Ecclesiastes 2:18-26 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, ¹⁹ and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. ²⁰ So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, ²¹ because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. ²² What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? ²³ For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.

²⁴ There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, ²⁵ for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? ²⁶ For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

INTRODUCTION

We’re only two chapters and six weeks into Ecclesiastes, but I want to remind you how the book begins, “…vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” I put that up there with Genesis and John’s Gospel for the most memorable beginnings of any book in the Bible.

I mentioned early on that I think the primary idea the Preacher has in mind with the word (rendered into English as) “vanity,” is “mysterious” (or “enigma” or “inscrutable”). The Preacher’s main argument is that life under the sun (that is, life lived according to observational wisdom on this cursed earth) is annoyingly impossible to understand. Things ordinarily work in certain ways, but not always, and the inconsistencies lead to a level of unpredictability that is often a source of great frustration.

Many people feel the same frustration but remain convinced that the solution remains just outside of their grasp. Life is not quite (or maybe not at all) what I want right now, but if I could just get the thing, or more of the thing, or get rid of the thing, it would make sense and be satisfying.

The reality, however, is that we only think that’s the case because none of us have ever gotten the full measure of the thing we think will solve the vanity of life and allow us to live a life of genuine meaning and satisfaction. And for that reason, we hold out hope. But the question is, of course, is it well-founded hope? Is it a legitimate hope? Can anything under the sun actually bear the weight of that hope?

The backdrop of Ecclesiastes is that the Preacher felt all the same ways, but had more money and more power to use it than any of us could ever dream of. He used all that money and power to the point all of us are trying to get. And Ecclesiastes is largely his report on what he found when he got there: Even there, “…vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”

Rather than simply declare his conclusion, though, the Preacher takes us on a good deal of his journey. He reports not just his findings, but his process as well. He tells us the things he tried all the way to the end. So far, we’ve seen his (failed) attempts to find meaning and significance through understating, pleasure, and various approaches to life (wisdom, madness, and folly).

This morning, we’ll see a fourth attempt. In it, the Preacher tried to find meaning and significance through his work, his labor, his toil, through the things he built, created, and managed. The big idea of this passage is that work for its own sake can never provide the kind of meaning and significance we long and are made for. The main takeaways are to look first to Jesus and then to work as unto Him.

TOIL UNDER THE SUN

I do wonder how you’d describe your relationship with work. Is it easy for you to imagine a scenario in which you could find genuine, lasting satisfaction in life from the work you’re currently doing? If not your current role, can you imagine a role that would?

If so, if you can imagine a scenario where work could provide genuine joy, I imagine that the kind of work you have in mind will look a lot like that of the Preacher. Do you remember how spectacular his work was?

2:4-7 I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. ⁵ I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. ⁶ I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees… ⁷ I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem.

That’s a lot of significant work and a lot to show for it. There’s a lot there to be proud of and to enjoy. You might think that you could be happy if you could do that work (or something like it). And who wouldn’t be happy once it was complete. Even though much of that is what many of us are working for right now (a number of beautiful, tranquil homes, with lots of bountiful land and animals), none of us have come close to it, so we don’t really know.

I Hated All My Toil (18, 20, 22)

But again, what we imagine, the Preacher accomplished. So, what was his conclusion? Was he as happy as we imagine ourselves to be if we’d done that work, accomplished those things, and had them to enjoy? Did his work provide for him what we seek from it? Quite the opposite.

¹⁸ I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun,

²⁰ So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun…

²² What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? ²³ For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.

Hatred, despair, sorrow, vexation, restlessness, vanity. That sounds similar to what the Preacher found in his previous attempts; which was a long, long way from what he was looking for.

Can you relate? Have you ever felt this way about your work? Have you recently used any of those terms to describe your experience with your company, boss, business, home, or other place of toil?

Over the years I’ve prayed with many people who shared with me many such sentiments regarding their work. Some just don’t like work on its face. They consider work as a necessary evil; one to be avoided if at all possible. Others are vexed by work because they don’t seem to be able to turn it off. It seems like it’s constantly pulling at them. Others confessed knowing the vanity of work because they’ve unsuccessfully tried to find their identity in it—in the type of job they have or the title within it or the success they’ve attained from it. Others still have told me they experience despair from their work because it seems so insignificant, even undignified. Others hate their work because they have a really difficult boss or coworkers. And others have expressed persistent restlessness at work because their company stands for things that prick their consciences.

