1. "Many young people are restless because they're so busy getting ready to be happy. If only I can get over this hill or around that bend, then I'll have it."

2. "He's like someone who found every high dive that he could find and dove off them all one after another. And every time, he hit bottom. He discovered that there was not enough water in the pool."

3. "Wisdom can never provide an escape velocity that will propel you beyond the gravitational pull of death. No matter how high your learning takes you, death will drag you all the way back down."

4. "The implicit promise of learning is that it gives you control. Science strives to control nature. We want to use our knowledge to bend the world to fit our plans. But control is an illusion. If you try to make learning a fulcrum by which you gain leverage on the world, it will evaporate in your hands."

5. "The preacher drained the glass of every pleasure he could find. What happens then? The glass is empty and so are you."

6. "Pleasure promises satisfaction but it leaves you wanting more. And there's always more to be had. So it's easy to believe the lie that the reason you're not satisfied is because you just haven't had enough yet."

7. "How can you hide an elephant? Easy. Cover it with 10,000 post-it notes. That is exactly what we try to get our pleasures to do to the sense of our own wretchedness and inevitable death."

8. "The diversions of pleasure are like sedatives. They keep us just content enough that we don't seek a real cure. Pleasure deadens your spiritual nerves. It can drown out the fire alarm of your conscience that is blaring at you: you have a problem."

9. "Success is not an end zone. It's a treadmill. The reward for speeding up the treadmill is having to run faster."

10. "There's a difference between having a can of peaches and having a can opener. And both are from God. God gives the gifts. And God gives the hands to open and hold them, and the eyes to see them, and the mouths to taste them. It's all from him."

Observation Questions

1. In Ecclesiastes 1:13, what does the Preacher say he applied his heart to do, and how does he describe this task that God has given to humanity?

2. According to Ecclesiastes 1:18, what is the relationship between wisdom/knowledge and sorrow/vexation?

3. In Ecclesiastes 2:4-8, what specific things did the Preacher make, build, acquire, and gather for himself during his pursuit of pleasure?

4. What conclusion does the Preacher reach in Ecclesiastes 2:14-16 about what happens to both the wise person and the fool?

5. In Ecclesiastes 2:18-21, why does the Preacher say he hated all his toil, and what troubled him about leaving his work to someone who comes after him?

6. According to Ecclesiastes 2:24-26, what does the Preacher now say is "from the hand of God," and what does God give to the one who pleases Him?

Interpretation Questions

1. The Preacher says wisdom is better than folly "as there is more gain in light than in darkness" (2:13-14), yet he also concludes that pursuing wisdom is "striving after wind" (1:17). How do these two statements fit together, and what is the Preacher's ultimate point about the limits of wisdom?

2. The sermon notes that the Preacher's pursuit of pleasure echoes details from Genesis 2 (gardens, fruit trees, silver and gold). What significance might there be in the Preacher attempting to recreate his own personal "Eden," and why does this project ultimately fail?

3. Why does the word "God" appear three times in Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 after being absent throughout the Preacher's quest in 1:14–2:23? What does this shift reveal about the difference between futile striving and genuine enjoyment?

4. The sermon states that "the right response to this free and generous gift of God's grace is not striving and grasping, it's receiving and thanking." How does this principle reframe the same activities (eating, drinking, working) that the Preacher earlier called "vanity"?

5. How does the sermon connect the Preacher's conclusion in Ecclesiastes to the person and work of Jesus Christ? In what way does Christ offer what the Preacher's quest could never achieve?

Application Questions

1. The sermon identifies four profiles—restless, resentful, driven, and despairing—as responses when our "if only" hopes fail to satisfy. Which of these tendencies do you most recognize in yourself, and what specific circumstance or unfulfilled goal tends to trigger it?

2. Consider your current approach to work or study. In what concrete ways might you be treating your desk as an "altar"—looking to career success for identity, meaning, or security that only God can provide? What would it look like this week to receive your work as a gift rather than grasp it as a source of ultimate fulfillment?

3. The Preacher used pleasures to distract himself from death and his own wretchedness. What specific "post-it notes" (entertainment, busyness, food, social media, etc.) do you tend to use to cover over uncomfortable realities in your life? How might you practice facing those realities honestly before God instead?

4. Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 teaches that both the gifts and the ability to enjoy them come from God's hand. Think of one ordinary blessing you often take for granted (a meal, a relationship, rest). How could you cultivate a habit of receiving it with conscious gratitude to God this week?

