Ecclesiastes 1:1-3:22, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13, Psalms 46:1-11, Proverbs 22:15
Today is the 2nd day of September…I was gonna say July and I have no idea why because that was a while back. It’s the 2nd day of September, and here we are in a brand-new month and we’re obvious…I’m obviously trying to move into this new month, but we’re moving into some new territory along with moving into this new month. We finished the book of Job yesterday, which brings us to the book of Ecclesiastes today.
Introduction to the book of Ecclesiastes:
Ecclesiastes is one of the more interesting books in the Bible, at least for me. Like there was a time it was my least favorite thing to read in the Scriptures because it kinda comes up across the depressing and a little hopeless and pointless and I used to not like…just…didn’t reconcile well with what I had assumed life was supposed to look like. And but now it’s one my favorite…one my favorite books because its brutally honest and we face some hard stuff. And Job does the same kind of thing, it just does it from a different perspective. So, to…to kinda get ourselves in the right frame of mind to enter into Ecclesiastes, the best thing that we can do is think about what would happen if you got everything you ever wanted? And you can think, “that sounds heavenly.” Like, “that sounds like what I’m after.” But imagine it. Imagine that all of the challenges of your life essentially, they kind of evaporate. So, money is no longer a problem. You checked the bank this morning and there was $100 million in your bank account, like more than you can spend and your house is paid for, your vehicles are new you, got money in the bank, your kids are doing great, they’re obeying, they’re not rebellious, you can care for them, you can care for their children, you can care for their grandchildren into the future, whatever you’d like to pursue you can pursue it and when you’re done with it you can be done with it and just everything, the resources for everything, the power for everything is at your disposal. So very, very few people in the world ever experience anything like that. We’re always just striving forward to…to get through or to make ends meet, or just to get a little ahead or have a little nest egg or to pursue a dream but not a lot of people can do whatever they want whenever they want with whoever they want, but the writer of Ecclesiastes who is known to be Solomon who collected and penned many of the Proverbs, he did have that ability. That was his life. So, his father, King David had gone through the establishment of the city of David, right, and making Jerusalem the capital city of Israel, and he fought many battles and he collected many treasures, but it was left to his son to build the temple of God. And we remember the story of Solomon praying to the Lord for wisdom and God saying that He would grant him wisdom and grant him long life and grant him riches and honor, and everything else. And, so, Solomon did have this. Solomon took ancient Israel to the apex of their civilization. The brief period where the wind was at their back and everything was in their favor happened under Solomon’s reign and rule. And he was so wise people traveled from all over the world to hear him and to speak to him and to consult with him. He was the king. And, so, he was the supreme ruler of the land with the power of life and death. He was enormously wealthy and brought Israel into a time of immense prosperity. So, he could dream in any direction and he did. We’ll find this from the book of Ecclesiastes, but we also found this when we were reading of the story of Solomon, of his development, of the things that he built, of the things that he dreamed, of the people who came to hear him, of the alliances that he formed. So, he’s a very powerful…maybe the most powerful man in the world at this time. He also had 700 wives and 300 concubines, so 1,000 of the most beautiful women in all of the world available to him all wishing to bear a prince or a princess. And I know all of our children are princes and princesses but like for real, like to bear a royal child. So, this is a very powerful person who has been given the wisdom of God. So, you’d expect like if he gets later in life and he wants to write down the story, you’d think it would be this unbelievable adventure story, a memoir of unspeakable experiences and instead what he writes is that it’s all meaningless, which just seems like such a weird conclusion to come to, but that’s what he concludes, it’s chasing the wind, it’s all meaningless. It’s almost hard to comprehend because we’re always chasing that next…that next thing. Like, if I could just achieve this then my life would be better. If I could just get or attain that then my life would be better. And, so, we…we chase these things, but we can never get to the end that, we’ll always be chasing something. So, if that’s really what’s going to make life better, we’ll never get there because we’ll only be chasing the next thing. Solomon gives us the perspective of somebody who got all the things, everything you could ever want he experienced. And, so, we get a look at his perspective on what it looks like to get off the wheel, basically to stop chasing and pursuing other things because they don’t lead anywhere, they’re meaningless. And, so, Ecclesiastes comes to similar conclusions that Job comes to. Now Job dealt with suffering and in that context, we explored it. Solomon wasn’t exploring suffering he was exploring whatever he wanted to explore. But it gives us the perspective of…man…if you do achieve it all, if you do, then you find out that it still did not fulfill you. And he concludes that only God can do that. There is no other way to fulfillment and what