Sermons tagged with Joy

We always talk about the stories of Moses and Abraham and David and Paul. We know all about the boys, but what about the girls? Why don't we talk more about the people in the Bible who are like me? When I read the Bible, I see story after story of women who are amazing. I see the courage and hope of Miriam and the boldness of Mary Magdalene. I see the consistent and quiet obedience of Mary, the girls of the Bible are pretty awesome. And when we take the time to learn their stories, we will be amazed at what God can do with someone who is consistently, humbly, and lovingly faithful. Nice. All right. Good morning, everyone in the room. Good morning, everyone online. My name is Kyle, and I am the student pastor here. And as you can probably tell, I am not Nate, who is our head pastor. For any of you guys who are new, who are like, I don't know who Kyle or Nate are, I'm just a student pastor. And I'm thrilled to announce that the reason that I am on stage preaching this morning is because Nate and his wife, Jen, have just welcomed their new son, John, into the world. And so, yeah, let's get a little, yeah, let's get some cheers going for that. I mean, absolutely incredible blessing. I'm not exactly sure of the birthday, but I know I got a text with a picture on Friday, so we're going to go with the 30th and just, if I'm wrong, then we will correct it next week. But I mean, just such an incredible blessing. Like it has been such a celebration on our staff group text, just of celebrating Nate. And on Facebook, you'd think Nate's about to go like Facebook famous with how many people have commented and liked the pictures of his son. And it has been awesome. And honestly, too, guys, just to be aware of it for a second, it doesn't, or I guess to put it differently than that, it's not lost on me the fact that the last time that I was asked by Nate to step in and preach for him was when he had to take a little bit of time off because he and Jen were basically spending their last few days with Jen's dad, John, and dealing with that loss of a father and of a grandfather far too early. And how beautiful and how incredible is it that this morning, that the next time that I was asked by Nate to step in and preach so he could take a little bit of time off to be with family, that it is because they are celebrating the new life and the birth of their son, John. And so real quick, I just wanted to take a second and just pray for them real quick and just thank God for his blessings. God, thank you for bringing us here this morning. God, thank you just so much for Nate and for Jen and what they mean to our hearts and what they mean to our church and to all of us here this morning. God, I just pray that you are just showering them with joy right now as they have welcomed in John, this beautiful baby boy. And God, we just pray that in the midst of probably a lot of sleeplessness and a lot of unrest, God, that they find places where they can rest, even if it's not physically, where they can just rest in you and in your blessings and in your joy. Amen. So anyways, so with that being said, here I am this morning getting to go through another incredible woman's story within the Bible. And I love the ability to do that. And this morning, we're going to go into the book of Ruth. And one of the things that I think is incredible about Ruth and is noteworthy about the book of Ruth is that you could make a sermon, or excuse me, you could make a series that is called Faithful about the book of Ruth. When you go through Ruth and you see the way that these people live their lives, see the unbelievable ways that Ruth steps out in faith, looking at fear, looking at terror, looking at loneliness, looking at loss, and at every moment choosing to turn to faith. And this morning and next week, we get to spend two weeks talking about the faithfulness of one of the most faithful women and one of the most faithful people in all of the Bible. Before we get going, I do want to mention that in my just imminent and unbelievably high amounts of wisdom, as I thought about the fact that, you know, at some point I'm going to preach this series, these two weeks in Ruth and, you know, John's due date is May 17th. And so that's a few weeks away. And so in my wisdom, I was like, you know what I'm going to do? Because I know how babies work. And I know that sometimes people have babies early. I'm going to start on May 3rd to just get ready. You know, I'm going to be fully ready. That way, if John comes early, Mother's Day, I'm all in. I got it. I'm ready to go. Well, here we were on Friday when I got a text with a baby's picture. And I'm like, this is Nate messing with me. Turns out it wasn't. It was John in the flesh. And so I say that not to give any excuses or not in any way to say anything, except for the fact that this sermon might be a little bit less dialed in. It might be a little bit less polished than sermons you're used to. I know that anybody who's heard me preach before is probably laughing at the fact that I would use polished in my sermons in the same sentence. But I do say that to say that this story, as we read through Ruth 1 together, and we talk through Ruth 1 together, that regardless of how well or how poorly I speak or how polished this sermon is this morning, the truth that is found in Ruth 1 should speak for itself. And so I ask for grace, and I also ask for the fact that even if I am spitting absolute nonsense, that at least this story you will let resonate in your hearts and hopefully walk away learning something by simply hearing this passage of scripture. And so this morning, I actually, I wanted to start off by telling you guys the backstory of actually how I ended up making my way to grace. It's a story that I don't really think I've told that many people. I mean, not for like any reason. I'm not hiding it or whatever, but, you know, I figured it'd be something that would be worth talking about. And it's a story that I love because when I think back on it, it's just pretty wild that it worked out this way because, as a lot of you know, I was working as a student pastor in Atlanta at a church called Greystone. And I was actually working underneath Nate, who was also at Greystone. He wasn't the head pastor, but it was a, you know, it was a bigger staff. And so, so they were like, I guess, levels to the staff. And so I was actually directly under Nate. Well, we left Greystone at about the same time. He came up here, obviously, to enter into being, becoming a head pastor. Woo, exciting. That's us, yay. But I left to kind of go into school and to do some seminary stuff. Well, after about a year of doing that, I realized that as someone who was so used to being in full-time student ministry that when I'm sitting in classes listening to ministry and talking about student ministry, I realized how bored I was and how little I enjoyed learning about these things and talking about these things when I wasn't able to be a part of them. Ministry was great and talking about ministry is great, but doing ministry and actually having interaction and actually having students that are in my life that I love and that I get to be in their lives, when I was missing out on that, I was just like, dude, I don't even know if this is worth it. And so I decided, you know what? I'm going to try to get back into the church. We'll figure out what exactly it looks like and with school and all this stuff, but I'm going to try to get back into the church. So, you know, I tried to explore some avenues. I found that some churches were doing stuff. Nothing really worked out well. At about the same time, one, I texted Nate. I said, yo, you're a head pastor and head pastors know things. So if you hear of anything, I'm trying to get back into the game, baby, basically is what I said. And at the same time, my dad's first pastor that he was a student pastor under reached out to me. He was the head pastor at this Baptist church that was right outside of Athens, Georgia. Now, Athens, Georgia is where I lived. I went to UGA, Go Dawgs. Yep, we all agree. Tons of people are nodding in the building. I know you're all nodding at home for the good dogs. But I was living in Athens at the time. My brother and sister-in-law lived in Athens. I was hanging out with them most every day. A lot of my friends still lived in Athens. My parents even, even though they were in South Carolina, only lived about an hour and a half, two hours away. Everybody was in Georgia. Everybody was very near Athens or Atlanta or somewhere around there. And so when someone calls and says, hey, we have a job available doing student ministry where you don't have to leave this place you love and you don't have to leave these people you love, well, then you listen. Especially when it's a pastor who you know and who you already know, this is a man that I would love to work for because I know that my dad loved working for him. And so as I'm talking with Nate, because Nate texted back and said, well, you know, it's funny, we actually are looking for someone as well. And so I'm kind of, at the same time, I'm interviewing in Georgia, I'm interviewing here. And obviously it progressed a little bit quicker in Georgia because I could just get out to the church. And so, you know, I was able to go check out the church. It was this beautiful Baptist church. One of those Baptist churches that, you know, it's kind of just in the middle of town where it's just like, oh my gosh, this is just like beautiful and awesome. And there's so many people who come in from everywhere. And it sounds like they have like a big thriving student ministry. And all of these things are awesome. And I got to go to a service. I was like, oh, this is cool. This is really nice. This is great. All of these things. And so I actually got a call the night before I was coming up to Raleigh to do some of those same things. And the call was to say, hey, Kyle, we want to hire you as our student pastor. They gave me an offer, and you know, it was a good offer for, I guess, like monetarily as far as like being a student pastor. So that was cool and that was great. Well, so that was what I was sitting on when I drive up to Raleigh for the weekend. And so as I drive up to Raleigh, the first thing that happens is I like meet with Nate. And I'm thinking that Nate and I are and I are just going to be like, you know, gabbing about, you know, what's been going on, all this type of stuff. And, you know, cause I'm like, well, I mean, I know I got Nate on my side. I've already worked with Nate. And then we have this like conversation where I go, oh my gosh, I don't know if Nate wants me to work here. And, and all he was doing was he was grilling me and he was saying, here are these things that I've seen in you in the past. How, like, you know, how have you been able to make strides or Or are these still things that you would consider strengths? All of those things. But right off the bat, I was pretty overwhelmed. But I spend the weekend talking to different people and interviewing and getting to meet staff and came on a Sunday morning. And as I drive up, I'm like, oh, yes, this church is in the side of a storefront. Interesting. That's cool. I like the white letters though. But so I'm like, okay, interesting. And so I come in and obviously, you know, like we have done an incredible job with this space, but obviously like it doesn't really rival like a beautiful Baptist church's sanctuary, you know? And so we're going through these things and we go through service. And then I come on a Sunday night and I get to meet some of the students. And as much as I love meeting these students, I'm kind of hearing about that while there are certainly just some incredible students in this ministry, that there have been a lot of people who've left it. And because of that, it maybe wasn't at quite the healthiest state. And so as I left, I received a job offer from Grace as well. For less money, obviously. This is a smaller church. It is a smaller youth ministry. In no way was I expecting it to be more because I was kind of like, hey, I don't think you understand that I'm young and single and a student pastor. You shouldn't be paying me this much money. That type of thing in the other place. But as I left, you know, I just, I sat there and I'm like, hey, if I made a pro-con list, it's going to be an interesting look. And I was going to bring out a whiteboard and actually make a pro-con list, but I don't know how many of you guys were here the last time we used a whiteboard on stage, but Zach Winston and I, getting it off the stage, almost knocked the TV down and broke a wine glass that was on the table for communion. So we're not going to do that this morning. So just imagine with me a pro con list being on a whiteboard here. But when you look at it, it's like coming to grace means leaving my family. It means that instead of the max distance that I am from my close personal family as being about two hours to the closest that I am to anybody, which was my parents at the time, it was four and a half hours, and then six hours if I wanted to drive to Athens. And not to mention that, but also my friends and all of these things. And I'm choosing a smaller church that seems like the youth ministry might not be quite where the youth ministry was at this other place. And I'm choosing less money. And I mean, like, honestly, like, just like the definition of conless is having to work for Nate. But, you know, so here's all of these things. And I say that to say, when you look at every single decision that I had to make, when I compared the two, and when I made a pro-con list of what it would look like to go to Grace versus go to this other church in Georgia, from every human perspective, there was literally only one decision, and it was screaming at my face saying, you've got to take this job in Georgia. But here I am. And so, yeah, woo! Thank you for the claps. That's nice and funny. And I think that this first chapter of Ruth helps at least a little bit explain why it is that I'm here. To give a little background behind Ruth, basically what is going on in this time is they are living in Israel, God's chosen people in God's chosen land. You know, Moses had brought his people out of Egypt and, there weren't kings, and so it's instead the time of judges. And so God has given his people his law. These are the laws and the commandments that I ask you to abide by. And the judges were to make sure that those were abiding. I don't know. Whatever. Not important. So because there weren't kings, because there was no earthly ruler, then God kind of reigned supreme in a way that he doesn't. We don't quite see as much now where basically because these were his chosen people and the people who were called to live out his law and called to live out their lives in faith and to trust him and to worship him, when they were doing so, then times were good. Harvests were good. If they weren't, there might be times when armies come in and take over some of the land. There may be times of famine because people aren't living for God. It was just a different time, and it was how the culture was set up during the time of judges. Well, we were in one of those times as we jump into our story. It starts out talking about this woman named Naomi, and Naomi and her husband, Elimelech, were dealing in a time of famine to the point that they realized, hey, like, this is rough. And instead of choosing, instead of making the choice to say, I'm going to trust God to provide what he needs to provide for me and for my family, they instead decide they are going to leave. They're going to grab their two sons and they are going to go into another kingdom. Well, this other kingdom, we'll call it not a friendly. We'll say Moab is like an enemy nation, an enemy country. They're continuously at war. During this time, I read somewhere, it's not actually within the pages of Ruth, but that during this time, there was no love lost between these two kingdoms to the point of like war and battle and all of these things. And so for them to leave Israel and go seek refuge in a kingdom that was not only not God's chosen place and God's chosen people, but an enemy of God, people who were so against God and his people that they wanted to kill him. And so this is where they went. They settled in and Elimelech ends up dying. So Naomi loses her husband and now all she has is her sons. Malan and Chilian, her sons, marry two Moabite women. They marry Ruth and they marry Orpah. They live there for 10 years. And in those 10 years, neither one of them is able to conceive. Neither one of them is able to produce a seed that could lead to them continuing their familial line. In this culture, that was about the most important reason to get married was one, to take care of your family, but two, to raise up a son and raise up a family who is able to take care of your crops, who is able to grow, who's able to take care of your land, who is able to continue your family line. And when your family or when your parents get older to take care of them as well. So in these 10 years, there haven't been any children conceived and her sons die. Both of them die before they're able to conceive. And so now what we're left with, we're left with Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth together. And Naomi, in her overwhelming tragedy, finally realizes that she now has to look her shame in the face. She now has to look her fear and her bad decision in the face and say, I can't provide for myself here. There's nothing that I will be able to do here. I have to return home. She says, I know that the Lord would have me. I mean, she doesn't say this, but like essentially she says, I know the Lord would have me return home because I have to be able to survive. And so I'm going to have to look in the face of people who are probably going to look down on me and see me differently because I chose fear