Introduction:
5 Ways to Fail at Relationships:
(Ecclesiastes 4:1-5:7)
- Don't show Compassion . (Eccl 4:1-3)
- Work for the wrong reasons. (Eccl 4:4-8)
- Envy : bad motivation. (Eccl 4:4-6)
- Greed : bad motivation. (Eccl 4:7-8)
- Don't see the Benefits of relationships. (Eccl 4:9-12)
- You get More (and Better) work done. (Eccl 4:9)
- You have help when you're in Trouble . (Eccl 4:10-11)
- It's Safer . (Eccl 4:12)
- Refuse to take Action . (Eccl 4:13-16)
- (Regarding God) Talk , don't Listen . (Eccl 5:1-7)
2 ways to "guard your steps":
- Come expecting to Learn from God. (Eccl 5:1-3)
- Don't try to Bribe God. (Eccl 5:4-7)
Matthew 22:37-39 - And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:40-00:44
Open up your Bibles with me please to Ecclesiastes 4.
00:47-00:52
And in Ecclesiastes we are following Solomon's quest for meaning.
00:54-00:57
He says that life seems empty on its own.
00:58-01:02
Meaning only comes from a life of faith.
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A message just as relevant today.
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Your life is empty if you live as if this is all there is.
01:11-01:25
And you are invited, you are commanded to receive the provision that God made, to have your sin forgiven, the provision that God made to give you eternal life, and that's the death and the resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ.
01:25-01:27
That is the only thing that will give meaning to your life.
01:28-01:33
Anything else is going to fail, and that's what Solomon is walking us through here.
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You have to have faith in God, and we saw last week that God appoints seasons for us, good and bad.
01:41-01:46
He put eternity on our hearts and He has called us to fear Him.
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But that presents another problem.
01:54-02:02
The problem is, okay, okay, okay, Solomon, you're saying that God is in charge and God appoints seasons and God is sovereign.
02:02-02:03
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
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Okay, so if that's true, why is there so much that happens in the world that God wouldn't approve of, right?
02:14-02:20
In other words, why is there so much that we look at in the world and say, why would God allow this?
02:21-02:22
Why would God allow this?
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And you see that kicks off this section where he starts discussing anomalies.
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He's like, look, yes, God is sovereign.
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Yes, God is in control.
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Yes, seasons of life from God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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But, but there's sure, there's a lot of stuff in life that doesn't seem to add up, doesn't feel good, doesn't make sense.
02:50-02:57
And he immediately turns to what brings the most trouble in life.
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And today we're going to talk about relationships.
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That is the word of the day, relationships, because you're going to see in this passage, everything that he's talking about has to do with relationships.
03:13-03:28
And this is the most important thing as we're discovering this quest for meaning, because reality is this, nothing in your life brings more joy than your relationships.
03:29-03:37
And, and nothing in your life brings more heartache in your life than relationships.
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True or false?
03:39-03:39
True or false?
03:39-03:40
True, true.
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Think, just think for a second.
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Just think of the happiest moments of your life.
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Just think about them.
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What were the happiest moments of your life?
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There was somebody else involved in that moment with you, wasn't there?
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Think of the saddest moments of your life.
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The most heartbreaking moments.
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It had something to do with somebody else, didn't it?
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And that's why Solomon takes us here.
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And if we're going to be honest, which I certainly encourage in church, most of the troubles in our relationships are our fault, not God's, right?
04:24-04:28
Most of the problems in our relationships are our fault, not God's.
04:28-04:38
So on your outline today, as we go through Ecclesiastes, Solomon observes five ways people fail in relationships with other people, all right?
04:39-04:47
So if you were looking for a great word of encouragement and exhortation today at Harvest Bible Chapel, here it is on your outline.
04:47-04:50
I'm going to give you five ways to fail at relationships.
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Yay!
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Here's how to do it.
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You can fail in all your relationships, five easy steps.
04:59-05:02
Number one, I write this down, don't show compassion.
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Solomon says this is the first relationship fail.
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Right out the gate, he says, "Don't show compassion." Look at verses 1-3.
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He says, "Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun, and behold the of the oppressed.
