Ecclesiastes Two:1-11

Sermon Notes

Okay television fans, you may not realize this but every day on TV you’re watching the book of Ecclesiastes depicted before you in 30 or in 60 minute segments. How many of you are Breaking Bad fans? In the series, Breaking Bad, the central character Walter White is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He links up with Jesse Pinkman and together they decide he’s not going to survive this disease. They want to figure out a way to provide for Walter’s family. So, they start making and selling crystal meth as a way of trying to make an inheritance. Walter has decided there’s nothing live for. Or, are you a fan of Madmen? In the TV show Madmen, Don Draper is an advertising genius and he’s got it all. He has money, women, and power. At the end of the TV series, he looks at life and realizes he has nothing to live for. It’s all meaningless. Or, have you seen the TV show Sons of Anarchy? Jax loses his hope in his bike club, himself, and in life because it’s all meaningless. The truth is you’re watching the worldview that we just heard Michael read from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. Today you’re watching it depicted before you. The worldview that you’re seeing on TV is called Existential Nihilism. Pastor Alan Smith is teaching a worldview class to help our church better examine the world around us, how we see the world and the way we attach value or meaning to the stuff in our lives. An existential nihilism worldview teaches life intrinsically has no value so it doesn’t matter what you do or how much you get. At the end of the day it’s all meaningless and empty. There’s no point to life. The nihilism part of it says we all end up in the same place. We all end up in the grave. This is a 3000-year-old idea found in the book of Ecclesiastes that we’re studying.

I have a question that I want you to think about today. I don’t want anybody else in the room to know your answer to this question but I do want you to be honest with yourself and Jesus. What would make you happy? By this question, I mean way deep down inside your heart what would really satisfy you or really make you happy? For the next few minutes we’re going to take a look at how people try to answer that question. If you know Jesus this may not make sense to you but I promise you this is the way 80% of this city lives. This is what they look to in order to find happiness or to try to find meaning in life.

I. Pleasure doesn’t satisfy your soul

Solomon tried a couple of things to find meaning, happiness, or satisfaction in life. The first thing that he tried was pleasure. Pleasure alone cannot satisfy your soul. It’s trying to use something on the outside of the body to satisfy something deep on the inside of the body. Those two things never work. Tommy Nelson, the pastor from Denton, Texas, when he was preaching this book to his church said this first passage is just pure hedonism. This is Solomon living like Hugh Hefner thinking it’s going to make him happy or satisfied deep down inside.

Ecclesiastes 2:1-3
I said to myself, “Come on, let’s try pleasure. Let’s look for the ‘good things’ in life.” But I found that this, too, was meaningless. 2 So I said, “Laughter is silly. What good does it do to seek pleasure?” 3 After much thought, I decided to cheer myself with wine. And while still seeking wisdom, I clutched at foolishness. In this way, I tried to experience the only happiness most people find during their brief life in this world.

Today’s verses read like Solomon the King of Israel and the preacher of this book is having a midlife crisis. He’s arrived at this point in his life where he’s not happy and he’s not found meaning. So he’s going to try everything to make him happy deep down inside. Solomon has as much power, money, and fame as he could want so he’s got a long list of stuff that he tries today.

The first thing that he tried was pleasure. Now, if you were sitting there thinking to yourself well this must refer to sex you’d be right but not only sex. The word pleasure that he used seems that he is talking about the stuff that gives pleasure to the senses. Certainly Solomon tried sex. First Kings Chapter 4 tells us a little bit about Solomon’s wisdom. Chapters 5 through 10 tell us about Solomon’s women. By you the time you get to Chapter 11 we learn a little bit about Solomon’s fame and money. Solomon personally had 700 wives and 300 concubines. That’s a different woman every night for three years. Solomon tried women and here’s what he learned when he tried women. He said it doesn’t satisfy deep down on the inside. Here’s what I would try to say to the guys who spend countless hours on the Internet searching through pornography trying to find something that satisfies them deep down inside. The very fact that you have to go from image to image says that it can’t satisfy you. If it could satisfy you, the first image would’ve done it. The first few fleeting seconds on a pornography website would’ve done it for you. That alone can’t satisfy. Ladies, it’s not just the guys in the room anymore. It is now women who have gradually moved from 50 Shades of Gray to pornography. They’re still looking for something to make them feel beautiful inside and it’s not working. Solomon says that the pleasure of the flesh doesn’t satisfy you.

This word can also refer to rich food. If you were a foreigner who for the first time in your life and you came to the United States and looked at people in our country here’s the inescapable conclusion you would have. Obviously we’ve turned to food for more than it was ever intended for and more than just satisfying the need for energy and sustenance. We turned food into something much more than what it was ever designed to do. You can look at us as a country and see that we’ve turned to food for something more.

