WELCOME
Good morning First Baptist. We welcome you to worship this morning. Be sure to remember your brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the week as you pray for them, and as the Holy Spirit brings their faces to your mind. Be sure to also connect with them in the ways that are possible. And if you have any questions or would like to talk to someone, please don’t hesitate to contact the church through the church telephone and leave a message. (519-733-4144)
Songs
Call to Worship
Amen, church, that’s exactly right. This is our God. No matter what we walked in carrying today. No matter what this past week looked like, no matter what we’ve been chasing or striving for, God is present with us right now. If you’re part of our church family, welcome, we’re really glad you’re here. And if you’re visiting with us today, we’re grateful you chose to worship with us.
Today we’re continuing our series “Don’t settle: Finding a meaningful life.” And we’re asking an honest question together: What are we really hoping will give our lives meaning? Before we sing again, we want to let Scripture shape that question, not our culture, not our expectations, but God’s Word.
Hear these words from Psalm 73:
“Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:25–26)
This psalm was written by someone who looked honestly at success, wealth, and achievement, and realized they couldn’t carry the weight of his soul. And then he discovered this truth: God Himself is our portion. God Himself is enough. So, as we continue to worship, we’re not trying to impress God. We’re not striving to earn anything. We’re simply re-centering our hearts on the One who gives life meaning. Let me pray for that as we begin:
God, as we sing again, turn our hearts from everything that cannot satisfy and help us fix our hope, our joy, and our trust fully on You.
Let’s continue to worship together.
Songs
Prayer
CONFESSION:
Gracious God, we confess that we often look for meaning in places that cannot give it. We place our hope in success, in productivity, in comfort, in being noticed or approved. We tell ourselves that just a little more will finally make us content, more achievement, more security, more control. And yet our hearts remain restless.
Forgive us for asking good things to carry the weight of our lives. Forgive us for trusting our work, our wisdom, or our pleasure more than we trust You. By Your Spirit, loosen our grip on what cannot hold us, and gently turn our hearts back to You, the true source of life and meaning. We confess these things honestly, knowing that You meet us not with shame, but with grace.
Amen.
WORDS OF ASSURANCE:
Hear the good news. Scripture reminds us that “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.” Meaning is not something we earn or achieve, it is something we receive. God does not condemn us for searching. He meets us in our restlessness. Through Jesus Christ, we are forgiven, welcomed, and invited to live freely in God’s presence. The same God who knows our striving also offers us grace, peace, and rest.
In Christ, you are forgiven. In Christ, you are free. Thanks be to God.
Don’t Settle: Finding a Meaningful Life
The Things That Promise Meaning (But Can’t Deliver)
Today's Message: Pastor Dave Page
Last week, we started this series by naming something many of us feel but don’t always know how to articulate, restlessness. That quiet sense that even when life is busy, productive, and full, something still feels unfinished. And we said that restlessness isn’t usually something to fix. It’s often an invitation from God. Today, Ecclesiastes pushes us one step further.
If last week asked why we feel restless, this week asks a harder, more personal question: What are we actually hoping will give our lives meaning?
That’s not a new question. One of the clearest examples in Scripture is Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, the son of Isaac, and the man God would later rename Israel. Jacob spends most of his life chasing things he believes will finally make him secure, approval, success, blessing, control. He deceives his brother to get the blessing. He works relentlessly to build wealth and family. From the outside, Jacob looks successful. But inside, he’s anxious. He’s always looking over his shoulder. He’s afraid of losing what he’s gained.
Then there’s that moment in Genesis where Jacob finds himself alone at night, wrestling with a mysterious man, who turns out to be God. And what’s striking is what Jacob asks for. He doesn’t ask for more wealth. He doesn’t ask for safety or control. He says, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” In other words, “I’ve chased everything else. I need to know who I am. I need to know what really matters.” And God changes Jacob’s name, from Jacob to Israel.
