Everything Is Meaningless - Under The Sun Or Under The Son?

Alright, we'll turn to your Bible, clesiastes chapter two, where you can read the entire chapter.

No big.

Clesiastes two, beginning in verse one, of course, says, i said in my heart, solomon, of course speaking, come now, i will test you with pleasure, enjoy yourself.

But behold, this also was vanity.

I said of laughter.

It is mad and a pleasure.

What use is it?

I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine, my heart still guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold of folly.

Tell, i might see what was good for the children of man to do under the heaven during the few days of their life.

Verse four I made great works.

I built houses and planted vineyards for myself.

I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees.

I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees.

I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house.

I also had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem.

I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces.

I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines the delight of the sons of man.

So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem.

Also, my wisdom remained with me, and whatever my eyes desired, i did not keep from them.

I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.

Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, it was all vanity and striving after the wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun Verse 12,.

So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly.

For what can man do?

who comes after the king?

only what has already been done.

Then I saw that there was in more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness.

The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness, and yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.

Then I said in my heart what happens to the fool will happen to me also.

Why then have I been so very wise?

And I said in my heart that this also is vanity For the wise, as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come.

All will have long been forgotten.

How the wise dies just like the fool.

So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity.

And striving after the wind Verse 18,.

I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool, yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun.

This also is vanity.

So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who is toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by the sun, must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it.

This also is vanity and a great evil.

What is a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?

For all his days are full of sorrow and his work is a vexation.

Even in the night his heart does not rest.

This also is vanity.

Verse 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 as from the hand of God.

For apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

For to the one who pleases him, god has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to the one who pleases God.

This also is vanity and a striving after the wind.

This is the word of God.

Father, we are so grateful for your word.

We are so grateful, father, that you preserved this word through the decades and the years and centuries since when it was written.

And, father, as we go into chapter two in Ecclesiastes, father, we're asking that you open the scripture up clearly to us, that the words that you preserve for us would be rightly read and rightly understood, and that, father, that we would walk away from here richer in spirit, convicted in spirit, and that, father, we would walk forward being edified by what you have to say and what you preserve for us.

And so my prayers that all of us have opened the years to hear what you have to say to us.

Pray this in Jesus' holy and righteous name, amen.

Well, last week we began the sermon series in the book of Ecclesiastes because we wanted to find a nice, light, happy book to talk about during summer.

Not I love this church for that, though.

We just take a book and say if God put it in there, it must be for us.

And so we're going through the book of Ecclesiastes, and Neil began the series by giving us some background on the book, and he went through chapter one, did a wonderful job, as always.

And, by the way, if you missed that sermon, if you miss any sermons, these sermons really build on each other, and so I really recommend you go back and listen to them.

You can find them on YouTube, on, of course, our website, and I can give you copies for $5 a piece if you would like to.

So You know, the book of Ecclesiastes really kind of comes out of nowhere in the old testament.

Let's just be honest with it.

I mean, let's you got the book of Psalms, which, by the way, in the Bible project, we're reading the book of Psalms now.

It's really great, right, and it's a wonderful poetic literature.

I mean, it's edifying, It's great, but it's also very real, right?

So it's this beautiful, beautiful collection of Psalms.

Then we're going to have the wisdom, the Solomon and Proverbs.

I mean, wow, this is just it's.

It's.

There's so much material in there.

You could make memes for your Facebook account for years out of that stuff in Proverbs, right?

I mean, it's got all this stuff.

Anybody ever done that?

Come on, come on, come clean.

I'm the only one.

I'm sorry, but then, after Proverbs 31, we turn the page and the car goes off the road and it goes screaming down the cliff and it crash lands into this dark wasteland of hopelessness and cynicism That is the book of Egliseastes.

I mean, it's like whoa, where did this come from?

And indeed it's a book that kind of shakes you up.

However, as Neil stated, the book actually does have a lot of hope in it, and it's something that I again, i believe.

If God sovereignly preserved it, those 12 chapters in Egliseastes bear reading, and so we're going to go through that Now.

Some scholars believe the book of Proverbs was written by King Solomon when he was at his peak, and that would make sense, right?

A lot of tremendous wisdom.

God is interlaced throughout, all of it.

It's beautiful.

And then they say that the same writer, of course, and there is some dispute about whether Solomon wrote Egliseastes.

I, i personally don't.

I mean, i read the arguments, i don't think they stand up.

But but we have Solomon writing this book that contrasts so, so drastically with Proverbs So drastically.

And we know from Scripture that at the end of his time on earth, solomon walked away from God.

He started worshiping other idols And of course, we know why he did that, because Scripture says, because of his foreign wives that pulled him away and took his eyes off of Christ.

And so that's the context that we walk into Egliseastes with is we see a man that is struggling with things.

But, however, i want you to know that there's a lot of hope in here And we're going to read that as we get through this.

