Summary of Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  43:39
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Enjoy your portion as a gift from God today

Hey Babe! Headed to my job to get fired!
All right have fun!
Hey Boss! Headed to my mom’s funeral!
Sounds great! See you when you get back.
Hey Mom! Jack hit me in school today, and my teacher made fun of my paper in front of the whole class.
That is is such a great opportunity!
A commending of joy in situations like this is very enraging. Something weighty has been treated lightly.
Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.3
Meanwhile, where is God? . . . Go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become.4
So do we stick with words like “enjoy” and “gift” or do we need to substitute more appropriate actions such as complain, sulk, hate, and despise.
Do we leave words such as “have fun” and “enjoy” for parties, amusement parks?
These questions are a small sampling of the questions that come to mind when we contemplate the book of Ecclesiastes
This summary of Ecclesiastes definitely needs a context.

Enjoy your portion as a gift from God today

It is profitable to first step outside of the book of Ecclesiastes and travel back to paradise in the garden of Eden. With the creation of the world, we hear the repeated refrain: “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good.”
We see his intentions with certain of the gifts when he declares that he made them pleasant to the sight and good for food.
We don’t have sufficient time now to get into the depths of Genesis tonight: but another important focus in the responsibility and prohibitions that God gave to the original couple with regard to the good things that he made for them. They were two have dominion over them and they were to stay away from a tree that had the promise of being like God.
The great tragedy came when man doubted God’s goodness and sought for freedom outside of God’s authority.
Upon leaving the scene of that garden we note that man is now painfully dealing with a cursed world. His responsibilities did not change, but they will now be accompanied by pain and death.
So the book of Ecclesiastes sits in a grand story that had a beautiful and tragic beginning. It also sits in the middle of a developing story in which a Redeemer will come and restore this earth back to its state of Paradise.
The teacher in Ecclesiastes is giving a personal journey of man’s quest to live independent of God with the gifts that God has given. The opening statements of his quest reveal the frustrating nature of such a quest:
Ecclesiastes 1:2
Ecclesiastes 1:2 NKJV
2 “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
Ecclesiastes 1:3 NKJV
3 What profit has a man from all his labor In which he toils under the sun?
Ecclesiastes 1:13–15 NKJV
13 And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; this burdensome task God has given to the sons of man, by which they may be exercised. 14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind. 15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, And what is lacking cannot be numbered.
The exhortation is given within a context of much limitation.

Enjoy your portion as a gift from God today

A picture of building a sand castle by the sea offers a vivid picture of enjoyment within limitation. The temporary nature of the gifts is a reality. The frustrating despair comes when trying to live outside of the reality.

How do you enjoy your portion within these realities?

Wisely hate life under the curse

Ecclesiastes 2:17–19 NKJV
17 Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind. 18 Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because 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 rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.
This wise hatred is not self-centered. A foolish hatred is one which wines and complains that things are not going according as one plans and desires. With this kind of hatred, we lash out with bitterness and selfish anger toward God and others. Death, sickness, murder, fighting, oppression are all bad because that is not how God intended things to be.
Wise hatred has a strong dislike and deep sorrow over things not being as God created them. This hatred is something that is brought in faith toward God.
If a child believes that her parents cannot handle what she actually questions or feels, she will pretend all is well or constantly tantrum about. But she will not reveal her true heart in all of its nobility and ugliness; needy for help, longing to try, rotting with secrets. But show her a parent who has a capacity for her, and she will risk, argue, ask, laugh, learn, and cry in the presence of their love.
The abused don’t talk back, except finally to rage when the last straw breaks. But the rage isn’t faith. The rage is all smokescreen and walls, barbed wire and electric fence to keep the wolves out.
Eswine, Zack W.. Recovering Eden: The Gospel According to Ecclesiastes (Gospel According to the Old Testament Book 14) (p. 84). P&R Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Against the sad and limiting realities of life, it also necessary to resign your effort at trying to control life.

Resign your effort at trying to control life

Ecclesiastes 3:11–12 NKJV
11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. 12 I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives,
To whom are you relinquishing control? (Not that you ever had it)
Ways in which we try to control life
Use wealth-looking at others as a means to gain. Hoarding
Use wisdom- not everything is to be fixed, some are to be endure
Use pleasure- gorge on it
Use work- forsake relationships; work out of envy toward what others have
This negative action may seem like submission to a melancholy enslaved life. So with the picture in mind, do we stop building sand castles because of the waves that could knock them out tomorrow? This is a pivotal point for the proposition of this book. The temporary nature of the gifts is not meant to lead us to spurn them.

Receive your portion as a gift from God

Illustration of Mom telling college son that she is going to sell the house in order to follow band around the country. It would be necessary to hate music in this fashion in order to enjoy it simply as a gift. (Jeffery Meyers) Trying to be God of your portion will not lead to your enjoyment of it.
Ecclesiastes 3:12–13 ESV
12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.
Ecclesiastes 5:18 ESV
18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot.
Introduce the analogy of the apple tree:
The nihilist sits down beside the tree and weeps, waits for death, shout that nothing matters.
The cynic’s advice is that “we stop distracting ourselves with accomplishments, accept the meaninglessness of the universe, lie down on a park bench and get some sun while we have the chance.”2 Sits in the shade of the apple tree, folds his hands, enjoys the shade, and eats the fruit while it lasts
The pleasure seeker- This neighbor will cut down the tree, make a fire, cook the fruit, invite friends over, and party all night with each other, shouting, “Let’s eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die!” (see 1 Cor. 15:32).
There can be a pious response- forsake the apple tree. The condition of our soul is all that matters. Only the eternal things matter.
The escapist- things aren’t that bad; everything is fine under the sun. God doesn’t make anything ugly. The tree will be fine
Eswine, Zack W.. Recovering Eden: The Gospel According to Ecclesiastes (Gospel According to the Old Testament Book 14) (p. 101). P&R Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Powerfully, the Preacher differs from each of these responses. He agrees with the nihilist that meaning is lost with us. But he maintains that God exists and is knowable. Therefore purpose can be recovered, not beneath the sun, but in the One who created the sun.
The Preacher likewise agrees with the cynic that much of what we aspire to in life is nothing more than “striving after wind” and distraction. Ordinary enjoyments such as food, shelter, and nature are enough for us. We possess within them a certain kind of pleasantness. Yet, relation to God and to our neighbors for his sake remains. This will require more than our mockery and life-long vacation from the world. There is a sadness we are meant to enter, a recovery of beauty that we are meant to long for, neighbors we are meant to stand with and love.
Likewise, Ecclesiastes does not travel with hedonism. Though our senses are gifts and pleasures bring delight, the Preacher insists that there remains a difference between lust and love, between grateful receiving and greedy consuming, between sacred regard and selfish use. Self-indulgence implies that love is not required; that we need care nothing for patience, restraint, humility, and the protection of others from being treated as our property or our toys. Our spouses, our food, our place, our work, and our enjoyment of each are not meant to fade from view when death speaks. Rather, the Preacher teaches us that these provisions are meant to take their place center stage in our lives with God. These are his gifts to us and are not trash to be thrown into the dumpster while we carry our Bibles and sit in the alley, waiting with praise and prayer for death to come.
Eswine, Zack W.. Recovering Eden: The Gospel According to Ecclesiastes (Gospel According to the Old Testament Book 14) (p. 103). P&R Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Consequently, the Preacher also challenges escapist “Christian” responses to the world. Our impending death calls us to prayer and piety (Eccl. 5) but not in isolation from the physical provisions of God for us.
1 Corinthians 2:6–9 NKJV
6 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
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