391: Meaningless, Meaningless. Everything is Meaningless | Tim Henderson

Introduction

You guys, maybe you already know this, maybe you don't, but Kim Motley is a ferocious advocate for children in need. I don't even know. Kim, I mean, it's hundreds, thousands. Where'd you go? Kim left. Oh, there you are. Hundreds, maybe thousands of children through whose lives she’s worked and advocated with Compassion International and now really focusing on kind of these trying to keep kids out of foster care. It's unbelievable. Kim, your faith bears fruit in real life change, and we just admire it so much and love the way that you invite us to partner with what God is doing. So we love you. You're the best. Good job. And let's maybe foster some kids and get involved. It's such a modest investment to have such an outsized impact. You know? This is great.

The Challenge of Biblical Promises and Experience

Alright. So I have a question for you, and you might find it a little bit uncomfortable, or you might just find it odd or surprising, particularly given our context. Here's the question. Have you ever been reading your Bible, minding your own business, and you come across something that says, some description or some promise, and you think to yourself, well, okay, that's lovely and all, but it's just not true. You ever had that experience? I hope that if you've been here for any length of time, you know that I ask that question from a vantage point that holds the scriptures in supreme regard. I think it is crucial that we would lean in, we would know what it says, we would understand it, we would believe it, we would obey what God has revealed. But nevertheless, I still ask you the question: are you troubled by the promises and descriptions that seem wildly divergent from your own direct observations?

There's a section of the Bible known as the wisdom literature. The most famous books in the wisdom literature are probably Psalms and Proverbs, and I think Psalms and Proverbs probably contain the majority of the material that would make a thoughtful person be like, well, not really. Is that really so? And if you read the wisdom literature, you read these Psalms and Proverbs, and you take them kind of as a didactic description, then it could be very difficult, very difficult to reconcile with your own direct experience. It might be that the mother of all this is what Eric just read to us in Psalm 1.

Blessed is the man who does not walk with the wicked, stand with the sinners, sit with the mockers.
But he delights in the law.
— Psalm 1

Psalm 1 is the gateway to the Psalms, and the essential message of Psalm 1 is good guys win and bad guys lose. And you may have noticed that that is simply not the case over and over.

Does this feel heretical to you? That you know what I'm saying? You said, yeah. Okay. Thank you for that, Catherine. Okay. Make sure you never put Catherine on the vestry. I don't want to lose my job. Okay? It's really difficult. It's really hard. Are you okay that I hurt your feelings? No. It's good. Everything's good. Everything's great. Okay. Good. Well, I'll give you a hug later.

You guys, it is all the time the case that bad guys lose, and that the good guys—I'm sorry—the good guys lose and the bad guys prosper. It happens all the time. Some of you perhaps have lost out on a job promotion to somebody that was dishonest. Some of you certainly know someone who is long living in their treachery or some wonderful person whose life was snuffed out prematurely.

Psalm 1 in particular makes this huge claim, and the Bible itself reflects on Psalm 1 over and over and over again. Lots of people that lived long before us read Psalm 1, loved God's word, and said, wait a minute. What? In fact, if you go through the rest of the psalter, you'll find repeatedly Psalm 1 gets sourced. Psalm 37 and Psalm 73. Okay? Psalm 37—70—73. Those two Psalms are both reflections on Psalm 1, and they're like, woah, you said, but it sure seems like—and he walks through it.

Maybe the most pointed expression of this is in Jeremiah 15. Jeremiah has been living out something that is so exactly backward from Psalm 1 that he stops and he quotes it back to God. In fact, he does so in a way that is, like, pretty chippy.

In Jeremiah 15 verse 16, Jeremiah says, When your words came, I ate them.
They were my joy and my heart's delight.
I never sat in the company of revelers. I never made merry with them.
I sat alone because your hand was on me and you had filled me with indignation.
— Jeremiah 15:16-17

He hears what he's saying? He's like, I solemn wander like a beast. I did exactly what you told me to do, and yet, look at verse 18. Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? Listen to how pointed this is. He's talking to God. You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails. He's saying, I'm the tree, and I did the two things you told me to do, and I did them in an extremity. And where's the stream? You're a deceptive brook. You're a spring that fails.

What Jeremiah is doing is he's interrogating Psalm 1, and he's saying, I just don't—I don't understand. I don't see it. And I think what that gives me some sense of courage is that we are allowed to ask the same questions, and to say, I don't—this doesn't make any sense to me. What gives? I don't see how this plays out.

And in fact, there is a book in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament that does little else. Psalms and Proverbs are part of that same collection of the wisdom literature, but so is Ecclesiastes. And what we're going to do this summer, all summer long, give it like three or four months, we're going to look—I guess three months—we're going to look at this, and we're going to run through the book of Ecclesiastes and really lean in and try to understand the argument that it is making.

