“What God Gives to the Children of Man” – Ecclesiastes 1:12–2:26

Harvest Community Church | Omaha, NE

“What God Gives to the Children of Man” – Ecclesiastes 1:12–2:26

Listen to the Sermon:

Hear now the word of the Lord from Ecclesiastes, starting in 1:12 and we’re going to read through the end of verse or of chapter 1, and then we’ll pause and talk about that before moving on to the rest of our passage.

12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

15 What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.

16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.

18 For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
Ecclesiastes 1:12-18, ESV

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

Well, in 1859 a man named Samuel Smiles published a book titled, “Self-Help”. Now this book launched what has now come to be known as the self-help industry. This book was very influential in popularizing ideas that are still with us to this day. It was in that book where came the idea that God helps those who help themselves. Interestingly a Barna research study found that 52 percent of professing Christians think that the line, God helps those who help themselves, is from the Bible. In fact it’s from Samuel Smiles book from 1859 called “Self-Help”.

Well today as we fast forward, this self-help industry is huge and it’s expanding. Year by year it grows and grows and grows. Today books and podcasts and courses and products in the self-help category make up an $11 billion, billion with a b, dollar industry. Still it’s growing year after year after year.

Now why is there such an insatiable hunger for self-help information? Well it’s because all of us, I think, hunger for some principle or some set of principles that will help us to help ourselves as we work our way through this broken frustrating world. It’s interesting if you just look at the fact of the ongoing, ever increasing growth of this industry. Part of what that tells you is that no one has yet found the right answer. No one has yet provided the one-stop self-help principle that solves all of our problems.

Certainly we might be able to make modest gains through some of this material in our health and our wealth and our productivity and even to some degree in our happiness on a day-to-day basis. However, all the self-help advice in the world can’t really solve our deepest problems. It can’t really answer our biggest questions. It certainly can’t provide us lasting, enduring, eternal satisfaction that all of us are seeking out. If that’s true, if the answers aren’t there in some self-help podcast, well how then should we live?

Well our big idea, as we study the second half of Ecclesiastes 1 and into Ecclesiastes 2, is that God gives enjoyment to those who trust in him.

Our sermon this morning is going to have three parts.
1. The Curse
2. The Counter Efforts
3. The Conclusions

The Curse

So in this first section, what I read at the beginning of our reading time was verses 12 through 18. This deals with the curse that we see in verse 12. As this section starts off, we have a second identification of who the author is of Ecclesiastes. He writes, “I the preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.” Now this is very similar to the first identification we got of who the author is back in Ecclesiastes 1:1, “The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.”

Now there’s overlap. We have read that he is the preacher, that he’s king in Jerusalem, but in verse 1 we had that this is a son of David. Now that phrase could apply to any of the sons descended from David, who reigned as king over Israel. Then here in verse 12 we see, “I the preacher have been king over Israel and Jerusalem.”

Now what’s interesting is there was really only one king, who is king over all Israel in Jerusalem, who is also the son of David. David reigned over all Israel in Jerusalem and then Solomon the son of David reigned over all Israel and Jerusalem. When Solomon died his son Rehoboam had not yet begun to reign over all the 12 tribes of Israel. They had gone to make him king, but had not yet made him king when Rehoboam acted very foolishly. So foolishly that the ten northern tribes of Israel broke off to form the nation of Israel, composed of the 10 tribes. Whereas the two southern tribes formed the nation of Judah, over which the rest of the sons of David reigned over.

So there’s only one king who reigned over Israel in Jerusalem and that’s Solomon. Again I would argue this is written by Solomon, although some would dispute that. Even though I also acknowledge that there is not an explicit naming of Solomon like in Proverbs, “These are the Proverbs of Solomon”, or in Song of Songs, “This is a Song of Songs which is Solomon”, I would say this is indeed Solomon from all the clues that we have.

Continuing on, what does Solomon want to tell us when we come to verses 13 and 14? We see that the preacher wants to set out a test where he says, “I applied”, or literally, “I gave my heart.” That’s important because that word give comes up at the end of verse 13.

