Joys Lost and Found - Ecclesiasts 1:12-2:26

Last week, I called the book Solomon’s Submarine - the Preacher dives deep, things get dark, he surfaces and glimpses the promises of God from a distance. Today, first dive - a sort of threefold test.

Teens, half of a mom or dad’s wisdom comes from lessons they learned the hard way. If it was worth it, they’ll say, “He’ll figure it out,” and they’ll let you make the same mistake and learn the same lesson.

But other times, the lesson was not worth the pain, and you sit your kid down and say, “Kiddo, I have something wise to say about something dumb that I did.”

When I was about 7 or 8, Family Reunion on Dad’s side // big family, tons of people I’d never seen and haven’t seen since // Everyone lining up for dinner, and I see a man I’ll never forget. Don’t know name, relation, etc., but:

Bald, old, wearing overalls, and artificial arm from here down

Old fashioned - cable @ hook (demonstrate)

I’m staring, he grabs a plate with his hook

“What happened to his arm?”

“Lost it to a hay baler.”

Never seen a hay baler, but I learned something in that moment - I was never going to make a bet with one.

Solomon’s journey in the book of Ecclesiastes is like this. It is not a recommendation. It’s a cautionary tale. “I have something wise to say about something dumb that I did.”

In chapter 2, he looks back over all his great accomplishments, and then sits us down and says, “Don’t make the same mistakes.”

But it’s not enough to just tell us what not to do. Truth is best understood when it’s experienced. And the best way to help someone experience a difficult truth without having to live it is to tell them the story of it.

Org. sentence: Solomon introduces his big project in verses 12-18. Then we’ll see the threefold test and his first big lesson.

Intro: Solomon’s Big Project (1:12-18)

Here’s the part where he sits us down and says, “Let me scare you away from some bad ideas.” He says, “I took wisdom to the problem of toil and doing stuff, and you know what I found out? Our business is laboring under a curse. You can’t undo the curse of sin and the Fall of Man with elbow grease.”

“Then I looked at wisdom and its opposite from every angle. And guess what: You can’t undo the curse with wisdom.”

See, Solomon’s about to jump into a story that brings us back to the beginning of time, and Adam and Eve. And something happened in the Garden of Eden that has shaped your life and my life, and every human’s life since the beginning.

The Bible tells us that when God created everything, he called it very good, including humanity.

God created Adam and Eve in His own image, to bear His likeness in His world, to demonstrate by their obedience his character. And He placed them in a Garden where they were to work, to toil. And because everything was very good, their toil would have been the very opposite of vanity. In their state of original righteousness, everything they did would have borne wonderful fruit.

And it was very good for moral creatures to believe and obey God’s command,

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.”

But into the garden slithered our oldest foe, the Adversary Satan. And he deceived Eve with a lie, saying, “You shall not surely die,” and instead she and Adam took and ate, and death indeed fell upon our world.

Death - the severing of the relationship between God and man which ends with physical death, has reigned in our world under Adam. It affects everything in you and everything around you.

The Fall is why we die. But the Fall is also why work is often a trial, or an addiction, or a problematic joy. The Fall is why the generations go and come, why the eye is never satisfied, why hay balers beat up farmers, why food spoils, why your feet hurt at the end of the day, why wisdom and knowledge don’t seem to make more sense of the world, but less. The Fall is what makes all things vanity under the sun.

The proverb in verse 15 illustrates the point: <<READ 15>>

How much headway can the hardest worker make against the Fall? Can you push death so hard he falls over and you keep ahead forever? Can you sweat enough to rebuild Eden?

He lets us in on the answer before he starts the test: None of us can unbend the world that was made crooked by God’s judgment against sin, so the net gain is nothing.

And the proverb in verse 18 does the same for wisdom: <<READ 18>>

Pile up wisdom, and you'll find more mystery instead of a solution to the problem. Pile it up, read every book, and you’ll know a lot more about the sorrows of the world, but you won’t be any closer to the solution. Because no matter what wishful thinking soda pop mindfulness says, you cannot find the answer to sorrow within.

Summing up vv13 and 18, our toil is an unhappy business and our wisdom is a recipe for sorrow without God.

Now, he says, I’ll prove it. Chapter 2 answers:

Q. Is there any meaningful joy to be found in everyday life?

I. Yes, but not in Selfish Pleasure (2:1-11)

Look in verses 1-11 of chapter 2. <<READ 1-11>>

The First Test of Solomon’s Big Project was to see if pleasure is good by itself. And man, does he go all in.

