Under The Sun, Above The Sun Series

Good morning! Please turn in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes 1. Ecclesiastes is pretty easy to find. If you open your Bible about in the middle, you are probably going to be in Psalms. Ecclesiastes is two books after Psalms—Proverbs, then Ecclesiastes.

The other night Josh and I were watching the news, and the last story was of a new exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Now, just to remind you, the Museum of Natural History is where you can see fossils of dinosaur bones, the Hope Diamond, and a life sized model of a blue whale. And now, added to those, is an exhibit celebrating… cell phones.

Yep. I’m not joking. The first cell phone is in the same museum as the Hope Diamond. And if you’re like me, you’re going, “Why?”

Well, why not? When a new cell phone comes out, you want it like the Hope Diamond, don’t you? Anybody remember when the first Motorola Razor came out? It was the coolest thing ever! And then came the iPhone. Then, another iPhone. And another. Now we’re on the iPhone 14. And all the other ones we now see as, well, fossils.

It is crazy how quickly we go from just having to have the latest and greatest to feeling unsatisfied. And I’m pretty sure that’s Apple’s business plan. I think that’s why they keep changing the connections,

But it isn’t just cell phones. It’s pretty much every one of our pursuits. Its career. It’s achievement. It’s relationships. It’s the next car, the next house, the next degree, the next rank. But when you get it, the shine of it seems to wear away almost from the moment you obtain it.

And so this morning, I want to introduce you to the book of the Bible that teaches us this better than any other book of the Bible. It’s the book of Ecclesiastes. But I want to warn you, Ecclesiastes is not a happy book. It’s not like a cheesy Christian movie or “Victory in Jesus” type hymn where everything gets resolved and you walk out ready to conquer the world. It’s kind of the opposite. Ecclesiastes is a cautionary tale intended to teach us a vitally important truth. As dark and depressing as the book is, I promise you that if you learn the lesson it is trying to teach you, it’s going to change your life. I know that’s a big promise, but it’s a big truth. And so I’m going to put it front and center before we do anythijng else. I don’t have any blanks for it, but I would like you to write these three things down somewhere. Here they are. Here’s the whole sermon:

Happiness is never found by pursuing happiness. I know that sounds kind of un-American, right? It’s right there in our Declaration of Independence that we all have a right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But I’ll say it againe: Happiness is never found by pursuing happiness.

Number two, happiness is a by-product of pursuing something or someone else..

And number three, there is only one thing you can pursue that can ever bring true happiness.

Fast Facts on Ecclesiastes:

Attributed to Solomon (1:1).

The first verse of Ecclesiastes is “The words of the Preacher, the Son of David, the King of Jerusalem.” Actually, in Hebrew the word translated “Preacher” or “teacher” is Qoheleth. It comes from a verb which means to call or to gather together. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, the word is Ecclesiastou, which is how we get the name of the book as we have it. But in Greek, Ekklesia is church, or gathering. That’s how we get “Preacher“ from Qohelth. Get it? Got it? Good.

Qohelth describes himself as “Son of David, king of Jerusalem.” He repeats this twice in the first chapter. And at the end of the book, in chapter 12:9, there is an epilogue, most likely written by a later editor, that says,

9 Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care.

So, a son of David, a king in Jerusalem, who collected Proverbs, Who did that? Solomon.

And when you read the first three chapters, the autobiographical details definitely match up with what we know about Solomon. The author describes himself as someone someone who took on a lot of building projects. We know from 2 Chronicles 8 that Solomon took on lots of building projects. It also describes someone who had great wealth and riches. That was true of Solomon also. And 2:9 says he had many concubines. That’s definitely Solomon!

However, this is not the young romantic Solomon who wrote the wedding song we call the Song of Solomon. And it’s not the wise, confident, middle aged Solomon who compiled the book of Proverbs. No, this is old, bitter, Solomon. Let’s just read the first few verses together. If you are physically able, please stand to honor the reading of God’s Word.