MEANINGLESS (PART 1)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

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

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?

Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

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.

No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Everything is meaningless. Utterly meaningless. Not just some things. Everything.

Wow.

This is how we begin our Christian walk through the book of Ecclesiastes and if everything is meaningless, then I guess one might say this book or the entire Bible is included. After all, there is no caveat given in the word of God. It says everything is meaningless.

Of course, anyone who made this kind of statement would be wrong.

For a man who asked for nothing but the Lord’s wisdom when asked what he wanted from anything possible has to be given a little more credit than assuming he made a foolish or erroneous assertion. After all, a man who speaks of wisdom is not speaking on his own behalf but rather on the behalf of the One who is wisdom, the One who created wisdom and imparts it, the One who is the Lord God Almighty.

So what are we to take from these opening verses from Ecclesiastes regarding the meaningless of life?

I think the answer is simple.

For if you are living solely for the world and its ways, then you truly are living a meaningless life.

People who live for the world work and work and work to find success but what do they really gain for all the toiling they do under the sun?

The grave? Possessions which are just past onto someone else who will eventually follow them to the grave?

Meaningless.  

Yes, generations come and generations go, but the earth and its worldly ways remain forever. New groups of people rise up to do all the same things their ancestors did before them all under a sun that rises and sets before hurrying back to the place where it rises. They labor and live as the wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. They drink water which originates in the streams that flow into seas that never become full. Life, like the matters of nature, becomes cyclic and predictable.

Meaningless.

Yes, life when you live for the world is more wearisome than one can say. We get worn out by it, by our day-in, day-out routines as day marches into day, month into month, year into year. And even when something new seems to emerge, we discover that it is simply a reemergence of something that had been done before. Truly, the world has been around a long time and many have lived upon it and done things to the point where there is nothing new to be done.

Meaningless.

And what are we trying to prove in our present day, worldly toiling under the sun? What do you remember about the father of your father and his toilings? Or the mother of your father? Or the father of your mother or her mother? Solomon’s wisdom rings truer than we want to admit. For no one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them. In other words, even the things we do in our lifetime will soon be forgotten as the memory of us becomes more and more distant.

In other words, the things we are doing in our lifetime for this world that just continues to rotate and exist will one day become meaningless and unremembered.

Pretty depressing, right?

But we need to hear these words for the Lord is sending us a powerful message here, a message that is far from meaningless.

You see, we need to see this life as meaningless so we can yearn for a better a life, a life that is beyond imagination or comparison, a life that not only thrives but survives, not temporarily but eternally.

If you desire a life better than the one the world gives you, then all you have to do is accept Jesus into your life, the One who tells us that He is the way, the truth, and the life, not any life like the one the world offers but a life that will last forever, a life full of joy and peace and love and hope.

Life starts fresh and new, and will remain that way forever, when you allow Jesus to be your life. This is why the word of God tells us that anyone born again into Jesus will become a new creation, leaving behind the life they once lived in the world as they enter into a new, exciting life in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), a life that is far from meaningless because it is the only life that personifies the word “meaningful.”

Friends, if you are reading this today and see life as meaningless, now is the time to make a change and embrace life as God intended you to have when He created you, a life filled with thrill and delight, a life full of righteousness and virtue, a life full of meaning and substance, a life defined by salvation and hope and love.  

This is a life anyone can have through Jesus Christ, the One who takes the meaningless life the world offers and makes it meaningful in and through Him.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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