Psalms and Proverbs tell us, in general, what the world ought to be like, and it tells us ultimately what the world will be like. And Ecclesiastes interrupts and says, yeah. But why don't we include what it actually is like right now—in a world filled with brokenness? And I think this is going to be a really important study. I think it'll be a fun study.

Our goal here, as we walk through it, is to give you both refreshment and hope. Refreshment because when we let the winds of truth blow, and we can kind of put down some of the pretense, then I think that refreshes our souls and helps us build—okay. Okay. I could live in that world.

And I think it gives us hope because it's only when we see the world as it actually is that we have any chance of understanding God's purposes in all of it. Right? So we're going to go after it. Today, all I'm going to do is just give you the introduction. I want—I want you to get a high-level view of Ecclesiastes, and what I hope you'll do with it is read it this week. Ecclesiastes is only 12 chapters long. You could absolutely read it this week. And if you read it this week, and if you will in particular read it kind of armed with the overview that I'm going to give you, some of the resources, I'm going to give you a few things to look for, then that will help you.

Next week, Sloop's going to pick it up, and I'll take it the week after that, then Quig will go after that. And we're going to walk through this thing, and by the end of the summer, I think that you should understand what Ecclesiastes is saying. And if you get it, I think it's going to really help you live in this world where very often the Psalms and the Proverbs might leave you like, yeah, but not really. Like, how does that work? And I want to give you a holistic sense that's going to make sense in a world that you and I both share. Dig it? Okay. That's where we're going to go. So I want you to read it. So here's the high-level thing. Here's what I want you to know about Ecclesiastes that I think will help you this week as you read through it.

First of all, the author of Ecclesiastes quotes extensively, almost entirely, from a man that the NIV calls the Teacher, that ESV calls the Preacher, that the Hebrew text calls Koheleth, and that the Greek translation of the Hebrew calls Ecclesiastes. Maybe Solomon, maybe not Solomon. It's a little bit of ambiguity on that, if it is or isn't. Might be. Not the author of the book, but the one that the author is quoting.

When I said that the Greek name for this guy is Ecclesiastes, I don't know if it's ever occurred to you, but you might know that the Greek word for church is ecclesia, ecclesia. And so Ecclesiastes and ecclesia—they have the same root. The church is the church. You are the gathered ones. You've been drawn out, gathered in, and the Ecclesiastes speaks to the ecclesia. It is this person, the teacher, the preacher, the one who is addressing the crowd. And the author of this book is going to quote extensively from this guy. He is his absolute favorite source, and that favorite source—the Ecclesiastes, the teacher—has a favorite word. His favorite word far and away, he uses this word more often than it's used throughout the rest of the Bible combined. His favorite word is hevel.

If we were to translate it from Hebrew into English, it's h e v e l, and it's a little bit tricky to translate. Most words are. Most words have a semantic range. The NIV, when we're in Ecclesiastes, it quotes this word as meaningless, or it translates the word as meaningless. ESV calls it vanity, so does King James. CSB likes to use futility. Over and over and over again, he's going to say that life is hevel.

Meaningless, meaningless, says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless. — Ecclesiastes 1:2

I thought in my heart, Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good. That also proved to be meaningless. — Ecclesiastes 2:1

Man's fate is like that of the animals. The same fate awaits them both. As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath. Man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. — Ecclesiastes 3:19

Whoever loves money never has money enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless. — Ecclesiastes 5:10

Enjoy life with your wife whom you love—all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun. All your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. — Ecclesiastes 9:9

The final quotation of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes: everything is meaningless. — Ecclesiastes 12:8

Hevel, hevel, hevel, hevel, hevel, is hevel. Now, what does he mean? What does the word hevel mean? Again, more than half, only slightly more than half of the uses of hevel occur in Ecclesiastes at the Teacher's tongue. The other half or the slightly less than half is the rest of the Old Testament, used in a number of different ways.

Probably, I didn't actually count, but I think the most frequent way it's used is in the phrase worthless idols. Over and over, the Bible describes idols as being worthless. But the funny thing is, when I looked it up, it sounds like worthless idols—that worthless in English is an adjective describing the noun idol, but if you actually look at the Hebrew, the noun idol doesn't even exist. The translators are just kind of supplying it. It literally calls it turns worthless into a noun, and it says that they are—they—they are a worthless.

They made me jealous by what is no God, and they angered me with their worthlessness. — Deuteronomy 32:21

And what I think that conveys is that it's just this empty claim. It's nothing. Because an idol is nothing at all in the world. You're just making it up. It doesn't exist. There's no substance behind it. It's a hevel. It's a nothing.

