Ecclesiastes 2:1–11
The sermon text, and the inventory behind it. Gold, houses, horses, a throne unlike any other. Everything he lists in chapter 2, he actually owned.
1 Kings 10 is the receipt. Which pursuit in 2:1–11 would you have expected to satisfy him, and why?
The psalmist watches rich men die and notices their houses stay behind. The same observation, set to music.
Underline every verb in 2:4–8. How many of them survive into verse 11?
Jesus tells a story that reads like a commentary on Ecclesiastes 2. Bigger barns, ease and enjoyment, and a night the man did not schedule.
Jesus calls the man a fool rather than a sinner. What exactly was foolish about his reasoning?
What does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and lose his life? Solomon ran that experiment. Jesus gives the result in one sentence.
Name the one thing you would want more of if money were no object. Now ask what 2:11 would say about it.
John names the same three pursuits and says the world and its desires are passing away. Then he tells you what is not.
Ask God to show you one thing you could go without this month. Then tell one person what you decided.
What are the Marks and the 3 Circles?
The Marks of a Disciple
Each week names one of these — the practices we are cultivating in each other.
- Daily Devotion
- Time with God every day, in the Bible and in prayer.
- Prayer
- Not only a set appointment, but a life of prayer at any hour, for anything.
- Generosity
- Giving your effort and your resources to this church and to God’s kingdom.
- Service
- Giving your time and talent to the church and its mission in the community.
- Witness
- Seeking people far from God and telling them about Jesus and about your own finding of him.
- Worship
- Weekly praise together, and a life presented daily to God’s service.
- Spiritual Disciplines
- Fasting, solitude, study, sabbath — the old practices of the faith.
The 3 Circles
How we tell someone about Jesus — simple enough to draw on a napkin. Each week names the part of it that week’s reading sits in.
- God’s Design
- The world and your life as God made them to be.
- Sin
- The arrow out. We each go our own way instead.
- Brokenness
- Where that leaves us. Ecclesiastes spends most of twelve chapters here.
- Repent & Believe
- Turning from our own way and trusting what Jesus did.
- Gospel
- Jesus lived the life we could not and died the death we deserved.
- Recover & Pursue
- The way back toward the life God designed.