Ecclesiastes 11:1-6

“Just Do Something”

Text: Ecclesiastes 11:1–6

Big Idea

Because life is uncertain and God is sovereign, believers are freed from paralyzing worry and called to live wisely, generously, and diligently—trusting God with the outcomes.

Key Themes & Movements

• Life Is Uncertain

  • Repeated emphasis: “You do not know” (vv. 2, 5, 6).

  • We lack certainty about outcomes, timing, and circumstances—but this does not threaten faith; it steadies it.

• Open-Handed Wisdom (vv. 1–2)

  • “Cast your bread upon the waters” points to generosity and wise risk-taking.

  • Whether generosity or investment imagery, the principle is the same:

    • Give liberally

    • Diversify wisely

    • Do not hoard out of fear

  • We love and give now because we do not know when hardship will come.

• Accepting Our Creaturely Limits (vv. 3–5)

  • There are patterns in life (rain falls, trees fall), but outcomes still belong to God.

  • The danger is not ignorance but paralyzing caution—waiting for perfect conditions that never come.

  • We do not know:

    • The way of the wind

    • How life forms in the womb

    • The full work of God

  • This calls us to humility, not control.

• Faithful Action in the Face of Uncertainty (v. 6)

  • “In the morning sow your seed… in the evening do not withhold your hand.”

  • God’s sovereignty does not negate action; it frees us to act faithfully.

  • Make wise, biblical, informed decisions—and move forward without fear.

• Gospel-Shaped Freedom

  • Because God has already proven His love in Christ, we can trust Him with our decisions.

  • We are not promised perfect outcomes, but we are promised a faithful God.

Ecclesiastes 11:1–6

1. Biblical Context

• Author: Solomon (Qoheleth), reflecting on life “under the sun.”

• Purpose of Ecclesiastes: To teach wisdom in a fallen, unpredictable world.

• Immediate Context: Practical wisdom about living faithfully amid uncertainty, leading into the joy and responsibility of life before God.

2. Explanation of the Passage

• Verses 1–2:
  Wisdom expresses itself in generosity and diversification, acknowledging that future trouble is unknown.

• Verses 3–4:
  While creation follows observable patterns, overanalyzing risk leads to inaction and loss.

• Verse 5:
  Human ignorance stands in contrast to God’s total sovereignty and creative power.

• Verse 6:
  Faith is active. We work diligently while entrusting results to the Lord.

3. Theological Themes (Reformed Emphasis)

• God’s Sovereignty: God “makes everything” (v. 5); outcomes are His.

• Human Responsibility: We are commanded to sow, work, give, and act.

• Providence: God governs ordinary means (work, generosity, planning) for His purposes.

• Freedom from Anxiety: Trusting God’s providence liberates us from fear-driven paralysis.

4. Confessional Connections

• Westminster Confession of Faith

  • WCF 5.1 – God upholds, directs, disposes, and governs all creatures and actions.

  • WCF 16.3 – Good works are the fruit of faith, not a guarantee of earthly success.

• Westminster Larger Catechism

  • WLC 18 – Assurance rests in Christ, not in perfect decision-making.

  • WLC 104 – Trusting God includes contentment with His providence.

• Westminster Shorter Catechism

  • WSC 11 – God’s works of providence are His holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing of all things.

  • WSC 8 – God executes His decrees through creation and providence.

5. Practical Applications

• Practice generosity without demanding guaranteed returns.

• Make wise, informed decisions without waiting for perfect certainty.

• Resist anxiety-driven procrastination in:

  • Work

  • Family leadership

  • Evangelism

  • Service in the church

• Trust that obedience is your responsibility; outcomes are God’s.

to the book of Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes chapter 10. Sorry, Ecclesiastes chapter 11. Ecclesiastes chapter 11. We're going to be looking at the first six verses of Ecclesiastes chapter 11. Ecclesiastes chapter 11, if you're using the New King James Pew Bibles provided for you, you'll find that on page 594. Brothers, this is God's perfect word. Sweeter than honey, more precious than gold. Let's pay careful attention.

Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a serving to seven and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth. And if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and the evening do not withhold your hand. For you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good. Thus ends this portion of the reading of God's word.

The grass will wither, the flower will fade, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. It's true. Every jot, tittle, sentence, period. Lord, we pray that you would please help us to understand it, not just in our minds, but also in our hearts. We need your spirit, Lord, to teach us. Father, I pray that you would please help me to preach your word faithfully for what it says and not what I want it to mean. Father, please build us up in our faith that you may be glorified. We pray in Jesus's name, amen.

We live uncertain lives. There's just not a lot of guarantees in life. There are some. You're gonna die. There are some guarantees. But there's just a lot we don't know. And Solomon is going to pick up on that in Ecclesiastes chapter 11. Notice verse 2, twice in verse 5, and in verse 6. Verse 2. Give a serving to seven and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth. And then in verse 5, this idea of not knowing comes up twice. As you do not know what is the way of the wind. And then further down. So you do not know the works of God who makes everything. And then in verse six, in the middle of the verse, for you do not know which will prosper.

You don't know. You don't know. I don't know. Nobody knows. Because there's a whole lot of our lives that's not up to us. There's a whole lot of our lives that doesn't come with a guarantee or certainty, even though you can buy the little insurance that will tell you on every single travel website, they'll guarantee that you're gonna get there somehow, that may still fail. There's a lot of life we just don't know. And it's really interesting what Solomon does, and as we read through this passage through the lens of the New Testament, that doesn't shake us who have faith in God. Actually, it gives us peace and rest.

And so first, I want you to look with me at verses one and two and see the open-handed wisdom that Solomon encourages us here. This open-handed wisdom that generosity and diversification happens, it's wise, even though we don't have guarantees. Look with me at verses one and two. Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a serving to seven and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth.

Now verse one starts with a phrase that we don't have any exact equivalence to it. When I was first reading this and translating it, I was thinking about like sitting at the park and throwing bread to ducks or something like that. But that's not really what this is talking about.

Now this is talking about when you cast your bread upon the waters, you don't know where the water's gonna take it and you don't know if the bread's gonna come back or how it's gonna come back. You don't know if anything's gonna come back to you. But that's not the point. We get joy casting our seeds, casting the bread upon the water.

Now there's a... commentators go back and forth, right, because the ancient way of interpreting this text, the Jewish way that they interpreted, and the early Christian way of interpreting this text, this was talking about generosity. As we love other people, as we're generous with other people, it's like casting bread on the water. Our job isn't to know how the bread comes back to us. Our job is to be liberal and generous and gracious. And as we throw our bread upon the water, we know that that will come back to us someday. You might say, you get what's coming to you. And so, that's one way of interpreting it.

There's a whole other group of interpreters who will look at verse 1 and 2 and They see kind of this idea of sowing and reaping in verse four and in verse six, and think the idea of casting can also be the idea of shipping, like shipping your grain overseas. And they say, especially this is Solomon writing, right? He had a fleet of ships, and so they're going out and they're doing trade. And here's the thing, when you send out ships, you don't know what they're coming back with. You don't know if they're coming back at all. I think about, even when you read about the chronicles of Solomon's life, he would send out these ships and they would be gone for three years before coming back. And you don't know, are they coming back poor or did they make good trades? The grain that you sent them with, is it bringing back return or not? Who knows?

But Solomon seems to say in the second part of verse 11, whether it's shipping your bread upon the waters or casting your bread upon the waters, the point being the second half, where you will find it after many days. As you cast liberally, as you share liberally, as you love generously, the general idea is that you'll most likely return back. But there's no guarantee. It's not. It's not simple algebra. Do X at Y time, and when you need it, at time Z, you'll get this result. Life isn't like that.

And so what do you do? Well, in verse two, seems to be this idea of diversification. Give a serving to seven and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Again, this is where commentators, depending on whether it's the people interpreting it as being generous and being generous with a whole lot, or as you're going into business.

