More | Week 1 · Rewind

Pastor Daniel Goulding · Apr 8, 2018 · 68 min watch · 3 min read

More | Week 1

Big Idea

More of what this world offers will never satisfy the eternal longing God built into every human heart — more is actually less.

Through the life and writings of Solomon — the wisest, wealthiest man who ever lived — Pastor Daniel shows that every pursuit 'under the sun' (wealth, wisdom, pleasure, power) moves in a cul-de-sac circle that never delivers lasting contentment. The reason is theological: God has 'planted eternity in the human heart' (Ecclesiastes 3:11), so only life with the Son of God can fulfill what temporary things never can. True freedom comes not from accumulating more but from stewarding what God has given with courage and trust, discovering that less truly becomes more.

Key points

1
1Life under the sun is a cul-de-sac — every generation chases the same things and ends up unsatisfied, proving that more is less.
2
2Wisdom alone cannot fix the problem, because we live in a broken, crooked world that no human intelligence can straighten.
3
3God has planted eternity in every human heart, which means our restless longing for 'more' is actually a God-given desire that only He can satisfy.
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4The things of this world — money, relationships, work, pleasure — are not wrong; they are gifts from God to be stewarded, not saviors to be worshipped.
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5When we stop demanding that temporal things fulfill our eternal longing and instead steward them God's way, less becomes more and we genuinely enjoy them.
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6Trusting God requires courage — acting even when it is scary — because following Jesus means letting go of the lie that more of the world's things will finally make us happy.

Application

Pastor Daniel closes with a pointed, personal question: 'What is my chips and salsa?' — the thing you keep running after, convinced it will finally make you happy, perhaps even arguing with God because He hasn't given you enough of it. The invitation is to be honest before God about what you are trying to use as a substitute for Him. Over the coming weeks the series will walk through specific 'houses on the cul-de-sac,' but the first step is courage — the willingness to act even when letting go feels scary. Trust God with what you have, steward it His way, and discover that the less you demand from temporal things the more you are freed to enjoy them as the gifts they were always meant to be. Life with the Son is what unlocks life under the sun.

Take it into your week

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“In Ecclesiastes verse two, he says this. Everything is meaningless, says the teacher. Completely meaningless. So it's useless. So let's just close in prayer and I'll go home depressed”
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From the transcript
“Verse 15, another important one to highlight. What is wrong cannot be made right. What is missing cannot be recovered. Some translations say what what is crooked cannot be made straight again”
From the transcript
“It's my soapbox proverb. Proverbs fourteen twelve. You know what that says? There's a way that seems right too, but in the end it leads to that was Solomon that wrote that”
From the transcript
“he says in chapter two after this. We're gonna go back through two next week. He says, so I came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling”
From the transcript
“right here in chapter three verse nine, he says this, what do people really get for all their hard work? I've seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful in this for its own time”
From the transcript
“He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end. There's a great one underlined”
From the transcript
“Spoiler alert, we'll talk about this last week. Go read chapter 12. He kinda comes back to the answer. He says, so here's what I learned”
From the transcript
“Look what he says next. It sounds like he just says the opposite of what I just said. Verse 12, so I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can”

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7-day devotional

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Solomon had everything. He was the wisest man who ever lived, wealthy beyond imagination, and powerful enough to attempt any dream he could conceive. And yet the book he left us opens not with a triumph but with a sigh: 'Everything is meaningless... utterly meaningless!' That is a startling place to start, but it is also an honest one. Pastor Daniel pointed out that every generation chases the same things — more money, more recognition, more comfort, more experience — and every generation arrives at the same hollow destination. The cul-de-sac metaphor is exactly right: you drive in with hope, circle around, and come back out empty. Solomon did not write Ecclesiastes to discourage us. He wrote it as a guide from someone who ran every experiment under the sun so we would not have to. The phrase 'under the sun' is the key. It marks a life lived as though this world is all there is. When the horizon of your hope stops at what you can see and earn and achieve, you will always end up right back where you started — wanting more. That restlessness is not a flaw to fix with more hustle. It is a signpost pointing somewhere beyond the sun entirely.

For reflection

What is one area of your life where you have been circling the same cul-de-sac, hoping the next lap will feel different?

Pray

Pray for honest eyes to see where you have been living 'under the sun' as if nothing exists above it.

Related passageEcclesiastes 1:2-12:14

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Week 1 · 6 messages

Where these passages are preached

Ecclesiastes 1 Proverbs 14 Ecclesiastes 2 Ecclesiastes 3

Explore related topics

Contentment Eternity in the Heart Letting Go Materialism Stewardship

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