What did he give his heart to find out? Well he wanted to discover what business that God has given to the children of man. He gives his heart to find what God has given to the children of man. What he discovers in the course of this test is that God has given to the children of man an unhappy business. Very literally this is an evil business God has given to the children of man.

Now in the Bible evil does not always refer to something that is morally evil. He’s not charging God with some kind of sin, but evil often means a misfortune or a disaster or a calamity. He’s saying it’s this disastrous calamity that God has given to the children of man.

Well, what’s he talking about? When did God give this calamity to the children of man as business to be busy with? Well he’s talking back to Genesis 3, about the curse of sin. After our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned against God’s word, God set a curse over all of creation that wrecked relationships and that caused all of our work not to be fruitfully productive, but to bear thorns and thistles.

You may remember that last week when we talked about the word vanity that shows up all throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, we saw it in verse two, “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” The word for vanity in the Hebrew was translated into a Greek word, in the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. That word which was what the apostle Paul would have used for his Greek Old Testament. Well he used that same word in Romans 8:20, which talks about unhappy business that God gave to the children of man. In Romans 8:20 Paul wrote this,

20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it Romans 8:20, ESV

“Futility”, that’s the Greek word that translates this Hebrew word in Ecclesiastes for vanity. God subjected creation to futility, to vanity, to frustration. Again, to relationships that are broken and to work that bears thorns and thistles instead of good fruit. Everything in this world is vanity now, because of the curse from sin.

Well what’s wrong? In verse 15 the preacher gives us the fatal flaw of this world he says,

15 What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.
Ecclesiastes 1:15, ESV

Because something is fundamentally broken, something is fundamentally crooked, something is fundamentally missing, we are in a state where this world cannot be put right by our own efforts.

So in verses 16 through 18 the preacher sets out this test. He says I’m going to search this out, I’m going to figure it out with, all of the great surpassing wisdom that he has. Again if this is not Solomon, this is greatly weakened. He’s saying

16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. Ecclesiastes 1:16-18, ESV

The wisest man who ever lived, apart from Jesus Christ himself, says that in all of his wisdom he was not able to find anything in this world that was more than just chasing after wind. He says that in fact as he increased in wisdom he increased in vexation and the one who increases knowledge increases sorrow. Given the reality of the curse from the fall because of sin, there is no place we can look to, there is no principle or set of principles, there’s no self-help book we can read that will bring us true happiness and lasting satisfaction in this world. Sometimes problems cannot be solved.

When I was a junior in college I took a computer programming class. I had been pretty interested in computers when I was in middle school and high school, but I knew that I didn’t want to be a computer programmer. I knew at that point I wanted to be a pastor. So I was a different kind of major when I got into the computer programming class just to try it. I remember that first day I was the only humanities major in the room.

They asked what are the majors of everyone in this programming class? We went through the mathematics and engineering and computer science and computer engineering, all these majors. Then the professor asked, “Did I miss anyone?” and I raised my hand and said I was an English major. The whole room turned around to look at me like, “Are you lost kid?”

What I really enjoyed about being an English major didn’t serve me well in that class. If you’re an English major, and children if you’re looking at it for a major in college take note of this, the benefit about being an English major is your homework is to write papers on literally anything you want to. As long as you give some evidence and make a compelling case you can write about anything in the world you want to and get good grades for it. I loved being an English major.

The difference in computer programming is that if you don’t write the right code, it is terribly unforgiving. Either your code will compile from what you have written into a program that will run or you’ll get an error. Either your code will do what you want it to do or it won’t. Either it will give you the correct answer or it won’t. These things, when they are broken, are absolutely unforgiving.

I remember two times when major assignments came where I felt absolutely helpless. Here I was an English major trying to hack my way through this and I could not figure it out. It’s a terribly helpless feeling. I couldn’t just riff off the rest of an English paper and turn it in and hope for the best. If this didn’t work I was going to get a zero for the assignment.

