Two Complaints Under the Sun

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you can take out your copy of God’s word and turn to Ecclesiastes. It may actually be hard for some of you to believe, but there are people currently sitting in this room who have yet to hear, even one, yay, verily I say unto thee, even one, one message from Ecclesiastes in 128. That’s right. I have not preached a message here on a 128th Sunday morning worship time from the Book of Ecclesiastes since the end of May.

That’s June, July, August, all of September, and halfway through October, almost five months, which also means that those of you who are brand new seventh graders have never yet heard a message. starting on promotion Sunday. We’ve been doing other things on Sunday mornings, rather than from the book of Ecclesiastes. But we are actually in an ongoing series, as hard as it is to believe that. We are in a prolonged ongoing series from the book of Ecclesiastes. And it is the search for life under the sun. In just a moment, I will probably give just a little bit of review and recap for those incoming seventh graders so that you know where we are.

But after an entire year in Ecclesiastes, we have made it finally all the way up to the beginning of chapter four. I’m very excited about that. I think that by the end of this school year, I could at least be done with chapter four. I’m pretty sure about it. I can’t make any promises. But actually, I do hope to be much further past chapter four. But who knows? I could lose my voice, a dog could eat my throat out, and I couldn’t talk. I mean, any number of things could happen that would prohibit my moving ahead in Ecclesiastes, so it is only if the Lord wills. But hopefully he’ll will that, and we can move ahead.

This morning we will look at, from chapter four, verses one through six, two new paragraphs. And each of these paragraphs provide for us a complaint from the author Solomon. I wonder if you were given, in fact, I’ll give a little bit of explanation as to why I’m asking this question. Yesterday, Mr. Sargent, Mr. Wentling and I traveled to Pullman and back. We met here at the church at 6 a.m. We drove to Pullman, we watched the Washington State Cougar Cal Bear Game, and it was not as pretty for the Cougar fans. Nevertheless, we were there, we watched it live and in person, and then we drove back, got back to the church almost at midnight or so.

So a substantially long day. But that was approximately 18 hours of being together for man moments. And there were all kinds of man moments, but obviously some of you know Mr. Saar as the inquisitor or the inquisinator. I like to kind of throw on there. The inquisinator kind of brings in Arnold And it adds the question with like biceps to it, the inquisitator. But anyway, he’s known for his question asking and so he actually started off with some questions, you know, books that we like and stuff, books that have impacted us the most. And then Mr. Welling and I got into it and so we started asking questions. And by the end, I mean it was, you know, everything was fair game.

So from favorite kind of snack food, not in a bag. Because that’s different that changes your genre of answers When you’re trying to talk about snack food not in a bag from that all the way up to things we most appreciated about our wives mm-hmm and All kinds of other things so I asked a question like If you could change one thing at Grace Bible Church, what would that be? You knew that it was going to happen, whether that was personnel. And immediately, Mr. Czar said, change the youth pastor. And we all thought that man moment was very funny. Ha, ha, ha. But you know, what’s that? Yeah. Curtis says he chuckled under his breath.

Could change one thing that you wanted, whether that was personnel or whether that was a facilities thing or whether that was a philosophy ministry thing or a program thing, whatever. So we all had our various answers. So anyway, that got me thinking about a good question for this morning to start us off with. This is kind of the soil that this question is growing out of. We’re all of our man hours together yesterday in the car in close quarters. But if you were dictator of the world, now currently that position does not exist. But let’s just say that it did like obviously God is still sovereign and in control. But let’s say that everybody else looked to you to provide the direction and answers for what was supposed to happen everywhere.

So you are the dictator or dictator-ess if you’re a girl. You’re the dictator of the entire world and you get to do that and change one thing. But that’s the catch. You only get to change one thing. And whatever it is that you want to change, that can happen. You’re guaranteed this one thing is going to happen so you don’t have to get all negative pessimistic on me, well, but it never would happen. No, that’s part of the question. You’re a dictator of the world. You can change one thing that is guaranteed to happen. What do you change? And I don’t necessarily need to hear answers. But just think about that for a moment in your minds.