05:25-05:26
They had no one to comfort them.
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On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them.
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And I thought the dead, who are already dead, more fortunate than the living who are still alive, but better than both, is he who has not yet been, and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.
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He's talking about defenseless people, helpless people.
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And listen, look, look, look, let's just be honest.
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We live in a day of victim mentality, right?
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Everybody's a victim of something.
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Everybody's a victim of someone.
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And it's easy for us, it's easy for us to roll our eyes when we hear this, oh, somebody's oppressed, you know, somebody's a victim.
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Listen, we can't let people that are crying "wolf" make us apathetic to the fact that there are people who are really being oppressed today.
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You know, we hear all the claims of racism, or the claims of abuse, or the claims of oppression.
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Listen, there are people who are really oppressed.
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There are people who are really, honestly, truly victims of racism, and other forms of oppression and abuse.
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We can't be apathetic towards those.
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Most of us, if we're honest, most of us that are listening to this don't know this kind of pain that he's talking about here, where death is a better alternative than living a life of constant oppression.
07:25-07:33
Oppression's so wicked, he goes, "You know the best person is a person "that's never even been here "to see how horrible people treat other people, right?
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"How horrible people treat other people." the worst." He said, "The best people are those that didn't get to see that." They're like, "Well, what's the problem exactly, Solomon?" Well, he says it twice in verse 1. Did you see it? Here's the problem. He said they had no one to comfort them. They had no one to comfort them. And listen, this is a big fail. When you look at people who are genuinely oppressed by others, there's so much that you can't do. Right?
08:15-08:28
You can't give all of the practical like provisions and helps that that person needs, meeting all their needs. You can't do that. You can't stop the oppression.
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You can't get the people that are in power that he's talking about here, you You can't get them to repent, but you realize there's something literally every single one of us can do.
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And that's give comfort, right?
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There's so much I can't do for these people, but there's one thing I can.
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I can comfort them.
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I can come alongside them.
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I can pray with them.
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I can encourage them with the Word of God.
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You can too.
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And you know, it's so easy to write people off, especially in our day of apathy, our day of being jaded, looking at somebody going through stuff, going, "Oh, you know, it stinks to be them, but that's not my problem.
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It's not my problem, I got my own problems." And I would just challenge you, church, If Jesus' people aren't going to show compassion to people who are oppressed, then who's going to?
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Right now, God has put someone in your life that just needs you to show them that somebody cares.
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That's it.
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Not showing compassion is a relationship fail.
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"That's where Solomon starts." You wanna fail at your relationships, don't show compassion.
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Number two, write this down, way to fail at relationships, work for the wrong reasons.
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Work for the wrong reasons.
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Hang on a second.
10:13-10:21
Jeff, I can see obviously you're having a hard time speaking this morning, but apparently you're having a hard time thinking because what does work have to do with relationships?
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You kind of change subjects on us.
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No, I didn't.
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Because you're going to see here that what Solomon is saying is that work can hinder our relationships when we are wrongly motivated to work.
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This is still about relationships.
10:40-10:44
You're like, "What wrong reasons would I have to work?" Well, here's two.
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He gives us, write this down, envy, bad motivation.
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Look at verse 4.
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He says, "Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work came from a man's envy of his neighbor.
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This also is vanity and a striving after wind." People don't want stuff as much as they want to be admired for having the stuff.
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Right?
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It's like, man, my neighbor drives a Lexus.
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I can't be seen driving this Honda because people are gonna think that my neighbor is doing better than me.
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So I gotta go into debt and I gotta try to buy a car and pay for a car that I can't afford because I can't have people thinking that my neighbor's doing better than me because he's not.
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Envy, we are so driven by envy.
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And we will work just to try to keep up with the Joneses.
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Or, you know, as we do as humans, we will go from one extreme to the other.
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It's go from, I will work just to keep up with the neighbor to, you know what, I'm kind of done with all that.
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We'll jump to laziness.
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We'll jump to laziness.
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Why bother?
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What's the point?
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I'm just not gonna work.
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Well, we've seen a lot of that in the last couple of years, haven't we?
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I'm just gonna quit working.
