August 5 - Ecclesiastes 1, 2 - "Grasping at Gain"

MPC 5th August 2018.

Phil Campbell

Sad week for sports fans with the news that Australian golfer Jarrod Lyle has been placed in palliative care. Aged just 36. After doctors have told him there's no hope of successful treatment in his third battle with cancer.

On Wednesday his friend Mark Hayes passed on a message of thanks to Jarrod's Twitter followers.

He says,

Jarrod told me last night to wish everyone well with their own future, and to make the most of their lives, and to thank them incredibly for their voices and support over the years

Now a story like that kind of makes you want to do that doesn't it? Or at least give it a crack, if we've still got time. To make the most of our lives.

But the question is, how? How exactly? Do you make the most of your life? Is it all about making it to the top in your chosen sport? Or profession? Like Jarrod did? Or at least being slightly above average? What if you're not? What if you're just right on average. What if you're below average? Like 50 percent of us always are.

What exactly does it look like... to make the most of your life? In a way that really counts?

I tried asking Google and Amazon Alexa through the week.

Inconclusive, I know. For Apple fans, I asked Siri as well. Didn't do any better. So this morning, and over the next few weeks, we're going to take a look at a book of ancient wisdom, part of the bible written by a guy who calls himself the teacher; who casts himself in the role of King Solomon. On a quest for the meaning of life. The book called Ecclesiastes.

The teacher puts the question for us right there in verse 3 of the opening page.

Here's the topic question of the book of Ecclesiasties. Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verse 3,

What do people gain from all their labours at which they toil under the sun?

What do you gain from all the work? What's worthwhile? If you really want to take Jarrod Lyle's advice and make the most of your life?

And the teacher is going to set himself up as a human guinea pig; a living experiment. To find out the answer.

What's the point of working? What kind of dream is worth chasing? As the teacher puts it, "Under the sun".

Because as you can see in the rest of chapter 1, he spells out the problem. Why this is a question that needs asking.

What's the problem? Generations come and go! And the problem is that everything comes and goes. Including us.

The earth might go on for ever, verse 4, but we don't. "Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains for ever" And the problem is, everything goes back where it came from. The sun rising day after day. Verse 5. And then going back where it came from. At sunset. Life under the sun. The wind blowing to the south. Verse 6. And then back where it came from. To the north.

The streams, verse 7. The place the streams come from, there they return again.

Everything. Goes back to where it started.

Which is a thought that doesn't fully form until chapter 3 verse 20; the verse we saw last week. The dust problem from the failed garden of Eden.

The sun... returns to where it started.

The wind... returns to where it started.

The river... goes back where it started.

And chapter 3 verse 20, so do we.

20All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.

Generations come. And generations go. Back to dust.

And verse 11 in chapter 1, to make matters worse, nobody's going to remember you.

Generations come and go. We're not going to be remembered. Your business startup, no matter how you build it up, you're going to hand it over to someone else. And you'll be forgotten.

James Baker, Secretary of State under George W Bush. One of the top jobs in the world. Cruising through the streets of Washington DC in his black limo with his police escort and he looks out the window and sees a lonely old guy shuffling along the footpath on his own. James Baker says, "I recognised it was George Schultz. My predecessor. And nobody else knew him. And nobody cared"

Verse 11, No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come won't be remembered by those who follow them.

Even your family. How many of you can tell me your great grandfather's middle name? Even his first name.

Even you are going to be forgotten. By your loved ones. Sobering thought, isn't it? So what's worth doing?

That's the teacher's big question. Maybe it should be your question as well. What do I ultimately gain from all my labours under the sun? Let's start the experiment.

Verse 12. Here we go. Here's a smart guy with all the resources in the world at his disposal. So he's going to throw everything at the problem, to find out what's worth doing.

He says, "I the teacher was king of Israel in Jerusalem; I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens."

Because, chapter 2 verse 3, he really wants to know. "I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens through the few days of their lives."

THE PLEASURE TEST

The pleasure test. I suspect you know this one pretty well already.

The teacher says to himself, "Come now, I'll test you with pleasure to find out what is good."

You know, we're the most entertained generation that ever lived. We went to see Mission Impossible the other day in luxury recliner chairs with the new Titan XC surround sound. What a blast.

Well, the teacher had it pretty good as well. But look what he finds. Chapter 2 verse 2.

Verse 2. "Laughter," I said, "is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?"

So, let's try adding a drink or two. Teacher tries that too and he's still able to keep his wits on the job. To measure how it goes.

Chapter 2 Verse 3. "I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly - my mind still guiding me with wisdom."

