The Fantasy of Enough (Ecclesiastes 2:4-11) | 05/24/26

Last week I was in North Carolina chaperoning my oldest son’s school senior trip. One day we went hiking on a mountain called Black Balsam Knob. Some of you know it. You start out walking through this dense Appalachian spruce fur forest and there are paths going various directions. And at one point, I got a call from Shelly Endras who was leading another group of seniors and she was trying to figure out how to find our group. We started at the same trail head, but with all the different paths, we figured out on our phones that we were more than an hour away from each other. I was standing on top of a mountain 6,000 feet high and Shelly had yet to see anything but trees.

Clark made this point last week. This is what Ecclesiastes is like. A dark forest with paths everywhere. Paths toward pleasure. Paths toward money. Paths toward relationships. Paths toward knowledge. Paths toward success. And every path promises the same thing. “This way to happiness. This way to meaning. This way to the good life.”

And the Teacher in Ecclesiastes acts like a guide leading us through the woods. But he’s not primarily trying to get us out of the forest as quickly as possible. He wants us to understand the forest. He wants us to see where these paths actually lead before we spend our lives walking down them. Before we end up hopelessly far away from God and each other.

And today, the Teacher takes us down one of the most crowded and convincing paths in the entire forest. The path of ‘more.’ More achievements. More success. More recognition. More money. More influence. More accumulation. And honestly, this path feels incredibly believable to us because our culture runs on it. Most people live with some version of this internal narrative. “Once I accomplish enough… Once I finally get ahead.. Once I make enough money…Once people finally recognize me…Once life gets easier…Then I’ll finally rest. Then I’ll finally feel secure. Then I’ll finally feel like my life matters. 

And the Teacher says, “I went farther down that path than pretty much anyone who has ever lived.” Ecclesiastes two is not a man dreaming about success. It’s a man standing on top of it. He built projects, accumulated wealth, expanded his influence, experienced pleasure, and accomplished everything most people spend their lives chasing. And then he says, “Then I considered all that my hands had done…and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind.” - Ecc 2:11

Why would he say this? Because the tragedy of life under the sun is not merely that we want more. It’s that nothing under the sun can ever finally become enough. From the outside, this book can sound dark or cynical, but the Teacher is not trying to crush us for the sake of crushing us. He’s trying to lovingly crack open our illusions before they destroy us. Ecclesiastes is a sort of severe mercy. It exposes the paths that cannot actually lead us home.

And today, the Teacher walks us down three paths: The path of achievement. The path of comparison. And the path of accumulation. And he shows us a truth we need to know for each one. 

1. The path of achievement. Truth #1: It cannot create meaning. 2:4-11

The Teacher begins with achievement. He says, “I made great works…” Notice the repetitive language he’s using. I built. I planted. I gathered. I acquired. This is the language of expansion, productivity, scale, and accomplishment. It’s likely that the Teacher is King Solomon himself. And he has all of us beat in every possible way. You think you have money? His servants had servants who had servants. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Now, neither I nor the Bible are in any way endorsing this, but I think it’s fair to say Soloman would have looked at Hugh Heffner in his Playboy mansion and thought, “Oh isn’t that cute.”

What’s the last outdoor project that made you feel proud? A fence? Laying some sod? Solomon built forests. We know from 1 Kings that he would have parties for tens of thousands of people night after night after night after night. And he didn’t have to lift a finger. You may have fancy degrees and feel smart, but kings and queens came from around the world to Solomon for his wisdom. He had more wealth, more power, more influence, and more fame than any one of us will ever have.

And on top of all that, the Teacher says, “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.” - 2:10 This is the pinnacle of desire. The pinnacle of fleshly satisfaction. The Teacher is saying, “I got everything I wanted!”

And honestly, we admire people like this. The Elon Musks, Jeff Bezos, and Taylor Swifts of the world. Driven people impress us. Successful people feel important to us. People who are ‘doing something with their lives’ become online cultural heroes. Most of us think that if we could finally achieve what it is we are chasing…if we could be like them… then we would finally feel settled. 

But the unsettling part of this book is that the Teacher said with all he achieved, it still didn’t work. Verse 11 “Then I considered all my hands had done…and behold it was vanity.” It was meaningless. It was vapor.

Why? Because accomplishment can distract you from the ache for meaning, but it can’t actually create meaning. One of the terrifying things about achievement is how quickly it evaporates once you arrive there. You can work toward something for years. You can sacrifice for it. You can stress over it. You can dream about it. But then when you finally get it…within days your heart just moves the goalposts. We have a whole new set of things to achieve that we think will bring us satisfaction since the first set of goals didn’t. We do this because the human soul was never designed to find ultimate meaning in accomplishments under the sun.

God has placed eternity in our hearts. We crave permanence in a vapid world. And that’s why achievement keeps disappointing us. Not because we expect too much from life, but because we keep expecting permanence in a world of vapor. 

A lot of highly driven people are not merely pursuing success, they are pursuing relief. Relief from insecurity. Relief from insignificance. Relief from feeling behind. Relief from not feeling like we have enough. Achievement is often just an attempt to quiet the ache inside us. But achievement is a brutal savior because it always whispers, “Not enough yet.” Supposedly, John D. Rockefeller (one of the richest people in the world at the time) was asked how much money was enough. His response? “Just a little bit more.”

Beneath all that striving is often something even deeper: control. We think if we can organize enough, accomplish enough, optimize enough, earn enough…then maybe life will finally stop feeling fragile. But Ecclesiastes keeps interrupting us with the same word: hevel. Empty, hollow, vapor. Life remains uncontrollable.

II. The path of comparison. Truth #2: It turns work into bondage 4:4-6

The Teacher then shifts from achievement itself to what often drives it. Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. - Ecc 4:4 That verse can feel painfully modern. The Teacher says a shocking amount of human productivity is driven not by joy or purpose, but by comparison. Envy. Not necessarily wanting someone else’s exact life. Just needing to feel ahead of someone. 

Comparison is one of the great engines of modern exhaustion. I know this personally all too well. When I was younger, without even realizing I was doing it, I would walk into every room and find something I was better at than each person in the room. It was an exhausting way to live. It was painful to realize I was doing that, but so freeing see that I could actually enjoy the accomplishments of others instead of being intimidated by them.

We don’t merely work, we perform. We curate ourselves. We brand ourselves. We measure ourselves. And now we carry around devices that constantly expose us to everyone else’s highlight reel while we live inside our own ordinary life. And slowly we begin to believe that my life would finally feel meaningful if I had that. Whatever that is for you.

But comparison actually destroys our ability to enjoy our own life. Because there will always be someone richer, someone smarter, someone more successful, someone more attractive, someone whose family seems happier, and someone whose life looks easier. I was with some people a few years ago who seemed super wealthy to me. They lived in an incredible neighborhood, they took lavish vacations, they had multiple houses, they drove whatever cars they wanted, and they never had to shop or clean their house (which was particularly attractive to me). And do you know what they were talking about? How great their life would be if only they had private jets and yachts. 

Comparison destroys your ability to enjoy your actual life because it turns blessings into inadequacies. And Ecclesiastes says, “that too is striving after the wind.” One of the dangers of living for “more” is that we start convincing ourselves our compromises are temporary. This is especially true when people are younger. We tell ourselves, “Sure, I’ll cut corners now, but once I’m established I’ll stop.” “Sure, I’ll cheat a little to get ahead in school, but I’d never be dishonest in my career.” “Sure, I’ll overlook unethical business practices for now because I’m trying to build stability, but once I’m secure I’ll do things differently.”

But Ecclesiastes exposes the illusion underneath all of that: “enough” never actually arrives under the sun. The promotion comes… then another promotion. The portfolio grows… then the lifestyle grows with it. The success comes… then the pressure to maintain it comes too.

And eventually what we thought were temporary compromises become habits. Then habits become character. Then one day a person wakes up in their 50s or 60s and realizes they never merely used ambition, ambition reshaped them. No one wakes up one morning and randomly decided to commit adultery, embezzle money, or backstab their friends. It’s a slow process of “more” becoming ultimate, but never satisfying. Striving after wind eventually just hollows us out from the inside.

Because envy has no finish line. It makes objectively good lives feel disappointing. Someone gets the house they prayed for five years ago and six months later they’re scrolling Zillow looking for better ones. Someone gets the job they desperately wanted and now they can’t enjoy it because someone else got promoted faster. Someone prayed for children for years and now comparison steals joy from parenting because another family seems happier, more put together, or more successful. Comparison turns blessings into inadequacies. 

When we are working for security and not from security, eventually the gift just becomes bondage. 

III. The path of accumulation. Truth #3: There is never ‘enough’ 5:10-6-12

The Teacher finally arrives at money and possessions. He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. - Ecc 5:10 He doesn’t say ‘might not,’ he says, “will not.” Why? Because money is incredibly useful, but spiritually powerless. Money can increase comfort, but it cannot create peace. Money can increase options, but it cannot remove death. Money can purchase distractions, but it cannot heal the human soul. And Ecclesiastes keeps pressing on this nerve. The more wealth increases, the more anxiety increases with it. 

