1. "If you love money, you will never have enough money. The love of money is a treadmill and a trap."

2. "If you always want more, you will never enjoy what you have."

3. "Money is a magnet for false friends. If you have little money, you never have to ask the question, Is this person really interested in me or are they just trying to get something from me?"

4. "The more you have, the more you have to worry about. And the more economically productive you are, the more other people depend on you. Riches promise blessing, but deliver burden."

5. "If you are a slave to consumption, you end up consuming yourself. If you love money, instead of money being your servant, it will become your master."

6. "The real meaning of wealth is written in invisible ink that glows in the dark. You can only see it when you look at it in the shadow cast by death's shroud."

7. "Wealth isn't the problem or the solution. Our desires are the problem and contentment is the solution."

8. "The only way to be content in this world is to be totally unsatisfied by this world."

9. "Contentment comes not by adding to your circumstances, but by subtracting from your desires."

10. "If your happiness finally depends on nothing in this world, then you can be happy with anything. You know your real happiness is coming."

Observation Questions

1. According to Ecclesiastes 5:10, what happens to the person who loves money and wealth?

2. In Ecclesiastes 5:12, how does the preacher contrast the sleep of a laborer with that of a rich person?

3. What does Ecclesiastes 5:15-16 say about what a person takes with them when they leave this world?

4. In Ecclesiastes 6:1-2, what "grievous evil" does the preacher describe regarding a man who has wealth, possessions, and honor?

5. According to Ecclesiastes 5:18-19, what does the preacher identify as "good and fitting" and as "the gift of God"?

6. What reason does Ecclesiastes 5:20 give for why the contented person "will not much remember the days of his life"?

Interpretation Questions

1. The sermon identifies a deliberate tension between Ecclesiastes 6:12 ("who knows what is good for man?") and Ecclesiastes 5:18 ("what I have seen to be good"). What makes the difference between these two perspectives, and why does the preacher present both?

2. Why does the preacher say in Ecclesiastes 6:3-5 that a stillborn child is better off than a wealthy person whose soul is not satisfied? What is he trying to communicate about the nature of a life enslaved to wealth?

3. How does recognizing that food, work, and possessions are one's God-given "lot" (Ecclesiastes 5:18-19) transform a person's relationship to these things?

4. The sermon states that "wealth isn't the problem or the solution—our desires are the problem and contentment is the solution." How does this summary reflect what Ecclesiastes 5:10 and 6:7-9 teach about the relationship between desire and satisfaction?

5. How does the gospel message that Christ "though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor" (2 Corinthians 8:9) address the specific failures of wealth that Ecclesiastes exposes?

Application Questions

1. The sermon asks which of wealth's promises—pleasure, power, fulfillment, security, control, or freedom—appeals most to you. Which one draws your heart most strongly, and what specific situation in your life reveals this?

2. Ecclesiastes 6:9 warns against letting your appetite wander from what is right in front of you to imaginary gains elsewhere. What is one good thing in your life right now that you tend to overlook because you are mentally chasing something "better"? How might you practice gratitude for it this week?

3. The definition of contentment given in the sermon includes "freely submitting to and delighting in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition." What is one current circumstance or limitation in your life that you struggle to accept as from God's hand? What would it look like to submit to and even delight in it?

4. The sermon suggests that contentment comes "not by adding to your circumstances, but by subtracting from your desires." What is one desire you could intentionally "subtract" or release this week in order to experience greater contentment?

5. How does the truth that your eternal inheritance in Christ "can never be lost" change how you respond to financial uncertainty, job insecurity, or the fear of losing what you have?

Additional Bible Reading

1. 1 Timothy 6:6-19 — Paul directly addresses the love of money and the pursuit of godliness with contentment, reinforcing the sermon's central contrast between wealth's empty promises and true riches in Christ.

2. Matthew 6:19-34 — Jesus teaches about storing up treasures in heaven rather than on earth and commands His followers not to be anxious about material needs, echoing the sermon's call to contentment and trust in God.

3. Philippians 4:10-13 — Paul describes learning the secret of contentment in all circumstances, providing a New Testament example of the contentment the preacher commends in Ecclesiastes.

4. Luke 12:13-21 — The parable of the rich fool illustrates the danger of hoarding wealth without being "rich toward God," reinforcing the warning in Ecclesiastes 5:13-17 about riches kept to the owner's hurt.