Trouble is, the wine doesn't work. Nor does beer. Or scotch. Neither does that hipster sapphire blue gin that changes colour when you mix it with tonic water.

So time for test 2. We'll call it the success test.

THE SUCCESS TEST

Here's the one we train and condition our kids for. Let's work hard and make our mark.

Verse 4. I undertook great projects. And you know what, projects are fun!

The Teacher builds houses for himself. Vineyards. We saw it last week, verse 5; gardens. Rebuilding paradise. With all kinds of trees. Water features; fountains in verse 6. And look, he's got workers everywhere and a secretary to walk the dog and herds and flocks and silver and gold; this guy's like the greatest king who ever lived.

And singers. And wall to wall women to satisfy his every whim. What more could an ancient middle eastern monarch want? Verse 9, greater by far than anyone who's ever lived in Jerusalem before him. He's climbed the Mount Midoriama of ambition.

And in all of this, he says, my wisdom stayed with me. Analysing. Asking the tough question. What have I gained from all my labours under the sun? Am I there yet?

He says in verse 10, I denied myself nothing. I refused my heart no pleasure.

And you know what? It's been just as much fun as you think it would be. Who'd have thought? Building palaces is fun. Gardens are fun. Fulfilling your ambitions is fun. Which is why I guess so many of us are addicted to it. He says my heart took delight in all my labour. And this was the reward for all my toil.

That forming and shaping and ordering things, there's a joy in it. For those who actually get to do it. It's a human inclination. The teacher says, I took delight in all my labour. But there's still the nagging question. What have I gained. That I can really hold on to? All his dreams have come true.

Jim Carey says,

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.

And the teacher agrees.

Because here's the problem. You might have noticed it already, the teacher says it over and over again.

The problem is that no matter what you achieve, it all just slips through your fingers. Like the wind. It's all, he says, like vapour. Gone in a puff. There's a technicality here and it's worth mentioning.

The word we've got translated as meaningless. Over and over again through the passage. The teacher's first words right back in verse 2 of chapter 1, we've got "Meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher. Utterly meaningless, everything is meaningless."

Although in the original Hebrew that key word that appears there four times; it's the word he-vel, which most literally means vapour. Or mist. You can work out whether there's any meaning to the mist later on. Maybe it has meaning, maybe it doesn't. We need to work it out.

To be most true to the original language the teacher is saying everything is like a puff of smoke. Like a cloud in the summer sky. Like the vapour on your windscreen on a winter's morning. Like the steam from your boiling kettle. Like the mist hanging low over a New Zealand mountain.

Everything, says the teacher: everything. Is like that. Vapour, vapour, utterly vapour, everything is vapour. Everything. Dissipates like the mist.

It's the second law of thermodynamics. Remember it from high school? Disorder. Always increases. Energy. Always dissipates. Anything warm. Always grows colder. Vapour. Always slips through your fingers.

And so trying to work out what you can hold on to in life, trying to work out what you can really gain as a result of all your labour, the teacher says it's like chasing the wind. Like grabbing hold of vapour. Which means the teacher just can't grasp it.

And that's what he says about all his grand designs in chapter 2 verse 11.

Have a look at his words.

Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was vapour, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.

Remember his question? "What do people gain from all their labours at which they toil under the sun?" Answer. First draft. We've still got a bunch of chapters left to work through. But he says when I looked at what I had toiled to achieve, everything I built, and the fun I had; nothing was gained under the sun. Because all of it's vapour. And I just can't catch it and hold it.

WHAT ABOUT WISDOM?

Here's another idea. Experiment 3. What about a good education then? What about wisdom? Knowing how to live life. That's what the teacher's going to look at next, because for a lot of people that's exactly where they're going to look for satisfaction and a sense of achievement.

Verse 12. "Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly."

He's doing a psychology degree.

But what's the result? Read from Verse 13... okay:

I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness. The wise have eyes in their heads, while the fool walks in the darkness;

but see, here's the problem for this wise king pouring himself into every wise decision in ruling his kingdom. The same thing faced by every President, every Premier, every Prime Minister, every business leader, every foreman, every shift supervisor, every pastor of a church...

Pick it up in the middle of verse 14 again...

But I came to realise that the same fate overtakes them both. The wise and the fool. So then I said to myself, "The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?" I said to myself, "This too is vapour" for the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die!

And so the teacher says he hates life, because no matter how hard he looks for the gain in it, he says all the work that's done under the sun is just a pain in the neck. It's grievous to him. All of it vapour. All of it chasing after the wind. And he hates all the things he's toiled for so hard for because in the end he's got to leave them to the fool who comes after him; who'll undo all his hard work.

"Who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish," verse 19. "And yet they'll have control over all the fruit of my toil which I've poured all my effort into under the sun. Vapour, he says; vapour.

Vapour. Verse 21. And great misfortune. So here's the question again. Verse 22.

What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labour under the sun?

That's the question we started with. And here's the answer. Sleepless nights. And grief and pain. As you toss and turn on your pillow. Know the feeling? Read it in verse 23.

23All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is vapour.

Now, how are you feeling at this point? Because I'll tell you what the world says. Here's pretty much a summary of Google and Siri and Amazon Alexa.

The world says, suck life dry for whatever you can. Have as much fun as you can. Get as much stuff as you can. And then if it doesn't work out, or when the going gets tough... get out.

These days, you'll see it in the media. You'll see it in the push to normalise euthanasia. Death's not a problem. Death's a friend.

David Goodall, 104 years old, back in May decided to end his life by lethal injection in Switzerland. And we celebrated it. A Go Fund Me campaign raised 21 thousand dollars to fly him there first class.

Friends, the teacher knows. The whole bible knows. That death is nothing to be celebrated.

Because no matter how much you sugar coat it, no matter how much you ease the pain; the teacher wants you to know that death ultimately brings everything you've ever worked for undone.

And if there's nothing more than that, then it's all just vapour. That we can't hold on to. And there's nothing to gain. Which might leave you feeling in despair.

Which is why we need to turn to the words of Jesus. And break out of the bubble of just living a life of endless cycles under the sun where everything returns where it came from. And zoom out for a minute and look at a bigger perspective.

Which the teacher tries to do in verse 24 to 26.

Because he remembers for a moment God. And says, you know in the end there is merit in living day by day and finding enjoyment in it. And not try to hold on to it.

And he says in the end, it's the sinner, it's the one who forgets God and who's living like this is all there is and trying to hoard it like a never ending scavenger hunt; in the end, that's the one God's not pleased with. And it's a self punishing system.

Follow from verse 24.

24A personcan do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? 26To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is vapour, a chasing after the wind.

Can I ask you this morning, is that what you're doing? Playing life by the rule that the one who ends up with the most toys, wins?

The teacher says, if that's you; then of all people; you lose. Trying and trying to fill a hole with more and more money and more and more stuff. That's all just vapour.

Bob Marley spent most of his life smoking weed and singing Reggae songs. But at least he was smart enough to say this.

Money is numbers and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end.

JESUS

So let me take you to Jesus. Right through this series, we're be putting it to you that Jesus is the one true expert on this stuff. In a way that the teacher in Ecclesiastes never never could be.

Because it's not until Jesus comes that we get to see there's something much bigger than just the endless cycles of life under the sun. Which we see in his own death and resurrection. Which changes everything. And means the words of Jesus come with real authority. So when Jesus says, Mark 8:36-37:

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

then it's worth taking notice. Because so many do that. He's not saying you can't enjoy this world and everything good about it. But he's suggesting there's something even better and more worthwhile; than just running round the treadmill trying to get ahead. And gain the world.

The teacher asks the question what 's the gain? And Jesus says it's actually possible to gain the world, and own everything. And yet lose what's most important. Because there's the soul dimension. To think about. Which is so much more important.

And you can chase the one. At risk of losing the other.

Another time two guys come to Jesus, arguing. About their inheritance. Jesus tells them a story. A rich farmer. Best season ever.

Builds bigger barns to store all his crops. Says to himself, now I'll take it easy. Eat, drink and be merry. But look, at this point it does matter if you've been wise or you're a fool. Because look.

That night God says to him, Luke 12:20-21,

You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich towards God.

So Jesus goes on to say, don't worry about all that stuff. Why ruin your family by fighting over a stupid inheritance! Don't spend your life worrying about what you'll eat or what you'll wear. Life's more than that.

But seek first God's kingdom. That's what it means to be rich towards God. A kingdom where giving opens the way to a whole lot more satisfaction that gaining. Serving a king who gave up everything for us on the cross. And then on the third day came back. Meaning death's not the end we thought it was at all.

And instead of living in a world where nothing counts and nothing matters, it opens up the possibility that everything counts. And everything matters. And that even if you lose the world and get to gain your soul by holding onto Jesus, it's going to be a much better deal. And maybe that's really how you get to make the most of your life.

If you're someone who's tried everything else already, why don't you try it?

Table of Contents

THE PLEASURE TEST

THE SUCCESS TEST

WHAT ABOUT WISDOM?

JESUS