We’re in the Book of Ecclesiastes tonight. We’re continuing our great study in my favorite Book of the Bible. The reason being is we let the scriptures dominate our conversation and we’ll just continue trucking through this Good Book. Here’s my question to begin our discussion for tonight. When will you be happy? What will it take? What will it take? Every one of us has something that we are anticipating once we achieve or once we experience or once we accomplish or once we obtain, then we’ll be happy, satisfied, joyous people. You can just fill in the blank. I’ll be happy when – blank.

And my question to you is this. Do you really think when you fill in that blank you’ll be a happy, satisfied, joyous person? Do you really think that will happen? Because I would submit this to you. If you look back in the course of your life, five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years ago, however old you might be, that, at some point, you thought, “As soon as I obtain, achieve, experience or accomplish blank, I’ll be happy and satisfied.” And you have labored diligently from that point forward to achieve those things and upon achieving them, you’re still not all that satisfied and you’re still not all that happy. So, what we do, then, is we create another list of things that we’re going to pursue and going to chase. And we do this until we die.

And a great philosopher, Peter Kreeft, basically says that what this is, this is a wild goose chase with no goose. That’s what we do. And what we see, then, is we’re continually trying to obtain happiness and satisfaction by reorganizing our external life, getting our money and our sex and our health and our stuff in order, all the while, not recognizing that our satisfaction and our joy and our pleasure and our happiness has much more to do with the reorganization of our internal life then it does the reorganization of our external life.

And Solomon lived his life as an experiment for us all and he pursued with great vigor those things that we would be most apt to put in that blank of I’ll be happy if or I’ll be happy when. And he investigates them with great vigor. He devotes his whole life to them and he does so at an astonishing clip. And he then reports for us all the subsequent result of his findings and here’s what he has to say. Chapter 2:1 – “I thought in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good’ but that also proved to be meaningless.” Simply, he states with this opening thesis, “I started out trying to be satisfied and happy by chasing pleasure.” Now how many of you like pleasure? Right? You like comfortable shoes, you like comfortable clothes. If you’re like me, you like good food. I ate rib eye steak for almost half my meals this week. It was glorious and great. I’m glad that God made cows out of steak. I like pleasure, right?

(Laughter)

I’m glad. I like pleasure. If I had to choose between pleasure and pain, I don’t need to meditate, contemplate. I don’t need to seek counsel, input or advice. I vote for pleasure. I prefer it. I prefer naps to sticks in the eye and I prefer –

(Laughter)

− meat to, you know, two by fours to the head. I just do, as a general rule. And I’m assuming that you do as well.

Solomon says, “I gave pleasure a run thinking, ‘I’ll be happy. I’ll be satisfied. This’ll work out great. Pleasure has got to be the shortcut’.” And he pursues it in a multitude of ways. He starts off with comedy. Verse 2 – “Laughter, I said is foolish and what does pleasure accomplish?” How many of you like comedy? I love comedy. Thousands of people have left this church because of my twisted sense of humor.

(Laughter)

I have a very sick sense of humor. Things that really aren’t funny are funny to me. I grew up, before I was a Christian, I grew up listening to George Carlin, Steven Wright, Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, and I really like Sam Kinison.

(Laughter)

Godly men? No. But, funny men? Yes. Yes, they are funny men.

(Laughter)

To this day, my favorite living comedian, right now, is Chris Rock. I love Chris Rock. I think he is a comic genius. He makes me laugh. I love watching Comedy Central and Late Night Brew with all the up and coming comedians. I love comedy. How many of you love to laugh? You think, “I’ll be happy when I can just laugh all the time.” Wouldn’t it be great? Wouldn’t it be great if your whole life was about pleasure and wouldn’t it be great if you were so rich, you could just hire all your favorite comedians to hang out with you all the time? And if you got depressed or bummed or looked in the mirror and got really depressed or really bummed, then what you could do, you could take one of these comedians and just assign them to make you laugh. Wouldn’t that be great if David Letterman and Chris Rock were full time employees? Wouldn’t you love to have Adam Sandler, not living in your house, but maybe next door?

(Laughter)

You can call him up and he can come over upon occasion and just do something crazy. “Make me laugh.” Solomon says, “I tried comedy. I tried laughing.” And you think about it – “Wouldn’t it be great if I could just laugh all the time? If I could just laugh at the circumstances that, sometimes, give me much despair and grief and rise above them with a bit of levity of heart?” Solomon says, “Wouldn’t that be great?”

Here’s another one – wouldn’t it be great just to drink like a frat guy on a lifetime spring break? Verse 3 – “I tried cheering myself”, he says, “with wine and embracing folly.” This is continual spring break. “My mind, still guiding me with wisdom, I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under Heaven during the few days of their life.” What he says is this – “I’ll be happy when I can drink good wine frequently. Not have to worry about getting up and going to work or those sorts of things. If I could just be rich and drunk, I’d be much happier.” Now, how many of you like drinking? I’m not saying getting drunk, but you like wine or beer. I do too. I do as well, just like Jesus.

