Solomon’s Strategy For Success
Ecclesiastes 11:1-10
Intro:
- The one thing that everybody knows about Solomon was that he was very wise.
o When he was anointed king he asked God to give him wisdom to govern the people and God answered his prayer.
o I Kings 4:31 “..he was wiser than all men”
- This wisdom was exercised in many ways aside from leadership. Solomon studied botany, built the temple and other great edifices, he wrote poetry and made a lot of money.
o II Chron. 9:22 “So king Solomon became greater than all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom”
- You could say that he had the golden touch because his wisdom gave him the ability to succeed in everything he did.
- As a supremely successful individual Solomon was well placed in giving advice to others on how to attain and maintain success.
**For this reason I’d like to share with you Solomon’s strategy for success – found in Ecc. 11:1-10.
I. Solomon’s Strategy For Success – Ecc. 11:1-10
- This strategy is found in a book that is much like a personal diary.
- In his wisdom Solomon tried to find out what life was really all about and if it was possible to be truly happy without God.
- He purposefully experimented with all of life’s great attractions
o Sensual and sexual pleasures of every kind / 1000 wives
o Alcohol
o Work / career – projects
o Study / knowledge
o Politics / power
- During his experiments with each he would write down his observations concerning what he felt and what he learned from his experiences.
- Near the end of the book there is a chapter of the basic principles of success – how to achieve and keep it throughout your life.
1. You’ve got to give in order to get – vs. 1
- This is a business principle that all successful people learn right away – there is no return without investment, no reward without a risk.
- This is true if you want to succeed as a student – no grades / scholarships / opportunities without an investment of time and effort in study and self-discipline.
- It’s true in a successful marriage – no peace / happiness / growth without an investment in time, communication, self-denial.
- People who fail often have excuses and blame, resentment and anger – those who succeed usually do so because they were willing to give some of themselves in order to achieve their goals.
**The more we give, the more we get.
2. Diversify – vs. 2
- Twenty five hundred years ago, before business schools and MBA’s, Solomon encouraged people to diversify in order to lessen the damage of adversity.
- Successful people are not just dreamers who simply make a wild leap of faith, or get lucky!
- Successful people understand the reality of the world – that sometimes (more often than not) bad stuff happens.
- Being prepared for that is wise. It’s smart to have a back-up plan, a second window of opportunity.
- Success doesn’t always come with the first career, the second try or the third idea – sometimes it comes later after lots of tries and in an area we never would have imagined.
o IBM Company believed that there would only be a market for two or three of their computers back in the 1950s.
**Successful people develop as many of their talents; pursue as many opportunities as time and energy permit.
3. Don’t worry about what you can’t change – vs. 3
- Solomon uses examples from nature to demonstrate situations over which we have no control and cannot change once they take place.
- The idea is that we don’t always succeed at every step, things happen that we can’t control and when they do we have to roll with the punches.
- Successful generals choose when and where they will fight, they rarely go into battles that they don’t believe they will win – at worse they recognize when they are losing and try to cut their losses.
- To succeed one must invest his / her energy into viable causes, not worrying about the past, or mistakes one has made, or the lack of resources or talent one may possess.
**To succeed we need to use what we have, where it will do the most good, without regard for those things that are impossible for us to control.
4. Do it now – vs. 4
- There’s never a perfect time to begin, just begin or you’ll lose your opportunity.
- There is always a reason to put off doing something, always a pretty good excuse for not starting something challenging, difficult, life-changing.
- This is why there are only a few who make it to the Olympics; only several who have been to the moon; only one Mona Lisa.
o Successful people act on their dream, their goal, their vision right away.
- I remember having a dream and in this dream I had a terrific idea for a lesson and series
o The outline was perfectly visible in my dream.
o I half awake asked God to remind me in the morning to write down the material I had thought of – next day Blank!
o I have spent many nights awake since then writing outlines, ideas, devo articles that have come to me at 2AM.
