Ecclesiastes 1:3-8

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INTRODUCTION:

If Life is supposed to be so great, why does my life seem so pointless?

After the shock of verse 2 begins to wear off, Solomon explains why he made such a blunt statement.

When man, using secular wisdom which leaves out God, tries to find significance to life, he will eventually end up echoing the haunting chorus of this book, emptiness . . . And now Solomon shows us why in four areas of life:

Work, nature, the senses, and history.

Ecclesiastes 1:3

What advantage does man have in all his work Which he does under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes, But the earth remains forever.

Some people, especially men in the growth-productive years of life (late 20s to 40s) see their work, their profession, vocation, as their significance in life. They define their life around what they do rather than what they are:

ILLUSTRATION: How often do we hear of someone who has worked for company only to end up having the company close their door. Or people who have great plans only to end up with nothing.

Every year thousands of small business begin and end. And every business is started with high hopes of success and profit. No one begins a business planing on failure. Yet they do fail, by the thousands.

Solomon observed this and noted that no one can build their significance on something as unstable as their job . . .

The word ADVANTAGE is the Hebrew YITH-RON and is a word taken from the ancient business world. It means money gained from work rendered.

He asks: When I have done my work, what is left?

I think we can all relate that that question. The money run out before the end of the month, the dollar doesn't go as far as it used to.

So it is a fair question and forces us to see that there is no stable security or lasting significance in the money we make or the jobs we hold.

The word for WORK is the Hebrew 'AMAL and looks at hard work. No easy job is being described here but the hard toil that has been the lot of man since the fall:

Genesis 3:17-19 Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you shall eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You shall eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.

Then in v 4 the solemn reminder is given:

Ecclesiastes 1:4

A generation goes and a generation comes, But the earth remains forever.

Our generation, with all its achievements, will pass, and another one will come, and yet the earth, the dirt in which man is cursed to toil, outlasts him.

So we go to our jobs, we earn our wage, we pay taxes, social security, health insurance, we fight inflation, and what do we have left? Maybe something, maybe a little, maybe not enough.

I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.

In Ecclesiastes 2:11 Solomon has more to say of work: Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun.

Job had it right when he said naked came I into the world and naked will I leave it.

SO WHAT IS THE POINT . . . WHY EVEN BOTHER.

BUT REMEMBER WHAT SOLOMON IS DOING. HE IS meeting the secular man on the secular level and apart from significance in God there is no point in all this.

And apart from significance in God there will be great disappointment waiting for the man or woman who tries to find their significance, their identity, their meaning for existence in what they do.

BUT LETS STEP AWAY FROM THIS SECULAR WISDOM FOR a moment and consider what work, our jobs, can be in Christ:

Four Objectives For our Work:

1. We work to bring glory to God:

Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

I Corinthians 10:31 speaks of whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

God can use us in the work place to bring glory to himself, through us.

2. Secondly, perhaps the most obvious, we work to gain a livelihood.

Man, under the curse, is destine to work. And work we will. Paul even told these who refused to work that they would not have a livelihood:

II Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone will not work, neither let him eat.

3. Thirdly, we work to have the resources to share with others.

Ephesians 4:28 Let him who steals steal no longer; but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need.

To fulfill that objective we must first set aside greed. We live in society that uses man's greed as a motive to sell and to prosper.

We have to fight greed, it is all around us. And one way to fight it is to give, not letting your right hand know what the left hand is doing. I know one man who is rather successful and confided in me that he had a problem with greed, it was an easy trap of sin for him to fall into. He fought it by anonymously giving twenty, thirty buck to people who he sensed had a need.
There is nothing wrong with wealth, there is everything wrong with greed.

4. Forth, an objective of working is to witness for Christ.

Every Christian is in full time service for Jesus Christ. Wherever we are, whatever we do as we do it unto the Lord, with an attitude of thanksgiving, we can be witness for him.

In Matthew 28:19 Jesus said As you are going, make disciples of men . . . going where, to work, to your job, to the office, the factory.

We have men in this congregation who meet with others for prayer during lunch times, for Bible study during breaks, they are fulfilling this objective and their work means something.

And when our work means something according to these objectives, it means something now and forever.

Back to Eccl. 1:3-4 So how can we avoid the despair of these verses:

PRINCIPLES:

1. If your job mean everything to you, it means too much to you.

2. You cannot define yourself by what you do, but rather by who your are.

the old saying: That is what I do not what I am.

3. Who you are is determined by your relationship to the Lord not by your relationship to you job or profession.

4. Our vocation is that of being a believer, a servant of the most high God, a child of the king.

5. Our avocation is the work we do to earn money so we can sustain our lives.

6. We can not build our significance upon our jobs, they are unsure and unstable.

7. The house of our significance must be built upon the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, not the shifting sands of human endeavor.

Ecclesiastes 1:5-7

Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; And hastening to its place it rises there again. Blowing toward the south, Then turning toward the north, The wind continues swirling along; And on its circular courses the wind returns. All the rivers flow into the sea, Yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, There they flow again.

Solomon turns from the unstableness of the workplace to the stability and consistency of nature:

Armed only with secular wisdom man would see the cycles of nature and as pointless repetition.

There is a real HO HUM in these words . . . the sun goes up and it goes down, again and again, and on and on with his observations of nature.

And that is the secular view of nature, it just keeps going and going.

But the believer, the one who lives by faith in God, sees this as the very handiwork of God:

Psalm 19:1 The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

Some today find significance in trying to save the world. They are out hugging trees and communing with nature, worried about global warming and holes in the ozone. Both which have been going on for millennia.

And what is it all for. The cycles of nature continue and while we conserve what God has given us, life on this earth will not end even one second prior to God's perfect time.

So for the believer, there is no significance or security in nature. But there is an appreciation of God through nature.

As Solomon continues to probe the ground of secular wisdom he comes upon the senses. We enjoy having our senses stimulated. We enjoy hearing a favorite song or seeing a beautiful sight. Seeing and hearing, two very important senses . . . but look at what Solomon observed about seeing and hearing:

Ecclesiastes 1:8

All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing.

That is the problem with our senses, we never can really fill them up, we always come up short. There is always something lacking.

A few years ago there was a County Song that in which the vocalist sang of the events of life. young love, pleasure, marriage, children, even life and death.

At the end of each stanza she would lament her hopelessness . . . if that is all there is let's just get drunk and have a good time.

PRINCIPLE: You will never be able to fill yourself up through the senses. Feed them all you want, see everything and hear everything, and you will still end up with a god shaped whole in your soul.

GOD NEVER INTENDED MAN TO LIVE WITHOUT HIM.

ILLUSTRATION: Picture of a piece of chocolate pie. It was not the real thing.

Man will try to fill up that god shaped whole with something, anything. But it is trying to fill the stomach with a picture.

Man says: If I can feel secure and significant in what I do, in my accomplishments, in what I perceive, in my place in the world, everything will be fine.

But is will not be fine . . . all things are wearisome.

The Hebrew word for WEARY is YA-GEA and it means to get physically worn out from labor.

Here the LABOR is trying to understand through the senses, and that will make anyone very tired.

But God cannot be perceived through the senses, it takes FAITH. And then what is faith?

Hebrews 11:1-3 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

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