Living a Good Life: Making Sense of Your Appetites, Part 1

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. In a well-known quote, Augustine tells the Lord, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee. The created can never satisfy a heart meant for the Creator.

In Ecclesiastes 6, Solomon bemoans the fact that wealth does not satisfy the soul. In today's message, we consider our appetite for gain as a human race, why it fails to satisfy, and what we can do about it. Let's listen to this message titled, Making Sense of Your Appetites. The truth is about us is that we have insatiable appetites. As human beings, we have insatiable appetites.

As we look at this, look at how he begins this chapter. There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind. It's weighing mankind down, and we have desires, insatiable desires, that we demand to be filled, and yet we cannot find satisfaction for them, and they come in two categories. Number one, the insatiable desire to have, to have. We find that in verses 2 through 8, he says right there in verse 2, he says right there in verse 2, a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires. So, relationships that affirm, status that impresses, acquisitions that offer satisfaction and security.

We desire, we have a passion for novelty and pleasure, and we desire what is good, and yet who can define what is good, and everybody has a different idea about what is good. He addresses that later on. And so, Solomon here uses standards of wealth in ancient times. A hundred children and lives long. He says in verse 6, if you were to live a thousand years, two times over. If a man has that kind of wealth, everything that his soul desires, but, but, he's not satisfied. He's not satisfied. Three times, he says, very clearly in this text, look at verse 2, God does not give him the power to enjoy all this that brings his soul pleasure. In verse 3, his soul is not satisfied, the soul is the seat of emotion and desire. And then in verse 7, his appetite is not satisfied.

How awful. All the good stuff of life, and yet we have these insatiable desires that cannot be satisfied. You know, research shows that wealth itself speeds up the hedonic treadmill.

As the level of wealth has doubled and even tripled in the last 50 years, in many industrialized nations, depression has actually become more common. And yet we still think that money will bring us wealth, will bring us happiness, or the acquisition of status or power, that it will bring us happiness. The point is that these are measurable things. These are measurable things under the sun, and there's two things that are true about them. Number one, they can be taken away. They can be taken away. Loss is a part of the fallen creation. Whatever I have, whether it's positions or power, it will be taken away. Here's the second thing, though, whatever I have can be given the wrong place. And that's very, very common in humanity. It can be given the wrong place, and it is the place that belongs to God. And if what you have is given the wrong place, it's an abuse, and what you abuse, you lose. And you are not satisfied. And that's why it says God does not give him the power to enjoy it. How many testimonies do we have to hear to know and believe this truth?

They have to keep coming at us. A very successful film director in the comedy industry, he says all the success in the world doesn't do anything. He says there is a great distraction in thinking, when I get to the top of the hill, it's all going to be awesome. And then when you get to the top of the hill, you're like, oh, I guess now I have to really do something about it. When you get to the top of the hill, you're like, oh, I guess now I have to really deal with my problems, because that didn't work at all.

That's a real testimony from somebody who has reached the top of the hill. Dissatisfaction. And so we have these insatiable desires to have.

We're not satisfied. The second category of these desires is to know. We desire to know, and that comes in verses 10 through 12.

We're going to work this a little bit backwards here. Look at the beginning of verse 12. Who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun? We want to know what is good and we want to know what is to come. We desire, we have a passion for novelty, to experience something new. And yet at the same time, we have this deep longing for permanence. We want novelty and we want permanence.

We want permanent novelty. It's a human problem. It's a dilemma, isn't it? And the problem is that we're looking for it under the sun.

Not going to find it, because the under the sun perspective is an insufficient perspective. So what he tells us in verse 11. For the more words, the more vanity. And what is the advantage to man?

The more words, the more vanity. That's the problem with contemporary scientism, not science. Science is great. Science is discovery. It's information. But scientism has the intent of reasoning away God.

We know how things work now. So who needs God? But little do they understand that as reasoning away God, they have also reasoned away meaning and purpose.

They have reasoned away any objective sense of good or any confidence of the future. So what do we have then? We have what Solomon says in verse 10. Whatever has come to be has already been named and it is known what man is and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he. There is a sovereign creator who is the administrator of life. A sovereign creator who is the administrator of life.

So that means two things. You need to know your place in the created order. Know your place in the created order and the fact is you're not going to change it. How many people through history have tried to change it? The brokenness, the fallenness, they're reaching for some utopia in this year, this week even, celebrating the 200th birthday of Karl Marx, whose ideas ought to be faded away into history except that we learn from them. Because Karl Marx had the dream that history would be unfolding as a glorious progression toward a socialist utopia.

And in the wake of that dream, there are 100 million people dead because of that ideology. What this requires of us was to recognize that there is a creator who is the administrator of life and we must recognize our place in the created order because we're not going to change that. It requires our humility. Know this verse, Proverbs 19, 23. Proverbs 19, 23, know this verse, the fear of the Lord leads to life and whoever has it rests satisfied.

That's a good verse. This is the necessity of divine disclosure for an accurate perspective for us. If our perspective is nothing more than just under the sun and we neglect what is beyond the sun, then we will have these insatiable desires that master us. So what is Solomon saying here? Solomon is saying in this statement in chapter six, enjoy life and accept your lot, your place in life as a relational steward of the good things God gives. It's kind of in a nutshell what Solomon is telling us here, because God is the giver of it all. But we have these insatiable desires to have and to know, and we can't if we're limited to under the sun.

So what is the root problem here? It's tucked away in the middle of this chapter in verse nine. Look at verse nine with me. Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite. This also is vanity and striving after the wind.

The root problem is the wandering appetite. And this is addressed all the way through scripture. And Paul says this is that the apostle Paul says this is one of the chief differences between the unregenerate and those who are in Christ is that you are not slave to your passions.

This is what he says in Colossians three, five, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness. These are idolatry. Now, why is it that he calls these idolatry? Because these all have to do with the insatiable desires to have. Why does he call it idolatry? Because if you are ruled by these passions, then what you are telling yourself is God is not enough.

That's idolatry. And so we become governed by irrational fantasies, and that's what it is. And we're so prone to that because the flesh lusts against the spirit. And did you know that was the first error in all of creation? The first error in all of creation was Lucifer when he took his focus off of infinite, majestic, holy God, and he placed his focus upon himself. And he recognized his limits and he became dissatisfied with his limits. That's one thing. But then listen what comes next, because we're talking about irrational fantasies here. What did he desire when he recognized his limits?

What did he do? He said, I will ascend above the throne of God. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.