Living a Good Life: Making Sense of Your Appetites, Part 2

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. In today's time, we have many voices seeking claim over our hearts.

But in Ecclesiastes 7, Solomon points out that this is not a new problem. Mankind has always had to answer the question, who will inform my beliefs on how life ought to be? In this message titled, Making Sense of the Voices, Pastor Rich gives us some practical advice on how to discern the value and truth behind those voices.

Let's listen in. This is part two of the message. It was first preached on May 13th, 2018 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. It's part of a series on Ecclesiastes titled, Living a Good Life, Making Sense of the Journey.

If you would like to listen to more messages from this series, go to www.delightingrace.com. What were the values? What were the accomplishments of that child's life?

Was it all about measurable stuff and acquisition? Or did that child invest his life in other people? Did that child know God? Did that child love God? You see, those are the things you know at the end. You don't know those things at the beginning.

And this is why Solomon is saying, we need to listen to these voices. Would you dare? Would you dare? It's going to make some of you uncomfortable, okay? Deal with it.

Would you dare to envision yourself in a casket? And what are people saying about you? What characterizes your life?

What voices have you been listening to? Is it all about everything you can acquire? All the power you can have? All the positions you can acquire?

All the stuff you can acquire? Or is it about the relationships that you can impact that God has entrusted to you? This is how Solomon is challenging us. This is why he said, death, the day of death is better than the day of birth. David Gibson puts it well. He says, when life ends or is about to end, absolutely everything else comes into focus. The things that don't really matter but which we gave so much time to now seem so empty and pointless.

The lives we touched and the generosity we showed and the love we gave or received now mean so much more. Voices. So which is better?

Which is better? There's two paths we could end up on here. One path develops my character. And that's why he says at the beginning in verse one, a good name is better. A good name. What does a good name involve? A good name involves integrity. A person of integrity. A person who benefited others.

A person who lived the mind of Christ. Boring, right? That's why you don't see that stuff. That's boring. That's life.

I mean, that's a good name, right? But also, he says in verse eight, jump down to verse eight, a patient spirit is better than a proud spirit. A patient spirit. One whose appetites are informed, corralled and delayed.

Right? That's what we studied last week. And those appetites impact yourself and others.

Which is better? To follow that path of a good name and a patient spirit or instead of developing my character, my life becomes all about indulging my senses. When life is all about simply indulging one's senses, then life becomes about masking corruption. The corruption that exists in your own life.

Or sometimes even masking the corruption that exists around you. He was a master at comedy. He was highly skilled at comedy. But Robin Williams' comedy masked deep insecurity and chronic infidelity.

I honor him for his skill and he made people laugh. But it was masking something. In verse six, it says that it's like the crackling of thorns under a pot. What does that mean? Thorns is this small wood that can only simply consume.

It burns and it's consumed and then it's gone. Is that all life is? Because if life is about indulging my senses, not only will it be masking corruption, but it will lead me to arrogant demands.

Arrogant demands. Because life will be about what I deserve or even better, what I dream of. I have this dream about what life ought to be.

The question is, who's informing you about what life ought to be? Is it movies? Is it books?

Is it magazines? Is it the internet? This is how life ought to be. Are you living your life according to commercials on TV? This is how life ought to be. And that leads us to, when I'm indulging my senses, that leads me to arrogant demands. Because I have this idea about what I deserve. I have this dream for my life.

And what does that look like? It often, way too many times, looks like, just in the news this last week, an 18 year old woman, who was a model, she was found dead in the apartment of a 41 year old ER doctor in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They met at a bar. She had this particular idea about what she was dreaming of and what she deserved, and what would make her happy. Do you see how it's necessary for us to learn from that?

There are two outcomes that come from these two paths. And it has very much to do with wisdom, what Solomon is talking about in these verses. One outcome, if you develop your character for a good name and a patient spirit, one outcome, the first outcome, is that you become skilled at life. This is the way of wisdom, that you become skilled at life. And to be skilled at life means that you actually face the realities of life.

You're not masking them, you're not running away from them, you face the realities of life. After last Sunday, I believe it was, somebody sent me, forwarded to me, a comic strip from the newspaper. It's the comic strip Lola, which happens to be one of my favorites because it so reflects reality.

She is the female Barney Fife of the comics. And it goes like this, she's sitting on the couch, she's listening to the TV, so the message is coming out of the TV. And it's like one of those commercials, right? Like for a prescription drug or something like that. And they always have to give the disclaimers of the side effects, right? So here it goes.

The side effects may include anger, disbelief, dizziness, disgust, and nausea. So ask your doctor if reality is right for you. I love it. That's what Solomon is talking about. That's what Solomon is. So what voices are we listening to? Are we simply masking these realities? Are we looking for escape from them?

Or are we actually dealing with them? Listen to me. Life is serious business. Because there are massive things at stake. Eternity is in the balance. Life is serious business. And we need to learn to be able to process pain, disappointment, dissatisfaction, to make sense of the journey, to understand these voices, the appetites that we have, the relationships that we have. We need to learn from the pain. That's why so many times in scripture it says something like James writes, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

Why? Not because the trials are delightful, but because why? They produce something in you. It's the development of the character. It's the development of the soul. We ought to be about developing character so that the soul prospers. We are so all about all these voices, want your senses to prosper, your body to prosper, your emotions to prosper. But does your soul prosper?

That's what matters. Because if your soul does not prosper, then when it comes to the end, you are destined for regret. And a lot of it. What voices are we listening to?

C.S. Lewis put it well, pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

We're so distracted from him and he needs to shout to us in our pain. To be skilled at life means one can face realities, but it also means this, number two, that we engage reality with the end in view. We engage reality with the end in view. The end, the destination informs our current steps. It informs the decisions we make, the values we have, the priorities we establish. Knowing the end informs these things, which is one reason why I didn't plan it this way, but tonight, eagerly waiting for him. That's our end, isn't it?

When we will be with him, the Lord Jesus Christ, our savior, our redeemer, our reconciler, when we will be with him, that is our end. Knowing that informs our steps now, our decisions, our values, our priorities. Knowing the destination informs your steps today.

This is what Solomon is teaching us. It's understanding that this life is kind of like camping. I don't know how many of you like camping. I grew up doing a lot of camping, so it has a special place in my heart and mind, the memories of it. Camping otherwise called willful deprivation of conveniences. Camping is much more tolerable with the expectation of what?

Getting back home. 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.