The American Dream Is Meaningless without Jesus

When will you be happy? In your mind you say, “I will be happy when ________.” What would you put in that blank? Listen to Solomon through the Spirit: it will not work! You think, If I could just have the American dream, everything would be different and I would be happy, but when you get it, you are not happy. It is all fleeting and does not satisfy. The state championship, the raise, the new car, and the big house—they all fade!

The cry of this generation is, do not repress your desires because that is dangerous and leads to depression, maybe even suicide. No matter what your desire is, whether it has to do with gender identity, sexual orientation, pleasure, or dreams, do not repress them. Solomon lovingly warns us that indulging in whatever feels good is dangerous. You may get all you ever wanted, but you will not want it when you get it. It will not satisfy. God loves you, and He knows indulging under the sun leads to brokenness. Pleasure is not bad, but because of the fall, it cannot be our final guide. It cannot be ultimate. Pleasure is a good thing that if turned into a god thing becomes an enslaving thing. So, if foolish hedonism does not work, then maybe living the right kind of life will. Right?

Ecclesiastes 2:12-17

Solomon now turns to a consideration of wisdom, madness, and folly (recalling 1:17). He starts with a passage that is difficult to translate, but the HCSB says, “For what will the man be like who comes after the king? He will do what has already been done” (2:12). The basic idea is, “Son, don’t try to outdo me because you can’t.” We find the same plea in the conclusion of Ecclesiastes (12:12). Solomon wants his son to learn from his experiments—and his mistakes—so that he does not repeat them. He does not want his son to think, Oh yeah, well you did not try ________, and I will, and I bet I will find meaning in it. Solomon assures his son that he will end up doing the same things and be in the same place. Solomon tried it all. He lived wisely and foolishly, and none of it worked. We should do what he says, not what he did!

Wisdom has a relatively greater value than foolishness (2:13-14). There is more profit in wisdom than folly just as there is more profit in light than darkness. I usually get up early in the morning while it is still dark outside, and as I get ready. I do not turn any lights on because I do not want to wake anyone else up. One morning as I got out of bed to stumble into the bathroom to get ready, our dog Molly was not in her bed but for some reason was sprawled out on the floor. I did not see her and stepped on her, sending me falling into my dresser and her shooting like a bullet in the other direction. Without light I could not make my way through the house without stumbling. The image here in Ecclesiastes is clear and recalls a similar notion from Proverbs (4:10-19). Wisdom helps you navigate this world without stumbling because it allows you to see clearly the pitfalls, and it allows you to discern the right decision in each situation.

So yes, wisdom is better than foolishness, but the value is only relative, and it does not last. Why? Wisdom’s gain over folly is fleeting because both the wise and the fool share the same fate. Death is the great equalizer. That is Solomon’s point. What is the use in exerting all of this energy to be wise if this world is all there is and we all end up as worm food in the end? Why deny myself the seeming fun of the foolish life and work hard to be wise when we all end up the same? Death makes meaningless even trying to live the right kind of life in this world.

One might object, “Well, maybe our memory and the good we did in the world can live on.” If we live a wise life and leave the world a better place than we found it, then people will at least remember us. Solomon says, “Nope. Even the hope of lasting fame is an illusion” (Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, 294). In the ancient story The Epic of Gilgamesh, the title character wants to inherit eternal life, but he is told that only Utnapishtim was given that gift. So Gilgamesh heads back home with the intention of building great walls and fortifications to put his name on so he can live on in the monuments he has created (Enns, Ecclesiastes, 44). Solomon’s point here, which is similar to the Gilgamesh story, is that there is no way to cheat death, and he should know. He spent years building a beautiful temple, and not one stone of it still stands. Fools and wise alike die, and that renders the effort of wisdom meaningless.

Plus, as an aside—and this is a major issue in Ecclesiastes—wisdom does not always work out immediately. Some say that Ecclesiastes is in tension with the more positive message about wisdom in Proverbs. After all, Proverbs says that a good name will live on (Prov 10:7).^[4]However, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes alike are aware that wisdom does not always work out immediately (but it will work out ultimately!). Solomon’s struggle of faith in Ecclesiastes is, Why be wise if it does not seem to work in this world? Consider the realm of sports. Every athlete is told the same narrative growing up. Work hard, respect your coach, play by the rules, be a good sport, do not complain about playing time, and show your skills in practice because that is the right way to do things. Yet, in the 2014–2015 NFL season, a guy named LeGarrett Blount smashed that narrative. He was so angry about his lack of playing time with the Steelers that he walked off the field before the game was over. The team cut him the next day, and then the Patriots signed him, and he won a Super Bowl ring. That example is multiplied in our fallen world in every field across the spectrum. Solomon is like a skeptic teetering on the edge of his faith when he sees these kinds of realities. All of us scream for a judgment, a reckoning, beyond the current miserable reality. We want a place where things are set right and folks get what they deserve.