**The best time to begin succeeding at your dream, goal is now – putting it off until tomorrow is the lazy person’s way of avoiding the burden of success.
5. You never know until you try – vs. 5-6
- Some things you don’t see (the wind and before XRays, an unborn child) but they are nevertheless real.
- Success cannot be obtained or even seen until a person actually tries.
- There are so many people who are blind to the possibility of success because they don’t share your vision or they lack confidence in you or they are jealous that your success will reveal their failure or weakness.
- Solomon tells us to believe the evidence of the unseen, believe the evidence of God and the power of faith.
- Trying is another way of saying “I believe”, “I see”, “I know”, when others disbelieve, are blind and refuse to understand.
**You never know until you try, but if you don’t try – you’ll never know.
6. Remember God’s judgment – vs. 7-9
- Success is marvelous as it was meant to be by God.
o God didn’t create us to be failures or to be unhappy but rather to be productive and joyful, to enjoy the things that He gives us while we can.
- But the pleasure that comes from success is not the end of life, not the goal of life.
o In other places Solomon says that the goal of life is to know and obey God. Ecc. 12:13
- Success is a by-product of the life lived to please God, know and serve Him.
- The danger is making success the goal rather than a spin-off benefit of a good and obedient life before God.
**Successful people understand that their success is a gift and they don’t become so envious of the success itself that they will do anything in order to get it.
o Look at the rich and famous, unhappy, unsatisfied people who sold their bodies and souls to gain success – they’ll tell you that it wasn’t worth it.
7. Success is sweet but success is short – vs.10
- Who won the gold medal for gymnastics 3 yrs ago? Who was the richest man in the world 75 yrs ago?
- Someone has said, “If you want to judge the value of something or how much of yourself to put into it, see what meaning it will have 100 yrs from today.”
- Solomon’s advice to the successful is to enjoy your success while you have it – because very, very soon it will be gone.
- Good advice for many who work so hard to build families, homes, careers but spend so little time enjoying them and usually end up losing what they had and wondering why they worked so hard.
**What good is success, what honor does God receive, if we don’t take the time to smell the roses while we have them?
Summary / Invitation
- What is interesting about this passage is its worldly tone. Solomon writes about the things we need to know, remember and do to succeed in this world – whether you are a child of God or not.
o The strategy works either way.
- One thing not mentioned here however is that success in this world does not guarantee success in the next world – Jesus tells us that there is nothing in this world, no degree of success or wealth that will guarantee our soul’s unity into the heavenly realm.
- If we study Solomon’s life we find out that despite his great wisdom and incredible success, he failed in the one thing that was needful – obedience to God.
o His wealth and desire for pleasure led him to marry many foreign wives who eventually influenced him to sin by worshipping pagan gods.
- There is nothing wrong with pursuing success, using Solomon’s strategy to achieve our goals and dreams – after all God is the one who gave him this wisdom to give to us.
- But in doing this let us remember that in order to achieve final success, the ultimate goal which is to live forever with God, we must follow His strategy for heavenly success, not earthly success – and that strategy is quite different because it guarantees success:
o God’s strategy for heavenly success:
1. We must believe that Jesus Christ is God and Savior.
2. We must confess our belief in Him.
3. We must repent of our sins.
4. We must be immersed / baptized in water in Jesus’ name.
5. We must remain faithful to Jesus by following His commands and leadership our entire lives.
- This strategy may not get us rich, make us #1, put our names in the history books but it will put our names in the Book of Life along with all of those who will succeed in leaving this world, avoid hell and live with God forever in incredible joy.
- If you’ve been failing, discouraged, I hope today’s lesson will help you learn how to better succeed in your family, career, business or character.
**What I truly hope however is that we will all succeed in going to heaven with Jesus. If you haven’t guaranteed your success yet please come this morning and respond to God’s strategy for successful soul salvation by coming for baptism or prayer of restoration, come now as we stand and sing.