Ecclesiastes 5:18-20 “Here is what I have seen to be good. It is appropriate to eat, drink, and experience good in all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of his life God has given him, because that is his reward. Furthermore,, everyone to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also allowed him to enjoy them, take his reward, and rejoice in his labor. This is a gift of God, for he does not often consider the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart.”

Here the writer introduces us to the Generous and Gracious One, God the Giver of gifts. First, he gives us life. Then, he gives “riches and wealth.” Finally, the ability to enjoy these things, and rejoice in our labor, “is the gift of God…”

None of these things is the really big gift. That of course is Jesus, and the sacrifice of his life for us, and the forgiveness of our sins, and an entirely new and different kind of life in the life to come. But all of these gifts are an expression of God’s nature, a window into the great heart of a God who seeks only our good. He doesn’t want to destroy you or me. He wants to rescue us, and part of that rescue involves showing us that we are broken, and that our world is broken. Then we can let go of broken me and broken world. Then we can receive the gift of a new and holy me in a new and perfected world far beyond the ones we live with now.

A God who so loves us, who gives us such gifts, also makes it possible to see our life among the ruins differently. We can see his beauty and power, and the vestiges of his love even where things are crumbling. Do you like to go to museums? Have you ever traveled overseas? When my wife and I were in Rome, she got a little tired of the museums. But there is a lot of ancient stuff to take in in that city. I remember walking into a church that had taken over an old building from pre-Christian times. From the outside it looked as if it were falling apart. Bricks once covered with plaster were exposed and decaying. But step through the door and you were at once confronted with gold and marble, statues and paintings. How much longer it will stand, who knows? It doesn’t have the glory it once did, but there are still beautiful things to see and enjoy in what is left.

So Solomon tells us, “It is appropriate to eat, drink, and experience good in all the labor one does under the sun…” The humble meal I eat doesn’t offer much meaning to my life, nor does it make me live forever. It’s not the fruit from the Tree of Life. Maybe there are even a few carcinogens in there. The little job I do may not get a footnote in the history books. A generation from now no one may appreciate my work much, if they even do today. It certainly is not the basis for my hope of having a place in the life to come.

But “everyone to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also allowed him to enjoy them, take his reward, and rejoice in his labor. This is a gift of God, for he does not often consider the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart.” My food, my wealth, and my work, flawed and tainted as they are, are still God’s gifts, still expressions of his love. They are not to be idolized or worshiped, a replacement for our faith in God. They are not to be criticized or rejected, an offense to our faith in God. They are to be used and appreciated, because by faith God has given us the gift of enjoying it all.

We Christians have to live in the same world, with the same problems, everyone else does (at least for the time being). But we don’t have to see it the same way. May God open our eyes to see his grace and enjoy his gifts even when work and wealth are falling apart.

Ecclesiastes 5:13-14 “There is a sickening tragedy I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his harm. That wealth was lost in a bad venture, so when he fathered a son, he was empty-handed.”

Some people are bent on becoming famous. Then they find out what a drag it is to have no privacy, to be hounded by photographers and fans every moment of your life. Some people are obsessed with becoming rich. Then they find out that wealth comes with its own set of problems.

It’s not that money itself is bad. It’s just a thing, a tool, and a useful one at that. But there is danger as well. You have heard some of the stories about lottery winners and their problems. Seventy percent of the winners will be broke and bankrupt in just a few years. Hopefully, that’s the worst they will suffer. David Edwards won $27 million in 2001 in the Powerball drawing. The money bought him an expensive home, race horses, a Lear Jet, and his own businesses. It also made it possible to afford an expensive drug habit. Cocaine, pills, and heroine drained his finances. He ended living up in a storage unit surrounded by human feces before he died at the age of 58. But that’s not so bad. Many lottery winners had family members plot to murder them, a few successfully.