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We recently had a whole sermon about laziness from 2 Thessalonians.
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And I tell you this, this is from the Lord, but if you can work, get a job.
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All right?
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That is from God.
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True or false?
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True.
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Get a job.
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And Solomon just makes one comment on the laziness here.
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He says, "The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh." What a picture of laziness.
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Just a person that sits back and folds his hand and just starts eating himself, consuming himself.
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Meaning laziness is self-destructive.
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That's what he says.
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And look at verse six, "Better as a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind." Like, what are you talking about here, Solomon?
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What are you talking about?
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He's talking about something we preach here often.
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There has to be balance, right?
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He gave the extremes.
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You got the guy working himself to death because his neighbor has a Lexus and he's working for the wrong reasons, it's out of envy.
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And then you have the guy that's like, well, I ain't working, I'm just gonna let the government feed me and he's consuming his own flesh.
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He says there has to be balance.
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Do you see the very picturesque way he talks about balance?
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A handful of quietness, implying we're still working, but we're not killing ourselves, it's balance, versus two hands full of toil.
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And the interesting thing, that second word for hands in the Hebrew literally refers to cupping your hands to take as much as possible.
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Like if I had a giant bucket of M&Ms, and I'm like, you can have a handful, you wouldn't be like, "Oh, okay, I'll take a handful." You'd be like, "I'm gonna take as much as I can." That's the Hebrew concept here for hands.
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And he's talking about people that do that with work.
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Like, "I'm just gonna work as much as I can constantly and no time for family or living or anything else.
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It's just work, work, work, work, work." He goes, "That's not good either." He says, "There has to be balance." There has to be balance.
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Wisdom says, "Don't be lazy." But don't overwork so that you miss out on life.
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And speaking of, envy is a bad motivation, but here's another bad motivation, it's greed.
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Greed.
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Look at verses 7 and 8.
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He says, "Again I saw vanity under the sun, one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil." Why?
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look, it says, "And his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, 'For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?' This also is vanity and an unhappy business." So not only does envy a bad reason to work, bad for relationships, he says greed is too. You have people that become workaholics when they don't need to. The only reason they're working, he says, they're just continuing to accumulate. They don't know anything else. They don't have anything else. They don't have anyone else. I'm just I just gonna work. Well don't you have enough? No, no, I gotta get more. I gotta get...
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They're never satisfied, he says. They always need more and they forfeit, according to Solomon, they forfeit enjoying life. Like, you know, I have enough that I could retire and I could serve the Lord and I could enjoy my grandkids and I could fish or golf on occasion or whatever no no no no I gotta I gotta get to work because I gotta earn that cheddar!
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Justin, do the kids still say cheddar? As far as you know? Okay. Is there a more "recent slang for money." All right, we're going with cheddar then.
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But that's the mentality here.
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And he never, this guy, he's like, you're just constant work, work, work, work.
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And like, you never stop and ask, why am I doing this?
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Like, who am I doing this for?
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And he tells us in verse eight, well, this is a sad verse.
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He says, "He has no other." He has no other.
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Well, you've lived your whole life You've worked your tail off and you've obviously encountered people and you don't have anybody in your life, nobody.
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Like, how did that happen?
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How in the world did that happen?
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He tells you how it happened.
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You care more about work than relationships.
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And some of you do, and some of you need to repent of that.
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Says this guy cared more about getting stuff than knowing people.
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So do you see how work affects relationships?
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Do you see?
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Envy has never fueled a great friendship.
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Never has, and it never will.
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And making work the highest priority has never made for a healthy relationship.
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You know, being a pastor, I've been with a lot of people who were dying.
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Deathbed, nursing home, hospice.
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Fortunately, I mean it's great to be there with those people to pray in comfort and courage, but it's hard.
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It's hard to be there.
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Some of you have been there.
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And I can tell you emphatically in the last 20 some years of ministry that I've never been with somebody who was on their last moments of death say, "Pastor Jeff, would you please pull my Lexus around front?
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I just want to spend a little more time with my Lexus.
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Like, Pastor Jeff, what do you have against Lexus cars?
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It's called a sustained illustration.
