Fear God and Keep His Commandments

0:00We've made it to the final week in the book of Ecclesiastes. What a blessing these 15 weeks have been going through this book. And I did tell you last week, and I give you a little trailer on what we're doing next. After this week, we have three weeks until Easter Sunday. And I don't really want to start something new right before Easter and then have to break uh break so quickly again. So the plan is to take the next three weeks leading up to Easter to cover the arrest of Jesus, the trial and mocking of Jesus, the crucifixion and death of Jesus, and then of course the resurrection on Easter Sunday. I won't be preaching all of those sermons. Brother David is going to take a couple, and we're going to have a guest preacher bring the word next week, maybe. So just make sure you're here every week, because you just never know, you know? So you just never know. So make sure that you're here every week because it's going to be phenomenal as we go through that into Easter. After Easter, though, we're going to begin 24 weeks through the book of Genesis. So right after Easter, 24 weeks through Genesis. If I tried to go all the way through Genesis verse by verse, it would take us more than two years. And I don't think that's something we want to jump into right now. At least I say we, I don't want to jump into that right now. So we're going to take it in larger thematic sections. We're basically going to be covering about two chapters of Genesis per week and kind of walking through that. And that'll allow us to get a solid overview of the book. And then maybe someday, years down the road, we will do a verse-by-verse through through Genesis. Okay. All that said, we have some work to do through Ecclesiastes, and I will warn you a lot of work to do here this morning. And well, I won't say anything else. We'll just get into it. I'll spare you a recap of the previous messages up to this point, because really everything gets summed up this morning. The entire book of Ecclesiastes gets summed up this morning. The period gets put at the end of the sentence today. And I will say by way of introduction that the author of this last section is different from the teacher that we have been hearing about thus far. So the author of this section that we'll read this morning is a different person than the teacher that we've been hearing from so far in Ecclesiastes. I don't think we should fully close the door on this thought that some or all of the previous writings that we have read in Ecclesiastes could have been written by Solomon. Or that they could have been written by, or we can possibly assume that they were written by another teacher who was familiar with Solomon and followed kind of the same thread of Solomon's wisdom. Okay? We're not going to close the door on either of those options, but we can say for sure that these last six verses were added by another person after the fact for the purpose of putting everything together in this singular, concise summary or statement at the end of the book. Perhaps his name was Cliff, and these were his notes. I'm not sure. But we'll hear you'll hear this shift, you'll hear this shift in tone as we enter this last section, which is a clear indication that this is somebody else and this is a wrap-up. I'm very glad that our God did inspire this ending from whomever it was that wrote it, because this really is, as you will see, a perfect ending to the book. After everything that we have seen and learned through this book and all the other spiritual and practical truths, it all comes back around here this morning to two basic commands. And I'm sure I've said it many times by now, but we're so good at complicating things, right? All this talk in the world about finding the meaning in life, following your purpose, or, as the teacher would say, vanity if we fail in these two simple commands that we get this morning. And make no mistake, the commands themselves are simple, but the carrying them out is anything but simple. However, by the grace of God, we are not alone in this effort, nor is it really our power that is doing it anyway. So in that respect, our God has done the work for us. We just need to listen to him. So what are these two commands? What are the two commands? If you have notes, you already know, but I'll let the word of God reveal them to you first. So please stand with me and let's read. Ecclesiastes chapter 12, starting in verse 9. Besides being wise, the preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. The preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth. The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings. They are given by one shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these, of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter. Sorry, the end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you again for this word. We thank you for your the time that you have given us through this book. Lord, I pray now as we close this book that you would speak now for Christ's sake. It is in his name that I pray. Amen. Y'all can see. Thanks. We've all heard the word autonomy or autonomous, right? We know this word, autonomy or autonomous. But