Life is about living down here, under the sun, surrounded by a broken world where you can't solve every dilemma, but you're obeying and trusting and following and acknowledging your Lord, one assignment at a time. And you've discovered in your exploration by means of salvation in Jesus. Pardon for sin and a peace that does endure. Strength for today and bright hope for that tomorrow. Do you ever feel as if life is a series of fleeting moments? A chase after things that slip right through your fingers?
Solomon did too. In Ecclesiastes, he explores the empty pursuit of satisfaction and success, likening it to striving after wind. In his experiments with life's pleasures, Solomon learns that without God, even the best this world offers is as fragile as bubbles and as futile as chasing a chicken that will always be out of reach.
But there's hope. Today you'll learn how God's faithfulness brings enduring purpose to your daily routines. I heard the retelling of a fictional story, the legend of a frog who went to the fortune teller to find out his future. He wanted to know what was ahead for him.
He wasn't happy with his life, the way things were going, and wanted to know if things were going to get better. The fortune teller did a little thing and then said to the frog, well, good news. There's a beautiful young lady in your future. She can't wait to meet you. The frog said, really? The fortune teller said, absolutely. She's fascinated by you. When you meet her, she's going to want to know everything about you. The frog could hardly believe his good fortune.
That's not all. The fortune teller promised this beautiful young lady is going to pay incredible attention to every aspect of you. And the frog was so excited, he could already breathe. He couldn't believe his future. He said, when will I meet this young lady in the fortune teller? He said, next semester in biology class.
Well, I think we're a little bit like him. We want to know if life's going to get better. Maybe if I meet the right person. Maybe if I get a little more attention. Maybe if I purchase something. Maybe if I have a little more education.
Maybe if I have a little better connection. Maybe that will make my life more meaningful. If you're under the impression that it takes something more, take it from someone who had it all. And he came to the discovery that everything was not enough. We're studying his journal. If you're new with us this morning, I invite you, if you have a copy, to turn to his journal. It's entitled Ecclesiastes, and his name is Solomon.
He introduces himself as the convener, the assembler, the preacher, the lecturer. Solomon has been taking us through a world of observation. We've been observing the world of nature. We've been observing human nature. And now he, in a summary statement, as he begins to wrap it up, he moves us from the world of observation into the world of experimentation, and he's going to track with that for chapter upon chapter. This is just sort of a summary statement. He introduces himself to us as a diligent explorer, and then a little later on in chapter one as a dedicated student. And I really only want to take time for the first of these two sections as he wraps this up.
He's going to introduce himself as an explorer. I want you to notice the opening lines of verse 12. I, the preacher, he is writing autobiographically, have been king over Israel and Jerusalem.
You can translate that. I've been king, and I still am. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. I applied my heart is another way of saying I devoted my life.
I devoted my entire life. To what, Solomon? To seek. It's the Hebrew verb for questioning, inquiring, to search out. It's the idea of excavation, exploration.
The same verb is used, by the way, of the 12 Hebrew spies sent out to search out the land, to seek out, to look, to explore the land, the topography, the people, the strength of the armies of the land of Canaan. These spies are not just casually walking around, whistling, you know, in the park. They're watching carefully. They're observing. They're recording. They're taking notes. Solomon is essentially saying, I devoted my life not to staying in the ivory palace.
I was out on the streets exploring the human experience. I took notes. Throughout the rest of his journal, he's going to give us the sort of details. And you'll notice in verse 13 that Solomon says he is searching everything out by wisdom.
Now, don't be misled here. That Hebrew word for wisdom, hakma, is a broad term that demands context in order for us to get the meaning. And in this context here, Solomon is telling us he's using his own wisdom. He's trying to figure out life without the wisdom of God. He's basically using his own observational skill set and his own intuition as he explores the human experience. Remember, in this journal, at this point, his perspective is stuck under the sun, remember. His insights are earthbound. In fact, the phrase here, under heaven, in verse 13, is a parallel phrase to verse 14 where Solomon writes, I have seen everything that is done under the sun.
Under heaven, under the sun, are parallel poetic phrases. Solomon is exploring life from the perspective of fallen humanity living out their lives under the sun, all the while ignoring the creator of the sun. Now, what Solomon observes about life in this exploration is true.
It's brutally true. He doesn't hold anything back. He's not intending to make you feel good or me either. What Solomon is observing, however, does not go far enough because for chapter upon chapter, he stops under the sun and never looks above it until later on. So what did Solomon observe according to his own observational skills about humanity and the human experience?
Well, he's gonna make two discoveries. First, he's gonna make this discovery, let me put it in these words, that your occupation is an unfulfilling assignment from God. Look at verse 13 again, 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, literally the children of Adam to be busy with. What's life like to you, Solomon?
What have you observed? Oh, life is an unhappy business. You could render it as an evil burden. Life's a burden.
