Vain Repetition (Pt 2)

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.

copy of God’s word this morning in turn two, Ecclesiastes chapter one, where we return after a couple of week hiatus. I would like to thank Micah for filling in the last few Sundays. I did get to see the Buddha idol on the front of the bulletin from a couple of weeks ago. Very much appreciated seeing that with the little okey dokey, I guess, that the Buddha was making. I can’t get enough of that, the Okidoki.

So if you look at your bulletin, I haven’t yet explained this, but on the very front of your bulletin and as you can see on the overhead or on the projector screen, some of you know what this little insignia, what this little blue magnifying glass comes from, from. And it comes from, that’s right, Tiger. That is the 10.4 operating system of the Macintosh Apple computer. And this little magnifying glass is set to represent what particular part of the Tiger operating system. It’s called Spotlight. And Spotlight is groundbreaking technology that that allows those of us with Apple computers to find virtually anything on our computer at a moment’s notice.

It is enabling you to, when you pull up the little spotlight search function, to start typing and as you type, that is friends, as you are typing, it begins pulling up the various options and possibilities for whatever you might be looking for on your computer. Virtually rendering the folder metaphor completely unnecessary as a way to store things on your computer really completely unnecessary now because again in a moment’s notice faster than you could open up Windows Explorer and find your folder and open the subfolder and open the subfolder and then double click the file that you’re looking for. All you need to do is Apple Spacebar start typing.

There it is. Hit Enter, and your file is open. Searching Word documents, searching address book, searching PDFs, searching photos, you name it. Anything you want to find with the new Spotlight technology only available on the Apple computer, you can find whatever you want. Now, I do not mention that to sell you on Apple, though, why not? As we continue to grow in the computer purchases among us all here in 128, I am always feeling more at home the more apples that light up in the room when we meet together. nevertheless, it actually functions as a wonderful metaphor for the series or the point in Ecclesiastes that we are already having started and that is searching for life. See, spotlight is the best search feature available to you. See spotlight magnifying glass looking searching wondering where is it?

searching for life under the sun. You are probably going to be seeing this little Ecclesiastes searching for life under the sun for at least a year or so. I’m not exactly sure how long it will take to get through the book of Ecclesiastes at this rate. A very long time. But we get back into our study of that today with vain repetition.

Part two, Ecclesiastes chapter one versus one through 11, which we began what must have been like three Sundays ago. Are we willing to say that three Sundays ago? Sure. Why not? I’ll say three Sundays ago, we began our study. Now this morning, very dramatic. I know this morning, I wanted to start with a little creative brainstorming that I did. I am not a particularly creative person. Some of you I’ve mentioned that to you before and you’ve said things like push-ah, supposedly thinking that I do have some creativity. And I would like to say to you guys this morning, I have none. I have virtually no creativity at all, but I did try to do some creativity, some brainstorming, so far as some descriptions go, some words go.

If I have any creativity, it may come as relates to putting words together, but beyond that, zero. That’s right. Nevertheless, I was thinking about this actually a couple months ago. It’s kind of evolved now over these last few weeks. But follow me on this one. Searching for life under the sun is like being thirsty. And then here’s the following. Okay, you ready? Searching for life under the sun is like being thirsty and picking up an empty glass and trying to drink from it. Now all of these little bullet points I’m about ready to give you. are ones that you may want to write down because it’s going to take you perhaps a few months to actually grasp the fullness of the significance of all these statements I’m about ready to give you.

Okay, so searching for life under the sun is like being thirsty and picking up an empty glass and trying to drink from it.

Searching for life under the sun is like being thirsty and picking up a glass full of water then realizing it was just a mirage. Searching for life under the Sun is like being thirsty and paying a fortune for a full glass of water to take a drink only to realize that it was saltwater. Searching for life under the Sun is like being thirsty and picking up a glass full of water and the glass shattering in your hand. Searching for life under the Sun is like being thirsty and picking up a glass full of water and then someone runs by right at that moment and takes it out of your hand. Searching for life under the sun is like being thirsty and picking up a glass full of water and drinking it. I know that was what you’ve all been waiting for now and drinking it and it’s cool, crisp, clear, refreshing water and then having heart attack and dying. All those different things are meant to illustrate that there are different avenues perhaps, and there are our different paths that we take to try to find life under the sun. There are times when we

