We spend much of our lives chasing what we think will finally make us feel fulfilled—success, knowledge, pleasure, money, control, more. Yet Ecclesiastes confronts us with an uncomfortable truth that each of us who has gotten what we’ve worked so hard for has come to learn the hard way: nothing in this world can fully satisfy the human soul. Everything eventually fades, disappoints, or slips through our hands.
In offering this insight the teacher of Ecclesiastes does not intend to be cynical, but honest. And in that honesty, he invites us to stop searching for ultimate meaning in temporary things and instead learn how to receive life as a gift from God.
Under the Sun is a journey through the words of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes, looking at the frustrations, limits, and longings of life in a way that ultimately points us toward a wiser, deeper, and more grounded way to live. As C.S. Lewis once said, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
May 31 — Gain / Enough
Ecclesiastes 1
Big Idea: No amount of gain under the sun can answer the deeper longing for lasting meaning.
June 7 — Pleasure
Ecclesiastes 2:1-11 (5:18-20; 8:15, 11:7-10)
Big Idea: Pleasure pursued as an ultimate goal leaves us empty, but enjoyment received as God’s gift leads to gratitude.
June 14 — Work
Ecclesiastes 2:17-26 (9:7-12)
Big Idea: Work and achievement cannot carry the weight of our identity or purpose
June 21 — Power/Politics
Text: Ecclesiastes 4
Bid Idea: The pursuit of power isolates us and political systems inevitably fail us, but true security is found in God-honoring community.
June 28 — Money
Text: Ecclesiastes 5:8–6:12
Big Idea: The pursuit of wealth never satisfies because the human heart always wants more.
July 5 — True Wisdom and the True Good Life
Text: Ecclesiastes 7:1-12 and Ecclesiastes 12
Big Idea: The good life is not found in avoiding reality or death, but in facing our mortality with a wisdom that fears God.