I think about this story. I remember of this lady who, she was working her whole life and she bought, her entire retirement was devoted to buying her own company stock. And then when she was 64, just about ready to retire, The company goes bankrupt, and she's left with nothing. And so this is a whole idea of ETFs and mutual funds and blah, blah, blah. And I'm not here to talk to you about retirement strategies. But what I'm saying is, I think what Solomon is getting at here, whether this is him saying he's not putting all of his endeavors into one basket, one area, or whether he's saying, when you're generous, Be generous broadly. If you're gonna love, love with a big heart. You can't invest all of yourself in everything, everywhere. You're gonna run dry. But invest your generosity, casting your breads in a bunch of different places. Give liberally. Show love broadly.

You just never know when it's going to happen. You don't know when bad days are going to show up. The word there for you do not know what evil will be upon the earth, that word ra there is used regularly throughout Ecclesiastes. It's disaster or hardship. It can be evil, but the point is you never know when the dark days are coming. So whether it's you've diversified with your money or you've filled your life because you've been generous with a whole lot of people and a lot of people know you love them. And so when you're having disasters and the cloudy days in your life, there are people who are able to come and comfort and care for you and help you.

You never know when the evil days will come upon the earth. So what do you do with that type of uncertainty? You love now. You'd be generous now. You'd be wise with what the Lord's given you now. You care for people, not because of what they're going to give back to you, but because it's wise to love people. We don't know. We don't know what's going to happen to our investments. We don't know what's going to happen towards the generosity we show to others. And guess what the beautiful thing is? It's not our business to know that. It's our blessing to just do the things that are wise and leave it up to the Lord. Don't worry. Don't worry.

But then Solomon also goes on from this in verses three through five, and he really talks about accepting our creaturely limits. Again, this whole idea of just like we don't know a whole lot of things. And so in a life that's unpredictable, there are patterns that we can see, and yet we don't always know the outcomes. And that's what he's getting at in verses three through five. Look with me there.

If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth. And if a tree falls to the south or the north, and the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie. He who observes the wind not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know what is the day, or what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything."

And verse 3 just gives us simple facts of life. Simple facts of life in verse three. There are patterns of things. If a cloud is full of rain, if you were taking your class in elementary school and you look outside and you see the cumulonimbus cloud filling up with black and gray and getting all big, you're gonna know, all right, it's probably gonna rain. If the clouds are full of rain, they'll empty themselves upon the earth. Thank the Lord for a wonderful pattern that we're able to normally see these things. And if a tree falls to the south or to the north, it's going to fall. And guess what's going to happen? Whether it falls to the north or if it falls to the south, it's going to lay down. It's just there. But you know when a tree falls, it's going to fall.

But then he goes on in verse 4. And notice he says, these two verses are a couplet, they go together. Like one and two went together, three, four, and five go together, but it's three and four really closely. He who observes the wind, notice we talked about the clouds up above. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

What's the picture of what's going on here? This is the idea of the farmer who's constantly looking at the forecast and thinking, well, no, it's not quite right yet. No, I can't go sow now. No, I can't go do my work now. It might rain. It might rain. It might rain. It might rain.

Every single day that's passing, though, The sun is inching a little bit north of the equator, summer is getting closer, and as you procrastinate and worry and hold back and hold back and hold back and hold back, your harvest is going to be smaller and smaller and smaller because the seed has not had enough days to germinate, grow up, and give you a full harvest.

This isn't talking about the sluggard who just won't go. That's not what Solomon's talking about here. Solomon's talking about the guy who, or the farmer who's so worried about what could go wrong that they never actually do their job.

This is one of the things I didn't ever understand before moving to the country with y'all, is the stakes of planting. A lot can go wrong. A lot can go wrong. You can plant thinking it was good, and then there's too much rain. You can plant early thinking you're getting a little bit ahead, but the ground was too cold or too wet. You could hold off a little bit longer, and what happens is, well, now you miss the opportune time, and now it really did rain when you thought you were avoiding the rain.

