What's the Point?

Introduction

When we get to the end of the year we hear and say the same cliches. “where has the time gone?” or “can you believe it is already?” I am told by those older than I that life is so short, and it goes faster the older you get. We all want more hours in a day and more days in a week. We can’t seem to do all we need to do in the time we have. If you remember there was a time in your life when time didn’t move fast enough. Just a week ago there was an army of kids up here thinking Christmas would never come and now it has been over nearly a week. And weeks of excitement is finally played out into normalcy.

The first thing you realize then is that you have no control over the movement of time. You cannot bring on one season sooner any more than you can hold off another from coming on. Even if you fill every single day with busyness.

What is odd is the thinking that this produces. At first you want to manage what you have better. It makes me want to squeeze significance out of the time I have. But even then the relentless march continues with such inexorable certainty, that the thinking shifts to deeper thoughts, deeper and more philosophical than just management. We begin to ask questions like, what’s the point? What can I actually control? What is my significance? What is my place in the grand scheme of things? Or as someone once said “Is there a grand scheme of things?”

In Ecc. 3:1-15 We find Solomon taking this head on. Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived. God gave him wisdom and an “understanding heart”. Not only that but God said “No one before you has ever been as wise as you and no one after you will ever be again.”

Now to people who claim the Bible as the word of God that means that we need to stop and take a long hard look at what he says.

In Ecclesiastes Solomon has applied his giant brain to some of the more troubling observations about life and here we have some of his musings. If you remember this book it seems at first glance almost dismal. He says “all is vanity” or “meaningless” ALLOT! He lays out the futility of human life and asks “What’s the point?” Then here in chapter 3 he jots some very insightful lines. I want to pick those apart today.

Ecclesiastes 3:1–15 (ESV)

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 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. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.

The Cycle

V1 Contains the bookends of the whole mess. We come onto the scene and leave. We start and end. But life goes on. No matter what we do our lives will have these elements in them. (review) Now he’s not saying that “at some point you need to kill someone, fight a war, rip a shirt and learn to stitch it and throw rocks at someone.” He is not stating the moral quality of these things. He is summing up the big seasons of any given life. And no matter what, we cannot escape the seasons any more than you can stop the snow from falling or the temperature from rising.

How much control do you have? Can you break out of this cycle? If someone with enough gumption tried, could they be the master of their fate and do it different? The point here is that we are utterly subjected to this pattern no matter who we think we are. Think of it like this: Some powerful person can set out intending that they will fundamentally change history and the world forever, break the cycle and be the master of their own fate. But in an effort to do that they what?.... First they must be born, then they grow and tear and heal and then they begin their work of fixing things by hating the status quo, declaring war on the way things are, they pluck up or tear down and cast away the present system, only to build up a new one and plant something new and sew up the fabric of society, just in time to age out and die. And another generation comes on the scene. Even in an effort to overcome the cycle we perpetrate it.

But there’s something here we don’t like. Notice how all of these things add up to zero. For one life there is a death, for something grown there is something plucked, for something built there is something torn down, for something taken there is something lost for something kept there is something sacrificed. And the word that Ecclesiastes is best known for is “vanity” or the word we would use is “meaningless”.

The Problem

On and on it goes until v 9 he says “what did we gain?” the obvious mathematical answer is “nothing.” We are all subjected to the cycle and all end up at the same spot. Well then what’s the point? There is something in us that wants to accomplish something or we feel as though we are meaningless. We begin to shape our lives towards fulfillment only to find that there is no end to the search. Is there a point?

There is something in us that wants to GAIN. We don’t want to simply exist. We want to see the markers, the proof, of our “exercising dominion” over the earth, that command we were given in Genesis. We want to have some kind of control or mastery over something significant. As we get older and our ambitions are more shaped by reality, that dream gets adjusted to more realistic goals. Maybe instead of owning thousands of acres you’d just like to pay off your house. Instead of cattle on a thousand hills maybe just one corner of the hill and a cat. Instead of a fortune and leisure maybe just a nice vacation every 10 years. But then as Solomon says earlier, The same end comes to all people. The haves and the have nots. What’s the deal?

Why are we this way?

The fundamental issue that is seen through the entire book of Ecclesiastes is “The fall of Adam.” The point at which human kind chose sin and changed the earth.

Romans 8:20–21 ESV

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Human sin has brought futility into the world. Do you remember the main temptation behind the fall? Eat the fruit and you will be like God. To become god’s in our own right. We would then be the masters of our own fate. And the threads of that first sin run through every sin committed since. Placing myself in the position of God. Out of all of the futile acts of our lives this is the first. Making yourself God and master in your own life leads to a life of futility. No matter how much you accomplish. A path of self dominion is a path to meaninglessness. It is futile because we ARE NOT GOD. We were never meant to carry the burden of deity. And when we try we only make things worse. But due to our fallen nature this is what we try to do every day. Every single sin and subsequent trial, is because we continually try to make little gods of ourselves. We place ourselves on a pedestal and then every offense is against our little god, and leads to our pride being inflamed, which leads to anger and hatred. Here is what that does.

