SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church.
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm loud, but usually I'm not that loud.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to be here in the body of Christ this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And as we've already just been praying and we've been reflecting, we're all at different seasons and points of our life here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: In this room, we've got young, we've got old, we've got suffering, we've got those who are in a season of joy, season of delight, of good health.
SPEAKER_00: And what's amazing about the body of Christ is we can all come together, pray with one another, serve our perfect and holy God, and hear from his word this morning.
SPEAKER_00: So I hope this morning our hearts are greatly encouraged by what we see in the book of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're starting this uh this new series in Ecclesiastes, and we're gonna be in Ecclesiastes this week and in next week, and then for three weeks, I'm actually going to be away.
SPEAKER_00: So Pastor Bob will be preaching uh for two weeks, and then Pastor Don has uh graciously uh welcomed his invitation to come out of retirement uh for a Sunday, and um Sandy is helping him prepare his sermon for that Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: So uh we're looking forward to uh that ministry um this summer, and then we're going to come back to the book of Ecclesiastes uh when uh we return.
SPEAKER_00: Um uh I'm gonna be at Pleasant Bay speaking uh with the children for a week in a couple weeks, and then we're gonna take a few weeks of uh rest and vacation as a family.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're thankful for a church family that uh supports us and encourages us in doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we are in Ecclesiastes 1 this morning, so I encourage you to pull out your Bible, to turn there uh with me.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be really kind of surveying in uh in a certain respect parts of Ecclesiastes as we move through it at a at a pretty good pace over seven weeks.
SPEAKER_00: And so I encourage you to uh supplement that study a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: As Pastor Jack has mentioned, they're gonna have that study going for the young men.
SPEAKER_00: But uh, if you noticed in the emails last few weeks, um I've also provided a few resources that you could you could purchase and you could use on your own as supplemental uh study as we work through this book.
SPEAKER_00: But uh if anything else, read the book.
SPEAKER_00: Just read through it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh sit down if you can and read through it from start to finish in one setting.
SPEAKER_00: As that's how a lot of uh books in our scripture have been written in for us to understand it in one sitting.
SPEAKER_00: So if you could sit down uh maybe even once a week uh or a couple times over the series of the summer, uh spend some time just just just reading and seeing what the Lord has to say for you and for us this summer.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the series uh is titled The Joy of Pursuing God, or The Joyful Pursuit of God.
SPEAKER_00: You could also uh you could also put it.
SPEAKER_00: I think this really encapsulates the message of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: And you might be wondering why I'd say that, because I I mean, even just reading the passage we read this morning, uh, we're kind of getting this idea in this sense that there's some very negative things uh that are said in Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna talk about that in just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: But if you just think about this, okay?
SPEAKER_00: We live in a complicated world, I don't know if you noticed, that's full of distractions.
SPEAKER_00: Full of distractions.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even when you just think of some of the main messages that the world says to us as human beings, uh, how important it is to be successful in certain ways, what success looks like, what uh what what joy will look like, if only I could have that job I've been dreaming of.
SPEAKER_00: If only I could have that wife, the kids, the dog, the what is it, uh, piece of land, five-year plan.
SPEAKER_00: If only I could have all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: And once I get all those things, man, I'm just, I'm, I'm gonna arrive.
SPEAKER_00: Things are just gonna be there for me.
SPEAKER_00: You think of even, as we've talked about in past as we talked about this dissatisfaction that the world seems to uh try to encourage us in.
SPEAKER_00: You just think of advertisements, you think of uh education, you think of all these different things and this message of finding your joy and your hope and what's here and now.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you see what Ecclesiastes does is it, excuse me, sorry, Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Um Music Stand.
SPEAKER_00: Um Ecclesiastes does is it draws our attention to the true meaning of life as being the pursuit of the life giver God Himself, of Yahweh Himself.
SPEAKER_00: You see, a life without God may be joyous for a season, but the seasons end, the sun comes up, the sun goes down, people are born, people die, and a life without God will suffer under the most, will suffer the most under the weight of the meaninglessness of life.
SPEAKER_00: But a life in pursuit of God will encounter the giver of joy.
SPEAKER_00: It will find the true delight and happiness and the whole reason and purpose that we were created for.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in a big way.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Ecclesiastes is a severe reality check.
SPEAKER_00: A reality check of the true state of this sin cursed world.
SPEAKER_00: And as we go through this book, I just, if I can encourage us anything like that God would help us to come to this book with soft hearts, ready to be molded by him, with ears that are ready to listen.
SPEAKER_00: And that as we go through this book, because we're going to we're gonna encounter some pretty outrageous statements that are made by the author.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna encounter things that twist the messages of the world upside down.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna encounter things that will make you and I feel pretty uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing all of this has a point and all of this has a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Because as you go throughout the book, yes, there's this severe reality check, but this is what's, again, the beauty of just reading through the book in one setting.
SPEAKER_00: You go throughout the book, you see these definitive, powerful theological statements that are made about God, and that's really where we're gonna be spending most of our time and attention on throughout the series, is because there's really really seven main direct statements that are made about who God is, how he relates to us, why he has created us the way he has, what the purpose of life is under him, and what it looks like to pursue the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Because all of this, so we've got the reality check, we've got these powerful theological statements that are made about God.
SPEAKER_00: All of this is going to point us in the right direction, the true direction, that direction we're gonna all go in as we look through this book, but the joy of pursuing God, it all points to that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in the book, even in verse one, uh we are introduced to the teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Some translations they um they uh they they translate as the preacher.
SPEAKER_00: But in in the Hebrew, the uh term is kohalate, koilate.
SPEAKER_00: Um and that's that's the name of the guy that obviously, most obviously wrote the book, most purposefully his uh his wisdom is uh is uh being relayed here.
SPEAKER_00: And what what this what this uh name or or this word coelate means is it literally means the one who assembles.
SPEAKER_00: So the one who assembles to teach, the one who assembles to preach.
SPEAKER_00: And so our English translations uh do well to call it a teacher, call it the preacher.
SPEAKER_00: Um but there's also this authorial debate that is around the book of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: Really, really good, well-known scholars argue against Solomon's authorship, but some really good scholars also argue for Solomon's authorship.
SPEAKER_00: It's most likely that it was Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: I I believe that he is the best possible candidate when you look at verse 1, and then you look at verse 12 of uh chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, he's referred to as a son of David.
SPEAKER_00: He's got to be king of Israel, uh, he's someone with all this wisdom, with all of this power, with all of all this prestige at uh his disposal.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's most likely Solomon, but we don't know for sure.
SPEAKER_00: But we know it's Koalate.
SPEAKER_00: We know it's Koalate who has written this book.
SPEAKER_00: So we we have to read and understand this book, as with a lot of wisdom literature when you come across it in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It's important that you read and understand the book holistically, meaning to kind of get an idea of what's going on from beginning, middle, to the end, so that we can put together the big picture and really appreciate the author's teaching.
SPEAKER_00: See, verse one, it's interesting how the book is broken down.
SPEAKER_00: See, verse one, we have this uh third person prologue that's given, kind of introducing the author, and then we go through from uh verses uh chapter one, verse 12, all the way to the end of the book to chapter 12, verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: We have this wisdom experiment.
SPEAKER_00: And this is given in the first person.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're introduced to Collate in the in the first verse, in the first section, and then he goes on his wisdom experiment, explaining um all of the things that he learned through this wisdom experiment, and then at the end of the book, goes back to the third person, and he summarizes for us, okay, this is what this all means.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been uh a Christian for some time, you probably know uh the last portion of the book of Ecclesiastes, or you've heard it talked about.
SPEAKER_00: But if you have your Bibles, just keep your finger in chapter one, flip with me to chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: But this is this is the meaning of everything as we come uh to understand this book.
SPEAKER_00: You see, sometimes with wisdom literature, you have to read all the way through it to the end of the book to get what's going on, and then you have to go back through and read it again.
SPEAKER_00: So it's important that even this morning that uh that we just think about these verses because this becomes the key to unlocking uh all of the things we we see mentioned throughout the book.