We don’t know the specifics about the harm that came to the man Solomon describes here. We do know “that wealth was lost in a bad venture, so when he fathered a son, he was empty-handed.” That is the tragedy of losing it all from the one perspective. It’s not just being unable to enjoy luxuries. It’s a matter of being unable to provide for yourself and your family. All that money he once had can’t help him now.

So here’s the question. We see the tragedy of losing it all. How do we react? Maybe we are just conceited enough to think, “If I got all that money, I would be different. I wouldn’t waste it on luxuries and mindless pleasure. I wouldn’t let it change me and affect my relationships. I would be more careful about how and where and with whom I invested it.” Perhaps.

But can we keep it from changing the people around us? Ever watched the movie Crazy Rich Asians? Male lead character Nick Young has kept his family’s billions a secret from his girlfriend Rachel Chu because he knows the money changes the way people around him treat him. He has been fighting with this his whole life, and it plays a big role in the headaches and heartaches that make up the plot of the story going forward.

We are inclined to forget that we are broken people living in a broken world. So Solomon does us the favor of reminding us just how bad it is. “As he came from this mother’s womb, so he will go again, naked as he came; he will take nothing for his efforts that he can carry in his hands. This too is a sickening tragedy: exactly as he comes, so he will go. What does the one gain who struggles for the wind? What is more, he eats in darkness all his days, with much frustration, sickness, and anger” (vs. 14-15).

Go ahead, and live life more altruistically. Save the world from climate change, right all the wrongs, correct all the injustices, remove all the inequalities. It will make no difference in the long run.

Or, if that is not your style, defend the Constitution of the United States and all the amendments that go with it, preserve the American dream, uphold our traditions. It’s not going to last. “What does one gain who struggles for the wind?”

We are living in the ruins of a once perfect world. We can only prop up the crumbling walls and patch the leaking roof so long before it all comes tumbling down. We and our wealth and our life’s work, whatever it is, all come to an end. It is the wages of sin, the curse God placed on us and this place. While we run around desperately trying to keep everything from collapsing, life is hard. “He eats in darkness all his days, with much frustration, sickness, and anger.” Then it all ends, we die and the world is destroyed.

People who recognize the futility of the world in which we live are ripe for God’s solution: grace for our own spiritual failures here, and a new life in a new world after death, “treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:20). Our fate is not so bleak as we feared.

2 Corinthians 2:8-11 “I wrote for this purpose: to test your character to see if you are obedient in everything. Anyone you forgive, I do, too. For what I have forgiven–if I have forgiven anything–it is for your benefit in the face of Christ, so that we may not be taken advantage of by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his schemes.”

Over thirty years ago Rob and Nancy’s oldest daughter was killed by a drunk driver. At the man’s sentencing, the family gave the man the opportunity to apologize and offered him their forgiveness. The man felt sorry only for himself and the consequences of his murderous act. He never really accepted the forgiveness offered. But Rob and Nancy could go on in peace.

Few things are harder than forgiving someone who has wronged us. It is hard to get past the feeling that something has been taken from us. In many cases it can’t be restored. Pain can’t be unfelt. Time can’t be turned back. Words can’t be unsaid or unheard. A human life can’t be replaced.

Whether we are forgiving as individuals or as a church, it is better for us that we do. Paul says that it is a test, a proof, of our Christian character. It is evidence that we are becoming more like the Lord we follow. At least when we forgive, we only need to let go of the offense itself. Jesus not only forgives the sins we commit. He had to purchase that forgiveness by his own crucifixion and death in our place.

And in forgiving there is protection for our own souls, “so that we may not be taken advantage of by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his schemes.”

If the devil can’t push us into the ditch on one side of the road, then he will push us into the ditch on the other. If he can’t get us to overlook sin on the one side, then he will get us to feel too much the victim on the other. We will enjoy our victim status. We won’t want to give it up and be reconciled. It can even be useful for controlling other people and getting what we want.