Maybe you can write down your answer on your note sheet, on your piece of paper, whatever, maybe not. One thing guaranteed to happen, you had the power and authority to change just one thing. What would that be? Would you, and let’s think beyond free Starbucks for everybody. I mean that would be good. Or a year supply of free beef. Let’s think beyond those kinds of things to some bigger things. Would you, again you can change anything in the world that you want to. You have the power and authority to make it happen. Would you change starvation? Would you make sure that whatever would happen to everybody would get enough food to eat?

I mean, if you were a beauty princess person, you know, you’d be bringing world peace. Whatever might be on this kind of global level, you would prohibit any wars from ever taking place. You’d make sure that even if they didn’t agree that at least countries would get along so that they wouldn’t fight, so that we wouldn’t need to have armies and things like that. What if you could guarantee that? Would you do that? Or maybe would it be something a little bit smaller, something a little bit more personal? I don’t know what it would be. I can tell you that one of the things maybe you would consider is stopping all oppression.

You know, because there are a lot of people who are actually pretty beaten down by other people, whether that’s by their government, And that’s one of the reasons that we’re in Iraq, beyond the other reasons. That’s at least one of them, that the leadership there was not treating its people properly and appropriately, but abusing them in various ways from how they handled the money to how their physical lives were organized, what they were allowed to have, what they weren’t, so on and so forth. They’re pretty abused, kind of oppressed people. There are abused and oppressed people even in the United States. And maybe we wouldn’t necessarily say that our government is oppressing us.

But certainly there are state laws, laws that impact our education, laws that impact our parents’ parent, laws that start to get into our family. I mean, there are lots of things that can be oppressive or abusive. Would you change that?

What if you could change, at least so, that everybody avoided one sin, maybe so that they avoided bitterness and jealousy and envy of other people. Think about how many things would be better if there were, and I’m kind of grouping those together as one thing, bitterness, envy, jealousy. What if there was no covetousness? Nobody wanted what somebody else had and then would either go to war or gossip about them or slander. I mean, if there was no envy, I mean, junior high girls would be able to get along better than they do. If there was no envy, there would not be as many wars as there are. What if you could change those things? You know what the really interesting thing is? You can’t. And the two complaints that Solomon is going to give us this morning are number one, oppression and number two, envy as the driving force behind life. In verses 1 through 3 he’s going to give us a complaint about his observation on the fact that the people who have power abuse the people who don’t. And in verses 4 through 6 he’s going to talk to us about the people who

don’t have power always want what the people with do who do have power have. And we have a constant cycle of oppression and envy. We have then a a constant cycle of nobody being happy. And that fits very nicely with the theme of Ecclesiastes. And so to kind of recap to get us up to speed in a chapter four, look back at chapter one. The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. This is the motto. This is the theme of the entire book of Ecclesiastes. Habel hablim hakol habel. That’s the Hebrew phrase for Vanity of vanities all is vanity. It’s all meaningless It’s all empty. It’s all void Nothing under the Sun satisfies it doesn’t provide meaning and fulfillment in your life. You’re not gonna find it underneath the Sun Vanity of vanity says the preacher all is vanity. What do you get by all the toil that you do under the Sun zero?

You get up early, you go to bed late, you work hard, you get zero, and then actually, as we saw in Chapter 2, then you die, and then somebody else who hasn’t worked for what you did gets all your stuff. Oh, that’s fair. That’s good. You do all the work for somebody who doesn’t. Some of you relate to that in your chemistry projects or whatever it is, group projects that you do in school. Nevertheless, all is vanity. There’s nothing new. Nothing is any good. So then, after that introductory poem in verses 1-11, Solomon suggests that maybe the right answer, maybe where you find meaning in life, is in wisdom. And of course we know that Solomon is the wisest man who ever lived apart from Christ.