Then Solomon goes from women to whiskey. In fact your translation probably uses the word wine. Now I’m sure you will have a few comments about this after church but let’s just be blatantly honest with each other about what the Bible is and isn’t saying here. In Ecclesiastes Chapter 2 is Solomon saying drinking alcohol is wrong? No. Is he saying that it’s a sin to consume alcohol at all? No. That’s not what he’s saying. Solomon is saying he tried to find satisfaction in wine and when he tried it didn’t satisfy him deep down inside. This is true people in our church. They’ve turned to alcohol. They went out to the bar with the boys for a couple of drinks after work. They were stressed out at work and they were thinking by going out to the bar with the boys they would be able to blow off some stress. Then they’re good and can handle the rest of the evening and face work tomorrow. Or ladies who’ve gotten drunk because their life is miserable and the fleeting moments of getting drunk has made them forget about the problems of life. It’s not just alcohol by the way. It’s also prescription pills. If somebody went to the doctor for surgery and the doctor prescribe some pills to make the pain go away. They begin to notice that not only did it make the pain of the surgery go away but it also made them forget about the problems of the day.

If you turn to a website or a bottle of pills to try to make the pain inside go away, you’ve looked to it for a Savior. You’ve asked it to fix something inside of you that it can’t fix. You’re trying to scratch an itch deep inside of you with something on the outside that will never accomplish those things. When you’ve turned to whiskey or to women as a Savior it will ultimately let you down. Solomon said he tried to find pleasure in food, women, and wine but it didn’t satisfy him. Here’s what these trashcans are supposed to say today. This stuff, if you’re looking to it as your Savior, is rubbish. It can never answer a need deep down inside your heart. Tens of thousands of people in our city are looking to that to save them from the problems of their life and it will never work. Solomon says he tried it and it didn’t work. So, he try to live like a hedonist and that didn’t satisfy the problems deep down inside him. Solomon went from there to living like a materialist. He then tried stuff thinking maybe buying a lot of stuff and living like Hugh Hefner didn’t work then maybe living like Warren Buffett would work. Solomon wants us to know next from Ecclesiastes Chapter 2 that it doesn’t matter how much stuff it is or what that stuff is, it can’t satisfy you deep down inside either.

II. Stuff doesn’t satisfy your soul

Ecclesiastes 2:4-8
4 I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and by planting beautiful vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. 7 I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born into my household. I also owned large herds and flocks, more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. 8 I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire!

Solomon was the guy who built the Temple where God’s presence on Earth would dwell. It took Solomon seven years and 150,000 workers to complete the temple of God. When he finished the Temple, Solomon started working on a house for himself. Thirteen years later Solomon completed this house and HGTV couldn’t imagine what this house looked like that Solomon built 3000 years ago.

At the time that he wrote this, Solomon was the most powerful and the most wealthy man on planet Earth. This is the height of the Empire of Israel and most of the world’s kingdoms paid tribute to Solomon. He had so much money that people didn’t even care about silver or gold. He had unprecedented wealth. If you were to think about this list for just the second it reads like the 12 days of Christmas. He had vineyards, gardens, parks, reservoirs, slaves, herds, flocks, silver, gold, singers and concubines. In a person’s lifetime they couldn’t afford one item on that list that Solomon just listed 3000 years ago. In your lifetime if you made $15 an hour you still couldn’t afford one item on this list. Solomon says when you take all of it together it still let him down. First Kings Chapter 11 says the kingdom of Israel provided Solomon enough food to feed all of his servants every day the equivalent of 35,000 people’s worth of food. That’s how many people were serving Solomon each day in his kingdom. Solomon said he had it all. He tried it all and it let him down.

We still do this today. I have personally counseled warriors who were overseas with me on deployments. They’ve come to talk to me about their wives. The conversation usually goes something like this. “I love my wife to death. But, she is lonely without me being there. She’s scared that I won’t come home. So she went out to the shopping mall and bought a dress. The dress made her feel beautiful. For just a brief moment she forgot about the stress of me being deployed. That dress made her feel good inside. So, she bought the beautiful dress and took it home. The next morning when she got up, she was still lonely and scared. That dress didn’t make her feel pretty anymore so she went back to the store and bought another dress.” I’m not exaggerating when I say this, more than one guy has looked me in the eyes and said, “She got rid of every bit of furniture. She wiped out our life savings. She bought $10,000 worth of new furniture because she hated being at home alone without me. Now she’s miserable because she’s still at home and she still alone. I’m miserable because I’m halfway around the world and we’re broke. Everything that we’ve worked for as a couple is gone.” She was looking for stuff to satisfy something deep down inside of her.