But who is served by our self-pity and chronic state of resentment? Certainly not us! These attitudes are spiritually and emotionally sickening. It’s like having the stomach flu. Not only is the condition unpleasant on its own. It makes it impossible to enjoy anything else. Food is out of the question. Sleep may not be possible. Most activities only increase the nausea.

In the same way an unforgiving spirit tends to infect the rest of our lives. Here is how the Apostle Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit in his letter to the Galatians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Can you imagine getting any of those things to work inside a heart infected with a “poor me” attitude? There is no room for them. They are quickly spoiled and ruined.

Let it go. Forgive. That will serves us, who have been offended, as much as it serves those who sinned against us in the first place.

2 Corinthians 2:5-7 “If anyone has caused pain, he has caused pain not so much to me but to some degree– not to exaggerate–to all of you. This punishment by the majority is sufficient for that person. As a result, you should instead forgive and comfort him. Otherwise, he may be overwhelmed by excessive grief. Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love to him.”

In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus taught us not only to ask for forgiveness. He reminded us of our need to extend it to others. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Forgiveness is a key to our relationships as God’s people. It creates peace. It makes it possible for people to live and work together.

Forgiveness is not a spiritual commodity for us to hoard and withhold. It is not spiritual practice to weaponize against people we don’t like. It is a spiritual lifeblood of God’s church, and where it is not received and given, there can be no Christianity.

When our Small Catechism explains “lead us not into temptation” from the Lord’s prayer, it is interesting how it describes temptation. “We pray in this petition that the Lord would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh do not deceive us, or lead us into false belief, despair, or other great and shameful sins.” The first temptation it identifies is false belief, which hardly anyone even considers a sin anymore. But it is the sin that ultimately leads to every other sin.

The second one is despair. After that everything else is thrown together as “other great and shameful sins.” To despair is to let your own sins crush your faith. Peter and Judas both committed terrible sins against Jesus. Peter repented, but Judas despaired. He lost all hope. He believed that he was beyond grace, and so he took his life. Jesus lost one of the souls he had redeemed.

Paul doesn’t want that to happen when we confront the sins of those who have not repented. He doesn’t want the man who sinned to be overwhelmed by his sin and give up faith and hope. “Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love to him.”

When someone expresses their regret and confesses their sin, it is time for us to forgive as well. It’s time to let go of the grudges, and the pain we have suffered, and the betrayal we have felt, and forgive as we have been forgiven. In so forgiving the one who hurt us or caused offense, we are serving the Lord who has freely forgiven us.

2 Corinthians 2:5-7 “If anyone has caused pain, he has caused pain not so much to me but to some degree– not to exaggerate–to all of you. This punishment by the majority is sufficient for that person. As a result, you should instead forgive and comfort him.”

Church discipline is a process poorly understood even among many Christians. Some regard it as self-righteous, a failure to mind your own business, even an excuse to be mean to others. I don’t deny there are cases where all those criticisms were valid. But a church that won’t practice spiritual discipline is like parent who won’t discipline their children. Failure to correct a child does the real harm to them.

There is a graphic passage in the book of Proverbs that describes what happens to the undisciplined child. “The eye that mocks a father, that scorns obedience to a mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures.” That isn’t a threat of some supernatural bird attack sent by God like a scene out of the old Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds. It is the picture of young person who has gone from naughty child to criminal adult. Now he is hanging from a gallows where his dead body has become food for the birds.

Failure to confront sin committed by church members may not produce such dramatic results in this life. But eternally the consequences can be far worse. Lax discipline entraps people who conclude that the church’s inaction means they have permission to ignore God’s commands. When Paul wrote his first letter to these Christians in Corinth, he had to confront them for tolerating a case of incest in a family. Already it had led others in the church to become proud of their open-minded acceptance of this perversion. Paul insisted the congregation had to deal with the issue swiftly. “Hand the man over to Satan.” Confront the sin. Remove the man from the congregation.