In fact, God Himself guaranteed that for Solomon back in 1 Kings. came to Son and asked him what it is that out of all the things in the world he could have very Jonathan Sarr kind of question out of all the things in the world what could what do you want except it was God and therefore maybe Jonathan’s questions are more like God’s questions rather than vice versa we don’t want any lightning bolts to come through the room that would distract us from finishing Ecclesiastes quickly nevertheless you can have anything in the world that you want what do you want and he said wisdom God said I I not only will give you more wisdom than any who came before you or any who come after you, but I’ll also give you with that wisdom everything else.

And this is a guy who, as we’ve studied, had all of the money and all of the power and all of the resources, all of the money and stuff, all of the women you could possibly imagine. He had more than anybody. And his conclusion is, empty. It’s vain. It’s like trying to run and catch the wind and hold on to it. That’s what all the pursuits of this life are like. So in chapter 1 verses 12 through 18, he says, well, maybe it’s in wisdom. His conclusion at the end is, you know what, the more wisdom you have, the more you realize how much of a pain in the neck this life really is. Ergo, wisdom, not really that great. It’s not the meaning of life.

So maybe it’s not in wisdom. And so Solomon pursues in chapter two verses one through 11 all of these other things, some of which I just mentioned. He looks for pleasure to indulge himself in all of the pleasures of life that people today are seeking after, whether it was the buzz of drugs, alcohol specifically he mentions, whether it was in his work trying to make a name for himself through all the projects that he did, Whether it was in money specifically, gathering treasures from all the provinces, more silver and gold than you can imagine if you think about how much food was prepared at the palace each day. I mean this guy was just feasting and partying all the time and then we throw in the music.

If you were here last Sunday night I re-preached that message on the vanity of music and King Petey Solomon, who was making the band to perform for him and entertain him. He says it’s not an entertainment. That’s not where meaning is found. Then he looks for it in women and in sex and in relationships. I mean, some a thousand different women associated with him. Just can’t think of that as being a good idea, but nevertheless, that’s what he pursued. Nothing. Empty, conclusion, vanity and striving after wind. And then in chapter two, verses 12 through 17, he talks about how isn’t this all just junk then? And he recognized that he had wisdom, but then he still realized he was going to die.

And so in a relative manner, wisdom is better than foolishness, but ultimately, both are going to die. And then in verses 18 through 23, he talked about the fact that he was getting all this stuff. He was going to work. He was making a name for himself and he was going to die and probably give it to somebody else who hadn’t worked for it. That’s not fair. That’s vanity. And so finally then at the end of chapter two, he gets his head up above the water just for a little bit. In chapter two verses 24 through 26, you remember we talked about the superlative joy or the superlative prospect of joy in toil. And that is you work hard and you be wise, but you don’t depend on your wisdom or on your work for joy, you depend on what?

God. God is the only one who can give you joy in the midst of this chaos. This is true whether you’re 50, 30, or 5 for that matter, though most of them are thinking on this level. God is the only one who can give you joy. None of your possessions can give you joy. No amount of hard work can give you joy. Success or accomplishments, no relationship can give you the kind of joy that you are longing to fill up the hole in your heart with. Nothing under the sun can do that only God. Verse 24 through 26 of chapter 2, that’s what their whole point is. There is nothing better for a person than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

This also I saw is from the hand of God for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment. It’s all about getting your sights beyond just the sun and getting your eyes fixed on God. That’s why as we talk about the theme for this year, look only to Christ. As we related to Ecclesiastes, we say look only to Christ away from this world. Because when you look and you get stuck with your vision only under the sun, nothing but frustration, disappointment, discouragement. Then in chapter 3, he established for us a sovereign God worldview. Part of the reason why all of your work cannot bring you satisfaction unless God enables it is because God is in control.

That’s really the thing that men don’t like, is that they’re not in control. But God is the one who establishes the times and the seasons. We have this poem in verses 1 through 8. through the rest of the chapter, we again have established for us by Solomon that God is in control. God is the one with whom we have to do. And so we ought to get our perspective on him. Otherwise, life is vanity and striving after wind. In chapter four, we move back to some more observations on Solomon’s part about how pathetic and miserable life really is. As I mentioned at the beginning of the series in Ecclesiastes, this is not a really positive book. This is more like Eeyore with Wisdom. This is definitely not Tigger or Piglet or Poo or Robin, Randy, Christopher Robin, Christopher Randy, his name. Maggie He apparently hasn’t got to the Winnie the Pooh stage enough for me to be watching enough of that to know his name.

Anyway, this is more like Eeyore with wisdom. This is a rather pessimistic view and there are only a few times when Solomon gets his head up out of the water and it buoys him up enough to get some air into his lungs before he goes back down and we’re going back down. Dive, dive. This is some complaints that Solomon observes. Let’s look at chapter 4 verses 1-6. Verse 1 of chapter 4. Again, I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them. On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive.

But better than both is he who has not been born and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.” That’s positive. Then verse 4, then I saw that all toil and all skill and work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. Verse 5, the fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. Verse 6, better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. And I’ll try to show you how verses 5 and 6 actually do connect with the theme started in verse 4. But let’s cover the first complaint, oppression. Verses 1 through 3, the first complaint that Solomon gives.

And there are some sub points here and that’s why I’ve even made the little keynote presentation so that you can track along with that. First of all is his observation of oppression at the beginning of verse 1. Again, I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And this little phrase, I saw, maybe your translation does it another way, I observed or I saw, something like that. This formula or this phrase introduces a reflection on Solomon’s part throughout the entire book. This is Solomon when he is old.

lived a lot of life, and this is the Solomon who has been given more wisdom than anybody else. So this is a seasoned reflection as he looks out on life and he says, I saw or I observed. And what he particular has in view in this point, what he’s an eyewitness of, is oppression. Oppression is clearly the theme of verses 1 through 3 as the Hebrew word, ashach. Ashach is used at least three times in these three short verses. To be oppressed is to be pushed down. You hear even the idea of pressing in there. To be oppressed is to be abused or put down or mistreated or pushed down by somebody else who is either in a higher position than you or has more authority than you, more power than you.

We talk about fighting the man, you know, whoever the man is, but the man is the guy who has the power, and it’s the man that’s pushing down the peoples, and that we fight against. So whoever it is who has more authority, a higher position, and pushes down, or abuses, or mistreats, or exploits, all of those are words to talk about oppression. Dictators, tyrannized, power-hungry people are always seeking to step or push down other people largely so that they can even get higher themselves. And so this oppression is something that he observes. He kind of talked a little bit back in chapter three, verse 16, you can look at that, a little bit about injustice.

He says in chapter three, verse 16, Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness. And in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. That seems to be related specifically to the courts or to the legal systems. And so there’s injustice. There’s things that are unfair. People with power are making decisions over people who don’t have the power that aren’t right. And certainly, we see that happen in our courts and our legal systems at times. But in chapter four, it’s way broader than that. In the Old Testament, there are actually various ways that we see oppression identified.

There are way more than this, I think, but at least in the Old Testament, for example, in Ezekiel chapter 22, verse 12 and 29, people are oppressed by high interest rates. I know all of you financially savvy people are like, well, that’s not right. But that’s more of a government kind of thing where people would borrow money, And they were oppressed, they obviously needed the money, therefore they were borrowing it, and the lenders, the people with the power, would charge them way more money than was appropriate or right for them to borrow that. So high interest rates was one way that people could be oppressed. That’s specifically identified as oppression in Ezekiel.

In Hosea, chapter 12, verse seven, people were oppressed by corrupt weights and measures. And so, if you were there in first service, Mr. Lugg was talking about the scale. And so if you went to the market and you were gonna buy, you know, an epoch of flour or whatever the measuring, you know, equivalent was, and they would have corrupt weights and measures on this side. So they’re the ones who have the thing that you need. Maybe it was flour. They have what you need. And so they cheat you out of your money by making their weights. How would they do that? would make their weights lighter, but actually say that they were heavier. So maybe they’d make it, say, 10 pounds, but maybe it was only eight pounds. And so they’d charge you for 10 pounds of flour when you only got eight. But you had to get it from them. There was nobody else to get it from.

And so again, the people with the power would oppress those without it. They could oppress them through weights and measures in Hosea 12. We see that in in Micah chapter 2 verse 2, there were oppressive real estate agents. And they were charging extra amounts and not giving people what was appropriately theirs, what was legally theirs, and charging them more money for that. Those are kind of governmental ways that we see oppression. Some people are oppressed through taxes. But there are lots of other ways that people can be oppressed through laws. Obviously, taxes are laws. but it can happen on a much more personal level as well.

Whether it’s an unfair authority figure who’s, you know, in some kind of law enforcement or in the education system or even perhaps in your small group. Not from your small group leaders, but maybe from one student to another student. They have something or they’re in control of something and they actually seek to exploit or to cheat somebody else out of something. You know what? That oppression happens all the time. It is all around us. And nowhere did Solomon see oppression handled adequately. It’s actually a little bit interesting for Solomon to be the one making this observation, isn’t it? Because who could have stopped the oppression?

the one in control like the king. Oh, yeah. And yet, though Solomon himself is the king, he’s the dictator over Israel at this point. He sees this oppression taking place all around, and he gives no insight that it can be stopped. He provides no suggestions or no hope that somebody can do something about it. I think that’s a little bit weird. Out of all the people in the history of the world, Solomon, I would have thought, could have called people back to a standard, God’s word, could have enforced that, and yet he says oppression is all around us. And it’s actually worse than just the observation of oppression.

He now gives us a description of oppression in the rest of verse one. There are three things he describes about this oppression. oppression is painful, the second part of verse 1, and behold the tears of the oppressed. I mean, when do you cry? And I don’t just mean at the end of a sad movie, you know, beaches or free willy or, you know, whatever it is. Oppression when something is unfair. is describing the kind of oppression that is so unfair and so painful that it brought people to tears. I don’t think there’s anything in this that’s mocking their weaknesses or that’s suggesting that they were responding inappropriately. He’s simply saying oppression is a fact. It’s real and more than just being a fact, it actually hurts. You know that to to be the case. Maybe you don’t always cry about it. But when people mistreat you and they abuse you or exploit you or cheat you, that hurts, that’s painful. And Solomon goes to the point of saying it can even bring tears. Not only is it painful, it’s inescapable.

That’s really good news. And behold the tears of the oppressed, and then the next major phrase on the side of their oppressors, there was power. What does that mean? I mean, obviously the ones who have the power are the ones who are doing the abuse. So why does he need to tell us that? Well it’s because they have the power, nenenenenenen, which means you don’t. because you don’t have the power, you can’t escape it. You can’t change. You can’t get your team together and overthrow them. On the side of the power, people is the power. Powerless are exploited by the powerful, and they can do nothing to change it. The powerful have unrestrained freedom to do whatever it is that they want.

And Solomon doesn’t say, OK, so now, You know, get a gang of people together and overthrow the oppression. He doesn’t even say, the oppressors, they’re bad. Boo. Stop. He simply says, the oppressors are the ones who have the power, and I think that means you can’t get out of it. And so not only is it painful and inescapable, third, it’s inconsolable. Look at the phrase that’s repeated two times. After describing the oppression as painful and, again, inescapable, he says this, behold, the tears of the oppressed, they had no one to comfort them. On the side of their oppressors was the power, and there was no one to comfort them.

Nobody is there to make you feel better. Nobody can come in, at least in every situation, and explain to you why it’s happening to you. There’s not people who can come in and hold you up and put their arm around you all the time. And so it hurts, and you can’t get away from it, and there’s no consolation for you. That’s a ridiculously cheery message. This is consolation-less oppression. I just said that because consolation-less isn’t really a word, but I liked how it flows. Consolation less oppression. And so let’s get to the conclusion. It gives us two conclusions. Actually, I think about it as one conclusion in two steps.

