We started this series last week called Don’t Waste Your Life. We are looking at the book of Ecclesiastes in which the teacher is exploring life and considering the bottom line. In Ecclesiastes 1:3 the teacher asked this question: What do people gain by all their toil under the sun? The teacher is looking at life and making careful evaluations. What do you get from everything you are doing in life? What is the profit? What is the point? Now the teacher began with his conclusion in verse 2. He said that everything is vanity. It is absolute futility. Now he is not saying that life is meaningless. Rather, he is saying that life is like a vapor or mist, meaning that it is lacking substance. Life under the sun does not provide lasting satisfaction. He proved this by showing how life is just circles. One day is like the next. One season is like the next. One year is like the next. One generation is like the next. What the teacher is going to do now is to carefully consider areas in life where we try to find value, joy, and satisfaction and see if we will get that outcome (gain, profit) or not. Please open your copies of God’s word to Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 and we are going to notice four observations that he makes about life.
Life Is An Unhappy Business (Ecclesiastes 1:12-13)
Notice that the teacher just starts looking at all of life on earth in Ecclesiastes 1:12-13. The teacher is applying wisdom and knowledge as he considers life under the sun. The conclusion he draws might be startling for us to hear. “It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with” (ESV). The NIV reads that it is “a heavy burden.” The CSB reads that life is a “miserable task.” Other translations read this as a “grievous task” or a “burdensome task” or a “sorry task.” The teacher does not say that life is a bed of roses. He does not say that life is amazing, exciting, and wonderful. Life is not a party. Life is not just having all the fun you can have. The teacher says that life is hard. I am just going to use all the major English translations here and combine the idea so that we see it. He says that life is a burdensome, heavy, grievous, unhappy, sorry, and miserable task. Now maybe we are not too surprised by this conclusion after all because we did note that God subjected the world to futility when the creation was cursed (cf. Romans 8:20; Genesis 3:17-19).
Now is there something wrong with this? Is there something wrong with life when you find life to be an unhappy business? Is there something wrong with your life if you feel the weight of life and it is a grievous and burdensome task? No. Look at verse 13. Is this all by accident? No. The teacher says that God has given this to people. Would you let that hit you for a moment? God is not in heaven wringing his hands in complete surprise and turmoil that life is the way it is and the world is the way it is. “God has given people this miserable task to keep them occupied” (CSB). “It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with” (ESV). Are you hearing the teacher? Life being burdensome and difficult is not outside of God’s purpose. God made life this way. So here is what I want to think about. God is giving us an answer as to why your life is hard and burdensome. God made the world this way. No matter where you are or where you go, your life will be burdensome. No matter what you have or don’t have, your life will be heavy and difficult. Now look at verse 14.
Life Is Striving After Wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14)
This is the first time the teacher says this and he is going to say it nine times in this book. Life under the sun is a chasing after wind. This gives us another picture of what the teacher means when he says that all of life is futility. We saw in verse 3 that he wanted us to think about what you gain from all your labor and effort in this life. Now in verse 14 he wants us to think about the pursuing of this world like pursuing the wind. I want us to think about what we would think if someone told us to go chase the wind. Where I grew up in southern California, we had a curious phenomenon at our middle school. The school was located in this small valley. Because of this, the cool winds and warm winds would often mix together as the winds would come down into this small valley. So from time to time we would have what we would call dirt devils. They are like small dust tornados. The wind would whip up across the dirt field and you could see this small dirt tornado. If you weren’t far from it, then kids would run and try to get into it as it spun in this mini cyclone. They were chasing the wind. So you can imagine the humor of watching these kids running around a dirt field trying to catch the wind. But now here is what I want you to think about. Everyone once in awhile a kid would make into this dirt devil. What did they gain? What did they get? What did they have in their hands now that they were in it? Nothing. You have nothing. You have no substance. You can’t hold it. You can’t show it. You caught up to the wind and you have nothing to show for it.
The teacher is continuing the picture of emptiness. Nine times he is trying to tell us that pursuing the things that the world says is important or valuable is actually like chasing the wind. It is an empty effort in which you will have nothing to show for all your labor and time. Please hear the image this way: all of your effort to pursue what you are chasing will not and cannot pay off the effort invested. Now as I have mentioned already, the teacher is going to explore this in greater detail. But he wants us to think broadly for the moment. Whatever you are chasing in this world that you think is going to bring you joy and satisfaction is not going to give you the payoff you think it will give. These things that the world tells us will fill the empty void within us will still leave us empty.