Elsewhere, it gets translated as breath, like this in Psalm 62:

Low mourn men are but a breath. The high born are but a lie. If weighed on a balance, they're nothing. Together, they are only a breath. — Psalm 62:9

Hevel conveys this sense of something that is ephemeral, that is short-lived. It's cotton candy and water. It just turns to nothing. In other places, it'll be translated as futility, vapor, vanity, emptiness. And what the Teacher is saying is that all of that nothingness describes, accurately describes, vast swaths of life. Not only a whole long list of things in particular, but broadly, generally, everything is hevel.

So now, that's his point. That's what the author—the one the Teacher quotes—says this over and over again. And I want you to see, I want you to understand before we go and read it this week together, why he has such a low view.

Now, this is what I'll invite you to do. Hope you'll do this. Get out your Bible if you got it out, grab a pen, and write in the margins. If you're using your iPad, great—make a digital note. I'm going to give you essentially the outline of the sermon series we're going to do—kind of, I want you to see the main arguments, and we're going to teach it this summer not just chapter by chapter, but concept by concept.

What he's going to do is he's going to tell us the three reasons that the Teacher says that life is meaningless. Three primary arguments, they recur over and over and over through the book, you'll see them repeatedly. I'm going to extract them so you can see them.

He's also going to give us the four strategies that people tend to rely on. There are more than four, but the four big ones that he uses. Right? These four things, we go through these over and over, and then he's going to give us the three things he recommends we do.

Given that everything is hevel, given that we have these three great enemies, we have these four failed strategies, having stared face-to-face with life, he's like, well, at the end of the day, here are the three things that I recommend you do before he gets to his big conclusion. That's what you’re going to find me.

And so I'll tell you what you're looking for. Okay? First of all, the three great enemies that we have. Number one is death. The author of Ecclesiastes, the Teacher, is going to say over and over again, listen, rich, poor, human, animal, it doesn't matter. You're all going to die. We are all going to—you can eat well, you can wear your seatbelt, you can work out five days a week, or you can eat like a slob, smoke a pack a day, live a reckless life, you're all going to die. It doesn't really matter. Your first great enemy is death. No one gets out alive.

Number two, random injustice. Have you ever noticed? Man, the race does not always go to the swift nor victory to the strong. The evil often get away with murder, and there's a kind of randomness to life that defies explanation. And he would say, heaven— Not only are we all going to die, not only must we contend with an enormous amount of random injustice, but in any case, everything is just cyclical, just this mad carousel that goes around and around and around.

For how many centuries have politicians been telling lies? Have do-gooders crusaded against wickedness? Have the rich exploited the poor? It is the same song, different verse, and the world spins madly on. That is why, according to the author of Ecclesiastes, life is meaningless. Death, random injustice, and the cyclical nature of life.

But not to worry, because we've got strategies. We know what to do. Like, I've seen this story, and I know what I'm gonna do. And so he's going to walk through basically four primary strategies that we tend to deploy. Wisdom, pleasure, work, and wealth. But if we're being honest, when he says pleasure, what he means is women. Not woman, but women. Kind of, the four W's. Wisdom, women, work, and wealth. It's easy to remember all the W's. Right? So wisdom, pleasure, work, wealth. And he's like, the Teacher here, he has tried each one of those to the fullest extent, and he says, you know what? Turns out, those don't work either. Hevel. He's going to make the case. I have done as much wisdom. I have a harem the size that you cannot comprehend. I have done all the work, have acquired the wealth, and it didn't really work. And most of us have heard that before, and we think, yeah, but you might not be as good at it as I am. And so I'm going to give it a swing. And the author of Ecclesiastes would say, okay. Well, good luck, and we'll see if you succeed where literally everyone who has ever lived has failed.

And then there are the three things that he recommends. Everything is hevel, but there's a couple of things that might move the needle for you, and I'm not going to tell you what they are. Okay? I do think they're interesting, and I do think that you can discover them, and I hope that you will. Later on this summer, we're going to get there, and when we do, we'll walk you through. But what I'd love you to do this week: read it. Watch for the three great enemies. Watch for death and the random injustice. Watch for the cyclical thing. Watch for the work, the women, the wealth, the wisdom. You'll see all those things.

And in the later chapters, kind of chapter nine and following, look for what he says. Okay? Okay. Given that everything is hevel, here's where your best shot lies. There's a couple of things he's going to say—yeah, man, everything's totally broken, but this is your best hope. It's going to give you three things in particular. See what you find out, we'll compare notes as the summer goes on.

Okay? Now I am really excited about this study. I love Ecclesiastes, and I really hope that you will enjoy the honesty that Ecclesiastes demands of us. I really want to break through a bunch of religious silliness and nonsense that Christians can tend to prattle on about. Those of you that have strong inner cynics, you might be refreshed. I hope you will be refreshed by some gut-level honesty. You're going to like it because there's nothing Pollyanna about what we're looking at. But I need you to know, our real goal is not to, like, satisfy our cynical nature, but to challenge it, and maybe even to silence it.

Because here's the thing: heaven is the most important term in the book of Ecclesiastes. But there is another phrase that occurs throughout Ecclesiastes that is the most recurrent phrase. Does anybody know what it is? Couple of words, few words, and it gets said over and over. Twenty-seven times he's going to use this phrase in Ecclesiastes. Anybody know? Is it no? That's a good guess, Catherine. It's not. I've tried. You may know? Under the sun.

What does a man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? — Ecclesiastes 1:3
What has been will be again. — Ecclesiastes 1:9
I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and all of them are meaningless, chasing after the wind. — Ecclesiastes 1:14

Here’s what it sounds like: under the sun, under the sun, under the sun. Here's what it means: He's talking about the physical, material, functionally atheistic world that we inhabit. And in that place, everything is meaningless. If all that we can see is all that there is, then life is meaningless. If I were not a Christian, I would be a nihilist. Because if Christianity is not true, then the only plausible philosophy of life is nihilism. It is meaningless. Life is but a walking shadow. A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

But friends, someone has entered time and space who is not heaven and is not merely under the sun. He comes from beyond the sun, and in fact, he made the sun for him. And without him, nothing was made that has been made. He is before all things, and in him, things hold together. He gives meaning to what is otherwise meaningless. I am not a nihilist. I am a Christian, and I am not a nihilist because there is a Christ.

You guys just think about the enemies that we face and how Jesus has already defeated every one of them. The first great enemy is death. Well, so what about that? He has defeated death. He faced death and took away its sting. Death could not hold him, and it will not hold you either. He's defeated death itself.

The second great enemy is injustice. Well, he drank the river of injustice. No one, no one who has ever lived is more worthy of experiencing good and more patient in suffering evil. He took upon himself our injustice to demonstrate justice and to be the one who is not only just, but the justifier of those who trust in him.

The third great enemy is that just things spin around and around, and time is just this endless cycling loop. Well, not anymore it isn't. Jesus gives time a beginning, a middle, and an end. We have divided all of history into two epics: the time before he came, and the years of his gracious reign. And history is racing to a conclusion.

You guys, the eschaton has begun, and you have lived your entire life in a world in which a man has been raised from the dead. He is the firstfruits. He is the sample of resurrection. And time is racing towards his conclusion when you will be raised from the dead. The world has a telos. It has an end. It has a purpose. There is a culmination. We are not just on a merry-go-round that spins. The cycle has been broken, and the end is drawing near.

You guys, everything is heaven under the sun. But we who know Christ do not merely live under the sun. Jesus brings meaning. He ends futility. He is not a vapor. He is not false. He keeps his promises, and he has elevated us to be seated with him at the Father's right hand.

Application and Response

You guys, this summer we're going to study this book because we need to know how do we live in this world where, yes, it appears that everything is heaven and meaningless reigns. But it is not so, for Christ reigns over all things. So read it this week. Watch for the enemies. Look to where—look to what he says about death, random injustice, and how things just seem to spin around. Notice it. Look at the strategies.

To be sure, they are strategies that each one of us in this room has employed in a vain, heavy pursuit of escape. Is it money? Is it wealth? Is it wisdom? Is it women or pleasure? Is it simply your work? What are the strategies you employ? They're not new. You're not the first to think of this. Right? And then hunt, look for the recommendations at the end of all things.

Here's what he recommends before he gets to his conclusions. I'll give you a little space for self-discovery on that. I think it’s going to be a really fun summer. I think there's going to be something refreshing about honesty and something joyful about the hope that Christ brings to it all.

And if today, this moment, you are in a season or a day that feels particularly heavy, then come forward. Let Psalm 37, let Psalm 73, let Jeremiah 15 give you courage to speak with candor. We are allowed to say, I don't get it. Why did she get the promotion? Why is he prospering? What am I doing wrong that leaves us in this situation? Because I have searched my heart and I can't find it and I don't understand. I don't understand the way you run your universe.

If that resonates—and PS, it does—come forward. This curved rail is for you alone. If you want some privacy with the Lord, speak to him. Say, man, what is up with this? Or if you want to have a friend, someone at the straight edges will meet you to pray for you in that.

Guys, life is hard, and the book of Ecclesiastes is going to give us a little guidance to walk through it with hope that Jesus stands outside the sun and invites you to life with him.

Conclusion

Lord Jesus, you are the King, and you reign over all things. But, Lord, we're stuck right here. It is so much madness, and it does seem like the world spins madly on. And so we ask you, would you speak to us through your word? Would you help us see? Give us words to our angst, and give us hope.

Lord Jesus, we praise you that you faced every enemy, and you beat them all. There is no one like you, absolutely no one, and we place ourselves in your hands. We love you, and we thank you for loving us. Amen.