Searching for Truth: Echoes of Eden

Human longings are a sign-post which points us to the only source of ultimate meaning and purpose, God Himself.

Scripture:  Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

Sermon Notes:

1. The temporal pursuits of our lives do not satisfy for long.
2. The loneliest moment in life is when you thought you experienced ultimate satisfaction and it let you down.
3. Even in a moment of romance, the elation fades away.
4. Our culture expects that longings of the human spirit will be met by getting something outside ourselves.   
5. Eastern religions search inside one’s self, shunning desire.
6. Our longings are sign-posts which point us to the only source of ultimate meaning and purpose: God Himself.
7. We long to again walk in fellowship with God, to understand our creaturehood, and to rejoice in it.
8. Unlike animals, we are rational beings who seek answers about the world and our humanity; we seek to satisfy our cravings for knowledge and understanding.
9. We are also moral and spiritual beings.  Our longings are correlated to God Himself, as expressed in our need to know how we ought to live and what we ought to live for.
10. Our moral conscience troubles us based on the way we think and behave.   Only when we respond to God’s voice in conscience can we begin to know Him.
11. Everybody knows there is a God but we suppress the truth in unrighteousness.  Many people go to great lengths to avoid or oppose the demands of their own consciences.
12. The philosophy of meaninglessness arises out of a desire for liberation from economic, sexual, and political morality.
13. But this kind of liberation makes one to be a prisoner of their own moral corruption.
14. Jesus Himself taught that God’s demands for moral rightness and truth are the key to happiness (Matt. 5:2-11).
15. We cannot find ourselves unless we find God.  Without God, we desire truth but find nothing but uncertainty.
16. If you do not meet the demands of your physical being, you die.   If you deny the rational and intellectual aspect of your being, your mind dies.  If we deny our spiritual and moral longings spiritual death overtakes us.
17. Our appetites for God disappear if we ignore and suppress Him for too long.
18. In our relationship with God, man is covenantally dead.
19. Jesus is the only remedy for our spiritual need (Jn. 6:35).
20. The deep hunger of our world is met by the power and comfort of Christ, who brings life in all its fullness.
21. All good things can be enjoyed by Christians, not as ends in themselves, but as created by God for our joy.
22. God has left signs within and outside us for those who are seeking.  Yet they are hidden to those who will not seek God.  Ask, seek, knock, and God will be found by you.

Application Questions

1. What are the conditions of true happiness in Matt. 5:2-11?
2. What do the longings of our hearts point us to?
3. Can the natural state of fallen man – inconstancy, boredom, and anxiety – really be overcome?  How?
4. What do we learn about the human condition from Eccl. 3?
5. What is the evidence that God has put His law on our hearts and consciences?
6. Based on this message, how can we better declare the gospel of Christ to this generation?

Sermon Notes