Ecclesiastes 1:1-18 - Enjoying Futility

Introduction

(Read verses 1-11)

A number of years ago Punxsutawney found itself thrust into the national spotlight when Bill Murray’s movie Groundhog Day came out. Pittsburgh weatherman Phil Connors comes up to Punxsutawney to cover Groundhog Day for his TV station, and is stranded by a blizzard—he soon discovers that he is being forced to live the same day, over and over again. No matter what he tries to do to get out of it, he always wakes up to I Got You, Babe on the radio and the same events of February 2nd to live through again.

At one point he is talking with two locals at a bowling alley, Gus and Ralph, and he asks them, “What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?” Ralph looks down into his beer and says, “Yeah, that about sums it up for me...”

It’s played for laughs, but it’s only funny because it’s true—that feeling of being stuck, that nothing matters, that every day is exactly the same is one that all of us are well-acquainted with, isn’t it? How many of you are really really looking forward to another Monday morning tomorrow? All those reports you filed last month have to be filed again. You just did the laundry on Saturday afternoon, and there is another pile of laundry waiting for you tomorrow. Somehow the sink got filled with dishes again, even though you just did them yesterday. You just filled that big order right under the deadline, and now they’ve sent it back because something wasn’t right.

That feeling of futility, of “running just to stand still”, of working and sweating and toiling to accomplish a task or reach a goal—and then having to turn around and start all over again—sits at the heart of the experience of everybody here in this room (and everybody else that you know!) And everyone in this room (and everyone that you know) spends their time trying to fight this futility in one way or another. The guy who stands at his work area on the shop floor doing the same tasks hour after hour, day after day, week after week, year after year, who can’t wait to clock out on Friday night and go to the bar and get drunk and stay drunk all weekend in order to break up the monotony. Others fight the futility by driving themselves to achieve the highest level of their profession so that they can point to their VP corner office as proof that all of their hard work matters. Moms so weighed down by the hard, repetitive work of raising a family and keeping a house turn to antidepressants to “take the edge off”. Young people so beaten down by the pointlessness of it all who drown themselves in addictions and self-destructive habits. We are a people who try to escape the futility of this world in hundreds of ways—but no matter what we do, we can’t escape it.

This is why the book of Ecclesiastes was written. The writer calls himself “the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem” (v. 1, cp. v. 12)—which would indicate Solomon (since no other king besides David reigned over the whole kingdom of Israel from Jerusalem.) We read in 1 Kings 3 that Solomon asked God for the wisdom to govern His people, and God was pleased to give him “a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you” (1 Kings 3:12).

But Ecclesiastes comes from a dark place in Solomon’s life—the Scriptures tell us that Solomon himself became an object lesson in the futility of this world when, late in his life he abandoned wholehearted worship of YHWH and turned to the other gods of the women in his harem. Here is bewildering folly and futility—the king who built and dedicated the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem to YHWH ended his life building temples to Chemosh and Molech and all of the gods of his many wives (1 Kings 11)!

Solomon writes this book having seen great blessing from God, and having experienced the depths of apostasy and falling away from Him. He has seen great success and wealth and power, and has seen that none of that success or wealth or power or authority meant anything, when it was all said and done.

Solomon pulls no punches as he talks about the futility of this world; the bewildering repetition, the meaningless struggles, the dull monotony. What he is going to do through this book is confront us with the reality that there is no way to escape the futility and meaninglessness of this world apart from God. I believe that the entire theme of the book of Ecclesiastes—and what I want to show you this morning from these verses—is that it is possible not just to survive this futility, not just endure it, but to enjoy it!

Your ability to ENJOY the FUTILITY of this world is a GIFT of God

As we take on the study of this book over the next several weeks, we will see two themes that Solomon weaves through the book—here in our passage this morning we will see him introduce the themes that he will unpack over the course of the book. The first theme, as we have already been talking about, is found in the opening verses of our text:

Ecclesiastes 1:1–2 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.

