Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Ecclesiastes 5:10-20
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  September 18, 2022

A sixty-two-year-old man came into the emergency room of a hospital in western France, complaining of severe stomach pain. The doctors were astounded by what they saw on the x-ray. There was an enormous mass in the patient’s stomach that weighed twelve pounds. It was so heavy that it had forced his stomach down between his hips. When they opened him up, they found that the man had swallowed approximately $650 worth of coins. They removed the money but the man died a few days later from complications. Doctors say he suffered from a rare addiction, a psychological disorder, that makes people want to eat money. . .You might think that man was incredibly foolish to think that he could eat money, but the truth is that everyone thinks that money will satisfy them, most of us just don’t put it in our mouths. 

Today our section of Scripture was written by a man who knew what it was to have a lot of money. As King over Israel, Solomon knew wealth and luxury on a scale that is truly hard to imagine. And yet despite it all, or perhaps because of all that money, he found himself unsatisfied. Take his word for it, not mine, but money does not equal satisfaction, neither physically or spiritually, neither in the short term or in eternity.

We begin with verse 10: Anyone who loves money is never satisfied with money, and anyone who loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is vanishing vapor. If you chase after riches, the horizon always recedes. You’ll never have enough. You’ll never be satisfied. Once you are able to afford to live in a particular neighborhood, send your children to its schools, and participate in its social life, you will find yourself surrounded by quite a number of people who have more money than you. You don’t compare yourself to the rest of the world, you compare yourself to those in your bracket. You reason like that no matter how lavish you are living. You can multiply or divide it in terms of dollars, but it doesn’t make any difference. It’s the same issue: if you love money, you’ve never got enough. It’s what Solomon calls “vanishing vapor”. Thinking that money can satisfy is like thinking you can hold onto smoke. And if there’s anything worse than the addiction money brings, it’s the emptiness it leaves. Nothing by vapor. 

According to Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, “Economists and psychologists have spent decades studying the relation between wealth and happiness, and have generally concluded that wealth increases human happiness when it lifts people out of abject poverty…but that it does little to increase happiness thereafter.” The real issue, you see, is not actually going for more money. It is the sadness of trying again and again to find satisfaction in money and having it slip through our fingers each time, all the while being told explicitly and implicitly by our world that just a bit more will do the trick. Solomon tells us God’s truth which is backed up by psychologists 3000 years later: Money doesn’t equal satisfaction.

Verse 11: When goods increase, so do those who eat them. What profit, then, does the owner get, except to see these things with his eyes? This is sort of the Bible’s version of “More money, more problems.” If you have a lot of money, you have an increased crowd of dependents, people trying to get at you for your money. You become a target for companies and individuals alike, which are only too good at eating up money. An example of this is almost any superstar athlete or actor. When they were putting in the endless hours of practice, the hard work necessary to achieve greatness, they were alone. But when the big paychecks start coming in, all of a sudden they have more “friends” than they know what to do with. Is that satisfying? Not at all! Just look at the suicide rate of lottery winners… What profit do they get? Simply the sad sight of seeing people treat you as a product, as something to consume. 

Next is verse 12: The worker’s sleep is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but a rich person’s abundant possessions allow him no sleep. Welcome to the American Dream! Get there and spin on your bed. Instead of hard work and good sleep, those who love money have stress for breakfast and worry at night. And this is rooted in the insecurity that reveals the sin of greed. I worry about my abundant possessions because I don’t trust God to provide what I need, much less what I want. And that brings us to his two illustrations.

