Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.
8 Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.
9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
Philosophy is the love of wisdom. Some philosophies love wisdom more than others. Existentialism allows for us to create our own meaning for existence. In the film Spinal Tap, one of the many drummers summed up his philosophy of life in the same way that the preacher did, albeit sarcastically, in Ecclesiastes. “Have a good time all of the time.” To paraphrase these verses, “Have fun and live until you die.
This philosophy rarely lends itself to denial of self in the interest of the greater good because the greatest good is ourselves. It rarely leads to virtue because virtue can be less than fun sometimes and be boring. It is much more fun, so the philosophy goes, to go down in flames instead of smoldering away. We can fall into the trap that says, “God wants you to be happy.” We can almost read this back into verse 7 and let the good times roll. Except that when we are apart from the Lord’s will, they are never good times. Today, look to Jesus Christ as the perfecter of your faith. Only through his sacrificial virtue can…
Our garments be white.
Pastor Brad Boyer
Cape Community Church