Video Transcript: Living with Limits

What do Batman and James Bond have in common? One obvious thing is they're both movie  characters. Another thing that they both have in common is that they have no limits. No  matter how smart, the bad guy is, Batman and Bond always managed to outwit them. In the  end, no matter how strong the bad guys are, Batman and Bond both managed to win in the  end, no matter how serious the predicament there is always some gadget, something or other that is going to help them come through and get what they want and achieve their goals.  Batman and Bond don't have any limits. They're not limited by authority. Batman works  outside the law. Nobody even knows who he really is. So he doesn't have to answer to  anybody, James Bond, he works for a government. But come on, that governing officials are  usually the object of a joke, not the people who are actually calling the shots, he has a license to kill, when he chooses to sleep with whomever he wishes, and to do whatever he wants.  Even time is not a limit on Batman and bombs. The decades go by, and Batman remains  young. And bond remains Young. There's always another actor who's young, who will take up  the series as time moves on. So even time itself is not a limit. And death is not a limit.  Somehow the bad guys are terrible shots. And the villains are always going to do some  terrible dastardly deed to finish them off. But it's always some involves thing rather than just  killing them. And they always get away. They have this in common, they don't have the limits  that the rest of us face. And they have something else in common. They're not real. They  don't exist, the world they live in is not the world that we live in. Because the world we live in, is one in which there are limits in which we have bosses, and people telling us what to do  where people die. We're bad guys, sometimes win and good guys sometimes lose where time  marches on. You can get a sense of that just by considering some of the actors in Batman and Bond. Michael Keaton was Batman in the 1980s. But time didn't move on for Batman so much, but it moved on from Michael Keaton. Sean Connery was James Bond. I can't go back to this,  Sam. There we go. Sean Connery. Someone's in the midst of this thing. What's going on? They must not want to see Sean Connery. Very bad. Sam, are you doing something too? There we  go. Sean Connery was James Bond. And James Bond never gets older, but Sean Connery does. We don't live in the world of Bond and Batman. And to get into the world we really live in  Ecclesiastes eight brings us there. That's the world where you and I have governments that  make rules that can be a bother where there are other authorities such as bosses, and  parents that will limit what we can do, where our health and our time and our life all have  limits placed on them. And Ecclesiastes eight faces those realities very squarely, but just  before getting into some very tough questions and limits that we face, Ecclesiastes again,  observes how important wisdom is. Who is like the wise man who knows the explanation of  things. Wisdom brightens a man's face and changes its hard appearance. We sometimes  picture people getting a bright idea with a light going on. But Ecclesiastes says that that  wisdom just kind of brightens up the way you look. And the way you smile. And that's kind of  a helpful way to think about it. Think of wisdom as a light bulb, it's useful, it shows some  things that are helpful to know. But a light bulb does not illuminate the whole universe. It  doesn't make the whole universe bright or give it, its light, it's helpful in one little area. And so it is with our wisdom, it is a good thing, to know the explanation of something, and to be able  to put it into practice. But if you want your little bulb, to make the whole universe bright,  you're in for a big disappointment, because even the best of us is a fairly dim little bulb yet.  And so the degree of wisdom we have is always going to be very limited. And the things we  can accomplish are going to be limited by things around us one of those limits is authority.  Obey the king's command, they say, because you took an oath before God, do not be in a  hurry to leave the king's presence do not stand up for a bad cause. For he will do whatever he pleases. Since a king's word is supreme, who can say to him, What are you doing? None of us  lives in a situation where we're not limited by other people's authority. And by the rule of  government, government makes rules that we don't always like it calls for taxes that we don't always want to pay. It has a variety of things that impose limits on us, there's the  government, there is the police to punish us if we don't do what they want us to do. And we  might read Ecclesiastes, and say, Hey, we don't have a king anymore. Well, maybe not. But  we do have what Thomas Hobbes called Leviathan, the huge monstrous apparatus of  government that rules our lives more than any ancient king ever did a read in the books of 

