Ecclesiastes...Pastor Phil Strong

Part 16

6-5-11                                    

Texts: Isaiah 25

Summer… it may be the hardest season of the heart to qualify because it is typically the one with which we are least familiar.

            Light, warmth, recreation, community, celebrations, family… all associated with summer. We feel most deeply alive. We are active, but not depleted; energetic, but at ease.

Summer is a time of “guilty pleasure”.

Not because we are involved in a host of immoral and unethical behavior, but because we almost feel badly for feeling so good! We are finding ways to experience favor/blessing that don’t involve guilt. It’s the “… God created all things for our enjoyment” principle (1 Timothy 6:17).

We’ve all accepted the notion that if you’re a Christian and you’re happy, then you’re not doin’ it right!

Honestly, aren’t we all a bit suspicious of Christians who are smiling all the time?

Summer is the season of God-initiated ‘heart-renewal’ (repair; restore). It’s a season of unprovoked grace--- “springing up”, refreshing us like cold, clear water on a sweltering day.

If in winter, God seems absent, in summer, he is everywhere you turn. In winter, if God is hard to find, in summer, you can’t miss him!

Summer is a ‘sampling’ or ‘foretaste’; it’s a ‘first-fruit’ of the “shalom” that awaits us.

It’s like getting to lick the blender paddles (once removed from the blender, obviously!) or participating in a “soft-opening” at a restaurant--- not fully complete, but has announced its presence.

The first-fruits always belonged to God; they were always a means of celebrating, with gratitude, the present provision and care of God, while anticipating a future harvest.

We never want it to end. Summer makes us long for ‘eternity’--- not as a duration of time, but as a quality of time.

Psalm 126 (read)

God loves “exiles”…

… because the illusion of control has been shattered in their lives; they are finally losing confidence in their own structures and strategies for making life work.

            … because they stripped of all pretense; are forced to admit that they have no potential to alter their circumstances; no hope without some form of intervention on their behalf.

            … because they finally have the capacity to see a future with no hope of ever returning to their past. Exiles feel hopeless… therein lies their hope!

First, we notice that this summer season is so good that it has to be true.

It has to be “real”. We know it’s not something we have manufactured or something we have simply accessed within ourselves. It’s just not in us.

Grace rains!

The Negev was a desert area south of Jerusalem which, for most of the year, remained parched and barren. But, it was susceptible to sudden outbursts of rain which would literally transform the landscape.

            “Streams in the Negev” became a metaphor for the sudden and restorative outpouring of God’s blessing.

“We are one happy people…” (v.3)

● The present experience of joy is because we are a people who have “history with God”. It has names; it has dates. We are called to rehearse and be swept up into God’s story, because page after page, it is a story of “grace”--- the repetitious and restorative movements of God toward us.

The best laughter, the most healing form of laughter, seems to burst out of a painful moment, doesn’t it? When tears of sorrow, almost without warning, transition into tears of joy?

Secondly, we notice that joy is firmly established in their present reality by a settled-confidence in a preferred-future.

            They have been restored, but pray for restoration. They function in the present within the context of expectancy and anticipation. They are “content”.

Contentment is a more realistic biblical objective than fulfillment.

● Paul said that contentment was something “learned” (Philippians 4) and was independent of the circumstances. It can be practiced anytime and anywhere.

We are to be contented, but never fully satisfied. There are times when we just have to conclude that, “It’ll due for now”.

● But, when you finally give up the quest for ultimate fulfillment with life under-the-sun, you will actually begin to enjoy it. You won’t have to demand that your job fulfill you or recognize your contributions; you won’t be constantly requiring that your spouse ‘affirm you’ or your kids validate you. You will find that you are generally ‘less demanding’… of God, of life, of others.

Responses…

“Gratitude and generosity” (companion responses)

Gratitude is what distinguishes us from all of the other ‘takers’. In the Greek, ‘gratitude’ and ‘grace’ share the same root word; they are inseparable.

We forget that for the ancients, they had to “lose” their seed before they could “gain” a return. They had to take what was available to them in the present, and put it in the soil with no guarantees of the outcome.

Being a good steward not only means learning how to give, but learning how to receive. But, we aren’t very good at it.

We haven’t figured out a way to accept something (even from God) without finding a way to attribute, at least part of it, to our own ingenuity or performance.

● I have discovered that the things that I have appreciated the most are not the things that I worked hard to secure, but the things that were given to me--- which required no effort on my part.

Those things always endear me (connect) me with the giver. As I enjoy those things, I can’t help but call to mind the generosity of the giver, and I am thankful.

“Savor”--- to experience; to delight in

In summer of the heart, our worship (response to God) doesn’t seem strained or compulsory; it just seems to be a ‘reflex’.

● When we appreciate what we are currently experiencing, we call it “savoring the moment”; when we refuse to let go of that moment, the nostalgia makes us resentful.

Nostalgic people are forever irrelevant because they are bound to the past. It offers no life for the present and no vision for the future. Unfortunately, our memories are not always faithful to reality: it wasn’t really as bad or as good as we remembered it. There has never really be a “golden era”.

“Delight”… ‘to long for that which brings you pleasure’; ‘what you choose to desire’

Somehow, our innate desire for pleasure must be connected to desiring the right things. It means that, sometimes, I must choose to desire something--- delight in something, before I realize its pleasure.

In summer, we find that what we have done with some intentionality and purpose, we now do out of delight. We discover that having attached value to God, having delighted in him, we find what our heart desires.

Delight doesn’t feel so much effort anymore.

We “delight in the Lord” and are experiencing the “desires of our hearts” (Psalm 37).