God offers us a full life in an empty world Ecclesiastes 2:1;8b – I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity…and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. Ecclesiastes 2:15-16 – 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. 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! Gospel Identity means that we are new Ecclesiastes 2:8b – …and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. Ecclesiastes 7:26a – I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. Neither sex nor romance will satisfy your soul What begins feeling like pleasure ends up feeling like pain Ecclesiastes 7:26b – He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. 2 Samuel 13:15-17 – Then, Amnon hated her with very great hatred, so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, “Get up! Go!” But she said to him, “No, my brother, for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you did to me.” But he would not listen to her. He called the young man who served him and said, “Put this woman out of my presence and bolt the door after her.” We put love on a pedestal, but God put love on a Cross Reading: Single, Dating, Married, Engaged: Navigating Life and Love in the Modern Age by Ben Stuart Out of a Far Country by Chris Yuan Gay Girl, Good God by Jackie Hill Perry The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Butterfield Local groups (Recovery/Healing/Accountability): Samson Society (Men) – samsonsociety.com