Biblical Wisdom for Everyday Life: Purpose Reimagined

Pastor Fletcher preaches from Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 and 2:22-26. Discussion points: Life is fleeting like a mist, the teacher tried everything that could bring pleasure and none of it had enough meaning, the teacher concluded that meaning could come from enjoying the small moments of life, the author concludes that life is about loving and obeying God and trusting in his justice.

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  Scripture reader: [Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 and 2:22-26] The words of the preacher, the son of David King in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities says the preacher vanity of vanities. All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun. A generation goes and a generation comes but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north, around and around goes the wind and on its circuits, the wind returns. All streams run to the sea but the sea is not full. To the place where the streams flow where they flow again. All things are full of weariness. A man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be and what has been done is what will be done. And there is nothing new under the sun.

  Is there a thing of which it is said, see this is new. It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow and his work is a vexation. Even in the night, his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. There's nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

  This also I saw is from the hand of God, for apart from Him who can eat or who can have enjoyment. For to the one who pleases Him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy. But to the sinner, he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

  This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

  All right, good morning. My name's Fletcher. I'm the the pastor here. It's a joy to have you this morning. I hope to get to know you each better if I haven't had the chance to just afterwards or at the pastor's coffee. If you're able to join us. Then over the past year, I have taken it upon myself to attempt to learn the language of French. I decided that the gold framed glasses weren't making me look pretentious enough. And so I needed to add the, the language of French at this point, my French mainly looks like me saying bonjour and then butchering the rest of the language. But making it a little fancy as I, as I do that, it's mainly just me impressing myself with how many different ways I can mispronounce croissant to all the different people I talked to.

  But generally when you're learning French, they encourage you, they, they tell you that you can, you need to learn in all the different ways. So you need to hear it, you need to be able to write it, you need to be able to speak it and listen to it and, and read it. And so there's two books that they generally recommend to newcomers when it comes to learning French. And the first book is called The Petit Pence or for the uncultured, the little Prince and the Little Prince, it's this wonderful story about a prince who goes from planet to planet and he's exploring and it's about love and wonder and it's just this amazing whimsical story.

  The other book that they tell you to read is called Les Trans, which is The Stranger by Albert Camus. Camus. As I said, I mispronounced things. Al it's Albert Camus if you're very uncultured. Ok. But it's Al Albert Camus and and the Stranger, I mean, if the petite prince, the little prince, if that is a, a feel good story, the stranger is about the opposite of that. The stranger makes Cormick McCarthy look cheery at times as you read through it and as you go through the stranger, what you see is, it's about this man named Mia, who confronts the meaninglessness of life.

  And the book starts with him not crying at his own mother's funeral. He continues to encourage a friend to be ruthless with a woman. He, and then towards the end of the book, he, he actually murders someone and feels absolutely no remorse. It's just a cold murder. And this, this terrible thing, he's, he's sentenced to, to prison. He faces the judge. He feels no remorse over what he has done because he just feels as though life is meaningless.

  And so what you see is Camus became this really popular philosopher in this idea of absurdism and to Camus, absurd is a technical term we might use it. I, I would say that's absurd. Like that makes no sense. That's absurd. But Camus has it as a technical term. And what he means when he says absurd is that the events in your life they present as though they may have meaning, but really they have no meaning at all. And he became wildly popular for this philosophy.

  He wrote another essay called the, the Myth of Sisyphus and many of us are familiar with Sisyphus is this ancient, this ancient myth, this Greek myth of a man who was sentenced to roll a ball up a hill over and over again. And just as he gets to the top, he drops the ball and it goes all the way down to the bottom and he has to start rolling it again. Or as many of us like to say Monday through Friday of our lives and what he's trying to communicate with that is that our lives are like Sisyphus that we do the same thing every single day.

  That we wake up. We all go to bed. Most of us, at least we all wake up, we get our coffee, we have our breakfast, we do the same three meals every day. We go to work, we come home, we might watch an episode of some stupid TV show and then we go to bed and that is our life on repeat, on repeat over and over and over again.

