Everyone seems to reach a stage of life when we get a feeling that there must be more to life than what they’re experiencing. Life goes on and on. There are good times and bad times.
But still the nagging feeling that you’re missing something. That there must be more to life.
That’s the thought behind what we read.
But as we saw last week the writer (the Teacher) is searching for meaning in life with a filter in his search: He only looks “under the sun” – only at what he can see and touch. He never prays, never consults Scripture.
So we’ll listen to what he has to say patiently.
We’ll listen until we get to a point where he says something absolutely intolerable – and then the whole Bible shouts back with Good News!
These notes accompany a sermon on YouTube delivered at Bromborough Evangelical Church Wirral in November 2025. You can find more in the series in our sermon index.
You have eternity in your heart (3:1-15)
Verses 1 to 8 are a poem. It’s rhythmic and beautiful. The language seems to resonate with what you know about life.
Read Ecc 3:1.
- He usually says “under the sun” but sometimes says “under heaven” in the same way.
- It’s a warning to us: His search for meaning is restricted.
Read Ecc 3:2.
- That seems so true; it feels right, by experience.
- But some die young, don’t they? Does that feel right?
- This is a sad poem about life, raising all sorts of questions, mostly about who gets to set the appointed times?
Now read Ecc 3:3.
- Buildings get torn down and built up, obviously.
- But so do careers, and relationships. But why?
Read Ecc 3:4.
- Some of these times are thrust on us: Who’d choose a time to weep and mourn? Who’s driving these times?
Read Ecc 3:5.
- Throwing stones was sometimes done to ruin farm land; gathering stones is probably about building and settling.
- Is there a time to avoid embracing?
- Yes, sometimes there are people worth avoiding.
- Other times (like Covid!) it’s about illness.
In verse 8 he talks of a time to hate and a time for war – but that’s hardly how God designed the world to be.
Brokenness
We live in a broken world. The rhythm of the poem draws us in because it mirrors the poetic, inescapable rhythms of life. But not all of it is good.
And the poem begs the question: Who sets the programme? Is life just chaos, or is there a plan?
Is there a time for work, and a time for redundancy? A time for health, and a time for cancer diagnosis? A time for youth, and a time for loss of sight or hearing?
In particular, if there is a plan, is it a good one? Or are we just sport, a plaything for a bored deity?
These are the questions you land up with when you limit your search to things under the sun.
Think about what’s missing from the poem: How about: A time to act, and a time to pray? Or: A time to repent? A time for divine revelation?
What’s the point?
The Teacher doesn’t pause for reflection though. He just jumps straight in with a negative question: Read Ecc 3:9.
From a human perspective, you wonder what’s the point? The Teacher says something interesting about God. Read Ecc 3:10-11a.
God does have a plan, he says. It might not look beautiful to us, but everything is appropriate in its time. You might have a translation that says he made everything “beautiful” in its time. One translation (NET) puts it this way: God has made everything fit beautifully in its appropriate time.
If God has a plan, you’d expect it to be a good one. It would make sense for everything to have its own place, just right.
But the Teacher goes on: Read Ecc 3:11b.
Here’s the Teacher’s agony: He knows that you have eternity in your hearts. There must be more to life. The poem in v2-9 is so painful because you know there must be more to life. But, he says that although God’s plan might look good to him we can’t see it, we don’t know it.
So, if life just looks random and chaotic to us, what can you do? The Teacher gives his conclusion: Read Ecc 3:12.
Contentment
Yes, we are to enjoy things of this life. But that’s because they’re good gifts from God.
Enjoying life in an aspect of gratitude to God is real contentment. There is more to life, and it is God himself who brings that meaning.
So the Teacher shows distance from God again: Read Ecc 3:14. He sees God only as someone to fear – maybe in dread as much as awe. But he fails to see the actions of God as calls for you to come to know him.
And so in v15 he repeats the idea that everything will just keep going on as it always has, with nothing new under the sun.
People will do what they have always done, and so will God.
Everything so far is confusion and distress, caused by the Teacher’s search filter: “Under the sun.”
How can we summarise what the Teacher has said so far?
- God has a plan that controls our lives.
- There are times appointed for us, but we can’t know them.
- We know there must be more to life, but we don’t know it because we don’t know God’s plan.
- So you might as well just get on with life best you can.
Is he right? As ever with the Teacher, his observations about life are insightful. But he doesn’t know God, so his conclusions are way off-target.
As he switches to a new topic in the next verse, he’ll lead us to a thought that will open up the whole of the Bible’s response to him!
Come to Christ for eternal life (3:16-4:3)
He begins with a powerful statement on justice: Read Ecc 3:16. There’s wickedness to be found at the very place where courts should be putting righting wrongs. And there’s wickedness where you ought to be seeing people doing right things.
Will God do anything? The Teacher thinks so: Read Ecc 3:17.
That sits well with what we expect in life. We tell stories where the good guy wins and the bad guy gets his comeuppance: Star Wars, Cinderella, Oliver Twist. Bad guys lose and justice gets done.