I want to give a caution to all of us.

By the way, i don't know what your response was when you first heard that we were going to go through a series on Ecclesiastes.

Some of you may have said oh, i know what the book of Ecclesiastes is about.

It's about meaninglessness that comes from not walking with God.

It's pretty simple.

Scott, you really want to do a whole bunch of sermons on this book?

I mean, come on, it's a pretty simple process And it would be really easy for us to tune out and say every week, one of those guys is going to get up and they're going to preach the same sermon with just different words.

I don't believe that.

I hope you don't believe that either, because I believe that if he preserved all 12 chapters of Ecclesiastes, that there's truth in every one of them.

And, by the way, have you ever had someone tell you something and you didn't get it the first time?

And then you get told again and again and again, and finally one day your eyes wake up and you're like, wow, my parents were smart Or I never saw it before.

Sometimes we need to get hit with stuff multiple times.

So I believe there's a purpose in this.

So I have a title today's sermon Under the Sun or Under the Sun Now, under the Sun, the first Sun is S-U-N and under the Sun S-O-N.

Of course that would be Christ.

It's a catch little title, and but I did it because there's a phrase that Neil mentioned that's in the book of Pro or Ecclesiastes, called Under the Sun.

That's a phrase that he uses 29 times in this book.

Do you know that that phrase is not used anywhere else in the Bible, just in the book of Ecclesiastes?

That's interesting and that should get her.

Anytime you have an anomaly like that, that should get your attention.

And really, what it is is that phrase talks about referencing kind of the cyclical nature of life, and in many ways it's the physical that's experienced without God.

Without God is the foundation, it's what you can experience in this life in a non-spiritual way When I mean non-spiritual, i'm talking about without God, and he uses that phrase again and again and again, and I think it really bears a contrast for us to look at that, to look at what he experienced under the sun S-U-N and then for what we are called to experience under the sun S-O-N.

So the purpose of today's message is to examine Ecclesiastes, to see what Solomon is saying regarding the meaningless of life That's, of course, experienced under the sun, the S-U-N, and then, of course, contrast that with what we're supposed to live, the life we're supposed to live, and then at the end, we're going to look at Solomon's conclusions and we're going to ask ourselves what does this mean for us as we live our lives as a Christian life, and how we interact with those in the world, those that are not transformed, because I think that's an important thing for us to do So now, before we get into chapter two, we're going to quickly rehearse this a little bit about chapter one Now.

I'm not going to go through, of course, all of Neil's sermon, just a great sermon again.

If you haven't listened to it, do it.

But he really.

Chapter one there's five pursuits that Solomon talks about And they're pretty clear The labors of man, the pleasure of the eyes, the pursuit of fame, the vanity of seeking wisdom and the meaningless pursuit of folly.

Those are all mentioned And, by the way, in chapter two we're going to, solomon's going to touch on those things again, but he's doing it slightly different in chapter two.

And as I read chapter two again and again and again, something really stood out to me, and that was really what he says in verse one, because Solomon literally decided to do have us put together a systematic plan to try to find meaning without God.

Does it surprise you, by the way, that the wisest, smartest man ever decided he was going to do a plan?

He was going to put a plan together to do this.

I find this fascinating because if you look at verse one, it says he says I said in my heart come now, i will test you with pleasure, enjoy yourself.

Solomon didn't fall into these things.

That he did.

He didn't.

All of a sudden, oh man, i can't believe.

I'm trying to find meaning in this, or I'm trying to find meaning in what I'm building, or whatever.

He didn't say that.

He literally says I'm stepping into this, he willingly stepped into this.

And I find this fascinating as I read that, because I'm like it's like a study, it's like a scientific study.

Well, this is a social experiment.

He really wanted to test this.

He walked into this purposely.

Many of us fall into these traps just because we're weak, we're not strong or we have a moment of weakness or whatever.

We fall into these things.

He didn't.

He walked into it in a meaningful way.

He was fully aware of what he was doing, and so he literally said he was going to systematically attempt to find meaning and lasting happiness from three different areas, and that's what chapter two covers.

The first one is self-indulgence, the second one is toil, meaning the works of his hands, and the third was actually wisdom.

Again And again these themes were talked about in chapter one.

They're going to be talked about in other chapters to go, but this one he kind of focuses on those three things.

So let's take a look at them.

So the first one is self-indulgence.

And, by the way, when he jumps into this he holds nothing back.

Okay, he says I'm going after it.

And so let's just read some of this one.

So alcohol was the first one.

And verse three, the first part of verse three.

He says I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine.

Okay, he said, okay, i'm going to drink And I'm going to try to cheer my heart with wine.

And, by the way, i can fully imagine that he did cheer his heart with wine a few times, but it was never lasting.

Remember, we're going to find out about that.

So the second one was folly.

And the end of the second part of verse three says my heart's still guiding me with wisdom and how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life.

I thought it was interesting.

there was sons of man and then children of man.

But the Hebrew word for folly is really defined as this, and check this out That which lacks prudence, wisdom and insight, showing a lack of understanding.

It's the exact opposite of who Solomon was, because he was given all this wisdom supernaturally.

He said I'm going to try to do the opposite.

That wisdom is, excuse me, isn't that strange?

you think about it?

He literally said so I've experienced wisdom.

I'm going to do the opposite.

Now I don't know what that was, what that looked like.

It could have been like meaningless entertainment.

You know, maybe he had gestures and he had stand up comedians of the time trying to make them laugh and whatever.

I don't know what it was, but it was silliness It was.

There was no meaning or purpose to it.

He just said entertain me, entertain me.

And that's really what folly was.

It had no purpose.

The third was amassing great numbers of slaves.

In verse three said I bought male and female slaves and had slaves that were born in my house.

We know slavery has been part of the human condition for years, i mean ever since man became man, we've had slavery And in this time, in ancient Israel, this was how you were wealthy in many ways.

All the nations around, they had slaves.

And he had said he bought slaves.

A lot of times people were made slaves when their land was conquered.

Remember Solomon.

His wisdom and his fame spread throughout the known world.

At the time People came to him to hear his wisdom, i imagine they brought slaves and he said I want, can I buy those slaves?

I got lots of gold, which we'll see in a minute, and so he acquired all these, these slaves which, by the way, that was of course a sign of of wealth, it was a sign of prestige and power.

Large numbers of livestock's verse seven, the end of verse seven.

I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem.

No kidding, do you remember when the temple was dedicated?

And we just read this through in the Bible project Remember the temple was dedicated?

Second Chronicles seven, four through five.

It says Solomon's sacrifices that he made were 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep.

I just can't even imagine how long that would take, but that is a lot of, that's a lot of mutton, that's a lot of animals.

It also says, by the way and I remember reading this again through going through the Bible project that he had stables for 4,000 horses.

4,000 horses.

Can you imagine cleaning those stables up?

This is huge, this was huge.

He was.

There was nobody that was near as wealthy as he was when it came to that.

And, of course, speaking of wealth, amazing riches, the great quantities of gold.

In verse eight he said I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces.

You know, not just kings but whole provinces.

Right, i mean, it's like country.

He had all this wealth.

In fact, if you want to read this, if you haven't been going through this in Second Chronicles eight and nine, just read it And it'll astound you at the wealth that Solomon had, absolutely astound you.

It says that Solomon had so much gold that silver was of no value.

You just can't, it's hard to even wrap your head around.

Then The other another one was that he had the best singers and musicians.

In verse eight He said I got singers, both men and women, and, by the way, you can imagine if he got singers, he got musicians as well.

I mean, this guy had the top 40 right there with him.

They're entertaining him anytime he wanted to.

He could have the best of the best.

And then, finally, sexual gratification in the form of many wives and concubines In verse eight.

In the part of verse eight it says And many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.

And we know from scripture that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.

Now you're probably waiting for me to make some joke about that, but I'm not going to, because I have a good marriage and I want to keep it that way.

So I'm not going to say anything about 700 wives.

Listen, anything he wanted, anything his eyes put on.

Anything he, he did it.

He took it Anything.

His heart lusted after anything.

He decided to try, he went after it.

Self-indulgence, it was rampant.

He partied like there was no tomorrow, basically.

Now let's look at the second category, which is the work of his hands, and he and the ESV calls it toil.

And by the way, i will tell you we preach out of the ESV.

It's fairly close to the, of course, as close to the original text, although sometimes a little harder to read.

This would be really good in the new, new living translation in LT.

If you want to try to read this, it says it a little bit easier.

But but the work of his hands, or toil.

In verses four through six he said this.

He said I made great work, great works.

I built houses and planted vineyards for myself.

I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees.

I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees.

So we know that Solomon was a great builder And, what's the greatest thing?

that he built The temple.

That's right.

And the temple was known again across the known world.

People came to see the temple.

He much of what was to the temple the gold was he got from other other nations.

I mean, the temple was a magnificent.

I'll tell you.

Everybody says, can you go back in time?

What would you want to do?

Well, one of the things I'd want to do is give me a three hour tour of the temple.

I said three hour tour.

That's.

My daughter likes to watch Gilgames Island And I guess that's where that came from.

Can you imagine, just walking through the temple, the majesty of it all?

It would have been amazing.

But it wasn't.

That's not the only thing he built.

In First Kings 9, we read about Solomon building palaces.

He even rebuilt entire cities.

Okay, he was a builder.

And what's really interesting is he also worked on infrastructure And you know it talks about the pools which to water the forest, like the trees.

It sounds like he actually had engineering products like, or projects like, aqueducts or pools, irrigation or whatever.

