Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 | Wisdom for Living When Life Makes No Sense

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Well, it is an honor to be here at Faith Evangelical Free Church.

This church actually played a huge role in my development as a pastor, and I didn't realize it until years later.

In 1983, in the summer, right after my wife and I got married in Idaho, we moved back to central Illinois to my hometown of Morton.

And I served as a pastoral intern at a brand new church.

It was pastored by a man named Mike Boyle.

And those of you who recognize that name, some in the 70s, Mike came to study cartography at UND, all the way from Maryland, and not a believer, but came to faith in Christ through this church.

And Mike became my pastor and a mentor, and he sends his greetings, texted me a couple of days ago, and said, please greet the brothers and sisters at Faith Evangelical Free Church.

So that's a greeting from Mike, and I'm thankful for the role that this church played in my life.

We never know how God is going to use us, do we?

Something else that another reason why I'm glad to be back is Grand Forks means a lot to us because our youngest son, Luke, was uh a student here at UND.

He uh was here on a football scholarship, played uh redshirted his first year, I think that was 2012, and then uh finished uh his final season was 2016.

He was a tight end.

Actually, he was a team captain the year they won the uh Big Sky Conference Championship, and so it's always great to come back to Grand Forks, especially when you have such balmy weather in February.

This is wonderful.

So thank you.

I was uh getting ready to uh pack my winter coat and I looked at the forecast.

I thought, this has got to be wrong.

So uh anyway, I am very thankful.

All right, that puzzle piece that you uh received when you, well, a few moments ago.

I'm curious how many of you like to put together uh puzzles, like a 500-word, thousand-word puzzle, raise your hand.

I have one question for you.

Why?

My wife Priscilla and my youngest son, Luke, the UND grad, and then I have another daughter, Anna, who the three of them love to put together puzzles, and sometimes at uh Christmas, during the Christmas season, there'll be a card table set up and there's a puzzle on it, and and I just don't get it.

I get so frustrated with puzzles.

Uh once in a while they will twist my arm into trying to help them, and I last about five minutes at the most.

One time I actually got a couple of edge pieces assembled together, uh, and that was uh the extent, I mean, puzzles just, I'm sorry, they just drive me crazy.

Here are all these random pieces, and I have no idea how they fit together.

You know what?

Life is like that.

Life is like a puzzle that you can't solve.

There's all of these puzzle pieces, and if you're like me, I have no idea how they fit.

And honestly, those of you who like puzzles, I would suspect that you look at the box top before you try putting the puzzle together, right?

Uh you have a sense as to the the picture that you're creating, but it doesn't work that way with life.

We don't get to see the picture on the box top of the puzzle, and so we're left trying to make sense of how life works.

The book of Ecclesiastes speaks to the problem of life making no sense.

It's one of the three major wisdom books in the Old Testament.

Uh the word wisdom in the Old Testament is actually the word skill.

And it's used in some interesting places.

It's used of the skill of craftsmen who worked on the tabernacle, uh, some of the tapestry and some of the other furnishings.

The word skill is used of sailors who sail in in Psalm 107.

It's even used in Jeremiah 9 of professional mourners.

Uh they had those at funerals.

They would hire people to come into to mourn.

I know it seems odd to us, but uh there's a reference to those women who were skilled in wailing.

So it's just a word that means skill.

In the wisdom books of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes, it has to do with the skill of living life in a God-honoring way.

Proverbs tells us how to live so that life makes sense.

And so it's the skill of living life in a way that uh, yeah, we we adjust and adapt to the patterns that God has built into the world, and uh it makes life go smoothly.

So, yeah, Proverbs helps us to live so that life goes smoothly.

Job helps us to live when life falls apart.

And wisdom not only looks at the patterns that God has built into the world, and if we if we adapt to and live by these patterns, that's what Proverbs does, uh, not only looks at that, but it looks at life's mysteries and life's frustrations.

And uh the book of Job is there to help us make sense of life when it when it falls apart.

