The Question Everyone Asks Under the Sun Pastor Kile Baker December 29th, 2024 2024 Year in Review Will 2025 be better? Questions you’ll probably ask this year: “Couldn’t they just get me a gift card?” “Are interest rates ever going to go down?” “Is AI just the beginning of the Terminator movies?” “Do we have to do the election thing again in four years?” “Will this year be better?” Big Life Questions: What does a person gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun? Can one say about anything, “Look, this is new”? What does the worker gain from his struggles? For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of good things? For who knows what is good for anyone in life, in the few days of his futile life that he spends like a shadow? Who can tell anyone what will happen after him under the sun? The Book of Ecclesiastes The Question Everyone Asks: What am I living for? Ecclesiastes 2:10-11: All that my eyes desired, I did not deny them. I did not refuse myself any pleasure, for I took pleasure in all my struggles. This was my reward for all my struggles. 11 When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile and a pursuit of the wind. There was nothing to be gained under the sun. Ecclesiastes 3:11: “[God] has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in [our] hearts, but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end.” The Question Everyone Asks: What am I living for? This question is about the meaning of life, especially the meaning of your life. Do we seek meaning? Do we discover meaning? Do we make our own meaning? Do we receive meaning? One of the best ways to discover what is meaningful is to determine what is meaningless. Life Without God