Introduction:

Welcome to Harvest! We are now weekly! This is going to be happening every week now. This is incredible for so many reasons, we get more connection points with one another. Instead having to wait a month and then question is happening this week or next week? Now you know it is happening every week. Were still going to have our harvest socials happening so if Thursday don’t work for you then you can maybe make it to those.

A big reason I’m stoked for Harvest to be weekly is we can do series instead of one-off messages. We can dig into a book of the bible and study it together as a community. We can take on big topic and issues now and unpack them.

That leads us to where we are going this fall. We’re going to be diving into the book of Ecclesiastes. We’re not going to be going verse by verse though. We’re going to be going through themes. The book of Ecclesiastes deals with the question of what is the meaning of life?

Ecclesiastes is an apologetic but not in the way you think. Apologetic means in defense of. Ecclesiastes does defend the faith but not from a place of defense but in the way of offense. It goes and attacks world views that we would think would be incredible and turns them on their head.

What is Ecclesiastes?

Point 1 Context of ECC

Ecclesiastes the word means the preacher. We get it from Latin vulgate. This is someone going through there life and reflecting on it and realizing what truly matters.

The question is begged is if this book is called the preacher, then who is the preacher? Well, there is much debate about that. The commonly held view which is the view were going to run with throughout this series is that it was written by Solomon. We’re going with a very simple argument that the opening line of Ecclesiastes says, “The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.[1]” Who else is the son of David and also King of Jerusalem?

Why does it matter that it is Solomon? He in his day to put into a modern perspective he would have been, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Justin Bieber and name your public intellectual. He was the smartest, richest most charming man in the world.

To explain, here is Solomon Resume.

1 Kings 4:29-30 29 And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, 30 so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt.

He is the smartest of the smart guys.

1 Kings 10:23-25 Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. 24 And the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind. 25 Every one of them brought his present, articles of silver and gold, garments, myrrh, spices, horses, and mules, so much year by year.[2]

1 Kings 10:27 27 And the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah[3]

That is who Solomon is. Going off the assumption that he wrote it. This book is about Solomon looking at his life. Looking at all he had accomplished and realizing that he had chased after the wrong thing for most of his life. He is doing some reflecting.

As we look at this book, we will see some phrases repeat themselves time and time again. Chasing after the wind, vanities of vanities.

The reason we are going through this book is because at this point in your life you have two big questions who am I going to be with my entire life? And What am I going to do with my life? Ecclesiastes hopes to answer the latter. What are you going to do with your life?

Ecclesiastes is a lot like life. Where it rambles and repeats itself and seems to go in weird, interesting directions.

Solomon wrote three books Proverbs, Song of Solomon and this one. They all tackle a different aspect of life. SoS is about who are are you going to spend the rest of your life with and how you should do it. It’s a bout companionship. Proverbs is about structure, order, the practicals of life, how to make decisions, stewarding your money and things to avoid.

Ecclesiastes is different it’s all about how to find satisfaction and meaning or put another way. To find longing of your human heart.

(Slow)As we unpack this series longing of the human heart we hope to answer the question of what is my meaning and purpose and how did satisfy the longings of my heart.

Point 2 Longing of the Human Heart

We all have a longing; we all have desire. We all want to have purpose. We all have itch inside our hearts that we cannot scratch. ECC hopes to answer the longing of your heart.

James KA Smith book “You are What you Love.” He asks the question what do you want? This is the first question Jesus asks to his follower in John 1:38 “What are you seeking?”

The question that is under every question that Jesus ask is will you follow me? This is another way of saying what do you want?

We are searching for meaning and purpose. There is an entire sect of people called the searchers. They are searching they are trying to find meaning and purpose everywhere, but they can’t find it. This is from drugs to eastern religion. Solomon went on this journey similar to that of the prodigal son.

We are all searching for meaning. We are all searching for satisfaction. The rolling stones songs “can’t get no satisfaction” comes to mind. They had all the money, fame and sex in the world but still couldn’t get no satisfaction.

There was a movement of the early 2000’s called the new atheist movement. The new atheist movement is best summarized by this quote by Richard Dawkins. “I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate,”In 2006 there was a poll given that 42 percent of UK adults agreed with that statement. 2 out of 5 people agreed with it.

By 2015 it was becoming clear that this movement was dying out. It only lasted 15 years. They were saying that this was not just going to kill Christianity but every religion. As humanity grew and evolved that eventually we wouldn’t need religion and that it was just something we made to help make sense of the world. This is demonstrated in the Tv show Star Trek where they have grown or evolved past religion.

The same group that ran the poll in 2006 ran the poll again in 2015 and found that only 20 percent of UK adults agreed with Dawkins’s statement. That it had dropped by half. It went from 40 percent of people down to 20 percent.

So what killed the new atheist movement?

They had all the great thinkers of the early 2000’s on their side. They had best-selling books and people in great power backing this. Powerful institution backing them, Entertainment, TV shows movies and the news as well as top universities. What happened? There is an entire book on this and about how people are now searches instead of atheist. (Justin Brierly The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: Why New Atheism Grew Old and Secular Thinkers Are Considering Christianity Again)

There are all kinds of reasons why this movement died. The biggest reason this movement died was because they failed to ask a simple question.

What is the meaning of life? If God doesn’t exist what is point. If we are just a collection of cells what is the point. If we are just star dust that by luck and chance, we came to be, what is the point. Philosophically atheism fails to answer the biggest question of all and that is meaning. What is our purpose? In other words, what we are you longing for?

Ecclesiastes is answering this question in the way of it is attacking the other gods.

Point 3 counterfeit gods

There are little g gods we are worshiping. We think these gods are going to answer the question for meaning and purpose. They won’t. If you are thinking these little g gods are things like Zeus and Baal there not. The little g gods I’m talking about is the counterfeit gods

A counterfeit gods is If I only had, If I only knew, If I only did then I would be happy or satisfied.

