Fellow Redeemed,
The daily tension we in life is determining the theoretical from the real. You’ve probably thought and said at one time, “Theoretically, this should work.” Or, “I know from experience this really will work.” Apply this tension to what Gabriel promised Mary, “Nothing is impossible with God,” and with what Jesus told his disciples, “All things are possible with God.”
King Solomon, David’s son, know when he ascended the throne he would need to be able to tell the difference between mere theory and reality. So, Solomon asked for wisdom to tell the real difference between right and wrong. God granted Solomon such great wisdom.
In that wisdom, Solomon also set forth many principles about the meaning of life. We will look at those as we go through the Book of Ecclesiastes starting soon in Sunday morning Bible study. This text gives us a foretaste of those things we need to know in our lives as Christians.
Solomon shows us The Best Things We Can Do In Life. First, eat and drink; second, find satisfaction in your work. Theoretical or real?
What is likely the most basic necessity in life? We have to eat and drink in order to live. We have to eat and drink repeatedly since we can’t eat and drink this morning for this evening, or today for tomorrow. That is why we ask God to give us today what we need to eat and drink from day to day. Eating and drinking includes everything I need to sustain my body and life.
The Christian is different from the non-Christian not in receiving daily bread, but in the recognition that daily bread comes from God to strengthen us to love him and love one another. We thank Jesus for our daily bread and invite him to come and be our guest when we eat, and ask God to let this food be blessed as we use it.
Solomon tells us this is the best thing we can do is eat and drink with recognition and thanksgiving that the hand of God is the source and distributor. “A man can do nothing better than to eat and to drink…this too I see is from the hand of God, for without him who can eat and enjoy it?”
Apart from the hand of God, “Everything is meaningless.” The Hebrew in verse two is emphatic, “of meaninglessness, meaninglessness, total meaninglessness.” The word translated “meaninglessness” is the word for vapor. Without seeing and shaking the hand of God in thanksgiving, eating and drinking is empty, transitory, unsatisfactory, to list a couple of descriptive adjectives.
Solomon’s point is that real wisdom, knowledge, and happiness come from God. They come in the context of God’s love for us in the forgiveness we have in Jesus Christ. Through that gospel, the Holy Spirit works those gifts in our hearts. We know those gifts come to us only in Jesus’ name and for his sake. Such blessings come to “the man who pleases God,” that is, who believes in Christ and seeks first his righteousness. This is very real in our lives and not theoretical.
Does this mean that the unbeliever cannot enjoy eating and drinking? No. However, to the one who does not know the source of blessing and appreciate the blessing in that context, it is all a vapor, unsatisfying. Solomon’s words about the meaninglessness of life apart from God meets Jesus’ parable of the foolish man who kept building more and more barns. A man can do nothing better than to eat and to drink, and to find satisfaction in his work as we see God’s gracious hand behind it.
Tennessee Ernie Ford, a singer many years ago, had a hit tune about coal mining, “16 Tons.” One line went, “16 tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt.” You may have seen the bumper sticker more recently, “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.” Both these express what Solomon was getting at. It is a vain, meaningless thing to try and find satisfaction and fulfillment apart from God.
What will happen to what we have struggled for so hard? Solomon gives some answers. You have to hand it all over to the next generation. You don’t know if they will use it wisely or foolishly. Solomon’s son Rehoboam pretty much ruined what his father had handed down to him. You might have to leave it to someone who did not work for it. They will not appreciate it.
This is not theory. It is real life. Worrying about money and success not only fills our time during the day but also robs us of rest during the night. Solomon asks, “What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun?” We only take with us into the grave or urn what we were holding in our hands when we came out of our mothers’ wombs.
Satisfaction in our work comes from God. God gives us the realization and appreciation for satisfaction in our daily labors. It is in our knowledge that we are using gifts he has given us in our work. It is our wisdom to use our work not as an end in itself, or the way I validate my life. I work to give glory to God. “Whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, do it all to the glory of God,” Paul wrote to the Corinthians.
You may have heard it said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. A man can go to work over and over again expecting that one day he will find some joy or purpose or satisfaction in his work. Its’ a bit like going through the hundreds of channels with the remote back and forth as if we expected to finally find something worthy of our time and attention.
So it is pointless, a vapor, to try to find meaning and enjoyment in life by racking up more and more hours and levels of success without God. The Lord will take everything away in the end. It will disappear like breath in the wind. With our hands in the hand of God these things have meaning and the right meaning.
We’ll talk more about this reality not theory in the weeks ahead in our Sunday morning Bible study. Amen. <SDG>