Mark Driscoll Audio

This sermon from Pastor Mark Driscoll was preached at Gold Creek Community Church in Mill Creek Washington on May 17th 2015.

This sermon by Pastor Mark Driscoll was preached at Muldoon Community Assembly Church in Anchorage Alaska on September 6th 2015 at their evening service.

This Sermon by Pastor Mark Driscoll was preached at James River Church in Ozark, MO, on June 7th 2015.

This sermon by Pastor Mark Driscoll was preached at Trinity Church of Mesa in Mesa Arizona on September 20th 2015.

This sermon by Pastor Mark Driscoll was preached at Muldoon Community Assembly Church in Anchorage Alaska on September 6th 2015.

As the old adage goes, you save the best for last. This is why at a concert the biggest hit is the song that closes the show and dessert is saved for the end of a meal. The same is true in Ecclesiastes. The entire book has thus far explored the meaning of our fleeting life, and now gives us the bottom line for how to keep life aligned with God’s will.

Being young is like living in spring. Everything is alive and vibrant. Being old is like living in winter. Things grow dark and dim, and death is foreboding and on its way one day.

I grew up in the Northwest with a lot of trees and loggers. Loggers have particular tools for chopping down giant trees. The butter knife is not among those tools. Why? Not because it is sinful to log with a butter knife. No one ever went to hell because they were logging with a butter knife. Butter knife logging is not sinful, it’s just foolish. Some people are like butter knife loggers. They are doing a good thing in an unproductive way. They waste lots of time and energy only to get minimal results. How can you make your life more efficient? That is the question Solomon is driving at.

How motivated are you, honestly, by winning? Are you as zealous for wisdom as you are for winning?

Don’t let the mundane duties of life rob you of the joy of life. Don’t let the pain of life rob you of the joy of life. Don’t let the mystery of life rob you of the joy of life. Instead, understand that God has a bucket list for you to pursue. It would be sin to disobey his list, and the list might surprise you.

Until the final judgment, we are encouraged to have fun, eat something good, drink something tasty, and make some memories by enjoying life. Life is filled with injustice, frustration, and work to be done. We should work for justice, but, we also need to not become so obsessed, driven, and serious that we lose sight of the goodness of God and greatness of His coming kingdom. Some people are so dour that they accomplish a lot but live very little.

Even the godliest people need to occasionally pull over, ask some diagnostic questions, and make adjustments. In this section of Ecclesiastes we are going to pull over for a soul pit stop and have Solomon run diagnostics on our soul with nine questions to get us healed up, tuned up, and back to enjoying life with God.

Anyone and anything can be broken, taken, or forever changed in an instant. Knowing this leaves us with only a few options: Option A – you get bitter when you lose who/what you enjoyed Option B – enjoy nothing/no one so that you cannot get hurt Option C – enjoy what you have for as long as you can and when it’s gone be grateful to God for what you had

In Western culture, the adults have invented a new game that I like to call “Climb the Ladder.” In Climb the Ladder you look at those people who are above you on the rungs of success. You spend so much time looking at life on their rung - such as the car they drive, house they live in, clothes they wear, food they eat, and social events they enjoy – that when you look down at your rung beneath them you find yourself unhappy.

Class conflict between the rich and poor is seemingly constant, and only increased during an election season. It is common for each side to villainize the other...This conflict is so deep in the roots of western cultures that even Christians get into the mudslinging and name calling. The truth is, you can cherry pick Bible verses to support both sides quite easily, which is what left leaning poverty theology and right leaning prosperity theology tend to do.