What is the Point of It All?

What is the Point of It All?

This Sunday, we begin a new sermon series exploring life’s most pressing questions. We start with perhaps the most fundamental one: “What’s the point of it all?”

In our age of endless productivity hacks, career climbing, and legacy building, the ancient wisdom of Ecclesiastes cuts through our busyness with startling honesty. The Preacher—likely Solomon himself—opens his reflections with a jarring declaration: “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” The Hebrew word hebel means vapor, breath, a wisp of wind—something you cannot grasp or hold onto.

Before we dismiss this as ancient pessimism, consider how relevant these observations remain. We exhaust ourselves chasing promotions that lose their luster, accumulating possessions that eventually break or bore us, and building legacies that most will forget within a generation. Even our greatest achievements feel strangely hollow when we step back and ask, “So what?”

The Preacher isn’t trying to depress us—he’s diagnosing a universal human condition. Life “under the sun,” apart from God’s eternal perspective, inevitably feels meaningless. But here’s the hope: recognizing our deep need for something beyond ourselves is the first step toward finding it.

This Sunday, we’ll explore why honest acknowledgment of life’s apparent meaninglessness isn’t the end of the story, but the beginning of wisdom. Join us as we discover what it means to build our lives on a foundation that cannot be shaken, no matter how the winds of change may blow.

–Caleb McCaughan

Dinner Table Conversations: 

Adult & Teen Table Talk: 

• The Preacher calls everything “vanity” (hebel – vapor/breath). What aspects of modern life feel most like “chasing the wind” to you? Why do we keep pursuing things we know won’t ultimately satisfy?
• “There is nothing new under the sun” (v. 9). How do you see this truth playing out in our technology-obsessed culture? What “new” things are we counting on to solve age-old human problems?

Little Learners’ Table Talk: 

• The wise king in our story had everything he wanted – money, toys, knowledge – but he still wasn’t happy. Why do you think having everything didn’t make him happy?