“My first sermon. It was preached on May 2, 2021. Outside, on a rainy Sunday morning.” -Kelvin

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Good morning, I’ll have to admit, this feels a bit unusual. Usually, when I’m on stage I’m doing other things, as some of you know. However, you can rest assured that I won’t do those sorts of things today. Maybe that’s a disappointment…or maybe that’s a relief. I don’t know.

In any case, today we’re going to look at some scripture and see what it has to say to us. If you want to follow along, turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 1. While you are doing that, let me ask you a couple of questions.

Have you ever felt tired and worn out?

Have you ever felt discouraged?

No, you don’t need to raise your hand or honk your horns.

I think it’s safe to say that we have all experienced times of discouragement.

I know I have. I can think of a time in my life when I burned myself out so badly that some people close to me thought I was having a heart attack.

I won’t get into all the reasons for why that happened. I will say that what I learned then is that you can stress yourself out so much, you can work yourself so hard, that your body emits certain chemicals to shut you down.

This isn’t as much fun as it sounds. Believe me.

For quite a few months after that encounter with extreme burnout, I was quite discouraged. I was in a lockdown-type situation and I couldn’t even blame the government for it. I had brought all that trouble on myself. After that moment of crisis, I had to spend months resting to build up strength again. I had a lot of time to think and the things I was thinking were similar to what we will read in our first Scripture passage this morning. Ecclesiastes Chapter 1.

The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:

2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.”

3 What do people gain from all their labors

at which they toil under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go,

but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,

and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south

and turns to the north;

round and round it goes,

ever returning on its course.

7 All streams flow into the sea,

yet the sea is never full.

To the place the streams come from,

there they return again.

8 All things are wearisome,

more than one can say.

The eye never has enough of seeing,

nor the ear its fill of hearing.

9 What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun.

10 Is there anything of which one can say,

“Look! This is something new”?

It was here already, long ago;

it was here before our time.

11 No one remembers the former generations,

and even those yet to come

will not be remembered

by those who follow them.

Keep your finger in Ecclesiastes, we’ll get back to it in a minute or two. But first, let’s take a moment to consider this passage. Picture this, Solomon is sitting in his palace, surrounded by all the luxuries of his time, and he is writing the words I just read. He describes the cycles of nature, the rivers running…the wind blowing…there is always something to tickle the ears, and our eyes always something more to look at. None of this ever changes and really, what does it all matter anyway? None of us will be remembered by those who come after us…and so, what is the point? WHAT IS the POINT of it all? That is the big question of Ecclesiastes.

And because of that, many people ask what is the point of even reading Ecclesiastes? It’s too depressing and life has enough depressing things in it already. Well, don’t give up yet…we’ve just begun our study. Maybe by the end of this message, you’ll look at this book a little differently.

Ecclesiastes takes its name from the Greek ekklesiastes, a translation of the title by which the main figure refers to himself: Kohelet, meaning something like “one who convenes or addresses an assembly”. Or, as some translate it, teacher. It is a controversial book. Some people have wondered if it should actually be in the Bible or not.

Maybe you are one of those people. If so, I would ask you to consider a typical map. A map shows us the bigger picture of the area where we are traveling. It shows us the way we need to go. It also shows us the roads that aren’t paved, the bush trails, and the roads that go nowhere.

If the Bible is our map to life, Ecclesiastes is a book that shows us the bush trails and the dead ends.

Other people ask, what does Solomon know about anything anyway? He may have started off well, but he sure made a mess of his life. Well, that is true. But consider chapter 12 of 1 King that we just heard read for us. The Lord himself said that there will never again be anyone like Solomon. He was the wisest man who ever lived. That is a pretty amazing endorsement. Now, since the wisest man who ever lived explored many of the things that this world has to offer and then wrote down what he discovered, wouldn’t it be worth taking a look to see what he found out?

If having bigger and better experiences was the answer, Solomon had a life full of the best experiences of his time, but at the end of his life, he was still looking for something more.

If gathering more knowledge was enough to bring peace of mind, Solomon should have been a man at peace with himself and the world around him.