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But I've never heard the person say, I just, I want to see my Lexus, please.
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But many times I've heard, I just want to see my family.
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I've never been with that person that says, you know what, Pastor Jeff, I just, oh, as I look back at my life, I just wish I would have spent more time at work.
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I wish I would have spent more time at home, is what they say.
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So Solomon says, yes, yes, yes, work, of course work.
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But no, don't work for the wrong reasons because working out of envy or greed, that is a relationship fail.
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All right, five ways to fail relationships.
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Number three, don't see the benefit of relationships.
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Here's how you can fail.
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Just don't recognize the benefits of having relationships.
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Because we become so self-dependent.
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I don't need anyone.
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I have been burned too many times.
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I don't trust anyone.
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I'm not letting anyone else in.
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Fail, that's a fail.
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And here Solomon lays out some real practical benefits of good relationships.
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Right?
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First benefit, you get more and better work done.
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Look at verse nine.
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He says, "Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil." I don't need to explain this, do I?
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Do I need to expound on this?
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Like if you have a job to do, two people get more work done than one person.
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I don't need to explain this, Kaylee, right?
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Okay, we're moving on.
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All right.
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He's like, that's an obvious benefit, right?
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Here's another benefit.
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You have help when you're in trouble.
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That's pretty obvious.
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Look at verse 10.
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He says, "For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who was alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up.
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Do you see the benefits of relationship, kids?
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Verse 11, "Again, if two lie together, they keep warm.
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And how can one keep warm alone?
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You have help when you're in trouble." That's a benefit, right?
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The third benefit is it's safer.
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It's safer, look.
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"And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, Two will withstand him.
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A threefold cord is not quickly broken.
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So do you see it's safer.
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It's safer to be with others.
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That's a benefit of relationships, right?
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Like if I was walking alone in the mean streets of, I was gonna say Wexford because that's where we are.
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Are there mean streets here?
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No.
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What's a place that has mean streets? South side? North side? Alright, we'll go with that. We'll go with that. If I'm walking alone on the mean streets of the north side and there's a group of street toughs, ruffians, ne'er-do-wells, they would see me and they'd be like, "We're totally taking everything that guy has on him. If I'm by myself, right? But if I'm walking down the mean streets of the north side with my man Jack Ortt, do you think anybody's gonna mess with us?
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Absolutely not. They're gonna see us together and they're like, "Well, I'm not gonna mess with those guys." Let me tell you what, let me tell you something else though. If I'm walking the mean streets of the north side and I'm with Jack Orr and I'm with Jared Siska. These ne'er-do-wells are gonna be running to me and giving me their money.
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But you see, his point's obvious, right? It's safer. It's just safer. And no place is this more evident than the church. And listen, if you're a Christian and you're not part of the church body, that is a concept completely foreign to the New God called us to a mission and he called us to do the mission together because together we get more done. When we serve together we get more done. When we give together we get more done. And here we have help when we're in trouble. Can somebody testify? Amen. We are safer here than we are when we're alone.
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physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
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So to not see the benefits of relationships, to isolate yourself, to refuse to allow people into your life, that's a relationship fail.
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Alright, two more.
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Our fourth relationship fail is refusing to take advice.
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Look at verse 13.
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It says, "Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice." And I want to stop here because listen, this chunk right here is extremely hard to interpret.
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And I've spent a lot of time on this this week.
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And I've read commentaries and...
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I'm not gonna preach my homework to you, but I wanna tell you, this to me is what makes the most sense.
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I think he's talking about one person in this verse.
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Like, I see two, hang on.
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I think what he's saying is, that guy was better off when he was poor and wise and young than he was when he got old, because he got foolish because he stopped taking advice.
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That's what I think he's saying, because that's what makes the rest of this little chunk make sense.
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Look at verse 14.
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He says, "For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor." So this king, he went from poverty in his youth and he ascended to royalty.
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He says, "I saw all the living who move about under the sun along with that youth who was to stand in the king's place.
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There was no end to all of the people.
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all of whom he led.
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Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him.
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Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind." I think this is what he's saying, that this youth was so wise in his ascension to royalty.
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You know, he was poor, but he was smart when he was young and he used wisdom.
