1. Hevel [The Divine Disconnect/Ecclesiastes] Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

we are star serious here tonight yes in what book of the Bible Ecclesiastes so I invite you to open your Bibles with me to the book of Ecclesiastes it's kind of in the middle ish if you need your table of contents no shame in that did you know there's a table of contents in your Bible in every Bible you've ever opened there's a table of contents no shame in using that thing man I'm telling you especially when you're looking for a book that's only like eight pages long like Ecclesiastes please est is chapter 1 verse 1 should we dive in let us let us the words of the teacher son of David King in Jerusalem meaningless meaningless says the teacher utterly meaningless everything is meaningless what do people gain from all of their labors at which they toil Under the Sun what did you learn at church tonight so what okay so that's interesting what on earth is this book doing in the Bible this this isn't what I expect to find when I open up the Bible that might be the response of many of us that we've had to Ecclesiastes in the past or that you're having right now and some of you are wondering what on earth are we gonna do for the next month and a half right through this book because kinda you've got you've got it right there there you go if you want to know what the books about you just you just read the two key phrases that will occur over 40 times throughout the rest of the book and that is meaningless and life under the Sun so I think that'll suffice amen right let me pray so Wow what is what's going on here why why why is this book in the Bible and why are we gonna spend a month and a half exploring it together and the fact is is that this this is one of the most beautiful profound and dark books and all of the scriptures many books in the Bible have a positive function of teaching us things that that we couldn't know anywhere else revealing us God's character God's heart for the world what he's up to and so on the book of Ecclesiastes is not positive it actually has a negative role in the Bible the book of Ecclesiastes is essentially trying to deconstruct everything that you thought you knew about life in the world and to reduce you to your knees by the end so that the good news can in fact become good news because often the good news about Jesus comes to us as people who are actually quite content with life or at least we think we are or at least we we think that true contentment and fulfillment in this side of the new creation and Jesus's return we think it's actually maybe quite possible and we actually spend most of our waking hours trying to pursue deep levels of happiness and fulfilment and contentment in the book of Ecclesiastes it's just gonna throw a big wet blanket on your life for the next next month and a half why are we doing this why are we doing this we exploring this this negative book of the Bible and there's lots of different reasons why I'm gonna focus on one tonight Joshua focus on another one next week because this this book of the Bible it's aiming at a very common mindset a pattern of thinking that's very very prevalent as prevalent in the author's day is prevalent in our day and I call this pattern of thinking that the myth of religious fulfillment and it's the idea that here it's very prevalent especially in in religious communities it's the idea that you know I get religion in whatever form in this case we're community of Jesus oh Jesus religion or whatever so I follow God I follow Jesus I do the God thing for a reason we may not even bleed very explicit about it but are the old the driving mode is behind it is I do this religious God Jesus thing so that my life is enhanced as a result of it it's like yoga or pilates or something you don't do it unless you think you're gonna get something out of it right and so so I believe that my life will be enhanced and it's a mindset that essentially says God's role in my life is to make things go better so that my life gets better so that maybe I don't have as many problems so that maybe I can become a better happier kind of person and so on and I can live a happier life and be good and that things will go well what's the myth of religious fulfillment I invite God into my life so that my life will go better now there's a whole bunch of us in the room who are like yeah so good that like the person sitting next to me is hearing that right now or like it's so good for so many people in the room to hear because but of course I don't think that's so silly to think about God that way let's peel back the layers click here I'm gonna I'm gonna do it gently book of ecclesiastes will peel back the layers and not-so-gentle all right so of how we think and how we actually kind of deceive ourselves so you know that you have great expectations about what God is going to do in your life usually we don't think about them we just assume God is up to something in our lives or at least we hope that he is but we're very aware of what God is not doing what we expected in our lives when life gets very hard when things get difficult so you know what your expectations are when your expectations are lying in pieces in front of you on the floor that's kind of how life goes in general so when uh I don't know if this will seem powerful teeth but it was a powerful experience at least for me I'm gonna reach back to 1999 anybody anybody a very important movie I realized as I keep thinking of illustrations that are movies that I don't like so I should probably think of a new kind of illustration but this was the best one I could think of so so 1999 a very important trilogy was released in