In His Hands

1:17But there is hope in our living Christ. And that's what we're really going to find today here in God's Word. How we can find hope in these puzzling times with these great evils that come and barrel down upon us. And so, as we dive into God's word, I'd like to just pray one more time and ask for the Holy Spirit's help to help me and for the Holy Spirit's assistance on you, that you would also be, as the book of James tells us, not a hearer only, but a doer.

1:43So, that as we hear Ecclesiastes 9, we would all join in being doers of this word. So, let's ask the Lord's help just one more time. Holy Spirit, we come to you in the name right now of Christ, and you are lifting up our prayers now into the heavenly places. And maybe even some of us this morning don't even know how to pray as we ought. And so, you're groaning for us, giving us words to pray. And King Jesus, as you intercede for us as you exist now as our mediator in the heavenly places, would you serve us with grace upon grace to hear your word? For you are the one that is living and active, bearing words sharper than any two-edged sword. So, serve us now, King Jesus.

2:26And it's in your name and for the glory of the Father that we ask these things. Amen. When my daughter Ivy was younger, you know, we would sing hymns as a family. I'm sure you sing hymns too. And hymns minister to the soul deeply. You may have a favorite old Christian song, maybe It is Well, Amazing Grace, of course, it's so popular. But there are other songs that we sing that I think can be just as powerful as hymns.

2:56He's got the whole world in his hands. Our God is so big, so strong. We would sing these songs at night. I didn't anticipate actually singing it, but we would sing these songs at night with our kids. And I would think about this one: He's got the whole world in his hands. And what's so great about that song is when we would sing it as a family, we could take out world and then we could put names in. He's got little Ivy in His hands.

3:25He's got Mama and Papa in His hands. And then now we sing it with her little brother. He's got Ollie in His hands. And it was so easy to sing. And she would do a little dance, but it was wonderfully deep, too. Because we are in His hands. You are in His hands. And we just heard it this morning from Solomon that we are in His hands. So we might need to sing this song to ourselves.

3:54Maybe the band can do it afterwards. Let's make a little changes. And let's sing. It's got us in His hands. Because look at verse 1. Here's what Solomon's realizing: Verse 1. But all this I lay to heart, and he's going to unpack really what all this is, but I think he's kind of giving everything we've explored. And what I'm about to talk about, this is what I've realized. Examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds, here it is, are in the hand of God.

4:22The wise ones, those who fear the Lord, and we know that fearing the Lord is not being afraid of the Lord, it's fear with all the ability. Afraidness deleted out of it. Really, the fear of the Lord is being afraid of dishonoring the Lord and wanting to walk with the Lord, and that all of our deeds, our works, our actions, our lives, we see them now as in His hands. And this is critical because this is comforting and discomforting.

4:50And we must experience both. It should be discomforting to our flesh, to our temptations, to still want to control our lives. Because what do we hear in our culture today? A ton of self-grandiosity and self-importance and self-actualization. Whether it's girl, wash your face or chase your dreams, achieve your goals, get that dream job no matter what it takes. Do you, be you. I mean, tons of self-actualization. And that's even creeping into the church. That's not the testimony of the scriptures. We are not in control of our lives. As we just read, we aren't holding hands with God, mutually caring about our lives.

5:38We are in His hands, His guidance, His timing, His plans. And since we are in the hands of God, and we hear our Lord echo the same thing in the Gospels, that we are in His hands in another way of our salvation is secure, but also to dial it back into real time right now to be in the hands of God, that no. Can take us out of his hands is that your life is in control.

6:06And the hands of God, your life is never out of control. It just means we aren't in control. For your life to tailspin out of control. If you haven't read Dane Ortland's book, Gentle and Lowly, I think it's an instant classic of our generation. In this book, he says, What it would take for you to lose your salvation, and I'm applying it to just for your life to spin out of control. What it would take would be for Jesus to be sucked down off of the throne in heaven and put back into the tomb with a stone rolled back and it's sealed up, left with him there left to rot. That's what it would take for our lives to get out of God's hands.

