For those of us who are saved, those aren't really the stats that are going to matter
either for us.
It's going to be spiritual things about our lives that matter.
We need to keep that in mind because as Christians, it's easy for us to get caught up in the world
system and start wanting to live the way they live, where it's all about money, it's all
about the trophy wife, it's all about the fancy house, it's all about athletic achievements,
it's all about fame and fortune and popularity and all these things.
But you know what?
If you live your life that way as a Christian, then your earthly life ceases to have very
much meaning.
The more you do for the Lord, the more meaning your life has.
Because it's only what comes after our death that matters.
That's why he says, and look, this isn't just my philosophy.
This is what the Bible is teaching in Ecclesiastes chapter 6.
I mean, he's putting it out there in black and white, he's saying, look, you can live
for 2,000 years or you can live for 20 minutes and it doesn't matter.
You could have 100 children.
Your life is still meaningless.
Is that not what he said?
It's vanity.
It means nothing.
You could be this great king.
And you know what?
If it were not for the Bible, no one would know who King Solomon is.
No one would care.
You realize that?
Solomon was a pretty powerful king.
He had a lot of power.
But you know what?
If it weren't for the Bible, no one would know who he is.
You know how I know that?
Because how many sources, how many historical sources are there for King Solomon outside
of the Bible?
Can somebody tell me that?
How many literary sources are there from a thousand B.C. that tell us about King Solomon?
Can we read about, can the Egyptians tell us about it?
Oh, there's this guy Solomon up in Israel and man, he's cool.
I mean, are the Babylonians telling us about him or the Assyrians telling us about him?
You know, are the ancient Greeks, are the ancient Greeks writing about him and the Iliad
and the Odyssey?
No, there's zero.
Because you know what?
If it weren't for the Bible, no one would know who he is even though he had 700 wives
and 300 concubines and tons of money and peacocks and apes and the guy partied.
And he had all this wealth, all this power, all this fame and the fame of his wisdom went
abroad into all the world, but yet no literary sources outside the Bible.
You know why?
Because there were just very few literary sources from that time period, period.
And so I guarantee you that there were all kinds of maharajahs over in India that had
all kinds of power and wealth and in their day they were the coolest dude.
And I guarantee you that in Ethiopia you had all kinds of great rulers and wealthy people
down there.
I mean think about the Ethiopians showed up at judo with a, you want to talk about a million
man march?
The Ethiopians marched 1.1 million.
They said, "I see your million man march and I'll raise you 100,000."
Because 1.1 million Ethiopians marched on the people of God.
That's a powerful nation.
That's a powerful empire, right?
How much do we know about it?
Very little.
You know, can we name the kings and the rulers and the leaders and the movers and the shakers?
No.
We can go on and on, we can talk about all different other civilizations where even the
greatest people are totally forgotten and don't matter.
So here's the thing.
Let me ask you this.
What's the difference between the top dog in Ethiopia and the lowest slave in Ethiopia?
I'm talking about back in the heyday when they're sending 1.1 million troops into Judah.
Let me ask you this.
What's the difference now in 2021 in famousness?
Because they're both zero.
Everybody understand?
Enough time goes by and everybody's fame approaches zero.
Someday no one will know who Donald Trump is.
Someday no one will know who Joe Biden is.
He already isn't sure who he is.
But someday the people around him won't even know.
You know, these people will all be forgotten.
They're not going to matter.
Only that which comes after death matters.
That's not the way we think, is it?
That's not how we think.
And you remember Absalom, you know, he's going to put up a pillar so that people remember
me after I'm gone?
There's that pillar today.
The only reason anybody remembers you is because you're in the Bible as a bad guy, as a villain.
But otherwise no one would remember you, Absalom.
No one would care.
And I wonder how many other people erected great pillars and monuments and pyramids and
statues and somebody just finds some gnarly statue with its nose broken off and they're
just like, "This is a guy."
"Yes!
I made it into 2021!"
No, you didn't.
Your life is meaningless.
But thank God our life's not meaningless.
My life has meaning every single day.
And you know what?
We don't believe in some impersonal God who's distant.
He's not a God that's far off.
He's a God that's nigh at hand.
And He knows every thought that I think and He cares about my life.
He cares about my problems.
He cares about my thoughts.
Every hair in my head is numbered.
He says in Ecclesiastes 6 verse 7, "All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the
appetite is not filled," again, this is the same thing we've been talking about for the
last five chapters.
"For what hath the wise man more than the fool?
What hath the poor that knoweth to walk before the living?
Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire.
This is also vanity and vexation of spirit."
It's like, man, but you know, the sight of the eyes is better than the wandering of the
desire.
But guess what?
They're both meaningless.
Because everything's meaningless.
"That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man.
Neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he.
Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the better?
For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which
he spendeth as a shadow?
For who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?"
Let me boil this down for you very carefully what he says in these last couple of verses.
Don't miss what he's saying.
He's saying, "I want to figure out how to live my life in such a way that my life is
going to matter after I'm gone."
