through the course of today. If you have any questions about the message, there's a text number that you can text those questions in, or you could email me, jerry at harvestcharlotte.com. Children say a lot of interesting things and ask a lot of interesting questions. Just this week, my wife was taking some of the grandchildren home from an activity. And little Addison is in preschool now, and they went on a field trip. So it was her first time riding on a bus. So Tish was asking her, hey, did you like riding on that bus? Yes, I did, Nai Nai. Well, Addison, did the bus have seat belts on it? And she said, yes, it had seatbelts on it. And so my wife proceeded to tell her that when she was a girl, buses didn't have seatbelts on them. And she said, in fact, when I was a child, there wasn't any such thing as car seats. And the grandkids were like shocked at this. And they're like, well, what did you do? just so you know that we didn't come over on the Mayflower. Car seats were not mandated in the U.S. until the mid-80s, okay? But they're like, what did you do? And she said, well, we just did this. And so one of the grandsons said, well, did they have light bulbs back then? They do ask funny questions. And if you are, if you're a parent and you have a child who's old enough to talk, they've already asked you this question, probably, or they will. Why do we have to go to church? Why do we, church is getting boring. Why do we have to go to church? And here's part of what Taylor said in reply to that. Think about it. If a friend of yours called and said that a famous athlete or singer was going to be at his house and asked if you wanted to come over, wouldn't you go? And wouldn't you be excited? Of course, and so would I. Well, church is the place where God will be every time you go. Of course, he is with you whether you're in church or not. but he can be there in a special place or a special way when many believers gather to celebrate him together. Church is the place where God will be every time you go. Now why? Because the church is a gathering. It's not a building, it's a gathering of believers in whom God already lives, and as they gather together to praise God's name, he's gonna be there. That truth leads us to our text for today, our biblical passage, which is Ecclesiastes 5, verses one to seven, and we're gonna learn how to approach God. in Ecclesiastes chapter 5. Ecclesiastes is a book of wisdom that was written long before Jesus ever lived. If you have a physical copy of the Bible, you get Psalms, Proverbs, and then in Ecclesiastes. Here at Harvest, we're working through a series this fall, going verse by verse through this very interesting book. But it's a book of wisdom, a book of Old Testament wisdom. And so, The subtitle of this series is Living with the End in Mind. living with the end in mind. That's a double entendre. It's the end of, we know that we have an end in mind, we're going to die, and so we live in light of that. But it also is in light of God's end, or God's goal, or God's purpose for us. So I want to invite your attention to Ecclesiastes chapter 5. And will you stand with me as we read God's word this morning. The verses will be on the screen for you. Reading out of the Christian Standard Bible. Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Better to approach in obedience than to offer the sacrifice as fools do, for they ignorantly do wrong. Do not be hasty to speak, and do not be impulsive to make a speech before God. God is in heaven, and you are on earth, so let your words be few. Just as dreams accompany much labor, so also a fool's voice comes with many words. When you make a vow to God, don't delay fulfilling it, because he does not delight in fools. Fulfill what you vow. Better that you do not vow than that you vow and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth bring guilt on you and do not say in the presence of the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry with your words and destroy the work of your hands? For many dreams bring futility. So do many words. Therefore, fear God. This is the Word of God. You may be seated. Now, let me set the stage for this. When we come to Ecclesiastes 5, where are we? Ecclesiastes 1 to 4 has revealed that human beings cannot find ultimate fulfillment or solve problems on their own. at least the problems that really, really matter, life's big issues. And immediately after pointing out several of the places or evidences that the world is broken, the teacher, who is the one speaking and writing here, or whose words we're hearing written in Ecclesiastes, now immediately turns to a different place. After looking around, now he looks up, as it were, at how can we approach God. Now, let me remind you what's happened so far. Ecclesiastes opens up. A narrator starts narrating this story and just talks about how cyclical life is, that things come and go, and people come and go, and the ocean tides go in and out, and it just happens over and over and over. And then the teacher, who is the one that most of the book are the words of his mouth, the teacher starts talking about all of the places and ways that he sought fulfillment and answers in life. He sought it in work and wisdom and pleasure and projects and all kind of places. And then they all kept proving ultimately vain or meaningless or futile. And so, then he turned in chapter three, and that gave us some of the reason why is because whether you're wise or whether you're foolish, we're all going to the same place. We're all gonna pass away. None of us are gonna live eternally, apart from God, that is, because God has said eternity in our hearts. And then in chapter four, he looked around, and he said, wow, this is a broken world. And I see things like oppression and jealousy in the workplace. I see people trying to work and get ahead and make more money just because they're jealous of their neighbor. And I see the loneliness that's created in some people. They might have