Sunday message · Vanity: Ecclesiastes series
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Message Summary
Pastor Phillip Santillan opens the Vanity: Ecclesiastes series by admitting that the exceptions, not the rules, are what trip him up in English spelling. Life is the same. Proverbs speaks in principles and expectations, but life is full of exceptions: marriage vows meant to last into old age cut short by illness, or a lazy coworker getting the promotion you worked for. Ecclesiastes deals with those exceptions and with what life really looks like. A scholar Phil quotes compares Proverbs to math and weather forecasts, and Ecclesiastes to music and the unpredictable weather itself.
Phil believes the book speaks to anyone who feels the weight of everyday life or was taught that the Christian life is free of pain. This is not a self-help series. Only when we see clearly what life under the sun looks like can we understand life under God’s Son, Jesus Christ. He reads Ecclesiastes 1:1–11, where the Preacher, the son of David and king in Jerusalem, says all is vanity and there is nothing new under the sun. The goal is practical, since Clarity defines spiritual maturity by life change, not Bible knowledge.
Phil holds the classic view that Solomon wrote the book from experience, not theory. His story began with David’s sin with Bathsheba, yet Solomon became the wisest man after Jesus, wrote 3,000 proverbs, 1,000 songs and three books of the Bible, and ruled Israel for about forty years in unmatched peace and prosperity, with a complicated family life of 700 wives and 300 concubines. Unrestrained, he threw himself into one question: what is the meaning of life? A pastor Phil quotes calls him a prodigal son who used his own life as an experiment, then returned to the Lord and honestly described how empty life is apart from God.
The main text is Ecclesiastes 2:9–11. Solomon became great and denied himself no pleasure, then looked at all his toil and found it vanity and a striving after wind. Phil warns that reading the book in pieces could suggest nothing matters; it builds a case toward its conclusion in 12:13, to fear God and keep his commandments. Solomon, a wise and mighty king the world revered, points to a greater King whose wisdom the world rejected. In Matthew’s gospel Jesus says the queen of Sheba came from far away to hear Solomon’s wisdom, yet someone greater than Solomon is here.
Phil leaves the church with questions for the weeks ahead. What have you pursued apart from God, hoping it would make life meaningful? Did it bring the lasting peace, joy and satisfaction you hoped for? Are you pursuing something that way now? Do you believe Solomon’s conclusion that apart from God even the best things fail to satisfy? He closes with a pastor’s observation that a person can have a full house, bank account and resume yet an empty soul, because happiness comes by being, not having, which is what Paul meant by calling godliness with contentment great wealth (1 Timothy 6:6). Everything minus God is nothing, but nothing plus God is everything.
Questions about Ecclesiastes
The book names its author only as “the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem” (Ecclesiastes 1:1), and this message holds the classic view that Solomon wrote it from experience, not theory. Solomon, David’s son, was famous for his wisdom (1 Kings 4:29–32) and threw himself into one question: what is the meaning of life? The book is his honest report on life apart from God.
Seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, according to 1 Kings 11:3, and Scripture adds that as he grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods (11:4). Pastor Phil points to that life as the backdrop of Ecclesiastes: a king who ruled in unmatched peace and prosperity, denied himself no pleasure, and still found that apart from God even the best things fail to satisfy.
Ecclesiastes is about life “under the sun” without God at the center, and why even the best things cannot satisfy apart from him. The Teacher tried wisdom, work and pleasure and found everything futile, “a pursuit of the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:11). The book builds toward its conclusion: “Fear God and keep His commandments” (12:13). As Pastor Phil sums it up, everything minus God is nothing.
It means everything under the sun is fleeting, like a breath. The Hebrew word literally means vapor or breath; older Bibles say “vanity,” and the Berean Standard Bible renders the line “Futility of futilities” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Pastor Phil warns against reading it to mean nothing matters: the book shows that life without God cannot satisfy, and it ends by calling us to fear God (12:13).
It refers to the book’s speaker, called Qoheleth in Hebrew: one who gathers and addresses an assembly. The Berean Standard Bible translates the word “the Teacher” and notes it can also mean the Convener, the Preacher or the leader of the assembly (Ecclesiastes 1:1). This message calls him the Preacher, the son of David and king in Jerusalem, whom it identifies as Solomon.
