Sermon Tone Analysis

Rhythm and Blues

Jeff Jones, Senior Pastor

April 13~/15, 2007

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

 

Today we begin a new series called Rhythm and Blues, on the book of Ecclesiastes.

Any R&B fans out there?

Here is what this series is about: finding a rhythm, a way of life with God, that gives purpose and meaning and solidness in a world of blue.

Today we are going to introduce the series out of Ecclesiastes 1, talking about both the rhythm and the blues.

This series is going to be very real, very authentic, and has the potential to be highly life-changing and perspective-shifting.

In light of that, let’s pray together and commit ourselves to God and to what he wants to say to us in this series.

Pray.

Today we are talking about the rhythm and about the blues.

First, let’s talk about the blues (start music).

You know the blues, right?

Some of you do.

Life doesn’t always work out the way you want…it is hard to control, hard to predict.

Building a solid life can feel like building sandcastles too close to the waves, about the time you have something that looks great, a wave comes and you are back to zero.

Ever feel like that in life?

If so, you can relate to the blues.

And what the Bible teaches is that though we were created for perfection, we gave that up.

When Adam and Eve voted for the path of sin in the garden, a vote that we have seconded with our own sins, that sin and death and frustration entered into the world.

The world became a world of blue.

You and I were made for perfection, but we don’t live in perfection.

We live with the blues.

It’s like this: We’ll call it the honeymoon blues.

Let’s say you get married to a girl or guy that seems to be Mr. or Ms. Right.

And he or she decides to plan the honeymoon and surprise you with it.

They promise that it will be awesome, perfect, almost too-good-to-be-true.

You pack for it, anticipate it, can’t wait for it.

In your mind, you are getting ready for something like this

 

*Slide: __________ *(lux pic)

 

That’s right, that’s what we are talking about!

You know it is going to be awesome.

Then the day comes…the wedding and then the honeymoon.

You can’t wait to experience it, the luxury, the comfort, the amazement…and then you arrive, and

 

*Slide: __________ *(dump pic)

 

and it is not exactly what you had in mind.

Is this a joke?

This is a dump…a pay by the hour hotel…a place where they give you a key and a can of RAID…you go in and the bed isn’t even made up from the person who was there the hour before you.

Your new spouse says, “Honey, we’ve got this place for TWO hours!” You’ve got the honeymoon blues (end music).

Let’s talk about the blues part of life, because you and I will never understand Ecclesiastes, or never even understand life, until we understand the blues from a biblical perspective.

And the blues I am talking about, the Bible calls the fall, the fall of man that turned this earth into a house of blues, that brought in sin and death and futility.

You and I, like Adam and Eve, were created for paradise, created for perfection, created for something like this

 

*Slide: __________ *(lux pic).

Yet, when Adam and Eve sinned, everything changed, and the world became something much more like this

 

*Slide: __________ *(dump pic).

Created for the Ritz Carlton, but we are now stuck with the Roach Motel.

In the book of Romans, God describes it this way:

 

*Slide: __________ *Romans 5:12

 

/Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin… 5:/12.

The world before sin was perfect, but after Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God, sin and death entered the world, and as a result God cursed this planet.

*Slide: __________ *Romans 8:20

 

says, /For the creation was subject to frustration (futility), not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it…(8:20)./

We were created for perfection, but we live in something that falls far short.

That’s the blues part of this life.

It doesn’t mean that everything in the world is terrible or that every relationship is going to be awful…but it does mean that everything in this world is tainted by sin and subjected to the curse, that futility runs through everything and discolors everything.

With that in mind, we are ready for what Solomon will say about the blues.

Take your Bible or the one in front of you, and let’s look at

 

*Slide: __________ *Ecclesiastes 1:1-2

 

/The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: “Meaningless!

Meaningless!” says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless!”/

/ /

Now, this is a guy with a case of the blues.

Before you try to cheer him up though, let’s hear what he has to say:

 

*Slide: __________ . . .

*/meaningless, meaningless . . .

everything is meaningless./

The old King James version translated it with the word vanity, vanity of vanities is a phrase you might remember hearing.

The Hebrew word translated vanity or meaningless is a word that literally means vapor, like steam or a cloud or water vapor…something that looks solid, but when you try to grab hold of it, it just dissipates.

Like a cloud.

Let’s say you have never flown in an airplane before, and perhaps have never even seen one.

You’ve grown up in the African bush, and you have always wondered about those white, puffy forms in the sky were all about.

Maybe they are bouncy or solid, but curious.

So, you get in this airplane and take off, and you are amazed.

You are flying!

You are of course nervous, and you are looking out of the window, and you see that the plane is flying right toward one of those white things in the sky.

Surely, the girl who is steering this thing sees that.

Surely she will avoid it.

But you keep getting closer.

If they keep going, you will go right into the white mass.

You will crash our bounce off and fall out of the sky.

You scream, you cry out, “We are going to hit the cloud…God help us!

Tell the pilot we are going to hit the cloud!

We are all going to die!”

Then, whoosh, you fly right into it.

You open your eyes and unclench your fists, and you are alive.

You look outside the window as you are in the middle of this cloud, and there is nothing but water droplets, just vapor.

It’s nothing.

It looked like something solid, but it was just vapor.

Solomon is saying that is what life is like.

All these things in life we strive for, that seem solid, things like marriage or career or ambition or money or even spiritual life, all seem so solid, but when you grab hold of them you realize it is all just vapor…nothing to it.

All the things we strive for, just vapor.

He’ll say why next.

Let’s hear him sing the blues:

 

*Slide: __________ Ecc.

1:3*

* *

/What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?/  “Under the sun” is a common phrase in this book, and what he is talking about is life here under heaven on this cursed planet where the stream of futility runs through everything…where nothing is quite satisfying, quite good, an element of futility in all of it.

What does a man gain or profit from all the anxiety and work and worry in this life?

The implication is not much, just vapor.

His song continues: