Good morning. Today we're going to look at Ecclesiastes chapter 12, if you'd like to find that on your Bible. Before we actually look at the Scripture, I want to ask you a question. What matters most What matters most? Now let's take three just normal human experiences and think about what matters the most to you, like on vacation. Are you the kind of person that you just wanna chill and do nothing, or are you the person that wants to go do every single thing? Do you wanna do the same things that you've done every time because you like that, or do you wanna do new things? How about a restaurant? What matters most to you when you choose a restaurant? Is it the price, the menu, the atmosphere, how far away it is from home? Or how about in a car? You're going to buy a car. What matters the most to you? Is it the miles per gallon? Is it the sticker price? Is it the color? Is it the model? All right, so we've got six sections of people here. So if you're in these two outside sections here, you guys look like you need a vacation. So we're gonna let you talk about the vacation. Just talk, turn three or four people around you and just talk about what matters most to you in a vacation. These two center sections, you guys talk about the restaurants, okay? Like, what matters most to you in a restaurant? And these two, what matters the most to you in a car? Take two or three minutes to chat with some people around you about that. Okay, let's wrap those up. Now, there's a phrase we often use, and I'm gonna use it today, and that phrase is bottom line. Now, of course, in business, the bottom line is the line at the bottom of a financial report that shares net profit and loss, right? That's what we mean by bottom line. But then we use that figuratively about what is the primary or the most important consideration. the crux of the matter, right? And so, in a lot of these things, the kind of things we talked about, like vacations or restaurants or cars, you know, different people might have different opinions and they might say, well, this is my bottom line, this is what is important to me, and yet there isn't necessarily one complete bottom line that works for every single person, right? But there are some places in life, and the passage that we're going to look at today talks about that. In fact, this final sermon in our Ecclesiastes series, this is sermon six, is it? Yeah, this is sermon 16. Sermon 16 is titled Life's Bottom Line. So I invite you to stand with me. We're gonna read Ecclesiastes 12, Verses 9 to 14. In addition to the teacher being a wise man, he constantly taught the people knowledge, he weighed, explored, and arranged many proverbs. The teacher sought to find delightful sayings and write words of truth accurately. The sayings of the wise are like cattle prods, and those from masters of collections are like firmly embedded nails. The sayings are given by one shepherd. But beyond these, my son, be warned, there is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body. When all has been heard, The conclusion of the matter is this. Fear God and keep his commandments because this is for all humanity. For God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil. This is the word of God. You may be seated. Now we set to stage the context after 11 chapters of observations on life by the teacher. The narrator now praises the teacher and concludes the book by declaring what matters most in life. It's like you could take big, huge parentheses, and that's most of the book of Ecclesiastes. Most of the 12 chapters is just observation after observation after observation about life. But there's a narrator who opened up the book. In the very beginning of Ecclesiastes, the narrator opened up the book, made a prologue, And then we have 11 chapters of these observations. And now, as it's wrapping up in just these last few verses, the narrator appears on the scene again and wraps it all up. And not in a way that's inconsistent with what the teacher has been talking about for 11 chapters. And we'll see that as we go along. Let's walk through these verses this morning. So in verse nine, we get the narrator, these aren't the words of the teacher anymore, we get the narrator praising the teacher, praising the one who's been making all these observations. In addition to the teacher being a wise man, he constantly taught the people knowledge, he weighed, explored, and arranged many proverbs. The teacher sought to find delightful sayings and write words of truth accurately. The narrator is complimenting the teacher for the way he arranged many proverbs and his wisdom in evaluating things and stating things. And now he's gonna add his perspective to it. But notice how he describes those words in verse 10. They are delightful sayings. They are accurate sayings. And in verse 11, he adds to that. So these words in the Bible are delightful and they're accurate. The sayings of the wise are like cattle prods. And those from masters of collections are like firmly embedded nails. The sayings are given by one shepherd. Now, back then, they would have these staffs, and they would have, they would be embedded with nails, sharp nails at the end, and they would prod the animals all along the way. And they would, it would help them go in the right direction. I