Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

Main Idea: Wisdom matters because there is a God of wisdom who invites us to know Him and find our purpose and joy in Him.

Text:

Ecclesiastes 2:12-17.

Then I turned to consider wisdom, madness, and folly, for what will the king’s successor be like? He will do what has already been done. And I realized that there is an advantage to wisdom over folly, like the advantage of light over darkness.
The wise person has eyes in his head,
but the fool walks in darkness.
Yet I also knew that one fate comes to them both. So I said to myself, “What happens to the fool will also happen to me. Why then have I been overly wise?” And I said to myself that this is also futile. For, just like the fool, there is no lasting remembrance of the wise, since in the days to come both will be forgotten. How is it that the wise person dies just like the fool? Therefore, I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:12-17)

Father, as we talk about wisdom today, I pray that we would all acknowledge just how unwise we’ve all been. We’ve often read or heard Your word, and then lived as if we didn’t. We’ve been encouraged to follow You, and then we’ve still gone and lived however we pleased. We’ve claimed the title of Christian, while not living very Christ-like. We’ve been extremely unwise. So we confess our sin to You, and praise You for Your wisdom and grace. Transform us, and help us to follow Jesus. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Our Scripture passage today deals with wisdom and foolishness. I usually begin my sermon with an illustration or story of some kind in order to introduce the topic and show our need for how the Scripture addresses the topic. But as much as I tried to think of or find a good illustration, nothing quite seemed good or wise enough, until I realized that the most wise way to begin a sermon about wisdom is to read the Bible itself when it talks about wisdom.

Proverbs 3:13-15 says:

Happy is a man who finds wisdom and who acquires understanding,
for she is more profitable than silver, and her revenue is better than gold.
She is more precious than jewels; nothing you desire can equal her. (Proverbs 3:13-15)

James 1:5 says:

Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him. (James 1:5)

And Proverbs 9:10 says:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (Proverbs 9:10)

So it’s clear from the Bible that wisdom is good, and it’s from God, and that true wisdom begins by knowing and even fearing the Lord. And yet, in Ecclesiastes 2 today, we read that the Teacher seemed to lament the fact that he had been overly wise in his life, because both wise people and foolish people meet the same end. We will all die.

We talked a few weeks back about how the Teacher in Ecclesiastes, probably Solomon, found that the purpose of life is NOT merely to increase in knowledge and wisdom, because there’s literally no end to it. Even the smartest person in the world doesn’t know everything, and in fact only knows an infinitesimally small portion of what can be known. Ultimately, no matter how much you know, living life comes down to a massive leap of faith. We all put our faith in something, whether in a god, or science, or in the God who created science.

So at that point, we learned that we don’t really need more knowledge; we need more faith. Specifically, we need to put our trust in the One who knows all things, and follow Him.

Today, however, we see that actually there’s a huge benefit to wisdom, but it only makes sense to gain wisdom in light of the God of all wisdom. Verse 12.

Then I turned to consider wisdom, madness, and folly, for what will the king’s successor be like? He will do what has already been done. And I realized that there is an advantage to wisdom over folly, like the advantage of light over darkness.
The wise person has eyes in his head,
but the fool walks in darkness. (Ecclesiastes 2:12-14a)

Just last week, we saw how the Teacher sought to understand the meaning of life from the perspective of our accomplishments, and we saw that that doesn’t really make a lot of sense, because then we’d be saying that a whole lot of people have no hope of a meaningful life because they can’t accomplish anything.

I can’t tell you how many people have told me that my daughter Raelynn’s life basically has no value because she can’t do anything. But I always respond the same way: when your grandma is old and can’t do anything in terms of contributing to society, should we just kill her? I hope you would say, “No! Of course not!” That would be a very barbaric and uncivilized society. Because, you see, life is not ultimately about what we can or can’t do; it’s all about what God in His goodness has done for us, and we reflect that goodness to others as we care for them, even when and especially when they can do nothing.

So since we can’t find our purpose in our achievements, the Teacher in Ecclesiastes next turned to see if we could find our purpose in having wisdom. It’s clear in this passage that it’s good to be wise, just as it’s good to be able to see. Being able to see makes certain things in life a little bit easier, and for those who can’t see, certain things in life are just a little bit harder. And, in the same way, having wisdom makes life just a little bit easier.

There’s a huge advantage to living according to wisdom. Wisdom matters because there’s a God of all wisdom who invites us to know Him and find our purpose and joy in Him. He invites us to walk in the light. The wise person can see where he’s going, and where the world is going, and can avoid many of the bumps and ditches in the road, and can even help others to avoid those pitfalls. Being wise is a good thing!

But even if we apply our wisdom to do amazing things, the next generation may have different ideas. In thinking about wisdom, Solomon wrote, “For what will the king’s successor be like? He will do what has already been done.” In other words, no matter what great feats we accomplish and solve in our lives because of our wisdom, the next generation could go back to what has already been done in the past. They could completely undo all the “progress” we think we’ve made. So it’s madness to think that we can make something of ourselves because of our superior wisdom, because those that we may consider foolish, who walk in darkness, have just as much of an impact on the world as those who walk in the light, and possibly even more because they’re in line with the principalities, powers, and world rulers of this present darkness.