a lot of career success, but they don't have deep personal relationships. And I see the fleeting popularity of leaders. And so, with all of that said, Chapter five is very different, but it's all part of one book and it flows. It flows like he looks at this plane, it's like, hmm, this isn't the answer. Let's talk about something important. Let's talk about God. Let's talk about how we can approach God. And there's a very, very simple message today. It's very simple. It's not 17 words, I haven't counted it. It's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Pastor Corey gave me a hard time a couple weeks ago. I like to get a main idea, and he said, you had 17 words in that main idea. Well, Pastor Corey, there's only seven today. We must approach God with reverent obedience. That's pretty simple and pretty straightforward. How do we approach God? We gotta do it with reverent That is what this passage is about. And we are going to see three things that reverent obedience involves. The first one is remembering whose presence you're approaching. Verse one, guard your steps when you go to the house of God. better to approach in obedience than to offer the sacrifice as fools do, for they ignorantly do wrong." So in other words, when you approach God's house, be careful. Guard your steps. Don't do it lightly. Now, all through the Old Testament, God is pictured and we sang already this morning several times in several of these songs about God's holiness. That means his absolute 100% moral perfection. He is so perfect and holy and we are not. And God is so massively holy that he had to protect his presence. So for instance, Nadab and Abihu died because they offered strange fire. before the Lord in Leviticus 10. Many died in Beth Shemesh when they looked directly into the Ark of the Covenant, 1 Samuel 6. The Israelites in Exodus 19 trembled at the foot of Mount Sinai, and Nathan was alluding to that. They were commanded, don't touch it, don't come up on it, don't even touch it. The point is, it's not enough to physically walk into a house of worship if your life is all messed up morally. Now, if your life is all messed up morally and you're coming with the right heart attitude and wanting God to change you, that's a different story. And we'll talk about that, that's the good news. But if your life is all messed up morally and you don't care and you think, oh, I'll just go to some religious experience and that'll kinda cover me, that'll make me okay. Or maybe you go because it's the right thing to do. In the Old Testament, yeah, let's go up to the temple. That's not gonna get it. They had to guard their steps because they weren't They weren't doing something routine. They were going to God's house. I thought about this this week, the notion, the thought of whose house is it? Think about where you live, whether it's an apartment, a townhouse, a single family home, or whether it's a house, and you walk in there and out of there probably without ever thinking much about it, right? You go in and out, in and out, in and out. But if you got invited, to a famous person's house, maybe a governor or a senator or a famous athlete or something, and you were gonna go to their house, you might approach a little more carefully. Like right now, we talk about being with God everywhere, and God is with us everywhere, and he is. And God has always been everywhere, all present. But there was a place in the Old Testament that people specifically went to and that was the place they were gonna meet God. And that was the center, the focus of their worship. It was once the tabernacle and then once the temple was built, it was the temple. So that made that place very, very special. It was the house of God. And the writer says, guard, well, what do you mean guard your steps? Well, he explains it. It's better to approach in obedience than to offer the sacrifice as fools do. Don't live a life of disobedience and then say, oh yeah, I'll just keep going and never changing. So let me picture it on the screen for you, for us today, because what is the house of God today, right? We don't have a temple anymore. Right, so when we live a long time after this was written, how would we apply it to us? In the Old Testament, the temple was conceived to be the house of God because that was represented where God appears. But I think there are two legitimate places it applies for us today. And the first one would be this. If you're a Christian, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you are the temple of God today. Paul the Apostle makes that very, very clear to a group of Christians who lived at a city called Corinth, 1 Corinthians 6, 18, and 20. He's urging them towards moral purity. And notice the reason that he does it. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body. But whoever sins sexually sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own, you were bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies. No longer is there only one place that we go to to meet God. If you're a follower of Christ, if you have bowed before Jesus Christ and received him as your Lord and Savior, when you open your life to him in faith, God sends his spirit to live in you, and so you're a walking temple. God is with you all the time, literally inside you all the time. And therefore, this Old Testament command that be careful when you guard the, when you approach God's house, don't live a life of obedience and just casually stroll into God's house. We need to do the same thing with our bodies. We need to say, man, sin is appealing and it's tempting, but this body isn't mine. I belong to God. This is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore honor God with your bodies. So I think there's a second place. It's not as direct. It is certainly analogous, and I do think there's even biblical grounds, and I think New Testament houses of worship, what we call the church, the gathering of the church in a place like this, I think is a