If having more things is the key to happiness…Solomon should have been one of the happiest characters around. However, what do we read in Ecclesiastes Chapter 2?

So 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. 18 I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. 19 And 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. 20 So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. 21 For 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. 22 What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? 23 All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night, their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.

Basically, Solomon continues building on the theme that he began in Chapter 1. The ultimate futility of all the brilliant things that he was busy working on and the realization that he would have to leave everything he worked so hard for to someone who didn’t work for them at all.

This was a depressing thought for him. But isn’t this true? All things we work so hard for in this world are going to go to somebody else in the end. We don’t get to stay on this earth forever.

Maybe we don’t like to consider ideas like this.

Maybe deep down we think we don’t really have anything much in common with Solomon. He was rich and famous. He was just another person who had it all and then went off the deep end. The entertainment business is full of these sorts of stories. You know how actors are. We can shake our heads and thank God that we aren’t like those kinds of people.

But, let me ask you this, what if we as a society have more in common with the author of Ecclesiastes than we think?

Did you know that you are probably one of the richest people in the world? Maybe you don’t believe me…but according to the global rich list, it only takes an annual income of $32,400 to join the world’s richest 1%. Do you feel rich this morning? Well, you are. It would take workers in poor nations like Zimbabwe 31 years to earn this amount. Yes, compared to them, those of us in North America are unbelievably rich in material things.

However, despite being in the world’s richest 1%, 22 percent of surveyed Canadians reported that they had been diagnosed with depression, with another 20 percent saying they had received an anxiety disorder diagnosis. Both of those rates are the highest MHRC has measured, and if you think this is because of COVID, this is only four percentage points higher than before the pandemic.

If you spend any time at all on social media, watching the news, down at the coffee shop, or even looking in the mirror, it would be easy to get the impression that people these days are not very happy.

What will it take to make us happy?

Would we be happy if tomorrow morning they announced that COVID was gone for good? Probably for a while…but how long would it take for us to find something else to complain about?

Would we be happier if we had bigger and better experiences?

Would we finally achieve peace of mind if we had more money or nicer things?

According to Ecclesiastes, the answer is no. According to Solomon, all these things are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. We can spend our lives working ourselves sick to get them, but in the end, we don’t get to keep them anyway.

This can be a depressing thought, however, I would suggest to you this morning that there is also encouragement and direction to be found in Ecclesiastes.

What? How could Ecclesiastes be an encouragement? Well, let’s consider the common theme we find throughout the book of Ecclesiastes. I’m not going to read the whole book to you now, but I would encourage you to study up at home for yourselves. As we flip through the chapters of Ecclesiastes the common letter we find is…I…as in, I set my heart to study…I set my hands to work…I decided to test all these things to see what was good…and so on.

The common letter is I…I did all these things…and who did I do all these things for? Me!

When we put ourselves at the center of everything isn’t this where the worries start?

We worry that we don’t have enough money. Then when we get more money, we worry that somebody might take that money away from us.

We worry about how to get bigger crowds and more applause, then when we get them, we worry that we might lose them.

We worry that if we don’t do everything ourselves, it won’t be done right. Then, we worry about how tired we’re getting because of all the work that we are doing.

Now, hard work, applause, and money can be nice things. The problems start when we give them a higher place in our lives than they should have. We can invest our whole lives in getting money and applause for ourselves but the truth is, all the time that we invest in ourselves will die with us. When we realize this, we start writing books like Ecclesiastes.

With that in mind, what is the moral of the book? What did Solomon learn from all his striving? Flip over to Ecclesiastes Chapter 12, starting at verse 9.

9 Not only was the Teacher wise, but he also imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs.

10 The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true.

11 The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one shepherd.

12 Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.

13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.

14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

Here we see the conclusion of the matter.

Life is not all about me, it is all about the Lord and what he wants!

Maybe that doesn’t seem like that big of a revelation to some of you…but this is good news! We don’t have to work ourselves to death trying to scrape together more applause, more things. Instead of wasting our lives trying to impress other people, we can rest in the Lord. But don’t take my word for it, listen to these verses from Luke 12 starting at verse 22.

22Then, turning to his disciples, Jesus said, “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear. 23For life is more than food, and your body more than clothing. 24Look at the ravens. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than any birds! 25Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? 26And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?

