Sermon
Futility
Mercy Hill Church - Cincinnati
Speaker: Ernie Bonnoitt
February 16, 2026 · 42 min
Summary
Ecclesiastes 6 presents a teacher who concludes life is futile because worldly pursuits—wealth, family, success—cannot satisfy human longing. Psalm 73 offers the corrective: when we interpret suffering through God's character rather than viewing God through our circumstances, we find hope and trust in His sovereign purposes.
Highlights
Just because you don't see the reason doesn't mean there isn't one. It just means we aren't God.
The teacher assesses God according to the world, whereas the psalmist assesses the world according to the understanding of God.
Stop judging God by the sufferings of this world, but begin to judge the sufferings through the lens of what we know to be true about God.