Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 What Does Man Gain?

What Does Man Gain?

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

I have made a mistake choosing this book to work through and preach from.

It is not pretty, nor nice, nor clean, nor easy. Ecclesiastes is a work of wisdom and the conclusions of research that will smash any worldview that runs counter to it. In that way, it is a good thing to do and fitting for us. The repeated warnings given to Israel in the wilderness and the Promised Land concerning idols were not to clean them up, manage them, or place them somewhere less visible. They were to smash them.

Most idols in our age are not physical statues established with worship at a central location. They are ideological. They are ideas about what makes a life worth living. They are the things we believe will finally make us content, fulfilled, secure, respected, or remembered. They are the things that shape the efforts we make and the lives we live.

Ecclesiastes begins undressing those false beliefs wherever they may lie. It does not leave us much room to hide behind the things we have built, the things we have gained, or the things we are still chasing. But it does not leave us without hope. It forces us to place our hope in what has been revealed and made known to us through the gospel of Christ.

The Author

The book opens simply: “The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem” (Ecclesiastes 1:1).

The author calls himself Qoheleth. It is commonly translated as teacher or preacher. The word carries the idea of someone gathering people together and sharing what has been collected, learned, and observed. He is not giving a passing thought. He is laying out what he has found after looking carefully at life.

He also tells us he is the son of David and king in Jerusalem. That information matters. His status and position were appointed by God. He was not simply an observer watching the world from outside. He held a position that nearly every man would covet. He had access to power, wealth, status, knowledge, influence, pleasure, and accomplishment at a level most people will never touch.

There is not a clear academic consensus that King Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes. I do not share that conclusion, but I also do not want to pretend the tension is not there. Confidence and trust matter, so we should not shy away from difficult or uncomfortable things simply because they are difficult or uncomfortable.

Still, the traditional understanding that these words come from Solomon gives the opening of Ecclesiastes a particular kind of force. We know from Scripture that Solomon was not perfect. He loved the Lord and walked in the statutes of David, but he also sacrificed at the high places. His life had twists and turns, moments of faithfulness and moments where his sin became destructive (1 Kings 3:3-4).

When God appeared to Solomon at Gibeon and told him to ask for what he wanted, Solomon asked for wisdom to govern God’s people rightly. God gave him what he asked for, but he also gave him riches and honor beyond what he requested. God said no other king would compare to him all his days (1 Kings 3:5-14).

Solomon was not born with hidden knowledge that made him uniquely special while the rest of us had no hope of reaching his understanding. Wisdom was given to him by God. He grew in it as he lived, ruled, failed, learned, and experienced the weight of leading Israel. After God spoke to him, Solomon went to Jerusalem, stood before the Ark of the Covenant, and worshiped appropriately before the Lord (1 Kings 3:15).

That is why the words that follow are not the complaint of a man who never had his chance. They are the conclusion of a king who had access to nearly every road we believe will lead to fulfillment. He had power. He had pleasure. He had access. He had status. He was chosen and appointed by God. He had the ability to gain whatever most people would desire in this life.

And after walking those roads, he asks, “What does man gain?”

His Opening Verdict

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3).

This is his thesis. It is the central statement that governs what he is about to say. He gives the verdict before he starts laying out the evidence.

Vanity does not mean that nothing exists or that nothing is real. A house is real. A meal is real. A marriage is real. Work is real. Accomplishment is real. A name can be known for a time. The problem is that none of those things can be held forever, stored away, secured for all time, or contained in our personal ownership.

That is what vanity is doing here. It is something that is there, but cannot finally be grasped and kept.

The same is true with gain. Solomon is not asking whether people can acquire things. People acquire houses, land, money, accomplishments, titles, businesses, trophies, and influence every day. His question is whether anything we acquire can remain forever in our actual possession. Can it be secured against time, loss, decay, death, and the next generation?

That is what he is asking. What do we gain that can finally be kept?

His answer is brutal. Nothing under the sun can give us that kind of gain. Nothing in this life can be made into the final product of what we are looking for. Nothing can be built that allows us to say we have finally achieved the magnum opus of what life can provide.

That is a smack in the face to every worldview that promises a point of completion. It confronts every system that says, “Once you have this, you will be whole.” It confronts the idea that there is some finish line under the sun where we finally arrive and can rest in what we have made for ourselves.

There is no finish line like that in this life as we know it.

If the thought rushes into our minds, “But I have obtained this,” or, “I do own this,” or, “I have achieved this,” Solomon would tell us that we simply have not yet reached the point where it begins slipping through our fingers like dry sand. He has already told us that it is inevitable, no matter what we do to secure it.

Jesus tells a similar story when a man asks him to settle an inheritance dispute. Jesus warns him to guard against covetousness because life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. He then tells of a rich man who built bigger barns to store his goods and believed he had secured himself for many years. Yet God required his life that very night and asked, “Whose will they be?” (Luke 12:13-21).

The rich man had possessions. He had storage. He had plans. He had a future worked out in his own mind. But he did not have lasting gain.

That is the question Ecclesiastes places in front of us. What can you build that death cannot take? What can you own that time cannot loosen from your hands? What can you achieve that will finally make you whole?

The Opening Statement of His Defense

After making such an abrasive and overwhelming claim, the Preacher immediately begins laying out his case. He gives evidence as if he is arguing beyond a reasonable doubt.

He starts with the created order.

A generation goes and another comes, but the earth remains. The sun rises and goes down, then hurries back to where it rises again. The wind blows south, circles north, and comes around again. Streams run into the sea, but the sea is not full. They return to the place they came from and run again (Ecclesiastes 1:4-7).

He points to systems and cycles over which no person has control. The sun has risen and set every day. The wind has moved through its patterns season after season. Streams have always run to the sea. The sea keeps receiving water, but it never becomes permanently full.

There is constant movement. There is constant receiving. There is constant activity. But there is no final arrival.

Then the Preacher brings our eyes down from creation to ourselves. “All things are full of weariness. A man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing” (Ecclesiastes 1:8).

Just as the sea has never been filled even though water has always run to it, the same is true of our hearts, passions, and desires. We feed them, but we never finally fill the bottle.

The eye sees something and wants to see more. The ear hears something and wants to hear more. We experience something, enjoy it for a moment, and then look for the next thing. No meal has ever satisfied our hunger for tomorrow. No cup of water this morning has quenched the thirst we will have tonight.

There is something in us that keeps reaching. The problem is not that all desire is evil. Hunger is not evil. Thirst is not evil. Work is not evil. Beauty is not evil. Pleasure is not evil. The problem is that we ask things inside creation to give us what only God can give.

We keep putting batteries into the same thing trying to keep it going. We keep feeding desires that cannot become final fulfillment. We keep looking for something under the sun that can provide a conclusion to the hunger within us.

But it cannot.

Something More Has Been Revealed

This is where the gospel becomes necessary. Ecclesiastes exposes the hunger, but Christ tells us where hunger is actually answered.

After forty days of fasting in the wilderness, Jesus was hungry. Satan tempted him to turn stones into bread, but Jesus answered that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:1-4).

Jesus was not denying that bread matters. He was hungry. Bread is good. But bread is not enough. It cannot become the final source of life. It cannot give what only God can give.

Later, after feeding the crowds, Jesus told the people not to work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life. Then he told them plainly, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:25-35).

Christ is not another temporary activity under the sun. He is not another product, philosophy, achievement, or salve for the same old sickness. He is the one who gives what the world cannot create for itself.

The world can give bread that perishes. Christ gives life that does not perish.

The world can give something that satisfies for a moment. Christ gives the answer to the hunger underneath all of our chasing.

This does not mean believers never get physically hungry, thirsty, tired, discouraged, or disappointed. It means the deepest need of humanity is not met by finally receiving enough from creation. It is met by receiving Christ.

The Cycle of Life

The Preacher continues his argument. “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

There will always be the claim, “But we have not tried this!” But as humanity, we have. Maybe it is in a different color. Maybe it is dressed in a different style. Maybe it comes through new technology, a new ideology, a new form of entertainment, a new way to make money, a new way to be known, or a new way to chase happiness.

But the problem underneath it has not changed.

We keep looking for medicine for the same sickness. We keep looking for bread for the same hunger. We keep looking for water for the same thirst. There may be new activities and new methods, but they are all attempts to solve the same problem. The activity changes. The symptom changes. The temporary salve changes. But the underlying condition remains.

There are new ways to chase the answer, but there is no new answer under the sun.

The Preacher then adds another layer. “There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after” (Ecclesiastes 1:11).

Our work, our endeavors, our achievements, and our status will not be remembered forever. Even the things that are touched and celebrated in this life will eventually fall out of the minds of those who come after us.

People do not know every king, general, wealthy person, athlete, musician, inventor, business owner, or public figure who was once known in their own generation. There were people who stood at the height of their field, who were respected by everyone around them, who had rooms change when they entered, and whose names were once spoken with weight. Most of us could walk past their graves and have no idea who they were.

