Life Under the Sun: What’s the Point?

Introduction

Carl Jung, a psychologist and philosopher said, man cannot stand a meaningless life. Another philosopher said, give a man a why, and he can endure almost any how. The point is that without a guiding purpose in life, the soul withers. We don’t feel any meaning, we don’t feel any purpose. It all seems kind of monotonous and tedious. And the reality is what both of these men are getting to is actually that our souls, the humanity seeks something to fight for. Whatever it might be, especially if it’s not God, we’re looking for some other cause or some other battle to fight. We need some kind of purpose and meaning in life. In fact, I think this is what we’ll get to later on when it talks about eternity being in our heart, we know there’s something bigger, we know there’s something greater out there, and so we’re looking for some kind of cause or purpose.

The debilitating part of this, however, is that these battles and causes, when separated from the purposes and the will of the Creator Himself, simply leave man empty, raging against injustices in the world, many of which we can never fix. And yet this seems to be so important, and you see this all around us in all sorts of ways. People raging against things of the world, and yet there’s really no answer to them. Jung himself also taught and believed that man often turns to things like addiction and anxiety and depression or compulsive behaviors as a substitute for spiritual meaning. It’s a reaction to despair that comes from the realization that we actually have very little control in the world. And so any purpose that doesn’t have God at its center, at some point we realize just has nothing to it.

1. Life Under the Sun Is Full of Weariness

And this is really what the teacher of Ecclesiastes is recognizing toward the early part of his teaching. In the book of Ecclesiastes, he is this leader of the gathering. That’s the idea. That’s why it’s called Ecclesiastes. He’s the teacher, a philosopher. He is the kind of person who brings people together and they listen to his wisdom. And this is the wisdom he’s sharing with them. Now you look at the world around you, and it’s just all of these cycles, and that the things just keep happening over and over again. The sun rises and it falls, and then it goes back to its place and it does it again, and the wind blows and it goes around in circles. There doesn’t seem to be much point. The streams flow into the ocean, and yet the streams just keep flowing.

And from a certain perspective, what he’s talking about here is looking at life under the sun from ground level. When we look around, we just think it’s just the same thing all the time. And how do we make sense of this? And of course, his reaction here is that life is vanity, it’s heavily, it’s absurd, it’s vapor, it’s temporary, it doesn’t make much sense. It’s mystery. And then to top all that off, when it’s all said and done, there’s there’s no remembrance. And we talked about this some last week, so I won’t go into the details about this idea of vanity and under the sun. I kind of wanted to use that to set up what we’re gonna do today, but the reality is we look at the world particularly with no vision for God, no vision for the creator, it’s just hard and difficult.

There doesn’t really seem to be much point. What has been will always be, the wise man says, and what has been done is what will be done. And there’s nothing new under the sun. This is an under the sun perspective, by the way. Nothing new. He’s not actually saying there’s not anything ever that’s new. He’s saying when we look at life, we look at the world, the things that happen and the cycles that take place, it just seems like monotony. It’s just the same things all the time. And so he’s applied his heart. And he’s done so not in a frivolous sort of way, not in a casual way, seeking after things. If you are reading through the book, you’ll see he’s he’s seeking after things like pleasure and possessions and building things.

And a lot of these things are good in and of themselves. It’s not that they’re bad or wrong, but what he’s recognizing as he works through this, the same sort of things that we probably recognize as well, as we do all of this, and we get to the end of the thing and we realize it’s satisfied for a moment, but it’s fleeting. There’s got to be something more here. And so in the teaching of this wise man, he’s recognizing from an under-the-sun perspective, when we look around the world, life is just full of weariness. Now, he wants to bring us to a dark place. And I recognize this last time when we preached on the kind of introduction to Ecclesiastes. And so we’re going to do the same thing.

We’ve kind of got to get to the pit to understand the solution. And the solution isn’t maybe what we think. We like to have solid answers, black and white, simple, easy. And the wise man’s going to say it’s not that easy. It’s not that you’re just always going to have answers to everything in life. But there is a direction we can go, and we can find purpose and meaning in the creator. But as he’s looking at the world, and as we often look at the world, what he realizes is there’s just there’s no gain. You know, we get up every day, we go to work, we make money, and then what do we do? We spend it, and it just happens over and over. And then even if we do collect it, you know, we make money and we save it up and we build investments or whatever, eventually we’re gonna die, and that’s just gonna pass on to somebody else, and they might waste it on who knows what.