5. Hebrews 13:5-6 — This passage commands believers to be content with what they have because God will never leave or forsake them, grounding contentment in God's faithful presence rather than material security.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Story of Stefan Thomas and His Lost Bitcoin Password

II. The Case for Wealth: Eight Perks of Prosperity (Ecclesiastes 5:8-17; 6:1-12)

III. The Case for Contentment (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20)

IV. The Gospel Application: Christ as the Answer to Wealth's Empty Promises

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Stefan Thomas, a computer programmer who lives in San Francisco, has two guesses left to remember a password that is currently worth $369 million.

The password will let him unlock a small hard drive called an IronKey that contains the private keys to a digital wallet containing 7,002 Bitcoin, the digital cryptocurrency. He was originally given these 7,002 Bitcoin as for a promotional video he made to explain what the currency is to people. The problem is that years ago, Mr. Thomas lost the paper on which he wrote down the password to his IronKey. An IronKey gives its users only 10 guesses before it seizes up and encrypts its contents forever. There is no forgot your password button.

Thomas has since tried eight of his most common passwords.

None have worked. Two more wrong guesses and $369 million is gone forever.

Thomas has said, I would just lay in bed and think about it. Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy and it wouldn't work and I would be desperate again.

Ecclesiastes 6, Verses 1 and 2, There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them.

But a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity. It is a grievous evil.

Tonight we continue our study in Ecclesiastes, going from chapter 5 verse 8 through chapter 6, all 12 verses. The main focus of the passage is the gap between what wealth promises and what it delivers. The passage focuses on the question, Does wealth satisfy? Will more money make you more happy? The passage is shaped like two panels with a hinge between them.

In each panel, the book's author, who calls himself the preacher, focuses primarily on the promises and pitfalls of wealth. So the first panel is chapter 5 verses 8 to 17 the second panel is chapter 6, verses 1 to 12, and the hinge in between, chapter 5, verses 18 to 20, shows us an alternative to endlessly striving for more. Because the two panels are so similar, I'll group them together and then treat the hinge passage, so the sermon will have two points. Number one, the case for wealth. Number two, the case for contentment.

The case for wealth and the case for contentment. First, the case for wealth. This takes in chapter 5 verses 18 to 17 and all of chapter 6. Now, when I say the case for wealth, I'm being slightly tongue in cheek. The preacher is not out to convince anyone to pursue wealth, but from a variety of angles, he keeps asking and answering the question, what does wealth give you?

What does it actually bring? Bring you when you get it. So to make a running list, we're going to consider eight perks of prosperity. His case for wealth consists in eight perks of prosperity. Perk one, a motive to oppress others.

Look at chapter 5 verses 8 and 9.

If you see in a province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and righteousness, do not be amazed at the matter, for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them. But this is gain for a land in every way, a king committed to cultivated fields.

Why shouldn't you be surprised by oppression? Because all people are sinful. And when you put sinful people into positions of power, they will use their power for sinful ends. But not only that, verse 8 tells us that when sinners are in authority, those very structures of authority can actually reinforce and multiply oppression. It can give oppression a structural shape.

So the Hebrew word here for watch also has the sense of watch out for, or guard, or keep. Cain was faulted for not being his brother's keeper as he should have been. And as Ben preached to us from a few weeks ago in Psalm 121, the Lord is our keeper. So what's going on here is that officials in power, one above the other, are keeping each other instead of keeping the public they've been commissioned to serve. All too often, those who are in authority over others guard their own interests or the interests of those below and above them, instead of the interests of those who they're meant to provide for.

In the past hundred years, there have been at least 15 heads of state whose net worth exceeded the entire wealth of the country they were sovereign over. One person who is richer than the entire country that they are meant to help flourish. Names like Suharto, Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi. Verse 9 is difficult to interpret. It could basically mean one of two things.

It could mean that a king exploits the people and robs them of the gain that should come from their cultivated fields. That's how the NIV and the CSB take it. But I'm inclined to go with the ESV, as you see it here. The way the ESV interprets it is that a king who is committed to protecting people's rights to benefit from their labor helps everyone to gain from the land. So in other words, the king is not a kind of final authority.

