We are looking at more of the ways Ecclesiastes says we live “under the son”. We looked at three yesterday, let’s look at three more.
Fourth, Solomon says, under the sun, men are just envious and lazy. 4:4-6
Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also isvanityand a striving after wind. The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. 6 Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.
This relates by way of contrast to the last point we made yesterday. We either have the powerful kicking the cheese of those who are powerless, OR we have the powerless living in envy of those who have risen to power. A man works hard and maybe idolizing money and his work, only to have his neighbor, his Christian neighbor covet and envy in his heart all that this neighbor has that the Christian does not.
There is an interesting picture given us in verse 5 of envy, as that which causes a man to devour his own flesh! But then again, under the sun, what is to stop this attitude? What is to arrest a spirit of envy and laziness that wishes to get something that it doesn’t have and to get it by doing as little as possible for it? We need to be very careful here, we might think that this does not threaten us, but I beg to differ.
There is in the church of Christ, especially among those of modest means, a developed welfare mentality. I see it in missionaries, pastors, and regular church members…an attitude that says; people owe me…people should do for me…I have little, therefore, everyone owes me. I don’t make that much money so the church has to do this for me, or that for me. Christians are supposed to be those who serve, so where are those to serve me. I have watched Christian people in need, be provided for by the church and rightly so, only to, over time, begin to EXPECT that the church will do this or do that, and even to get angry when their expectations are not met.
I don’t want to get too far afield from Solomon’s sermon on this point, but we have to be careful here. We must be able to rejoice with the blessings of others, even when, especially when, they did not need it nearly as much as we perceive that we needed it. We understand that the Lord is in control bringing and taking away, building up and casting down, that He does so for the good of his loved ones and that ours is to thankful for what we have and to truly rejoice in the Lord’s blessings to others. For some, this is not an easy thing, but with every envious wish, we bind ourselves to this world.
Fifth, Solomon looks at the loneliness that life under the sun so often produces. 4:7-8
Again, I saw vanity under the sun: 8 one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business.
This is real, and this is powerful. Even Christians often find themselves painfully lonely and more than you might ever know. We were made for fellowship, for covenant, for community and communion. God made us to love and be loved. Isolation can be a debilitating thing and at the same time there are so many Christians who climb into their solitude, revel in their isolation and it blinds them to the mercy and grace of the Lord. This becomes all the more concerning in our day where we are being ‘forced’ to isolate. This edict from the powers that be is already beginning to show its fruit in the lives of men and women and the fruit is rotten to the core!
We are not immune from this. Your focus is upon you…upon your loneliness instead of finding the Lord, your constant companion, near to you, IN your loneliness.
The picture in the text is of a guy who works to make all kinds of money but, who is he going to share it with? He doesn’t even ask the question, until it is too late, for there is no one. Could it be that the Lord at times wants us to see above the plane of this earth to the fact that He is sufficient for us…even in our loneliness? Could it be that we have taken for granted the blessings of fellowship and life lived with others? I am perplexed when looking at parts of our country where Christians are told they cannot meet, forbidden to get together, contrasted to those areas, such as our own, where we can get together…but choose not to! In a time such as this, we should be making much of our Lord’s mercy to avoid isolation and to be in communion! Folks cry out that the government can’t tell us not to meet! But in some cases the government doesn’t have to tell us we can’t meet…we choose not to. Something is amiss.
Loneliness is real, and under the sun, Solomon says that that is all there is. This is a difficult area because the tension is subtle, for God often refines his people in and through loneliness. Ask Moses, or Abraham, for that matter, the Lord Jesus Himself. The bible would teach us that the loneliness of this world is a true and abiding loneliness, the aloneness that hell will be. But it also teaches us that the Lord will use the loneliness of this world for the good of His people, if they will but seek Him in it. Wisdom is called for…but how will we be wise unless we draw near to the Lord without the distractions of this world?
Last, Solomon says that the opposite of loneliness, popularity, being well known, being loved this too is vanity. There was an old king who was replaced by a new young king and both will be forgotten, both will see their popularity flee away. What has it achieved? What does it accomplish in the end, at the great day? Augustine said that the dead are always being replaced by the dying.
Those who ARE accepted and considered to be the movers and shakers, will cease to be, only to be replaced by those who will have their brief minute in the limelight but soon the pattern will continue with them being the victim of popularity’s fickleness. All men seek acceptance, and think to have it, only to not have it, to find it escaping their grasp; too difficult to capture and this too is a chasing after the wind.
Our youth culture holds out to young people the ever-elusive goal of being cool, and cool is something that is never attained, it is never accomplished, for there is always something else, always someone else who has “it” and you don’t. I know of kids who lie about their test scores at school, who do well, but say they do poorly so that they can be cool, because everyone knows that good scores are not cool. And then there are those men in their 40’s who think they have to return to cool. (As if they ever had ‘it’ to begin with). And so, they do the bald man’s comb over, buy a new car, flirt or worse with the young secretary, and really believe that other people are impressed… and that is really NOT cool. There are so many people who look for acceptance, accomplishment, and their self-worth in other people…and this is vanity.
Our identity is not in this world…our identity, who we are, is set above the sun. Our identity is in Christ Jesus in heaven, and at the end, it will be revealed in fullness when Jesus says to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And all the popularity in the world does not and will not compare to that.
So, should we welcome the silence of despair? Only that in its vanity we are directed somewhere else…This world gives no answers, it cannot give them, at least not the answers that are abiding, that are eternal…For the answers come in Christ…the answers come at the great day when Jesus is revealed…in the judgment, and they are ours as we live in that light…even now. And this day, the day of glory and the power of it, are ours so that the chains that bind us to this world, might be broken one by one so that we might soar to a world unknown to those…under the sun.
Prayer: Gracious Father, it is easy for me to seek my identity, my belonging and an understanding of who I am, according to the things of this world and those whose attention I sinfully crave. Give me a solidarity of heart and mind to find myself, to know myself only as I am found and known by You. Help me to set my mind and heart, only on the joy that is to be mine when I hear you say to me, “well done, good and faithful servant.” Through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Jesus, Lover of My Soul