I mean, as smart as he was, you can imagine that's something he could do.

So he did all that as well.

He had it all.

But what does he say about the things he did with his hands?

in verse 11?

He says that I consider all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it.

I was cold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

In verse 18, he says I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun.

Seeing that, i must leave it to the man who will come after me And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool.

We can answer that, can't we?

Who is his son that kind of took over from him?

Ray Abom, right, was he wise or was he a fool?

I think he falls in that fool category.

Remember when one of their slaves or whatever, came and said hey, we need a break, you're working us too hard.

And he decides to get counselors.

He has these wise, older counselors say just help them out, whatever.

And then he had all his buddies, his entourage came And they said oh man, double, it really hit him.

We want to live it up.

And of course that was the beginning of the split of that, one of the things that caused the split in the kingdom.

So he did not find any lasting satisfaction in what he did with his hands.

So let's talk about wisdom, the third and final category that he talks about here.

And I just want to acknowledge something, though It's really important for us to understand Solomon could choose to indulge or not indulge.

Right, he could choose.

That, he said he did.

He could choose whether he wanted to build something or not build something.

He could not choose not to be wise.

Right, think about it.

He was given that amazing gift of wisdom.

He couldn't turn that off.

So this was his default setting.

Basically, right, it was his default setting.

This is what God had given him.

But he said I'm going to try to find meaning in this, in this wisdom, without God.

Now, what really should tell you something about this, and it should tell me something about this, is I don't give a rip how smart you think you are.

You are not as smart as this dude.

You're not.

So if you think about that, just take it through this logical course.

You can't, you can't just brush off what he's about to tell us because you say, well, i'm, yeah, I'm pretty smart.

No, no, no.

He was smart.

So remember that was we get to this?

And he tells that in his own words, that this incredible gift couldn't be turned off.

In fact, he says this in verse three, and I find this interesting.

He said I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine, my heart still guiding me with wisdom.

Okay, that's interesting.

I'm going to get drunk a lot, but I've got wisdom.

I'm still being guided.

Verse nine he says so.

I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem.

Also, my wisdom remained with me.

You can't turn that gift off.

It was given to him, it was there.

You could not turn that wisdom off.

But what did he say about wisdom?

Well, in verse 12 through 17,.

This is longer than verse.

Just read through 14 to begin with.

He says so.

I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly.

For what can the man do who comes after the king?

only what has already been done.

Then I saw that there was.

There is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness.

The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.

He's remember.

He's doing all this without God, right?

And he says there is an advantage.

And would you not agree with that?

You might have a next door neighbor or a loved one, somebody who's not following God, but they're doing wise things.

They're not committing adultery on their wife or their husband, they're working hard at their job and being rewarded for it.

That's all wisdom, right?

So even if you're not, even if you don't have God in your life, wisdom will still benefit you, because it's just a logical principle, right?

But it didn't give true meaning to him.

That's what he points out In verse 14, the end of verse 14, and on he says And yet I perceive that the same event happens to all of them.

Then I said in my heart what happens to the fool will happen to me also.

Why then have I been so very wise?

What's that event?

Death, rather than we are all on a trajectory.

We're all on a trajectory to that point in time where we take our last breath.

We're all in that.

So I don't care if you are the most famous movie star or a famous politician or a billionaire, i don't care who you are or if you're somebody that lives in a shack, unemployed.

You're all in the same trajectory, and that is we're all gonna die.

And that's what really hit him, is he realized we're all going to this, we're all gonna meet at that same place, that's where we're gonna meet.

Verse 16, for all the wise, as of the fool, there is no enduring remembrance.

Seeing that, it is like, excuse me, seeing that in the days to come, all will have been long forgotten.

How the wise dies, just like the fool.

Everyone's going to die.

And he realized that.

What lasting thing do I leave behind?

Now you might say well, scott, i mean, he wrote these books, he built these great things or whatever.

Well, last thing, last time I checked, the temple was destroyed.

The first one was destroyed and the second one was destroyed.

Now, this was preserved for us here, but like the Old Testament does.

That's why I get a big chuckle when people say well, you know, the Bible is just a made-up set of stories.

You know, the Bible is the only ancient document that's been found that literally talks about the failures of everybody in it, everybody in it.

Moses did great things, didn't get to go on the Promised Land, right?

Abraham did great things.

Oh, by the way, he tried to sell his wife.

He gave his wife out, you know to.

He was scared and didn't believe.

And Hagar, i mean, listen, there's just a litany of mistakes.

The only ancient book that's preserved that shows all that stuff right, and we're seeing right here Solomon's great mistakes and the fruitlessness of what he tried to do.

So, in the conclusion that he came with through this little social experiment of his is that following the path of self-indulgence, toil and wisdom was not a good thing.