think we’ve found the thing that is going to give us that meaning and that satisfaction, that life that we’re hungering for. There are new ways we think we’ve come up with that we’re going to satisfied, but ultimately none of them satisfy, and even if you do get something that you think is going to satisfy you, then you die. Searching for life under the sun. And that brings us to Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verses 1 through 11, which is an entire section on the vanity of life. The vanity of life, in particular the vain repetitions in life. The three main sections in this paragraph, the title in verse 1, the motto in verse 2, and then an entire poem on vanity in verses 3 through 11, all to show us the meaningless monotony of life. The endless circle of trying to find meaning and significance, but nevertheless resulting in the meaningless monotony of life. Now, as we begin this morning, I want to give just a couple kind of footnotes. Number one is, I realized that the last time I preached, actually it was longer than three weeks ago, because three

weeks ago would have been promotion Sunday. Or three weeks ago I was preaching in big church, and four weeks ago I was promotion Sunday and so five Sundays ago was actually the last time here and I’m mentioning that because I realized some of you are new seventh graders who have not heard any of the messages yet on Ecclesiastes and so my recommendation to you if you’re an incoming seventh grader or if you haven’t been here for some of our messages so far is to go to the website and perhaps to download some of those messages on the introduction and then this previous message part one and listen to those and that will help bring you up to speed. But also this morning I wanted to go through some of these basic things we’ve already looked at because again we have some new seventh graders who haven’t been with us before.

A second footnote is, and I was actually meaning to say this all last year. Yeah, I think I kept thinking about it throughout the year and meant to say it all year long, but didn’t say it because, and this is a special exhortation to those of you in junior high. Where are those of you in junior high?

7th or 8th grade, raise your hands for me please. Awesome. Special encouragement from me to you this morning and that is I have been noticing that among junior hires and high schoolers for that matter, some of you seem to think that on Sunday mornings you get to check out and that’s not the case. These messages that I’m teaching are just as much for you as a seventh and eighth grader as they are for the staff as they are for freshmen through seniors and everybody in between. So bring your Bibles and bring your pens and take notes on the little bulletin that we give you because these things are for you, you junior hires just as much as they are for everybody else. So when I was a junior My pastor, I was only teaching to junior hires, and so they seemed to get to the point that I was teaching to them as well.

But like all of us, even I was thinking this morning sitting through Big Church, all of the different things that Pastor Zimmer said that related to what we’re talking about in Ecclesiastes, and yet I’m pretty sure that some of you were just checked out. And I don’t know if you think that like his messages aren’t for us as well, but they are. So again, whether you’re junior high, high school, obviously staff too, but his messages are for all of us. We are part of the local Body Grace Bible Church, and just because you’re a student or a young person or an adolescent doesn’t mean that you just have to sit through and bear it and there’s nothing in it for you.

Just the opposite. So anyway, that ends my little footnote that everything that I say here is for everybody in this room. So don’t think it’s for somebody else and not for you. It’s meant to be for everybody. I meant to say that all last year, really. But nevertheless, we started with verse one of chapter one, the title of Ecclesiastes. Verse one is really like the title page of a modern book.

remember that I said because the title Ecclesiastes was added later. Koholeth is the Hebrew word for the gatherer or the preacher. And so Ecclesiastes, the gatherer, the speaker, the preacher, so on so forth, all those different things go together. That title is added later. And so verse 1 would have functioned as the title. It told who was writing it. Sometimes it also told who was writing to. But again, the title of Ecclesiastes, chapter 1, verse 1, the words of the preacher, the Son of David, King in Jerusalem. And I said that the author, the Son of David, the King in Jerusalem, was who? Solomon. Solomon is the only one who fits all these various descriptions, and Solomon’s testimony found earlier in the Old Testament is consistent with what we find in the rest of the book of Ecclesiastes. And that brings us to the second major element in verses 1 through which is the motto of Ecclesiastes. Habel habelim hakul habel, which is Hebrew for vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Habel is the key word there obviously. It’s the

