Latest / Reformed Thinking / Life with the Can Opener: The Joy of Fleeting Gifts (Ecclesiastes 6:1-12)

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Life with the Can Opener: The Joy of Fleeting Gifts (Ecclesiastes 6:1-12) · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Welcome to reformed thinking. You know, usually when we talk
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about a medical diagnosis, there is a clear expectation of
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precision. It is.
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It's kind of like engineering. You break your arm.
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The X-ray shows that jagged white line on the film and the
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doctor just points at it and says, you know, there it is.
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Right. It's binary.
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It's broken or it's not broken. It's just a clean assessment.
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Yeah, and it's comforting. We like things to be visible, to
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be categorized. But then you look at the human
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soul, specifically how we relate to success and abundance, and
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suddenly that machine is just. It's broken.
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Oh, absolutely. We are looking at a spiritual
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landscape that is, well, honestly, it's murky.
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You put in the hard work, you get the promotion, the bank
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account grows, and you expect the X-ray to show happiness.
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But it doesn't. Right.
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Often it shows a void. And if you are listening to this
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right now, chances are you have experienced that specific
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disconnect at some point in your life.
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It is the absolute definition of diagnostic Muddy Waters.
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I mean, truly the input does not guarantee the expected output.
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No, it really doesn't. We assume the physical
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circumstances will dictate our internal reality, but they so
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rarely do. Which brings us to our mission
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for you today. In this deep dive into the
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source material, we are investigating Ecclesiastes
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chapter 6, verses one through 12.
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We are examining a very specific heavy affliction observed by
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King Solomon. Yeah, a really tough one.
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It's the condition of possessing massive amounts of wealth,
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honor, and family, but completely lacking the capacity
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to enjoy any of it. It sounds crazy to modern ears.
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It does, and to do this properly, we have pulled
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together ancient historical records, Hebrew lexical
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analysis, and some fascinating modern psychology studies to get
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a full picture of what is going on here.
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The goal here is to unpack why abundance without God's grace is
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severe misery. We're going to dismantle the
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false gospel of more and through that tear down we want to find
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actual lasting satisfaction in the Creator rather than the
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created gifts. OK, let's unpack this.
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To grasp the weight of Solomon's warning, we first have to look
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at this historical setting he was writing from.
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Because, I mean, he was not writing from a place of
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theoretical philosophy. He was not a monk in a desert
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theorizing about wealth. He was writing during the 10th
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century BC, which was the absolute peak of Israel's
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affluence in geopolitical dominance.
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That context changes everything about how we read the text.
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The historical record in First Kings gives us a staggering
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picture of this era. Yeah, during Solomon's reign,
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the text says, silver was as common as stones in Jerusalem.
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That's just that's an absurd to even picture.
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I know, right? Cedar wood, which was a massive
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luxury item, was as plentiful as ordinary Sycamore fig trees.
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He possessed international trade fleets that brought back gold,
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ivory, apes and Peacocks. Just importing exotic animals
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for fun. Yes, he built massive store
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cities and unmatched military cavalry and unimaginable
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domestic luxury. He had unparalleled resources to
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scientifically test the hypothesis that material
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accumulation creates happiness. So he had the limitless budget
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to run the ultimate human experiment.
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If you gave someone today a trillion dollars and no ethical
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restrictions on how they spent it to find happiness, that is
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basically what Solomon was doing.
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That is precisely what he did, and we have to view this against
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the prevailing ancient Near East theology of the time.
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OK, lay that out for us. Well, the surrounding cultures
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and even the popular theology of the Israelites themselves
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dictated A strict mechanical formula.
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It was a theology of retribution.
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Meaning what exactly? Or meaning what in practice?
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The formula stated that wealth, abundant property, and a long
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life equal divine blessing. It was a one to one ratio
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poverty or an early death equal to curse.
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It was a closed equation that left no room for nuance.