27“Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 28And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

29“And don’t be concerned about what to eat and what to drink. Don’t worry about such things. 30These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers all over the world, but your Father already knows your needs. 31Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need.

Doesn’t this kind of lifestyle sound a lot more appealing than the verses from Ecclesiastes that we looked at at the beginning?

Instead of wearing ourselves out trying to control everything, to draw attention to ourselves, to build our own kingdoms. We need to seek something higher, we need to seek first the kingdom of God. This is a complete shift in mindset.

What does this look like in real life? Let’s ponder that for the next few minutes. To start things off. I have another show business story for you.

He was a success!

He had achieved exactly what he had dreamed of since he was a young man.

His songs were in constant rotation on the radio. In fact, one of them set a station record for sitting at number one on their chart for 16 straight weeks.

Needless to say, his band was in demand which meant that he was constantly on the road. Things were looking up. Before he knew it, he was playing his songs to over 20,000 people at the Toronto Skydome.

However, all was not well. Those closest to him were worried about the dark places this lifestyle was taking him. At least one member of his family was known to pray against his success. Why would anyone pray against a success like this? Because all this success was bringing him things that were destroying him and even more success was sure to bring about total destruction.

As time went on, the prayers of his family were answered in a dramatic way. On the brink of greater success his band broke up and everything stopped.

The touring, the accolades…everything.

What was he supposed to do now?

For my brother-in-law, Pete, getting on track meant giving up the band life. Some people wonder why he wouldn’t want to go back to everything that he had. But Peter, like Solomon, has realized that these things are meaningless.

He doesn’t need the applause of a crowd to feel like his life has value. Now he is preaching in a small Church on Opaskywak Cree Nation and he is glad to be there.

He has changed his perspective on life. He has realized that there are greater things to pursue than being number 1. You know, sometimes we too are tempted to think that the celebrity lifestyle is where it is at, if we only have a hit show we’ll have it made, everybody will like us and because they like us, they’ll change their lives. The North American church has invested an incredible amount of money in this sort of thinking. However, the latest statistics are clear. Despite all the wonderful things we’ve purchased and all the great experiences that we’ve had, Christianity in North America is in decline.

However, the places in the world where people have little in the way of material possessions…the places that don’t have a building that they can call a Church. They meet at the third banyan tree outside the village…the places where they can’t even afford to drive, so they walk, sometimes for hours, just to meet together with other Christians. Those so-called third-world countries are the places that Christianity is growing at a very rapid pace.

We in North America have everything that the world says that we need for success. What do these people in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, have that we don’t?

Does this mean that we in North America need to work harder to get God on our side?

Do we need to buy more books and go to more weekend seminars?

I would suggest to you that it means that we need to change our perspective.

It is not about us striving to try to impress God, to earn a divine blessing from above.

The Bible clearly says that it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us. We have already been offered the best possible gift that we could receive. The gift of Jesus Christ. Not because we managed to impress God with all our hard work…not because we had the coolest show in town, not because of everything that we have done. But in spite of everything that we have done!

All our righteousness is like filthy rags in the sight of the Lord. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves good enough for heaven and you know, this is very good news! The Christian life isn’t all about us trying to get God on side with what we are doing. It is about us getting on side with what God is doing. It is about us humbly accepting the grace that is a gift of God, leaving our old ways, and living a new life.

It is about a complete shift in our mindset. It is about moving our focus from ourselves to higher things and keeping our focus on that.

I doubt that many of you here have spent much time reading acting textbooks. However, one of those textbooks has this advice. The job of an actor is not to be liked or to receive applause. It is to play the part you are given.

In other words. Don’t get sidetracked.

Don’t start fretting over the director, the other actors, or that crazy person at the back of the theater. Focus on the part you have to play and serving the greater story. That’s it.

Acting can be hard work, but people who heed this advice have a lot easier time of it than those who chase everything else under the sun.

As followers of Jesus, we too need to keep our focus on playing our part in the greater story…the kingdom of God.

It is all too easy to get sidetracked by what we see on TV or on social media.

