1 Cast your bread upon the waters,
for you will find it after many days.
2 Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,
for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.
3 If the clouds are full of rain,
they empty themselves on the earth,
and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.
4 He who observes the wind will not sow,
and he who regards the clouds will not reap.
— Ecclesiastes 11:1-4, ESV

What constitutes a godly life?  

It would have to be a life in which God is present and accounted for, coming in by God’s grace through God-given faith in the one, true, and living God.  It would be a life that demonstrates the power of God, not necessarily in miraculous or other ostentatious ways, but in the simple obedience of a life attracted to the word of God and led by the Spirit of God.  And certainly it would be a life that emulates the character of God, His communicable attributes, so that a godly life would be one lived like God would live His life on earth. 

Of course, God did live a life on earth, perfectly, through the person and work of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.  Surely a godly life is a Christ-like life.  Such lives were lived before Christ in patriarchs like Abraham, Moses, David, and Solomon (on his good days).  After Christ came, Christ-like lives can be seen in saints like Peter, John, and Paul.  

But we are not great patriarchs, nor super saints.  We are ordinary people, ordinary Christian people, in a church on Sunday, seeking to learn how to live a godly life in our own time.  Ecclesiastes can help.  

It was written by a man who had been the boldest of young believers in God.  Then he lost his way in a hedonistic pursuit of ungodly pleasures.  He seemed to right the ship before sailing into the sunset of eternity, and Ecclesiastes is his journal.  This poetic paragraph we have before us today is not exhaustive, but it is illustrative of at least some of the basic ingredients that go into living a godly life.

A godly life is giving, as opposed to being selfish.  

Cast your bread upon the waters,
for you will find it after many days.

In Solomon’s day this would have been an idiom for giving and its rewards.  “What goes around comes around,” in a good sense.  Give kindness, forgiveness, sustenance, or money away to others, and one day others will give to you, if you should find yourself in need.  Or it could mean God will reward you for giving, for this part of your godly life, when your life on earth is over and you see Him face to face.    

The godly and giving life we seek is more than mere charity or philanthropy.  It is godly giving by godly people, God’s people, which in our day means Christian people.  Christian people should be the most giving people on earth because we have been given the greatest gift on earth, a saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Hebrew word for bread is lechem.  The Hebrew word for house is bet.  There remains in Israel to this day a city named bet-lechem, Bethlehem, the house of bread.  It is where “The Bread of Life” was brought to earth, then given to all who will ask. 

If you have truly received this Bread, you cannot help but give Him away.  And when Christ is your true treasure, your other treasures pale in comparison.  Therefore, it becomes easy to cast our money and material things upon the water, give them to others, knowing that God will take care of our daily bread and reward us in the end.  

So give, people, give, if you want to be godly.  Give to church and charity and neighbor and stranger.  You will never outgive God.

A godly life is sharing, as opposed to being a loner.

Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,
for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.

Give generally, graciously, perennially.  Share specifically, strategically, personally.  Give so that people you don’t even know will get the gospel, or the food, shelter, and clothing they need.  Share with people you do know, which may be the harder part in cultivating the godly life. 

“To live above with saints we love, that will be glory; 
But to live below with the saints we know, that’s another story!”

Something is happening in society that is having a stifling effect on the saints.  We are becoming loners, isolationists, closed in.  We bowl alone.  We close ourselves up inside our houses and binge watch TV.  We have small dinner tables for one or two.

The picture this proverb brings to mind is of a big dinner table for “seven, or even to eight,” sharing portions of a meal.  Remember, “eat, drink, and be merry” is postured in a positive light in Ecclesiastes.  It brings people together not just to share food and drink, but our hearts, our lives.  

If yours is a godly heart, I will become more godly by spending time with you, and vice versa.  “Iron sharpens iron” is another proverb that comes to mind.  Sharing the table and time with one another sharpens us in the present and prepares us for the future, should some “disaster” happen to us on earth.  Hospitality and hospital are virtually the same word, and a godly person gives one to be the other.  

So share, people, share, if you want to be godly.  Get together, get to know one another, for it will prepare us for whatever may come in the future.  

A godly life is living, as opposed to procrastinating.

If the clouds are full of rain,
they empty themselves on the earth,
and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.
He who observes the wind will not sow,
and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

Godliness does require the folding of the hands in prayer and hands that slowly turn the pages of God’s holy word.  But one thing godliness never does with the hands is sit on them.  The godly life must be an active life.  Giving and sharing requires initiative and energy.  

One will never clear a forest nor plant a crop if all they ever do is fret about the weather, according to Ecclesiastes.  Pessimism and procrastination never accomplish anything.  

Solomon’s words here remind me of the young man who phoned his girlfriend and told her, “I’d climb the highest mountain and swim the deepest sea for you.”  “That’s sweet,” she said, “So what time are you coming over to my place tonight.”  “About six,” he said, “if it doesn’t rain.”  

Some of you are waiting around to become godly, Christ-like givers and sharers.  You are semi-committed to Christ.  You are half-heartedly in the church.  You want to do something to bless others, host others, but you keep holding back and waiting for the right time, the ideal conditions.  

When God’s word and God’s Spirit say, “go,” don’t overthink it.  Jump right in.  Join that church.  Host that dinner party.  Give that donation.  Take them a bible.  Show yourself to be godly by showing that you care. 

A godly life is caring, as opposed to not.

The worst thing in the world may not be evil, but indifference.  It is the lukewarm that seems to bother the Lord the most.  Hopefully these words from Ecclesiastes will warm your heart, pull you off the fence, and get you going towards a more godly life.  They certainly worked on one man.

He was a professing Christian and a college student.  By his own admission, he really didn’t care about godly things.  He was into sports and girls and little else, until the day he accepted an invitation to a Bible study in his dorm.  The guy who invited him hoped the study would be on some gospel passage or other New Testament text about salvation.  But the lesson was from our text today, Ecclesiastes 11:1-4.  There is power in all of the word of God.

That young, nominal, professing Christian who had yet to truly accept Christ said this about the experience:

I’d never heard anything like it. I was just absorbed, sat there for two or three hours. He didn’t give a traditional evangelism talk to me; he just kept talking to me about the wisdom of the word of God. He quoted Ecclesiastes 11:3: “Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie.” I just feel certain I’m the only person in church history that was converted by that verse. God just took that verse and struck my soul with it. I saw myself as a log that was rotting in the woods. And I was going nowhere.  When I left that guy’s table, I went up to my room. And in my room by myself, in the dark, I got on my knees and cried out to God to forgive me.

That young student was Robert Charles Sproul. That was the day he began to care about the things of God, about giving his life to Christ, about living a godly life.  Indeed he did, for 78 years, and few have done more for the kingdom of God than the late R.C. Sproul.  

To a much lesser degree that young student, was me, too.  After a high school football injury dashed my big college dreams, I decided I just didn’t care anymore.  I plunged into debauchery, somewhat like Solomon, and wound up a skirt chasing, C average, small college baseball player, going nowhere fast.  Because I did not care.  

That is, until my mother insisted I attend a church service with her.  There I did hear the gospel from a Gospel passage.  There I, too, was a professing Christian who had never possessed Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  And there, I began to care, about God, and about living a godly life.