He's there to serve. He's meant to help other people flourish. That brings gain to all. So what does wealth give you? The prospect of gaining wealth gives you a powerful motive to deny the rights of others and trample them underfoot.

Perk two, no satisfaction. Wealth promises satisfaction, but it doesn't deliver. We see this in chapter 5, verse 10, and chapter 6, verses 7 to 9. Look first at chapter 5, verse 10. He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income.

This also is vanity.

Lots of bathtubs have a little hole about two-thirds of the way up.

If you start to fill it too full, it starts draining for you, so you don't leave it on and flood your whole house and ruin everything. But wealth doesn't have that. There's no automatic stopping point, no automatic shutoff switch. You can always get more, and so you can always want more. If you've made a million dollars, why not go for two?

Why not go for ten?

What about a hundred? Verse 10 tells us that the fundamental problem is not money. It's the love of money. If you love money, you will never have enough money. The love of money is a treadmill and a trap.

As we heard from Ryan Lo this morning and as we read earlier in 1 Timothy 6:10, the apostle Paul warns, For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced Puffed up themselves with many pangs. Look down at the parallel statement in chapter 6, verses 7 to 9.

All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have, who knows how to conduct himself before the living? Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

If you work hard, earn all you can, and consume all you want, the same appetites will just spring back as strong as before. Maybe even stronger because they need more to satisfy them. Work to eat and eat to work. The hamster wheel just keeps spinning. Verse 9, Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite.

The verse is saying it's better to enjoy what you have than to lose even that by chasing after some imaginary gain.

One commentator captured this perfectly. He said, if we're enjoying a good meal with friends, this is a sight of the eyes, and it is good. But if we start to think of other things we crave, a better cuisine perhaps, or prestige, or success, or sex, we lose contact with the actual place and moment, and our soul departs, as it were, and wanders off to another non-existent place. Then the moment is depleted of meaning and we have nothing.

If you always want more, you will never enjoy what you have.

Wealth promises satisfaction because it promises pleasure, power, fulfillment, security, control, freedom, If you're not a believer in Jesus, we're glad you're here. You're welcome at any of our services. I wonder which of those promises of wealth appeals most to you. Money in its own is empty. It's just a medium of exchange.

It's a medium of getting something or getting someone to do something for you. Well, what is the something that you want? What is it you want to have or you want done for you? Which of money's promises goes deepest into your heart? And have you experienced any of how money and wealth fails to satisfy?

Have you experienced any of the emptiness of wealth and prosperity?

If wealth can't satisfy you, What can? Moochers. Look at chapter 5, verse 11. When goods increase, they increase who eat them. And what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes?

The more money you have, the more people you attract who want something from you. Money is a magnet for false friends. If you have little money, you never have to ask the question, Is this person really interested in me or are they just trying to get something from me? And the same goes if you have little power or influence or other commodities that people desire. The question in the second half of the verse is implying here when it says, Seeing them with his eyes, what it's referring to, seeing them with his eyes, is his wealth and riches being consumed by the people around him.

Right? So it's saying the wealth A wealthy person sees his money being gobbled up by everybody around him. So the reward for wealth is watching other people consume your wealth. Congratulations. That's the prize.

The bigger the house, the more it costs to heat. Perk four, anxiety. Look at verse 12. Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.

So indigestion from feasting keeps the rich person awake. But indigestion is not the only thing that keeps the wealthy person up at night. They also stay awake worrying about all their money. The Hebrew word here that's translated full stomach can also more broadly just mean overabundance, being satiated, having a kind of abundant plenty. So the more you have, the more you have to worry about.

And the more economically productive you are, the more other people depend on you. If you employ 10 people, well, that's a great thing for you and for them until cash flow dries up and you have to make impossible choices. If you've got an empire to maintain, Somebody can always break off a piece. And the more money and investments and property you have, the more they clamor for your attention and affection. Riches promise blessing, but deliver burden.

The more you have, the more you have to worry about. Which brings us to, perk five, more to lose. The more you have, the more you have to lose. Look at verses 13 and 14 in chapter 5.

There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt, and those riches were lost in a bad venture. And he is father of a son, But he has nothing in his hand. Lost in a bad venture. In the recent GameStop stock frenzy, Evan Osterneik, a 19-year-old college student in the Netherlands, invested in the stock the equivalent of $10,000 of savings of his parents and government college loans. He lost 90% of it.