Look at V11. When we step into the role of god in our lives, we suck the beauty out of it. We overturn the right order life and corrupt it and that corruption ultimately leads to a lack of significance. It does the exact opposite of what we intended. When we are the most significant person in our own lives, we produce futility.

Our Response

Humility, confidence.

First of all We should put God where he belongs in our life. This is the fundamental answer to how to have a meaningful life.

Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart, and he can thereafter do no common act. Tozer

This means, Put God at the forefront of your life, and then EVERYTHING you do becomes eternally significant. Submit yourself to God and and it will change everything about your life. Make God the actual god of your life, not just in name, but in reality. Matthew 6:31–33 “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

If God is the one who ultimately provides your basic needs, then that changes the nature of work doesn’t it? God says, “put me first and ill take care of all that little stuff.”

Lets look at V 10-13

English Standard Version (Chapter 3)

10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 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.

This tells us that God has given us work to keep us busy. And that is a GIFT? Well that also changes the nature of work doesn’t it? We look at work as a brutal necessity.

And then he tells us that it is beautiful in a specific way and time that he designed. That it is “appropriate” that we stay busy and endure these cycles that make up human life.

But it can appear meaningless to us because it doesn’t fulfill that sin nature desire to be god in our own lives. We tend to believe that if our work doesn’t lend to the building of our own significance and legacy, then we are failures. But what we learn here is something different. This shows you the gap between our perspective and God's work. We are fallen, and the conclusions we draw apart from God are appropriately dismal.

We think that it is “what” we are doing that gives significance, but he says it is “that” we are doing. We were created to glorify God by reflecting his image in creation. This means that we plant and grow and build and raise families, produce goods etc. Solomon tells us that these simple things are actually a God given gift. The cycle doesn’t make life meaningless, we make the cycle meaningless if we do not place God rightly in our lives.

A part of placing God appropriately in our lives is recognizing how inferior we are to him (thank God). Solomon says that we have an awareness of eternity, something bigger, something more. We understand existence in a way that is different than the rest of creation. We are not like animals who strive for survival. We are doing more than surviving. BUT, God has not allowed us to see the whole picture. The ultimate God perspective is beyond us.It says that even though we have an awareness of “more” we do not have a big enough perspective to understand it all. Again, this is from the wisest man that God ever made.

So then, if it is impossible for us to figure it out, what should we do? Get back to the uncommon-common work he has given us. And do right. Do what is at hand and do what is right. Serve God, love others be satisfied with the simple.

Then we should have a sense of Confidence. Like a child at night knowing that daddy is sitting up in the next room. They don’t have to know it all or understand it all, how the bills get paid or how the heater works or where the food comes from. But I do have to know him. That is something worth working towards. And the more you know God, the father who is sitting up at night keeping watch over you, the more happy and content you are with what you don’t know. Do not fail to realize how big God is. How far beyond our perspective and understanding he is. How great and baffling his work is and how good his gifts are. Look at 14-15

14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.

That means that God’s work is eternal and complete, there are no missing pieces. It also says that we should have a sense of the gravity of God based on what we have been shown of him in creation. The evidence of God that we see in creation should be enough to determine that he is higher and holier than us.

Then in 15 he repeats that phrase that nothing is new on this earth. God is never surprised. Nothing is hidden or driven from him, there are no loose ends, everything will be judged equally and rightly in the end. He has made no mistakes.

So where is Jesus in this? If the earth was subjected to futility, then Jesus is the one who has freed us to fruitfulness. But it is because of his work, not ours. He is the answer to our fallen nature, the fix to our fallen perspective. He redeems or “buys back” our fallen work and gives us eternal significance. And as far as “gain”? Look what Paul says about gain. Here he was talking about all of his accomplishments, all of his work. He had mentioned his high education, his excellent diligence, his unmatched ambition. Then he says....

Philippians 3:8 ESV

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Jesus becomes the benefit, the gain. The one who is ultimately significant. And knowing him is the highest gain there is. Actually if you were to sell your assets, your land, your business, and give up your identity and risk reputation, and count all of your accomplishments as nothing; you would then be on track for the highest gain, the best return on this investment called life. Everyone is in on the investment, that’s what is obvious from the list of seasons. And everyone cashes out.

If you would do the work of getting to know the God you claim to believe in, You will have access to ultimate significance and eternal gain. If you are anxious, uncertain, worried about work and insignificance and legacy. You had better come to know the Father who is sitting up beside the fire better. What we can understand from this passage is that there is a gift to enjoy, and a God who is doing something bigger than us. But you will take no comfort from that until you know him well.

So this year, grow, and grow on purpose.