What if your biggest dreams let you down?

After being introduced as "two-time Golden Globe winner" at the 2016 Golden Globe awards, Jim Carrey said, 

"Thank you, I am two-time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey. ...And when I dream, I don’t just dream any old dream. No, sir. I dream about being three-time Golden Globe–winning actor Jim Carrey. Because then I would be enough. It would finally be true, and I could stop this – this terrible search, for what I know ultimately won’t fulfill me."

And he said it for laughs. And he got laughs. In fact pundits hailed his two-minute monologue before presenting the award for Best Motion Picture Comedy as one of the highlights of the evening. 

I excluded a few lines and, of course, his expressions as he said it. His timing is perfect. But that's the gist of what he said. It was funny, but there was an edge to it. See for yourself here.

So, what if your biggest dreams let you down? Or what about those times when, in a moment of clarity, you realize that achieving your biggest dreams will be deeply disappointing? 

That's what this weekend's sermon is about as we continue in Ecclesiastes. 

 

Smoke, nothing but smoke. There’s nothing to anything in life.

Smoke, nothing but smoke. There’s nothing to anything in life. (The Message)

Sounds like a line from a blues song, but it’s actually the main message of an entire twelve-chapter book of the Bible. 

And it’s not singing the blues. It doesn't speak directly to the person feeling the blues.

It's actually more suited for someone who's feeling hopeful. That's the primary audience.

It’s meant to be a fairly depressing, yet relentlessly rational, assessment of life. 

A life that's lived, that is, under one condition. 

That one condition is in the air we breath, so it’s hard not to arrive at the same conclusion at some point in life, even as Christians. 

So, we’re exploring the message of that book this weekend. And we’ll dive into the only two verses in the entire book that refute this depressing assessment of life.