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The Search for Contentment (Ecclesiastes 2:10-14, Ecclesiastes 2:22-26)
Steve Fenton, 15 May 2011
Part of the Hard Questions- Spiritual Answers series, Sunday Morning service
Many people are on a quest, either consciously or subconsciously, to find lasting contentment. It is natural to search for contentment through achieving success, accumulating wealth, the experience of pleasure or an intellectual pursuit. The writer of Ecclesiastes claims to have exhausted all these routes and has found them to be ‘meaningless’ (v11). He then asks a probing question which is as relevant today as it was 3000 years ago: “Without God, who can find enjoyment?” Together we will explore the central theme of how to find true contentment.
| Earlier: | Same day: | Later: |
|---|---|---|
| « Resurrection Morning (Easter Baptism Service 2011) | None | A Time for Everything » |
Ecclesiastes 2:10–14 (Listen)
10 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. 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.
12 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. 13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 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.
(ESV)
Ecclesiastes 2:22–26 (Listen)
22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? 23 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.
24 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, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 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.
(ESV)