LIFE MATTERS
The Book of Ecclesiastes #1
Pastor Dennis Clanton
Woodland Church
Sunday, January 19, 2025
(Ecclesiastes 1:1–11, NLT) “These are the words of the Teacher, King David’s son, who ruled in Jerusalem. “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content. History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new. We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now.”
“Nothing I have discovered about the makeup of human beings contradicts in any way what I have learned from the Hebrew prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos, and from the Book of Ecclesiastes, and from Jesus and the lives of those he touched. Anything that I can say as a result of my research into human behavior is a mere footnote to those lives in the Old and New Testaments”- Robert Coles, Harvard Psychiatrist
(Ecclesiastes 7:24, GN) “How can anyone discover what life means? It is too deep for us, too hard to understand.”
1. WITHOUT GOD LIFE
a. Life seems meaningless
(Ecclesiastes 1:2–4, NLT) “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes.”
b. Life seems like it goes in around in circles
(Ecclesiastes 1:5-6) “The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles.”
c. Life seems wearisome
(Ecclesiastes 1:8, NLT) “Everything is wearisome beyond description.”
d. Life seems boring
(Ecclesiastes 1:8–10, MSG) “Everything’s boring, utterly boring— no one can find any meaning in it. Boring to the eye, boring to the ear. What was will be again, what happened will happen again. There’s nothing new on this earth. Year after year it’s the same old thing. Does someone call out, “Hey, this is new”? Don’t get excited—it’s the same old story.”
e. Life seems insignificant
(Ecclesiastes 1:11, NLT) “We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now.”
f. Life seems unjust
(Ecclesiastes 1:15, NLT) “What is wrong cannot be made right. What is missing cannot be recovered.”
2. WISDOM, PLEASURE, AND WORK ARE GOOD THINGS
“In order to be prepared to hope in what does not deceive, we must first lose hope in everything that does deceive.” – Jacques Ellul, theologian and professor of law
(Ecclesiastes 1:13, NLT) “I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done under heaven.”
(Ecclesiastes 2:1, NLT) “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.”
(Ecclesiastes 2:11, NLT) “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.”
(Ecclesiastes 9:7–10, NLT) “Go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this! Wear fine clothes, with a splash of cologne! Live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil. Whatever you do, do well.”
3. GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST GIVES MEANING TO LIFE
(Ephesians 1:4–5, NLT) “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”
a. I am loved by God
b. I am adopted by God
(Ephesians 1:7-10, Phillips) “It is through the Son, at the cost of his own blood, that we are redeemed, freely forgiven through that full and generous grace which has overflowed into our lives and opened our eyes to the truth. For God had allowed us to know the secret of his plan, and it is this: he purposes in his sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in Christ, that everything that exists in Heaven or earth shall find its perfection and fulfilment in him.”
GROWTHWORK
(Ecclesiastes 3:11, NLT) “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.”
1. BELIEVE AND ACCEPT JESUS CHRIST.
(John 1:12, NLT) “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.”
2. ALLOW GOD TO SHAPE MY LIFE TO BECOME LIKE JESUS.
(Romans 8:29, Message) “God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.”
“A Christian’s life should be nothing but a visible representation of Christ.” – Thomas Brooks