Live Intentionally: Embrace Life, Love, and Purpose

If you go to a cemetery, you'll see that see it there. It's on every on every headstone. There's a birthday, and there's a dash, and there's a day that that person died. It's on every one of them. It's been often said, it's what you do with the dash that counts. You were born, someday you're gonna die. What you do with the dash is what matters. Let's bow our heads together. And the most important thing that we would say to add to Solomon's words, the most important thing is to know for certain that you've given your life to Jesus Christ, that you've surrendered in repentance. You have changed your mind. You have turned from your ways and turned to him for salvation. [01:02:13] (58 seconds)  #MakeTheDashCount

That song's really about death and that may be uncomfortable for us to think about or even sing about but it is a reality that Solomon keeps calling us back to in this book. It is this reality that someday this heart is gonna stop beating, these lungs are gonna stop breathing and I am going to die and so are you. And I've thought about it a little bit this week like why does Solomon keep coming back to this? Because whether it was three thousand years ago or today, people are in denial. We live as if this isn't gonna happen to us. Like death is something for everybody else but it's not coming for us. [00:34:30] (43 seconds)  #FaceMortality

I said, why are you doing this? He said, Bob, you didn't know me when I was a teenager. I was on the road to either prison or the cemetery. I was either gonna go to jail or I was gonna die. And a coach came to our school and he stepped into my life and he changed my life. My life totally changed and all of that, he the coach introduced him to Jesus. Jesus changed his life but on the on the human in the under the sun perspective, that coach changed his life. Me tell you something, coaches change kids' lives. There there's something godly about that. Whatever you do, whatever you do, do it with all your strength because there's no work or planning where you're going. [00:58:52] (51 seconds)  #CoachesChangeLives

The rest of them are forgotten. Don't worry about your legacy. Live for Christ, die and be forgotten and it'll be fine. As long as God remembers your name, you'll be just fine. He's the only one that needs to know it. So Solomon would say to us, you're going to die so live with intention. Be intentional about your life. And then Solomon turns his attention in a little bit different direction which, breathe a sigh of relief, is a lot more positive. [00:43:41] (36 seconds)  #LiveForChristNotLegacy

And also, if you can be happy being single. If you can be holy, if you can be healthy, and you can be happy being single, it's wonderful. But here's the truth. Paul calls it a gift and most of us don't have it. There are all kinds of gifts. I have some, I don't have others. I don't have the gift of singleness or celibacy or whatever we want to call that gift. I don't have it. And so marriage is for most of us. God created marriage. He gives Adam a job. [00:52:25] (39 seconds)  #SinglenessIsAGift

And then he says, not only should you wear white all the time, but he says, anoint your head with oil and oil in the bible, especially in the Old Testament, is a symbol of joy. So what he's telling us is to enjoy celebrations and to make every occasion a special occasion. Don't wait for later. Later may not come. Later, the coffee gets cold. Later, your health won't let you make that trip. Later doesn't always come. And so Solomon would say, enjoy the life God gave you, don't wait for later. Number three, [00:48:07] (47 seconds)  #CelebrateNow

Solomon would call us to enjoy the life that we have right now as an act of gratitude to God. When we enjoy the blessings of God in our life, what we are expressing is a gratefulness to God that we have them. And living with gratitude is always the best way to live. He says to us, enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Eat your bread with pleasure. Drink your wine with a cheerful heart for God has accepted your works. [00:45:29] (38 seconds)  #GratefulForSimplePleasures

But Solomon says it's better to be a dead dog than a a live dog than a dead lion. It's better to be a live nobody than a dead somebody. And Solomon is expressing to us that while we are alive, we still have purpose, we still have opportunity, we still have time to respond to God. And if you're waiting for later, later may not come. But listen to something else that he tells us. This has really gotten my attention this week. He says down in verse five, [00:42:26] (34 seconds)  #AliveMeansOpportunity

The New Testament parallel to this is Hebrews chapter nine verse 27, And just as it is appointed for people to die once and after this judgment, you have an appointment with death. You're not gonna delay it, you're not gonna defer it, you're not gonna cancel it for sure. Death doesn't leave anybody out. It is absolutely a truth for all of us and when you grasp that, it begins to help you to learn to live. There are a lot of people who think that somehow they're gonna prolong their life. [00:39:53] (37 seconds)  #AppointmentWithDeath

The four functions of marriage are number one for partnership. He says that that the two become one flesh, that that there's someone to lean on in hard times. There is a partnership in life in biblical marriage. Not only that, but God created it for procreation. That's the way that babies are supposed to be made. It is best when children are raised in a home with a mother and a father. It is best for them. It works out better for the children. That's the way God created it. [00:54:18] (34 seconds)  #MarriageIsPartnership

