Focus: Life Minus God

Text: Eccles.1:14

"I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit."

The writer of Ecclesiastes is seemingly the wisest, richest and greatest king that the world has ever known. He has access to incredible wealth and wields enormous power. He has an edge on knowledge. Think of prestige, power or position of influence, this man has it. He knows pleasure beyond measure. But later in life, after surveying different aspects of the human experience and condition, he documents his summations and conclusions, and in it he asserts that life minus God is void of meaning and satisfaction.

The author of Ecclesiastes lays emphasis on life or existence under the sun. Life under the sun is a life in which heaven is excluded. Life under the sun is a life in which secularism, humanism and materialism are enthroned. Life under the sun worships work and bows to idols of man's making.

Genesis 1:1 exposes us to a fundamental truth. It says, "In the beginning God created the heavens AND the earth." That little word 'and' says it all. God created heaven and earth to function as one universe. Heaven and earth form one big house. One without the other is a disaster. The Scripture tells us that heaven is the throne of God and the earth is His footstool. So they belong together as one, and there will never be a time when one can exist without the other. 

Matters decided in heaven are implemented on earth. Jesus Christ taught us to pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." He says to Peter, "Whatever you bind on earth would have been bound in heaven." Therefore, life under the sun is an abnormal life, because it is a life in which heaven or God is trivialized, brushed aside or regarded as marginal. The author of our text is telling us that everything going here in this world is all vanity, because God is missing in it. An absent center makes the circumference to collapse. 

God belongs at the center of existence, not at the periphery. Life detached from God is utterly meaningless and totally worthless.

All the good things of life, namely:

*Pleasure

*Power

*Prosperity

*Possessions

*Position

*Pomp and pageantry

*Popularity

Not one of them gives lasting satisfaction. All of life is meaningless without God. Creation is incomplete without God. Paul tells us that it is in Christ that all things cohere. The whole fabric of the universe lacks coherence without its maker. It is only in Christ that humanity can find cohesion and congruence. 

Without Christ all is vanity - futility, emptiness, meaninglessness. In Christ abundant life becomes our reality, and in the presence of our God we find eternal joy and heart-warming pleasures. Minus God, life never adds up, but with God, it is fulfilling.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter