Untitled Sermon

Making Sense of What's Lacking / Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:11

You have been sold a lie. A well-packaged beautiful lie. You are told that what you desire is going to last. What you do not realize is that everything was built to break. There is literally an economic term for this trap - planned obsolescence

Planned obsolescence - is a policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of nondurable materials.

Here are some examples:

iPhone picture

VW Car

Software update

Whether you realize it or not, some of you are planned obsolescence rebels! The new iPhone comes out and you think, "NO"! The one I have is perfectly fine. Until, of course, it needs an update that is incompatible. Gotcha! How many of you resist updates not out of laziness but out of secret rebellion? How many of you give in?

Some products are built to break. Tonight the teacher is going to guide us through an experiment to see if all of life's pursuits are the same way. Listen to his intro, where he asks this question:

Can pursuits in life make sense of what's lacking?

12 I, the Teacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to examine and explore through wisdom all that is done under heaven. God has given people this miserable task to keep them occupied. 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun and have found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.

The teacher is like the MVP quarterback. He has expertise and skill. He is the leader. Everyone listens to him. In this passage, he is going to play the game, with a cameras recording, so that he can watch the replay video and share his findings.

Here was his first conclusion. Everything under the sun, as if this life is all there is, is like chasing after the wind. Imagine someone on the beach on a windy day. They have a net in their hand. You think, they must be going to catch fish. Instead, the person begins to run around and try to catch the wind with his net. What would you think of that person? You would think they are a fool! A crazy person!

The teacher explains, that if we live life with no eternal perspective that is what we are like. But here is something more shocking!

It is God who has given us life. Why did he make us in a way that we want to keep occupied? To prove this, we are going to do an experiment of our own.

Let's go 1 minute trying to be completely unoccupied.

What came to mind? How did you feel? Did you feel the urge to want the minute to be over? Or to break it with a joke? Why are we seemingly designed with an unquenchable thirst for meaning?

Even if we do not believe in God, we want answers. But there are some questions that seem to have no resolution.

15 What is crooked cannot be straightened;

what is lacking cannot be counted.

Our thinking is twisted. Even our answers have unfilled gaps. Where can we find lasting purpose and meaning in our life on earth? In the words of pastor Alistar Begg, "We are trying to line up the squares on a Rubik’s cube with a couple of colors missing"

Because of our pride, or perhaps curiosity, nothing within us wants to believe the teacher. We think that if we just get into the school we want, life on earth will have meaning. If we get the girl or boy or vice that we desire, then we'll be satisfied. Or if we create something that lasts and becomes successful, we will die happy.

Instead of avoiding these possibilities, the teacher went all out in pursuing them. He experiments in three areas and shares his findings. Listening will save us time, energy, and pain.

There are many pursuits that we know are bad. But one pursuit that is universally highly regarded is knowledge. The teacher is going to test that first to see if it brings fulfillment.

The experiment of knowledge

16 I said to myself, “See, I have amassed wisdom far beyond all those who were over Jerusalem before me, and my mind has thoroughly grasped wisdom and knowledge.” "When Solomon became king, God gave him the opportunity of a lifetime: he could ask for anything he wished. Solomon chose wisely. Rather than asking for money or fame, he asked for wisdom to govern the people of God. God was so pleased with Solomon’s request that he said, “Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you” (1 Kings 3:12). This precious gift of wisdom did not mean that the king instantly understood everything. He still had to apply himself to the pursuit of knowledge, which is exactly what Solomon did: he devoted his life to learning." - Ecclesiastes, Why Everything Matters 17 I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly; I learned that this too is a pursuit of the wind.

He got into his dream school. He pursued his favorite degree. He even had time to read books for fun. In the end, this was the result.

18 For with much wisdom is much sorrow;

as knowledge increases, grief increases.

What is the happiest age group in modern society? Children! The ones with the least intellect. With little knowledge life is bliss. That's why we, "Wish we could turn back time

To the good old days

When our momma sang us to sleep

But now we're stressed out"

Increasing in worldly wisdom is like being a chip bag. You can become puffed up. You can look really big. But when pressed, most of what comes out is empty air. Vanity.