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And then he got old and he got foolish.
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And very clearly here, the warning is the fact that he stopped taking advice.
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That's why he says those who came later did not rejoice in him.
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In other words, refusing to take advice ruined him.
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So he wasn't remembered as being a good king.
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He had this awesome rags to riches story.
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But at the end of the day, they're like, he was a loser because he stopped taking advice.
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I think the point here in Solomon's story is refusing to take advice won't end well for you.
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We think we know best, right?
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Here's a newsflash, we don't always know best.
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you don't always know best.
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Sales pitch for small groups, listen, there are other people who have been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, will wear it to small group, and they have the experience that you need to hear.
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They're a little further down the road than you.
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And God puts these people in our lives for a reason.
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And when we kick off small group season again, you should be in a small group and you should sit beside these people and you should listen to every word that they say.
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Because refusing to take advice is a relationship fail.
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It's a fail.
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And then number five, last one.
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And this one is regarding God.
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You know how to fail in your relationship with God?
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Talk, don't listen.
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Now this is the most important relationship, obviously.
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And he already touched on the concept of fearing God back in chapter 3 and verse 14, and he's kind of expounding on that here.
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Look at verse 5, he says, "Guard your steps when you go to the house of God." What's the house of God?
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Well, in Israel, the house of God was the temple, right?
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And where is the house of God today?
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Biblically, you are.
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If you have believed in Jesus Christ, the Bible says you are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
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God resides in you.
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So when he's talking about going to the house of God, obviously under the new covenant, he's talking about going to church.
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Going to the place where God's Word is taught, where God's people pray, where worship is happening.
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That was the temple today.
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That's the principles here apply to the church.
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And what does he say about going to church?
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He says, "You need to guard your steps." What's that mean?
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It means to go with reverence.
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And I think that's something that we've lost, church.
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I think we've so overly familiarized Jesus that we treat him like some guy we went to college with.
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Yeah, he was in my frat.
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Reverence.
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You know, when Jesus taught us to pray, remember, teach us to pray.
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Lord, would you teach us to pray?
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Do you remember how that started?
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Our father, remember the next part?
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Say it if you know it.
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You are in heaven, right?
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So God, you're in heaven.
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Okay, and what's the first thing he says about God besides being in heaven?
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What's the next line?
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Hallowed be thy name.
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You know what that means?
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Holy is your name, God.
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Holy are you.
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God, I bow before you.
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I fear before you.
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I revere you, God, because you are holy in heaven.
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And God, I come to you, acknowledging first above everything that you are holy.
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I think we've lost that.
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And that's why Solomon says, hey, when you go to church, when you go to the house of God, guard your steps.
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Don't be irreverent.
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You're like, well, how would I be irreverent?
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You know, the number one place irreverence shows up, you know where it shows up the most?
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Right here.
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right in your cake hole.
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That's where irreverence shows up.
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Like, well, what's irreverent about my speech?
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How am I irreverent with my speech?
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Well, Solomon says, "You need to watch your mouth." And here's two ways to guard your steps.
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Letter A, you need to come expecting to learn from God.
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Okay?
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You need to come here expecting to learn from God.
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Look at the first three verses.
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He says, picking up where we left off in verse 1, "To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil." Don't be rash with your mouth.
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"Nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth.
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Therefore let your words be few, for a dream comes with much business and a fool's voice with many words." He says you need to come expecting to learn from God.
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You know we have so many people miss church even when they're here.
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How does that happen?
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Because they come here to evaluate the worship.
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I didn't really care for that song.
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I didn't like that set.
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They evaluate worship, they critique the sermon.
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You know, I don't like the way he says cheddah in his sermon.
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I think that's too hip and modern.
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I don't think Charles Spurgeon would have approved of that.
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We evaluate the sermon.
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We focus on all these perceived wrongs.
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I don't like the fact that we get into groups and pray.
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And I'm like, so you thought you were coming to church pray? What kind of church did you think you were going to? Because we pray here!
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And that's why people, you know, you come with that attitude of critiquing and evaluating to see if everything lines up with your preferences and then you get in the car and you leave and you're like, "Well I didn't get anything out of that." I wonder why. Are you here for God or are you here for you?
