Pursue What Is Eternal

Good morning!

The last two weeks we spent in chapter 5 talking about wealth and possessions.

Wealth, like everything else in this world, is temporary.

We have been trained to trust money for our security and happiness.

The problem is that money comes and goes.

Sometimes it is the result of our decisions and sometimes it is because of things outside of our control.

The preacher is telling us that we need to trust not in our wealth, but in God.

He is the only constant thing that has ever been.

If it is security that we want, God is where we find it.

We can spend our lives building up our own kingdoms, but we will one day die and leave it all.

Unfortunately, we know that, but keep on falling right back into that trap.

We ended last week with the truth that God has already provided all that we need.

If we will trust in Him and make His purposes our own, God will provide for our every need.

He will be our joy.

Today’s text follows in that same vein, that it is in God that we find wholeness.

I want to let you know that our text has a phrase in it that may be difficult for some.

There is a statement that the preacher makes here and in other places that are hard to hear if you have ever struggled with fertility and childbirth.

I want you to know that I have been asking the Lord to help us to understand this passage, but also that I do it in a delicate way.

Sometimes our experiences in this life, which are hard and unfair, can prevent us from being able to see what the scripture is trying to communicate.

We will dig deeper into this later in the message, but as we read our passage this morning, I want you to think of what he is saying in a way that we communicate it today.

When you reach a certain level of desperation, you might say something like, “I wish I had never been born.”

Thinking of it in this way may make it easier.

Let’s begin this morning by reading vs 1-6 together.

Ecclesiastes 6:1–6 ESV

1 There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: 2 a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil. 3 If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. 4 For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. 5 Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he. 6 Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to the one place?

This world is not our own.

When approaching a text like this, it is so good for us to step back for a moment and get some perspective.

If we hope to try and make sense of our world and to understand our place in it, we need a greater perspective than our own.

Often, because of our sin nature, we think of the world and all the things in it, as it relates to us.

We naively assume that the things that are happening are always about us.

My dad use to tell one of my sisters on a regular basis, “the world doesn’t revolve around you!”.

She would over hear a piece of something and assume that it was about her.

I can laugh about that, but if I consider my own life and if you consider yours, don’t we do the same thing?

We look at what is going on in our lives and selfishly assume that it is about us.

It doesn’t matter if it is good or bad, either way, we think it’s about us.

But as we learn over the course of our lives, it is that much of what we experience is not about just us.

We are certainly affected and changed by it, but that doesn’t mean it was for us.

We are created beings in a created world.

We didn’t do any of the creative work.

We didn’t make anything.

We can think we are or try to make ourselves as important as God, but we aren’t.

We will never be able to do what God has done and because of that, we live under his authority.

Joke about the scientist challenging God to making a man from dirt.

God tells the scientist to get his own dirt.

We live in the allusion of control, but the reality is that we don’t have any control.

What areas of your life do you find yourself repeatedly trying to take control of?

Days come and go and time passes on.

We have little control over anything.

Really all we can do is respond to what is happening around us.

Gaining this perspective and understanding is important because it allows us to realize what the preacher has realized.

This world and the things in it are temporary.

In the last chapter, we talked about the hevel-ness of wealth and possession.

The preacher brings that point out once more at the beginning of this chapter.

He describes yet another scenario in which wealth is hevel.

In this case, a man has been blessed with wealth but has no power to use it.

Not only are our possessions Hevel, but our very lives are as well.

This is the point that the preacher is trying to make here.

In reading verse 3 we are reminded of the story of Job.

We are all familiar with that story right?

Job was a righteous man that loved God, had an incredible family, lots of livestock, and possession.

He was a man of great means.

And yet, God allowed him to lose everything.

If there was ever anyone that knew what it means to lose everything it would be Job.

If we look at his initial response we are going to see the same sentiment as the preacher.

At the outset of his tribulation, when only his personal health has been attacked, his response is to wish that he had never been born.

Job 3:1–13 ESV

1 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job said: 3 “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’ 4 Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it. 5 Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. 6 That night—let thick darkness seize it! Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. 7 Behold, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry enter it. 8 Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan. 9 Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none, nor see the eyelids of the morning, 10 because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hide trouble from my eyes. 11 “Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire? 12 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? 13 For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,

Both the preacher and Job are telling us the same things.

We may experience times when life gets so difficult that we will wish had never been born.

We may be blessed with much and still not get to enjoy it.

We may speak of these things and wonder where the justice is in life.

I know all of us have suffered a great loss at some point in our lives.

It is always difficult to deal with.

We find our selves trying to make sense of the loss.

Our since of Justice is rooted in this world and we need to allow God to reveal to us that His purposes are not of this world.

We don’t have the time to fully dive into this today, but Job’s loss of everything wasn’t about Job.

God was doing something bigger than Job could see from his earthly perspective.

Job knew this, but it didn't’ mean that he understood what God was doing.

The same will be true for you and me at some point or points in our lives.

You are going to face something in your life that is going to knock you to your knees.

If you have been through that already you know what I’m talking about.

If you haven’t experienced it yet, you will.

In those times, when it seems as if your life is crumbling around you, what you desperately need, more than anything this world has to offer, is God’s perspective.

It may not feel that way.

You may want to run from God.

But I am telling you, Job is telling you, the preacher is telling you, and God is telling you, what you need is God.

How has God’s perspective changed how you see major life struggles?

Once we run to God and get a glimpse through His eyes, we are going to see our circumstances in a whole new light.

Our sufferings, no matter how intense, horrific, or unbearable they may seem, are only temporary.

That doesn’t make them easier to bear, but it gives us hope.

It lets us see our place in this world, but more importantly, it reveals that God knows what is going on in our lives and even though it doesn’t make any sense to us, it does to Him.

Even though that pain is consuming your life at the moment, it is just that, a moment.

We will not have to endure these sufferings forever.

This world is not our home.

Look with me at verse six again.

Ecclesiastes 6:6 ESV

6 Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to the one place?

This word, “place”, is an important word.

The preacher is helping us to understand, that while we give so much importance to this world and what happens in it, this is not where we end up.

He is speaking of a specific place.

We see it said in this way in the new testament.

Hebrews 13:14 NLT

14 For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.

What we experience on earth is significant and has a purpose, but it is not the end.

We have a promise and hope that when we too pass, we will be with Jesus in heaven.

The preacher is describing the life of a man that has all the world has to offer, but he cannot enjoy it.

He has an incredibly large family, but none of them love him.

And though this sounds heartbreaking, it is hevel.

The pain that this man is experiencing, while tragic, is only temporary.

Because of the truth that this world is temporary, we need to live in this world for the sake of the world to come.

We need God to change our perspective to understand that while this life is temporary, but He is not.

Our relationship with Him will go on even when our bodies pass away.

We believe that to be true.

We have trusted our lives in Jesus' hands, but it is time that we started living like we believe it.

The problem is that we don’t have God’s perspective.

We live and worry about the things of this world which cause us to lose sight of our purpose.

We were created to eternally know, love, and be in a relationship with God, but all our energy and focus are on the things of this world.

What has God changed your perspective on as you pursued Him?

We work and play in hopes of finding joy, but we are looking for it in the wrong place.

Read verses seven through nine with me.

Ecclesiastes 6:7–9 ESV

7 All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. 8 For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living? 9 Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite: this also is vanity and a striving after wind.

Pursue the presence of God.

As I pointed out last week, the preacher says several times that we are to eat and drink because those things are gifts from God.

If eating and drinking are gifts from God why does the preacher tell us in verse seven that our appetite will never be satisfied?

Look again with the correct perspective.

God’s desire is for our focus to be on Him and for us to trust Him for provision.

This doesn’t negate a need to work.

We see work described as a gift just the same as food and drink.