  And so what Camus is saying is that it, it, it feels so meaningless and so he really pushes this idea of the absurd. Now, Camus was celebrated as this new and fresh thinker in the 19 hundreds. But if you've been reading your Bible, you will see that none of his ideas are new. These are things that pop up in the Bible, particularly in the book of Ecclesiastes. The one that's for the, the really positive readers in the church. It's a feel good book. Ecclesiastes.

  We're currently working our way through a series called Life Reimagined. And in this series called Life Reimagined, we're doing an exploration of the wisdom literature and the reason why we're doing that is because the wisdom literature invites us to reimagine our lives according to the way that God sees them, it invites us to evaluate our life and reimagine the way that we're living and the way that God intends for our lives to be lived. And in order to help us reimagine our lives, this wisdom literature fills us with hope and with direction and, and with, with inspiration.

  And so when I talk about the wisdom literature, three books always included in wisdom literature. That's Ecclesiastes, Proverbs and Job. And then Psalms has a few Psalms that are included in the Wisdom of literature. And then we're gonna throw in Song of Solomon because no one's really sure what to do with that book. And that's just if you don't know the Bible very well, that's a book that's just an exploration of sex. And we'll be preaching on that in a couple of weeks. So you're invited to come, maybe check in the kids to go with kids that day.

  So with, with that, we're, we're going through this survey. And one of the reasons why you have to do a survey of the Wisdom Literature is because the wisdom literature really functions as a whole and you have to read them all to really kind of understand what is happening in the book. So if you read the Proverbs, you would read the Proverbs and it sounds, there's a lot of truisms in the Proverbs, it's gonna say, hey, if you live rightly and act justly, God is going to bless you. And that's kind of the message all over the Proverbs. And that is usually true with just the way that the world works. You reap what you sow.

  But what Ecclesiastes does is it looks at the exceptions and it looks at like how meaningless it all feels and then you get to job and it looks at it from like God's point of view and, and what happens when it doesn't work out that way. So you really need to look at all of the wisdom literature together for it to make sense because if you just read Ecclesiastes, you might be depressed and actually the author of Ecclesiastes doesn't want you to do that. Ok. He's the only author who says at the end like, hey, don't think that much about this. Ok? Like you gotta move on, we're gonna get to that. I'll explain it when we get to the end.

  But we need all the wisdom literature together. So we're doing this survey, you could spend a lot more time in each of these books today. We're covering the entire book of Ecclesiastes. So buckle in and we're gonna get there. But I think it would be really helpful Ecclesiastes man. I, I do think that this book is, is wonderful for our day and age though, I can't think of more books or I can't think of many books that are more applicable to everyday life than Ecclesiastes. I can't think of many other passages in the Bible that talk about the things that Ecclesiastes talks about. We really need this message today, we need to hear it and I believe this about all of the Bible.

  But I really do believe this about Ecclesiastes that this book and the message of this book can change your life. I really do believe that that the message of this book can and will change your life if you let it, if you let God use it in your life that way. So let's approach God. I, I wanna pray for us one more time. I don't always do this, but I just feel like we need to have an open heart to what God has to say to us this morning. So would you pray with me.

  Father as we look at your word this morning, we pray for those who feel as though their life is meaningless or they're having a difficult time finding their purpose. And God, we pray that they would reimagine their purpose, that you would help them to, to seek you God. We pray that our hearts would be open to what you have to say to us today and that we might embrace the message of Jesus, the message of the Ecclesiastes, the, the, the message of wisdom this morning. And we pray this in Christ's name, Amen.

  Ok. Let's dive in. We're just gonna start at the very beginning and this really, it's, it's a very quick overview of Ecclesiastes. I am not gonna read every verse. Do not worry. All right. First verse in Ecclesiastes, the words of the preacher, the son of David King in Jerusalem. OK. Before we go any farther, I need to explain this because the structure of Ecclesiastes is weird if you have read the Bible, often this one is very different than almost every other book in the Bible.

