”I Will Be Wise” And Other Pipe Dreams

Transcript

Good morning church Always a joy to open the Word of God together always a joy to Hear you singing, but this morning we go back to the book of Ecclesiastes We find ourselves in chapter 7 we continue our series titled heavil under the horizon If you’ve if you’ve joined us up until this point you know that we’ve covered a lot of ground Thomas has been walking us through different aspects of this canonical view of life in a world where Everything around us everything that we might invest into everything that we might put our stock in more or less is fleeting. It’s elusive and So we find ourselves at the end of chapter 7 where we will look once again at this question of wisdom Which is a recurring theme for the author of Ecclesiastes, and I’ve titled this morning sermons. I will be wise.

Other Pipe Dreams Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 23 would you join me in the reading of the Word of God?

All this I’ve tested by wisdom I said I will be wise But it was far from me That which has been is far off and deep very deep who can find it I Turn my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom in the scheme of things and to know the wickedness of Folly and the foolishness that is madness, and I find something more bitter than death The woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are fetters He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her Behold this is what I found says the preacher while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things Which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found

— Ecclesiastes 7

(ESV)

One man among a thousand I found but a woman among all these I have not found See this alone. I found that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes Who is like the wise and who knows the interpretation of a thing a man’s wisdom? Makes his face shine and the hardness of his face is changed

— Ecclesiastes 7:28-8

(ESV)

. This is the word of the Lord Saints

The Inaccessibility of Wisdom

Father would you speak to us? Would you reveal yourself to us? Would you incline our hearts to know you deeper to love you more? And to honor you with the whole of who we are Not because of who we are or what we do but because of who you are and what you’ve done Amen Most of us if we even if we wouldn’t quite say it like this go about life thinking that So long as I do the right thing So long as I make the right decision So long as I don’t mess up too much and the positives in my life outweigh the negatives The wise decisions outnumber the foolish ones then things will go well Right more or less. This is how we navigate life

My family immigrated to the states in 1995 the year 1995 I Heard a comedian this week say I was born in the 1900s And I thought that’s starting to be a real thing for all of us or a lot of us My family immigrated to the states in 1995 from Moldova and upon coming here as Many immigrants do my dad and my mom both found whatever jobs they could my mom went to work at McDonald’s And pretty sure she worked the swing shift and the night shift and my dad found some construction job Neither of them spoke English. Neither of them knew what to do in terms of finding good work sustainable work and even the move of Even the move of leaving your home country where you know the language you more or less know how things work it stems out of this desire to do the better thing and

Talking to my dad now and asking him how he navigated that and how terrifying that must have been He simply says I was doing what I thought was best for my family I wanted to bring my kids to a country where there were prospects and there was a chance for a better life and a better future where They could succeed and they could grow and they could be better off than they would be in a country that’s part of the formerly or the recently collapsed Soviet Union and so when my family immigrated here, my dad found this construction job and he Went to work there and pretty shortly after starting at the job There was this one day where he was working and he was doing his best again to provide for his family and to be faithful With his job that the Lord had graciously provided about which he was very excited

and there was this pile of gravel as my dad tells the story and somebody was moving some piece of equipment some construction equipment or something and Something fell onto the gravel and rocks went flying and my dad was close enough to the pile of gravel that one of the rocks Flew into his eye Cut across his eye The supervisor on shift got kind of freaked out You know bandaged him up sent him off to the hospital and promptly fired him Knowing that this is an immigrant who doesn’t really know the legal system It isn’t going to pursue things much further And he got rid of the problem as opposed to actually taking care of my dad and dealing with the repercussions of having an unsafe workspace and My dad making the best decision he could Doing the best that he could to take care of his family

Bringing his family to the place where he thought that things would be better and things would be more fair and things would be more equitable Ended up in a situation where he now had medical bills to pay where he was out of a job and now he was injured It’s a little unfair isn’t it? Doing the right thing right doing the best possible thing and ending up with the raw end of the deal Now we all know that life isn’t fair even as we seek to navigate making the best decision We all know that’s not how life often works and yet we fight it We lean into this aspect of I’m going to do the wise thing We assume that doing the right thing making the right decision planning ahead sufficiently guarantees a certain outcome My dad once learned that wasn’t the case and the Kohelet in our text seems to know that this isn’t the case as well