the prophet Samuel, where it talks about what's going to happen if you have a king. And  Samuel warns them, if you get a king, your sons are going to be forced to go off and fight  wars, your daughters are going to have to work for the government, the king is going to take  the bounce of the lands for himself. And he's going to tax you at a rate of 10% You'll be  slaves. Well, now, the federal government owns millions and millions of acres of land  throughout the United States, it makes laws about nearly everything under the sun and has  computers to track how well you're complying. And welfare, let's just say that if we can have  a net tax rate of 10%, most of us would be dancing in the streets. So government still  imposes great limits on us and on what we're able to do today. It has its purposes, as well, but we sometimes chafe at those limits. And government isn't the only authority structure that  places a limit on us. Many of us who work don't work as our own bosses. And even those of us who do work as our own bosses have to keep a lot of clients and other people happy all the  time. But those of us who work for somebody else, need to get up on time and get to work on  time or we won't have a job for very long. And we sometimes have to follow orders that we'd  rather not follow and work harder than we want to for less money than we want to get but  that's life. You live with those limits. Dilbert is a comic strip that has succeeded very well just  observing office life life in the cubicle with bosses who aren't always rational and employees  who aren't always rational either. The boss says you need to get better at anticipating  problems. The worker says if I could anticipate problems I wouldn't have agreed to work for  you. You seem angry I did not see that coming. He didn't anticipate that problem. Well,  anyway, that's that's life at work. There are limits and those limits are involve people with  authority over one another. Another the limits of authority is simply life in the family. And  there again, kids can't do whatever you want. Your parents give you orders. They impose  limits on you. You can't always eat whatever you feel like doing your you can't go to bed  whenever you feel like it or get up whenever you feel like it or go through the day without  studying just because you don't feel like it because there is a mom or a dad standing over  you. And life will get harder if you don't listen to them. Now what do you do in a world where  you're limited by authority? Normally says Ecclesiastes, you need to obey those authorities.  And one reason for that is because that authority over you does come from God. He says in  Ecclesiastes, you swore an oath by God to the kings, if you break it, you're in trouble with God too. And the Romans 13, it says Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities,  for there is no authority, except that which God has established. Therefore, it's necessary to  submit to the authorities not only because of possible punishment, but also because of  conscience. You need to honor the government, because God says to because of your  conscience, the same reason for doing what your boss says or doing what your parents say,  the Bible says children obey your parents, because this is pleases the Lord. So God's setting  up of authority is one important reason that normally, we should honor and obey those in  authority. Another reason is, you're gonna get it, if you don't, you're gonna get punished.  Ecclesiastes warns of that if you make the king mad, you've got a big problem. If you make  your parents mad, you may feel something painful, or have some sort of unpleasant  consequences. In your life, if you tick your boss off, you may find yourself without a job, or  doing a lot of dirt jobs. So you need to honor authority, because authority has been put in  place by God. And also, if you just value your own skin, you need to be able to learn within  those limits, or you're going to be smacking your head against the wall and then deal with the time. There is, of course, a limit on that. Sometimes the authority is just so wrong, and is  forcing you to do stuff that you know is wrong. Sometimes the government calls on people to  do what is wicked, and then you can't just follow orders. As the apostles once said, we must  obey God rather than men. So if the authorities were saying, you should say that Caesar is  lord, you couldn't do that. If the authorities were saying you must stop preaching the gospel,  the Apostle said, we can't help telling what we've seen and heard we have to obey God rather than men. So there are times in your life when you have to disobey those in authority,  because they're going against God. And those times are a lot more rare than you think. Okay,  there are good many times when you disobey the authorities, because it's not convenient for  you, because you just don't feel like it. Or because you're just rebellious. And normally says,  Ecclesiastes, if you're going to live within the limits of authority, you need to obey those who 

are in command. Whoever obeys His command will come to no harm and the wise heart will  know the proper time and procedure for there is a proper time and procedure for every  matter, though a man's misery weighs heavily upon him. There's a few examples of this in the Bible. And certainly when you think about your own life, it's really important to understand  this, you're under authority, you can't do whatever you want. And yet, within those limits, you have opportunities to influence those above you and around you. You do have opportunities to take action. It's a bunch of hooey that you can be whoever you want to be, and become  whatever you want to and do whatever you want. And there's no limits to what you can  achieve. There are limits and wisdom, recognizes limits, and works within those limits. To get  something done in the Bible. Nehemiah was working for a king, and he had something really  heavy on his heart because his homeland, and in particular, his home city of Jerusalem was in ruins. And the walls were lying on the ground, there was nothing there. And he's so long to  see something good happen and to see the city rebuilt, but here he is stuck working his cup  bearer for the king of Persia, and really can't do anything about what he really wants to  change. So the only thing he can do for the time being is pray. He could have gone straight to  the king says I want out. I want to go build something. But he waited. And he prayed. Then  one day the king asked him, you You seem a little down today, what's with that. And then that was six months after they had had first come heavily on his heart had been waiting half a  year. And he saw his opportunity and he told the king what he was upset about. And the king  said, well go and rebuild and I'll help pay for it. So he found that there was an opportunity  there was a proper time a proper procedure, or take Queen Esther, a similar situation. She's  married to one of the Persian emperors. And a decree has gone out and decree that allegedly  can't be changed, that the Jewish people are gonna be wiped out, killed, taken off the earth  and that's Esther's people. What does she do? Well, they she and her uncle Mordecai, they  call for a time of fasting. And then after a few days of that Esther goes into the presence of  the king, even though it's a great risk. And even then she doesn't say what she really wants.  She says, I'd like to have a banquet with you. And with your good buddy, Haman, who has  been orchestrating the whole plot to wipe out the Jews. And at the first banquet, her big  request is another banquet with Haman and the king again, and after a couple of these  banquets, you know, the king is thinking, Oh, I really liked the screen of mine. And, you know,  he's in a really good mood. And then she says, Well, King, if it was only something like  somebody wanting to make me a slave forever, I wouldn't bother you with something so  minor. But seeing how they want to wipe me out, and all my people, I thought I might bring it  to your attention. And the king, you know, he wouldn't let anybody make his beloved queen,  their slave anyway. But the thought that somebody want to wipe her out, and all our people,  oh, he's gonna fit of rage. And this seems to be the opportune time. To mention that it  seamen and the king came in right away knows He's toast, because Esther was working with  the proper time and, and with wisdom, there is a proper time and procedure for every matter,  even though your misery weighs heavily on you, even though the problem is huge. And  sometimes folks, we, in a world of limits, begin to think that because there are these limits,  and these crushing problems that we face, nothing can be done about them. And we can't do  everything you're not Batman or Bond or any other kinds of superhero. But on the other hand, often you can do something. And often, if your heart is wise, you'll be on the alert, you'll be  praying, and you'll be saying, Yeah, I'm watching for my chance. I'm watching for my  opportunity. What is it for you? What's weighing on you right now? Or what's a limit that you  wish wasn't there? In many cases, you can't just get rid of that limit. But maybe you can work  within the limits that are on you to take an important step and that's where wisdom comes in. If you're looking at part of Ecclesiastes, frustration is he wants this wisdom that can  understand everything. And that kind of wisdom is not available to you and me. But there is a  kind of wisdom that can recognize the proper time, the right moment, the proper procedure,  and especially with God's help Jesus Himself, when He sends people out doesn't just say what  now just go out there you got a message blab it everywhere. We do want to blab the good  news. But there is a time to be smart and to be shrewd. I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves. There are some limits when you're a sheep among wolves, therefore be as shrewd as  snakes and innocent has doves. So Jesus calls for shrewdness, as well as avoiding of sin, or 