  Because here, what we have is an author who is introducing a preacher. So he says, here are the words of the preacher, the son of David King in Jerusalem. The preacher is not the author. The preacher is the person being quoted throughout the majority of the book until we from right now until we get to the end of the book, in chapter 12. The preacher is being quoted.

  And so what the author is trying to do is trying to summarize the words of this teacher, this preacher and be able to tell it to us. And then the author offers commentary on what the preacher has to say at the very end. So it's interesting because the author comes to a slightly different conclusion than the preacher. Now, this preacher is accepted by many as Solomon, the son of David. Now it's at least someone writing in the voice of Solomon, the son of David or teaching in the voice of Solomon, the son of David. And it's, I guess it's actually anonymous. It never says, hey, this is Solomon. Ok. He never says that. He just says the words of the preacher, the son of David King in Jerusalem.

  And then he goes into the, the author goes into writing about the what the preacher has to say. Verse two vanity of vanities says the preacher, vanity of vanities all is vanity. Now, this word vanity, it appears all over the book of Ecclesiastes. And in fact, if you're gonna summarize the book of Ecclesiastes, vanity is probably the best word because it's the word that pops up the most often. But if you look in your Bible, OK, if you have your Bibles open, how many of you, we can, we just lift it just a little bit so I can see those of us who have our Bibles open. OK. Thank you. And then if you have a, a cell phone with, with the Bible open, this is also helpful to have because if you look there is a footnote right there where it says vanity and sometimes you really do have to read the footnotes.

  Sometimes the footnotes are just there for scholars and academics to read. Sometimes they're really helpful for us as we read. So if you are even looking on your phone, you can tap that little number there. That is a two on a lot of our phones and it will give you the footnote. I've heard that that's a setting for some people and you actually have to go in and like change it. Ok? Don't worry about that right now. Ok. You can change the setting later to the footnotes. But if you look at the footnote in my Bible, it says when it says Vanity, it has a footnote, it says the term Hebbel. OK, which is actually pronounced Hevel. I know I'm sorry, Hebrew is weird. It's I know it says B like Hebel, but it's Hevel. B and V are very closely related in Hebrew. I'm not gonna get into it all.

  Anyways, he translated Vanity or Vain refers concretely to a mist vapor or mere breath and metaphorically to something that is fleeting or elusive with different nuances depending on the context. It appears five times in this verse and in 3rd and 29 other verses in Ecclesiastes. So I think that that footnote is very, very important for us because the word Vanity and I hate doing this, I really do hate doing this. But the, but the, and this is why I hate doing it. I hate telling you that the translation isn't good. OK? You shouldn't have to have access to the original languages to understand it. The translators have done a very good job. The Bible is well translated. And when there's a question on how to translate something, they almost always put a footnote just as they did right here.

  So here with this translation, we need to look at the footnote and the footnote says that the word which which is he is actually more referring to like a mist or vapor and not just to vanity when we use the word vanity. I think about like the only thing that I can think of that I've used the word vanity for is like a vanity mirror or a vanity sink in my bathroom. A couple of years ago, I redid the the the sink in my bathroom, put a new sink in there. I never knew it was called the vanity sink until that moment. And that's how I learned what a vanity is.

  And but when we use vain, I think about vain as being like self consumed. Well, that's not what the author is going for here. That's not what the preacher is trying to say. He's trying to say that life is like a vapor. It's like a mist. It's like smoke. The best illustration I could come up with and this is only gonna hit with about half of you and I am sorry for that, but the half that it hits with will really hit with you. It's like Spiderman two homecoming. when they have all these drones and sorry, I'm ruining the movie. It's like seven years old now at this point. Sorry. But they have all these drones that are projecting images of monsters. And so it feels like you're fighting the monster, but it's really just the image of a monster. And then if you run through it, it's like nothing, it's just smoke vapor. You thought it was there, but it's not actually there. That is he.

  So when we go through this, we had to realize that what the preacher is saying is life is like a, a smoke. It's like a vapor. It's like a mist. It looks like something substantial that we can grab, but it's not, it's here today. Gone, tomorrow. What the preacher is saying is that there's so much in life that's good or beautiful or true. But right, when you get to it, it disappears, that life is fleeting. And so then what he does from this verse on through most of the rest of the book is he goes through basically all of life and deconstruction. He walks through life and deconstructs it. He tears down all the different ways that humans seek to build meaning and purpose apart from God, for example. OK. Verse three, we're just gonna keep going for a second.