Ready? Conclusion number one. It’s better to be dead. It’s better to be dead. And that only encourages us to realize how serious Solomon is about the difficulties that come from oppression and abuse and exploitation. If your conclusion on it is that it’s better to be dead than to have to experience oppression, then he’s actually talking about something that is pretty deep and pretty serious and pretty painful.

He says in verse two, “‘I thought the dead who are already dead “‘more fortunate than the living who are still alive.‘” It’s a little bit of redundancy to say the dead who are already dead. I guess that’s just making it clear who he’s talking about. The dead people, yeah, you know them, the ones that we’ve buried, those who are already dead. Not the dead who will be dead, but the dead who are dead dead. It is better to be dead than experiencing oppression.

What’s interesting is he’s not just saying that you are better off dead than alive. Don’t make him be saying that. He’s not saying it’s better to be dead than to be alive. Life is great. At least if you are enjoying it as a gift from God. The problem is that when you live, you experience oppression and you can’t escape it. So experiencing oppression while you’re living, that’s actually not better. It’s better to be dead. So really when you get down to it, being dead is being better than living.

But you kinda have to at least take a couple steps of logic to get there. To be alive is to be aware of and to be a witness of and perhaps to experience yourself oppression. It’s better to be dead. Well, let’s take it to the next level. Never experiencing oppression is best. I’m just taking it to the next level. This is the second step of the conclusion. Verse 3, better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

Life is good, but life with oppression stinks. So death is better. Death trumps consolation, less oppression, but actually better than death is not even living at all ever. Now you can’t like, what kind of encouragement is that to living people? Well, actually we can ask what kind of encouragement is that to dead people? Well, they’re not really in the encouraging kind of mood when they’re dead. So this is not really helpful to the dead people because they already were alive. They can’t go back to before they were dead, let alone back to before they were alive. So this is no help to dead people. This is really no encouragement to people who could be hearing or reading the message.

It’s better to not have been born. No, it’s your responsibility to apply the truths of this message when you go home by the help of the Holy Spirit. Better to not have been born than to have been born an experienced oppression. How do you apply that? You can’t. It really is not that helpful of encouragement and hence the consolation-less oppression. This is not good news. There is nothing to be gained by denying the existence of oppression. It is all around us. If you haven’t experienced yet, you will. If you haven’t seen it happen yet, you will. And if your only hope is in this life, you are better off dead. That is actually the conclusion I think he’s wanting us to get from this first paragraph.

That is the only application that living people can actually walk away with. If your only hope is life under the sun, you are better off dead. It’d be great if you could not have existed at all, but none of us in that room can go back to that condition. We’re better off dead. Well, the second complaint is Envy, verses 4 through 6. He gives us first his observation of envy at the beginning of verse 4, then I saw. Again, we have that I observed, I saw. It’s another reflection. His seasoned experience in life, his position and his wisdom enable him to identify and describe these things. His observation of envy, I saw that all toil and all skill and work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor.

This is ironically the flip side of the problem in verses one through three. What’s the problem in verses one through three? You’ve got the haves and the have nots, and the haves are pushing down the have nots. What’s the problem in verses four through six? The have nots want what the haves have. You got the people with the power pushing it down on the people who don’t have the power, and you got the people who don’t have the power, the powerless who want what the powerful have. This is no good. In fact, this stinks. Envy is the word kinah. Oftentimes in the Old Testament, it’s translated as jealousy. And we know what envy is. It’s that feeling of discontentment or bitterness or irritation, even anger that somebody else has something that we want or even more so that we think we deserve.

They don’t deserve it. We deserve to have it. We would be better stewards of it. It’s that tight chest feeling that you get when somebody around you gets something nice and you’re like, that’s called envy. That’s called jealousy. What Solomon says here is that all toil and all skill, this is everything that involves work, is driven by one motivation. You know why people get up early and go to bed late working like dogs, burning the candles at both ends, how many cliches can I fit into one sentence? You know why they do that? Envy. You know why people get good at what they do so that they can be better than somebody else, so that they can get the credit, so that they can have the acknowledgments and be successful.