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This sounds incredibly familiar when you look at our modern
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culture. This ancient retribution
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theology feels so much like the secular concept of karma, or
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even the classic American Dream. Oh, 100% it's.
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The idea that inputting hard work automatically outputs
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happiness and moral justification.
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We tell people if you just grind hard enough, put in the hours
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and make the right investments, the universe will reward you
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with peace and satisfaction. It's a transactional view of the
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universe it. Is entirely transactional, and
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what's fascinating here is that Solomon stands at the absolute
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summit of that exact formula. Right.
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He's the poster boy for it, yes. If anyone could prove the
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equation worked, it was him. He checked every single box of
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the ancient Near Eastern success matrix, yet he writes
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Ecclesiastes standing in the ashes of his own success,
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realizing the formula was a lie. Wow.
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He had the visible tokens of blessing, but he realized a man
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can have the covenant blessings outwardly while being entirely
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destitute inwardly. I was reading through the
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lexical notes we gathered for this and that brings up the
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Hebrew concept of Hebel which shows up constantly in this
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text. In English bibles it gets
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translated as vanity a lot, which maybe sounds a bit
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arrogant or self obsessed to a modern reader like.
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Looking in a mirror too much. Yeah, but the literal meaning is
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much more physical than that, isn't it?
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Yes. Hebel literally means vapor,
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mist, or breath. It refers to something
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transient, fleeting, and insubstantial.
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It cannot bear weight. Imagine walking outside on a
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freezing winter morning and seeing your breath in the air.
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For a second. It looks like a solid cloud, but
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if you try to grab it, there is nothing there.
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It vanishes, right? When Solomon looks at all his
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wealth, his palaces, and his success, he is not saying those
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things are inherently evil. He is saying they are Hebel.
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A mountain of vapor is still just vapor.
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If you try to stand on it, you will fall right through.
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So what does this whole mean for you listening today?
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Because it seems like we suffer from the same mechanical
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formula, specifically through the prosperity gospel in the
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modern evanditrical land landscape.
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We really do. We.
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Might dress it up in different vocabulary, but we still think
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God owes us a specific emotional output if we provide the right
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religious input. The connection between the
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ancient formula and the modern prosperity gospel is undeniable.
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The prosperity gospel teaches that outward prosperity
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guarantees spiritual health and divine favor.
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Yeah, it promises that if you have enough faith, you will be
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healthy, wealthy and constantly victorious.
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But if that were true, the most affluent societies would
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inherently be the most joyful and spiritually robust.
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And we know that's not the case. Not at all.
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When we look at the psychological studies included
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in our source material, they show massive rates of
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depression, anxiety, and money related stress in wealthy
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nations. The United States is arguably
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the most affluent nation in human history, yet 10s of
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millions of adults suffer from severe depressive episodes.
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We have gained the world, but we are utterly miserable.
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It is like a person spending their entire life climbing to
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the very top of the corporate ladder.
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Imagine the sacrifice that. Makes.
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Oh, it's immense. You tear your hands up on every
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rung. You sacrifice your weekends.
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You miss your kids growing up. You compromise your health.
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And when you finally pull yourself over the top edge and
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get the corner office, you lookout the window and realize
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the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
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That's a great way to put it. You spent your entire life
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striving for a destination that does not actually contain the
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peace you were promised. That is a terrifying realization
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for anyone to face. Yeah, and it sets up the
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theological friction of this text perfectly.
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Solomon is showing us that the formula of wealth equals
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happiness is fundamentally broken.
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It is a false promise that leaves the soul starving.
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Since we know the formula is broken, we should look at the
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specific devastating scenario Solomon uses to prove his point.
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He sets up a hypothetical situation that really gets to
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the core of this affliction. Yeah.
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Let's look at that. He identifies a severe, crushing
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situation. God gives a man comprehensive
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wealth, possessions, and honor. Lacking nothing he desires.
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Yet God withholds the ability or permission to actually enjoy
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those gifts, and a stranger consumes them instead.
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The Hebrew syntax here is the key to understand the entire
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argument. It says a man to whom God gives
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wealth, yet God does not give him enablement to enjoy them.
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OK, so. Two distinct verbs are utilized
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in that sentence. The verb Nathan, which means to
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give, is used for the wealth, but God does not give the
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shalat, which means the enablement, the mastery, or the
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permission to enjoy it. So they are two entirely
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separate gifts. The money and the joy do not
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come in the same package. That is the core reality Solomon
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wants us to grasp. The material blessing is 1 gift.
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The psychological and spiritual capacity to actually enjoy it is
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a second, separate gift. Both require a sovereign decree.
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I see God can grant the former while sovereignly withholding
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the latter. This completely shatters the
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concept of human autonomy. We naturally assume that if we
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hold the object, we automatically extract the joy
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from it, right? It's automatic.
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Yeah. If I buy the car, I get the
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happiness. If I get the house, I get the
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peace. If I secure the retirement fund,
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I get the security. But joy is not mechanically
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produced by acquisition. It is a secondary sovereign
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bestowal. You cannot force it out of the
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object. One of the commentators in our
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research stack framed this in a way that is incredibly helpful.
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Picture a person locked inside a massive warehouse.
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It is stocked floor to ceiling with the finest canned Peaches.
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They possess total abundance. They are literally surrounded by
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everything they could ever want to eat.
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They own the entire building, but they lack a simple can
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opener. Oh.
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Man, the abundance is present, but the sweetness is entirely
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inaccessible. You can possess the can and
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still starve to death. Yes, but hold on though, if we
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are saying God is a loving father, doesn't handing someone
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a locked can of Peaches feel incredibly cruel?
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You have someone starving for joy and God puts the joy right
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in front of them but hides the key.
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How do we reconcile that with a loving God?
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That is the natural human reaction.
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It feels like a cosmic taunt, but if we pull back and look at
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the broader biblical narrative, it is actually a severe mercy.
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How so? The human heart is a factory of
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idols. We constantly look to the
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creation for the satisfaction that can only be found in the
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Creator. When we demand that our money,
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our careers, or our families provide ultimate peace, we're
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treating a divine provision as a functional Savior.
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We turn the gift into a God. We ask a finite object to bear
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the weight of an infinite desire.
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Yes. And God in his mercy refuses to
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let idol satisfy us. He withholds the shalat, the
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enablement to enjoy the idol so that we will feel the emptiness
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of our false worship. Think about what would happen if
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the idol actually worked. If the money actually brought
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you permanent soul deep peace, you would happily perish in your
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rebellion, completely ignoring God you.
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Just be content without him, right?
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You would walk straight into eternal separation from Him with
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a smile on your face. Withholding the enjoyment is a
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mechanism of grace driving us back to the only true source of
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joy. It is God saying this cannot
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feed you, and I love you too much to let you pretend it can.
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OK, that completely reframes the concept.
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The lack of enjoyment is an alarm bell, not a punishment.
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It is a diagnostic tool meant to wake you up.
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Spot on. Now, Solomon does not stop at
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mere financial wealth to make this point.
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He turns the dial up to the absolute extremes of ancient
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success. He presents a hypothetical man
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who achieves the ultimate ancient Near Eastern markers of
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success. The scenario he constructs is
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staggering in its proportions. He posits a man who fathers 100
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children and lives for 2000 years a. 100 children and two
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millennia. If you are an ancient Israelite
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listening to this, your jaw is on the floor.
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We have to understand the cultural weight of these
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elements. In the ancient world, 100
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children meant massive virility, unquestionable legacy and
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supreme Social Security. You did not have a four O 1K.
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Your children were your retirement plan and your
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protection. And living for 2000 years is
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double the lifespan of Methuselah.
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It is the absolute pinnacle of conceivable human blessing.
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It is immortality and infinite legacy combined.