6:46And beloved, that's never going to happen. And when we're thinking rightly about this, this should bring us a huge hallelujah. Because I want my life in God's hands. I want him leading me. I want him directing me. I want him guiding me. I want him seeing me through because I forget to take out the trash. I want somebody who does not forget things. I want someone who's never failed. I want some, I mean, realize right now, we are sitting here today, this morning, living in a promise that God made to a moon worshiper 6,000 years ago to Abraham.

7:25And God hasn't broken that promise yet. Abraham trusted. Him, Moses trusted him, David trusted him, Isaiah, on and on and on. And we exist here today in the hands of God. It's the fool that wants to really run his own life. It's the wise person who says, I'm in the hands of God. But what this also means, and sometimes we talk about this, like we give Christian testimonies, I became a Christian and then everything was fixed in my life. Well, Solomon says, you're right.

8:03Because he's telling us, just because you're in the hands of God doesn't mean tragedy, disease, disasters, and suffering won't fall on you. That's a false prosperity gospel that we've all heard and seen. 2020 has shown us that to be the case as well. Global distress, national upheaval, conflict, disunity running rampant in every sector of American life. And what we cannot escape is one of the greatest evils, and that is death. So Solomon takes us in verse 2. It is the same for all.

8:41Since the same event, what is this event? Happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, and to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices, to him who doesn't, as the good one, so is the sinner. As an evil, verse 3, that happens under the sun. Joining the dead. This is a sobering reality. The Bible doesn't sugarcoat ever these realities for us. They're really meant to awaken us. And Solomon says, I've observed that death happens to everyone. It doesn't matter who you are, righteous, the unrighteous. If you're a Christian or an atheist, if you're one who sacrifices or one who doesn't. If you're a mattress salesman or a drug dealer. If you're a regular church attender or the guy who never goes to church.

9:27If you're somebody who hates going to church, someone who loves going to church, whether you're Elon Musk or Dolly Parton, death comes for everyone. The same event happens to us all. Our hearts will stop. A service will be held remembering our lives. And then people will go out to eat. They'll go back to work. They'll talk about us in the past tense. It's coming for everyone in this room. And Solomon says, this is evil. Verse 3: This is an evil that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to us all. So he says, death itself is evil. And this is a new category for us. Because I know we all think murder is evil. And we agree, murder is evil. Solomon says, go even further. The fact that our bodies shut down at all is evil. And that's where he goes in verse 3. This is an evil that's done under the sun. The same event happens to us all. The hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and it's madness. That's where they go, we after we were, where do we all go? We all go to the dead. Beloved, death isn't natural, it's unnatural. This is what we must realize about death. It's a ripple effect of sin from the fall in the garden back in the creation account. The pandemic has really put, I think, this all into our minds. Because the virus is not really a respecter of persons. The virus affects the rich, the poor, the old, the powerful, the young. It's brought the entire world to a standstill because death is knocking on the door. Here's what we need to remember about death, and I think Solomon's really trying to cue us in on it: is that we weren't made to experience death.

11:18Have you ever thought about that? Adam and Eve were created with a massive capacity for life, for flourishing, for unending joy with God and with one another. But when sin entered the world, then when death entered into our ecosystem, we weren't built for that experience. This is why it is so traumatic to us. This is why it is so painful to us. Because we are made from the same composite DNA structure of Adam and Eve. Our hardware and firmware and software haven't been upgraded over the years to deal with pain, grief, and death.

11:59Death is. Evil. And this is why Jesus himself, as the God-man, wept. Shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. Because he has entered into the human experience of going, we were not meant to experience this. This is evil. So we have permission to grieve. We have permission from the Lord to lament in his hands. That's point number one this morning. We have permission to lament in his hands. Have you ever done that? Do you know what it is to lament?

12:39We have Psalms of lament. We have a book of the Bible called Lamentations. God has given us categories for laments, but I fear what's eroding our ability to lament is social media. As we see something so tragic, so awful, even the events of this week, we see these horrible things, and then with one flick of the thumb, cat video, LeBron James dunk. But what Solomon is able to do is to sit and wisely process and think and feel through these things. And we need to do the same thing. So rather than just flicking away from our anger or our fear or our confusion, we should direct it all upward and say, why, Lord? This is evil, Lord. Help me, Lord. I'm in your hands. I need your help, Lord. I see that death comes forever. Lord, that it's unavoidable, it's inescapable, but that it's not hopeless, Lord. So give me hope. And this is point number two. We have hope in the hands of God. There's hope in the hands of God. Look at verse 4. But he who is joined with all the living has hope. Here's why.

13:50For a living dog is better than a dead lion. That's a Bible pillow verse. You should get that one for April Fool's Day for somebody. This verse ministered to me as I thought of you this week. Why does Solomon go this way? Well, everyone listening, everyone watching online, everyone here, every living and breathing person, Solomon's saying there's still hope. There is still stuff you can do in this world. You can still make changes. You can adjust. You aren't in the dirt. It's not over. What's better? A living dog or a dead lion? Well, which one would you prefer to protect your property? A dog that can bark or a rotting lion corpse?

14:41So, in some sense, Solomon says, you still have utility. Your life's not over. The period hasn't been written on your life. And dogs in the ancient Near East, they were seen as nasty animals, scavengers. They weren't pets. That's why you see in Egyptian culture. Cats. People love it. It's totally flipped. They were cat people, and now we're dog people. And praise the Lord for these flips. But the lion was the top predator, king of the jungle. So who has it better? A dead king or a living minimum wage worker?

15:21The living. Your story isn't over. There's hope. And we see some of this at the end of verse 4. Yes, but now look at verse 5. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. And they have no more reward. Michael Jackson is not getting any royalties from any streams on Spotify. Prince is not getting any money. You die, it's over, it's done. But the living, you benefit still. You're not forgotten. And look at how he goes in verse 6 now. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished. Forever, they have no more share in all that is done under the sun. So here's what Solomon is saying: you can make changes in your life. It's not all over. All of the I wish that you hear people say on deathbed stories, I wish I would have loved more. I wish I would have spent more time with my kids, or I wish I would have served more, or cared more for my neighbor, or read more, or evangelized, or gone to the nations. You can do those things still. Solomon says, observe that you are alive. You have time that God's not done with you. This is what verse 6 is kind of saying at the end when it says, Their share under the sun is over. So, for the dead, they can't impact life, they can't receive benefits from others. So, the living, our share under the sun can still be maxed out. We can still live to the hilt. So, right now, you can have a meaningful contribution to the world still.

17:01To the kingdom of God, you can still contribute powerfully. To college station, you still have a share to contribute to. To new life, Baptist Church, you still have a meaningful share under the sun to receive and to give to your friends and to your family, your kids, your grandkids. God has more for us to do. God has more for you to share in today, in this place. And for Christians, I hope that we hear the word hope, and that I hope that kind of a I used to use the phrase like a Rolodex, but that's like old. No one uses those anymore. I hope now that, do you use a Rolodex? You're like, wait, that's amazing. And you're young, too. Like, that's incredible.

17:53That maybe this would serve, when you hear words in the Bible, I hope it would serve as a hyperlink system. That you hear. Certain words, and it makes you go click somewhere else, and then look at all this. Like, we have a canonical understanding of the scriptures, being able to go left and right and all over as you hear the word, like a word like hope, like Romans 15:13. Christ teaches us about hope. May the God of hope fill you. So, the God of hope, God defining Himself as a God of hope, fill you with all joy and peace and believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may have a little bit of hope today to make it through 2020. No, abound in hope. God is ready to give you a y'all have Red Robin up here, Red Robin. Okay, you have IHOP or Denny's? God wants to give you a never-ending pancake stack of hope.

18:59Things that just keep coming and keeps arriving, and you've used it, and there's another. You've used it, and there's another. That you would overflow with hope because there are certain things that you know to be so true that you have a hope that is indestructible, that a unique Christian hope that has been invincibilized by the invincible Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:19. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, this is significant. For Ecclesiastes. We're of all people most to be pitied. If Jesus, what he's saying, if Jesus just gets us through the week, then what's the point?