Well the first time I got help, I talked to a friend of mine who was a senior computer science major. He found instantly what I had done wrong and he pointed me in the right direction so that I could fix what I had done wrong. The second time I remember, toward the end of the semester, when I was handing in my final project, I remember for days I stared at the computer screen and could not figure out what was wrong. It was so helpless, I felt like I could never fix it. Now eventually I did find the solution, I fixed it. I remember triumphant on that morning turning in the assignment.

I think about that time when I think about the problems of this world. See, very often we want to think that this world is like that. We might encounter challenges that are very difficult at first. We might not know how to solve them, but either we can turn to a friend who has a little bit more experience in this area or if we just keep at it and find the right information online or something like that. Some self-help product perhaps then there is a solution. We can find the solution, we can rise above the brokenness and fallenness of this world from the curse of sin.

Where that may have worked in my computer programming class, the preacher tells us that there’s no solution in this world. What is broken cannot be fixed? What is crooked cannot be made straight? What is lacking cannot be counted.

Is this really true? Surely there’s got to be something that we can apply to our lives to help us rise above the curse of sin. Well the preacher says he tries everything, his test is to try out the entire world to try to find some place where we can find lasting satisfaction in this world. He tests two areas, number one pleasure and the number two wisdom.

The Counter Efforts

So this brings us into the second section, the counter efforts. Trying to resist the curse, apply counter efforts to rise above the curse. Now the first test, the test of pleasure comes in Ecclesiastes 2:1-11. So, we’ll read that now for the very first counter effort.

2 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.[a] 2 I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” 3 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. 4 I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines,[b] the delight of the sons of man.

9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 2:1-11, ESV

So this is the first test, the test of pleasure. At the end the preacher discovers it’s all vanity. So, first he tries direct pleasure. He tries going after laughter, he tries going after wine, and he doesn’t party for partying’s sake. He says he’s guided by wisdom. This is a test, an experiment, he searches to the farthest extent of pursuing pleasure directly. Yet in verse one he says this also was vanity.

Well then he tries finding pleasure by great achievements and understanding. Verses four through six, it’s very clear that what he is doing is what Derek Kidnap calls building a secular Garden of Eden. There was a scholar named Ariane Verhaes, and forgive me if I’ve pronounced that name wrong, who points out all the words that appear in verses 4 through 6, also appear in Genesis 1 and 2, to describe the original creation of the world.

The words to plant in verse 5, and the garden in verse five, and to water something in verse six, and growing in verse six, and to make in verses five and six, all these are words about God’s work in creating the world and especially the Garden of Eden. Beyond this there’s another important word in verse 5, that word that’s translated parks. There’s a Persian word that we have in English that also went into Hebrew it’s the word paradise, he created paradise.

This word is Pardesim, you can hear it in Hebrew, it’s the word for paradise. It’s a Persian word, both in English and in Hebrew, this is a paradise. He created a new Garden of Eden. Yet where God saw that everything that he had created was very good, the preacher says all of this is vanity.

Then in verses 7 through 8 he tests pleasure from great wealth, with servants and livestock and money and singers and concubines. In verses 9 through 11, while he acknowledges the greatness of his pleasure surpassed all who came before him.

Then, this is important, he has modest success. In verse 10 he says, “My heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.” That’s important, we’ll come back to that idea. Nevertheless in verse 11 he says that all of this is a vanity and a striving after the wind and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. That’s the first test, the test of pleasure and it fails.

Well the second test is the test of wisdom. In verses 12 through 17 this is the second counter effort. So let’s read verses 12 through 17.

12 So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. 13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! 17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
Ecclesiastes 2:12-17, ESV

Well the second test, the test of wisdom and its contrast madness and folly. Once again, the preacher acknowledges there is modest gain from wisdom, just like there’s modest gain in pleasure. You can make gains in these areas. You can also make modest gain in wisdom, because wisdom is like light or it’s like having eyes to see. The fools don’t see the fact that they’re about to walk over the side of a dangerous cliff, but the wise have eyes to see and they’re able to avoid the most perilous pitfalls in this life.