Because meaning didn’t come from what Jacob built. It came from encountering God. And for us today, it’s often the Holy Spirit who meets us in that same place, in the wrestling, in the questions, in the dissatisfaction, gently unsettling us and drawing our attention toward what actually gives life.
And that’s exactly the space Ecclesiastes 2 invites us into.
Setting the Scene — Ecclesiastes 2
Ecclesiastes 2 is Solomon doing something very similar to Jacob. He’s not theorizing. He’s reflecting. He looks back over his life and says, “I chased pleasure. I chased achievement. I chased success and wisdom. And I want to tell you honestly how it went.” This chapter isn’t written from the sidelines. It’s written by someone who ran the experiment and lived to tell the truth about it.
Read Ecc 2:1-16
Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 2
I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure”; but surely, this also was vanity. 2 I said of laughter—“Madness!”; and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” 3 I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine, while guiding my heart with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.
4 I made my works great, I built myself houses, and planted myself vineyards. 5 I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove. 7 I acquired male and female servants, and had servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all kinds.
9 So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.
10 Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,
For my heart rejoiced in all my labor;
And this was my reward from all my labor.
11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done
And on the labor in which I had toiled;
And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.
There was no profit under the sun.The End of the Wise and the Fool
12 Then I turned myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly;
For what can the man do who succeeds the king?—
Only what he has already done.
13 Then I saw that wisdom excels folly
As light excels darkness.
14 The wise man’s eyes are in his head,
But the fool walks in darkness.
Yet I myself perceived
That the same event happens to them all.
15 So I said in my heart,
“As it happens to the fool,
It also happens to me,
And why was I then more wise?”
Then I said in my heart,
“This also is vanity.”
16 For there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever,
Since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come.
And how does a wise man die?
As the fool!
Point 1 — Pleasure Can’t Carry the Weight of Meaning
Ecclesiastes 2:1–3
Solomon starts with pleasure. “I said to myself, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.’” Joy. Entertainment. Celebration. Escape. And Solomon doesn’t reject pleasure outright. He enjoys it. He laughs. He celebrates. He fills his life with good experiences.
But then he admits something important. Even while enjoying pleasure, his heart wasn’t settled. That’s such an honest admission. Because pleasure works, for a moment. And we know this instinctively. We experience it every day. We look forward to the vacation, and it’s great, but eventually it ends.
We wait all week for the weekend, and by Sunday night, it’s already slipping away. We anticipate the meal, the purchase, the experience, and for a brief moment it delivers. But then the feeling fades. Pleasure is a gift. Many times God’s blessing. But it was never meant to be the foundation of a meaningful life because pleasure is temporary. It feels good in the moment, but it doesn’t last. It distracts, but it doesn’t anchor.
Here’s a really clear picture of this in our world today.
Think about how we use our phones. After a long day, we sit down, open an app, and start scrolling. And it feels relaxing at first. That’s not a mistake by the way, there is real science about what those algorithms actually to our brains, but, it’s entertaining, easy. One video turns into five. Five turns into twenty. And for a while, it works, it takes the edge off. But eventually, you look up and realize two things at the same time: You’re still tired, and somehow, now you’re also restless.
Now unpack this with me for a moment. Nothing actually went wrong here. It’s just that the pleasure we were receiving just didn’t carry what we hoped it would. And the next day, we do it again. And for some of you, it may not be your phone – maybes it’s social media, or a book or binge watching that show. You see, when pleasure becomes the place we go for relief, we always need more of it to get the same effect.
That’s exactly what Solomon is naming. When pleasure becomes the goal, it stops being something we enjoy and starts becoming something we depend on. Dependency on the wrong things always leads to diminishing returns. Eventually, even good pleasures lose their power. Not because they’re bad, please don’t hear me saying that pleasure always has to be bad, but pleasures lose their power because they were never designed to satisfy the deeper questions of the soul.
