We just began a new series a couple of Sundays ago, and this is the second message in it. We're going through the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes with the subtitle Living with the End in Mind. The most popular course in the history of Yale University occurred in the fall of 2017. It was Psych 157, Psychology and the Good Life. Nearly one-fourth of all the Yale undergrads signed up for that class. Laurie Santos, the psychology professor who teaches the course, says that she tries to teach students how to live a happier, more satisfying life. Now, it's not surprising that a course like that is popular on a college campus just four years earlier. There was a report by the Yale College Council that found that more than half of the undergraduate students had sought mental health help while they were at university. One of her main lessons is that the things that Yale undergraduates most associate with happiness, like a high grade, a prestigious internship, or a good paying job, do not increase happiness at all. She says, scientists didn't realize this in the same way 10 or so years ago. Our intuitions about what will make us happy, like winning the lottery and getting a good grade, are totally wrong. It's not just on college campuses. In 2019, The New York Times devoted an issue to what they called arrival fallacy. The arrival fallacy. And it works like this. You finally did it. You achieved it. You got that job you wanted. You got the promotion you wanted. you finished the project, you'd leveled up in your career, you arrived, and it's a wonderful sense of accomplishment, but then when you come down from that high, reality sets in. Where do you go from here? You've achieved the so-called arrival fallacy. The illusion that once you reach your goal, you'll have lasting happiness. But it's nowhere near as large or permanent as envisioned. One psychologist they quoted said this arrival fallacy is the reason why some Hollywood stars struggle with mental health issues and substance abuse later in life. Not equal happiness over the long term. This message is almost antithetical to the American dream, which tells us that hard work and achievement deliver a happy life. And so we push our children to become captain of the soccer squad, or student body president, because we want them to be successful and happy. And then when they're 34, fresh off a big achievement and so deeply unhappy that they find themselves sobbing in their truck in a Walmart parking lot, they end up feeling, they could end up feeling as something is inherently broken within them. It's so very normal for us to want to be happy. For us to want to find meaning in life. We're all on that quest. And the Bible records a quest that someone took for it. That is recorded in the book of Ecclesiastes. So I wanna invite your attention today to turn to Ecclesiastes chapter one. We're gonna read verses 12 to 18. in this message called Let the Search Begin. And I invite you to stand with me as we read God's word together today, please. I, the teacher, have been king over Israel and Jerusalem. I applied my mind to examine and explore through wisdom all that is done under heaven. God has given people this miserable task to keep them occupied. I've seen all the things that are done under the sun and have found everything to be futile. A pursuit of the wind. What is crooked cannot be straightened. What is lacking cannot be counted. I said to myself, See, I have amassed wisdom far beyond all those who were over Jerusalem before me, and my mind has thoroughly grasped wisdom and knowledge. I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly. I learned that this too is a pursuit of the wind, for with much wisdom is much sorrow. As knowledge increases, grief increases. This is the Word of God. You may be seated. At any point today while you're listening or later if you want to ask questions, we'll try to answer those throughout the course of the series. You can text to 22383 or you could send an email to my email address which is listed on the screen there. Now let's set the stage for Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verses 12. to 13, or 12 to 18. After the opening prologue, which was the first 11 verses of the book, this passage begins a very long section that is, it's a monologue by the teacher. So let's look at the structure like this. The genre, the type of literature that Ecclesiastes, it's obviously wisdom literature. In the Old Testament literature, you have things like Psalms and Proverbs and Job. The middle is an autobiographical description of what life is like. So here, this is, we can see it on the screen, the first 11 verses, that's the prologue. Beginning today, we're getting the monologue. all the way from verse 12 of chapter one through chapter 12, verse 17. And then at the very end, the last message in this series, we'll come back to the epilogue. We'll come back to the narrator. So you have a narrator who sets the stage in the first 11 verses, and then all the rest of it is by the teacher. And then the narrator will come back at the very end and bring the conclusions to us. Let's walk through this passage this morning. I, the teacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. Now, one of the questions that came up last week was, I made the statement, I don't believe that Solomon wrote this book. I think it's possible that Solomon wrote it, but it reminds me in the New Testament of the book of Hebrews where we don't know exactly who the author is. And the question was, well, if he didn't write it, who did? The speaker identifies himself here, calls himself the teacher. In Hebrew, that the Old Testament is written in, it's koheleth, just in case I say that accidentally along the way. I will either say koheleth or I'll say the teacher or the preacher, but any time I say any of those things, we're talking about the person who is giving their autobiographical account. and he is not named as Solomon. A lot of people have thought it was Solomon because it says, I was king over Israel and Jerusalem. But Ecclesiastes implies that there were many predecessors to this teacher as kings of Israel. And we know historically there were only, Solomon was the second king of Israel. There was David, his father, and then Solomon. It would be strange, I think, for Solomon to say, I had more than all of the kings that preceded me in Jerusalem. And only David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem, by the way, before the divided kingdom. So, you know, the field is limited. In other wisdom that Solomon did write, like the Proverbs and the Song of Songs, it's very clear, the Bible says, that he wrote it, it names him. So it's curious to me why he would not name himself if he actually was the one doing all of this speaking. But he's not named as the author. In fact, Ecclesiastes doesn't give us a name, it gives us a title, the teacher. the preacher, the one who gathers. I believe this is a person of wisdom. There are a lot of wisdom people in that era who gathered wisdom thoughts and put them down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and it's recorded in our scripture. I think Solomon's reign is certainly evoked. He wants us to picture and think about a person like Solomon who was known for his wisdom, who was known for his many wives and his many exploits. And so especially the first couple of chapters evoke his reign, and it sounds like it's Solomon. It sounds like he is saying, if Solomon had all of these things and didn't find what he was looking for, why? would we expect that we could? But then as the book develops and gets past chapter three, there's a lot said that doesn't sound like it's coming from a king at all. It's coming from an everyday, normal person. Not that kings aren't normal, but you know what I mean. So, I think as we go through this, It's okay to think about Solomon and think about his reign. And, you know, I'll be happy one day in heaven if Solomon says, you know, Jerry, I did write that after all. I'm like, okay, that'll be great. Just curious why it's not named. Well, let's see what he says about his search. Verse 13. I applied my mind to examine and explore through wisdom all that is done under heaven. God has given people this miserable task to keep them occupied. Now every student knows, especially the further you go in your studies, that you have to explore everything. You can't leave any rock unturned. So this writer, this speaker, does not leave any rock unturned. The field of investigation is all that is done under heaven. I'm gonna search everything out. I'm gonna try everything. I'm gonna consider every possible thing a human could consider to find meaning. But he says, God has given this people this miserable task, which is interesting. Now, it doesn't mean that life is miserable. That's not what he's saying. But the task, which by the way, it's translated in ESV as unhappy business or heavy burden in the sovereignty of God, and he believes that God ordained it. Look, he says, God has given the people this miserable task to keep them occupied. Now, why is it a miserable task? I think language like that can appear because after all of the effort that goes into trying to find that answer, No solution is found. It's only frustration. That's why it's a heavy burden. Humans might think that if they pursue knowledge, the result will be fulfillment. But permanent, satisfying answers elude us. And this is the design of God. This is the way God intended it to be. God has given people this task. In short, God has chosen the shape of this world and it's striving and struggling. He is God and we are not, and also, The world is under the curse of sin. The world was created perfect by God to begin with, but when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, at that point, the earth fell, the world fell, humanity fell, and the curse of sin came on it all and it shaped and changed everything. And I think that has something to do with this striving and struggling. And you know, this can give us a lot of angst. Why can't we figure it all out? Why can't we come to one thing that would be the answer for everything? But you know, While it creates angst, it can also be a point of joy. Think about this. Think about if we, apart from God, were able to quote, figure it all out, and then we could go live our life apart from the most important thing that we were created for, and that is a relationship with our creator and savior. And you know, a lot of people are trying to do that in their life. And they're gonna either now or later discover how empty that is. Verse 14, I have seen all the things that are done under the sun and have found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind. Now, with massive resources, the teacher cannot answer His most fundamental question, what is the purpose of life here? That's why it's an evil task. Can you shepherd the wind? All right, let's all catch the wind. All right, ready? Here goes the wind. Everybody reach out, catch it, come on. And now what do you have in your, it's a futile task. Verse 15 is, proverbial saying, a general proverb that's applied here. What is crooked cannot be straightened. What is lacking cannot be counted. I think it's best to understand the flow here, like put a just as. So just as what is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is not there cannot be counted, so humanity cannot grasp all the fundamental questions of life, or change everything that's done under heaven. Only God can do those things. Only God's sovereign ways are inscrutable. So the futility that the teacher is alluding to alludes to our human tendency to not accept reality. We don't want it to be that way. We don't want there to be tension and injustice and futility and frustration, right? We want everything to be smooth. In verse 16 to 18, detail the consequences of a search like this that's based on human wisdom. If a figure like Solomon with all that he had could not figure it out, Couldn't find happiness, then who could? Verse 16, I said to myself, see I have amassed wisdom far beyond all those who were over Jerusalem before me. And my mind has thoroughly grasped wisdom and knowledge. I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly. I learned that this too is a pursuit of the wind. For with much wisdom is much sorrow. As knowledge increases, grief increases. Now, this is a paradox. Even helpful things like wisdom and knowledge bring sorrow. I think because they dispel illusions. They dispel illusions. Could it be the more they increase, the more one becomes aware of the evil of life? I'm just very thankful personally, if I can personalize this, I'm very thankful. for the training that God allowed me to have along the way. And I had a desire, I wanted to not only pastor, but I wanted to train other pastors. So I thought I need to get a doctorate to do that. I need to get a PhD to do that. And I went to what I felt like was one of and is one of the leading seminaries in America to get a PhD in New Testament. And I somewhat naively