2021 09 19 What Has Meaning

The speaker introduces the book of Ecclesiastes, which is often seen as a gloomy book, but they believe it offers hope and meaning. They discuss three pursuits: enjoyment, intellect, and hard work. They explain that these pursuits, in and of themselves, are meaningless and lack true meaning and fulfillment. They emphasize the importance of seeking God and His wisdom for true purpose in life. For those of you who are here for your first time, Pastor Ralph is our senior pastor. He's away right now, but a few of us have had the pleasure to step in and take on the immense responsibility of bringing God's words to you today. You know, I was thinking about it this week. Hannah's parents and brother are here today with us, which I'm very excited to have them here. And of course, so that means the pressure's on. Preach well, right? But here's the thing. Here's the thing. In all seriousness, there's another member of our family here every time any one of us opens the word of God, and that's God our Father. And so there's an immense amount of responsibility to preach well or speak well or live well from the scriptures every day. So not to scare you, but there you go. So anybody here go to Christian bookstores at all? Yeah? Okay. I used to love going to a Christian bookstore where I lived as a kid, and it's a lot harder and harder to find them these days than it used to be. There is one local here, though, near the Mayfair Mall on Nanaimo Street. You should check it out. But when I was a kid, my brother got a pencil from a Christian bookstore where we live, which looked like the one on this slide, if you've got that there, Stephen. So you might notice something funny about this pencil besides the writing on it, which says, life without Jesus is just like this pencil. Well, what does this pencil have? It has two erasers on both ends, which means it has no point. Now, as corny as that may be, it makes a point, or rather, I guess it doesn't have a point. But you get what I'm trying to say. What's the point in this life, right? Where do we find meaning? Well, that's what we're going to be talking about today. So we're going to be jumping into the book of Ecclesiastes today. It's a book that I don't think we look into often enough, because I think it has a bad reputation as a very gloomy book, right? All this stuff about everything's meaningless, everything's vanity, depending on your translation, right? And I think it gets a bad rap, an unfair rap, because I think that Ecclesiastes, it's in the Bible, so it has purpose, first of all. Everything is in there for a reason. Secondarily, though, I think it's a book that actually offers a lot of hope and a lot of meaning. So we're looking at three seemingly paradoxical pursuits that people have. Enjoyment, intellect, and effort. Those are the three that we're going to be looking at today. And can they bring meaning to our lives? We'll try to figure that out together as we're reading Ecclesiastes chapter two in a minute. But I want to give you a little bit of a preface here, right? Because Ecclesiastes is a really fascinating book, right? And something that I learned the other day from a video by the Bible Project. If you guys have never checked them out, you absolutely should. Go on YouTube or wherever, Bible Project. There's a pastor and an animator, and they get together, and this pastor will talk about a book of the Bible or a theme in the Bible, and the animator will illustrate that while they're talking, so you can kind of get a feel. It gives you a really I recommend it for the beginning of a new Bible study. You're about to get into a book, it gives you a great overview for the book lots of times. But I was watching one recently for the book of Ecclesiastes, and what I thought was really interesting, and somehow this never dawned on me before, but Ecclesiastes is a little bit of what we would call in literary terms a frame narrative. So it's a story in a story, basically, right? Maybe you've seen that in a book, or if the book starts out, it's being narrated from a character's perspective, right? And he's saying, you know, something happened to me 10 years ago. You'll never believe what happened, and then you go into as he tells the story. So you're hearing the story within the story. But since Ecclesiastes isn't really a story per se, it's more accurate. Maybe think of the first part of Ecclesiastes like a foreword, right? Forewords are those parts in the beginning of the book that I always skip because I don't have that much time in my life, so I'm just going to read the book. But this is an important one, right? Because the intro to Ecclesiastes is very key because without it, you'll read the book as direct advice, right, on how to live your life, when it's actually more nuanced than that. I'm not saying that it's not good advice, but it's more nuanced than that, right? It's a treatise or an essay, if you will, analyzing another person's teachings, right? We start at the beginning. He's talking about, he introduces us to a teacher, a wise teacher. The writer of the book is not the wise teacher. It's someone analyzing the words of the wise teacher, right? In the end, he kind of gives us his concluding thoughts about what the teacher had to say. Now, it's not definitively clear who the teacher is, although the common consensus is that a lot of people believe that it was King Solomon, right? Now, the teacher, whoever he was, repeats over and over that everything is meaningless or is vanity, depending on your translation, right? Now, come to understand that the original language speaks less of meaninglessness and more of the mysterious and enigmatic or puzzling or paradoxical nature of many