All the while, profit margins and yield, you're losing it. and the ancient near east where they're not doing capitalistic farming and farming where they're able to supply for other people but it's literally hand to mouth it's life and death my kids don't have enough food if I don't plant at the right time and this life full of just worry and fear that you hear in verse 4 that if you're observing the wind constantly afraid to sow you're never going to actually have a harvest

So what do you do, verse 5? You have humility. As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

We just don't know sometimes the way of the wind. Just yesterday, there was a headline on my Apple News app of, how did the meteorologist miss the storm this weekend? Oh, because they're not perfect. All of us really appreciate a weatherman who actually has a dose of humility, who will say, I can't give you certainty here, but it looks like this may happen. And then when something creeps up on them, they're like, whoo, I done missed that one.

We appreciate that type of weatherman, not the guy who's just trying to fill his channel with sensationalistic forecasts. There's predictions, but yet we don't know. We know more now about jet streams and air flows and things like that than they did in the ancient Near East, but sometimes I think we think of them as dummies. Might be a little bit of chronological snobbery going on, but we may have more scientific data, and yet there's all sorts of ancient animals that talk about when the winds come at this season this direction, and when they blow harder in that direction at this season. There's a reason why even as archaeologists struggle with things in the Bible, that we know like when Jesus was on the Sea of Galilee, normally we can tell what time of year it was because of what type of storm it was. So like when Jesus is on the boat, And there's a great wind that stirs up the storm. It's a windstorm. And these windstorms happen at a specific season of the year. How do we know that? Because ancient people wrote it down. So ancient people here are wrestling with it the same way we would. They don't know what's going on with the way of the wind. You can predict things, but you just don't know.

Or the second half here are how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child. Now, I know there's some atheistic poindexters who are like, well, we actually know how the bones are made in the womb now. OK, the people he's writing to, they didn't have that knowledge. And even still today, if you think you understand everything about gestation and the building of bones in the womb, tell me why there's genetic abnormalities. You can't perfectly predict all this. We don't know. There's a whole lot up to God that we just don't know. Solomon's audience didn't know. There's a lot of uncertainty here.

And his point is at the very bottom of verse 5. So, or also, you do not know the works of God who makes everything. If you want to eat a big piece of humble pie, sit with us for a while. We don't know everything. God's the one who's sovereign. God's the one who's the maker of heaven and earth. God is the one who forms us, knits us together in our mother's womb. We're fearfully and wonderfully made. We know that full well, but we don't know how.

So what's the point? It's submission. Solomon is trying to push us. The Holy Spirit has given that to us even this morning for us to accept. We don't know everything. We don't have the guarantees thinking that somehow we are omniscient or that we are sovereign. But it's a trust. It's a trust that Jesus was pushing to. Do not worry about what you will eat or what you will drink or what you will wear. For the pagans worry about all these things. But you have a heavenly Father who cares for you. He knows what you need to eat. He knows what you need to drink. He knows what you need to wear.

Look at the lilies of the field. Solomon, of all of his splendor, was not arrayed as such as one of these. And yet, what happens to the flowers of the field? They're here today, cut down when they wither, thrown into the furnace for heat. You're dressed more splendidly than that. He cares for us, so we can have peace. We don't need to worry about what we're going to eat. We can trust that he's going to provide for us, just like he does for the birds of the air.

labor and reap and sow and put away in barns. Heavenly Father feeds the birds of the air. Are you much more valuable than the birds?

See, verses 3 through 5 are pushing us to this beautiful idea that it's God who makes everything and knows everything. He's the one who gives children. And he's the one who withholds children. He's the one who gives jobs. And he's the one who withholds jobs. He's the one who tells the rain to come. And he's the one who tells the famine when to start. He's the one who brings the storehouses of rain. And he makes the rain fall on the just and on the unjust. He is the one who determines the harvest. He is the one who allows feast and famine. He brings the icy blasts, and he brings the summer heat. He's the one who's made all things. And so, we do not know the works of God, who makes all things, because that's God's business.