What the preacher says, look then I realized just like the fool dies, so I will die. Both of us are going to die together and both of us very quickly will be forgotten. So in verse 15 he asks a question, why then have I been so very wise? That’s an interesting question. He’s saying, look if wisdom is much more difficult to live that way, if it requires a tremendous amount of effort and exertion and time and carefulness, yet it can’t get me past death, is it really wise to spend your days living wisely? If everyone’s going to die is it wise to live wisely? He’s saying in itself wisdom is not the answer. All of this is deeply distressing. “I hated life,” he says verse 17, “because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.”

Now it’s interesting in these tests, the tests of pleasure and the tests of wisdom, the preacher may not do precisely what you or I would do in 2021. However, understand that these categories are still exactly the same. The details may look different, but the categories are the same. Think about how much we look to pleasure to find satisfaction and joy.

We look to entertainment, to television, to movies, to music, to sports, to video games, to social media, to parties and social events, to pop culture, to alcohol or other substances, to gambling or to achievement. Think about all the academic and business and career and health achievements we chase after. The money or investment success that we long for. Understand there are so many self-help books that can give you modest gains in these areas, but all of it at the end of the day is vanity.

What about wisdom? There’s self-help resources abounding to help you improve in your leadership wisdom and your productivity wisdom and your political wisdom and your parenting wisdom. In fact if you Google stoicism, you may or may not know this but stoicism is an ancient Greek form of philosophy and it’s making a huge comeback right now. People are trying to take these ancient Greek principles of enduring life like a stoic and thinking that’s the way to navigate life. It’s a huge industry right now, all kinds of material on it. There’s nothing new under the sun.

Whatever it is, pleasure or wisdom, the preacher has identified the problem; the curse of sin. He’s conducting this experiment where he’s trying to make these counter efforts to push back against the effects of the curse.

The Conclusions

What then are the conclusions of this thorough long-term study? He’s given us provisional conclusions along the way, but in the third section, the conclusions come in this last part verses 18-26. Read with me first verses 18-23 where we come to the first conclusion. There are two conclusions. The first conclusion was, we will see, is despair. Look at what he says,

18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, 21 because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? 23 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.
Ecclesiastes 2:18-26, ESV

The preacher looks at his life and he says, all the toil with which he toils, he can’t keep it. When he dies he has to give it away and you know who might inherit it a fool who has done nothing to gain it. He scrimped and saved and scraped together his resources over his life, living every bit of his life by every ounce of wisdom he possesses, and the fruits of his toil may go to a fool. This is a grievous evil and he despairs over this.

In fact, he says living this way even nights are not restful, you can’t even get a good night’s sleep. If you’re trying to find meaning in the toil of this world because the greatest accomplishments of this world are all vanity.

Well, this isn’t the only place in the Bible that says this. If you listen to the world you hear this despair everywhere, because all you have to live for is this world. There is no logical conclusion other than despair. One of the clearest illustrations of this, it’s a little dated, but you still hear this song on the radio a lot. It is by Queen, the song Bohemian Rhapsody. They say nothing really matters to me. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

This is a very common, very clear conclusion to draw from looking at everything to be gained under the sun. Solomon sees it and this world is aching because of the despair that fills it.

This isn’t the only conclusion that Solomon draws. You might think that our study in Ecclesiastes is just dour and sad and nothing but depression, but that brings us to verses 24-26 where we see the second conclusion, a conclusion of faith.

Now this may not seem like it would stand naturally with despair, despair and faith. However, remember sometimes the preacher is clearing away errors for us so that we can more clearly see the only truth and hope that we have in this world and the next. Here we see it is faith. Hear the word of the Lord from verses 24 through 26.

24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 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.
Ecclesiastes 2:24-26, ESV

What the preacher is saying here is that if we stop treating the fruit of our efforts, if we stop looking at this world as ultimate because it can’t bear that weight, if we stop looking at this world as ultimate we can start to enjoy this world for what it is. The enjoyment doesn’t come from trying to squeeze every bit of enjoyment from this world as though it is our only hope.