of the things we pursue as humans, right? The author examines the words rather than simply taking them at face value. So, is everything in life meaningless, as the teacher suggests, or is there more? Let's take a look, right? So, let's start with Ecclesiastes chapter 2. We're going to read from 1 to 11. We're going to be reading a lot today because the more we have of this and the less we have of me, the more accurate we're going to be. So, we're going to start in verse number one of chapter 2. This is the teacher speaking. I said to myself, come on, let's try pleasure. Let's look for the good things in life. But I found that this, too, was meaningless. So, I said, laughter is silly. What does it, what good does it do to seek pleasure? After much thought, I decided to cheer myself with wine. And while still seeking wisdom, I clutched at foolishness. In this way, I tried to experience the only happiness most people find during their brief life in this world. Which I would take that to be an ignorance is bliss kind of thing. So, I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and planting beautiful vineyards. I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees. I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born into my household. I also own large herds and flocks, more than any of kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire. So, I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me, and my wisdom never failed me. Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless, like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere. So, the first thing we want to analyze here is enjoyment, or pleasure, as he puts it here, right? Our culture often looks for enjoyment or pleasure. They say, if it feels good, do it, right? They defend it with statements like, if this thing or that thing is so bad, why did God make me as someone who enjoys that? Presuming that God creating us refers not only to our design, physically and spiritually, but somehow extends to our every thought and desire, as if he created us as mere robots with programming, rather than with the free will to make both good and bad decisions. The teacher says that he enjoyed pleasure, and he goes on to list the various pleasures he tried, and I've summarized the list for us here and tried to kind of draw a few parallels between, because some of these things are things that, well, maybe we don't relate to in our time and our culture, but there are parallels for our time and culture. So, he talks about laughter or comedy. I've gone through times in my life when I felt very depressed, and all I did was just watch comedy, just listen to stand-up comedians. Did it help? For 10 minutes, maybe, but that's about it. He tried alcohol and ignorance is bliss mentality. He tried, you know, going into houses and real estates, gardening, and just exploring the great outdoors. That one I feel is really relatable to where we are. We have so much beautiful nature, and I know so many, you guys have probably met somebody, right? You've been talking to somebody about God, and they're like, you know, I just find God out in nature. You know, we're all one with nature and all that kind of thing, right? So, they found that way to find their meaning, right? He talks about slaves. Now, I certainly hope no one here has a slave, but what might be more relatable to us is, you know, having others work under us, right? Like being a boss or a manager of others, getting into that managerial position, right? Maybe thinking that we're going to find meaning and fulfillment by being the boss, right? Herds and flocks, okay? You know, some of you may be or have been farmers in your life, so maybe that's something that you can relate to, but for others, maybe it's not the lambs you're interested, but the Lamborghinis. Maybe that's what you're after, okay? So, that's what you're going for. Money and gold, maybe cryptocurrency or investment, right? Singers, he talks about hiring singers. Well, who hasn't tried to drown their depression with some music? The teacher tried sex to give life meaning. He denied himself of nothing, and that's kind of scary, right? Denied yourself of nothing, because we need to be denied of things sometimes, right? Like, there's sometimes, and I mean, even just impulses, right? You're driving down the road, that guy cuts you off, and you're like, boy, I'd like to, you need to be denied of some things. Now, here's the thing. Most, if not all of the things on the list, have some positive form or context which they fit in, and in these forms, they're not sinful, right? But they're also not to be, you know, and be all and end all, right? So, for example, you know, he talks about all these concubines and things like that. So, sex, right? Sex outside of marriage is fraught with complication that's maybe not immediately noticed, but down the road, we discover what it costs emotionally, spiritually, sometimes physically, or maybe how a high-paid position, when it doesn't grow you as a person or bless others, is totally meaningless in a grand scheme of things. So, there's good context for these things. There's bad context for these things, right? So, these empty things can find true substance when filled with God's design and purpose, but enjoyment by itself is not a great exclusive use for your life. Let's put it that way. So, we're going to look at another one. We're going to continue on in Ecclesiastes 2, starting in, or picking it up again, rather, in verse 12. So, I came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling. Everything is meaningless, like chasing the wind. So, I know a lot of people who are very stuck on their intellect, which is another way that I would describe this here, right? Trying to pursue wisdom, and we're not talking about heavenly wisdom here. We're talking about earthly wisdom here. So, we're talking about intellect. Can you figure it out? Is it logical, right? Everything's got to be logical to them, but the thing is, as you go on through your life, you're going to understand more and more that not everything logical is true, and not all truth appears logical, right? And the reason for that is because logic is really just a progression of ideas, right? And a thought process, you know, which commingles, like, it's kind of a loop sometimes, right? It can be very circular. Sorry, just checking my notes here. Yeah, a lot of people will say, you know, it's only logical as a defense for what they believe as true, but there's a lot of confirmation bias, you know? There's all these things, you know? I can't count the number of times somebody has, you know, debated with me on something, and they've said, like, oh, and I'm like, where are you getting this information that you're getting from? And they're saying, oh, I just, you know, I see it on Facebook all the time, or whenever I go on Google, it's right there. I don't know how you're not seeing it. I see that all the time. And it's like, do you know how algorithms work? Because you don't all see the same thing when you go on the internet. You know that, right? So, what can seem logical can be based on just what you've been presented with, rather than what's actually there, right? There are many ways to make logical arguments. Maybe you've come across somebody who just likes to argue. I've met those kinds of people. They don't care what the topic is about. They don't even care if they believe in the topic. They will just argue it to see if they can win the argument. And why? Because they have a command of the ability to make logical framed arguments that has nothing to do with whether or not they're truthful. You know, you can make an argument for the earth being flat. It's not going to become, it's not going to cease to be round. You can make an argument for why God doesn't exist. He's not going to be like, that was so logical. I better disappear, right? Just because it sounds logical doesn't mean it's true. And conversely, not all truth will sound logical, right? I'll give you an example. Jesus came and talked about giving up your life to gain life. That doesn't make a lot of sense at face value, does it? Right? Because it's only when you can let go of your ideas and intentions and accept God that we can truly live freely. It sounds illogical, but it's a higher logic than we as humans can fully grasp. Now, somebody might say to me, to you, in a situation like this, well, that's really convenient, Chris. That's really convenient that you can just, I can come to your Bible and say, well, this thing doesn't make sense. Why do you believe that? And you can just say, well, you know, not all truth seems logical. It's just, it's just true, right? That's pretty convenient on one hand. But here's another factor that we have to take in when it comes to God's logic, which is higher than ours. For God to be worthy of worship, he has to be beyond our understanding. I'm not saying that you can't understand some things about him, that you can't grasp things, but those are things that he allows us to understand. He shows them to us. He reveals them to us. It's not because we're so smart we figured them out, right? If you and I, with our finite simple brains, could understand and contain all there is to know about God, then he wouldn't be very impressive, would he? He would be something on the level of a human, because he could be understood by a human mind, right? But our God is beyond our understanding, because he's more vast and greater than our minds can contain. Romans 11.33, this isn't in the slides, but it says, the depths of the, oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgment and his ways past finding out. So again, this, of course, means he can show us, we can't figure it out with our own abilities. I remember one time, oh, somebody help me out here. I know somebody's going to know this guy's name, and I can't remember right now. He was famous for the whole thing with Nikki Cruz and David Wilkerson. Thank you. I knew somebody would know. I was listening to a message from David Wilkerson one time, and he was mentioning when Paul talks about coming and in the spirit, speaking from the spirit, not in fancy words and all these kinds of things, but speaking from the spirit and in power, that one of the ways that that power comes about is the fact that any one of us understand what on earth he was talking about, right? That's a work of the Holy Spirit. When we pick this up, the fact that we can understand any of it, that's a work of the Holy Spirit in of itself. But I'm digressing. Yeah, so logically speaking, God must exist outside of our own logic. It would be illogical for him to appear logical to us, at least in any logic people could come up with, let's put it that way, right? So wisdom fails us. The pursuit of knowledge isn't without merit. I'm not saying, you know, knowledge has no pursuit. You know, if you're a student, you should get out of school. I'm not saying that. Arhan, stay in school. But it's meaningless as an end in itself, right? So unless it leads us to the wisdom of seeking God for him to teach us and guide us, right? So let's analyze. So we've gone through, okay, so pleasure, it lacks meaning in itself. Wisdom lacks meaning in itself. What about hard work? What about working really, really hard? That's important, right? Well, let's look at it. So let's pick it up back again in verse 18. All right. So, I came to hate all my hard work