over faith 10 years ago. Coming back in her shame to say, you know what? God is asking me to be here. And so this is where I need to be because I need to survive and I need to be a part of where God has me, even if it means I'm going to be looked down upon. But on their way there, she looks at her daughters-in-law and she says, leave me. Don't be with me anymore. There's no reason for you to follow me back because if you do, if you follow me back, then I can assure you nothing good awaits you. They all weep and they plead with her like, no, we're going to stay with you. You need us. You need us for survival. There's no way you're going to be able to make it alone. But Naomi continues to press on and says, there's literally nothing there for you. I have no, you can't just marry some random man in Israel because you're a Moabite. They won't marry you. Also, I'm too old now to find a husband and much too old to find a husband where I can have another son and you can marry my next son so that you can continue the line and continue in this kinship. So don't go with me. Go back home. Go where your family is. Go where you're comfortable. Go where you know that you at least have some sort of hope at having a family and having a life because coming with me will be no life at all. At this, they all weep again. Clearly, there's so much love between these three women that it's just beautiful. But after it, Orpah says, okay. So she gives her love to these two, and she heads out. But Ruth says, no, I'm staying with you. She says, I don't care what you have to say with me. Stop pleading with me. I'm going to stay with you. And that's where we're actually going to pick up and we're actually going to read. It's in Ruth 1. we're going to stop. How incredible is that? How unbelievable is it that Ruth would say in the face of everything that Naomi is telling me, I'm going to stick with you, Naomi. Let's go, let's head back to the pro-con list. I want you, I want us to understand the implications of what she's saying. Because not only is she saying that by sticking with Naomi, that it probably means that she is going on towards loneliness and singleness, and that will be the end of her family line. Not only is she saying that, which is incredibly devastating, especially in this time, but I know that there's some that like in today's culture, especially some people like, yes, queen, you don't need no man, you know, but also take account that she is taking an elderly woman back and her goal and her mission and the only reason she's doing so is so that she can be a caretaker for this elderly woman who's not even her mom, just a mother-in-law that she has grown to love. So the rest of her life is going to be meant for just finding food wherever she's able to scrounge up food for a single woman without any land. But not only that, but she is a Moabite woman who is entering into Israel where she is hated. So she is walking into a place where she knows she is going to receive bitter racism. And it's alluded to multiple times later in Ruth that she is entering into a place that actually could be quite harmful to her, that she could experience, she could be hurt, injured, killed, or raped by any of these people because she is considered nothing as a single Moabite woman, as less than nothing by some of these people. What's waiting for her if she doesn't stay with Naomi? She gets to go back to her family. She gets to go back to her home. She gets to go back with the hope and encouragement that I can probably find another husband, that I can finally start a family even though I wasn't able to before. There is no good, satisfactory reason why she should stay with Naomi except that, one, she was being nice to help Naomi out, but I think that what Ruth realized and what Ruth knew in her heart, the reason why it didn't matter how long the list of cons were for entering and how long the pros of going back to her kingdom were. I think she knew in her heart what Daniel knew and what Daniel, I mean, excuse me, Daniel, what David wrote in Psalms 84.10 when he says, better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I think what she realized and what she knew without a shadow of a doubt is that the Lord had her staying with Naomi. And that is the only thing that mattered. When I was trying to decide, honestly, I'm going to be honest with you, I wasn't ever really trying to decide. Every stop that I made, every interaction that I had, every single part of my weekend in Raleigh was the Lord yelling at me, Kyle, this is where I have you. And I don't at all mean to, and please do not hear me at all, likening my experience coming to Raleigh with Ruth's experience of giving up her entire life to be a single caretaking woman who is ending her seed. Because I came here and I was overwhelmingly blessed. And I came here with immense hope at what was to come. She left without any hope except that if I am in the will of God, then I know there is always hope because I know that there is no place better to be than inside the will of God than anywhere else. I know for me, I was incredibly thankful because this would have been a very difficult decision for me had God not been literally screaming in my face, this is where I have you. And I don't mean to say that I haven't experienced drawbacks and sadness at the times that I have to miss holidays or birthdays or weddings or the like because my friends and my family are all in Georgia. There are certainly negatives to being in Raleigh versus having taken that job in Georgia, but I promise you that every day I get to wake up knowing that because I chose, honestly, because the Lord made it literally impossible for me to choose anything else, but I got to be in the will of God and it has been unbelievable the blessings that have come from getting to see what it looks like to be, to just choose the will of God. And the point of this morning isn't to look at each one of you guys and say, hey, time to leave your family, time to leave your homes, time to go to another state and work for another Nate. You know, like the purpose of this is not, it's time to give up everything that you hold dear so that you can follow God or it's time to, you know, give up your job or your career or your friends or whatever. Now, hear me saying, it's not not that. Because if the Lord is working in your life and asking you to do so, then that's a conversation to have. And that is a prayer that needs to be thrown out. But every single day, we are faced with decisions on whether we want to act in faith, whether we want to choose faith in this interaction that we have, in this way that we think about something, with the way that we spend our time, with the things that we value. We are having an interaction in our heads on whether or not we are going to choose faith or we are going to choose ourselves. Fear, worry, comfort, all of those types of things because it's a lot easier to make the decision that seems earthly like a good decision. But this morning, what I'm asking you, well, honestly, what I'm telling you is I I am a hundred percent sure that there is no better place to be than inside of the will of God. In big ways, but in small little decisions. When you're in your small group and it feels like it's uncomfortable for me to be honest and to be open and to be vulnerable with these people that are also my friends and I don't know how they'll react to me, that you choose faith and you say, I know that this is best for me and I know that these people, if they can walk beside me knowing me and my full self, then I promise you I will have a better life and a better faith and I will experience more joy. And so I am going to look that fear of how people will see me in the face and say no, because I'm going to be vulnerable and I'm going to be open in this small group and with these friends. Maybe you have co-workers or you have friends that you know need to hear who God is, but you're afraid of how they'll react to you or you're afraid that they'll look at you different or see you different or honestly, you're afraid of the discomfort of having to figure it out or you're just afraid because it's just scary in general to do something like that. Maybe you have a sin that's eating your lunch or overwhelming you, and you're so afraid to open up about it. You're so afraid to fight it because you're so rested in it that it's become the norm, and it's become your comfort, and it's become your reliance, and you're terrified of getting rid of it, and you're even more terrified of people finding out, but you know that as soon as you're able to open up and able to share this sin with somebody that you can maybe for once and for all kick this sin because you have somebody being accountable to you for it. Maybe you need to change your priorities from the fact that obviously we live in a culture where success and our jobs and the money and all of these things are what we should be pursuing and what we should be valuing. But maybe we decide, you know what? I'm going to value God over all of that. And I'm going to make my decisions that I make for God and for his glory and out of where his will is for my life and not simply what is best for my career and my life personally. I'll give the opposite of the student ones and I'll just talk to the parents now because this is one we talk about in students a lot, but parents. Maybe it means that you need to look culture in the face and say, you know what? I know that all these parents are going to look down on me, but I'm going to value my kids' spiritual life and their spiritual walk and their ability to come to church and to be a part of a church community. I'm going to value that more than I value their education and their athletic career and future. I'm going to value their future as someone who grows spiritually and is spiritually healthy and full that also seeks after being inside of the will of God. There are very easy arguments to fight against all of these. There are probably good spiritual arguments to fight against any of these hard decisions where the Lord is asking you to step out in faith. That's why it's faith. Last week we sang, I'm no longer a slave to fear, but I'm a child of God. And I've thought before, is fear really that big of a thing now versus Bible times? Yes. If you aren't experiencing any fear or any worry when it comes to living out your faith, then my question for you is, is it because your faith is so strong and who God has called you to be, and so at every waking moment, every decision is for him, or are you unwilling to step out in faith enough to where fear isn't even an impact or isn't even a factor? I often realize about myself that it's the latter. I don't lack fear because of my faith. I avoid fear at the expense of not doing anything that requires me stepping out in faith. May we not do that this morning. May we not do that this week. May we not do that in our lives. And may we instead just understand the joy and the goodness of God and allow that to bring about a freedom in our hearts to say yes to God at any and every turn, even if it makes literally no sense to us, even if it makes no sense to anybody else around us. Let's pray. God, thank you for bringing us here this morning. God, thank you for an unbelievably beautiful depiction of faith in the book of Ruth, God. Just in Ruth 1, we got three more chapters. Lord, I know that we're not always asked to give up our entire lives and everything about ourselves to follow you and to say yes to you. But God, what I also know is every single day we are faced with choices of whether we say yes to you and your will, or we say yes to us and ours. God, may we have the freedom and the love and the joy and the goodness that we have experienced from you. May that shape our decisions and boldness to say yes to you every single time. God, we love you so much. Amen.

Have you ever wondered if it was all worth it? All the emails and phone calls, special projects, late meetings, early mornings and out-of-town trips? Frantically shuttling bodies back and forth and cobbling together another meal just to check that off the list. Have you ever wondered if you have the balance right? Have we worked hard enough? Have we played enough? What will our children remember about us? Have you ever wondered if you've done it right? Is it possible to even really know that? Did we give our passions and energies to the right causes? Have we given ourselves to the things that matter the most? Or in the end, is it all just favor? Hey. That music trails off for a while. I didn't really want to step on it. But good morning. It's good to see everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be the senior pastor here. If I haven't gotten a chance to meet you or if you're watching online, thank you so much for making us a part of your Sunday morning. This is the last part in our series called Vapor, where we've been moving through the book of Ecclesiastes together and kind of pulling out some of the themes. And we've said all along that we've saved the dreariest book of the Bible for the dreariest month of the year. February has done its part for sure. Hopefully it'll finally stop raining and we can get some consistent sunshine. I think somebody told me it was going to get up to 76 degrees today. That's unheard of. That's amazing. I'll find a way to get outside. But as we finish up this series, it's important to remind you of something that I've said all along while we've done the series, which is that these are not four standalone messages. These are four messages that are meant to be one big long message. It's four parts of a whole. And so we need all of them and they build on each other. And we've been kind of getting to a place where we could culminate in this week. I've said the whole series that if you look at the realities of Ecclesiastes and face them with courage, that you'll come out the other end with a lot of things, but one of the things is a deeper desire for Christ. And so this morning, we're going to talk about how we get to that place. If you read the book of Ecclesiastes, and that's all we have. Imagine we didn't have the Bible. All we have is the book of Ecclesiastes. That's a pretty depressing book, right? If that's all we have, we don't have any hope beyond that. We don't get the book. We don't get the New Testament. They don't talk about Jesus. We don't see the other books in the Old Testament that talk about a promise of a Messiah and tell us more about who our God is. And we don't get to see the character of God revealed in those stories in the Old Testament, if this is all we have, if Ecclesiastes is it, then this is a tough book. That's a stark reality. Actually, what we learn in Ecclesiastes is, if Ecclesiastes stands alone, then fleeting joys are all that there is. If all we have is the book of Ecclesiastes, if that's all we can go on, then what we have to admit is fleeting joys are all there is. Most of the things we chased are going to be a waste of time. They're going to be vapor. We're going to spend our whole life chasing things, and we're never going to catch it. So chasing after the wind is like trying to grab smoke, right? In that life, in that chase that we're probably wasting, then we're going to experience pain. There's going to be hard days. There's going to be sad times. There's going to be a time for mourning and for death and for weeping and for loss. That's going to happen. And then last week, we talked about these joys that are God's gift to us to look around in our life and see people that we love, to look at our days and look forward to how we get to spend our days and to honor God. Those are God's gifts to us. And if all we have is Ecclesiastes, then that's it. That's all there is. Those fleeting joys. And really and truly, the people who say, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die, they're right. We should all just be Epicureans. If this is all there is, if Ecclesiastes is all there is. There's one little hint in Ecclesiastes that there's more than this. It's in chapter 3 when Solomon tells us that God has written eternity into our hearts. It's this inclination in us that there has to be more. And I think that after you read Ecclesiastes, that's really how you're left feeling. It's the way that I feel when I get an appetizer at a fancy restaurant, right? I like to go out to eat. I don't know how readily apparent that is as you look at me, but I like to go out to eat. I like it a lot. It's one of my favorite things to do in the world. One of the things I miss the most in the pandemic is going out to eat with my friends. I love doing that. And if you go to like a normal run-of-the-mill place like Olive Garden and you get the calamari appetizer, they're going to bring you this big basket, right? I like calamari. I don't know if you guys do, but I like calamari. They're going to bring you a big basket, and it's going to have a whole cup, like an extra ramekin, and you can just bring more, more of this sauce, the sweet and sour sauce or whatever it is. And if you don't watch it, you can load up on calamari, right? You can load up on this appetizer. But when you go to a fancy restaurant, when you go to one of those big deal downtown restaurants, and you see that they have calamari on their menu for the competitive price of $18, you think, I'm going to be the big dog. I'm going to do something for the table. Watch this, guys. Go ahead and get that calamari started for us, right? Look at me. And then they bring to the table, you've been there, you've seen it, they bring to the table the sample size, right? It's like, it's a rectangular plate. It's this long, it's thin. If your appetizer arrives on a plate shaped like this, you paid too much for it. Just a blanket policy. And they set that down in front of you. And there's four different, like there's two rings kind of just laid gently on each other with some cilantro over the top of it. And there's four of those. And you're like, thank you for these bites. I would like more bites, please. Like this is it? Everybody gets a taste of calamari? And then that's done. There's got to be more to it, right? I think this is what Ecclesiastes makes us feel. We finish it. You read it. You confront the realities. It ends with this sentiment. That's a wonderful sentiment. The end of the matter is this. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. So best case scenario in Ecclesiastes, you keep your head down, you honor God, and you hope that more good things happen to you than bad things happen to you. There you go. Kind of feels like someone just put a few pieces of calamari in front of you and you go, is this it? There's got to be more to it. And that's why I wanted to spend this week saying there is. There are 65 other books. Ecclesiastes exists within the canon of Scripture. And when you lay it against the messages in the other books, then you can really see that I believe Ecclesiastes is designed to point us to our need for Jesus. Ecclesiastes, I think, is designed to point us to our need for Jesus. That we finish reading Ecclesiastes and we go, gosh, there's got to be more than this. There's got to be more than just putting our head down and trying to be good people and hoping that not too many bad things happen to me and that I'm wisely investing my life. There has to be more than this. And there is. The more than this is Jesus. That's the more than this. So Ecclesiastes is there so that we read it and we absorb the messages of it and we let the stark realities hit us and we let those go. We let those say to us there must be more and that more is Christ. And here's how I know that this is true. I think that Ecclesiastes serves as a really great preamble to my favorite chapter in the Bible, Romans chapter 8. If you were here a few summers ago, you know that we did eight weeks in Romans chapter 8. It is, to me, the crescendo of hope in the Bible. It is a remarkable chapter. And I believe that Ecclesiastes, maybe better than any other book outside of Romans, lays the groundwork, lays a preamble for us to really be hit with the grandeur of Romans chapter 8. There's a particular portion of it, chapter 8 verses 18 through 30, that I think reads like portions of Ecclesiastes and then finishes with the hope that Ecclesiastes just leaves us wanting for. And so that's what I want to do this morning is look at Ecclesiastes as a lead-in to Romans chapter 8 and see what truth there is in Romans chapter 8 and how Jesus is this more that we've all been yearning for. So read with me. If you have a Bible, you can read along. If not, it'll be on the screen. It's going to be a long passage, but I think it's worth reading all of it. Verse 18, Listen to this. Now hope that is seen is not hope for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. And then on down to 28, this is so good. Ecclesiastes is all over that passage. Look at how Paul starts it. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. The sufferings of this present time. That's ecclesiastical. That's what Ecclesiastes says. That no matter what you do, you're going to suffer. No matter what you do, it's going to sometimes feel like chasing vapor. The reality of this life is that it's hard. There are seasons of difficulty and grief and pain. The reality of this life is that divorce exists and cancer is a thing and that secret sins eat us alive and that people disappoint us and that we disappoint ourselves and that we lose people that we don't want to lose, that we watch people who are better than us go through pain that we don't feel like they deserve. It's we turn on the news and there's another school shooting. We turn on the news and there's another riot. That's the suffering. That's what Ecclesiastes acknowledges. And that's what Paul acknowledges in Romans chapter 8. But he immediately buoys it, balances that out. I consider that the sufferings of this present time, all that stuff we talked about in Ecclesiastes, are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. So then he starts talking about this glory that's going to be revealed, this hope that we look forward to, this thing that's the future, the more that Ecclesiastes leaves us wanting for. But if you go down through the passage, you see these connections. It says that creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it. And then it says that we know the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. Groaning for what? Groaning for Jesus. Groaning for what we groan for. For the adoption as sons and daughters. For the glory of God. We talked about this. This creation groaning. We talked about this in the second week. We talked about that everyone walks through pain. And I said that pain is not punitive, that God is not tightening the screws on us because we misbehaved or we didn't do enough or because we don't love enough. He's not punishing us. Pain is the result of a fallen and broken world. Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. It was perfect. It was exactly as God wanted it to be. But Adam and Eve sinned and they broke God's rest and they were separated from God. And then we come along in that sin, continuing to be separated from God. And we have this profound sense, just like Ecclesiastes says that eternity is written on our hearts, we have this profound sense that everything's not okay, that there has to be more than this, that it has to be different, that certainly, God, you look at what happens and it grieves your heart too. That's creation groaning, don't you see? Ecclesiastes was just describing the groanings of creation. That's the earth itself crying out for the return of God, for Jesus to come and make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. There's this picture in Revelation, I believe it's in chapter 6, where the voices of the martyrs are under the throne of God. The martyrs are under the throne of God, people who have died for their faith, and they basically say, how much longer, God, before you go make things right? That's how we feel when we lose someone too soon. That's how we feel when we try really hard to have a kid and we can't. That's how we feel when terrible things happen that we can't explain. It's ecclesiastical. It's creation groaning. When is this going to get better? And then it says, and I love this phrase, especially those of us who have the first fruits of the Spirit, those of us who have eternity written on our hearts, those of us who know Jesus, who are believers, who call God our Father and Jesus our Savior, it says that we, us Christians, because we know there's more, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption of sons and daughters. We groan inwardly when creation, when these hard things happen. We groan inwardly when we watch our friends walk through difficult times, and we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters. We yearn for that. That's part of being a Christian, is in the midst of hard times to say, come, Lord Jesus, please, don't make us wait any longer. That's why when I watched my father-in-law pass away a month ago, I looked on him with a degree of jealousy because his eager yearning is done. His groaning is over. And now he has the glory that Ecclesiastes leaves lacking and that Paul alludes to in verse 18 and that we're going to talk about here in a minute. But this first part of that passage, 18 through 30, it's ecclesiastical. It's the same themes and things that Solomon brought forth there. And it points to something. He concludes it in a lot the same way that Solomon concludes it, Romans 8, 28. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. So, so far, it's pretty similar. So far, Ecclesiastes says, life is going to be hard. There's going to be some groaning. This is not going to feel right. You just need to understand that that's part of the deal. And then Romans, or Paul says in Romans, there's going to be suffering. Creation's going to groan. You're going to feel this eager yearning in yourself. You're going to feel that things aren't right, that there has to be a little bit more than this present reality. You're going to feel that in your bones. And his conclusion is, but we know, even though you feel that, we know that all things work together for the good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose, which is strikingly similar to the way that Solomon concludes Ecclesiastes, which is to say, the end of the matter is this, all has been heard, fear the Lord and keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man. It's the same conclusion. These things, life is going to be hard. We're going to groan together for this better eternity. And so the best we can do right now is to just love God and hope for the best. Except Paul doesn't stop there. Paul doesn't stop there. He follows it up. Here's what happens when we love God and we hope for the best. on it this morning, but what I believe is that if you choose God, then he chooses you. And so if you are here this morning and you're a believer, then God has chosen you. If you say, God, yes, I'm in, I need you, then he chooses you too. And in choosing you, he's going to adopt you so that Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. We are invited into this heavenly family. But the real word I want us to look at is that word justified. That word justified is an amazing word. Those whom he foreknewed, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified. Justified is an incredible word. Because the reality of the condition of our souls is that we are guilty before Almighty God. We have sinned and offended him in myriad ways. Some known, some unknown, some before we knew who he was, and then we've been washed and we are grateful, some long after we knew who he was, some yesterday, some this morning. The reality of our souls is that we stand guilty before Almighty God. And there is nothing that we can do to fix it. And the penalty for that guilt is death, is eternal separation from God. We will never re-enter into the rest that he created us for. We will never experience the glory that Paul talks about as he's comparing it to the sufferings of this present time. When we are guilty before God, we do not experience the glory of being with God. And truly all there is, is this life. And truly all we can do is eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. And we are guilty. But Jesus condescended to become flesh, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross for us. And at the conclusion of that death, when he rose to life, Romans 8 tells us that he goes back up into heaven and he sits at the right hand of the Father and he is interceding for you. He has leaned over to God and he has said, I know that they were guilty. I know that they offended you, but I died for them. They're good. He justifies you. He makes you not guilty in the heavenly court of law with his death. Do you understand that with his death, that the way that he justified you is if you go back to your very worst day, if you go back to just the bottom of whatever your barrel was, that he died for that day. And he looks at that day and he says to God the Father, they're good for that day. I've paid the penalty for that. You can declare them not guilty. I've clothed them in my righteousness. You don't have to look at that day anymore. You can look at my perfection clothing them. They are justified. And to me, what's even more amazing than that is, think about the worst day you got coming up. Think about your potential to fall off the wagon and make poor choices and find yourself at the bottom of another barrel. Think about the wandering that you do after you accept Christ as your Savior. And know that Jesus died for that day too. Know that Jesus justified you for that day too. That he looks at the Father and he declares you not guilty for all the days. That's an amazing reality to me. And here's what's even better. If you want to be justified, I don't know if you are or you're not, but if you want to be declared not guilty of your sins and justified before Almighty God, all you have to do is believe in that justification. All you have to do is believe what I just told you, that you stand guilty before God and that Jesus came and lived a perfect life and he died for you. And in that dying, he justified you. He looked at your worst day and he said, it's all right. You're not guilty of that. And he looked at your worst potential and he said, it's all right. You're not guilty of that. I've got you. Now walk like you're justified. And then he says this. He doesn't stop with justification, which would be enough. That's what Jesus' death won us. But he says those who are justified are also glorified. This is the glory that Paul is talking about in verse 18. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth the glory that is to be revealed to us. And then the whole passage talks about yearning for that glory, for the redemption of our bodies, for the return of creation, that the creation groans, yearning for this perfect eternity. And then he says, Why? Because Jesus died for you and justified you, and now you're going to be glorified. He has got you, and one day you're going to end up in this perfect eternity. And that's what glorification is. And that's the hope that we have. That's how we can say it's all going to be okay. Because we don't have to admit that somehow it's going to make sense in this life or this world. But we know as Christians that one day our labor will be over and our souls will find rest in God and we will be in a perfect eternity with him. That's our hope. That's not vapor. That will not put us to shame. And if we want to know what that glory is like, the Bible tells us. In another one of my favorite passages, Revelation 21, 1 through 4. John writes this, city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and the death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Ecclesiastes is done in Revelation 21. That's the end of the Bible. It's the new heaven and the new earth. It's a picture of the perfect eternity that is waiting on us, that Jesus has won for us, that he justified us to qualify for, and then we will be glorified into that eternity. And in that eternity, there is no more weeping or crying or pain anymore. There's none of the bad stuff. In Ecclesiastes, that passage, there's a time for mourning and there's a time for laughing. In heaven, it's all laughing, man. There's a time for death and there's a time for birth, not in heaven. In heaven, it's all births. It's all building up. It's all celebrations. It's no pain. The former things, the things that make our souls groan, the things that Ecclesiastes forces us to confront about this life, those things have passed away. Those things are no more. There is no pain, and there are nothing but happy tears in heaven. That is the eternity that Jesus has won for us. It is the glorification that Jesus died to justify us so that we would qualify for that glory. It is the hope that we hold on to. It is the thing that we know for certain is not vapor. It is the time we know for certain that pain will not hurt. It is that pain will not happen. It is the time that we cling to, that we hope for, so that finally all the things in this life that don't make sense, that we can't piece together, that we don't understand, that seem inconsistent and would tempt us into losing our faith or becoming embittered. It's in this glory in Revelation 21 that all those questions are answered, that we see the very face of God, that we understand all the things that we've struggled with. It's in that moment that we no longer have to fight against ourselves and our demons, in which we can no longer relate to Romans 7, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death. That is the hope that we cling to, Christians. And when we cling to that hope, we don't have to make sense out of everything. When we cling to that hope, we don't have to understand how it's fair that John was so good and we lost him early. When we cling to that hope, I don't have to understand how my college roommate passed away at the age of 30 and left behind small children. I don't have to understand that because there's coming a day when it's going to all make sense. And so our job is to cling to it with patience. That's what Paul says, that if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. So we look to our Jesus. We desire him more. Come, Lord Jesus, today. And while we wait, we are patient, and we cling to the one thing that isn't vapor. And what we find there in the presence of Christ is true joy. In fact, true joy can only exist in the presence of Jesus. True joy can only exist in the presence of Jesus. Joy that is not fleeting. Joy that is immutable. Joy that doesn't go away. Joy that's not impacted by circumstances. True joy can only exist in the presence of Jesus. So that is where we go. We go there now while we can, and we wait on an eternity while we are there all the time. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your son. Thank you that he covers over our worst days. That he covers over the worst in us. Jesus, thank you for coming and for dying. We know that when the time came, you didn't want to. But you did anyways because you love us. God, I can't imagine what it was to watch your son do that. But you led him for us. And we are grateful. I pray that we would, all of us, lean more into him. If there's someone here today who doesn't know you or watching or listening who doesn't know you, I pray that they would believe in that justification, that they would want it for themselves, that they would know you today. God, thank you for the message of Ecclesiastes. Thank you that it points us to the rest of the work that you did. God, give us the patience and the perseverance and the hope to continue to cling to your promises. It's in your son's name we all pray. Amen.

