Untitled Sermon (23)

Week 3

Read Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:26

Ecclesiastes 1:12–2:26 ESV

I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted. I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End (2 Bursting the Bubble)

Our excesses are the best clues to our own poverty, and our best way of concealing it from ourselves

Gospel glimspes

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End 2 Bursting the Bubble

In this world, those who follow Jesus Christ never find a permanent home. We find peace with God through Christ, and there is rest for the weary and burdened. But the gospel does not lead us into a settled life of contented ease. This has always been true of God’s family. The writer to the Hebrews says about Abraham,

By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (Heb. 11:9–10)

One thing we know the gospel teaches is if we follow Jesus we are a stranger or alien in the world today.

We have no permant roots. We are just passing through

but I think Solomon helps us think abou this a little more

Because Like solomon their are a lot of people who FOllow God but eventually lose sight of the World to come

we become fully itergrated in the world we live in

and sometimes that is displayed just like the preacher

it’s the homes wew live in, the money we spend, the investments we prusure and we began to priortize how we are living

we hold the good things of this world too tightly

and what This passage reminds us of is no matter how much we work, no matter how much we toil, no mater how much we do and how tight our grip is on those things. the things we chance after can’t deliver the way we want them to

We need our grip loosened

and to help us move from the wrong kind of storing God helps us move towards sotring the right things up in this book

Verse 11 the preacher reminds us their is really no lasting gain for all of human toil

it’s a brute fact and can be bubble bursting. In some ways the preacher begins to burst some more bubbles through this own expierence

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End 2 Bursting the Bubble

The Preacher will argue that wisdom, pleasure, work, and possessions are very often the bubbles we live in to insulate ourselves from reality. And his needle, the sharp point he uses to burst the bubbles, is death.

Death is the one certaity that we earse form our minds and busy ourselves trying to aviod facing it

but the reality of deaeth and the allows the light of God to shine on the life we our currently living and change it.

the reality of death helps us view life as a gift, and not gain

If we arean’t careful our pursuit just becomes about happiness. It’s what we see the preacher doing.

and in some ways it’s what I can do

maybe your like me and when you examine some of your days you realize a lot of what you do is to make yourselves happy

You fed yourself,

maybe stay in bed a few mins longer

or stay in the shower longer becasue you don’t want to face the day

or dress yourself

and if you could you would do whatever makes you most happy in a day

but as the author of living life backwords puts it when will long and live for our happiness above everything else our lives at the deepest levels our just surface

If we just want to earn a good living, find the right spuse, rise good children, have fun and keep fit we might be happy in all we do but it won’t satisfy. As the preacher reminds it can’t ever fill the way we hope it will

Ecclesiastes, A 12-Week Study Gospel Glimpses

Ecclesiastes was written in order for us to despair in ourselves and depend on our joyous God and his blessed will for our lives. Anything other than dependence on and trust in God is an attempt to grasp the unattainable. The only remedy to the meaninglessness and depression caused by life after the fall is God. In reference to himself, Jesus taught, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:35–36).

and it’s the humble king we find real life.

and it’s in this humble king we can find real hope for our anxious hearts as the book says

Ecclesiastes, A 12-Week Study (Gospel Glimpses)

In Ecclesiastes 2:23, the Preacher writes, “All his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.”

The way to fight anxiety is not to forget our problems or increase our self-confidence.

Freedom from fear comes through hoping in God and his promises.

The cross of Christ shows that God has indeed come to save us. No matter how uncertain our immediate future, we can trust that he is with us, is for us, and will never leave us nor forsake us.

but we have this promblem. if happiness is the goal like the preacher you discover you can’t actually make the world any different then it is

The preacher has gained it all and yet realise at the end at best he is only left with sand castles on the beach

The whole bible reminds us of this

First we see TOIL is a fustration.

God gave adam work before the fall but part of the punishment of the fall was now toil becoming painful

we see this idea of eating and drinking through the bible. Adam and eve share a meal together and their eyes were open to nakenedness and shame

yet Christ redeems eating and drinking in the gospels and we are told in revelaiton when Gods presence comes fully on earth we will see provision of food and helaing that will last for eternity

and this gives us the right perspective

as the preacher purst our bubble she also does something suprising he burst death buble.

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End 2 Bursting the Bubble

The Preacher’s prescription for living the good life doesn’t seem like much: “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil” (2:24). At first glance this seems like the nihilistic creed: “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

seems strange right? m

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End 2 Bursting the Bubble

When we accept in a deep way that we are going to die, that reality can stop us expecting too much from all the good things we pursue.

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End 2 Bursting the Bubble

We learn to pursue them for what they are in themselves rather than what we need them to be to make us happy. Death reorients us to our limitations as creatures and helps us to see God’s good gifts right in front of us all the time

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End 2 Bursting the Bubble

Instead of using these gifts as means to a greater end of securing ultimate gain in the world, we take the time to live inside the gifts themselves and see the hand of God in them.

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End (2 Bursting the Bubble)

What if the pleasure of food is a daily joy that we ungratefully overlook?

What if our work was never intended to make us successful but simply to make us faithful and generous?

What if it is death that shows us that this is how we are meant to live?

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End 2 Bursting the Bubble

the Preacher’s whole point in this section is to show us that the world cannot be leveraged to suit me, and life is meant to be enjoyed not mastered

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End 2 Bursting the Bubble

Jeffrey Meyers puts it:

Realising this can help you deal with life in a way that honours God. For example, do not be surprised to find yourself in a frustrating situation from which you cannot escape by means of controlling it. Not everything can be fixed! Not everything is a problem to be solved. Some things must be borne, must be suffered and endured. Wisdom does not teach us how to master the world. It does not give us techniques for programming life such that life becomes orderly and predictable.11

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End 2 Bursting the Bubble

from 1:14 to 2:23 God has been entirely absent from the writer’s frame of reference; the striving self is at the center. But now in 2:24–26 God is mentioned three times in quick succession. The emphasis is on what God gives

He gives enjoyment

He gives wisdom and knowledge of Joy

he is the giver of all good things

So as we conlcude it would be good to see ourselves as we are: DEPDENT CREATURS mad for elationship with our creator

Pray

Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End (2 Bursting the Bubble)

1.  What is your motivation for getting up each morning?2.  What do the lives of people you know reveal about what they think will make them happy?3.  How would you describe “true joy” to a friend who knows nothing of this?4.  What strategies do you think people you know, including yourself, use to avoid facing the reality of death?5.  What do you make of the idea that death can give us the perspective we need to begin to enjoy life?