5. The sermon challenges us to trust in Christ rather than ourselves to secure life's meaning. Is there an area of your life where you are still trying to "earn" significance or peace through your own striving? What specific step of faith could you take to release that area into God's hands and rest in what Christ has already accomplished?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Genesis 2:4-17 — This passage describes God's original creation of Eden and His generous provision for humanity, which the Preacher attempted to recreate through his own efforts.

2. Proverbs 2:1-11 — This passage extols the value of seeking wisdom from God, providing a complementary perspective to Ecclesiastes on wisdom's proper source and purpose.

3. Luke 12:13-21 — Jesus' parable of the rich fool illustrates the same futility of storing up treasures for oneself while ignoring one's standing before God.

4. Romans 8:18-25 — Paul addresses creation's subjection to futility and the hope of redemption, connecting the "vanity" theme of Ecclesiastes to the gospel's answer.

5. 1 Timothy 6:6-12 — This passage warns against the love of money and urges contentment with godliness, echoing the Preacher's conclusion that satisfaction comes through receiving God's gifts with gratitude rather than endless striving.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Quest for Meaning Through "If Only" Thinking

II. Not in Learning (Ecclesiastes 1:12-18; 2:12-17)

III. Not in Pleasure (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11)

IV. Not in Success (Ecclesiastes 2:18-23)

V. But in Grace and Gratitude (Ecclesiastes 2:24-26)

VI. Christ Offers What Our Striving Cannot Achieve

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Detailed Sermon Outline

What's your if only?

If only I get married, I'll finally be happy. If only I get that job I just interviewed for, then my career will finally be fulfilling and satisfying.

If only I could afford to buy a house, then I could settle down, put down roots, and finally start really living.

Or maybe you see the danger of loading up all your hopes for happiness onto the tiny, tottering cart of a spouse or job or home. So zoom out. Look at the big picture. What is it that gives meaning to your life?

Have you been been able to lay hold of that meaning and hang on to it.

For many people, the meaning of life is still out there. It's something that you can find and grab and keep. You just haven't yet. Many young people are restless because they're so busy getting ready to be happy. If only I can get over this hill or around that bend, then I'll have it.

Some people grow resentful when they don't find what they're looking for. So they look around for a scapegoat, someone that they can blame their unhappiness on.

Others become all the more driven. Maybe you've achieved all your goals but something is still lacking so you set new goals, bigger goals, better goals. You blame the things you have and double down on getting better things. New job, new clothes, new house, new friends.

But let's say you've cleared every hurdle in front of you. Let's say you've attained one set of goals and then another and then another, but you still feel empty. At that point, who's left to blame?

You, so you despair.

Restless, resentful, driven, despairing. Do you see yourself in any of those profiles?

Last Sunday we started a new series in the book of Ecclesiastes and we covered the first eleven verses of chapter one. Our passage for tonight is the rest of chapter one and all of chapter two. So chapter 1:12-226. In our passage, the book's author and protagonist, who calls himself the Preacher, goes on a quest for the meaning of life. He sets out to test and discover by experience what the good life is.

So the question that runs throughout the whole passage is, Where can you find the good life? And the answer comes in four parts. Point one, not in learning. Where can you find the good life? Not in learning.

We're going to see this in chapter 1, verses 12 to 18, and chapter 2, verses 12 to 17. Look first at chapter 1, starting in verse 12.

I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

I said in my heart, I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me. And my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also is but a striving after wind, for in much wisdom is much vexation, And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

Here the preacher introduces his quest and provides an executive summary of the results. Looking at verse 13, and I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. In his short life, the preacher lived many lives and he lived all of them to the full. As we'll see, he went all in, all in on pleasure, all in on learning, all in on work. So in the rest of chapter 1 and chapter 2, the preacher is going to report the results of this quest.

He's like someone who found every high dive that he could find and dove off them all one after another. And every time, he hit bottom. He discovered that there was not enough water in the pool. And so he came back, battered and bleak, but wiser, to tell us about each of those high dives. Verse 13 tells us that he tested all things by wisdom.

And verses 16 and 17 tell us that the preacher gained more wisdom than anyone. And wisdom is one of the things that he applied his heart to, to know. In other words, by testing all things by wisdom, he's also testing wisdom itself. He's looking for the limits of wisdom. And what does he find?

Verse 17, I perceived that this also, this testing all things by wisdom, is but a striving after wind. In chapter 2 verses 12 to 17, the preacher returns to the limits of wisdom. Go ahead and turn there.