if you know, do you know, or have you considered the precise meaning and the implications of this word autonomous? Autonomous comes from the root word auto, meaning self, right? Think automatic. And gnomos meaning custom or law. So to be autonomous literally means to be a law unto oneself. A law unto oneself. For one to be autonomous or to confess autonomy, they are claiming self-government, self-directing freedom, and moral independence outside of anything, outside of oneself. Of course, no one would ever really say this explicitly, maybe they would, but to be autonomous is to be your own self-defining God. This is to be autonomous, your own self-defining God. And we scoff at such an idea, right? And we're likely pointing fingers in our mind to a corrupt culture. And we think how foolish, how deceived, how idolatrous they are. There may be even some people in your own life who you are thinking about specifically now, pointing that mental finger of autonomy at them. Let me turn it back around on you just for a second. The modern church, and maybe even you at times, has clung tightly to this idea of absolute free will and moral neutrality. And in doing so, we have cheapened the grand work of Christ. And we've perverted grace as an excuse to sin. Far too often it is taught that Christ simply was a perfect moral example for us to strive to. And that our salvation is not based on God's pure grace, but rather on the free will of the individual. Make no mistake, Christian. This is nothing more than autonomy clothed in biblical language. I want Jesus, someone says. But they really only want a Jesus who looks like what they want him to look like. I accept Christ as the just, someone may say. But they still want to be the justifier. Christ is the author of my faith, someone may say. But they still desire to be the perfecter of it, according to their views of faith. Do you see that? In an effort to lean into a specific set of God's attributes, namely his love and mercy, we can very quickly become a law unto ourselves. Consider it this way. Imagine a parent gives a child a set of commands that the parent knows are best for the child. It will give them the best chance for personal growth, for happiness, for self-esteem, for security, etc. All of those things. The child, though, knowing how much the parent loves them and desires to have a relationship with them, forgets about all those commands that they were given. Ignores them altogether, even because they can be restricting. And after all, they still love me, right? They still love me. Instead of obedience, they trust that their parental love and relationship is sufficient and overriding, so they take the one thing and they forsake the other. I really don't even have to imagine such a scenario. I see this thing play out in my life. I have seen it play out in my life and even my kids' lives at times. I won't speak for them, but I can confess myself that many times growing up, and even now, I suppose, I disobey with the understanding that I could depend on the mercy and forgiveness of my parents. After all, I'm their son. What are they gonna do? Kick me out? Disown me forever? And far too often we use grace as an excuse to sin, but at a deeper level than that, like we know we use grace as an excuse to sin, but at an even deeper level than that, what is going on is that in the name of love, we are creating a law into ourselves. We are seeking autonomy and using the blessed mercy and love of our God to justify that pursuit. You see how twisted that is. God's word has something much different to say. If we would only have eyes to see it and ears to hear it. We've mentioned the Great Commission now multiple times recently. I think the past three weeks now, we've mentioned this. And in the Great Commission, Christ says two very important things. First, he says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That's number one. Go and make disciples by giving people the good news. Show people their alienation of God due to their own sinfulness.

12:21Right?

12:22For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Show people that there is no one who is good. All have turned away and rejected God. Tell people of the hopeless vanity that they are in, but because God is so rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, he did not leave us hopeless. He who knew no sin became sin so that sinners could become the righteousness of God. This is all grace. This is all a gift. This is all the work of God, lest anyone should boast. The only true disciples who identify with Christ through the waters of baptism are those who hear that their sin was great, but God's grace is greater. And those who trust and believe that their salvation has come not because of anything that they can do, but because of everything that God has already done in Christ. That is the good news through which discipleship begins. But that is not all Christ has to say in the Great Commission, is it? He continues by saying, Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded. Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded. And do you hear the echo there from Ecclesiastes by Christ? Christ is commanding there what we get here in Ecclesiastes. Revere your God, awe your God, fear your God, and obey him. Fall down under the title wave of his grace. Receive him as your Lord, the Savior of your soul with great awe and obey him. We have a good God and a great God, a God who is love, and a God who displays his love so perfectly in his tender mercy. However, the love of God is not an excuse to disobey his word. And emphasizing obedience and holiness doesn't mean that we don't still rely solely on his love and his grace as the means for our salvation. Commanding a Christian to fear God and keep his commandments shouldn't elicit a response. Hey, don't put me under the law. I'm under grace. Like, why do we do this? I mean, yes, we are obviously under grace, but we like to presume that because we are under grace, that means that no one gets to tell us what to do anymore. How very autonomous of us, right? But Christian, please remember that despite your freedom now in Christ, you are not your own. You are bought with a price, the word says. And a heavy price it was to ransom you back from Satan. Our Lord paid dearly with his blood to rescue you from death and bring you back to life. Not so that you can then live however you want, but so that out of the overflow of gratitude you will live how he wants you to. This is what we mean when the Bible says, or this is what we mean, and what the Bible means when it says to fear God and keep his commandments. There is grave danger in autonomy, which ultimately leads to idolatry, and we know where that ultimately leads. We confess that this morning with our questions. If you are struggling with obeying and submitting to the truth of Scripture, because it doesn't sit well with you, because you think it doesn't apply to you, because you think that grace is better, or because you want something else for your life than what the word commands, I beg you to repent. Turn from this disobedience. Fall in awe of your creator and savior and obey him. This is the way that leads to life. This is the way that leads to life. I promise we're actually going to exegete the text here just a little. I thought it was just important to make those points with respect to fearing God and keeping his commandments as a way of introduction. So like now we're actually going to get into it here. I'll move through the text. The writer says that besides being wise, this is verse 9, the preacher also taught the people knowledge, bless you, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. He further says the preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote the words of truth. There's honestly so much more than I could ever hope to cover in just these two verses, but I'll give you two things real quick. First is, if we're going to say that obeying the word and commandments of God is not only a requirement, but it is also a net benefit, because that's what we are saying, that obeying the word of God and the commandments of God is not only a requirement, but it also is also a net benefit, then we should be prepared to defend God's word as not just theoretical head knowledge, but knowledge that has practical implications for us. That actually does something for us. As Steve mentioned in uh Sunday school, and most of you know by now, we went to this conference in Taylor this past weekend, and one of the lines that was used several times, which is an older line from Doug Wilson that was many people quoted, and including Doug himself, uh, says, Your theology comes out of your fingertips. Your theology comes out of your fingertips. The meaning behind that is that what you believe about God will naturally work its way out in the things that you do. In much the same way, we don't believe God's word to be just a dusty collection of stories or writings from a now non-irrelevant culture. Nor do we believe that this book is simply one of many forms of guidance for making it through life. This is not a dead or dull book. Rather, we believe that these words are alive, that they're active. They're so relevant, in fact, that they have the power to pierce a man right down into his soul. It is a light in the darkness, a sword of our defense. It is our guide, and our God promises us that knowing this word and obeying this word is not only good for us, but he will bless those who do. Great care has been taken to arrange these words for you. To weigh and study every word that was recorded. This is what Ecclesiastes says. Why? So that we can stick it on a shelf and crack it open when we feel like we need to get back on God's good side. Oh, because this book. They're good for you. And we will seek answers somewhere, right? We will seek answers somewhere. Probably every single person in this room has had some health issue and went on WebMD to try to figure out what was wrong, right? You're laughing because you know it's true. And we do this without even a thought. And we listen to and we take advice from people on the internet who we don't know and whom we've never even met. Why then? When our marriages aren't functioning the way we want, our relationships seem to be failing, our kids aren't behaving, our spiritual life is a mess, we won't see and trust what God has to say about.

22:00It.