and started 1999 a buddy trilogy yeah the second trilogy of Star Wars which was perhaps the greatest flop right in an American cinematic history right so what so I was I was raised on the original Star Wars trilogy I had like the action figures and the Millennium Falcon and a Cloud City thing you know and and I had a cassette I listen to cassettes when I was a kid we had a cassette of the the audio of the first movie a new original ones have 77 said 76 7 thank you yeah thank you 77 and I would just play it over and over and over again when I was a little kid and so on so the original trilogy had just epic status in my mind it formed my imaginative universe as I was growing up as a kid I had huge I had no idea I had huge expectations when I walked into the movie theater in 1999 right because I was like this is going to be as epic as the original trilogy and I was obviously uh obviously sorely disappointed it right no all right so Jar Jar Binks what who was thinking you know I'm saying like the most ridiculous blasphemous character to introduce an event story but anyway so so and the whole trilogy felt that we each moving sounds like you're kidding me people I just paid money to see that what a waste of time so that's how I felt so here's what's funny is is I didn't realize the expectations I had going into that movie theater until my expectations were dashed to pieces sitting on the floor in front you know what I'm saying and this is how life is we like to think that we are kind of wise and have control over expectations but reality is is we all come to life with all kinds of expectations that we don't even know we're there until reality takes a very a very different turn it's true in life as truth movies and it's absolutely true in in our spiritual journey as well we have all kinds of default modes in our thinking the myth of religious self fulfillment and it's not just that some people think this way I think it's that all of us move towards this kind of thinking at multiple points throughout our lives why is God in my life why am I doing this Jesus thing in the first place well I hope to get something out of it and and I know that I'm hoping to get something out of it when I'm not getting anything out of it yesterday it was like it becomes very clear to me that like yeah my life's not getting better and like what was why did I invite Jesus into my life in the first place and like my life is actually getting worse and like my prayers aren't being answered the way I thought they would or they're not imagined my prayers make any difference at all what is prayer in the first place and many of us come many of us were there right now and many of us have been there or are going to be there places in life where it actually becomes very difficult to believe in God period or to believe that God is good and that he cares about me or that he's involved in my life or in the world in any significant way and so many people they'd come to conclusions that tried the Jesus thing whatever didn't work for me they ditched belief in God they ditch their faith those are possible conclusions but Ecclesiastes is going to open up another possible conclusion that we can draw when God is doing in my life exactly what I never expected or never wanted or he doesn't seem to be doing anything in my life and what on earth is is happening because yes he is gonna raise the possibility of what what if God is not the problem what if my expectations were the problem what if I what I thought I was signing up for was actually some version of the myth of religious fulfillment I'm going to invite God into my life to enhance my life to make it better to solve my problems so that things all be happier more successful person or something like that and again we think no of course I would never think like that but think the times of great disappointment when it wasn't just a movie that flopped when it's like your life that's a flop you know and if among our first responses is to get angry at God to be discipline God what's happening there what's happening is this hardship has a way of exposing our core beliefs and our core commitments and values and what's being exposed there is that well I guess I thought the deal who has I do the Jesus thing and that God makes my life better and my life's not getting better what's the disconnect maybe it's my expectations that need to be altered and one of the things that the book of Ecclesiastes is aiming at is these grave distortions and misconception that we have about what we should expect out of life and what we should expect out of God's involvement in my life and anytime you're reconfiguring your core beliefs about God or the world or whatever that's just a painful experience and that's why reading the book of Ecclesiastes is going to be a painful experience for many of us some of us are going to be deeply disturbed that a book like this is in the Bible others of us are going to experience the book of Ecclesiastes is like a breath of fresh air feels like finally somebody's talking about this right so we're calling this series the divine disconnect because it's sort of like well I have these ideas about what it means for God to be involved in the world and in my life and then I have like reality that seems to point in a whole other set of directions how do those two go together in the book of Ecclesiastes is exploring our struggle it humanizes the struggle of what it means to live life here under the Sun as he calls it so this is a very important book and it it became real to me at an important season in my own journey of following Jesus and our prayer is that it could play that kind of role in the life of our church as