This morning we're in Ecclesiastes chapter 1 from verses 12 down to verse 18. Let me read this for us. This is what God's Word says. I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted. I said in my heart, I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation. And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. Amen. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we have gathered this morning as a church to hear not the voice of man, but the voice of the living God through your word. So would your spirit speak to us now for your servants are listening and increase in us the knowledge that increases our joy and peace. That is the knowledge of your glory in the face of Jesus Christ in whom we pray, amen. One of the common misconceptions of the book of Ecclesiastes is that it is a book mainly focused on talking about death. and how this life that we live on earth until our eventual death is quite meaningless and fairly unimportant and that because this present life under the sun is all vanity, that it's all like a passing breath here today and gone tomorrow, that we should only be concerned with what happens after this life and not so much during this life. But actually, it's quite the opposite. Ecclesiastes speaks relatively little about life in eternity. That is, in terms of what eternity will look like and what it will consist of. Rather, this book is mostly concerned with dealing with this present life, trying to make sense of it, wrestling with how to find meaning in a life under the sun that seems like a pointless existence if this is all there is. It is a book that is primarily struggling to think through how we can avoid aimlessly wandering through life in vain and where we can find lasting joy in a fleeting world. And so you see, God is not just preparing us to die well, but he is also teaching us how to live well. And the central theme woven through every lesson and instruction throughout Ecclesiastes is this foundational message that the only way to live well is by acknowledging the vanity of life. Acknowledging that it is all fleeting and that we are fleeting and that we will pass from this life any moment. And that life is This life under the sun is filled with hardships and sorrows and frustrations that we cannot tame. And only when we humbly acknowledge these things before God and stop trying so hard to fight against it and to seize a control that we do not possess, only then can we begin to truly live. and open our eyes to the joys set before us as we walk before the face of God by faith. That's at the heart of the message of Ecclesiastes. And this theme is pressed upon us front and center in our passage today as King Solomon begins recounting a series of quests that he embarked on to try with all of his might to discover meaning, and to come up with a solution for this vain, empty life under the sun in which we live. Now remember how the book begins in verse one by announcing that the author is, well, in third person, he says that the words of the preacher, these are the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. And after the opening introduction that we saw last time in verses 1 through 11, we now come to verse 12 where it says, I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. Solomon is saying, I am the preacher mentioned in verse 1. And I'm here to tell you my personal testimony. Now, how do we know that the preacher is Solomon even though he doesn't explicitly name himself? Well, because he says he was king over Israel in Jerusalem. King over Israel in Jerusalem. Only two kings fit that category. David and Solomon. Because remember what happened after Solomon. the nation of Israel split into the northern kingdom, Israel, where the capital city was now in Samaria, and then the southern kingdom, Judah, which the capital city was in Jerusalem. And so only under David and Solomon pre-split was Israel being ruled from Jerusalem. And of course it couldn't be David we're talking about because he says in verse one, I'm the son of David. And so the point is it's clearly King Solomon who is speaking. And so from verse 13, All the way to the end of chapter 2, Solomon is giving us his personal testimony of all the ways that he tried throughout his life to find answers to all the frustrating questions of life. Because remember how he laid out all these frustrations at the beginning of the book in this opening statement. How everything is all vanity, it's all empty, it's all pointless, it's all futile. There is no real gain. There's no point in anything. Why? Because life is, at the end of the day, just like a hamster wheel where we go round and round and round in circles and we toil and we run with all of our might only to go around in circles to what end? We run until we just can't run anymore and then we drop dead and there's no gain. We haven't moved anywhere. We haven't progressed anywhere. There is no real gain to be had when everything ends in death. So what's the point of life then? That's what Solomon was bemoaning in those opening verses as we saw last time. And so Solomon now turns to tell us about how he then tried searching everywhere for any kind of escape from this vanity. Any kind of escape from this pointless hamster wheel called life. And the first place he looked was in his own mind. to think his way out of this vanity. As he says in verse 13, I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. In other words, Solomon was determined in his own heart. Maybe if I can just try to figure out everything, figure out how life works, how this world works, that maybe I can arrive at some satisfying answers and find some lasting peace in a world that is restless and full of weariness, as he said earlier in those previous verses. See, that's the