don't know, I've never been prodded by a cattle prod, but I can't imagine that's too comfortable. Right? It helps you get to the right place, but sometimes it's uncomfortable. We go, oh yeah, and the other ones we scratch our heads about. The baffling ones, because this teacher has admitted he's not able to figure out everything in life. Wise words stimulate us. And they steady us. Sometimes they're uncomfortable. You know, words matter. Think about this when we hear these words, words like, you're great at what you do. I really appreciate you. I love you. I'm so glad God put you in my life. Or what about these words? Why did you do it that way? You always mess things up. I never want to talk to you again. Words matter. And this narrator's looking back and saying, wow, these words have been accurate and they've been delightful and they've been prodding. And even though they've been challenging to grasp, they have prodded us towards the right direction. And ultimately, there's a source behind them all. Even though they might come through the lips of humans, the source is the one shepherd. See the last phrase there? In verse 11, the sayings are given by one shepherd. And I mean, that could be referring to the teacher himself, but I think most English translations have gotten it proper by capitalizing that S. The one shepherd is God. God is the one ultimately who gives us these words. And then in verse 12, beyond these my son be warned, there's no end to the making of many books and much study wearies the body. Anybody in grad school can say amen to that. There's no point in overdoing writing and probably verse 12, refers to some unsuitable literature that was around. I mean, you know, the Bible, we have the records of the scripture, but we also, there are other writings that we have access to, secular writings, and there probably were pagan writings around, and just many, many of them about what they considered to be wisdom, and it's like a warning. There's so much of it, and it just wearies the body. Now, this was written long before 1970 when Alvin Toffler popularized the phrase, information overload. But how we get to chapter 12, especially in light of the next two verses, the culminating verses in chapters 1 and 2, We learned that pursuits under the sun prove futile and it started with the cyclical nature of all things, right? The sun rises and the sun sets. It hurries back to the place where it rises. All the streams flow into the sea and yet the sea is never full. The eye is not satisfied with seeing or the ear with hearing. There's nothing new under the sun. And so then the teacher noticed that and began explaining all of the different ways he tried to find fulfillment in life. Man, I gotta find what this gain is. I gotta find what this meaning is. Let me try wisdom. Let me try pleasure. Let me try possessions. Let me try women. Let me try projects. And he kept trying this and that and the other. But none of them brought lasting fulfillment. Nothing under the sun. did because they all proved futile and then in chapters three to six he looked around and saw that in his world there are just a lot of upside down things just like today we see a lot of upside down things in our world in the place of judgment where you would expect there to be righteousness there was wickedness there was oppression people were driven to work Not for the pleasure of work, but because they were jealous of others. And sometimes a person would be wealthy, but they would be lonely. They would have no one to share it with, right? There are a lot of things that were upside down. In chapter seven and eight, wisdom is valuable, but it cannot answer every issue. There are many wise sayings in Ecclesiastes like, a good name is better than fine perfume, and the end of a matter is better than the beginning. So we should seek wisdom. But we also need to know that it's limited. That having wisdom is not going to give us the answer to every baffling question. And it's okay to ask questions. Chapter nine, wisdom is not always valued or sustained. There's this story in chapter nine about a poor wise man who saved a city and people didn't really value him and it didn't always stay that way. Also in chapter nine, we're encouraged to enjoy life. as God's gift and to do everything we do with all our might, because our end is coming. There are several places in Ecclesiastes that are similar. We call them the biblical carpe diem passages, like this is from God, seize the day, accept it from God, accept his blessings and live. Even in this crazy upside down world, the degree that God gives you health and And chapter 10 talked about wisdom and folly. And then we came to chapters 11 and 12, the last two chapters, and the urging was rejoice in God and remember God. Rejoice in this life and remember God while you are young. And remember we put quotes around young. Nobody wanted, nobody here like me wanted to define what young was. It's like if you're young enough to be able to still serve God, in that sense you're young because chapter 12 started painting a very sobering and real picture of aging when things start breaking down and you don't have a chance to serve God anymore in the same way as you could before. So serve God now. And that brings us to the conclusion. Those