19:40Beer can do that. And people do that. Romance can do that. People do that. Jobs, purchases, hobbies, those get people through the week. But we have something else. Colossians 1:5, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. So there's another hope laid up for us somewhere as Christians that connects us to under the sun, but also lifts us beyond the sun. Titus 1:2, and hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began. And so what are we doing? Titus 2:13. We're waiting for our blessed hope, which is what? The appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. That we would see him with that truly unveiled face. We would see him with that renewed flesh and those new eyes. That we could behold him in all of his magnificence and see our hope realized. Titus 3.7, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. So when Solomon talks about hope, he does talk a little bit about, hey, you can still make changes. You can. Shuffle the deck a little bit, you can augment your life a little. But ultimately, why that's significant is because of the hope of eternal life. And not just this kind of etheral experience floating around in the sky, but of a resurrection life, of a new body, of living on the new earth with one another and with King Jesus forever. That's eternal life. And it begins now, the scriptures tell us. That we're trending that way. We are in an apprenticeship for that new life to come here at New Life Baptist Church. I don't think that's a coincidence that the name of your church is New Life Baptist Church. That you are now being integrated and invited into a new life with Christ today and forever.

21:54That's our sure, steadfast hope. Jesus Christ, His resurrection, His return, our new life with Him now, and our new life with Him then. The world's looking for hope, and we need to show them where it is. Because these are the kinds of ideas that the world looks to for hope. The BIOS urn. I think I have a picture of the BIOS urn. The BIOS urn is a product that shows people they can crave life after death. This is from the website of the BIOS urn. I'll just read it to you. BIOS urn is much more than an urn.

22:35It's a catalyst for life. The BIOS urn is a fully biodegradable urn designed to convert you into a tree after life. Mainly composed of two parts. The urn contains a seed which will grow in the name of your loved one. BIOS urn turns death into a transformation and a return to life through nature. Do you hear these words? A transformation. Turning death into a transformation. A life through nature. The world is desperate for hope after this life. One commenter on their site said, I have always been scared of death, but visiting this website and seeing these pictures of the ginkgo tree and what could become of me in the afterlife brings me peace.

23:32Beloved, you can have a real afterlife, a real eternity, not as a tree, but as a glorified human being. A resurrected you, a new body, a new you, where you won't have to take Zyrtec anymore. Where there will be no bifocals. There will be no chiropractors. Will be renewed and restored and reinvigorated by the power of Christ. And that is totally yours, offered to you free if you know what Jesus did for you on the cross. If you see that he wasn't just dying and not just dying for sinners in general, but if you see that he was dying for me, dying for my sins, paying the penalty, paying the price for me. And if you believe, yeah, I believe Jesus rose again, that's great. No, if you believe he rose again for you to give you new life, to give you hope, to give you salvation, you forgiveness, you freedom, you will now have a hope beyond this life that will last forever.

24:43Solomon wants to dial you, Christ wants to dial you in to an eternal hope. And does your future matter to you today? Sometimes we need to go back to the future. We need to have an eschatology awareness constantly. Does my future abound in hope to me? Do I rejoice in my future? Am I waiting for my future? Because this week's already shown us we need hope. Our country is showing us we need hope. Yes, we know that the evil that is death awaits us all. But the Christian, but what awaits the Christian is the overcoming of death and the resurrection because Christ conquered death. Christ triumphed over evil when he rose from the grave. And so we too will be resurrected with him. So we can lament that evil, and then at the same time we can rejoice in that Christ conquered evil, leading us to now change the phrase from eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die, to eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we live.

25:51And that's the last point this morning. Earthy joy in the hands of God. Earthy joy in the hands of God. So what does Solomon say about all this? Verse 7. Go. Eat your carbs with joy. Drink your wine with a merry heart. For God has already approved what you do. Verse 8, let your garments always be white. Get the sneakers you like. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Use the nice hair product you've been wanting to buy. Verse 9, enjoy life with the wife whom you love. Have a great marriage. Go on that vacation. Enjoy life.

