact that it is foolish to dwell on the past. It is not wise to talk about the good old days. This is it. We are here right now in Nerang, in the kingdom of God, and we shouldn't dwell on the past.

We should be asking, we should be asking where are we now, and where are we going in the presence of our Lord? And then in verse 11, he starts taking everything into account that he spoke about, and there are many more things on this scale about foolishness and wisdom in our lives and the battle we have with being foolish, being fools, or being wise in the things we do. He draws a conclusion. And he says that if someone possesses wisdom, it would be powerful, and the working thereof would be powerful in our lives. We will be enriched.

We will have a full life. We have to understand that when we balance our scales and when we come before God, that it is a lot more than thinking about all the wise things and all the good things and all the bad things on the other hand and trying to put all of that into balance. The teacher wants us to understand that life is not a problem to be solved. Growing this congregation is not a problem to be solved. It is not a problem that we have.

It is an opportunity. A wise man will look at it and ask God, what is your plan? How do you want to use us? What is wisdom in our situation? And now when we listen to the answers of the great teacher of this book, we actually see that he is a lot different than other people.

Most people, when you ask him or her, how's it going? Will tell you, it's okay. I'm doing fine. It's all good. Thank you.

Thank you for asking. But this teacher is actually a realist. And so many theologians actually have a problem with preaching from this book because it sounds so negative. It is as if he's focusing on all of the negative things. But when you look at it, it's all realistic.

He is the greatest realist of all times. He's committed to be honest. Interestingly enough, one of my professors said, do not even attempt to preach from the book of Ecclesiastes before you turn 40 because you will not understand anything of this book if you are not old enough. If you haven't had some experiences in life. If you haven't had and haven't experienced what the preacher of this book actually experienced.

I'm turning 45 this year and I think I'm still not doing well with this book. Because not everything is sitting well with me. When I read into this book and when I read into the honesty, the brutal honesty of the man, I'm thinking, is it really necessary to be so hard headed to be following God? Do you have to be like this? Do you really have to see everything and judge it to this value of brutal honesty?

Of not only saying things the way they are, but actually hammering it in, saying, this is the way it is. He comes to us in the fourteenth verse saying, there are good and bad things. And wisdom is to accept the good and the bad. You see, sometimes we as Christians struggle with this. We struggle with the fact that good people go through bad things.

And then after the fourteenth verse, he actually starts explaining this. He says that I've seen this. I've seen a righteous man battling through life. It is not right, but this is it. This is the way life is.

I've seen a wicked man thriving and prospering, having a good time. This is the way it is. He just wouldn't put it the other way. He documents that. And he says, wisdom is to accept the good and the bad.

God gave the good and the bad. God is almighty. Now you see, when we look into the book of Ecclesiastes and when we start asking these questions on why is this teacher so brutally honest, if we recognise the fact that he's just being realistic, that he's just putting it the way it is, and life and he is as if he is reporting on life without holding back. There's no censoring anything here. This is life, and he's just presenting life.

He says in the twentieth verse, there is not a righteous man on earth, not even me. I'm hard headed trying to be righteous. I'm in search of wisdom, but it's all beyond me. There is no righteous man on earth. There is no wise person on earth.

There is no man on earth whose scale is in balance. And then we realise that this teacher was in need of something. This teacher gave life a hard look, and he realised something is missing. And we, as Christians, know what was missing in his life. Jesus Christ.

He was actually longing for the grace of God which we have found in Jesus Christ. Because of the fact that we have Jesus and His work on the cross, we are now imbalanced. We our scales are now imbalanced. Because all of our sins, all of the weight that we carried in this way was being brought in balance through the work of Jesus Christ. Of Him dying for us, but because I am not a righteous man.

But through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, my scale is in balance. And this is what He realised. This is what He saw in His world that something, someone was missing. And we as Christians have this great advantage. But then again, as soon as we think we've now got wisdom in our hands and we understand wisdom, this teacher comes in the sixteenth through the eighteenth verse and says, just a moment.

Just a moment. Just when you think that you've got everything, I would just like to make two remarks. There are two dangers in being a wise man. The first danger is not to be over righteous. Please do not be over righteous.

In your righteousness, in your hard headedness, in your boldness of standing up for the values of God in this and His kingdom, in this life that you lead, please be genuine. Do not try with human wisdom and self justification to show that you are wise. Do not be so over righteous that people will look at you and say, I'm done with Christians. Because you are just too over righteous. The second danger is wickedness.

Do not engage on a road of sin. Do not do the evil things. Do not accept the worldly things, but focus on being holy on the wisdom that we have and that we find in the word of God. Be holy. Read the word of God and live a life of wisdom.

Brothers and sisters, how do we find ourselves on the road of wisdom? How do we look at our ministry plan and say, with the wisdom of God, with the righteousness that we find in Jesus Christ, we will serve God with integrity on the road of wisdom. It all starts when we are in awe before God. When we realise, like the teacher of the book of Ecclesiastes, that our God is a great God, that our God is almighty, that in our lovelessness and in our focus on ourselves, that we will be destroyed in our own sin. It all starts when I stand in awe before God and on my road of sin, being confronted with my sin, come before Him and ask Him for the forgiveness through the work of His Son.

We will not be able to deal with our sin without recognising His Son. We will only really live if we live in Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, I would like to conclude by asking you, looking at your scale, looking at your life, how do you see yourself? Are you in balance or are you out of balance? Balance means different things for different people.

Balance means totally something different for a Christian than what a balanced life meant for the teacher of the book of Ecclesiastes because of the fact of the word of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, we are not balanced. And what this teacher wanted us to realise is that we shouldn't balance our scale with bad things on the one hand and good things on the other hand. We should realise that in the bad and in the good, we will find God because God has given both. And for a Christian, our scale to be in balance is actually to be out of balance.

Because of the fact that we have the grace of Jesus Christ added onto our scale. Our scales tilt and are tilted into the love of God. And we find the unity that we've read about in John 15. We are one in Christ. We are in the love of Christ.

And therefore, we are righteous. Do you see yourself to be a righteous man? Do you understand the meaning of this teacher, this hard headed man of God standing up and saying, I am not righteous. Do we realise the privilege to be able to stand in the presence of God saying, in the name of Jesus Christ, I am a righteous man. I am a righteous woman because of the work of Jesus Christ.

The struggle of this man concluded in the work of Jesus Christ. This is our privilege and this is what we have to share with the world. And therefore we have an outreach focus into focusing into our communities and into our world. The scale has tilted into the love of Jesus Christ. Amen.