Ramsey Creek Baptist Church

Real wisdom is humble, gentle, peaceable, open to reason, full of mercy, and genuine. Whether a person possesses godly wisdom or not will be known in their behavior - in how they live (James 3:13-18). Solomon recognizes that he cannot understand himself or the world the way that God does, reminding his readers it was mankind who plunged the world into brokenness. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus has become righteousness, sanctification, and redemption for every person who believes (1 Corinthians 1:30). It is only by the Spirit of God that we can become truly wise.

There are glimpses of beauty in this world that we can and should stop to appreciate, but the reality is that this world is not as it should be - it's broken. This is because our world isn’t doing what it was designed to do. Solomon felt this, too, because he lived in the same world we do "under the sun". If we're saying things like "This isn't fair" or "Where is the justice?", we have to realize that the answers lie beyond us and beyond what our broken world can answer. Only a person who's life is lived in fear of the Lord can be saved from the brokenness of this world and their own heart.

This text focuses on wealth, greed, and the search for contentment. Solomon makes clear that more wealth does not bring satisfaction. Why? First, because the love of money leads to all kinds of evil, including never-ending discontentment. The second reason that more and more wealth never brings contentment is a profound theological truth taught to us by the rappers of the 90’s: “mo money, mo problems”. The truth is if you love money, it’s going to cost you; it'll cost you relationships with friends and family, it’ll cost you sleep, and it'll cost you eternity if you don’t turn to Christ. If you make earthly riches your life’s pursuit, it will be a wasted life. Instead Ecclesiastes 5:18-20 show us a better way: enjoy the simple things in life, rejoice in your work, and be content with what you have. The key isn’t how much or how little you have, but rather how you view what you do have. In Christ we are free to recover God’s good design for how

Ecclesiastes 5 starts with yet another attempt to try to find meaning in this life – religiosity (religiosity = religion without relationship). The "sacrifice of fools" is thinking that just going through religious motions wins the favor of God, but God has said all along that that kind of sacrifice/worship isn’t what He expects or wants (1 Samuel 15:22). We need to take our communication with God seriously, recognizing that He is God and we are not; He is in heaven and we are on earth. Ritualistic religiosity does not impress God – sincerity and faith do. We pray for a fresh view of God to be able to stand before Him in humility and bow before Him in awe.

In Ecclesiastes 4:4, the Preacher begins to tell us that while hard work is good (3:22), we shouldn't work hard out of jealousy of someone else or out of an attempt to fill a void in our life. Earthly stuff will never replace a relationship with Jesus. Instead of giving in to the trap of selfish striving and/or jealousy, a wise person will cooperate with others and lift other people up. We’re better together, especially as we represent Christ. The pursuit of earthly things is ultimately meaningless, but the things done for Christ last forever. In the context of work, what sets Christian’s apart is not only what we do, but why we do it.

Even from an early age, there's something inside all of us that longs for and expects justice. That's why we say things like, "That's not fair!" This shouldn't come as a surprise to us because we were made in God's image, and God is a just God. Being an advocate for justice is a defining trait of a Christian. Make no mistake - believers will seek justice for the oppressed. However, losing ourselves in supporting a cause, or backing a political party, or resisting a system of government, will not bring our lives ultimate meaning. Those things can never be our true hope, because you were made to be satisfied in Jesus Christ alone. Pursue justice, show mercy, and push for change- but if you do these things without Christ it will all be vanity in the end.

In our text today we see that there is a season/time for everything in life. God appoints the events of our lives as part of His much bigger, much wiser, but hidden plan. He stitches each season together like a master weaver creates a tapestry. The difference between whether we see our life as a mess or something beautiful is in our perspective. What you do with your life matters to God, and what Jesus did with His life matters to you. Everything is meaningless if you don’t have Jesus. But if you have Jesus, everything in life has meaning.

Ecclesiastes 2:12-26 reminds us that the pursuit of wisdom and/or work cannot be ends in themselves any more than pleasure or self-indulgence. These things cannot be all this life is about. Listen especially to the words of Isaiah 44 and consider how ridiculous it is to burn half a tree for warmth and worship the other half as god. It's similarly ridiculous to give your heart/life to work (workaholism) and then expect God to bless the chasing of idols. We easily forget that every good gift we're given is meant to point us back to God as the Giver.

