It’s Groundhog Day - Again!
Ecclesiastes 1:1-4, 8-11 Victory Fellowship
January 21, 2024 - Rev. Roderick Grabski
I. Introduction: The Movie, Groundhog Day (1993)
a. The character, Phil Connors (Bill Murray), tries all kinds of things in his quest for meaning to his monotonous existence. (maybe for 3 decades)
b. Phil does not wake up on Feb. 3rd until he reaches contentment in his current circumstances.
c. I don’t know about you but I have lived times of quiet desperation. Where everyday day was wake up, get ready, go to work, come home, eat, sleep, wake up – and do it all again my friend.
d. Without a purpose or meaning to life, it’s futile.
e. That’s the point of Solomon’s book.
II. Relating the Text: Pursuing life apart from God.
a. For Solomon, life is meaningless if we pursue it simply for selfish gain.
b. All of our labor is like what Phil Connors experienced, its groundhog day – again!
c. Pursing life on our own terms produces nothing new under the sun - by way of human experience.
i. (wedding proposal through the centuries)
ii. How many times has someone said, if I only get my license, get married, have a family, get an education, get a better job, etc. THEN it will be better.
d. The stark reality of the human condition is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Since the time of Adam and Eve, the human race is still the same bunch of sinners and nothing we have done really makes a difference.
III. Pursuing life with God.
a. The human condition I bleak if Solomon is right in the beginning of his writing. In fact, many theists love to quote Ecclesiastes out of context because of its vapid references to like. They haven’t read the whole book.
b. Solomon employs the same tactic that I believe Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount. When they are done the response of the reader/hearer is, “well then, who can stand?” That’s the point. Apart from God, no one can stand. There is no one who is righteous, no not one.
c. Solomon waits for the last chapter to deliver his main point:
12:13-14 The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.
IV. Application:
a. Mark 8:34-36 records Jesus’ words,
And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?
V. Conclusion:
a. We can be like Phil Connors and try to make sense of our life and existence on our own terms. Those of us who have gone that route know full well it’s futility.
b. Or we can understand that God is in our story. He created us for this time and for a purpose.
PRAYER
SONG: God is in This Story
Ecclesiastes 1:1-4, 8-11 HCSB 1:1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem. 2 “Absolute futility,” says the Teacher. “Absolute futility. Everything is futile.” 3 What does a man gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun? 4 A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever…8 All things are wearisome; man is unable to speak. The eye is not satisfied by seeing or the ear filled with hearing. 9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Can one say about anything, “Look, this is new”? It has already existed in the ages before us. 11 There is no remembrance of those who came before; and of those who will come after there will also be no remembrance by those who follow them.