And he's saying, "I don't know how to do that because I don't know what the future is going
to be like.
I don't know what they're going to care about.
I don't know what's going to matter.
How can I make sure that my life matters after I die?"
That's what he's saying.
"But I don't know the future so I don't know."
Now thankfully he played his cards right and he mattered because we're here talking about
it today.
But that's only because he was with the Lord, he followed the Lord.
He's in the Bible.
But that's what he's saying here in this verse.
Read it carefully.
Pay attention.
He says, "It is good for a man in this life, all the days of his vain life, which he spent
it as a shadow, for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?"
What did he start out talking about in the chapter?
After you die, nobody buries you.
Ah, man.
What a shame, right?
And then it's like, okay, well maybe if I just have a lot of children.
I mean, if I just have a hundred children, somebody's going to keep my name alive?
Nope.
Because plenty of people throughout history have had a hundred children and nobody knows
who they were or why they mattered.
And so he's saying, "What can I do to make sure that my life matters after I'm dead?"
And there's only one right answer to this.
You have to serve the Lord with your life, win someone to Christ and no one can ever
take that away from you and your fame will last eternally.
The Bible says, and we'll close on this, go to Daniel chapter 12.
Let's close on something positive since this is kind of a downer of a chapter.
Let's go to Daniel chapter 12.
Solomon's really worried about his legacy.
I've lived this life, I've accomplished great things, but I want it to matter after I'm
gone.
But I don't know how to do that.
I mean, think about this.
Think about how little literature survived from the ancient world.
I'll bet there were all kinds of great other poems and stories and books that were written,
but only a couple survived, right?
It's like, man, how do you make the cut?
You're in 800 BC, ancient Greece, it was pretty much the Iliad and the Odyssey survived.
It's like, how do you make that cut?
There were lots of other poems.
You know what?
A lot of it's just chance.
A lot of it's because the best stuff ends up getting preserved.
You think about a book like Beowulf.
Beowulf has written approximately 1,000 AD, and there's only one manuscript of it, and
it was almost burned up in a fire in the 1800s.
One manuscript.
Wouldn't it have been pretty easy for that one manuscript to have just been destroyed?
But yet, today, that's like the big example of Old English literature.
Anybody who studies Old English, that's what they are studying.
That's what they're thinking about.
That's the big one.
Beowulf.
But it's like an accident that it even survived.
And there were probably hundreds of other stories and poems that might have even been
much better that just didn't make it just because they didn't make it.
So Solomon's saying, "I don't know what's going to come after me, so it's like how do
I live my life?
What do I do so that my life matters?"
We know the answer to that as Christians, don't we?
And he gets to the answer by the end of things.
We're only in chapter 6.
But look at Daniel chapter 12, it says in verse 2, "And many of them that sleep in the dust
of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many
to righteousness as the stars forever and ever."
So if we win souls unto Christ, if we turn many unto righteousness, because the Bible
says he that wins souls is wise, and the Bible says the wise shall shine as the brightness
of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.
If you win people to Christ, if you are a preacher of righteousness like Noah, if you
stand up for what's right and live right and follow Christ, you will shine like the stars
forever and ever.
Unlike the so-called Hollywood stars, they're not going to shine forever.
You know what they are?
They're just like a little like shooting star, right, it's like boom, and it's over.
I mean think about it, a shooting star you blink and you miss it.
That's the way these Hollywood stars are.
I mean I'd like to ask our teenagers, teenagers, will you name for me some of the big actresses
from the 20s?
What about you young guys, in the 30s?
Who were those really hot actresses from the 30s guys, huh?
The stars, the big names, how about the dudes?
Who were they?
Who was the top?
Who were some of the top?
You got something?
Frank Sinatra?
Nope.
Frank Sinatra was still coming out with music when I was a teenager buddy, alright?
So that hurts.
But yeah, I mean I don't know, maybe he does go back that far.
Does anybody know?
40s?
You were close.
Alright, you did good.
Alright.
But I didn't say 40s, did I?
I guess I did.
But you know what, the point remains.
We got a big Sinatra fan over here.
No, I'm just kidding.
Just kidding.
But you know what?
The point remains that the only way to truly have glory that lasts and a legacy that matters
is to serve the Lord.
And that's what I take from this chapter more than anything else.
That's how it starts.
That's how it ends.
Ecclesiastes 6 is telling me that only what comes after death matters.
So what kind of treasures am I laying up in heaven?
What kind of eternal glory am I investing in now?
That's all that matters.
Let's pray.
Let's have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for giving us something to do with our lives that matters,
Lord.
Otherwise, man, this would be a depressing book.
Reading Ecclesiastes about how meaningless everything is and how nothing satisfies, it'd
be super depressing.
But Lord, thank you so much that you sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins
and suffer just an incredible, unspeakable amount of suffering, Lord, for us so that
we could actually have meaning and purpose in our lives and so that we could have eternal
life and not only eternal life but eternal glory, Lord.
Help us to work hard on things that actually matter in our brief little sojourn on this
earth, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray.