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.