well so you guys ready for action ready for a little deconstruction it might hurt but that's there you go whatever you know you don't have a say in the matter we have the series planned out in there anymore so there you go please the essays let's go back to the beginning Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verse 1 the words of the teacher the son of David the king in in Jerusalem the author of the book of Ecclesiastes is I did I read salad did you read Solomon there I did we Sullivan there was so actually if you read the book you will find that the author of the book of Ecclesiastes is anonymous anonymous in other words no we're in the book of Ecclesiastes or anywhere in the whole Bible does Here I am dear reader I'm Solomon or I'm so-and-so and Here I am writing the book of Ecclesiastes to you actually you don't you don't read that anywhere in the book and look even closer here look at look at for the first sentence again the words of the teacher the son of David King and Jerusalem meaningless meaningless says the teacher who's talking to you in the first sentence of the book the teacher look closely look at there is the teacher talking to you in the first words of the book no do you see that somebody else is introducing the teacher to you do you see that right there somebody up so whoever the author of the book is it's not the teacher the main voice in the book is the voice of this teacher or some of your translations have the preacher and the the Hebrew word is qohelet it just means one who gathers one who speaks in a gathering so preacher teacher whatever what am i doing right now preaching teaching I have no idea so I'm just talking right so so this someone who speaks in a gathering most of the book is the voice of this teacher but at the beginning it is not the teacher speaking to us put your thumb here turn the last pages of the book just a couple of pages forward to chapter chapter 12 look at chapter 12 verse 8 meaningless meaningless says the teacher everything is meaningless it ends as it begins now not only was the teacher wise but he also imparted knowledge to the people he pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs who's talking to us right there the teacher know who's talking to us I've no idea it's anonymous the book is anonymous so I think of the book of Ecclesiastes as sitting with it's like sitting with your grandpa on the front porch he's smoking his pipe and he's you know waxing eloquent about life on planet Earth or something like that and he he wants to tell you a story right your grandchild sitting there on the front porch for grandpa he wants to tell you a story of this great teacher from the ancient past why is this man in all of the world and he set out on this journey to like a thought experiment what what if you kind of factor God out of the equation what if these seventy years that we have here under the Sun is all you got and then death is life worth living is there anything of significance or value of ultimate purpose in the meaning of life if you factor God out of the equation and you just I got seventy years this is all I got that's the great thought experiment of the teacher and grandpa is going to tell you this tale of this experiment this Explorer the teacher and Grandpa is going to introduce the teacher to you and then at the end grandpa is gonna have some concluding words to make sure you don't misunderstand what the teacher was trying to say so the author of the book of Ecclesiastes is hmm the speaker go back to chapter one the speaker of the voice or the teacher is introduced to us as someone who's a son of David King in Jerusalem and that's why we all said Solomon so traditionally this figure in the book the teacher figure the voice that we hear has been associated with with King Solomon now here's what's interesting go down to verse 16 of chapter one we'll get into the message is a book in a second but I like history and background and stuff like this this is alright with you good okay look at verse 16 of chapter one the teacher now is saying now I said to myself look I have increased in wisdom more than anybody who has ruled over Jerusalem before me and he's gonna go on to say is about three more times I was more wise I was more wealthy more powerful than all who were in Jerusalem before me now this is real Bible trivia but if you know the story of the Old Testament Kings how many Kings were there in Jerusalem before Solomon in Jerusalem before Solomon when and who's that his dad is that right David David made Jerusalem the capital of the Israelite nation that David brought together the 12 tribes inform the malas as a nation so it seems kind of strange for him to say over everybody in Jerusalem before me namely my dad right so that's kind of weird so there's two basic views here on who the teacher is one is that it's historically Solomon these are memories and teachings preserved from from King Solomon that's one view it's been very common throughout history another view is that there are many examples of this kind of writing in in ancient Near East it's called royal fictional autobiography so this is someone hundreds and hundreds of years later afterwards writes a thought experiment essentially it would be someone like five hundred years from now wanting to write reflections on politics and culture in 21st century America writing it as if they were Barack Obama you're not trying to trick anybody because Barack Obama has been dead for five hundred years right everybody sees what's happening here and the writer prepare presents themselves as a Barack Obama like figure there are many of examples of this among Israel's neighbors and so on and so some