“The Search Begins”
Zach Pummill • Ecclesiastes 1 • August 30, 2026
SERMON OVERVIEW
We all look for meaning, but where can it be found?
In Ecclesiastes the author is searching for the meaning of life. The book takes us on a journey through the author's search for meaning and all the things he tried and all the places he looked to satisfy the deepest longings of his existence. It opens with his great question: "For what does a man gain for all his toil under the sun?"
There is an unavoidable despair you can feel as you read it, but that's good. You're actually supposed to feel that way, that's why the Lord gave us this book. Because Ecclesiastes is part of the wisdom literature of the Bible, and true wisdom begins when our hope in the things of this world ends.
That's a hard lesson to learn, but Ecclesiastes is a wake up call to not have to learn that lesson the hard way.
While the author invites into the depths of life's heaviness and hopelessness, Christ meets us in those depths. In each chapter, Ecclesiastes will help us see Jesus in a new light and come to him in a new way. For while there is nothing new under the sun, the incarnation is God introducing something new. Meaning itself took on flesh and blood, and it's in him the search comes to an end.
