Video Transcript: Chasing the Wind

Preaching through the book of Ecclesiastes and today we're looking at Ecclesiastes two,  Ecclesiastes two ought to be an unnecessary part of the Bible. If we don't look at the  Bible and just look around us, and pay attention, we should already understand most of  what Ecclesiastes two says to us. But since we don't pay attention, we will use the Bible  to help us pay attention. But let's just begin with some of the messages we find from  people in our culture around us. If you don't read the Bible, and only listen to rock  singers, you would get the basic message of Ecclesiastes two, I can't get no satisfaction.  I try. And I try. And I try and I try. I can't get no satisfaction, the words of Mick Jagger  and The Rolling Stones in 1965, and could be the hem of our age. Another icon of our  own time is an athlete Michael Phelps pay attention to his life. He only won eight gold  medals in one Olympic Games and 18 gold medals in all, in the three Olympic Games,  he won more gold medals than any athlete in the history of the world. And was he  satisfied? Well, it was weird, going from the highest of the high the biggest point of your life, winning eight gold medals and then saying, all right, where do I go from here?  Well, where he's gone from here is getting photographed smoking pot to driving while  intoxicated arrests and various other personal problems in his life because winning more gold medals than anybody in history, apparently is not what satisfies you, or makes your  life worth living. How about a movie star? Paul Newman, as a young man was said by  casting directors to look like a Greek god. And he was cast in a lot of movies 62 Movies, in fact, he was the star of 62 movies and made a gazillion dollars. He married one  beautiful movie star. They were divorced. But then he married another beautiful movie  star Joanne Woodward, and their marriage lasted for 50 years, until Paul Newman died.  So he had a long marriage to a beautiful woman. And he lived a happy life in many  respects in his married life. Paul Newman, in addition to starring in so many movies, and making so many dollars was a racecar driver. And he owned a company that raced cars,  he didn't just race the car, he owned the company. Well, if that wasn't enough, he started  another company. Newman's Own selling salad dressings and various other things  donated even need the money yet so much money. He didn't know what to do with it  anyway. So he donated, he donated more than $400 million to charity, just from this one  company that he started while he was in the movies. Like I said, in the 50s. He was a  star in the 60s, he was a star Oh, and by the way, in the 70s, and the 80s and 90s. He was a star. Then in the 2000s, he starred in yet another movie at age 77 and was nominated  for his 10th Oscar nomination in the last movie he ever starred in. Oh, he wasn't quite  done yet. Then he was Mr. Hudson in the in the Doc Hudson in the movie cars, and he  died shortly thereafter. Now, a man has starred in 62 movies, probably not even counting the ones he did voices in, has made all of that money had this long and beneficial  marriage to a beautiful woman. What more could anybody want? Well, here's the  headlines. Newman feels unfulfilled, full of regrets. I look like I'm having a lot of fun,  and I am. But I should be having more fun than I'm having. In work. I'm not happy  because it'll never be good enough, you know, only 10 Academy Awards and a company  that generated 400 million for charity. And what have you never good enough? I'll never  be a proper father, or a great lover or an extraordinary boxer or a capable skier or an 

astronaut. They make that up about you, but it has nothing to do with you. So somebody  who has been the greatest movie star of the last century basically says, Well, that wasn't  quite enough. As we've noted already, in the previous message, John Lennon to The  Beatles saying he's a real nowhere man sitting in his nowhere land making all his  nowhere plans for nobody doesn't have a point of view knows not where he's going to,  isn't he a bit like you and me. So Ecclesiastes two ought to be an unnecessary part of the  Bible. You have people who have reached the pinnacle, in sports, in fame, in rock music  in acting in making gobs and gobs and gobs of money. And their message is not enough,  doesn't satisfy me. That's not what life's about. But you don't just need to read the  newspapers or follow the lives of the rich and famous and beautiful and successful to  know this. If you're starting a new year, you can just look in the mirror and ask yourself,  well, what have I been living for? Am I satisfied with most of the things that I've been  chasing lately? Are they filling my life and making it worth living? Well, in Ecclesiastes  to, it maybe should be an unnecessary part of the Bible. But we're not all that bright. We  need a little help noticing what goes on in life. And so God gives us this torture from  King Solomon. Solomon is on a search for what satisfies for what makes life worth  living. And he has the resources to do it. He is going to chase whatever is out there until  he finds what makes life worth living. He is a king and a ruler. He is a billionaire. He is  a genius, and a scholar. He's a playboy, he tries everything and does everything. And he  tries air in three main areas that people still pursue happiness and fulfillment and  satisfaction in today, pleasure. He goes on a big pleasure trip, education and learning and trying to understand and figure out everything. And Solomon is a genius, and just plain  achievement, and work and building a legacy and showing that you can do it. And  Solomon, the teacher of Ecclesiastes ‘Koheleth’. He does all of these things. And  Ecclesiastes two is his journal of the chase of the pursuit. I thought in my heart Come  now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good. But that also proved to be  meaningless. Last year, I said is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish? I tried  cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly, my mind is still guiding me with  wisdom. So he thought, I'll try to live the wild and crazy and stupid life and drink a lot.  But all the while I'm going to be thinking and watching whether it really pays off. I want him to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives. So he brings in all the people who can make you laugh. We still have them today,  the people who are on TV as comedians, they make us laugh about broken families.  They make us laugh about the idiots who run the world's governments. They make us  laugh about the terrible things that are happening in the world. But what is all that  laughter accomplish? Solomon could bring in the funniest jesters that money could buy.  He could buy the best booze that was out there. And he said, well, the booze and the  laughs, and all of that the party life that just didn't do it for me. If you had to pick who is the funniest guy who caused the most laughs over the last few decades, probably one of  the leading candidates would be Robin Williams. He was a hilarious Comedian. He  laughed a lot himself. He made a lot of people laugh. Some of you kids might know him  as the voice of the genie. In Aladdin. He starred in a whole ton of movies, mostly 

comedies. One of his most recent was Night at the Museum and its various sequels. He  was a funny guy. He laughed and laughed and laughed and made people laugh. And then he killed himself. Solomon knew that laughter and booze weren't where it's at. So he  went on to more mature pleasures. A lot of us when we get through the really stupid days of our youth and want to leave the party life behind, still haven't left pleasure behind we  just get a little more refined sense of what pleasure ought to look like nice house you  know, great neighborhood and so on. I undertook great project says Solomon. I built  houses for myself and planted vineyards, I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees these days.  You want to buy a beautiful Little House and you want to locate it in a great  neighborhood. Well, Solomon built kind of a nice house. He spent seven years building  the temple of the Lord. His House took 14 years to build with all of the money and all of the resources he had, and he didn't just locate it in a nice neighborhood. It built a  neighborhood, you know, with all the trees and, and all the parks and all that fantastic  stuff. He just built it in the neighborhood that he was going to live in. Some people want  lakefront property. Solomon built the lake. I made reservoirs to water groves, the first  and Teresa, he builds the palace. He builds the neighborhood, he builds the lakes. He has unlimited resources. He has whatever he wants, well, if the nice house and the fancy  neighborhood aren't enough, how about having lots of people who have to work for you, and they've got to do whatever you say, well, I bought male and female slaves and other  slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in  Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself and the treasurer of kings and provinces. The book of First Kings says that Solomon's income, just not counting all of  his vast whole it's just just the gold 25 tons of gold a year. Not to mention all the flocks,  herds this and that and everything else, you can kind of scrape by on 25 tons of gold a  year. One of my kids was just reading, you know stuff about Solomon and building  services man, they had gold everywhere, all the instructions for how to build there is  gold on everything. In those days, the Bible says silver was kind of considered kind of  like dirt. Solomon had so much gold. Well, if gold wasn't going to cut it, I acquired men  and women singers, the best live entertainment, you know, today we have all of that  musical entertainment that you can pipe to yourself 24/7 Well, he could he could bring  in the live entertainers around the clock if he wanted I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well. The delights of the heart of man. So Solomon has 700 wives then  300 Extra women lying about just in case? What people fantasize about what they might imagine or imagine with pornography or what have you. Solomon just did with 1000  different women. He summarizes it this way. I became greater by far than anyone in  Jerusalem before me and all this my wisdom stayed with me he was thinking the whole  time. I denied myself nothing. My eyes desired. I received my heart, no pleasure. If I  wanted to, I did it. If I wanted it, I got it. My heart took delight in all my work. And this  was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands have done and  what I had toiled to achieve. Everything was meaningless. A chasing after the wind,  nothing was gained under the sun. Is there anything worse than not being able to get 

your dream? Yes, it is getting everything you've dreamed about. And finding out it's a  nightmare. Getting all the stuff you wanted. And finding out you were wanting the  wrong thing all along that you were chasing the wind. Many people live lives of  frustration because there's this or that or the other thing they couldn't get. There was  nothing Solomon couldn't get that was within the realm of money or wisdom or pleasure or enjoyment. He got it all. And then when it was all done, he said, Hevel, vanity, vapor,  emptiness, nothing was gained. That's a phrase that comes up again, what is the man  gain? What's the payoff is that at the end of the day, there was really no lasting payoff  for all of this. Well, he learned that lesson and some people do learn at some point in  their lives that just the pleasure Chase gets a little old. And so he learned to to give up on that. Pleasure is a little like cotton candy. It's not always bad. Cotton candy isn't poison.  If you're hungry, and you get some cotton candy, you get a little that in your mouth and  it just melts on down to nothing. And that first mouthful tastes good. And that next  mouthful, tastes pretty good. And about half of the way through that big lump. At least if you're like me, it's starting to taste. You say and you want some of this. You don't want  to eat that whole big, fluffy cotton candy because you're getting kind of sick of it. And if  you're really hungry, cotton candy is not what you want. You want something that sticks  to your ribs, you want to sandwich you want the bread of life. Pleasure is kind of like an  itch that feels good to scratch it. Except to get to each year, you that first shot of booze  may have been kind of exciting, but you need more of it. And then more of it to get the  same effect. That little dabbling in pornography was maybe exciting, but then it's gotta  get a little crazier. And it's got to get a little more sordid. The the pleasure of money.  Somebody asked John D. Rockefeller, the world's richest man, how much was enough?  A little more, was his answer. Well, pleasures like that it's you scratch it. And then it is  more because you scratch something, you scratch it harder, and then it's just even more,  and then you scratch it even harder, and it itches even more. And then you notice there's  some blood on your fingers. That's what just chasing pleasure for the sake of feeling  excitement and feeling pleasure will do to you. How Solomon learns his lesson, sort of,  he learns the pleasures not where it's at, in a good many people growing up if they're  able not to become totally addicted to the booze, or to become just addicted to other  forms of compulsive behavior, if they can stay free of that they may move on to  something else. Some never do. Get free of that. They just get physically and  emotionally addicted to stuff that they're no longer enjoying. But they're just doing it  because well, what else is there? But Solomon and the good many others wise up to  some degree, they say, Well, if this pleasure trip and the party life and getting whatever I want and having a fancy house isn't where it's at. I'm going to try wisdom. I'm going to  try figuring things out. And Solomon was pretty successful in this realm. He wrote  1000s of Proverbs. He wrote over 1000 songs. So he was a great poet, and songwriter.  He studied. He studied the animal world, he studied the plant world. He was such a great scientist, that people came from all over the world to hear him lecture on the discoveries  he made in plant and animal life. Oh, yeah. And by the way, he was a political genius,  too, who ruled the kingdom and brought it to its highest point during his 40 year reign. 

