A Full Life On Empty | Ecclesiastes 1 | Gary Hamrick

we're starting a new book study together today so turn in your Bibles if you would to the book of Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes chapter 1 on Sundays we study the Bible cover-to-cover here at Cornerstone we go from Genesis to Revelation and we finished the book of proverbs last week so today we're starting into the book of Ecclesiastes if you don't have a Bible we're happy to provide one for you the ushers are coming up and down the aisles just raise a hand and they'll be happy to hand you a Bible and while you're turning there to Ecclesiastes chapter 1 by the way in the church Bibles that's page 497 I didn't want to just give a warm welcome all of our services are streamed live as most of you know and we have some people today watching from Puerto Rico and Frankfurt Germany so let's welcome those watching today online all right who's ready for a new book study together come on you can do better than that who's ready for a new book stuff all right that's enough thank you very much whatever all right chapter one let's look together first 11 verses I'll read from chapter 1 the words of the teacher son of David King and Jerusalem meaningless meaningless says the teacher utterly meaningless everything is meaningless well aren't you glad you came to church today keep reading with me what does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the son generations come and generations go but the earth remains forever the Sun rises and the Sun sets and hurries back to where it rises the wind blows to the south and turns to the north round and round it goes ever returning on its course all streams flow into the sea yet the sea is never full to the place the streams come from there they return again all things are wearisome more than one can say the eye never has enough of seeing nor the ear it's fill of hearing what has been will be again what has been done will be done again there is nothing new Under the Sun is there anything of which one can say look this is something new it was here already long ago it was here before our time there is no remembrance of men of old and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow as far as they're in pray Lord as we come before you today we just thank you for your word we open up our Bibles here to this new book and we pray that you'll help us to understand it we pray Lord that you will help us to make sense of some things this can be somewhat a difficult book to study but Lord we we just pray that you would use it to minister to our own hearts and I thank you for all those who are here and those who are watching online we pray that it would all bring glory to you and that it would also at the same time strengthen our own hearts in faith and we just praise you in Jesus name and everyone said amen so as I try to do whenever we start into a new book study in our journey straight through the Bible I try to give a little bit of background a little bit of context to this book and so for those of you who like to take notes Ecclesiastes is from a Greek word spelled pretty similarly just with Kay's instead of C's and pronounced Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes meaning one who calls or gathers the ekklesia now necklace-- is just another Greek word that means church or means assembly ekklesia literally in greek means the called out ones that's what the church is we're to be called out from the world and unto the Lord not that we're separate or detached from the world because we need to be salt and light in the world but we're called out to live a life differently for the glory of God that's ekklesia in the Greek and the ekklesia space was the the the one who is over the ekklesia the one who calls together the church the one who calls together the assembly and so the ekklesia States is basically the pastor or the teacher slash slash preacher and if you'll notice we find that word in verse 1 of chapter 1 it starts the words of the teacher now if you have a new King King James Version or an ESV version it'll say preacher instead of teacher but we're talking the same thing that the see ah Stace means teacher a preacher we kind of anglicize that Greek word and more so we pronounce it ecclesiastes this book if you were reading this in a Hebrew Bible which is the original language of the Old Testament this book is called Colette Colette meaning again teacher or preacher now the teacher or preacher of this book is the one who was inspired by God to write this and this ends up being a reflection of his own life the one writing this is writing from personal experience and being inspired by the Lord so exactly who is this person well his name is not given to us anywhere in this particular book but we can understand who he is by looking at how he describes his identity if you'll notice the latter part of verse 1 it says the words of the teacher son of David King and Jerusalem well there was only one son of David who ever ruled as king in Jerusalem and that was his son Solomon so Solomon is the one inspired by the Lord to write this this is somewhat his journal this is somewhat of a sermon that he's writing from personal life experience and as he writes this he writes it as a testimony of the latter years of his life now Solomon is the one who wrote three books of the Bible proverbs Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon and those three books are arranged in that order in our Bibles proverbs Ecclesiastes Song of Solomon or Song of Songs but they are not really in the order in which they were written most Bible scholars believe that Solomon wrote proverbs early in his life giving all this wisdom while he was still young and he wrote Ecclesiastes at the end of his life and he wrote Song of Songs or song assalam in the middle of his life because when you look at how Ecclesiastes unfolds you'll notice that this is basically a guy who's looking at life in the rearview mirror and he's writing with a lot of regret he's looking at his life and he's looking at the conditions of his life and he's looking at the fruit of his life