Did You Get What You Wanted From This Life?

February 22, 2026
Did You Get What You Wanted From This Life?
Sermon Audio

CENTRAL TEXT: Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:26

Eccl. 1:12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. 

Eccl. 1:15 
What is crooked cannot be made straight, 
 and what is lacking cannot be counted. 

Eccl. 1:16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. 

Eccl. 1:18 
For in much wisdom is much vexation, 
 and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. 

Eccl. 2:1 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. 2 I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” 3 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. 4 I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.  

Eccl. 2:9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. 

Eccl. 2:12 So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. 13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! 17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. 

Eccl. 2:18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, 21 because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? 23 For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. 

Eccl. 2:24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 16:1-2, 5-6, 11

LEADER:  Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
ALL:  The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

LEADER:  You make known to me the path of life;

ALL:  in your presence there is fullness of joy; 
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore

PRAYER/SCRIPTURE READING/CONFESSION OF FAITH: Mark 8:27-37

LEADER: And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” 29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” 30 And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.

Mark 8:31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Mark 8:34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul?

The Lord's Prayer

ALL: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our sins,
as we also have forgiven those who sin against us,
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

CELEBRATION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

CONFESSION OF SIN:

LEADER:  Let us confess our sin to the Lord.

ALL: All good things are gifts from You. But we forget You who give them. Even the desire for what is good, the longing for what lasts, is perhaps your best gift–for that sets our longing for You alone. And yet we make all things you’ve made as the substitute of that search, and are left disappointed. Forgive us our fruitless quests. Break through our habitual exchange of the Creator for created things. Help us to love all things for your sake alone.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: Romans 5:6-8

LEADER:  For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

ALL:  Thanks be to God!

Illustrations:

Feb 22, 2026

Quotes:

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth. “Late Fragment,”
- Raymond Carver
I think that if people began thinking about death sooner, they’d make fewer foolish mistakes.
- Dmitri Shostakovich
The writer André Malraux relates a discussion he had with an old priest: “You’ve spent fifty years listening to people in the secrecy of the confessional, what have you learned about the human soul?” The priest: “Two things. First of all, people are much more unhappy than one thinks. And second, there is no such thing as grown-ups.”
- Emmanuel Carrère, Yoga
This distraction and diversion is what makes for a crisis in Christian identity – a crisis current among us. Our basic connection to life is severed, and we begin borrowing our identities from therapists and entertainers, CEO’s and politicians, pastors and teachers, men and women who appear to be on the frontlines and making a difference in the world... The practice of resurrection is an intentional, deliberate decision to believe and participate in resurrection life, life out of death, life that trumps death, life that is the last word, Jesus life.
- Eugene Peterson
He loves Thee too little, who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake.
- Augustine
The reason why that grief had penetrated me so easily and deeply was that I had poured out my soul on to the sand by loving a person sure to die as if he would never die. The greatest source of repair and restoration was the solace of other friends, with whom I loved what I loved as a substitute for you and this was a vast myth and a long lie... For wherever the human soul turns itself, other than to you, it is fixed in sorrows, even if it is fixed upon beautiful things external to itself, which would nevertheless be nothing if they did not have their being from you.
- Augustine, Confessions

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