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Here's how you need to come to church.
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You need to come to church like this, like, "God, I'm here to worship.
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I'm here for you because of what you've done.
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I'm here to sing and tell you how I feel about you.
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I want to encounter you.
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God, I'm here today because you've said some things in your word, and I want to understand what it is you've said in your word.
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That's why I'm here, God.
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"Please, let my worship be pleasing to you, and let your word minister to and change me." You need to come to learn.
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That's what Solomon says.
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He's like, "Shut your mouth and listen to what God has for you." And letter B, finally, "Don't try to bribe God." All right?
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Don't try to bribe God.
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Very bad idea.
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Look at verse 4.
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He says, "When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for He has no pleasure in fools.
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Pay what you vow.
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It is better that you should not vow than you should vow and not pay.
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not your mouth lead you into sin. And do not say before the messenger," that's like the priest or the preacher or the guy working at the house of God, right? He says, "Do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake." Well, I said that and I probably shouldn't have. Oops, my bad. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands. For when dreams increase and words grow many there is vanity but God is the one you must fear." He goes, "Don't try to bribe God, all right?" Now understand in the Old Testament, vows, making vows, that was voluntary.
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But they were often abused, even until today.
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Now listen, I think a vow can be a good thing in the sense of I am making this commitment before the Lord.
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It's a good thing, but only if you keep it.
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But the real danger here, I think church is using it as a bribe.
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And I'm not going to ask you to raise your hands, but how many of you have done that?
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God, if you get me out of this, I will never miss church again.
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God, I'm waiting to hear back on this report.
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And if it's a good report, Lord, I will serve you wherever you have me.
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Please God, get me this job.
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Please God, get me this girl, get me this whatever.
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I will go to church.
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I will, I'll even help, you know, in the kids ministry, with Bible school, I'll do whatever you want God, just, if you do this for me, then I promise you that I'll do this for you.
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Don't play games with God.
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Solomon says your words matter, your commitment to God, it matters.
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And it's better to not make promises at all than to make vows that you won't keep, because when you do, you're begging God for his discipline.
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Don't play games with God.
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Coming to church ready to talk, but not ready to listen.
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That could be the biggest relationship fail of the lot.
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So, every arena of your life, Home, work, church, school.
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Look, God designed us to live in relationships.
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And God's wisdom tells us how to avoid these fails.
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And you're like, okay, can you recap these for me, Pastor Jeff?
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I'll do you one better.
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I'll do you one better than a recap.
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Because Jesus Christ himself, He recapped the entire Old Testament with two sentences.
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Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was.
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Matthew 22.
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This was Jesus' response.
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He said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the great and first commandment.
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And you realize that answer alone would have satisfied the man's question.
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But this is so significant that Jesus said, "Look, the second commandment is so important that I can't fail to talk about it when I mention the first." Because loving God automatically flows into the second commandment.
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He says, "The second is like it." Here it is.
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You want to stop failing at your relationships?
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You want to do better in your relationships?
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Here it is.
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Jesus said, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." And when you commit yourself, every relationship that God provides you, to love people the way you want to be loved, to treat people the way you would want them to treat you, that's never a fail.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we thank you for your Word.
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There's times that we read your Word, and we're like, "I don't know if I fully understand or grasp all of that." But your Word, this particular passage I know, is just so obviously clear and relevant.
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You've called us to love you first, and to love others, and to honor you in all of our relationships.
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So Father, I pray today for all of us here, those who are watching this stream, those who will be listening to this later.
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I pray, Father, that we would be people who reflect the character, the love, and compassion of Jesus Christ in every relationship that you provide us, Because it starts with having a proper relationship with you.
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Let us fear before you.
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Let us draw near to listen.
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Praise you, Father, in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
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Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Ecclesiastes 4:1-5:7
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
How well do YOU take advice (Eccl 4:13)? Do you seek out advice? Why or why not? How do you respond to “unsolicited” advice?
Is it appropriate to make a vow to God (Eccl 5:4-6)? Why or why not?
Breakout
Pray for one another to go after healthy relationships.