His list of accomplishments is impressive. But look how often “I” and “for myself” come up. <<READ 4-5>> - Who was he toiling for?

From Deut 17, we learn that God gave Israel specific commands about what the king must do and what he must not do. Solomon just did it all.

Deuteronomy 17:16–17 ESV

16 Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ 17 And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.

But Solomon did - Egypt was the primary source for his thousands of horses. 1 Kings 11 says Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He built a beautiful temple - a house for the LORD - and then spent nearly twice as long building a more opulent palace for himself.

Something else going on:

Garden of Eden connection - Idolatry (Eden without God)

Look @ v3 and v11. Verse 3 tells us the purpose of his test <<READ v3>>

V3 - “Good” - Hebrew טוב - v3 “till I might see what was good”

Now, look at verse 11. <<READ 11 emphasize “BEHOLD”>>. And listen to Genesis 1:31:

Genesis 1:31 ESV

31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Made, built, planted, gardens, growing, the phrase “all kinds of fruit trees,” gold

Solomon has tried to recapture what was lost in the Garden of Eden by his own works. But without God, even Eden is no paradise.

So, what did Solomon learn in the test of selfish pleasure?

You cannot outspend death or vanity. He tried wine, work, wealth. He surrounded himself with as much worldly pleasure as he could.

Even the “reward” of selfish pleasure was short-lived. There was no gain to be had, no lasting advantage, no real meaningful joy, because you can’t outspend death.

This is the meaning of the proverb <<READ 1:15>>

Is there any meaningful pleasure to be had in everyday life? Not in selfish pleasure.

You can see the truth of this in real time, in small ways. Watch toys pile up, forgotten in a child’s room, as they complain about being bored. It’s a tiny picture of the truth that pleasure is fleeting - and that’s true all the way up to the top. To quote verse 2, “What use is it?”

With the first part of the test complete, Solomon turns in a new direction. Is there meaningful joy to be had in everyday life? In vv12-17, we learn the answer to the second test: Is there gain in wisdom?

II. Not in Wasted Wisdom (2:12-17)

<<READ 12-17>>

So, what’s the answer? It’s complicated. There’s more gain in wisdom than folly, but it’s as fleeting as selfish pleasure.

Wisdom apart from God is fiat currency. Worse, it’s wasted. Like buying money in a video game to spend it on new outfits for your fake person until one day they shut down all the servers and everybody’s moved on, and you’ve got nothing to show for it except possibly tendonitis in your thumbs and elbows from all your pretend accomplishments. And nobody playing Apex Legends remembers all the stuff you bought in Fortnite.

Wisdom without God is like that.

If a fool stumbles about and falls off a cliff, and a sage lives twice as long, makes good decisions, and keeps out of trouble, what’s the end result?

All of wisdom’s gain under the sun gets wiped out by death.

ILLUST: Two students enroll in a poli sci class // prof assigns 10-page paper due at midterm // one student diligently preps, gathers sources, reads // other student procrastinates, plays Ultimate Frisbee, casually glances at a syllabus, promptly forgets // student one writes an outline, builds a Bibliography, checks the Style Guide to make sure she’s citing things correctly. She sits down at a coffee shop to put it all together. Hits 10 pages, writes a conclusion, feels proud of her work.

Right there on her hard drive, in Microsoft Word. Yes, she’s gained a lot here. So she decides to grab some lunch to let it percolate before she drives back to campus, reads through it one more time, and send it to her prof. She sets her laptop on the passenger seat and runs in to get a Number 1 with waffle fries and an Arnold Palmer, and when she gets back to the car, her laptop’s gone.

And just like that, she has no more to show for it than student two.

Solomon says that wisdom’s gain over folly evaporates under the sun.

Wisdom is no better than selfish pleasure when it comes to solving the problem of vanity. There is no lasting, meaningful joy in wasted wisdom.

What did Solomon learn from test #2? You cannot outsmart death.

And proverb #2 comes true: <<READ 1:18>>

But there’s a third part to the test after selfish pleasure and wasted wisdom.

Is there gain to be had in all the possessions he’s piled up? Is there meaningful joy somewhere else?

III. Not in Worldly Legacies (2:18-23)

<<READ 18-23>>

Verse 19 is the heart of the problem - WHO KNOWS?

Put wisdom & toil together, and use them to prepare for tomorrow, but you can’t control what happens to your legacy after you’re gone, you can’t even know what’s going to happen.

Wise or foolish, somebody is going to be master of his toil. Solomon will leave it, and if his successor runs it all into the ground, Solomon can’t do anything about it, and he can’t prevent it in advance.