you have is something that you should appreciate and enjoy and see it as a gift from God and be looking at what everybody else has or whatever else you are trying to achieve because if you achieve it all you’re still not gonna be fulfilled. So, it gives us a prime opportunity to explore those pursuits and to consider what we’re trading our life for. What is promising us more that we would actually trade the days of our lives that we cannot get back that are precious? What we trading our lives for? Is it really gonna be worth it? So, Ecclesiastes is part of the wisdom literature of the Bible, which also included Job, which includes Proverbs, which includes part of the Psalms, which includes apocryphal texts, like Sirach. So, that’s kinda the genre that we’re reading and some of the territory that we’re heading into. And may we allow the Holy Spirit to come and teach us. We have Proverbs and we see all of these wise sayings, but this is deeper than that. This is an older man nearing the end of his life reflecting back on all that he’s experienced and coming to certain conclusions about the way that he’s spent his own life. And may we find that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. And maybe we’ve been trading our lives chasing the wind. And, so, we begin. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Ecclesiastes 1, 2, and 3 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, you can kinda see what we’re talking about the book of Ecclesiastes, everything is meaningless, it’s chasing the wind. And, so, let’s just…for a quick second since we’ve already talked about Ecclesiastes…just…let’s look at what we read today. Solomon basically said, “look, I have done it all. I have gone as far as you can go in any number of directions and it’s meaningless, it’s chasing the wind because no matter what we achieve, no matter what gets accomplished, it’s gonna be forgotten here upon the earth. No matter what we achieve, no matter how we accomplish, we’re no different than the animals because we all end up in the same place, which is we all experience death. And then Solomon is basically using all of the knowledge that he has upon the earth, the earth’s knowledge, to say nobody knows what happens after that. Nobody can prove anything. So, it's…it’s all meaningless. And, so, what’s missing from the equation? What is it that makes it all meaningless? The lack of faith. Faith isn’t a part of the equation of what we were talking about today. It’s only faith that makes anything have meaning. And Solomon at this point in his life seems to be doing what…what you do as you kind of continue to grow and age ask the big, big questions. You kind of come to the end of what you can know and then realize it is meaningless. Without a view of eternity, without a faith view, without faith in God then really, we all do end up in the same place and everything that we’ve worked so hard to achieve fades away or is given to who knows. And, so, in so many ways we are, in the book of Ecclesiastes, looking at life apophatically. That’s a process of subtraction to arrive at the truth instead of a process of addition. So, if you’re looking cataphatically, like essentially a process of addition, you’re saying, “this is like that. This is like.” Whereas if you are looking apathetically, you’ll be like, “that is not like that. This is not like that.” In so many ways what Solomon is talking about is what Jesus said, “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?”
Prayer:
Father, we thank you for your word and it’s disruptive on..on…in many places at many times. It’s disruptive it shakes us. It…it shakes us out of our comfort zones and forces us to look at what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. And right at the outset we can see there is no purpose or meaning without a bigger view. The same kinds of things Paul is writing about in his letters, “look higher. This is a bigger story.” But it if we don’t see that bigger story than all we see is the toil of our lives trying to scrape forward and achieve some sort of security and some sort of happiness that all fades away in time. There is no hope but you. And, so, we are acknowledging that and we invite your Holy Spirit as we continue into this month and into this territory that the Bible is leading us into, that you take us deep, deep to the level of our motivations, deep to what it is we’re trying to do here. Are we trying to be our own God? Be our own sovereign? Carve of our own niche? Even if we could do that we end up in the same place as everything else on this earth, which is the grave. If we have no hope beyond that it is meaningless. And, so, you are our meaning. You are our purpose, not what we can do for you. You are our hope, not what you can help us do to make life better. You are our only hope and we put our hope in you. And we ask, Holy Spirit, sweet comforter, that you come into the disruptive places and that you comfort us and that you reprioritize and reorient our posture and what we’re aiming toward in this life. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.
Song:
Turn Turn Turn - Anthem Lights
[Spencer Kane]
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
[Joey Stamper]
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
[Caleb Grimm]
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
[Chad Graham]
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
[Spencer Kane]
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing
[Joey Stamper]
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
[Caleb Grimm, Spencer Kane, Joey Stamper]
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sow
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late
[Chad Graham]
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn