Searching For Control?

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Ecclesiastes is one of those books that you go like, how did that get in the Bible? It's a very different perspective. It really is. It's the perspective of someone who doesn't really believe. It's the perspective of what if? What if all we got is right here, right now? What if all we have is what I can see and taste and touch, what I can experience in the moment? I can't even say I can hold on to anything. It's like catching smoke. In fact, that word hevel comes up, I think, 38 times in this book. It's the Hebrew word that means vapor, meaningless, vanity. It's been translated many different ways, but it's like something you try to grasp. It looks like it is something, and when you try to hold on to it, you find out there's not much to it. I know that sounds sad, and it is in some ways, if that's all there is. If Ecclesiastes was the only book we ever had in the Bible, it wouldn't be much different than some of the other stuff I've read in world religions, by the way. But thank God, Solomon's perspective in this book, one of the wisest, the most powerful, the richest people of his age, right? He has it all, and yet he says, I don't really have anything. Fascinating. And that says something about all our human wisdom and knowledge and wealth and power today. Even when you try to grasp it, it ain't that much. What do you know, right? Here's the truth. The most foolish follower of Jesus is better off than Solomon in the wisdom in this book. And a child who sings, Jesus loves me, this I know, is greater and wiser than even King Solomon in what he writes in this book. And you might go like, but this is scripture. It is, from that perspective. Now today, I think the best of this book actually occurs in chapter 11. And we're going to see as we get into this, but we're in chapter 11, verses 1 through 6. Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth. And if a tree falls to the south or to the north in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning, sow your seed, and that evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good. So today, we're going to be looking at two different points from this. And I think there is really a lot of grace in these verses, if you understand them. I think not only in their context, but in the entire Bible. The first is the grace of knowing your limits. And the second is the grace of being generous. Knowing your limits. Now, we live in what's called the information age. Or is it the misinformation age? Or is it the too much information age? And man, I don't even know what to do with it all. Probably all three of those in one form or another. And we know there is a sense that we have inquiring minds, and we want to know everything, and we want to know what's going on behind the scenes, and we want to know it from every perspective. And knowledge is power. But the reality is being in charge of, quote, knowledge, is even more power. And honestly, I don't care how long you study in life, what do you know? Not that much. That's what Koheleth says here. Koheleth is the Hebrew name Ecclesiastes. It's who he calls himself. He's the one who researches. He looks for everything. He tests it all out. He thinks through it to its logical conclusion, and he realizes that he himself doesn't know that much. And he's one of the wisest people in the world. And he says three times just at the beginning of our text that we looked at, you do not know. So he says in Ecclesiastes 11.2, give a portion to seven or to eight, for you do not know what disaster may happen on earth, as you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. Now, the Jewish study Bible on this point says, Wisdom, therefore, is most effective when it is used to clarify its own limits. I like that. You know, watch out for the person who says they know everything about something. That I alone can fix this. Nobody else gets it. That's always a problem, right? That's just a fool. And here's the truth that I've said before. If you're going to get higher education, I am really pro-education in a lot of ways. I really think God has given us this wonderful world, and we need to learn as much as we can about it. But as you study, you will find out graduate work, you narrow the field to one area of study. And then post-gr...