Here are some questions based on last Sunday’s sermon text (Ecclesiastes 1:4-11), in case they’re helpful to you for personal growth or group discussion…

• Ecclesiastes tells us that our endeavors in this world “under the sun” amount to sand castles, and that the tides of time will wash them all away. Do you imagine that your contributions in life will change the world or endure in the memory of generations to come? How do you feel when you honestly reflect on the fleeting and futile nature of your existence?

• This world has been “subjected to futility” by God, so that we could never be truly and fully satisfied by our participation in it. Rather than this being a curse, we can believe that it is a blessing. In our sin, we have chosen to try to find life apart from God, and he lets us flounder in this choice in order to know that there is no life apart from God. Where have you sought life apart from God? Have you found it? Do you think you ever will? Do you live as if you could, even though you know you can’t? Why?

• [9] “There is nothing new under the sun.” Apart from Jesus, everything is just endless cycles of meaninglessness as we try to save ourselves for some kind of glory. Apart from Jesus, this world—and your life—is going nowhere. But, in Jesus, humanity has a new history that truly is going somewhere: to God’s right hand in glory! He is the only “new thing” that has happened in this old world, and in his grace he is making all things new, including us in our relationship with him. How is life with Jesus not just the “same old same old” futility of sinful human existence? How does knowing Jesus fulfill you, satisfy you, in ways that you never could be apart from him? How is your Christ-centered hope for the future different from the world’s hope that tomorrow might be better in some way? How has Jesus truly changed the world in ways that will endure in memory forever? How does your relationship to him make you new?