What’s the Meaning of Life?: Ecclesiastes 1:1-18

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Okay, well, Merry Christmas, Wesley. Yes, it is

Christmas Day, ding ding Ding is the most wonderful time.

Of the year.

It's a great day. Okay. Well, I'm hoping you're having

an amazing Christmas Day. And of course we're recording this

a few days before Christmas, but it.

Will be awesome.

I hope when you listen to this episode at home,

it's the most amazing day of the year. So before

we jump into today's message or today's passage, Desire wants

us to share some of our most memorable Christmas memories.

Memorable Chris, memorable Christmas memories isn't memorable and memories that's

kind of a redundant memorable memories as opposed to those

unmemorable memories. Then they're not memories anymore, which means they

weren't memorable. Okay, Anyways, I'm a little confused. So I

got a funny one.

Jeff's So, I grew up in Detroit, moved you know,

into the suburbs a while back. So during this is

like Christmas maybe not Christmas Eve. Day before Christmas Eve.

So I go to the Kroger who might have been

admire and I noticed something odd. There were no cinnamon.

Rolls, no cinnamon rolls, none whatsoever.

I'm like, okay, this is interesting. I went over to

the Hash Browns. No hash Browns at the entire store.

I'm like, is there something I don't know about with

hash Browns and cinnamon roles. So I just had a

funny moment there where like you can find cinnamon rolls anytime.

Yeah. No, it's all these people who normally don't fix

breakfast at home, but now they've got the other family

and so they're buying hash Browns by the pound. Yeah,

you know, three hundred bags of hash Browns and then yeah,

Cem there was literally like no, so they were gone.

Yeah yeah, all these crazy suburban people in over world.

There's a run on a hash brown cinnamon rolls on

the phone. Hey, honeys, that's right. Okay. Well, so a

memorable Christmas for me. I can remember as a kid,

I really loved and I think I've mentioned this before,

but I really loved Star Wars as a kid, and

I can remember getting the land Speeder right from the

original Star Wars and I got, uh, was it like

a could you like roll it?

Or yeah?

Yeah it was. It was the one that the figurines

would fit in, you know. So so I had several

of the figurines and then I got that, and I

got them the I got a tie Fighter that's the

bad guys thing, and an X Wing Fighter CHRISTI I

know that that was huge because I mean, we didn't

have a lot of money. We grew up pretty poor,

so that was a really crazy thing. I just it

was all my wildest dreams came true with that Christmas. Yeah.

So I mentioned that several years ago and then you know,

I'm in my fifties now. We go over my mom

and Dad's for Christmas and my mom had a big

presentation for me, and she gave me die cast little

hot wheels, oh versions of all three of those of

all three of those vehicles, and she said, hey, I

know you don't have them anymore, but you know, so

she heard me mention that that was like a highlight Christmas.

Cool.

So they sit at my desk now and off my

grandson comes in and plays with them all the time.

You know, I'm like, hey, don't touch on that's right. No,

he could play with them all that as it. Do

you have any others, any other memorable memories?

So I do have one. We had a cousin who

was just a blessing to our family. So my dad

used to work at Ford in the eighties, and if

you lived in the Midwest, you know that the aut

old companies weren't doing well right late seventies, early eighties,

things like that. So my dad got laid off from

four and we had like virtually no money, and we

had a cousin who bought me and my sister a

ton of gifts. So we thought, like Christmas, we were

already prepped mentally, like there's going to be nothing under

the tree, we just know. And we got up Christmas

Day and there was like a ton of stuff and

it's like blown away.

They mortgaged the house. It took him years to pay

that off. Oh cousin, cousin, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

I bought those items for us. That's fantastic. That was

really nice. That's wonderful. It's really cool when you get

to do fun things for a family like that. Yeah.

My other great memory is the house I grew up

in from the time I was five years old till

I graduated from high school. Was about eight hundred square feet.

Oh man, but my mom, we're living in the house, well,

my mom and dad and me and then my brother

Mark and then sometimes one of my.

Sisters in eight hundred square feet.