So if political genius and if scientific brilliance and if artistic skill and wisdom are where it's at, well, then Solomon is going to be able to tell us so. Then I turned my thoughts to  consider wisdom and also madness and folly. What more can the king successor do than  what has already been done? I saw that wisdom is better than folly. Just as light is better  

than darkness. There's a night and day difference between wisdom and folly says and  wisdom is better than being a dunce. The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool  walks in the darkness. But, but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.  Then I thought in my heart, the state of the soul will overtake me also, then what do I  gain by being lies I said, in my heart. This too, is meaningless hevel, for the wise man,  like the fool will not be long remembered in days to come, both will be forgotten, like  the fool the wise man to must die. At the end of the day, the wise man and the fool are  both either buried or burned, they die. They do not write your IQ on your tombstone.  They do not inscribe your report card, or your advanced degrees on your tombstone. You die. You are eventually forgotten. And how smart you were or how stupid you were in  the big picture. Doesn't make much difference. Dead is dead. That's Solomon's take on  whether wisdom and his great genius and his great learning is what life is all about. It's  better than being a dimwit. It's better than living like a fool. But it sure isn't, what life is  meant to be. Well, then, if that's not where it's at, if pleasure and education and figuring  things out, is not what is going to satisfy me, and is what my life was meant to be. And  maybe there's something else. And for somebody listening to this message, they'd say,  yeah, it's about time. You know, you've got these kids, they're chasing one pleasure after  another What a bunch of knuckleheads and, and then there's other say, Yeah, but if they  entered into the realm of scholarship, you know, they could do more than if they were  just having a party life all the time. And so, you know, at that point, some people said,  Yeah, preach it. Because what life is really about is hard work. You got to achieve some  things. You got to make your life count for something. You can't just be a professional  student who sits in school forever. You can't just be a party animal. And it's obvious.  That's stupid. You got to work. Well, that's even stupider, actually than the first two.  Because why would you work your tail off? If you're not having any fun at it? Why  would you go through all that studying, and work to be a great scholar and genius, if it  didn't amount to anything, work for the sake of working. What kind of moron thinks that so I hated life. I hated life. Because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to  me, all of it is meaningless. A chasing after the wind, I hated all the things I had toiled  for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who  knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool, yet he will control have control over all  the work into which I've poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too, is  meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun, for  a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill. And then he must leave all  he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too, is meaningless, and a great  misfortune. You wonder whether Solomon was looking over his shoulder while he was  building his great kingdom at doing his great acts of genius, and over his shoulder is Jr.  What a comfort that even though you die, you can leave it all to Jr. We all know, you 

can't take it with you. But Solomon says not only Can't you take it with you you can't  even leave it behind. You leave all the results of your hard work to someone who hardly  works and who knows what kind of moron he's going to be? Well, I think I know I got  this boy named Rehoboam. And I don't see too many bright bulbs. And you read the  story and kings and you can see why Solomon was a little concerned here. He left this  vast realm to bonehead Rehoboam. And within a year, the kingdom was divided,  everything fell apart, the knucklehead had one tribe left to govern. That's what the result  of all your genius and 40 years of hard work does. You build your empire and the idiot  who comes after you Who knows whether he's going to be a wise man or a fool, in that  case, a fool. Well, that's hevel, and a great misfortune. What does a man get through all  the toil and anxious striving with which you Labor's under the sun? Well, the payoff is  ulcers and insomnia. All his days, his work is pain and grief ulcers. Even at night, his  mind does not rest. Insomnia, can't sleep. This too is meaningless. Work your fingers to  the bone. What do you get? bony fingers? That's the old country western song again, you don't have to read. You don't have to read Ecclesiastes to get these messages. If you're  paying attention. They are all over the world around you work your fingers to the bone.  