SPEAKER_00: So chapter 12, starting in verse 12, but beyond these, my son, he says, be warned.
SPEAKER_00: There is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body.
SPEAKER_00: All of our students in the room, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Much study wearies the body.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this fear God and keep his commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Or fear God and keep his commands.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is for all humanity, for all humanity to fear God, keep his commands.
SPEAKER_00: Your purpose of life, fear God, keep his commands.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 14, for God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil.
SPEAKER_00: Flip back to chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: So chapter twelve becomes the key to understanding the rest of the book, fearing God and keeping his commandments.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we will find the moist the most joy-filled life.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we travel through the book of Ecclesiastes, we will clearly see this.
SPEAKER_00: But this morning, we're gonna look at the giver of joy and consider three characteristics of a joy-filled life as we encounter this giver of joy.
SPEAKER_00: We're first gonna see that the joy-filled life sees the fleeting nature of this temporary life.
SPEAKER_00: Or the joy-filled life understands and accepts the fleeting nature of this temporary life.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see that from uh verses 1 to 11 in chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: And then we're gonna consider how the joy, a joy-filled life rejects the emptiness of the prosperity life, which is from chapter 1, verse 12 through to chapter 2, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: And then we're gonna conclude with those verses in chapter 2 as chapter 2 concludes, and seeing that a joy-filled life pursues God, the creator of life and the giver of joy.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing is this, though.
SPEAKER_00: A joy-filled life sees the fleeting nature of this temporary life.
SPEAKER_00: Sees the fleeting nature of this temporary life.
SPEAKER_00: We see this most notably in verses 1 to 11 of chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: As uh the scholar Derek Kinder puts it, he says, Ecclesiastes is a book that points us to faith in a generous God by pointing to the grimness of the alternative.
SPEAKER_00: Faith in a generous God by pointing to the grimness of the alternative.
SPEAKER_00: And almost immediately in this section, we start to get a sense of that grimness, that emptiness.
SPEAKER_00: Collate does this right in these verses.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, these these words in chapter one, if you just, as uh as Brian just read, they they they become this humbling, these humbling words to hear and consider, but they're important because this kind of he kind of gives us a good idea of where he's going with things.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us a good idea of the kinds of things we're gonna grapple with in the weeks to come as we study this book further.
SPEAKER_00: So starting in verse one, the words of the teacher or or the words of coalite, and and just so you know, the uh the Greek all uh the Greek word for uh coalate or coalate um comes from uh comes from uh ecclesia ecclesia uh if you think of uh uh kind of like ecclesia, like the church.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so the Greek equivalent, which is used in the in the Greek translation of the Old Testament in the Septuagint, is uh is refers to an assembly, the uh ecclesia.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's where the name of Ecclesiastes comes from, is the the words of colate, the words of uh the teacher.
SPEAKER_00: And so here we begin.
SPEAKER_00: So the words of the teacher or the preacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem, absolute futility, says the teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Absolute futility.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is futile.
SPEAKER_00: Absolute futility.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is futile.
SPEAKER_00: You see the word here for futility can also be translated vanities.
SPEAKER_00: Uh in the ESV, I think it's translated vanities.
SPEAKER_00: It's translated meaninglessness in the NIV.
SPEAKER_00: Other translations uh may use uh different translation, if I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure NKJV uh translates it also as vanities.
SPEAKER_00: Um but the word here, futility, so the Hebrew word is this cool uh word.
SPEAKER_00: It's similar to how you'd pronounce shovel, but it's called hevel.
SPEAKER_00: Hevel, so you remember that?
SPEAKER_00: Hevel.
SPEAKER_00: Um this word comes up quite a few times throughout the book of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: So here the CSB translates it as futility.
SPEAKER_00: But what does this word mean?
SPEAKER_00: And this is fascinating, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I know, love the word studies, but this is fascinating because this word means so many different things.
SPEAKER_00: And I think this was intentional on the author's part, because if you're a Hebrew reading this, you're not just thinking futility, you're thinking several things all at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: And I think he did this because as we go through the book, we see this word, we should be thinking more than just futility, or more than just vanities, or more than just meaninglessness.