Yeah yeah, yeah. So my bedroom you could touch. I

could touch both walls standing up stretching my arms out right,

which I stress almost seven right at seven feet yeah.

Uh so a small room. It was out on a porch.

My dad made this little room on our porch for me.

It worked out really good. So anyways, so we had

this this small house. But my mom is like this

amazing hostess, so she just is never happier than when

she has a bunch of people over. She's a really

good cook, all that kind of stuff. So I have

six older sisters and then my brother Mark, and most

of my sisters at the time were married, so their

husbands and then some of their children would come along,

and then my my aunt and uncle and their two

sons would come over, and then usually my other my

mom's brothers would stop by with their wives at some point,

so we'd have twenty five people in this little eight

hundred sqa shoulder. Yeah, well you just found your spot

and stayed right.

That was it.

And then it just passed the stuff around and and

I just remember how much fun that was. Right, You'd

have to open the windows. It'd be so hot in there,

and everybody crammed in and just trash in the house

with presents and everything. But it was so much fun,

right it was. It was a lot of fun. And

those are great memories.

It was like that for my My grandmother's house was

like ground central for every family event. So for Christmas,

you went over there July fourth, you went over like

that was just ground zero. And I remember that as

a kid, where there would be people upstairs, downstairs.

Some of the bodies in the kitchen. Yeah, those were

some good times. Yeah, it was. It was fun. It's

good times, man. So anyways, Christmas is is having a

great Christmas, And I hope you can move through the house. Yes,

and I crammed in shoulders should a bunch of startines.

But if you are, hey, make the best of it.

It's tons of fun. Yeah, you get to know your

family members again. Yes, So Solomon has had a really

difficult time as a results of some of his own choices,

which is crazy because he's so wise. We've had a

lot of people ask us in through social media on

like YouTube or whatever. People in comments lead comments asking

if Solomon was so wise, why did he make bad

choices like this. Wisdom doesn't guarantee just because you are

wise and you know the white things, it doesn't mean

you're going to do it. There's still a choice, right,

and so thank God for that choice.

That choice comes as a double edged sword, but thank

God that we're not all robots, and he gives us

free will in a free choice.

That's right, that's you're exactly right. It's a blessing. So

you know he's wise, he knows what to do. But

just because you're wise doesn't always mean you do the

right thing. And so for Solomon, he got we talked

about this the other day. He got more clever than

wise and decided he's going to marry all these women.

The women wind up taking him to worship their gods,

and what he started, you can imagine how it happened.

Women come in, you know, they're from other places. They're crying,

they want to go home. I need a temple for

my goddesses or my gods or whatever. Okay, I'll build

a temple. I'm rich. I'll build you a little temple.

We just put it over here on this hill over

here or whatever. And the next thing you know, he

kind of starts getting pulled into their belief systems. He

starts trying to blend their belief systems with God's ways,

and God brings judgment on him. So then all of

a sudden he starts having some problems with some of

the surrounding nations, start causing trouble, and then even internally,

God raises up Jeroboam as the new successor to most

of Solomon's kingdom. So Solomon's struggling. Now, after all I've done, Really,

this is it? And so the book of Ecclesiastes is

Solomon kind of confronting a wasted life, right, And so

here's what it says in Ecclesiastes chapter one. These are

the words of the teacher, King David's son, who ruled

in Jerusalem. Everything is meaningless, says the teacher, Completely meaningless.

What do people get for all their hard work? Under

the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth

never changes. The sun rises and the sun sets and

then hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south

and then turns north. Around and around, it goes blowing

in circles. Rivers run into the sea, but the sea's

never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers

and flows out again to the sea. Everything is wearisome

beyond description. No matter how much we see, we're never satisfied.

No matter how much we hear, we are not content.

History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before.