The book of Ecclesiastes that we're going to be looking at this morning, though, is a book that uh helps us uh live life skillfully when life just doesn't make any sense, and we don't see anything in our lives that that resembles a pattern.

We we don't know where all of this is headed, and because of that, life is frustrating.

This morning I want us to look at Ecclesiastes chapter 3, uh, verses 1 through 15, because I believe this is the really the central message of the book.

Ecclesiastes 3 · chapter mention

Everything kind of flows into it and flows out of it.

Uh, we're gonna learn this morning how to live when life doesn't make sense.

So if you can find this in your Bible or on your Bible app, or if you are older than 60 and remember the birds, uh please turn, turn, turn to uh Ecclesiastes 3, uh one through 15.

Uh yeah, they they wrote a song by that title on the uh poem that we'll be looking at shortly.

So Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verses uh 1 through 15.

Ecclesiastes 3 · chapter mention

And we begin in verse 1, uh, which reminds us that life is a series of events and activities.

Ecclesiastes 3.1 says, For everything there is a season and time for every matter under heaven.

Now, we get a poem in verses 2 through 8 that fleshes that out, that describes all of the activities that make up a person's life.

There are some that are favorable, there are some that are unfavorable.

And by the way, I don't believe these are prescriptive.

It's not saying these are things that you need to do, but rather it's saying, here's an example of some things that happen in the course of a person's life.

So let me read this poem in verses 2 through 8.

A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to kill, and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to seek and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away, a time to tear and a time to sow.

A time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

That poem reminds us that life consists of various events and activities.

Verses two and three talk about beginnings and endings, and notice that a lot of these are opposites, aren't they?

Time to be born, a time to die.

I mean, that that covers the whole span of our lives.

To plant, to pluck up what's planted, a time to kill, a time to heal.

Again, this is not prescriptive.

It's not saying you can go out and kill anybody.

It just, you know, these kinds of things happen in life.

Verse four talks about emotions, a time to weep and a time to laugh.

I'm just uh struck the longer I live, how joy and sorrow travel together, don't they?

And it seems like no matter what's going on in the most joyous seasons of our lives, there's always something that brings sorrow, right?

And even during some of the worst moments of our lives, there can be laughter and there can be joy.

That's uh how life is.

It's an emotional roller coaster sometimes, isn't it?

Time to mourn and a time to dance.

Verse 5 is interesting: a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together.

And you are wondering what that means, so I will tell you what it means.

Uh the answer is I don't know.

Uh it's it's uncertain.

And uh the Bible students, Bible scholars have wrestled with this over the years.

We're not quite sure.

Uh some of the Jewish rabbis think it might be a sexual euphemism, like in our culture.

We talk about uh somebody sleeping together, and perhaps it's that.

Uh simply could be that uh this is uh uh maybe a time, maybe it's talking about a time to destroy a field, a time to clear a field.

If you wanted to mess up something for uh a farmer, uh you just take rocks and scatter them around their field.

All of the farms and ranches I've ever worked on, we spent a lot of time uh clearing rocks away, whether it was in Pennsylvania or or Montana.

So it could be that.

Again, it's just a reminder of these different kinds of activities that we have in life.

Uh verse 6 talks about our possessions, a time to seek and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away.

Sometimes you go to garage sales.

Uh, anybody do garage saling here and you buy stuff, and then other times you have a garage sale to get rid of the stuff that not only you bought, but other stuff that you don't want, so you can go to another garage sale and get more.

Something like that.

But a time to keep, a time to cast away, a time to tear, a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak.

So confrontation, a time to love and a time to hate.

By the way, hate in the Old Testament is not so much personal as it is ethical.

It's uh uh choosing uh to reject uh someone or something.

But then finally, a time for war and a time for peace.

That folk rock group, the birds in the 1960s, I think when they wrote this, that's why they they latched on to this a time for peace, and that's what they thought the point of the poem was.

But it's actually a poem that is simply reflecting on verse one.

For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.

And then you get this poem that illustrates that, and it says that your life and my life is a series of events and activities, all of these opposite things that happen, that's what our lives are.

Now, the question becomes it prompts this question in chapter 3, verse 9, what gain has the worker from his toil?

I want to go back for a moment to chapter 1 because that is the key question that's raised in the book.

It's in chapter 1, verse 3.

I mean, this is really the question that the book is all about.

Uh what does man or what do people gain by all the toil at which they toil under the sun?

Uh the word gain, both there in chapter 1, verse 3, and then in chapter 3, verse 9, is a word that, well, it's it's a business word.

It's a word that describes profit.

What is left over after a business transaction?

That's what you gain.

So it's looking at all of these activities in life in chapter 3 in that poem, and saying, all right, here is uh a summary of some of the things that happen in life.

What's left over when it's done?

What do you gain?

That's the key question.

And back in chapter 1, verse 3, what does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?

Under the sun is simply a way of saying, you know, life here on earth.

You know, what happens?

And uh chapter 3, you saw that in verse 1, for every matter under heaven, same thing.

You know, here's life down here on earth.

Now, what is left over?

I should have us back up a verse in chapter 1, verse 2, and notice the theme of the book.

The theme of this book, uh, chapter 1, verse 2 says, Vanity of vanities, says the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Now, this is where our English translations really have a challenge because the the writer here uses uh a metaphor, uses a picture, an image.

I'm going to teach you uh a Hebrew word this morning.

I hope that's okay.

Uh the word is Havel.

Uh H-E-B-E-L in Hebrew, but the the B is pronounced like a V, so Havel.

Can you say that with me?

Here we go.

Havel.

Great.

You're on your way to learning Hebrew.

Just get some help from Pastor Jason.

All right.

Uh one more time.

Havel.

That word means a vapor or a breath.

Uh if we were all to go outside in the parking lot, I don't know if it would work as well today because it's not cold enough, but uh usually on a February day in Grand Forks, uh, when you go outside, you can see your breath, right?

Uh watched a football game uh recently.

It's probably the Packers.

We've got some big time Packers fans in our in our family, even though we live uh uh just a mile or two or a couple miles from Hallis Hall where the Bears play, but we've got big time Packer fans.

And uh Lambeau Field is always uh you know cold from about November on.

And I remember seeing, just watching this player, just seeing their breath.

Now, what happens to that breath that you breathe?

How long do you see it?

Would you say five seconds, five minutes, five hours, five days?

How long is it visible?

Kind of on the lower end, maybe not even five seconds.

It's gone one, it's there one moment and it's gone the next.

Try this sometime.

The next time you see your breath outside before it disappears, try to grab a handful of it and put it in a box.

You can't do that, can you?

Well, that's the idea here.

I mean, literally, and in fact, I kind of wish our translations would have just translated this literally.

Vanity of vanities, or some say meaningless, meaningless.

It's not that those translations are wrong or bad, it's just that you know there's more to it.

It's just hard to capture in one word what heavel means.

I mean, heavel is vapor or breath, and it's it's the idea that that all is fleeting.

It's it's here one moment and it's it's gone the next.

I can't believe sometimes how old our kids are and now our grandkids.

It's like, how did that happen?

Life goes by so quickly.

I always thought that was a cliche, but it's not, is it?

Uh wow, life goes by so fast.

And that's part of the uh the idea behind Havel.

It's here one moment and it's gone the next.

Plus, you can't control it.

You can't take that breath that you have, and you can't grab a piece and move it over here behind you so it's not in front of your face.

That doesn't work.

So when the writer of Ecclesiastes announces this theme, and by the way, the word heil appears 38 times in the book.

It is important.

Then we start to appreciate what we're up against, right?

So back to chapter 3, verse 9.

The major question of the book is what gain has the worker from his toil?

I mean, all of life is heavily, it's a breath, it's a vapor, it's here one moment, gone the next.

You can't control it.

So, what gain has the worker from his toil?

The writer says, I have seen the business or the task that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

And that's a great encouragement, isn't it?

But God takes all the pieces of your life, he takes those puzzle pieces, and he is making a beautiful picture.

