I want to teach you how to waste your life today. You may be surprised that the Bible tells us how to do it. There are some books in the Old Testament – like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes – that teaches us how we can ruin our lives by telling us stories of people who think they can live life on their own, i.e., without any relationship to God. So, for the past four weeks, Pastor Chuck and I have been teaching about how not to waste our lives – about how to use the time, talents and treasures God entrusts to us in fruitful and effective ways. So, today, I’m going to try to do what the wisdom literature of the Bible does, i.e., teach you specifically about how you can be absolutely sure that you mess up you life.

We’ll look at two chapters in Ecclesiastes written hundreds of years ago to a culture very different from our own. But sometimes the text will seem like it was written for 21^st C SoCal. You may not know much about the book of Ecclesiastes but the writer, who may have been Solomon (so let’s just say he wrote it in this sermon), tells us about an intriguing research project he was conducting. He put the philosophies of life of his day to the test. He wanted to discover whether usual claims people made about how to live life make any sense. Unfortunately, to his distress, he tells us that his discoveries are universally negative. The phrase that goes through the book of Ecclesiastes is “meaningless” -- what most people live for is meaningless.

God doesn’t want us to live meaningless lives. But, Ecclesiastes 4-5 is clear that if we leave God out of our lives – and live for our careers, our own success, and our possessions (the way most people seem to be living) – we will most certainly waste our lives. To teach us, Solomon tells three stories of three people and asks us whether we see ourselves in them.

How To Waste Your Life: Three Stories

Cameo 1: Charging Charlie (the Lonely Workaholic) (4:4-8) The hope that we can work our way to successful living on our own .

In v. 8, we see a person working, working, working… Remember from my first sermon in this series from Genesis 1-2, that work is not a curse but a gift from God. We are made in God’s image and a part of that is that we have the ability to be productive. But, our ability to be productive might lead us to think that we don’t need God – that we can just “get things done” on our own without surrender to Him. And, when that happens, work can become our God. It’s a rotten and enslaving God. Work alone doesn’t work – if we will live well.

Putting Charging Charlie into the 21^st C, I see a young man just beginning a job somewhere on the lower rungs of the company. But he’s not going to stay there if he has anything to do about it. So he works non-stop. Probably, Charlie gives what seem to be good reasons for his obsession. “There aren’t many jobs out there!” “I have no choice!” “I’ve got to make partner in the firm.” But the real reason for Charlie’s obsession with work is zeroed in on in v. 4, i.e., “his envy of another”. Solomon says that people may say that there are many reasons that they think about success so much but that, often, the real motivation is self-centered: Charlie wants to stay prove himself to his parents or to his wife’s parents perhaps. He wants to succeed before his brother does or his wife’s old boyfriend does, etc.

Charlie says, “How does my brother buy that new 60” flat screen TV for the Super Bowl? I’ll find a way to get a 70” inch screen.” He says, “Why should my colleague get that promotion? I’ll do anything to get that promotion!” Most of us can see that kind of thinking inside ourselves, can’t we? The Bible points out that this coveting has no hope of bringing satisfaction. It is like “chasing after the wind” (v. 4).

Most of us know someone like Charlie. He has every minute of his time filled on his schedule book. He’s too busy to show up at his children’s music or sporting events. Too busy to serve in the life of the church. Too busy to visit a sick friend in the hospital. He invests 100% of his energy and ambition to get to the top of his career. The very ability to be productive entrusted to us by God in Genesis 1 has become the thing that wastes Charlie’s life. Ironic, isn’t it?

Charlie’s story is told in Hebrew poetry so v. 8b has a twist to it. The way I read the Hebrew is that Charlie refuses to let anyone – his children, wife or friends – break into his life and ask him why he is ruining his health and his relationships with his non-stop obsessive work pattern.

Solomon highlights that Charlie’s biggest problem is that he insists on going it alone. He seeks no advice. He won’t receive any correction. He has no time to bless or care for others. This man who is made in God’s image to find shalom in deep relationships -- has no relationships. He thinks he’ll never succeed if he lives any other way. The Bible tells us this is meaningless. It’s a sure way to waste your life.

Cameo 2: Big Cheese Bill (The Frustrated Executive) (4:13-16) The fragility of material success even if we achieve it.

This second story takes us to the top of the firm – to the king or to the boss. Solomon says “Let’s all pretend that you make it to the top of a big enterprise.” In Solomon’s world, that would have been the king. What would it be in your world? Pretend you get the position you dream of. Pretend Charging Charlie achieves what he is striving for. Then what? Does he have anything that lasts? In 5:14, Solomon says you will look behind you and see a younger, smarter and more energetic person wanting your job. And you know, deep down, that someday he, or someone like him, will get it. You may think, “But that person was a criminal. I deserve this position…” It won’t matter. People will want a change. V. 16 says it’s always been that way in this fallen world – and it always will be.

Having been in jobs with great job titles for so many years, I know this cameo is real to life. You might make it all the way from the hills of West Virginia to becoming the head of a great church in Southern CA but then what? Is that all that life is all about for a pastor – being in a big church? What if another church in the area is growing faster? If life is all about being successful – even in church life – then eventually a time will come when that successful role must be given up.

Any person who has gotten a wonderful position that you worked hard for – you know what Solomon means. You make it to the top – but you begin to doubt yourself: “Maybe time has passed me by.” “Maybe I’m not as sharp as I once was.” “Why isn’t this ‘being the big cheese’ as great as I thought it would be?”

History is full of stories of foolish leaders who thought that achieving a certain status would bring all they had been longing for but then realize – too late -- that it doesn’t. And what happens then? It is the same thing every time. They burn out or they grow tired of all the hours they put in. They may grow a little bit sloppy or complacent and the next thing you know the board says, “Let’s make a change.”

Does Solomon’s ancient text sound like it could be written in 2012? Of course, it does. V. 16 is incredibly true-to-life. What he says is this: What has happened to that old leader is going to happen to new leader as well. The history of the world is filled with the same story happening again and again. Solomon, the king, is teaching that real life is not to be found in achieving a position in life.

The Bible is declaring that success in this material world is fragile. If we live to achieve success, then our happiness won’t last long. In v. 16, Solomon says all this striving is like chasing the wind. Have you ever dropped a ten dollar bill in the wind and seen it blow away? In a rather undignified way you chase after it and try to keep it from blowing out of reach. Every time you get near it, it blows away. The Bible says that is exactly how foolish we are when we think that true life is found by rising to a certain status in life. Big Cheese Bill thinks that he can only be happy when he is the boss. So, he tries to hold on. But, it’s futile.

But, if you are wanting to learn how to waste your life today, dowhat the Middle Eastern dictators are doing and try to hold on to your power at any cost. It won’t last. Charging Charlie didn’t find real life by making the pursuit of success his god. Big Boss Bill won’t find it by thinking he has to be the king. And, you and I should learn from them. Finding life through those efforts will prove to be as difficult as catching that ten dollar bill that is blowing away. At the end of your pursuit what you will see in your hand is something no more substantial than the wind.

Cameo 3: Idealistic Irene (The Self-deceived Promise-maker): The folly of thinking we can be different on our Own (5:8-17).

V.8. Irene is a bit more complex. As a young idealistic person, she is shocked when she sees the poverty and injustice in the world. She thinks, “If I could get into power, I would be different.” “If only I could become the state official, the boss, or win the lottery, then I would care for the poor, I would give to the church and I would get involved in mentoring kids… If I only had…, then…”

In her youthful idealism, Irene believes that she would serve others and seek to help hurting people in the community if only she had the resources or if only she had the official authority to do so. She thinks she’s different. She thinks she can do it on her own. She thinks, “Others are self-centered – but not me.”