wisdom that Solomon employed to search out all that is done under heaven, everything that takes place. And truth be told, Solomon was the best candidate to give this a shot at figuring everything out because Solomon was what? The wisest man who ever lived. Remember in 1 Kings chapter 3, God said to Solomon, who had just become coronated as king at a young age, God said, Solomon, ask me for anything and I'll give it to you. And what did Solomon ask for? Of all the things that he could have requested, he asked God for an understanding mind to govern God's people. And it pleased God that Solomon had asked this and so God gave him a wise and discerning mind so that none like Solomon would be before him and after him. And the wisdom that Solomon was endowed with by God was a special, unique gift of a mind that was able to perceive and process the incalculable complexities of the world. It says in 1 Kings chapter 4 verse 29 that God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore. He was brilliant, extraordinarily. And it was with this mind that Solomon wrote many Proverbs, which revealed not just an academic intelligence, but an insight into people, into man's psyche, into morality, into ethics, into nature, into the mechanics of the universe. You see, Solomon's special wisdom was not just a high IQ or high GPA. It wasn't simply a great education, but it was this insight into the elements of the world, an ability to contemplate the profound questions of life and the created universe. And so Solomon embarked on his search to figure out all that takes place under the sun, to fully understand all the things that happen in life, and to try to understand why all these things happen the way they do. Now, you might be thinking, all good for Solomon, but I actually don't care to understand everything. I'm really not interested in understanding global trade markets and currency exchange and macroeconomics. I'm definitely not interested in figuring out how calculus works. That's what a calculator is for. I have no desire to learn quantum physics or any kind of physics for that matter. I don't care to have full understanding of how the world operates. But you do. And I do, we all do. Under the right circumstances, we all want to possess full understanding. Or maybe I should say under the wrong circumstances. Because when life goes wrong, and when things in life don't go the way we think, what is our instinctive reaction? Is to ask, why? Why did this have to happen? and we labor and toil with our minds to crunch through all the data and all the information and suddenly we become voracious for the knowledge of understanding how the gears turned to what degree at what speed and how many and which ones to produce this particular outcome and we demand answers. We want to figure out what caused this disease. Why did God allow this terrible thing to happen? Why did God choose this timing of all the timings He could have chosen? Why did this have to happen in this devastating and this senseless way? And on and on and on and we find ourselves searching for understanding. You see, this is the kind of understanding that Solomon was trying to figure out. by his wisdom. It wasn't just some scientific or academic pursuit. But it was fundamentally an existential pursuit to figure out why this life under the sun operates the way it does with all of these hardships and frustrations and sorrows and sufferings and things seldom going according to our plans. And so Solomon said to himself, perhaps, perhaps if I could find a way to exhaustively comprehend everything that happens in this world and have full mastery and wrap my arms around every cause and effect, then maybe I'll be able to navigate myself through life and arrive at a place of peace and lasting rest. But what conclusion did Solomon come to at the end of his journey? Well, he says it right away, that he arrived at nothing but a dead end. Verse 13, that it is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. Even with all of his wisdom to try to solve these equations and generate some sensible formula to explain everything, Solomon could only conclude that it is an unhappy business that God gave mankind to busy ourselves with. And what does it mean by this? Well, at a basic level, it means that life is quite unhappy many times, that it is hopelessly full of troubles and difficulties, that it is, you could also render it as, it is a troublesome burden that we are burdened with. And it's similar to how Jesus described it, that we are so ridden with the cares and the concerns of this life, filled with anxieties and worries and fears and weariness and disappointments. And so Solomon tried to find a solution to all these things to see if he could figure out how to resolve all of these tensions that mar the human experience. But his conclusion was just, you know what? It is what it is. This is simply life under the sun, an unhappy business that we are all busy with. But notice, where does Solomon say that this unhappiness comes from? Says, from God, who gave it to the children of man. It was God who has given it to us. Which raises the question, why would God give us such unhappiness? Well, this whole sentence can be literally translated like this. It is an evil business or an evil burden that God has given to the children of Adam to be busy with and to be burdened by. This is bringing us back to the garden. It's not that God authored evil so as to cause evil and unhappiness because God created this world as good. but that God gave this world over to the consequence of sin and evil by cursing the world after the fall. Hence, it was God who gave to the children of man this unhappy business of life to be lived in a broken world that's been broken by our sin. You see, it is because this world is fallen that we must live through hardship and toil and disappointments and frustrations. As God said in Genesis chapter three, cursed is the ground because of you. In pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the plants of the field. I mean, we will eat and we will make a living. But even those simple things like eating will involve undergoing pain and hardship. Life is not easy. And the reason it's not easy is because it is lived in an environment that is now outside the gates of Eden. Things don't operate the way they should. Now, this is why even natural disasters occur, things that just don't make sense and destroy lives. Why do earthquakes arise and destroy lives? Why is that necessary? Why do tornadoes ravage cities? Why do children get cancer? I mean, these are the endless questions that we can try to figure out and make sense out of, and Solomon really tried. But in the end, he could only conclude that it is an evil burden that God has given to mankind because this is the reality of living in a sin-cursed world where the evil of sin exists. As Paul says in Romans chapter 8 verse 20, that creation itself, that even nature itself, the entire universe including its inhabitants was subjected to futility. Or, you could say, subjected to vanity. It's the exact same word as used in Ecclesiastes chapter one. That this whole universe was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it. Because of God who gave it over to it. And creation groans for the day of redemption, and so should we as believers. But here's the thing, that so often, we busy ourselves resisting and trying to change this reality. We spend our lives putting a lot of effort in trying to recreate Eden in our lives. And so we'll strive for security and wealth and comfort and put up as many hedges as possible in life with the hope that we can control the outcome of each day and minimize the pain and suffering that we have to go through. And also that we can have the easiest possible life and avoid the inevitable hardships that come with life under the sun. And so we aim to know as much as we can, to plan as much as we can, and to draw out an entire map for the course of our lives. This is how we try, not just Solomon, but how you and I try to quote-unquote figure out life by our own wisdom. We try to resolve what cannot be resolved. Because truth be told, the state of the world is as it is. Fallen and broken. We can't avoid these things. No matter how perfectly we construct our lives, suffering will come. Disaster will come. Hardships will come. They are inevitable. And that's why Solomon says in verse 14, I have seen everything that is done under the sun. Everything. I consider every possibility. And even still, behold, it's all vanity. It's all futile. And it's a striving after wind. He's saying, I tried to figure it all out and get everything under my thumb, but it was like chasing after the wind. Or it could also be translated, it was like shepherding the wind. That's kind of foolish. You ever try to control the wind and make it go the direction you want? You will look very strange. You better hope that no one's watching you doing that. It's not possible. Wind cannot be controlled. Such is life. We can't control it. In short, Solomon tried to make perfect sense of life, but he concluded, life simply doesn't make perfect sense. I can't make it make sense, even with the breadth of my mind. There is a limit to human understanding. And it is the truly wise who will stop trying to fight against this and acknowledge these words in verse 15. That what is crooked cannot be made straight. And what is lacking cannot be counted. Or what is missing cannot be accounted for. Later in chapter 7 verse 13, Solomon will tell us explicitly that God is the one who has made it crooked. Because again, God cursed the ground. And it is on that ground that we live. Our journey through this world is filled with brokenness and crookedness. Things not going our way as straight as we may intend them to go. But it's filled with such crookedness. It's filled with loss. It's filled with things that are missing that we wish we could have or that we wish we should have. What are we to do then? to let it go. To recognize our limitations and to know that our wisdom and our efforts can't change this reality. To acknowledge that life is imperfect and to stop trying so hard to make it perfect and be frustrated at all the imperfections. To know and to believe that God is the one who has ordained for my life to be hard and crooked at times. and stop trying to be so wise in our own eyes and to lean on our own understanding, but to trust Him to guide us through this crooked life filled with unwelcome twists and turns and trust that He will be the one to make straight our paths. You know, at the end of the day, our greatest frustrations in life It's that we try really hard to make straight the things that are crooked. Our instinct is always to try to right every wrong, to fix every brokenness, to solve every problem, to heal every disease, to resolve every tension. But in the end, we know we can't do it. But that makes us very frustrated. It does me. And we fall into despair and discouragement and joylessness. But that's the fruit of human wisdom. But godly wisdom recognizes our finite limitations and lays it all down before God at His feet. And like Job says, shall we receive good from God and shall we not also receive evil? Whatever He has ordained for me, whether joy or pain, happiness or sorrow, what can I do but trust Him who promises to guide me and be with me even through the fire, who promises to oversee and superintend all of these things for my good, to make me more and more like Christ, to sanctify me, and who promises in