I see the evidence of your goodness all over my life, all over my life. I see promises in fulfillment. All over my life. All over my life. Help me remember when I'm weak. Fear may come, but fear will lead. You lead my heart to victory. You are my strength, and you always will be. I see the evidence of your goodness all over my life. All over my life. I see your promises and fulfillment all over my life, all over my life. See the cross, the empty grave, the evidence of your goodness. Jesus. I see your promises in fulfillment all over my life, all over my life, yeah. I see your promises and fulfillment all over my life. Yeah, you're all around us. So why should I fear? The evidence is here. Why should I fear? Oh, the evidence is here. I searched the world, but it couldn't fill me. Melted deep rays, treasures of fame were never enough. Then you came along and put me back together. And every desire is now satisfied here in your love. Oh, there's nothing better than you. There's nothing better than you. Oh, there's nothing, nothing is better than you. Come on, tell them. To show you my weakness My failures and flaws Lord, you've seen them all And you still call me friend Cause the God of the mountains Is the God of the valleys There's not a place Your mercy and grace won't find me again. Oh Come on. Tell them now. Come on, choir. Oh, there's nothing better than you. Nothing. You turn bones into armies. You turn seas into highways. You're the only one who can. Somebody give a praise in this house. I don't think we're finished yet. Come on. Come on, one more can. You're the only one who can. You're the only one who can. Jesus, you're the only one. Come on, give Him one more shout of praise. When all I see is the battle, you see my victory. When all I see is the mountain, you see a mountain moon. And as I walk through the shadow, your love surrounds me. There's nothing to fear now, for I am safe with you. So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees, with my head lifted high. Oh God, the battle belongs for you. Thank you, God. God, you see the end to tell. So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees. With my head lifted high. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. And every fear I lay at your feet. I'll sing through the night. Oh God, the power of our God. You shine in the shadow. You win every battle. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. In all mighty fortunes, you go before us. Nothing can stand against the power of our God We wanted to let you know that our mission here at Grace is to connect people to Jesus and to connect people to people. One of the best ways to communicate with us here at Grace is through our connection cards. If you would like to speak to a pastor at Grace, if you have any prayer requests for our prayer team and our elders, or if you're not receiving our Grace Vine weekly emails, this would be a great way to fill it out and let us know. If you're watching with us online, you can click the link below and submit the connection card there. Or if you're here with us at Grace, the connection card is in the seat back pocket in front of you. Just be sure to drop it on your way out in the box next to the doors. Thanks so much for joining us this morning and we hope that this service is a blessing to you. Well, good morning, everyone. It's great to have you here at Grace Raleigh. I'd like to ask you to stand. My name is Steve Goldberg. I'm the worship pastor here at Grace, and it's great having people here in the room. It's great having people at home joining in with us. I thought that this morning we could start off with the scripture of John 3.16, that God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life, come to the well that never runs dry. Drink of the water, come and thirst no more. Come all you sinners Come find his mercy Come to the table He will satisfy Taste of his goodness Find what you're looking for. For God so loved the world that He gave us. His one and only Son to save us. Whoever believes in Him will live forever. bring all your failures bring your addictions come lay them down at the foot of the cross Jesus is waiting there with hope in our hearts For God so loved the world praise god praise god from whom all blessings Praise Him, praise Him For the wonders of His love For God so loved the world that He gave us His one and only Son to save The power of hell forever defeated Now it is well, I'm walking in freedom Oh God so loved, God so loved the world Bring all your failures, bring your addictions. Come lay them down at the foot of the cross. Jesus is waiting. God so loved the world. Amen. God sent his son. They called him Jesus. He came to love, heal, and forgive. He lived and died. To buy my pardon. An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. he lives all fear is gone because i know he holds the future And life is worth the living Just because He lives And then one day I'll cross that river I'll fight my spine No war with me And then as death Gives way to victory I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know He lives. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow Because He lives All fear is gone Because I know He holds the future And life is worth the living Just because He lives. And life is worth the living just because He lives. Amen. Amen. All right, y'all can have a seat for a moment. Good morning, Grace Raleigh. It is fabulous to see your smiling faces in here. And welcome to those of you that have joined us online. It is a beautiful and sunny Sunday morning, Welcome to the world for this beautiful sunny weather because in two weeks, the mission committee will be here to gather all of the goodies that you choose to bring. So if you go to Grace Raleigh's events page, you will find a list of things that the mission committee is looking for for the Interfaith Food Shuttle. You will buy those. And then on either that Friday or either that, I'm sorry, that Saturday or that Sunday, you can drive through. The hours are listed on the screen. You can drive through. They will come out to your car. They will pick it up. They will bring it inside, and they will take care of it. So all you have to do is go to the grocery. And I guess these days you could even have it delivered to your house. So that is fabulous. And speaking of driving by and dropping off, if you are the parent of a 6th grader through 12th grader, today is the day you get to drive by and push them out of the car. Woo-hoo! We are so excited to announce that Grace Students is back up and running live and in person. Kyle will be here tonight in all of his fun. And we have the cool thing happening too that he's live streaming the service. So if for some reason your 6th through 12th grader can't be in the building tonight, no problem. Email Kyle, kyle at graceralee.org. And he has all the information and the links that you need to be able to be attached to the live stream and join in that way. They're now going to start into a routine of being in person one week, meeting online together the next week in person, and you get the idea. But email Kyle for any information that you guys might need. So thank you again for coming, for being a part of Grace Raleigh thisbbling together another meal just to check that off the list. Have you ever wondered if you have the balance right? Have we worked hard enough? Have we played enough? What will our children remember about us? Have you ever wondered if you've done it right? Is it possible to even really know that? Did we give our passions and energies to the right causes? Have we given ourselves to the things that matter the most? Or in the end, is it all just favor? Well, good morning. It's good to see everybody here. This is as full as the church has been since last February. That's crazy. Man, you guys, apparently, we've been going through Ecclesiastes. Y'all love depression and hopelessness. So thanks for showing up to that. You're like, I got to get out of the house now. Maybe that's what I needed to do the whole time, which is make you really, really sad. So you had to come see people. This is great. If you're still joining us at home, we're so grateful for that. This is the third part in our series called Vapor, where we're moving through the book of Ecclesiastes. We've said the whole time that we've saved the dreariest book of the Bible for the dreariest month of the year. And what's really fun is that this is the joyful sermon. This is the one, this is the good news. This is the one where we celebrate. We only did two songs up front because we want to end praising God together, and he gave us sunshine to do this. So it seems that the weather is matching the rhythm of the series, and I think that that's fantastic. In the first week, we started out and we talked about this idea of a hevel or vapor or smoke, and we concluded that Solomon would argue that a vast majority of Americans are wasting their life, right? Which means a vast majority of us are probably investing our life pursuing things that ultimately we can't grab onto or vapor or smoke. They're here one day and they're gone the next. And so that really left us with this question at the end of that week, is there a worthwhile investment of our lives? And if you have notes, you see that at the top of your notes. I think that's been a question that's been lingering in the series. Is there really a worthwhile investment of my life or is it all just a waste of time? Is everyone here just, we're all just chasing vapor? And I think that there's a good answer to that question, but last week we answered it a little bit, but we stumbled into another harsh reality. The harsh reality that even if we pursue wisdom with our life, even if we're obedient, the godliest of the godly, that does not insulate us from pain. Our godliness doesn't protect us from grief, right? And so what we learned by looking at that beautiful passage in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, there's a time for mourning and there's a time for joy. There's a time for grieving and there's a time for healing and there's a time to be hurt. There's a time to live and there's a time to die. Like we saw that passage. And what we learned is that pain is not punitive. God's not tightening the screws on us to punish us. Pain is the result of a fallen world, right? And that the harsh reality that Solomon gives us in Ecclesiastes is that no matter what we do, we're going to hurt. No matter how godly we are, there will be seasons of mourning in our life. And so that leaves us, I think, with another really difficult question. Can I ever hope for true happiness? Can I ever, on this side of eternity, grasp onto something that isn't Hevel or vapor or smoke? Can I grasp onto a joy that is immutable and unchangeable, that is resistant to circumstances in life, that even as the storms come, I can still find myself in seasons of joyfulness and contentment? Is it even possible to do those things? And I think those are the two big questions that we bring into this week. Is it possible to pursue anything that really matters? And is it possible to grab onto anything that looks like actual true contentment and joy? And the answer to those questions, I think, is yes. And Solomon answers those questions multiple times in Ecclesiastes. I think in four separate passages, he addresses those with the exact same answer. Four different times, he gives this answer, and I love this answer. I think there's so much bound up in his choice to answer the questions in this way. But like I said, he says it in four separate times. I'm going to read you two of them so that you can get a sense. They're in your notes. If you have them, they'll be on the screen if you're following along at home. But here's what he writes in Ecclesiastes, Solomon repeats this idea. That at the end of the day, what's left for us to do is enjoy our toil, enjoy our food and drink, and honor our God. The end of the book, he ends. The end of the matter is this, all has been heard, fear God and keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man. We talked about that last week. And it's important that as we look through what I think is kind of this formula for contentment, that we understand that when he's talking about eating and drinking, when we see eating and drinking in the Bible, that is almost always a reference to a communal activity. Eating and drinking is inherently communal. The Bible rarely talks about eating for sustenance, right? It rarely talks about food as this way to be healthy. It always talks about food and bread and gathering around a table as a form of community. And so when he says that there's nothing for man to do except to find joy in what he does and to eat and to drink. What he means is when we look around the table, when we have our meals, if we love the people who are around us, that's good. That's a gift from God. We go out to eat, we're eating with our friends, and we look around and we have genuine affection, we enjoy these people. That's a gift from God. When you look around your table and you have family there and you love that family. Now listen, we're all parts of families. We know that love isn't just sing song and fairy tales all the time. Sometimes it's hard, but at the end of the day, if you know that I love you and you love me, then that's a gift from God. And so when he's talking about food and drink, he's really referencing community. And then when he talks about toil, enjoying your toil, I have a men's group that meets on Tuesday mornings at 6.30. Anybody can join us if you want to. Just email me. Well, the more the merrier there. And we were talking about this word toil. And to a room full of men, it means career, right? It means work. It means what's your job? But Solomon uses that word a lot more broadly than that in Ecclesiastes. And the word toil really doesn't refer to your job or your career as much as it refers to the activities that you have set aside for that day, the productivity of that day, whatever it is you're going to do. Because we have some men in the group who are retired. If it's only about work, career, then they have no shot at happiness, right? They better get back to it. But really, it's broader than that. It really means, Toyo, what do you have set for yourself today? What productivity are you going to engage in today? And then in this verse, he says that we should do good. And he defines doing good as honoring God with our life, fearing God and keeping his commandments. And it's with these understandings that I kind of arrive at this conclusion of kind of Solomon's equation for contented joy and apex happiness. And I really do think it's this. People you love plus tasks you enjoy plus honoring God equals apex happiness. Listen to me. If when you eat, if as you move through your day, you look around and the people in your life bring you joy, and when you wake up, you're looking forward to the things that you're going to do in that day. Maybe not everything, but the point of the day brings you joy. And you're honoring God with your life. If those things are true of you, then I want you to know this morning, you are apex happy. It doesn't get better than that. Sometimes our problem is just that we can't see it. But I'm telling you, man, if you wake up every day and you get to have breakfast with your family or you go out to lunch with some people at work that you enjoy or you look forward to seeing some friends at small group or something like that, if you look around at your community and you're surrounded by people you love and you look at your days and God has given you something to put your hand to that you enjoy, that gives you a sense of purpose, that helps you become who he's created you to be and use your gifts and abilities to point people to Jesus as you move throughout your days, if that's what you get to do and you're honoring God as you do those things, then listen to me, you are experiencing apex happiness in your life. And I think that we get it so messed up sometimes. We do all the things that Solomon talked about in the first two chapters, and we chase all the things. We run out there and we chase all the success and all the relationships and all the money and all the fulfillment and all the pleasure and all the stuff that's out there. When really what's true is God has already given us everything we need for joy. God has already provided in our lives everything we need for joy. And listen, if you don't have those things, if you look around, you're like, I don't like any of the people in my life right now. If you don't have a fulfillment in your job, if you're not honoring God with your life, then guess what? Those things are attainable. Those things aren't out there and forever away. Those things are attainable. They're right around you. God gives us everything we need for joy within our reach. That's why I brought this chair today. This chair here is my chair from my house. This is my chair in my living room. This chair sits in the corner of our living room, and opposite me is we have a little sectional couch. There's other people who sit in this chair sometimes, but for the most part, it's me. When I sit in this chair, I get to watch dance recitals. I get to watch Lily come in with her friends, and they sing Elsa to me. And I pretend to care about Elsa. I get to watch dumb little magic tricks. We went to some restaurant and they gave her some pot with a magnet on the bottom and there's a plant that comes out of the wand and she comes in and she does the abracadabra, the whatever, and then she pulls it out and for the 37th time, I'm amazed by this magic trick, right? I sit in this chair and Jen sits on the couch and we talk about our days. We talk about what's hard and we talk about what's fun. From this chair, when someone rings the doorbell, if I angle my head just right, I can see down the hallway to the front door and I can see the little face that's there to come play with Lily. If they're all over, I can look this way out the window and I can look at them all, all the neighborhood kids jumping on the trampoline that we got to get for her. In the mornings when I'm doing life right and I'm downstairs reading like I'm supposed to, at about 6.45, 7 o'clock, I can look up the stairs and see Lily up there and motion her down to come sit in my lap and tell me what she's going to do that day. When we have friends over, which I love to do, eventually we end up in our living room and we sit around and we talk and we giggle and we laugh. In the pandemic, I worked from this chair. I set up a little table right here and I do my Zoom calls and I argue with the elders and that's pure joy except for Chris Lata. I love working from that table. I can see all the things that bring me the most joy from this chair. And if I go out there chasing joy, if I go out there trying to track everything down, what am I going to do? Buy a new house for this chair These are from old David. If this church grows to 2,000 people and I get to feel what that feels like, do my conversations with my family and friends get any better from sitting in this chair? No, man. This is it. And sometimes it's not the chair, right? Sometimes it's the kitchen. Sometimes it's when I get to cook dinner and Jen sits on the stool and we talk about our days. Sometimes it's the mornings when Ruby and Lily