Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Junior Church Dismissed

Open your Bibles to .

You can find that book in the Old Testament, that’s the first part of the Bible, right after the book of proverbs.

If you get to the book of Psalms, you’ve went too far.

Last week we started a new series titled “Launch Out” and that will be our theme for this year.

As we seek to launch out into the community to take Jesus to the people who need Him through small acts of kindness to show that we are for Bristol and want to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

Our country, our world, is a in a volatile state.

The past couple weeks we saw our president take action against a foreign terrorist.

I don’t want to know how you feel about it, that’s not whats important.

I want to make sure that we, as a church, keep the men and woman who are being deployed and their families in our prayers.

Let’s not allow our political position on the events of the day to prevent us from being the Christians we need to be and pray for one another during a time of need.

As a former Marine that has deployed I personally know the strain put on a family and I can only imagine being rapidly deployed as many of our military members were in the past few weeks and how that would impact the family.

We looked last week at the example of Peter and how we need to launch out in faithful obedience to just the simple requests of the Lord.

We saw the blessing that can come from faithful obedience and how we must be faithful in the little things for the Lord to trust us to be faithful in the big things.

This week I want us to examine launching out and the next generation.

I want us to look through the lens of scripture and see the great impact that can be had when we are focused on those who come after us rather than we are only focused on our generation and what we want or need.

Two volunteers.

Let me get a 6th grader and a high schooler to come up.

I learned not to throw pumpkins at mailboxes on halloween.

I learned not to lie about where you were going

Stick out your hand.

Slap

#2 stick out your hand…why not?

Stick out your hand.

Money

#2 Stick out your hand.

Why did you?

Notice that the younger, the next generation, learned from the example of the older.

So as it is with us as Christians.

We are leaving a legacy behind us for another generation to follow.

The question is, what type of example are we setting?

Are we teaching them to care for the generation that follows after them or are we teaching them to care for only their generation?

As we seek to launch out we will need to keep a focus on the next generation because as we are about to read “one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever.”

Follow along with me as I read

PRAY

Notice first the preachers outcry

I.

The Preacher’s Outcry

The author of this book is not specifically named however there are identifiers that we can find that point us to believe the preacher who is the Son of David that has wealth and Wisdom is King Solomon.

He writes here in what is believed to be toward the end of his life and the first verse of writing he gives a hollow declaration.

A. A hollow declaration

Vanity…Vanity…All is Vanity....Woe is me…all is vain...

Such a hollow statement made from the lips of a man that is in a sad state looking at his life and finding nothing but emptiness.

The word vanity is used 38 times throughout the book of Ecclesiastes.

It is the Hebrew word “hevel” meaning emptiness, futility, vapor.

There was a language professor that illustrated it this way.

Here is a bubble machine.

When I turn it on, there will be bubbles that come out and go around the room right?

But what is left when the Bubbles are gone?

Let’s find out...

The language professor said that vanity, hevel, can be understood to be whatever is left after the bubbles are gone.

Solomon is writing that life and everything under the sun is equivalent to this.

What a poor state of mind Solomon is in.

Asking hollow questions like this reveals his focus and we can see that in the verse three when he asks an honest question.

B. A honest question

The word profit there is the Hebrew Word yitron and is used 10 times in this book and means “that which is left over, surplus, advantage, gain” It’s just the opposite of vanity.

Solomon is writing and asking what’s the point of our labor what’s the point of the job, what’s the point of the hobbies, what’s the point?

While an honest question we can see that it is asked out of a depressed state.

Maybe someone here today is in this state.

You are questioning your existence.

You don’t know why you are doing what you are doing.

You don’t see the point in life or find purpose in it.

You are like Solomon and saying “Vanity of Vanities, ALL is vanity”

Warren Wiersbe said it this way “Solomon asks,

“In the light of all the puzzles and problems of life, what is the advantage of living?

Is there any gain?”

Wiersbe, W. W. (1996).

Be Satisfied (p.

16).

Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

Solomon is not in a good place right now.

What’s brought him here?

What has got Solomon to this place of depression?

Look at the last 3 words in verse 3 “under the sun.”

This is another phrase that is repeated in the book of Ecclesiastes.

It’s repeated 29 times.

It is the key phrase that defines the outlook of the write.

He is looking at life from a human perspective and not from Heaven’s point of view.

He is a man that was granted great wisdom yet in this time of life he isn’t looking at things through the lens of heavenly wisdom from God, he is looking at it through the earthly wisdom of man.

Now, if you know anything about Solomon, you know that Solomon was the wisest man to ever live apart from Jesus.

Yet as he got older he got distracted and began to look to the world all it had to offer him.

He became a man of great wealth.

He took many wives in order to position Israel with its allys.

He was not living the way the Lord had commanded for His people to live.

He was distracted, he lost his focus, and stayed that way which lead to this depressive state that he is in.

He is looking at only things of this physical world and what’s happening around Him “under the sun”

Man…what if that’s all we had to focus on today?

Brushfires in Australia, Earthquakes in peurto Rico, Military action in the middle east, terrible political climate, 3rd world countries where they don’t have shoes, homes, indoor plumbing, sufficient a/c’s during the 100+ degree summers....opioid epidemics, ungodly philosophies and practices taking over our culture, taxes taking a lot of our money, politicians that don’t seem to care…yea…I could get in a real depressive state if that’s all I looked at.

if that was all I thought on or thought living consisted of.

Solomon then goes on to observe something profound…See with me the Preacher’s Observation.

II.

The Preacher’s Observation

Look at verse 4

We as people live our lives and die and then the next generation comes along and does the same thing.

Generations come and generations go....but the earth remains.

It was here before us and it will be her after us...

Pastor, that’s pretty bleak and depressing....your exactly right.

That’s the focus of Solomon right now.

That’s the focus of a man that isn’t living for or walking with the Lord.

That’s what our attitude can become when we begin to believe that the thing we live for is only what we can see “under the sun”