But the Teacher also knows that in real life, bad guys do seem to get away with it. Was Hitler brought to justice for his terrible crimes? Was Jimmy Saville? Did the grave rob their victims of justice?
Actually, the Teacher says yes, they did get away with it.
And he goes further and says that God lets them get away with it. Read Ecc 3:18.
Common misery
The idea is that although you think there should be meaning and more to life (as in the poem), as well as justice against wickedness, in truth (he says) death shows us we’re just like animals. He says, in effect, you die and that’s it. No meaning. Not more to life. Not even justice, in the end.
So his view in v19-20 is miserable, but very common in our society: Read Ecc 3:19-20.
Some people have vague ideas about the afterlife (aunt so-and-so is up there, having a cup of tea with uncle etc…) But many others believe there simply is no afterlife at all. Life under the sun, for them, is all the life there is.
And so we come to a tipping point, the point at which we really must stop the Teacher and shout “No! Listen to God.” Read Ecc 3:21-22.
The answer is obvious: Jesus is risen
Stop right there. We must, must interrupt the hopelessness.
There’s a truth that shatters everything the Teacher has said, and it’s this: Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead on the third day. He is now ascended, glorified, and reigning over all humanity.
Who can enable you see what happens after you die? Jesus.
- Jesus will one day Judge all humanity. Revelation 20 speaks of a day when he will sit on a great white throne and pass judgment on you – and on every man, woman, and child who ever lived. No sin goes unpunished. There is perfect justice. Hitler and Saville did not get away with it.
- Who will stand on that day? Everyone who has been forgiven in this life. If you turn to Jesus today and ask him for forgiveness, your sins are counted against him. His sacrifice atones for all your sin. Jesus was punished for you.
- What about God’s big plan? Is that real? Is there really a “time for every activity under heaven” (v1)?Yes, the scroll of human history was in God’s hand and Jesus, the Lamb of God, opened the scroll – opened the age of human history we’re in.
Galatians 4:4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman…
Romans 5:6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
Ephesians 1:11 speaks of how Christians are saved in the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will.
And Psalm 139:16 brings it home to you: All my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. - So what about death? Even death isn’t the end – he has demonstrated that! His people face death with hope of being with him. And because of that, when we lose someone we love who loves the Lord then we don’t grieve like people who have no hope.
Justice and oppression
The Teacher was speaking about ongoing injustice.
He continues, speaking about oppression: Read Ecc 4:1.
But wickedness in power is to be expected, and the New Testament explains its satanic, evil roots. But on the day Jesus sits on that judgment throne, he will also throw wicked, oppressive rule and ideology into the Lake of Fire – along with Satan, who breeds that wickedness.
The Teacher knows nothing of Christ’s resurrection or life after death: So read Ecc 4:2-3.
He thinks the oblivion of death is better than the suffering of life! In fact, verse 2 is spectacularly true of everyone who dies in Christ: Read Ecc 4:2 again. But it’s utterly untrue for anyone who has not gone to God for forgiveness of sin. Only hell and punishment await.
So if you’re only looking for more to life only under the sun, you’re blinding yourself. It’s a search filter that will lead you nowhere. You can kid yourself you’re being scientific and logical, when really you’re ignoring a huge part of the data. “Deciding” in your mind that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead doesn’t change the facts; you’re just closing the only door to hope, life, and meaning that there is.
Summary
Many, many people share the Teacher’s frustrated heart. There’s a yearning for meaning, a pain over the futility and injustice we see in the world. There’s a sense that “something’s missing”.
And the answer to what’s missing is actually simple: It’s Christ.
So listen to him now. He lives, and he calls you to come to him. Repent of your sins that keep you from him. Turn to him in prayer. Do it yourself; no-one can do it for you. Trust him and live for him.
Your life then has direction: You’re living for him, expecting to be with him, delighting in him forever. In Christ, there is more to life!
He is life itself, the only life worth knowing or living for.
Even Christians can find the Teacher’s words uncomfortably resonating. It’s no wonder, really – we live in a broken world. And the devil is a liar. Never forget that. So come to Jesus, to truth. And then do it again and again and again.
In your cancer diagnosis, redundancy, grief, heartache.
A testimony
About 15 years ago I heard a lovely Christian man speaking about his first wife: They were married in their 20’s and very much in love. He was so happy. “It was fun.” After she died in a car crash someone sent him a sympathy card, in which they wrote “Read Romans 8:28”.
He didn’t need to look it up: We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
But he didn’t want to look it up either. Could the death of his young wife really be part of God’s good work? A time to be born, and a time to die. But really? But the full thing his friend wrote was this: “Read Romans 8:28, and keep reading it every day until you believe it.”
He came to love his friend for writing that.
Christian maturity is anchored in Christ alone. He alone gives meaning to life. Without him, there is no hope. There is a time for every activity under heaven, and it is Jesus who is executing the Father’s plan, person by person, hour by hour. There is purpose, and there is justice. Trust in Jesus today for your salvation, your life, your eternity. Now and always.