The word “vanity” means “futility” or “emptiness”—the word in Hebrew is used to describe the way your breath appears as a vapor on a cold morning—here for a moment, and then gone. So Solomon’s first theme is the vanity of this world “under the sun” (v. 9). This is the inescapable reality of the world we live in—it is

I. A world of UNENDING REPETITION (Ecclesiastes 1:2-7)

In verses 5-7, Solomon points to the world around us as a depiction of the unending, futile repetition of life

Reflected in the FORCES of NATURE (vv. 5-7)

Ecclesiastes 1:5 ESV

5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.

The Sun rises and sets, rises and sets—like a runner that has to hurry back to the starting line right after finishing his race, it never ends! Sunrise, sunset, for thousands of years—the same sun that rose over Moses, over the Apostle Paul, Charlemagne, Martin Luther, Robert E. Lee—rose over us this morning. And we have every expectation of seeing the Sun rise again tomorrow—but it has no reason to expect to see us!

Ecclesiastes 1:6 ESV

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.

The jet stream that blows our weather towards us and then away from us, flowing up and down, west to east around the globe—it keeps racing and racing and racing around the planet. And it never arrives anywhere.

Ecclesiastes 1:7 ESV

7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.

The water cycle likewise has been running in circles for thousands of years—the rain falls to the ground and collects in the streams which flow to the ocean where it evaporates into the sky and forms clouds which drop rain on the earth—on and on it goes, never stopping. Now we are watching the grass starting to grow and the trees starting to come into bud—but before you know it those leaves will die and fall off the trees and be swept away by the ever-circling winds, and winter will come again. There is no escape from the unending repetition of this world. And it is a weariness.

Because we don’t just see it in the forces of nature, that unending repetition is also

Reflected in the TOIL of GENERATIONS (vv. 2-4, cp. v. 11)

Ecclesiastes 1:2–4 ESV

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.

Just as we observed earlier, our lives are marked by that same unending repetition that we see in the natural world all around us. Like the Sun rising and setting and then rushing back to its starting place, we get up in the morning, head off to our daily grind (whatever it might be), come home and drop into bed exhausted only to jump up again tomorrow and rush right back to the starting line...

Just like the jet stream, we run in circles, always rushing, always running to the next appointment or the next obligation, never actually landing anywhere, but flying from one thing to another, round and round we go...

Just like the streams rushing to the sea but never fill the sea, so we toil and labor and work, but our work is never done. The laundry you did yesterday is right back in the hamper, the snow you shoveled off of your driveway is right back there again today, the bills you paid last month have just shown up in your mailbox again this month, the meal you spent all day preparing is over and done, and an hour later your kids are asking for a snack. The drywall you’re working so hard to hang today is just going to get demo’ed out someday by the next homeowner. The porch you’re tearing off the front of the house was carefully and proudly constructed by the fellow before you. This is vanity, this is futility, and striving after the wind...

And it’s not just the labor and toil of one individual—it’s not just you that experience this kind of futility—whole generations are captive to that same futility and meaningless labor. One generation comes along and fights for the right of Black men and women to attend the same colleges as White men and women, and then the next generation comes along and insists that Black students "deserve” segregated graduation ceremonies separate from White students. One generation fights for the rights of women to compete equally with men in the workforce, and the next generation comes along and insists that men should be allowed to put on skirts and compete against women in sports! This is vanity, this is futility, this is striving after the wind...

Apart from the gift of God, it is impossible to find joy in the futility of this world—a world of unending repetition, and

II. A world of UNORIGINAL WEARINESS (Ecclesiastes 1:8-11)

That’s what Solomon is writing about in verses 8-11:

Ecclesiastes 1:8–11 ESV

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 eye is not satisfied with seeing...”

There is nothing new to SEE

We try to break up the unending repetition of our futile lives with spectacles, grand entertainments, promises of amazing innovations and “never-before-seen” footage. But we are never satisfied with those spectacles, because there is really nothing new in any of them. Here we see Solomon use the phrase “under the sun” again, as he did in verse 3:

Ecclesiastes 1:3 ESV

3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?

Solomon will use that phrase over and over again in this book as a way of describing this world, considered in its own right—the realm where the Sun constantly rises and falls and rises again in its futile race. Work accomplishes nothing, riches destroy their owners, rulers rule foolishly, “time and chance happen to us all”. Here in verse 8 Solomon says there is nothing new to see “under the sun”, and

There is nothing new to HEAR

Generations come and go, each new generation promising that this time there is something new! No one has ever said this before, no leader has ever promised that! This philosopher, this politician, this media celebrity is the next Big Thing—until they aren’t, and you realize that they really aren’t saying anything new.

My signature line on all my Penn State emails is a quote from G. K. Chesterton that captures this very idea, and it is particularly applicable to higher education:

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously. The latest fads of culture, the latest sophistries of anarchism will carry us away if we are uneducated: we shall not know how very old are all new ideas.

There is nothing new to see or hear, and anyone who thinks they’ve come up with something new is themselves demonstrating a very old misconception. “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. In this vain and futile world under the sun, there is nothing new.

The only way to escape the futility of this world—indeed not just escape it or endure it but actually enjoy it—is a gift from God. We live in a world of unending repetition, unoriginal weariness, and

III. A world of INESCAPABLE CROOKEDNESS (Ecclesiastes 1:12-18)

In verses 12-15, Solomon writes,

Ecclesiastes 1:12–15 ESV

12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 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. 15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

Solomon decides to set himself the task of figuring all of this futility out—where does it come from, what is its purpose? The end of verse 13 is far more profound than we see at first glance: “It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with...” In other words, it is God Himself who has made this world such an inscrutable, puzzling place. Solomon goes on in verse 5 to say that “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted”. Ana a few chapters later, Solomon will say more specifically that it is God Himself who has made this world such a bewildering, inscrutable place:

Ecclesiastes 7:13 ESV

13 Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?

God has a purpose behind this inescapable crookedness, this meaninglessness, this futility—but that purpose cannot be understood apart from acknowledging Him. And here we come close to the heart of the matter. All of the futility and pointlessness and meaninglessness of the world around us can only be understood when we go above the sun—when we look beyond the physical, material world for an explanation and turn to God.

But we don’t want to do that—we would rather try to figure this out on our own, because we know that if we acknowledge God, we will have to submit to Him. And we don’t want to submit. And so we try to “straighten” what God has made crooked—and we are doomed to fail. What is crooked cannot be made straight--

We can’t THINK our way out of it (vv. 16-17)

Solomon says in verses 16-17 that he “applied his heart to know wisdom”—but all of his great wisdom, knowledge and experience was insufficient to unravel the knot of futility that God has presented to us in this world. We’re no different from Solomon, are we? Our day and age is still trying to straighten what God has made crooked—instead of submitting to Him for understanding, we are still (as one songwriter put it) “Killing time with our eyes to the skies, waiting on Science our Savior” (Steve Taylor, “Murder In the Big House”, Chavall Guevara, 1991). But we can’t think our way out of the crookedness God has imposed on this world—we can’t make sense of anything under the sun apart from Him.

Solomon also says in verse 17 that he applied himself “to know madness and folly”—we’ll see more of that, Lord willing, next time. But for now it’s enough to recognize that we can’t think our way out of this crookedness, and

We can’t PARTY our way out of it

either. Some people try to unravel the futility of this world, and some people just try to medicate it. Whether its the shop floor worker who gets drunk every night to escape the monotony to the high-powered executive who seeks validation in titles and bonuses or the antidepressants and wine for the moms who can’t deal with the futility of their day to day to the pharming parties and sexual rebellion of their kids who can’t handle it either to the musicians and celebrities who unapologetically flaunt their debauchery—we are a people who are so desperate to escape the crookedness God has woven into this world that we will do anything to ourselves to avoid the only way to make sense of it all—submission to Him.

If you look around at this world and say that this is all there is—there is no Heaven above us and no God—then there is no way to comprehend this crooked world. You will beat your head against the futility and senselessness of this world “under the sun”. There is no way to understand or make sense of any of it apart from the gift of God.

This is what Solomon says a few verses down, in Ecclesiastes 2:24-25. Look at what he writes

Ecclesiastes 2:24–25 ESV

24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

The phrase “there is nothing better” does not read that way in the original language. The word better was supplied by translators here in this verse because it appears several other places in the book. So they put it in here too, assuming it was accidentally dropped here. But the original Hebrew here actually reads “There is nothing in a person that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil...” In other words, there is nothing inherent in you that enables you to enjoy this toil and futility. You don’t have the capacity. Some older translations also translate verse 25, “For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment more than I”—but the more reliable translation is reflected here in the ESV: “ This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God—for who can eat, or who can have enjoyment apart from Him?”

