More | Week 2 · Rewind

More | Week 2 · Rewind

Pastor Bill Bush · Apr 18, 2018

Big Idea

More is less — chasing pleasure, possessions, and control for meaning always gives less, not more, because only a relationship with God can satisfy the eternal longing He placed in us.

God built us with a longing for eternity that only He can fill, so chasing pleasure, wealth, or control for meaning will always leave us wanting more. Solomon proved this by getting everything a person could want and finding it meaningless, but when we love God fully and live His way, even the small, temporary pleasures of life become truly satisfying.

Key points

1
1Solomon had everything — ultimate wisdom, wealth, and power — and used it all to chase pleasure as the meaning of life.
Pastor Bill introduces Ecclesiastes as Solomon's late-life reflection, noting he was the wealthiest and smartest man who ever lived, worth an estimated $2.2 trillion in today's dollars, who used all his resources to search for meaning apart from God.
2
2He tried to medicate his emptiness with alcohol and pleasure-seeking.
Reading Ecclesiastes 2:1-3, Pastor Bill shows Solomon turning to wine and foolishness to try to manufacture happiness, calling it an attempt to feel good through medicating rather than through God.
3
3He tried possessions and wealth to feel significant and secure — and it still wasn't enough.
Pastor Bill walks through Solomon's homes, gardens, reservoirs, herds, and stockpiles of gold, noting everything is plural, showing that no amount of accumulation satisfied him; he connects this to our modern hoarding of money for a false sense of security.
4
4He used people — slaves and concubines — to gain pleasure and control, the same pattern that shows up today in controlling relationships and pornography.
Pastor Bill points out Solomon owned about 150,000 slaves and 300 concubines, arguing that pleasure-seeking always leads to using and controlling others, drawing a direct line to modern marriage conflict, slavery's persistence today, and pornography.
5
5After getting everything, Solomon declared it all meaningless — because temporary things can never satisfy an eternal longing.
Reading Ecclesiastes 2:9-11, Pastor Bill explains Solomon denied himself no pleasure yet called it all "chasing the wind," teaching that God planted eternity in our hearts and only relationship with the Creator can meet that longing.
6
6People can look religious while actually being pleasure-seekers instead of God-seekers, which is why their faith collapses when it stops feeling good.
Turning to 2 Timothy 3, Pastor Bill warns that Paul described church people who act religious but reject the power of godliness because they love pleasure rather than God; he applies this to worship style preferences, giving, and serving that stop the moment they're no longer enjoyable.
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7Loving God with everything, and loving others as a result, is what actually turns less into more.
Citing Jesus' words in Matthew 22, Pastor Bill teaches that loving God fully and loving others as ourselves are equally important commands; when we go all in with God, giving and serving become freeing rather than depleting, and the temporary pleasures of life become genuinely enjoyable gifts.

Application

Pastor Bill frames it as a choice between chasing meaning in things or sticking your head out the window of life like a happy dog, simply enjoying what God gives.

Stop medicating, accumulating, subjugating, or fornicating for meaning
Pastor Bill names the four patterns people run to instead of God — alcohol, possessions, controlling people, and sexual pleasure — and asks people to honestly see which one they're running after.
Love God with all of you, not just part
Drawing from Matthew 22, he asks people to stop deciding how much of God to follow and instead go all in with heart, soul, and mind, trusting that His love for us (shown at the cross) makes Him trustworthy.
Love others as an equal, non-optional part of loving God
He challenges people to serve, give, and reach out to others rather than just attend and sit, since loving God and loving others cannot be separated.
Give generously instead of hoarding for security
Pastor Bill asks people to let go of the lie that more savings equals more security, trusting that God provides, and to experience how giving less to yourself actually produces more freedom and peace.
Let go and simply enjoy what God gives instead of overanalyzing it
Using his wife's realization about the landscaping, he asks people to receive God's temporary gifts — home, work, relationships — as blessings to enjoy rather than sources they demand ultimate meaning from.