  Verse three. It says, what does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes. But the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it rises. And so what he's meditating on is just the amazing shortness of human life and how we feel so important. But yet our lives are so short. When you think about the sun that's shining right now outside was the same sun that shined on the dinosaurs. It really starts to make you feel temporary and fleeting.

  Think about this hill that we're on right now. OK. If you walked here, you notice we're on the top of a big hill. It's called Winter Hill. This hill has been here for a long time. This hill had a life before we climbed it to go to church on Sundays in the seventies. There was a man in Somerville. If you ask an old timer about this man, he'll tell you all about or she'll tell you all about him. He was named Whitey Bulger. OK. Do we know Whitey? There was a movie called Dark Mass with Johnny Depp in it a couple of years ago about Whitey Bulger. And what was his gang called? He was the leader of the Irish mafia reigning terror throughout the entire Boston region. His gang was called the Winter Hill gang right here on this hill. This is where they had their hang out, their hideout. They existed before us, but this hill existed before them. They didn't last and the hill lasted out, outlasted them. Why they finally caught Whitey and he died in prison.

  This church that we're sitting in right now that I'm standing in. You're sitting in. It was built in the late 18 hundreds. That's a long time. Think about all the fashion trends that have walked through this church over the years. Think about all the instruments at one point they had the, the pipe or going in here. I wish we could fire it up. It doesn't work. Ok. I, I do wish we could think about all the, the worship songs that they've sang that have come and gone, the, the fads that have come and gone. This, this building's seen a lot. It's seen bell bottoms even. Ok? And now it's seeing them again. But this hill was here before this church and it will be here after this church.

  Before this church was built, a man rode his horse down the street in front of us. The street at that point was not made of asphalt but dirt. Maybe some cobblestones yelling the British are coming, the British are coming. Paul Revere himself rode right over this hill on the street right in front of us. The church was not here but the hill was what do our lives matter in relation to this hill? We're just temporary fleeting a mist here today and gone tomorrow.

  Throughout all of chapter two, the preacher goes on a search for significance. Ok. So just one chapter over and he just does this like quick search for significance. This is a powerful man. It said of Solomon that he was one of the wealthiest men to ever live. And and one of the wisest and he, he looks at himself verse one, Ecclesiastes two verse one. It says I said to my heart come now I will test you for pleasure, enjoy yourself. But behold, this also was vanity. And so what you see him do in chapter two is he tries out everything. It's the same stuff that we try out. OK? If you walk through it, it's the same stuff.

  Verse verse two. What's he try wine? He's like, I'm gonna try to get drunk. Basically, I'm gonna try drinking vanity. He said it doesn't work. Verse four, he starts building things. He's like, I'm gonna build some stuff. OK? Doesn't work. It's hevel. He builds a house, a vineyard. He tries gardening, hevel OK. Verse six, he builds a pool. He's like, maybe I'll try the vacation life. Maybe I'll just sit by the pool, hevel. Then he buys slaves or personal servants to do his every bidding, hevel. He even turns to concubines and sex and he finds them also to be hevel.

  He systematically works through everything that we look to, to find meaning and purpose and he determines them mist or vapor. And then Ecclesiastes 210. He says this and whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did everything, basically whatever I wanted. I did it pure hedonism. I kept my heart from no pleasure from my heart, found pleasure and all of my toil and this was my reward for my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it and behold all was hevel and is striving after the wind and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

  How many of us live our lives, striving and striving and striving without even thinking about the meaning of this. I don't mean to make light of our work. Many of us have important jobs. But how many of us can say truly that if we died tomorrow, that someone else wouldn't pick it up or that our work is important enough to even be picked up. There's a sense that we have to evaluate our lives and see that everything we do has some significance to it. Sure. I hope that you're doing significant things. I believe my job's significant. At the same time, you could find another pastor and I was gone for two months this summer and you were fine mostly. But then at the same time, there's, it's hevel you know, it's just meaninglessness.