(Laughter)

I like red wine, not white wine. I like Merlot, in fact. It’s a recent acquisition to my palette. I really like red wine. To prepare myself for the sermon last night, I went out and got a good bottle of Merlot and I enjoyed it Biblically, as God would have.

(Laughter)

I also like beer. Beer’s in the Bible and beer is good. It says “Woe to you who are heroes of eating meat and drinking beer”, so be careful with it. But, a dead animal and a good microbrew is pretty close to Heaven, really. It’s about as close as you’re gonna get on a fallen, crooked earth. I like Mack and Jack’s African Amber. I like that a lot. And I really like Guinness, but only with ribs.

(Laughter)

Guinness and ribs, there’s something there. The Holy Spirit shows up and the two interconnect in a magnificent way.

(Laughter)

Solomon says, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could just eat all the time and drink good wine? Not bad wine named after a bird or any kind of beer named after an animal? Really good stuff, stuff that you can’t get at 7-11; the good stuff. Wouldn’t that be great?” Wouldn’t it be great if you had an enormous wine cellar and you had your own private brewery? I think so. He goes on.

He tries some other thing as well, real estate in verse 4. “I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself and planted vineyards.” Some people think, “I’ll be happy when I just get to move out of my parents’ house.” Your parents are saying, “Us too. That’d be so great. If you could just go somewhere else, that would be awesome.” You know, your mom’s tired of washing your underwear and your dad’s tired of paying your light bill. Some people think, “Man, if I could just get my own apartment.” Other people think, “If I could just buy my own house, that would be great; have my own house.” Solomon’s house took 13 years to build. In the construction of the temple, God’s house, it took seven years and 153,000 workers. Those crews went to work, built his home – 13 years. This building took about a million dollars and it took about six months with a small crew to construct. Can you imagine 13 years with unlimited resources to build your house? That’s a phat house. That is an MTV Cribs house.

(Laughter)

That is a great house. He had a phat house. Not only that, he had vacation homes, he had extra properties. You think, “Wouldn’t it be great to have lots of land? I would go to the middle of it and I’d put a fence around it and nobody could come and bug me. That would be great, wouldn’t it? And if I had a beautiful house” – how many of you like interior design, architecture, lighting? I love that stuff. I love it. I don’t know why. I just, I like nice places to be and you just think about, “Wouldn’t it be great if I had lots of real estate, lots of houses, a place up in the mountains for the snow; a place down at the water during the summer a place at the river where I could rest; enormous acreage; beautiful palatial estates. Wouldn’t that be great? I’d be happy if I had a phat place to live.”

He goes on as well. He talks about gardening. “I made gardens and parks”, verse 5, “and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to grow groves of flourishing trees. How many of you like gardening? How many of you don’t like gardening, but you like gardens?

(Laughter)

Gardens are much better than gardening, in my opinion.

(Laughter)

I don’t garden, but I like them. He says how much he enjoyed building these beautiful gardens. Wouldn’t you be happy if you have beautiful acreage, quiet, scenic, a private place for you? Where there was running water a fresh spring and beautiful trees that blossomed and fresh fruit and lovely flowers and singing birds and no trash? No litter? No people? Wouldn’t that be great if that was your own private oasis and retreat? See, I think one of the reasons we loved gardens so much is we were made in one. That’s where God created us was to live in Eden and that was the only piece of creation at that time that was completed. The rest needed to be worked out by us. But, God gave us a prototype in the Garden of Eden of how creation was to be ordered and I think we love gardens because it’s an echo of home. How many of you love to go out into nature and just go seeing the changing of the colors during the seasons and to experience the beauty of God’s creation? And you love to do so in a way that is quiet and is a Sabbath for you and a rest. Wouldn’t that be great if you could do that any time you wanted in your own private little Eden? Wouldn’t that be great?

He goes on as well, talks about servants, verse 7. “I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house.” This is leisure. We all have things we hate doing. Wouldn’t it be great if you had enough money to pay people to do all the things you hate? Wouldn’t that be great? “You, clip my toenails.”

(Laughter)

“You, rub my back.” “You, wax my back.”

(Laughter)

Wouldn’t it be great? Wouldn’t it be great? Seriously, wouldn’t it be great? It would be so great. If you just had, like a rap video – you ever notice in a rap video, there’s a posse.

(Laughter)

There’s a whole posse, there’s all these people. Wouldn’t it be great to have a posse? I wish I had a posse.

(Laughter)

Right now, I’m posse free. I would like to have a posse. And wouldn’t it be great if you could just have an enormous number of employees and they would do everything? Oh, if you have no limit to your wealth, what kind of entourage would you put together? Would you have a chef? Would you have two? Would you have baker? Would you have a brewer? Would you have a massage therapist and a mechanic? Your pastor would, that’s for sure.

(Laughter)

That is for sure. Wouldn’t it be nice to have your own personal consultants so that you could dress in such a way that looked like you had some sort of style? That they could cut your hair, as needed, so you always look good and trim? Oh, wouldn’t that be great? That would be great. Solomon’s entourage, we are never told how large it was, but we are told a little hint in Kings where it tells us that his daily allotment of food was enough to feed 35,000 people. What that would indicate is that was the size of his entourage – 35,000 employees taking care of all of his homes and his servants and his money and his appearance – everything he needed. Can you imaging having 35,000 people whose job it was, as skilled professionals and specialists in their vocation, to make you look good? Make you feel good? Make your life good? Oh, that’d be great. If I could just one person to mow my lawn, I would be ecstatic.

(Laughter)

He goes on, as well. He says at the end of verse 7, “I also own more herds and flocks than anyone before me in Jerusalem.” How many of you love animals? “I’ll be happy if I could just have big acreage, horses, dogs.” How many of you just love to go feed ducks? How many of you would have pets, if they didn’t do what pets do –

(Laughter)

− you know? I can see these guys walking around with dogs and bags. I am not that guy. I am not that guy.

(Laughter)

I would have pets, if I could have a posse to do the scooping, right? I would have lots of pets. As it is, I love pets. I love other people’s pets. I love to throw sticks and have dogs fetch the sticks, as long as it’s not my dog because if the dog does something, the owner is responsible and not me. How many of you, though – how many cat ladies do we have here this evening? Some of you are cat ladies. Some of you are dog people. Some of you are fish people. Some of you are weird, like reptilian and spider people.

(Laughter)

Everybody has certain animals that they like, right? Some of you have squirrels in your yard and you feed them. They’re basically furry rats, but because of the tail, they look cuter than the rats, so you like them.

(Laughter)

We all – we like animals. We love animals. He had an enormous number of beautiful horses, exotic birds and pets from all over the world shipped in by fleets of ships that were just bringing him treasures. Wouldn’t it be great if, in addition to a phat house and a big posse and some great wine, that you also had a nice garden and some wonderful animals? You go horseback riding, feed the ducks, feed the squirrels, pet the dog, kick the cat, wouldn’t that be great?

(Laughter)

Wouldn’t that be great? That would be great. That would be great.

In addition, wealth. He says in verse 8, “I amass silver and gold for myself and the treasures of kings and provinces.” Wouldn’t it be great to be rich? Most of you would just be excited to get up to broke. Wouldn’t that be great?

(Laughter)

Wouldn’t it be great if you never had to balance your checkbook because it didn’t matter? You just had a credit card and a covetous heart, just walked around doing whatever you want, buying? That’d be so great. Wouldn’t that be great? Just from the taxes that he collected, he brought in upwards of 25 tons of gold every year, not to mention all of the treasures that were brought in from around the world through fleets of ships, not to mention all of his real estate, all of his holding, all of his investments. Loaded, unparalleled wealth. Wouldn’t it be great? You’d say, “I’d be happy if I was loaded.” Alright, that’s why we play lotto. “Lord Jesus, please.”

(Laughter)

“Please, Lord Jesus. You know, I’m tired of going to work. My boss is an idiot and I’m not and I don’t wanna go there anymore. Please give me lots of money.” And the lotto isn’t that much money, really. I could blow through that in a weekend if I really had to. Solomon had real wealth. Real significant wealth, unparalleled in human history. You say, “Wouldn’t it be great if I was loaded? If I was just broke, I would be so happy.”

How many of you like music? I know a lot of you do. How many of you love to listen to music all the time, in your car, in your house, at your place of work, at your place of school? Wouldn’t it be great if you could do that all the time? That’s what he tells us right here. “I acquired men and women singers.” Oh, in his day, he didn’t have technology like we do, not portable technology. If you wanted to listen to music, you didn’t have stereos and you didn’t have MP3 players and you didn’t have the technological capacity to bring music with you. So, if you wanted to listen to music, you had to hire the band. Wouldn’t it be great if you could take your favorite musicians and your favorite bands and you could hire them and it was their job just to follow you around and whenever you wanted, you could just point at them and just say, “You know, play that funky music white boy” and off they go.

(Laughter)

Wouldn’t that be great? If it were me, personally, I would hire U2 and Radiohead and I would make them follow me around.

(Laughter)

And just whenever I felt like it, I would make them play something for me. Three in the morning, I’d get up and I’d have a ham sandwich and I’d get Bono up and I’d say, “I wanna hear something from Joshua Tree right now.”

(Laughter)

“I’m in charge.” Wouldn’t that be great? Not only to listen to your favorite band. Some of you love to spend money just to go see your favorite band. What if that was your posse? Your entourage? You get to hire all the rock stars and I don’t know what it is you like. If you like country, it’s made of – it’s like purgatory, but you could have it follow you around.

You know, if you’re like a total rocker, metalhead, you could just – wouldn’t that be great? You could just hit it. Just off they go. A little AC/DC. Whatever it is your freaky ears aspire to, you could just own that band and make ‘em play. Wouldn’t that – I’d be happy if I owned U2 or I owned Radiohead or I had so many bands that – like Dave Matthews Band to set up in the bathroom and any time I went in, it was their job to play.

(Laughter)

That would be great. “Go”, you know? A different band for every room. Oh, that’d be wonderful, at least for me.

He goes on as well. You knew he was gonna talk about this – sex. Now, you don’t have to raise your hand for this one, but how many of you like sex? Ten of ten people surveyed that have tried it, enjoyed it and recommend it to others.

