Understanding Wisdom

Intro:

Good morning, and welcome back to The Social Distance Gathering Place West.

I hope you guys have had a great week.

How was your week?

What are struggling with this week?

What has been easy for you?

If you aren’t able to work, I want you to know that we are praying for you and joining you in asking God to provide for you as we walk together through this pandemic.

I want to remind all of us that as we are praying about our finances we need to make room for the Lord to call us to support one another.

I mentioned last week that the Elders were praying about supporting our Romanian community and God confirmed that He wanted us too.

I want you to understand that it is only through the faithful giving of our body that we are able to be obedient to God’s call to take care of those children.

So thank you and continue to pray about how much to give.

if I wasn’t clear last week, you can continue to give online through the Faithlife app or use bill pay through your bank.

I also wanted to say a quick thank you to Mattie and Jake for allowing me to record here and taking care of the logistics of posting etc.

I hope your life group got to meet digitally this week.

I know that several used Zoom or Facebook to meet.

Our group met twice this week and it was wonderful to catch up with everyone.

If you haven’t done that or don’t know how please call me and I’ll either walk you through it or get you in touch with someone who can.

Last thing before we dive in this morning.

Continue to pray for our community at McKeithen.

They have been on our minds a lot this week.

We are honoring the call by the governor and recommendation of the CDC to shelter in-home and aren’t delivering meals at this time.

Let’s pray together as we begin this morning. If you need to pause and pray for a moment, please do so.

A quick thought as we begin.

Firstly, put your lenses on.

I’m not going to go through all of those things again this week. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go listen to the first few minutes of last week’s message.

Secondly, If you read ahead this week you noticed that our section this week has the title of “The vanity of Wisdom”.

This may seem at odds with what we spoke about last week, but it isn’t and we’ll address it later.

We also need to consider that these headings that we see in our bibles are not in the original text.

As these passages have been translated, the translators break them up into manageable chunks.

With that in mind, I want us to look at the passage for this week as a continuation of the thoughts from last week.

Again, we see our passage starting with another introduction with the purpose of giving us perspective on the stature behind the writing.

Ecclesiastes 1:12 ESV

12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.

This is one of the passages that is pointed to when making the case for Solomon as the author.

It is not clear if Solomon wrote this or if someone wrote it on his behalf.

For our purposes today we are going to assume that he wrote this section.

We can see in this first chapter, an enormous amount of concern from the teacher for humanity.

Because he has spent his entire life in the pursuit of wisdom, he realizes how hevel our lives are.

We spend our time in pursuit of things that always leave us where we began.

We strive to make ourselves better and we will never be able to get there.

I’v seen many people posting this week about how clean they have gotten their houses since they can’t leave them.

That’s a big deal!

Everyone enjoys living in a perfectly clean house.

It is a lot of work to get your house in that condition!

But, how long does that last?

The answer depends on how many kids you have or your roommate. lol

Seriously though, this is what causes concern for the teacher.

We work and strive our entire lives for something that is never really done.

Look with me at the next few verses and you will see what I’m talking about.

Ecclesiastes 1:13–14 ESV

13 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. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

1. Our difficulties are the result of the fall.

I don’t know about you, but as I have read this passage over the course of this week, my perspective has changed.

When I first began to meditate on it, my mind instinctively focused on what appeared on the surface to be a really negative tone.

Focusing primarily on this idea that God has done this to us.

I’ve seen so many posts over the last few weeks, as we see anytime there is a major tragedy, telling the world that God is punishing them.

Let’s think about that for a moment, because what we share online or say in conversation will shape our minds and the minds of other people.

If I’m on the way somewhere and I choose to go beyond the posted speed limit am I breaking the law?

Of course I am and I have made a conscious decision to do so.

If I get pulled over and I’m given what I like to call a driving award, is the officer that gave me the ticket punishing me?

No, he is doing his job of enforcing a well established and widely known law.

I may try to make excuses about why I needed to speed or even blame the officer, but the reality is that I knew I was breaking the law, and also choose to continue to break the law.

The ticket isn’t punishment dealt out by the officer, it is the direct result of my poor decision making.

As I have continued to read and study this passage, God has revealed to me the truth that we need to understand.

God did not cause the pandemic to punish people.

How does this challenge your understanding of God?

We are living in the consequences of sin that broke our world long before you and I were born.

Side note here, because of the sin in our lives, we continue to create more and more consequences, but the credit for that shouldn’t be placed on God.

If I continue to get speeding tickets and I’m complaining to you about it, you aren’t going to join me in hating the police.

You are going to look me square in the eye and tell me to stop speeding dummy.

When we tell people that God is punishing the world for its sin, we are painting a picture of God that is not true.

We are spreading a false gospel and I’d like to take a moment you show you why.

Let’s jump back to the beginning when sin entered the world.

Genesis 2:5–9 ESV

5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

It is worth pausing here to point out what God created first.

God created man and then created the garden in Eden for man to live in, work, and enjoy.

God created us and because He loved us, He created a paradise for us to live in.

Genesis 2:15–17 ESV

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

When the teacher talks about searching out by wisdom all that is under the sun, he is pointing back to this moment when everything started.

