Correcting Your Perspective of Yourself

well I'd like you to look at Ecclesiastes in Chapter 7 what we're looking at here is really the last of a section in Ecclesiastes that is called a correction of perspectives as you go through a life that is not doesn't have always equity and how it treats people that there can be bad times sometimes righteous men suffer wicked men prosper and what he's given you are Corrections of perspective the first one was about money it is highly overrated why don't I have money this bad guy doesn't it's highly overrated all it can deal with is just the externals of your life it can't deal with your heart that can sink you at times and then secondly you looked at the issue of life that life is not acquisitiveness and collecting stuff it is walking with God that God makes us for is to know him and all you need to do that are basic things and so God is committed to make us great not just happy and that's where you come to the next point and that is called pain that it's highly underrated whenever you go through difficult times it is those difficult times that stretch you and stress you and bring you close to God and so why do I go through hard times it's because God loves you and like a good parent that stretches his kid he won't always let us do the easy thing that we would like he is more committed to our greatness than we are we would always take the easy way just like your kid will not eat his broccoli he will eat junk all right if he is left to his own palette and so a parent has to override him well the last section here we're gonna finish up about looking at an issue of pain and then we're gonna look at the next six you in verse 15 about you got to clarify your perspective on yourself is there a chance that God can do things in your life that you don't completely understand I know that's hard to believe that we can't understand and intellectualize everything God is doing but sometimes you're gonna have to consider it all joy when you encounter various trials sometimes you're going to have to exult in your tribulations knowing that they produce perseverance and proven character and proven character of the assurance that we belong to God or like Peter said for a little while if necessary you have been distressed by various trials that the testing of your faith may be found to and then he talks about the marvelousness of faith and so let's get our perspective down here and be wise in verse 9 of chapter 7 he concludes this paragraph on the worthiness of testing by talking about what you don't do when testing comes you don't do verse 9 don't be eager in your heart to be what's the word angry why me God why not Joel strike Joel but not me and we get mad or you can do verse 10 why is it that the former days were not like these and you start whining you expect some time to idolize time that it always has to be getting better every day in every way and there can't be times of pain well in verse 10 it is not from wisdom that you ask this because wisdom knows do not despise the chastening of God nor faint when you are reproved by him for whom the Lord loves he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives it is for discipline that you endure the reason we endure is that it's not an accident but God is purposeful and stretching us he's more committed to our greatness than we are we'll always go for sugar and God will go for what's best for us when it says do not despise the chastening of God and do not faint those are the two bad reactions to hard times one is that you despise it you don't let it change you you just bow up under it and you get bitter and then the other one is where you faint and that is where you you say God you just don't love me anymore I have two sons one would despise chastening and one would faint the first one Benjamin would despise it I beat him with every object you could beat a child with alright to try to bring him I think CPS took him away three times in front trying to bring him under the yoke alright John Clark I would look at him and go how could you and he would collapse up no good those were the two bad responses and so whenever you go through hard times you don't get angry and you don't start whining looking back 10 years ago as to why it's not like that now you just take every day as it comes in verse 11 he says wisdom along with inheritance is good an advantage to those who see the Sun but wisdom is protection just as money is protection but the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom persevere is the life of the possessor in other words money and inheritance happiness that's verse 12 its protection you don't worry about having an operation you don't worry about having a next meal but can money and wealth ever really affect your heart it really can't a matter of fact can wealth ruin you it sure can you ever seen a kid that was spoiled never had to work but he says wisdom that's altogether different wisdom shapes your heart it preserves the life of the possessor I saw once a picture of the Kennedys it was a TV special and it showed all the picture of the Kennedys a mojo Kennedy down his kids and their kids and then it went through kid by kid and showed where they were and it was a horror story of where they were and yet they were wealthy and the son of diplomats from the moment that they were born but they they didn't know their Bibles they had the Kennedy hubris that the rules don't apply to us and to a man they suffered I saw another special once on the English royal family and they started through every one of them and it was a disaster because they all had the silver spoon but they didn't read their Bibles is that possible so Solomon says wealth good times are highly overrated he said wisdom is what you better