What do you get bony fingers all your days? It's pain and grief at night. Your mind can't  rest if you're gonna be a workaholic. Have fun with that. So he's tried pleasure. He's  tried education and learning. He's tried hard work. And he says, I've just been chasing  the wind. I've spent my life doing this. And you might say, Well, what do we have to  suffer through all this? You know, you read this whole chapter. And it's just so  depressing. Well, the message of Ecclesiastes two is not just get depressed. It's get smart. You've heard it said that experience is the best teacher. Well, the experience is a pretty  effective teacher in many cases. But it's not a very nice one. It is a very harsh and painful teacher and you can go years and years and mess up this and that and feel this  disappointment and that one on the other one. Why not let the teacher be your teacher?  Instead of letting experience be your teacher? Do you think you're going to in your  lifetime, get more pleasure for yourself than the man with 25 tons of gold a year and  1000 wives and palaces and everything else that anybody could ever get or want? Do  you think you're gonna get smarter than the smartest king who ever lived? Who wrote  over 3000 Proverbs over 1000 songs governed the kingdom for 40 years and was sought  by for his scientific knowledge by people around the world. You're going to top him if  smarts is where it's at. Are you going to achieve more than the mighty Solomon? Well, if not, you might want to take his word for it. That pleasure. And education and hard work  are not the core of what life is about, and are not the key to being satisfied. So the  message isn't get depressed, but it is get smart and learn from what he learned. Now,  there's a lot of Ecclesiastes to go yet and he doesn't tell us the whole deal right away. But he does get a glimpse, a glimmer of insight. In the last few verses of this chapter. He  says, A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink, and find satisfaction in his work. This to I see is from the hand of God for without him who can eat or find enjoyment to  the man who pleases them. God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness. But to the  center, he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth, handed over to the one who 

pleases God. This too, is meaningless a chasing after the wind. He says, in this under the sun existence, where I'm trying to get for myself what I can and thinking of God is a  factor out there. God is a frustrating factor for those who chase the wind, you can do this and that and the other thing, and you can have it all, and not enjoy any of it, because  God may let you have it all except that one thing, the ability to actually rejoice in it,  enjoy it, and be satisfied in it to man who pleases Him. God gives wisdom, knowledge  and happiness. God can make you satisfied with a little or he can leave you dissatisfied  with very much he gives. And the gift of God, not our chasing is the key to it all. I  mentioned before, what happened one Christmas, my brother got a gift. And he was very excited. And he's ripped open the wrapping paper and opened a box. And the box was  empty. My mom had forgotten to put the present inside the box. Well, the tears starting  to run down his face. You know, because little kids, it's nice if there's nice wrapping  paper on a box. But it's not to satisfy it. There's nothing inside. And pleasure in  education and hard work. They each have their place. They're good things in their own  way. But they're wrapping paper. And if you don't find the gift, if you don't have God's  gift of satisfaction, and meaning and purpose, then all the other stuff is just wrapping  paper. And once you get it open, you're in for a big, big letdown. In the fullness of the  Bible's Revelation, we know that God gives fulfillment in Christ, Jesus himself says, I  have come that they may have life and have it to the full, have it more abundantly. He  came to bring fullness, not just forgiveness. So he came to bring that and that is  wonderful. But it came to bring fullness, and to fill up what is empty. For in Christ all  the fullness of deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ.  Ecclesiastes says God gives as a gift what cannot be achieved by chasing the wind, this  is received, not achieved. It is a gift, not something you can just grab. And it is a matter  of priorities, Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. And the other goodies, God  will take care of that. If you're chasing happiness, for its own sake, you will not get it. If  you chase the kingdom of God and pursue it with all your heart, you will find a lot of  other things that God throws in, along with it, pleasures that you really can enjoy and be  grateful for wisdom that really does last achievements that aren't here today and gone  tomorrow, but achievements that are preserved and expanded by God for all eternity, in  the area of pleasure. The Bible says everything God created is good. And nothing is to  be rejected if it's received with thanksgiving because it's concecrated by the word of God and prayer. You could read Ecclesiastes and think it's anti pleasure, but it's not. The  pleasure was fun. He says I had a blast, but it didn't last, you know, I was missing out on some things. You know, if you asked what do you think about all that? He'd say, Well,  what do I think of all my building blocks, booze bras brain, blah, you know, he, he's got  all that good stuff, but he's not receiving the thing that's at the heart of it. So it's good.  