In a single day. Riches always promise help, but they can just as easily hurt. You could hoard wealth only to watch it evaporate. As Jesus said, Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. Being rich now is no guarantee that you will be in a year or that your kids will be.

Perk 6, nothing lasting. Verses 15 to 17 of chapter 5.

As he came from his mother's womb, he shall go again. Naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand. This also is a grievous evil. Just as he came, so shall he go. And what gain is there to him who toils for the wind?

Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness, in much vexation and sickness and anger.

Whatever you amass for yourself here, you can't take it with you. What's the point of living poor so that you can die rich? Verse 17 portrays the miser as someone who is dead while they live. Instead of enjoying God's good gifts freely in the company of others, they consume alone. And they consume themselves in the process.

If you are a slave to consumption, you end up consuming yourself. If you love money, instead of money being your servant, it will become your master. That's why Jesus warns in Matthew chapter 6, no one can serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and money. Travel back in time 2,000 years.

Imagine a poor person in the Roman Empire who gets to visit Caesar's pleasure gardens for a day. The flowers smell just as sweet. The birds' songs sound just as beautiful to him. But Caesar has to pay for it all. So who enjoys the garden more?

Perk number seven: Know sure joy or rest. This is the warning of chapter 6, verses 1 to 6.

There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: A man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires. Yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity. It is a grievous evil. If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, But his soul is not satisfied with life's good things, and he also has no burial.

I say that a stillborn child is better off than he, for it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything. Yet it finds rest rather than he, even though he should live a thousand years, twice over, yet enjoy no good. Do not all go to the one place.

In verses 3 to 5, the preacher contrasts the person who is enslaved to wealth with a stillborn child. The illustration is tough to stomach, The point is not at all to minimize the tragedy of losing a child through miscarriage or stillbirth. Instead, the preacher's sole point is the comparison. He's saying that a life enslaved to money is a non-life. It's a living death.

There's no rest in it because there's no satisfaction. The person who loves money can never rest because they're never satisfied. Verse 2 tells us that this person has everything but can enjoy nothing. Now, one reason for that lack of enjoyment could be external. Verse 2, A stranger enjoys them.

You amass a fortune and you die too soon to enjoy it. Or, It's all taken away from you through corruption. Or, you're so addicted to work that you have no time left over to enjoy any of the things that you're sacrificing so much to get.

But another reason you could have everything but enjoy nothing is internal. Verse 3, But his soul is not satisfied with life's good things.

You could enjoy nothing. Because even when you sit down to feast, you're not there because your heart is wandering somewhere far off longing for some bigger, better, other pleasure. A vast fortune is like the finest meal in the world. What good is it to you if you have no taste buds? Both the food and the ability to taste it are gifts from God and he doesn't always give both together.

Look at chapter 6 verses 10 to 12.

Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he.

The more words, the more vanity. And what is the advantage to man? For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?

Here the author zooms way out. He's considering not just wealth but everything in his life under the sun. He's tying up this whole section of the book by weaving together themes from everything that's come before. The progression of thought is basically this. Verse 10, God is the one who has defined and limited reality.

He has given everything its fixed nature and form. That's what it means that everything has already been named. Fighting against those limits is like trying to knock down the Great Wall of China with a feather. Thinking you are a woman doesn't make you a woman.

Calling a man a woman does not make a man a woman. Verse 11, because we can't make sense of the big picture simply by observing life under the sun, the words that continually pour forth from our mouth and fingers and keyboards, the words that show up on social media and in the newspapers and by the offerings of publishers, all of this adds up to what C.S. Lewis has called a vast catastrophe of nonsense. If we can't figure out by observing under the sun what's going on, then more words, more vanity.

Verse 12, who knows what is good? You can't guarantee that your accomplishments will last. You can't even guarantee that your plans will succeed. All you can guarantee is that like a shadow, you will soon disappear. So what does this have to do with wealth?

Wealth is a prime example of what the preacher calls vanity. It's fleeting and ungraspable. It's a mirage. It promises power but delivers slavery. It promises control but delivers anxiety.

The real meaning of wealth is written in invisible ink.

That glows in the dark. You can only see it when you look at it in the shadow cast by death's shroud. So look at wealth in the shadow of death. That's when it shows you its meaning and message. What does death say now?