The common encouragement of our generation is to achieve greatness and be remembered forever as the best. But that has been a lie from the beginning. Even if and when someone achieves that kind of greatness, the next generation does not enter the world with their name prepopulated in their minds. They do not automatically care. They are busy chasing the things being placed in front of them as new.

This is not only speaking against the things we know are sinful. It is speaking to the good things we take and ask to become ultimate things.

A man may spend his entire life doing work that is helpful, difficult, and important. He may accomplish something that benefits thousands of people. Yet when the work is done, he may still look at it and say, “My life’s work means nothing.” Not because the work itself was evil, but because it was never capable of becoming the final source of meaning, identity, or fulfillment that he asked it to be.

Think of an athlete or businessman who has worked their entire life to become the best in their field. They sacrificed time, comfort, relationships, and effort to reach a place few people ever will. Then someone hears about the accomplishment and says, “I do not care. That means nothing to me.”

The offense they would feel reveals something in us. We do not simply want to accomplish things. We want those things to matter. We want our sacrifice to be seen. We want our work to be remembered. We want what we have done to establish that our lives were worth something.

But even if the crowd applauds, even if the world remembers for a moment, it cannot make the achievement permanent. It cannot stop death. It cannot secure our name. It cannot fill what was made to be filled by communion with God.

Good things are still good things. But they are terrible gods.

Work done to build our own name will eventually fail us. Work done for Christ is different. It is not secured because we own it or because people will remember it. It is secured because the Father sees it, Christ receives it, and his reward does not decay.

Is There an End in Sight?

If we are in a cycle that cannot be broken, altered, or changed, and every generation before us, our own generation, and every generation after us keeps doing the same things, does the chain ever become unbroken?

Yes.

At the return of Christ.

Jesus says heaven and earth will pass away, but his words will not pass away. He also warns that no one knows the day or the hour of his coming. People will continue living ordinary lives, eating, drinking, marrying, and carrying on as they always have, until the coming of the Son of Man (Matthew 24:34-39).

Christ is King now. His kingdom is present among his people in shadow and promise. But we do not yet have the kingdom in its final fullness. We are still living under the sun. We are still living in a world marked by sin, loss, death, decay, and desires that created things cannot finally satisfy.

But Christ is coming. The present order is not the final order. The things that feel unbreakable now will not remain unbreakable forever.

There, fulfillment will be had. There, those who believed will be remembered.

Jesus speaks to the church in Sardis and warns those with a reputation for life who are spiritually dead. He calls them to wake up, remember what they received, keep it, and repent. Yet he also promises that the one who conquers will be clothed in white, will never have their name blotted out of the book of life, and will be confessed by Christ before the Father and the angels (Revelation 3:1-6).

That is more than being famous forever. That is more than having a name remembered by people who may not care. It is being known by Christ, kept by Christ, named as his own, and confessed by him before the Father.

Under the sun, names fade. In Christ, his people are not forgotten.

Under the sun, work cannot become permanent possession. In Christ, faithful labor is not lost because the Father remembers.

Under the sun, every desire eventually reaches something it cannot hold. In Christ, communion with God is restored and the hunger that creation could never fill reaches its true home.

Conclusion

We cannot gain anything under the sun that can be secured forever.

Earth and human history display that fulfillment cannot be found in the things we chase inside creation. The sun rises and sets. The wind turns. The streams run. The sea is not full. The eye is not satisfied. The ear is not filled. Every generation tries again, but every generation eventually loses what it tried to keep.

We cannot build enough, achieve enough, own enough, experience enough, or be remembered enough to make ourselves whole.

But the kingdom of Christ is coming.

What toil cannot produce, Christ gives. What death cannot preserve, Christ keeps. What time would erase, Christ remembers.

Fullness is not found under the sun. Fullness is found in the coming kingdom of Christ.

Scripture References

• 1 Kings 3:3-15 — God gives Solomon wisdom, riches, and honor after he asks for understanding to lead Israel rightly.
• Luke 12:13-21 — Jesus warns that life is not found in possessions and tells of a rich man who could not keep what he stored up.
• Matthew 4:1-4 — Jesus teaches that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God.
• John 6:25-35 — Jesus reveals himself as the bread of life, the one who gives what temporary food never can.
• Matthew 24:34-39 — Jesus teaches that heaven and earth will pass away, and that his return will come when many are carrying on as normal.
• Revelation 3:1-6 — Jesus calls Sardis to wake up and promises that those who conquer will not have their names blotted out of the book of life.