In fact, he says in verse 17, so I hated life because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all his vanity and a striving after the wind.

By the way, have you ever tried to catch the wind?

It's kind of cute when our granddaughter Emmy, when she was younger, we'd blow bubbles, right, and it's so cute watch the little kids go after bubbles Like the bubble's gone, oh, there's another bubble, it's gone.

It's the same thing.

You'll never grasp it.

You'll never grasp it.

It was all meaningless And I think it's really important that we remember that.

He didn't just go hmm, okay, so self-indulgence and working hard and building stuff and all my wisdom, it just really doesn't make me happy and doesn't give me meaning.

That's really interesting.

That is not what he says.

He was disturbed by this.

So, just in case you think you wanna jump into this and maybe, oh, i'm gonna try this social experience, don't do it, because he said he was disturbed.

He said he hated life.

It brought him to a point where he hated life.

The guy that had everything hated life.

In fact, he even says this and when he talks about grievous, it being grievous.

That word grievous literally means evil.

Evil.

That's the result of what he did.

That's what he said.

He was not in good shape after this experiment.

He was in bad shape emotionally, mentally, of course, not to mentor spiritually.

Now there is a philosophical term for a life that is believing that there is no meaning to life, and that term is nihilism.

A lot of you have heard that term before nihilism, and it's a philosophy, it's a viewpoint, and basically I'll just read the definition Philosophy or a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless, or you could say, meaningless.

When someone has the worldview informed by nihilism, they believe there is no true meaning in life.

I found a really, really inspiring poem written by a nihilist.

You guys wanna hear it?

It's really good.

You'll be so edified by this.

This is the poem I fear no man, i fear no God.

I seek no heaven.

I fear no hell.

I have no heroes, i have no faith.

I bow before no one.

I am a nihilist.

Death to philosophy, death to God, death to government, death to ideology, death to many, death to love, death to morality, beyond right and left, beyond right and wrong nihilism Wow, now that's edifying.

You read that every morning.

What hopelessness.

What hopelessness and meaningless.

But I wanna say something and make it real clear.

Solomon was not a nihilist.

He tried the nihilistic viewpoint for a while and he came to the nihilist understanding that there was no meaning.

But he wasn't a nihilist and you know he's not a nihilist because of some of the things he's gonna write and we're gonna read here in a bit Because he knew there was a God and he said I tried it without God and that's meaninglessness.

It's meaninglessness.

I really believe, by the way, that our God is sovereign and I really believe that in his sovereignty.

When Solomon made that request which was a good request, i believe God knew where he was gonna go.

I think he knew where Solomon was gonna go, and I will tell you too that I believe that he knew that was gonna happen and he sovereignly put that together and he recorded that.

So all of us would have no excuse that we would literally have laid out in front of us.

You can try anything you want to find meaning in life, but without God it's nothing.

It's all right here.

But yet, from the time this began to be recorded, we have Christians even that are still trying to find identity outside of God.

Even though it's recorded for us, even though it's recorded for you, it's kind of like saying caution, steep cliff.

Oh, look at that steep cliff, that's what.

And, by the way, man we know sin isn't logical.

Right, he wasn't a nihilist, but that's what the meaning is, the nihilistic meaning, and I think it's really interesting that he takes that perspective, because we need to understand that without God again, without being under the sun S-O-N, we have meaninglessness.

Now, what should we take away from this social experiment of Solomon?

What should we take away?

Well, i wanna talk about this from two different viewpoints.

The first, i wanna do an introspective view, from the precision of a Christian.

What should we learn from Ecclesiastes too?

And then we're gonna talk about an outward perspective and how the truth from this chapter help us understand those who are walking without God.

So what can a Christian learn from Solomon's pursuit of meaning?

You know, there's a temptation to say that we feel like we understand the lesson from this chapter And then walk out of here and wade right into it.

Wade right into the same things that he was doing self-indulgent behavior, trying to find meaning for what we do with these things Or, of course, trying to excel ourselves in knowledge for the wrong reasons.

It's really possible to give genuine affirmation to what Solomon says And yet walk out of here and do the same thing you've always been doing?

So I just wanna ask us a few questions, by the way, that maybe would help trigger some thoughts in your mind.

And, by the way, as preachers of the word of God, it's not our job here to give you guilt trips, and that's not what I'm doing here.

This is self-examination, and I'll tell you.

I wrote down here later.

I said I don't write the mail, i just deliver it, but I got the first letter.

Preaching is one of the most humbling things you can ever do, because it preaches first to the preacher, and that's a humbling thing.

So here's some questions.

How do you know if maybe you're seeking meaning from your say your toils, things that you're doing Well?

do you find yourself comparing your skills and abilities to others to make yourself feel more important?

I do product demonstrations for my company And when I see someone else doing a demonstration, sometimes I find myself going oh man, he shouldn't have said that, or oh, he's not making that real clear.

