7 Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, 
for God has already approved what you do.  
8 Let your garments be always white. 
Let not oil be lacking on your head.  
9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life 
and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 
10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, 
for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, 
to which you are going.
— Ecclesiastes 9:7-10, ESV

When the Greeks schooled the world, the Epicureans were the frat boys.  It was their founder, Epicurus, who coined the phrase, “fáte, pieíte, kai diaskedáste,” or “Eat, drink, and be merry.”  Epicureans listened and learned well as they followed their leader into debauchery.  Perhaps they took a little too much pleasure in life.

Their counterparts were the Stoics, who took absolutely no pleasure in life.  They did not smoke, drink, or chew, nor run with the crowd that do.  Their sour spirit paved the way for both the Jewish Pharisees and the Christian Fundamentalists, the latter of which contradict their name by being no fun, damning everything, and having the mental acuity of a turtle.  

It seems that serious and joyful New Testament Christianity should fall somewhere in between these two extremes.  It does, when we listen to the Old Testament Preacher, Ecclesiastes.  He combines the revelry of the Epicureans and the discipline of the Stoics into the perfect philosophy of the Christian life.  

Be Joyful

At first Solomon sounds a lot like Epicurus.  “Eat … drink … [and be] merry,” he literally says in verse 7.  But then he includes an inspired caveat in the form of a perfect tense verb, confining one’s eating and drinking and merriment to what “God has already approved.”  

The context clearly calls out to a God-fearing audience.  Solomon is speaking historically to devout, Old Covenant Israelites.  He is also communicating canonically to devout, New Testament Christians.  What he is saying is essentially this: as long as you love and worship God, as long as you trust and obey God’s word, as long as you seek God’s will, you can eat, drink, and enjoy life under the sun, under God.

I love music but I never really liked Billy Joel, even if his family name bears one of the Old Testament prophets.  I think he is a false prophet.  He writes and sings things that are patently untrue.  For example: 

They say there’s a heaven for those who will wait,
Some say it’s better, but I say it ain’t.
I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints,
The sinners are much more fun.
You know that only the good die young.

First of all, there is a heaven.  Secondly, saints can be and should be as much fun if not more than sinners.  And third, everybody dies young, when you factor in eternity.

So “Go,” Christians, Solomon is saying.  Life is short.  Enjoy it and share it with others.  Another Old Testament sage said it this way: “Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and [share with others], for the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).  The church and the world need more joyful Christians!

It will build fellowship.  It can be evangelistic.  But if your inner Epicurean comes out and your fun turns into sin, own it and confess it to God. 

Be Serious

The color “white” in the Old Testament is highly symbolic.  It stands for purity and it represents joy.  In verse 8 it implies both and reiterates the previous verse 7.  Live a joyful life but do not sin.  

This is easier said than done, so what can be done when we do sin?  What do you do when your clothes get dirty?  You wash them.  What do you do when you sin against God?  Let the Apostle John elaborate for the sage Solomon here:

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
— 1 John 1:8-9

You have hears a hundred sermons on this subject.  A true Christian can never lose their relationship with God, if they have been genuinely saved by grace through faith in Christ.  But, when unconfessed sin gets into in our lives, we can lose sweet fellowship with God.  Only when we are in good fellowship with God can we properly enjoy good fellowship with other Christians, as well as other fellows we are trying to reach for Christ. 

The doctrine of perseverance dictates we can and will keep our clothes white.  We know when we stray beyond the parameters of Holy Scripture.  We know when we cannot thank God for something we should stay away from it.  We know excused sin hardens into bad habits and confessed sin leads to clear consciences.  We know this, how?  To quote Paul’s words to Timothy, “By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us” (2 Timothy 2:14).

Be Holy

Solomon’s father’s favorite Psalm gives the sheep of the Good Shepherd many reasons to rejoice, not the least of which is, “You anoint my head with oil” (Psalm 23:5).  Solomon adds the admonition to keep it coming, from head, “Let not oil be lacking on your head” (vs. 8), to toe.  In Christian terms, be filled with the Holy Spirit.