word translated there vanity or vanities. That word occurs 38 stinking times throughout Ecclesiastes. That would be one of the ways to know that it’s a major thing in Ecclesiastes because it’s repeated so much. In its literal usage, the word habel referred to a breath or a vapor and so figuratively was used to describe things that didn’t last very long that perhaps you’d try to grab. Have you ever tried to grab your breath? Some of you would like to push your breath away perhaps, but have you ever tried to breathe out, you know, like on a cold morning. Somebody’s gonna get to use this after me. Breathe out and then try to grab a hold of it and you can’t. It’s there for moments and then it’s gone. And so vanity of entities is a way to describe all is vanity that the things in life you try to grab hold of and yet they’re empty. They’re temporary at best. They’re meaningless. They do not bring satisfaction. A motto we said is a short sentence or phrase that encapsulates someone’s beliefs or ideas. And the phrase vanity of vanities is in fact just that a motto. It is

the summary statement, the ultimate banner that flies over all the book of Ecclesiastes. Hebel, Hebelim, HaKol, Hebel, all is vanity under the sun. You remember that we talked about that is pretty key when it says all is vanity, is that actually everything all? Well, yes, all of everything that is under the sun. If he would have said everything is vanity, then he would have had to have been meaning even this verse. So this verse is useless and empty and meaningless, but that obviously wouldn’t go together. If you say that there is no truth, well then is what you just said true? Hmm. Talk about that later amongst yourselves.

Now the motto, all is vanity, has a context. The qualification is found in the very next verse, which we’ll look at in a moment, and that is everything that is under the sun. This is a lesson that some of you, I really think this morning, may know, but are not actually practicing. There are major issues at stake if you are seeking life under the sun instead of from God this morning.

Pastor Zimmer actually read this verse, how apropos was that I thought in my own mind knowing that I was already preparing to read it for us. But look in your Bible at 1 John chapter 2, because I’m going to read a couple of verses after verse 15 as well. 1 John chapter 2, starting in verse 15, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. That’s a pretty serious watershed. That is, you go either one way or the other on that. You either love the world or you love the father. You do not love the world and the father at the same time. You love one or the other. Watershed is just like the top place on a mountain where when the when the rain comes it either goes one way or the other way. And by the time it gets down to the bottom it can actually be miles, thousands of miles apart by its eventual end just from being half an inch apart at the top at the watershed.

You either love God or you love the things of the world. Verse 16, for all that is in the world, and I think we might say unto the Son, all that is unto the Son, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride and possessions is not from the Father but is from the world and the world is passing away, along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. It’s a serious line of differentiation between loving God and loving the world, and everybody who is caught loving the world is going to find that those things are empty and useless, and they are passing away. And I think why I’m even camping on this again this morning is because the amount of time spent pursuing relationships or thinking about boys and girls done by so many of you in this room is maddening to me. The amount of time some of you spend on your clothes and your possessions and the what you have is burdensome to me. The amount of time spent not talking about God and Jesus and reading His word and praying and fellowshipping with one another over

spiritual and eternal things is something that weighs on me because some of you are precisely looking for life under the Sun and you’re you don’t think that that phrase is describing you you don’t think that you know trying to get your popularity and get a bunch of friends you don’t think that trying to be the cutest you don’t think that having all the gizmos or whatever you don’t think that that’s what it is, or that you’re looking for life under the sun, but I’m telling you that’s precisely the same thing. Trying to find your happiness, your satisfaction, meaning in life from friends, or a boy, or a girl, or the clothes that you wear, or how your hair is, or all those different kinds of things, those mean nothing. And if you love the things in the world, the love of the Father may not be in you at all. And that has obviously eternal consequences. So I said last time we said this passage that we must let Solomon’s words and wisdom kind of grind on us and weigh on us and let them leave that bitter taste in our

mouth for all that this world has to offer. That we would then long for God and what he has, hopefully Solomon will help us to see the vanity of vanities. Well that brings us then to verses 3 through 11 which is a poem on vanity. This is kind of the outline that will follow for the rest of our time this morning. Two reasons I think suggest that verse 3 begins a new section. First of all, verse 2 and its motto, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. I think that that’s different than verse 3 because there’s also the same verse repeated in chapter 12 verse 8. So those are kind of the bookends. Chapter 1 verse 2 and chapter 12 verse 8 kind of the bookends, and so I think it’s clearly something special and set apart as the motto verse 2, and so verse 3 needs to start something new. Secondly, verse 3 really sets the context for everything that follows in these next verses, verses 4 through a In fact, everything in verses 3 through 11 seems to be kind of a proof.

This poem is proof that all is vanity. So I think verse 3 needs to go with the rest rather than be connected with verse 2. I’m suggesting that verses 3 through 11 as well are a poem, not because all of the lines rhyme, but obviously you can write many different kinds of poems where not all the lines end in a rhyme. the meter, that is the phrasing and the meter that you read this through is different than really through the rest of the book, the prose that’s found even starting in chapter 1 verse 12. So there’s something special here in verses 3 through 11 that Solomon is trying to kind of structure, something special there to highlight this meaningless monotony found under the Sun.

Well, we looked at before the question starting in verse 3, what does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? This is a rhetorical question. That is, the answer is assumed. That is, it’s assumed that everybody knows it. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? And the answer is what? Nothing. For all the work that you do, What do you get out of it? I mean, you get little things. I mean, you get a paycheck perhaps. Or you get some sense of satisfaction, at least on a temporal basis, I accomplish something. I like mowing the yard. You know, what does man gain by all the lawn mowing at which he toils under the sun?

Well, he gets his yard mowed. By the way, my dad got a new John Deere riding lawn mower. Let me use that bad boy. So I’ve gotten to ride two new lawnmowers. Mr. Weinberg’s lawnmower, the zero turning radius. Very nice. And my dad’s John Deere with like a, must be like a 14 feet deck, you know? So you take only three swaths on your yard and you’re done. Something, not really like that, but it was close. Anyway, I like mowing the yard. I toil that mowing the yard and then you finish mowing the yard. But you know what? I came back from Ohio in my own yard, is like full of weeds. And I got to mow it again. And next week, hopefully I’ll be able to walk around after my surgery, and I’ll mow my yard again, and then drink more of my liquid diet.

Nevertheless, so far as true satisfaction, real meaning in life, none of those things, none of the work that we do provides that. Two assumptions are here. one that we want gain. Pastor Zimmer talked about that this morning. All men are searching for that satisfaction, that profit, that meaning. Everybody wants gain and we’re willing to work for it. These are the two assumptions. Life is filled with want and work. Everybody wants something, whatever it is, most of us some kind of meaning in life and we’re willing to work to get it. The problem is there is no profit in all of the wanting and working that we do under the Sun. Won’t be found. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the Sun? Nothing. Nothing at all. Well that moves us to the next thing, which is the illustrations starting in verse four. And there are four of them.

I think I got through two of them. So see, we’re rapidly coming back up at where we were five weeks ago. The illustrations, first of all, passing generations. A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. This is the first of four different illustrations that are going to show us the meaningless monotony of life. Outside of us, when we look around all creation shows us that there’s lots of work and lots of stuff happening and yet nothing really is accomplished. The preacher hints at why humans don’t see any profit and part of it is because they don’t stick around long enough to really see the outcome of their work. We’re like ants on a rock scurrying about all over the place and yet leaving no trace, no lasting trace. Is my kid in trouble? It’s good for her. Men don’t live forever. One group replaces another and another after that. The The stubborn earth is the only thing that remains.

Men come and men go, and yet the earth from life unto the sun’s perspective is the only thing that stays. Like this verse, I don’t know if I was able to read it last time, Psalm 90 verse 10. The years of our life are 70 or by reason of strength 80, yet their span is but toil and trouble. They are soon gone and we fly away. Flying away is a picture there of dying that is being gone. There’s a cruel irony stated by Jerome in this verse. What is more vain than this vanity that the earth, which was made for humans, stays, but that humans themselves, the lords of the earth, suddenly dissolve into dust? the earth is supposed to be for us, it’s actually the only thing that stays around.

Meaningless monotony. Generations go, generations come and go and come and go. Nothing is really accomplished by any of them. This leads to the second illustration, the rising sun. Verses 5 through 7 amplify the emptiness of verses 3 and 4, showing that although creation is a hubbub of activity, no true progress or profit is found. Just like there’s no gain for man in all of his toil, so there is no gain for creation on all of her toil. Creation characterized by constant change just disguises constant sameness like the sun.

sun rises and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it rises. Now this is kind of the pessimistic way to look at it. We talked about Psalm 19.5 which talks about the sun rising and setting and coming back to do its same thing the next day like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, which is the positive way. But as we talked about as well, Psalm 19 is from a perspective that looks beyond just under the Sun from a God-glorifying perspective. The point is though here in Ecclesiastes 1 5 to accentuate the repetitiveness of the Sun. The Sun rises, the Sun sets, and then it’s like picturing it hustling back to its place where it’s going to rise up again. It’s just doing that every day like clockwork. I like that one. Day after day, month after month, year after year.

It kind of makes you tired just thinking about it. It actually kind of makes me tired that the sun is coming up at like 2.15 in the morning right now. Even this morning my wife got up it was like five something and I would have sworn it was 10 a.m. by how bright it was outside and I kind of muttered something under my breath about how irritating that was. But it kind of makes you tired just thinking about the monotony of the sun day after day. Well that leads us to the third illustration which is blowing wind from chapter 1 verse 6. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north around and around goes the wind and on its circuits the wind returns. The wind blows on all different kinds of scales from local breezes generated by, here’s some science for you, generated by the heating of land surfaces and those breezes maybe only last tens of minutes all the way to global winds resulting from solar heating of the earth.

The two major influences I found out, see I’m trying to, you know, bone up on my science here, the two major influences on the atmospheric circulation are differential heating between the equator and the poles and the rotating of the planet. So because the planet rotates, obviously some wind is produced and there are, there are winds produced by different temperatures at the equator and at the poles. However the wind or those breezes come about, however they’re classified such as global winds, such as the wind belts between the atmospheric circulation cells. It’s very highfalutin sounding if I could have figured that out in Latin I just sounded even smarter I’m sure. There’s upper level winds such as jet streams, and by the way, jet streams can really give you a pleasant or an unpleasant flight.

There are mesoscale winds that come about from certain geographic features like the sea breeze. There are seasonal winds such as the Indian Monsoon. Some winds are so constant they even have their own names, the trade winds, the westerlies, the Nor-easter, not North-easter, but the Nor-easter winds in the eastern United States, the Santa Ana winds down in southern California, so on and so forth. We’ve got anim-a-meters.

Is that how you say that? I don’t think it’s just anim-a-meters. Anim-a-meters, how about that, to measure the wind speed, weather vanes, weather socks that give us wind speed, direction. We’ve got weather balloons to track how the winds are going and yet for all the sophistication to know how fast it’s blowing and where it’s going the wind just keeps blowing and you can’t do anything about it. And there’s more wind that blows the next day and you can’t see it. You can see the effects of the wind, but you can’t see the wind itself. Wind, the blowing wind is another example of sameness with apparent change. Seems like it’s going somewhere and yet where does the wind go? Hmm, does the wind stop? I mean like when the wind stops, where does it stop?

I don’t know. You know, like the fan blowing out, just think about it in a small way. When that wind is blowing over here, where does it stop? It’s definitely stopping by some point over here because you guys aren’t feeling it at all. They’re feeling it really strong. You guys aren’t feeling it at all. Where does it stop? I can’t see that. And it doesn’t really make any difference because it’s not accomplishing anything. Maybe for Ben it’s accomplishing something. then it ends. So the wind in particular gets in these ruts.

That’s what that word circuits kind of refers to the wind gets stuck in its ruts and just keeps going and going and going and going. Looks like it’s making a big change, a big hubbub and yet nothing is actually accomplished. No satisfaction is brought by the wind. Which leads to the last illustration flowing water. From chapter 1 verse 7, all streams run to the sea but the sea is not full, to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. This is one more illustration of ceaseless but elusive and futile change. The point is that the streams do the same thing over and over and over again and and yet the sea is never filled.

Rivers are always flowing, and yet they’re never done flowing. Rivers empty into seas, and yet those seas don’t get full. Now, there’s no mention of the water cycle. James Barnes gave us a little insight on the hydraulic cycle a few months ago. There’s no real mention of that here. Nevertheless, we know one of the reasons is that the sea is not filled as because of the hydraulic cycle. So the water out in the sea evaporates, and then it goes up into the clouds, becomes clouds. The winds in their ruts blow it back over land masses where it condenses, forming some form of precipitation. That precipitation falls down to the ground and then runs in its little streams, little tributaries into bigger streams, into cricks, into rivers back into the sea. You drink it somewhere in there and you have your own hydraulic cycle and then it goes back out, cleaned all that again and again. There is a continuous flow of water always happening and yet doesn’t mean anything and it’s never done. Another illustration of life and how we keep working, we keep doing, and yet it’s never done.

One commentator suggested that this verse in particular referred to the Dead Sea. What’s so interesting about the Dead Sea is that while the river, the Jordan River I think it is, the Jordan River comes into it from the north, there are no rivers that come out of it. And so the Jordan River is always flowing into the Dead Sea and yet the Dead Sea level doesn’t rise and it doesn’t overflow, spill over, there’s no river going out of it and so the river always constant action and work and yet not accomplishing or producing anything of observable significance. Well this whole world in these four different illustrations, the generations and the wind and the water, all those different kinds of things are meant to be a gigantic chalkboard for us to learn from.

And in verse 8 we get this application, all things then are full of weariness, a man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing. This is just what the four illustrations are meant to show, that the restless activity that reaches no visible conclusion or end always beginning again and again is everywhere. generations go and come. The sun rises and sets, the wind goes round and around, the rivers ever rush to the sea, and yet all of it is just wearisome, weariness.

And when we look at it we can’t even explain it. All the unending activity, we have no words. Words are inadequate to describe it. Man cannot utter it. For all of our wisdom and sophistication. We cannot explain all those things. We cannot control all those things. We try to exert influence on those things, and yet we’re not bringing any rest to our lives. The wearies and lessons all around us are mind-boggling. There’s nothing to say. And then in the second part of verse 8 here, the unrest in creation is a reflection of the unrest in us. The The ceaseless activity and ongoing work around us in creation is an example of the unrest and unceasing labor that we do without ever being satisfied.

The eye is not satisfied with seeing. What is the eye made for? Well, to see. So we see and we want more. The ear, what is the ear made for? Well hearing. Well hear something and we want more. You know, it’s interesting, getting more hardly ever means more happiness. Getting more typically means wanting more and actually having more worry and anxiety. Solomon will actually talk about that later in this very book. Having more doesn’t bring more fulfillment, but it typically makes a bigger hole. The grass will still be greener on the other side of the fence, and yet we keep chasing after the wind and grasping at oil trying to find meaning and significance in it.

This is called the law of diminishing returns. The law of diminishing returns states that for the same amount of effort and energy, you keep doing the same thing with the same amount of energy and effort, you’re going to get less out of it. That’s why when you’re lifting weights. If you start lifting weights and you just are always doing the same thing, at some point you stop actually getting benefit out of it. You lift 10 pounds 10 times every day, you’re not actually going to get stronger. You have to either increase the weight or the number of times that you do the reps. You put into … I’m assuming that the same thing follows with drugs.

take some drugs and next time you need some more to get back to the same feeling that you had before. I’m not saying try that, I’m just saying I think that’s how it works. So you get something, you know, you get the gizmo, you get the cheesecake. That’s what Pastor Z was talking about. You get the cheesecake, what do you want? You want another piece or the whole thing or two whole things or a cheesecake factory. It’s the law of diminishing returns.

your eye sees, it’s happy with what it sees, and then it wants more. Your ear hears. Instead of being filled with that, you want more. We are insatiable. It’s a good word. Insatiable just means having an appetite that’s impossible to satisfy. You know, I look over at Ecclesiastes chapter three, verse 11, just to see a phrase there. The reason why the eye is never satisfied with seeing in the ear is not filled with hearing is because God has put something in all of us that makes us realize there’s more even though we are all living under the Sun he has put in our hearts eternity the Khaleesi Ashi chapter 3 he has put eternity in our hearts and so we realize that even as we go around searching and working trying to get gain and profit that there is more to this life. Stephen Curtis Chapman, there is more to this life.

Augustine said the following, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. And so all this searching about, all this labor and toil, this monotony of work that we do, trying to find life under the sun, you will never find it until you are finding and searching for life in God. That brings us to the last point which is the reflection found in verses 9 through 11. What has been is what will be and what has been done is what will be done and there is nothing new under the Sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, see this is new, it has been already in the ages before us. You know maybe we think okay well we can break out of this monotony just by coming up with something new, inventing something that’s original that’s never been thought of before. Maybe the latest whatever will get us out of our current funk. But you know what? High-speed internet is not the answer to dial up.

It’s better, but it’s not the ultimate answer. Snowboarding is not the answer. You get to the bottom, what are you going to do? Well, you gotta go back up to the top again. We try to invent new things. We try to come up with the next best thing, the better thing, and yet the answer is not found there. In fact, nothing is really new anyway. Now, some people take issue with that. How can it be that there’s actually nothing new under the sun? I mean, we live in the 21st century, for goodness sake. I mean, we’ve got all kinds of cool stuff, But the point is not that there aren’t actually, you know, new colors of carpet or, you know, new technological advances or modern conveniences, as much as to say that there is nothing new in the sense that nothing new actually satisfies.