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But Solomon adds A devastating condition to this hypothetical
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man. He says if this man's soul is
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not satisfied and he receives no burial, A stillborn child is
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better off. The lack of a burial was the
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ultimate ancient disgrace. Really.
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Oh, absolutely. It was not just about the
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disposal of a physical body in the ancient Near East, a proper
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burial was a final act of honor, family loyalty, and covenant
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memory. To be left unburied signal
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judgement, defeat, and absolute abandonment by your family and
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society. So this man has 100 children, a
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massive family tree, yet ends up utterly alone and disgraced.
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His family does not even care enough to put him in the ground
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and the. Comparison of the stillborn
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child is shocking A stillborn child the heborn word is nephil
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comes in darkness. It's name, it's Shem, which
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represents identity and legacy, is covered in Yeah.
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It never sees the sun. It never experiences a single
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human pleasure. How on earth can Solomon
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conclude that the stillborn is better off than the 2000 year
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old billionaire? It comes down to one word, rest,
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the Hebrew word nashaf. The text says the stillborn
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possesses rest while the affluent man does not.
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I see Solomon is forcing his audience to realize that the
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duration of life does not equal salvation.
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The unregenerate man with massive abundance, living for
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2000 years without a satisfied soul, is living in a prolonged
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state of torment. Just endless striving.
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Well, yes, precisely. He is experiencing 2 millennia
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of agonizing friction. Constantly hungry but never
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full, the stillborn child has spared that restless,
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unsatisfied earthly existence. Is Solomon just using extreme
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poetic hyperbole to grab our attention, or is he making a
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literal biological calculation about the value of life here?
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This is wisdom literature, so he is deliberately using jarring
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hyperbole to breakthrough our defenses.
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He is not establishing A comprehensive doctrine of infant
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death. He is making a severe rhetorical
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comparison. OK.
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That makes sense. He is saying take the longest,
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most prosperous life you can possibly imagine, now remove
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God's grace from it. That life is a heavier burden
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than never having lived at all. You see this play out in modern
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headlines all the time. Think about famous, highly
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successful tycoons or celebrities.
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You can probably picture a few specific names right now.
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Yeah, we all can. They possess massive families,
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sprawling estates all over the world, and they live long lives
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surrounded by sycophants and yes men.
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But then you read about their final years and they are marked
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by intense family litigation, complete isolation, paranoia and
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palpable misery. It's tragic.
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Their kids are suing each other over the estate before the
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person is even passed away. They have the hundred children
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and the long life, but they have absolutely no rest.
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It proves that human existence stretched out indefinitely
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without God-given enjoyment is a curse, not a blessing.
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Immortality without grace is just eternal restlessness.
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So if accumulating all that wealth, building a dynasty and
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living forever cannot cure this anxiety, the problem cannot be
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our external circumstances. The defect has to be.
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Internal it's a structural issue with us.
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Right. What is broken in our actual
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wiring? Why are we so incapable of being
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satisfied? Well, Solomon moves from the
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external circumstances to a universal human reality.
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Regarding our desires, he states a universal reality.
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All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not
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filled. That is the human condition in a
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single sentence. We work endlessly to consume,
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yet the consumption never produces finality.
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I noticed in the study notes that the Hebrew word for
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appetite here is nephesh. It seems like it means a lot
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more than just your physical stomach rumbling before
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lunchtime. You are right, it is a brilliant
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piece of word play. In the text, nephesh can mean
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soul, throat, life or craving. The text says you work to feed
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the mouth, but the nephesh, the throat, the soul remains an
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empty void. Oh wow.
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The physical mouth receives the food, the bank account receives
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the paycheck, the garage receives the car, but the inner
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being remains entirely unsatisfied.
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Solomon contrast this wandering of the appetite with the sight
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of the eyes. What is the distinction he is
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making there? The wandering of the appetite
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portrays the soul as a restless Vagabond.