We can’t say for certain whether Paul is referring to that case here in 2 Corinthians, or whether there is another case of church discipline involved. But it is clear that the discipline has been successful and some sinner has repented. Now it’s time to forgive, because that serves the offender. “If anyone has caused pain, he has caused pain not so much to me but to some degree– not to exaggerate–to all of you. This punishment by the majority is sufficient for that person. As a result, you should instead forgive and comfort him.”

“The punishment by the majority is sufficient for that person.” Sufficient for what? In the world of criminal justice, we try to make the punishment fit the crime. There is this idea of “paying your debt to society,” as though a crime were a business transaction, a sale, in which a price in monetary fines or time spent in prison somehow makes up for your deed. Sometimes we even rethink the price tags we put on criminal activity. How much should it really cost to use illegal drugs or sneak some clothes out of Walmart? Are we making the drunk driver or the people who abuse their pets pay enough?

There is no such idea of paying off your sins in the church, because Jesus has already covered the whole debt for us. “Sufficient” is not about how much pain or discomfort we extract from the offender. It’s about changing the heart, getting a person to confess his sin and turn away from it. That’s the whole goal.

But sometimes Christians forget that we are trying to help the offender, not take vengeance on him. An old pastor once told me about a meeting with some of his elders and a church member who had been living in some kind of sin. The church member apologized and asked for forgiveness. Later one of the elders questioned his sincerity. He didn’t seem sad enough about what he had done. The pastor asked him, “How many tears does he have to shed before you are satisfied? Can you hand him a cup and tell him you have to fill it this far with tears before we can forgive him? Isn’t it enough that he said he was sorry?”

The point of the process, we have to remember, is not to inflict pain. It is to achieve repentance, so that we can forgive and restore. That serves the offender.

Luke 14:34-35 “Now salt is good, but if salt should lose its taste, how will it be made salty? It isn’t fit for the soil or for the manure pile; they throw it out. Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.”

You and I are the salt in this picture. Commentators argue about whether it is actually possible for salt to lose its taste–the chemical properties of sodium chloride don’t change. Does Jesus refer to something someone mistakenly believes is salt, but isn’t? Is this salt somehow corrupted by something else mixed in that overwhelms and negates its flavor?

Trying to explain Jesus’ illustration scientifically is not helpful to understanding his point. Salt has a strong, distinctive flavor. Everyone is familiar with it. Whether that can actually be changed or not, if somehow salt did lose its taste, what would it be good for? You can’t use it on your food. What would be the point? Even in the manure pile it wouldn’t be good for anything. What could it possibly offer for improvement there? It is completely useless.

What if we were Christians who wouldn’t live as Christians? What if we rejected the cost of following Jesus? What if we just compromised our values to keep the peace or to have what we wanted? What good are we, what difference do we make in the world, if we are just like everybody else? We have lost our saltiness. We serve no purpose. We have no value to God’s kingdom.

So, Jesus is urging us to accept the cost of following him and keep our saltiness. Then our love, our sacrifice, and our words of gospel witness can make a difference for others. The world may think that we change things too much, that there is too much “bite” in the impact we are making. But Jesus is using us to season more people, more lives, to his taste. The truth is, our lives of love and witness make this place more palatable. We make a difference when we openly live our faith and accept the consequences.

That’s what he did for us. He embraced loving us, sacrificed himself to save us, and gave us words of gospel promise in spite of the cost. Now he owns us. May God help us to live lives that pay him dividends of love.

Luke 14:28-33 “For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man started to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ Or what king, going to war against another king, will not first sit down and decide if he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If not, while the other is still far off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. In the same way, therefore, every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

These two parables make essentially the same point. Jesus gives these two analogies for emphasis. He is not trying to discourage us from faith and following him. He does not say that the builder and the king were necessarily short on money and man power for their plans. Even in the case of the king, his ten-thousand-man army could be so superior to the twenty thousand against him that he is confident he can win.