Excuse me, what does wealth say now? In view of death, It says, I'm nothing. That is the preacher's verdict on wealth. What's yours? And not just what do you say is your verdict on wealth, but what does your time and bank statement show is your verdict on wealth?

In some measure, All of us have worshiped wealth rather than worshiping God. And what we deserve for that false worship is eternal condemnation. But in his death on the cross, Christ bore the penalty for our sin. The Apostle Paul says, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. Our debt to God was infinite, but Jesus paid it all.

And he triumphed over death by rising from the dead to deliver us out of death's shadow and into the endless light of eternal life in fellowship with God. If you've never turned from sin and trusted in Christ, trust in him today. Give yourself to him. That is the only way to have the full debt of your sin canceled, and it will all be canceled instantly if you trust in him. Because Christ gave himself for you, you have a motive not to oppress others, but actually an endlessly renewable motive to sacrificially serve others.

Wealth promises satisfaction but delivers emptiness. Christ demands self-sacrifice and delivers satisfaction. If you trust in Christ, you need not fear any loss. Because the eternal inheritance that is guaranteed by his promise will more than make up anything you suffer or lose here. And wealth won't last, but Christ has guaranteed the sure and endless joy of all who turn from sin and trust in him.

So that's almost the whole passage. We've got three verses left, but they're crucial verses. Taking account of all we've seen so far and anticipating what we're about to see in chapter 5 verses 18 to 20, here's the big picture.

Wealth isn't the problem or the solution. Our desires are the problem and contentment is the solution.

Wealth isn't the problem or the solution. Our desires are the problem, and contentment is the solution. Here's how the North African pastor Augustine put it in the fifth century: Such, O my soul, are the miseries that attend on riches. They are gained with toil and kept with fear. They are enjoyed with danger and lost with grief.

It is hard to be saved if we have them, impossible if we love them, and scarcely can we have them but we shall love them inordinately. Teach us, O Lord, this difficult lesson to manage conscientiously the goods we possess.

And not covetously desire more than you give to us. Point 2, the case for contentment. The case for contentment. The preacher makes this case in earnest in chapter 5 verses 18 to 20. Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him for this is his lot.

Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God; for he will not much remember the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.

Look down to chapter 6, verse 12, which we just saw a moment ago: For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? This is a rhetorical question. The context requires the answer, no one. But then chapter 5, verse 18: Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment. So here the preacher says he has the answer to what he says in chapter 6 verse 12, nobody can answer.

612, no one knows what is good. 518, I do. This is a contradiction. A lot of tension. But a contradiction.

And that's just the point. It's deliberate. He leaves the two side by side so you have to ask, what makes the difference? We've seen this over and over again in Ecclesiastes. Throughout the book, the preacher switches back and forth between two different ways of looking at the world.

One is empirical. He observes, examines, and analyzes human life under the sun. And there is an important measure of truth in his conclusions. He really is popping a whole lot of balloons that are overinflated because we don't see how limited, how fleeting, how finite is life under the sun. That's the empirical mode.

He observes, he examines, he analyzes, and God, in final judgment, don't factor in. He's only looking at life under the sun. So he shows us just what the world looks like and what it all adds up to in the end from a secular point of view. When you silently exclude God and finally reckoning with God. But the preacher's other mode is confessional.

It's based on knowledge through divinely revealed truth. That's why God isn't mentioned explicitly in the empirical sections but he shows up all the time in these confessional sections. And the author switches tracks without warning. He switches codes without any explicit signal that he's doing so. We have to sort of catch up and see what he's doing.

So the contradiction is deliberate. It forces you to ask, what makes the difference? Same question, different answer, and even same stuff, different outcome. Look at verse 19, Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and accept his lot and rejoice in his toil, this is the gift of God. So here the preacher shows that he is not dead set against wealth and possessions.

They are gifts from the hand of God himself. But you can only enjoy them if God gives you that ability to. So in verses 18 to 20, the preacher makes the case for contentment. To accept your lot and rejoice in your toil is to be content. It is to see the limits that God has placed on your life as part of what makes your life the good and finite and created thing that it is.

Here's how the Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs defines contentment: Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.