Even my own job, my list of duties and chores, it's an unhappy burden. Now, Solomon might be, I don't know and I'm not for sure, but there are many Hebrew scholars that believe this and I'd throw my head in there with them, but that he's hinting here at the fall of Adam. His expression about God Elohim, not the personal title for God Yahweh in relationship, but there's this subtle hint about the fall of Adam and Eve where they rebelled and they sinned against God and lost paradise.
They lost the Garden of Eden. Because sin entered the world, the world became a burdensome, broken place, including the emergence of weeds, we're told, Genesis 3, the emergence of thorns and pain and anguish and sweat and toil and ultimately death because of the fall of Adam and that nature which we've received that we prove we're just like them because we sinned also. Life is a burden, it's hard and then you die.
That's encouraging. Sin has made life an unhappy business. That's why you're burdened, and I am too, with a treadmill of life he's already described, right? You're working from nine to forever and you don't seem to be getting anywhere. You get to the end of your chore list and it somehow recreates itself.
You empty your inbox and then it fills up again. You weed that garden and it just grows weeds right back again. And then you use Roundup and then get cancer from Roundup. There's a reason we call life a rat race, although that's not very compelling that we're rats in a race. But there's the brutal truth.
It's true. Every one of you have come in here today and you've got a burden. Solomon is telling us that I've observed, I've seen people working away into the sun. Let me tell you, there's no occupation out there. There's no assignment from God that is rewarding ultimately. It just seems to lead you to the same sense of dissatisfaction.
Your job, your employment, your vocation, your chore list, no matter how significant it might seem at the end of the day that I really get anywhere. This is the conclusion, by the way, of a man that I came across, did a little research on. His name was Leonard Wolf, a British publisher, political thinker. He wrote more than 20 books on economics and politics and literature. He was born in 1880, educated in Cambridge, absolutely brilliant. His writings were deeply significant in the creation of the League of Nations and then ultimately the United Nations. He spent his life awarded, acclaimed, applauded, quoted.
His wife and novelist, Virginia Wolf, you're probably familiar with her name. Here's what he said at the end of an illustrious career. I see clearly that I have achieved practically nothing. The world today and the history of the human anthill, by the way, that's telling.
He's not a believer. There's no creator, so we're just humans creating an anthill. The history of the human anthill would be exactly the same as it is if I had played ping pong instead of sitting on committees and writing books. I have therefore to make a confession that I must have in a long life ground through between 150,000 and 200,000 hours of perfectly useless work. Solomon would say, man, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You're reading my mail. You've been into my journal.
Your occupation is an unrewarding assignment and it really doesn't seem to make any difference in the end. Solomon adds another thought in this very encouraging section of chapter one. Number two, satisfaction is an unreachable achievement for mankind. We don't use the word enough. I got enough. I have enough. I've experienced enough. He says this in verse 14, I have seen everything under the sun. I've spent my life, I've devoted my life in this exploration and behold, everything is vanity and striving after wind. Now we've already talked about the word vanity. It's going to appear over and over again within the context. It can mean futility, brevity, frustration, emptiness, but now he adds this new phrase and this is going to appear over and over again. Striving after wind. You think you've caught something that's lasting? It's just a handful of air like a little child chasing bubbles. You blow out of a little soapbox or bubble container and they reach for it. I've got it.
It's gone. Solomon was rich, powerful, creative, famous. I mean he never drank anything or ate off anything except solid gold. We're told in 1 Kings he made silver as common as gravel.
He had heads of state traveling to sit under his lectures on everything from geology to anthropology. Surely he's arrived at this lasting sense of satisfaction. Now he says it was just chasing after wind. I mean imagine, beloved, imagine going out after church. There's a busload of people getting off the bus out there in the parking lot and they're running around with nets in their hands and you stop one of the guys, what are you doing?
And he says, we're catching air. What would you do? You would not call me or invite them to church. You would not say, oh man, he got another net. I want to join you. No, you'd run away. Can you imagine joining the human race that has their net out? What are you doing? We're chasing after the air.
Oh man, I want to join you. We don't do that, do we? Who would ever want to join the human race in doing what Solomon concludes is simply chasing after wind. Now what Solomon does next is provide a proverb and it will summarize what he's been observing.
Look at verse 15. What is crooked cannot be made straight and what is lacking cannot be counted. Now let me break this proverb down into two principles.
Number one, no matter how hard you try, there are dilemmas you can't straighten out. Now the Hebrew word for crooked is a metaphor for sin depravity. Solomon is observing a broken world, a broken human race with this bent toward sin, selfishness, immorality, pride, murder, lying, and on and on and on and on and on. Solomon says I've been observing this human race, this world, the children of Adam who create by means of their sinful behavior one dilemma after another that you can't completely resolve. It's unfixable. There's something about the human race that's bent in the wrong direction. If you're a parent, you know it's true because very early on in the lives of your children, you never taught them how to lie. They just picked that up.
You never had to teach them to be selfish. It was just immediately mine. That's mine. Did you notice the wisdom of man under the sun even without God can identify something as broken and crooked? We use that word today. That guy's crooked. That is crooked.
It's right out of Solomon's journal. Even the wisdom of man can put their finger on the problem of sin. Now they might not want to call it sin. They might call it crooked. They might call it wrong. They might even tell you there's no such thing as right and wrong.
You're just a leftover from the Victorian era. Well, go steal their car. I'm just using an illustration here. They're going to say, well, you can't do that. That's wrong.
Oh, okay. Our courtrooms are created because even apart from God, we know there are crooked people doing crooked things. Solomon's telling us the truth. Because of our bent towards sin, we break things. We happen to live in a world that we're unable to completely fix.
And the problem is the reflection in the mirror. Principle number two. No matter how much you have, there are deficiencies you can't provide. This and what is lacking cannot be counted. Those words lacking and counted are financial terms.
Egyptian texts, centuries old, in fact, have used these same words in economic context. So at the outset, no matter how much you have, you never come to the point where you say I've got enough now. I don't need a raise.
Everything I now make I'm going to give away. But you never have enough in there for that rainy day, that unexpected moment, that challenge, that difficulty. You never come to the point where you can count on having enough. Now, if you broaden this context, and I think that Solomon is because he's observing human nature as well, you will also find in yourself deficiencies. You let yourself down or you're unable to meet the need of that hour. You don't have the answer or the courage or whatever it is. There is within the heart of every honest human being this sense of inadequacy, this sense of insecurity, this sense of insufficiency, this sense of frailty, this sense of inability.
And anybody who would tell you that's not me, it's just bravado. It's just hot air. We're always lacking something. Solomon says this is what I've observed in my exploration. Now we can't close the book yet. Let me remind you that chapter one in Ecclesiastes isn't the rest of the story, is it? God didn't leave us alone here under the sun.
We know from history what Solomon knew from prophecy. He was expecting and we now have seen the Redeemer who came on schedule, who was born under the sun. Jesus will toil as He joins the human race and He will sweat under the sun. He will get hungry and thirsty and weary and He will even have to pay His taxes under the sun. He will be unappreciated. He will be accused. He will be maligned. He will be crucified.
He will die under the sun. But He rose again. And He now offers to supply what you and I can never come up with. We will always be deficient for the day. We will always be lacking and needy. Oh, but my God will supply what you truly need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Amen? Paul wrote that Philippians 4.19. He can meet every one of our deficiencies with His rich deposit of mercy and grace.
You don't have the resources to handle the pressures and dilemmas of life. That's true, but that's not the end of the story. You can stand strong in the power of His might, Ephesians 6.10. We don't have a remedy to fix everything, everything that's broken, but we do have a Redeemer who shed His blood so that He could, by that life-giving sacrifice, offer to us what is ongoing cleansing. He continually cleanses us from sin. That is, He never stops cleansing. That cleansing flow never ends, 1 John 1.7. In the meantime, by the way, those who believe in Jesus and trust in Him alone, He does something else.
He gives your assignments. Remember, they are at times an unhappy business, but God makes the difference by giving them meaning and purpose. So what do you do as a believer, even if it's pulling a weed or writing a term paper or suffering an illness or running a business or changing a diaper, whatever it might be? You are fulfilling your assignment from God.
So do that with thanksgiving and trust and humility and integrity and excellence so that you can testify to everybody else living around you under the sun that you have a sovereign purpose and meaning to life because what you are doing is giving praise to the God who reigns beyond the sun. What's crooked? Can't be straightened out? Let me tell you about my life.
How about yours? He can take a crooked person and make him honest. He can take a crooked path and make it straight. You can testify to the power of Jesus Christ and because of Him who joined us here under the sun and then rose above it, that life is much more than chasing after bubbles or chickens. It's a lot more than that silly legend of a frog who hopes life will get better and then life dissects you. Life is about living down here under the sun surrounded by a broken world where you can't solve every dilemma but you're obeying and trusting and following and acknowledging your Lord one assignment at a time. And you've discovered in your exploration by means of salvation in Jesus, pardon for sin and a peace that does endure. Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide us. Strength for today and bright hope for that tomorrow. Blessings all mine and ten thousandth aside. Yeah, we're in a broken world beloved and some things aren't going to be fixed until that eternal day but here and now we stand with the assurance that morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me. That was Stephen Davey and this is Wisdom for the Heart. Today's message is called chasing after bubbles and chickens.
We're surrounded by a world of brokenness where what's crooked can't be fully straightened and what's lacking can't be fully counted. But with Jesus your life has a divine purpose that goes far beyond any temporary success or satisfaction. Want to learn more about our ministry? Head over to wisdomonline.org. There you can dive into Stephen's complete Bible teaching library which includes every broadcast and hundreds of sermons. Check it out today at wisdomonline.org. Join us back here next time to discover more Wisdom for the Heart. you
