I think the children are talking to each other this morning.
And please take out your copy of God's Word.
Turn to the book of Ecclesiastes.
After a long couple weeks of introduction,
we are going to really look at the text this morning, I promise.
So turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 1.
I'm going to read the whole chapter to us, verses 1 through 18.
The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
Vanity of vanities, says the preacher.
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north.
Around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full.
To the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness.
A man cannot utter it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done.
And there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said?
See, this is new.
It has already been already in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of latter things
yet to be among those who come after.
I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I applied my heart to seek
and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven.
It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving
after wind.
What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
I said in my heart, I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before
me.
And my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly.
I perceive that this also is but a striving after wind.
For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
This is God's word.
It's written for his glory and our good.
We would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.
So this is a bit of a sermon.
If you haven't been here with us the last couple of weeks, the title, Ecclesiastes, simply means
the preacher.
It's from the Latin Vulgate translation of the Hebrew text.
It's an Anglicanized version of that word.
The Hebrew word quohaleth, which we get the preacher from, carries some idea of an assembly.
And so that's why we look at this.
And although it's written likely by Solomon, although we're not completely confident of that,
that he intended for an audience to pick up and to read as we do today.
And so it's the words of the preacher.
And it has a text, verse 2.
Vanity of vanities.
All is vanity.
And most of the rest of the book is an explanation of that.
And so we must ask, what is the main point that the preacher wants us to grapple with as we study this book together?
And that main point is that everything is meaningless.
But we shouldn't stop at that point.
That would be a very miserable place to cease.
Why is everything meaningless?
Verse 3.
He says, what does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
And the answer is because the gain we seek cannot be found under the sun on this earth.
Mankind tries so very hard to do so, but it simply cannot be done.
An analogy for this jumped into my head this morning as I was getting ready to come up to the building early,
and I was looking for matching socks.
And what a challenge this has been this morning for me to find I have matching socks on,
but it took some time.
Those of you who don't know, my wife is pregnant with our third.
She's not really showing quite yet.
Let me tell you that you have something adorable to see.
If you've not seen my wife pregnant, when she starts to round out, you just have no idea.
Prepare you for that.
As such, we're a little behind on folding laundry.
Our clothes are clean, but we're a little behind on that.
I had to compliment her before I talked about being behind on laundry.
So I was digging through that.
Where does the matching sock go?
This is one of the great mysteries of the universe.
I found five mismatched socks.
What in the world?
I have five socks in my hand going, any of these will work.
If I could find a match for any one of these, it would work.
Finally, I found the one that matched.
Now, in this case, I was looking in the proper place, right?
I was looking amongst the laundry for the matching sock.
Hopefully, I'll find the other four that go along with those.
But mankind, in trying to find gain in this world, does not look in the proper place for that gain.
And as such, we are so very dissatisfied.
Jeremiah Burroughs, who was a 17th century Puritan preacher, wrote a wonderful book that I commend to you called The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.
Where he wrote, and I quote,
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.
No, the reason is because the thing is not suitable for a craving stomach.
Yet there is really the same madness in the world.
Gain cannot be found in the world in the same way that an empty stomach cannot be filled by the wind.
Last night, my family took a trip to the Mall of Georgia, which is not a place that we frequent,
but we needed a power cord for a device here at the church building that's gone missing.
And Sam was craving some particular food.
So those two things combined, we said, okay, it's worth the trip down to the Mall of Georgia.
And as we had to venture into the actual Mall, I am so burdened by a place like that.
I am so incredibly uncomfortable by that degree of consumerism.
So much that we don't need.
John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress, which I'll probably quote to you a number of times in our study of Ecclesiastes,
writes in part of the story about Christian and his travel mate at the time faithful,
getting diverted off their path to a place called Vanity Fair.
The book is almost prophetic concerning the Mall of Georgia.
You read his writing and there's so many people, and I'm not being cynical about anyone in particular,
but so many people walking around like zombies, just intoxicated, looking for the next fix to try to be satisfied.
Souls made for God cannot be filled with anything but Him.
