Or, A Lot of RejoicingEcclesiastes 5:18-20 August 29, 2021 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

I want to remind you, encourage you, as well as myself, that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Paul asserted such to the Corinthians at the end of his great argument for the Christian’s resurrection.

Therefore (in light of your resurrection to immortality and glory in Christ’s resurrection), my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

You might suppose that certain resurrection, to an existence where perishability and dishonor and weakness is no more, would make our sowing in the natural, temporal body only as significant as the dust we’re made from (see 15:42-44, 49). But Paul says the opposite. And if we connect it with the same wisdom Solomon pundit-ed we grasp that our perceiving of life beyond the sun is the only guarantee of meaning and joy in our toil under the sun.

All sorts of things are ramping up even as summer winds down. The school year, arbitrarily determined as it is, sets almost as many of our current rhythms as the calendar year and the changing of seasons. The start of the school year is a mini restart, and whether you are a student or parent or parent-teacher or teacher or just someone who drives through slower-speed limit school zone traps, we can see that there is a Wholelotta Work to do.

And, as much as ever it would be easy to be disturbed/distracted/discouraged from our work because the world has gone crazy. The world is in a war of crazy. The world is full of those apparently trying to outdo one another in crazy (contra outdoing one another in showing honor as Paul exhorted in Romans 12:10). In many ways the crazy is hard to ignore. As the man pointed out in “Hoosiers,” there is a difference between a man who gets naked and howls at the moon and a man who does the same thing in your living room. Folly seems omnipresent, if not eternal. But folly isn’t either. The Lord gives His people perspective–wisdom and hope, as well as pleasure–a glad satisfaction, when He enables them to see beyond the sun, when we know there is more than the disrobed howler in eye-sight.

So as you get back into a season of earlier mornings (maybe), and moldy water bottles, as the rain inevitably returns and dampens your enthusiasm, as you keep watching the (intentional) damage being done to us, our country and companies, by our own representatives, may the word of the Lord encourage your labor in the Lord, and may He give you enjoyment in the process.

Having Only Half

All of what we have is gift. We have nothing that we weren’t given (1 Corinthians 4:7), even if what we were given were “raw” resources to obtain other things. It’s important to remember that because we’re supposed to be thankful to the Giver, and also because we cannot make or find joy on our own. This is the dark side of King Solomon’s coin in Ecclesiastes 6.

Solomon observed a heavy evil, a brutal burden on men who are given everything they think that they could want except for joy.

he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them (Ecclesiastes 6:2)

This man has money, toys, and respect. He has a thousands-of-years long life (6:6) and hundreds of great-grand kids (6:3). But he doesn’t have thankfulness, “his soul is not satisfied” (6:3), whether it’s because he wants more and more (the law of diminishing returns) or because he finds that his huge pile really is hollow. All he has is in this life, and all he has still isn’t the life he wishes for.

Ecclesiastes describes the vanity of vanities under the sun, that is, life not in and for the Lord. “Under the sun” is almost a technical phrase to describe the perspective of the this-[...]