Nothing under the sun is truly new. Sometimes people say

here's something new, but actually it's old. Nothing is ever

truly new. We don't remember what happened in the past,

and in future generations no one will remember what we

are doing now. I the Teacher, was King of Israel,

and I lived in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to search

for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done

under heaven. I soon discovered that God has dealt a

tragic existence to the human race. I observed everything going

on under the sun, and really it is all meaningless,

Like chasing the wind. What is wrong cannot be made right,

and what is missing cannot be recovered. I said to myself. Look,

I am wiser than any of the kings who ruled

in Jerusalem before me. I have greater wisdom knowledge than

any of them. So I set out to learn everything

from wisdom, from wisdom to madness and folly. But I

learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind.

The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief. The increase

to increase knowledge only increases sorrow.

He's having a rough day.

That's a rough day. I'm like, man, I am miserable.

But it just starts off.

Everything is meaningless. That's right, that's literally how it starts.

There's no point. Yeah, I'm just done. So for those

of you, this is a day after Christmas. Merry Christmas. Yeah,

there you go. That's our gift to you. There you go. Yeah,

this is no, this is Christmas. This is Christmas Day.

Oh yeah yeah yeah, yeah, I'm sorry.

No, I'm want to go to verse eight. No matter

how much we see, we are never satisfied.

That's a good message for Christmas. Yeah.

I think about that like how he can get whatever

it is. So I think of it like neighbors. You

live next to someone and maybe they get a snowboll bill. Yeah,

and maybe they get an RV, or they get a

place up north, they get a boat. You never even

want it an RV. But now that you heard that

they have an RV, I kind of need an RV.

Yeah, yeah, I need one.

Yeah. It's like we as human beings, are never satisfied

with what we have. Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting more,

but there is something wrong with never being content. I

think there's a difference there. It's nothing wrong with pursuing more,

but you need to have contentment.

There's nothing wrong with working to improve your life.

Yeah.

World, So Solomon writes all through the Book of Proverbs

about the fact that hard work should improve your life. Yeah. Right,

So it's not inappropriate as long as just having a

better life isn't your only purpose in life goal more money.

This is what he's saying is I've built i have everything.

I have all the women, I have all the money,

i have, all the wisdom, i have all the peace.

I've got a prosperous nation. I've got everything I could

possibly want, and I'm miserable.

Yeah, and there are a lot of people like that. Jeff,

I got the car, I got the house, in the suburbs.

I've got the three four cargo, I've got all the stuff,

and I'm still empty on the inside. So a lot

of people can, I'm sure, relate to this.

So in the Life Application Study Bible, which I'm always

a big advocate, get yourself a good study Bible, I

love the Life Application Study Bible by published by Tyndale.

And in there's a note here at the bottom, and

it says Solomon had a purpose for writing skeptically and

pessimistically near the end of his life, looking back on

everything he had done, he saw that most of it

seemed meaningless. A common belief was that good people prospered

and the wicked suffered, but that hadn't proven true in

Solomon's experience. Solomon wrote this book after he had tried

everything and achieved much, only to find that, apart from

God made him happy. He wanted his readers to avoid

these same senseless pursuits. If we try to find meaning

in our accomplishments rather than in God, we will never

be satisfied, and everything we pursue will become meaningless. I

wonder if this book isn't right there at the end

of his life, after he finds out his family's going

to lose the kingdom, realizing I literally gave the kingdom

away trying to gain the kingdom. Right, Jesus said, what

is a man gain if he gains the whole world

and loses his own soul? So Solomon, through all these marriages,

through trying to appease his wives, builds these temples, begins

to blend the religions, trying to appease them so that

he could have peace in his nation. He's justified, it

very likely justified these decisions not as rejecting God but

building peace for God's people. Right, And now he's saying,

everything I've done apart from God was pointless to spin points. Yeah,

I've lost the kingdom. What was the point? And so

there is this sense then of man alive. Only what's

got done for God will last. Yeah, And I think

that's what he's struggling with here, is I've made some

really dumb choices, and.

I think as human beings we need to wrestle with that,

you know, kind of like Solomon, like all the things

that you're pursuing and doing in your life, what are

you doing those things for? Are you doing all of

that hard work and working more over time and all

those things just to get another new, shiny item, To

get a bigger house. You already have a house, so

to get a bigger car. You already have a couple

of cars. You know, why are we doing what we do?

And when we look back on our life at the

very end, was all of that worth it?