And the preacher spends the rest of chapter 1 convincing his readers that this is so.
So I want to look at five observations from the text that reinforce this idea that gain cannot be found in this world.
It has to be found elsewhere.
So five observations.
Number one, our lives will not be remembered.
First part of verse 4.
The preacher says a generation goes and a generation comes.
He's marking out a generation at the beginning of your life and at the end of your life.
This is the span of a generation.
Our lives are passing.
They are momentary.
They are here today and they are gone tomorrow.
The psalmist says in Psalm 90.10,
The years of our life are 70 or even by reason of strength 80, yet their span is but toil and trouble.
They are soon gone and we fly away.
Our lives pass by in a moment.
Allow me to prove my point for just a moment this morning.
A little crowd interaction.
If you are 22 or under, please participate.
If you're 22 or under, raise your hand.
Okay.
Large portion of the crowd.
Okay.
22.
Keep your hands up.
No, no.
Keep your hands up.
Come on.
Sorry.
You'll be okay.
Now I want you, when I say a name that you're not familiar with, and I don't mean like you've
heard of them, but like you don't know who this person is.
You couldn't tell me some facts about their life.
I want you to put your hand down.
Okay.
You ready?
Ready?
Johnny Carson.
Oh, I started with the easy one.
Oh, gosh.
Okay.
Joe DiMaggio.
Hey, okay.
All right.
Don't put your hand back up.
That's not okay.
That once...
If you didn't get Johnny Carson, you were eliminated.
I'm very disappointed that my Mac device doesn't know how to spell DiMaggio.
I had to correct the spell check there.
Shirley Temple.
They're getting easier than Johnny Carson.
Oh, geez.
Dizzy Gillespie.
Way to go, Brigham.
You win.
These are all incredibly significant individuals.
For the sake of time, I won't tell you who they are.
Incredibly significant in American culture.
And yet, they're forgotten.
Really think about it.
We have never heard of most people who have ever lived.
Most of the people who have lived before us, we've never even heard of.
They have passed through life under the sun in relative obscurity.
Even those individuals who are significant enough to be in our history books are not known for all that they were,
but rather for a few facts, maybe a couple of qualities.
They are remembered, but they're remembered incompletely.
Passing.
Vapor.
Passing through.
The preacher reiterates this point in verse 11.
There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.
And again, later in the book, in chapter 6, verse 12.
For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow.
We're just blowing through.
And to go further, the preacher juxtaposes this reality against another.
The last part of verse 4, he says,
But the earth remains forever.
Now, don't try to pull eschatological theology out of that phrase.
He's just saying in relation to our observation of the way man comes and goes,
the earth stays fairly the same.
After you are gone, the sun will rise and the sun will set.
The waters will still ebb and flow.
And you will have had very little effect.
Our lives will not be remembered.
Second observation.
Everything is tired.
Because there is a sense of the permanence of the earth.
There is a temptation to look to it for our source of gain.
To look to those things, those material things that we can see that seem not to change.
And those of you who particularly enjoy being outside, which I think is a large part of our congregation,
like getting outdoors, like me, have enjoyed rock climbing and whitewater paddling.
In so many ways, you find fulfillment in that.
You really need to hear this.
I am saddened by that culture that says they're spiritual and says that they find God in nature.
They're missing it.
Their minds haven't gone quite high enough.
We certainly cannot deny that there is a pleasure to be found in nature.
The preacher agrees with us on this.
Ecclesiastes 11, verse 7.
He says,
Light is sweet and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.
It's an enjoyable thing to be under the sun.
The sun is a blessing to men.
But we are warned in other places not to worship the creation.
One example, Deuteronomy 4, 19.
Says,
And beware, lest you raise your eyes to heaven.
And when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the hosts of heaven,
you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them.
The creation cries out to us of a creator.
And it is him that we are ultimately meant to enjoy.
So go outside and be outside.
I would encourage this for you.
But as you enjoy those things that we can visibly see that are beautiful and appealing to us,
make sure that your mind goes high enough.
Make sure that you worship the creator who made those things.