On one hand, so many of the things we think are new actually are old anyway. else has already thought about it in the past, either an idea or an actual thing, indoor plumbing is not new. They had that a long time ago, okay, in earlier civilizations. There’s a lot of things that already have been in the past anyway that have just been forgotten, but secondly, nothing is new in that nothing, we can invent nothing that pierces the monotony of life that really brings meaning. The same elements of life working to get satisfaction are always the same. Birth, marriage, work, and death, those all remain unchanged. Whether it’s cars or computers or airplanes, I mean, yes, some things have been invented that make life a little better, but you know what?

The idea of trying to find something that makes life easier or better has been around for a long time. for life and inventing new things is a very old idea. None of the things we come up with can stop the sun or the wind or the water or death. People keep on looking for popularity, power, happiness, and yet there is really nothing new that will satisfy. In fact, trying to come up with something new to satisfy is itself an old error. Verse 11, there’s no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after. That is, even what you do now is not going to be remembered. And so somebody’s going to repeat your error sometime in the future because they didn’t learn from our mistakes. Meaning then can’t be found in the past and it can’t be found in the future. And as we’ve seen, it can’t be found in the present either. Well here’s some bullet points of my conclusions.

Nothing has meaning. Nothing is ever finished. Nothing is under our control.

Nobody cares. Nothing ever satisfies. Nothing is original. No one will ever remember you and then you die. All of that is under the umbrella searching for life under the sun. And whether that’s in your gadgets or your girlfriend or your garbage, trying to think of another G, I couldn’t think of one, your games, your gadgets, your girls or your games, none of those or guys, yeah, girly men, none of those things can truly satisfy you. The believer on the other hand, God gives the gift of being able to enjoy this life in all of its meaningless monotony. But there are two separate gifts there, the various things and the ability to enjoy those things. There are two gifts, not just one. Only the believer has both. The work and the ability to enjoy the work. It’s the same kind of thing as a can of peaches is a gift and a can opener is a second gift. Only the believer has the can opener. That is the ability to enjoy what God has given in the monotony, the repetitions of life. In Psalm 90, verse 12, the psalmist says,

Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. And I just wonder if you will be weaned off of what the world has to offer you, or if you’ll keep searching and struggling and toiling and laboring to find your gain under the sun. Some of you are doing that. Some of you are already doing that. And God is the only true source of happiness, the only eternal source of happiness. Pastor Z’s messages have been saying the same thing already from the Sermon on the Mount. And listen to Solomon. He was somebody who had all of that stuff and said it didn’t bring any satisfaction whatsoever. Joy only comes in God.

Father, help us to remember that. Even this week, in all the things that we do, getting up tomorrow and working again, and the next day and the next day, for all of our toil and labor, there is no ultimate meaning or profit, unless that labor and toil is done by your strength and for your glory.

Give us that mindset that can get beyond just under the sun this week, and all the things that we do, and we ask this for your name’s sake. Amen. All right, lots of different signups and opportunities for you to serve. I would just take this moment to remind you that Worlds for Sale is something that benefits you. So Worlds for Sale is a lot of benefit and toil and work. Sometimes it can seem like vain repetitious work, And yet it is something that benefits 128, whether through short-term ministry projects or through getting worship team sound equipment, through supplementing and helping to pay for other events that we do, such as the kickoff, even ICTUS perhaps we’ll need to provide some for.

I mean, I think on the 05SR, by not charging you more money, the 128 budget still had to pay something like over $1,000 to cover costs that we could have charged you. So World’s for Sale is something that has and will continue to benefit you as students and as staff. So your labor is not completely in vain even for you.

Okay, so help us out whether that’s through the drop-offs or through next Saturday the collections or through the clothes sort or through actually being there at the sale itself. So keep that in mind, all right? Well, we can leave the room. It’s current status. We don’t have to go through the vain repetition of setting it back up for school tomorrow. And hopefully we’ll see you back tonight. Brian Ronk is actually getting baptized. He’s the guy. So be here for that and then for the ice cream afterwards, all right? You guys are dismissed.