A Striving for Rest

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Feb 5, 2023 by: John Lee | Series: Ecclesiastes: Living Wisely Under the Sun Scripture: Ecclesiastes 4:1-16 Tags: hope, striving, comfort, toil, companionship, constancy, hopelessness, workaholic, quietness
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MESSAGE - Pastor John Lee

Ecclesiastes: Living Wisely Under the Sun

A Striving for Rest 

  • The Longing for Comfort
  • The Longing for Companionship
  • The Longing for Constancy

 Questions for Further Study or Group Discussion:

  1. Read Ecclesiastes 4:1-16. Have you ever come to similar conclusions as the Preacher when truly analyzing your life and the world around you? If not, in what ways do we (or our society) try to shield ourselves from this seemingly hopeless reality?
  2. The Preacher gets to the driving motivation for the seemingly hopelessness around us. What is that motivation? What are the results of laboring with such a motivation? What is equally as destructive as the heart of a workaholic?
  3. In V. 9-12, the Preacher highlights the benefits of companionship. What are they? How have you experienced these in your own life? How might this reality encourage you to deepen your own friendships in life currently, especially within the church?
  4. V. 13-16 is a simple story of the fleeting nature of much of what the Preacher has addressed up to this point in Ecclesiastes. This is a good reminder for us to analyze our own lives. In what good benefits or gifts from God, such as companionship, have you been trusting to provide lasting gain? How does Ch. 4 point our longings with gospel hope beyond the Sun? 

Memory Verse of the Week:

Ecclesiastes 4:6 Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. (ESV)

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