the end to make all things new and to make all things straight. You see, the greatest of human wisdom and the utmost exertion of our wills and our minds cannot change the state of reality of this life on this side of eternity. We cannot fix what is broken and we cannot straighten what is crooked. And not only that, but insisting on doing so and insisting on figuring out everything and resolving every issue will only make us more miserable. Verse 16, Solomon continues and says, I said in my heart, I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who are over Jerusalem before me. And my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also is but striving after wind. Solomon is saying, Y'all know that I am super-duper wise, that I have more wisdom, and I surpass everyone that came before me, including other kings who ruled over Jerusalem way before David, like Melchizedek, and even the Jebusites who occupied it. And with all my super-duper wisdom, I sought to understand not only wisdom, but also madness and folly. Now what is he saying here? Well, Solomon is not referring to mental insanity, okay? He didn't admit himself into a psych ward because I want to see what that's like. But in the Bible, madness and folly is a moral term. We see this throughout Proverbs. It's a moral term that refers to ungodliness and immorality. And so of course, starting in chapter two, Solomon is going to go into detail of how he went so far as to see if there was fulfillment and meaning found in worldly pleasure, even to try to feed the lust of his flesh. So he really did search out madness and folly, spiritual madness and spiritual folly. But all those details, that's for later when we get to chapter two, because the broader point here that I want us to notice is that Solomon wanted to know both wisdom and madness and folly. He wanted to know both godliness and ungodliness. Or to put it another way, Solomon wanted the knowledge of good and evil. He wanted to know it experientially by tasting good and tasting evil for himself. And he also wanted to know it conceptually and philosophically by knowing about all the good in the world and knowing about all the evil in the world. In other words, Solomon wanted to know everything. to have all of the information and all of the data to be given to Him so that He could judge for Himself what was good versus evil. So that He could discern between every right in the world and every wrong in the world. Isn't that what people try to do by wrestling with all the difficult questions in life, all those ethical, philosophical questions? Why does God allow suffering and evil in the world? Why do good things happen to bad people? Why do bad things happen to good people? How is it fair that the car accident killed that innocent two-year-old in the back of that one car, but the other car that had a drunk driver walked away just fine? How is that fair? Let's try to make sense of this. Don't we turn into our own ethicists and philosophers when these questions strike home? When calamity and suffering come to our doorstep? Why did this have to happen to me? Why would God allow this evil to befall me? It's not fair. Give me all the reasons. Give me all the information and all the explanations so that with that, I will be the one to decide and adjudicate if it was just and good and acceptable. You know, there's a lot more of that original temptation in the garden in us than we think. That's how we react often, don't we? But all of our desire for knowledge of wisdom versus folly, of good versus evil, Solomon testifies that this is also nothing but a striving after wind. Why? Because verse 18, for much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge only increases sorrow. Trying to understand everything, And even if you were to understand everything, and even if God were to give you all of the explanations, it will not ease your pain. Knowing the exact cause behind that stage 4 cancer is not going to make it any easier. Can you turn back time? Can you undo what's been done? Knowing the secret counsel of God as to why He chose to make you be born into that difficult household or why He allowed this harm to be done to you many years ago that will affect you for the rest of your life. Knowing why is not going to ease the hardship that ripples from what has already taken place and what God has sovereignly ordained for you. There is a wisdom to the old adage. Ignorance really is bliss. Because by contrast, more knowledge is more sorrow. I mean, think about Jesus himself. Jesus was the perfection of the wisdom of God in man. Because he is the wisdom of God incarnate who came down to us. And yet, how does the prophet Isaiah describe him? A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Jesus knew and understood better than anyone, better than any of the prophets in the Old Testament, better than John the Baptist. Better than even Stephen the Martyr, later in Acts chapter 7. Jesus knew better than anyone the hardness of the heart of the nation of Israel. He knew. He possessed the knowledge of good and evil. And yet, what did that produce in Him? He broke out in tears and wept over Jerusalem. Jesus knew what was in man. We don't know what is entirely in man but Jesus knew. Jesus knew the evil that was really in Judas even though the other 11 had no idea and y'all spent the whole time together all those years. Jesus knew the evil that was in Judas and yet that did not soften the blow of Judas's betrayal. It cut Jesus's heart open. That's why in the upper room as he instituted the Lord's Supper. Do you remember what Jesus said? This morsel of bread that I give him, he's the one. And by that he was saying, Judas, don't do it. There was no one who walked this earth more wise and understanding on