Now, as I’ve been saying some of these things, some of you may have been thinking that I’m criticizing a particular political party, as if we’re wise, and they’re fools. But if anything, I’m criticizing the whole political system. So much of politics is focused on making “progress.” One party even calls it that, although both of the major parties pursue progress toward whatever ideals that they deem important. But Solomon’s point is that no matter what “progress” we make, the next generation can undo it. We’ve seen that several times in the course of politics over the years, right? One party thinks they accomplished something, only to see it reversed a few decades later. One president rises up, only to be voted out just four years later.

So does all this mean we should stop engaging in politics? No, of course not. But we should also recognize that the purpose of life is not about political victories, whichever side you’re more aligned with, because that’s just another example of chasing after the wind.

Instead, base your life on the wisdom of God, and live by it, but not because of “progress.” Do it simply out of faithfulness and joy.

Jesus is our great example in this. Although He faced opposition throughout His ministry, He never called down fire on His enemies. He never encouraged His followers to fight back. Instead, He loved even those who nailed Him to the cross, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Jesus shows us what a true life full of wisdom looks like. And when we trust in Him, He opens our eyes so that we can also walk in the light.

End of verse 14.

Yet I also knew that one fate comes to them both. So I said to myself, “What happens to the fool will also happen to me. Why then have I been overly wise?” And I said to myself that this is also futile. For, just like the fool, there is no lasting remembrance of the wise, since in the days to come both will be forgotten. How is it that the wise person dies just like the fool? (Ecclesiastes 2:14b-16)

So we looked at why being wise is absolutely better than being a fool, but now we see why it makes no difference from a human standpoint. Once again, the book of Ecclesiastes is all about life under the sun. It’s not dealing with heaven and hell, and hardly even touches on spiritual things at all. It’s all about looking at life in terms of how we live it here, in this life, on the earth, in order to determine what actually means anything, and if there’s an advantage to living one way or another.

And Solomon noticed that when it comes to being wise or being foolish, while it’s better to walk in the light, there’s ultimately no advantage to doing so. We’ll all die and be forgotten! And even when there are obvious advantages to living one way rather than another, it won’t matter a hundred years from now.

Now, Solomon isn’t saying that this therefore means that we should live foolishly. He’s simply pointing out that it’s actually kind of silly to think that we can make our lives mean something through our wisdom, because the same fate awaits us all.

So the Teacher cried out, “Why then have I been overly wise?” Fortunately, this isn’t something I need to worry about. As I prepared this sermon this past week, it was clear to me that I’m not overly wise. I often need to read and re-read the Scripture over and over in order to even begin to understand it and how to preach it.

But that’s not really what Solomon is talking about when he calls himself overly wise. He’s already said that there’s a huge advantage to having wisdom. The wisdom that comes from God is good, and we ought to seek it. So I think when he calls himself overly wise, Solomon was talking about all the excessive knowledge that ultimately doesn’t matter for life. He’s saying, “Why did I make so much of my life all about gathering more knowledge? Why did I feel like I needed to be wiser than everyone else? Why did I pursue it so much when, in the end, we all die?”

Verse 17.

Therefore, I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:17)

While Ecclesiastes is certainly like a philosophy textbook in which the Teacher explains his understanding of the meaning of life, it’s also more than that. It’s deeply personal because we read about the struggle that he went through to get to that understanding. In verse 17, we read that he hated his life.

Maybe you’ve been there, too. Maybe at points you’ve also just gotten so tired of the endless struggle for meaning. Maybe all your work has sometimes seemed pointless to you, and you’ve come to feel the weight of how no matter what you choose to do, all of your work under the sun just doesn’t seem to be all that important.

I think many of us have felt that way. When we’ve taken our eyes off of God, and put them on ourselves, which we’ve all done and probably all continue to do from time to time, we’re left with this refrain that we read many times in the book, that everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

And apart from faith in God, that’s absolutely true. But it’s all a matter of what you’re fixing your eyes on. The Bible encourages us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

In a world where we are constantly bombarded with information and distractions, it can be easy to lose sight of what’s truly important. Our attention is often pulled in so many different directions, and it can be difficult to know the most wise way to turn. And sometimes we’re tempted to focus all our efforts on being wise with the course of our lives, and being wise with the course of humanity. But life is not ultimately about our wisdom. It’s about the wisdom of God.

And in God’s wisdom and grace, He sent Jesus to rescue us from the futility of our lives. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and His triumph over death is the ultimate demonstration of God’s love and wisdom, which is so far superior to ours that it’s referred to in the Bible as the foolishness of the cross, because it makes no sense from a human perspective. 1 Corinthians 1:18-21.

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the intelligence of the intelligent. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish? For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of what is preached. (1 Corinthians 1:18-21)

You see, even if we may not understand it all, when we have faith in Jesus, we’re rescued from the futility and emptiness that so often plagues our lives. We’re given a new identity, a new purpose, and even a new wisdom as we learn to trust not in ourselves, but in God.