are on the bed and I'm in the chair in the corner of that room and we're all talking, just enjoying our times. But here's what I know. I can go out there chasing whatever I want to chase. But my times of most profound joy come when I'm right there. They come when I'm around the people that I love the most. They come when I'm soaking in the blessings that God has given me. And this is what we need to pay attention to. Solomon tells us these are God's gifts to us. If people in your life that you love, who love you, they're God's gift to you. Drink them in. Hug them more. Tell them more that you care about them. Tell them more that you're grateful for them. Tell them more that they are a gift from God in your life. You have a thing to do every day that you like to put your hand to, whether it's raising kids or volunteering somewhere or spending time in your neighborhood or going to work or looking forward to seeing your friends or whatever it is. You have things that God has given you that make you productive, that let you feel like you are living out His intended will for you? That's His gift for you. That work, that toil, that's His gift. It's designed for you. And then if we honor God, His invitation to honor Him is His gift to us because He knows that when we live a life honoring Him, we live a life of fewer regrets. We live a life of deeper gratitude. We live a life with a deeper desire for Jesus if we'll just revel in his gifts. This helps me make sense of the Honduran children I saw at one time. For years of my life, I would go down to Honduras with some regularity to take teams down to visit a pastor named Israel Gonzalez. Israel is one of my heroes. The things that he's done for the kingdom are unbelievable. And he is based in a city in central Honduras called, called, uh, Swatopeke. He and his wife have set up a free clinic there. He has a church there. And then from that church, what they do is they organize these goodwill parties and they bring teams down and you get together hot dogs and little tchotchke gifts and you go up into the hillsides. There's mountains surrounding Ciguatapeque and you go up into the mountainside and you go to these villages and he throws these goodwill parties and he hopes that by doing this, these villages that are deeply Catholic, but Catholic in such a way that shuts them off to faith rather than turns them on to faith. And so they're lost communities. And he goes and he throws these parties, and by throwing these goodwill parties, they invite him into the community to plant a church. He's planted 14 churches that way, last I checked. And I would go on these parties. And you go up into these mountains surrounding Suwatopec into a village. And that's not derogatory. It's literally a village. Homes are built of mud and wood, makeshift roofs, one or two rooms, literally dirt poor. I've had the opportunity in my life to be in a fair amount of other countries and to see poverty on multiple continents. Honduras is just about the worst. But yet when we would go there, we would get out and there would always be these children there. And these children would have the biggest, goofiest grins on their face ever. They were so joyful, and they would laugh, and they would play, and they were happy to see you, and it never got wiped off of their face. And I always wondered, kid, how can you be so happy? Don't you know you don't have a Barbie house? Don't you know you don't have a PlayStation? Don't you know your soccer ball stinks? Those kids had it figured out, man. They had people around them who loved them. They had things to do each day that they looked forward to. And they hadn't lived enough life to carry the weight of what it is to not honor God with our choices. They were walking in apex happiness. And I carry all my American wealth down there and privilege, and I look at them and I'm jealous. Because they figured out something that we haven't. And I just think that there is this profound truth that everything that we need is right there within our grasp. We don't have to run around out there chasing vapor and Hevel. God has given us these gifts already. And in that truth, in that truth that everything we need for joy is within our grasp? We answer those two questions we started with. Is there a pursuit that's actually worth investing my life in? Yes. The people you love, the tasks that give you purpose, and honoring God. You want to live a life that matters? You want to get to the end of it and wonder if it's all vapor? Or not have to wonder that? Then invest your life in the people that you love and the tasks that God has ordained for you. Ephesians 2 says that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus, that we should do good works, that we should walk in them. Walk in those good works that God intended you for and honor God with the choices that you make. Those are worthwhile pursuits. You will get to the end of your life if you pursue those things and know that it was a life well lived. And he actually doubles down on this idea of pursuing relationships with other people. I don't have a lot of time to spend here on it, but again, this is a passage that I can't just skip over as we go through the book of Ecclesiastes. He doubles down on this idea of having more folks in our life when he writes this has not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. Solomon doesn't take a lot of time to tell you to invest in a lot of things in Ecclesiastes. If you've been reading along with us, he doesn't tell you to do a lot of stuff there. He just kind of tells you, hey, this stuff's a waste of time. You should honor God. And then he tells you how we got to that conclusion. But here he stops and makes sure you understand the value of having people in your life who love you, who you love in return. And he sets up life as this struggle, this fight, because it is a struggle and a fight to choose to honor God with our lives. It is a struggle and a fight to keep our marriages healthy. It is a struggle and a fight to direct our kids in the right way, to love our families well, to share our faith, to be evangelists in our community, and to make disciples of the people who are around us. That's hard. And Solomon says, if you try to do this alone, woe to you when you fall and you have no one to pick you up. Woe to you when addiction creeps in and there's no one you can tell. Woe to you when doubts creep into your faith and there's no one you can talk to. How hard it must be for you when your marriage gets rocky and there's no one to fight for it. If there's two, he says, you've got a fighting chance. If there's three, that's not quickly broken. We need people in our lives to fight for us. We need to fight for the people in our lives. It seems to be a big value to us. That will help us ensure that we always have people to eat and drink with that we love and enjoy. So I thought it was worth pointing out Solomon's emphasis on this. The other question that remained from the previous weeks is, can I ever hope for true happiness? Yes. Yes, because here's the thing. If the bad things in Ecclesiastes 3 are true, then so are the good ones. Last week, I read the passage and I said, listen, pain is coming for all of us. It's going to hurt. We're going to mourn. We're going to grieve. No one gets to dodge that based on our godliness. It's going to happen to all of us. We will walk through hard times, but here's the reality. If that's true, then the flip side is true. If the bad things are true, then God says we will walk through seasons where we experience the good things. Look at the good things. There is a time to be born, to plant, to heal, to build up, to laugh, to dance, to gather things together, to embrace, to keep, to sow, to speak. A time for love and a time for peace. If we're going to have to walk through hard times, there's going to be good ones too. And I just think that the blessing from Ecclesiastes is this. It hits us with some hard realities. It's stark. It's unflinching. Hey, most of us are wasting our lives. And no matter what you do to invest it well, you're going to hurt. Those are hard truths. But I've said the whole time that if we can accept them on the other side is this joy that is waiting for us. And this is the joy. The joy is, yes, there's big things going on that we can't control. But in the midst of all that stuff that we can't control, God gives us these gifts, these moments of joy, these pockets to lean into where we celebrate him, where we're grateful for him, and we acknowledge those things as gifts. And I just think that if we accept the difficult realities from this book, then we can start to look for these little pockets of joy in our life, and they will bring us such more fulfillment than if we just move through them waiting to get to the next thing. At our house, we do a thing called Breakfast Sammy Saturday, all right? I like a good breakfast sandwich. I know it's hard to tell by looking at me, but I like a good, I put butter down, I toast the bread, I do the eggs, I do some bacon, do some cheese on there, and then I put it all together on the blackstone, cut it in half, and the good egg bleeds out onto it. It's all the goodness, and then you dip your sandwich in there. It's the best. I love breakfast Sammy Saturdays. You guys are not enthusiastic enough about this. You need breakfast Sammy Saturdays in your life. Well, I'll just let you guys sign up. Come over to the house. I'll make them for you. We love it. But it's just kind of a thing that I do. I like it. I make one for Jen and Lily, and they kind of eat half of theirs. I'm more excited about it than anybody else. But then one day, Lily brought this home from preschool, and it made me cry right on the spot. That's breakfast Sammy Saturday. She drew my griddle. She put food on it. Apparently, I make pizza there. And she brought it home to me. Now, the thing about this is, it was an assignment at preschool. She was told, just make whatever you want. It's an art project. And she made breakfast Sammy Saturday. And she brought it home to me. And she said, look, Daddy. And she told me what it was. I started crying right there on the spot. I got these big old alligator tears in my eyes looking at Jen. What a cool thing. And sure, life's going to be hard. She's going to be a teenager. She's five now, so she's kind of maxed out on cuteness, and now it's just hyper sometimes. But even though I know that there's hard times ahead, even though I know she won't always appreciate things like Breakfast Sammy Saturday, I know she does now. And I know that that's a gift from my God. And I know that what Ecclesiastes says is the best thing I can possibly do is to drink deeply of that. The best thing we can possibly do is find joy in these moments that God allows. We don't know how long we'll have them. I was talking with a friend last night who's got a new infant. And he said every time he gets up with the infant in the middle of the night and holds her, that it's a privilege. Because he doesn't know when that last time's going to be. And that's the truth of it. I think that we have so many pockets of joy in our life every day. If we have people that we love, if we have something to do that we appreciate, if we're choosing to honor God with our life. And I think that because we're so busy chasing vapor, sometimes we miss these sweet little moments that can all be had right here if we're just paying enough attention. That's why I think on the other side of these realities awaits for us this profound joy. And I think that when we realize that, that when we realize that God has designed these things to bring us happiness in our life, that what's really important is if we don't believe in a God, if we're atheistic in our worldview, then that's it. The joy terminates in those moments. That's all we have. But if we are a spiritual people who believe that God designed these things and these blessings in our life to make himself evident in our life, then our joy doesn't terminate in the moment. It turns into exuberant praise. It reminds us that we have a God that designed this for us. And the other part is, and this is incredible, that the joy that we're experiencing in that moment is only a glimpse of the eternity that he's designed for us and won for us with Jesus, which is what we're going to come back and talk about next week, is how these things are glimpses to the eternity that Jesus has already won for us. So in a few minutes, the band is going to come, and we've saved two fun, exuberant songs to praise God together. And while we do that, I want to encourage you to keep those two thoughts in your head. What are the things that I can see from my chair? What are the joys that God has given me that are within my reach from places that I already have in my life? What are the things that maybe I'm missing because I'm chasing stuff that I don't need? And then let's reflect on the reality that there is coming an eternity where that's all we experience. It's no more just pockets. It's reality. And that is something for us all to celebrate. Let me pray for us. Father, you are so very good to us. You've given us so much. Lord, I pray that we would be grateful for those blessings. I pray that you would steep us in profound gratitude for the things that we have, that you would show us what we need and what we don't. God, if there is somebody here or who can hear my voice, who doesn't have people in their life that they love, God, would you bring that to them? Would you provide that community for them even here at Grace? Would you give them the courage to slip up their hand in some way, to fill out some sheet, or to send some email, or make some phone call, or some text, and help them engage with relationships that matter to them. God, if there are people who don't have something they enjoy in their days, would you give them the courage to find that? Show them how you designed them and what you created them for. God, if we are not honoring you with our lives, I pray that you would give us the courage to do that. Let us praise you exuberantly, God, for the joys that you have given us in our lives. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen. Amen, amen. Thank you, Nate. Let's all stand up. guitar solo Our God, firm foundation Our rock, the only solid ground Let's lift his name. you are the only king forever you are victorious Unmatched in all your wisdom In love and justice you will reign and every knee will bow we bring our expectations our hope is anchored in your name the name of jesus Jesus you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious We lift our banner high. We lift the name of Jesus. From age to age you reign. Your kingdom has no end. We lift our banner high. We lift the name of Jesus. From age to age you reign. Your kingdom has no end. You are the only king forever. Mighty God, we lift you higher. You are the only king forever. Forevermore, you are the only king forever Forevermore, you are victorious. He is doing great things See what our Savior has done See how His love overcomes he has done great things. We dance in your freedom, awake and alive. Oh Jesus, our Savior, your name lifted high be faithful forever more you have done great things and I know you will do it again for your promise is yes and amen you will do great things God you do great things Oh Oh you have done great things you've done great things every captive and break every chain oh god You have done great things. You have done great things. Oh God, you guys here today. God bless. Have a great week. Thank you. Come all you weary, come all you thirsty, come to the well that never runs dry. Drink of the water, come and thirst no more. Well, come all you sinners, come find His mercy. Come to the table, He will satisfy. Taste of His goodness, find what you're looking for. For God so loved the world that He gave us, His one and only Son to save us. If you never believed in Him, you'll live forever. Here we go. We'll live forever. God so loved the world. Praise God. Praise God. From whom all blessings flow. Praise Him. Praise Him. For the wonders of His love. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise Him. Praise Him. For the wonders of His love. His amazing love. For God so loved the world that He gave us. His one and only Son to save. For God so loved the world that He gave us. His one and only Son to save us Whoever believes in Him Will live forever Oh, the power of hell Forever defeated Now it is well I'm walking in freedom For God so loved the world. Amen. You are here, moving in our midst. I worship you. I worship you. You are here, working in this place. I worship you. I worship you. You are here. Working in this place. I worship you. I worship you. You are way maker. Miracle worker. Promise keeper. Light in the darkness. darkness my god that is who you are Jesus. Jesus I worship you. I worship you. You're mending every heart. You are here and you are mending every heart. I worship you. I worship you. You are here and you are way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light're the way maker. Yeah, sing it again. Oh, that is who you are. That is who you are. That is who you are. My Jesus. That is who you are. That is who you are. That is who you are. That is who you are. My Jesus. Yes, even when. Come on. You never stop. You're the way maker. Oh, that is who you are. Oh, it's who you are, my Jesus. Miracle worker. That is who you are. is above depression. His name is above loneliness. Oh, His name is above disease. His name is above cancer. His name is above every other name. That is who you are. Jesus. oh i know that is who you are When darkness tries to roll over my bones When sorrow comes to pain is all I know, oh, I won't be shaken. No, I won't be shaken. I am not captive to the light. I'm not afraid to leave my past behind. Oh, I won't be shaken. No, I won't be shaken. My fear doesn't stand a chance when I stand in your love. My fear doesn't stand a chance when I stand in your love. My fear doesn't stand a chance when I stand in your love. Oh, I'm standing. There's power in your name. Power in your name. There's power that can break off every chain. There's power that can empty out a grave. There's resurrection power that can save. is Thank you. I'm standing in your love. I count on one thing. The same God that never fails will not fail me now. You won't fail me now in the waiting. The same God who's never late is working you're working Yes, I will bless your name. Oh, yes, I will sing for joy. My heart is heavy God that never fails. Will not fail me now. You won't fail me now in the waiting. This ain't God who's never late. He's working all things out. You're working all things out. Oh, yes, I will lift you high in the lowest valley. Yes, I will. For all my days. Oh, yes, I will. And I choose to praise, to glorify, glorify the name of all names that nothing can stand against. And I choose to praise, to glorify, glorify the name of all Thank you. The name of all names. That nothing can stand against. And I choose to praise. To glorify, glorify the name of our names. That nothing can stand against. Oh yes, I will lift you high in the lowest valley. Yes, I will bless your name. Oh, yes, I will sing for joy when my heart is heavy. All my days. Oh, yes, I will. Thank you. Come let us bow at his feet. He has done great things..

Have you ever wondered if it was all worth it? All the emails and phone calls, special projects, late meetings, early mornings and out-of-town trips? Frantically shuttling bodies back and forth and cobbling together another meal just to check that off the list. Have you ever wondered if you have the balance right? Have we worked hard enough? Have we played enough? What will our children remember about us? Have you ever wondered if you've done it right? Is it possible to even really know that? Did we give our passions and energies to the right causes? Have we given ourselves to the things that matter the most? Or in the end, is it all just favor? Well, good morning, Grace. It's good to be with you in person. It's good to be with you online. Thank you for continuing to join us in that way. As Michelle just said, it is nice to have faces. They're hidden behind masks, which gives me the benefit of pretending like you're all just smiling at me the whole time. So that's how I'm picturing you. It's just nice and friendly and kind, so I appreciate that. Last week, we started our series called Vapor, which is a study through the book of Ecclesiastes. So I would actually say this, if you're catching up later this week, if you're listening to this on like a Tuesday, or you're watching online and you didn't catch last week, stop. I would encourage you to stop and go back and listen to last week. Do it on double speed, or if you really want a good laugh, listen to my voice on half speed, because that sounds funny. But listen to the last one and then catch up with this week. Because again, this is a series and it's not really made to stand independently of one another. We kind of need all of the parts to understand the four separate parts. And so last week was a downer. Last week was a bummer. I warned you ahead of time that you're not going to feel good at the end of that sermon. This one is not much different, all right? So just buckle up. This is Ecclesiastes, and I think it's good and ecclesiastical for us to sit in the difficult sometimes, for us to sit in hard reality sometimes. And what we said is that this is the bleakest book for the bleakest month. And I don't think I need much of a backup. This winter has been terrible, just gray and dark and rainy. It's the perfect time to go through Ecclesiastes. Solomon is the author of Ecclesiastes, and he writes it towards the end of his life and just hits us with some stark realities. And I continue to contend that on the other side of these realities, if we can accept the reality that we talked about last week, which is the idea that most Americans, most people in our culture are wasting our lives. He calls it vanity of vanities of striving after the wind. It's vapor. That's why the series is called Vapor. It's that Hebrew word, a hevel, that means vapor or smoke. Here one minute, gone the next. Seems like you can reach out and grab success or grab happiness or grab something worth pursuing and that when you get to it, it's gone. It slips through your fingers and we don't have it anymore. So the difficult reality that we confronted last week was just that, that most of life is vapor. Most pursuits, when we get to the end of them, we will find them to be empty. That's a difficult reality, but it's an essential one. We're going to face another reality this week, and I continue to believe if we will face these bravely, that what we'll find on the other end of them is this immutable joy, this joy that can be untouched by circumstance. I believe that we'll find the satisfaction on the other side of these realities that really is abiding. I think that we'll become more grateful for God and more desirous of Jesus for him to come and for our relationship with him. And so we're going to wade through these things as a church. Now, I ended last week with that thought, that it's my belief that Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes, would tell most Americans, a vast majority of people in our culture, that you're wasting your life. You're chasing vapor. And then I said, well, God gives us something that is worth chasing. What is that? And I said, we're going to talk about it next week. And then I prayed and we went home. Or, well, I went home. You guys just stayed where you were. So this week we want to start off by answering that question that we left off with. What is the thing worth pursuing? If it's not ambition, if it's not career, if it's not pleasures, if it's not monuments to ourselves, if it's not security, if it's not the book knowledge and general wisdom, what is it that's worth investing our life in? Well, I think that Solomon would answer that question like this. He concludes, based on my reading of Ecclesiastes, Solomon concludes that pleasing God is the best pursuit. Solomon concludes that pleasing God is the best pursuit. The best investment of your life, the best way to spend your days and get to the end of your years and not wonder, did I waste my life, is to spend those days pleasing God. The best way to reach joy, to grab onto something that's not vapor, that is substantive, is to spend your days pleasing God. That's what he says. And I believe that he intends that because he says it multiple times throughout the book. Look with me at what he writes in Ecclesiastes. We'll start in chapter 8 and then we'll be in chapter 12. He says, And then in chapter 8, And then he ends the book this way, Ecclesiastes 12, 13. He sums up all the teachings and he says this, Fear God, keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man. If you were to go to Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, and say, what's worth it? What should I do? He would say, fear God and keep his commands. We can talk about everything. We can talk about all the different pursuits. We can talk about all the different realities. We can be confronted with all the difficult things in life. We can accept the problem of pain and the vexation of wisdom. We can do all of that. But at the end of the day, here's what matters. Pursue God, keep his commands. This is the whole duty of man. That's what we are to do. That's what he has tasked us with. And this is Solomon's, I think, tip of the cap. It's his acknowledgement of what's called in theological circles, proverbial wisdom. Solomon also wrote the book of Proverbs. And in the book of Proverbs, there's a lot of if-then statements. If you do these good things, God will bless you with these good things. If you make choices like this, you will reap blessings like this. If you do dumb things, you will reap a bad harvest. If you choose folly, if you choose foolishness, if you choose sin and indulgence, then you will reap a harvest that is equitable to those indulgences. One of the ones that I think of is there is a verse in Proverbs that I've always loved because I truly believe in that phrase, you show me your friends and I'll show you your future. We're the average of the five people that we spend our most time around, all of that stuff. There's a verse in Proverbs that says that the companion of the wise will become wise and the companion of fools will suffer harm. And that's generally true, isn't it? If you hang out with people who are wise, who make good choices, eventually you're going to start making good choices like them. If you hang out with knuckleheads who make bad choices and have bad priorities, eventually you're going to start making bad choices like them. And the result of their bad choices and the result of your bad choices is going to be the harm that you suffer. And so in general, that's true, isn't it? That if we hang around with good people who we want to be like, we look at them and they have things in our life that we want, we'll begin to adopt their values and we'll take on some of their characteristics. Similarly, if we spend our time with people that don't share our priorities and make bad decisions, we're going to continue to make those bad decisions. Some of you guys have lived this out in your life, right? I mean, for some of you, your story is you were hanging out with people who are not bad people. They just have different priorities than someone who's just become a believer. And you become a believer, and now you have different priorities in your life, and you come to the painful realization of, gosh, I need another set of friends. I don't want to just walk away from these people. I love these people, but I need other folks speaking into my life who share the priorities that I do. For many of you, that's why you found church. Not that your friends are bad people. They just no longer share your priorities. And so you want to hang out with other people who do share your priorities. And Proverbs tells us that if you'll be the companion of wise people, that you'll be wise. If you'll be the companion of foolish people who make bad choices, then you're going to suffer the consequences of those choices. Likewise, all throughout Proverbs, another one of those if-then transactions is. I don't have a specific verse. I should be a better pastor who looks one up, but I didn't, so just go with me. It says in plenty of places the idea that if you work hard, if you put your head down and work hard and be humble, then at the end of your life, you will reap a harvest of wealth and security. If you work hard, you do your job, consider the ant that works even when it doesn't have to. If you'll do that, then by the end of your life, you will have amassed and built up, and God will honor your good work and your toil. Likewise, if you are lazy, a little sleeping, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come on you like an armed man, okay, says Proverbs. So if you're lazy and you just kind of want money to come to you, you just feel entitled and you deserve all this stuff, then you're never going to reap the benefit of wealth and security. And so here's what Solomon is saying in Ecclesiastes. That proverbial wisdom, if you please God, your life will go better for you. If you surround yourself with wise people, then you're more likely to prosper. If you do work hard and put your head down, then you're likely to build up. You're likely to be successful. Solomon acknowledges that. The end of the matter is this. Fear God, keep his commandments. Pursue him, do the right things. Honor that proverbial wisdom. But then he gives us this other reality. Then he gives us this caveat to that. Because what we know is that we need a caveat there. Because plenty of us know people who have hung around good friends, who are surrounded with wise folks, and have made terrible choices. Plenty of us know good people who are surrounded with other good people who have experienced what we would consider an unfair amount of pain, pain that seems like it would be waiting on folks who invest their lives around bad people. Likewise, we all know people who spend their time around knuckleheads and seem to be doing great. We also know people who have worked really hard, who have kept their head down, who have done their part. They get to the end of their life and they're still living hand to mouth because of a bad deal or because of a child that costs a lot of money or because of difficult diagnosis or whatever it is. And we know people who have been lazy and do seem prosperous. And that causes us to go, what gives? What do we do when proverbial wisdom doesn't ring true to us? We turn to Ecclesiastes, where I think Solomon writes this book later in his life. And what he says is, yeah, proverbial wisdom, those traditional accepted teachings of living a moral life and God honoring that and us being honored for it, that's true. But he wants us to know something. Even if you live that life. There's a whole section in my Bible where it says the vexation of wisdom, where he says, I even pursued wisdom. I did the right things. I honored God. I kept my nose clean. I walked the straight and narrow. I pursued purity. And even in that, you know what I found? A degree of vanity, a degree of vapor, a degree of chasing after the wind. And so the other reality that I want us to confront this morning in Ecclesiastes is this. Obedience does not protect you from pain. Obedience does not protect you from pain. Somewhere in our faith and in our churches, we've gotten this idea that the more I clean, I keep my nose, the more God will protect me from pain in my life. The more I walk the straight and narrow, the agreement is, God, I'm gonna follow your rules and you're gonna offer me protection. This is why when someone who is good and is wonderful and is loving and seems to be all the things that maybe we feel like we're not, when we watch them get sick or we watch them pass away or we watch bad things happen to them, we kind of feel this sense of unfairness, right? We kind of feel this sense of, why is that allowed to happen? Well, Solomon says it happens because our obedience does not protect us from pain. It doesn't opt us out of it. It doesn't opt us out of struggle. I think one of the most dangerous, pernicious lies in Christendom is that the more I honor God with my life, the more He'll protect me with His sovereignty. And it is not true. We do not get that idea anywhere in the Bible. As a matter of fact, this is what Solomon says. This is what he has to say. And this is why I believe that that's his point. He makes this point that obedience will not protect us from pain multiple times in the book. He says it over in chapter 5. I'm sorry, chapter 9, verse 11. He says, You think you're really smart and that's why you're successful. No. You think you're dumb and and that's why you can't seem to make a way. No. Time and chance happen to us all. No one dodges the raindrops of tragedy and pain in their life. He says it over and over again in the book, but the best way he says it, the most profound way he says it, in chapter three, the first eight verses of chapter three. If you have a Bible, I would encourage you to look at that passage with me. And normally I don't read eight verses in a row in church service because I find it disengaging sometimes when pastors do that. But this is so beautiful and so poignant and so important that it felt unfair to you guys to pick out one as a synopsis. So we're going to read it all together. Not aloud, that would be weird. I don't do that kind of weird stuff, but we're going to read it together as I read. Ready? For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast stones away and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, like pandemics. A time to seek and a time to refrain from embracing like pandemics, a time to seek and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away, a time to tear and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. It's such a beautiful, elegant truth that he details out for us there. And there is a place where I want us to land, but there is another takeaway from there. It's not the point of the sermon, but I thought I would be remiss if I didn't make this