one thing I’m learning about the way Solomon thinks and presents his outlook on life, is that he leans more pessimistic (or possibly realist). This has been a challenge for me, because I am an optimist by nature. When I make an argument, I find it more natural to outline all of the positive points first, and then speak to the critical objections. Solomon does the opposite, and I’m finding it very effective. What Solomon does, is he’ll lay out a thesis statement, and then state all the problems with it first, but by the end, he’ll convince you that what he originally said is the only viable way forward, through all the trouble that may be. This isn’t a bad way to think. If you’re an optimist, and you think life is going to be all rosy, when you slam into the reality of life, you may be likely to give up. But if you’re a pessimist, or at least a realist, and you’ve gone into an endeavour with a realistic understand of all that can go wrong, then when you hit a wall, you’d more likely perhaps to be more like, “yep, I knew I’d hit you sometime.”
So let’s make a ledger this morning, a pros and cons list, and debate Solomon’s proposal: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might” - Now you might paraphrase this to suit your own needs: “Why should I work hard?”, “Why get myself out of bed this morning?”
As I’ve already said, as Christians we receive as one the benefits of knowing God, the assurance that the universe has a purpose, that life has meaning and that our individual and collective lives are being lived in fulfillment of God’s intent for us. “We are,” the scripture says, “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Yet its not only the sense of overriding meaning and purpose that God gives to our lives, but also, as we are part of the Body of Christ, we become part of God’s mission in the world, to exalt his Son Jesus Christ in every corner of the globe, and to seek and save a people for himself from every nation. He shares this mission with His Son, when He sent Him into the world, and His Son then shares that same mission with us: “As the Father has sent me”, He said, so now i send you”, and in the very first chapter of the book of Acts, the book we’ve been studying, Jesus gathered the disciples around him and told them, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to all the ends of the earth.” So we, the church, the called out people of God, are given not only a purpose, but a mission.
The first major section of Acts was to set in front of us the Jerusalem church as a model church, a church for all ages. The second major section of Acts was to demonstrate for us the new people that God is calling us to become, a church for all people. This section is not focused around a specific church or a specific city, but the focus of these chapters is the mission itself - we now see the church fulfilling the words of Jesus that we will be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.