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It is roaming the earth, searching for satisfaction,
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convinced that the next acquisition will finally bring
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peace. Always chasing something else.
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Always, it is always living in the future conditional.
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If I just get this, then I will be happy.
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But the sight of the eyes refers to contented realism.
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OK, contented realism, yes. It is the spiritual discipline
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of receiving and enjoying the actual present portion God has
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set before you. Right now it is looking at the
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bread on your table today and giving thanks rather than
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hallucinating about a banquet tomorrow.
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If we view this through the lens of human depravity, this makes
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perfect sense. Our natural appetites are
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fundamentally broken. Once we are severed from the
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Creator, our desire mutates it. Mutates heavily we.
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Take good things and demand they do the work of God.
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We turn food into identity. We turn work into salvation.
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We turn our spouses or children into our source of absolute
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worth. That mutation is the essence of
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idolatry, and because created things are finite, they can
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never fill an infinite void. When you ask a finite object to
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provide infinite meaning, you crush the object and you starve
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your soul. Imagine a bucket with the bottom
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completely rusted out. You can pour a glass of water
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into it and it drains straight out.
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So you think I just need more water?
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You back up a fire truck and pump thousands of gallons into
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it. It all drains out.
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You could theoretically pour the entire ocean into that rusted
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bucket, all the wealth, experiences, and honors of the
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world, but it will never hold a single drop.
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The bottom is rusted out. The volume of the water is not
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the problem. The structural integrity of the
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bucket is the problem. Psychologist call this the
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hedonic treadmill, and it maps perfectly on to what Solomon is
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describing. We run frantically toward a new
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luxury, believing it will elevate our baseline of
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happiness permanently. And does it.
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For a minute, we finally get it. We experience a brief, intense
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bicodopamine, and then we adapt to it.
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Within months, or sometimes even weeks, that luxury feels like a
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basic necessity. We fall right back to our
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original emotional baseline, feeling empty and looking for
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the next upgrade. If you are listening to this and
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you have ever found yourself staring at your phone late at
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night, you know exactly how this feels.
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Oh yes, this sounds precisely like the psychology behind doom
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scrolling on social media. You are sitting on the couch at
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1:00 AM, flicking your thumb, looking for that one post, that
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one funny video, or that one piece of news that will finally
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give your brain permission to rest.
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Just one more. Yeah, you tell yourself, just
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one more scroll on my brain will shut off.
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But the algorithm is specifically designed so that
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your nephesh, your craving, is never filled.
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It is engineered to keep your appetite wandering infinitely
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the. Algorithm is the digital
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manifestation of the wandering nephesh.
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It monetizes our incident restlessness, and Solomon
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concludes that even recognizing this cycle is a striving after
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wind. Because knowing about the rust
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doesn't fix it. That's right.
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Human wisdom can diagnose the disease.
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It teaches us to see the reality of our condition, and we can map
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out the psychology of it. But human wisdom alone cannot
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cure the rusted bucket. It can only describe the rust.
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So how do we react when we realize we cannot fill the
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bucket? When our desires are bottomless
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and we realize we cannot control our own joy?
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What is our natural fleshly reaction?
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We get angry, we complain, we try to argue with the
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management, we demand an explanation for why things are
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not working the way we want them to.
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Solomon describes this perfectly when he talks about humanity
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boxing with shadows. The.
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Text shifts here from observation to an absolute
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declaration of divine sovereignty.
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It says whatever has come to be has already been named, and it
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is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with
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one stronger than he. I want to look at the
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terminology used there, specifically the idea of
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disputing. What is the context of that
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word? The word for dispute or contend
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is din. It is a legal term.
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It means to take someone to court to enter into litigation.
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Fallen humanity constantly tries to litigate against divine
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Providence. Wow, litigate against God, Yes.
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We want to summon God to the witness stand, put him
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underoath, and demand he justify his distribution of wealth,
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health and joy. We look at our lives and say, I
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put in the work. Where's the payoff?
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I demand a hearing. But the text shuts that down
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immediately by saying God has already named reality.
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In Scripture, naming implies absolute authority, definition
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and forward a nation. Exactly.
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Or I should say yes, absolutely. When Adam named the animals, he
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was exercising derived authority over them.
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When God names reality, he is exercising absolute sovereignty.
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God dictates it's reality, the creature receives it.
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This exposes the supreme arrogance of modern humanism.
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We demand explanations from God as though he owes us a
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transcript of his eternal decrees.
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We evaluate our lives based on our immediate comfort, assuming
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we know what is best for our own souls.
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We think we are the judge and God is on trial.
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The text also calls Man a shadow.
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We are weak, insubstantial, and utterly unable to dispute with
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the One who is infinitely stronger.
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Multiplying words of complaint only multiplies vanity.
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We do not know what is good for us, nor do we know the future.
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We are shadows trying to punch a mountain.
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And because we are shadows, our perspective is severely limited.
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We have no idea if a sudden financial windfall would
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absolutely ruin our character, right?
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We might beg God for a promotion or a massive inheritance, not
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realizing that acquiring it would destroy our marriage or
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make us arrogant. Conversely, we did not know if a
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sudden painful loss might be the precise instrument used to save
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our souls from self-reliance. We lack the omniscient data
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required to litigate the case. Think about Job's initial
21:57
reaction to his suffering. He was a righteous man who lost
22:00
everything, his wealth, his children, his health, and his
22:03
immediate visceral impulse was to demand his day in court with
22:06
God. He wanted a hearing.
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He. Wanted a subpoena.
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He wanted a legal mediator to stand between them so he could
22:12
litigate the fairness of his situation.
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He was convinced that if he could just present his case, God
22:18
would realize a mistake had been made.
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Yes. Job's friends gave him terrible
22:23
advice based on that same ancient retribution formula,
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telling him he must have sinned to deserve it.
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Jabe knew he had not, so he demanded an explanation.
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But God didn't give him one, no. When God finally answered out of
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the whirlwind, he did not offer Job a neat theological
22:40
explanation. He did not give him a bulleted
22:42
list of reasons. He pointed to the cosmos.
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He established the unbridgeable chasm between creator and
22:48
creature. God essentially asked Job, where
22:50
were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
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He pointed to the sea, the stars, the wild animals.
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He overwhelmed Job with the sheer scale of divine wisdom and
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power that. Response from the whirlwind
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silence is the dim, the litigation.
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It forces the shadow to recognize the substance of God.
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It brings Job to a place of humble submission where he
23:08
covers his mouth and realizes he lacks the standing to soothe the
23:11
Almighty. I can hear someone listening to
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this and feeling a sense of dread.
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If everything is already named and we are just shadows who do
23:19
not know what is good for us, doesn't that breed absolute
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fatalism? I can see why someone would
23:25
think that, right? If the decree is already set and
23:28
my complaining is useless, why should you get out of bed?
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Why try to build a business or raise a family or pursue justice
23:35
in the world if you are just a shadow?
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That is a critical distinction we need to make.
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Solomon is not advocating for Stoic fatalism.
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Fatalism is a Pagan concept. OK, unpack that.
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Fatalism says my choices do not matter, the universe is cold and
23:49
a different so I will do nothing.
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Biblical submission of Providence says God is
23:54
infinitely wise and good, He loves his people and he governs
23:57
all things. Therefore, I can act with
23:59
confidence and trust, knowing the outcome is secure in his
24:02
capable hands. So it is not about giving up, it
24:04
is about acting without the crushing anxiety of needing to
24:07
control the universe, right? It is the difference between a
24:09
prisoner sitting in a dark, locked cell and a child sitting
24:13
in the backseat of a car who are trusting their parent who is
24:15
driving. I love that analogy the.
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Child does not control the steering wheel.