point as we go through this beautiful passage together. There's a time for everything, and we ought to let those seasons have their time. We shouldn't jump from one to another. What makes me think of this is this. This last fall, I had a bunch of buddies come in town, and we all kind of took a weekend and just hung out. It's just a guy's weekend. We were supposed to golf most of the time, and it rained, so we just sat around. But it was fun. My friends and I, that's what we like to do anyways. We're just old men. But I have one friend named Dan, and Dan, he is the opposite of me. He is enthusiastic. He is on fire all the time. He loves to yell and be loud and celebrate things and cheer and be happy. He never meets a stranger. Dan is a weirdo that talks to people in elevators and I'll never understand it. He'll just chat up whoever is around him, right? And I love Dan. I had lunch with Dan the other day, but on that particular trip, Dan at the time had a pregnant wife and three small children and had just moved across the country. And both he and his wife were looking for jobs, and they're looking for houses, and they're trying to figure out how to get their kids in school. So when he came to that weekend, his life had been a pressure cooker, and he needed to release, right? So Dan wanted to dance, and he wanted to yell, and he wanted to scream, and he wanted to be be excited and I didn't want to do any of that. I just wanted to sit there and be quiet and have no one ask me any questions. And Dan's like, Nate, come on, let's go. And we're watching some dumb game and he wants me to be invested in it and I don't care. And there was a tension there. And I felt in my soul, as I frequently do, my grumpiness well up. And all I wanted to do was say, Dan, why don't you shut up for like maybe 30 minutes, dude? Can we just chill out? But I kept talking myself out of doing that. Because what I realized is, Dan's my buddy. And what he needs is to blow off some steam. It's his time to dance. It's his time to yell and be boisterous. It's his time to be loud and to laugh and to be joyful. That's his time. And if I rain on that parade, I am the worst of friends. If I don't recognize in myself that it's his soul's time for those things, and I don't allow him that time, I am the jerk of all jerks. So I just sucked it up, and now we joke around about it. Likewise, when someone around us is sad, when someone around us is mourning, when someone around us needs to cry, shame on us for robbing them of that time too. And shame on you for attempting to rob yourself of that time. You guys know that we just walked through something pretty difficult as a family, and that we lost Jen's dad. And there were days when she would just look at me and she would say, I'm sad. I'm just sad. And I would say, then be sad. Then today's the day to be sad. And that's all right. And there will be more days when we're sad. Our souls need those days. They're cathartic for us. They're required by us. And shame on us if we try to rob our friends and our loved ones of the sad days that they need too. Those ought to take their time and have their season. I think what we try to do is we try to skip the bad ones, right? We try to skip past, I don't like this time of mourning. I want to skip to my time of laughter. I don't like this time of stillness. I want to skip to the time of dancing. I don't like this time of sadness. I want to skip to my time of joy. And what Solomon is saying is, no, there's a time for both. You can't experience true joy if you don't let yourself walk through true grief. The dancing isn't as joyful if you haven't set in pensive silence. Right? So I didn't want to move past this passage without making the point to you guys, without imploring you, let the seasons have their time. When it's a time for dying, let it be a time for dying. When it's a time for birth, let it be that. If someone you love needs to be sad, let them be sad. Don't be the clumsy moron that tries to convince them that what they're going through is not that sad. Our souls need the good times and the hard times, and we shouldn't skip them. But what I really want you to see from this passage today is that if what he writes is true, there's a time for mourning, and there's a time for joy, and there's a time for gladness, and there's a time for sorrow true, there's a time for mourning and there's a time for joy and there's a time for gladness and there's a time for sorrow and there's a time for dancing and there's a time for stillness. If that's true, then all of those times are coming for all of us. Do you understand? It doesn't say for the righteous there are more times of joy. For the righteous there are more times to laugh. For the righteous there are more times to build things up. For the righteous there are more times of joy. For the righteous, there are more times to laugh. For the righteous, there are more times to build things up. For the righteous, there are more times for embracing. No, it just says that this is objectively true. Everybody walks through these seasons. The righteous and the unrighteous. The godly and the ungodly. The devout Christian and the militant atheist. All of us walk through these seasons. And it may feel weird to you that I'm hammering this point home that like, hey, guess what, guys? At some point or another, life is cruddy for everybody. But it is. It's also joyful for everybody. But no one dodges the raindrops of pain and tragedy in their life. Nobody. And if we will accept that, then what we can learn and see from this passage is pain is not punitive. Pain, hurt, struggle, hardship, that's not punitive. That's not God exacting revenge on you for a failure in your morality somewhere. That's not God punishing you. Pain is not punitive. It is the result of brokenness. We don't experience pain and hardship in our life because at some point in our past, we displeased God with the choices that we make, and now he's exacting his revenge on us. That's not how it works. Pain is not punitive. Pain is a result of brokenness. We've talked about this before, but God created heaven and earth, and he created it perfect, and then sin ruined that perfection. And ever since then, the world is broken. And in a broken world, divorces happen and abuse happens and people get cancer and we have to watch Parkinson's and all these other diseases eat away at people that we love. In a broken world, cruddy things happen. And what Solomon is acknowledging is not only do they happen, but they happen to everybody. And yes, in general, proverbial wisdom is true. In general, if you honor God in the way that you make your choices, then you will be honored as well. But just understand that that isn't a blanket insurance policy against pain because time and chance happen to us all. And we walk through all these seasons equally. And it's important to know when we get there that that pain is not punitive. That pain isn't something that we warrant with our behavior. This actually shows up in the New Testament. Someone is blind, and the disciples look at the blind man, and they say, what happened to him? What did his parents do that he's been blinded like this way? They thought pain was punitive. They thought his actions warranted, or his parents' actions warranted what he did. And Jesus says, now this world is just broken. He says what Solomon says. In this world where we wait for Jesus to come back, like Romans 8 talks about all of creation groans for the return of the Savior, for the return of the King, for Jesus to come and make the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. And spoiler alert, this is where we're going to finish the series. But while we wait, we all walk through these seasons. And it's so important for us to understand that pain is not punitive. Here's why I think this. I don't know if I have permission to share her story. If I don't, I'm sorry. Kay Gamble also sits on our finance committee and approves my expenses on a monthly basis. So, you know, she has a way to nail me if she doesn't appreciate me sharing this story. But Kay is a wonderful lady who goes here and a few months ago was diagnosed with breast cancer. The doctor looked at the breast cancer and said, I think it's offerable. I think we can get it. I think it's going to be okay. She went in. She got it. And Kay, if you know her, she's quiet. Of course, she doesn't tell anybody about this. I only hear about this after the fact. They go in. They get it. Everything's good. Doctor says, we got it all. I think you're going to be in good shape. You don't have to do chemo or anything like that. We're going to give you a pill to kind of be on the safe side. You'll take that for five years, but you're good. You can go on with life as normal. So there's some pain and then a relief. Everything's good. Then she gets a call a couple of days later. The doctor said, hey, we took another look at that cancer, and it's the kind that likes to spread a lot. So we're going to have to be pretty aggressive with this, and we're going to need you to start doing chemo. Man, we're all old enough to know what chemo is. We know what that does. We know what that looks like. And we know the kinds of days that Kay is facing. And that stinks because Kay's good. And I want her to know that those cruddy days that she has to walk through are not God punishing her. That's not punitive. She doesn't have to search her soul and say, God, what have I done in the last 10, 20 years of my life to warrant this pain? What have I done to warrant this bad news? How did I disappoint you? How did I displease you? What would you like me to do now, God? Would you like me to give more, serve more, or love more? Which the answer is always yes to that. He would always like us to give and love and serve more. But not as a shield to pain. And how crushing would it be to go through life thinking that every time we experience some form of difficulty, some form of grief, that that was somehow God turning the screws on us so that we learned our lesson better. What I want Kay to understand in this season of cruddiness amidst the chemo is that it's just simply her turn. It's her turn. Her life stinks for a little bit. And guess what? All of our lives stink for a little bit sometimes. They have before, and here's the fun thing, they're going to again. It just will. It's Kay's turn. Recently, it was our turn. For some of you, it's still your turn. I know stories of people and loss and tragedy that we've experienced just in this church. And I just think that there is something tremendously comforting about looking at a season of grief with the understanding of, it's my turn right now. It's my time to mourn. But what I know is, eventually it'll be my time to sing. It's my time to tear things down. But eventually, if I put my head down, it'll be my time to build things up. And in this way, and I think that this is beautiful, Ecclesiastes empathizes with our experiences. It actually empathizes with us. It's a brave, bold thing to say. To admit, yeah, we should obey God. We should pursue the proverbial wisdom. But what a wonderful admission in the Bible that actually syncs up with our experience to say sometimes bad things happen to good people. I've told you before, I had a roommate in college who was a better person than me in every way possible. He graduated. He became a pastor. He was leading churches before I was, and I always admired him more than I cared to admit, and he dropped dead at 30 of a widow-maker heart attack playing ultimate frisbee with his friends. It will never make any sense to me how he left and I stayed, and how his wife Carla and his boys had to walk through that. I remember his five-year-old knocking on his coffin wondering when he was going to wake up. But what Ecclesiastes says is, it was Chris's time to die. It was Carla's turn to walk that hard road. Sometimes bad things happen. And even though the best possible investment of our life is to pursue God and godliness, we need to do it eyes wide open knowing that that does not protect us from tragedy. We're never told that it does. That time and chance happen to us all. What a difficult thing it would be to have to try to sync up my faith to somehow explain away Chris's death as deserved. What a difficult thing it would be to try to help Carla find a path back to faith, which she has found, if part of that explanation would be, well, you guys deserve this because of your behavior. Ecclesiastes looks around and goes, yeah, sometimes life doesn't make sense. Sometimes it seems unfair. And sometimes it's just our turn. And we understand that everybody takes a turn. But here's the thing. I have been kind of sitting in that reality for a while in my personal life. It's been our turn recently. Our turn's still not over. And I've been studying this book, which is stark, man. But somehow, despite all of that, in thinking about what awaits us in the next two weeks and allowing my life to sit in that. And we're going to come back next week. Next week's going to be happy, I promise. Next week's going to be great, all right? We're going to cry some happy tears next week. It's going to feel better than this. In the midst of everything that we have been walking through, because of the promises that are in Ecclesiastes and because of the encouraging things that he writes that we're going to talk about next week. I can honestly tell you that for me personally, I am sitting in the middle of a time of more profound joy than I think I've ever experienced in my life, of more gratitude for my God, more gratitude for my Savior, more of a desire for Him. And I want you guys to experience that joy too. And so next week we're going to come back and I'm going to tell you all about it. Let's pray. Father, life's hard sometimes. We are so thankful that you gave your servant Solomon the courage to admit that. Father, we all have to hurt sometimes. We are thankful that we have a Jesus who weeps with us in our pain. Lord, if it is someone's season to be sad right now, I pray that they would just be sad. And that that would run the course that it needs to run. God, if it is someone's time for joy right now, let them be joyful. Let them be exuberant. Let them feel your presence and your joy. For those of us who are walking through a hard time, Lord, I pray that we would be comforted by this stark knowledge that sometimes it's just our turn. And I know there are folks who feel like, gosh, it feels like it's been my turn a lot lately. Lord, I pray that you would give them lots of turns of joy too. Let all of this, our pain, our triumph, our struggle, and our joy, draw us near to you. Either in gratitude or in need, Father, draw us near to you. And Father, I pray that in that drawing that we would find what David describes as the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. Help us see more and more our gratitude for you and our need for you. It's in your son's name that we pray. Amen.

