Pastoe Koay Kheng Hin
20 November 2022
We presently live in a world of materialism and consumerism in which we often try to find happiness and fulfillment in the possessions and pleasures of this temporal world.
However, sad to say, happiness and fulfillment in life often elude us even when we are temporally blessed. Why is this so?
The answer lies in the fact that happiness and fulfillment can only be found through the person of God and his purposes for each and every one of us.
What has God purposed for us as his children? To accomplish our God-given duty! It is in that God-empowered accomplishment that we can find true joy and fulfillment.
The sermon text for today is Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 which serves to conclude the book of Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
13 Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the duty of all mankind.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.
This book of the Bible is one of the three books written by King Solomon, considered one of the wisest men who have ever lived. The other two books are of course the book of Proverbs and the Song of Songs.
This is a collection of books known as wisdom literature. The book of Ecclesiastes is considered ‘pessimism literature’, a common form of literature during the time when it was written. Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes about 3000 years ago, a few hundred years before the time of the Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
However, it is pessimism literature with a difference because it brings in the element of faith. I have regarded the book of Ecclesiastes as one of those books that must be read in one sitting.
This is because much of the book is pessimistic about life, an exposition of the realism of life which prepares the reader for the conclusion in the last chapter that concludes on the reality of God.
The theme of the book is expressed in Ecclesiastes 1:2, “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”.
The word ‘meaningless’ appears 35 times in this book. Solomon then goes on to elaborate on this theme. He continues by saying that wisdom, pleasures, toil, and riches are meaningless.
What is Solomon trying to say? Not that each of these things is meaningless in themselves but that they are meaningless without God in them.
Look at our own lives. Have we found that there were times when we chased after money to find out in the end that money doesn’t really satisfy? Often when health fails us other things no longer matter.
That relationship can be heartbreaking. Enough of this pessimism, the realism of life. We then come to the focus of Solomon. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 has Solomon writing out his conclusion. Life without God is meaningless. Life with God is wonderfully meaningful.
Let us look into Ecclesiastes 12:13. The focus for the sermon today is the phrase “the whole duty of man”.
What is this duty? To keep his commandments.
A reading of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 gives us insight into the strong connection between keeping the commandments of God and loving God. Therefore, we can surmise that the duty of man is a duty of love.
Keeping the commandments refers to obedience, an obedience that is sourced from a relationship with God and not from legalism. A relational obedience.
The motivation for our God-given duty to keep his commandments is the love of God. A duty of love. Matthew 22:38-39, “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’….” this shows us both the motivation behind this duty of love as well as its fulfillment, loving others.
Loving God is the aspect of motivation to do our God-given duty. Loving men is the aspect of the fulfillment of our God-given duty.
What then is meant by the commandments of God as outlined in the Law?
We can have a sense of these commandments by looking at the moral bedrock from which the commandments were derived. The Ten Commandments in relation to our practical Christian living.
A relational perspective of the commandments of God. The 5th, 6th, and 7th commandments: Honoring parents, No murder, No adultery.
The positive interpretations: Honor parents, be gracious and forgiving, and be faithful!
Romans 3:8-10 establishes that love is the fulfillment of the law. The use of the description “whole duty” emphasizes that the single most important aspect of our lives is fulfilling our God-given duty to love other people through the motivation of our love for God.
What then is the single best expression of love?
It is the word “sacrifice”. From Luke 9:22-23, “22And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” 23Then he said to them all, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”, we see a better picture of the kind of life Christian discipleship entails.
Verse 22 of Luke chapter 9 is Jesus’ first explicit prediction of his death and resurrection. The death of Jesus on the cross of Calvary was the culmination of a sacrificial life.
Right from his birth, Jesus lived a sinless life until the very end when he died on the cross of Calvary. He exemplified the perfect sacrificial life. Then comes verse 23 where we, as disciples of Christ, are to follow after him in self-denial, to take up the cross, representing sacrifice. In short, to live a sacrificial life for the glory of God.
This sacrificial life is expressed in putting the interests of others above us. A sacrificial life is one that is “pleasing to God and a blessing to men”.
It is my prayer that Tabernacle of Praise will grow to become a sacrificial church as each and every one of us learns to lead sacrificial lives.
We no longer expect what others can do for us. Rather we would ask what we can do for others. We no longer look into our own hurts and disappointments. Rather we look into how we can mend broken hearts and be peacemakers. We no longer strive to find love from others. Rather we endeavor to show love to them. We no longer expect to receive. Rather we grow to give. It is through such lives that we fulfill our God-given duty, a duty of love in the Lord.
As an analogy, in his farewell speech to the US Congress delivered in 1951 one of America’s greatest military commanders in the Second World War, Douglas Macarthur, someone who underscored the insight of ‘God-given duty’, ended with these words, “And like an old soldier…I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.”
May we all discover joy and fulfillment through accomplishing our God-given duty, a duty of love! To God be the glory. Amen!
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