24:18
They might not even know the route, but they are not
24:21
paralyzed by fear. They're at rest because they
24:23
know the character of the driver.
24:25
We work, we build, we raise our families, and we pursue justice.
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But we do so while submitting the results and the enjoyment of
24:31
those results to 11 Providence. We do our duty and leave the
24:35
outcomes to God. OK, so if we are trapped in this
24:37
vaporous existence under the sun, with a wandering broken
24:41
soul, a rusted bucket for a heart, and no ability to argue
24:45
with a sovereign decree, where do we look for hope?
24:48
Ecclesiastes sets up a massive deficit.
24:51
It diagnosis the disease perfectly, but who pays the
24:54
bill? Where is the cure?
24:56
This leads us to the true dispenser of joy.
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Ecclesiastes prepares the way by exposing a massive deficit that
25:03
only Jesus Christ resolves. All of the despair, the
25:07
unfulfilled appetite, the inability to enjoy the gifts,
25:09
the endless litigation, these are symptoms of humanity
25:12
alienated from God through sin. Christ is the Incarnate wisdom
25:16
of God who rescues humanity from the curse of this unenjoyed
25:19
existence. Let's connect the dots directly
25:21
from Solomon's diagnosis to Jesus in Ecclesiastes 6.
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The unregenerate man lacks the grace to enjoy his gifts.
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He has the warehouse full of Peaches, but he is holding the
25:32
locked can. And Christ freely gives the
25:34
unsearchable riches of grace. He does not just hand us another
25:38
earthly gift to add to the pile of vapor.
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He reconciles us to the Father. He restores the broken
25:44
relationship that allows us to receive any gift, whether it is
25:48
a meager meal or a massive inheritance, with genuine
25:52
gratitude. Solomon says the nephesh, the
25:54
soul, is endlessly hungry. It wanders the earth looking for
25:57
satisfaction. And Jesus stands up in the
26:00
Gospel of John and declares I am the bread of life.
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Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in
26:06
me shall never thirst. That's the cure for the rested
26:08
bucket, yes? He offers himself as the only
26:11
substance that can plug the rusted hole in the human heart.
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The endless wandering of the appetite finds its permanent
26:17
rest in him because he is infinite.
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He is the only object of desire that can actually satisfy the
26:22
weight of human longing. Solomon says man foolishly tries
26:25
to dispute or litigate with God over his circumstances.
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We demand our day in court to argue about what we deserve.
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Yet look at Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, facing the
26:37
absolute terror of the cross, bearing the way to divine wrath
26:40
for the sins of His people. He did not dispute with the
26:43
Father, He. Didn't ask for a lawyer.
26:45
No, he didn't. He had a legitimate claim to
26:47
fairness, being perfectly sinless, yet he did not
26:51
litigate. He perfectly submitted to the
26:53
divine decree, saying not my will but yours be done.
26:57
He lived the life of perfect submission that we failed to
27:00
live and died the curse of death we deserve for our constant
27:03
murmuring and complaining. What about that dark ending with
27:06
the hypothetical man where the stillborn child finds rest in
27:10
the darkness of the grave? Throughout Ecclesiastes, the
27:13
grave feels like the final oppressive word.
27:16
It is the great equalizer that makes everything vapor.
27:19
Under the sun feud, strictly from a secular, earthly
27:22
perspective, the grave is the final word.
27:25
But we have to contrast that dark ending with the physical
27:27
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yes.
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The empty tomb changes everything.
27:30
Because Jesus broke the shadow of death, the grave is no longer
27:34
the terminus. It is no longer a dead end, it
27:37
is a doorway. He defeated the vapor.
27:40
Because of His bodily resurrection.
27:42
The believer looks forward to a renewed physical creation where
27:46
joy will be completely unhindered by sin, decay, or
27:49
loss. The stillborn's rest in the dark
27:52
grave is replaced by the believers conscious, everlasting
27:55
joy in the radiant presence of God.