(Laughter)

Solomon, he liked sex. Here’s what he says. “I acquired”, he says, “a harem as well, the delights of the heart of man.” You say, “I’d be happy if” – what? “If I could even date, let alone harem. I would love it.” How many wives did he have? Seven hundred. Wow. Like I say, wow.

(Laughter)

And how many concubines?

Response: Three hundred.

Three hundred. Three hundred. Those are girlfriends. Three hundred. What this means is there are a thousand people, more than we have even here tonight.

(Laughter)

These are all supermodels who are just glorious and their full time job is to make sure that if you have a sexual desire, it is met instantaneously.

You want brunette, redhead, tall, short, young, old, experienced, virgin, one, two, five, ten, hundred, a thousand? They’re all yours. Some guys, through pornography, are trying to amass this sort of mental harem, but he actually had the real harem.

He goes on, as well, wouldn’t it be great if you were famous? If people knew you? If, like the pope, you had to get a car with a bubble over it because you are just so popular? Millions came out. They had t-shirts and bumper stickers and every night on the news, they took ten minutes just to update everyone on how you were doing. Wouldn’t that be great?

(Laughter)

Wouldn’t that be great? That’s what he says. “I became”, verse 9, “greater, by far, than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this, my wisdom stayed with me.” Man, he was a rock star of rock stars. Wouldn’t it be great? I would be happy if I was famous. I would be happy, if walking down the street, everyone gathered around me, everybody loved me, everybody cheered for me. I’d be happy if I was famous.

And then, he says in verse 10, “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure.” This is your big junk drawer of etcetera. Whatever you’re into. If you like sports, he did it. If you like eating, he did it. If you like games, he did it. If you like recreation, he did it. Whatever it is that you say, “I would be happy if” or “I will be happy when”, he did it. Nothing his heart desired did he cease himself from obtaining. He has the capacity, through his power and through his wealth, that if he sees something, there is no such thing as delayed gratification; instantaneous, immediate enjoyment. And as he walked around through his life, “That looks good. I’ll have it. That looks good. I’ll have” – no questions asked. You think I’d be happy. I’d be really happy.

He talks about his job as well. “My heart took delight in all my work and this was the reward for all my labor.” “I’d be happy if I just had a job. I’d be happy if I had a good job. I’d be happy if I was the boss because my boss is dumb.” All bosses are dumb, by the way. “My boss is dumb and I hate my job. I would be happy if I had a better job and a better boss or better yet, I owned my own company and I was my own boss. Oh, I’d be happy. I would be so happy. If I could hook that up with drinking, I would be so happy because then I could be in charge. I could be empowered. I could do what I want. I can keep my own hours. I can make my own description. And all my work, I could hand off to my posse. That would be great.”

And you look at his life and the hardest thing that is going to be pressed upon you tonight is that you need to believe his conclusion. I’ve told you before that life is a stationary bike and each generation gets on it, pedals as hard as they can ‘til they die and fall off and then, the next generation gets on and says, “Well, they didn’t make it, but we’re going somewhere.” This has been going on for 3,000 years, since Solomon. It is just driving around the cul-de-sac. It is the wild goose chase and there is no goose. Solomon’s conclusion is going to be hard for you to imagine because each of us is living under the notion that there is something out there that is going to do it and make me happy and satisfied with the life that I have under the sun.

His conclusion, though, is stunning in verse 11. “Yet, when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had tolled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Nothing was gained under the sun.” “No!?” Yes. “Even the naked people?” Even the naked people.

(Laughter)

“Well, not the alcohol.” Yes, the alcohol. It’s a goose chase without a goose. It’s a goose chase without a goose.

In our nation – all nations do this – in our nation, this is emphatically clear that this is the way we live. This is the same goose change that we’re on. My point is simply this. We are the richest, most affluent, educated, successful society in the history of the world. We’re also the most depressed and the most bored in the history of the world. Statistically, there are 90 nations on planet earth where the average citizen spends less on all of their goods and services each year than you and I spend on our garbage bags. We have stuff, lots and lots of stuff. More people each year in this country declare bankruptcy than graduate from college. Very interesting. We’re good at spending. In our nation, there are twice as many malls as there are high schools. Twice as many malls as there are high schools. Statistically, all the people that are in the mall right now, only 25 percent of them went to the mall knowing what they wanted to buy. The other 75 percent are doing some form of therapy. They’re depressed or bored, trying to find something that’ll make them happy. They don’t know what that is, so they walk into the mall with their credit card, just sort of walking around looking for something – donuts and bigger pants now that I need them, that I’ve eaten all those donuts.

(Laughter)

And they keep buying things, trying to get happy and it lasts about 15 or 20 minutes. That’s why you can spend the whole day in the mall. You can have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and if you wear yourself out, they’ve got a motorized cart to haul you around to get more stuff. The average American has $8,000.00 in debt on their credit card. Stuff they didn’t need, that they bought with money they didn’t have, to impress people they don’t like, and it didn’t make them happy in the first place. Twice as many malls as high schools. People walking around saying, “I think that’ll make me happy.” Sociologists call it the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. We call it buyer’s remorse. You say, “Man, I need it. I need it. I need it.” I buy it, bring it home and the next day, you know, “What did I – I wasted. What did I get this for? I don’t need this. This isn’t making me happy. It made me happy yesterday because then it fit and then I went to Mrs. Field’s and now it doesn’t.”