As real and common as these reasons are for many of us, the Preacher had different reasons still for despising his toil—three of them.

Eventually, Everything Ends in the Hands of Another (18, 21)

The Preacher’s first reason for hating his work was that he knew that no matter what he did, everything he worked for would eventually end up in someone else’s hands, someone who didn’t work one bit for any of it.

All by itself, that’s kind of depressing, isn’t it? It’s a harsh thought that the thought that the average American works something like 90,000 hours in their lifetime (40 hours/week @ 45 years) and we don’t get to keep anything from it in the long run. Whatever else might be true of your thoughts on work, that’s a hard pill to swallow; all those hours, all the challenges, all the frustrations, all the sacrifices, and in the end, no matter what you do, none of it will be yours in almost no time.

The Preacher said this in a couple of different ways.

¹⁸ I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me…

²¹ … sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.

Sometimes the product of our lifetime of work ends in the hands of our surviving spouse, sometimes our kids, sometimes in an estate sale to a stranger, and sometimes simply abandoned to decay. For all kinds of reasons, our stuff will end up in all kinds of hands, but the simple fact remains that eventually everything we work day after day after day to acquire will no longer be ours. The Preacher realized this, hated it, and called it a “great evil”.

Rather than provide satisfaction, the fact that the he had worked so hard and gained so much, seems only to have caused even more grief than for those, like us, who have less to show for our work.

Sometimes it Ends in the Hands of Fools (19)

A second reason he hated his toil was that he knew that not only would it end up in someone else’s hands, but it was as likely to end up in the hands of a fool as someone wise. It’s one kind of hardship to have your stuff to go to someone you love who will try to honor it, but it’s another kind of hardship altogether to have it go to a fool who will do nothing but neglect or squander it.

The Preacher wonders about this at the beginning of v.19, “…and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool?”

This is the stereotypical parent who created a successful business from the ground up; coming from poverty, working hard, doing it right, having nothing given to them, only to have the profits left to a kid who was lazy, disinterested, entitled, arrogant, wasteful, and selfish. It’s an unpleasant thought to imagine millions of hard, honestly-earned dollars being spent on the lusts of the flesh by someone who didn’t earn or appreciate any of it.

This was a much bigger deal in the Preacher’s day as well. Inheritance was a lot more of a pressing concern in the past. You may recall some of the many stories in the Bible describing the serious problems that resulted from inheritance issues, and many of those because the inheritors were fools.

There is unquestionably a part of that that is vexing vanity and the Preacher hated it. The more he worked and the more he gained, the more this possibility haunted him and robbed him of joy in his toil. Far from providing meaning, purpose, and satisfaction, it caused him to give his heart up to despair.

Sometimes it Will Be Managed by a Fool (19)

The thought of all the fruits of his labor falling into the hands of someone else led to one level of vexation. The thought of it all falling into the hands of a fool led to yet another level. But the third and final reason work failed to provide satisfaction for the Preacher, which was on another level still, was the thought of it being managed by fools.

In other words, it’s one thing to leave a pile of money in the hands of a fool, but it’s another thing entirely to leave the management of your name, reputation, company, or great works in the hands of one.

¹⁹ Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.

Since Ecclesiastes is written in the voice of King Solomon, it’s particularly important to recognize the fool that King Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, was. When Solomon died, Rehoboam inherited his father’s kingdom and crown. Being the fool that he was, he rejected the wisdom of the wise and took his counsel instead from other fools. Their counsel and Rehoboam’s choice was to exploit his subjects for wicked, worldly, personal gain. And as a result, his people rebelled and the kingdom was splintered. He ended up mismanaging that which was left to him to the extent that he lost ten of the twelve tribes of Israel (1 Kings 12).

The Preacher’s concerns couldn’t have been more appropriate. Hatred, despair, sorrow, vexation, restlessness, and vanity make sense.

It’s hard not to think of this today when it comes to those in charge of certain denominations. They bear the names of Martin Luther and flow out of the faithfulness of the Wesleys, but are now managed by fools. It’s staggering to think of some of the perversions of the gospel done in the names of these men who labored at such great cost for its purity.

THERE IS NOTHING BETTER FOR A PERSON (24A)

But the Preacher didn’t end there. In vs.24-26 we see, somewhat surprisingly, that the Preacher covered some new ground with his conclusions. What comes next, Grace, is one of the main reasons I felt burdened to preach through this book. It’s one of the most important things you’ll hear in Ecclesiastes; indeed, it’s one of the most important things you’ll your life. I hope that doesn’t seem like an exaggeration once we’ve considered it.

The first part of what makes this section so remarkable begins at the beginning of v.24.

²⁴ There is nothing better for a person than that…

I’d like to offer two reasons why it’s good to pause here. First, to recognize that the way a person finishes that sentence is everything! Getting it right or wrong is, 100% of the time, a matter of eternal consequences. Close is not enough and almost won’t do. Everything hangs in the balance as we choose our words.

We will never get what the Preacher was after (a life of genuine, lasting, meaning and satisfaction) if we don’t settle on the fact that it only comes from finishing that sentence rightly.

And second reason to pause here is to give you a chance to do so. How do you finish the sentence, “There is nothing better for a person than that…”? What is the best life? What is best for a person?

Not everyone has consciously answered that question, but everyone functionally has. We can’t not answer it in the sense that, inevitably, every moment of our lives is a living out of what we believe the answer to be. Your life tells your answer to that question even if you never thought about it or don’t have the words to express it. We are all chasing something because we believe that there is nothing better for a person than that.

The Preacher, in these few, simple words, affords us the opportunity to consider carefully, name explicitly, and scrupulously evaluate our answer. And all by itself, that is a great gift.

So, Grace, what is your life aimed at and will it lead where you’re hoping it will lead?

As we’re about to see, the Preacher finishes that sentence in a certain way, and there is important truth in it, but giving us the question is at least as big a gift as is giving us his answer. Don’t let up until you know your answer, Grace. And once you do know it, don’t let up until you know it’s right.

WE NEED TWO GIFTS, NOT ONE

With that, then, how did the Preacher finish the sentence?

²⁴ There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

The essence of the Preacher’s answer is that because everything, in the end, is left to someone else (possibly a fool), the best thing we can do is enjoy what God has given us while we have it.

Like I said, there’s some important truth to that. But within it, and in the few verses that follow, is something far, far more important still. We are about to see that a big part of the secret of life is in coming to recognize that the happiness and satisfaction we need and long for requires two gifts, not just one. And that revelation is one of the biggest reasons I’m preaching through Ecclesiastes.

The First Gift (24a)

In this passage the Preacher describes a first gift of toil/work that results in something to eat and drink. Simply, we need to see that fruitful labor is a gift from God.

It is so easy for us to forget that every good thing is a gift from God (James 1:17). It’s particularly easy to forget this when it comes to the more mundane things of life, like breathing, sleeping, consciousness, and health (at least until we lose those things). The more ordinary they seem, the more we’re prone to think of them as part of us rather than the gifts of God that they are.

Understanding this, the Preacher picked three things to name: eating, drinking, and fulfilling labor. If we have any of those things—good food to eat, clean water to drink, and profitable work to be done—it is because, and only because God gave them to us as a gift. We need each of these things to survive and thrive in this world as God has made it and because of that, they really are gifts from God.

The Second Gift (24b-26)

At the same time, however, as any parent of a toddler knows all-too-well, just having food, drink, and work do not satisfy all by themselves. “I don’t want this food, I want that food. I don’t want vegetables, I want Mac-and-Cheese. I don’t want milk, I want juice. I don’t want this juice, I want that juice. I don’t want to put my clothes in the hamper, I want to play. I don’t want to produce anything beneficial, I only want to consume.” Toddlers often don’t think of any of those things as gifts, much less find enjoyment in them.