are the kind of things that the teacher said and the narrator comes along beside now and in chapter 12 verses 13 and 14 is going to say to us the bottom line of life is to fear God and keep his commands. This is a really simple message today. It's really straightforward. It's not necessarily simple to put into practice. but it's simple to understand. I'd love you to read, let's read this together out loud, what you see on the screen, let's read it. The bottom line of life is to fear God and keep his commandments. All right, this half of the audience, you read the first line and then this half on this side, read the next two lines, let's go. So there are two commands in this text, and there are two motivations, there are two reasons to put those things into practice. The first command is to fear God, verse 13. When all has been heard, we've heard it all, we've heard 12 chapters of it. What's the conclusion? Fear God. Fear God. Now, the wording in the original language puts the emphasis on God. God's name comes first. It's like God, then later fear, and then keep his commandments. It's the conclusion of everything. After all the ups and downs and the mysteries of life, What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Why do we exist? It's not just to have fun or to have money or to have relationships or to have projects and do things. It's not just to work. We're here to be related to God. We're here to be in a right relationship with God, which he describes as fearing God. And that does not mean, as we have said, fearing God doesn't mean you're afraid of God, like God is going to hurt you. It means to be in awe of him. To understand that he is a mighty, holy, perfect, eternal being. No one in the universe is like him. It's to be reverentially in awe of him, to respect him. And of course, that is the beginning of wisdom. And the whole book has been building towards this. But you know, this isn't the first time that we've heard about the fear of God. I used to think that, that, oh, he goes through all of these iterations through the book and now finally we find out what it's about, fearing God. But having worked through it, we came across the fear of God several times along the way. Like in chapter 3 verse 14, I know everything God does will endure forever. Nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away. God does it so people will fear him. Chapter 5, verse 7, much dreaming and many words are meaningless, therefore fear God. Chapter 7, it's good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes. And then in chapter 8, although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better with those that fear God who are reverent before him. yet because the wicked do not fear God it will not go well with them and their days will not lengthen like a shadow. Fear God. The second command follows right along with it and that is to keep God's commands. Fear God and keep his commands. It's a very simple instruction. Obey what God tells you to do. We today have more than the original hearers or readers would have had. We have 66 books that explain to us what God wants for our lives. how we're to think, what we're to do, what we're not to do. We have it all right here recorded for us. Keep his commands. And notice these two commands are linked. I don't think it's like, okay, one command, I need to fear God, but I also need to keep his commands. In one sense, that's true, but they are linked. If you fear God, guess what you're gonna do with his commands? You're going to keep them, right? Because you realize, wow, he's God. I need to stand in all of him. He's given me some command, so I am going to keep them. I'm going to obey them. Proverbs 8, 13 says, to fear the Lord is to hate evil. Fearing God means rather than choosing to do evil, you choose to do what God says in his word, whatever that is. So why do we do that? Fear God and keep his commands. Now he's going to give us two great reasons to fear God, two motivations to fear God and keep his commands. This is the essence of life. When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this. Fear God and keep his commands because this is for all humanity. It's an interesting translation. Literally, this is for all humanity. If you open up the Hebrew Old Testament, it's going to say, this is the whole about. In other words, this is everything. This is the whole of humanity. Now, we've been using, normally we use the NIV here, and that's our plan to continue using it, but in this particular series, we've been using the Christian Standard Bible, based on a few translation of a few key words. And here it translates it, this is for all humanity. And that exact same exact phrase, the whole of humanity is used, you could say to, it applies to everyone. It could mean that, and it does mean that. I don't think that's all it means, but it means at least as this applies for everybody. That same exact phrase is used in Ecclesiastes 3.13, that everyone may eat and drink is the gift of God. In Ecclesiastes 5.9, it says when God gives any man wealth and possessions, this is a gift of God. In Ecclesiastes 7, it's better to go to a house of mourning than a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of. every man. So I think the phrase being used that way three