And this is what he’s telling us here in chapter 7 Not only do we often assume that our wisdom in a given situation in life will yield certain results Most of us go through life thinking that we just need to know What’s actually going on in the world around us? We just need to be informed enough and then things go the right way I Just need to know what’s happening with the various geopolitical issues at play in the world around me I just need to know what’s going on with the economy so that I might put my money in the best place possible and I Get the return that I need I Just need to know what’s going on with the state of evangelicalism in America so that I might be the more faithful Christian and the list goes on The thought is the more I understand about

What’s going on the better my decisions and my plans and in turn my life will be? Last week Thomas talked to us about how the better life has lived Sam just recapped, but there really is this very important aspect of biblical truth that kind of Thomas touched on in these two categories of paradoxes and Providence and It helps us understand life if we understand those two things well The ways of God are not always known to us and life often moves in the very way that doesn’t make sense to us It doesn’t align with my understanding of how things ought to be And I’ll actually be jumping back into the earlier verses in chapter 7 a number of times throughout my sermon this morning But today we look at this topic of wisdom and we go a little bit deeper into this topic of wisdom

Now as a reminder to all of us And maybe as an introduction to those of you that are visiting Trinity this Sunday morning in our study of Ecclesiastes we’re seeing that virtually everything in this life is Hevel that is it’s a vapor. It’s fleeting. It’s an enigma. It’s a paradox And the word often used throughout the book of Ecclesiastes is its vanity Walking us through the various hevels the Kohelet or the preacher or the teacher Aims to deconstruct all the ways that we find meaning and purpose in life apart from God And so that’s where we find ourselves in the middle of that We’ll look at our text in three different parts I want to touch on the inaccessibility of wisdom first Then I want to look at the illusion of human goodness and lastly we’ll answer that question who is truly wise and so

In verses 23 and 24. We see that wisdom is inaccessible. Let’s reread those verses All this I’ve tested by wisdom. I said I will be wise but it was far from me That which has been as far off and deep very deep who can find it The preacher is convinced that wisdom is elusive and it is something that is out of reach And just when we think we’ve attained it just when we think we’ve attained it Just when we think that we’ve trapped it and we figured it out and we got it Hevel It’s gone After just speaking about the importance of wisdom just earlier in this chapter something that’s actually repeated throughout Scripture the Kohelet says this thing that sounds very fatalistic. It sounds very doom and gloom all this I’ve tested By wisdom and I said I will be wise But it was far from me

What’s that all about throughout chapter 7 you see he’s been speaking parabolically in terms of? Wisdom and folly and righteousness and wickedness and right and wrong and throughout the book as you know He’s been speaking about hope or virtually everything in this life is Hevel. It’s Impermanent, it’s a vapor But wisdom seems to be this good and this noble and this right thing, right? Right Surely it wouldn’t fall into this category. Surely. Okay, we understand that wealth and the pursuit of success and Putting all of your stock in relationships. That’s Hevel we get that but wisdom Surely it falls into a different category More than that more than just the logical part of our brains that tell us that scripture Repeatedly tells us to pursue wisdom scripture repeatedly tells us to be wise consider Proverbs 1 7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge fools despise wisdom and instruction

of Proverbs 3 13 Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who gets understanding Unless you think that these admonitions to seek wisdom end in the Old Testament Jump to the New Testament James 1 5 if any of you lacks wisdom Let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given to him and the list goes on And yet here we are Where just before our text in verse 16, the preacher tells us not to be overly wise and Here in verse 23 says that wisdom is far from him Now we know and we look broadly at the Word of God that to be wise It’s it’s a good thing But the kind of wisdom that will give you ultimate insight the kind of wisdom that will give you full Understanding that will paint the whole picture for you

This is an illusion The pursuit of the kind of wisdom and discernment which would put everything in its in this life in its right place is just going to leave you exasperated and Don’t lose the broader context of what came just before this text and what he’s been wrestling with in verse 15 a righteous man Who perishes in his righteousness and a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil doing? Figure that one out with wisdom How does that make sense in verse 20? Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins So we are to pursue wisdom and doing right and that’s an impossibility in Verse 22 your heart knows that many times you yourselves have cursed others There is this paradox of human behavior where we are to do the right thing Where we are to live the right way where we are to believe in the right things and yet

It doesn’t happen. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t fit. It doesn’t work in terms of who we are and how life works So what can explain the confusing way of this world and the fact that evil just seems to prevail Friend wisdom will not resolve the paradoxes and the pains of this life for you That’s what the preacher is saying knowing all the right things doesn’t put them in their right place As we seek to navigate how to go through life, we usually lean into this question of wisdom and we put all of our stock there and we sleep better knowing that we’ve made the right decisions and What the preacher is telling us is not that we shouldn’t do that It’s not he’s not telling us that you should flee from wisdom and just live. However, you want you should just give up What he’s saying is that offers, you know guarantees