people think that's that's what's happening here because why does if Solomon wrote it why didn't why doesn't just say his name it's almost elusive and never quite saying his name and so I think this is actually clever whether Solomon wrote it or not what's happening is you're invited to to see life as if you're a Solomon like figure one of the most powerful influential wise kings if anybody can speak to the question of the meaning of life here under the Sun who's the most qualified person in the biblical imagination is this guy is Solomon if anyone had a crack at making your seventy years the most awesome thing you could possibly imagine it's this guy like he you know he made gold as common as stones we're told in his kingdom is this guy has a chance the ultimate weekend warrior right except he every day's a weekend for this guy right and so we're gonna explore life as if we are in the shoes of the Solomon like figure and so we're we're brought to the main theme right here in the first sentences of chapter two and what's the basic conclusion apparently in verse two about the meaning of life that it has none apparently so in the New International Version has meaningless yeah others of you have translations that say vanity vanities that might be the English standard version or the King James the new American translation so vanity is kind of historically in English translations the word that's been used this is the core word this this word right here gets repeated 40 times throughout these twelve chapters this isn't key if you want to understand the book of Ecclesiastes you have to get what's going on with this word everything revolves around what the teacher means by this word so vanity is what many of your translations have and that's that okay translation except in modern American English vanity is something you sit down at to put on makeup right or we think of vanity is self obsession and that's not neither of those is what the teacher means meaningless is is is pretty good except meaningless would lead you to think that the teacher has looked at everything in life and then is now making a conclusion there is no meaning absolutely whatsoever and that's not you look at the use of the word in the book and that's not that's not what he means it's not what it means the word this is going to be used 40 times over in these twelve chapters it's the Hebrew word I'll teach you to you here who wants to take a crack at it there hefo have oh won't you say with me heavy heavy so heavy I was such is brilliant I told you this book is beautiful and brilliant all at once it's it's a metaphor literally it means smoke or vapor and what he's gonna do is he's gonna run everything through this grid he's gonna do all these little thought experiments and saw I saw like a guy who was really wealthy and then he died alone and poor this hassle he'll say I saw a righteous man and he was really good and everybody loved him but then all this kids died and horrible things happen to them that's heavy he's going to do all these thought experiments about how screwed up life is here under the Sun and he's constantly constantly going to call it pebble pebble pebble over and over and over again now to I think to capture this is so brilliant what he's doing it's the metaphor we actually need to somehow play with fire and smoke to KITT to get what he's doing so lucky for me I live in Portland which is the land of where young men try to act like their grandpa's so when Josh invited me to and Josh nettles invited me to become a pastor here ador of hope I was a year ago actually he said one of the benefits he told me was that I would get my own my own pipe and so he gave me this old this old hand card carved Danish pipe thank you I've been really enjoying it and then I've been surprised to learn how many young men like to smoke pipes like like their grandpa's so do you mind real quick here how they need to create some smoke okay all right yep okay Hevel heaven did you see it is it right even you can see this level right here but a concentrated form heaven heaven now it just knows the first thing that's happened notice how quickly can you all see it there and then what happened see it like what there it is and then where where is it going it's there but then this takes about five seconds so that's the first meaning that the teacher is going to attach to this word Hevel it's here and it's gone it's fleeting so look for example in chapter 11 he says those who live many years should rejoice in all of them hey as long as you're alive enjoy it yeah yet they should remember that the days of darkness will be many and he doesn't mean just death he also means the days where your body begins to really fail that precede death he talked about that in chapter 12 all that comes in life your short life it's heavy now this is a problem that happens it goes out right ok hello it's fleeting see there it is this one's lingering right it's lingering but then it's gone and it's gone so that's a pretty natural meaning you would attach to heaven this close here and then it's gone but that's not the main way that the teacher uses this concept of have all the other ones quite sophisticated and thence now he uses it the most time it's this one right here to mean enigma or paradox like in chapter 8 he says here's something that's Havel he says good people get what the wicked deserve and wicked people get what good people deserve what's that that's heaven that's right that's heavy that's heavy now what does he mean he doesn't mean that's temporary because know what he's saying is that's how it is here it's not fleeting this is this kind of thing happens all the time what does he mean I