Sermon Notes

September 21, 2025

The Cynic and the Saint: Joy in Hiding

Ecclesiastes 5:18-20

For many years, I had the privilege to minister to students as a youth pastor and it was a huge blessing in my life. God let me join Him in His work and I was able to see God call unchurched students to surrender their lives to Him and have seen them become Godly parents who still follow Him with their families. I have seen inner city kids without any earthly hope meet Jesus and their lives were turned upside down because they had hope. I’ve also seen kids who were frail and scared answer the call to ministry and now serve in some of the most dangerous places in the world. It was undoubtedly Christ at work in all these situations, but my blessing was getting to be a witness to the goodness of God. However, with the blessings come some bad times and one of the bad times in youth ministry are lock-ins. I say this tongue in cheek, because while it’s a very tough time for adults to suffer through, it’s a fantastic time to minister. You have hour upon hour of a kid's attention to get to know them better and you get to share Jesus with them in all sorts of situations that will undoubtedly arise during the night. While we did so many of these I lost count, there is one lock-in that always sticks out to me. One year we had the opportunity to rent out a very large YMCA for the evening that had everything — multiple swimming pools, video games, tumbling rooms, and countless gyms for sports. You name it they had it and we took around 100 kids to enjoy the facilities. Now the number of kids is important here because of why I’m telling you this story. You see, one of our youth’s favorite games to play at the time was a game called “Sardines”. It's like reverse “Hide and Seek” where you have one kid hide and then everyone else looks for them and when they find them you just go into their hiding spot and hide with them. When we played this game we had over 100 people (counting adults) looking for one kid and as we played round after round, they all went very quickly. Then we had this one kid, his name was Aaron, and he desperately wanted to be it, so we let him. The rest of the group all stayed in one of the gyms and counted to 20 as Aaron ran off to hide. Usually in these games everyone is running around at first, but you start to notice less and less people running around as time passes because they have all stopped to hide with the person that is it. 5 minutes passed and then 10 minutes and we noticed that it didn’t look like we were missing anyone meaning no one had found Aaron. So we called all the kids over the building's intercom back to the gym and in fact we had not a single kid missing. No one had found Aaron. We came up with a game plan and headed back out, looking in all the lockers, in the ceilings, and everywhere a teenage kid could have hid and still no one could find Aaron. We even talked to the night watchman. He gave us access to all of the cameras, assuring us that he couldn’t have left because all the doors and windows had alarms and none had tripped them, plus Aaron was a super rule follower who would have never done anything that was not allowed in the rules. Going outside was one of those rules. We called everyone back to the gym and had no clue how to proceed, so we called out across the intercom again saying that we gave up. In just a minute Aaron walks back into the gym like nothing had happened with a big smile on his face knowing that he had beaten over 100 youth adults, night guards, and peers. To this day Aaron is the only one who has ever really won at “Sardines”. Today, Aaron is married and is about to turn 30 soon and he still will not tell me where he hid. I wanted to share this story because in the Book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon was a man who tried to hide himself in many different things, but each time he was always found out and found the hiding place wanting. The majority of the Book of Ecclesiastes is about the vain (or worthlessness) in the things that Solomon tried to hide in. In this sermon series we are looking at what the writings of the cynic mean for the saints. Why would these faulty hiding spots be important in the life of a follower of Jesus? Colossians 3:3 tells us, “For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” A Christian’s life is to be so hidden in Christ, that (much like Aaron) when someone looks for you they can’t find you (the old sinful you), but instead they can only find Jesus in whom you are hidden. To hide in Jesus will be a life totally encompassed by Jesus and when we look to the Bible we see in detail what it means to have a life “totally encompassed” by Jesus. It’s very clear what it looks like in many different parts of our lives. It shows us what it means to be hidden in Christ in our marriages, in our parenting, in our church, in our worship — that list goes on and on. Even though the Bible is extremely clear how this should look we can still let parts of it slip through. In the Book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon brings to light one of these that many of us can struggle with. If you have your Bibles, let’s go back to the 5th Chapter of Ecclesiastes and see what Solomon brings to the reader's attention.