Our enjoyment rather comes from God himself, because God not only gives us, remember that word gives us is for evil unhappy business in life, but he is the one who also gives us enjoyment, it comes from the hand of God. For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy. Yet there’s a warning here to the one who does not please God. Tothe sinner God gives only gathering and collecting, just work, just toil, just efforts in this life, only to ultimately lose it. Alife of vanity.

Well how can one please the Lord? The Bible answers this question in Hebrews 11:6, that without faith it is impossible to please him. This is a life lived by faith, a life that’s not looking to this world to satisfy every desire you have, but rather looking to God.

So, two people who are under the exact same conditions, toiling in the exact same work side by side, can be doing the same thing and yet have a very different experience. If both are scuba diving, it’s as if only one has an air tank. If both are skydiving, it’s as if only one has a parachute. If both are toiling, only one can find enjoyment and satisfaction in this life. Same conditions, very different experience.

Why? Because the joy isn’t in the work, the joy isn’t in the achievements, the joy isn’t in the pleasure itself, the joy isn’t in anything under the sun. That means no amount of self-help can help you to help yourself to find joy. The joy is rather with God who gives enjoyment as a gift to the one who trusts in him. If you seek for and cling to joy directly you’ll never find it, but if you seek God and his kingdom first, then all these things will be added to you.

Applications

Well how then should we live? Well two applications from this text.

1. The first is this, give up trying to find enjoyment in pleasure or in wisdom. Give up trying to find enjoyment, satisfaction, joy in pleasure or wisdom. The Bible warns us often about worldliness. When the Bible does warn us about worldliness it’s a warning about seeking ultimate enjoyment in the vain things of this world that are under the sun. When God continually warns us again and again through the Bible about this worldliness, we need to understand it’s not because God wants us not to find enjoyment. He warns us against worldliness because he wants us to find true enjoyment.

This is so vividly declared for us in the prophet Jeremiah 2:12-13 God says,

12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
declares the Lord,
13 for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Jeremiah 2:12-13

You dig for yourself in your toil and in your pleasure and in your wisdom. If you dig these for yourselves, these are broken, they cannot hold the refreshing water that you are seeking to drink from to satisfy your great thirst. So if you spend your life seeking laughter, ultimately that laughter will lose its pleasure.

It’s so interesting there there’s so many psychological studies, both scholarly studies and case studies, that prove this over and over again that laughter does help to relieve tension and sorrow. In the moment there are modest gains to be gained from laughter. Yet in an ultimate sense laughter is vanity. Some of the most miserable people in this world are the people who make us laugh the most.

When one of the great comedians of all time, Robin Williams, tragically committed suicide, a comedian who worked with him, a man named Jim Norton published an opinion piece in Time Magazine. There he said, “The funniest people I know seem to be the ones surrounded by darkness. That’s probably why they’re the funniest, the deeper the pit the more humor you need to dig yourself out.”

Ecclesiastes is a warning that laughter can never get you out of the pit. What is crooked cannot be made straight and what is what is lacking cannot be counted. It’s all vanity.

Though it’s not just laughter. If you spend your life seeking pleasure through wine or other substances, these will turn from a servant, to try to help you get through the emotional pain of what you’re dealing with, to your master. Substance abuse is a classic example of how C.S. Lewis described all sin, as an ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure. You’ll want it more and you will get less pleasure from it because it is all vanity.

So if you spend your life also pursuing achievement or wealth, in the same way you must all give it away. Solomon recreated the Garden of Eden, I don’t care what you’re doing it’s not as impressive as that, but all his toil was nothing more than vanity and a striving after the wind. There was nothing to be gained by it. If even the richest man in the history of the world saw the grievous evil that he would lose everything he had after his death, then what are you hoping to gain from your toil? What do you hope to gain from your anthill-sized kingdom?

Do you see that you can never really gain it? Give up trying to find enjoyment in pleasure or wisdom.