And so when we look at this full scale, it seems that life is tedious and we can’t change it. Life is not fair, it seems like it should be different. You’re born and you work hard and you live, and then you die, and then it’s all forgotten anyway. A generation goes and a generation comes, he says, but the earth remains forever. Now, what I want us to see, I want to paint the dark picture, but I want to give a little glimmers of hope along the way because my goal is not to depress you this morning. There’s these little in there, like the idea that the earth remains forever, that there are unchangeable things, even like the cycles he’s pointing out. I mean, there’s the tediousness of it as well, but there’s also some security in the fact that God has created things to happen in certain ways, and so amidst the chaos and the randomness, all the things we see in the world that don’t make sense, it is actually kind of nice that we have seasons, and that we can expect the sun to rise every morning and fall.

2. God Is in Heaven and We Are on Earth

There’s these things that we can predict, and so on one hand, sometimes it feels tedious and monotonous. There’s actually from a different perspective, there’s some security in this. And what the wise man is wanting to help us do is change our perspective. To get out of this perspective that is kind of in the dredges, down and darkness, which we’re all gonna face at times, and to see, we can come out of it and we can see. We can see these various things not for the monotony and not for the tedium of it all, actually as a blessing of God. And in this way, we have to be careful to remember our lowly perspective in the world. This is really the idea of chapter 5, when he says to guard your steps when you go to the house of God.

Chapter 5 and verse 1. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few. A little bit of a reminder of the story of Job. There’s so much we don’t understand, and that’s what the wise man’s pointing out here. There’s a lot we don’t get. And there’s things we can figure out and we can explore the world and we can learn, and hopefully we can change our perspective and see things in a positive way, often. Sometimes we won’t, but even in the midst of that, remember who you are.

That’s his advice. Remember, you were on earth, and God is in heaven. This is what Job had to learn by the end of the book. When God begins to question him about all the things that have happened, do you understand all these things? And of course, Job doesn’t, and it’s a humbling experience for Job. He realizes I just need to trust God. I don’t understand it all from ground level in life under the sun. It doesn’t all make sense to me all the time. And the point here is God doesn’t promise that it will. There are things that belong to God. There are things that are his that he controls that we couldn’t even understand, even if he revealed them to us, which is part of the point he’s making to Job, which is sort of backing up the message of Ecclesiastes.

But we have to remember our lowly perspective in life. God is in heaven. We are on earth. And along with this is just the reality that life isn’t all about me. It’s not about me always understanding everything. That’s that’s not the creator’s goal. And he didn’t create us and say, you know, what I really want is for humanity to understand everything. That’s actually not his goal. The goal is for them to have a knowledge of him and to honor him, to praise him for who he is. It’s about something bigger than me. And like I said already earlier, we all sort of grasp this. All humanity, not even people who are sitting in buildings like this morning, but really everybody understands they need something bigger than themselves.

And so sometimes they turn to some movement or cause, whatever it might be, they’re gonna save the whales or they’re gonna save the rainforest, or whatever it might be. There’s some bigger cause they feel called to, and they’re passionate about that. And of course, some of those things in and of themselves are fine as long as they’re centered in the reality that God is the center of it all. And without that, we’re all going to end up empty and hopeless in the world. This is what the wise man wants us to understand. Life is heavy, it’s absurd. You can save all the whales you want, you can save all the trees, you can rage and rail against corruption and government and business, whatever it may be, and at the end of the day, it’ll all still be empty.

If it’s not based in the reality of the creator and God himself, and pointing ourselves and being oriented toward him and making his purposes our purposes. And so life is heavily, but eternal life brings hope and comfort. Life seems absurd, it makes no sense, it’s a mystery. And if we try to make sense out of all of it, we’re just going to be left disappointed. This is the message that he’s giving us. But then there’s these little bits of hope.

3. Whatever God Does Endures Forever

Whatever God does, he says in chapter 3 and verse 14, endures forever. The things I do will be forgotten. You know, the things that you do, for the most part, they’ll be forgotten. There are a limited amount of humans that even a hundred years ago we remember. Even less 500 years ago. Way less a thousand years ago. I mean, it’s like the main figures in history. And then how much do we actually know about them? And you know Alexander the Great, you’ve heard that name, but what do you know about his life? I mean, he conquered the world, but what other details? It’s very little. In the whole scheme of things, this is all gonna be forgotten. And so there’s got to be some other purpose for why we’re doing what we’re doing.

But the things of God, and this is why it’s so important to attach to God Himself, be connected to Him, the things of God will endure forever. And so God and His purposes are eternal, and we don’t have to understand all the things of life, but we know if we trust Him, that everything’s going to work out. If we devote ourselves not to my purposes, not to expressing me for who I am, the things that I want and my desires and all of that, but instead, I devote myself to the things of God. Whatever I’m seeing on ground level under the sun is a limited perspective. But what I do know is that God works in all things for the good. And those who fear him, he is going to give joy and knowledge and wisdom.

4. In Much Wisdom Is Much Vexation

And so this is the contrast between the view of life from under the sun and the view of life from a God who endures forever. This is the contrast that the wise man’s wanting us to pull out. And so from an under the sun perspective, even wisdom brings sorrow and difficulty. Learning more doesn’t solve all the problems. Maybe sometimes we think that if I could just understand the world better, have more wisdom, and I could understand the way the things function in the world, whether it is nature itself or humanity, you know, I could understand the mind of humanity and how people work. If I would just learn all this, maybe that would bring me some comfort and joy. And the wise man just says, no, that’s that’s not how it works.

From an under the sun perspective, the more you learn, the harder it is.

In verse 18, for in much wisdom is much vexation. And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

And as he says, his heart is applied to this. He doesn’t do it apart from wisdom. He’s trying to do this in a wise way. Right? He’s trying to find the various things in life that will bring joy and enjoyment into his life. He’s still guiding himself, chapter 2, verse 3, he’s still guiding himself with wisdom. Right? So this is not some casual approach where he’s just gonna live it up and have fun. That’s not really the goal here. He’s trying to experience and explore various things of life, and he just keeps coming up empty. And he’s realizing this is not the answer. Whether it’s entertainment or pleasure or toil or wealth, whatever it is he’s seeking after, the answer is not in that in and of itself, even if some of those things are very good things.

It’s not the what that matters, but it is the who. Who are we seeking? And why are we seeking it? This is what makes all the difference in all of the exploration that this man is doing. He’s not going to find it in the thing itself. Because pleasures are passing. Toil eventually amounts to very little because it’s forgotten. Wealth is just going to be given away or go to somebody else. And so while these things are good and fine and they can be used properly, which is what we ought to be doing, when we’re going to please God, how do we use the various things that we’re blessed with under the sun? At the end of the day, it’s all chasing after the wind. This is the wisdom that’s being offered here.

If we’re chasing a career, if we’re chasing notoriety and status, often we don’t find that anyway, but even if we do, where does it lead us? How often have we seen that person who is famous and popular and yet their life is filled with misery? Because the answer is not found in these things. And the wise person, even the wise person in the world who has no thought for God, I mean, they see the futility in all of it. They look around and they see that the same thing happens to the wise and to the foolish. You know, the people who are relatively good people, and then people who aren’t, who are foolish and evil and wicked and self-centered. The same sort of things seem to happen to everyone.

You know, what do we make of this? How do we work through this? And even so, the wise man does then say wisdom is better than folly. Even though the world often fails to make sense, it’s still better to live wise because it’s the right thing to do. And ultimately, as he’s going to argue, this leads into the fear of the Lord. As he’ll mention in chapter 5 and in chapter 12. He said, I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. The wise person, they look around and they see with their eyes and they make good choices. The fool roams around in the darkness. And so while eventually a lot of times the same sort of things happen, he’s saying it’s still better to be wise, but it doesn’t make sense.

It gives a better perspective, but it doesn’t explain to everything in the world. And so if we’re looking to explain every single thing in the world and make it all make sense, even though it’s better to live wise than to live foolish, we’re still going to come up empty.

5. Joy Comes With Connection to God

What’s the point? The point is to live our life with an awareness of God.

Don’t seek a career, don’t seek any kind of wealth. That’s not the answer. Kind of like this, you know, refrain from everything in your life. Paul talks about this in Colossians. You know, we sometimes imagine that those sort of things are going to make us more holy or more righteous. And the wise man says, that’s not really the answer. You know, do all those things. Enjoy the things that you have, but it has to be done from the right perspective and the right mindset. Joy comes with connection to God. I want you to notice the contrast between chapter 2, 22 and 23, and then 24 through 26. He’s pointed out some of the things that are futility, vanity, temporary, leading up to this. And then he says in verse 22, this is Ecclesiastes 2 22, what has a man from all the toil and striving of heart, with which he toils beneath the sun?

For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night, his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. I thought he just said that toil is vexation. Right? He’s changing perspective here. Look where he goes with this. This also I saw is from the hand of God. For apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy. But to the sinner, he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

So the difference isn’t in the things. It’s not in all the stuff. It’s in the perspective that we bring to it. Many of the same things that disappoint us from an under the sun perspective can actually be properly enjoyed as God’s gift. Apart from God, toil is vexation. And when our when our mind and our bodies are not centered on honoring God and the things that we do, it’s the whole get up every day and work and it just seems tiresome. Why am I doing this? I’m just gonna live this whole life and do all this work and then I’m gonna die one day, and what is it all gonna be for? That’s the earthly perspective. But the answer he says is to be seeking to please not myself, you know, doing the toil and the work to make me happy, but it is to honor God for the one who pleases him.