legitimate application, at least, of this, and here's why I say that, a couple reasons. Let me give you a reason, then let me give you a scripture that backs it up. It's not the only place where God's pleasance dwells, like the temple. So we would not say, in these four walls right here, that's the only place God is, so go live your life however you want to during the week, and now God will be here. No, it's not that. But, it's a place devoted to gathering those in whom God's presence dwells. So think about it. If God's presence dwells in you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and all through the week, you're walking with God, and you're in communion with God, you're close to God, and then you say, man, on Sundays, we're all gonna come together, and we're all gonna lift our voices and our hearts and our lives up to God, and we're gonna listen to his word so we can learn how he wants us to live in that place. God dwells, is in a special way. And Paul also wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, don't you yourselves know that you are God's temple and the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him for God's temple is holy and that is what you are. The reason why I have you highlighted is because New Testament was written in the Greek language and just like in English, it can use the word you as singular or plural, right? So, if there's one person I'm talking to, I can say, can you do me a favor? And I'm talking to that one person. But what if I was asking all of you, can you, it can be plural. And in the original language here, this is plural. Paul is saying, all of you together are God's temple. So I think it's very legitimate if we're thinking, we're looking at a passage like this that was written long ago to people that would go to the temple. That was how they were gonna worship. They were gonna go to the temple. How does it apply for us? In two ways. First of all, in our own bodies, how we live. But also, how we gather together today. And the point is, guard your steps when you're gonna come. And don't just offer, if we go back to the verse in Ecclesiastes, don't offer the sacrifice as fools do. Now, part of Old Testament worship was offering sacrifice. They brought sacrifices with them. It might've been grain, it might've been an animal. But what is the sacrifice of fools? Now, a fool in the Bible is not somebody that has anything to do with their mental capacity, it's their moral outlook. The fool in the Bible is a person who denies God, who doesn't pursue wisdom, who kind of revels in their folly. And so the sacrifice of fools could happen if maybe someone brought an animal that wasn't qualified to be offered as a sacrifice. Or maybe they offered a sacrifice just because it was habit or peer pressure. Maybe they were doing it, but their heart wasn't really turned to God at all. It was just going through the motions. You know, yeah, I'm offering a sacrifice, but their life is not measuring up. In 1 Samuel 15, The man Saul disobeyed explicitly what God told him to do, and the prophet Samuel confronted him. And Samuel said, ask him, does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry, because you've rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king." Proverbs 15, 8 says, the Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but the prayer of the upright pleases Him. So back to Ecclesiastes 5, 1, for they ignorantly do wrong. NIV says, who do not know that they do wrong. ESV, for they do not know that they're doing evil. In other words, these kind of sacrifices reveals such a lack of truth and honesty and they reveal somebody's deceived. And they can be doing it and not even really realizing they're doing wrong. They're so deceived. In the place where God is worshiped, you better make sure that your metaphorical feet have been walking in the ways that God has commanded. So reverent obedience involves remembering whose house you're approaching. Second, it involves focusing on listening to him more than speaking yourselves. Verse two, do not be hasty to speak. Do not be impulsive to make a speech before God. God is in heaven and you're on earth. So let your words be few. Now we're talking about prayer, I think, because part of worship is hearing from God, part of worship is talking to God. James Roskup says that hastiness in prayer devalues God. as just someone to be used to gratify one's own ends. This cheapens God, is a slam at His honor, wants Him only as a grab bag, not as God, and it challenges us to ask, how do I pray? Is it just, oh, I'm in this desperate situation, so I ask God to help me, or do I really take the time to be quiet and still and realize He's God? We're called to listen to God. listening refers not just to hearing it physically but actually hearing and obeying after Moses gave the Ten Commandments to the people which he had gotten from God on the mountain. He came down gave him to the people. The people said to him in Deuteronomy chapter 5, and verse 27 that should say, go near and listen to everything the Lord our God says, then you can tell us everything the Lord our God tells you, we will listen and obey. A big part of understanding or listening to God is understanding who he is. God is in heaven and you aren't. And I don't think that is dealing with distance necessarily. He's not trying to give us a physical location. He's trying to draw the huge contrast. We're just limited, finite. We're here on this earthly plane, but God is in heaven. God is transcendent. God is above. Remember when Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray? How did he start? What should you say? Our father, where? In heaven. We focus on how great God is, about His sovereignty. This is perspective. These aren't just words to repeat. This is perspective. That's why our words should be few. Now, this is a relative sense. It's not saying, if you gather in a prayer thing, don't say any words. but relative, you know, just think about environments. Can