Chapter 2:12-17, so I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. The wise person has his eyes in his head.

But the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. Then I said in my heart, what happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise? And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.

For of the wise, as of the fool, there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool. So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.

This passage does not deny that wisdom has any value at all. And verse 14 tells us that wisdom is like opening your eyes and folly is like shutting them. Better to know the truth, however cold and comfortless that truth is, than to swaddle yourself in illusions. But the second half of verse 16 stings. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.

What event? Verse 16, the end of the verse, How the wise dies just like the fool. Wisdom can never provide an escape velocity that will propel you beyond the gravitational pull of death. No matter how high your learning takes you, death will drag you all the way back down.

Education is a crucial cornerstone of our modern meritocracy. Politicians of all stripes champion education as the key to preparing the next generation to compete in a global economy. Education the key to lifting people out of poverty. Education the key to opportunity, advancement, success, and ultimately, happiness. That is the promise that our society makes on behalf of education.

Well, the preacher undertook the ultimate educational quest. He got a PhD not in math or political science, but in life. As we'll see, he passed comprehensive exams in pleasure and profit, art and architecture, sensuality and success. And what did he conclude? Chapter 217, so I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me.

For all is vanity and a striving after wind.

The implicit promise of learning is that it gives you control. Science strives to control nature. We want to use our knowledge to bend the world to fit our plans. But control is an illusion. If you try to make learning a fulcrum, by which you gain leverage on the world, it will evaporate in your hands.

Point two, not in pleasure. Where can you find a good life? Not in pleasure. The preacher tells us this in chapter 2, verses 1 to 11, so turn back to the beginning of chapter 2.

I said in my heart, 'Come now, I will test you with pleasure; Enjoy yourself, but behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, it is mad, and of pleasure, what use is it? I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine, my heart still guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life.

I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house.

I had also great possessions of herds and flocks more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me, and whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.

I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind.

And there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

In these verses, the preacher reports on his project of testing pleasure by experiencing it to the full. He sought out every kind of pleasure he could find, and he sought to enjoy it to the greatest imaginable degree. Remember, he was king of Israel in Jerusalem, so he had all the power and resources he needed to get whatever pleasure he wanted whenever he wanted it. It's important to remember that this passage is reporting, not endorsing.

There's all sorts of passages, for instance, the Old Testament, the patriarchs taking multiple wives. Is that God endorsing polygamy? No. It's just reporting, not endorsing, just like in aspects of the preacher's quest here. The preacher is not a model for us to emulate.

He's telling us what he learned the hard way. The variety of pleasures he immersed himself in is enough to make you dizzy. I count about 10. It depends where you draw the lines between them. So here's the 10 I come up with.

Number one, humor. Verse 2 tells us he tested laughter. He went to all the best clubs and heard all the best stand-up comics. Number two, alcohol. Verse 3 tells us he searched out how to cheer his body with wine.

Number three, architecture. Verse 4 says, He made great works, building houses and planting vineyards. Number four, nature. Verses 5 and 6 say, He developed gardens and parks and pools. He had his own personal arboretum and botanical gardens.

Number five, food. Verse 6 says that he planted all kinds of fruit trees. He could enjoy the richest variety of food at any time. Number six, money and possessions. Verse 10 tells us that he even treated people as property.

And verse eight says he gained wealth from two sources, taxes and tribute.

Number seven, music. Verse eight says he trained a core of elite singers. Number eight, sex. Verse eight tells us he kept a royal harem. Number nine, status.

Verse 9 says, He became greater than any who were before him. Number 10, finally, work. Verse 10, I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. He had it all and everything he had was the best of the best. There are many details in this passage that echo Genesis 2: silver and gold, gardens, fruit trees.

In this experiment, the preacher, in pursuing pleasure to the full, is playing God. He is attempting to recreate his own personal Eden for his own personal enjoyment.

But what were the experiment's results? Back to verse 11. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. The preacher drained the glass of every pleasure he could find. What happens then?

The glass is empty and so are you. Notice that the point this passage makes is not that all these pleasures are immoral. Some are, some aren't. That's not the passage's concern. The passage's concern is that they're futile.

They're empty. They're fleeting and flickering. They don't last and they don't satisfy.

Each appetite you satisfy will come roaring back stronger.

Pleasure promises satisfaction but it leaves you wanting more. And there's always more to be had. So it's easy to believe the lie that the reason you're not satisfied is because you just haven't had enough yet. You haven't had good enough pleasures yet. But the preacher is saying, I had it all.