  Someone earlier this week, we were at prayer meeting, they were like, you know, thought work is really just like moving information around on a screen. I'm like, oh, man, that's a really depressing way to put it. You know, you're not really accomplishing much what he's saying is what the comedian Jim Carrey captured so well. Jim Carrey, obviously, someone that most of us are familiar with, the, the Lloyd and Dumb and Dumber or the Grinch himself or the evil Doctor Robotnik and Sonic the Hedgehog, depending on your generation. Ok? I hit three generations there. He said this, I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so that they can see that. That's not the answer. Such a great quote, that quote comes up at least quarterly at our church.

  And that's the message of Ecclesiastes. It's like he, he's just capturing it. We have this king who could do whatever he wants and he finds it all so pointless, so trivial, so unsatisfying, meaningless, like it should bring purpose, but it doesn't. And that's the whole book. OK. That's what we're doing this whole time. If you want to get into a depressive state and, and do this, we read Ecclesiastes. It's great. It, it's, you know, there's something cathartic about it, but what are we to make of it? OK. What are we to make of the meaninglessness of life?

  There's two perspectives. First, we have to look at the perspective of the preacher and then we look at the perspective of the author. I just want us to examine those two perspectives on what he's teaching is about the, the vanity of life. And how do you actually make this worth living? How do you make life, make it? for the preacher, let's look at what he says first because he actually does come up with, there are, there is some meaning in life.

  He does this thing over and over again throughout the book at least six different times. And he's going down this really depressing wormhole where he's just examining over and over again, the life, the meaninglessness of life. And then right, when he gets to the edge of the cliff, like it almost seems like he's gonna be like, so it's just not worth living. He like does a, a full 180 he's like, and so you have to enjoy the small things. That's basically what he does. He does it over and over again. He's like, so just enjoy the moment.

  My favorite example of this is in Ecclesiastes two verses 22 through 25. He says, what has a man from all the toil and striving after his heart with which he he toils beneath the sun for all his days are full of sorrow. And his work is a vexation. Even in the night, his heart does not rest. It's all vanity as heaven. Next verse. OK. He's like, really at the edge here, the very next verse, what does he say? There's nothing better for a person and that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. For this also I saw is from the hand of God for apart from him who can eat or who, who can have enjoyment.

  So what, what he basically says, like, so have a good meal. Your work, your, your job feels meaningless. So have a good meal and enjoy it, like chew a little bit slower. Enjoy the taste of that meal. Have a good drink. Enjoy it. Hang out with some friends. Work hard at your job and just enjoy the, the mere fact that you're working hard. That's what he says. It's like, it's gonna feel like a smoke. But you just have to live in the moment. Look, there is some truth to this. Ok? I think that the author has something more meaningful to, to tell us other than the preacher. I think his commentary is even more helpful, but the preacher's words are true.

  Earlier this week, I was walking home from work. Ok. I live over in Powder House Circle, which is on the other side of ball and I, I my office is, is like just five minutes down the hill right here. So I was walking home and like many of us the, the work day was over. It's the middle of the week. I'm walking home. I have to go home at this moment. There's I have commitments at home. I have a lot of stuff. I wanna complete with my job. And so I'm just rehearsing all the things. It's like, oh, how am I gonna finish all this this week? I've got so much going on. I'm just feeling anxious and stressed and I'm just marching all the way home. And then for some reason I, I look up and it dawns on me that the weather is perfect. Like this is the weather this week. I don't know anybody else. Can I get an amen? Ok.

  We get like one week of this, every year in New England. Ok. You just gotta enjoy it while you have it. Perfect weather. This is the weather we're gonna have in the new heavens and the new earth. I look up, the sun is shining. There's a light breeze. I look around. People just seem happier. People aren't grumpy right now. It's like they've forgotten winter. It's just like, and I just take pleasure. It's like, you know, life's too short. I'm just gonna enjoy this moment where I'm walking down the street. I get the privilege of walking home in perfect weather today. That's not a given. I'm just gonna enjoy that. There's some truth to what the preacher has to say. It is a moment of pleasure. That was a gift from God.