you imagine four or five friends together and they're talking and they're just really going through an issue and yeah, they're hearing this. Oh yeah, I hear you. What about this? And they go back and forth and back and back and forth. And then a new person comes in and just starts talking. No time to listen. We can't do that in prayer. Verse three, just as dreams accompany much labor, so a fool's voice comes with many words. So if there's a person who works and tirelessly over and over and over and over, says they're likely to have dreams. And so a fool will talk a lot. That's why we need to make sure we listen. If you make a promise to God, keep it. Verse four, when you make a vow to God, don't delay fulfilling it because he does not delight in fools. Fulfill what you vow. better that you do not vow than you vow and not fulfill it. We don't talk a lot about vows in our society that much. In the Old Testament, a vow would be Like you'd go to the Lord and you would dedicate something, you would give something, you might promise something to him, it might be yourself, it might be an animal, it might be a child, that would be a vow. Now we do talk about vows sometimes, like a wedding vow, right? You say the wedding vows to each other, you make promises to each other. But nowhere in the Bible are you commanded to make vows to God. But if you do, you're commanded to keep them. That's what this is saying. Verse six, do not let your mouth bring guilt on you and do not say in the presence of the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry with your words and destroy the work of your hands? Who is this messenger? Well, the priest or somebody in the Old Testament, if somebody made a vow like, hey, I'm gonna give such and such to the Lord, they would follow up. you know okay if you're promising you're gonna give three bags of grain or something as a grain okay they would follow up with it and and they saying what don't say oh oh i didn't mean it i didn't mean to make that vow i didn't mean to make that promise so don't don't do that don't don't say that it's a mistake for verse seven many dreams futilities bring futility, so do many words. Proverbs 20 and 25 says, it is a trap for anyone to dedicate something rashly and later to reconsider his vows. And the last few words of verse 7, I think, sum up the whole thing. In many ways, they sum up all of Ecclesiastes, which we'll get to in the conclusion. But they certainly, if we're thinking about being reverent, we're thinking about being obedient to God, what does it involve? What's the bottom line? Can you say it simply and shortly? Yes, fear God. That's the summary. It's fearing him. Now, when you hear the word fear, it doesn't mean to be scared. It's not that we're scared of God, like he's gonna strike us with lightning or something. Well, what does it mean? Let me give you a few examples from different verses. Take delight in his commandments. That says to me that a person who fears God is gonna take delight in the Bible. They're like, wow, this is from God. I'm going to take delight in his commandments. But it's not just an emotional delight. It's putting into practice Psalm 119 63. I am a friend to all who fear you to those who keep your precepts. Proverbs 8 13 says to fear the Lord is to hate evil. I hate arrogant pride evil conduct. and perverse speech. So fearing God is realizing he's a holy God and he is against all evil and wherever evil exists in whatever form, if I'm gonna fear God, if I'm gonna have reverence from God, I'm gonna need to have the same view towards evil that he does. And you know, sometimes that's easy and sometimes that's hard. It's really easy to say God hates murder, right? And if you see somebody about to murder someone, it's easy for you to have a hatred towards that. But whatever our particular temptation is for us to sin, that's also evil. It's not as easy to hate it, right? Because we start getting deceived. But to fear the Lord is to hate evil. Psalm 147, 11, the Lord values those who fear him, those who put their hope in his faithful love. So while it's loving his word and obeying his word and hating evil, it's also trusting in him and trusting in his love. Well, we're in the Old Testament. Got the Old Testament, the New Testament. But the fear of the Lord is not just an Old Testament concept. We've already heard part of this passage. Nathan did not know I was gonna quote this in this message. But Hebrews 12, in talking about the difference between the old way to approach God and the new way, you've not come to this mountain, referring to Sinai, to a trumpet blast or voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded. If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death. The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, I am trembling with fear, but you have come to Mount Zion. to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous, made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they, going back to the people in the Old Testament, if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he's promised, once more I will shake not only the earth, but the heavens. The words once more indicate the removing of what can be shaken, that is created things, so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. And so worship God acceptably. Let me start wrapping up by just giving you some practical ways. I'll give you four practical ways to put this in practice. And there may be more, I'm sure there are more. And I hope you'll think as you leave and talk to others. about how to put it into practice, but first of all, just simply obey all week long. When we obey God through the week, that makes a difference in how we come in here on Sunday. It really does. Secondly, if you're the head of a household, so this would be mothers or fathers, fathers, mothers, depending on what your family situation is, prepare the family for corporate worship. Prepare the family for corporate worship. It doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't have to be structured, but even just on Saturday night, gathering the family together, gathering the kids together, and preparing them for what's coming the next day. And parents do this all the time with other things. There's a big day at school, or something different, something special. Hey, we're gonna do this and this, and this is gonna happen. Well, parents, do that with your children on Saturday. Prepare them. Hey, we're going to God's house tomorrow. There's gonna be a lot of people gathering to worship God and to listen to him and maybe gather together for a simple prayer or something. Pray for their teacher, pray for the pastor, pray for the music, pray for the whole service. Come with expectation. Third, learn to hate evil and not evil people. Christians should be filled with love for all people. whether those people are good or evil. So we're not talking about that. Don't misunderstand. We're talking about hating evil itself. Derek Kidner says, no amount of emphasis on grace can justify taking casual liberties or can justify taking liberties with God for the very concept of grace demands gratitude and gratitude cannot be casual. And then finally, in worship and in life, Be still and be quiet. Be still and be quiet. And I would say, unfortunately, in America way too many church services are pretty self-absorbed gatherings. with Christian entertainment and sermons that revolve a lot more around us than they do revolve around the Bible or God. There's a lot of time and time do we give to just sit in the presence of God and reflect on who God is. The late author Mike Iaconelli was a leader in youth ministries. He wrote some books, helped a youth ministry that started out on the West Coast. He traveled a lot. He came to San Francisco one night and he missed his connection and he was upset, he was tired, he'd been traveling a lot, he was discouraged. So he called his son up, his adult son, thinking, okay, maybe I'll just get some encouragement from my son in this phone call. So he calls him up and says, hey, I'm stuck in the airport. It's been a terrible day. I'm traveling too much. And listen to how he describes what happened next. My son said, you know, Dad, if you didn't travel so much, you wouldn't have things like this happen. Well, I didn't appreciate that. I was ticked off. I said, let me talk to your son, my two-year-old grandson. Well, I forgot that when you're two, you can't talk, and when you're 60, you can't hear. This is not a good combination. He's mumbling on the phone. I'm hoping this is gonna make me feel better, but it's making me feel worse. Finally, I've had it. I hear the phone drop on the floor, and I hear the kids playing. I'm stuck in the airport. I'm having this miserable experience. I'm furious and angry when all of a sudden I hear crystal clear over the phone, I love you, Grandpa. I love you, Grandpa. You know what? All my anxiety, everything went out the window. There are people, he says, who are so busy they're at their wits end. If they'd only stop for a minute, they could hear the God of the universe whisper to them, I love you. Now, how can we do these things? I mean, these are big things on the screen, right? Obeying all week long, heads of households preparing their families to worship, learning to hate evil by the way we live and our attitude towards evil, and learning stillness and quietness. It comes down to this, we must approach God with reverent obedience, but there's still the question of how can I do it? Maybe I don't always fear God. Maybe I don't always view evil the way God views evil. Maybe I'm too busy and I don't stop and be quiet. Maybe when I do pray, I rush into God's presence, I say my few quick words, and I get out and go on to the next thing. Can we do it? And I would say this, if you hear these words and you think, I don't know if I can do that. I want to remind you of a very, very important biblical principle found in Psalm 130. This prayer, this prayer of the Psalmist says, Lord, if you kept an account of iniquities, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness, so that you may be revered." You know, if we all focused on our own sins and our own failures, who could stand? But with God, there is forgiveness. We can't do all these things on our own. We're not here. If you're here, please don't hear me say, go out there and work really hard this week to do these things. Because you'll probably fail again and again and again. But if you will just go before the Lord and say, Lord, I can't do it on my own, I need you, I wanna confess my sin, I wanna receive your forgiveness. There is forgiveness with God, and that's, in a minute, we're gonna culminate our service today with communion. You see the communion elements. And these elements remind us of why there's forgiveness. It's because Jesus the perfect son of God, lived a perfect and holy life, and he came not to be just a good teacher or a good moral example, he came to this earth so that he could pay for our sins. He who was perfect took on the sins and wrongs of those who were not perfect, that's us. And in doing that, God grants forgiveness. And that's why we can say, with you, there is forgiveness. So I wanna just give you a couple of minutes first. We're gonna take communion in a minute. We're gonna remember. I wanna encourage you, if you've never done it before, to humble yourself before the Lord, to call on Him and say, I am sinful, I am wrong, I need you in my life, God. I believe, Jesus, that you died for me. And by faith, I will take you. That is what begins a life of faith and a Christian life for you. It's not simply receiving elements like this or being baptized or confirmed or turning over a new leaf. It's faith in Jesus Christ. So start there. And if you're a believer in Christ, we're gonna invite you to take communion in a minute. So let's bow our heads and just reflect on God's word today and what he wants to say to you.