I had more than you will ever have, more than you can even dream of. And too much was never enough.

Friedrich Nietzsche was a militantly anti-Christian philosopher, but he was profoundly right when he said this: All joy wants eternity.

Every pleasure you experience makes you long for a pleasure that will last. All joy wants eternity. Or as the protagonist of Wallace Stevens' poem Sunday Morning puts it, But in contentment I still feel the need of some imperishable pleasure, bliss. Pleasures promise satisfaction; they also promise distraction. Distraction from what?

From whatever disturbs you or troubles you.

Broken relationships, bad memories, overwhelming responsibility, disappointment and bitterness, Most of all, pleasures distract you from death.

Imagine that you returned home from work one day or from wherever you were out, and you discovered an elephant occupying your dining room. You attempt to relocate the elephant so that you can enjoy your dinner in peace, but the elephant proves rather unaccommodating. So you decide to hide it.

How can you hide an elephant? Easy. Cover it with 10,000 post-it notes.

That is exactly what we try to get our pleasures to do to the sense of our own wretchedness and inevitable death.

The diversions of pleasure are like sedatives. They keep us just content enough that we don't seek a real cure. Pleasure is dead in your spiritual nerves. They can drown out the fire alarm of your conscience that is blaring at you, you have a problem.

Not in success. Where can you find a good life?

Not in success, not in learning, not in pleasure, not in success. The preacher tells us this in chapter 2 verses 18 to 23. I hated all my toil, in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.

So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun. Because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation.

Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. Look again at verse 21. The word translated skill there could equally be translated success.

The preacher is not embittered because he failed. Instead, he is lamenting the fate of the successful.

The more successful you are, the more you have to leave in the hands of a successor. Of uncertain character and competence. Whatever you amass through success in work, whether property or money or a successfully implemented legislative agenda, soon enough it will be someone else's hands on that hoard. You won't be able to do anything about it and you won't even be around to object to it. That is what the preacher is saying.

In other words, success is not an end zone. It's a treadmill. Two years ago, Derek Thompson wrote an article for the Atlantic entitled, Workism is making Americans miserable. He argues that for America's college-educated elite, work has transformed into a religious identity. It promises transcendence and community, but it delivers neither.

One recent study that Thompson cites in his article showed that the main difference in outcomes between women who attended elite selective universities and women who did not is this: On average, those women who attended elite selective universities went on to work longer hours. The reward for success is having to spend more time at the office.

The reward for speeding up the treadmill is having to run faster.

As Thompson observes, when a culture funnels its dreams of self-actualization into salaried jobs, It is setting itself up for collective anxiety, mass disappointment, and inevitable burnout. Our desks were never meant to be our altars.

What was the preacher's reward for all his success? Hard days and sleepless nights. Can you relate?

What is success promised?

It promises fulfillment, satisfaction, purpose, status, recognition, and legacy. Which of those promises are you most drawn to?

Whatever work you do, whether within your own household or in the external household that we call a workplace, what are you trying to get from your work? What are you trying to get out of it? The preacher went all the way to the end of the line with learning, pleasure, and success. Whether work or play, wisdom or folly, he dove into the deep end and found the bottom. If you're not a Christian, which of these quests most appeals to you?

Which of these paths have you gone down the farthest? And what have you learned so far?

Where can you find a good life? Not in learning, not in pleasure, and not in success. Point four, but in grace and gratitude. But in grace and gratitude. Look at the last three verses of the passage.

Verses 24 to 26, there is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

This also I saw is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

This passage presents us with an immediate difficulty. It sure sounds like he is talking about all the same stuff he's been talking about for a chapter and a half. Just what he said was vanity and striving after wind. Verse 24 he's talking about that it's nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

But he passes an opposite verdict on it. Verse 24, There is nothing better than that a man should eat and drink and find joy in his work. This sure sounds like he has done a very quick 180 without giving us a good reason why.

So is the preacher commending a resigned hedonism?

The other night, Kristen and I were setting out a series of traps to try to catch some of the mice that frequent our dining room by night. We discovered a few crumbs on the ground near one of them. Kristen suggested cleaning them up, and I said, Don't bother. Eat, drink, and be merry, little mice, for tomorrow you die.

Is that the preacher's message to us? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow it's the glue trap.

I don't think so. And here's the main reason why.

There's a word that is entirely missing from chapter 1 verse 14 through chapter 2 verse 23. And then that same word shows up three times in rapid succession in these three verses? Any guesses?

