Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:26 | Sandcastle Kings

Hello

Not deal with all the text - but the thrust of the section.

Quick Recap -

Wisdom for the messy life under the Sun.

the Preacher, asks the question of what gain is there from all the toil with which we toil under the sun.

and he shocks All is breath. Fleeting, elusive

In doing so The preacher was teasing us by just giving a taste of what he is going to unwrap throughout the book, and how our limitations as human beings should shape how we live wisely in God’s world.

He shows us these limitations by pointing us to the reality of the universe.

Now iun the text that is before us, he is going to speak from his own experience.

How he came to understand, ultimately, that life, is not for our gain, but life is a gift!

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Set up

Sandcastle Kings

growing up, building sandcastles down at the Barn ses beach.

building helms deeping wall, the keep, the hornburg - Helms deep

no matter how well fortified. No matter how long we worked.

some part had collapsed, fools, the tide.

—

As Humans, approaching our lives, we often do so by asking how we can gain the most from it…

With this approach to life, we are often fooled by the illusion that through the smorgas board of options before us: - knowledge, pleasure, entertainment, accomplishipments, wealth, we can find the ultimate ‘gain’ or ‘profit’ in life. The good life = the happy life

In fact, we live in a culture where we can fool ourselves by believing we are kings…

In the preachers time, really for most of human history, only a small portion of people could live comfortable, exuberant lives. And everyone else was constantly faced with hardship and poverty.

Although modern life, especially in the west is one that might be defined by convenience, consumption, and comfort!

We are constantly sold that there are gains to be made that will radically alter life.

you can increase you income

you can buy more things

you can better you health

you can find fulfillment and happiness

there is always something else to subscribe to that will be more entertaining or pleasurable.

You can live like kings and queens. It’s all at your fingertips. If you want it, there is likely a way you can have it.

So… we do.

Gain is possible, so we gain as much as we can.

It’s like we imagine that we are building grand castles, kingdoms for ourselves.

And if we just keep fortifying, if we accumulate more and more wisdom, wealth, pleasure…If we GAIN as much as possible we will build a life that ultimately fulfills us and makes us happy!

Then along comes the preacher, and in the text before us today he shows us that our castles, they are just made of sand.

No matter the lofty heights we dream of reaching, and no matter how much we try and satiate our desires through convenience and consumption - we are no more than sandcastle kings.

And the great profits we think we will make will crumble and be washed away.

He

Crushes our Sandcastles

by speaking of his own experience as he searched for meaning and fulfillment.

The search

Ecclesiastes 1:12–13

12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven.

Ecclesiastes 2:1

1 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.

Ecclesiastes 2:3

3 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.

The search for gain, for happiness For the good Life.

Wisdom

First he sought to understand wisdom and folly.

Ecclesiastes 1:16–18

16 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.” 17 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. 18 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

He sought wisdom as a means to gain in life.

This is very much how we view wisdom or knowledge today. Take education for example.

Broadly speaking, the point of education isnt necessarily learning or discovery, or even better for christians, Discipleship… no in out culture,

education is for ‘getting ahead’ in life. Gaining

the point is to get good grades, so you can get ahead and

get a good atar, so you can get ahead and get into a good university degree

Education has become a mechanism for fulfilling our own personal dreams.

Scientific or psycological endevours today, are largely not means of discovering what God has created, but instead an attempt to unravel the universe so we can overcome it. Or understand perfectly the human being so that we might make it super.

But he found it to be a chasing after the wind. No matter how hard he ran, he couldnt catch it.

Then he tried Self Indulgence

First testing his heart with pleasure, joy, and wine. v. 1-4

He booked ticket to all the shows, sought the hotest comedians to take the sting out of life, and sipped on shiraz in the hills every opportunity he had.

Yet still it was vanity. It was as fleeting as vapor.

Good for a moment. then gone.

Like, to use a modern metephor for Hevel - its like FAIRY FLOSS.

It didnt fill him up.

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So he turned to industry

Ecclesiastes 2:4–8

4 I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees.

and wealth,

7 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.

and experiences, entertainment and sexual endevour.

8 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.

This was a superhuman feat.

Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs Joy, Work, and Profit (2:1–11)

He put superhuman effort into what he did (Heb. maʿaśeh, “works,” is used in

All the things under the sun… if youve seen it… the preacher says, ive done it!

Likewise in 2:7-8, if it could be owned, i owned it.

Ecclesiastes 2:9–11

9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 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.

and when he had done all, and emassed all his wealth and accomplishments - what did he find?

11 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.

You know all the things we dream of having:

the house, the car, the salary, the savings, the experiences, the position, the respect, the relationships.

the preacher says freind, I had ‘em, and i did them, and I was no better off.

The Preacher lays out that even if we were the wisest king who lived, with the greatest understanding, the ability to seek pleasure unhindered, and wealth beyond comprehension, these are all but a breath.

No matter how much wisdom, we cannot control the world,

no matter how much pleasure, we cannot fill up the bottomless cup of our souls,

and no matter how much wealth and accomplishment, it is fleeting and slips through our fingers.

and to prove it, to crush our sandcastles, he reminds us again of our own limitations, now explicilty pointing to the:

The great equaliser

for the rich, the poor, the king, the peasant, the wise, the foolish

Death…

but death is the tide… that washes it all away.

Wisdom

in 2:12-17

First though he recognsies that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly.

Ecclesiastes 2:13–14

13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.

Still, when wisdom is made to be an end in itself, it is found to be futile and fleeting.

Ecclesiastes 2:14b

And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.

Stephen Covey…7 habits of highly effective people.

endevoured to live the fullest most effective life

and he died from a bike accident.