(Laughter)

“And I’m not happy. I was happy yesterday.”

We work more hours than any other nation on the earth. The average American spends more for shoes, jewelry and watches than higher education during the course of their lifetime, right? My wife laughs because if you saw her closet, you would go, “Yep.”

(Laughter)

Shoes, jewelry and watches. I don’t like a lot of jewelry, not into bling bling.

(Laughter)

But, I do like shoes. I do like shoes on my feet. I love ‘em. You could spend a lot of money on shoes and on jewelry and on watches. And the average person, during the course of their life, will spend more on those three things than they will for their education.

A couple of other things as well. Over the last 20 years, the number of things that are in the average supermarket has grown by 250 percent. There’s more things – have you even just been to the cereal aisle? It is staggering. It is exhausting. I mean, you could pull a hamstring just looking for cereal. It’s such an epic adventure. It’s miles.

(Laughter)

Do I want corn? Do I want rice? Do I want bunnies? Do I want – what do I – I just want cereal, you know?

(Laughter)

It’s so overwhelming. Do I want fruity? Do I want nutty? Do I want fruity, nutty? You know what I want? I want a ball peen hammer and I wanna take it to my head because this is just too much pressure. I just want cereal.

(Laughter)

So, much stuff. A couple of other statistics. The average parent in this country spends 6 hours a week shopping, 40 minutes playing with their child. In addition, we spend more money, as a nation, on pornography each year than country western music, rock music, jazz music, classical music, Broadway plays and ballets combined. That is the great American pastime. I haven’t been able to confirm it, but I read somewhere a few weeks ago that, in sum total, in the entertainment – the adult entertainment industry in this country, we drop $32 billion a year. That’s more than pro baseball, basketball and football combined.

Solomon had his harem. We have our digital version. You go on as well. Between 1970 and 1999, our divorce rate has tripled. Teen suicide has tripled. And the question is this – when are we gonna be happy and satisfied? We’ll be happy if. We’ll be happy when. And the question is when what? When we get more stuff? When we have more sex? When we’re more perverted? When we’re more drunk? It’s the same goose chase as Solomon was on. It’s the exact same goose chase and the problem will be you and I really will have a hard time believing that his conclusion is, in fact, true. We just – many of us wanna think, “Yeah, you say that because you’re at the top of the food chain. I’m down here at the bottom. I’m the barista in the studio apartment. And if I traded you, you would be really depressed and I would be happy. But, we have to ask ourselves, “If he is the wisest man next to Jesus who has ever lived, and if he gave it the Hugh Hefner run, do we really think we’re gonna outdo him and be happy?”

Here’s our problem. If you would, jump with me to the New Testament. I wanna do a little work in the New Testament. Many of you are gonna tune out right now because you think you know where this sermon is going. Please don’t. Romans 1, the Apostle Paul talks about this same cycle of frustration and this same pattern that we all fall into and gives us an indication why we fall into it. Romans 1:18, “The wrath of God is being revealed from Heaven against all the Godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them.” First thing he says is this – “The truth is obvious. The problem is not an academic problem. It’s not that we don’t have the mental acumen to understand. It is that we have hard hearts that are resistant, so the truth comes to us like bullets off a rock. It does not penetrate. It ricochets all over the place.” And the great truth that Solomon is trying to drive home for us is this. Is that we were built to worship God and not the stuff that God gives. Solomon and Paul are going to make this argument for us, that there is Creator and creation. That there is God and the stuff that we enjoy in our life and if we confuse those, we worship the stuff. We forget the Creator and we become frustrated and displeased.

And as we see this, we have a tendency to suppress this truth, to fight against it. We think if we continually rearrange our external world that, at some point, we’ll be a happy people, not realizing that the truth is it really is an internal problem. It’s a heart issue. And so, we fight it and we suppress it. We buy books and listen to talk radio and surround ourselves with all kinds of teachers who will affirm exactly what we’re doing because we wanna keep doing it. And most of us don’t want things to change and we don’t want to change, but we sound like it because we’re always complaining. And he says, “You can’t fight the truth. You need to give yourself to it. You can’t keep waging war against God and his simple wisdom.”

He goes on then to say, “For since the creation of the world”, verse 20, “God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power, his divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse.” There’s no excuse. “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God, nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” God is Creator. He’s given us creation. We’re supposed to thank him and enjoy it, but what happens is, we worship creation instead of Creator. Our minds get all twisted. Our thinking becomes silly and futile to the place where we may even come up with great arguments for the way we’re living our lives, knowing that it’s not going anywhere, but defending ourselves all the while because we don’t like the truth. And it’s interesting here. Paul keeps talking about God and all Solomon was talking about was Solomon. All he was talking about is “I” and he says two times in Ecclesiastes 2:1-11 a very curious statement that gives you insight. He says, “I did all this for myself. I made all this for myself.” Nothing about God. Nothing about neighbor. Just Solomon. Absolute self absorption.