times when you come to the last chapter, you'd say that's a legitimate way to translate it. It applies to everyone. But I think we should think about more than just the fact that applies to everyone. I like the word essence. This is the essence of humanity. This is the essence. It's our very reason to exist. It's the essence of humanity. It is our identity. It's just not something we do, but it's actually our identity. People find their identity in so many things, right? What they look like, what kind of car they drive, what kind of job they have, how much money they have, or whatever, how much power they have. But our ultimate identity is fearing God. and keeping his commands. And it is the most important thing we can do. It's, remember how we defined the bottom line? It's the most important consideration. Way back at the beginning of Ecclesiastes in chapter one, there was this question, what gain is there? Chapter one, verse three, what gain is there? What profit is there from all of this? And it's like, The book wrestles with it. Well, maybe there's gain in this, and maybe there's gain in that, and maybe there's gain in the other. We find out now here in chapter 12 where the real ultimate gain is. We find out what really, really, really matters most. It's to fear God and to keep his commands. Now, the teacher was allowed to share his quest with us. to share his doubts, to share his struggles, to share where life didn't seem to make sense to him, to share what he tried to find gain. In fact, I think a lot of this as wisdom literature, that's the way wisdom literature is, it just, it's not words directly from God to us, it's words to or about God. And here a person is going, hey, I'm gonna share with you what I tried to do to find gain. And yet it is God's Word in the sense that God allowed it to be written so we could look beyond life under the sun. We could find it somewhere else. So the answer to that question in chapter one of what gain is there is right here. The answer is God. The answer is a relationship with God. The answer is being rightly related to God. To fear Him and keep His commands. So, life's gain is not what we can experience or achieve on our own. It's being in relationship to God. And that's why I think Jesus, for instance, would say later in the Bible, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul, right? If you're not rightly related to God, what difference does it make all the earthly gain that you have? So students today, why be a good student? Why work hard at school? Why be a good student? Because the essence of life is fearing God. keeping His commandments. Why give money to the church and the Lord's work? Because the essence of life is fearing God and keeping His commandments. Why be faithful to your spouse for life? Why pray? Why meditate on the Bible? Why volunteer your time to serve others? Because the essence of life is to fear God and keep His commands. It affects every every aspect of our life. As Malcolm Mulgrew said, either life is always and in all circumstances sacred or intrinsically of no account. And all of these things, the things, the samples I gave you of being a good student, of reserving sex for marriage, of being faithful to your spouse, all of these things and anything else we do good, it's not like a checklist, oh, I'm gonna just do these things. They're flowing from a relationship with God. If my fundamental priority in life is to fear God and keep his commands, it's gonna affect everything I do, everything I think, and everything I say. So that's the first motive. This is the essence of life. And the second one is because God is gonna judge every deed. Verse 14, for God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil. Now, there are things that are hidden today, and I think there's a a double meaning here to this. Some things are hidden in the sense that they're mysterious. Like today, we just don't understand everything, right? People say, why did such and such happen? And sometimes our best answer is we don't know, right? Those things are hidden. And then there are hidden things that are like secrets or sins. Somebody's like, I'm trying to hide this. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna hide it like, like you can really hide something from God. but they're gonna try to hide it. But God sees and knows everything. God sees and knows everything. God even knows why there are no words on that screen. And why those are the words that appear. God knows it all. We don't know it all. See, there's mystery. See, you thought this is all accidental, but this is planned. We knew I was gonna be talking about mysterious hidden things right here. God is going to judge every deed, everything that is hidden, He's gonna bring it about. And you know, the fact that God is going to judge everything can be either bad news or good news. If you're living for yourself, if you're living a sinful lifestyle, if you're just, you know, doing your own thing, that's probably bad news to you. to think about, but if you're serving God, not perfect, nobody's perfect, but if you're serving God, and if you look around at life, and you look around at our world, and you see all kind of things in our world that don't make sense, that are hard, and you see oppression, and you