God! Is that you, Brittany? No. Amber. God!

God is absent from the first chapter and a half of our discussion, but now God is central, and God has displaced the striving self. What's different here is a doctrine of creation. A doctrine of creation that extends not only to the fact that God brought everything into existence, but that he is sovereign over each of our lives. That everything we have is a good gift from him. That the things themselves and the ability to enjoy them are from him.

That every molecule in this universe depends totally on him every second.

All these good things are gifts from his hands. And as the preacher is going to say again and again later in the book, apart from God, no one has any ability to enjoy them. There's a difference between having a can of peaches and having a can opener. And both are from God.

God gives the gifts. And God gives the hands to open and hold them, and the eyes to see them, and the mouths to taste them. It's all from him. So what distinguishes verses 24 to 26 from the rest of the passage is the sense that creation is a free and generous gift of God's grace. So the right response to this free and generous gift of God's grace is not striving and grasping, It's receiving and thanking.

All of us have scorned God and twisted his gifts. We have all rejected him and put things he has made in his place. Like the preacher in his quest, we have lived for, we have given ourselves to all the wrong things. And God will repay with wrath all those who persist in that idolatry. That worshiping of the creature instead of the Creator.

But instead of simply executing vengeance against all of us for our sins, God overflowed and still another and greater, even more generous gift. This time it's an even bigger gift and a gift that not only brings something out of nothing but is a gift of love in response to hate.

God sends His only begotten Son into the world to live for us and die for us because He loved us. In His death on the cross, Jesus paid the penalty for all the sins of all those who would turn from their sin and trust in Him. And by rising from the dead on the third day, He secured an abundant, glorified, everlasting life for all who will own Him as their Savior. So don't trust in yourself to secure your life's meaning. Instead, trust in Christ to save you from God's wrath.

Trust in Christ, and you will find a meaning that no failure can ever erase and no success can possibly compare with.

Last night I was looking at a surfing website on my phone. Surfing is, if it's even a sport, it's the only sport I have any real interest in or anything remotely resembling skill in. And just a couple of days ago at a big wave surf spot about an hour from where I grew up, it's called Mavericks in Half Moon Bay, California. Someone who's been one of the leading surfers there for 30 years rode maybe the best wave ever ridden at that spot. I won't bore you with the sort of technical surfing details, but it was an enormous wave.

He took off in a crazy position, and for those of you who know what this means, he got barreled from basically being at the bottom of the wave and a 50-foot cascade of water missing him by like four feet. And then he rode calmly out and made it.

And he said afterward, what do I do now? It's the absolute pinnacle of achievement in his particular field. As someone who's a sort of lifelong surfer and still a fan and, you know, quasi surfer when I can, that's the best wave I've ever seen, best wave I've ever heard of. I don't know that anybody's ever done anything better in the whole sport. He said, I could do it again, but it's pretty scary.

Do I really want to put it all on the line again for that hit of pleasure?

No matter how far you take your pursuit of learning or work or pleasure or success, there is an end of the line for it. But the problem is when you get to the end of the line, What's on that other side?

Whether in books or on TV, my wife, Kristen, and I are fans of police procedurals. Oftentimes, early in the plot, you'll get the lead detective running the investigation. He'll bring in a suspect, bring them into the interview room, and then say something like, We can do this the easy way or the hard way. You can tell me everything you know about this entire scenario. Or I can start applying pressure and making your life uncomfortable.

The easy way or the hard way.

Some of you might be skeptical that the preacher's answers in this passage are the right ones. You might think, Surely there's more behind that pleasure door. Maybe he didn't try the right pleasures.

Maybe he didn't stick with them long enough. Okay. You're welcome to try. Climb up that same high dive. Dive off.

See if there's more water than the preacher says there is. But he learned it the hard way, so you wouldn't have to.

However hard a way the preacher walked, Jesus walked one far harder. God incarnate Himself entered life under the sun, and He endured something far worse than vanity and futility. By what He endured, He purchased for us an eternal inheritance so that none of our labor in Him would be in vain. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we praise you for the good gift of your creation. We pray that you would forgive us for all the ways we have invested our hope and desire fully in your creation instead of in you. Father, grant us to enjoy every good gift you give us in such a way that we come to love you more and know you better. May we open our hands to receive the good gifts that you have to offer us instead of clinging tightly to what we think we can hoard for ourselves. Pray that you would grant us to live by faith until the day that faith becomes sight.

In Jesus' name, Amen.