We are Unable to Add to or Remove Anything from God’s Work

Ecclesiastes 3:14 “I know that all God does will last forever; there is no adding to it or taking away from it. God works so that people will be in awe of Him.” (HCSB)

For Solomon to say something like this to us is most beneficial. This man accomplished many things, things that no one else in history has accomplished and yet he tells us that what God does is most significant and there is nothing we can do to improve it or lessen it. If you read the rest of the book of Ecclesiastes, you will find that Solomon sought to do many great things for God to make a lasting legacy for himself but in the end found these things to be empty. You and I were made, brothers and sisters, to know that God has done things for us that will last forever. God sent Jesus to add humanity to His eternal deity so that He would obey the law of God perfectly for you once and for all into eternity; all that God does lasts forever. In the end, he found that the only hope and joy of the believer was in what God did. Solomon was given unparalleled wisdom, power, riches, pleasures and much more so that he would know and proclaim that it is only God’s accomplishments that will last forever and ever. Have you ever considered that you, like Solomon, are empty and frustrated because you are still trying to do great things for yourself or even great things for God? As much as you may have temporary pleasure in these things only that which God does lasts forever because only an eternal person can do things of eternal significance. You and I were made, brothers and sisters, to know that God has done things for us that will last forever. God sent Jesus to add humanity to His eternal deity so that He would obey the law of God perfectly for you once and for all into eternity; all that God does last forever. Jesus, as a man, pleased and served God in your place so that God would be pleased with you forever. Jesus in human flesh paid the penalty for every one of your sins bringing forgiveness and pardon now and forever; all that God does lasts forever. Jesus was raised from the dead and returned to heaven where He will stand for you and with you both now and forever; all the things that God does will last forever. Jesus’s wrath satisfying death on the cross has reconciled you to God so that now and forevermore you would have family fellowship with God; all that God does lasts forever. God did not do these things to give you a second chance or an opportunity to turn over a new leaf! The things God does lasts forever for you, they do not last as long as you can make them last by how well you manage them! Forever—beloved of God—forever! Forever the works of God in Christ for you will last.

Notice that the text tells us that nothing we do can add or take away from these works for us! Brother, on your best day for God where you do the most, you do not add to the work of Christ one bit! If you were made able to live one million years as a Christian in the power of the Holy Spirit you would not be one millimeter close to adding to the work of God for you in Christ; there is no adding to the work of God! On the other hand, if you were to have the most miserable day of your life where you sinned as horrendously as King David, killing another person in anger and indulging in sexual lust with another, you would not take away one ounce from the work that Christ has done for you. Is that scandalous to you? Well, there is no taking away from the work of God either. The cry of triumph at the cross was not it is finished so far as you do well after you are saved but it is finished, period. You do not add in your best nor take away from the work of God in Christ on your worst so do as Solomon did in the end of his life and think on this marvelous truth. Indeed, this is why the passage finishes by saying that God works so that people will be in awe of Him! God made you, beloved, to be amazed with and boast in the eternal works He has done for you in Christ! You see Solomon in all of his religious, political and social achievements was driven to insanity until he realized this precious truth. God does not work so that we would now be empowered and equipped to be amazed at our works for Him! God works so that people will be in awe of Him! Stop looking at the work of Christ bringing eternal fellowship with God, eternal forgiveness, eternal righteousness as fuel for obsession for human achievements! God works, let me say, God has worked in Christ so that you would be in awe of the things that He did for you, period. It is insanity and vanity of vanities as Solomon says to think any other way.