The Way of Wisdom, Part 5

What do you do when you’ve done everything “right” and life still falls apart? In Part 5 of The Way of Wisdom, Pastor Tyler unpacks the raw and honest reflections of Ecclesiastes to reveal the limits of wisdom—and why that’s not the end of the story. If you’ve ever felt like your best efforts still leave you empty, this message is for you. Learn how Jesus steps into the futility of life “under the sun” and offers a deeper, lasting hope beyond what we can see.

The Joy
The Belonging Co.

Move
Chris McClarney

Good Plans
Red Rock Worship

Communion
Brooke Ligertwood

Futility
Frustration
Fleeting

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Wisdom is knowing and understanding God’s ways and actively applying them to my life.

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What do we do when we reach the limits of wisdom?

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Christopher Watkin
Why are the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes both in the Bible? After all, Proverbs gives the impression that if we make wise decisions, things will go well for us, and if we make foolish decisions, things will go badly. Simple enough. Ecclesiastes, by contrast, suggests that it does not really matter whether we make wise or foolish decisions because the wicked prosper and the wise suffer, and we are all growing old and will die soon, so we may as well enjoy what little time we have left because life is just one big pantomime of chasing after the wind we never catch. Simple enough?

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Qohelet

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Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
The words of Qohelet, son of David, king in Jerusalem: Meaningless! Meaningless! said Qohelet. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless! What gain is there for man in all his toil that he toils under the sun. A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth endures forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and to its place it glides, there it rises. It goes to the south and swings round to the north, round and round goes the wind, and on its rounds the wind returns. All the rivers go to the sea, and the sea is not full. To the place that the rivers go, there they return to go. All things are weary. A man cannot speak. The eye is not sated with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing. That which is that which will be, and that which was done is that which will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. There is a thing of which one would say, ‘see this, it is new.’ It already has been in the eons that were before us. There is no remembrance of the first things nor of the last things that will be. They have no remembrance with those who will be in the latter time.”

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Hevel
‘vapor, a puff of breath, a whiff of smoke, a passing cloud or swirl of steam.

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Tremper Longman
“Qohelet’s frequent use of the phrase ‘under the sun’ highlights the restricted scope of his inquiry. His worldview does not allow him to take a transcendent yet immanent God into consideration in his quest for meaning. In the Bible, this viewpoint is unique to Qohelet.”

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Wisdom
Folly
Pleasure
Achievement

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Ecclesiastes 7:23-24
”All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, ‘I will be wise,’ but it was far from me. That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?”

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Ecclesiastes 8:16-9:6
When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one’s eyes see sleep, then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out. |9:1| But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wicked and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him. It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all.

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Ecclesiastes 9:7-10
“Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.”

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Ecclesiastes 12:9-14
Besides being wise, Qohelet also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. Qohelet sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth. The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails driven in–from the composers of collections, given from a certain shepherd. And more than these, my son, beware: of making many books there is no end, and much chatter is a weariness of the flesh. The last word, all being heard: fear God and keep His commands, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgement, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

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1 Corinthians 1:18-31
The word of the cross, you see, is madness to people who are being destroyed. But to us–those who are being saved–it is God’s power. This is what the Bible says, after all: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; The shrewdness of the clever I’ll abolish.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the educated person? Where is the debater of this present age? Don’t you see that God has turned the world’s wisdom into folly? This is how it’s happened: in God’s wisdom, the world didn’t know God through wisdom, so it gave God pleasure, through the folly of our proclamation, to save those who believe. Jews look for signs, you see, and the Greeks search for wisdom; but we announce the crucified Messiah, a scandal to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, the Messiah–God’s power and God’s wisdom. God’s folly is wiser than humans, you see, and God’s weakness is stronger than humans….But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the insignificant and despised things of the world–yes, even things that don’t exist–to abolish the power of the things that do exist, so that no creature could boast in God’s presence. Who and what you are now is a gift from God in King Jesus, who has become for us God’s wisdom–and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption as well; so that, as the Bible puts it, ‘Anyone who boasts should boast in the Lord.”

…Think of it this way: who knows what is really going on inside a person, except the spirit of the person which is inside them? Well, it’s like that with God. Nobody knows what is going on inside God except God’s spirit. And we haven’t received the spirit of the world, but the spirit that comes from God, so that we can know the things that have been given to us by God.

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Christopher Wright
“For we now look forward to the day when Christ returns, when God deals with all the evil utterly, finally, and forever; when God establishes his kingdom; when the redeemed nations and kings of the earth bring their glory and splendor into the city of God; when heaven and earth will be reunited as the temple of the new creation in which God will dwell with his people; when our cleansed, renewed and reconciled earth will be the habitat for our resurrection bodies, risen and reigning with Christ; when there will be no more sin, sorrow, tears, or death, no more curse–no more hevel.

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