This is not about doing all these things for me. If I change my perspective and realize that what I’m trying to do is honor the creator in whatever it is I’m doing, this is where we find purpose and meaning and ultimately joy. God, it says, gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy. But notice the contrast to the sinner when you change the perspective, the one who has no view of God, no interest in God, now it’s all vanity, it’s all worthless. Now it’s just the business of gathering and collecting. Who likes that? Remember when you’re a kid and you probably weren’t bothering your parents, and they’re like, why don’t you go pick up sticks out in the yard? You know, they just want to give you some job to do.

Okay, you know, you got you gather a bunch of sticks. I mean, it’s helpful, it cleans the yard out, but is that like really fulfilling work? Just picked up rocks in the yard or gathered a bunch of sticks. Now, I know as parents, we can praise our kids and you know, say thank you for doing all that work and all of that. But you know, you get to a certain age and you’re like, I was just gathering a bunch of sticks. Like I it wasn’t really super fulfilling. On a grander scale, he’s saying that’s that’s what life is. Apart from God, we’re just gathering sticks. They’re just gonna be thrown into a fire and burned, and then no one’s gonna remember anymore that you did it.

And to those of us who are a little older, does anyone ever come up to you and be like, man, when you were younger, you gathered sticks so well? No, like it didn’t make any difference, right? And like anybody could have done it, your parents could have done it. I mean, there was other reasons for why these things were happening, and some of it wasn’t totally worthless, right? I mean, there was some purpose behind it, but ultimately it didn’t matter that much. But what if your parents are telling you to do that and they’re teaching you to work hard because you’re to work as to the Lord? Because you’re to honor your parents, your father and your mother. Because in the Lord, this is right.

What if all these little menial sort of tasks that don’t seem that important day to day are actually teaching a bigger lesson about who God is and what he wants from us? And then we look back and we see the things our parents did, and they don’t seem so worthless and futile. And we realize maybe the bigger lessons that we are being taught in the process of very menial sorts of things, right? That’s the difference. That’s what he wants us to see. Yes, a lot of our lives are very menial, and the things we’re doing are relatively unimportant. Even in the world, you’ve seen maybe on social media, you know, that the just the difference between like work and family, right? You know, like when you’re gone, they’re gonna replace your job in a matter of days.

Right? But no one can replace you as a father or a mother, that sort of thing, right? Trying to, that’s a perspective thing. It’s trying to help us understand the importance of our role. And we value sometimes things like our job, and there’s reasons for that. We need to take care of our families and all that. But maybe sometimes we overvalue the importance of certain things, and we put priority on things that shouldn’t have priority, and then later on we’ll realize we missed it. That wasn’t what life was about. Right? It was about more important things, and that’s what the wise man wants us to see. What is truly important in whatever we’re doing is that we have an awareness of God and who he is, and realizing that there is joy in longing for God and not the things of the world.

6. Jesus Is the Answer

And the New Testament writers point all these things out. One of the most famous verses in the New Testament that we probably know, so many of us know from heart. First John chapter 2, 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. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, or the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life, that’s a lot of the stuff we’ve been talking about. When it’s apart from God, we’re just seeking after stuff for ourselves. It’s not from the Father, but it’s from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Whatever God does endures forever, the wise man says. And John says the same thing. It’s not even that we change necessarily what we’re doing, or that we have to say our job doesn’t matter, or any of that sort of thing. It’s the perspective we come to the things of life with. Purpose and joy is not found in God making me rich or powerful or popular, or even keeping me from poverty or pain or sickness or trial. Sometimes we learn through those things. It’s found in seeking to please God in all circumstances. Seeing life as God’s gift. And honoring him and trusting him through good and bad times. And the New Testament talks about this too. Paul says, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.

I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. The wise man Ecclesiastes hasn’t developed to this point in the story yet. But Paul gets it. The answer is not in all the stuff and all the things and the status and the power and the wealth and the fun or whatever that might be. The answer is not in that. Paul’s realizing it doesn’t matter. Those things are rather insignificant. I can have a lot or I can have a little. But what actually matters is Jesus Christ and living my life in a way that conveys that. That a way that is producing certain results in my own heart, but then is also demonstrating to those around me, whether it’s through word or deed, and hopefully it’s both, that Jesus is the answer.