Because you can know all the right things and you can do all the right things and you can plan out and map out everything And things could still fall apart The righteous could still suffer and the wicked could prosper We want to make the best decisions when it comes to business matters We want to manage our money. Well, we want to be a good husband or a wife We want to raise our children in the right way

We want to plan for the future Are we expecting though that in doing any of these things we are promised a certain result But I put my money into the S&P 500, that’s the safest place But I married the good christian guy who leads worship and who prays aloud during bible study But I went the smart career route instead of merely pursuing my passion which many of my classmates seem to do But I eat only organic food Why did blank happen Why did my retirement disappear Why did that christian guy leave me

Why do I have cancer Why did I get fired from my job The things that could go wrong the lack of guarantees in this life The expectations that we hold these are always revolving in our minds as we’re making the decisions that we’re making As i’m trying to do the wise thing. There’s a certain expectation that it will yield a certain results As i’m trying to get around all of the obstacles in life that could Ultimately become pitfalls for my future and for my money and for my family I think that if I just make enough of the right decision if I just think through these potential pitfalls i’ll avoid them

We often think that there’s something guaranteed in knowing the right thing And so inevitably we have to come to this question of if that’s how I navigate life, if that’s how I look at wisdom, if that’s how I look at discernment, is biblical wisdom then merely a means to my success

In trying to make all of these right decisions and trying to do the right thing Am I merely saying that I am ensuring the success of my life? Does my wisdom guarantee my blessing? Surely we wouldn’t think like that our theology is too good. We’re not like the name it and claim it folks, right? But is that how we functionally navigate life thinking that just as long as I don’t do the foolish thing I’ll be all right

The thing we each need to understand however much wisdom we acquire Is that not everything is knowable and not everything is repairable And not everything can be planned out We live in a world that’s marred by sin and the god who is in control of all things And the god who is in control of all things as confusing and frustrating and impossible to wrap our heads around as it may be uses all things Yes Even the cancer even the loss of the retirement even the loss of the job even the loss of the child

All things to accomplish his purposes are we able to deal with that Are we able to stomach that even if we do everything, right? Even if we obey all the commands of scripture Even if we stick to all of the advice and the wise counsel of the more mature christians and the pastors and everyone else around us We aren’t guaranteed a certain outcome and our lives could still fall apart

While wisdom doesn’t guarantee an outcome it will point us to the reality of god’s truth It will show us that god’s way and his guidance will lead us in the right way But the result of any situation or any obstacle or any trial or any stage of life is ultimately not in the hands of the wise person It’s in the hands of the god who does all things For good and that good often looks very different than how I imagine it

Consider abel Who sought to honor god with his worship and who was brutally murdered by his brother The brother who by the way wasn’t killed as punishment for murdering his own brother But who was given a wife and sent off to live his life Consider job who honored god with his worship and with his heart And with the way that he navigated life from whom everything was taken In the end of job, by the way when he falls down and worships job never got an explanation Job never got the answer that he wanted. Why did this happen? I did the right things All he was told is you are not god

If all is going well, and we’re in a place where we’re content Do we praise god for that and see his hand in it? Or do we? lean into Our understanding and our wisdom and the good decisions that i’ve made If all is difficult and painful and confusing Do we praise god and see his hand in that? Or do we try to find a way to navigate out of that circumstance as quickly as possible through a series of wise decisions The reason there’s this tension in our text telling us that wisdom isn’t the thing that satisfies and fulfills and completes us is because veering towards Being too wise verse 16 or being a fool verse 17 are the two extremes that ultimately get you into trouble Leaning into our own wisdom and understanding and comprehension of a situation or of life as a whole Stops us from being dependent on god and entrusting in his leading

However much we know however much we understand there’s always a lot that’s beyond our grasp Expecting wisdom to be something that it was never designed to be will always disappoint you Being a fool on the other hand of the extreme is disregarding what god has clearly said and doing life on our own terms and Doing whatever we want and believing whatever we want to be true And the fact of the matter is what the kohela is telling us is that both of these things are two sides of the same coin That coin is called self-dependency When my wisdom is what guarantees my result or when my autonomy is what guarantees my result. That’s the same thing Because i’m in charge ultimately And what the preacher is saying is nonsense heaven What guarantees do you have if god is not planning to do the thing that you are aiming for