have when I talk to kids that are graduating high school I always have a message that I give our kids and I say to them if you can be wealthy if you can be successful and all the physical things of life that's good but I say kids we don't care as your parents we want you to be good the Bible says that a godless son is a mother's grief but a good son is a father's joy you all be honest you be kind you stay with your mate and you pay your bills you have integrity and then if you can build us a house and veil go ahead all right it would be nice can I get an amen my sons built me a lean-to and Waxahachie all right that's the best they could do and so Solomon says you know if you got money and if you got inheritance that's nice but don't think that's gonna make your life and the fact that your hand to mouth don't think that that's going to take away your life because it's not it's you and your heart and God that's going to determine whether you're great in verse 13 and so when difficulty comes consider the work of God context what's the work of God it's anything that happens good or bad the Bible does not make excuses and say that accidents happen it does say God is in control does he tell you why it's happening he doesn't for that you have to trust him but consider the work of God who is able to straighten what he has bent which simply means when life takes a bend that's God it's not an accident it's not a cosmic convergence that's God Joseph whenever you're in the pit and whenever you're in the prison God has plans for you what are they we're not going to tell you now the end is that your brothers will kneel down before you and you will be great in the land this looks to be contrary I know it does stick around just hang on and let's wait and so that's the way that life is so consider the work of God when times are difficult you're not going to change the bend you know when you we used to have in our community groups we had a deal where they would take a coat hanger and unbend it and straighten it out and then you gave your testimony through that coat hanger and you would say this is when I started off in life and it was good and then I got scarlet fever and I lost the ability to do this and then I went to college and then grades came out and it went down like this and then I went up into this and I found this guy nobody has a life that does this amen nobody has a life that does this everybody goes through difficulties and when people would share their testimony they had these wires that would go like this and so God is faithful but God is not always predictable on day to day you have to trust him on health on jobs on what nations do you have to trust him and so consider the work of God you can't straighten what God has bent are there thoughts some things you can do yes you do what do you do do them what about things you can't do trust him I think was Reinhold Niebuhr who said god grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference and so you can change some things don't lean on a shovel and pray for a hole all right there's some things you can do and you're expected to do but there's others that you can't there's no Thurs you can and that don't bail out consider it hang on and the Whitewater just hang on stay above keep above and we're gonna level out but just stay there in verse 14 and the day of prosperity be happy but in the day of adversity don't bail out the word consider in Hebrew is from the word to see or to reflect look at it and learn it because there's going to be a day you're going to share this with your kids and grandkids it's going to be your testimony so don't bail out nobody gets out of here alive nobody gets out of here without trial we all struggle so in the day of adversity consider God made one as well as the other so that man may not discover anything that will be after him you don't know what the future holds like the great scholar doris day said que sera sera whatever will be will be the futures not ours to see que sera sera and so you take every day as it comes or as Jesus said he said Tamara's worries will take care of themselves consider yourself with the trembles today I'll take care of things this is the first Thessalonians 5 of the Old Testament rejoice how often always pray without ceasing and in everything give things this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus weather the storm God's going to shape you you know whenever you have happiness that's very quickly understood and it can lie to you and you can think I'm doing great in life because I'm happy happiness is just a contentment with present circumstance that's all it is when hard times hit they're not quickly interpreted they're quickly misinterpreted but they can lie to you also that this is the worst thing to happen to me but it's not so whenever you hear people's testimonies you're very rarely going to hear about happiness in life you're gonna hear about struggle and how God used it for their greatness will there be a day that there's no morning crying death nor pain by and by when the morning comes when the saints of God are gathered home will understand it better by and by but not now we're not quite in heaven then it's okay but we're not quite in heaven yet well he goes on to verse 15 and he says one of the things that can help you with this is getting a correct view of yourself we are not smart enough to critique God we are not smart enough to understand his way and so you don't need jerk in difficulties you trust him even though you don't understand let me ask you a question I'm 67 am I the only one in here is having problem with his memory does anybody else have a problem don't be ashamed hold your hand out they've got a rocker it just lets us know you're not quite as smart as you thought you were matter of fact you're not as smart as you were there's a story about a guy who went over to his buddy's house and the buddy was in the living room watching TV and he came in said have a seat I'm watching a special National Geographic and they were watching it it was about flowers and he was watching it he said just buddy hey what what's your favorite flower he said mine is uh what's that red flower yeah Rose yeah hey Rose what's my favorite flower now if you didn't catch that you need to get in line back here that's the way life is sometimes I talk to like Jerry Falbo and Jim Hill and we'll try to throw out something and we'll kick it around like a hacky sack trying to find hey Joe watch Georgia playa what was that it's a southern state y'all miss now letting it alle be Alabama that's his life well in verse 15 he says look this is a fact I've ever seen everything during my lifetime of futility there's a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness can you do all the right things and die early without any warning John Calvin I don't know I'm not sure if he made it to 50 I've outlived already Martin Luther Harry Emerson Fosdick the liberal made it to 98 why you know it's really funny this morning I was telling the story in the earlier service I told about Luther I told about Calvin I said but there was a liberal hey rose and there are wicked guys that live long so he just says is life always fair meaning that everybody's treated the same fair weather and hot n cold is right in the middle his life fair that everybody gets to live long everybody gets an inheritance nobody gets sickle-cell nobody gets multiple myeloma nobody loses a kid at childbirth his life that way now John Wesley's parents lost so many kids at childbirth they literally found themselves running out of biblical names John Wesley was named after an earlier kid named John that died now those are Susanna Wesley and her husband that raised the greatest organizer in the history of the faith a pastor his son was saved John whenever this city set the father's house on fire because they didn't like his preaching and they made a human chain went up and grabbed Little John out and come made him a brand from the burning which was the name of his biography now that's John Wesley Peter Marshall collapsed dead in the pulpit great presbyterian I wouldn't mind that that's not a prayer request or anything like that it's just a fact Jonathan Edwards greatest American theologian ever made 50 he died of the mishandling of a smallpox vaccination back in the 1700s go figure that's life you you can't say if I do this this will happen you can't do that if you're bad this will happen it don't always work and so he says I've seen that life is not always equities but in verse 16 don't be excessively righteous and don't be overly wise now that's used in the context of thinking that you know it all be careful in thinking that you understand everything that's going on because in verse 16 at the end of the verse what will that pride do to you he'll ruin you so be careful that you start critiquing God as to how this should be and in verse 16 don't go the other way I'm sorry verse 17 don't be excessively wicked you say well I know that I'm a sinner and I'm not wise true but don't go too far and become excessively wicked in other words don't go out and overdose and die verse 17 before your time you never make it 70 years or if by strength 80 because you over just don't go get addicted to meth or weed or liquor and drive your liver into the dirt and die young by being stupid don't cheat on your mate and bring pain to your home don't cheat on your income tax and you're always looking for that audit life is difficult enough when you're doing right amen you don't have to advertise for pain don't solicit pain and so keep it down as little as you can because verse 17 you will die before your time and verse 18 it's good that you grasp one thing staying away from sin and evil but you don't let go of the other that I'm not there yet in righteousness that's it says then verse 18 he that fears God comes forth with both of them I'm gonna stay away from doing evil as best I can and I'm gonna sleep well but I'm not so smart that I can say I'm at the point where I don't need to read my Bible anymore because I've arrived so get the golden mean right there the righteous stay away from evil but know you're not there yet and in verse 19 he says let me give you an example wisdom can save an entire country wisdom strengthens a wise man more than ten rulers in a city that's true wisdom can be the greatest thing it can be better than then politicians that's a brilliant statement so wisdom is better than ten men of power but as you have looked at how wisdom can bless your life in verse 20 there's not a righteous man on earth who continually does good yes you may be wise and you may have lived your life in God's pleasure and you have had more success than 10 kings and politicians I will assure you but don't think verse 20 that you never have to confess don't think that you can cancel out forgive us our trespasses no no matter how good you are you're still great men and women are always confessing quickly their sin in verse 21 but the fact that wisdom may not appreciate you in verse 21 don't take seriously all the words which are spoken when people praise you which is the context don't let it go to your head when people praise you don't let it make you proud because you know in verse 21 that you will not hear your servant cursing you you know why people will praise you because they don't know you if I want to know who you are let me talk to your chauffeur if I want to know who you are let me talk to your wife let me talk to your kids your servant might curse