But that kind of misplaced dissatisfaction certainly isn’t unique to two-year-olds, is it? Adults, as you know, we often don’t move on, we just move on to more sophisticated versions of the same thing. “I don’t care what we eat, I just want someone else to cook it for me. I don’t just want good things to drink, I want the things I drink to be made in a certain year. I don’t just want honest, productive work that provides, I want to work a job that better fits my hobbies, values my contributions, and sounds good when I explain it to others.”

This is the Preacher’s great gift to us. He helps us to see that true satisfaction requires not one gift from God, but two. We need the thing itself (food, water, work, relationship, hobby, etc.)—that’s the first gift—and the ability to enjoy the thing—that’s the second gift.

This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, ²⁵ for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? ²⁶ For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

There are few things going on in these verses, including another declaration of vanity in the fact that some people seem destined by God to do nothing but labor for the gain of others. The critical idea, however, is in revealing the fact that we mistakenly believe that the first gift is all we need. That is, the biggest mistake that most of us make is not in believing that there is joy to be found in the things we seek on earth. The biggest mistake, rather, is believing that those things are the actual source of the joy. We mistakenly believe that the thing itself will satisfy.

Apart from the grace of God, we all live our lives under the mistaken belief that if we could just have the gift of a kid, or another kid, or a slightly older, more independent kid we could be truly happy. Or, if we could just have the gift of a job, or an new job, or a promotion/raise within our job; a hobby, or a new hobby, or more time and money to enjoy our hobby; to do better in school, or to be done with school, or to get into the right school; to get into a relationship, or to help a hurting relationship, or to begin a new relationship after the loss of a spouse; to be in ministry, or be in a different ministry, or get out of a certain ministry, then we’d be content.

Every one of us in this room has at one point or another convinced ourselves that if we could only get that thing, or the next thing, or a little more of the thing after that (the first gift), then we could be happy.

As I said, and as I hope you are beginning to see wasn’t an exaggeration, one of the items at the very top of the list of gifts God gives through Ecclesiastes is this: Joy in anything on earth requires two gifts, not just one. It requires the gift of the thing itself AND it requires the second gift of the ability to enjoy it. We need God to give us the good gift of the marriage, job, kid, hobby, ministry, etc, and we need God to give us a second gift of joy in it.

What’s more and greater is the fact that when we have this second gift, we can be satisfied with any measure or lack of the first gift. Listen to words of the Apostle Paul to this effect, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. ¹² I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. ¹³ I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11-13).

Paul received the second gift of God’s pleasure, so that he wasn’t at all dependent on a particular measure of the first for joy and satisfaction and contentment.

The fullest example of our need for two gifts from God is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There’s a remarkable picture of it that many of us read last week in our Bible reading. It’s found in Acts 16.

By that point in Acts, the apostles, including the Apostle Paul, had spread the gospel in an ever-increasing arc throughout the known world. That’s the first gift. Having the good news of Jesus is truly a gift all by itself. There are many in the world who lack even this. Which is why we have missions. Which is why we spend tens of thousands of dollars as a church to give this gift to those who do not have it.

At the same time, however, as we saw over and over in John’s Gospel, and as we see over and over in the book of Acts, and as we see over and over in our own lives, having the gift of the gospel (having the words and concepts) is not enough for us to become recipients of the good news; to be reconciled to God through it. We need to come to the point that we see it for what it is and trust in it with all we have. And to do that, we need a second gift from God.

In Acts 16 we find that a woman named Lydia was one of the many who received the first gift, the gift of the gospel, through the ministry of Paul. And in v.14 we’re told that she received the second gift from God as well.

The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. ¹⁵ And after she was baptized, and her household as well.

The thing I love most about this short passage is that it describes this second gift in the simplest and most straightforward way that I’m aware of. Nowhere else in the Bible is the need for God’s second gift of regeneration talked about in such clear terms.

Life is like this. Work is like this. The Preacher helps us to see that it’s not enough to simply have the gift of work or the gift of fruitful work. To find what the Preacher was searching for but didn’t find, we need a second gift of God as well—the ability to enjoy the work and its fruit in Him.

And so, Grace, the great lesson is to stop believing that the satisfaction you are searching for is in any first gift; in any thing or person or place or possession or position. Stop wasting your life pursuing wrong answers to the question of “There’s nothing better for a person than that…”. Instead, recognize through the Preacher’s failure to do so, that true joy comes, always and only, from God’s second gift—the gift of joy in whatever type or measure of the first gift he’s pleased to give us, which is ours in Christ.