It turns out Solomon had reason to despair over his legacy. His son Rehoboam was a fool, he squandered what he was given, and lost most of the kingdom to Jeroboam. All of Solomon’s wisdom and work were undone, and the Kingdom of Israel was divided.

1 Kings 11:11 ESV

11 Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant.

So what’s the point of all this toil, even with wisdom and knowledge and skill? Who is it for?

And this is the final answer to his threefold test: It’s vanity. A puff of air. Even if things turned out exactly how he wanted, without God, all his planning, and all his restless nights, the whole of his worldly legacy, will have done him no good.

Solomon has learned that you cannot outplan death.

And look at verses 18 and 23 - In the test of selfish pleasure, he had found pleasure in his toil., But now, after he applied all his wisdom to his work, he just ended up infecting his work with wisdom’s problems and ended up hating all of it.

So, at the end of Solomon’s Big Project, what’s the lesson Solomon wants us to learn? Is there any meaningful, real, substantive, concrete, lasting joy in everyday life?

He says it’s not in selfish pleasure under the sun,

It’s not in wasted wisdom under the sun,

It’s not in worldly legacies under the sun.

So where can we find joy, real joy, in everyday life? Here’s Solomon’s answer, in verses 24-26:

IV. Only in the Pleasure of God (2:24-26)

<<READ 24-26>>

Solomon set out on his quest to find out what was good (V3). That Hebrew word טוב has shown up again <<REMEMBER GEN 1:31>>. To say “There is nothing better” in verse 24, he says, “There’s nothing טוב for a person more than that he should eat and drink and cause his soul to see טוב in his toil.”

And in verse 26, he says, “For to the one who is טוב before him, God has given wisdom & knowledge & joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to one who is טוב before God.”

Under the sun, apart from God, Solomon thought of selfish pleasure as his reward for his work, and it evaporated like a puff of air.

But now he understands - under the sun was the problem. Under the sun, for all his wisdom, it turns out that he’s the sinner gathering for someone else.

That’s where the vanity is. That’s where the despair comes from.

What is good for us? To be good before God. And Solomon has just deposited himself, and you and me, onto the horns of a dilemma. Who is good before God?

The only meaningful, lasting joy in everyday life comes in the pleasure of God, and God’s pleasure can only be had as a gift from His hand. Sinner, you cannot earn it.

But Jesus has earned it for you.

Luke 3:22 ESV

22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

and

John 3:35 ESV

35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

Look at verse 26 with me: Jesus is the one who will receive all the wealth of all the kingdoms of the earth. All the business of gathering and collecting will be given into His hands.

Revelation 5:11–12 ESV

11 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

And what does that mean for you and me?

What you could never earn, Christ Jesus now offers as a gift - if you believe in Jesus Christ, in His death and resurrection, then Scripture says that you are children of God,

Romans 8:17 ESV

17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Because the Father is pleased with Jesus His Son, He is pleased with all who belong to Him.

So start with me right there: My friends, if you want God’s pleasure, it must be received as a gift by faith in Jesus Christ. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. But if you are His, then He is pleased with you.

And then what?

Then you can find enjoyment - real, meaningful, lasting joy - in everyday life.

When you eat and drink and find enjoyment in your toil from the hand of God, you’re living out a foretaste of God’s restoration of Eden, when life under the sun will be eclipsed forever by eternal life in the light of Jesus Christ.

Last week, I said the only answer to the problem of vanity is resurrection. This is because death steals from us, makes a mockery of wisdom, destroys greatness, obliterates even the best of us.

Solomon figured this out late, brothers and sisters, after a life of sinful self-indulgence. He kept his wisdom the whole time - he knew it was wrong - but he did it anyway. And at the end of his idolatries, sexual sin, and self-aggrandizement, he says, it was a waste. There was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Skip the sorrow and live for God instead. Paul seems to have had this on his mind in:

1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV

31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Because there is a kind of pleasure, treasure, wisdom, and legacy that will survive the end of the world.

Matthew 6:19–21 ESV

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Under the sun, all is vanity. But there is a building project that will outlast the sun.

<<READ 1 Cor 3:10-23>>

Do you want to find meaningful joy in everyday life? The everyday things - eating, drinking, work, pleasure - each one is a gift from God. So give thanks and enjoy them as gifts.

Ask the LORD to help you use the temporary - the wood, hay, and straw - to serve the gold, silver, and precious stones of the eternal.

Related Media

Related Sermons