Pastor Jason leads us in looking more closely at Ecclesiastes 2:1-11. We believe the things we see have lasting value, but how do they stack up against the eternal things we cannot see? In truth, life apart from Christ is vanity.

In Exodus 6 we find that the Israelites have a problem, and it's not Pharaoh. Because their spirits were so broken by the Egyptian captors they could see, they believed something false about the God who they could not see. Their circumstances in the seen drove their belief in the unseen. But their circumstances were not a reflection of the truth of God’s enduring rescue plan, and the same holds true today. David encounters a national crisis of his own, and responds by instructing God's people to "flee to the banner" of the Lord, and to take refuge in His strength. For David in Psalm 60, the only hope for Israel was to rally to the banner of God’s protection. In Egypt during the Passover, Israel’s only hope was to take shelter under the blood of a lamb. For you & me today, the only hope is to take shelter under the blood of the perfect Lamb of God. Every day, Christians should joyfully proclaim the promise of God’s gift of deliverance, healing, and wholeness found in His Son. -

Remember: there’s zero hint of despair or fear in Paul’s writing here because no matter what happens in this life, the war has already been won on the cross & in the empty tomb. Fear isn’t found here – faith is, because we know God won. For the Christian, truth is essential. If Jesus is the truth and if the truth sets us free, then fastening on the belt of truth means living out the truth of Jesus, the truth of the Gospel. Put on the qualities that prove Christ is your real Master. Putting on the breastplate of righteousness is putting on the new-self more and more. It’s living out your new identity in Christ. If we truly believed God and His Word we would take up the shield of faith in all circumstances. Do you trust God? The enemy would love to make you question God’s love for you, the fullness of Christ’s sacrifice, or the permanency of your salvation. To resist the devil, we must be assured of our salvation. The Spirit is what makes the Word of God ef

When Paul starts talking about spiritual warfare and battle it might seem like it’s coming out of left field, but Paul has actually been talking about the pieces of the armor throughout Ephesians by describing what normal Christianity looks like. He writes to believers in hope and expectation and confidence because no matter what happens in this life, the war has already been won on the cross & in the empty tomb. If Christ fills all in all, then that certainly includes Christians. The One who has everything under His feet fills every believer. Paul has been talking about the relational challenge on the person-to-person level, but now he shifts our thinking to the cosmic and spiritual battle that exists. He reminds us that we are not the one who needs to be strong in battle, we are to be the ones who exercise faith in battle. Since we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, Paul reminds us not to let our attention be diverted from the real enemy to people. The only way to do spiritual battle with th

*Apologies for the poor audio - we changed sound boards & needed to tweak some settings* What we know of God & how He deals with people should drive how we deal with people. In order to spread the Gospel effectively, Paul instructs believing servants to treat their masters as they would treat Jesus, and believing masters to treat their servants as they would treat Jesus. Whether servant or master, treat the other as if they were Christ. Do your work as if you’re doing it for Jesus. Lead those under you as if you will have to answer to a higher authority. Christians work with a good attitude because they know they are working for Christ. Christ lives in us, so we do our work unto Christ and we do our work through Christ. Be sure that your worth is not connected to the position you have at work. Christians should relate to people differently in the workplace because our jobs don’t determine our value – Christ does. There are lots of things about your job that you cannot control. But

If how we raise our kids mirrors that of everyone else in the world, we’re on the wrong track, and if our parenting methods looks just like those of non-Christian homes, we really need to repent and determine - by God’s grace - to do it His way. Submitting and loving and obeying are all things Christians do when they are filled with the Spirit. When talking specifically to kids, Paul tells them that being filled with the Spirit as a child begins with obedience. Obedience is the soil from which the fruit of the Spirit grow. Obedience is a fitting response to a parent’s instruction. Parents show biblical love for their kids when they occupy positions of authority in their homes as God instructs. Kids should obey their parents because they want to please Jesus. God’s blessings flow to the child who obeys & honors their parents. What is the ultimate hope of a parent's godly instruction in the home? To point their children to Jesus