didn't anticipate this I heard a letter okay okay now you can see the smoke there is that it is smoke a thing can you see it there it's a thing can you all see it we're looking at it but yet when I try to grab it it's it's like it's not a thing it's the air but it's not there is this smoke real so there it is we're all looking at it but then the moment I try and make sense of it to do something to grasp at it it's gone this is the teachers view of how we experience life here under the Sun everything is helpful everything everything is helpful the moment you think you have life figure it out you don't in fact the that how you know you don't have life figured out is by the fact that you do think you haven't figured out like that's how you know so we all have this concept of like justice for example so this kind of thing shouldn't happen wicked people shouldn't get what good people deserve good people that shouldn't happen but it does so we have this concept of justice right if you do one thing you ought to get a certain result do the right thing you ought to get what you deserve do the bad thing you have to get what you deserve are we on the same page we that's how the world ought to work does it work like that sometimes it works like that does it always work like that no that's heavy that's why why doesn't it work the way it's supposed to I mean if we have a sense that it ought to work a certain way why doesn't it work like that and and because our sense of justice is rooted in God's justice that God is is the one who who is the ground of what is right and wrong well what does that mean about God that sometimes justice takes place but sometimes justice doesn't take place why what is level level it was very important look at 2 verse 2 he's saying everything's have oh hello have like I can't grab at it so he says in verse 3 what do people gain from all of their labors at which their toiling where we're under the Sun we his his second key idea here in the whole book this gets repeated 30 times throughout the whole book the main idea of the book of ecclesiastes is life as Hevel under the Sun and under the Sun is his thought experiment what if you factor God out of the equation what what if these seventy years is all that I have and I'm just trying to make sense of the meaning of life from what I can see hear smell taste touch five senses and this all I got seven years just and let's give this thing to go what do we have of lasting meaningful value here and he's gonna say you get some things that are pretty good you can have a great like meal and that's fun you know you can meet a spouse that's pretty great you know you can have meaningful work and enjoy that but most likely some seriously heavy things are going to happen to you in your life and that just throws the throws the whole system off and his my this is like if that's all we got and what what's this about life under the Sun now what he's gonna do is cuz we're coming at this like thousands of years laters post Jesus and we're like yeah but that's not the whole picture and he's gonna wait on that he knows that that's not the whole picture he knows that he's gonna wait til chapter 12 to give that to you though you have to you have to sit through the thought experiment what if the 70 years is all you got under the Sun is heaven it's helpful it's sometimes good sometimes bad you don't know you don't know and you can't predict and so a big part of this is what he's aiming at is what I called the myth of religious fulfillment and this is this is actually really brilliant I think what's happening here there are three wisdom books are called the wisdom books of the Old Testament Ecclesiastes is one of them or two the other two proverbs and and job job now here's what's interesting about the book of Proverbs let's actually just read a section right right here to get a sample of it famous passage from Proverbs it says trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight don't be wise in your own eyes fear the Lord and shun evil this will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones does this sound like a good deal yeah a great deal you know house hang like healthy body strong bones who needs vitamin D you know things like just just you know fear the Lord and apparently you'll have strong bones so that's great so yeah proverbs is full of this it's full of this idea that if I do the right thing fear the Lord honor the Lord I mean you this right there it is right there if the myth of religious fulfillment has biblical grounding anywhere there you go right there so aren't trust in the Lord straight paths healthy body strong bones who who could say no you know so here's what here's what's tricky is that the book of Proverbs is a book of Proverbs it's not a book of promises is the book of proverbs and what has happened throughout Jewish and Christian history is that the book of Proverbs is taken as a book of promises proverbs by their very nature are saying here is how life tends to work out most of the time if you go through life and you're upstanding integrity super great work ethic you're hard worker you cultivate healthy relationships character and virtue is life likely to go a little better for you than if you're just a persistent liar a cheat you steal and you burn relational bridges everywhere you go who's likely to have liked generally a more content happy life right the first person but is that always the case is that always the case this is my favorite one look at how look at this one proverbs 13 9 the light of the righteous rejoices but the length of the wicked will be snuffed out it's like those who honor and fear the Lord you have a light in your house