Psalm 19, verse 1 says,
The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
It's there to turn us to him, not away from him.
And the preacher goes on because he wants us to see how ultimately lackluster the creation is.
And I think you need to rightly read this with a bit of sarcasm.
Verse 5,
The sun rises and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it rises again and again.
The sun runs its course.
The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north.
Around and around goes the wind and on its circuit the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full.
To the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
These things just happen over and over and over again.
Nothing new, nothing exciting.
It just continues the way it's always continued.
Verse 8,
All things are full of weariness.
All things, including man, is full of weariness.
A man cannot utter it.
Picture him mumbling to his bed.
A man cannot utter it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
Paul takes up this imagery in Romans chapter 8
and says that the creation is like a slave subjected to futility,
in bondage to corruption, longing to be set free.
This place that was once eaten, but that is now corrupted by sin,
screams of our need of God.
Everything is tired.
Third observation.
Everything is old.
Verse 9,
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
See, this is new,
and it's been already in the ages before us.
Now, the preacher here is not referring to the things that people create.
Surely, he would recognize that the smartphone,
and the MP3 file,
and the Hubble space telescope,
and lasers did not exist in his day.
We could list off many other things.
Rather, his focus is the striving of man to find gain under the sun,
and his inability to do so.
These are all just other manifestations of the very same thing.
It's all old.
All men have tried to find gain apart from God.
It's already been done.
Don't think you can come up with a new way to do it.
There is nothing new.
It's all been tried.
So as you may as well stop thinking,
you can figure out some new way to find gain under the sun.
Everything is old.
And then the preacher in the text gives us a bit of his own story
to further make this point.
This seems to be at the end of chapter 1,
kind of the summary of what he goes on to give us explanation of
later on in 2 and 3 and beyond.
Verse 12 says,
I, the preacher, have been king of Israel in Jerusalem.
So we have our fourth observation.
Number four, we are personally limited.
We are personally limited.
The preacher, like us, has an interior life.
He is a sinful man.
He has had his heart and flesh altered by sin.
And therefore, he is dependent on God.
He must dependently lean on God
to ultimately sort out and understand
what is of value in the world and what is vanity.
Just like us.
Limited in this way.
First part of verse 13, he says,
And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom
all that is done under heaven.
I sought this out.
I worked at this task.
And although we know that God is the one who provides wisdom,
he provides it in proper measure.
Proverbs 2, 3, and 5 says,
Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
So he brings us to that place.
He helps us to understand in enough measure the vanity of what's under the sun
so that will be brought to him.
The preacher, unlike us, has great experience,
although still limited experience.
Just think of yourself in comparison to the preacher.
He says, verse 14,
I have seen everything that is done under the sun,
and behold, all this vanity,
and a striving after the wind.
Now we know that the preacher is a king over Jerusalem.
Again, likely, this is Solomon.
Likely well connected,
connected to other kings,
has knowledge beyond the knowledge of the lay person,
certainly beyond the knowledge that we may have had,
although it's still a limited knowledge.
It's still a limited experience.
And in that limitation,
he's still able to say all is vanity,
and it is a striving after the wind.
The preacher, unlike us,
has great wisdom.
I don't think any of us would say we have great wisdom,
but still it's limited wisdom.
Verse 16, he says,
I said in my heart,
I have acquired great wisdom,
surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me,
and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
I don't know anybody amongst us that can say that,
that we have surpassing wisdom,
and great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
And as such,
we would do well to listen to the man
who has great experience of wisdom and of knowledge.
The preacher, unlike us,
seems to have the time
to wrestle with the realities of the world,
although it's limited time.
Verse 17, he says,
And I applied my heart to know wisdom
and to know madness and folly.
We see many examples of this later on in the book,
and there are avenues that he runs out.
Possible places to gain under the sun
that he seems to explore to its very end.
Still limited in his ability to explore,
but are we not so much more limited than he?
To try to work out every possible experience
that can bring us gain.
And he goes on to say in verse 17,
I perceived that this also
is but a striving after the wind.
The preacher, like us, is limited.