The Good amongst the Bad - Ecclesiastes 5:18-20

Even so, I have noticed one thing, at least, that is good. It is good for people to eat, drink, and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life God has given them, and to accept their lot in life. And it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life—this is indeed a gift from God. God keeps such people so busy enjoying life that they take no time to brood over the past.

As we saw last week, in the first two verses of Chapter 5, Solomon reflects upon what worship should be in the house of God versus what he actually saw in the House of God — the attitudes and the lack of sincerity in the words of worshipers. He continues speaking of other aspects of worship over the next handful of verses, but about half way through chapter 5 we see a change in his focus and he begins to speak about the futility of seeking wealth. He records quite a few things that he observed about wealth during the season of life he tried to hide himself in his wealth. He tells us that wealth will never make you happy. It won’t give you peace, it just brings you more worries. It can make you selfish and when you're dead you can’t take it with you. As you read those reflections you will see his normal seemingly pessimistic outlook that permeates much of Ecclesiastes but there is still a lot of truth in his words. Starting in verse 18 his tone takes a turn. It’s at that point he starts to reflect upon something good he has seen in the world during the struggles he has had in his past. He says that there is one thing that is good, but this one thing has many different ways it manifests itself in our lives. He doesn’t think the word good is good enough for what he wants to share, so he uses a different Hebrew word for “good” right after the first that paints a more grandiose idea of what he means. It's an unbelievable beauty that exceeds anything that could merely be classified as good. So what could be such a blessing from God that the word good doesn’t begin to describe it? Solomon says it's to eat, drink, and enjoy your work. Now if we just take this at face value with our English understanding, we could say it’s good to eat, then we all say amen, and dismiss for lunch. Or if you are familiar with the New Testament, you might think he means something totally different like what’s found in 1 Corinthians 15:32, where we are told if there is no resurrection then we might as well “eat, drink, and be merry”. This is a very negative phrase that Paul uses here. It’s a phrase of hopelessness. This phrase might seem confusing at first, but in order to understand what Solomon truly means we need to understand how it was used and understood in Solomon’s day. This phrase was an idiom used to tell people to enjoy and be content. In context of what Solomon is saying here in these verses, he is saying that it is a very good thing for people to stop and enjoy all of God's blessings and be content with them as they are content in Him.

Why was this the one thing Solomon saw that was good and caused him to comment on it at least seven times in Ecclesiastes? It is because he knew that joy in the Lord is a tremendous source of strength (Nehemiah 8:10). Solomon wrote in Proverbs 17:22 that “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones”. Solomon is telling us from experience, that when a person is down and discouraged, almost any obstacle or hardship is enough to incapacitate him or her. Solomon’s encouragement to the reader is to have joy in the one in whom we are supposed to be hidden and find joy in Him, and to not try to find joy outside of our hiding place. In these three verses Solomon tells us the places in which we should look for joy.

Joy with our Time

The ability to fully enjoy and experience the Giver of Gifts as well as His gifts is a wonderful part of God’s grace that many times we might overlook. One of the things that God gives us to enjoy Him and His gifts is time. The joy that comes with the blessing of time goes hand and hand with the Biblical concept of rest that we see all throughout the Bible as well as here in these verses. This gift is also spoken about in the context of our work. Now the reason it’s in the context of our work is because of a person that Solomon speaks of in Proverbs called “the sluggard.” The sluggard is not someone who can’t work, they are someone who won’t work. Therefore, we need to understand that Solomon is not saying for us to drop everything and just enjoy God’s blessing and creation, but instead we enjoy the fruits of our work. The problem is, when it comes to time, we might struggle with the stewardship of it. One of the ways that we might struggle with time misuse is something we call workaholism. When we use the time that God has given us to enjoy His blessings to pursue more blessings, then we have a problem. Sure this might seem like a noble pursuit on the outside, but that's only because of a lie that we have bought into. The lie is that time is money. Time has never been money. Time is time and is a very precious thing. There was a missionary in Taiwan that is credited with saying “Life is like a coin, you can spend it any way you want but you can only spend it once.” Time is precious and Solomon knows that especially as he writes Ecclesiastes near the end of his life and he wants to encourage us to not invest it in pursuing more things in life that will only pass away. A common way we see this played out is in the lives of families. In the Psalms, Solomon tells us that children are a blessing from God, but many times instead of enjoying our children with the limited time we have been given to do so, we use that time to pursue more “stuff” for them. This is such a struggle there was a popular song in the 70’s about this struggle called “Cat’s in the Cradle.” Contrary to what your kids might say, they don't need more stuff. They need more time with their parents. They need more time so that parents can fulfill their Biblical role of bringing their children up in the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord (Ephesians 6:4) instead of handling that role off to others. This is a common way we see this played out but I can name many other ways people struggle with time. When we stop, rest, and find joy in the blessings of God, we start to understand why Solomon says it’s good. Our soul desperately needs to find joy in the blessings of the moment and not look forward to the next big thing on our calendar.