So more knowledge doesn't lead to meaning. It doesn't fill what's lacking. What about pleasure?

The experiment of pleasure

I said to myself, “Go ahead, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy what is good.” But it turned out to be futile. 2 I said about laughter, “It is madness,” and about pleasure, “What does this accomplish?” One sad reality I see very commonly is how uncomfortable people are with having a serious moment. Laughter is vital. The Bible says that laughter is like medicine. God teaches us that like the woman in proverbs 31 the righteous laugh out of confidence in God. But to those living in unrepentant sin the Bible instructs, "Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom." Are you able to have a single conversation without a joke? Are you able to look life in the eyes? Do you laugh out of confidence or fear? Ecclesiastes teaches in chapter 7, "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart." It would be wiser for you to go to a funeral than a party. You will learn more about the meaning of life around someone weeping than in the comedy club. 3 I explored with my mind the pull of wine on my body—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—and how to grasp folly, until I could see what is good for people to do under heaven during the few days of their lives. He tried the escape of alcohol, even in moderation, and it did not explain the lack of life. Even if you escape from the reality of life in moderation it does not make straight what is crooked. It does not explain what's missing.

Knowledge explains our brokenness. Pleasure can satisfy our brokenness. So what if we try to become whole through success?

The experiment of success

4 I increased my achievements. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made gardens and parks for myself and planted every kind of fruit tree in them. 6 I constructed reservoirs for myself from which to irrigate a grove of flourishing trees. 7 I acquired male and female servants and had slaves who were born in my house. I also owned livestock—large herds and flocks—more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. 8 I also amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I gathered male and female singers for myself, and many concubines, the delights of men. 9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; my wisdom also remained with me. 10 All that my eyes desired, I did not deny them. I did not refuse myself any pleasure, for I took pleasure in all my struggles. This was my reward for all my struggles.

He had wealth. He had houses. He had wives. He had servants. He had entertainment. And it brought pleasure. For a moment. And that was all he gained from all of the efforts. A fleeting moment of pleasure.

Kyle Martin / 4.64 GPA / viral speech / "At our senior awards ceremony, it felt so good," he said about when he won the valedictorian title. "It's so good, for about 15 seconds. Yeah, 15 seconds of my heart racing and my adrenaline pumping. 15 seconds of ‘Yeah I won!'. 15 seconds of being at the top of the pile of all my accomplishments and it felt euphoric. But there must come a 16th second. And on that 16th second, I sat down on my seat, I looked at my silver stole that says valedictorian, and I thought, ‘That's it? What just happened? Why am I not feeling anything else?."

Kyle Martin continues, "To be honest, I don't even know what I was expecting. A parade of balloons to drop? Or maybe I was hoping that all of my problems would fade away in comparison to this amazing achievement. But none of that happened, not even in my heart. I felt nothing. I was shocked. This was a huge problem for me, and I needed to figure out why."

The sixteenth second always comes. The reward of the pleasure is fleeting, like vapor. What does our teacher conclude when he faces his, "sixteenth second"?

11 When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile and a pursuit of the wind. There was nothing to be gained under the sun.

We are back to where we started. Life is lacking. Life was built to break. Life is planned obsolescence. Why did God allow life under the sun to be this way? Why does no pleasure on earth provide lasting satisfaction and meaning? This seems cruel, but it is actually loving. If we found pleasure in anything but God himself, we would be settling for second best. Danny Akin explained this well when he wrote, "pleasure is a good thing that if turned into a god thing becomes an enslaving thing."

Filling the lack

What are you proposing? Do nothing? Don't go to college? Don’t laugh? Don't enjoy drink and food? Do try to build or change the world?

No.

The problem is not that we desire happiness. The problem is that we are looking for happiness and meaning in the wrong place and from the wrong sources.

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” - C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Don't settle for unsatisfying pleasures. Seek Christ and everything else will fall into place.

In Christ, knowledge becomes love.

In Christ, laughter becomes joy.

In Christ, wine becomes communion.

In Christ, accomplishment becomes worship.

Psalm 16:11

You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Where is pleasure found? At God's right hand. What, rather, who is at the right hand of the Father? Jesus.

Don't settle. Seek Christ first.