We are limited in our ability
to search out these things.
He says in verse 15,
What is crooked cannot be made straight.
He's suggesting that this confusing thing
that I looked at and perceived to understand
could not be understood.
And what is lacking cannot be counted.
This is an expression of his own limitation
to understand.
And then in verse 18,
For in much wisdom is much vexation.
And he who increases in knowledge,
increases in sorrow,
in this effort to know and to understand
what can be gained under the sun.
That's our fourth observation.
Our fifth observation
is that we have an unhappy business
before us.
The last part of verse 13,
the preacher says,
It is an unhappy business
that God has given
to the children of man
to be busy with.
So, the preacher has told us
where gain cannot be found.
He has clearly said,
It cannot be found under the sun.
And we will expound upon this
as we continue to look.
He recycles through this idea,
You cannot find gain under the sun.
And it would seem at this point,
at least to our minds,
the most appropriate thing
to tell us is where gain can be found.
He hasn't quite done that yet, has he?
I've been saying it,
but he hasn't said it yet.
Doesn't it make the most sense
that he would do that at this point?
It already seems time
to wrap the sermon up.
He's presented the problem.
Give us the solution
to speed us along to the end.
I want to cry out,
Don't go on for another 11 chapters.
I get it.
I see the vanity of life.
Where then is the gain?
Is what we cry.
But the preacher uses
a much different tactic.
Now let's say to you
it's a valuable one.
The preacher presents us
with God in verse 13.
It's an unhappy business
that God has given
to the children of man.
He presents us with God,
but he does so
in such an unsatisfying way.
He presents God
as the one who is providentially
over all that is under the sun.
As the God who allows
the vanity of the world
to continue.
As the God who wants us
to deal with the worthlessness
of the world.
The preacher leaves us
uncomfortable
and longing
for an answer.
That's a good place
to be, beloved.
Especially if you're
found in Christ.
Because you know the answer.
You can anticipate
the answer.
You've experienced
the answer.
But it's good for us
to just stop
and consider
how,
having been delivered
by Christ,
do we still
look for gain
under the sun?
Is that not
an uncomfortable place
to be
at the end of
chapter 1?
If I haven't
taken you there,
go back and read it.
Stop at the end
of chapter 1
and consider all
that the preacher
has said so far.
Zach Eswine,
in Recovering Eden,
a commentary
on this very book,
wrote,
Taking time
amid things
not yet answered
provokes discomfort.
A discomfort
often required
in order to recover
spiritual health.
A sickly child
grimaces
to swallow
the dark liquid
that would recover
her smile.
It is good
for us
to consider
this unhappy
business
that is before us
because
it is a business
meant
to lead us
to God.
Now,
as we consider
this text
week over week,
I have no idea yet
how long
this study
is going to take us.
We're looking at it
in a much different way
than this was meant
to be considered.
It was meant
to be considered
as a sermon.
It was meant
to be considered
from the beginning
to the very end
that I would
maybe come up to you
and just read you
the text.
That I would get
to the conclusion
that we find
in chapter 12
verse 13.
As we look at it
individually
and we try to give
application to each
bit of the text,
it's important
that I constantly
remind you
of the bigger picture.
That we do,
in fact,
speed along
to the end.
So,
I'm stepping out
of his intention
a bit
to remind us
where it is
that we find gain.
But I just wanted
you to hear
and to see
that his intention
is that you stew
for a little while.
That you become
uncomfortable.
That you say
this world
is not worth
living for.
That you would be
uncomfortable
at the Mall of Georgia.
This would be a place
that you would get
in and out of
as quick as you can
for the thing
you actually need
if you find
your most happy
at a place like that
and you have
some soul searching
to do.
So,
the end of the matter.
The end of the matter
is that gain
is not found
under the sun.
What is ultimately
good for us
is not found
under the sun.
Rather,
gain is found
in God
and everything
has its proper place
and its proper time
in Him.
Ecclesiastes 12.13
The preacher says
the end of the matter
all has been heard.
Fear God
and keep His commandments
for this
is the whole duty
of man.