Human Goodness: An Illusion

Both of these The wisdom and the folly in the best case lead to disappointment anxiety and a lack of joy and in the worst case leads to ruin And so in his pursuit of wisdom the preacher came to see that It just like everything else didn’t satisfy that deep longing in his heart It didn’t answer his questions. It didn’t give him peace. However much insight he gained however much understanding And so his attention then is turned to what he calls the schemes of man. Let’s look at verses 25 through 29 Human goodness is an illusion I Turn my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom in the scheme of things And to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness and I find something more bitter than death The woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are fetters he who pleases god escapes her

But the sinner is taken by her Behold, this is what I found says the preacher while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things Which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found One man among a thousand I found but a woman among all these I have not found See this alone. I found that god made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes As we shift into this next section We see that the preacher sought to look for and to explore wisdom and the scheme of things This is looking at the way things are this is Calculating the goings-on of life what the preacher is essentially saying is I want to know the why of life the scheme of things the why of Why life is the way that it is why things happen in the way that he that they do

And as he considers this, where does he land? Now there’s a lot of imagery in these verses that take us back to the book of proverbs when the qohelet speaks of Wisdom and folly the woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are fetters He’s taken the reader back to the wisdom of solomon Which would help us understand the danger of fleeing from wisdom And righteousness and the danger of going in the direction of folly going in the direction of wickedness It’s important to note here and remind us all that the language here definitely reads pretty harsh Like this is this is a little tough to swallow and i’ll tell you this as many Uh scholars as I read on this text. That’s how many opinions I had I came across about what this text means what it’s talking about But this is the thing that we need to come back to and the thing that we need to remind ourselves of is that this

Is poetic literature There’s a lot of imagery here He’s trying to paint a picture most importantly of how destructive and dangerous the way of foolishness and disobedience is Going against the ways of god will always lead to destruction going against what god has clearly ordained in his word Will lead you to ruin The preacher is not a misogynist here like some may think upon reading this And he proves that in many ways But in chapter 9 when he says where he’ll actually encourage the reader enjoy life with the wife whom you love He’s calling his reader to enjoy his wife to enjoy life with her to enjoy the women Men that god sends into our lives who are such a blessing and such a joy. Amen All right What he’s doing in verse 26 is he’s contrasting These pictures of lady folly and lady wisdom, which is what we see in proverbs chapters 1 through 9

In fact the foolishness and the madness that’s more bitter Than death is the very word that solomon uses to describe lady folly in proverbs chapter 5 verse 4 bitter And so he’s using the same language. He’s using that same imagery and he’s carrying that over to help us understand That the folly which leads to destruction Is a dangerous thing Lady folly is the personification of wickedness that leads people to ruin whereas lady wisdom is the personification of good That leads people to god And there’s a whole in-depth study to be done here On this topic of folly versus wisdom of looking at the book of proverbs and like I said this spans nine chapters Where there’s this continual theme of folly and wisdom and the personification of these things is always in the feminine she is blank The point of what he’s saying here, however, is that while relying on wisdom is no guarantee of things going well for us

Going the way of folly and wickedness does guarantee our destruction This is what’s fleshed out throughout the book of proverbs And this is what the kohela is circling back to and he says that falling for the trap Falling into the schemes of lady folly is worse than death and certainly there is this imagery of sexual sin and Pursuing our desires in a way that god hasn’t designed and that god hasn’t called us to and in fact has forbidden Certainly that’s encapsulated here but there’s a broader theme of folly versus wisdom and that destruction is found by Following after lady folly by falling into her schemes And then as we look at verses 27 through 28, we see more controversial statements, which yeah Thanks, the preacher Qohelet is making things difficult for this preacher There’s a couple of different ways to look at and interpret what’s happening in verse 28

But I believe that in order to understand the text better We have to consider who the preacher is or rather who he’s personifying himself to be Now if the preacher is as it seems he is taking on this persona of king solomon Then he would lean on solomon’s experiences in his life So that would mean that he would look at life through the lens of being this man of the world This man who has accomplished much this man who has lived much Who has had many different experiences who has mad had many different relationships who’ve met a lot of different kinds of people Who’s been in a lot of circumstances where either he himself is the one making the decisions or he sees other people calculating and trying to make moves

So that would mean that the way that he processes Interactions the way that he processes relationships would always be through this lens and taking that into consideration It seems that the men and women of whom the preacher speaks in verse 28 Are the different people that he’s met in his life the different men he’s encountered the different men Maybe he’s been around tables with Making decisions the different men he’s been friends with the different men. He’s done business with etc. And the women that he’s mentioning here would be the different women He’s encountered the women in his surroundings. Maybe the women he’s in a relationship with the friends He has the family he has etc and considering the flow of the chapter so far, it seems that This is speaking more broadly about his assessment of human wisdom as a whole This is speaking about the elusive nature of wisdom both for men and for women