This is the whole argument of the book of Ecclesiastes, summed up in the first couple of chapters: God has placed inscrutable futility at the heart of this world that cannot be understood unless we come to Him. And when we do, when we look beyond the visible world “under the sun”, we find that in Him we live in

IV. A world of REAL ENJOYMENT in God (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25)

Your ability to enjoy the futility of this world is a gift of God—He is the One who has given you this bewildering, repetitive, wearisome, confusing world—and He is the one who gives the ability to enjoy it! As one author puts it:

God is the One who gives things, and God is the one who gives the power to enjoy things. These are distinct gifts … just as a can of peaches and a can-opener are distinct gifts. Only the first is given to the unbeliever. The believer is given both, which is simply another way of saying that he is given the capacity for enjoyment. Wilson, D. (1999). Joy at the End of the Tether: The Inscrutable Wisdom of Ecclesiastes (p. 17). Moscow, ID: Canon Press.

The unbeliever refuses to acknowledge God, and so the unbeliever does not have the power to enjoy this world.

The one who DENIES Him finds VANITY

in this world. If you will not submit to God, then there is nothing to look forward to in this world except increasing frustration, pointlessness and futility. You will not find any lasting satisfaction in this world, you will not find any real purpose or joy or contentment. What you will have is unutterable weariness as you go about the unhappy business God has given you of trying to “strive after the wind” trying to find contentment and joy in a futile world.

Deny God and you will have nothing but emptiness in this world. But

The one who PLEASES Him finds JOY

The only way to find real enjoyment in the midst of this futility is by submitting to God. One commentator says

For those who fear Him, He gives the gift of being able to actually enjoy this great big marching band of futility—the tubas of vanity bringing up the rear. God gives to a wise man the gift of watching, with a pious and grateful chuckle, one [darn] thing after another. All things considered, the furious activity of this world is about as meaningful as the half-time frenzy at the Super Bowl. But a wise man can be there and enjoy himself. This is the gift of God... (Wilson, D. (1999). Joy at the End of the Tether: The Inscrutable Wisdom of Ecclesiastes (pp. 13–14). Moscow, ID: Canon Press.)

And make no mistake—there is only one way to please God—only one way to know the “joy at the end of the tether” that He gives His children here under the sun, and that is to come in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ. He is the One who perfectly pleases God in every way—He is the One of whom God said “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased” (Mark 1:11). If you want to please God, you must come through Jesus Christ! Turn away from your sinful, crooked heart that says you can navigate this world without Him, that says you don’t need His forgiveness, that you have no sin to repent of—Solomon may have fallen away from God because of his harem, but your internet history has a bigger harem than Solomon ever did. Solomon may have turned to madness and folly to escape the futility of this world, but you have chased after just as much useless entertainment and diversions as he in order to medicate your emptiness.

The only solution is to turn away from all of it, and come to Him in repentance. And the amazing promise from God to you today (and many of you know this first hand) is that when you come, there will be “something new” in this world—the new heart and new life that He gives you!

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

And when you come to Him, He will be the vision that satisfies your sight, He will be the Word that fills your heart, He will be the joy in every toil and the satisfaction in every hopeless endeavor. Why would you want to slog your way through a pointless, frustrating life when you can have real joy in the midst of all of this futility? Make this the day when you say goodbye and good riddance to the frustration, emptiness and tedium of life without God. Come talk to me or one of the elders after the service and let us invite you into this “joy at the end of the tether” as you come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Jude 24–25 ESV

24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

How does Solomon illustrate the concept of “futility” in these verses? How do people you know try to cope with the sense of unending repetition in their lives? How does your relationship with Christ give you the ability to enjoy the endless repetitions of this life?

Read Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 again. What are some ways you see people around you trying to “enjoy the peaches without the can opener”, as it were? Pray for an opportunity this week to share the Good News of the joy we are promised in Christ with someone caught in the futility of this world.