TOILING WITH AN ABOVE THE SUN PERSPECTIVE

With all of that, as I’ve tried to do each week, having heard from the Preacher concerning an under-the-sun perspective on work, I want to close by offering an abbreviated above-the-sun one.

Five years ago, in preaching through the beginning passages of Genesis, I delivered an entire sermon doing just that. I used a good number of words unpacking biblical principles on work. I’m simply going to list them below to give you a taste of some of what the Preacher missed. I encourage you to pick one or two of the things on this list and dig deeper into them this week.

1. God is always working (Genesis 2:1-3, summarizing Genesis 1; John 5:17).
2. God delights in his work (Genesis 1:31; Psalm 149:4; Jeremiah 9:24).
3. God’s work is primarily to create (Genesis 1-2), order (Genesis 1-2), and care for (Psalm 145:14-16); and then it is to rescue (2 Timothy 4:16; Colossians 1:13) and restore (1 Peter 5:10; Revelation 21:1-5).
4. God invites us to join him in His work and His delight in it (Genesis 1:28, 2:15; Psalm 127:1).
5. Joining God in His work and delight means working as God works: creating (Genesis 1:28), ordering (Genesis 2:20), caring for (Genesis 2:15), rescuing (Matthew 28:18-20), and redeeming (Matthew 28:18-20).
6. Whenever we work like God our work has value and dignity.
7. Because God is always working for the good of the world, so should we (Matthew 5:45).
8. Because God calls us to join in his work and his delight, work is not something we do primarily to make money. Rather, glorifying God by doing the work of creating, ordering, caring for, rescuing, and redeeming is our aim, and as we do it well, we often gain the added benefit of being paid for it.
9. Because of the fact that in our work we are joining in God’s work, we are also representing God in all we do (2 Corinthians 5:20; Colossians 3:23-24; Ephesians 6:5-6).
10. In all of these ways our work can and should be as much a part of our worship of God as our time here on Sunday morning (1 Corinthians 10:31; Romans 12:1).
11. We must be ministry minded in our work, seeing it as an opportunity to show and speak the good news of God’s work for us in Jesus (Matthew 28:18-20; 1 Peter 3:15).
12. The Holy Spirit is living in us to empower us for good work (Ephesians 3:16).
13. We were made for work, but we were also made for rest. God gave us this example in Genesis 2:1-3 and then later the command to join him in rest and promised to be our rest (Matthew 11:28-30).
14. Work is harder and less fruitful because of the fall (Genesis 3:17-19). The Preacher seems not to have yet risen above this understanding.

All of this together means, as the Preacher half-learned, work is a critical component of a life of meaning, but it is never the meaning of life. There is great joy to be had in work, but only when we work as God has called us to work: for Hs glory, according to His example, in His delight, and through faith in His Son.

And when we work like this, we know that God has given us two gifts (not just one), that He is pleased with our every act of work offered in faith, that He will use it for good, and that contrary to the Preacher’s conclusion, our work performed in faith really will last forever; whether in the souls of men or in the pleasure of God.

CONCLUSION

While the conclusion of our passage really does offer us the first truly above-the-sun look on things, we’re left with the sense that the Preacher didn’t really grasp the magnitude of what he saw. He didn’t understand the full measure of his insight.

Thanks be to God that we have the whole counsel of God and that the Spirit of God has opened our eyes (like Paul and Lydia) to it. Thanks be to God that everyone who has received the good gift of the gospel, along with the second gift of ears to hear it, knows true and eternal satisfaction in Jesus. And thanks be to God that everyone in Jesus can also find genuine delight in joining God in His work and pleasure in it—physical and spiritual, labor for bread and labor for souls.

And so, Grace, work hard as unto the Lord. Build great things for God’s glory and the good of the world. Serve well. Be an excellent boss or laborer. Leave what you can to your kids, for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Seek the joy of the Lord in those things. And give yourself to the work of proclaiming Christ to the nations and presenting others as mature in Christ (Colossians 1:28).