here on earth. Oh, I feel this guy. For I must leave to others everything I have earned. And who can tell whether any successors will be wise or foolish? Yet they will control everything I've gained by my skill and my hard work under the sun. How meaningless. So I gave up in despair, questioning the value of all my hard work in this world. Some people work wisely with knowledge and skill, then must leave the fruit of their efforts to someone who hasn't worked for it. This too is meaningless. A great tragedy. So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety? Their days of labor are filled with pain and grief. Even at nights their minds cannot rest. It's all meaningless. You ever had that? You work all day and you can't go to sleep at night. Did I do that one thing I was supposed to do at work? I don't even remember. So Hannah is one of—that's my wife, for those of you who don't know—she's one of the hardest workers I know. And my idea on a weekend is sleeping in, don't do anything, just kind of flow with the day, right? But Hannah's always ready to get the chores done, the house clean, and then enjoy her weekend, right? And I admire that, even if sometimes I grumble about it in the moment, right? I know what she's saying is the right thing to do. But Hannah's a balanced person. She knows she needs to work hard, but she knows there's a danger in overachieving, right? She and I have discussed an individual in her industry who works non-stop, like I mean non-stop, right? They work at a dozen different pharmacies, they host a podcast on this subject, they're doing clinics and webinars and this and that and the other thing. Now I don't know them personally, I'm not judging them on this, but—so I don't know whether that relates to any real meaning for them, but from the text we can see that at the end of the day our earthly works and pursuits gain us nothing eternally, right? Our hard work is not going to earn us a bigger house in heaven. We take nothing of this into the next life. You know, there's another side of that too, right? Some of us are very goal-oriented, right? We never stop, but we never stop to assess what goals we have and if they have eternal value. Even in ministry positions, like—and I mean you guys, I want to clarify here—every one of you is in a ministry position, okay, as believers in God. It's not just people who work in churches or missionaries or anything. It's like every one of you has a ministry position because it's not about what—it's not about what your T4 says at the end of the year, it's about what God says, what he's written on your heart for you to do. But for those in, you know, things like churches and those kind of things, it still is—you might think, oh, it's easier to keep your goals on God, right? But even a position like this, you know, it can be easy to get bogged down with things that don't have eternal value, right? And put all your effort there. It can be really easy. Growing up in Ontario, one of the pastors at the church, she's gone on to be with the Lord now, but one of the things that she said that always stuck out to me was she said, we're not to be problem-oriented people, but we're not supposed to be solution-oriented people either. We're supposed to be Christ-oriented people, right? He'll take care of the solutions, right? So we're not supposed to be about the goals, we're supposed to be about God. Our hard work needs to be invested in Jesus to go anywhere. So, what does have meaning, right? We've gone through enjoyment, intellect, effort, and all of these things seem to be falling short. So what does have meaning? Well, let's pick it back up again in the Word of God, in Ecclesiastes 2, starting in 24. So I decided there's nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. Who can eat or enjoy anything apart from Him? God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who please Him. But if a sinner becomes wealthy, God takes the wealth away and gives it to those who please Him. This too is a pleasure. But if a sinner becomes wealthy, God takes the wealth away and gives it to those who please Him. This too is meaningless, like chasing the wind. Now, I just want to clarify it in the end there. Sounds like he's kind of finally on the right track, and then he's like, but actually that's meaningless, bro. He's saying here, as we're looking back, think about it paradoxical, right? He's saying there's a tension here, right? Because we know, as much as we love that verse, we know that it doesn't always play out that way. There are some rich, rich, rich, rich people that are not serving God, and we all know some people who are serving God well and barely have a penny to their name, right? It doesn't always work out that way. So he's discussing that there is still a tension there, right? So our enjoyment, our intellect, our effort all need to be submitted to God. It's through enjoying what God blesses us with, the relationships, the blessings, using them for His glory. It's through laying aside our logic to adopt His and to gain true wisdom from God. It's through our effort on investing in our relationship with Jesus and helping others to do the same that we ultimately find meaning in our lives. So in the end of Ecclesiastes, the author of the book comes back in to give his final thoughts after he's given us the teacher's perspective. So if we jump forward to Ecclesiastes 12, verse 8, and we'll go from there. So everything's meaningless, says the teacher, completely meaningless. Keep this in mind. The teacher was considered wise, and he taught the people everything he knew. He listened carefully to many proverbs, studying and classifying them. The teacher sought to find just the right words to express truths clearly. The words of the wise are like cattle prods, painful but helpful. Their collected sayings are like a nail-studded stick with which a shepherd drives the sheep. But my child, let me give you some further advice. Be careful, for writing books is endless and much study wears you out. That's the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion. Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone's duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad. There is a, it's an interesting caution, but there is a caution here, right? We can go a little too far trying to figure it all out sometimes, right? I think that particularly, I would say, there's lots of times in life, I don't know if it's a particular time in life, but we have times of reassessing what it's all about, right? Why am I here? What am I doing, you know? Being a Christian doesn't exempt me from that. I still have questions at times, but why am I here? What am I doing? Some might say, Chris, you're a Christian, you know, you've got a ministry job, you're doing all these things, what are you talking about? How do you not know? Because I think it's important for one thing to constantly reassess these kinds of things to make sure that you are walking in the direction God wants you to be going. But it's also very natural for us to question these things, but there is a caution here because it's endless, right? The questioning can become endless if we're not careful, right? Enjoyment, intellect, effort, on their own are not bad, but they lack meaning without Jesus in them, without our relationship with Jesus. Let's put our focus there, right? I don't have to understand it all, right? It's funny too, right? Because the older we get, I think sometimes the more we can question things a little bit, right? You take a little kid, they take a lot of things at face value, you know? It's like, what's the old expression? They say that how, you know, someone said once, you know, when I was a kid, my parents were such geniuses. Then I became a teenager. I don't know what happened. They got so dumb, right? It's like, well, maybe something changed and it wasn't them, right? So there, we can tend to take things at face value as kids, and then as we get older, we question everything too ad nauseum at times. And I think that's a huge part of when the Bible talks about faith like a little child. I think that's a huge part component of that, is that I don't mean that we blindly and ignorantly accept everything, but when it's coming from God, that we do accept it without all of that unnecessary questioning. And again, God is okay with our questions. He's not offended by your questions. He wants you to bring them to Him. But there comes a point where we just have to trust Him on faith, right? And go with where He's leading us. So it's our responsibility, the writer of Ecclesiastes says, to follow God, but to let Him judge on these matters, right? Rather than pondering them to never-ending philosophical debate. Me, I'm a philosophical over-thinker, right? But we have to put that intellect aside. It's from God for His purposes, but we have to submit it to Him, right? We have to put it in its proper place under God. A positive free will choice, but under God in His guidance, right? And let Him take care of things. We just need to trust Him and enjoy the lot in life that He blesses us with. So in a moment, I believe the worship team will be coming back, but let's just pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You that our lives do have meaning. There's meaning to be found, but it's found in You. And Lord, for some of us, that might be a concept to wrestle with, Lord. For some of us, that might sound even demeaning, that like, what? Like, I'm important. I don't need this, you know, Sky Jesus to make it work for me, but it's not. That's not what it is. You have created us, You have designed us, and You designed us with purpose. Lord, I pray for the person that might be hearing this, Lord, and who is struggling with that concept, struggling with what it might say for their own pride, for their own ego, Lord God. Whether they're saved or not, Lord, that they might have that ego wrestle right now, Lord. I just pray that You would break through our ego. That our hearts would be in tune with You on that instead, Lord God. Lord, I thank You that I find meaning in You rather than independently of You, Lord God. I thank You that that's where the meaning comes from, Lord. And Lord, I pray for each of us here today that we can assess our lives, where we invest ourselves, Lord God, our time, our effort, our money, each of these things, Lord. And we pray, Lord, that we would assess that and see whether or not we are putting ourselves, connecting ourselves with eternal meaning, Lord God. I pray that we would be about Your business, Lord God. That we would be about Your purpose and meaning, Lord God. And that we would trust You to guide us in each step of the way, that we wouldn't just go to You and say, my meaning, okay, You showed me my meaning is blank. I've got it, God. I can take it from here. Lord, let us keep seeking You on meaning and direction every single step of the way, Lord God. That we would never tire of coming back to You and asking how You want to guide us, Lord God. Lord, I pray that You would continue to illuminate Your Word to each of us, Lord. I pray for anything that I might have said, Lord, that is off Your plan, path, and direction here, Lord God, that is misunderstanding on my part. I pray that You would just wash that away, Lord, but that Your Word would stand true in the hearts and minds of everyone here, Lord God. We thank You and we love You, Jesus, in Your name, amen.