Joy in our Lot

As we mentioned before, one of the things that Solomon mentions as he is speaking of wealth in Chapter 5, is that wealth can never bring you satisfaction. Usually when we hear this we think of people who are wealthy and are always wanting more. In all my years in banking, I never met a person, who was financially well off, that ever stopped and said, “Ok, I’m done, I’ve got enough money.” They were always looking forward to making more money and this attitude of never being content with what you had brought with it problems. When Solomon mentions “receiving wealth from God” and “our lot in life”, he is not speaking to the rich and then the poor, but rather he is speaking to the same people both times. He is speaking to all who have been blessed by God. James 1:17 tells us that “Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father.” What Solomon is reminding us is that everything that we have is a blessing from God and we need to find joy in what God has given us. Many times if we struggle with being content all we need is just a change in perspective. For example, I saw a young mother complaining to a group of older ladies that her young baby woke up every morning singing to her. In the mom’s eyes this was just an annoyance in her daily routine, but to those other women it was a blessing that they miss. They took that opportunity to encourage the mother to stop and enjoy those moments because they are fleeting and a blessing. She just needed to be reminded of a proper perspective. It’s been said that a rich man is one who truly recognizes, enjoys, and is thankful for the blessings of God in all its forms no matter where they find themselves in life. If we are to be hidden in Christ, and find joy there, we need to start recognizing everything we have and experience is a blessing from God. Now I’m not saying we don’t plan and work to have steak and potatoes tomorrow, but even though we might, it doesn’t mean we can’t rejoice in our pork and beans today. If we are to find joy in the Lord we need to recognize all the blessings God has given us each and every day.

Joy in our Future

Solomon tells us that when we focus on what we do not have, not only does it rob us of the joy of our blessings in the present, but it also robs us of the joy of our futures because all it does is keep us stuck, brooding over the past and thinking “what if”. If you haven’t figured it out yet, you cannot change the past. However, Jesus can forgive you of it and give you a fresh start today. There is wisdom in learning from our past mistakes, but we can’t live in those mistakes, especially when Jesus has forgiven us. We cannot afford to sit around wondering if things would have been different if we took a left turn instead of taking a right. With Jesus, we can start fresh today. That’s how we begin to be hidden in Jesus. It’s by realizing that we are sinners who have made mistake after mistake and there is nothing that we can do about it. Then we need to understand who Jesus is. He is God with us, Emmanuel, who has come to seek and to save those who are lost. He is the One who loved us so much that He died for us while we were still sinners, lost in our sin. He gives everyone the opportunity to be forgiven and set free from their pasts and we do that by making Jesus the Lord of our lives. Romans 10:9 tells us that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead you will be saved. Everything changes in that moment because of the grace of God and then you have joy because we have a promised future, that no matter where we find ourselves in life, we have a God who will never leave us nor forsake us and will one day call us home.

Are we hidden in Christ or do we find ourselves lost in other things trying to find joy? God has given us time. Are we using it in a healthy way to enjoy His blessings or do we use it to try to get more? Are we happy with what we have and thankful in those blessings or are we always looking for something different? Do we find joy in the future that is promised in Jesus Christ or are we seeking joy in the “what ifs” we can all struggle with? Joy is a powerful force and can only be truly experienced through Jesus Christ.

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Sermon Notes

The Cynic and the Saint: Joy in Hiding

Ecclesiastes 5:18-20

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