Well, good morning, church. Uh, as Jake said, my name is Ricky. If you're new here, I'd love to get a chance to meet you. Um, and I want to invite you to open up your Bible to the book of Ecclesiastes. I'm letting you know that up front because it may take you a minute to find it since this is not a book typically we put on coffee cups or special pastel paintings we hang in our homes.
You may have never even read the book of Ecclesiastes, so you may need to consult the table of contents. It is in the front of your Bible. And that's okay.
As you turn there, a couple notes. One, I just want to encourage you, please do not miss out on the opportunity to spend time with Billy Rays and his wife Jan as they come to serve us with this marriage weekend later on this month.
I have never— I've known Billy Rays for many years, probably for 15 years or more, and I have never regretted spending time with Billy Rays. He is uniquely gifted. I think God's given him a unique gifting to speak into, to speak life and encouragement into married couples. I really do think sometimes God gives people just gifts to be able to encourage in specific areas. And I do think Billye and Jan have a particular gifting.
So if you're feeling good in your marriage, it'll strengthen you. If you're feeling weak in your marriage, this will speak life to you. If you're thinking, man, I don't even want to be married, this is for you. And so please join us. Register today.
Save yourself $10 and go buy a Starbucks on the way. It'll be great.
Now, the reason I've had you turn in your Bibles to the book of Ecclesiastes is that on my study leave last month, one of the things I did was read the book of Ecclesiastes every few days. And I have to admit, I still don't fully understand everything about this book, but what I do understand has proven to be, I think, the most impactful section of God's word in my personal daily life in the last number of years. So as a pastor, I read a lot of the Bible, but this book has just gone to work at me over the last couple of months, and it has really changed my daily life for the better.
And that may be surprising because if you think of the books of the Bible like people— so sometimes I think of the books of the Bible like people. I don't know if anybody else does that. If you show up at a party and all the books of the Bible are there and Romans is there in the corner, Romans has a suit on. You know, Romans has his tie buttoned. He's in a double Windsor and he shakes your hand.
Good evening. You know, he's very stately. The book of Acts is the life of the party. He's like, bam, wow, yeah, he's telling stories. He's got people gathered around.
You want to hang out with the book of Acts. Psalms is that guy in the corner. He's either, like, rejoicing, playing his guitar, or he's weeping, playing his guitar. It's one or the other. Never— no middle-of-the-road emotion with Psalms.
And in the party, probably somewhere tucked into the back corner, is Ecclesiastes. And Ecclesiastes is the guy dressed in all black. And you're like, "What's going on with that guy in the corner?" You know, and he's just looking around and thinking. And you go up to him and you say, "Hey, man, Ecclesiastes, how you doing, man?" He goes, "We're all going to die." Have you thought about that lately? Everyone you know is going to die.
You too will be dead. Dust from dust you've come, to dust you will— you're like, "Okay, well, I'm going to go see what Acts is doing, but you have fun, Ecclesiastes," right? That's how we often treat the book of Ecclesiastes. If you get there in your Bible reading plan, you're like, "Okay, this is weird. Let's move on."
But let's remember, every single part of God's Word is breathed out by God and inspired by him.
So, in Ecclesiastes, we're going to be reading the first section to give you a flavor of the book, and then we're going to do a flyover this week and next week of the book as something of a trailer to commend the study of this book to you. Ecclesiastes chapter 1, and it's okay, allow the weirdness and shock of the book to land on you a little bit. Ecclesiastes chapter 1, verse 1, this is God's Word. 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 it circulates.
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 in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later 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 striving after the wind.
6 · Brief prayer asking for illumination to receive the sermon's teaching
This is God's Word. Lord, we pray that you would give us ears to hear and eyes to see what you have today. Amen.
7 · Alcantar names the unspoken reality: life is frustrating, often seemingly pointless, and Christians are especially reluctant to admit this openly
Well, often as people and even as Christians, we don't say the quiet parts of life out loud. What we often don't say out loud is this: that life is is profoundly frustrating, that life often seems pointless. So much of life is wearying and frustrating, and we don't want to talk about that.