see injustice, and you see things that you wish were right that aren't right right now, the judgment of God is a good thing. It's a good thing. How can I say that? Well, there's some reasons why I can say the judgment of God is a good thing. For one, in the New Testament, the judgment seat of Christ is a place of reward. It's not a place of punishment. The punishment for our sins, that's a good thing. Second, The fact that God is going to judge is going to be a positive answer to the question that Abraham asked way back in Genesis chapter 18, will not the judge of all the earth do right? And the answer is yes, he is going to. Sometimes things right now in life, it doesn't look like God is quote doing right. He's letting things play out. He, in the end, is going to do right and set things right. If you long for truth and justice and equity, the judgment of God is going to be the place where that happens. Christopher Wright hits the nail on the head when he said, it is indeed good news that evil will not have a last word in God's universe. That evildoers will not, quote, get away with it. forever. We look forward to Revelation 21 when God is going to make everything new. And finally, this is good news, not just for, you know, the sweet by and by, one day whenever that comes. This is good news for us right now. Knowing that God is going to come with a full final judgment at the end, it puts a different perspective on everything in life right now. It's good news for every moment of your life this week. When you walk out that door, it's good news on the way home, and it's good news tomorrow, and it's good news this week. Philip Rykin says this, if there is no final judgment, there's no ultimate meaning to life. Nothing matters. But the final message of Ecclesiastes is not that nothing matters. but that everything does. Think about that. The final message of Ecclesiastes is not that nothing matters. It's that everything does. So today we can let God's judgment both challenge us and comfort us. So the essence of life is to be in a proper relationship to God. Fortunately today we have more revelation. We understand what that means. We have a cross on the stage, right? Because we know that we are separated from God by our sins. Jesus, the perfect son of God, who existed as God for all of eternity, decided to come, and that's what we celebrate at Christmas. But he lived a perfect life. He died an incredible death on the cross, and he did all of that to pay for our sins. To bring us in right relationship with him completely as our Lord and Savior. You're the one I'm depending on. He will save us. He will bring us in a right relationship with God. This one who died was buried and rose three days later wants a relationship with us. Do you have one through faith in Jesus? So here in Ecclesiastes, relationship with God is described as fearing God and keeping His commands. Is that consistent with what Jesus said? I think as we start to wrap it up, we should ask that question. We should see how they tie together. And let's think about a couple of things that Jesus said. In Matthew 10, 28, He said, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but who cannot kill the soul, rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell. He was talking about fearing God there. He also talked about keeping God's commands, John 14, 15. If you love me, keep my commands. You see how love gets in there too? So fearing God and loving God, It's like a coin, like a coin has a heads and a tails, but it's one coin, right? And fearing God and loving God are just two sides of the same coin of being rightly related to the God of the universe. And remember when Jesus was asked, what's the greatest command of all? What did he say? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second one is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. So the famous English sculptor Henry Moore was asked a question by a literary critic, Donald Hall. He was asked, you're 80 years old now. Surely by now you know what the secret of life is. What is the secret of life? And Moore said this, the secret of life is to have a task, something you do your entire life, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day, for the whole life, for your whole life. And you know, that advice, that secular advice under the sun, is something that Ecclesiastes would say, you know what? Let me tell you what that one task is. Anybody here guess what that one task is? To fear God and keep his commands. Moore said one more thing. He said, and also the most important thing is it must be something you cannot possibly do. Is there anybody here who on your own can fear God and keep all of his commands all the time perfectly. Well, let's go back to what Jesus said. We're looking at John 14. You know, Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commands. But he knew our human weakness. He knew we couldn't do that. And so he's going to give us some help. Verse 16, and I will ask the Father. And he will give you another advocate to help you and to be with you forever. The spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for he lives with you and will be in you. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. The bottom line of life is to fear God and keep His commands.