The Teacher even describes the tragedy of someone who possesses abundance, but cannot enjoy. A man to whom God gives wealth…yet God does not give him power to enjoy them… - Ecc 6:2 That is one of the most important ideas in Ecclesiastes. Enjoyment itself is a gift from God. This means that peace cannot ultimately be built, it must be received.

Ecclesiastes is not anti-pleasure, it’s anti-selffulfilling pleasure. The Teacher is not trying to ruin enjoyment, he’s trying to rescue enjoyment from desperation. Any gift that becomes ultimate stops being enjoyable. It becomes pressure. It becomes identity. It becomes salvation. And no created thing can survive being asked to save you. If your kids are the ultimate, you will heap unbearable expectations on them and be frustrated when they don’t give you what they don’t have to give. Their success will become your righteousness and their failures will become your shame. If money is ultimate, you will never feel like you have enough, because security will always feel one purchase, one market shift, or one emergency away. If marriage is ultimate, you won’t just want love, you’ll demand that another person heal your loneliness, insecurity, and meaninglessness. If power is ultimate, disagreement will feel threatening instead of helpful.

Here is a helpful diagnostic. One of the ways you can begin to discern when a good gift has become an ultimate thing is to ask yourself this question: Where do your emotional reactions become disproportionately large because something deeper is being threatened? [Pause] Why does criticism devastate one person but rarely affect another? Why does financial uncertainty completely unravel someone, but not another? Why does romantic rejection feel crushing to one person while another grieves it, but remains grounded? Why does a child’s failure feel like a personal referendum on some parents’ worth?

Often the size of our reaction reveals the size of what is underneath it. Because when something has become more than a gift… when it has become identity, righteousness, security, meaning, or salvation…any threat to it starts to feel like a threat to us. That’s why Ecclesiastes keeps exposing the fragility of life under the sun. The Teacher is showing us that when we ask vapor to hold together our sense of self, eventually our lives become emotionally exhausting. The pressure is too heavy. The gift was never meant to carry that kind of weight. 

No created thing can survive being asked to save you. The problem is not that we enjoy gifts too much, it’s that we expect gifts to replace the Giver. And they collapse under the weight of that expectation every single time.

Ecclesiastes is not trying to make us cynical. It’s trying to make us honest. It’s lovingly exhausting us of the illusion that life under the sun can save us. And this is where Jesus changes everything. Because Jesus enters a world exhausted by striving. A world addicted to ‘more.’ A world trapped in comparison. A world trying to justify itself through achievement. A world believing the fantasy of enough. 

The Teacher lovingly walks us down the path of ‘more’ and shows us what is at the end of it. NOTHING... Nothing but vapor. And some of you feel this acutely. Some of you are exhausted. Tired of striving. Tired of comparing. Tired of proving yourself. Tired of chasing a line that keeps moving. Ecclesiastes is not trying to make you hate life. It’s trying to stop you from asking life under the sun to do what only God can do.

And what does Jesus say? “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” That is almost the opposite of the world’s message. The world says, “Become enough.” Jesus says, “You never were enough…and you don’t have to be, because I am.” The world says, “Your value comes from what you produce.” Jesus says, “Your value comes from being loved by the Father through Me.” The world says, "Acquire and gain.” Jesus says, “Receive.” and Rest.

To use Clark’s illustration from last week, that is when the geode cracks open. What looks like an ugly ordinary rock, is broken open and a beautiful cave of color is exposed. The gifts were never meant to bear the weight of worship. They were meant to point beyond themselves to the Giver. That’s why Ecclesiastes repeatedly says enjoyment is a gift from God. Not ultimate fulfillment. Not Eden rebuilt through possessions or success. But real gifts that can finally be enjoyed rightly because they are no longer being asked to save us. 

If Christ is your righteousness. If Christ is your security. If Christ is your meaning. Then work no longer has to justify you. Money no longer has to define you. Achievement no longer has to save you. You can finally receive life as a gift instead of a burden. 

The gifts were never meant to replace the Giver. And the good news of Christianity is not merely that Jesus helps you survive the vapor. It’s that in Jesus you finally receive the one thing that is not vapor. The love of God. And unlike wealth, achievement, success, pleasure, or recognition…He will never dissolve in your hands. 

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