the apostle Paul, be careful than how you live not as unwise but as wise making the most of  every opportunity. Because the days are evil, wisdom, watches for opportunities and seizes  them and knows that opportunities don't come along every day. It's not unlimited. Sometimes  when you blow it. It's kind of blown. So you want to be the kind of person who's shrewd  enough to know how to operate and, and wise enough to recognize when the time's right?  Well, authority, whether it's your boss, whether it's the government, whether it's your parents, whether it's other folks in your life, are only one of the limits, that you've got to learn to live  with him. There are a lot of things that are beyond our control. And here are some of the  biggies. verses seven and eight, say since no man knows the future, who can tell him what is  to come. No man has power over the wind to contain it. So no one has power over the day of  his death, as no one is discharged in time of war. So wickedness will not release those who  practice it. Nobody knows the future. That's one of our limits. We just don't know. You may  want to plan on the future being a certain way. But it is going to be different than you think  it's going to be. Nobody has power over the wind not that's an interesting phrase here in  Ecclesiastes eight verse eight. No one has power over the wind. One way to understand that  is Hey, you can't run the weather. That's certainly true. You want the weather to turn out nice. You are planning a beautiful weekend and well the weather might be beautiful, but then  again, it might not be and whatever you wanted really didn't determine it did it? The weather  showed up? Well, that's one way to think of it. But there is just saying no man has power over  the wind. Hebrew the word wind is Ruach which can be wind. It can On the breath, it can be  spirit. You don't control the weather and the wind, but you also don't control your own  breathing. You, you know that you don't think about breathing 99.9% of the time do you either just happens, or it doesn't happen. Some people stop breathing. And they can't prevent  themselves, when their time has come to stop breathing, and to give up their spirit, because  they don't have control over that we don't control the wind, whether it's the weather or the  breath that we breathe, or the spirit that's in us, nobody has control, or power over the day of  his death. That's one of the severe limits that you and I face, our life has a limit. And then we  die. And you and I can't call off the funeral just because we were hoping we wouldn't die. And  then there's a final one, as no one is discharged in time of war. So wickedness will not release  those who practice it. That's a really severe limit. It's not the authority outside you only, or  the problems that are in your life, there's something inside you that you sometimes say, I'm  going to turn over a new leaf. And then it's the same old you as it was before you try and  you're trying to try again. And oh, you have strong resolutions, you had great intentions. And  you find out that you're kind of like somebody who joined the army, you don't get to desert,  just because you're sick of the Army, it's got a hold on you now, or you joined the gang. And  the only way you can leave is in a coffin. You're you are in the clutches of something. And it  says, like being in an army or in his arm unit that won't let you out. So is wickedness, partly  because of the power of wickedness around you. But even more so because of the power of  wickedness within you. This is actually the first step in anything good happening in your life  and may sound like the Council of despair, to say wickedness won't let you go. But anybody  who's been dealing with addiction in their life, or has been part of a step, 12 STEP program  will know that the very first step is to say, and to realize that I am powerless to handle my  problem. And I'm going to have to release my life to a power greater than my own, or there is  no hope for me, because wickedness is not going to voluntarily release anybody. And you  don't have the power to overcome these deadly things that are messing up your life. There  are things beyond our control, and the future and death. Yeah, those are there but wickedness and its power over us and our inability to overcome it. That's something we've all got to face.  And then among the other limits and head scratchers that we've got to deal with are just the  things in life that make no sense. All this I saw as I applied my mind to everything done under  the sun, there's a time when a man Lords it over others to his own hurt them to I saw the  wicked buried those who used to come and go from the Holy Place and receive praise in the  city where they did this. This too, is meaningless. One of the really strange things in life is  when people have a position of authority, and then use it to hurt others in a way that hurts  themselves. You see, dictators who maybe came to power early in their rule, and maybe were  even semi decent, and they get nastier and nastier and meaner and meaner to people. And 

what does that do? In many cases, it just makes their enemies angrier and angrier. And even  though they kill some of their enemies, others are always plotting against them. And there's  always this greater risk of rebellion. When you're a bozo of a ruler. There are men who do  things that harm their families terribly. And then when they do what happens? They harm  themselves too. Because a man who hurts his wife and hurts his children, what is he doing?  He's hurting himself. He's hurting his own legacy. He's making his own life more miserable as  well, but it happens. That's what Ecclesiastes is, say. There are things that make zero sense.  