What God wants and what the preacher keeps saying is that we are to enjoy these gifts as God intended.

When our focus is purely on our work or what we will eat, we are making those things the priority in our lives.

Our focus should be on God while we work and eat and be thankful for the gifts.

Do you see the difference?

So what does it mean to work and eat as God intended?

We should be partaking in both works and eating with God.

God did not create us apart from Himself, but rather to be with Him.

We enjoy these gifts by being satisfied with what God provides and partaking of them while in his presence.

The preacher sees the same evil that we see in our world.

He sees people that are just moving through life like zombies.

They are so focused on themselves, what they want, and what they think they need.

In that pursuit, they are missing the entire reason for living.

We weren’t created to live like zombies that just move through life with no real thought.

God created us to be in this world and for us to enjoy with Him.

We can never experience satisfaction when we are misusing the gifts of God.

When we work and eat for our own purposes and personal satisfaction, we are robbing ourselves of the part of our lives that does bring joy and satisfaction.

Satisfaction comes as we experience life with God.

Living apart from God is why the world is in the shape it is in.

We can share God’s love in this broken world by making the daily choice to walk through that day with God.

To invite Him into the daily grind is to find satisfaction in the grind.

Have you ever noticed that when you are on a mission trip, you can be asked to do the most trivial thing and it is a joy to do it?

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why that is?

When we go on a mission trip, the leaders make a point to make that trip, from the time you board until the time you return, to make every moment centered around God.

That is why we love those kinds of trips so much.

It isn’t just because we experience new cultures, food, people, or anything else.

We encounter God because we have made that entire trip about Him.

Can you imagine how incredible it would be if you made each moment about God during a normal week?

That week wouldn’t just change your life, it would change the lives of the people you were around.

The preacher ends this chapter by pointing out that any attempt to make our lives something it isn’t intended to be is hevel.

Enjoy purpose in God’s presence.

Ecclesiastes 6:10–12 ESV

10 Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he. 11 The more words, the more vanity, and what is the advantage to man? 12 For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?

The answer to experiencing joy and satisfaction isn’t in how we organize our day, what diet we are on, or what kind of clothes we wear.

We can try out all the fads we want and they may momentarily distract us from the loss we feel, but they are just temporary.

There is nothing new under the sun.

If someone claims that they have a doohickey that will make your life complete, don’t fall for it.

Just go ahead and don’t buy it.

Life is too short for us to waste it chasing the things of this world.

How would you describe a life that fully pursued God?

If we really believe that Jesus is the son of God, that he came and died to be the final atonement for our sins, and that we are freed from sin to enjoy being in a relationship with God, does your life reflect that belief?

If someone that doesn’t know you were to examine your life today, what would they see as your ultimate priority?

We can talk about this idea of pursuing God and finding purpose in Him until we are all old and crazy.

Our talk won’t matter until it moves from our mouths and minds and into our hearts.

The only way that ever happens is if we allow the Holy Spirit to change the perspective of our hearts.

How do we make room for a perspective change in our lives?

We place our faith and focus on God in order to see His perspective.

We are going to have to ask God to do that work in our lives.

The longer we fight it, the longer we are delaying what will really make us feel whole.

We won’t find wholeness in anything of this world.

You can try to argue that with God, but take the advice of Job and the preacher, you won’t win.

Who are we to question God?

Life is hard, but we don’t make it any easier by attempting to distract ourselves with what the world has to offer.

We can try to convince God and ourselves that we have found what makes us happy, but if it isn’t God, it isn’t lasting.

We can talk ourselves in circles to convince ourselves and others that we have found the answer, but vs 11 says clearly that the more we speak, the less our words mean.

People and culture think they can tell you what will make you happy, but the preacher is laying it out there for us.

Take the advice of a man that has already tried to find it in the world.

Everything on this side of death is temporary.

We will all meet the same end and sooner than we like.

If we truly want to find joy and purpose in our lives, we find it in our creator.