Yeah?

Pursuing all the things, and oftentimes, Jeff, we're pursuing things

that we don't necessarily want, but we pursue those things

because we believe it give us a good image amongst

other people. Yeah, that's kind of like why we pursue

the things.

This is a thing for me, it's funny. I am

a fairly content person. My kids and I, so we

just bought a new house. It was time to upgrade,

and we had some reasons why we wanted to do this,

so we bought a new house. But my kids were

laughing because I said, you know, this is really a

gift to your mom. Bonnie has waited a long time

and you know, finally got her dream house, all these things,

So merry Christmas, Bonnie. But I was laughing, saying, Hey,

if I just had a really nice camper, I'd be

happy if I'd pull it up back behind the church.

I'd use my office, use my office in my living

room home. I'd shower in the showers backstage at the office,

and I'd be happy living in a camper. I'm a

pretty content person, but it's funny to me as content

as I feel about life, like, I'm not always thinking

I need another shirt, I need another thing. I'm not

really a shopper per se. But if you ask me

right now, I could give you five things that in

the back of my mind i'd like to have, and

I'm watching little YouTube videos about them and stuff, and

I promise you two months from now it won't be

the same five things. Yeah, but there's always a new

thing that catches my fancy and I like to have

one of those. I learn all about it, and then

everyone's I wind up getting one, and then it goes

on the shelf after I do a few times. Right

right now, I'm looking at electric bikes. I want electric bike. This, okay, right,

So I'm looking at rad rovers. That is what I want.

So I'm looking at these electric bicycles and they're certainly expensive,

and I'm thinking I'm going to exercise on them. And

I'm not gonna, but I'm gonna. I want one, right,

so I always have another thing I want. And I

think that's what Solomon is saying, is there's always one

more thing to get, Even with all the things you have,

there's always one more thing to get.

Yeah, I'm ashamed to say that. I went through that

phase with the electric bike, and my wife bought me

a kit so you can buy regular bike, have the kit.

You have a little thing on the back, put the

batteries and all that stuff. Never even took out of

the box. Oh no, it is sitting in the garage

right now.

Well, you need to do it. You need to do it.

So the other one was I think that really stands

out is Solomon saying history just keeps repeating itself and

over again. And it does. This is one of the reasons,

you know, our founding fathers made a big deal about

that we needed to study history or will repeat history?

And what causes revolutions, what causes the people to be oppressed,

what causes tyrants to rise It's the same over and

over and over again. What rose you know, what caused

the kings in France to rise up? What caused Napoleon

to rise up and become worse of a dictator than

the other kings whatever, all these emperors. What caused all

this stuff to happen over and over and over again

is because every generation thinks that their circumstances are different

than the previous generation. But you know, do you remember

when it's it's funny how music from the eighties went

out of stylins is coming back into style. Closed from

the seventies went out of styles is coming back into style, right.

Yeah, we do with that all the time. My daughter

will hear a song and then I'll start singing it

and she's like, Dad, how do you know that song?

Because that song's forty years old, or at least the

beat to that song.

Yeah, somebody remixes and a new song, right right, Yeah,

it's so funny. I went into a music score store

a few years ago and I look over, and you know,

there's all these guys testing out guitars. So I look over.

There's this like fifteen year old kid and he's dun dun, dun, dun, right,

and they come up with, hey, we don't allow that

song in here. Every fifteen year old wants to play

smoke on the water or whatever. Right, So it's really funny.

And then it was amazing as we were in there,

we were looking for other things, but guitar players, young

guitar players all throughout the whole store, we're playing eighties

rock music. Right, they're trying to play play like guns

n' roses, They're trying to play like it was. It

was the funniest thing that every generation this was cool

and new to them, but it's already been done before.

It's that way with clothes, it's that way with philosophies,

it's that way with I would say this. You know,

the civil unrests that we've had over the last maybe

five years here in the US. These are the grandchildren

of the baby boomers who did the same thing in

the same places. They also burned down their colleges, right,

They also fought in the streets and rioted in the cities.

