Living a Good Life: Making Sense of Your Appetites, Part 3

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 three of the message. It was first preached on May 13, 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 the full message or more messages from this series, you can head over to www.delightingrace.com. 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 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 to that hot shower, soft, comfortable bed, home-cooked food, right?

Camping is much more tolerable when you know that's just a couple days away, maybe even hours. This life is like camping, but do you know your end? Has God informed of that?

What voices are you listening to? You see, if you don't become skilled at life through the way of wisdom, through developing a character of a good name and a patient spirit, then you will become bitter at life. There's far too many people in that boat today. You'll become bitter at life. When you become disappointed with life, you will then abuse things and people. It might surprise you what sort of abuse we're talking about here. Because the first sort of abuse we find, look at, for example, in verse 9, be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools.

You need to know that verse. Anger lodges in the heart of fools. When I become bitter at life, it's because I'm not getting what I deserve. I've not realized my dream, and I become bitter. And one way I become bitter is through anger. Because I'm boiling beneath the surface, and when somebody pushes the right button, what do I do? I lash out. Or I can control, I seek to control, to commit, to manipulate people, circumstances.

And I, myself, am a corrupting influence in my world. Anger. My life becomes characterized by outrage. It could be inward outrage or external outrage, and we're seeing a lot of outrage today. Christians, outrage does not belong in the heart and mind of one who is a child of God. Anger lodges in the heart of fools. A second way that we can be bitter at life and become abusive, the first is anger.

The second might surprise you. Apathy. Apathy.

Apathy is a form of abuse. Verse 10, say not, where are the former, why were the former days better than these? You've said that, haven't you? Oh, I wish I could have been better than these. Oh, I wish we lived in the good old days. No, you don't. You really, really want to go back?

Really? Well, maybe you do. That's your issue. Dwelling in the past, the good old days.

Really, were the good old days? And when we think like that, we become cynical, and we also become indifferent about current circumstances. And when we become indifferent, we just simply become cynical. We sit back and we withdraw, and we're just simply making a judgment about, well, that's how things are today, you know, and we just throw our hands up like we're going to throw in the towel. And we disengage. And as we disengage, we miss present opportunities. Listen to me. Listen to me. The church made that mistake beginning in the 50s.

Let's not do that again. Loved ones, we are not called to disengage and escape our culture. We are called to engage it with the light. We don't run away. We don't sit back and just judge the darkness. We turn the light on.

If we are salt, salt is only effective when it comes in contact with the other substance. And when we sit here musing, oh, the good old days, and wishing back for the good old days, and wish we could take it all back. Do you know what we're admitting? We're admitting that we think God has lost control.

Really, you think so? It says that the one who does that, does not ask that from a heart of wisdom. It is not from wisdom that you ask this.

Why were the good old days so much better than they are today? That's not asked from a heart of wisdom. Stop right now. Stop and consider how you are responding to life's realities. What's going on in your heart?

How do you respond? Is it from anger or is it apathy? Or is your soul prospering by the way of wisdom? This is so important that Solomon concludes this today with the challenge to pass it on. Verses 11 to 13, we're going to talk about the challenge to pass it on. Verses 11 to 13, wisdom is good with an inheritance and advantage to those who see the sun.

Two main points here. Passing on wisdom, the development of character for the prosperity of the soul. Begin young. Begin young.

We talk about living with the end in view. Do you know that's really hard for you youngins in here today? It's hard. When you get my age, not so hard. But for you youngins that's younger than me, I challenge you. Envision yourself.

This is hard, okay? Brace yourself. Envision yourself in the casket. You're going to be there one day. What will be true about your life? What will be manifest according to the voices that you listened to in your life?

You have to begin young. One's future is advantaged not so much by wealth but by wisdom. What good is stuff without a skillful heart and mind? On Mother's Day today, let me share with you a really, really good statement from Susanna Wesley, the mother of Charles and John Wesley. She was asked by one of her sons, Mother, what is sin? And after contemplating it for a while, she gave this answer. This is good.

This is good. What is sin? And her answer, whatever weakens your reasoning impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God or takes away your relish for spiritual things. In short, if anything increases the authority and power of the flesh over the spirit, that to you becomes sin however good it is in itself.

I think every mom should memorize that, don't you? Whether your kid asks you about the definition of sin or not, he's going to be introducing the subject. Lastly, consider God's work. To pass on this wisdom, consider God's work.

It says in verse 13, consider the work of God who can make straight what he has made crooked. Consider God's work. Listen, creation is subjected to futility. That explains the harsh realities of life. That explains why this life under the sun is temporary.

It is fleeting. You have to deal with harsh realities of life. Understand the fallen created order. But God has offered redemption and newness. Sovereignty. Understand the sovereignty of God carrying out his purpose.

We were made for him and he is the point he offers redemption and newness in Jesus Christ. And that's where we have to leave it today. What voices are you listening to? Who is informing you? How life ought to be?

I dare you to answer that question. 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.