you because he sees you in private who's the guy that always writes the expose it's always the cook or the servant or the limousine driver remember Mommy Dearest on Joan Crawford it was her adopted daughter the one that wrote the expose oh and I Love Lucy was Lucy jr. she told it and so that's why I'm so bold as my kids are out of town so you can't ask them anything and so that appears the idea it is good to be wise however you ain't that smart and if I can talk to the people who know you best I'll prove it amen pretty weak Amen right there yes sir well in verse 22 and you don't know any perfect people and 22 you have realized that you yourself have cursed many others also you don't know people that never struggle you have always run into people that that do you wrong men are flawed in verse 24 or 23 Solomon says I tried it this was Solomon's experience I tested all this with wisdom and I said I will be wise but it was far from me he said I couldn't figure it out I tried to sit down and figure out what life was doing and I couldn't y'all never see the movie Rudy or the Catholic priest says to young Rudy Ruettiger he says I have learned two incontrovertible facts in life that there is number one sovereign God that rules the affairs of men and secondly it's not me I'm not that smart and so Solomon said I may be wise but I'm not that wise I still don't understand why some things happen but in verse 24 he says who can discover it you can't figure it out either either life and history is inscrutable why did God allow Hitler Karl Marx the guy in North Korea theological liberalism Charles Darwin Idi Amin cut his wife's arms and legs off transposed them on different body parts and put her in a freezer that guy ruled Uganda what was the purpose of that I don't know who can discover it in verse 25 not incidentally can we understand through the Bible the met the meta-narrative we can what was the first thing the creation of the angelic realm Satan's fall Lucifer the physical creation Adam in the image of God Satan's temptation and man's fall the promise of the seed of woman that crushed the Serpent's head the specificity of him coming through the nation of Israel that the Savior was sent to and they crucified they was for the salvation of the world and there's a period now called the church age where God is inviting men to escape the wrath of God it will be rejected and then there shall be the tribulation and the second coming world without end there's your whole Bible there it is that's the meta-narrative from the Alpha to the Omega so can we understand the constellations that don't yeah I can see them my problem is you know why things happen with my body parts why don't they cooperate why did I go through that hell on earth twelve years ago that hit me and blindsided me of clinical depression I have no idea it shaped me but I don't know why it happened I used to be the guy that you would quote from the Song of Solomon I was the sex expert now I'm the depression expert they follow like that Jenna now I'm depressed well we keep going here and so in verse 25 he said look I tried to do it I directed my mind to know investigate and seek wisdom and an explanation to know the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness and I died I couldn't figure it out but in verse 26 the text crescendos here's what I did discover this much I know more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets and hands are chains I can't know all that God is doing and that doesn't affect my life I can trust him but what I do know is that I have a sin nature and if I let it run loose I will find myself and a place in life that is a disastrous place and it's not because I couldn't figure out life it's not because I didn't understand the things that I can't figure out it's because I disappeared disobeyed the things that could are you with me that's gonna cause me trouble he's being immoral and angry and harsh and not keeping my word and so Solomon says there are things you can know and these are the things that are going to deliver you the bright lines the yellow tape that says don't cross that's going to get you in trouble are you with me the things you do know that's what you need to consider in verse 26 when you come up to one of these things the one who is pleasing to God will escape from her the sinner will be captured who was the guy in the Bible that had a woman that said lie with me and he took off running Joseph be like Joseph when you see sin take off running who was the guy that saw a woman named Delilah and said to her his father get her for me she looks good don't we have Jewish women get her for me she looks good who are we talking about Samson and he found himself blinded grinding in a prison and bound by chains and so was it because of deep philosophic is Joseph knew you don't mess with another guy's wife Samson said I can do it and the rules will not hold for me really and so when I see a kid that is an obedient kid he works hard he keeps his word he's kind he's disciplined I look at that kid and said men you're relatively speaking going to have a really happy life provided you don't get hit by a turnip truck what's gonna happen all right you're gonna have a happy life but when I see a kid that is disrespectful and ignorant and arrogant and walking by his flesh boys say son you're about to have one painful hard life and it's not because you don't understand philosophy it's because you don't choose the path right in front of you right there my wife has a statement she said that when you pour water up on top of a hill it runs down in certain kind of gullies and that's the way our thinking is you keep doing the same thing it becomes a gully and you can do some wrong things that become instinctive what you got to do is build a dam and you got to stop it and divert it and make a new pathway my sons called it mamma's damn thinking alright because they've heard the sermon so many times verse 27 and I've discovered this adding one thing to another to find an explanation I'm still seeking but haven't found I have found one man among a thousand I had found a woman among these now don't leave that is called Hebrew parallelism where you make a statement then you embellish it he's saying man is flawed we are sinners and you can't trust yourself you can't trust yourself to see how close the story of a Icarus one that his name made his wax wings and he was told don't fly too high son and he got in Amerind with himself flew too close to the Sun it melted he went down that's essentially modern man don't get too enamored with yourself and come down you're a sinner don't trust yourself completely deliver us what is it do not lead us into temptation I can't handle it deliver me from evil I'm weak so Solomon says I've discovered that man is sinful and you need to run from it and there's something flawed in us and in verse 29 God made men upright the world we have is not the world we had at Eden but the world we have is not the world we will have something's wrong out there it's called the fall God made men upright God made man to walk with Him that's life but men have sought out many what would you do for this hebrew word the hebrew word shaquiesha bond have that just sounds nasty doesn't it just you Shiva and it comes from the Greek or the Hebrew word that means to think thi NK to think and the word that's a derivation of that is a word that means to use your intellect to make something it's a word used about King Uzziah in the Old Testament that he invented engines of war and the word invented is Toshiba and that's the word here that God made men simply to walk with Him but man has made many tissue bones he's come up with alternatives I'll use philosophy I'll use science I'll use hedonism I'll use materialism I'll use success I'll use Fame how's it working it's not working well this is the Westminster Confession of the Old Testament the chief end of man is to know God and to walk with him so read your Bible and learn the rules of life and that'll save you from a lot of pain and then on the things that happen to you trust him navigate the white water stay upright and just wait your time till you get out I'm done is this a wise section of scripture it's the real world we need to him we're going to sing the gradient I'm depressed I'm depressed I hate himself kill me quick it's an old southern gospel hymn not really Father in heaven this is kind of a blinding flash of the obvious we knew this and as we listened to it we just nod our heads I don't care whether it's a group of junior high students or whether it's a group of Oxford Dawn's they get the sameness you may be smart but you're not that smart you can still ruin your life Timothy O'Leary that led us into the drug culture was a Harvard professor he's not that smart and a junior high kid can learn do right don't do wrong that's how simple life is it's not made for geniuses it's made for children that accept the word of their father this is true and in things you don't understand you trust me I'm gonna make you mow the lawn I'm gonna make you wash the car I know you don't like that and you don't understand why I'm gonna stretch you but I am and I'm gonna take this stick and I'm gonna have to put it on you sometimes when you say what you shouldn't say and you don't understand it and it looks contradictory to love but someday you will and I'm gonna teach you to avoid what someday is gonna ruin you and so life becomes very simple when it's live from the biblical perspective it's not to the gifted not to the brilliant it's to those who realize that there's a God and it's not them and I'll trust you I'll trust you and Lord we got a lot of people they included that things are occurring right and left in their lives that if we were God we'd do it different and we're having to continue on give us grace day by day as we meet with you in prayer as we cleanse our minds with truth that you'll take us on and father we'll ask it in Jesus name the first sick amen let's stand together I've got my buddy Nathan McCarter right here you ever heard a song what's the name of that song we're singing that Nathan huh yes called when the morning comes ever seen that give me a name trials dark on every hand and we cannot understand all the ways that God would lead us to that blessed promised land but he'll guide you with his eye and will follow till we will understand it better bye and my by-and-by [Music] the morning [Music] when the saints of God will we will tell the story of how we and will understand it by and second-person oft our cherished plans have failed this point let's man when we wandered in the darkness in any heart and lung but we're trusting in according to his murder we will understand it better bye by when [Music] are gathered long we will tell the storm and we're understand it better [Music] temptations hidden snares and often take us long and our hearts are made to bleed for some thought and we wonder why we will on this by my when the more well says God our God we will tell the store we've we understand one more and we'll understand it better put that on the CD and set it in the back of back we have a hand

Channel: Denton Bible Media Ministry

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Keywords: Denton Bible Church, Tommy Nelson, Sermon, Song of Solomon, Church, Pastor, Denton, Bible, Denton Bible Media, Media Ministry

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Length: 42min 1sec (2521 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 17 2018