He uses it 28 times in this 12 chapter book. Now when an author uses a phrase like that multiple times in the bible, he's trying to tell us something. There's something that he's pressing us toward. And when Solomon uses that by the way, he's gonna use it four times in this in the verses that we're gonna read of the 28. Four times are right here. And what he's trying to say to you when he says under the sun, he's talking about a limited horizontal perspective. [00:35:54] (30 seconds)  #UnderTheSunReminder

This is this is where Solomon turns his his attention to say, okay, since we've come to grips with that, how should we now live? And Solomon's going to give you four principles, four directives to live in light of the reality that this life is not forever. Here's number one which is number two in your outline. Enjoy the life God gave you. Don't wait for later. Look at verse seven. Go eat your bread with pleasure and drink your wine with a cheerful heart for God has already accepted your works. [00:44:17] (37 seconds)  #LiveByWisePrinciples

The first thing he says to us is enjoy the life that God has given you. In our culture, there is a sense in which we are always striving. Boy, if we could just get out of this apartment and buy a house. Boy, if we could just get to that little bigger house or we could buy some land out in the country. Boy, if we could just build that bigger house. Boy, if I could just trade this truck in and get a nicer one. We are always striving for what is next. [00:44:59] (30 seconds)  #StopStrivingEnjoyLife

He says down in verse five, there is no longer any reward for them because the memory of them is forgotten. The memory of them is forgotten. I want you I'm do a little quiz with you, not out loud. I can name both my parents, you can too. I can name all four of my grandparents. Can you name all four your grandparents? You have eight great grandparents. Do you know their names? I know three of mine. You have 16 great great grandparents. I know the name of one. [00:42:56] (45 seconds)  #LegacyIsFleeting

Solomon is calling us to love the people that God has given us. The people that are closest to us should have our most intense and fervent sacrificial love. That's true for our spouse, it's true for our children, for our grandchildren. We should enjoy life with our spouse. This is one of the strongest affirmations of marriage in the book of Ecclesiastes. Now, before I talk about marriage, wanna talk about something else, especially in this room, and that is that I know that a lot of you are single. [00:49:34] (38 seconds)  #CherishYourPeople

Solomon would say that if you really know the truth about the fact that you're gonna die someday, it will equip you to live the life that God desires for you. So we're gonna look at a big chunk of this chapter today and there's something that I want you to see in this chapter that's very important before I begin reading it. And for those of you who've kind of been with me for the entire series, you've heard this phrase before. If you're new to this or maybe you've kind of jumped in the middle, that's great. I But wanna give you a little there's this little phrase that Solomon uses over and over. [00:35:14] (37 seconds)  #MortalityMotivates

When we realize that we are going to die someday, maybe we might we might be a tendency to say, boy, I need to get a whole lot accomplished. But Solomon would say, I'm not asking you to do more, I'm not advising you to do more, I'm saying do what matters. Now, is a great place for me to insert something that I wanna talk about. I believe that God, for some people, puts his hand on their life and he calls them to serve him vocationally, to give their life, their career to abandon their career ambitions and give their life to serving his church as pastors on staff, as as missionaries, as ministers. [00:56:44] (50 seconds)  #DoWhatMatters

He was almost to the place in the lake where he could have stood up. I mean, was so close to the finish and all of a sudden on video, which is horrific to watch, don't advocate for it, but you see him begin to struggle and go under and never come up. He died that day at 28 years old. It was his appointed time. Now some people get 80, some people get 90, some people get a 100 and that's fantastic but not everyone does come to grips with the fact. In verse four, [00:41:19] (30 seconds)  #LifeHasAnAppointedTime

Now, I would advocate for physical fitness because it will give you a better quality of life but it's not gonna prolong your life. I see advertisements all the time that if I'll raise my v o two max that I can live four more years. No, I can't. I have there's an appointed time that Bob McCartney is they're gonna put me in a box and put some flowers on top and play some sad music and do some slow driving. That's what's gonna happen. In 2024, there was a CrossFit competition here in Texas, [00:40:30] (29 seconds)  #FitnessForQualityNotLongevity

God does that And if God is dealing with you, what Solomon would say is, it is time to get after it. It is time for you to go to school, to get training, to get prepped, to get ready, to get some experience. It's time for you to be an intern in our student ministry, in our children's ministry. It's time for you to start preparing your life for that. Stop sitting around waiting and stop asking is there something else better gonna come along. But you know what? Solomon isn't just talking to preachers here, he's talking to you. [00:57:27] (35 seconds)  #PrepareToServe