Without Jesus: Everything is Meaningless

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

Ecclesiastes 1:1–11 ESV

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? 4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. 6 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. 7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. 8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 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. 10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. 11 There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.

The Failures of Secular Life

Key Phrase: “Under the Sun”

It means that you view the world as a closed system, in which God is not a part. If God is over the sun, then to look at life under the sun, means to look for meaning in only what you can see, and hold, and feel, and touch. It is the secular life. It is to view humanity as just a product of time, chance, and matter. Solomon looks to this world, and the physical..to try and find meaning. In a way, it is Solomon seeing if true hope can be found in a worldview without God. Just this under the sun. And what we find are some Inescapable problems..and pessimistic answers.

There are four problems that Solmon points out..and he is going to reveal how one by one..this world can not produce true meaning or only hope…only something outside can do that. Only something over the sun..tGod

Without Jesus, everything is meaningless

5 Problems of Secular Life

1. Death (vs. 4)“generations come and generations go, but the earth will remain forever.”

The first problem is the most obvious, death is inescapable. The wages of sin is death. It doesn’t matter who we are, what we’ve done, our lives are short, and but a flicker.

If we are here simply by chance, a random sequence of dna…and we die, we are but a blip on the screen of eternity. We are so small in time, so small in space…and so the question is, if we die? Whats it all for?

If this is all there is..well everything is meaningless says the preacher. Your life will end in a short time.

Men try and escape death by any means, but still it comes. Do you see the problem..the world tries to convince you that this world can be made into heaven, but we miss the obvious truth, that the things which make heaven “Heaven”…The Everlasting and God..the world can not give.

When they want to convince you that earth is your home, notice how they set about it. They begin by trying to persuade you that earth can be made into heaven, thus giving a sop to your sense of exile in earth as it is. Next, they tell you that this fortunate event is still a good way off in the future, thus giving a sop to your knowledge that the fatherland is not here and now. Finally, lest your longing for the transtemporal should awake and spoil the whole affair, they use any rhetoric that comes to hand to keep out of your mind the recollection that even if all the happiness they promised could come to man on earth, yet still each generation would lose it by death, including the last generation of all, and the whole story would be nothing, not even a story, for ever and ever.

This is the problem of Solomon presents.

But thats the end of your life, the problem with this “life under the sun” doesn’t start there. Living without God..theres still a problem with this life under the sun while we live.

2. The Futility and Weariness of Work (vs. 5-8)

There is this repetition and weariness to this life. Our work is never done. Never.

Don’t believe me? Fix your car today, you will have to fix it again. Cook today, you’ll have to cook again. Plant that seed today, you’ll have to plant it again next year. Wash your clothes today, well you’ll have to wash them again. Build a home..a nice home, fix it up…you’ll have to keep fixing it. You paint a fence white today..by next year you’ll have to keep painting it white. Everything seems to breaking down..and its like we can never rest.

Genesis 3:19

Genesis 3:19 ESV

19 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.”

Life will make you tired! Like will weight you down. It seems like one problem after the next..and you can never get ahead. You can’t be good enough, you can’t fix all the problems around you or within you. It can get wearisome. And without God..if you try and live without God, if you anchor your soul into this life and what you can see it will never keep you!

You wonder why mental illness, anxiety, depression are on the rise..we have idolized work..and removed God! Truth is even Christians are tired and wore out!

Because even though we believe in God, functionally we act and think like nonbelivers. We are burnt out..we say we belive in God, but then idolize everything “under the sun”. As Pastor Manny said..we have to set our minds on the things above! Not the temporary but those things which are eternal. Come on somebody!

So you have a problem with death and the end of your life, you have a problem with the work you do in your life..but theres still more problems. Even in the moments you feel satisfed and good..its never enough.

3. Nothing Brings Lasting Satisfaction (vrs 8) “The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.”

The third problem is one we all know but never quite think about. Why are satisfactions only temporary?

You eat a good meal, you are full..you may feel stuffed and satisfed, but come tomorrow morning you will be hungry again.

You listen to a good song and it makes you excited and joyful…satisfied with an album or artist. But tomorrow you will look again for a song to listen to.

You watch a movie, a good movie, your favorite movie..but come tomorrow or next week you will be looking for something else to watch. Why is it that after all the Netflix series we’ve binged we still are looking for something else?

They just don’t last!…and are never enough. Think about it..this is Solomon!

Solomon had everything you could ever hope to have in this world. More wealth, power, romance, comforts, pleasures…than we will ever have.

He gets all these things..does all these things..and says, it is never enough! Like these satisfactions are just bandaids for some deeper problem that needs fixing!

4. We will be forgotten (vs. 11)

And then even if we hope to live on through the memmories of others..the truth is all of us will be forgotten one day. Genrations from now they likely won’t remember my name. Smarter, stronger, newer, things will come..and we will be forgotten. Why..because if this is all there is..and all people are temporoary, then eventually we will all be forgotten.

Do you see the problem? Solomon is getting to to the root of this secular view of the world..and unfortunately it leads to great pessismissm. When he is honest with himself..he recognizes the failures of this world.

So..church, the question must be asked, where is hope then? What is the answer? Is there any cure?

Well there is one.

Without Jesus, everything is meaningless

The Answer: Jesus

1. Jesus is the answer for death

John 11:25–26 ESV

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

1 Corinthians 15:55–57 ESV

55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

2. Jesus is the answer for the weariness of work and death

Matthew 11:28 ESV

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

John 19:28–30 ESV

28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Hebrews 4:9–11 ESV

9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. 11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

3. Jesus is what is truly satisfying

John 4:7–15 ESV

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

John 6:35 ESV

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

4. Jesus’ name is the one who will be remembered! And He will remember us!

Philippians 2:9–10 ESV

9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

Isaiah 49:16 ESV

16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.

There is hope and meaning only found in Jesus! Church, worship Him today!