I appreciate
this simplification
of the Christian life.
Fear God
and keep His commandments.
This is the whole
duty
of man.
Now,
a proper
fear of God,
a right fear of God,
a fear of God
that is informed
by who God
has revealed Himself
to us in the Scriptures,
sends men
running
to the cross.
A proper fear of God
drives us
to Christ.
All of the religious efforts
of this world,
the work to find
acceptance before God,
the labor
of trying to work out
acceptance
before God
is a misguided
fear.
If we properly
and rightly
understand who God is,
we know that there's
nothing that we can do
that will satisfy
Him.
A proper fear of God
presses a splinter
into our souls
that festers
until it is removed
and only Christ
can remove it.
It presses this issue
upon us,
this problem
before us
that only
Christ
can fix.
not only does He
bear our punishment,
but He gives us
His righteousness
and restores
our relationship
with the Father.
This is so
good.
This is the greatest
and highest
good.
This
is our gain.
Psalm 1611
says,
in Your presence
there is fullness
of joy.
At Your right hand
are pleasures
forevermore.
So Christ
is the gain
that we seek.
Nothing that can be found
under the sun
is gain to us,
but Christ
is gain
to us.
A familiar text
for you,
potentially,
I hope,
is Philippians.
Paul writes about this.
Turn to the book
of Philippians
with me.
Beloved,
it's not that you
were dissatisfied
apart from Christ
and then Christ
picks you up
out of the mire
and you suddenly
become satisfied
and this is a
state of being.
You are now
satisfied
and then you can
go along with
the normal stuff
of the world.
But then you
become satisfied
in Christ
and then you go
pursue the American
dream.
We continue
to pursue
satisfaction
in Christ.
This is an
ongoing process
for us.
Paul writes
Philippians 1.21
For to me,
to live is Christ
and to die is gain.
Why is it gain?
Because it's more Christ.
He casts off
the world
and he gets to be
in the presence
of Christ.
So,
for to me,
the gain is Christ
and to die is more gain
because it's more
Christ.
He writes later
in Philippians 3
beginning in verse 2.
Look out for the
dogs.
Look out for the
evildoers.
Look out for those
who mutilate
the flesh.
He's talking about
the Judaizers.
Those who wanted
Christian people
to be circumcised
in order to
work for favor
in God.
To not accept
the favor that they
had in Christ
but to work for it
by their
appearance
and by their
works.
Verse 3.
For we are the
circumcision
who worship
by the Spirit
of God
and glory
in Christ
Jesus
and put
no confidence
in the flesh.
Now,
verse 4,
he begins
this religious
pedigree
that he has.
This outward
working,
this labor
to be pleasing
before God.
Though I myself
have reason
for confidence
in the flesh
also,
if anyone else
thinks he has
reason for confidence
in the flesh,
I have more.
Circumcised on
the eighth day
of the people
of Israel,
of the tribe
of Benjamin,
a Hebrew
of Hebrews,
as to the law,
a Pharisee,
as to zeal,
a persecutor
of the church,
as to righteousness
under the law,
blameless.
He's saying
if there is value
in the man-made
religion of the world,
which was in his day
the apostate Judaism,
not God's way,
but the apostate way,
the manufactured,
fabricated Judaism,
if there's any value
in that at all,
I've far exceeded
anybody else's value
in this regard.
But then in verse 7
he says,
But whatever gain
I had,
I counted as loss
for the sake
of Christ.
Indeed,
I count everything
as loss
because of the
surpassing worth
of knowing
Christ Jesus,
my Lord.
For his sake
I have suffered
the loss of all things
and count them
as rubbish
in order
that I may gain
Christ.
You see this?
Paul had learned
this lesson
that there was
nothing in this world.
He goes beyond
his religious pedigree
to everything else.
There is nothing
in this world
that is gained
to us
apart
from Christ.
And beloved,
this is a lesson
that we need
to learn.
We need to understand
rightly
that everything
minus Christ
equals nothing.
and that nothing
plus Christ
equals
everything.
Let's pray together.
Thank you.