And the point is simply this. You and I, every single one of us, we are a worshiper. A worshiper is someone who gives themselves to something or someone. Where your time goes. Where your money goes. Where your energy goes. Where your passion goes. Where your thinking goes. Where your desire goes. That’s your god. That could be a pet. That can be a home improvement project. That can be a promotion. That can be a race. That can be an orgasm. That can be a drink. That can be a meal. That could be a band. That could be a good night’s sleep. It can be anything. And the human heart is an idol factory and the opposite of Christianity is not atheism. It’s idolatry. We all bow down and we all give ourselves over. And Solomon was accurate and true when he said, “It’s about me, myself, I, for me.” The reason he was miserable is he worshiped himself and he worshiped creation and he forgot about God and his thinking became futile and God handed him over to his own confusion and he stewed in his own mess.

Verse 22 – although they claim to be wise, people who think wrong, they have books. They have more degrees than Fahrenheit. They have talk radio shows. They have magazines. They have great arsenal of defense for their way of thinking. “But, they became fools and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts, to sexual impurity, to the degrading of their bodies with one another and they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things, rather than the Creator who is forever praised”, Paul says, “Amen.”

It is literally that God is a loving Father and we’re his kids. And that God has given us life on the earth and all the great things on the earth as presents. “Here’s a new ball glove.” “Here’s a fishing pole.” You know, “Here’s camping gear.” “Here’s all these things for you to enjoy as my kid and I’m gonna show you how to use ‘em and we’ll go out and we’ll spend time together. I’ll love you and we’ll build our relationship. This’ll be great!” “Here’s a new bike.” And like silly kids, we get on our bike. We pack up all of our stuff. We give dad the finger and we run away from home with all of our stuff, thinking, “Well, I got all my stuff. I don’t need my dad anymore.” And then, we’re all alone and we’re bored and we’re frustrated because there’s nobody to play catch with. There’s nobody to go fishing with. There’s nobody to enjoy it with and we don’t even know what to do with the half the stuff. So, we give it our best run, but we mess it all up. And then, we cuss at it and we get frustrated by it and we wonder why it doesn’t make us happy. And meanwhile, dad’s just saying, “Look, I know what this stuff is intended for. I created it. I gave it to you. I love you. If you use it in relationship with me, I’ll show you how it’s supposed to go and you can actually enjoy it and be happy.” But, apart from Creator, creation is meaningless.

Now, here’s what some of you are thinking. Some of you are thinking, “Okay, now we’re gonna get moral. Usually, this is where the Christian church goes. They get real moral.” I will say this – I despise morality. Morality is highly overrated. Your goal should never be to be a moral person. It should be to be a worshiper of God and that is to live a full, free, enjoyable life with God, not just be a good person. Good people die and wake up in hell. Worshipers of God don’t. Most of you have been told, “That’s right, don’t be like Solomon.” The church loves to preach this message – “Don’t have sex. Don’t drink alcohol. Don’t listen to rock music. And whatever you do, don’t laugh. Always look like you just ate something past the pull date.”

(Laughter)

“Always look like that. Look very serious. Look very stern. Look very unhappy, just like God. God is the big Archie Bunker in the sky –

(Laughter)

− and we are to be imitators of him. If it feels good, repent.”

(Laughter)

Right? Some of you were raised on that theology. “Oh, it felt good. I’m sorry, God. I’ll go whack myself with a shovel and we’ll call it even.”

(Laughter)

The early church called it asceticism. We have lots of denominational and theological names for it. Somebody said, “That’s right. Sex is a problem. Money is a problem. Power is a problem. Food is a problem. Alcohol’s a problem. We shouldn’t do those things.” Really? Really? Go to Colossians 2. Here’s the surprise ending. For those of you that have been trying morality, I apologize. You’ve been wasting so much time and energy. Somebody told you the wrong thing. Morality is this. “I’ll make lots of rules, so I don’t go do fun things because fun things get you in trouble. I know this guy, he laughed. Next thing I know, he was laughing all the time.”

(Laughter)

It is a slippery slope.

(Laughter)

Tread carefully. “So, we’ll make lots of rules. Don’t drink alcohol. Don’t talk to anyone that drinks alcohol. Don’t drink grape juice because it comes from grapes, which also creates alcohol.”

(Laughter)

“Don’t eat at a restaurant where they have alcohol because somebody will think you’re an alcoholic.”

(Laughter)

Really? Okie dokie. Colossians 2:16 – “Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink or with regard to” – he kinda talks about different parties – “festivals and new moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are shadows of the things that are to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ.” There’s Jesus. “Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize.” Such a person goes into great detail. “What have you seen?” “Oh, the Lord talked to me.” “Well, great, he didn’t talk to me.” “And his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idol notions. He has lost connection with the head, that’s Jesus, from whom the whole body is supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.” This is the crotchety, pointy fingered, “I was in my prayer closet this week and the Lord spoke to me. There will be no more drinking. There will be no more parties. There will be no more rock music. There will be no more fun. If anyone looks like they’re having fun, they’re going to make you hang out with the deacons and that’ll fix ‘ya.”