What the teacher and what we long after is for things to be as God intended when He created us.

We were made to live in perfect union with God and our souls will never be satisfied with anything less.

God warns Adam that if he chooses to disobey, he will gain an understanding that he was not intended to have.

Genesis 2:17 is saying that by disobeying God, Man will gain and experience an evil that will severe their relationship with God.

It’s not about the fruit.

This verse is about God saying to Adam, evil exists.

Not only does it exist, but it is right there.

I know that it looks good, but I’m telling you that it will destroy you.

Isn’t that what good parents do?

As a child, didn’t your parents warn you and point out danger?

That is what God is doing for His children.

He’s pointing out the danger and explaining why it’s dangerous.

God is saying don’t partake in it because it will kill this special relationship you and I have.

God created us uniquely in His image, with the ability to make decisions.

Because God loves us, He gives us the choice to love Him in return.

If there is no choice, there is no love.

When the teacher is saying that it is an unhappy business, he is pointing back to this moment and to the fact that man chose to live separated from God.

What we find ourselves striving for can never be reached in our own power.

2. Apart from a relationship with Christ, our striving will never end.

Remember that all of scripture points toward God’s redemption plan.

The teacher is revealing the problem that he has discovered.

Ecclesiastes 1:15 ESV

15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

This isn’t just an observation of general things.

The teacher is talking specifically about humans.benefit

As children born into sin, we are what he is referring to when talks about things being crooked and lacking.

No amount of striving after wisdom can make us straight or put back together what sin has separated.

The teacher is talking about the broken state of people.

The teacher didn’t come to this conclusion lightly.

If this section was written by Solomon, consider the value of this wisdom.

1 Kings 4:29–34 ESV

29 And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, 30 so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 For he was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. 32 He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. 33 He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. 34 And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.

This is not the ranting of a lunatic.

We are reading the conclusions of a man that has devoted more time and energy to understanding than we ever will.

His conclusion is that we are crooked and we don’t measure up.

However, the teacher didn’t have knowledge of what was to come.

You and I live in a different time than the teacher did and we have the benefit of Christ and the Holy Spirit.

All is not lost for us, because Jesus has done what we can not.

Jesus restored our broken relationship with God by willingly accepting the consequences we deserved.

Jesus has done for us what the teacher came to discover he couldn’t do.

We can never work our way back to the garden.

No amount of learning, work, or anything else we are capable of doing is going to restore what was broken.

Think about it this way, once you know something, by experience, you cannot unknow it.

This is why we remain crooked and lacking.

When Man chose to disobey God, we experienced life outside of Him and we can never unknow that.

Evil was permitted into our lives and because we are no longer perfect we are prevented from being in the presence of a perfect God.

Listen to how the teacher ends this train of thought.

Ecclesiastes 1:16–18 ESV

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 spent his whole life striving for what cannot be obtained.

The more he learned the more he realized and became aware of the fact that it brought him no closer to God.

He describes it as a striving after wind because we can never catch it.

We are no more able to fix the problem than we are to control the wind.

So what do with this knowledge?

Now that we see the problem, what is the solution?

We take advantage of the fact that we have something the teacher didn’t.

We point our souls toward that which can satisfy and repair the brokenness of the world.

We respond to this word by looking to Jesus and pointing others to Him.

3. We need to understand that real wisdom is applying what we experience while abiding in Christ.

This is what we have to offer.

The teacher has made it abundantly clear that our search for wisdom for the sake of wisdom is hevel.

It will disappear like your breath on a cold night.

For a moment, we will be able to see it, then it will be gone as quickly as it came.

Real wisdom comes not through just study and experience of the world, but a thorough study of the word and experience of walking with God.

Wisdom is important, but I’m talking specifically about wisdom that is gained while walking with God.

What has God spoken to you this week that others could benifit from?

The world doesn’t need more of itself.

It needs to know Christ.

It may not seem like it, but this is a prime opportunity to share what we know by experience with the world.

As we are talking with people, we have hope to offer.

I want to end today with a continuation of a passage that we ended with last week.

I am at risk of sounding cliche’, but it’s worth it.

We are God’s love in this broken world.

As we share this message, we need to make certain that we aren’t sharing hollow advice.

We have seen this passage quoted on shirts, meme’s, coffee cups, cheap art, etc.

Nearly every time it feels hollow because we know that there is no real experience behind it.

The only way it will come across any different when you share it is if you walked in it and lived in it.

I don’t want you to add to the bible belt pasting of random scripture all over social media.

I’m asking that you meditate on this.

Let the Holy Spirit work it into your life.

Live in it.

Trust it.

Let it change you.

Then share it by telling your story.

Share it by telling how you have experienced God’s character through the passage.

This will be a great thing for your life group to discuss this week.

How have you experienced God as your provider, sustainer, or peacemaker?

Matthew 6:25–34 ESV

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

I can promise you this, if we share the hope of Christ as the HS leads, with authenticity, and from a place of experience, it will not fall on deaf ears.

People's lives will be radically changed, not by us, but by the power of the Gospel.

Our world needs to understand that the current state isn’t the work of God.

What they need is to understand that God loves his creation and mourns our suffering.