Is This All There Is?

Enjoy this message from Pastor Tyler Schoenberger called "Is This All There Is?" on Sunday, August 16, 2026 at Reach Church in Bear, Delaware!

Life has a way of leaving us feeling empty even when things look fine on the outside. Like the lotus eaters in Homer's Odyssey, we numb ourselves with endless distractions, binge-watching, scrolling, overworking, and consuming, just to avoid sitting with the uncomfortable weight of reality. The book of Ecclesiastes was written precisely to pull us out of that fog. Its central Hebrew word, hebel, often translated as vanity or meaninglessness, literally means vapor or breath. Like seeing your breath on a cold morning, it appears for a moment and then it is gone. The writer, taking on the persona of King Solomon, the wisest and wealthiest man who ever lived, makes a sobering point: if someone with access to everything the world has to offer could not find lasting meaning in it, then who possibly could?

Ecclesiastes does not offer an overly pessimistic or overly optimistic view of life. It simply paints life as it really is and how it really feels. It gives us permission to ask the hard questions we think in our heads but rarely say out loud. Importantly, faith does not erase the struggle. Paul writes in Romans 8 that even those who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as they wait for the full redemption that is coming. The restlessness is real, and until we are honest about it, we cannot begin to apply the rest that God offers to it.

Yet Ecclesiastes is not the final word. The Hebrew word hebel first appears in Scripture not in Ecclesiastes but in the name of Abel, Adam and Eve's second son, a righteous man unjustly murdered, whose story raises all the same questions the book wrestles with. But out of that tragedy, God appointed Seth, and Seth's line eventually led to Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus also lived in the hebel of this world. He too was unjustly killed. But He rose, and His resurrection gives meaning to everything that once seemed meaningless. There is something above the sun, something greater than anything this world can offer, and that hope is not distant. It is alive, active, and working right now.