and it's awesome because you can see and everything's clear but if you don't honor the Lord and you do evil it's like your lamp will get snuffed out proverbs 24 20 the evil man has no future hope and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out is that how life can go here under the Sun these proverbs does this happen totally this totally happen does it happen all the time the book of Job comes along and says how often is the lamp of the wicked put out really right so does their calamity really ever come I mean I guess I've seen that some times but I don't see it all of the time Ecclesiastes he says I seen a righteous man who perishes despite his righteousness and a wicked man who has a long life despite his witness this Hefele is helpful it doesn't make any sense it seems like justice is real we all know it we all try to live by it but we mostly fail at it and we don't see it at work all of this heaven is helpful now here's what's happening here if you have a superficial view of what the Bible is if you just think the Bible is like golden tablets like dropped out of heaven or something and it's just whatever it's like all commands about how you should live then this is going to bother you because you may like there's a contradiction in the Bible but that's not what especially that's not what the Old Testament books are the width of three wisdom books of the Old Testament I think of as three ancient Israelite sages going into a bar to have a drink and to talk about how life works and the book of Proverbs starts the conversation by saying this is what I've seen I see people do this they honor God they shun evil they fear the Lord life will tend to go a lot better in Ecclesiastes you're gonna read the teacher says many places that's totally true but it's not true all the time and that bothers him to death it bothers him too and so he's gonna highlight those examples and so really it's all you need all three of the wisdom books to give you a holistic understanding of what it means to be a human being and to be in a relationship to this God who's working out his purposes here in the world but whose purposes I don't I don't always understand one of my favorite Old Testament scholars he puts it he puts it this way he says the most challenging difference between the wisdom books arises when one author like the teacher in Ecclesiastes when he doubts or questions the validity of basic affirmations and other parts of the body but this is precisely the purpose of these books in the collection of Scripture they compel us to an honest face that's willing to acknowledge the presence of doubts that we cannot dismiss and questions that we can't always fully answer given our human limitations some of you were deeply bothered right now some of you this is a breath of fresh air so so when the teacher says life is hell it's an enigma it's like I can see it but I can't grasp at it does that rule out the possibility that life has any meaning at all in other words when he says it's heavy he saying there is no meaning whatsoever is that what he say that's not what he said he's just saying I sure can't figure it out there may be a meaning I just can't grasp what it is and here we come down to it is that very very often the myth of religious self fulfillment paints a very black and white world I do the religion thing and God's gonna do his thing which is straight paths healthy bones you know history like that's how it works to enhance my life but then we come across life experiences that just break all of that down and right this doesn't seem to work and then it exposes our core assumptions about God will godness not be real or you must not be good we must not love or care for me and the book of Ecclesiastes creates this middle space this is what if I just have the wrong set of expectations altogether what if God's promise to me under the Sun by which he means in this broken world compromised by evil and compromised by sin what if God's promise to me is actually not to solve all of my problems what if that was never his promise to me what if his promise to me was actually not that my life may go better and that all of my dreams may come true what is his promise to me that's later revealed in the cross is that God actually enters into the Hevel of human existence and takes it into himself on the cross and what if you and I are left in a position of great humility where even though I may not be able to grasp at what the meaning of life is am I going to presume to say therefore life has no meaning because I can't figure out what it is and there you go there you go that's the punch in the gut of Ecclesiastes just because I can't see the sense or the meaning does it mean that there's no sense and that's the wrestling as a wrestling match that we have with hardship and difficulty in our lives let's keep reading we've had three verses holy cow what he's gonna do is he's gonna he's gonna relentlessly show the the small fleeting fragile position that we are in as human creatures living in a broken compromised world verse 3 what do people gain from all their labors at which they toil here under the Sun I mean generations come and generations go but the earth I'm een it's just here yes a like I was just thinking about it's like think of all of the fashion trends Mount Tabor has seen come and gone so everything everything you know like knickers and and and like high socks on men or something and I also but also bell-bottoms and you know also smoking pipes like multiple iterations of smoking pipes right so so here we are like creating culture and working it's so important what we're doing in relationships everything's at stake here and Mount Tabor