Life Is Crooked (Ecclesiastes 1:15)
Now look at verse 15 because the teacher pushes us deeper into thought about the way the world is. He points out that what is crooked cannot be made straight and what is lacking cannot be counted. Please think about this. No matter what you do and no matter how much you try, you cannot make straight what is crooked. The teacher will say this again in Ecclesiastes 7:13. “Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?” (Ecclesiastes 7:13 ESV)
You cannot get value and purpose out of things that God did not put meaning and purpose into. You cannot count what is not there! You cannot make there be something that is not there. Since God made the world and subjected it to futility, then you cannot change that. You cannot make this life have greater value than what God has assigned to you. You cannot make life not be chasing the wind. You cannot make life not be a burdensome task. You cannot straighten what God has made crooked. You cannot fix what is broken in this world.
Please think about how much time we waste and how much effort we give trying to straighten the things in life that are crooked. Friends, I hope you will honestly and deeply think about verse 15 and then carefully look at your life. What are you doing in your life right now trying to straighten what is crooked? How much time, effort, money, and work have you given in your past trying to straighten what is crooked? There are things in life that cannot be fixed. There are things in life that cannot be changed. Friends, the past cannot be changed. We cannot fix the futility of the world. Have you lived life long enough to realize you cannot fix other people? We have a saying that the only person you can change is you. There are so many crooked things in the world and you can probably see a number of things that are crooked in your life that cannot be straightened. Our life purpose is not to fix every crooked thing in the world. You cannot do it. There are things that are wrong in the world and that is the way it is going to be. So emptiness and futility will continue in this world and that cannot be changed no matter how hard to try to the contrary.
Life Is Not About Knowledge (Ecclesiastes 1:16-18)
The last picture in this first chapter is to speak to the emptiness nature of knowledge and wisdom. Now the teacher is going to speak more about wisdom later. But he wants to make some introductory remarks about it since he has experienced great wisdom and knowledge (1:16). Even having great knowledge and wisdom is not the great solution to life. These things are also chasing the wind (1:17). Why? Look at verse 18. “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” What the teacher says is that wisdom and knowledge do not make the emptiness better. Rather the increase in wisdom and knowledge leads to more frustration and pain. We even having a saying in our culture that agrees with this assessment. We say, “Ignorance is bliss!” Our world went through a period called the enlightenment in where knowledge and education were considered some of the highest goals. The belief was that if we could give enough education to the world, then this would solve the world’s problems. Education would improve the human condition. So has education and knowledge improved things in the world? I think we can see that it has. Are wisdom, knowledge, and education the solution to the emptiness and futility of the world? No. The world cannot be fixed no matter how hard we try. Education is not the great savior either. Knowledge is not the problem. In fact, you might notice that there is some push back to our technology now because the more we know, the more sorrow it brings. God even says that he is going to show how the wisdom of the world is foolishness (cf. Isaiah 29:14; 1 Corinthians 1:19). Knowing just means I know more of the crooked things in the world that cannot be made straight.
Don’t Waste Your Life
We waste so much of our lives striving after the wind. The teacher wants us to model what he is doing in this book. Apply your heart and carefully consider life (1:13). God has made life burdensome and exhausting. God has made life crooked and it cannot be straightened. This means that there is nothing out there in the world for you to do or experience that is going to change this. What you think is going to fix your life is not going to fix your life. What you think is going to give you lasting satisfaction and true meaning and purpose in this life is not going to give you the gain you think. Having a better job will not fix this. Having more money is not going to fix this. Having a family is not going to fix this. Having a better family is not going to fix this. Moving is not going to fix this. Buying more stuff is not going to fix this. Having an affair is not going to fix this. Giving into your desires is not going to fix this. Plunging your life into drugs or alcohol is not going to fix this. Doing whatever you want and what feels good will not fix this. We are chasing the wind when we think that there is something out there that we can grab that will finally make life full and satisfying.
Now here is what is amazing. When Jesus came, he gave us the hope that we needed to hear. In John 15 we hear Jesus teaching about how he is the vine and we are the branches (cf. John 15:5). Now why did Jesus talk about how we are the branches that need to abide in him? Listen to what Jesus says:
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 15:11 ESV)
Please notice that Jesus does not say that full joy is out there in the pursuits of the world. Full joy is in him. Full joy is in relationship with him. Jesus is trying to tell us that what you are looking for is in him. In a world of emptiness and crookedness, there is one relationship where there is full joy and satisfaction. Don’t waste your life trying to pursue the wind. Pursue Jesus and find the life you are looking for.