Ecclesiastes (chapel)

My Work or His Work.

Introduction

The book of Ecclesiastes contains some sentiments from Solomon that we see echoed in more modern day art as well.

Be Satisfied Chapter Two:Living in Circles (Ecclesiastes 1:4–18)

Everything an Indian does is in a circle,” said Black Elk, the Sioux religious leader. “Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood …”

You would think Black Elk had been studying the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, except for one fact: for centuries, wise men and women in different nations and cultures have been pondering the mysteries of the “circles” of human life. Whenever you use phrases like “life cycle,” or “the wheel of fortune,” or “come full circle,” you are joining Solomon and Black Elk and a host of others in taking a cyclical view of life and nature.

But this “cyclical” view of life was a burden to Solomon. For if life is only part of a great cycle over which we have no control, is life worth living? If this cycle is repeated season after season, century after century, why are we unable to understand it and explain it? Solomon pondered these questions as he looked at the cycle of life “under the sun,” and he came to three bleak conclusions:

Ecclesiastes 1:3–11 ESV

What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.

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O’Donnell writes: “The book of Ecclesiastes is a God-inspired look into what Mary Oliver called “the great, black packet of time … [and] of ambition.””

Even our most fruitful work in this world eventually comes to nothing.

I. Our Work And It’s Major Vanities

I. Our Work And It’s Major Vanities

3 observations:

3 observations:

the word man is the word ADAM in Hebrew. Leads us back to the Genesis account and reminds us that the fall of Adam, the fall of man is always close on the mind of our author.

The repeating of the word toil. Reminds us of the curse on Adam.

Genesis 3:17b–19 ESV

And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

C. The phrase “under the sun” which is used twice here in our passage and in total twenty-eight times in Ecclesiastes. This is synonymous with “under the heavens” and “on earth”. This draws a physical line between God and man. It also shows the theological line there as well.

V. 3 is a curse filled question… already been answered in verse 2.

II. Nothing New Under the Sun

II. Nothing New Under the Sun

This is a pretty negative sounding viewpoint. We get a little out of sorts about this. We want to speak of how, in 2019, we are in the digital age and everything is new and improved. Man, we can’t even make new movies and tv shows… everything is a reboot of something that came before it.

Solomon shows us what is wrong with our work here.

Verses 4-8 Earth’s circularity comparison to our activities and in contrast with it’s stability

There is a weariness in our work that is illustrated here. Just a tired and burnt out over and over again.

III. Nothing Remembered

III. Nothing Remembered

So nothing is new and not her is remembered. Of course we are dealing with a generalization.

Today’s celebrities are tomorrow’s obituaries.

We feel this need and desire to be remembered.

The issue here is that death is coming for all of us. Everyone’s solid labors are vaporized by death.

IV. Our Work: Labor in the Lord is Not in Vain

IV. Our Work: Labor in the Lord is Not in Vain

How the world deals with Solomon’s questions:

There are generally three ways that people chose to deal with the meaninglessness that Solomon points out here.

The Escapist

The Escapist

The Escapist

Drugs, alcohol, sex. Watching the game, going to work, play with the kids, loving the wife, take family vacation, and then watching the game, watching the game, watching the game...

The Nihilist

The Nihilist

get more philosophical about life. Stare down life and death.

Kid from What About Bob

We’re all going to die. I’m going to die. You’re going to die.

Leo Tolstoy

“ My question—that which at the age of fifty brought me to the verge of suicide—was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man … a question without an answer to which one cannot live. It was: “What will come of what I am doing today or tomorrow? What will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?” It can also be expressed thus: Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?12

My question—that which at the age of fifty brought me to the verge of suicide—was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man … a question without an answer to which one cannot live. It was: “What will come of what I am doing today or tomorrow? What will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?” It can also be expressed thus: Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?12

12 Leo Tolstoy, quoted in Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Dutton, 2008), 201.

Ecclesiastes The Nihilist

Nihilism teaches that life has no objective meaning or intrinsic value. This is the soil from which postmodern thinking has grown.

The Hedonist

The Hedonist

It takes a pretty honest person to come to the position of nihilism. Most people won’t get there. Philosophy departments will always be smaller than business or economics departments. Most people go the direction of becoming hedonists. This means they live for pleasure as the ultimate thing to pursue. Solomon will go into this further in .

Ecclesiastes 2:1–11 ESV

I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” 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. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. 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. 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. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 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. 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.

Gospel Glasses

Gospel Glasses

All three of these options: escapism, nihilism, hedonism are three answers to the questions raised in Ecclesiastes that our world and our modern culture gives.

What we need to do as we look at these verses and really, all of the the OT is put on our gospel glasses. This is a bleak understanding of life but what does that tell us in light of the Gospel.

_Reiterate the good news of the Gospel here.

Solomon eventually comes to the answer to his troubling contemplations. His answer is to abandon human wisdom, embrace the wisdom of God, and recieve all of the the good things in this life as a gift from God.

Jesus, the better Solomon said:

Matthew 6:33 ESV

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Matthew 6

With our gospel glasses on, we see that though our work, nothing is new, nothing is remembered but Jesus’ work mattered. It matters. Jesus’ work is new. It was new then and is new now. It will always be remembered. It is eternal.

So based on this, we can know and live out that because His work always matters, the work we do enabled by Jesus and through Jesus matters also.

One commentary put it this way: Life under the sun is brief and bleak, but life through the SON is eternal and joyful.

The work of Jesus and the new workforce.

The work of Jesus and the new workforce.

Jesus pretty explicitly says what working for Him looks like. Now don’t get this sideways. You don’t gain favor or right standing with God because of your work. That was accomplished on the cross by Jesus and you can’t do anything to in anyway earn it. Your good deeds are filthy rags because of our sin nature. However, Jesus redeemed sinners on the cross and redeems our lives. Our work that once was just going to be burned up can be replaced with work that matters and will last because it is done through and for Jesus.

There are so many places we could go to see this.

Matthew 26:10–13 ESV

But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

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Matthew 26:

Matthew 26:6–13 ESV

Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table. And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

A work of sacrificial love. The disciples thought it was a waste. But to this day, preachers are still talking about what she did.

I Corinthians 3:9

1 Corinthians 3:9–14 ESV

For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.

God is building a kingdom. Jesus is the sure foundation. The things built on this foundation with materials that last will stand the test of eternity. There is so much talk about purpose and vision and all of these grandiose things in church. But we need to understand that the experience for most believers is a simple day in and day out faithfulness to Jesus, living day after day worshipping Him, loving sacrificially, and trying to spread the Gospel to those around us. As we are going doing work that matters, the work of making disciples.

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