and he's looking at life experience life success life challenges randomness all these various aspects of life and he's looking at life in the rearview mirror and he writes Ecclesiastes he's basically gonna say I been there done that got the t-shirt lived my life to its fullest and yet I was empty lived life to the fullest and yet I was empty I mean this is the Diary of thousands of people people who live life to the fullest and yet they get to some point in their life and they realize I've done all this I've experienced all this I've accomplished all this why do I feel so empty now it might be curious for you because when you think well okay that might be a normal thing that people think but why would Solomon think this I mean he's the king of Israel he follows the succession from his father King David why of all people would King Solomon write like this at the end of his life being rather disillusioned with life being rather jaded about life and cynical about life well there's a background story to that that I'll get into in a minute because I don't think that we can appreciate Ecclesiastes unless we first understand the life of Solomon leading up to why he writes the way he does in this final book of his life but first let me explain this there are two general ways to interpret the book of Ecclesiastes two different lenses that you can look through and I will tell you that Bible scholars are divided about which lens is the right lens to look through in understanding and interpreting the book of Ecclesiastes here are those two lenses the first lens is the idea that Solomon wrote this venting that he is disappointed in the outcome of life and he's disappointed with God in the process that he's just completely venting about how life has been random unpredictable disappointing frustrating even though I've accomplished all these things I've done wonderful things have been very successful been very wealthy but I'm upset and frustrated at the way life is turned out so some say that you read that book in terms of he's venting and that he really walked away from the near the end of his life and some scholars say we're not even sure we're gonna see Solomon in heaven because because of the way that he walked away from the Lord near the end of his life that's one lens the other lens is that he's not really venting he's warning and he's trying to tell everybody learned from my life of all the mistakes and bad choices I made because it didn't go well for me despite the fact that I experienced tremendous success had a lot of money a lot of women a lot of everything I did it all been there done that and yet I felt empty and so I don't want anyone else to go down that path and learn from me and my mistakes and then he summarizes it at the very end of this book there's 12 chapters to it at the very very very end he talks about here's the final conclusion I've come to realize in in light of all of this and because because of the the closing conclusion which is a very wonderful way that he comes all the way full circle with all of this I believe so my slant is that the second lens is a better way to interpret Ecclesiastes that he eventually does come back to God and he writes about it at the very very end of this book but he expresses all of this other stuff to help us understand don't go the path I went so you're gonna have to endure it to get to that last little bit you have to endure eleven and a half chapters of Solomon sounding like Eeyore in the Hundred Acre Wood but that's what we have to get through to till we finally realize his ultimate conclusion he came to realize something at the end of his life but he's going to moan a lot for 11 and a half chapters he's brutally honest and I love that about this book he's brutally honest he's altogether frustrated with life though he's experienced everything to its fullest he is completely frustrated by life and he writes about that frustration and I'm glad that this book is included in Scripture because I think it really expresses the sentiment a lot of people you see Solomon didn't have a question as to whether God existed he was not an atheist Solomon's question was whether God mattered that's a lot of people wondering if if life is kind of unpredictable and there are random things that happen and a lot of which is not fun and happy even for people who try to do the best they can even for Christians who try to honor God and yet things unravel and life has twists and turns and there's difficulties and challenges and heartache then what does it even matter that we follow God and these are very thought-provoking book because he lays out the realities of life and how he has lived his life and the things that he's experienced and how he's become a bit jaded and cynical and confused and frustrated and he even expresses some of that frustration about God and I think that this book is wonderfully practical because it's going to touch some of you right in that same place where you have been wondering similar things you know if God is so good why is this happened and why did that happen and and I tried to do my best and still this mess resulted in and so if these things are gonna happen it's all unpredictable and there's no guarantees in life than you know why why should I follow God and and why should he be a part of the equation of my life so I think I think this is is a very challenging book but in a good way and so this is this is how Solomon expresses himself near the end of his life now how did Solomon get to that place what's the backstory to a guy who was one of the most powerful men on earth of the time that he lived about 900 BC to the place where he's writing like this I mean the opening dialog is meaningless meaningless everything is meaningless so we're gonna talk about that but in or in order to understand this the meaninglessness that he talks about here here's another important point to recognize about this book there eight times in the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon uses the word meaningless in English meaningless that's in the translation I'm reading from but in New King James in ESV it uses the word vanity vanity or meaningless but we have to understand the Hebrew the original language in order to get the meaning of this word and the Hebrew word is hewill have al h e ve l and have a literally means vapor smoke or mist and figuratively it's referring to something transitory fleeting or unsatisfactory so he when he says life is meaningless he doesn't mean life has no meaning he means it is heaven meaning it's very fleeting it's transitory and like smoke or vapor it's hard to grasp you ever tried to really grasp life and understand it completely and then just when you kind of think you have a little understanding of how life works then it just evaporates and now you have to start all over again about a lot that didn't work out the way I thought and I thought I understood life and and I thought I grasped it a little bit well it's heaven it is it is like a vapor amidst a smoke and that word describes by the way our lives in general that we're here for a moment then we're gone James talks about that so we're like a vapor we're like a mist life is very short in the scheme of things the life you have on earth is very short but it's also very transitory there's things about life that's hard to grasp it's hard to figure out it's like trying to grab at wind or trying to grab at vapor or smoke and that's the word that he uses here so he's not saying hey life is worthless you know and and it's without meaning even though meaningless is the word used in the NIV he's saying it's heaven in the in the Hebrew it is hard to figure out sometimes it's hard to grasp it doesn't always make sense can you relate to that right life does not always make sense it's hard to grasp it's hard to figure out it's hard to certainly hard to predict and and hard to even make sense out of when you look in the rearview mirror so that's important to understand going into this study that he uses this word 38 times but he means it in the sense of it's life is transitory life is fleeting and life is hard to grasp now how did he end up in this bad place it because it is a bad place I mean you read this book and you think to yourself keep all sharp items away from Solomon because he just sounds like he's in a bad bad place here's how we got there Solomon started out really well but then his life tanked and here's how he started you don't need to turn there but back in first Kings chapter 2 Solomon becomes king of Israel he becomes king of Israel after his father King David dies now when you do the chronology of when Solomon was born it is likely that Solomon became king at the age of 17 or 18 now Josephus the 1st century Jewish historian said even younger Josephus said he was 14 so let's let's cut the difference and say maybe he was 16 he's young he's a young guy and you've just been handed daddy's kingdom you're now in charge of the most powerful Kingdom on earth at this time 900 BC and the Bible says in first Kings chapter 3 that God appears to Solomon in a dream and says to Solomon ask me for whatever you want and I'll give it to you ask me for whatever you want and I'll give it to you now can you imagine if God showed up and asked you that name one thing you want what do you want now think just I want you think for just a moment think what is that one thing what's the one thing you would ask for and don't over spiritual eyes that I know you're in church world peace and everybody to come to know Jesus all right well great we all want that but I mean in the moment you're being given anything most people would ask to give me wealth give me Fame give me popularity give me position give me or maybe practical things like just give me my own lane on i-95 just mine nobody else's just mine so whatever it might be think for a moment what thing you would ask for now be careful be careful what you ask for it reminds me of the story about this older couple that was taking a stroll on the Beach together and they stumbled upon a little bottle and they pulled the cap off the bottle and out came a genie it's a it's a true story go with me and the genie looked at the couple said you each get one wish ladies first and so the wife said well my one wish my one wish would be that I'd get to spend the rest of my life with my hubby here on a deserted tropical island just the two of us and poof in that moment they were both on this beautiful deserted tropical island and then the genie turns to the husband says alright now it's your turn and he says well seeing as how we're both 60 years of age and now that we're alone on this tropical island just the two of us my wish would be that my wife here would be 30 years younger and poof he became 90 be careful what you wish for my friends anyway so Solomon here he's very careful about what he asks and even though he's like 1617 I mean he barely has his driver's license at this point but he says here's what I want God what I want is wisdom and discernment so that I can properly govern these people of yours he asked for wisdom and discernment and God was so impressed by what he asked God said because you did not ask for long life riches or the death of your enemies I will give you the wisdom and discernment you're asking for and I'll throw in those three as well and that's what God does Solomon is a blessed man and he has wisdom beyond his years but how many of you understand that God can give you something and you squander it and Solomon squandered it he didn't apply his own wisdom that he'd received from God a guy who wrote the book of Proverbs didn't even heed his own advice and he squandered what God had given to him and in first Kings chapter 3 it tells us that he made a very unwise decision and that was to form a political alliance with the king of Egypt the Pharaoh of Egypt and to seal the deal in this political alliance he marries the daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt that was a very dangerous move because a he didn't trust God to keep peace and so he had to form this political alliance but B because he married a woman who was a pagan worshipper she worshipped the gods of the Egyptians the Jews had been delivered from the slavery of Egypt they had forsaken those false gods and now Solomon was in effect saying I'm gonna bring all those gods back into my own home by marrying this woman and he didn't stop there Bible says he had an appetite for women and he formed all these different political alliances with all these neighboring nations by marrying the royal daughters of the kings of those neighboring nations to the tune of 700 wives and in addition 300 concubines as the Bible tells us and the Bible tells us that because he married these women who were worshippers are false gods that they brought this false god influence into his home thus into the nation he let them into his heart and thus it corrupted the whole nation and the Bible says that Solomon turned his heart away from the Lord and he started worshiping the gods of the foreign wives that he brought into his home and there's nothing wrong with the the interracial marriage or different nations marrying it's foreign in the sense of they're worshiping pagan gods foreign gods that aren't real and it corrupted his own heart and this is what the Bible says in first Kings 11 you don't need to turn let me just read it first Kings 11 1 2 4 King Solomon however loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter moabites ammonites Sidonians and Hittites they were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites you must not intermarry with them because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods nevertheless Solomon held fast to them in love he had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines and his wives led him astray as Solomon grew old his wives turned his heart after other gods and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God your attention for a moment question how many wives does one guy need I mean if the men in the room were honest most men don't even properly meet the emotional needs of one woman you don't need to say Amen ladies but I'm just saying so why does he think he could do that with seven hundred plus three hundred girlfriends on the side I mean he's the wisest guy in the world not very wise those of you who are single you're thinking I think that dude's pretty cool to be honest you know they 700 wives and 300 girlfriends but a bing bada boom you know some of you single guys but all the married guys in the house know that was a stupid move stupid man can you imagine the conversations happening in that palace I don't think you pay enough attention to me really you're always looking at her not me when was the last time we ever had quality time quality time you know that's one of the five love languages quality time where's your quality time with me seriously when's the last date we had I don't think your mother really likes me does this tunic make me look fat I mean I can imagine over and over again seven hundred times not a very smart guy here well their love for foreign gods and his love for these women was a deadly combination and it brought idolatry into the nation of Israel Solomon turned his back on God and he introduced idolatry to its worst extent under Solomon's reign they were sacrificing children in the valley of to faith they were sacrificing little babies to false gods right in in view of the temple of God that Solomon had built in the valley below they're sacrificing little kids that's how far Solomon has turned away from God and the Bible says in first Kings 11 verse 9 the Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord the God of Israel but Solomon carries on like nothing's ever changed he's making alliances with different nations marrying the accumulating a massive amount of wealth he's building Jerusalem first his palace he spent twice as long building his palace than he did the temple of God what does that say then he does build the temple of God fortifies the city of Jerusalem fortifies other cities and towns throughout the region of the nation of Israel expands the border of Israel to its furthest borders under his reign accumulates more money than anybody ever did under his reign expands the military more than ever under his reign starts digging quarries and opening mines had so much silver that first Kings chapter 10 says that silver was as prevalent as stones in Israel and it became worthless he had flooded the market was so much silver that it became worthless and so the Bible talks about how he turns to gold I don't know if William Devane was in his ear about it or not but in first Kings chapter 10 it says this all King Solomon's goblets were gold and all the household articles in the palace of the forest of Lebanon were pure gold nothing was made of silver because silver was considered of little value in Solomon's days the king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ships of Haram and once every three years now check this out Bible says here I'm reading out of first Kings 10 once every three years he'd send out his fleet of ships and bran come back with merchandise once every three years it returned carrying gold silver and ivory and apes and baboons just because he can it's like you know I mean when you're bored with life and you got everything else how about some Apes and baboons running around the house I mean he's like he's like living the jungle book story I'm thinking of Mowgli right now just like he's got Apes and baboons and he's talking and skipping through the jungle and all this other stuff now look you read all this and you can you can see the success and the accomplishment the achievement I mean Solomon was a master architect designer builder entrepreneur he was very successful he had all the wealth and wine and women that you could possibly imagine I mean he had accomplished everything and accumulated so much and yet he gets to the end of his life and he realizes just how empty he is he realizes just how empty he is he's built so much he's bought so much he has married so much I mean he has so much and yet he looks around at all that he has because he he thought that if I just accomplished this accumulate this take this girl to bed do all of this other stuff he said if I just I figured if I