So many people in their lives get wrapped up with wanting to know exactly why God is doing something, or how God is doing something, or what God is doing in their lives. You're thinking, I can only make a decision in this life if I know exactly what is the will of God in this situation. And what you're really trying to do is trying to get a crystal ball and looking to the mind of God.

Instead of saying, I don't know why he's made this, I don't know what's going on here, but I take the facts that I can see by common sense and make godly, principled, biblical decisions. Resting in faith. And this isn't some type of, right, erase your emotions out of this. This isn't some type of perverted or twisted stoicism, saying, well, I don't know what's going on, so I better just put on a fake smile and be okay with it. No, go read the Psalms. It's hard. Solomon's not wiping away the difficulty of this. It's like God is teaching us. God is caring for us.

And as I was just wrestling with this, we don't know what God is doing. He's the one who makes everything. I gotta say, one of the, there's all sorts of applications for this, right? Whether you're thinking about running a business, or whether you're thinking about how you manage your family, or your finances, or whatever. The one that hit me most, that I wrestle with, it might sound silly or stupid, and that's okay, is specifically evangelism. I get so worried about how is somebody going to receive this? Are they going to be mad? Is this going to ruin the relationship? Am I just wasting my time by doing this? And I realize what I'm really wanting is a certainty that this isn't going to be uncomfortable. That if I share the gospel with this person, they're going to receive it with joy and become a Christian immediately. Because I don't want the pain. I don't want the awkwardness. I don't want these things.

But the reality is, it's God who makes everything. And so this is one of those most freeing points, even in evangelism or having hard conversations, is that we're not in charge of how everybody's going to respond. We can cast our bread upon the waters and trust that that's the Lord's will. He does as he wishes.

And so verse 6, we just do something. I love verse 6. In the light of all this uncertainty about what we do not know, Solomon says, In the morning sow your seed, in the evening do not withhold your hand. For you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good. You don't know whether your harvest is going to be good or bad. I can't guarantee that for you. The weatherman can't guarantee that for you. Agronomists can help you, but they can't guarantee it for you. The crop insurance will try to predict it and say, well, we'll give you a certain amount back, but not all of it.

But as the ground begins to thaw, as the sun starts to move further north, as you can see, the day is getting a little bit longer. You know what you can do? Go work. You can go plant your seed. That's what he's saying here. In the morning, when you wake up and it's time to plant your seed, guess what you can do? Go. Go plant your seed in the morning. In the evening, do not withhold your hand. The harvest time or the seed time isn't going to last forever. So work from sunup to sundown. As long as the machinery is holding up and your bones are willing for it, I know this is hard for some of you wives as your husbands are, you become tractor widows, right? They're out there planting the whole season and there's a few days, maybe even a few weeks where it's just, they're gone. It doesn't last forever. Thank the Lord.

But there's a time to sow and there's a time to reap. And when it's time to sow, Don't let your heart get wrapped up in anxiety. Just go sow your seed. Make wise, informed, principled, biblical decisions and go work in faith, trusting that God is caring for you. Get the seed ready. Prepare the planters. And go and plant, do it diligently. And do it with emergency. Again, notice it's in the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand. As it gets dark, finish up the job. Get it done. Be industrious at the time.

I've put this in our modern culture and situation, but at this time, right? There's this show that the kids and I have been watching from a couple decades ago now on Pioneer Life or something like that, or I don't remember what it was, but it's from the early colonial life, I think is what it's called. Anyways, they have to plant corn. And it's set in the 1600s up in Maine. And as they're planting this corn, they first start making these mounds to plant the corn, and you could tell the colonists are like, this is gonna take forever. And they have to learn how to get a little bit of oomph underneath them and do the thing they don't want to do. Go and plant the corn, make the mounds, plant the corn, get moving. It's gonna take from sunup to sundown and that's okay. It doesn't last forever. When it's done, have a party, enjoy that the work is done. But while there's work to do, get it done.