Questions like: Am I safe? Am I loved? Does my life actually matter? Pleasure can give us a momentary escape, but it can’t give us meaning. And Solomon wants us to learn that without having to run the experiment ourselves.
Point 2 — Achievement and Success Don’t Satisfy Either
Ecclesiastes 2:4–11
Next, Solomon turns to achievement. He builds houses. Plants vineyards. Creates gardens. Amasses wealth and influence. This is productivity on a massive scale. If meaning could be found through accomplishment, Solomon would have found it. But then he steps back and evaluates it all. “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done… everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Here’s the tension: Achievement feels meaningful while you’re achieving it. But once the project is finished, the question comes back.
Now what? There’s always another goal. Another milestone. Another version of “enough.” And if your identity is built on what you do, you’re only as secure as your last success and I need to say this honestly, not just as someone preaching this text, but as a pastor living it. This is a temptation I know well. There are seasons where I quietly start believing that fruitfulness will settle me.
That if the sermon lands, if the ministry grows, if the plans come together, if the results are visible, If the data says so, then I’ll feel at peace.
And the truth is, even good, God-honoring work can become heavy when it starts carrying more weight than it was meant to carry. I’ve felt that moment Solomon describes, where you step back after finishing something important and think, “Why doesn’t this feel like I thought it would?” Not because the work was wrong. Not because God wasn’t in it. But because somewhere along the way, I started asking achievement to do what only God can do. To reassure me. To define me. To quiet the deeper questions.
Some time ago this book, Ecclesiastes, and some wise mentors, gently exposed that in me. It reminds me, and maybe it reminds you too, that even meaningful work cannot be the place where our souls come to rest. Only God can do that.
Point 3 — Even Wisdom and Work Aren’t Ultimate Solomon’s conclusion in Ecclesiastes 2 is unsettling.
Read Ecclesiastes 2:17-26
After testing pleasure, success, achievement, wisdom, and work, he realizes something sobering: even the best things, even good, meaningful work, cannot carry the weight of ultimate meaning. They can shape our lives. They can bless others. They can bring moments of fulfillment. But these things cannot answer the deepest questions of the human heart.
There is a man named Blaise Pascal who lived in the mid 1600’s, he wrestled with the same tension. Pascal was brilliant, a mathematician, he invented an early calculator. A scientist, he constructed the earliest ways of measuring atmospheric pressure with the first mercury barometer and he was a Theologian/philosopher, writing about the intersections of religion, faith and morality. By his early twenties, he had already made discoveries that shaped modern life and thought. If meaning could be found through intelligence or achievement, Pascal should have found it. But he didn’t.
As Pascal reflected on human life, he noticed something deeply honest. No matter how successful people were, they were still restless. Still distracted. Still uneasy. Still searching.
He observed that we humans are incredibly skilled at filling our lives with noise, work, entertainment, activity, not always because those things are bad, but because silence forces us to face deeper questions. And Pascal summarized it like this, in language we might use today: “Most of what we do to stay busy isn’t really about happiness, it’s about avoiding the emptiness we don’t know how to face.”
That insight sounds exactly like Ecclesiastes. Solomon’s problem wasn’t that he worked too hard or thought too deeply. It was that he expected wisdom and work to do what only God can do. To secure him. To define him. To give him lasting meaning. And when work or even wisdom takes on that role, it eventually becomes heavy, Exhausting and left long enough, something breaks.
That’s why Solomon doesn’t reject work. He reframes it. Work becomes something we offer, not something we cling to. Wisdom becomes something we receive, not something we build our identity on. And Church, this is where God’s presence changes everything. Because when God is at the center, work becomes worship instead of burden. Wisdom becomes humility instead of pride. Achievement becomes gratitude instead of identity. And we begin to receive meaning as something given, not earned.
And once we see that, once we realize that meaning is not something we achieve, but something we receive, the question shifts.
Not “What else do I need to chase?” But “How am I going to live differently this week?”
