The Vanity of Striving After Positions
Sermon Purpose: To call the hearer to avoid the futility of striving in labor without death in view.
Sermon Proposition: There are 3 facts related to evaluating your labor under the sun with death in view.
I. Labor’s fruit may be squandered by one’s heirs. V.18-21
A. There is no permanence to labor’s fruits. V.18a
B. There is no permanent control of accomplishments or accumulations after death. V.18b
Psalm 49:10 For he sees wise men die; Likewise the fool and the senseless person perish, And leave their wealth to others.
1 Corinthians 6:20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
C. The foolish may inherit the fruits of your labor. V.19-20
2 Chronicles 12:9 So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king's house; he took everything. He also carried away the gold shields which Solomon had made. 10 Then King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place, and committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard, who guarded the doorway of the king's house.
C.E. Stuart wrote: “Death is a worm at the root of the tree of pleasure. It mars pleasure, it chills enjoyment, for it cuts off man just when he would sit down after years of toil to reap the fruit of his labor.” (William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995, pp. 888)
D. There are people who will inherit who gave no effort. V.21
Martin Luther felt he could trust his family to God as he had trusted himself. In his last will and testament he wrote: Lord God, I thank You, because You have been pleased to make me a poor and indigent man upon earth. I have neither house nor land nor money to leave behind me. You have given me wife and children, whom I now restore to You. Lord, nourish, teach and preserve them, as You have me. (William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995, pp. 889)
II. Labor is not worth the effort we give it. V.22-23
A. What is the benefit to labor under the sun without God? V.22
1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Philippians 3:7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ
Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
B. The final analysis is the expenditure of a lot of painful and restless activity.
“Life for the man who has no hope beyond the grave, is a King size frustration, filled with worry and heartache.”
Matthew 6:33 "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Job 5:7 Yet man is born to trouble, As the sparks fly upward.
Job 14:1 "Man who is born of woman Is of few days and full of trouble.
III. Labor’s fruits are to be enjoyed as God enables. V.24-26
A. Find pleasure whenever possible in the common things of life. V.24
Philippians 4:10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again; though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity. 11 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
John D. Rockefeller had an income of about a million dollars a week, yet all his doctors allowed him to eat cost only a few cents. One of his biographers said that he lived on a diet that a pauper would have despised: “Now less than a hundred pounds in weight, he sampled everything (at breakfast): a drop of coffee, a spoonful of cereal, a forkful of egg, and a bit of chop the size of a pea.” He was the richest man in the world but did not have the ability to enjoy his food. (William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995, pp. 890)
B. Find pleasure as God enable one to do so. V.24b
1 Corinthians 7:17 But as God has distributed to each one, as the Lord has called each one, so let him walk. And so I ordain in all the churches.
1 Corinthians 15:32 If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!"
C. Find pleasure as God is a rewarder of righteousness and punishes sinful people. V.25-26