  But what does the author say? All right. So let's go to the very end of the book. Chapter 12 in chapter 12 verse 11. Ok. This is what he says. The words of the wise are like goads and like nails firmly fixed are the collect collected sayings they are given by one shepherd. Beware my son, my son beware of anything beyond these, of making many books. There is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh. All right. So what does the, the author have to say about the preacher's works?

  Well, first, he says they're like a goad or like a pointy stick. Ok? That something that a shepherd would use to poke the sheep to make them go in the right direction. So what he's saying is the author. His words are not easy. It's like he's, it's like he's stabbing us with a pointy stick telling us to move. And he says, but they're, but they're good for us. It's still a good thing to be stabbed in, in that kind of way.

  And then what he says, I love, this is like one of my favorite verses in the Bible because then he says, verse 12, my son beware of anything beyond these, of making many books. There is no end and much study is a weirdness of the flu flesh. So what he's basically saying as you can spend your entire life studying these existential questions about life and at the end, you'll have more questions than answers. What he's saying is that being a philosophy major is not for the, the low in heart. OK. For it you can spend your life doing this and, and just be more confused. And so what he's trying to say is like, read Ecclesiastes, but don't make it, the only book that you read is what he's saying. He's like, thank you for reading my book. Now, move on to another one. OK?

  I think we should return to Ecclesiastes at like two, maybe three times a year. OK? As Christians and then we just move on. Ok. It's a good reminder, but it's not something that we obsess about over and over all the time.

  And then the author draws this conclusion verse 13. OK. So this is the conclusion, the end of the matter. OK? And he's like this is the final word. This is the conclusion. This is what I have to say about this. All has been heard. Two things fear God and keep His commandments for. This is the whole duty of man. Verse 14, for God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. So what, what's the conclusion?

  First, he tells you what to do? He says fear God and obey His commands. He's basically like, hey, you handle your side of the street, let God handle his side of the street. There are questions about the meaningfulness of life and about what you can do and how much it matters. But look all you can do as a human, as a temporary being, as someone who is plagued with hevel in your life is handle your side of the street and your side of the street. What you have to do obey God fear Him, love him.

  When it says fear God in the Bible, don't think that that's like be afraid and trembling of God. What it's saying is be in awe of God, respect God, be in awe of who he is. That's the fear. It's a holy fear, not a fear of terror. It's a holy fear of God, love God with all of your heart, obey him. And then he says, here's God's side and he gives us this. He says, God will bring every deed into judgment, whether secret or whether good or evil. That's the secret sauce. That's the secret sauce of the book.

  Because the author basically writes the book without thinking about eternity that often every once in a while. He says something like man has eternity written on his heart. But here the author comes back and says, yes, life is meaningless. Unless there's a God who brings everything into judgment. Because if there is a God who brings everything into judgment, then and, and if we are eternal beings that will live on forever, then your life does matter. There is purpose to what you are doing. If you, if you go and, and you heartlessly kill someone like Meursault and the stranger there will be a judgment for that.

  That's what he's saying is you can't just go around doing evil. You can't just go around living your most selfish life that there is an afterlife, that there is eternity. And this eternity, it gives meaning and purpose to today because we know that the people that we become today, if we become more like Christ, it goes on into eternity. In that way, we know that one day Jesus is going to return and he's going to bring true justice. He's going to bring purpose to our otherwise meaningless lives. Our God is going to judge every deed and those who are in Christ will be judged righteous.

  That's the good news of the gospel. Because if, if every deed were to be judged, I would not be in a good place. I have evil deeds. I've done them. I have evil thoughts. But yet the good news of the gospel is that Jesus lived a perfect sinless life and died, the death that I deserve. So that through his death, he received my judgment and I received his righteousness because of what Jesus has done. I am welcomed into eternity with God to enjoy fellowship with Him forever. It's the simple gospel, not because of what I've done, but because of what He has done. If He is this mist, eternity is the strong wind that blows away the mist and shows you that your life has meaning and significance.

