Green Street Baptist Church: Video Podcast

All of us desire meaning in life, and that’s true no matter who you are. Our search for it often leads us down winding paths filled with short-lived bursts of satisfaction that shine bright for a brief time but eventually wane. When we attempt to find ultimate meaning in the pursuit of pleasure, or through a successful career, or in our educational pursuits, we will eventually find all of these roads to be a dead end. For a season in his life, King Solomon tried to find ultimate meaning in things such as knowledge, pleasure, work, and wealth. As he reflected back on all of his pursuits under the sun, he described them as chasing after the wind. The things that he thought would satisfy him only ended up disappointing him in the end. Apart from God, it was all an empty pursuit. And in retrospect, he says to us here in this passage, “I learned my lesson!” We would do well to learn from his experience. What lessons did Solomon learn, and what application do they have for our lives today?

The words trivial and trivia can be traced back to a Latin noun meaning “a place where three roads meet.” In time, it also came to mean “of little worth or importance.” This is the main meaning of the word today. By this definition, the expression ‘trivial pursuit’ obviously refers to more than a board game. It is a way of referring to those matters in life which are supposedly inconsequential, a waste of time and energy. At first glance, it may seem that the author of Ecclesiastes is writing to us about trivial pursuits in life. But as we have already seen, he is writing from an ‘under the sun’ kind of perspective which he refers to as being ‘vanity.’ Some read the book and come to the conclusion that it is about the meaningless of life. And while it may appear this way strictly on the surface, Ecclesiastes is really about the meaninglessness of life apart from God.

No matter where a person looks, no matter what direction he or she turns, there is no lasting satisfaction to be found—at least not in the temporal things of life. The reason is that we’ve been made for eternity. That is why only the eternal glory of God can fulfill the eternal void in the human soul. That is something that King Solomon knew a lot about. He had arrived at the pinnacle of life. For 40 years, Solomon had lived on the top of the mountain of success. His kingdom was a sight to behold. He had wealth, luxury, and plenty of wisdom to go with it. And despite being the wisest man who had ever lived, he allowed stuff to get between his relationship with God. Solomon had made it to the top, and he tells us in Ecclesiastes that it was a desolate place.

Last week, I began a series of messages on contentment and the search for happiness that is found in the heart of every human being. No matter who you are, no matter how old you are, I can guarantee that you have a desire on the inside of you to be happy. Where does it come from? I made the argument from Scripture that we have been hardwired for happiness and contentment. It is evidence that we’ve been made in God’s image. The creature’s longing for happiness is evidence of the Creator’s design. It is evidence that we have been made for eternity.

There are plenty of synonyms for the word in the English language, words such as happiness, joy, satisfaction, pleasure. Perhaps contentment is the best word because it is descriptive of the state of your heart more than it is the state of your emotions. Our emotions may fluctuate given our circumstances, but our contentment level in life certainly doesn’t have to. Happiness is a universal longing in every human heart, and yet it seems to be so very elusive. Many people spend their entire lives trying to be happy, only to come up short time and time again. That’s why I want to take some time and trace the subject as we find it presented in the Bible. What is contentment, and what is the secret to our possessing it?

In the world of sports, there is debate centered around someone who is often referred to as ‘The G.O.A.T.”—the greatest of all time. God’s definition of greatness is vastly different from the world’s. Enter the life of John the Baptist. Jesus made a powerful statement about his life —“I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John.” Anyone that Jesus calls ‘great’ is someone whose life we need to carefully inspect.