Why would you do something that would hurt yourself? Why are you cruel to others when it's  just gonna come right back on you? But it happens. And there are some who are cruel to  others. And people say What a guy. There are people who are absolutely wicked, who are rip  off artists, and people praise them. And they say, What a marvelous person and even when  they bury them, they're still busy praising them. There are rotten rulers and bad bosses who  somehow get admired. Anyway, this is the world of Ecclesiastes. And it's the world that you  and I live in. There are people who make hundreds of millions ripping others off. And at the  end of the day, well, we might elect him President. Well, does crime pay? That's the question  that comes up when the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the  people are filled with schemes to do wrong. If you're a parent, and you're kind of patient with  your kids, and you let a few things go before you know it well. Do they say boy, my parents  are patient. They say, hey, you know, I'm not going to get punished, I'm going to push my  limit a little further. Same thing happens in the realm of government or in the realm of  business, if you can get away with something, then the next time you try something even  worse, and try to get away with that. And so it goes. And when you see it happening, that  people are getting away with murder, or getting away with other things. The temptation is to  say, well, since goodness doesn't pay and badness does seem to pay, why not be bad. And  here, wisdom kicks in. Although a wicked man commits 100 crimes and still lives a long time. I know that it will go better with God fearing men who are reverent before God. Yet, because  the wicked do not fear God it will not go well with them. And their days will not lengthen like a shadow. This is a statement of faith. He says even when I see the wicked prospering somehow I know I just know that crime is not going to pay in the end. And that it is better to be good  than to be bad. It doesn't always look that way. But that's how it's got to be. It's just got to be  that way. Sometimes it's just the triumph of faith over observation. And then the underdogs  turn out that way, Jesus told a story in which one person fared much better than another. And  if you just watched under the sun, you would see a very wealthy man living in luxury having  everything he wanted. And you would see a poor man at his gate suffering with dogs licking  at his sores. And then you would have seen them both die one dumped in an unmarked  grave. And another one buried with people praising him all the way and saying how fabulous  an individual he had been. And you would curse and you would say boy It does not pay to be  a person who trusts God, it pays to love money, and just serve yourself. And Jesus says there  is a little bit more to the picture than that, because when they had died, the poor man was  carried to the realm of the blessed by the angels. And the rich man was in hell being  tormented in the flames with no way to get out. And with a great divide between them. It may look for a time as though crime pays, and it does the wages of sin, or death and hell. But even when you know about heaven and hell, it's still a headache. When the good guys lose and the bad guys win there is something else meaningless that occurs on Earth righteous men who  get what the wicked deserves, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. If you insist on life being fair. And if you can't move on in your life and  live without seeing that fairness in every detail, life, you are doomed to a miserable existence, because life isn't always fair. You got to deal with it. Or you are just going to live in misery. So  what does Ecclesiastes say? So I commend the enjoyment of life because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his  work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun. Somehow in the middle of these limits, you say the world has its problems, and there is wickedness. And I am going to rejoice  in what is good in my life. If I've got a good meal, I'm going to eat it. If there is something  good to drink, I'm going to drink it. I'm going to be happy in the happy moments that God  gives me and I am not going to let the fact that the world isn't the way it should be. spoil 

everything in the life that God gives me. Now that can be taken in the wrong way. One of the  worst mottos is eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die And here it says, Eat, drink and  be merry. Because God gave you a life and he intended you to eat good stuff, and drink, and  

