Sickness Unto Death

Public Faith PART II
Dr. Timothy Keller
06 October 2013

Ecclesiastes 2: 9-26
9I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me.  In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

10I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heard not pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.

11Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.

12Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom,
and also madness and folly.
What more can the king's successor do
than what has already been done?
13I saw that wisdom is better than folly,
just as light is better than darkness.
14The wise have eyes in their heads,
while the fool walks in darkness;
but I came to realize
that the same fate overtakes them both.
15Then I said to myself,

"The fate of the fool will overtake me also.
What then do I gain by being wise?"
I said to myself,
"This too is meaningless."
16For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered;
the days have already come when both have been forgotten.
Like the fool, the wise too must die!

17So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me.  All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.  18I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.  19And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish?  Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun.  This too is meaningless.  20So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun.  21For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it.  This too is meaningless and a great misfortune.  22What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun?  23All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest.  This too is meaningless.

24A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil.  This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?  26To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God.  This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

THE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT WITH A LESSON
--Author is a professor questioning things.
--Looking at "life under the sun" life on earth without regard to eternity or God
--Is life satisfying under these terms?
--Ways to live life seculary:
Sensual Pleasures--chasing after the wind, you can feel it, but can't grab it.
Wisdom--Using human reasoning to find meaning in life without recourse to God.
Work is meaningless because he hated having to leave everything to someone that comes afterwards that might not be as wise--all of your life is anxious and working like crazy.
The same fate overtakes the philosopher and the fool.

REPETITION IN ECCLESIASTES
--Under the sun....
Meaningless is the lesson if life is only these things we can know under the sun.
--Atheists allow people to decide what meaning is--regognizing that life is random.
--Meaningless can be self defined; it must be discovered as something bigger than you--beyond the self.

EXISTENTIALISTS
--If we're here by accident and your destiny is meaningless, then so is your life.

VERSES 24-26
--Looking at life with God in the center
--Suddenly, everything is a gift
--Your identity isn't just obeying God, but pleasing Him.
--Obey God out of adoration.

ROMANS 8
--Gift of futility
--Meaningless world grounded in hope.
--On the cross, Jesus was inserting himself in our life--that's true love.