The Problem With Stuff

Passage: Ecclesiastes 5:8-20

Last week we were in the house of God, in worship, listening to God, growing in our fear of the Lord.  It was a refuge from this life under the sun.  And then we walked out the doors back into the world, and here we are back in the world under the sun, a world of oppression, injustice, materialism, and our souls are assaulted by reality.

That taste of sweet heaven is turning sour, that glimpse of glory is growing dim.  Reality is sucking the life out of our souls.  We leave the mountain top with God and find ourselves once again in the valley of death’s shadow.

It raises a question.  Why go to church if you only have to go back out into the world and all the problems are still there?  Going to church doesn’t make you immune to life under the sun.

Yet the Preacher holds out some hope, some joy in the midst of it all.  Wait for it, watch for it.  God isn’t just in the church house, He also meets us in the world, in the midst of all our stuff and striving and doing.

First, he shows us the grievous evil under the sun, and then he shows us how God gives us the power and ability to experience joy.  First, he will take us down, then he will lift us up.

It is a well-worn cliché, “You can’t take it with you.”  Yet as well-known as it is, so is it ignored as often as it is spoken.  You have heard it a hundred times, but what effect has it had on your life?