(Laughter)

And rules set in that aren’t in the Bible. Nowhere to be found. “Well, I got it in my prayer closet. The Lord spoke to me. An angel showed up.” Idle notions. False humility. Lots of rules that God never made. Lots of rules that God never made. “Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of the world, why, as though you still belong to it, do you submit to its rules?” Do not handle. Do not taste. Do not touch. These are all destined perish with use because they are based on human regulations and teachings. They’re not Biblical. They’re not there.

Here’s the point. Who killed Jesus? The most moral, religious, spiritual people of his day. They thought he was too free and too happy. “Look at that guy. He has hookers for friends. What kind of God is that? He goes to the party and he drinks a glass of wine and everybody likes him. He has a sense of humor. He’s enjoyable. He seems like he’s actually happy. Can’t be God. God would look like us. We should kill him because he’s so wicked. He doesn’t obey our rules. We worked really hard to make these rules. Now, we don’t have any verses for ‘em, but we’ve all voted and come to the conclusion that these are really good rules.”

“Such regulations”, verse 23, indeed, have an appearance of wisdom, with their self imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” They don’t work. Here’s where we end up in the church and outside of the church; outside of the church, people think like Solomon. “Happiness by addition. More alcohol. More money. More fame. More power. More parties. More bands. More sex. I’ll be happy.” The church preaches the exact opposite message. “No, no, no. Happiness by subtraction, not by addition. Don’t drink. Don’t have sex. Don’t eat a lot of food. Don’t tell a lot of jokes. That’ll make you happy.” It is an absolute conundrum that most people are stuck in and some of you bounce and forth like a tennis game. “Well, I’m drunk. I’m bored. I’m passed out. I’m high. Now I feel bad. Okay, okay, okay, okay, I’m never gonna do that again. I’m gonna go to church. This sucks. These people are boring. This isn’t going anywhere. The band sounds like a funeral dirge. Nobody’s laughing. What the heck? You know what? I’m gonna go back. Wooohooo. Wooohooo. Well, now, I’m hugging the toilet and I can’t find my pants.”

(Laughter)

“This isn’t going like I was hoping. You know, I think I’m gonna go back to the Bible study. Okay, guys. I’ve met Jesus. I feel terrible. Hold me accountable.” And you know what happens? You do this for a really long time and the moralistic, legalistic, self righteous people, what they tell you is, “Don’t commit suicide or you’ll go to hell.” The reason they tell you that is because if you hang out with them long enough, you wanna die.”

(Laughter)

You’re like, “I can’t have one beer? I can’t tell one joke? I can’t go to one concert? I have to burn my guitar? I – I – okay, can I kill myself?”

(Laughter)

“No, you’ll go to hell.” “Okay. Well, do you have any books on the rapture? When do we get to leave? Can I read some rapture books?”

(Laughter)

“I just wanna go. Can we just – I just wanna practice and I wanna leave because this sucks. This is terrible.”

(Laughter)

“This is so awful. I can’t kill myself. Wooohooo. Can we leave? I wanna hear The Jeffersons theme song and I wanna me moving on up. I wanna get outta here.”

(Laughter)

And that’s where so many Christians live their life. They go, “I would kill myself if I wasn’t scared of hell. I’ll just read a rapture book and sit here in a state of denial. That’s what I’ll do.”

(Laughter)

“And once in a while, I’ll sneak out. Oooh, I’ll go out and have a little good time.” And what they’ll warn you against is don’t be a hedonist. It’s a great word. Hedonists are people who live for nothing but pleasure. Should you be a hedonist? As God’s people, should you live for nothing but pleasure? You should. You should be a hedonist. You should live for nothing but joy, satisfaction and pleasure. God made the earth good. He made you and I very good. He wired our bodies together in such a way as to enjoy his good creation. That’s why food tastes good. That’s why music sounds good. That’s why holding the person you love is a great joy because God has knit your body in such a way that the Creator wants you to enjoy creation.

Now, it is fallen, stained, marred, crooked. I admit that. But, you should live for pleasure. You should live for joy. You should live for satisfaction. Here’s our problem. We’re lazy. Here’s the ending none of you saw coming. We’re lazy. We’re too easily pleased. We could have a feast. We settle for gluttony. We could have a party and we settle for drunkenness. We could have worship and we settle for elevator music. We could laugh and we settle for coarse joking. We could have all our sins forgiven and we settle for works righteousness. We should commit ourselves to nothing short of pleasure, joy and satisfaction and we shouldn’t be so lazy and wicked as to settle for anything less than God.

If you are an absolutely consistent, committed, hedonist that wants nothing but pleasure and joy and satisfaction, you will continue moving forward until you meet God. Psalm 16:11 says that, “Out of the right hand of God come pleasures forevermore.” Pleasure comes from God. God doesn’t just give us pleasure. God is our pleasure. I don’t care if you are rich or poor. I don’t care if you have a couple of glasses of wine or you’re a recovering alcoholic who cannot. I don’t care if you’re a vegetarian or a meat eater. The goal is this – enjoy the life that God has given you by drawing near to him and then Creator will help you enjoy creation.