27:58
Pointing back to the beginning of Jesus's earthly ministry,
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think about his temptation in the wilderness.
28:03
Satan took him up and offered him all the kingdoms of the
28:06
world and their glory. A.
28:07
Massive temptation. Satan was offering him the
28:10
ultimate can of earthly wealth and honor, but bypassing the
28:13
Father's timing and bypassing the cross.
28:16
Jesus had the option to take the shortcut to the crown, but he
28:19
refused the wealth. Without the Father's grace, He
28:22
chose the path of obedience, securing true eternal
28:25
satisfaction for His people. He proved in the wilderness that
28:28
communion with the Father and obedience to His will is
28:31
infinitely better than the sum total of the world's wealth.
28:34
He starved physically in the desert, yet his nephesh was
28:37
completely satisfied in God. So bringing this down to the
28:40
ground for you listening right now, how does knowing that
28:44
Christ is the ultimate satisfaction actually change how
28:47
you handle your life tomorrow? It sounds great theologically,
28:51
but how does this alter your budget, your career ambitions,
28:54
or your Monday morning commute? Practically it means you repent
28:58
of covetousness when you see your neighbors new car or your
29:02
Co workers promotion. You stop telling yourself the
29:04
lie that if I only had that I would have rest.
29:08
You stop the wandering appetite. Yes, you recognize that thought
29:12
as a symptom of the wandering appetite.
29:15
You stop treating your career as a functional savior.
29:17
When you sit down to handle your budget, you do so as a steward,
29:20
not an owner. You realize the money is God's
29:23
provision, not your identity, which frees you to be incredibly
29:26
generous. It changes the entire posture of
29:29
your daily life. On your Monday morning commute,
29:31
instead of resenting the traffic or dreading the work day, you
29:34
can thank God for the job He provided you.
29:36
Cultivate deliberate gratitude for the ordinary present portion
29:40
God has placed right in front of your eyes.
29:42
You enjoy your morning coffee, you love your spouse, and you do
29:45
your work with excellence, holding all of it loosely
29:48
because you know your ultimate treasure is secure in Christ.
29:51
You are no longer demanding that your life produce infinite joy,
29:55
because Christ has already secured that for you.
29:57
We must stop wasting our breath trying to extract absolute joy
30:01
from fleeting gifts. The gifts will break under the
30:04
pressure. Receive what God gives today
30:06
with humble fear, faith and profound Oh excuse me, with
30:10
immense gratitude. To distill the core takeaways
30:13
from this deep dive into the source material, you can possess
30:17
the can and still lack the opener.
30:19
You can have a mountain of wealth, a massive family, and a
30:22
long life and still be crushed by a severe misery.
30:24
If God withholds the capacity to enjoy it, it's.
30:27
A sobering reality. We have a wandering appetite, A
30:29
rusted bucket that will never be satisfied by the created world.
30:33
We are shadows who cannot win a courtroom dispute with the
30:35
Almighty. And the only cure for this
30:37
entire condition is finding our absolute satisfaction in Jesus
30:41
Christ, who alone gives the grace to enjoy life and
30:44
reconciles us to the Father. It is a radical shift from
30:48
striving after wind to resting in grace.
30:51
As we wrap up, I want to leave you with a final, unmentioned
30:54
concept to Mull over on your own.
30:56
We often treat God's no to our prayers for success.
30:59
As a punishment, we assume He is holding out on us.
31:02
But what if the very earthly blessing you are begging God to
31:05
give you right now is the precise idol that would destroy
31:07
you? Think about that.
31:08
What if God's refusal to grant you that wealth, that
31:11
relationship, or that status is not a sign of His absence, but
31:14
the absolute clearest proof of His severe mercy?
31:17
He might be keeping your hands empty, so you have no choice but
31:20
to hold on to Him. Think about that the next time
31:22
you find yourself staring at a locked pantry.
31:25
Thank you for joining us on Reformed Thinking.