Or, man, i wouldn't do it that way.

Whoops.

Do you find yourself talking about your job and how good you are at it?

I know people that will do this And you can really tell if they're falling into this trap, because they're telling you about how stupid everybody else is around them.

And if only they made you it, made them, put them in charge, and things would change.

You find yourself seeking affirmation from others about how good you are at your job or how well you can do something.

Maybe it's building something, maybe it's your athletic prowess, whatever it is.

You find yourself wanting to get that affirmation from people and elevating yourself above others.

Nobody wants to be first, nobody wants to be last.

We want to be somewhere.

We always want to have somebody to look down upon and say, well, they're not quite at my level.

It's interesting how that works.

How about?

are you self-indulgent?

Are we falling into the trap of trying to find meaning through right, being self-indulgent?

And this is really hard, because we are one of the people in the prayer team this morning when praying over me said we live in a world that is saturated with the sins that Solomon jumped into.

What do you seek when it comes to entertainment?

You know that folly, that little word folly, mindless and meaningless entertainment.

Okay, i know I'm going from preaching to meddling here.

I just ask yourself because I find myself sometimes I have an addiction with these stupid videos, these little short videos.

I'm serious, i'm really struggling with it.

Meaningless, meaningless stuff.

Entertainment's one thing, but when you get to meaningless entertainment, especially when it crosses over into sacrilegious, vulgar Man, sometimes I hear someone say, well, i went, hey, remember this movie, i love this movie, it's one of my favorites that I'm going.

It's laced with profanity and crude humor And I'm like why would we want that in our lives?

But you know, what's really sad is someone will say something and you'll laugh and you'll say I shouldn't be laughing at that.

That's the influence we have in our society, around us, and there's times we just have to cut that off.

But when he said folly, that's what it was.

There was none, by the way.

I'm not saying everything you have to do has to have a scripture behind it.

You can watch movies and be entertained.

I'm talking about the meaningless entertainment and the reliance upon it.

You know the Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

I can't wait to see Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

Well, that's fine, i want to see it too, but it doesn't mean that I can find meaning in that.

I've been waiting for the next Marvel movie, the next Marvel movie.

You see what I'm saying.

There's little, sometimes small things, but we can be walking in that same seeking of meaning that Solomon tried.

You talk about self-indulgence, talk about alcohol.

You know, can you have a good time without alcohol?

Or when you get together with your friends, is it such a?

are your conversations such that faith would not really be appropriate in your conversation?

It wouldn't be welcoming your conversations.

How about the fixation on knowledge?

This one's a tough one, because we're told to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ.

We are told that knowledge is not bad, but when it's done without God, it certainly can be bad.

Right, so do you find yourself maybe sharing information just so you can seem smart to people.

Do you believe that it's your job to point out when people are wrong?

It makes you feel really good when you correct somebody Because you have that knowledge and they don't.

You look down on people who maybe don't have the same level of education as you do.

You find yourself getting prideful when someone compliments you on your advice or your knowledge which, by the way, we're supposed to share knowledge.

There's nothing wrong with that.

God gives us knowledge.

We're supposed to grow in that, but do you become prideful over it?

That's a tough thing sometimes.

How about you close your mind off when someone you perceive is not as smart, or maybe not as intelligent or as well-read as you, is sharing something in a conversation or maybe even a teaching?

Oh, they can't have anything for me because they're not as smart as me, they're not as mature a Christian as I am.

Listen, these are all things that we can fall traps.

We can fall into the traps of, and it's a dangerous thing.

You know, in the final synopsis, even those of us that are filled with the Holy Spirit can fall into the traps of trying to find identity and meaning in any of these three categories through what we do and not find identity where we're supposed to find identity, and that is in Jesus Christ and Christ alone.

Our identity is not in wisdom, it's not in works, it's not in self-indulgent pleasures, it's in Jesus Christ alone.

And you know the people who really get this.

They're the ones that have had all this stuff ripped away from them, totally ripped away.

I think of Richard Wormbrandt a lot of you who probably tortured for Christ.

The book he wrote about what happened around World War II I guess it was World War II, the torture that he went through.

He was a very well-known pastor and he was, of course, arrested and he was tortured.

Everything was taken away from his wife, family, identity, everything was gone And it was just him in that jail with his torturers.

All of that was ripped away.

He couldn't find identity in pleasures.

He couldn't find identity in work.

He certainly couldn't find identity in wisdom.

No one was listening to him, but he kept his identity in Jesus Christ And that's what carried him through.

He knew that what Solomon wrote was true.

He knew because he experienced it.

Brethren, the gospel is the great equalizer.

Solomon stated that death was a great equalizer and I understand that, but I think the gospel is a great equalizer for those that have been called and given a new life in Jesus Christ.

Because, you see, when you understand that, then nothing else matters.

Nothing else matters.