My best friend in high school, Ray, and I were a lot alike.  We didn’t know much, other than how to play ball, woo women, and drive fast cars.  But he was one notch dumber than me when it came to the cars.  He only knew how to put gas in his, and never, never checked the oil.  You know what happened.

Cars cannot run without fresh oil, and Christians cannot be born again nor mature into seasoned saints without the Holy Spirit.  Check to make sure you have Him.  Make sure He is confirming Scripture and convicting sin.  If not, you may not be a Christian (ref. Romans 8:9).  If so, “let not oil be lacking,” get into worship and the word and fill it up!

What does a full tank look like?  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (ref. Galatians 5:22-23).  We all know “love” is the first fruit.  But look at the second, “joy.”  

A joyful life is what Ecclesiastes is after.  A joyful life is one relatively free from sin and filled with the Holy Spirit.  A joyful life produces more joy, along with all of the fruit of the Spirit.  This joy should especially be poured out into two of our greatest priorities.

Be True

We need to be true to many people and many things.  Making a comprehensive list would be quite long.  Solomon focuses on only two.  Perhaps this is because these are the two he had failed at in his life and he does not want the readers to repeat his mistakes.

The first priority is marriage.  “Enjoy life with the wife” (vs. 9).  I suppose this is where we get the little ditty, “Happy wife, happy life!”  If only Solomon could start over and take his own advice.  Somewhere along the way he got bored with his first wife, so he got another, then another, then, well, you know that story.  He thought God wanted him to be happy, but instead his life became a horror show.  If he had it to do over, he’d do it right.  

He can’t.  I hope you can.  If there is one root cause of all the upheaval we are witnessing in society today, from the angst in young people’s hearts to the mass shootings that make no sense, it is divorce, and its related sexual sins, fatherlessness, and family crisis.  I suppose I could launch a sermon series at this point, but I’ll suffice to just make it a point in this sermon.  Tend to your marriage and make it work, make it joyful, if at all possible.

The second priority is vocation, our “toil under the sun” (vs. 9).  After the breakdown of the family, the second biggest problem in our society is that people will not work, yet they want to be paid anyway.  This is bad economics, which is why our country is trillions of dollars in debt.  

Worse than bad economics, it is bad theology.  God values good work.  That’s why Solomon posts here to “do it with your might” (vs. 10).  If your heart is not in your job, you either need a new job or you need a new heart.  Both are a gift from God.

To use John Lennon’s language in a better way, can you imagine, a world with no divorce, nothing but holy and happy families?  Can you imagine a world without unemployment, only industrious workers enjoying and giving glory to God in their vocation?  

At least all we who are born again believers can do our part to be true to our family and our calling.  Sometimes it is hard, I know.  But quitting time is coming soon.  

Be Prepared

This text begins with “go” and ends with “going.”  That’s because soon we will all be gone.  The “vanity” expressed by the author in this context is once again a reference the shortness of human life “under the sun,” whether it is lived with or without God.  

King Solomon, who had obviously taken a chill pill before he wrote Ecclesiastes, occasionally gets deadly serious.  After all the ode to joy in this text, he gets serious about death.  He says we are all going to “Sheol.”  Sheol is not Hell, as opposed to Heaven.  Sheol is the grave, death, a pitstop for us all along the road to Heaven or Hell.  

This is another recurring theme in Ecclesiastes.  Life is short.  Prepare to meet God.  

When you die, the is “no work” to be done anymore on your life.  No “thought,” no more decisions can be made to potentially change things.  No “knowledge” will be left to learn, in life you had your chance.  Your eternal fate will be determined by the “wisdom” you accepted, or shunned, from God.  

But, if you are listening to Ecclesiastes right now, you are not dead yet.  Why not determine to make your life count.  Give it to the God who gave it to you, by becoming a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ.  Live it joyfully.  Live it seriously.  Live it holy  Live it truthfully.  Then, you will be prepared to live in His presence, where you will eat, drink, and be merry for all eternity!