And here’s the secret. If you forget everything else, remember this. What will keep you from sin? What will keep you from sin? Satisfaction will keep you from sin. That’s the great secret of a Christian life. Satisfied people don’t need to sin. Do I like to eat? I do. Can it become gluttony? Of course. Do I stop eating? No. You can only do that for so long.

(Laughter)

Do I drink? Does your pastor drink? Yes, he does. Red wine and microbrew, in Jesus’ name.

(Laughter)

I like red wine, cheese, meat, my wife and Jesus. I like that. To me, that’s a good night right there. I like that. Does your pastor have sex? Yes, I have three children, none by immaculate conception.

(Laughter)

And here’s the point. Do I need 1,000 women? Do I need pornography? Do I need a strip club? Do I need a seedy massage parlor? Do I need a call girl? No. Why? I’m satisfied. There’s no need to sin. Sin is no fun. Guilt, shame, conviction, consequence is no fun. Righteousness, God, satisfaction. Satisfaction. I don’t need to get drunk. I need to enjoy a good pint, a few glasses of good Merlot. I don’t need to be a glutton. I need to feast in God’s presence with God’s people. I don’t need to abstain from sex. I need to chase my wife.

(Laughter)

And I’m quicker than she is by God’s good grace.

(Laughter)

I enjoy my life. I eat, drink, sleep, work, laugh. I do everything Solomon did. You can go through the list. Comedy – I laugh a lot. Drinking – I drink. Have I ever been drunk? No. Why? I’m satisfied with moderation, as the Bible tells me I should be. I own my own house. I like interior design. This building is worth upwards of $5 million. We just completed a real estate project. I like it. It’s not my god. So, I’m satisfied with it. I don’t expect things in my life to be infinite or perfect. That’s what my appetite craves, but that is only gonna be met in God who is perfect and infinite, not in the stuff. Stuff is for enjoyment. God is for satisfaction.

As well, I don’t like gardening, but I like gardens. I took my kids out yesterday with my lovely wife walking the arboretum, feeding the ducks. Had a great time. I work hard. I make money. I take my day off. I sleep good. I love music. People know who we are. Our reputation has gone out. And I love my job. I don’t need another job. I love this job. I’ll be here for 50 years. What we want for you as a people is to be a liberated, happy, free people who eat good, drink well, laugh hard, sleep soundly, get married, chase each other around for 50 or 60 years, get together to feast on good food and have a couple of glasses of good wine and to thank Jesus Christ for making you. That’s what we want for you and that’s the only way you’ll stay away from sin. You can create all kinds of moralism and rules and you’ll hold the line for a while until you give up on your faith or you just sin like crazy to make up for lost time; or you will just give up altogether and try like Solomon to squeeze meaning out of a meaningless life, thinking that sin will lead to happiness, joy and satisfaction and it can’t because when creation is severed from Creator, there is no hope of being a satisfied and happy person.

We want you – speaking on behalf of your pastors – we want you guys to be joyous, happy, filled, satisfied, pleasure seeking people who don’t give up until you get it from the right hand of God. That’s the only way out of Solomon’s conundrum. I’ll pray for you for that. Your assignment tonight after church is this. If you’re married, chase each other around.

(Laughter)

Go out for dinner with your friends. Have a drink, but don’t be a drunkard. Have a meal, but don’t be a glutton. Make love to your spouse, if you have one, but don’t be a pervert.

(Laughter)

I should pray now.

(Laughter)

Father God, we thank you so much that you have made us. You have made us as people for pleasure and joy and happiness and satisfaction. We thank you so much that you are our God, that we do not need to fall into the trap of Romans 1 and worship creation. That whether we have much or little, the goal is to be satisfied in it and to enjoy it. God, it is my prayer for all of us that we would repent of the sinful times that we have so easily given in when we should have held out for satisfaction and worship and redemption and joy. That we have given in for cheap beer and cheap dates and cheap times when you have a lavish feast for us sitting at your right hand that we should pursue with great vigor by faith. God, it is my prayer that we would come to you in repentance for those ways that we have worshiped creation and ourselves. That you would forgive us through the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus who has come to take away our sin. That God, you would fill us with your Spirit, a Spirit of liberation and freedom and joy so that we could laugh and we could work and we could invest and we could enjoy and we could appreciate all that you have given us. That our lives would be marked by laughter and satisfaction and pleasure and joy. That we wouldn’t pursue those things as our god. That we would pursue you as our God and that you would give us those great gifts to we who are your children.

God, we come to you now to partake of communion, remembering your body and blood shed for our sin. To give of our offerings, remembering that the wealth comes from your hand. To sing and to celebrate because we love music and you’re a Creator who loves to hear the voices of your children. And we come to you in repentant prayer, asking for forgiveness and a redirection of our hearts to be inclined toward you and not just the gifts that you give, though we enjoy them so fully.

We love you Lord God. We pray we would be a feasting, pleasure seeking, happy, satisfied people in you and in the pleasures that you give. In Jesus’ good name. Amen.