As in the other cameos, Solomon goes into our inner hearts and shows us why we have endless stories in our world of young people protesting the evils of the world at one point in their lives. Then, years later, they are into the establishment – doing the same things everyone else has done in the same ways everyone else has done them. I won’t delve deeply into how Solomon describes the problem in vv. 9-17 except to tell you that he sees two issues. The first relates to the fallen systems of our world. To get to a place of power, we find we must fit in – we have to do what the other officials are doing. See vv. 9-10: “One official eyes another one and does what is necessary to make things work.” So, compromise and competition seem to be essential to success. All the while, the king (or the corporation of the institution) has to be profitable too. In a few years, Idealistic Irene who was once shocked by poverty and injustice doesn’t see it anymore.

And, it’s not just the systems that messed up. Irene also is a fallen creature. She wants more and begins to think that having more will satisfy. See v. 10. Eventually, she is right where Charging Charlie was – working hard but not able to sleep (v. 12). She is where Big Cheese Bill was – holding on to the position she has worked so long to achieve. Her idealism has been lost -- and she is frustrated. Vv. 16-17.

In his twentieth century play, Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett paints a graphic portrait of a success-centered life. A child is born as a woman is standing over a tomb. The child comes out of the darkness of the womb, is briefly in the light only to descend into the darkness of the grave. Beckett says that as we come into the world so we depart. What sense does life make if this material world is all there is? Beckett affirms what the writer of Ecclesiastes is saying. The only difference is that Beckett doesn’t see a way out.

But, God does. God made us and knows the way out of these destructive patterns. What most people live for is chasing after wind – but God is ready to give us a life that is not wasted. Solomon gives us some beginning steps to living lives that are not wasted. In these three stories, Solomon has deliberately taken on the worldview people who do not have God in the center of their lives. Solomon wants us to know that work is good. Having a good job title is something to thank God for. Having possessions that bring you joy is a blessing. But, those things dare never be put in the wrong place in our lives.

His counsel takes us back to Genesis 1-3 and to the relationships for which we were made. We live well when we are in right relationship to people (for it is not good for a man to be alone), to God (who alone is God) and to the world that we are to care for – not to live for. Let me show it to you from Ecclesiastes.

How Not to Waste Your Life: Three Essential Relationships

#1: Personal Relationships with People (4:9-12)

Charging Charlie lived for work and distanced himself from people. And, as we read in Gen. 2, it is not good for us to be alone because we are made in the image of a God who has always existed in relationship – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God has made himself known to us as our father and our friend. When we find human friendship we are finding an echo of that identity.

Eccl. 4:9-12 is a beautiful and healing passage. God wants us to know that as important as it is for us to be productive, it is not so important that it damages to our relationships.

Solomon points out in 4:8 that, if there is one thing worse than being a materialist, it’s being a lonely materialist. That is why Charging Charlie is such a tragic individual. He had spent all of his time at work and had little time for friendships or with family. And at the end he had no enjoyment of any of it. I’m sure there were people around him but, of course, we can be so obsessed with our work that we ignore those around us. Whatever our work may be, we have the opportunity to collaborate with those around us – bless those we’re working with. Solomon says that relationships can turn work into a partnership -- of people doing things together.

V.12 always leads to a lot of conversation. It’s very poetic. Solomon says that a one-stranded cord will snap – but a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. This can be applied in many ways. But the bottom line is that God want us to know about the humanizing influence that relationships can have on our lives and on those around us. All of us know that is true. When close relationships are broken nothing else is quite right. When our relationships are deep then we can handle many of the other struggles in life.

Solomon wants us to know that personal relationships can enrich our lives in a way that material success never can. So, if you see that you drive to succeed is doing harm to your marriage, distancing you from your children or your friends, or causing you to ignore or only compete with those you work alongside of, you are probably in danger.

#2: 5:1-7 Personal Relationship of Surrender to God (5:1-7)