22:02I contend it is because far too often we don't like what God's Word has to say to us. You will gladly listen to strangers on the internet frightening you about your physical health. But when your marriage is a wreck, and the word tells you that your problem, wife, is that you are an unsubmissive nag, or that your problem, husband, is that you are selfish, lazy, and a spiritual sluggard who doesn't know a proverb from a Hallmark card, the response is, hey, don't put that law on me. I'm under grace. Is God's word tough on us sometimes? Does it cut us to the core? Does obeying it mean we are going to have to do things and be people that we may not want to be? Does it mean that following it is going to require great sacrifice? Yes, of course it does. Of course it does. But do you want to live as God has called you? Do you want what's best for you? Do you want to be holy and honor the God who sacrificed himself to give you eternal life? You must stop making excuses then. And obey the word of God. It really is good for you. If it feels like I'm talking directly to you this morning, it's because I am. It's because I am. Secondly, with respect to the first two passages this morning, God's word is given to us as words of delight. Words of delight. I know that may sound strange given what I just said, but it's given to us as words of delight. Your translation might say pleasing words. God could have given us his word in a form similar to your car's owner's manual, right? He could have. When this happens, and here's my son, and believe in him, and just get through life the best you can. It'll work out all in the end, right? Just follow this manual and it'll work itself out. He did not do that, though, right? He gave us a story. Not a manual. He gave us a story. He gave us trial and triumph. He gave us pain, celebration. He gave us war and peace, elegant poetry and convicting proverbs. He gave us promise and blessing. A look into the past and a glimpse into the future. He gave us this wild and incredible story of how he is rescuing his people from their sin. And threaded within that story the revelation of our Savior, the one in whom we trust. And within this story, God has placed even hidden at times all that we need for life and godliness. He kind of ingrained it, not kind of, he ingrained it within this story. He has given us everything we need and wrapped it all up in this beautiful redemptive story. And by the way, he wrote himself into this story as both the author and the main character. The one who spoke the words is the one who is the word. What words of delight are these, right? And know this story, Christians. Know this story that He has given to us. And even more, obey the story. That finally brings us to the last point I want to draw out this book as we close. And it is this the words of the wise, this is verse 11, the words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings. They are given by one shepherd. For our purposes this morning, think of goads like cattle prods. These prods guide the cattle in one particular direction when they don't know otherwise or are too often stubborn to listen. This is the goads, the prods. It might hurt, right? But the one doing the prodding is far more intelligent than the one being prodded. This is true of cattle. Certainly true of us. And likewise think of nails as tent pegs driven into the ground to keep a tent from flying off. We can take great comfort in this word, and in the one who gave us this word, that when we submit to it, though the prodding we receive might be painful at times, we can be assured that we are being led and directed by one far more intelligent and wise than us. He has to prod us. Because we are stubborn, aren't we? But what a grace this is. Because he knows best where to lead us. It is further comfort to know that this word, when driven firmly into our hearts, will secure us. Firmly fixed to the ground as a tent peg secures a tent. I'll say it again then. The word of God is painful at times. But it is only this word that brings us stability. In fact, we are told to be wary of anything beyond these words, right? That is the second half, or verse 12, sorry. My son, beware of anything beyond these words. Not that there is no benefit to things outside of the word, but that there will be no end to making books that seek to guide and impart wisdom and bring stability. There will be no end to that. As long as there are unstable people, which there will always be unstable people this side of heaven, but as long as there are unstable people, there will be someone who will write another book or give another lecture on how to fix that unstability. Beware of these things, our text says. We don't need another book to offer us stability. We don't need another word. We don't need another TED talk. We have the word. We just have to read it and obey it. So this then is the end of the matter. It's done. All has been heard. What are we to do now? How are we to live then? Fear God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. May we know Christ deeply, church. May we love, truly love our Savior who has saved us. May we live in gratitude for this great salvation that he has given us. May we stand in awe, in holy fear of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And because he is so good to us, may we gladly obey him. For this is indeed the whole duty of man. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you for this word that was convicting, Lord, that did cut us, Lord. We thank you for the salvation that you've given to us in Christ, and we cling to that alone, Lord. We do not cling to our own righteousness and our own obedience. We are not justified by our own works, Lord. We know this. And we trust in you alone, who was obedient, who did everything for us, who has died for us and given us salvation. We believe that, Lord, and we trust that, and we confess that, and we thank you for that, Lord, and please help us out of the gratitude of what has been done for us, Lord. May we serve you, may we be in awe of you, and may we obey you willingly, Lord, because you are so good to us. In all of those areas where we have not done that, Lord, where we have gone our own way, where we have gone astray, Lord, bring us back to you. Bring us under the conviction of your word. Lord, cultivate in us hearts that long and desire to be holy as you are holy. Help us, Lord. We long to please you. And as now as we go into this time of supper, Lord, we thank you again for the cross. We thank you for the salvation that you've given to us in Christ. And we proclaim that this morning. In Jesus' name. Amen.