The Turning Point — Receiving Life as Gift
Ecclesiastes 2:24–26
I want to finish up by drawing your attention to these last verses of Chapter 2. Something shifts here. Quietly. Gently. Solomon says this:
“A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God.”
Don’t miss this because it’s really important and we need to understand it. Solomon isn’t rejecting pleasure, work, or wisdom. As I said a moment ago, He’s re-framing them. They were never meant to be sources of meaning. They were meant to be gifts received from God.
A daily struggle for myself and perhaps some of you is accepting that meaning/purpose doesn’t come from controlling life. – It comes from receiving life. And this is where God’s presence matters so deeply. God’s presence in our lives, through the Holy Spirit helps us enjoy good things without worshipping them. The Spirit reorders our thinking and our hearts, so good things can be good again.
Connecting Back to Week 1
Recall last week, we said restlessness is often God’s invitation. This week, Ecclesiastes 2 shows us why because we keep asking good things to be ultimate things. Pleasure. Achievement. Wisdom. Work.
Call to Action — This Week
So here’s the invitation for this week. Take an honest look at where you’re placing your hope. Ask yourself:
- What do I think will finally make me feel settled?
- What do I get most anxious about losing?
- What do I keep telling myself I need “just a little more” of?
Then practice receiving instead of striving. Enjoy something this week and thank God for it. Work faithfully but release the outcome to God. Notice where the Holy Spirit is already meeting you, especially in the wrestling because meaningful life isn’t found by chasing harder. It’s found by receiving more deeply.
Closing
So, as we close today, here’s the invitation Ecclesiastes is holding out to us. Stop asking good things to carry the weight of your life. Stop asking pleasure to save you. Stop asking work to settle your soul or success to define you.
Meaning is not something you chase down or achieve if you just try harder. It’s something you receive when your life is rightly centered on God, and the good news is this: God is not waiting for you to get this right before He meets you.
He is already present, by His Spirit, in your work, your questions, your restlessness, and even your disappointment. So, this week, don’t settle for striving. Practice receiving. And here’s one more important invitation. As you were listening today, many of you probably identified something specific, and that’s what you wrote in your sermon notes something you’ve been chasing, something you’ve been asking to give your life meaning, You don’t have to carry that alone.
After the service, Pastor Marlee and I are going to stay down front and we would love to pray with you, not to fix you, not to judge you, but to stand with you and ask God to meet you right there. If you feel prompted, I encourage you to take that step. Bring what you’ve been holding. Bring what you’re ready to release. And next week, Ecclesiastes takes us even deeper because once we stop chasing meaning through what we do and what we have, a new question rises:
What do we do when we realize we’re not in control?
Next week, we’ll look at how Ecclesiastes speaks to seasons, timing, and the limits we all face, and how learning to trust God in those places can actually free us to live with greater peace and purpose. So don’t settle and come back next week as we continue learning how to live a meaningful life, not by mastering life, but by trusting the God who holds it.
Amen.
Prayer
Faithful and generous God, we thank You that You are not distant from us, but present with us by Your Spirit. You know the work we carry, the pressure we feel, the expectations we place on ourselves. You see those among us who are tired, tired of striving, tired of proving, tired of carrying more than they were meant to carry.
We pray for those who are searching for meaning right now. Meet them in their questions. Meet them in their wrestling. Meet them in the quiet places they try to avoid. We pray for those burdened by work, that You would help them work faithfully, but not be defined by their work.
We pray for those enjoying good gifts, that they would receive them with gratitude, without being owned by them. We pray for our church, that we would be a community shaped not by striving, but by trust; not by comparison, but by contentment.
Holy Spirit, reorder our hearts, and teach us to receive life as gift. We offer ourselves to You, our work, our plans, our hopes, and we trust You to give meaning where we cannot manufacture it. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus, who shows us the way to life. Amen.
Song
Benediction
Go now, not chasing what cannot satisfy, but receiving the life God is giving you. and sometimes, that takes courage. And so go knowing God goes with you.
Amen.