What does this challenge?

If you live with the goal of gaining and the means is to be as wise and knowledgable as possible… hey… its better than walking around with you eyes closed.

But you will still end. and you wont be able to break free from the limitations which God has given you.

We love to think that we can discover some new knowledge that will save and protect and sustain us.

Wealth and Accomplishment

And when he considers all he has,

v. 18, all his toil at which he toiled under the sun…

He hates it. … because he must leave it to another man.

He cannot take it with him. and who is to know if the next person will be wise or foolish. v.19

You can live your whole life to gain as much as possible. to hoard as much wealth as you can.

You can strive… and look at vs 23. Its a life of sorrow… of vexation.

STRIVING THAT DOESNT CEASE

No matter how much we think we can gain, how grand we can build our castle, the tide still comes in.

And we will realise then that there was no profit in pursuing such things.

Now we must ask why, why has the preacher explained this experience to us… why has he crushed our castles with the reality of death.

Becuase… really, all this has been one big set up, a set up for what he is going to say next.

Enjoying the Gift and the Giver

Ecclesiastes 2:24–26

24 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, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 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.

The book of Ecclesiastes is one that Christians have wrestled with for centuries.

One issue that many have had with it is they say that it essentially promotes a nihilistc view of life.

Nihilism is the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.

The Nihilistic creed is essentially, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die… for this is all there is.

I am going to attempt to show you how the message of Ecclesiastes differs drastically to this, though the rythm seems to fall on the same beat.

Ecclesiastes says, eat, drink, and enjoy all the toil - becuase this is what God has given.

Enjoy the gifts that God has given, because this is what we have.

Enjoy the (vanity) breath you have.

Life in God’s world is a gift, not gain. When the Qohelet pursued gain he couldn't reach the end of the rainbow. But when we view life as a gift (v. 24-26), it makes that which is a breath and fleeting enjoyable. 

How often do we live in this way:

we eat, so that we can be full to go to work, or school.

we go to work, so that we can accomplish and feel satisfied

or be able to buy the things that make us happy…

Well Ecclesiastes, says its all striving for something else. and the preacher wants to help us ask

what if the meal we have in the morning is a gift worth enjoying, and being grateful for.

what if work, wasnt meant to make me successful, but an opportunity to be faithful.

what if… rather than building castles, trying to manipulate our lives to selfishly gain from it, we just enjoyed building castles in the sand.

and sure this is a really simple point, but isnt it such a common human trait to neglect to enjoy the ordinary things. And we neglect to enjoy them becuase we forget that they are a GIFT!

Becuase we treat ourselves as royalty and expect we deserve more…

so busy with what’s next, what we have to get to, to accomplish, to buy, to find satisfaction…

marriage,

family, freinds

Learn to enjoy what must be done.

Church… wow, we get to be with people… who love Jesus as well, and What a gift.

Why does the preacher use death as his tool?

What do people do when they find out they have so long to live?

they do the things they have always wanted

and they cherish the moments, and the people they have!

Live this day, in light of that reality.

And enjoy this as a gift, stop trying to manitpulate your life and your world for you own gain, enjoy the gift you have.

“the reality is that if death doesnt inform the way we live, then death is something we are pretending doesnt exist” - Gibson.

Steve

He says the things that most people say sarcastically… but he means it.

‘another day living the dream’ - ‘another day in paradise’

and he means it…

by the way - he recently passed the age at which his father died.

cancer - ‘nothing gets to me without first going through my fathers hands.’

This is the sort of approach Ecclesiastes is trying to teach us.

Thats the sort of man I want to be.

Now. enjoy the gift as the end? no, the gift isnt the end, the giver is.

But it isnt flipant enjoyment for the sake of it… it is for the sake of the GIVER.

Ecclesiastes 2:24–26

This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy…

Life is a breath, its a fleeting elusive vapor… But we can enjoy the breath when we treasure God above all else.

What do you treasure most?

Did you notice that what the preacher pursues are not necessarily bad things. we may even so most of them are good things!

Wisdom, laughter and pleasure, making grand things

wealth, isnt necessarily bad in and of itself.

The only ones that are really in question is the gathering of slaves and concubines.

Apart from the last, these things the preachers pursues are not in and of themselves bad, or sinful.

Yet, in his conclusion, he says that this is the business of the sinner v. 26.

He isnt saying the things themselves are sinful, he is say that the pursuit of them as the goal is.

It is the way of the sinner. the Business of the sinner. To pursue these things as a means of gain.

to make them the means of your satisfaction.

devoting all your time, and energy, to fill yourself up.

The castles we build are little idols we chase after and give our lives to.

Matthew 6:19–21 (ESV)

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Do we treasure God… the giver of every good thing?

more than we treasure…

Becuase living our lives as a gift, starts with acknowledging the giver in everything.

“To give thanks always, and for everything to God the father in the name of our Lord jesus Christ.” Eph 5:20

This is the life of the righteouss in contrast to the way fo the sinner.

The one who pleases God. - and we can only please God through faith…

Hebrews 11:6

6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Faith in Christ responding to the gospel of Grace.

the promise of forgivness of sins, and the gift of righteousness through faith in Christ!

Matthew 16:26 “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

The rich young ruler! Mark 10:17-27

Luke 6:46–49

46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs Original Meaning

For all their apparent advantages, it turns out that kings—even kings like Solomon—must content themselves with regarding life as an end in itself rather than as an object to be manipulated for profit. It is in the humble things, received as gifts from God—eating and drinking and finding satisfaction in one’s work—that joy is to be found. The good life is the life centered on God and not on the striving self.