The Vanity of Wisdom

Our passage today is going to be in Ecclesiastes 1:12–18. Again that is Ecclesiastes 1:12-18. I just want to say how blessed I am and indeed we all are to be here today. As your flipping to the passsage, I want us all to reflect and meditate on God’s gifts that He has given us here today. So often we forget that we are not promised today or tomorrow. We wake up and go about doing what we do because its what we’ve always done. We have become a people who are so quick to just go through the motions. We’ve got the day and week planned already. We have a routine we go through daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. Everything so nice and tidy. There is nothing wrong with routines, but let us ask and reflect, are we being intentional with the time that God has given us? Are we thinking about how the only reason any of us are alive right now is because God is sustaining us? Are we being intentional in our prayers, thanking God because if you’re alive right now it’s because He is going to use you for His glory and the good of others. Paul said it best. “To Live is Christ and die is gain.” We’ve talked a lot about hope in death. The ultimate joy that awaits us. Indeed, for the Christian, to die, to be united with Jesus in person is the ultimate goal. It is our greatest hope. Though one day all of the saints will spend eternity there, in God’s providence He has not taken us back yet. Our bodies ache and our spirits groan, “why hasn’t the lord taken us home yet?” Brother’s and sisters, for the sake of those who have yet to come! think about it, this day and this very second there are people around the world who Christ is saving. He will not abandon those who are His. From everlasting to everlasting He knows their names the same way He knows yours. He has worked through eternity to guarantee your salvation and He will hold you until the end. We serve a God that cannot fail. God is demonstrating something through you. He’s showing the world that you’re not forgotten. Right now. He’s demonstrating something through me. That He is patience to the a young kid who doesn’t know anything. He’s demonstrating something to all Christians. To the ones who struggle with certain sins, the ones he keep seem to give up, God is demonstrating His love. Imagine the Christian, perhaps he’s drug user. Imagine him on his knees crying out for forgiveness. He says, “Lord, I don’t know why I keep going back. I know that it kills me soul and it will never satisfy and yet I find myself asking for forgiveness again. Oh, Lord I know that I am a miserable type and there is nothing in me that could ever warrant your love but please forgive me.” It is so easy to scoff at the isrealites and those who struggle with lust or drugs. How could you be set free and continue to turn away from the Lord! My friend we are no different. our hearts are constantly at war with God. We are constantly turning away and betraying Him. If you don’t think you are than my dear friend you have made an idol of your own righteousness that has blinded you to the truth. The only thing separating you from Hell is not your deeds, not your good works, but Christ. And if you have become so-self deluded that you have convinced yourself that you’re not like those “other Christians”. You could never do what they do because you really love the Lord. What I am about to say is going to sound harsh and can be very easily misunderstood so pay attention. It really doesn’t matter how much you love Jesus. You might say, well what do you mean by that? How could you say that? All Christians love Jesus! You’re right! I have your attention now, so listen. In a Christians life, His love for Jesus matters not, in as much as it pertains to sanctification, holiness and his salvation I want you to think of John and how he identified himself. It wasn’t John, the disciple who loved Jesus, but it was John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. Do you see? Our relationship with Christ is built on His love for us, not the other way around. There is a famous hymn which I’m sure we’ve all sang before. There is a name I love to Hear. The Lyrics go like this: “There is a name I love to hear,   I love to sing its worth; It sounds like music in mine ear, The sweetest name on earth. Oh, how I love Jesus, Oh, how I love Jesus, Oh, how I love Jesus,  Because He first loved me!” Our love is not something we flaunt as a good work, but it is the rightful response to what Jesus has done. If your standing with God was based on your love for Him, you would be sent to hell, and so would I. Because we could never love Him enough. There has never been a day in your life where you have loved God enough, but picture this, there was never a day in Jesus life when He did not love God enough. But so what? What does that have to do with God’s plan and will for your life? It has been said that God’s plan for your life is His plan for you today, and I think that could not have been spoken better. If tomorrow is not guarenteed than all we have is what the Lord has given us. I said what I said to so that we might refocus our eyes and our lives. It is not about us and our actions, the Lord didn’t give us today for what we can do for Him, but He gave us today to demonstrate to the world what He has done for us, and what He do for them. Every single day is a gift from the Lord. Are we thankful? Are we intentional in our daily lives? or are we just going through the motions? Are we here today because we are hungry for the Word of God? or because its just what we do. Let us pray and ask the Lord to give us thankful hearts and intentional minds, they we might demonstrate to the world how good He is. Let us go into The Word of God, with ears to hear, eyes to see and a heart to comprehend. Let’S Pray

Let’s start with the reading of God’s Word. Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 “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.”