be merry in the merrier realities of life doesn't mean that you don't pay attention to the  injustice in the world or to try to correct those that you can, or to bless the lives of others, it  does mean that you do not have to run the world. And you do not have to figure it all out, you can accept the life God has given you as a precious gift, without escaping all limits, or figuring out everything else you can't understand or control everything. So you can either get grumpy  about that, or you can say, That's a load off my shoulders. I think I'll leave that to God. When I applied my mind, to know wisdom, and to observe man's labor on Earth, his eyes not seeing  sleep day or night, then I saw all that God has done, no one can comprehend what goes on  under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even  if a wise man claims he knows it, he cannot really comprehend it. That is a counsel of defeat  for philosophers who get too big for their britches. And at the same time, it is a great relief  when you don't have to run the universe. Okay? You don't. That's kind of good news, isn't it?  That you don't have to run the whole universe. And you don't have to figure it all out, in order  to have a life in order to rejoice in the life that's been given you. We need to walk by faith and not by sight. In short, we walk by faith, trusting in God knows what did Jesus Himself said, you don't worry about tomorrow, because you don't control the future. And worrying doesn't add a single hour to your life. So if you don't have to control all of time, maybe you don't have to  run the whole world either. And when you think about God, well, Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world, the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, if you're trying to  figure out God's plan for the whole world, on your own life, and with your own intelligence,  you might as well give up on it. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know  as he ought to know. But the man who loves God, is known by God. Don't give yourself a  headache, trying to figure out the whole world. Once you know what you don't know, that is a  very blessed discovery. And to know that, well, God is love, he calls me to love the man who  loves God is known by it's good, it's enough for me that God knows me. I don't need to have  him all figured out. We walk by faith, and not by sight. And when we start walking by faith,  and when we also realize what time we live in, then it is indeed a blessing to think about the  limits that we live in. And at the same time, think about the God who is beyond those limits.  Think again about some of these words, in Ecclesiastes eight, no one has power over the day  of his death. Except one, he says nobody takes my life from me, I lay it down, I take it up  again. Nobody knows the future. Well, at that at the time, Solomon said that that was true.  But then one came who did know the future, and who brought us into the future and made life and immortality known to us through the gospel. Wickedness will not release those who  practice it. But God found a way to break the power of sin to destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery to their fear of death. Jesus says, everyone who sins is a SLAVE of sin. But if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed, that limit of wickedness that holds you and in slaves you can be broken because  if the son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. And then these words, Oh, rats, the righteous  men get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked men get what are righteous deserve? What kind of god runs a world where the wicked get what the righteous deserve? And the righteous  get what the wicked deserve? How can he do that? Why it's a good thing he does that.  Because what happened on the cross? The righteous got what the wicked deserve. And we  wicked, by faith in him get what the righteous one deserves. We don't always like the way  God runs a world where some things are unfair, or don't make sense but it is a very good I'm  thing that the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom into the weakness of God is  stronger than man's strength and that in this world where so much is unfair, God decided not  just to go by fairness and give us all what we deserve, but instead, to lay upon his own son  and take into his own person, the terrible punishment and wrath against our sin, and then to  give us wicked people, what the righteous deserve. We have to live within limits. We don't get to be God. We don't have to figure it all out. We don't have to control it all. We do need that  little light bulb of Wisdom to shine on our path each day, to make choices and do the things  we can do that are pleasing in God's sight. To leave the rest with God, don't take the weight of

the world on your shoulders, God's got that handled, and then to live for him. This is the only  way to stay sober. I mean, for a lot of people it is literally the only way they can stay sober, is  to say I can't run my life. God has to I'm giving up on myself. And even if you don't have an  alcohol or drug addiction, this is the only way to actually live and enjoy the life you have is to  leave the unsolvable things in God's hands, to live with obedience in the limits that is placed  upon you and to do what you can to watch for that opportune time and the right time, the  right procedure for carrying it out. And so we we pray together, a prayer that's taken shape is  often ascribed to a Reinhold Niebuhr a prayer for serenity. Let's pray that, oh, God, grant us  the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Living One day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time  accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking as Jesus did this sinful world as it is not as I  would have it, trusting that you will make all things right, if I surrender to your will, so that I  may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with you forever in the next  Amen.