If this life is all there is, desire becomes perpetually unfinished, an endless motion that never rests.
Sermon Title: LIFE UNDER THE SUN
Sermon Text: ECCLESIASTES 1:1-11 (ESV)
Sermon Series: UNDER THE SUN, BEFORE GOD
By: PTR. NESTOR SY
Sermon Notes:
Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 NIV
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?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 its 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.No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.
The problem that Ecclesiastes exposes in us is not about our effort but our orientation.
I. LIFE UNDER THE SUN FEELS EMPTY (1:1-3)
“Meaningless” (Heb. hebel) = “vapor, breath, or mist.”
When life is lived only under the sun, within the limits of human effort and visibility, we will find nothing solid enough to hold onto.
When good things are asked to be ultimate things, they will eventually collapse.
Emptiness is not necessarily a sign of failure, sometimes it is a sign of misplaced hope.
II. LIFE UNDER THE SUN FEELS EXHAUSTING (1:4-7)
Life under the sun is busy but never resolves.
Exhaustion is sometimes the soul’s way of saying, “There must be more than this.”
III. LIFE UNDER THE SUN FEELS ENDLESS (1:8-11)
Solomon is observing that when life is lived “under the sun,” desire has nowhere to go except inward. And when desire is trapped inside a closed system, it keeps circling, looking for fulfillment that never quite arrives.
If this life is all there is, desire becomes perpetually unfinished, an endless motion that never rests.
“Remembrance” (Heb. zikkaron) = “memorial, record.”
The internet is a graveyard of content that nobody remembers.