just did all this I'd be happy I'd be fulfilled life would be good and what he ended up reeling was realizing was at the end of his life that I can't get no satisfaction I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried but I can't get no I'm quoting the Prophet Jagger right now I can't get no satisfaction that's what he sincerely that's what he realized he's like I have achieved so much I've done so much I've bought so much I'm at the top of my game I mean I can't even improve on everything I have and yet with all of this I'm completely empty friends it is possible to live a full life and be completely empty that is the story of countless people in our world that might be your story some of you are gonna identify with this story we go through the book of Ecclesiastes over the next several weeks and you're gonna be like yeah I I get this I get that I've tried this I've tried that and same thing is true for me I tried this I tried that didn't really have fulfillment because you see absent God in your life those things are heavy they're meaningless it's vanity God is the only one who brings perspective and value and purpose and meaning and when he's not in the equation you can have it all and accomplish it all and be as empty as empty can be that's this guy's story and it's a wonderful wake-up call for some and reminder to others of the importance of having God at the center of your life now real quickly in the closing couple of minutes we have I'm going to rattle through three quick observations from chapter one that Solomon makes and these are true observations here's the first one he makes he says hey time is marching on like it or not the clock is ticking and we can't stop at time is marching on verses 4 & 5 this is what he said generations come and generations go that's verse 4 in verse 5 he says the Sun rises in the Sun sets in verse 6 he says the wind blows to the south and turns to the north round and round it goes every turning on its course which which by the way is very interesting because he's describing storm currents before we had satellite imagery but that's how smart he is he understands wind current storm current south North Circular all of this stuff but is his point is you know time is marching on generations come generations go sunrises sunsets the wind blows to the south turns to the north time is marching on and there's gonna thing we can do to stop it one of the things you'll read with me and our study of this of this book is that there are there's a lot of life that is completely out of our control but we still try to control it and then we get frustrated because we can so if any of you are like control freaks we're starting to support group here on Sunday mornings called the book of Ecclesiastes because one of the things is we got to get to this place where we are just totally trusting in the Lord because so much of life is unpredictable random and we have no control over and so one of the things he points out to us here it's a it's a true observation time is marching on we can't change the past and we can't predict the future but all the more reason why we need God in the center of our lives because we can give our past to God and we can trust God with our future see and that's the beauty of his role in the element of time number two he also observes here from Chapter one that nothing is really new nothing's really new in verses 9 and 10 he says what has been will be again and what has been done will be done again there is nothing new Under the Sun is there anything of which one can say look this is something new it was here already long ago it was here before our time now notice that phrase there in verse 9 or yea verse 9 which says nothing new Under the Sun Under the Sun under the Sun as a phrase he uses 58 times in the book of Ecclesiastes 58 times and it's very descriptive of his problem because he talks about everything under the Sun meaning his complete obsession is the horizontal it's all about here on earth Under the Sun it's about doing this and doing that and accomplishing this accomplishing that and he had no room for the vertical see God was not part of the equation so all of his observations and all of his frustrations was with the horizontal good reason because this is a messed up world on the horizontal which is which is why we need the vertical because God has come to rescue us from such a messed up world we can't fix it we can't even fix ourselves look I know a lot of self-help management books have been written at the zoo but the reality is at the end of the day the only the only real fix for any of us is Jesus and knowing him and receiving his forgiveness and his transforming work that he does in our hearts and in our lives it's about it's about Jesus is about the Lord we can't change things we can't fix things and as much as we think oh this is new this is the latest and greatest nothing's really new Under the Sun I mean true we'll come up with new gadgets and you know we're living in that in the information age right now and technology is advancing and we're exposed to a lot more things than certainly Solomon was in his day but dings in general it is nothing new I mean look at Stiles look at how Styles come back around save your bell-bottoms friends because every 30 years they come around nothing's new you know you're teenagers like look at my you outfit you like dude I was wearing that 40 years ago it's not new 40 years ago and all these latest and greatest things that we think now we've become so you know educated about so I remember growing up it was the big deal about becoming more conscious which is a good thing becoming more conscious about food things food things that you eat or shouldn't eat so I remember the big thing like when I was growing out was butter butters bad get away from butter let's go to margarine margarine is better and now all these studies are coming out like margarine bad go back to butter you know grandma was right I mean you know my grandparents lived into their 80s and 90s a here's a by the way bacon makes everything better it's delicious you know here it's gonna kill you go to heaven sooner but I'm telling you it's delicious but you know how is it you look at you look at previous generations like I think grandma was right because we went on this big kick about has to be margarine now now it's like too many chemicals go back to butter you know grandma was right I even read this study this week that skim milk is worse for you than whole milk that the American Journal of science has published the fact that there are more diabetes problems for those who drink skim milk than whole milk so grandma was right again it's just like now you know make sure though that it's you know the grass-fed why because now in our milk we had all the hormones and antibiotics so go back to the way grandma my grandma was drinking it out of the otter I mean it was really it was it was utterly ridiculous utterly ridiculous some of you you'll get that on the way home that's a little bovine humor there but nothing is really new we just recycle and repackage things nothing's really new and the third one will close with this no one will really be remembered isn't that a cheerful way to end the teaching no one will really be remembered in verse 11 he says there is no remembrance of men of old and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow it's it's true it's lights like life is one big exercise bike you know you're born and you jump on the bike and then you pedal pedal pedal pedal pedal and then you die and fall off and someone else then gets on it and they do the same thing pedal pedal pedal die and fall off someone else takes your place pedal pedal pedal die and fall off you get a birth announcement and you get a death announcement and unless you do something spectacular or end up in jail nobody cares in the middle I mean it's true nobody remembers nobody remembers now look obviously you're gonna always remember your friends your loved ones the ones you're closest to people admit an influential impact in your life you're gonna remember some people but by and large what he's talking about here is as much as people you know achieve fame success popularity whatever it might be you know that old saying enjoy your five minutes of fame because you'll be forgotten I mean it's how many how many here honestly remember George Dallas Charles Curtis Henry Wallace John Garner those were all vice presidents but nobody remembers those guys I mean how many of us can remember by name who got Olympic gold medals in the last Summer Olympics I mean you might remember a few okay I can think of a couple but by and large how far back can you go beyond that how many Olympics can you remember and who got the gold I can I can barely remember the names of my high school teachers I remember they were not I mean granted I I went to high school this during the Civil War but I still I can't there's only a couple died okay that person had a real impact IRA I remember mrs. O'Donnell I remember mrs. O'Donnell mrs. Forrester I remember some really good teachers but by-and-large don't remember my wife was even asking me as we approach the upcoming Super Bowl why obviously it asked me to who was it who played again and last year's Super Bowl I couldn't besides Patriots I mean ah but besides the Patriots I'm like I can't even I can't even I had to look it up the Falcons okay it's a Falcons but I mean how far back can you know some of you obviously you could keep going back Super Bowl to Super Bowl and you can remember the teams because you're just that way you're like a walking encyclopedia of sports cast news but but but even even for those of us who like the game you have your five minutes of fame and then you're gone and it and it's sad but it is true because there's a reality to this about life and James said it in James 4 verse 14 he said what is your life but a mist that appears for a moment and then is no more now for us who know Christ we know that there's eternal life past this earthly existence but what James was saying was there's a reality to this fact you're here today and you're gone tomorrow as a very tiny short window of time called life we are basically a blink on the cosmos of time and then the question becomes that all of us must face where does God fit in to this short thing I've been given called life and how is his relationship with me going to give me the right perspective and purpose and meaning for life that without him I would not have that's where we're heading over the next few weeks a read ahead because in Chapter two and talks about three common ways that people try to find satisfaction in life and those three ways fail so we'll talk about that from Chapter two next week Lord willing but for today let's pause now and pray father in heaven as we consider what we've just read and the introduction of the book of Ecclesiastes there are probably many of us that could put ourselves in this story when we're honest enough to realize that a lot of things we've tried and done have disappointed without you where do you fit in the equation of life for each of us and how can we make you central so that life really has meaning and purpose and value that without you it doesn't and father we think of many people in our world who are just trying to grasp at things and it's like missed it's like smoke it can't be grasped and so many people in our world have a lot of questions about life and and about you Lord and and about how to sort out things that don't always make sense and I pray that over the course of the next few weeks and our study here that people have answers better answers to those questions and that they'll come face to face with you and your goodness and your love for us in a very crazy world we thank you that you are truth and you are reliable and you are faithful and you are constant and that you love us and we praise you and thank you together in Jesus name and everybody said amen

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

Views: 14,619

Keywords: Life, meaningless, empty, Cornerstone Chapel, Calvary Chapel, Gary Hamrick, vanity

Id: RZ_NnXerfVk

Length: 41min 18sec (2478 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2019