SPEAKER_00: But it also can be translated, of course, as vanity of as uh as worthless.
SPEAKER_00: It's also translated.
SPEAKER_00: But this this other one, this is interesting, it's translated as breath.
SPEAKER_00: And I did not have any conversations with the worship team about this this morning, before this morning.
SPEAKER_00: All of the songs today that talked about breath, we did not talk about this, okay?
SPEAKER_00: The Lord orchestrated all this today.
SPEAKER_00: But it's also translated breath.
SPEAKER_00: And you have to think of this term when you see futility or you see vanities or you see meaninglessness in some translations.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it as futility, think about it as vanity, think about it as worthless, but think about it as breath.
SPEAKER_00: You see, breath is an interesting way to capture heavel's meaning.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you think about it, uh there is life in breathing, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then there is death in the absence of breathing.
SPEAKER_00: It's important when it happens, breathing, because it gives life, but breathing happens quickly, and it happens subconsciously.
SPEAKER_00: We don't necessarily think about every individual breath that we are taking, but the Lord set it up that way.
SPEAKER_00: And in Hebrew poetry, they often use use words to make you think so that um so that you you think of the totality of it.
SPEAKER_00: And I think what's happening here is is is the is the author is trying to teach us something even with this word, heavel breath.
SPEAKER_00: 37 times we see it throughout the book.
SPEAKER_00: It's the most repeated word throughout the book, heavily breath.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting about this verse is in the original Hebrew, we see the word hevil five times.
SPEAKER_00: Five times in this one verse.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what's known as a genitive superlative in the Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: Um much like when you come across phrases like holy of holies or king of kings, what it means when they put these two words together, so literally in Hebrew it's like heavel, heavil, says the teacher, heavil, heavil, everything is heavy.
SPEAKER_00: And so, whenever in Hebrew poetry they put those two words together, they want us to get this idea and this understanding of absoluteness or a definitive reality.
SPEAKER_00: Something that is without a doubt.
SPEAKER_00: It's something of the highest level.
SPEAKER_00: So the author says, heavel, heavil, says coholate, heavil, heavel, all is heavily.
SPEAKER_00: He's emphasizing this idea of absolute futility, and so the CSB translates it as absolute futility.
SPEAKER_00: And what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: Everything in the world is totally characterized by heaven.
SPEAKER_00: This is a big theme throughout the book.
SPEAKER_00: So here, we see it at the end.
SPEAKER_00: And in chapter twelve, but this is also something that's very interesting about how the how the Hebrew mind works.
SPEAKER_00: As they're reading this, and we will get there sometime in the Pentateuch.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Leviticus chapter 16 is one of the best chapters in the whole Bible, but we'll get there someday.
SPEAKER_00: But this is what's important for the Hebrew mind.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is how they thought.
SPEAKER_00: They thought beginning, they thought end, they thought exactly in the middle.
SPEAKER_00: And when you take all of the Hebrew words in Ecclesiastes, all of this is on purpose.
SPEAKER_00: This is how they do it.
SPEAKER_00: You take all the words in Ecclesiastes, and you go to the exact middle of the book of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: This is where it takes us.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me to chapter 6, verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 6, verse 9b is the exact middle of the book of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: And what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: This too is futile and the pursuit of the wind.
SPEAKER_00: So here we have it at the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: Absolute futility, says the teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Absolute futility.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is futile.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle, futility, the pursuit of the wind.
SPEAKER_00: And then if you flip over to chapter 12 at the end, what does he say in verse 8?
SPEAKER_00: Absolute futility, says the teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is futile.
SPEAKER_00: This is a big, super important theme throughout the book.
SPEAKER_00: And he just introduces us to it right off the bat.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 3, it says this: What does a person gain for all his efforts that he labors under the sun?
SPEAKER_00: You know, even reading this verse back in chapter 1, it probably sparks a remembrance of Matthew 16, 26, when Jesus says, For what will profit or benefit someone if he gains the whole world, yet he loses his life or he loses his soul?
SPEAKER_00: And in a very real way, Jesus is drawing from what Kohle has has brought us to here in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: What does a person gain for all his efforts as he labors under the sun?
SPEAKER_00: And that's another important phrase throughout the book of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: This phrase comes up over and over again, under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: And in the book, what this phrase is doing is it's describing literally everything that the world struggles with under the effects of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And it's important because we're gonna see it time and time again under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: So when you see that phrase, everything that the world struggles with under the effects of sin, everything on this side of life.
SPEAKER_00: And Koalade is beginning to show us that this temporal life is fleeting.
SPEAKER_00: Yet we spend our entire lives trying to make it comfortable, trying to make it successful for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the question: What you and I do, what will we have to show for it when we stand before our holy and just God?
SPEAKER_00: Our entire lives, if you think about it, we're starting to kind of get a glimpse of what he's gonna take us to, but our entire lives are, you know, you go to work, you make money, you come home, you eat.
SPEAKER_00: You put on clothes, use your money, stay in the house you're in.
SPEAKER_00: You go to work the next day, make money, come home, you eat, you put on the clothes.
SPEAKER_00: I won't mention to you what happens to the food after you eat.
SPEAKER_00: But it's seriously this like this like daily cycle, eating and that other thing, and daily like clothes, and then clothes wear out, and and then like things in the house break, your furnace goes, and your gardens are just full of weeds, and and things just keep popping up, and you're like, man, what's the point of this?
SPEAKER_00: I just fixed this 10 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Why is it broken?
SPEAKER_00: Then you go to work again, you make money, you eat, you do that other thing.
SPEAKER_00: And so what what what what does he do?
SPEAKER_00: What does he do?
SPEAKER_00: He then brings us to these rapid fire, in this rapid fire motion between verses four and eleven.
SPEAKER_00: The kind of it shocks us to pay attention because in verse 4, just like, oh man, starting in verse 4, we're gonna go through these things quickly.
SPEAKER_00: But verse 4, we see generations come and generations go.
SPEAKER_00: Just think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know the names of your great-grandparents?
SPEAKER_00: Those who aren't on uh you know one of those ancestry.ca kind of things?
SPEAKER_00: Now, if that didn't exist, and if you didn't have the family Bible, okay, would you actually know the names of your great-grandparents?
SPEAKER_00: I think I can name most of mine.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But do you know the sounds of their voices?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Likely not.
SPEAKER_00: What do you know about their personalities?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, why would it be any different for us?
SPEAKER_00: And this is the grim reality of the picture, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I would love to think, man, my great-grandkids, they're gonna be thinking about me all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, probably not.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is where he starts.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah, you're gonna be forgotten because you've forgotten everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: And then he moves into verses five through seven where he considers creation, and he's again showing this whole cycle in verses five through seven, the sun rises, sunsets, panting, it hurries back to the place where it rides.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just think about the sun panting quickly back.
SPEAKER_00: And then we get like um gusting to the north, uh, verse six, turning to the north, turning, turning goes the wind.
SPEAKER_00: You get the wind, sun's panting, the wind blowing.
SPEAKER_00: It's all on this cycle, it's doing all the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Then verse seven, all it gets better, and then the streams flow into the sea.
unknown: Shh.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the sea is never full.
SPEAKER_00: To the place where the streams flow, they will then, what will they do?
SPEAKER_00: This is a big reveal.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna flow again.
SPEAKER_00: Sun will be panting, the wind will be blowing, the streams will be flowing.
SPEAKER_00: It's his idea.
SPEAKER_00: You know, literally, no matter what happens, the sun will still do its thing, the wind will still blow, and the streams will still flow, and none of those things care about what's in your bank account.
SPEAKER_00: None of those things care about your happiness.
SPEAKER_00: Or your joy.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing compared to the real joy giver.
SPEAKER_00: Which we're gonna see he cares.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the most tragic things will happen and the wind will still blow.
SPEAKER_00: The sun will still be setting.
SPEAKER_00: The most wonderful things will happen, and tomorrow we will feel the warmth of the sun on our faces again.
SPEAKER_00: It's all a cycle.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 8, our eyes and our ears are never full, never satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9 to 10, there is nothing new under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: Like, literally, like there is truly nothing original.
SPEAKER_00: It may be packaged in a different way, but sin is sin.
SPEAKER_00: You know, darkness is darkness, light is light, wickedness is wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: It's on this cycle, it's been going on since the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: If he didn't already just like lay it on us, verse 11, he says, There is no remembrance of those who came before you and of those who will come after you.
SPEAKER_00: And there will also be no remembrance by those who follow them.
SPEAKER_00: He's basically like, yeah, everyone, you're you're gonna be forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: And what Colette is saying is that this is what life under the sun looks like.
SPEAKER_00: Seeking to be fulfilled with this temporary life.
SPEAKER_00: But as I said, stay with me because he's going to show us that God remembers us, God cares for us, God has good and eternal plans for us, and the brokenness of this sin-cursed world will never compare to what our God has in store for us.
SPEAKER_00: In order for us to have a joy-filled life in pursuit of God, we have to start here with this grim reality and see the sad, monotonous, mundane reality that each of us lives day to day just to feel a little bit more comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: That in the grand scheme of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And Colette further expounds on this in chapter 1, verses 12 to chapter 2, verse 23, where we see that a joy-filled life then rejects the emptiness of the prosperity life.
SPEAKER_00: A joy-filled life rejects the emptiness of the prosperity life.
SPEAKER_00: In interpreting wisdom literature, it's important for us to realize that it's different than other genres of literature within scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom literature is there, they're sayings of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: They are not promises of prosperity.
SPEAKER_00: They're sayings of wisdom, not promises of prosperity.
SPEAKER_00: And we see this too in the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and one of the big ones we we come across, I come across as a pastor and talking with people, is like, I trained up my child in the way that they should go, but they've departed.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a hard thing.
SPEAKER_00: That's a hard moment.
SPEAKER_00: That's a hard thing to go through as a family, especially for your love and your care for your children.
SPEAKER_00: But that proverb is not a promise that your child is going to follow after the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's wisdom literature.
SPEAKER_00: They're like pithy sayings.
SPEAKER_00: And what they do typically, like with Proverbs and Wisdom Literature, they paint a portion or just a small picture of the grander picture.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you come across wisdom literature, you have to understand it in the context of the whole Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Don't isolate Proverbs from the rest of the canon of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Use the rest of the canon of Scripture to help you understand what Proverbs is saying.
SPEAKER_00: Use the rest of the Proverbs to help get a clear picture.
SPEAKER_00: For instance, this is an example, Proverbs 3, 9 to 10, and the verses should come up on the screen behind me, but Proverbs 3, 9 to 10 says this: honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first produce of your entire harvest.
SPEAKER_00: Then your barns will be completely filled, and your vats will overflow with new wine.
SPEAKER_00: So as long as you honor the Lord with your finances, God will give you overflowing vats of wine.
SPEAKER_00: God will give you completely full barns.
SPEAKER_00: You won't go hungry a day, all of these things.
SPEAKER_00: But then Proverbs 17:1 kind of gives us the balanced approach, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so we have to understand these Proverbs, these sayings of wisdom, and a balanced approach.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 17.1 says, better a dry crust with peace than a house full of feasting with strife.
SPEAKER_00: And so what he's saying is this sometimes it's better to be poor and just have a dry crust to eat.
SPEAKER_00: Because that that in that poor state with that dry crust, you can be the most godly person.
SPEAKER_00: So we have to understand, proverbs are not promises of prosperity.
SPEAKER_00: They can say two different things.
SPEAKER_00: And they often do.
SPEAKER_00: But they give us a picture, they give us a paint a clear picture of the total thing.
SPEAKER_00: So they're painting a picture of reality for us.
SPEAKER_00: So the other thing when it comes to understanding like little proverbs and wise statements and pithy statements, is that they're not instructions and they're not commands.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way that the Ten Commandments or the instructions of the apostles to the church would be.
SPEAKER_00: So they're wise sayings, we learn from them, we interact with them, but they're not on the, they wouldn't be in the same way as you know Ephesians, uh Ephesians would be or Colossians would be.
SPEAKER_00: So as we're interacting with wisdom literature, we want to keep these interpretive principles in mind, especially as we uh can be commonly, we can misunderstand and misuse some of these proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: And as always, we want to be careful as we interpret, as we apply scripture properly, that we do so the way that the authors of scripture do, and that Jesus models for us.
SPEAKER_00: And they model for us how to do this.
SPEAKER_00: And in a big way, these proverbial sayings that we're going to encounter in wisdom literature, especially in the book of Ecclesiastes, they're fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They paint us a picture of that full, amazing hope that we have in him, where one day all things will be made new.
SPEAKER_00: But here are the things we see in these verses, and then we're gonna look at the last section together.
SPEAKER_00: We see he talks about this uh limitations of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: There's even limitations in wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: We see this verses 12 to 18, chapter 1, verses 12 to 17, talking about wisdom being the pursuit of the wind.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the idea that they're chasing after something that you can never catch.
SPEAKER_00: And this is kind of a shocking statement about wisdom, but this is where this, what I was explaining to you, you've got to take it within context because the first section that I have listed there, 12 to 18, coupled with the second section, chapter 2, verses 12 to 17, give us this balanced approach where he says, okay, you can even pursue wisdom in a foolish way, in a frivolous way, but wisdom is most definitely better than foolishness, he says, in the second section.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom has its disadvantages, he even says.
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is a really humbling thing to realize in verse 18 of chapter one, where he says, For with much wisdom is much sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: As knowledge increases, grief increases.
SPEAKER_00: The more you know, the more you're gonna see about the reality and the state of our world and our own souls.
SPEAKER_00: So wisdom shows us and identifies for us just the frivolousness of this uh current life.
SPEAKER_00: But it also has its advantages as he talks about in chapter two.
SPEAKER_00: But then the second thing that he really hits home here with in chapter two is the emptiness of pleasure, possessions, and professions.
SPEAKER_00: The emptiness of pleasure, the emptiness of the things that you have, and the job you have or the work.
SPEAKER_00: And collate does this.
SPEAKER_00: He explains that he had it all, he pursued it all, but he still came up empty.
SPEAKER_00: He pursued everything imaginable that the world would say is good for people to pursue in our lives, pleasure, comfort, possessions, prestige, the profession.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 11 becomes again the theme of chapter two, verse 11 becomes the theme of the whole book again.
SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
SPEAKER_00: When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to what be health, be futile, the pursuit of the wind.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing to be gained under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: And here's a good question for us.
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on talking about the emptiness of work or a profession in verses 18 through to 23.
SPEAKER_00: But here's a really important question for us is how have you allowed the things of this like to take the things of this life to take hold of your soul and of your heart in a way that God is only meant to take hold of it?
SPEAKER_00: And this is why when we come to verse 24 to 26, it's so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: This life is full of difficulty and strife, everything is empty.
SPEAKER_00: And then the author says this, and this is where we come to the conclusion that pursue God, the creator of life, the joy of life.
SPEAKER_00: He says this in verses 24 to 26.
SPEAKER_00: So after all of this, everything's worthless.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing better for a person than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work.
SPEAKER_00: I have seen that even this is from the hand of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from him?
SPEAKER_00: For to the person who is pleasing in his sight, he gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy.
SPEAKER_00: But the sinner, he gives the task of gathering and accumulating in order to give to the one who is pleasing to God's sight.
SPEAKER_00: This too is futile in the pursuit of wind.
SPEAKER_00: And this teaching comes up several times throughout the book of Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see it again in chapter 3, chapter 5, chapter 8, chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: But this is the message.
SPEAKER_00: God wants you to enjoy life.
SPEAKER_00: God wants you and I to enjoy life.
SPEAKER_00: The difference is between enjoying life with God or striving to enjoy life in an empty way, which is meaningless away from God.
SPEAKER_00: Because with God, wisdom is truly enjoyable.
SPEAKER_00: With God, righteousness is truly successful.
SPEAKER_00: With God, knowledge has real purpose.
SPEAKER_00: With God, joy is attainable.
SPEAKER_00: But the only way is, what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: With God.
SPEAKER_00: How can anyone enjoy life apart from him, verse 25?
SPEAKER_00: Derek Kinder puts it this way: as a real citizen of this tantalizing world, Kohole feels acutely the futility that he describes.
SPEAKER_00: He burns in the injustices and the disappointments of life, mourns the passing of youth and the universality of death.
SPEAKER_00: Even while he bids us set our hearts not on earthly vanities themselves, but on the Creator, from whom we can gladly, responsibly accept the good of life with all its enjoyment for what it is.
SPEAKER_00: But in whom alone is the eternity, the forever of which he has made us conscious.
SPEAKER_00: But the same word for heavel, but this time in the in the Greek form, is used.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18, Romans chapter 8, Paul says this for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.
SPEAKER_00: For the creation eagerly awaits with anticipation for God's sons to be revealed.
SPEAKER_00: For the creation was subjected.
SPEAKER_00: To futility, to heaven, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God's children.
SPEAKER_00: For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as a first fruit for firstfruits, we also groan within ourselves, eagerly awaiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
SPEAKER_00: Now in this hope we were saved.
SPEAKER_00: But hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes in what he sees?
SPEAKER_00: Who hopes in the temporal?
SPEAKER_00: We hope in something better.
SPEAKER_00: We pursue something better.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the heaven question.
SPEAKER_00: And in closing, I think there's a couple considerations for us.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is this you may be here this morning, and you can relate to the teacher or the preacher.
SPEAKER_00: You can relate to Koal A.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it's Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is this is as he's looking back over his life, seeing all the regrets, how everything he pursued meant, nothing compared to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you're here this morning and you look back with regrets.
SPEAKER_00: You identify that you made pursuits of hell your life's aim.
SPEAKER_00: Because of it, maybe you look back and you say, my like relationships suffered.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe your relationship with God suffered.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe your relationships with your children have suffered.
SPEAKER_00: And you might be in the in the time where you you're you're trying, perhaps, I don't know, this is you, but you're trying to make up for it.
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to get busy with things, just to just to make up for all that.
SPEAKER_00: You can't make up for the past.
SPEAKER_00: And why do I I don't say that to make you feel worse about yourself, but I want I want you to understand God doesn't expect you to.
SPEAKER_00: Be free.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want you to.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has made what was heavily new.
SPEAKER_00: Did you notice at the end of the book who he addressed it to?
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 12?
SPEAKER_00: We don't know who he addresses it to until chapter 12, verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that nice?
SPEAKER_00: He says, but beyond these things, my son be warned.
SPEAKER_00: He addressed it to his son.
SPEAKER_00: He sees at the end of his life it was all heavily, and now he addresses it to his son.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that amazing?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that beautiful?
SPEAKER_00: Because what I see here is I see he is hopeful that his son would see and do things differently.
SPEAKER_00: That his dad's example, he would see that that stuff is the pursuit of the wind, and I need to, I need to pursue the Lord and his glory and his goodness and his joy.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe you're here this morning and you can relate to the teacher.
SPEAKER_00: But even for all of us, like as the end of chapter two puts it, just enjoy the goodness of God today.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy his goodness.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, life is a gift.
SPEAKER_00: Stop striving to do it without him.
SPEAKER_00: It is only in God that joy may be filled and complete.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy what tastes good, he says.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy what you eat, enjoy what you drink, enjoy your work.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy what tastes good.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy what work you're able to do.
SPEAKER_00: All of this is from God's hand.
SPEAKER_00: And it gives him pleasure that you are enjoying it.
SPEAKER_00: Pursue and enjoy life with him as you do.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom, knowledge, and joy will increase because he is overwhelmingly satisfying.
SPEAKER_00: And as the lover of your soul, he is the ultimate joy giver.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray, Father, please help us to enjoy you.
SPEAKER_00: To find our comfort, our help in you.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to see life as you see it.
SPEAKER_00: And as we go through the book of Ecclesiastes with this reality check, Lord, I pray our hearts would be transformed for your glory.
SPEAKER_00: That we would enjoy you, your love, your truth.
SPEAKER_00: We would pursue you with fear and with grace.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.