Take it into your week

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“here we are in chapter two of Ecclesiastes and it says this, I said to myself, now whenever somebody talks about themselves in the third person, I don't think it's gonna end well”
From the transcript
“But then he goes on in verse four and says, I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself. So now he goes, the first thing is he's trying to use alcohol to feel happy”
From the transcript
“And then look at this verse six. I built reservoirs to collect water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. Reservoirs? How many of you have a reservoir”
From the transcript
“Well now, here's the problem. When you start to go after just pleasure, it gets even darker at times. Because verse seven says this, I bought slaves both men and women and others were born into my household”
From the transcript
“And look what he ends up saying. Verse nine, he says, so I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me and my wisdom never failed me”
From the transcript
“Now here's the thing you understand. Verse 10, if you have your Bibles underline this. Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure”
From the transcript
“He created us. He put eternity, planted it in our hearts, it says in chapter three. And what he's learning, what the whole book is trying to say is, there is a longing and a thirst”
From the transcript
“I wanna turn to second Timothy. Timothy is this is a letter. This is the last thing Paul ever wrote before he was killed and he knew he was gonna die”
From the transcript
“here's what he says. He goes, you know this, you should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money”
From the transcript
“If you go back to Ecclesiastes in in verse, 24, he says this, so I decided there's nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction at work”
From the transcript
“And here's what he said in Matthew 22 verse 37. Jesus said this, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind”
From the transcript
“Now here's the thing, the reason a lot of us struggle with it is because of what it says in first John. The only way we can truly love God is because he loved us first”
From the transcript
“That's the the first and greatest. But then verse 39, he goes, a second. The second part, he goes, is equally important. Some of you've heard this verse a million times”

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

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Day 1

Solomon was not a casual experimenter. He was the wisest, wealthiest, most powerful man of his era, and he ran the experiment of pleasure with everything he had. In Ecclesiastes 2, he describes turning to wine, laughter, and indulgence — not in ignorance, but with open eyes, testing whether any of it could answer the ache inside him. The verdict came back the same every time: meaningless. Not sinful in the moment, necessarily, but empty in the end. The pleasure would land, and then it would fade, and the ache would still be there, maybe louder than before. What strikes most people when they first sit with this passage is how honest it is. Solomon does not write from a distance. He went there. He tasted everything the world calls satisfying, and he tells us plainly what he found. That kind of honesty is a gift, because it names something most of us already feel but rarely say out loud — that the thing we thought would finally be enough never quite is. If that resonates with you today, you are not broken. You are simply human, and Solomon was there first. The good news is that his experiment did not end with despair. It ended with a discovery. But we need to sit with the honest diagnosis before we can appreciate the cure.

For reflection

Which area of your life right now — something you are pursuing, consuming, or holding onto — do you secretly hope will finally feel like enough?

Pray

Pray for the honesty to name the places where you have been running Solomon's experiment in your own life.

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Solomon had unlimited access to wealth, pleasure, and power — and ran the full experiment. This message asks what he found on the other side, and what it means for us.

Discussion questions

1
In Ecclesiastes 2:1-10, Solomon works his way through alcohol, lavish building projects, wealth, control over people, and sexual relationships — and lands on the word 'meaningless.' What do you think he means by that word? What was he actually looking for that none of those things could give him?
2
Ecclesiastes 3:11 says God 'has planted eternity in the human heart.' How does that idea help explain why the things Solomon tried always seemed to leave him wanting more?
3
The message described four patterns — medicating, accumulating, subjugating, and sexual indulgence — as ways people quietly try to fill that God-shaped longing. What makes these patterns so easy to miss or rationalize, especially inside a church community?
4
In 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Paul describes people who are 'lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God' — and places them inside religious life, not outside it. What does it look like, practically, when someone's religious activity is driven more by what feels good than by genuine love for God?
5
Solomon ends in Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 by saying pleasure and everyday gifts can only be truly enjoyed through a relationship with God. How does that reframe the way we think about things like food, rest, friendship, or work — are they the problem, or is something else the issue?
6
The message pointed to Jesus' words in Matthew 22:37-39 — loving God with everything and loving others as yourself — as the path where 'less becomes more.' What might it look like for a community like ours to actually live that out together, rather than just agree with it?

Pray together

Thanking God that He is the Gift Giver behind every good thing, and asking Him to reorient our hearts toward Him rather than toward the gifts

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Topics

Contentment in Christ Empty Pursuits Materialism Pleasure Seeking vs. God True Satisfaction

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