If I only had

Money

Time

Community

Power

If I only did

If I only had these accomplishments

If only I was like so and so

Accomplishments

· Got that college degree.

· Had that partner.

· Got that Job.

· If I only had sex with that person.

If I only knew

We think the more we know the happier we will be. Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell say this “We have found that the men who knew most are the most gloomy.”

Solomon has gone down all these roads. He tried to find meaning in everything and says it was meaningless. It was vanity. It was all chasing after the wind.

Have ever tried to catch wind? You can’t. If you try to find meaning in anything other than our creator, it will be meaningless.

This is the temptation for a lot of us we try to find meaning counterfeit gods. For most of us we wrap our hearts carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries. Jumping from one thing to the next. Distracting ourselves. Read watch shows hangout with friends, or how Solomon puts it drink your wine and be merry, but this doesn’t work.

CS lewis capture this temptation to pursue meaningless things.

CS Lewis “Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. So, if you want to make sure of keeping it intact, give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap your heart carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries. Avoid all entanglements. Lock it up, safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. Your heart will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, and irredeemable.”

This the temptation for a lot of us. For most of us we wrap our hearts carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries. Jumping from one thing to the next. This will make our hearts unbreakable, impenetrable, and irredeemable. For those of us without an English degree they makes us zombies. This story of Solomon here in Ecc is story that has repeated itself time and time again.

Conclusion: We weren’t created for this World

The story of Augustine. (Joke about the pronouncing)

St. Augustine wrote The confessions. And, by the way, there’s a new book out, which I think I would recommend to you, by James K. A. Smith On the road with St Augustine, which tells the story. You’ve heard of St. Augustine, pretty much everybody has. But here’s the story. St. Augustine was, an African, who lived in Africa. And he was just a brilliant man. And he was an outsider; he was not wealthy. He was not an aristocrat. He was not a European. And, as a result, he just longed to be on the inner ring; he wanted to be on the inside. And, so, he was brilliant, and so he gets up into the higher echelons of literary circles in Carthage. But then decided Carthage, which was in Africa, is a backwater. And, so, what he does then is he says, “I’m going to go to Rome.” So, he moves to Rome, and he starts to move up in the ranks in Rome, but then he still feels like, he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. And, then he gets an appointment in Milan. And, Milan is where the seat of the Roman Emperor, and he starts to work in the imperial government. And, yet, he still finds himself unsatisfied. And, then begins to read the stoics; he read Cicero. And, Cicero, says “Happiness in life is absolutely not possible. Pleasure is possible, but you’re never going to be happy. So, you just have to kill that part of your heart that longs for it.” And, Augustine didn’t want to go there. And, finally, he became a Christian, and he wrote the wonderful book The Confessions. And, basically, he realized this; this is what he came up with. He says,

“The Eastern and stoics are wrong. It does exist. We wouldn’t have these deep desires unless there was a fulfillment for those desires.” But secondly, he said, “Modern people,” of course, Augustine was modern. “Modern people are wrong because it is not in this world. There is a deeper desire.”

Christianity can’t just make logical sense. By that I mean evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. The bible being historically accurate. These things are good and true. Christianity must make emotional sense. Meaning I could tell you how true Christianity is but if you don’t care the truth means nothing to you. We must have Christianity answer the longing questions. That is what failed with the new atheist movement, people found it to be true but it failed to satisfy the longing of our heart.

You may not have experienced this, but as you get out in life, you're going to realize that all the things you thought were really going to make you happy don't do it.

"The job you thought would make you happy, the marriage you thought would make you happy, the travel you thought would make you happy, at first, it seems like this is finally going to do it, and it goes away in the grasping of it."

Once this happens you do 1 of three things.

1. The Dreamer

· I need a better wife, I need a better trip, I need a better job, and out there that happiness is out there in this world.

2. The Zombie

· The second thing you can do is say there is no happiness, there is no satisfaction. I just have to harden myself. Stop crying after the moon. Just get cynical. Well, that might make you less of a nuisance to people, but it also is going to dehumanize you. It's going to kill the part of your heart that really wants love, and wants happiness, and satisfaction. Your going to become a zombie.

3. The Alien

· The third possibility is this... Ducklings want to swim, there's such a thing as water. Babies want to suck milk, there's such a thing as milk. Desires don't exist unless satisfaction for those desires exist, and if you find in yourself a desire for something that nothing in this world can satisfy, it probably means you were made for another world.

Solomon is come to this realization at the end of his life. He tried the first one. He chased after all these things but found them incomplete. We all know the person who has lost hope they are cynical just dead emotionally and we don’t want that. We don’t want to be a zombie.

The Gospel is the third option. What is the Gospel? The Gospel is that we are so broken and flawed that we could never save ourselves. We can never find satisfaction for ourselves. God in his loving kindness step down into humanity became sin died on a cross. As God, and as a man. He lived a life we could never live. He walked as man in perfect relationship with God. The only way we are going to find satisfaction is in him.

In John 4 Jesus is at the well. He tells a woman at the well that if you drink from my water, you will never thirst again. The women had been searching she had 5 different husbands and was still wanting. Jesus says he is that satisfaction. Romans 1 says that we worship creation instead of the creator.

The questions is how does he satisfy. As we step forward through the series that is the question long to answer.

The question of how he answers the longing of the human heart. The longing of if I only had. The long of if I only knewand the longing of if I only did (accomplished.)

Worship team you can make your way up. If you guys want to stand with me as read this last passage. Then I will pray, and worship band will lead 2 more songs.

Ec 3:11–13 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ec 1:1. [2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Ki 10:23–25. [3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Ki 10:26–27.