They also were contemplating maybe some of the benefits of

communism back in that day. Sex, drugs and rock and roll,

the sexual revolution, all these things. And then we come

into the last five years and its sexuality is being questioned,

drugs being legalized, burning down our cities, fighting on our campuses,

contemplating that communism might be a reasonable or some kind

of socialism might be a better way, questioning the integrity

of our government, angry at the way that. Right, it's

the same, and it's almost identically the same, just maybe

even a little harsher than it was back in the sixties. Right,

It's about every two generations, two or three generations, we

go back and do the thing that was done before,

and if we don't learn from it previously, then it

winds up moving further to a bad place. So yeah,

so Solomon saying, man, I'm frustrated. It feels like life

is just life, and it just keeps going on and

what was yesterday is going to be again tomorrow kind

of thing. And then you know, really struggling here. But

he's really what you're going to find through this book

is at the same time that he's struggling with the

futility of life, he's also trying to find so what

really matters? And so one of my favorite Christian heroes,

you know, I love missions. I love taking the Gospel

around the world, and it's a big part of my life.

And so there was a missionary from the eighteen hundreds

into the early nineteen hundreds, So this is those Great

Explorer years too, from eighteen sixty to nineteen thirty one.

There's a guy his name was ct stud and he

was one of the most famous people in the world.

He was a world famous cricketer back when you know,

the son never sat on the British Empire, and he

was he was the most He was the Michael Jordan

of his day. And then he became a Christian and

he became a missionary, and he began really laying it

on the line, risking his life all over the world

in impossible circumstances, going to places that had not yet

been mapped, and going to people who had no idea

that there was anything outside of their village, right, that

can be a good way to get killed, yes, and

so it was, and disease and all these things. And

he was just a hard, strong man, and he began

to get frustrated by what he perceived to be weak Christians.

And late in his life he wrote a book called

The Chocolate Soldiers, and he talked about how, you know,

people at that time liked to collect tin soldiers and

pretend like they're setting up a war scene and kind

of like people do with trains now or whatever. It

was a little tin soldiers. But you could also go

to candy shops and they would have foil wrapped chocolate soldiers. Yeah,

and if you stick that chocolate soldier under the light,

he looks just like the other metal soldier, except he'll

melt under the heat. Right, That was his ideas. There

was a lot of weak people. They look the part,

but they don't actually pull it off well. He wrote

a poem that turned into a song, and the poem says,

only what's done for Christ will last. Bidding me selfish

aims to leave, and to God's holy will to cleave,

only one life twill soon be passed. Only what's done

for Christ will last only one life, a few brief years,

each with its burdens, hopes, and fears. When this bright

world would tempt me sore, when Satan would a victory score,

when self would seek to have its way, then help

me Lord with joy, to say, give me Father a

purpose deep in enjoy or sorrow, Thy word to keep

faithful and true, whate'er the strife, pleasing thee in my

daily life. O let my love with fervor burn, and

from the world. Now let me turn living for THEE

and THEE alone, bringing the pleasure in on night throne.

Only one life, yes, only one. Now, let me say

thy will be done. And when at last I'll hear

the call I know, I'll say twas worth it all. Yeah,

isn't that great?

Yeah?

So here's he wrote that as an old man at

that point, saying I've done everything I can do and

now my body is coming apart. But God, I'll do

whatever you want me to do, and help me to

have lived my life in a way that mattered. It's

only one life, and soon it's going to be passed.

Only what's done for Christ the last. And this is

essentially the same thing Solomon's right, only from exactly the

opposite life. Ct Studd had lived his life for God

and laid it all in line, did everything he could.

Solomon had kind of walked away from God. And so

you read ct stud and there's kind of this joy

the fact that man, it's worth it, and you're reading

Solomon exactly the opposite. I wasted a big chunk of

my life. Why did I do this? Right? So this

is what we're talking about. Over the next few days.

We'll spend a little bit of time in the Book

of Ecclesiastes. So thank you for joining us today and

I hope you have a very married Christmas and happy

New Year. And hopefully we'll see you tomorrow on the

Bible guys, mhm m m