Text: Ecclesiastes 3:1-14
(South Shore Corps - July 31st, 1994 AM)
(Prince Rupert Corps - March 24th, 1996 PM)
(Chatham Citadel - August 29th, 1999 AM)
I love my wife very much, but she has a very annoying habit.
It drives me absolutely crazy sometimes, and she can’t seem to shake it either. The worst part is, I am not sure that I want her to!
You see, she has a habit of getting chores done around the house before I even think of doing them. Before I have myself "psyched" up to do the dishes, or the laundry, or tidy the bedroom, or the family room, she has already been there. This has the disturbing effect of making me feel like a slacker, and guilty of being lazy.
Maybe I am guilty… a little. You see I have a predisposition towards procrastination.
It doesn't matter to Val that I would have done a particular chore had I been given just a little bit more time. What really matters is that I didn't do it when it should have been done.
Why am I telling you this? Well, it all has to do with a revelation I had while reading a devotional from Oswald Chambers' book, "My Utmost for His Highest." Oswald, as we affectionately called the little book, put it this way:
"We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end." (July 27)
As I thought about this, I began to understand many things in scripture that had puzzled me. One of the more difficult passages this opened up to me was the entire book of Ecclesiastes.
For years I wondered why Ecclesiastes starts with such a strange introduction: "Meaningless! Meaningless! Says the teacher... Utterly meaningless!" I had always found that interesting, and very poetic, but like most poetry, its meaning was not obvious at first. What could Solomon have meant when he went on about everything being meaningless?
As I thought about the devotional, things began to come clearer. It was like a light bulb was coming on. Suddenly, everything I read in Ecclesiastes seemed to make sense. It is so simple, actually, that it is very easy to miss. It is simply this:
Everything has a time and place. Things come and go, but our past and our present have no meaning to God. It is our present that He is concerned with, Who we are, and how we deal with things is what matters to Him. That is "the end" that Oswald Chambers was referring to.
Well, maybe it’s not quite so simple, but it is profound enough for us to look deeper.
MEANINGLESS!
Like most of us today, Solomon was looking for meaning... for purpose in his life…
Our “western” society has fulfilled our needs and just about all of our wants as well. It has come to the point where people do not want to retire any more because instead of work being heavy labour they need to rest from, it has become a means of providing purpose in our lives, no matter how shallow that purpose might be. Solomon was in a similar situation – he had everything, had tried everything, and still had found no purpose in any of it.
To aid him in his search for meaning, Solomon had the greatest wisdom of any man in the world, and he was also very rich - a pretty good combination if you want to figure something out! He had every material thing that a man from 950 BC could possibly want, and his wisdom exceeded every living person, and still he could not find meaning in anything.
Everything that can be done has already been done, or will be done by someone else. Every thought has been thought already in one form or another. When we think we have something new, we often find out that someone else has already done it, probably better. It may be new to us, but it is not new to someone else, and in the light of eternity it is ancient to God. It’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic – they might look different, maybe even better, but the ship is still sinking and the chairs have no ultimate purpose.
We are all full of plans. We want our children to grow up and become lawyers. We want our retirement money to be set aside and well invested so that we can have a nice comfortable existence after we turn sixty-five. We want, we want, we want, and we want. But the teacher in Ecclesiastes says "It’s all meaningless."
Read Ecclesiastes and you will find all the vices men and women try to find meaning in; Wisdom, Pleasure, Toil, Folly, Oppression, Advancement, and Riches. The teacher tries each, and each he rejects them as having no meaning at all. Talk about nothing being new! These same vices have been in existence since the beginning of time, exist today, and will probably continue until time’s conclusion.
So like Solomon, we ask ourselves, where then can we find meaning in life? Where is the purpose in our existence? If it is not in the things we do, then where can we find it?
BEING
The answer is there – hidden – it is subtle, but important. Listen carefully - our purpose is not found in the things we do. It is found in who we are.
Did you catch that? You are not your job, or your possessions – you are who you are – your purpose is in our being.
Our world has taken that reality and turned it inside out! Our world tells us "Do this and you shall become." But God says "Become… and you shall do this."
Did you get that? Those who seek to “do” continue to find themselves trapped by the meaninglessness of their purpose. Those whose purpose is in being what God wants them to be find the things they do fulfilling no matter how great or how small a task they are attempting, whether they are rich or poor. It doesn't matter because inside them they have found the fulfillment of reached the goal.
Wow, how profound. If my purpose is in being, then I can find joy and peace no matter what my circumstances. That sounds good, but if being is where we find our meaning, then what is it that we should be?
For the answer to that, we need to peak at the end of the teachers’ book. Look at chapter 12 of Ecclesiastes. The teacher concludes in verses 13 and 14:
"Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter; Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil." (12:13-14)
Note that Solomon does not say "continue to fear God", or "in the future fear God." He says simply, and immediately "FEAR GOD." Present tense, no exceptions. It is the here and now that we find purpose in. Live for God in the here and now and you will have purpose to spare. Live for him each and every moment of your life. Do not live for him in the past, and do not live for him in the future, because both are meaningless and for the moment do not exist.
Remember the story of the man who built his house on the sand? Yes, he probably enjoyed the view he had from his window – It would have been beautiful with lush grasses and dainty flowers that sprang up out of the moist soft soil. He dwelt on what he understood from the past. The land looked like it had been there forever, and so he was sure it would continue. He felt safe in building on the past, until the time of the storm came, and his house collapsed.
You see, it did not matter to him what the soil was like now – it didn’t matter to consider the situation he was building in. All he cared about was that the beauty that had been there yesterday was going to be there for him now. But it didn’t last – it was meaningless.
The man who stored up his grain in his barn had the opposite problem – he looked to the future. He wanted a safe retirement. He figured if he could keep all of that grain stored up, he would have plenty to eat and never worry about labouring in his fields again. He would be rich. His future would be secure... or so he thought! That night he died. He could not enjoy the benefits of his hoarding because the future did not turn out as he expected.
Who knows what he had done to accomplish the full barns – some of it was the luck of the weather, but perhaps he had overworked his employees to build the barns and store the grain – all so that he would have a safe and secure future – that never came. It was all meaningless.
Our past will condemn us, and our future is unknown. It is only in the present that we can find certainty. Things will come and things will go, but it is all meaningless, but in the present we know what is here.
That is why Solomon says there is a time for everything. There is a time for this, and a time for that, and everything will come in and of its own time. But in the present, the here and now, God is with us. Our purpose is not in the past, or in the future, it is in the here and now. God has forgiven our past, and He holds our future. He does not even judge us for our past or our future, we are condemned for the condition of our hearts in the present, or we are saved by our obedience to Him in the here and now.
There are other clues to Solomon’s meaning: In chapter 3:11, we read "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." What does he mean by this? When you think about yourself, do you think about your birth? How about your death? No? You think about your existence and you find it difficult to view the vastness of history as God has created it. You contemplate yourself in the present because that is the way God created us. He has set eternity in our hearts, without beginning or end. He has created us as eternal beings who exist at this moment in time.
Can you remember what you had for breakfast this day last year? Do you know what you will have for breakfast on this day a year from now? Again… No. We contemplate eternity in the present, not in the past or the future. Our purpose, our existence is here and now. Meaning is found for us in being who we are at this very moment.
PURPOSE
Before I begin to wax too philosophical, or is it too late? Let's remind ourselves of what our purpose for the here and now is. Verse 12 of chapter 3 continues by saying "I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live." As I have already stated, it appears that Solomon is saying that living as God would have us live is our purpose. Without living as God would have us live, we have no meaning in our lives. Without Him in our present there is no purpose for the future or forgiveness for the past. Again, in chapter 5, we read these words:
"Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong."
Every Sunday, we find ourselves physically in God's house: His sanctuary. The building we call a church. But physical location does not matter. In fact, Solomon is saying that going there alone is not the purpose for being in that place. He is talking about the spiritual “state”, the present purpose, of those who are going. Our physical location could be anywhere. The question is, where are you spiritually at this moment, while you sit here listening to me? Ask yourself, are you here out of obedience, worshipping God and hearing what he has to say to you, or are you simply fulfilling some religious obligation laid down by your fellow man, to offer your spiritual sacrifice and get it done?
Are you focusing on God and obeying Him, or are you thinking about the Disney movie showing later? If you are, you're living in the future! Are you thinking about how hard it was for you to get out of bed this morning, and how you would still like to be there? Then you're living in the past!
As Paul says to the Ephesians (5:14) "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
Let me quote Oswald once more:
"Gods training is for now, not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. We have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; we get wrong when we think of the afterwards. What men call training and preparation, God calls the end.
"God's end is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life just now. If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present; if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious."
If you have been wondering what the purpose of your life is; what God’s plan for you is, then look no further than God, and look no further than this moment. Get your heart right with God right now, and everything else will fall into its place. My mother used to say, “take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.”
There is a time for everything, and that time will come. If God rules in your heart, your purpose will be steadfast, and you will be prepared. “But seek His kingdom and these things will be added to you as well.” Jesus says in Luke 12:31.
Meaningless? All things are meaningless. But the purpose of the present is found in God. Seek Him first and all these things will be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33). You see, it’s not about the things about you or where you are supposed to be. It’s about who you are – Seek Him first and the rest will fall into place.