That sounds good. But how do you get it? Summarizing two of Burrough's main points from his book, the Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, two crucial steps and he's summarizing and distilling just vast tracks of Scripture here. First, the only way to be content in this world is to be totally unsatisfied by this world. The only way to be content in this world is to be totally unsatisfied by this world.

Burroughs says, A little in the world will content a Christian for his passage, but all the world, and ten thousand times more, will not content a Christian for his portion.

Second, Contentment comes not by adding to your circumstances, but by subtracting from your desires. Not by adding to your circumstances, but subtracting from your desires. As Paul says in Philippians 4:12, I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. So what is the preacher's case for contentment?

Here it is in three brief sub points. Contentment gives you first, not grasping but receiving. Verse 18, Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun, the few days of his life that God has given him.

For this is his lot.

How you can enjoy all these things is by recognizing that they are your lot, your portion, your peace that God has given you. God has apportioned it to you. God has planned it, prepared it, and personally delivered it.

Eating, drinking, and working are all goods that you receive. You don't create them. You don't finally secure them for yourself. And when you receive them with empty and open hands, two things happen. First, you actually receive them instead of turning them away and wandering off to something else you'd imagine you would like more.

And the second thing is that when you receive a gift, you're grateful. If food is a gift, you're grateful for it. If work is a gift, you're grateful. If rest is a gift, you're grateful. When you see that every good thing in your life comes not from your grasping and striving, but from God's giving, then you can start praying a prayer of thanksgiving that will never end.

Second, in a similar vein, not gain but gifts. Verse 19, Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. Ecclesiastes uses the word gain in a specialized sense to mean something that is left over, something you get to keep on the side for yourself when all is said and done. But no earthly gift is like that. They all have limits.

They all expire. But if you recognize and submit to the limits of God's gifts, you can receive them as gifts. If you stop grasping for gain, you can obtain the power to enjoy all the good things God has given you. If you go to a restaurant, you cannot have every meal on every plate in front of every person in the place. What do you get to eat?

The one meal the waiter brings you. God is the chef who cooks the meal and the waiter who delivers it to you. However big a portion you get, whatever meal you get, whether it's wealth and money, whether it's skill and success, power or influence, God is the chef who cooks it and the waiter who brings it.

Part of rightly stewarding God's gifts is learning to enjoy them. You glorify the giver when his good gifts make you glad.

Third, not worry but joy. Contentment gives you not worry but joy. Verse 20, For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. This is a godly forgetfulness. It's a forgetfulness of everything in your life that could keep you fretting.

Fretting about what happened, what might have happened, what you wish would have happened, what's happening now, what might still happen. If you are content, your heart is so full of joy there's no room for fretting. This is the right way to be preoccupied. Give yourself to what God has put right in front of you and you won't have leisure to worry about everything else that is right in front of you. Think about kids on a snow day.

They wake up early, they spring out of bed, they run downstairs, they cannot be delayed by breakfast. Who cares about food? It's snowing. Don't you see what's going on out there? I have to get out.

It would normally take them hours to get dressed. But on a snow day, there's four layers of clothing, hat, gloves, boots, 15 seconds flat. And then they're out there as long as the snow lasts. Snowmen, sledding, snow ice cream, snowball fights, snow angels, ice sculptures, you name it. It's endless.

They do not much remember the cold because God keeps them occupied.

With joy in their hearts. Godly contentment means investing your ultimate happiness in God. And if your happiness finally depends on nothing in this world, then you can be happy with anything. You know your real happiness is coming.

Another Bitcoin millionaire, Brad Yasar, actually lost all his passwords years ago.

His Bitcoin are now worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but he can never get it. He has since put his hard drives into vacuum-sealed bags and stored them out of sight. He said, I don't want to be reminded every day that what I have now is a fraction of what I could have that I lost.

Christian, if you want to be content, remind yourself every day that what you have is infinitely more than what you deserve. Remind yourself every day that what you have now is nothing compared to what you will have.

Remind yourself every day that what you will have can never be lost. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we praise you for the gift of a salvation that is infinitely more than we deserve. We praise you for the gift of an inheritance that is infinitely more than what we have now.

We praise youe for so securing our salvation by youy grace that we know it can never be lost.

We pray that we would store up treasure in heaven because youe, our greatest treasure, are there waiting for us.

In Jesus' name, Amen.