And in the ancient Near East, it was whole families out there. Kids, did you know in America we actually didn't used to have winter break and summer break? You didn't get three months off in the summer. If you go back to colonial history in America and even up until the 1700s, the breaks were seed time and harvest time. And as the agrarian culture started shifting to more cities, our school calendar moved with it. It wasn't always that the family, the children were home in the summers. When they needed to be home to help plant and harvest, they were home. Why? Because you needed to do it. It was broadcasting. It wasn't drilling.

And in the ancient Near East, this is really difficult work. Even emotionally. Because you're reaching into your bag, you're grabbing out the seed, And you're casting it out there. Who knows what type of land it's going to fall on. Did you get enough rocks? Did you pull up enough weeds ahead of time? Did some of it get on the path? How much of it went into the ditch? Is it too close to the house? Is it too close to the trees? A lot of that you can't handle. Are the birds of the air going to come and steal up your seed? Is somebody going to come behind you and broadcast some weeds, some tears into your field? If you're always worried about those things, you'll never actually sow.

What do we do? We make hay while the sun is up. And we don't get weary and give up as the day grows long. Your life can be ruled and ruined by worry and indecision. So what do we do? We make biblical, practical, informed decisions and we get on with life trusting God. I remember when I was The first Christian I figured out, I read about lots. You know, like casting dice for things and like God can make these decisions. And I was like, oh, this is great. And so I had this whole system when I like went to order food at a restaurant or something. I remember specifically a time I went to a Chinese restaurant and there were like three or four different things that I really wanted and I couldn't figure out which one I really wanted. And I didn't want to make a bad choice because if I made a bad choice, I'd be missing out on what might be better. And I looked at somebody in my family and I said, pick a number between 1 and 4. And I had ordered these things, 1 to 4, and I made them choose. And I thought, God is going to give me a right decision, right? He's going to choose which meal is going to be best.

And I remember the guy in our family just looked at me and was like, just be a man and make a choice. Just make a choice. It's OK. You don't have to be guaranteed of the outcomes. Figure out what is the most godly, biblical, informed, principled thing and make a decision and keep going on with life.

I think what Solomon gives us here is freedom. For those of us who are in Christ, who have faith, we could trust an omniscient, sovereign God. who has proved He loves us and cares for us. He counts every hair upon our head. He numbers our days. He's poured out the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, redeemed us from sin and death. He knit us together in our mother's womb. And so, okay, you may make a bad decision. It's not the end of eternity. He's gonna care for you. So what do you do? You make biblical, principled, wise decisions with the information you have at hand, and you love others well, you trust the Lord, and you live your life for his glory.

He's mindful of us, he's good, he's sovereign, he's promised us, he cares for us, and so we get the freedom of loving generously, living with peace, Diversifying without fear. Working hard when the time is right. Living by godly principles without being shackled by fear. Because our God is good. He makes everything.

So brothers and sisters, do not be anxious about anything. But in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And may the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding protect your heart in Christ Jesus. God is good. Trust Him. Make godly decisions. And love each other well.

Let's pray. God, we thank you that you have shown us the love which you have for us in Christ Jesus and the freedom you have given us because you have called us your children. God, you have poured out your Holy Spirit in our hearts that calls you Abba, Father. And you are a good father. You give good gifts. and you have a perfect plan for our lives. And so, God, we trust you. We pray that you would free us from worry and that you would help us trust you always. Thank you, for you are good. In Jesus' name, amen.

• Where do you find yourself waiting for certainty before acting?

• How does God’s sovereignty encourage action rather than passivity?

• In what areas of life are you tempted to be ruled by fear of “what might go wrong”?

• How does the gospel free us from the need to control outcomes?

• What would faithful obedience look like for you this week?

• Providence – God’s ongoing governance of all things.

• Sovereignty – God’s absolute authority and control.

• Creaturely Limits – The reality that humans are finite and dependent.

• Wisdom Literature – Biblical writings focused on godly living in a fallen world.

• Faithful Action – Obedience rooted in trust, not certainty.