The truth is you can spend the rest of your life amassing stuff. Find the time and the money to become one of the best golfers on planet Earth but it’s never going to satisfy you deep down inside. Go to the lake and catch that largemouth bass. Or hunting with you rifle and bag that prize buck. Try to find meaning deep down inside and I promise you it’ll never satisfy you. Solomon said he had it all. He had everything you could want. He tried it all and it didn’t work. He tried hedonism and it let him down. He tried materialism and that let him down. Living like Hugh Hefner and Warren Buffet didn’t work. So, he tried living like the CEO. Maybe working a job will give me meaning or satisfaction in life. The third thing I want you to see is work doesn’t satisfy deep inside your soul.

III. Work doesn’t satisfy your soul

Ecclesiastes 2:9-11
9 So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me, and my wisdom never failed me. 10 Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. 11 But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.

I started tonight with this question. What would make you happy deep down inside? The question Solomon is asking now is what are you working so hard for? What are you hoping to accomplish by working so hard? In these verses if you were to translate it literally Solomon said, “I made myself very important, more important than anybody who would come before me. It still let me down. I tried hard work. I spent countless hours at the office and none of it satisfied me.” Solomon is basically saying, “What are you working so hard for? As hard as I tried to work nothing scratched this itch deep down inside my soul.” I hope by the end of your career you’re not talking about much money you made. I hope you’re talking about the difference that you made in people’s lives. I hope you’re talking about the lasting impact that you had on people.

A recent study just came out by the Manpower Group that said in our country most people are miserable at work. Two-thirds of Americans who responded to this study said they hate their job. Statistics say the overwhelming majority of Americans hate their job but they get up and they go to work anyway. You really need to be back here in two weeks because we’re going to talk specifically about why are you working this job if you don’t like it. As a result of this survey from Manpower Group, Fast Company magazine ran an article to try to determine who are the group of people in America that really enjoy their work. The results will surprise you. They couldn’t narrow it down to one field of work. It was actually inside the employee that made the difference. The people that are most happy at work according to Fast Company magazine are: people who see their job as a goal to pursue not just a paycheck at the end of the day; people that are willing to help others out; people that are grateful to have a job; people who avoid negative people at work; people with a good sense of humor; and, especially the people who don’t throw a fit about circumstances that are out of their control. They are the folks that are most happy and most satisfied at work. It has nothing to do with what you do for a living

Let’s add this up because this is 80% of the people in the Chattahoochee Valley that don’t know Jesus. I promise you they are doing what Solomon just described and they’re trying to find meaning in pleasure, in stuff or in work. Let’s try to figure out why it let’s you down in the long run. What’s the common denominator in this whole list that we looked at today? The problem is inside you and because the problem is inside you it can’t be fixed by what’s happening outside. It can only be fixed by a solution from the inside. The problem is sin and Solomon is painting a picture for us. The picture is life without Jesus in the equation. When you pull Jesus out of the equation inevitably you become the center of the picture. And, when you’re at the center of the picture it starts to take on meaninglessness and it starts to become empty. You start wanting more because you’re not a very good god. You know you’re not worth worshiping. The harder that you try to find pleasure in stuff and work to fill the void, the more it let you down.

My challenge for you is if you found yourself slipping down that slope of chasing after work, stuff, or pleasure to satisfy you repent. The word repent means God I’m sorry and I won’t do it anymore. But the bigger challenge for all of us is we know somebody who’s living these verses out and it’s letting them down. Would you be the one that looks him in the eyes and asks him how long he is going to keep living like this? Its time for us to be a church that gets serious about engaging our friends and our neighbors who are using this junk, this rubbish, this garbage, to try to fix the problem deep down inside their soul.

Next Steps

I’ve been trying to satisfy my soul without Jesus. Today, I turn from all my worldly possessions and trust in Jesus alone as my joy and my Savior.
Although I know Jesus, I have started looking for joy in the stuff of life rather than in Jesus. Please pray for me to turn my attention back to Jesus to satisfy my soul.
I need some accountability to keep my focus only on Jesus. Please contact me about getting plugged into a small group.

Discussion Questions

What do you consider your greatest possession in life? What is most valuable to you? (Why?)
What is your greatest accomplishment in life? (Why?)
Where do people turn for pleasure in our society today?
Why can’t stuff satisfy your soul?
What is idol worship? Do people still worship idols today? (Explain your answer)
What is the difference between idol worship and trying to satisfy your soul with stuff?
Is Solomon suggesting that we shouldn’t work hard? (Explain your answer)
Pray for each other- that our souls would be satisfied in nothing less than Jesus.