Meaning can only come through one man, and that is Jesus Christ, and I love the fact that Brooke and the team preached my message beforehand.

A beautiful tie-in, all these wonderful songs.

It was such a tie-in in Christ alone, just in Christ alone, that's it.

So how about an outward perspective?

How do we take what we learned from Solomon and how do we apply that to how we interact with those that are not Christians, that don't yet follow Jesus Christ?

Well, i'm gonna do a little deductive reasoning, and so follow me, if you can, on this.

So the first statement Solomon tried to find meaning in life through self-indulgence, the work of his hands and the ultimate wisdom, human wisdom.

So that's what he tried to do, right?

Secondly, he said in the end or the second thing is in the end he concluded that the results of seeking those things that was in his life were meaningless.

Okay, he set out to do this.

His conclusion was meaninglessness.

And then, therefore, you would conclude that anyone who's trying to find meaning through self-indulgence, toil or wisdom will come to the same conclusion that life is meaningless, and hate their life just like Solomon.

Right, it sounds pretty accurate, doesn't it?

But yet if you go out there and you engage with people, you'll find that a lot of people that don't know Christ, they're pretty happy.

Why is that?

Well, i would tell you that the real reason is because nihilism in its purest form will drive you crazy.

It will drive you mad, and it's interesting as I was studying into this, there was a story from a Nazi prison camp in World War II.

The commander of this Nazi prison camp had all these people all, of course, these Jews in there and he said okay, i need to keep them busy.

You know what he did?

He had a pile of dirt on one side of the compound And day one he said okay, i want all of you to move that pile of dirt from this side of the prison camp to this side.

So they worked all day and they did it.

Next morning they woke up.

Guess what he made them do Move that same pile of dirt back to where it was.

Then he had them do it again and again And the prisoners went mad, because even when they are in prison and when they are confined and all the things, all the terrible stuff that you would imagine in a prison camp, even if they were building things or growing things or doing projects or whatever, if they could see what was being accomplished, at least they could see the fruit of their hands.

But when it was meaningless, it drove them crazy.

That's why nihilism is not a real popular philosophical belief.

So people have to do something.

They have to find some meaning somewhere.

You know, everybody has a God-shaped hole inside of them because we were designed to have a relationship with God and so we have that God-shaped hole, like a piece of puzzle that's missing and it can only be filled by Jesus Christ.

Right, it can only be filled by Him.

But when we have that missing part of us and we don't put God in there, guess what we do?

We try to fit other things in there.

Again, going back to my four and a half year old, when she was younger, we had that little square, little box that had the star and the half moon, the circle and the square, and she'd take this, the square, and she tried to put in the circle hole.

You know, whatever, that's what people are trying to do metaphorically, they're trying to put the wrong shape in the wrong hole.

It can't, it won't go in, although she tried pretty hard.

But when you don't have that, you've got to find meaning somewhere else It's.

You've got to find a purpose, and that's what people do.

They find a purpose in all kinds of things.

They're accomplishments, relationships, their jobs, their hobbies, their involvement in community.

behind you know sometimes really good causes, right?

You know doctors without borders and different things.

There's some non-Christian organizations that do a lot of good things, a lot of good things.

They're trying to find meaning in this and that's okay.

But remember how he said there.

On that Solomon said they're the wise and the fool, are on that ultimate trajectory, literally, i believe.

In the end, all they're really doing is kicking the can down the road.

You know what I mean by that.

Because in the end, they're gonna be faced with death and they're gonna come to that point and say was there really any meaning?

Because if Solomon didn't find meaning, could they really find true meaning in that?

And I'm talking about the ultimate meaning that we need to experience, that we're designed to experience.

That is what we need to have, that's what we need to experience.

They're gonna look for the new promotion.

They're gonna look for the new car, they're gonna look for the next, whatever it is Something bigger and better.

You know I've got you guys.

Some of you have seen my shiny yellow motorcycle right, my Honda Goldwing, my 2001 Honda Goldwing.

I call her Ellie May.

I love Ellie May.

Ellie May is fun to ride around and maybe we go on rides and it's great and I love that bike.

It doesn't give me lasting happiness.

I remember when I first got it, man, i was so got cleaned it all up really good.

I bought some we call it safety chrome.

Put the chrome on there so cars can see you better, right?

I bought all that stuff for it and it was great.

And then every time I walked through the garage I said, oh, there's Ellie May, there's a little scratch.

Gotta get the little bit of dirt off there, whatever.

Now I just walk right by her.

I'm sorry, ellie May, i'm busy.

That motorcycle will be in a junkyard somewhere someday and it's over 20 years old so it's probably gonna get there sooner than a lot of the other my friends motorcycles.

I could code try to buy a newer one.

Would that fulfill me?

Well, i might feel good for a while.

Oh look, this has Bluetooth on it now, this is great, i've got that.