And that’s the kind of people that we should be. And it’s not that we never sorrow, we never grieve, we never can express that we have difficulty in life or that we’re in a pit. That’s going to happen to everybody. We’re going to experience times of depression. We’re going to experience times when things are difficult and hard, and we’ve probably all been there. And so don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying you can’t ever express that. Certainly you can. But at the same time, we also need to recognize there is an answer to this, and that everything is not tied up in the circumstances, the happenings in life, that what it is all tied up in is Jesus Christ Himself. That He is the answer. Just as the wise man in this modern world said earlier, that when people have no purpose and meaning they turn to things like addictions and anxiety and depression, the answer to all of that, again, when we have meaning and purpose is in Jesus.

He is the answer to all of that. And we encounter people in our lives, whether it’s in our neighborhood or our places of work or wherever it might be, the answer is not the things of the world, although we may help them with some of that sometimes. The answer is in Jesus. That is the purpose and the meaning. And apart from that, it’ll just be cycle after cycle after cycle. Man just cannot stand meaningless life. It’s a deep thought, actually. When we feel like our life has no meaning, where does it bring us? Many of us find some other cause or purpose, as I already mentioned. Sometimes people don’t, though, and that’s when they go down into the terrible things of life. But what’s amazing is that we have an answer.

God has given us purpose, He’s given us meaning. That we can be with Him. It’s not about this life. The things of this life are really just meant and geared toward us understanding more about God to be with Him forever. What if we could convey to people who are down in the dungeons, in the pits, in the darkness, that there is light. And it’s not found in money. It’s not found in a job. It’s not found in any of the things of this life. There is light through Jesus Christ. He is the light of the world. He is what is sent to give us blessing and hope for something more. Not in this life, although often we find those things. If we live in wisdom, that’s what Proverbs teaches us.

But even when circumstances and things in this life are difficult and don’t make sense, there is light through Jesus Christ. He restores our relationship with the Father, with the Creator. And even though we have sinned and we have done wrong, we have not followed the ways of God, the Creator Himself, as He’s established and ordered the world because in our own selfishness, we have done things that go against that. There’s still an answer. John tells us this in 1 John 2. If we have sinned, he’s like, He said, I’m telling you all these things so that you’ll walk in light and not in the darkness. But if you do sin, you have an advocate, Jesus. He’s the answer. Even in the midst of our sin. He was the answer when he came to the world and he died for the sins of humanity.

He died for us when we were sinners, when we were in darkness, when we had no hope, he brought light. And it’s not just about removing sin, it’s also about healing things in this life too. It’s about getting out of this perspective that he mentions in the beginning of Ecclesiastes, where we wake up every day, and we wonder why we’re even getting up, that we can wake up every day and we have Jesus in our heart and Jesus in our mind, and we know we have a purpose in life. And we have that to offer to people.

Conclusion

Maybe, first of all, and primarily to ourselves as we wake up each day. Realizing that we are creatures of longing and desire, and we are created to be such. And we self-destruct when we try to fill that longing with temporary earthly things. And when the causes we’re passionate for, fail to satisfy our longings. We begin to rage against the things of the world, and we have missed the point. Or we can continue to devote ourselves to a God who holds the nations in his hands, who has promised to make all things right in the new heaven and a new earth, wherein righteousness dwells. And so let me reemphasize this morning that Ecclesiastes is an invitation not to rush past hard questions. It’s to be willing to face them.

Not to try to pretend like we’re never sad or angry or lonely or depressed or hopeless or those sorts of things. Not to pretend and act like those aren’t realities, but actually face them. And learn from wise people like the person writing this book in Ecclesiastes, he said, I’ve tried it all. I’ve tried wisdom and work and pleasure and wealth, and it all slips through your fingers. And meaning is only found in the fear of the Lord. So what’s the point? Without God, there is no point. Life is meaningless. If we’re not going to devote ourselves to Him, to the creator of this world, the sustainer of this world, what is the point of it? But we can offer this hope to people that there is meaning and purpose and following the will of God.

And that’s my call for you this morning as we go out into the world this week, that we find Jesus and the things around us, and we convey that to the people in our lives. In our families, among our friends. That even when things are not good, there’s still something to be thankful for. There’s still blessings around us because of God and who he is and his son, Jesus Christ. If you need Jesus in your life this morning, he could be the answer to the darkness right now. Maybe you realize you’re living in the monotony. You see the world just as this wise man described it. It just seems so purposeless. And I invite you not to have all the answers, not that it’s all going to be explained to you, but for you to find meaning and purpose through the Son of God who came and died for the sins of the world to give us hope of a life beyond this life.

Can we help you with that this morning? Why don’t you come as we stand and sing?