I mean just look at verse 2021 surely There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins Do not take to heart all the things that people say to you lest you hear your servant cursing you Versus 23 24 we’ve which we’ve just read in verse 29, which we’ll get through to shortly See this alone. I found that god made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes What he’s pointing to is that there is this broader consideration that needs to be in our minds That he’s still using this imagery of wisdom versus folly Don’t forget proverbs here and he’s still using this imagery of doing the right thing not doing the right thing being wise being foolish And he’s still wrestling with the elusive nature of wisdom But he’s still confounded by human sinfulness and the lack of righteousness that he sees around him

The lack of goodness that he sees in the world around him the lack of fairness and equity and justice And he’s pointing to this in the broader conversation In these massive numbers of these thousands of men and all these women and again, it’s his poetic language but he’s speaking very broadly about what it means to be in search of goodness and wisdom and righteousness and For things to actually work in the way that they’re supposed to and he’s saying it’s a loose I can’t find it These people aren’t around this doesn’t exist It seems the statement is a sort of summary of his own anthropology and homardiology is the doctrine of sin This is the preacher’s understanding of man And this is the preacher’s understanding of man’s sin And so he says in all the men i’ve met wisdom has been seriously lacking and difficult to find

And all the women i’ve met it’s the same thing I’m unable to see the wisdom that comes from god in the people in my life. Where is it? It’s this exasperated plea The preacher is saying that where when sin is prevalent human interactions human relationships even the good ones They’re incredibly challenging They’re strained. They don’t make sense They don’t pan out in the way that we think they will And then you factor in the challenge of just how difficult wisdom is to come by It’s it’s all a loss Where can wisdom and goodness be found on this side of heaven asks the exhausted and deflated kohel What the preacher is ultimately facing is the confusing picture of human nature In both verses 20 and 29. They paint this picture well for us. We just read those verses Seriously discerning wisdom and seriously pursuing it gives us an accurate picture of the doctrine of depravity

That’s where it ultimately brings us back to It’s not that we just find a way to get around all of the evils of the world It’s not that we just find a way to kind of navigate around the unfairness and the injustice It’s not that we just find a way to get around all of the ugliness But what it does is the more wisdom from god that we attain The more that we see just how screwed up this world is and just how sinful I am And the people around me are The question he’s wrestling with is posed again in the new testament in romans 3 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god And there has to be a solution for that So this solution can only ever be found outside of us If all that we do all of our schemes all of our pursuits of wisdom ultimately just land us back in

Who Is Truly Wise?

heaven Can only ever be found in jesus christ Not in the many schemes of man This then brings us to chapter 8 verse 1 Who is truly wise? Let’s reread that verse Who is like the wise? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man’s wisdom makes his face shine and the hardness of his face is changed What then do we do with the inaccessibility of wisdom? And so far as having the power to answer life’s questions And the illusion of human goodness really the ugly reality of man’s wickedness As christians, we look to god’s wisdom We fall at the throne of grace knowing that it’s not us who learned or understood or accomplished anything But that something was accomplished for us As we’re told in ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9 for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing

This is not your own attaining of wisdom. This is not your learning of the right thing. This is not your Righteous deeds. It is the gift of god Not a result of works so that no one may boast When the preacher gives us this image of a face that shines This is pointing to something much more than merely wisdom attained It’s not a light bulb moment where I got wisdom. It’s like, you know, this is this is a really beautiful image That’s actually seen throughout scripture when god extended grace and mercy to people throughout the old testament This was often expressed with him shining his face upon them Just think of number six think of psalm 80 and when people encountered god and were changed Their faces would often shine think of moses After his encounter with god in exodus 34 his face shown

So much so that when people saw him their faces shown This encounter with god this extension of mercy this extension of grace causes Faces to shine and so what the kohela isn’t saying that if you just get the right kind of wisdom If you just balance it with knowledge and with the right understanding of things then your face will shine He’s saying it has to come from outside of you It’s not yours to stir up. It’s not yours to learn. It’s not yours to understand It’s something that needs to be imparted to you It’s something that needs to change you. This is speaking of a very different kind of wisdom one that will never disappoint One that is not fleeting One that will satisfy Because it’s not about the wisdom itself It’s about what it represents and what it points us to and what it helps us understand

During the confession and pardon Hosanna read from First Corinthians 1

through 31 and I just want us to read that again Considering what the kohela has been telling us about the elusive nature of wisdom In this pursuit of knowledge in this pursuit of understanding In this pursuit of righteousness in this pursuit of doing the right thing and making the right decision and living the right kind of life And where that ultimately brings us if we’re just relying on those things is exhaustion And it robs us of joy But god in his wisdom Did this first corinthians 1 26 for consider your calling brothers Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth, but god chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong

God chose what is low and despised in the world even the things that are not to bring to nothing things that are So that no human being might boast in the presence of god And because of him you are in christ jesus who became to us wisdom from god righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that As it is written let the one who boasts in the lord christ Jesus became wisdom from god to us

Friend you can You can run yourself down to nothing. You can work yourself down to the bone You can pursue all of the knowledge of the world You can understand the different things that are happening in any war and in any country and what’s happening in my city And why people are the way that they are you can be a sociological and a psychological and anthropological and geopolitical genius You can be a religious scholar You can be all of these things and it doesn’t matter If you don’t have christ It’s heaven What does it gain you? to gain the world And the knowledge therein and lose your soul This is the wisdom that changes everything Because this is the wisdom that shows us That god’s plan was never for us to gain wisdom and follow rules and do the right things. We can’t We can’t

We’re in a worship service We’re singing hymns We’re we’re praying and i’ve sinned probably a dozen times since i’ve been here if not more I can’t do the right thing I need Jesus I need a new heart I need a righteousness that is not my own. I need a wisdom that is not mine to gain And obtain It’s a wisdom from above which illumines my dark eyes to the beauty of a savior who loved me And gave himself for me Knowledge and understanding and insight only get you so far But what each of us needs is to be made new to be made clean To be given new hearts and new desires and a new identity and this only happens by grace through faith in jesus christ relationships hevel success hevel Entertainment Hevel Wealth Hevel Wisdom Hevel Throughout ecclesiastes we see the preacher struggling We see him pining for something more than merely wisdom

More than merely doing the right thing more than just the pursuit of pleasure. He’s looking for something or rather someone Who can finally set things right? Do you feel the anxiety in every single verse that we’ve been studying? It just doesn’t make sense the things that should satisfy and fulfill and give me happiness aren’t Surely wisdom will Hevel

He’s looking for something who can put everything in its rightful place and the thing is Man’s wisdom could never and will never be sufficient to put all these things back in their place But the wisdom of god Looking from the preacher Forward would one day resolve these issues and this lack of completion because god’s wisdom Would solve this problem of human sin The one who died in the place of sinners Ultimately freed those whom he died to save from this endless pursuit of trying to find meaning and things that don’t have it And trying to find satisfaction and joy and the things that were never designed to give them to us in the fullest sense He freed his people to know and be known by their creator and to live Actually fulfilling lives that aren’t passing away like a vapor because we’re looking forward to a future glory

We’re not looking for this to be it This is beautiful But our worship and our hearts and our desires and our relationships will all one day be perfect glorified Because he freed his people to know and be known And they aren’t passing away any longer Like the vapor of which the preacher begrudgingly and repeatedly speaks and this understanding That comes not of our own attaining of knowledge or wisdom, but by a changed heart Through a redeemer who died for us and saved us This allows for the child of god to enjoy the gift of the simple good things in life like work like relationships like wisdom

See them for what they are and not for what we want them in our human nature to be This is where a good meal or a conversation with a friend or succeeding in your work goes from something that can rob you of Your joy to something with which you can give glory to god and enjoy for what it is Kindness from a heavenly father who loves you and who made things and moments beautiful for his glory Not for your ultimate satisfaction because that can only ever be found in him amen Would you join me in prayer friends? Amen Our heavenly father

We thank you so much That you are not like man And that you do all things right and that you do all things beautifully And that you are abounding in love and kindness and grace And that you have not withheld this love and kindness of grace from us And that you have not forsaken us Lord we don’t deserve to know you We don’t deserve to pray and rest assured that you hear us We don’t deserve to be called your children

And yet you call us that Father we thank you for jesus christ We thank you for our savior who loved us who gave himself for us Our savior, our king, our best friend, our only hope And we ask that as we consider the way that we navigate questions like wisdom and righteousness We never lean into our own understandings of these things But we lean into the one who is your wisdom

And who in your eyes is our righteousness Because of your grace and your abundant mercy We pray this in his wonderful name and for his glory. Amen