Oh, this has an airbag.

Woo, i'm really cooking now.

And oh, the windshield goes up and down electronically.

Listen, i've heard it all because I ride with people that have these motorcycles.

Right, doesn't bring your fulfillment.

You'll get tired of that and unfortunately you'll still have the payment.

We can't find fulfillment in these things and the people who don't have Christ in their life, they have to seek that fulfillment from somewhere.

And when they don't in the end is sadness.

I read an account of a famous philosopher on his deathbed.

He was a famous atheist and spoke strongly against religion and Christianity and such, and they said the last few weeks of his life were absolutely horrendous and his atheistic friends would wouldn't even be with him.

They stood outside the door to make sure that no priests or anything went into him and he literally just screamed in his agony.

It was just, he was just wretched agony.

Now, it wasn't just because it was physical condition, he was literally in agony in his soul because he had no hope.

And he was a vaunted philosopher.

You remember the name Voltaire.

He was so well known, he wrote so much and yet the last few weeks of his life were agony, as he realized that it was worth, it was nothingness, was meaninglessness.

So when you think about the people out there that aren't living and walking with the Lord, i want you to realize that they might be kicking the can down the road.

They might not be willing to sit down and listen to you and have you say, well, you're really an, an isleist, so you have no hope.

So let me give you hope.

They might go get out of my face.

I got all kinds of hope, i got all kinds of meaning, okay, but you know, what they can't deny is what who you are and how you walk through your life.

Man, you want to talk about powerful testimony, those people that are struggling, that go through trials.

You know Derek talked about that His there's, he and Megan, their first son, passing away.

You know the testimony that they had, the peace that they had that only came from God.

There were people that saw that and said how do you find that?

I want that You live your life out loud, with meaning, and people will eventually come to you and say I want that, and we realize, by the way, that they're dead spiritually until God opens their eyes up anyways.

But when they're open and it's there and you're given that opportunity, you have the chance to be able to share with them what true meaning is, and it's only in your identity and Jesus Christ and and him crucified, as Paul said so beautifully.

That's it.

That's it.

I don't know what's gonna happen to me tomorrow.

I don't want to know what's gonna happen to me next five years, but I know one thing I can't find meaning in anything else but Jesus Christ, and if you start doing that, god will make sure to bring it to your attention, and maybe he's gonna do that through the book of Ecclesiastes.

He's doing it with me and I don't appreciate it.

I want to conclude by reading the last three verses of chapter 2, because Solomon's gonna give a little foreshadowing in here to the conclusion they came up with, and it's this is one of the passages that makes me understand he wasn't a nihilist.

In verse 24 he says 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 He just coupled.

At first it sounded like he was contradicting himself, but he just coupled this whole concept of eating and drinking and finding enjoyment in his toil with the hand of God.

He says for apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

what he's saying is if you're apart from God, you can't have that real meaning, you can't have real happiness which, by the way, my wife was and I were talking about this.

She said, you know, in the Constitution, life, liberty in the pursuit of, we all want the American dream, don't we?

I tell you, what I want more than the American dream is I want Jesus Christ, because the American dream can be taken away from you, like that Verse 26 for the one who pleases him, god has given wisdom and joy, excuse me, wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to the one who pleases God.

This also is vanity and it's striving after the wind.

To the one who pleases him, god has given wisdom and knowledge and joy.

The only way you can please God is to be one of his followers and this is what he gives us wisdom.

I just, it just is so core to what we believe as Christians.

You know, possessions and pleasures, often by themselves they're not evil.

My motorcycle LMA, is not an evil thing?

it's not.

But if I place that motorcycle before God, whatever my relationship with my wife, if I place that before my relationship with God, now we got a problem, and that's what we should take away from Ecclesiastes.

Do we have Christ where he belongs and do we have our vision for where, where, of what that looks like and what that should be?

because, you know, god designed us to enjoy the fruits of a labor.

He enjoyed us or, excuse me, he built us to be able to increase in wisdom.

However, he tells us, those things can only be done rightly and rightly enjoyed after we've experienced true meaning through placing ourselves under the son S-O-N.

That's where true meaning is.

Let's pray, father, we first want to thank you for the preservation of your word, which, by the way, god, as we know, is a miracle we thank you for for preserving the book of Ecclesiastes, even though it's a little hard to read sometimes, father.

But we know that when we read the same thing over and over again and the same themes come out that maybe we need to listen to them and maybe we need to self-examine a little bit more.

And so, lord, we are thankful for this series on Ecclesiastes, we're thankful for what you're teaching us.

And, father, may we be counted with those that have placed nothing above you and above your son.

May we be counted as those that find true meaning in Jesus Christ and in Christ alone.

Help us, father, to examine our hearts.

Show us what we need to change.

Show us where we need to repent.

And, father, may we bring you glory in how we do all of that, and it's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.