  Now, Paul covers this thing too. So in concluding, I wanted to go to the New Testament. First Corinthians chapter 15 because I think that Paul touches on the idea of hevel there and how he thinks about it. So in First Corinthians 15, it's this famous passage. It's an Easter passage. But this is what he has to say verse 14. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain. hevel it doesn't matter. And your faith also in vain, if Christ has not been raised, we are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testify about God that he raised Christ whom he did not raise. If it is true, that the dead are not raised. And for if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. If Christ has been raised, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.

  This sounds like the author of Ecclesiastes, doesn't it? The preacher, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins than those who have fallen asleep or died. That's a poetic way of saying died in Christ have perished. If in Christ, we have hope in this life only. We are of all people most to be pitied. If there is no resurrection, you of all people who are go spending your Sunday morning at a church are most to be pitied.

  But listen, friends. If Jesus has risen from the dead as we know he has, if he continues to reign and rule in the universe that is a guarantee, a down payment of the future resurrection that you will enjoy with them. And if that is true, then your faith is most to be envied, not most to be pitied because you have union with God. You get to live with Him throughout all eternity. Your life can have meaning and purpose but not if you live just for this life. If you live just for this life, you are most to be pitied because you will find at the end of the day vapor here today, gone tomorrow.

  But in life, in light of eternity, we can have joy both in this life and the life to come. If you live for this life, you will find it to be a vapor hevel but live for the next life in Christ and you'll find joy and glory and purpose. So friends, I want you to reimagine life. It's not just a rat race on a hamster wheel. It's filled with glorious purpose and meaning because Christ has been raised. Amen. Christ has been raised. You too will one day be raised.

  If you place your faith in him, if we had a hope, only in this life, we are people most to be pitied. If we hope in the life to come, we are people most to be envied. Because the reality of eternity changes the way that we think about the realities of today. It brings meaning and purpose to the things that we do and we can enjoy the simple moments as the preacher says. But then at the same time, we know that Jesus is coming and in the new heavens and the new earth, our lives will no longer feel meaningless, but they'll be filled with purpose and joy and of the presence of God, which is really what gives life meaning and purpose is this presence of God. We touch it in this life, but then we will know it in full. It's like we see it in a dim mirror today, but one day we'll see God face to face and that brings life meaning and purpose.

  So I'm gonna encourage you. I know this is a heavy sermon for many of us. You know, we've worked a long time to get where we are and then you don't want to evaluate the fact that oh maybe it's all meaningless especially when you have so many degrees after your name and what not as many of us do. But, or even just like how you're living, you don't wanna think about it being meaningless. But it's, it's important for us to look at this and to, to give it to the Lord and say, would you bring meaning to my otherwise meaningless life? And he will. And I think we just go to him with open hands and over this next song, as I said, that the presence of the Lord that being with Him is really what brings life meaning.

  We get to celebrate a sacred meal called communion. And with this meal as we do not believe that the elements actually turn into Jesus's body and blood. But we believe that Jesus is here in a real way with us still. OK. I think sometimes we do communion disservice when we say, is basically the only section of the worship service where Jesus is not, We're like, he's in the songs, he's everywhere, but he's not in the communion. He's here with us. And we get to enjoy who he is.

  And we have this reminder that is communion. When we take up the, the bread, we're reminded that Christ's body has broken for us. When we take up the juice or the wine, we reminded that his blood was shed for us. And because of what he's done, we get life with God. So would you stand as we respond to, to Christ and song.

  Father, we had these, these weighty words from Ecclesiastes this morning. But we pray that as we come to you, that you would embed us with meaning and purpose and joy and life and your presence. God, as we take the sacred meals, we prepare our hearts. Would you help us to evaluate our lives and to come to you again, we need to hear from you fresh. We need your presence again. We need your love. We thank you for the gospel that Jesus has been raised, that we are raised with him and that we get to enjoy him throughout all of eternity. We ask these things in Christ's name, Amen.