Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Is the Point of Life? | My Favorite Verses | Ecclesiastes 1.2

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Tim Minut Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. My name is Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. We are currently exploring some of our favorite Bible verses and how they've changed our lives. Also, if you want to connect with us, follow us on Twitter at TMBT podcast. You can also check out our hashtag, hashtag, Ask TMBT, where you can ask us anything and we'd love to connect with you. What are your favorite Bible verses? I hope you've been asking that question, as we've been sharing with you, the verses that God is used in our life.

Starting point is 00:00:41 What are the verses that God is using to make you into the person, the man, the woman that he wants you to be? If you don't have any, it might just be a good reminder to open up your Bible, to read, because the Bible is filled with God-inspired truth. And it will speak to your heart. I promise, open it up. You'll be surprised at how relevant and practical the Bible is, how powerful it is, how much it gives you hope and security and perspective. Well, today I'm going to share with you a verse that I bet you think is a weird one, at least weird to be on my list of favorite Bible verses. But let me set it up with this. I always ask myself the question, what is the point of life?

Starting point is 00:01:27 because I've just always been fascinated how people, including myself, get up, go to work, come home, do it all again the next day, rinse, repeat. And this is true on a micro level, meaning just kind of my life, an individual life, or the macro level, just kind of the big picture of humanity. You know, we're born, we're in diapers, we go to school, we go to work, we have a family, we retire, and you go back into diapers and die. And then it happens all over again. In other words, another generation comes after the last generation. But what's the point of any of it? Is life going anywhere? If I asked you, will you be on this committee to serve our community?

Starting point is 00:02:07 My guess is you'd say, well, what is the committee? Like, what's the point? What's the goal? And if I couldn't answer that in a persuasive way, you'd probably say, I'll pass. The last thing I need to do is spend my time being on a committee that nobody really knows what the point of it is. but if I ask you what's the point of your life my guess is you don't have a great answer so you won't be on a committee because it's a waste of time to be on a committee with no point but you live your life day to day you do a lot of stuff and you're not sure what the point is well that takes me to this

Starting point is 00:02:42 verse a weird bible verse to be among my favorites but here we go ecclesiastes chapter one verse two Meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher. Utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless. I told you it was weird. Now, that word meaningless in Hebrew, it's a hard word to translate into English. And I'm not sure meaningless is the right translation. Meaningless sounds like pointless, and I don't think that's quite what Ecclesiast is saying.

Starting point is 00:03:14 Some versions put in vanity, so vanity, vanity, utter vanity. But that sounds like pride. Like, you know, that song, you're so vain. You probably think this song is about you. That's not what this means. It's more like life is smoke. Life is a breath, a vapor. It's real, but it's hard to grasp.

Starting point is 00:03:33 It's temporary. Life is an enigma. It's not what you expect. It doesn't quite make sense. And what Ecclesiastes is doing is kind of using shock tactics, shock therapy, to wake us up out of our slumber and sleep, our delusions that we have life figured out and get us to think hard about what is the point of life? And in this verse, he's saying, look, life is kind of like a fog. It's kind of like your breath on a cold day. It's real, but it comes and it goes. It's hard to get a

Starting point is 00:04:07 hold of. Proverbs 31.30 says, charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting. And that word fleeting is the same Hebrew word that was translated meaningless in Ecclesiastes. Life is elusive. It's fleeting. You think you have things figured out. You think you're in control, but you're not and you don't have anything figured out. Life is weird. You know, it hasn't rained for a month, but then it rains on the day of your wedding. Whatever line you pick at the grocery store, it's always the slow line. Or on more serious level, why do some people have an easier life than others? Why do good people suffer or die young, and some people who are jerks live long and have a prosperous life. Life is hard to figure out.

Starting point is 00:04:54 Ever make a list of the things that you control in your life? You should try it. Just write down everything you control in your life. And you'll find that there's not much, maybe nothing. You don't control your health or your job or politics. You don't control your kids or car wrecks. Not much at all. Life is outside of my control.

Starting point is 00:05:13 It's elusive. It comes and it goes. The next verse says, what do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Well, that's another good question, isn't it? I mean, you're busy, busy, busy, but what exactly do you have to show for your work? What exactly did you do today? What did you get done this week? People have a hard time answering that question.

Starting point is 00:05:38 Verse four, generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. Who is it that you know and your family and says? I'm guessing you know your grandparents, your great-grandparents, maybe. Your great-great-grandparents, I doubt it. And if you know anything beyond that, you must be a Mormon, right? I mean, you don't know the name, much less the education, the occupation, or much about the details of the life of your own family. So do you think in a few years, a few decades, anybody's going to really remember you or me? Probably not. If we don't remember our ancestors, I doubt that people will remember us when we are their ancestors. Verse 8, all things are wearisome, more than one can say.

Starting point is 00:06:29 The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear it's full of hearing. You know, the eye and the ear, they can always take in more. Human beings never say, hey, this is it. I've had enough. I am full, I am content. I am happy. No, instead, we're always trying to get more of something, more wealth, more fame, more success. Tom York was the front man for the band Radiohead. He was being interviewed. Very successful band, by the way, if you're not familiar with it. But here's what he said. He said, I thought when I got to where I wanted to be, everything would be different. I'd be somewhere else. I thought it'd be all white, fluffy clouds. And then I got there, and I'm still here. And so the person interviewing, him said, well, why in the end have you done what you've done? And York says, well, it's filling that hole. That's all anyone does. And so then he's asked, well, what happens to the hole? And after a long pause, Tom York says, it's still there. Do you get it? Do you get what he's saying? Everything I'm doing is to fill this hole and yet the hole is never filled. Maybe you're not into music. Maybe you're

Starting point is 00:07:39 into sports, and so you're familiar with Kevin Durant, the NBA superstar. And after his team won the NBA championship, the next season, Durant had a lot of technical fouls, ejections, and he was asked about it. You know, why this spike in technical fouls? And Durant said, it's just my emotions and passion for the game. After winning that championship, I learned that much hadn't changed. I thought it would fill a certain void. It didn't.

Starting point is 00:08:06 Tom York, Kevin Durant, in different fields. and yet they experienced the same thing. I got to the top. I got to everything I hoped, and it really didn't fill the hole that's in my heart. I think that's what Ecclesiastes is saying when it says, meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless, everything is elusive, life is hard to figure out,

Starting point is 00:08:26 it's not what you think it's going to be. And so where do you have an anchor? Where do you start? And weirdly enough, I think the book of Ecclesiastes, and this is echoed by other books of the Bible. It says to start at the end of your life and then work backwards. Start with this fact. You're going to die.

Starting point is 00:08:48 Psalm 103. The life of mortals is like grass. They flourish like a flower over the field. The wind blows over it and it is gone and its place remembers it no more. A life of wisdom starts with accepting your own mortality. But we don't like to think about that. So we play games to get the truth out of our mind. And one of the games we play is called Let's Pretend.

Starting point is 00:09:14 Let's pretend that if we change the city we live in, we won't be bored. Let's pretend that if we get married or have kids, we'll be content. Let's pretend that if we build a house, we won't need to move again. Let's pretend that next month will slow down and we'll get back to our priorities. Ecclesiastes says, look, stop playing now. that game, stop thinking that meaning and happiness and satisfaction, that all that kind of stuff is finding something new and different. Stop pretending that you have things figured out, that you are in control of your life. Start with this fact that you are going to die. And now live your life

Starting point is 00:09:54 backwards in light of that truth. Live your life in a way so that you'll be happy when you die. You'll be happy with the life you lived, however long or short it is. There's an app called We Croke. We, W-E-C-R-O-A-K, we croak, like we die. And five times a day, if you get this app, five times a day, it sends you this message. Don't forget you're going to die. And so this app, it was inspired by a folk saying from the people who live in Bhutan. It's a country in Asia. And the saying is this, to be a truly happy person, one must contemplate death five times. daily. See, we believe that everyone dies, but we're unsure that we'll die. I mean, of course, we know we're going to die. It's just that we don't live like we're going to die. We live like we're going to live forever. So this app sends you this reminder five times a day that you're going to die because the thought is that if we can get that into our head, we can now start living our life in light of this truth. One day, probably sooner than we expect, we will stand before

Starting point is 00:11:05 God. We'll give an account of our life. That our life here has meaning and purpose and significance in light of the fact that we are living it for God under God's authority and that God's kingdom is going to come and reign on earth. And so the things that we do here matter, not just now, but they matter because eternity is real. People are immortal. Everyone will be raised from the dead, either to life or to death. So while everything might seem meaningless, it's really not. Because of God, because of eternity, our life is full of meaning. There's hope, their purpose, their value, because this life isn't all there is. Every person is made in the image of God and will live forever, either in the joy of his presence or the anguish of his absence.

Starting point is 00:11:58 So this is why Ecclesiastes 1-2 is one of my favorite verses. Because it tells me that as much as my circumstances around me scream that life is pointless, it's just not true. Under God's authority, in light of God's eternity, because of God's purposes, my life does have meaning. And I want to live it in a way that pleases him. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily.

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Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Is the Point of Life? | My Favorite Verses | Ecclesiastes 1.2

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