Living a Good Life: God's Design For Success, Part 1

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. We all have a God-given drive for success, but we have to stop and ask ourselves, who is defining what success really means? What is our ambition rooted in? Today, Pastor Rich unpacks Ecclesiastes 4 and helps us see the difference between the way the world thinks about success, a self-preeminent striving to achieve, versus God's design for success under his purpose and community.

Let's listen in. Live a good life making sense of the journey, and that's what we're all striving for, isn't it? To make sense of this journey that we called life. So in Ecclesiastes chapter 4, there's one question that I think becomes very clear, and it's something that we all tend to ask, and it's the question, how am I doing after all? How am I doing?

You get the emphasis there? How am I doing? Because I need to make sense of this journey. I want to live a good life. Making sense of the journey can be very difficult, and so we're always asking, how am I doing? Where am I going with my life?

Am I upwardly mobile? You know that old theme song? Well, we're moving on up.

You remember that? If you're 30 or older, you do. I'm going to make life what I think it ought to be. That's at the core of our souls, isn't it? I'm going to make life what I think it ought to be.

We all have these ideas of what life ought to be like, and there is an oughtness there, isn't there? But there's two ways we generally go about doing this. First of all, through the acquisition of power, that's influence. We find that in verses 1 to 3. And secondly, through the acquisition of possessions.

We see that in verses 4 and 8. This is realities of life under the sun. If all we have is just under the sun, and we ignore, we neglect, we deny that which is beyond the sun, then we're left with earthbound thinking, and we're consumed with a question, how am I doing? How is this relating to me? How is this making me feel?

What is this doing? How am I doing? And we become like beasts in life under the sun. If there is no acknowledgement of God, then we have the same intellectual frame of mind where there is no acknowledgement of God, and it all becomes about self-preoccupation.

How am I doing? Whether that's through acquisition of power or acquisition of possessions. And without the acknowledgement of God, what becomes true is what is said true of so many people today, and particularly of men. So many men live lives of quiet desperation, because we have this idea of what life ought to be like, and we're so frustrated with it. And we're consumed with the question, how am I doing? There's two things that drive us in this.

We look at them in the text here. First of all, is the drive to succeed. The drive to succeed. To be in control of what life ought to be. And too many times that ends up oppressing people. Using other people so that I get what I want. That's what oppression is. I want to have what others have, and what other people have determines my need. That's envy. That's rivalry. We're comparing with each other constantly.

Look at verse four, chapter four. Then I saw that all the toil and all skill and all skill and work comes from man's envy of his neighbor. You see what other people have and what they have is what I need.

What others have determines what I need. It is a common human error, because we're constantly comparing ourselves with each other. And that gives us the wrong definition of success. But we are driven to succeed, but we do so in self preeminence.

Listen, you need to understand this. A drive to succeed is a part of being created in God's image. We were created to be industrious. We were created to be productive. We were created to be purposeful and meaningful in all that we do. But here's the question. Who or what defines success? Jesus brought that question up, didn't he? What is a prophet or man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?

You'd be the richest man in the world. And if you lose your soul, you have failed. Who or what defines success?

Here's the truth of the matter. Success, the word success, the meaning of success cannot be defined short of identified purpose. There has to be an identification of purpose before you can measure success. And far too many people have the right definition or wrong idea of purpose. Like, for example, if I were to get a group of people together and say, we're going to go down to the coast and we're going to build a castle.

A bunch of people are following me. I said, all the resources that you need are going to be provided. So we go down to the coast and I said, we're going to go to the coast and build a castle. And so I go down there and like, I am building a castle out of sand and it is a magnificent work of art. It is beautiful.

People go, ooh, ah, wow, look at that. And little did I realize that the castle that was intended to be built was an actual castle built of stone that doesn't wash away with the waves. And yet I was successful, wasn't I, in building my castle. I was successful, but I was successful at the wrong thing. You cannot define success until you have identified purpose. And when there is nothing but life under the sun, we don't get that. We don't have that because you and I, we are inadequate to determine our own purpose. You have nothing to do with your existence and you cannot even keep yourself alive. You're inadequate to determine your own purpose. We need something beyond the sun to do that for us. But if all we have is under the sun, then we live like beasts and it's only about my advancement or my survival.

So how am I doing on that? I've become preoccupied with this question. So it's driven by the power to, by the drive to succeed. But secondly, it's driven by the power complex, a power comp there, and this exists in every one of us. Now, ladies, you might say, okay, this is Rich is talking to the men now. No, I'm talking to everybody here.

Okay. A power complex. We are given dominion. And you know, that is a God-given attribute too, if you understand that.

A lot of people don't recognize that, but we are recognized that though. It is another character of God and man. We are entrusted with the task of having dominion, but we use it as control over the influences of life, namely people. And we take that dominion to control people.

And the history of human government makes it abundantly clear that at all levels, whether it's families, cities, or countries, the history of human control can be summarized in one word, oppression, oppression, misuse of authority. We see an example of this in verses 13 to 16. Better was a poor and wise youth than an old foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor. Look what it says at the end of verse 16.

There was no end of all the people, all whom he led yet. Those who come later will not rejoice in him. What's the scenario?

What's going on here? You've got a king who is a traditionalist and he's wise, and yet he is so wise, he will not accept any advice. He becomes an oppressor. It's my way or the highway.

But you've got a young revolutionary who's born poor, maybe even in prison, and he rises up in the country, gets a bunch of people following him, and they create a revolution. Change, that's what we need. And that's the mantra in our political system, isn't it? Change. We are constantly needing change.

How's that gotten us so far? We bring in change and it ends up that those in power are taking advantage of the perks of power, and there is just as much abuse and oppression as there always was before. So you can have a young revolutionary rise up and in the end he becomes an oppressor himself. He was set out to change the oppression and in the end he said he became an oppressor himself.

And it says, later no one will rejoice in him. You see, we see a perfect example of this down in the island of Cuba. Castro, right? He created a revolution. How did that do, how did that work for them?

How did that work for them? The people were oppressed for four decades. But this is so common. It happens at all different levels.

Again, families, cities, and countries. It happens at all levels. This is life under the sun. This is what happens. Saul did the same thing.

King Saul, he was born a young man with nothing to his name, no notoriety or anything like that, and he became king. He was humble at first, but then, you know, as the perks of power took over, he's like, I can do what I want. And that's when things go wrong. When anybody says, anybody at any level says, I can do what I want. It's my life.

That's a problem. And what this does, what Solomon is pointing out here in Ecclesiastes chapter four, by the way, if I ever say Ephesians, deal with me, okay? Just bear with me, all right? I mean, you know, and somebody came up to me and says, Rich, I think you're teaching from the book of Ecclesians.

So just, I think I did that once this morning. I said Ephesians, but we're in Ecclesiastes and I understand that, right? Okay. But if I say Ephesians, just know I mean Ecclesiastes, unless I really mean Ephesians. Then I might say Ecclesians or something like that, right? But what he's pointed out is that this individualism leads us to triumphant superiority, whether it's in politics, business, marriage, or even churches, individualism leads to triumphant superiority because we compare ourselves to each other and it's the pride of life. And the whole idea of pride, what is so dangerous and hurtful about pride is not that you have, but that you have more, more than. You see, because we're constantly comparing. That's individuals, that's triumphant superiority.

It's my life, the way I want it. And that comes up constantly. Politics, business, marriage, churches, it happens constantly.

We need to be constantly on guard against that. But see, this is the realities of life under the sun. And there are two reactions to this oppressive reality. As somebody said this morning, it's hard to read Ephesians because it tends to come across so negative. And yes, it is negative. And yet there are golden nuggets of truth in here that yank us out of that negativity to see that we desperately need God's revelation. We need to think not under the sun, but beyond the sun. Seven Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight and Grace weekdays at 10 a.m.