2nd March 2024

2nd March 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Ecclesiastes 6v7-9)


Message (Scott Woodburn)


Did you know that the average household spends 15% of their annual budget on food and drink? Imagine a home with the national average income of £38,600. This family would see £5,790 of their budget spent each year on food and drink alone. Solomon’s proverb still rings true “all the toil of man is for his mouth” (v7a).


Nevertheless, your family and mine will be spending this kind of money for the rest of our lives. We need food each day and although we might feel satisfied after a big dinner, we wake in the morning to prepare breakfast - our appetite is never satisfied (v7b). It’s the same story in every walk of life, we’re rarely satisfied with what we have and the media convinces us each day that we simply cannot live without the latest “upgrade”.


In this regard the wise man and the fool are united (v8). Both live to satisfy their various appetites and even the wise man struggles to rein in his desire for more. What about the poor man (v8)? He might conduct himself wisely in society but even if wisdom made him rich, he too would struggle to quench the endless desires of the human heart.   


What is to be done in the face of this vanity and striving after wind (v9b)? Solomon answered with a proverb stating that it is better to be delighted in what we see than to follow the wandering of the appetite (v9a). Perhaps your granny said this in another way when she told you “better a bird in the hand than two in the bush.”


Your wee granny was right but let me put her wisdom in even more simple terms - rejoice in what you have. I said, rejoice in what you have. Again, rejoice in what you have. Your wandering appetite only produces discontentment and restlessness and so, rejoice in what you have. If Christ is our greatest treasure then may we realise that cannot add to the joy He gives us with an endless pursuit of earthly loot. May Jesus teach us to be more and more satisfied in the inexhaustible riches of the Gospel for He alone has met our greatness need. Brothers and sisters, rejoice in Christ and rejoice in what you have. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC


Q83 Are all transgressions of the law equally heinous? Some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.
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