Pleasure and Emptiness

Pastor Bill Bush · Apr 20, 2026

Drawing from Ecclesiastes 2:1–11, Pastor Bill argues that the exhaustion and emptiness so many people feel is not caused by life being too hard or God being absent, but by the relentless pursuit of good things — pleasure, possessions, people, and desires — in place of a genuine relationship with Jesus. Because God has planted eternity in every human heart, no temporal thing can ever fully satisfy that longing. The solution is not to abandon enjoyment but to stop asking good gifts to do what only the Giver can do, and to find identity, meaning, and life from the presence of God rather than from the things of this world.