We may have accepted the grace that is a gift of God at one time in our lives, but if we spend too much time stewing over the latest headlines we can easily find ourselves full of anger, bitterness, and thoughts of revenge.

The next thing you know, we are back to thinking it is all up to me…I’m the one who needs to teach these people a lesson. But you know, if we want to teach other people a lesson, it helps if we learn a few lessons ourselves first.

We need to focus on higher things. Later tonight, what will the sky above us look like? If the sky is clear, we’ll see a great canvas of stars and planets above us…and you know, those millions of stars and planets that we can see would just be a tiny part of the entire universe. The next time we see a sky like this, we would do well to ask ourselves the questions we find in the book of Job.

Was I there when the stars were lit up?

Is it my power that keeps the whole universe running?

Do I know the One who does? Do I really know him?

If I know the One who runs the entire universe, why am I so worried about all the trivial things here on Earth? Why am I in turmoil because of what that one guy said on Facebook? Why am I letting these people on tv steal the joy of the Lord from my life?

You know, the God of the universe has been dealing with human beings and their wild ideas for a lot longer than we have. I’m pretty sure he can handle them. Our job is to make sure that we are not one of the wild-eyed human beings that God needs to deal with. We need to stay focused on the mission. We need to fear God and do his commands.

If we truly fear the Lord, we will be concerned with what He is concerned about. Things of eternal value. And you know, Human beings are the only things made on Earth that have eternal value.

This isn’t some abstract concept. If our perspective in life has truly shifted away from ourselves, if we truly have come to rest in the promises of God, the people around us will benefit.

If we are tech-savvy, we might use our social media presence to encourage people to seek a new life. If we are mechanically inclined, we could that old lawnmower that our neighbor has wanted us to fix for the past two years. If we are farmers, we could finish harvesting our neighbor’s crop while he is in divorce court for the third time.

Not because the neighbor deserves any help because of what he has done, but because our lives are no longer just about doing things that only benefit ourselves. Our lives are focused on higher things, in this case witnessing to the grace that we ourselves have received…even though we didn’t deserve it either.

We can tell people the good news that they don’t need to spend their lives working to try and win the approval of others or of God…but we cannot force anyone to change. According to Titus chapter 3, a life is transformed through the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit. It isn’t about us tricking them, or coming up with some scheme to force them into it. We do our part and we let God do his.

We can train ourselves to say yes when the Lord brings opportunities our way…and we can do our best when we work at them, but we also need to realize that we may never see the full impact of the things that we’ve done on earth until we get to Heaven. And that’s okay, we don’t need to know everything, we need to get to know the one who does.

If we truly know the creator, the holder of the power who created the universe, we can rest in the truth that he is more than capable of providing what we need to fulfill his will, and bringing good fruit from our small efforts on behalf of his Kingdom.

This should be a comfort. Not because I said it, but because He said it.

We are not the Savior of the World…He is. We don’t have to do everything and fix everyone. Our part is to do the good works that he has prepared in advance for us to do…through the power that he himself provides! Not to try and impress other people or God himself, but because this is our reasonable service. An act of thanksgiving and worship to God for the goodness that he has shown us through his son Jesus Christ.

Even though we may well experience problems when we walk in the footsteps of Jesus, we can rest in the promise that the problems of this world are temporary problems, not the eternal problems that come from a life spent on selfish pursuits.

Today I presented two ways of life to you. One way is described in the book of Ecclesiastes. A life of striving for the things and approval of this world.

The other way of life is described in Matthew Chapter 11.

25 At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.[g] 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Maybe you are tired and discouraged today. Maybe you’re like Solomon, you’ve been working for all the things that this world has to offer but you’ve realized that you’ve succeeded in everything that doesn’t really matter. Maybe you’ve been spending sleepless nights tossing and turning over all the things on the news. Maybe you’ve been stewing over some local politician who needs to be taught a lesson. Whatever it is that is distracting from the rest that Jesus offers, I would encourage you to let it go. Accept the free gift of grace that God is offering and rest in the hope of his good promises. You know, in Isaiah chapter 40 it says this.

“He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Is. 40:29-31 That sounds like a pretty good deal to me. What do you think?