Living under the Sun

Sunday Sermon
July 12th 2009
Rhema Community Church

Sermonic Skeleton

Sermonic Scripture: ESV Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. 12 For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.

Sermonic Sentence: You’ve been given a season and opportunity so live to the glory of God.

Sermonic Tension: Live life to the fullest for tragedy may strike at any moment. (Take no day for granted.)

Sermonic Theme: The providence of God (God will provide.)

Sermonic Help: Proverbs: Sayings and Themes The books of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes are commonly classed as the Wisdom literature of the OT, and together they form a significant and distinctive literary and theological strand within it. In Jer 18:18 (Ezek 7:26; Mic 3:11), the “counsel” of the wise is set alongside the “law” (torah) of the priest and the “word” of the prophet as sources of divine authority and guidance for the life of the community. It is significant that this threefold division is reflected in the canonical division of the Hebrew into the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings—the latter of which includes the Wisdom literature.

Proverbs is generally recognized as the earliest and most representative deposit of Israelite wisdom. The question of the original setting of the material it contains has occasioned some debate. It has many points of contact in form and content with Egyptian Wisdom literature, notably with the Instruction of Amenemope, whose thirty chapters may have been adapted to produce the “thirty sayings” in Prov 22:17-24:22. Egyptian wisdom instruction was centered in the royal court and was designed for the training of the royal princes and state officials. It has, therefore, been suggested that Israelite wisdom originated among royal scribes at the Israelite court in dependence on Egyptian instruction and thus reflected an “upper class” ethos. Others have argued that wisdom had native Israelite roots in the early Israelite clans. While the book evinces close connections with the royal court (1:1; 25:1) and contains sayings dealing with the king and his officials, the majority is concerned with the community at large. Therefore, it seems most likely that wisdom flourished in a variety of settings and had a number of different exponents: e.g., the father, the elder, the royal scribe and counselor of the monarchic period, and the lay scribe of the postexilic period (Sir 51:23, 26, 28; cf. Eccl 12:9). That more than one such influence has been at work in the production of Proverbs helps to explain the richness and diversity of the material it contains and the many facets of the wisdom it inculcates.

Providence Although providence is not a biblical term, both the OT and NT set forth an understanding of God’s gracious outworking of the divine purpose in Christ within the created order in human history. The world and humanity are not ruled by chance or by fate but by God, who directs history and creation toward an ultimate goal. Providence therefore refers to God’s superintending activity over human actions and human history, bringing creation to its divinely determined goal. Providence from the Latin providere, “to provide.” The word “providence” does not occur in the Bible. It refers, however, to the three biblical concepts: (1) In theology, providence is the general foresight, love, and care of God for people. Romans 8.28 Providence can also refer to the idea that (2) God has divinely ordained or preordained certain events, or that (3) the universe is under God’s control so that ultimately good will be produced.

Sermonic Title: “LIVING UNDER THE SUN”

Sermonic Structure:

I. The frustrations of life lived under the sun. (V.11)

II. The finality of life lived under the sun. (V.12)