All energy and effort put forth in work is motivated by wanting what somebody else has. The reason people get expertise and why they work to have skill, and this is not just working hard, this is the people who work smart. Both the hard workers and the smart workers are working so that they can get what somebody else has that they wish they had. And this is not a statement that’s leaving anything to be questioned. I saw that all toil and all skill in work, this is all of it that’s out there, all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. Somebody has something that we want or we think they shouldn’t have that we should have And that is what motivates work.

The conclusion on, should be conclusion on envy instead of conclusion on oppression. At the end of verse four, maybe you’ve heard this phrase before, this also is vanity and a striving after wind. It’s empty, meaningless. You know, there are some good parts to competition and rivalry in work, sure. I mean, that may eventually come up with a toothpaste that will guarantee to whiten your teeth better than anybody else’s. Maybe that one man’s envy will finally lead to all of us being able to have white teeth, no matter how much coffee we drink or whatever.

Someday, that rivalry and that envy, that jealousy may lead us to have tires on our cars that will go for millions of miles without, you know, the tires will last long beyond the car. Maybe. But ultimately, that competition and that rivalry and that trying to outdo one another because they have what we want, it’s empty, it’s vanity. It’s not going to satisfy no matter how white the teeth in your mouth are, no matter how many miles your tires will go, no matter what else you get and you have and you make for yourself.

Under the sun, it is vanity and empty. I’ll give you the outline and then I’ll explain it later. The opposites of envy come in verses five and six. It’s laziness and contentment. These are the two opposites which we’ll cover next time we’re together on Sunday morning. I’m actually just a little bit disappointed because I even had a little diagram for us. envy. The opposite of envy is laziness, but there’s an opposite of both of those, which is contentment. You can chew on that one. But let me remind you of a couple things. Under the sun, nothing has meaning. Nothing is ever finished. Nothing is under our control.

By the way, nobody cares. Nothing ever satisfies. Nothing is original. No one is going to remember you, and then you die. And it truly is. There’s an element of that that causes us to giggle. But undoubtedly, there’s an element of that that causes some of you to cry later on when you’re by yourselves. And I totally understand and get the idea that life is hard, and then you die. I totally get the frustration that things don’t go the way you want them to go, and that people don’t take care of you the way that you’d like them to, and that people have power over you wherever you’re at, maybe, and they’re doing things that aren’t fair, making decisions about your life that you think are unjust.

And maybe they actually are unjust. And I’ll tell you what, you really have no other option than to cry and to believe that it is better off to be dead if your only hope is on this planet. The only way that real joy is possible is by getting your eyes above the Sun and focusing on God in Christ. Look only to Christ. And Christ doesn’t promise that you’ll never be oppressed. He promises to be there through it and to help you. He doesn’t promise you success in your work, but he promises you true joy if you will trust him while you work. And so if you are, and again I think based on time that you spend and amount of time I hear you talk about all the things that you’re looking for to bring satisfaction under the sun, we desperately need to get our eyes onto Christ.

That’s not from Ecclesiastes. That’s with 3,000 some years in between, and particularly the event that happened 2,000 years ago at the cross, where he can redeem our lives from the emptiness that’s here, but it requires looking to him. I pray that you do that. Father, do help us even to wrestle with the gravity and the weightiness of passages like Ecclesiastes chapter four verses one through six that tell us that we can’t escape from oppression. There is no one to console us and help us really, at least if we’re looking here. If our only vision is horizontal, if we look even to our family or to our friends, to our stuff or to our achievements, it’s all just striving after wind and emptiness.

And so cause us to reckon with passages like this that talk about the frustrations of life and then to stop looking at this life. At least to stop looking at it like it’s going to be what makes us happy to look to your son. Cause us to do that today. We pray in his name. Amen.