I have seen a sickening evil under the sun—wealth hoarded by its owner to his own harm, 14 or wealth that is lost in a bad investment. Or a man fathers a son, but he has nothing left in his hand to give him. 15 As he came out from his mother’s womb, so he will go again, naked as he came. From his hard work he can pick up nothing that he can carry away in his hand. 16 This too is a sickening evil: Just as he came, so he will go. So what does he gain, he who works for the wind? 17 Besides this, during all his days he eats in darkness, with great frustration, sickness, and anger. Here Solomon describes a man who works hard and saves up his money, harming himself in the process by worry and self-deprivation, only to lose it all in the end. It’s a sad story of a man who saves every penny, eating joylessly in the dark to skimp on lamp oil and suffering sickness and agitation. He grimly drives himself to amass wealth only to lose it all. This story really bothers me because the man didn’t do anything that was overtly sinful or evil at all! He worked and saved and wanted to give his child a better life, just like many of us here today! But where he went wrong was thinking that money could guarantee him and his son satisfaction. How many fathers work themselves to the bone, and tell themselves, even honestly, that they are doing it for their children? But is that what will satisfy a child in the short or the long run? Better a slightly smaller inheritance and a closer relationship with their father. I’m not expecting a huge inheritance from my Dad, but the time he gave me will never be taken away. The money? It could all be gone tomorrow. Maybe a catastrophic illness, maybe a stock market crash, maybe a failed pension fund or years in an expensive nursing home—and the nest egg is wiped out. My friends, this is not a license to be irresponsible with our savings, or not to plan financially. It is simply a reminder that money can’t guarantee the satisfaction of security.

Solomon gives us the cold, hard truth, a bucket of ice water for materialism: As he came out from his mother’s womb, so he will go again, naked as he came… This is true for all of us. Unless there is more to our existence than life under the sun, no matter how many times I do the math, Death renders the profit zero. Money doesn’t equal satisfaction in life or in death. Money is a god who cannot save. 

That brings me to Solomon’s final words: So then, here is what I have seen to be good: It is beautiful to eat, to drink, and to look for good in all a person’s hard work which he has done under the sun, during the few days of his life that God has given him, for that is his reward. 19 Likewise, for everyone to whom God has given wealth and riches, if God has also given him the ability to eat from it, to enjoy his reward, and to rejoice in the results of his hard work—this is a gift of God, 20 for the man seldom reflects on the days of his life, since God keeps him busy with the joy in his heart.  Did Solomon just contradict everything he said earlier? This is happy and positive. It’s as if the world is suddenly seen in color, like a curtain is drawn away from the window and light bursts into the room. What’s different here? Well, for the first time, God enters the picture. Five times we hear about God and five times God is giving! God gives us time. God gives us wealth. God gives us the ability to use and enjoy that wealth. and God keeps us from despairing and gives us a deep and abiding joy in our hearts. God changes everything. Just like when God entered our world, a small baby boy who grew up to be our Savior, the perfect sacrifice, the substitute who took our sin and our death upon himself. Jesus walked out of the tomb and completely changed our lives forever. He entered the picture and gave us riches far more satisfying than earthly money. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9) God tells us not to worry about money because we are rich in a far deeper and more profound sense. We are rich in the forgiveness and love of a holy God. We are rich in the inheritance of Jesus Christ, a heavenly treasure that will never spoil or fade, where investments don’t go bad, where thieves cannot break in and steal, where satisfaction is guaranteed eternally. 

And when you live trusting in God’s grace, with a light hold on the things of this life but both arms wrapped around the heavenly treasure you have in Christ, that’s when you know what satisfaction is all about. That’s when you can stop worrying about the past because your sins are forgiven. That’s when you can stop stressing about the future because you trust God to provide what you need. That’s when you can be present and enjoy what God puts in front of you. You can eat and drink and give thanks to the God who provides for you. You can find good purpose in your work, no matter what kind of work it is, working not as for men but for the  Lord. And you can enjoy the things you buy, as Solomon says, you can rejoice in the results of hard work—this is a gift of God. You can pay your bills and be thankful for the lights that turn on and the water that runs. You can enjoy that vacation or that new toy, because you don’t depend on them for satisfaction, you are simply appreciating them as gifts of a good God! You can find joy in how you manage your money, prioritizing God and his Kingdom first. You even begin to better estimate the value of simple things, which are often the big things, like spending time with your friends and family. Like bringing them to church, like hearing God’s Word and receiving his Sacrament.

I’ll finish with the Apostle Paul’s words that he speaks to the rich, and by rich he would certainly be speaking to even the poorest of us here today: As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be arrogant, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. (1 Timothy 6:17–18). My friends, let us “take hold of that which is truly life”; let us find our satisfaction in Christ. Amen.