So often people are coming to biblical counselors with worry, anxiety, past trauma, or present sin. No matter what they bring to their counselors, they are all looking for satisfaction and contentment in a life lived in a world corrupted by sin. Ecclesiastes is a book that describes that world and helps us make a significant statement to those we counsel. If you want contentment living "under the sun" in this world, you must look beyond the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
The first statement that the "Preacher" makes about this world is that it is vanity. This can also mean that this world is meaningless, valueless, worthless. It is not that the Preacher is undermining God's glorious work of creation, but he is describing the affect that sin has brought ever since the fall of humanity. In this Genesis 3 world, our attempts at contentment and satisfaction in life can only fall short and are ultimately described as vanity. The ways that humans have attempted to solve our problems and find fulfillment have not essentially changed. We do the same thing repeatedly and sometimes put it in different clothes, but it never really changes as we live under the sun.
In Ecclesiastes 2 the Preacher helps us to think through a very confronting truth. As we attempt to solve our life problems, we search through every different category imaginable only to find that we remain completely unsatisfied. The Preacher seemed to search through these categories himself. He tried laughter (2:2), wine (2:3), enjoying nature (2:5-6), industry and hard work (2:7), wealth, entertainment, and sex (2:8), and power and position (2:9). He even found no resolution in human wisdom. In every attempt to find satisfaction to our human needs, the Preacher only found that our attempts under the sun fall short. At the end of his pursuit, he sounded as if he was at his lowest point. Ecclesiastes 2:17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
Is it right for us to hate life? When you try everything you can in the world and realize that there is nothing that brings true satisfaction to the human soul, what is there to like? The Preacher makes a very strong statement to help us all understand that there is nothing to satisfy the human soul when we seek the help of fallible humans living in a sin cursed world.
The beauty of the book of Ecclesiastes is that it pushes us to reach beyond our finite existence in this world. If we are to find satisfaction and true meaning in our life, we must find a way to grasp infallible rather than fallible help. We must find satisfaction that takes us beyond our finite existence under the sun. We must reach beyond the sun.
You may say that is impossible and indeed it is, yet at the very end of Ecclesiastes we are given enormous hope. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. From beyond the sun, God has revealed his infallible word. God's word helps us to understand his perfect standard. We understand our responsibility in life as we live before a Holy God. We understand that as God saves us through Jesus Christ, we are given truth that makes sense of our life and hope beyond this finite existence. Only through revelation that has come to us from beyond the sun can we find satisfaction.
The revelation of God from beyond the sun is most perfectly seen in Jesus Christ who came to us to reveal God to us and to bring us into reconciliation with God. It is through that reconciliation that we understand true hope and a perfect satisfaction that never ceases.
If we want to help humans with real human problems and give them real hope, there is only one revealed truth that satisfies from beyond the sun. It is God's Word and the message of his redeeming love. Counseling each other from beyond the sun means that we are using God's inspired word to bring infallible truth and eternal hope. While counseling restricted to under the sun can only end up in vanity, grace from beyond the sun takes us from hating life to loving Christ who IS our life.