God created it. If you receive with thanksgiving and consecrated by the word of God,  then you have a different perspective on it. But you got to be seeking first the Kingdom  of God and have the fullness of Christ. The apostle Paul says I know what it is to be in  need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in  any and every situation that is one word you're not going to find much in Ecclesiastes 

content. I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation where the  wealth that are hungry living in plenty or in want, I can do everything through Him who  gives me strength. That's the key. When Christ gives you strength, then you'll learn to be content. When times are good, and when they're not so good, because you have the one  who matters the most. And so pleasure taken in perspective, and in its place is a good  thing. Just a little snippet from something I read in Sports Illustrated just this past week.  The young man of age 16 was asked what are your short term and your long term goals  as a person, and as a player, you said, My short term goal as a person is to witness an  activity of Jesus in my life. And my long term goal is for people when they look at me to see something in me about Jesus. My short term goal is to ballplayers to win the state  championship, my long term goal is to be a Hall of Famer, a 16 year old said he gave the greatest performance in World Series history in pitching this past fall. But if you were to  ask him is that what makes life worth living? He would still say no, you know, that was  one of my goals as a ballplayer and it's nice that I got there. But then he goes back to his  farm in North Carolina and enjoys the wife of his youth and stays there and tried to  avoid the spotlight till the next season rolls around. Because he knows that enjoying the  people, and above all, enjoying the Lord Jesus and living for Him as why he was put on  Earth, I hope that he stays faithful to that what he was at 16. And at 25, it's sometimes  hard to maintain through those years of middle age to those years when all kinds of  pleasures and opportunities and achievements thrust themselves on you. But to have a  perspective on pleasure and on just the goodies of life, put Jesus first and then see what  else might happen. When it comes to wisdom, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of  knowledge. It's a very familiar verse, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge  or the beginning of wisdom, as it stated in other verses of the Bible, if you had to  summarize the message of Proverbs, that's kind of what be it's the beginning of wisdom  comes right at the beginning of the book, and it gives lots of wisdom on how to live. If  you took the message of Ecclesiastes, you might say, well, the fear of the Lord is the end stupidity. You know, yeah, we're gonna go down this bunny trail, we're going to try that  we're going to try everything else. And then at the end of the day, okay, I think we've  arrived, that the fear of the Lord is where you ought to really get started, rather than  ending up the prayer of Paul to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding  and the knowledge of God's mystery which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the  treasures of wisdom and knowledge. A child who knows the love of Jesus Christ, and  rejoices in him is already wiser than Solomon, at the pinnacle of his fame. Because  Solomon did not yet know the fullness of God revealed in Jesus Christ. We do not  understand what an inexpressible blessing it is to have the fullness of God's revelation to have the one who is wisdom from God revealed to us. And so wisdom isn't a bad thing.  Just remember who is the core of wisdom, what's the beginning of wisdom, and then  build on that kind of wisdom and then your other learning, instead of being frustrating  and empty and meaningless, will be built on the only foundation there is for wisdom and knowledge. And when it comes to work, and achieving a seven day high, I hated life, all  I got out of the deal was bony fingers. Moses, the man of God, in Psalm 90 talks about 