If you recall a few Sundays ago we covered verses 1 though 11. In the passage we talked about the foolishness of chasing after material things of this world, family, fame, money, etc. We talked about how only in Christ can we find something that gives life purpose, something that will last. After all, all material things will fade one day. Today we are talking about the same thing but a different outlet. That is to say that while in our first part we mainly talked about material things, today we are talking about things that aren’t material. We’re talking about ideas, philosphy, knowledge and such. So Solomon starts in verse 12 the same way that he did in verse one, he is reminding us that he is not someone who lacks anything material. Everything Solomon wants, Solomon gets. And his conclusion was that it is all vanity. Now what we see here is something that you will find in many who have tasted and seen that all worldly possessions are fading and are but vanity. We see Solomon turn to things that are not material. What does one do when he cannot deny that all the materials on earth are nothing but vanity but refuse Christ? Well they look to things outside of themselves. This can look very different, maybe they dedicate their lives to charity, maybe it’s social justice, maybe its to knowledge and wisdom. A better understanding of what’s going on around them. This is what Solomon does. Saying in verse 12 and 13, “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.” Now at his time, Solomon was one of the wisest people alive. So you might wonder why he sought wisdom. Well for one, just because you’re smart or wise doesn’t mean you’re the smartest person alive. For two, it is generally true, the more one knows, the more they realize how much they don’t know. One could spend their whole life dedicated to knowing and at the end will never know a 10th of what is to be known. The same is actually true for our sanctification. The closer we grow to God, the more sinful we realize we are. The more sinful we realize we are the more we cling to Christ, and the more we do that the more Christ draws us closer to Him thus repeating the cycle. But what we need to see here is that the goal hasn’t changed for Solomon in this book the same way it hasn’t for unbelievers. The goal of Solomon in this book is to find an escape from the vanity of life without Christ, and so it is the goal of unbelievers as well I might add. It is not a noble task or one to be aspired too. As Solomon would say it so plainly in the rest of verse 13, saying, “ It is an unhappy business that God has given the children of man to be busy with.” See as Christians we are tasked to seek wisdom and knowledge. But it is through the ultimate lens of the Bible. All of us, all of humanity was created to know Christ, the world testifies to him. So everyone is to seek knowledge and wisdom because it ultimately points to Christ. However, when you leave Christ out of the equation, all you are left with is the overbearing weight that everything in life is meaningless. Solomon would again bring this up in verse 14 saying, “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” Solomon continues in verse 15 saying that “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.” Solomon has realized something our society today subconsciously knows but outwardly rejects. In all of Solomons wisdom he has come to know that what is crooked cannot be made straight. You might ask what he means by this, I believe he is talking about the human condition. That is, the sinful condition of man. Think about it, we have years and year of psycharitry telling us whats wrong and how we can make it better. and yet no matter how much we try we will always have that sinful heart. We cannot fix ourselves, and we have become a culture that is bent on telling people that they can, all you have to do is buy this course, or this product. Solomon knows that apart from Christ there is no hope. There is no person so “good” , no person so strong willed, that they can fix the sin issue in their life. To try to do so, In Solomon’s words, is Vanity. Our short comings, or as Solomon say it, our lackings, our ways in which we are short of perfection, they are so many they cannot be counted. Without Christ not only is everything around us hopeless, but our very selves are hopeless. Let’s continue to the next verses. “ 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” Again pointing to his already existing great knowledge and wisdom, Solomon continues to seek it out, because he knows that even with what he does know, he cannot understand or grasp what the meaning of life is apart of God. He even admits that its vanity to even try. A chasing after the wind. After all how is one to explain life while actively denying the reality of life itself, of its Creator? So we close out of this chapter with verse 18. “For is much wisdom in much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” Without Christ, it doesn’t matter how much you know, in fact, the more you know the worse off you’ll be. While we do not need the world to prove the bible, there are studies that show this exact thing. Smarter people generally are much more likely to feel depressed. Because without Christ, to the thinking man, everything in life is meaningless. Without Christ, it is no wonder people are suicidal and depressed. Why shouldn’t they be? My brothers and sisters, we are in a world that is constantly searching for purpose and hope in anything except Christ. I might add that we are not foriegn to it either. We must carefully guard our hearts against chasing after the wind. We have a great hope because we have a great savior. As we close out I want us all to ask ourselves some questions. reflect on them and ask God to reveal it to you.

Have I been chasing after the wind, trying to fill the hole that only God can?

and if there’s any unbelievers, or believers who have lost sight of where our hope lies, ask yourself

2. Have i been struggling with the pressing weight of life and the hole that is inside. If so, come forward and talk with me after. Come, repent, taste and see the hope and purpose that our savior gives us.

Let’s pray.