But before you get too excited about the good news, read on.

It says, also he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

That is what's so frustrating about life.

God makes everything beautiful in his time, but then comes the frustration.

God has put eternity into our hearts, and that's that sounds good, and it is in a way.

But what it means is God has given us this sense that we are part of a bigger story than we realize, that it's a story that continues into the future, but we we can't quite see how it all comes together.

We can't see the picture.

God has not given us a box top with a picture on it, at least in some ways, as far as our lives go.

We we do fit into a bigger story.

We'll talk about before we're done this morning.

But that's the problem with our lives, isn't it?

And you hear that if you listen to you listen to songs, even popular music.

It's that it's that frustration that you know we're we're all trying to figure out, well, well, where do I fit?

You know, I I've got this sense that I'm I'm part of something bigger than uh than myself, this bigger story, but but what is it?

That's the problem, isn't it?

Life is not a puzzle that you can solve.

So where does that leave us?

Well, here's what the writer says in verses twelve through fifteen.

It's kind of a surprise, to be honest.

He says, I perceive that.

There is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live.

Also, that every one should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil.

This is God's gift to man.

Well, that almost sounds like something called hedonism, doesn't it?

This idea that, yeah, well, I'm just going to eat, drink, and be merry.

I'm just going to live it up.

That doesn't quite sound right, does it?

Hey, we don't know how life fits together, so just party on.

But that's actually not what the writer of Ecclesiastes is saying at all.

And we'll see that in just a moment.

Again, wrestling with this idea that God's put this eternal perspective in our lives, and yet we can't figure out what God is doing from beginning to end.

Before I went into pastoral ministry, in the year between finishing seminary and the first church, I worked on a ranch in Montana, Paradise Valley, south of Livingston.

We're about 35 miles north of Yellowstone Park, and it was such a gorgeous setting.

My favorite days were when I went to work and the rancher said to me, All right, today you're going to take the tractor and you're going to plow those fields.

And I had a task that was defined and I knew what I was aiming for.

There are other days when I got to work and he would say, Take that chain over there and put that back in the shed.

And then I'd come back and he'd say, All right, bring the tractor around.

Bring the tractor around.

Then he'd say, you know, get a wheelbarrow and take those sacks of feed and take those to the barn.

And it was one random task after another, and I found that frustrating because I didn't see where any of this is going.

And that's often what life is.

So what do we do?

Eat, drink, be merry.

That's what it says in verse 13.

Eat, drink, and take pleasure in all his toil.

But it's not escapism.

It's not being cynical, because look at the next line.

It says, This is God's gift to man.

Verse 14, he gives us a little bit more insight.

He says, I perceive that whatever God does endures forever.

Nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it.

God has done it so that people fear before him.

That which is already has been, that which is to be already has been, and God seeks what has been driven away.

So what's he saying here?

Well, we have to think a little bit about that idea of fearing God.

The book of Proverbs begins with the fear of God, it ends with the fear of God.

And here in Ecclesiastes 3, the fear of God emerges, and at the end of the book in chapter 12, the fear of God emerges again.

So what is the fear of God?

Well, one hand, God wants us to be afraid of him, and yet he doesn't.

I know, that sounds like a contradiction.

Back in Exodus 20, when the people were at the base of Mount Sinai and they were scared, the Lord said, well, he told Moses, Moses said to the people in verse 20 of Exodus 20, do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you that you may not sin.

And you say, huh?

Which is it?

Moses says, Don't be afraid of God, but he's come in order that you will be afraid of him.

And we read that, and maybe that seems as puzzling as the book of Ecclesiastes.

Then you go to the New Testament, it's the same thing.

1 John 4, 18, perfect love casts out fear.

But then in Philippians 2, verse 12, we are told to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Philippians 2:12

It's the very same word.

I think what Scripture is doing here is it's telling us that there is a sense in which we should be in awe of God.

There should be a healthy fear, understanding that He is the creator, that our lives are in His hands, that He is the judge.

And yet we know that God is a God of compassion and love.

That He doesn't want us to be terrified, that He doesn't want us to run for cover.

He invites us into His presence.

He invites us into a loving relationship.

But there still has to be that healthy fear.

I like a sense of worship.

Alright, so how do you live when life makes no sense?

I believe what Ecclesiastes 3, verses 1 through 15 is telling us is that life is not a puzzle you can solve, but it's a gift you can enjoy in the fear of God.

Ecclesiastes 3:1–15

That even though God doesn't show you the box top, even though you don't know what he's doing with all those pieces in your life, you know that it's part of his larger story, and we do know how that story ends, don't we?

That's what makes it wonderful.

So we can enjoy life when it doesn't make sense, knowing that God makes everything beautiful in its time.

Again, the puzzle pieces of your life may not make sense right now.

You might be asking that question raised in chapter 3, verse 9, what gain does a worker have from his toil?

You know, what's left over at the end of all these activities in my life?

Well, we're not going to see it now, but one day we will see that picture.

What God has done with our lives as it fits into his larger picture.

You know, that puzzle piece that you have is part of a puzzle that looks like this.

This is uh Wild Africa by uh Chuck Vinson.

It's his painting.

And that those puzzle pieces that all of you are holding uh work together to make that picture.

That's what it's gonna be like one day when we see how God has brought all of those seemingly random pieces of our lives together and he uses it as part of this big, beautiful picture that he's creating.

When is that gonna happen?

Well, that's gonna happen when Christ returns.

There's a number of passages that we could turn to, but the scriptures affirm that one day the Lord Jesus Christ will return, that all will be made new, that we will be raised to life and new bodies, living in a new heaven and a new earth, in the life of our dreams.

One place where that's mentioned briefly is in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, and in verse 10, and Paul here has been talking about the importance of love and the way that you use your spiritual gifts.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

He's not talking so much about uh the end, but he makes reference to the end as part of his argument.

And he says in verse 10, when the perfect comes, and I believe that the perfect here is referring to what God brings through Jesus, when Jesus returns, that culminates in the new heaven and the new earth.

So when the perfect comes, down in verse 12 of 1 Corinthians 13, he says, For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

That's so encouraging, isn't it?

That one day it will all make sense.

One day God will help us to see as we look back on our lives, oh, okay, here's all these things that I thought were random pieces, and there was so much frustration in all of it.

But I knew God was doing something bigger, and now here it is.

One day we'll see that when Christ returns.

In worship, in fear, in reverence, in awe of Him.

You can take that puzzle piece and on the way out, I guess it served its purpose.

If you want to toss it, that's fine.

Find a trash can and do that.

But maybe you want to take it with you and put it in your purse, or toss it in a drawer, desk drawer in your office, or maybe a drawer in your nightstand.

Maybe three weeks from now, or six months from now, or maybe five years from now, you're cleaning out that drawer, you're rooting around in your purse or something, and you come across that puzzle piece.

Maybe it'll remind you of what the book of Ecclesiastes, this great wisdom book teaches.

That life is not a puzzle you can solve, but it's a gift that you can enjoy in the fear of God.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for the gift of life.

Father, despite all the frustrations, the fact that joy and sorrow travel together, we thank you that you are doing something with our lives.

I pray that you might encourage us today if we find ourselves in a place where we're frustrated, where life just doesn't make sense.

Maybe the plans that we had, maybe the picture by which we've been operating is not coming together.

You've seems like maybe you've scrambled to pieces for us, or that the difficulties of life have done that.

Lord, in those moments, help us not to despair.

Help us to trust you.

Help us to enjoy the gift of life that you've given every moment.

Even though we don't know how you're pulling it all together, we know that you will.

So, Lord, help us to trust you when life doesn't make sense.

Help us to worship you by the way we live, knowing that one day, one day, we will live in your presence, in the presence of Jesus, in a life where there will be no more tears or mourning or crying or pain or death.

Lord, thank you for that hope.

Until then, help us to be faithful to you, to a God who makes everything beautiful in his time.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

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