some of the frustrations that come with God being eternal and everlasting and great, and  us living 70 or 80 years and then flying away like a dream. He says, Teach us to count  our days that will gain a heart of wisdom. And then he says may the favor of the Lord,  our God rests upon us, establish the work of our hands for us, yes, establish the work of  our hands, don't let our life be a waste. Don't let our work be a waste, establish it  somehow. How does it get established again, God's fullness and his revelation in Christ.  Jesus says that at the end of the age, you'll say to all serve them safely with the little  things in life, with the careers that didn't seem to be the big shot careers. You'll say, Well  done good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I will put you in  charge of many things. Come and share your masters happiness when you have the  eternal perspective. And the final picture of Jesus saying, you have some work to do.  You did it for me. Well done. I got bigger jobs and bigger accomplishments in eternity.  So this fear this dread, this horror, this anger that everything you do, you gets wiped out, because some knucklehead will come along after you and waste it anyway. Well, there is somebody who is not a knucklehead, who's waiting to evaluate Oh, What you did, he  was going to establish the work of your hands that you did for him, and it was going to  add to it and give you opportunities forever and ever to serve him faithfully. work and  achievement are not vanity, when we live in our Lord Jesus Christ. So pleasure,  education, hard work, good things, not the best thing, not the thing that can fill you, not  the thing that can satisfy not the purpose of your existence. The purpose of your  existence is Christ, and to seek His kingdom and to be satisfied in him. We get a hint in  the next chapter. We'll say more about that when we get there. Ecclesiastes three says,  He has put eternity in the hearts of man. He has put eternity in the hearts of man. That's  why nothing less will satisfy what anything less will seem vanity, and fog and mist and  meaningless. Augustine was a lot like Solomon. Augustine was a young man, handsome  young man. He enjoyed the wildlife, he enjoyed parties. He enjoyed women, he enjoyed  the pleasures of youth. Then he got a little bit beyond that and decided I'm going to be a  great scholar, it kind of follows the track of Ecclesiastes two now, I'm going to be a great scholar, and he goes to the best schools and becomes a professor. And he gets into  achievement and work and being one of the top people in his field. And he's renowned  throughout the Roman world, for being this great professor and this learned scholar, and  he just gets emptier, and emptier and emptier until one day, he's just weeping in a garden and he hears a voice saying, Take and read, and he flops open the nearby Bible, and his  eyes fall on the words not with these pleasures and other things, but put on the Lord  Jesus Christ, and His fog lifted, and he became a different person. And later on, he  wrote, Lord, You have made us for yourself. And our hearts are restless, until they rest in you. That is the message of Ecclesiastes when it talks about chasing the wind. Our hearts are restless, until they rest in you. Take stock of your own life. What matters to you?  What are you chasing? What do you think would make you happy? If only you could  have it. Don't learn from experience, that you're chasing the wrong thing. Just learn from the scriptures. If you've been chasing the wrong things, and then take it by faith, seek  fullness in Christ that your restless heart will find rest only in Him. And to the degree 

that you're still restless say Lord, I want more of you. I want to know you better, that I  may find full satisfaction that I may see you face to face and enjoy you forever. That's  why God made us the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. You  might as well start glorifying him at least a bit in this life. You might as well start enjoy  him at least somewhat in this life until the greater fullness comes upon us. You have  made us for yourself and our hearts are restless, until they rest in you. Lord, we pray that you will give us that rest. That all the things we so restlessly chase all of our energy  exerted in pursuing the wind will instead be turned towards seeking your kingdom and  finding fullness in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father help us to see ourselves in the stories.  We've heard of people in our own age, who have chased vanity of the great Solomon and his pursuit of vanity, and help us to learn from these things rather than wasting years,  letting them pass by and not yet knowing the fullness of life in Christ. We thank you  Lord Jesus, that you came that we might have life and have it abundantly to the full, that  you are the fullness of God help us Lord each day, to seek more and more fullness in  you. And then Lord, to overflow with the life of your Holy Spirit in us that your fullness  may spill over and be a blessing to others through us as well. Lord, forgive us when we  have turned from you the fountain of living waters and tried to dig out for ourselves  cisterns that hold no water. Fill us Lord with the life of Christ. In his name we pray.  Amen.