26:35Solomon gives us amazing biblical instruction. Have a great life. Solomon keeps telling us, have fun under the sun. And you can even amplify it a little bit. Not just Solomon. God is commanding you to have fun. We need to add this to our accountability times. Have you had significant fun this week? Have you enjoyed God so much that you just thank Him for all the fun you've had? God is commanding you to eat good food, good drink, the party, to have fun, to put on nice clothes, fix the hair, and have a great marriage. And what's incredible is this is in the Old Testament. People, I know, people wrongly think, oh, God of the Old Testament was very dour and very crunching on people, but God in the New Testament, he just got an emotional uplift. That's so wrong, and that.

27:32But we need to really lean into that and go, hey, this isn't just a new covenant blessing. This is coming out of God's heart forever. That he would encourage us and command us to have fun. God is not against any of us having fun. He wants us to have the best fun. He is not against joy. He wants us to find the right joy, the good joy. So eat your bread. Look at what he says: seven, eat your bread with joy.

28:00We watch diners, drive-ins, and dives way too much in our house. The guy Fieti. He's just incredible. And I just watch that show and see him crunching on the bread and picking it apart and going, this is amazing. This is so good. That's what we need in our world again. Us participating with joy and things God has given us. And he says, with a merry heart, God's approved what we do. God wants you to do it. This is not unspiritual stuff. We often.

28:31In our kind of world of evangelicalism, we kind of struggle, I think, with a reformed Gnosticism of a theological, hyped-up awareness of theology, which is so important that we need. But it kind of leads us to this Gnostic, which is an ancient heresy of material stuff is bad. Physical stuff is bad. Seen things are bad. The best things are things that are unseen. The things that are unseen benefit you most spiritually. That's an ancient heresy that we subtly fall into. Solomon, the Lord today, is correcting us, saying, eat that filet and enjoy it.

29:19Enjoy that time at the ranch with your family. This is spiritual stuff, too. God made these things. God gave us these things. I think some of the best sermons I've ever given were steaks I grilled for people. Because when you get that fillet, medium rare, perfect, salt perfect, bacon wrapped perfect, people worship. Affections are stirred. You eat it with a merry heart. You eat it with joy. This is Christian spirituality. You can have a gospel-formed enjoyment of God's creation. This is an element of childlike faith. I think about my kids all the time when they eat a simple ice cream sandwich, not even like the bluebell version, the cheaper one.

30:18And they take a bite of that, or their Chick-fil-A nuggets, and they just go, hmm, that's so good. Or they get a present that they've kind of wanted. Or they watch another Dude Perfect episode again. And my wife and I are going, Can we watch something else? How many times have you seen this? I can't do that. But they watch it again and again and again, and their joy is not diminished one bit. That's childlike faith. That we could take the Lord's Supper again this morning and our joy not be diminished one bit.

30:56That we could sing these songs again and gather together again and do it all with a merry heart. It's not sinful to have a good time. This is what Solomon's really teaching us. Now, it's possible to sin while having a good time. For that good time to spill into disobedience, drunkenness, or gluttony, and on and on, but that's not what we pursue. But I just want to really press on us that it is good and holy to sit back and have the pretzel bun burger today.

31:30To get the 80-20 chuck, to splurge on a date night, to let the queso flow and just laugh it up all night with friends. Or on a lazy Saturday, you know, you didn't, you know, I'm not cleaning the house. We're just going to have turkey sandwiches and we're going to watch Netflix all day. Sit back and relax and enjoy the grace of God. And also, while we're under the sun, God wants us to really pay attention to verse 9: Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life.

32:11God does not want any of us to settle for a mediocre marriage. I love that verses like this are in the Bible. God says, Enjoy life with your wife. Enjoy your spouse. Reject the heresy jokes about marriage, the old ball and chain, check with the boss, and all these kinds of just nonsense things that we say. Men and women, you must look at marriage as a centrifuge for joy rather than strife and conflicts in battle. But it's really coming together to enjoy one another in all of life, in every area of life, and that that's how God wants it. And then that's really how God's design it-to go all out, to have a ball with your spouse.

33:00So, listen, if your wife is more of a let's get dressed up, let's go out and dance, do it. Learn to love it. If she's more of a sweatpants and Netflix, love it. Go all out. There's a joke in our house every time my wife comes in from work. Everybody knows she's walking in and says, Hey, everybody, I'm going to change, and out come the sweatpants. And I know she's listening, and she's probably going, Amen, back at home. Go all out with it. And listen, ladies, if your man is more of a steakhouse in sports, go red meat. Team red meat. Let's go. If he's movies and popcorn, go all out. There has to be compromises and coming together because Solomon's point is: life is too short, it is too vain, it's too fleeting to hold on to your petty opinions and your petty preferences and to not sacrifice for one another and have a blast in marriage and how God's designed it to work.

34:09What I love about verses, like verse 9, is that God cares about your marriage. That God really does care about marriage. And not just the fact that you get married and stay faithful. He does care about that, of course. But he cares about you having a great marriage, a one-another honoring marriage. A God-glorifying marriage. That's another good accountability question. Are you enjoying your spouse? Not just did you sin against your spouse this week through pornography or other means like that, but are you actively enjoying your spouse? Not just loving and not just serving sacrificially, those are good, but are you enjoying them?

34:55And while we want to experience joy and food and drink and hobbies and all those things, Solomon also wants to remind us: I want you to keep on enjoying life, but also don't go full hedonist and all these things because verse 10, look at what he says in verse 10. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. For there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom and sheol to which you are going. So whatever you do for work, Solomon says, do it with all you got. Don't mail it in. Don't do enough to get by. Because listen, you're not going to be able to work in the grave. So do it now, yes. Because this too brings glory to God. So whether you're in sales or you're a stay-at-home mom or you're a single parent, give it all you got. If you're a student, this is a verse to remember for your studies. Give it your best. Whatever your hand finds to do, whatever that syllabus delivers to you, do it with all your might. If you're single, be the hardest-working, church-serving, Jesus-loving, one-anothering person on the planet.

36:00And notice also what Solomon says. He says, whatever. Not, we put little asterisks on verses like this. We would say things like, if I like it, I'll do it with all I got. No, it's not whether you like it or not, whether it's beneficial to you or not, or your dream job or not. The whatever, if it's bagging groceries, it's paperwork, data entry, sales, fast food, do it with all your might. Because to do so is to say, I realize I am in the hands of God.

36:31And this is where He has placed me. And I'm going to trust Him, and I'm going to honor Him, and I'm going to live it all out to the hilt for Him now. Right now. And that's what God wants for all of us right now, today, wherever you are, whatever you're going through. Because sometimes things do plow into our lives that we would never have planned. Sometimes and often, as we get older, we realize things don't work out the way we thought they should have. That's why he says in verses 11 and 12, he uses this phrase: time and chance happen to them all. This is not chance, as in like unlucky slots in Vegas. This is the Hebrew concept of things happening outside of your control.

37:24So, things, businesses, jobs, economy, government. It will happen outside of our control. But remember, verse 1 and lay it to heart. He's got little you in his hands, he's got mama and papa, little Ivy and Oliver, and New Life Baptist Church. He's got us in his hands. And your life and your eternity are safe in those pierced, risen hands of Christ as well. So let's trust him and let's look to him now for hope that he would reinvigorate our hope in him as we just begin 2021. So let's go to him now in prayer. King Jesus, we come to you needing our hope reinvigorated, needing our hope really re-established again.

38:34We thought new year, new, we're leaving those old challenges behind and we're going to enter into all kinds of new territories. Not really. Lord, would you help us to lay these things to heart, to consider our life under the sun and to maximize it out for your kingdom now, for your glory? Now, and the fact that you've been raised from the dead for us now, and that because he lives, we can face tomorrow. Because he lives, we can face today.

39:12Because he lives, we can face yesterday. And so, Jesus, we look to you now as the conquering king and ask for your help that you would lead us and that you would guide us, you would strengthen us to navigate whatever it is coming our way, and that we would do it with joy. We would enjoy these legitimate creature comforts as part of your creation, things that you've just blessed us with, Lord. And so, we want to honor you and enjoy them on behalf of your namesake. So, help us now, King Jesus, as we move towards the Lord's Supper, that we would eat our bread with joy and drink this cup with a merry heart. We ask for your blessing now, Holy Spirit. And it's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

40:06Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.