The point is, before you build a tower or go to war, you have to take some time to determine these things first. You need to understand the cost, and you prepare yourself to do what it takes. You go into the project fully aware of what it requires, because you have given it your careful attention.

That is what Jesus is helping us do here. He is helping us give our careful attention to what faith and followership is going to mean. “In the same way, therefore, every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

“Renouncing all your possessions” is not a call to a vow of poverty. Jesus is not saying that you can’t have a bank account, drive a nice car, or live in a nice house. Abraham, Job, Solomon, Joseph of Arimathea, and Lydia were all wealthy people who had nice things and enjoyed them while they lived. It didn’t destroy their faith. It didn’t keep them from getting into heaven.

But at a moment’s notice, God could take it all away. Job found that out, didn’t he. In just a few minutes he saw his entire ranching operation and all his children wiped out. He didn’t abandon his faith. He didn’t accuse God of being unfair, at least at first. “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord,” he said. He had let go of his possessions, renounced them if you will, even while he owned them and used them. They were no longer how he measured himself nor God’s love.

Dr. Jordan was a medical doctor in Pakistan. He was also a Christian who helped set up Sunday schools across the country. He and his entire family had to flee for their lives, because their Muslim neighbors no longer intended to tolerate them. They had to leave it all behind, but they were ready. They understood the cost of discipleship and had given it their careful attention.

Maybe the Lord will let you use your possessions until the day you die. Maybe he will take them from you sooner. But now is the time to consider that you are going to have to give them up. At the very least, you will have to leave them here when he calls you home. They don’t really belong to us anyway. We are only managing them for him. When we let go of our claim and attachment to them, when we use them his way even now, we aren’t really losing anything. These are practically nothing compared to the grace and life Jesus gives those who follow him.

Luke 14:26-27 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters–yes, and even his own life–he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”

Does Jesus really expect us to hate our own family? What does he mean by this? He isn’t saying that he wants us to mistreat our parents, our children, our spouse, or siblings. He doesn’t want us to do things that will get our children put into foster care or have the police at our house for a domestic disturbance. “Love your neighbor as yourself” applies to family as much or more than anyone else.

But following Jesus will change the priority that family plays in our lives, and it won’t always make it a higher one. There are some hard driven career types who need to give family more time and attention. There are neglectful parents who overlook the needs of their children. But there are also moms and dads who dote on their children and spoil them, men and women who idolize their spouses. Jesus isn’t satisfied merely to have a place in your life. He’s your God, your Maker, and your Savior, and he demands first place. In many cases, that means family needs to move over to make room for him.

Sometimes, that can even mean making a choice. My friend was a missionary in Japan for almost ten years. When people showed interest in getting baptized and joining the church, their families often threatened to cut them off if they did so. These new Christians had to “hate” their families, in the sense that they were ready to give up those relationships, to follow Jesus. I have twice read advice columns advising atheist families in our own country what to do if their children get interested in “religion.” Again they talk about bringing pressure to steer them away from Jesus. Will Jesus win the battle for their hearts?

You and I are not immune to these kinds of temptations. I’ve known Christian parents afraid to confront their children’s sinful living situations because they are afraid it will cause a rift in the relationship, and maybe they won’t be invited to the wedding or get to see their grandchildren. To be faithful to Jesus, frankly to love their children truly, they need to be willing to risk their children’s negative reaction. It is in this sense that Jesus wants us to “hate” those family relationships. He wants us to follow him and do what he says. It is part of the high cost of discipleship.

But it is far from the whole cost. Jesus widens his demand to “yes, even his own life.” Obviously he isn’t encouraging self-injury. He doesn’t want us to neglect our health. He is calling for us to surrender our lives and all their contents, the whole thing, to him.

Sometimes that will mean making the hard and unpleasant choice. Early Christians went cheerfully to prison and martyrdom to stay faithful to their Lord. Why would anyone do that? Why would we accept a harder life? Why would we give up relationships we hold dear? The high cost of discipleship says something about the high value of the person we follow, doesn’t it? In him we find love unmatched. We possess peace no matter what life hands to us. We receive freedom from all our guilt. We live in the certainty of eternal life. Jesus makes it worth it when we pay the high price for following him.

2 Corinthians 3:2-6 ² You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. ³ You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. ⁴ Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. ⁵ Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. ⁶ He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant–not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Sometimes we romanticize the situation in the early churches. But I don’t believe anyone romanticizes the church in Corinth. When I feel like complaining about the problems in my church, I can read the book of 1 Corinthians and be glad that God has put me where I am. At least we don’t have any members publicly defending incest, trying to eat all the communion bread, or fighting for the pulpit in the middle of the service yet.

Paul, however, was not embarrassed to be associated with the church in Corinth. On the contrary, he felt that they were an impressive vindication of his ministry. He describes them here as his letter of recommendation, “written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.” It seems that if Paul had been filling out a resume, he would have been happy to list the congregation in Corinth as a reference, or perhaps more to the point, as exhibit A on his list of projects successfully completed.

Maybe that’s because, for all the earnest and impassioned rebukes he had to direct at these people, he never lost sight of the main thing: “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” These people had not stopped being human as a result of Paul’s mission work. To borrow a picture from Brennan Manning, they did not become the spiritual equivalent of patients anesthetized on the operating table. Therefore they didn’t stop being sinners who regularly needed to hear God’s law.

At the same time, through Paul’s preaching, the Spirit had etched the cross of Jesus Christ on their hearts. They were a tribute to Paul’s ministry, not because of the heights of sanctification to which they had climbed, but because of depths of Jesus’ love in which they had been sunk, washing away their sins and dressing them in robes stained white by Jesus’ blood.

Shame on us for setting up false measures of progress for ourselves and the members of the congregations to which we belong! If Christians had no sin, there would be no reason for pastors, or for Jesus to be their Savior. Jesus tended to the spiritually weak and the sick. He wants us to do the same. Sometimes we forget the obvious: it is the nature of being weak not to act like you are strong.

Of course, we want to move on to maturity, but the difference between being spiritually weak and spiritually dead is still as big as the difference between heaven and hell. When God is using the application of law and gospel to enable strugglers to struggle on a little farther, our ministries have been fantastically and miraculously blessed. Keeping the strong alive takes no skill. Nursing the weak along is a better indication of our competence.

Not that we have any reason for selfish pride. “Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for our selves, but our competence comes from God.” The gospel of forgiveness supports more than struggling church members. It supports struggling pastors, too. You remember in Philippians 3 how Paul recounts all the prestige and zeal and legalistic righteousness he used to have as a Pharisee. It made him appear to be a relatively competent rabbi. But now he had thrown it all away, considered it rubbish, dung, manure, for the sake of knowing Christ, and being found in him, not having a righteousness of his own, but having the righteousness that is from God and comes by faith in Christ.

Despite appearances to the contrary, “He (God) has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant.” Paul was an expert on that new covenant in Jesus’ blood. This was not because he was such a great scholar. It was because he was such a great sinner. He had experienced its medicine himself.

When we speak the gospel, we don’t speak like experts on the geography and customs of some foreign country– men who have read every book available but never visited. We speak like natives of that country who have lived there all their lives. The gospel of forgiveness–the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit who gives life–has become our home, not just an object of study. That’s how God has made us competent to share that gospel with others. If being a forgiven sinner is a prerequisite for church membership, it is especially so for being a minister of the gospel.

If the members of our congregations are not too proud to be forgiven; if they speak of Jesus as their dear friend, whether eloquently or clumsily; if they claim his grace as their one great hope, in spite of every other trait they may pick up from us or others, that would be a ringing endorsement of our ministries.