whom the spirit of wisdom and understanding and counsel and knowledge rested. And yet there was no one more filled with pain, more acquainted with grief. But what does Isaiah 53 say? That this man of sorrows came to bear our griefs and to carry our sorrows. That we might cast our every grief and sorrow and anxiety, even our sins, upon him. You see, there are so many things in life that we cannot understand that just don't make sense to us. And we're not meant to understand them. because they exceed the limitations of our human understanding. As Romans 11 33 says, how unsearchable are God's judgments and how inscrutable beyond scrutiny are his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? There is so much that doesn't make sense to us and won't to our eyes, to our thoughts because they belong solely to the secret counsel of God. Deuteronomy 29 verse 29 says this, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. Well, what has God revealed to us? His ultimate, final, all sufficient revelation in revealing his son to us. His Son who came to bear every grief and carry every sorrow for His people, by suffering the curse of our sin and evil, by being stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. And for all who belong to Him by faith, He promises, Behold, I am with you to the end of the age. In life and in death, in joy and suffering, in season and out of season, He promises that all things are under His control because all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him, the Son of Man. That's why He can say, behold, I am with you until the end of the age. And that is her only sure hope in life. We live in a world where what is crooked cannot be made straight and what is lacking or what is in want cannot be counted. But the Lord Jesus is our shepherd. And in Him, we shall not want, we shall not lack, because He leads me in the straight paths of righteousness. Trying to navigate through life by our own wisdom is like striving after the wind, foolishly trying to control the wind. So what else can we do but to trust the One whom even the winds and the waves obey? They listen to Him. He can control even the winds. This is wisdom from above. Jesus Christ Himself who came down to us from above to save us from our futility. To redeem us from our unhappy business that we are stuck being busy with. And now shepherding us all the way through life to the path of glory with Him in eternity. Even through taking us along the valleys of the shadow of death. But that is the only answer in a life filled with questions. And if you're here today, you're not a Christian, you need to acknowledge that you really don't have answers to this life. You don't have answers to the most important questions in this life. And you certainly don't have answers for what's to come after this life. But listen, hear this. Jesus Christ is the answer. The Savior who came to suffer the curse of sin on behalf of those He came to save. That on the cross He was punished for the sins that we are guilty of and suffered the eternal wrath of God against sin. So that all who repent of sin, acknowledge that they are guilty sinners, and trust in His saving work on the cross will be forgiven of sin and have the promise of new life in Him secured until eternity with Him. And it is only in knowing Jesus Christ as your Savior and as your Master over your life Only in this can you have direction and meaning and purpose through this empty, aimless, frustrating world by following Him and living for His will, which is what you were created for. And so come to Him by faith and leave behind the unhappy business of your life and find the joy of your salvation and true life in Him. And Christian, be reminded today that it is because we are secure in Christ that we are able to acknowledge that we really do live in this broken and imperfect world. But we are able to acknowledge this with triumph. and with peace because we have a Savior and a Friend who is sufficient to lead us through every rocky road and every twist and turn. And He will be faithful until the end. And it's only when we stop trying to change the conditions of how things are and the road ahead that we know is going to be filled with difficulties That when we stop trying to change these things and stop trying to fight against them, but instead submit to how things are with all of the imperfection and brokenness, then we will find ourselves being able to enjoy this life far better than ever. Because rather than squandering our breath trying to chase after the wind, we can be thankful for each breath, for each day that He has given to us as a gift. and for each day that He is unfailingly with us, never to leave us on our best days and on our worst days. And so let us learn to never be wise in our own sight, but receive by faith both the Son and the reign of His sovereignty. Let's pray together. Our gracious Father, You are the all-wise God, And we are nothing but ignorant and foolish sheep who know only how to get ourselves lost. But we thank you that we are your precious beloved sheep, for whom Christ, our Good Shepherd, laid down His life. And that is where our faith and confidence find their resting place, in hearing His voice and following Him. O Lord, teach us to listen better to the words of your wisdom that come from your mouth and empower us to trust you better and to surrender our will to your perfect and loving will for our joy and peace. And as we now prepare to take the Lord's Supper, would your spirit use these ordinary elements of the bread and the cup for the extraordinary means of sealing the truth of the gospel onto our hearts. as we proclaim by faith all the promises of Christ for his people whom he loves and for whom he died. In his holy name we pray. Amen.