As Solomon looks at how death and the curse render all of our efforts meaningless and empty, he despairs and hates his life (2:17). And yet, there is one more place to look for hope. If we do not live on and our memory does not live on, at least one thing does outlast us. Can we not leave our accumulated wealth as a legacy and an inheritance to our children?

Ecclesiastes 2:18-23

Iain Provan calls this section, “The confessions of a workaholic!” (Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, NIVAC, 76). Solomon quickly finds the idea of work vain. Work is meaningless: we exert all of this effort to amass possessions we never really get to enjoy because we were working all the time, and then we leave them to someone else, and he may be a fool who squanders all we worked to earn! What is the point in working so hard to accumulate so much that we cannot take with us? The cliché is well worn, but you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul (see 1 Tim 6). We know that, but that truth does not stop us from being workaholics who try to get more, more, more.

In the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12, Jesus warns us about the love of money in light of death taking all we have. A rich man amassed all of these crops and wealth, and he determined to build bigger barns to store them so he could be secure for many years. God says, “You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared—whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20). It is foolish to live your life to accumulate possessions because you do not get to take them with you. No, you have to leave them behind to someone else.

Even the legacy game will not work because eventually your descendants will waste that for which you worked so hard. Statistics say that in 60 percent of cases, inherited wealth is completely gone by the end of the second generation. The fear of billionaires who are “self-made men” is that their spoiled children who never knew hunger will not have the wisdom and resolve to handle so much money. The children of Hall of Fame baseball star Ted Williams tied up so much money fighting over whether to keep him frozen! That is Solomon’s point. How long until the family fortune is spent? For Solomon the answer was “quickly”—one generation! First Kings 14:25-26 tells us that a foreign army came into Jerusalem and took Solomon’s treasure away from his son Rehoboam. This reality renders work meaningless and only causes despair. Ecclesiastes 2:22 asks the same question as 1:3, and the answer is “nothing” ultimately. There is no net gain from all of our toil.

Solomon will no longer live by the myth that hard work and well-earned wealth validate life (Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, 295). Workaholism kills many families in America. Many people are possessed by a restless ambition to achieve, and so they put business before everything else (Greidanus, Preaching Christ, 65). They put it before family dinner, before ball games, and before church. Why? Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes 4:4-6 it is because they want to “keep up with the Joneses.” Failure at work or the loss of a job is a hard blow to many, but what is worse than the loss of livelihood is the embarrassment and shame we feel. Envy, the desire to outdo your neighbor, and the longing for recognition are the driving forces for so much restless working. But, as Tim Keller points out, all we really do is plow water. The moment the plow passes, the water fills back in, and there is no evidence we did anything. He points out that the man who created Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance spent a lifetime cataloging every word in the Bible, and what took him a lifetime to do, we can now do in ten minutes (Keller, “Search for Achievement”). What a waste! Nothing is ultimately gained, and Solomon points out that you even cheat yourself out of rest (2:23). You are never “off” or “home” from work. Your mind is constantly taken up with it. You clock out and come home, and you check your e-mails on your phone all night. You toss and turn while sleep evades you because you stress about the next work project. What futility!

Solomon exposes us to the failure of all his experiments to show us that what he missed in all his efforts was the simple joys God held out to him. All of his experiments failed, so now he finally turns to God. God is gracious to Solomon and us in exposing the failure of everything else to satisfy. God allows us to feel the meaninglessness of our efforts in order to drive us to Him! Ecclesiastes discloses the folly, brokenness, and senselessness of life without God. Like the heart cry of the psalmist in Psalm 73, the pain of death and things not working right in the world drives the true believer to deep satisfaction in God. Our hearts and flesh may fail, but God is the strength of our heart!

Ecclesiastes 2:24-26

Solomon concludes that there is nothing better than to eat, drink, and find enjoyment in toil. These are known as the carpe diem passages, and Solomon says this over and over again: enjoy life, enjoy your wife, eat, drink, work, and be happy (3:12-14; 3:22; 5:18-20; 9:7-10). This is God’s gift to man—both the blessings and the ability to enjoy them. Solomon calls the reader to be content and satisfied with God and the gifts from His hand.

In the beginning God designed the world so that we would enjoy the material blessings He gave us as a means to worship Him. As we ate, drank, enjoyed our spouse, and enjoyed our work, it would cause us to thank God for His goodness. But human sin distorted that, so now we look to the created things for the satisfaction only God can give. Not only is this a rebellion against God, but also it renders our true enjoyment of these gifts impossible. We want more, more, more, and we are never happy. We think if we just had a little bit more, then we would be happy, but if we are not happy with what we have right now, then we will not be happy no matter how much we get or experience. More will not satisfy us; only God can.

Again, the problem is not the things in and of themselves but rather the value we place in them. They cannot truly deliver. So be satisfied in the Creator, and then you can rightly enjoy the created things He gives you. As Solomon says, apart from Him there is no enjoyment (2:25). Everything is meaningless without Jesus, but with Jesus we can enjoy everything.

Solomon concludes with the reason for this, and at first blush it might upset some folks.^[5]The reason for this reality is that to the one who pleases God, God gives these gifts (wisdom, knowledge, and joy), but sinners—those who go against God’s design—are tasked with collecting and collecting in order to give over what they collect to the one who pleases God (2:26). There is no letup or peace for sinners. They are in a meaningless pursuit after the wind. Then, finally, they have to give what is theirs to the one who pleases God. Jesus teaches a similar concept in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25.

Solomon’s words raise a question: So you are telling me that God gives good things to good people and takes the things bad people have and gives them to the good people also? Well, sort of! The question, though, that needs to be asked is, Who is the one who pleases God? This verse does not mean God likes good, moral people and gives them nice things. The one who pleases God is not the religious person who tries to do the best he can. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 tells us it is the one who perfectly obeys God’s commandments. The problem for every single one of us is we are sinners, and thus we displease God. Only one person in all of history has perfectly followed God’s design and been told of God’s pleasure—Jesus. God said of Him, “This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him!” (Matt 3:17). But by virtue of the gospel, if we will recognize our sin, repent of it, and believe in Jesus, then we are united to Christ by faith so that God no longer sees us in our sin but sees us in union with Christ as His beloved child in whom He is well pleased. In Christ God gives you great gifts and now the ability to enjoy them as we are satisfied in Christ!

Despite much of contemporary American Christian thinking, God is not a cosmic killjoy. So many were given the impression growing up that Christianity teaches us to reject the “worldly” view that happiness comes by addition (i.e., adding more money, stuff, and pleasure to your life as Solomon tries in Ecclesiastes 2), and instead the Bible teaches that happiness comes by subtraction (subtract every enjoyable thing from your life because that is what God wants) (Driscoll, “A Goose”). If it feels good, then it is probably a sin, so get rid of it and suppress your desires. Some of you may even be thinking that this sermon is another example. Oh great! Another sermon where I’m told to be miserable. You’re telling me that all of those pleasures Solomon mentioned and all of that education and all of that work—those are all bad things. I should not want a house or a car or money or sex or any of those things. I just get to be miserable? No! That is not Christianity. Not one of those things Solomon mentioned is necessarily evil. Music, laughter, gardening, sex with your spouse, and all of those other things can be good and holy if used as God intended. The problem is we revolted against God, so now we are broken. But in Christ we are redeemed to recover and pursue God’s design for our lives, which includes enjoying the material gifts He has given to us.

Solomon’s life in so many ways reminds us of the prodigal son (Luke 15). So many think the prodigal son’s sin was partying too much, and then he came to his senses and wanted to leave his party days behind. We so often forget the story does not just begin with partying; it ends with partying. Yes, there’s a party in the far country that leaves the son broken, but there is also an epic party when he gets back home. Dancing and singing can be heard outside. The difference is the son cannot enjoy the party rightly until he is satisfied in the father’s love.

That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Satisfied in Christ and His love, we now can enjoy life, marriage, children, work, laughter, gardening, building, and so many other pursuits as God intended! As C. S. Lewis reminds us, our problem is not that we desire too much; it is that we desire too little. When we pursue created things at all cost, we settle for cardboard pizza at Chuck E. Cheese’s instead of enjoying a night at Ruth’s Chris when we are satisfied in Jesus! We live in a Genesis 3:19 world where dust returns to dust, and we long for Genesis 3:15 to come true. David died, and he decayed. Solomon was a backslidden king who decayed into the dust. But one Son of David did not dissolve into the dust. He walked away from the tomb, ascended into heaven, and boldly took his seat at God’s right hand where Psalm 16 says there are pleasures that last forever. Do you want pleasures that last forever and are not fleeting? In Christ we are already raised from the dead and seated in the heavenly places (Eph 2:4-6). So enjoy life now and forever.