2. The second application then is this, seek enjoyment in God through faith in Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters God makes no secret of the fact that he desires to give us enjoyment, to give us pleasure. It’s all over the Bible. Psalm 16:11, “you make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy at your right hand and pleasures forevermore.”

We’re Presbyterians the very first question of our shorter catechism asks what is man’s chief end? What is the reason you were made and created to exist? Well, man’s chief end is to glorify God. You are here to bear witness to the eternal infinite glory of God, but not only that you are here to enjoy him forever. God created you to enjoy him forever.

Again, God makes no secret of his desire to give us pleasure and enjoyment. The problem is not in what God has failed to tell us, he’s told us what the problem is. Rather the problem is that we simply don’t believe him. Every time we sin we’re making a judgment, we’re making an evaluation. In fact we’re making a wager, placing a bet that what we think will bring us pleasure will be a better pleasure, a more lasting pleasure, a more enduring pleasure than the pleasure that God provides to those who trust in him.

Now this is foolish, but it’s not only foolish. God says that it is an appalling, shocking, desolation, bringing evil to forsake him the fountain of living waters in order to dig for ourselves these cisterns that are broken and cannot hold water. It’s the horrifying sin of turning away from the glory of the creator in order to pursue happiness, in to worship what is created.

The gospel announces that though that God has made a solution. Where this world is broken and cannot be fixed from the inside out, God sent Jesus Christ his only son down from heaven to bring about the healing and the repair that we could never do for ourselves. Jesus Christ came into this world and suffered under the brokenness and the sin of this world, bearing our sin and our shame upon himself at the cross, dying for our sins and raised up to a resurrected life. So that one day he might usher in a resurrected world where nothing is crooked and where nothing is missing and we will enjoy God face to face forever. All those who trust in Christ will be saved through the forgiveness of their faithless worldly evil when they look to Christ by faith.

If you’ve spent your life up to this point seeking happiness apart from Christ, let me plead with you turn to Christ in faith today. Don’t wait a moment longer, you’re only bringing yourself more heartache from the vanity of this world. This passage is teaching us also not only about how we can be saved, as critical and as foundational as that is, this passage also teaches us wisdom for the daily lives that we must lead through faith in God.

God gives us enjoyment in our toil. That’s the only way you can enjoy your toil. If your life and your achievements and your wealth have to bear the weight of your soul’s insatiable appetite for satisfaction, then you’ll never find joy. If they don’t have to bear that weight, if you have put that weight on the shoulders of Jesus Christ who can bear that weight, then you don’t have to treat this world as an end in itself. You can simply enjoy everything in this world for what it is.

If God is the foundation of your soul’s happiness, then you can see everything that comes to you as a gift coming down from heaven from the Father of Lights, in whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. He never changes. He gives nothing but good gifts to his children if we are looking to him in faith to receive them.

This is the secret to living well. It’s not about self-help promises to give the right principle to find enjoyment in the things of this world. It’s an approach to everything in this world, to live by faith, believing that it is God and God alone who gives enjoyment to those who trust him. Are you seeking enjoyment in God through faith in Jesus Christ? If so then you will find the sweetness of joy even in the most bitter moments of your life.

Or are you vainly seeking enjoyment in this world for itself? If so, you will only toil in this life. You will never find the satisfaction you were looking for, all the way up to the day that you die and someone else gains the fruit of everything you have worked for. Don’t be a fool, seek enjoyment in Christ that lasts for all eternity.

Let’s pray.

Lord you’ve promised that at your right hand there are pleasures forevermore. You have told us that you are the fountain of living waters and we’d be fools to dig for ourselves at broken cisterns to replace the joy that you provide. Father help us turn from our sin of looking at your creation, your handiwork, and worshiping that. From seeking good and satisfaction in creation rather than looking to you the creator and the redeemer of all things. We pray that you would turn our eyes, by the power of your Spirit, to Jesus Christ. That in faith we would look in him for the forgiveness of sins and for the satisfaction that we will gain in life everlasting. It’s in Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

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