Our marriages should produce the mutual joy of both husband and wife, but that’s not the primary or only thing a marriage is for. Submitting, loving, & obeying are all descriptions of what people do when they are filled with the Spirit. If you only obey God when your spouse obeys Him first, you will never consistently obey God. Getting stuck in that kind of cycle can cause us to convince ourselves that God wants something for us that His Word forbids, denying the truth because it doesn’t fit into our perception of reality. We desperately need the Spirit for unity, harmony, & peace in our marriages. The true meaning of marriage had been concealed in times past, but now God was saying that marriage is a picture of Christ and the church. The original and deeper truth is God’s marriage to His people, and now it's being revealed through Christ’s marriage to the church. The copy is what we see in human marriage between a husband and a wife. The church submits to Christ in all thing

Christians and non-Christians alike are confused about what love is, what commitment is, about gender, sexual attraction, marriage, headship, submission, and what a godly family is supposed to look like. Satan would love to cause the crumbling of the foundation of God’s purpose & plan for marriage. The health of our marriages today affects generations to come. The problem is not with God or the institution of marriage – the problem lies with us because we would often rather be ruled by our feelings than the truth of Scripture. We need to read what God says about marriage and let that settle the inward & outward debates of how marriage should work. - The Bible determines how we interact with our spouses, not the culture, history, psychology, our circle of friends, & not our feelings. Marriage is rooted in covenant keeping. It is designed to be a picture of something deeper: Christ & the church [v32]. Christ is the ultimate covenant-keeper, and marriage is a picture of this. We don’t n

Circumspect (KJV word) = “careful to consider all circumstances and possible consequences”. “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise…” Paul says. We should work at being so connected with Jesus Christ that our relationship with Him touches & shapes every step that we take. The time that could slip away into uselessness we scoop up and rescue in order to use for good. Walking in wisdom means we don’t regularly waste away our time. We live in dark days, and so we must passionately shine our light while we can. Our new life in Christ affects our relationships with other people: - Eph. 2:11-22 – our relationships with one another are now different - Eph. 5:22-33 – our relationships with our spouses are different - Eph. 6:1-4 – our relationships with our kids are different - Eph. 6:5-9 – our relationships in the workplace are now different - Eph. 6:10-24 – our relationship with the world is now different Only through

Every one of us is born into darkness due to a fatal sin problem, but we believe a relationship with Jesus cures every person who believes. Salvation in Christ alone is the cure. So Paul now calls believers to become who they are - light in the Lord. Because Jesus loved us and gave Himself up for us, we are expected to live differently. The church is commanded to hold each other accountable and discipline each other out of and away from sexual sin [1 Cor. 5]. If a person calls themselves a brother or sister and continues in blatant and open immorality, the church has to take action. And when action is taken, it is to be done with love as the motivation and reconciliation as the goal, otherwise we're doing it wrong. To pursue the selfish and sinful desires of our hearts rather than God's will is idolatry. Are the desires of your heart leading towards Jesus, or away from Him? People who are walking in the light will not speak the way people of the world speak. Instead of being known for corrupt speech, C

Imitate means – “follow as a model, copy, simulate”. From the Latin it literally means to “copy an image”. How can we ever hope to imitate God? Christians imitate God like the moon imitates the sun. They don’t have any light of their own, they get their light from the Son. When light is seen in them, it’s the reflection of the light coming from God in Christ. As Christians, our desire is to be the clearest reflection of Him as possible. We know who God is by looking at Jesus: “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature..." [Heb. 1:3]. Christians reflect God’s character more as we put on Christ more. Christians imitate God because He has adopted them as His beloved children! Ephesians 5:1 is the result of Ephesians 1:5. As God’s people, Christians should be known for reflecting the character traits of their Father. We reflect Him in how we speak to others, how we exercise self-control, how we control our ton

Believers were made for honest work, not stealing. We should labor in honest work to be able to share with those in need. If you don’t have much extra money to give, be generous with your time. If you don’t have much extra time to give, be generous with your money. - God wants His people to replace stealing with honest work & giving. The word “corrupt” here is the Greek word sapros and it means “rotten, corrupt, spoiled, worthless”. It’s the same word Jesus used when talking about rotten/bad fruit in Matthew 7 and when talking about rotten/bad fish in Matthew 13. The words that come out of a Christian’s mouth should be filled with grace and should build the other person up – Christian’s words should edify. Our words have eternal impact. - God wants His people to replace corrupting talk with edifying talk. An angry person is actually a selfish person. The real cure for our own bitterness and anger is forgiveness. The more you understand th