is just like what what yeah it's just there it was there a long time before it's gonna be there a long time after the Sun rises the Sun sets it hurries back to where it rises the wind it blows to the south and then turns to the north and it goes around and ran around always returning on its course or think about the streams how they flow into the sea but the sea is never full it's not weird you know saying like so when I fill up my bathtub it gets full but the Columbia River is a mile wide with 1,200 miles of water behind it pushing thousands of cubic feet into the ocean every single second but the ocean doesn't raise isn't that weird that's weird it's weird he says that's weird they're the place where the streams came from they just returned there again us also where is some more than one cans all this activity but nothing ever changes it's just like what do we think we're doing here but we think we're all self-important and so on what's happening in my life and my story and then but it's like Mount Tabor and the Columbia River and you know Who am I really the eye never has enough of seeing nor the ear its fill of hearing I can listen to my favorite album of 2012 and the moment it's over what do I want to do again play it over again because I want to hear it again well what's that ever be enough I don't know sort of I think the same thing about like pizza I'm never tired of eating pizza like what is that it's just never the moment I'm full and like the moment the hunger like comes back again I want another one you know I'm saying like what's going on it's all it's just constant we're really everything's really quite predictable here but nothing ever changes what has been will be again and what has been done will be done again I mean there's nothing new here Under the Sun is there anything of which someone can say look here is something new I was thinking about this so we could maybe inject and say it now - iPhone that's pretty new I'm saying like that's pretty awesome you know these little devices but if you really think about it all Apple products are doing this was a guy named Marshall McLuhan this was his theory about technology in general all technology does is take our bodies and just create new more fancy extensions of them so all iPhone is and is in the fancy extension of our ear in our mouth and our to-do list yeah that's basically it we can talk to each other like more efficiently in theory right except we're also multitasking at the same time and it helps us do things better but humans have been King and listening and trying to do things like forever so it's not really new is it it's just a new way of doing the old thing is there anything of which someone can say look this is new no no no is here already long time ago it was here before our time nobody remembers the former generations leave even those yet to come won't be remembered by those who follow them who knows their great great great Grandpa's full name that's depressing I the teacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem I applied my mind to study and explore by wisdom and hearing means by it my five senses just scoping out life everything that's here done under the heavens Oh a heavy burden God has laid on mankind I've seen the things that are done here under the Sun it's all Hevel it's like chasing win you ever tried that and succeeded you know no you have it what is crooked can't be straightened what what is lacking cannot be counted slow proverb here we all have a sense that something is just deeply deeply wrong with the world and with ourselves but we can't seem to fix it but some people are aware of the problems some people aren't some people are in the middle but we can't seem to fix it we throw money on it government education at the human condition and it just doesn't seem to but we all have this awareness it's crooked and we can't make it straight I said to myself so so look I've increased in wisdom more than anybody who's ruled over Jerusalem before me I had experienced wisdom and knowledge I've applied myself to the understanding of wisdom but also madness and folly he's gonna he's gonna run the whole spectrum of human experience and I learned this too it's chasing after the wind for with much wisdom comes much sorrow the more knowledge you have the more sorry you are that you have all that knowledge so so here I have this podium in front of me and my alternative my like other life would have been as like a scientist or a physicist or something going horrible at math so I could never do that but anyhow so you have like this there's podium here in front of me and so you know you you get into the realm of like physics particle physics and you you learn that actually this what appears to us is very solid and we'll almost hit Josh in the face last week right and so when it when it kind of went up like that and so it's very hard but actually you learned that it's composed of molecules that are themselves composed of little things called atoms but are themselves composed of little components or at the nucleus and the proton and actually what an atom is mostly is empty space that's weird because what it means is that in reality this podium is more not here than it is here right and then you're like I liked life better before I knew particle physics maybe like what and every single human endeavor right over at this justice or beauty or music you can take everything and you you run it down to the core and it's all so complex and Hevel and that's the human condition we all know something's horribly wrong but none of us seem to know to be able how to do anything about it and life is hard and it's hard to follow God in these circumstances in these conditions it's especially hard if you're under the illusion that God's role in your life is to make your like a golden path to your dreams okay you're just setting yourself up for disappointment you need to deconstruct your expectations as I said Ecclesiastes performs a negative role in the Bible and you can just see it he's just gonna come chapter after Chapter until he's going to cite a very bright light in the last paragraph of the book go to chapter 12 with me hey guys done Chapter 12 again we'll go over many of these ideas multiple times Josh will bring a whole different angle on this next week chapter 12 verse 9 the author of the book grandpa sitting on his porch he says not only was the teacher wise he also imparted knowledge to the people he he pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs like you read in the book here the teacher searched to find just the right words and what he wrote was upright and true please there's a very it has its handle on a very experience that we all resonate with here life under the Sun if this is all there is this is a really sad place and that's right and that's true to come to that conclusion he says the words of the wise they're like gods and they're collected sayings are like firmly embedded nails given by one shepherd he's essentially saying these books of wisdom in the Bible they're like a stick with nails on the end that a shepherd uses to prod write sheep or oxen in the direction they want them to go and I think a shepherd there is a metaphorical reference to God so God has inspired and given these wisdom books all three of them three guys they all have different perspective to give us the holistic view on human experience and the book of Ecclesiastes is gonna hurt because it's going to poke you and it's gonna expose areas where you've bought into the myth of religious fulfillment that's gonna expose ways where I have a distorted view of myself or God and it's just it's gonna it's gonna hurt when that stuff gets exposed inside of me but this exposure is taking place at the hands of a Good Shepherd who's trying to prod us in a direction that leads to life which is what he says he says be warned my son of anything in addition to them you can read endless books on people deconstructing everything and of the making of many such books there is no end and in fact you'll wear your body in the process of reading them so here everything's been hurt the conclusion of the matter fear God keep his Commandments this is the duty of all mankind for God will bring every deed into judgment every hidden thing whether it's good or evil this isn't whiplash at the end of the book here essentially what he's doing and joseline unpacked this what he's doing is he's pulling back the curtain and saying but this in fact isn't all that there is this isn't all there is these seventy years aren't all that we have and in fact every decision that we make does matter but it matters in ways that I may not be able to see I actually may not ever have a handle on why certain hardships enter my life I may never grasp why it is that things don't make sense in my life and why that happened to me but does that mean that there is no meaning and the teacher grandpa sitting on the porch says no no no but it's important that we disabuse ourselves of these distorted ways of thinking about God that set us up set us up for a fall so I realized that was like total firehose right there and so we're gonna explore all of this again from lots of different angles in the book but I think this is such a relevant word for us to hear especially in a city and in a culture where dude it's like these 70 years man that's all you got that's all you got and even as Christians we we can get into that mindset it well as well and it sets us up for a fall and ultimately what the with the myth of religious fulfillment what it does is it reverses the gospel so the gospel is telling me that God has this story of what he's working out to redeem the world and he's calling me to come play a bit role in his story that had his climax in the cross and the resurrection of Jesus and the myth of religious fulfillment actually says it reverses it it says well actually it's about God me inviting God into my story to make my story work out pretty well and then when that doesn't happen I get angry and I blame God and it's like well which way do you want it yeah you know so I don't know how this is speaks a word to you I don't know if it's like a goad to you or if it encourages you down a path that you're that you're already on but ultimately what I think I'll end with these words of a guy named Robert short this is this is what Ecclesiastes can do for us in a journey of following Jesus he says the CLA's EOS DS is essentially a kind of negative theologian he's asking questions that can be answered only by a future revelation of God and clearing the road for this revelation he smashes any and all false hopes to pieces Ecclesiastes is the Bible's night before Christmas Ecclesiastes is human self-sufficiency stretched to its absolute limit and found sadly wanting and if that's where Ecclesiastes leaves us that's where the bread and the cup that we're about to take as we enter into worship that's where the songs that we're about to sing they they become Christmas the coming of Christ to us which can only be good news and until I have found my own myths and self-sufficiently self-sufficiency sadly one thing it's the bad news before the good news and I believe it's God's Word to us tonight amen you

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Length: 51min 25sec (3085 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 24 2018