When life is unfair

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Malcolm Lithgow

Renew Discipleship Gold Coast

Ecclesiastes • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago • Presented 2 years ago • 25:51

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In Ecclesiastes, Solomon adopts an "under the sun" perspective on life. He recognises that life in this world is inherently unfair--rewards don't match effort. How can we handle this? Solomon suggests several responses, but none of them are satisfying. But what if we take an "above the sun" perspective? Does that make a difference?

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Burnout

I don’t know how many of you have experienced what we call burnout. It comes in many forms, and has a variety of causes, but usually it happens as a result of rewards not matching effort.

In my case, I suffered what I guess you could call burnout at the end of a long period of effort in our company, DreamSpring. We started developing smart phone apps even before smartphones existed. (We developed apps for a PDA platform from a company called Psion, which evolved into the first significant smartphone platform, Symbian.)

After 10 years of developing apps for Symbian, the platform was abandoned. We had come close on several occasions to breaking through to large-scale sales, but had always just missed out. We had poured so much effort into creative and exciting apps, but had never achieved that breakthrough, so when we considered whether to seek investment to start afresh on a new platform, I simply didn’t have the energy.

Question: has anyone else experienced burnout like this?

Solomon was certainly familiar with the idea that life’s rewards didn’t match the effort we put in. Let’s look at what he says in Ecclesiastes chapter 9.

Bible

Ecclesiastes 9:1–12 NLT

1 This, too, I carefully explored: Even though the actions of godly and wise people are in God’s hands, no one knows whether God will show them favor. 2 The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad, ceremonially clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don’t. 3 It seems so wrong that everyone under the sun suffers the same fate. Already twisted by evil, people choose their own mad course, for they have no hope. There is nothing ahead but death anyway. 4 There is hope only for the living. As they say, “It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion!” 5 The living at least know they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, nor are they remembered. 6 Whatever they did in their lifetime—loving, hating, envying—is all long gone. They no longer play a part in anything here on earth. 7 So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this! 8 Wear fine clothes, with a splash of cologne! 9 Live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil. 10 Whatever you do, do well. For when you go to the grave, there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom. 11 I have observed something else under the sun. The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise sometimes go hungry, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time. 12 People can never predict when hard times might come. Like fish in a net or birds in a trap, people are caught by sudden tragedy.

Responses to burnout and unfairness

Notice how Solomon points out that no-one is immune to unfairness.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 NLT

11 I have observed something else under the sun. The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise sometimes go hungry, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time.

It doesn’t matter whether you have physical prowess, intellectual gifts, or moral strength, nothing guarantees you success in life.

What can we do about this? How can we handle this endemic unfairness of life?

Solomon suggests several strategies in Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT

1 For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

First, we can recognise that the season has changed and we can try to accommodate ourselves to the new season. But, as Graham pointed out last week, we have to recognise that we have no control over this—God is one who controls the seasons of our lives.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 ESV

10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

Second, we can simply put our noses to the grindstone. If our efforts don’t yield the expected rewards, we can simply work harder. This is a classic response encouraged by the Protestant Work Ethic of our society. But, of course, more work doesn’t guarantee more rewards.

Ecclesiastes 9:7–9 NLT

7 So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this! 8 Wear fine clothes, with a splash of cologne! 9 Live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil.

Third, we can eat, drink, and be merry. We can endure the toil and focus on enjoying what it buys us. Work hard and play harder, is the attitude. But this doesn’t always work, we can easily lose everything that we enjoy, and it eventually becomes hollow, anyway.

Ecclesiastes 9:3 NLT

3 It seems so wrong that everyone under the sun suffers the same fate. Already twisted by evil, people choose their own mad course, for they have no hope. There is nothing ahead but death anyway.

Finally, Solomon suggests that we can give up on the idea of working for a reward, and simply do whatever it takes to get what we want: cheating and stealing with abandon. Of course, this behaviour just makes it more likely that we’re going to end up badly, doesn’t it?

The answer from “above the sun”

None of these answers seem very satisfying, but that’s all that we can offer if we limit ourselves to what Solomon calls “under the sun” thinking, and which we would call a materialistic worldview.

But we don’t need to limit ourselves to under the sun, because as believers in God, we have access to answers from “above the sun,” spiritual solutions.

The OT answer

Even Solomon’s contemporaries had access to this wisdom, as Psalm 49 demonstrates. In this psalm, the author addresses the same problems Solomon saw, but offers a very different solution:

Psalm 49:5–15 NLT

5 Why should I fear when trouble comes, when enemies surround me? 6 They trust in their wealth and boast of great riches. 7 Yet they cannot redeem themselves from death by paying a ransom to God. 8 Redemption does not come so easily, for no one can ever pay enough 9 to live forever and never see the grave. 10 Those who are wise must finally die, just like the foolish and senseless, leaving all their wealth behind. 11 The grave is their eternal home, where they will stay forever. They may name their estates after themselves, 12 but their fame will not last. They will die, just like animals. 13 This is the fate of fools, though they are remembered as being wise. Interlude 14 Like sheep, they are led to the grave, where death will be their shepherd. In the morning the godly will rule over them. Their bodies will rot in the grave, far from their grand estates. 15 But as for me, God will redeem my life. He will snatch me from the power of the grave. Interlude

Now, you might notice that the Psalmist seems happy just to know that God will somehow redeem him from the grave. Job places the same trust in God, too. But with our perspective from beyond the New Testament, and the coming of God as the man Jesus, we can ask “How and why does God redeem my life and snatch me from the power of the grave?”

The NT account of God’s redemption

We are all familiar with the explanation that the apostle Paul gave to the Roman church:

Romans 3:24–25 NLT

24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past,

So now we know the reality: God will put everything right after death—the apparent meaningless chance of this material world will be corrected in the next world through the power of Jesus.

So, there is one burning question remaining: how then shall we live? The options that Solomon suggest only make sense when God is excluded from the picture, how should we live when God, and the next life, is very much part of the picture?

The right way to live

The apostle Paul, perhaps the New Testament’s equivalent to Solomon in his incredible theological wisdom, explains in his second letter to the Corinthians:

2 Corinthians 5:1–10 NLT

1 For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. 2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. 3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. 4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. 5 God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit. 6 So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. 7 For we live by believing and not by seeing. 8 Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him. 10 For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.

So our whole lives are to be lived “above the sun.” The reality of “under the sun” still tires us, but we know that soon, soon, we will put on our heavenly bodies (v. 2). When we encounter unfairness, what then do we do? We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, and we aim to please him.

A metaphor for life: IFR

I know this is a very abstract idea, so an illustration might help to cement this idea in our heads.

The Challenge of Single Pilot Instrument Flying

When a pilot first starts flying, they are licensed to fly in what’s called Visual Flight Rules, or VFR. They must only fly in situations where they can see all around them, so that they can maintain appropriate distance from the terrain and other aircraft. They use their eyes and the radio to talk to other aircraft.

But what happens when they encounter a storm or even just fluffy, white clouds? They have to fly around them! When you can’t see the horizon it is very easy to become disoriented and fly the plane right into the ground.

Now, if you’ve flown anywhere, you will know that commercial aircraft fly through clouds all the time. That’s because commercial pilots are licensed to fly in Instrument Flight Rules, or IFR. In IFR, the trained pilot scans six main flight instruments and responds to them. An IFR pilot flies by having faith in his instruments, rather than his eyes. In a storm, you can imagine how difficult this can become. On top of this, in IFR the pilot must maintain contact with air traffic control in order to ensure that there are no other aircraft too close by. And, to add a further burden, IFR requires the ability to navigate via radio beacons and airways. Yes, you can use GPS to navigate most of the time, but a pilot must be able to navigate without GPS, since pilots can’t simply pull over to ask a pedestrian which way to the nearest airport.

Now, you might be thinking that IFR sounds a lot more complex than VFR, and it is! Fortunately, commercial aircraft, and indeed many IFR flights, have an extra pilot along to help share the burden. You might have thought that the copilot just sat their waiting for the pilot to drop dead or something, but no, they have an important role to play at all times.

How does this illustrate our situation? Think of Visual Flight Rules as Solomon’s “under the sun” perspective. It works OK so long as no clouds or storms come along. As soon as life’s storms gather, VFR leaves you grounded!

Now think of Instrument Flight Rules as our “above the sun” perspective. With IFR we can fly straight into a cloud or storm, confident that we’ll come out the other side. Of course, flying by instruments requires a lot more attention: we need to communicate with God, study his word, pray, and ignore the visual circumstances of the storms around us. We live by believing and not by seeing. And that’s why it helps to have others around, sharing the load.

But the benefits are huge: we can fly into the storms of life without fear. We don’t need to worry about chance circumstances, we can navigate without focusing on our circumstances. We can fly without limitations. We know the truth, and the truth sets us free.

Let’s pray

Lord Jesus, we thank you for coming to die for us. Your death and resurrection has set us free from the limitations of this world. We are free to join you in the heavens, like a pilot flying on instruments. Help us to remember and relish our freedom, and to encourage one another in keeping our eyes fixed on you rather than our circumstances.