Pastor David shares a message from the book of Ecclesiastes and the life of Solomon on fulfillment.

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Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

A Lesson on Fulfillment from the Book of Ecclesiastes

On the screen I have a photograph of LeBron James.

He is considered to be the greatest basketball player of our current generation.

And if you follow basketball, you know that he just signed with the Los Angeles Lakers for 4 years, in excess of $150 million.

And sometimes these links flash up on the screen, and they said, LeBron James is selling his Miami house.

It was on realtor.com or 1 of these realtor sites.

So yes I typically don't take click bait but I wanted to see how these rich and famous people live and I clicked on it and it is spectacular.

And you can see on the next slide, they say It's the most opulent estate in Miami, and this is according to the realtor, it has an infinity pool that overlooks the Biscayne Bay, a maze of terraces, a movie room, and a massive master suite, and it sold in 2015 for $3.4 million.

And sometimes when I read or see pictures like this, I wonder what it's like to live 1 day like LeBron James.

I mean, What does that man eat for breakfast?

Right, and what does he do as he goes through his day?

And if I'm honest with you, there is a certain part of my carnal nature in which I am, just have a little bit of just envy, is it?

Or just wondering in the back of my mind, if we could live like the rich and famous, there is almost this assumption that they live a more fulfilled and happier life.

And there is this assumption that, hey, if I could just get to a certain point within our own sphere, if I can save up enough money, If I could have this for retirement, if I can have this car or this home or this dream job, if I could just arrive to this apex or to this climax, I will be more fulfilled than I am right now.

And I want to do a short study and reading from the book of Ecclesiastes, and if you have a Sabbath afternoon, I want to encourage you to read through the book of Ecclesiastes, because it speaks to us in the 21st century with all the allurements and the pulls of hedonistic society, the book of Ecclesiastes is a good reminder to us of what it is like to arrive at the top.

A reminder, the book of Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon.

Solomon was the son of David that became king.

He fell away from the Lord and decided to come back to God.

Now, in verse 4 and onward, he tells a little bit about his acquisitions during his life.

Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verse 4, "'I made my works great.

"'I built myself houses and planted myself vineyards, I made myself gardens and orchards, I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them, I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove, I acquired male and female servants, and I had servants born in my house.

Yes, I had creations of the herds and flocks, then all who were before me, I also gathered for myself silver and gold and special treasures of the kings of the provinces.

I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men and musical instruments of all kinds.

And so I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem.

Also my wisdom remained with me and listen to this, whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them.

I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure.

From my heart rejoiced in all my labor, and this was my reward from all my labor.

In high school, there were certain individuals that were athletic, perhaps captain of the football team, and yet many times I noticed that they were lacking in other areas.

They were asking me for my homework or for my notes.

And then I would look at the guys that were on the Dean's List, scored 36 on their ACT, 1, 500 on their SCTs, and they were lacking in other areas Social skills not all the time, but tape on their glasses Suspenders you know pants hiked up and Then the very beautiful and the gorgeous in our academy.

But then every now and then you would meet someone That would just make you sick Good-looking Athletic children of professionals Rich and then the top it off.

They had a good personality and scored like 34 on their ACT's, and I'd just be like, man, life is just not fair.

Good looking, son of a king, intelligent.

The Bible tells us he was the wisest man that ever lived, rich, power, influence, and he had relationships.

The Bible tells us that he had 700 wives and 300 concubines, a thousand women.

If you read the book of Proverbs, he has a few reflections on that journey, by the way.

And this man, Whatever his heart desired, whether it was money, whether it was riches, fame, intellect, he had achieved to a plane that we could not even imagine today.

Relationships, intellect, good looks, power, acclaim, all of these things he had and Solomon is reflecting on his spiritual journey and his own state of fulfillment and you look at the next verse, in verse 11, Ecclesiastes 2, verse 11, then I looked on all the works that my hand had done and on the labor which I had toiled and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind and there was no profit under the sun.

It says, Then I looked at everything I'd done, I looked at all the sweat and hard work, and when I looked I saw nothing but smoke, and I hated everything I'd accomplished and accumulated on this earth." Now, just as a caveat here, There's nothing wrong with money in and of itself The issue is when we're looking to money for fulfillment an achievement or a sense of Self-worth and here Solomon is looking not only at his net worth But all of the relationships all the things that he's accumulated on this earth, and he says it's it's like smoke It's and he hated everything that he had accomplished on the earth I am a hobbyist amateur photographer.

And a number of years ago in our marriage, my wife said, honey, let's buy a camera.

So I'm 1 of these obsessive people, if you get to know me a little bit, I get consumed in stuff.

And so I was like, I'm gonna research this thing, and I'm gonna get, I wasn't even into photography.

This is how I got into, I'm gonna research this thing, and I'm gonna get this DSLR, and all this stuff, and these lenses, and I got into these online forms and then we purchased After a lot of research our first camera.

This is a picture of the model of the camera that we bought it's the Canon 60d so we bought this camera and I had all these visions of a certain sense of fulfillment from buying this camera, so I bought it.

And then after a little while, a few months went by, and this is capitalism at its worst, another camera came out.

And the 70D could do things that the 60D could not.

Touchscreen, wifi, the video would auto-focus, and all these types of things, and I was like, oh my.

And then I started reading about full-frame cameras.

You see, this is APS-C, it's crop sensor.

Anyways, this is just a bunch of jargon, but you're going to, and then I went, and I said, honey, we need to sell our camera.

We just had this camera for a little bit.

And I wanted to buy a full-frame camera, so I bought this, a full-frame camera.

And then I noticed online that another friend was taking pictures with Nikon.

And Nikon took different pictures than Canon.

And so I started to get dissatisfied with my Canon full-frame camera.

So a few months went by, and then I went to my wife, and I said, honey, we need to sell our camera.

She's not here, by the way, because she's not feeling too good.

But I went to her, and I said, we need to sell.

And she said, honey, this is getting kind of repetitive here, third time, 3 years.

We get this camera, and it's the last camera I'm going to buy in like 5 years.

I get an icon true story and then I start taking icon and then I start reading about mirrorless cameras now and and this is a new technology that's come out.

Long story short, I buy a mirrorless camera, and in the course of about 7 years, I went through like 10 cameras.

Finally, my wife told me, honey, you are banned.

I went on a three-year ban from buying and selling cameras, and we call this gear acquisition syndrome or gas in the photography community.

And I thought to myself, like, what is it about human nature that is like this?

It may not be cameras, it might be shoes or phones or whatever it is, but it's this idea that if I can just get this, you know, we may not be Solomon in that nth degree, but it's like this idea that, look, if I can just get this relationship, or this job, or this car, or this camera, or this whatever it is, that it will meet a certain need, a vacuum in our own hearts, and in my own Christian experience, I had to reflect on this.

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A Lesson on Fulfillment from the Book of Ecclesiastes

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