thought before I did that, that afterwards I'm gonna know everything there is about the Bible. And after seven years, I knew a lot more, especially about a very narrow field. That's what a PhD is. It's going very, very, very deep in a very, very narrow field. And yet, I also learned how much I didn't know. Sometimes with more wisdom and knowledge, more sorrow increases. And we see even this in other things like sometimes for instance, maybe a very highly trained musician, right? Has a harder time enjoying just average music. A person like me who's not a highly trained musician, I can enjoy a lot of kind of music because I'm not, I don't know that they're a little bit sharp here, a little bit flat maybe. And that's this paradox. Now, maybe at this point, you might be scratching your head a little bit. You might be thinking, hopefully you are thinking, maybe you're thinking, hey, wait a minute, Jerry, I thought the Bible commended wisdom. I thought wisdom was a good thing. I thought we were supposed to seek after wisdom, and yet this teacher is talking about the frustration and the futility. How do you balance it out? Well, if you thought that, you're correct. Wisdom is a good thing. There are different kinds of wisdom. There's God's, most notably, there's God's wisdom and human wisdom. Two different kinds of wisdom. And even with God's wisdom, all of it is true. But even God's wisdom does not promise to give us the answer to every single question in life. Why did such and such happen? Or why didn't such and such happen? On the other hand, not every expression of wisdom is biblical. There's wisdom that you don't need to be a Christian to understand or to put into practice. So for instance, every parent teaches your children this wisdom. Don't put your finger in the light socket or the electrical outlet, right? That's just normal wisdom. I don't think that's in the Bible. I don't think you need to have a biblical worldview to know that that's really unwise to stick your finger in there. But it's just something we live by. And along the way, in Ecclesiastes, some of the wisdom that we're gonna hear about is like that. It's just good, normal, maybe practical wisdom like that. But that doesn't mean that it's divine. And the question that we have to ask is, is any wisdom gonna go far enough? Will it last long enough to provide the answers that we're looking for and longing for deep in our heart? And at that point, we are going to encounter a contrast with divine, biblical, godly wisdom. Now, it is true. The Bible does commend wisdom. So for instance, look at a few of these from Proverbs. Proverbs 2.6, for the Lord gives wisdom, from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. Proverbs 3.13, happy is a man who finds wisdom and who acquires understanding. Proverbs 4.7, wisdom is supreme. Proverbs 16.16, get wisdom, how much better it is than gold. And get understanding, it is preferable to silver. So how do we reconcile these statements that encourage us in Proverbs and other places in the Bible to get wisdom with the teacher's frustration with what he thinks is wisdom? And I think it fundamentally comes down to this. I think he was focused on human wisdom. He was focused on human wisdom. And this is a good time for us to answer the question that's on your outline. Why is the search for life's answers through human wisdom futile? Let me give you three suggestions. Number one, the search for life's answers through human wisdom is futile because it limits its search field. to things under the sun. He says in verse 13, I applied my mind to examine and explore through wisdom all that is done under heaven. That under heaven is equivalent to the phrase that appears 30 some times in Ecclesiastes, under the sun. In other words, this is what I'm looking at. This is my search field. The second reason why the search for life's answers through human wisdom is futile is because it is self-referential rather than God-focused. It is self. In other words, this search that this teacher is telling us about is focusing on himself, what he can see, what he can experience, what he observes, what he concludes. Let's take a flyover of the passage. We've read it all, so we won't read it all again, but notice how many times he says, I or my. I applied my mind in verse 13. In verse 14, I've seen all these things. In verse 16, I said to myself, see, I have amassed wisdom. My mind has thoroughly grasped it. In 17, I applied my mind and I learned that this too is a pursuit of the wind. The teacher is alerting us to the empty search that comes by focusing on human wisdom because probably to keep us from going down that same path. So, it's futile because number one, it limits things to things that happen under the sun. And secondly, because it's focused on self, it's self-referential. And closely related to that is the third reason. These almost could be one point, but I made it separate. Because it falls short of the most important perspective of all, God's. The most important perspective of all on life belongs to God. God is the creator. He's the savior. He's the eternal God. He's the one that existed before time, as we know it existed, and will exist forever. He's eternal. And His perspective is the perspective that matters for us. Now, let's look at two more verses in Proverbs that help us see this. Proverbs 1, 7. Will you read this out loud with me, please? Let's read this verse together. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and discipline. All right, let's read this other one, Proverbs 9, 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. That's where wisdom starts. And that's not where the teacher started. The big difference between the two types of wisdom indicated here is that true biblical godly wisdom starts with a reverence and awe of God. That's why The worship songs we sang this morning were so important, right? That picture out of Revelation standing in awe before his throne. It's not that all human wisdom is wrong, but it depends on what you're looking for. So here's the way I would summarize God's word for us this morning. Searching for life's answers at the bank of human wisdom will always leave you short of funds. Searching for life's answers at the bank of human wisdom will always leave you short of funds. It's not that human wisdom is all wrong, it's just that it cannot deliver what people hope it will deliver. Wisdom is good, but seeking wisdom apart from a larger story, a larger narrative, God's story, will inevitably bring frustration and futility.