8 · Series of real-life examples (wise financial planning destroyed by medical bills, forgotten business founders, endless pursuit of experiences) illustrating the vanity and futility the preacher observes
Listen, I've known people who live really wisely and manage their money, and they reconcile all their bank accounts at the end of the month, and they're so careful with what they earn, and yet their entire savings is wiped out by a pile of unexpected medical bills, leaving them in debt for years. I've known business owners who worked really, really hard over a long time at their companies and then sold their companies only for the company after them soon to crash and burn. Or if the company is successful, well, then nobody remembers the guy who started it. Seems like vanity. I know people who experience the most amazing things, who chase vacations or exotic locales or competitions or extreme races or the finest food or the best meal.
And they chase these things, and yet they may experiencing it in a moment and then it's gone and they're onto the next, hoping that next one, that next meal will fully satisfy them, that next vacation will fully satisfy, that next possession will make them feel safe and secure and happy, and it goes and it goes and it goes, and another round of vacations, another round of purchases, another round of meals, and yet it does not ultimately satisfy.
I've seen over and over that you can't freeze life. No matter how good it is, you can't stop it right there. It just keeps going. It flows and flows and on it goes, and everyone you love will eventually pass away, and your body will eventually break down and you will too.
9 · Personal story: Alcantar's repeated failed attempts to experience Disneyland with his family due to sudden health issues
I remember vividly experiencing some of this in some of the truth of Ecclesiastes where in the pandemic we had had an opportunity before the pandemic to go to, to try to take the kids to Disneyland. And one of the kids did not go because of school stuff. And I just thought, "Oh man, I should have." You know, the pandemic hit and he began to have health issues. And so I thought, "Man, I really wish I could have taken him." So we kind of resolved in the pandemic, if we ever have the opportunity on the other side of the pandemic, we're going to take the family to Disney World or Disneyland as kind of a once in a lifetime thing. We'll do that. You know, I guess the American pilgrimage that everyone has to do eventually, if you can.
And, and so we looked forward to it for a year during the pandemic. We thought, oh, this would be so fun to take the kids and do this and this and this. And we get there and we arrive and, and we, we finally take the kids, you know, some combination of points and savings and all that stuff. You get the kids, we're standing in front of this giant ball there at Disney World and the big entrance and you go there and I start to realize my back isn't feeling great. So we go and we walk and we walk and my back is feeling worse and worse and finally it just gives out. I can barely walk. They almost have to rent me a scooter to get me out and I spend our great day at Disneyland laid up in the hotel room with a back problem.
And this would be funny if not for the fact that my last trip, to Disneyland, I had appendicitis. And again, entered the park excited, magical day, and then horrific stomach pain back in the hotel room, right? This seems to be a pattern with me. And so, don't go to Disney World with me, I think is the moral of the story. But often, it is extremely frustrating that you plan and you hope and you set your hope on something, and yet, when you finally arrive, it vanishes. It's ephemeral. It's gone. I already paid my admission. Now I can't go. This is life.
10 · Alcantar argues that Christians are pressured to project constant positivity, which creates fear of admitting frustration
And that is already, I think, helpful on one level because we as Christians can be afraid to acknowledge the frustrations of life lest we appear ungodly. We can feel as Christians like everything has to be positive and encouraging all the time. "How are you doing, brother?" "I'm doing well. I'm blessed. I'm— the Lord is—" You know, we're going to respond in sort of a K-Love personality voice, like, "How are you doing?" "Oh, everything's positive and encouraging." I wonder if anything goes wrong in the lives of those people. I mean, I wonder if there's ever a day their car breaks down and their coffee spills and that they have to jump on the air and go, "Good morning. Having a great day here." Like, that is life.
That is life. And what's encouraging is that is in the Bible. And so, it's okay for us to grapple with this and admit this.
11 · Sermon roadmap
And so, over the next 2 weeks, we're going to answer 2 questions that I think Ecclesiastes is uniquely suited to answer. The first question today, is, "Why is life so frustrating?" And the second question next week is, "How do I enjoy my frustrating life?" which is what Ecclesiastes tells us to do.
12 · Alcantar introduces the Hebrew word 'hevel' (vanity), acknowledging its difficulty and range of meanings, and explains his method: letting Ecclesiastes define the word through its own usage
The first question is, "Why is life so frustrating?" Well, to get that answer, we have to understand the main repeated word throughout the entire book of Ecclesiastes is this word "vanity." Or if you have another version of the Bible, it might say life is Meaningless. That is a— the reason that there's so many different translations of that word is it's a notoriously difficult word to translate because the word has a range of meanings. Like English words, this word in particular has a range of meanings, and the writer of Ecclesiastes uses it to create plays on words, making it almost even more confusing. He's poetic with it. He uses that as a metaphor in different ways.
And so the best way to define this word, life is vanity, is by letting the book define to define the word for us. If you're like, "I don't understand that word," it's okay. Ecclesiastes will help you understand it. He'll tell you what he means by it. So, we're going to use this book to answer the question, "What does he mean?" And in that, we will find the answer to the question of why life is so frustrating.
13 · First definition of 'hevel': vapor, smoke, mist—something ephemeral that appears and quickly vanishes
So, first, life is frustrating because it is a vapor. Now, the word here, "vanity," is the Hebrew word "hevel." Literally, hevel means smoke or vapor. So imagine, you know, a mist going— and then— or think of in El Paso, sometimes we'll get in certain seasons a little bit of fog around in the morning. And then as soon as the sun comes up, it just slices through and all that fog is cleared away. That is what he's talking about. Or the last wisp of a campfire kind of floating up into the air. That's what he's saying. Life is hevel. Life is smoke.
Life is vapor. Life is ephemeral.
14 · Background on the author of Ecclesiastes: a wisdom teacher, likely a king or royal figure, with a privileged vantage point for observing the full scope of human experience
Now, the author of the book is mysterious. It is sometimes attributed to Solomon. We don't know for sure, but we do know two things about him. We know that he's a teacher of wisdom. He collects wisdom. He observes carefully. And he's either a king of Israel or he's in the court of the king, sort of compiling this on behalf of the king. So he has, let's just say, a vantage point to observe life better than most. He's kind of up on a tower looking down on life, observing and surveying life, and here is what he observes.
15 · Exposition of Ecclesiastes 1:4-7 on mortality and the cyclical nature of generations
Verse 4: A generation comes, a generation goes, a generation comes, the earth remains forever. The sun rises, the sun goes down, hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows, the streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full. They just keep Flowing. What is he talking about here? All these metaphors piling up? He's talking about mortality. Generations are like the sun rising and the sun setting. To put it maybe more specifically, everything is bell-bottoms and funk music until it's leather jackets and big hair, until it's baggy jeans and gold chains, until it's skinny jeans and Converse, until it goes back to bell-bottoms and I guess funk music.
And more leather jackets and big hair. And then again, we apparently are wearing baggy jeans with gold chains until we will inevitably again start wearing skinny jeans and Converse. And so it goes. That is life. Everything that seems so important and so earth-changing just ends up passing away.
Fashions are a vapor. Generations are a vapor.
16 · Application of the mortality theme to the highest levels of power
This holds true even up to the highest vantage point. To this king or ruler, right? His administration and all the people fawning to please this king will pass away, and he knows that inevitably people will struggle to remember his name or the name of the current ruler, just like we struggle to remember the name of the 6th U.S. president or the 11th U.S. president. I don't know. You're probably thinking right now, "Do I know that?" Doesn't matter. Right? It doesn't— it just goes and goes, and we will elect another president that we will then forget. That's what is inevitable.
17 · Alcantar directs the congregation to Ecclesiastes 9 to reinforce the mortality theme—'Death Comes to All'—and acknowledges the discomfort this causes
In chapter 9, the book most poignantly slams this home with the helpful section. Look at chapter 9 briefly in your Bible. Look at the helpful section hanging over chapter 9 in your Bible, the encouraging phrase, "Death comes to all." Doesn't that sound like a part of your Bible you just love to read? In your quiet time? "Oh, I just got my little cup of coffee. I got my, you know, the birds are tweeting. Let's jump into 'Death Comes to All.'" No. You're like, "I'm going to go back to the Psalms again." Why is this in the Bible?
Well, look at chapter 9, verse 6. It says, "Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun." So, Here's why life is frustrating. Much of our frustration with life is with our mortality. And Ecclesiastes will in just a minute show us that the way to peace and life in this passing mortality is to see it and acknowledge it and live within it and rejoice.
18 · Alcantar introduces the second meaning of 'hevel': mirage—things that promise satisfaction but deliver nothing
Second reason life is frustrating is because it is a mirage. One help with reading the book of Ecclesiastes is recognizing that it's divided into two main types of writing. First is the sections of observation. So, imagine this, like, the writer of Ecclesiastes has his pen out, he's got his binoculars out, he's observing, he's writing down, he's cataloging, "This is what I see." And this is what I see over here, and this is what I see over here. And then sometimes he will turn from observation to you as the reader and then instruct you with how to think.
And that's a huge help when you read Ecclesiastes, because sometimes you're like, "What am I supposed to do with all of this?" Well, it's observation. He's saying, "This is what I see." And then at certain points he turns and says, "Now here's what to think about that." So, we see that he concludes, and one of the things he does in this book is he undertakes a quest to find what is not vain. He says, "I'm going to start a quest to find something not meaningless, not ephemeral, not a vapor." But as we kind of watch him through his quest, he can't find anything in life that's not vain. He either pursues wholeheartedly or he observes others And he tries to find something that gives life lasting meaning that is not frustrating. But in this quest, he is ultimately frustrated.
19 · Exposition of Ecclesiastes 2:1-3—the preacher's 'pleasure test
One great example of this is Ecclesiastes chapter 2. Flip back to that if you would. Ecclesiastes chapter 2, he says in verse 1, "I said in my heart, 'Come now, I will test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself.'" So he's saying, "Okay, I'm going to apply a pleasure test to life." Behold, this was vanity. I said of laughter, 'It is mad,' and of 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 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.
And throughout the book, you see that he indulges in everything. He indulges in the finest of wines and in every material. There's implied sexual pleasures and conquest. He takes every vacation to every place. Experiences every high that life has to offer, and yet it seems vain.
20 · Exposition of Ecclesiastes 2:4-6—the preacher's 'accomplishment test
Verse 4, I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks. I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. So you see him now, he takes another test. Maybe it's not pleasure. Maybe it's accomplishment. Maybe it's doing a great work. Maybe it's It's building something amazing and powerful and awe-inspiring. That, that is where I'll find something that's not vain. But you will see, no, it's vanity. All is vanity.
21 · Exposition of Ecclesiastes 2:7-11—the preacher's 'possession test
So he undertakes a third test in verse 7. I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. So he goes to the possession test. He gets every luxury, every designer set of clothes, every accessory for his media room, every fabulous car you've ever wanted, every tech gadget nobody else has, every kitchen luxury with the finest of knives and Le Creuset.
And it's just, It's all piled up in his giant mansion. And look at his conclusion in verse 11. After all of this, the pleasure test, the accomplishment test, the possession test, verse 11, "Then I considered all my hands had done and all the toil I had expended in doing it. And behold," here's his conclusion, "all was vanity and a striving after the wind. And there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
22 · Personal story: childhood memory of chasing desert mirages with his grandfather
Now, he's saying that what everyone pursues in life, what everyone is aimed at, what everyone is grasping and scraping and clawing their way to is, if you could say it this way, a mirage. Have you ever driven out through the desert when it's really hot outside and seen a mirage of a pool of what looks like a pool of water in the distance, where the heat kind of wobbles in the desert distance and you start to think, "Is that a lake?" I remember I would go on these long drives with my granddad. He loved to drive the long New Mexican highways that lead to nowhere in his F-150 just to drive, listening to Garth Brooks and drinking Coke and eating peanuts, and I just loved it. And so we'd go out. And as a kid, I remember driving around in the F-150 with him, and I would see in the distance, "Look, Granddad, is that a lake?" My granddad would just laugh.
"No, son, that's not a lake." "What is it, Granddad?" "It's dirt." "But it looks like a lake." "Son, I'm telling you, that's dirt." "Can we drive there?" "Okay." As we drive over, and it'd be like, But I thought there was a lake here. It's over there. Son, that's dirt, right? That's like— and so there was a couple of times he indulged me and showed me, no, no, no, if you drive toward the mirage, the mirage just keeps moving forward. It's not there.
All you're going to find is more dirt.
23 · Direct application: no earthly pursuit (pleasure, accomplishment, possession) truly satisfies
And that is what the writer of Ecclesiastes is saying. There is no pleasure in life that satisfies, no drug, no porn, no trip of a lifetime, no accomplishment, no building of a company, no receiving of a degree, no plaque on the wall, no possession, no dream house, no car, no dream phone, all of it, none of it lasts. It doesn't fully fulfill you. The accomplishments turn to dust. The possession gets ignored.
And look, this, friends, this is where Ecclesiastes serves us so well. It's a warning. It's a necessary warning, and I would say it is an urgent warning for those of us who live in 21st century America. You will be tempted to give your life to something, to chase some mirage. So, before you do, listen to the writer of Ecclesiastes as he says, "See that out there? That is dirt. There is nothing there. I've gone further than you can. I've had more than you ever will." And I am telling you, there is nothing out there.
But it's when we recognize that that we can live a life of peace and joy. And in just a minute, he's going to tell us how.
24 · Third definition of 'hevel': paradox—truth that seems graspable but dissolves when grasped
Third reason, then, life is frustrating. Life is frustrating because it is a paradox. There's one last shade of meaning to that word hevel that is translated vanity or dust or vapor, meaningless. And he uses this word hevel to illustrate the quality of being unable to grasp or hold truth, the truth about life in your hands and reconcile how life works. Vapor, when he says life is a vapor, sometimes he means life is a paradox because it seems real, but as soon as you try to grasp it, It dissolves. How is that possible? Well, look at Ecclesiastes chapter 2, for example. 2:14 says this: "The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness." And so you think, "Yeah, that's what Proverbs says. You want to be wise, not a fool." But then he says this: "And yet I perceive that the same event happens to all of them," meaning everybody going to get sick, everybody going to die. You can be wise, you can be stupid, you're still going to die. That's what he says. 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, this also is vanity. For of the wise as of the fool, there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool. You know who the wisest man who ever lived was? The wisest man in the year of our Lord, 1907, you know who that was?
I have no idea, and neither do you, right? Do you know who the stupidest person in 1907 was? I don't know either. Nobody knows. They're dead.
Do their grandchildren even remember their names? Maybe. Other than that, nobody. That's what Ecclesiastes is saying.
25 · Exposition of Ecclesiastes 9:11—the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; time and chance happen to all
Similarly, in chapter 9:11, he says, "Again, I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all." Like, it doesn't matter sometimes in battle. Sometimes, like, I think in— I was reading this week that in the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon had a severe health issue that apart from that horrible, painful health issue, he would have probably won the battle. But he couldn't because he's human and he got hurt and he got sick and then he died. Right? That's what— sometimes the battle is not to the strong. In a race, anybody who's run track or swum in high school knows well, you get a cold the day before the big meet, you don't swim well, or you just slip on the starting block and you're done, right?
This is what Ecclesiastes is saying. Sometimes life does not work the way it should work. Now, side note, doesn't mean throw out the book of Proverbs. It's like, well, I've been reading Proverbs, whatever. I'm not going to try to be wise anymore.
No, wisdom, he'll say later, is still good to pursue. Live a wise life, and Proverbs will help you do that, and life will go better. But here's the warning Ecclesiastes brings to us: don't assume that if you just do all the wise stuff in life, it equals everything you've ever wanted. Ecclesiastes is warning us wisdom does not mean that you will avoid hardship or frustration or difficulty. People will forget you, you will be frustrated, and you will still get old and die.
26 · Cultural reference: Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Mr
I was reading an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger who is getting old. And he was expressing frustration that he knows there is a day coming, and it's going to be sooner than he thinks, that he can't lift anymore. And lifting is his favorite thing in life. And he was Mr. Universe. He was the biggest action star of America, but you know what's happening to him now?
He's just getting old. And his greatest joy in life is his small donkey that lives with him. And that's real.
Life is a paradox. Sometimes the battle doesn't go to the swift, doesn't go to the strong.
27 · Alcantar argues that Christians often suppress the reality of paradox and injustice, which can lead to faith crises when the expected moral equation fails
And that's okay to acknowledge, because sometimes we want to pretend that doesn't happen. Sometimes as Christians we want to pretend like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, nothing bad ever happens to good people." people, sometimes faith will be shaken when they try to live wisely and follow God, and then they still experience hardship and difficulty and injustice. The Bible acknowledges that life will be a paradox. We've got to be real about that. We have to be willing to see it.
28 · Structural summary of the three reasons life is frustrating (vapor, mirage, paradox) and pivot to the resolution: what do we do with this reality?
So we've just seen that life is frustrating because it's a vapor and we feel our mortality. We've seen that life is frustrating because it's often a mirage and the things we hope last don't last. And we've seen that life is frustrating because it is full of paradoxes that we in our human minds cannot always fully resolve. So, what do we do with that?
29 · First meaning of 'under the sun': we live in a world wrecked by sin
Well, Ecclesiastes gives us a reminder and an encouragement. The reminder is this: we live under the sun. Now, the phrase "under the sun," if you go through this week and highlight it, it occurs throughout the book of Ecclesiastes. It's one of the great themes of the book and it brings with it two important reminders. First, "Under the sun," it reminds us that sin has wrecked the world. Ecclesiastes 7:20 points out that none are truly righteous, that even the people that seem righteous, they're not fully righteous.
And that's what we've seen through the whole Old Testament. Genesis 3 reminds us that the way that God created the world to work in Genesis 1 and 2 is not the way the world works now because of the entrance of sin into the world. Romans 8 summarizes the situation as the world being subject to futility and groaning in the pains of childbirth, meaning that everything under the sun is corrupted and broken. Death has entered the world, injustice happens, and by the way, remember, none are righteous, so we contribute to that brokenness in our own ways. When you look at it and you think, "This isn't the way things are supposed to work," Genesis 1 and 2 say, "Yes, very much." Much of the way the world works, much of the frustration, death itself entering the world, much of this is due to the fact that sin has entered the world.
30 · Second meaning of 'under the sun': we are mortal and limited, but God is over the sun—sovereign, eternal, and unlimited
But second, "under the sun" has another meaning. And the other way that the writer of Ecclesiastes uses this phrase is by reminding us that we are under the sun, But God is over the sun. Now, there are three— in the ancient kind of world, they thought of the world in three planes, okay, if I could say it that way. Not airplanes, but like plateaus. Imagine a big mesa.
And so there's the human mortal one, there's the underworld, you know, Hades or Sheol or whatever, and then there's the over the sun where the gods of, you know, Greece or whatever live. And so often ancient people thought of the world in those three kind of planes. And so, much of Ecclesiastes is about this mortal plane where we live, and it uses that phrase over and over, "Under the sun, under the sun, under the sun." But it reminds us again and again as well that there is one who is over the sun, that God is God and we are not, that our limitations are not God's limitations. What we cannot figure out doesn't mean God can't figure out. What we don't understand doesn't mean God doesn't understand.
31 · Full reading of Ecclesiastes 3:10-15
So, that's the reminder. Here's the encouragement then: fear the Lord and rejoice. If you are willing to hear the message of Ecclesiastes, you can turn from desperation and frustration to peace and joy. Look at Ecclesiastes 3, verse 10 with me.
He says, "I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with." He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live. Also, that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in his toil This is God's gift to man. I perceive that whatever God does endures forever.
Nothing can be added to it, nor can anything be taken from it. God has done it so that people fear before him. That which is already has been, that which is to be already has been, and God seeks what has been driven away.
32 · The core theological claim of the sermon: God is eternal and sovereign; we are temporal and limited
So, here's the paradox and its resolution. God puts a desire to know eternal things, to know why this happens or that happens, into man's heart. But man will never understand fully the answer to that question. He will never understand because only God understands what has been done from beginning to end. Why? Because God is God and we are not. He is eternal.
We are temporal. We don't understand how to resolve the paradox, but God does. Everything on earth is a mirage, but God sees through it all to what? Matters eternally. This is the truth of Ecclesiastes that we must embrace if we are to rejoice.
And the truth is this: we are not God. Only God is God. He's the Creator; we're the creature. And the sooner that we accept that God is the sovereign one and not us, we will be at peace. And not just be at peace, but actually rejoice.
33 · Exposition of Ecclesiastes 3:14—what God does endures forever
The writer says, "I perceive that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it." Meaning this, that what God is about in the world, what God does in the world, what He accomplishes in the world, that does endure. That is not a mirage. Is eternal. And so for us as humans, when we acknowledge all we do is dust and air, but what the Lord does is eternal, it puts us in the right posture to say, okay, then I fear you and rejoice and gladly submit to what you call me to do.
It says, God has done it so that people fear before him. Some of life is designed the way it is so that God can help us as human beings ungrasp our hands, open them, drop what we have, and fear the Lord. But until that happens, we will always be grasping and straining to outlive the next person, right? To live forever, to find something that'll fully satisfy, to resolve the paradoxes with our great learning and wisdom. And we've got to let that go if we're to receive the truth and joy of God being eternal.
God sees through it all. God works out the paradoxes. He is our God, and when we get that truth, we're free to live with joy.
34 · Extended personal story about teaching his sons to ride bikes
Think about it this way. This last couple of weeks, we finally got— we're like, "Okay." We'd set a goal at the beginning of the summer, we're going to teach the boys to ride, our older two boys, 8 and 10. To ride real two-wheel bikes. They don't want to do this, but we, our parents, want them to do this, and so they're going to do this. And so we did this thing where we took the— I saw online you could take the— there's different methods. You don't have to get into it. I'm about to explain to you how to teach a kid to ride a bike.
You've already taught your kids to ride bikes. Don't listen to me. I have not yet done it. So shutting up now. The thing that I experienced, though, was with— The older kids, sometimes I'd be kind of guiding them and helping them turn around so they could kind of take another run at learning to ride their bike.
And I'd have my hand on the handlebar so I could steer it. And they would be fighting me with the handlebar, right? They'd be thinking, "Dad doesn't know what he's doing." And they'd be, they kind of, they'd have their hand on the handlebar and I would kind of say, "All right, let me turn you around." And they'd be like, "Ahh." And I'd be like, "Man, you're fighting me with the handlebar. I know how to ride a bike." You don't know how to ride a bike. Let me help you turn around.
And they're like, "Ah, ah, ah," right? And it's really hard to turn a bike when somebody's fighting you, right? And eventually I'm just like, "Okay guys, you gotta let me steer the bike and help set you up, and that way you could take another run at this." But their brother is 4, and he got a tricycle for his birthday. It's adorable. He rides it around the kitchen table over and over.
There'll be sometimes though, he's been learning to steer, and so I'll take his handlebar and I'll steer it, and he, as a 4-year-old, gets a truth that his brothers don't. He is happy for me to steer the bike for him. He would like for me to always steer the bike, to run alongside him and steer the bike.
And here, I think, is the irony of our human existence. So often we are the older kid grasping the handlebars, fighting God for control of the universe, when Ecclesiastes said, "You will be much happier when you rejoice that God's hands are on the handlebars." That's Ecclesiastes. God has designed some of life that you will be frustrated, that you will be like, "Grrr!" so that you will see the way you want to steer the bike is not the right way to go. In fact, fearing the Lord— and that phrase, fearing the Lord, really means reverent awe. It means bowing the knee to the Lord and saying, "You're God and I'm not." Right?
That posture is the path to peace, joy, and happiness.
35 · Reading and exposition of Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, the book's conclusion
Look, at the very end of the book— I'm going to spoil the ending— At the very end of the book, the writer concludes and gives you the point of the whole book.
Ecclesiastes, verse— I mean, chapter 12, verse 13, chapter 12, verse 13, "The end of the matter, all has been heard." 'Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Fear, for God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.' Meaning Ecclesiastes arrives in the end at this key, which is this: out of everything in Ecclesiastes, he wants you to understand this: fear God and follow him. And when you realize, 'I'm a mortal, I'm amortal, not immortal, amortal. I chase mirages that are bad for me. And I don't understand how to resolve the paradoxes.
I don't understand why bad things sometimes happen to good people. I can't work all this out in my mind. When you arrive at that place, you're perfectly primed to then come and say, "You know what? I'm not God. He's God.
I'll fear the Lord and do what he says." That is the path to joy and peace.