Have you ever wondered if it was all worth it? All the emails and phone calls, special projects, late meetings, early mornings and out-of-town trips? Frantically shuttling bodies back and forth and cobbling together another meal just to check that off the list. Have you ever wondered if you have the balance right? Have we worked hard enough? Have we played enough? What will our children remember about us? Have you ever wondered if you've done it right? Is it possible to even really know that? Did we give our passions and energies to the right causes? Have we given ourselves to the things that matter the most? Or in the end, is it all just favor? First of all, how about our boy Brad Gwynn lending his voice to that video? He did a great job. If you see him, if he comes out of hiding and you can identify him, tell him that you were impressed. This is the first part in our new series called Vapor, and I'm going to tell you all about that in a minute. But I also want to acknowledge that, Lord willing, this is the last 100% virtual service that we have to do at Grace Raleigh as the elders voted to resume in-person gatherings next week on February the 14th. So I'm looking forward to having people in this space as the service was starting. Erin came up to me and she said, just think this time next week, there will be people here. We will see smiles and we can talk to other folks because listen, I'll be honest with you. I'm tired of making small talk with Emil, our keyboard player, every week. We're out of things to talk about. I need more of you to come here and create a buffer between me and the band. I'm sick of it. But we're looking forward to seeing you next week. Those of you who can join us, those of you who can't, who don't feel comfortable coming back yet, we totally get it. Your experience is going to be the exact same. So don't worry about that. And finally, if this is news to you, if you didn't know that we were resuming in-person gatherings next week, then that just means that you're not on our email distribution list. And if you'd like to be, whether you're watching on YouTube or watching on our website, there's a link below that you can click, fill out some information, and you'll get all the latest news from Grace Raleigh if that's something that interests you. Now, like I said, this series is focused on Ecclesiastes. It's called Vapor, and you're going to find out why at the end of this sermon today. I love the book of Ecclesiastes. I think it might be my favorite book. It's definitely my favorite book in the Old Testament because Ecclesiastes just tells the truth, man. Ecclesiastes is stark. I relate to Ecclesiastes. I appreciate the courage of Ecclesiastes. But the way to think about it, I think, as we approach it together as a church, is to really think about the idea, what if Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, some of these people who have climbed the mountains in their life, they are at the mountaintop. They have all the success that you could possibly want. They have all the things, all the toys. Anything that we would look at to say, I'm going to pursue that and that's going to make me happy. That's going to make me content. That's going to provide me joy and provide what feels like a fulfilled life. Certainly they've done. And so what if at the end of their lives, they wrote a memoir and they said, after I've done everything, after I've accomplished everything that there was to accomplish, from my view on the mountaintop, let me tell you what I see. Let me tell you as I look back over the years of my life, what was worth it. Let me tell you what really brought me true joy and true contentment. Let me tell you where I felt most fulfilled. And let me tell you what I regret doing. Wouldn't you want to read that? I would. I would love to know at the end of their lives when they did everything, the American dream, everything that any of us would ever want to do, they've done. I would love to know at the end of their life what was worth it, what made you happy, and what was a waste of time. That's what Solomon does for us in the book of Ecclesiastes. Now, many of you know that Solomon was the son of David. He was the third king of Israel. We may know that he wrote Proverbs and Song of Solomon as well in the Bible. But what you may not know or remember, I think I've mentioned this in years past, but Solomon was really a very accomplished king. He was the wisest man to have ever lived. He strengthened the army. Really, Solomon's life was he drug a third world country into international prominence, into being a first world country. Economically, he raised the stakes. He built a port city to begin to receive tariffs from other nations. He built great monuments. It was a great time of peace. He built up an infrastructure within Israel and was the greatest king that they ever saw. He was a rich, wealthy man. He had everything that you could ever want. And he got to the end of his life, and he writes for us the book of Ecclesiastes, where he does exactly what I said would be great. What if somebody who had been to the mountaintop wrote a book and told us what they saw? That's what Solomon does. But what I love about this book is what I alluded to earlier. It's bleak, man. It's stark. We've been joking as a staff that we have saved the bleakest book of the Bible for the bleakest month of the year. Everybody hates February. February's tough. Ecclesiastes is tough. It is unflinchingly honest. Ecclesiastes really, parts of it isn't trying to make us feel good. It's just trying to tell us the truth. Ecclesiastes puts in our faces some pretty difficult realities. And if you're really paying attention, if you really care about the message, it's tough. But it gets a bad rap, I think the book does, because it's not just bleak. As a matter of fact, the reason I love this book is not just because it's unflinchingly honest and just blunt and just tells you how it is without any cushion or anything like that. But I actually believe that if we will courageously confront the stark realities presented in Ecclesiastes, that on the other side of that confrontation awaits us true joy and true contentment. I actually think that if we'll confront the realities in Ecclesiastes that we'll come out the other side with a greater capacity for joy, with greater contentment about the blessings that we have now, with a greater appreciation for God and with a greater desire for Jesus. And so that's what we're going to do. We are going to confront what Ecclesiastes places in front of us. We're going to sit in some difficult realities. And so I'll tell you this. First of all, this series is just that. It's a series. It's designed in four separate parts with the intention that you would consume all four of those parts. So I usually don't say things like this, but I would encourage you that if you miss a week, try to catch up before you listen to the next week or watch the next week. The last series we did, Things You Should Know, those were kind of standalone sermons. You could drop in at any point in the series, listen to the sermon, it would make total sense, and that was fine. Some series are designed that way. This one is designed to build on one another. Because of that, I'm just going to go ahead and tell you on the front end, I'm going to bum you out today. Today stinks. I'm not going to say happy things today. I don't have good news for you today. We're going to get to the end. I'm going to be building this tension to a place where it feels like now Nate's going to give us the good news, and then I'm not. I'm just going to pray, and we're going to go about our days. So just know that up front. I'm telling you now. Because I feel like that's the ecclesiastical thing to do. That's what ecclesiastes would want us to do. Sometimes we have to sit in the difficult parts of life. Sometimes we have to let things stew a little bit. And so that's what we're going to do this morning. This book starts out with what is, it has to be the most depressing opening of any book of the Bible. It's 11 verses, it's this poem or stanza, and it's just, here you go. It's just, everything stinks is what Solomon does at the beginning. I'm not going to read you all 11 verses, but I did want to give you a sense of the sentiment of this passage. And so I'm going to read you verses 3 and 4 and 7 and 8 as kind of summary verses of how Solomon chooses to open up his memoir telling us how he found what he really believes leads to true contentment and true joy. This is what he writes in verse 3 and 4. That's rough, man. That's rough. He says he sees all the toil. A generation comes and they pour out and they build up and they build armies and they build buildings and they have careers and they build families and then they go. And then the next generation does it. And then that generation fades away and the world remains the same. It doesn't matter. It's just an endless cycle. And then he has this line. I think it's such a great line. I love this picture. All the streams flow to the ocean, yet the sea is never filled. All the water on all the continents, all the little brooks and streams flow to rivers, and all of those rivers empty themselves out into the sea. All the water from the world is emptied out into the sea, and yet the sea is never filled. The eye can never see enough. The ear can never hear enough. That's bleak. But it's true, isn't it? You feel that it's true. You know that it's true. It feels appropriate on Super Bowl Sunday to bring up a quote from the undisputed king of Super Bowls, Tom Brady. It's hard for me to say this. For those of you who don't know, if you haven't heard of Tom Brady, God bless you. You are a fortunate person. But I'm going to fill you in, okay? He is quite simply, and this is hard for me to say, the greatest football player who's ever lived. He just is. I'm a Peyton Manning guy. I like Peyton Manning. I don't like Tom Brady. But darn it, he's good at football. Every other sport has these conversations about who's the greatest of all time, and I pick this guy, and I pick this guy, and we kind of debate back and forth. Football, that's done. There's no debate. He's the best ever. Today, he plays in the Super Bowl. He already has six championship rings. He's won six times. Do you understand that if he wins today, that he will have more Super Bowl championships as an individual than any single franchise in the NFL? That's absurd. The dude's ridiculous. And he was asked recently, Tom, which one of your championships is your favorite? Which one of your Super Bowl wins is your favorite one? And when that question was posed, I immediately thought, well, it's the first one, right? It's got to be the first one, because that's kind of, he cracked the egg there, and that was the sweetest, and then after that, you know, whatever. Or maybe there was one where there was some life circumstances going on, and it made that one particularly sweet. So I was interested in the answer. And without missing a beat, he just kind of smirked and he said, the next one. The next one's my favorite one. The next one means the most. The eyes never tire of seeing. The ears are never done hearing. All the streams flow to the ocean, and yet it's never full. It's just a fact of life, isn't it? It's never enough. Dude's won six Super Bowls. Couldn't Atlanta just have one of those? The most important thing to him is the next one. And that's how we are too, isn't it? Every time we buy a house, what do we do? We know what our budget is. We know what's smart to spend. But then this house at this level has these features that I really, really need. I didn't need them before, but now I need them or I will not be happy. We buy at the apex level, right? We always want the next promotion. We always want the next thing. We always want the next vacation. We can never have enough good meals. Look at me. I can never have enough good steak. I always want the next one. How am I going to cook that one? Who's going to come over then? We're always thinking about the next thing. We always want more, more for ourselves and more for our kids and more for our families and more for our friends. We always want more. We never tire of seeing or hearing. Solomon's right. He's right when he opens up that way. And we in our guts know it. But he doesn't just do these blanket statements where he says, guys, listen, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. He actually gets into specifics. He gives us his different pursuits. And he starts off the next chapter and a half, the second half of chapter one and all of chapter two, he details these pursuits. The first one he says is that he pursued wisdom. He pursued wisdom. And this doesn't mean just biblical wisdom. This is like academia. This is knowing a lot of things. This is he was a very learned man. He says this. He says, So he decided, I'm going to make my life about being smart. I'm going to make my life about pursuing wisdom. I'm going to be the smartest person in the room, in every room that I go into. And by all accounts, he did it. He says here, I knew more than any of the kings that preceded me. I am the smartest person in the room. And then we also know, and I mentioned this already, that he was the wisest man to ever live. Solomon knew all the stuff, man. He had the doctorates. He probably had some honorary doctorates. He knew who the minority whip was in 1976. Like he knew the things. He was up to date on current events. He understood photosynthesis. Like he got all the stuff. He could answer the questions. He was the one you wanted on your trivia team. Like I said, he was the smartest person in the room in every room that he went into. He was the best. He had accomplished that. He climbed that mountain. He was the obnoxious guy that has an office lined with bookshelves that just kind of say to you with a smug smirk, yes, I've read all these and I know everything they say. That was Solomon. But at the top of that mountain, he says this in Ecclesiastes 1.17, I perceive that this also is but a striving after the wind. It was a waste. I banked my contentment and my joy and my happiness. I made my life about pursuing wisdom, about being the smartest person in the room, about reading all the books and knowing all the things, and I did. And from that mountaintop, it was a vanity of vanities. It was a chasing after the wind. I wasted my time. So, he pursued pleasure. He decided that he was going to pursue pleasure and deny himself nothing. Look at how he describes it. I said in my heart, and that's exactly what he did. He had the best parties. He drank the best drink. He had the best food. I bet he committed a big portion of his life to throwing these big royal parties that were just the absolute best. They were super fun. He had all the biggest people come in. He brought in international celebrities, and they went after it. He was a member of the best country club. He sat on the porch, and he had drinks with his buddies every afternoon. He went on the shopping trips and he did the vacations and he had all the fun. I don't know what an ancient yacht looked like, but his was trending on Twitter when he got it. I guarantee it. He had all the stuff. He had all the fun. And then when all that fun, when all that partying wasn't enough, he built monuments. He built things for himself. Like I said, he built a whole city with a port in it. He built a temple. He built a wall around Jerusalem. He did public works projects. He had the lake house, right? He went ahead and sprung for the beach house. He got the top floor where the elevator is the front door. He went ahead and got the fun car. He went ahead and he bought the boat. He did all of that. He had been there. And then he pursued carnal pleasure. We find out other places in Scripture that the man had 300 wives and 700 concubines. He literally denied himself nothing. If his eye saw it and he wanted it, he had it. And I think that's important to understand because I think often that's what we think would make us happiest. If I could just have the thing, then my life would be better. If I could just move into that neighborhood, if I could just have a relationship with that person, if I could just be done with this relationship and start a new relationship with somebody that is X, Y, or Z, if my kids can just accomplish this thing, if I just didn't have this problem in my life, if I could just have that job. We often set our eyes on things and think, if we could just have that thing, I would be more joyful and content. If I could just have that thing, I wouldn't be so stressed. And what Solomon is saying is, he had the thing. He had all the things. He had 300 wives and 700 concubines. He built, he had vacation homes. He did all the fun things. If his eye saw anything, he had it. He denied himself nothing. And from that mountaintop, Solomon says this, His eyes never tired of seeing. His ears never tired of hearing. All the possible streams of pleasure were flowing into his life and it was never full. All he wanted was the next one. Maybe if he just had a few more wives. Maybe if he built another city. Maybe if he had another boat or did another deal, then he could rest. He says, nope, I had it all. And it was a vanity too. It was a chasing after the wind. And then he turns his eyes to one more thing and he pursues ambition, career. He pursues accomplishment. He built up the kingdom. He drug it out of the third world into the first. He was successful at this. He was the CEO that first takes a company into being a Fortune 500 company and then a Fortune 50 company. He nailed the GameStop stock several times in his life. He knew what he was doing. He accomplished great things. He chased career. He chased power. He got all the promotions you could possibly want. He did way better with the company than anyone ever thought he could. He was the one that you went to to say, what should I do with this deal? He accomplished everything that there was to accomplish in career. And at the end of that, at the end of that pursuit, he again said, this is a vanity of vanities. It is a chasing after the wind. In Solomon's conclusions to his different pursuits, I'm reminded of another football story. Maybe this is appropriate for Super Bowl Sunday, or maybe I just need to expand my experiences. But if you like football, then you will also like Brett Favre. He was a great quarterback for the Green Bay Packers in the 90s. And Brett Favre is one of these good old country boys. He played at Southern Miss. He coaches high school football now. He still does interviews with a sleeveless shirt on because he can. And he's just that kind of guy. And he kind of, I heard a story from one of his wide receivers one time that he would literally, the coach would call in a play and he would, we're not going to do that, and he would literally draw a play on the dirt in the NFL field and tell everybody what they're going to do. That's just the kind of guy he was. So everybody liked him. And there's a famous story that after his first Super Bowl in 1997, they won. And the media is looking for Brett to ask him some questions about winning. And nobody can find him anywhere. So somebody, one of the staffers or trainers, goes to find Brett, and they actually find him in a bathroom stall, hunched over, crying. And I don't know exactly how the conversation went. I read this years ago, but the thrust of it is they found Brett crying and they said, what are you doing? And he goes, I just thought that there would be more. What do you mean? He said, I thought it would feel different than this. I thought it would feel better than this to finally win one. Can you believe that? He gave his whole life, dedicated his whole life to the craft of football. Little League and high school, it consumed his college years. Then he devoted himself, and he had a rocky beginning as a quarterback. It took him a while to get his feet underneath him and to prove himself. And now here he is. He's the best player on the best team, and he just won the biggest game, and he was the MVP of it. And his conclusion is, I just thought it would feel better than this. I thought I would finally have something. But it's the same conclusion that Solomon draws. Vanity of vanities, chasing after the wind. And I think that that is such a perfect conclusion for Solomon to have drawn, for Brett Favre to have stumbled into. Because that phrase, vanity, or chasing after the wind, really, if you read this in the original language, comes from the Hebrew word hevel, H-E-V-E-L, hevel. And hevel is really best translated as vapor or smoke. It really means vapor or smoke. It has kind of this enigmatic quality. It's this picture of, if you think of smoke, smoke is there, you can see it, and it looks like if it's solid enough, if it's coming off of a big fire, that you could reach out and grab it. But if you reach out to wrap your hand around it, it just slips through your fingers. It's there one second, you see it, it's very real, but as soon as the flame goes out, you kind of just watch it dissipate. It's there one minute. It's gone the next. Right? And that's what Solomon says all of those things are. You think that pleasure is going to make you happy. You think that if you just get the next thing, if you just get the next house, if you just have that next relationship, that when you get there, that's what's going to make you happy. That's what's going to do it. Then your soul can rest. He tells you that when you get to it, you're going to reach out to grab it. And it's going to disappear. You're going to look at it. You're going to see it. You're going to turn your head. And then when you look back, it's going to be gone. And you're going to start chasing the next thing. That's why this series is called Vapor. Because that's what Solomon says it is. As a matter of fact, I believe, based on Ecclesiastes, that Solomon would look at a vast majority of Americans and say to them, you're wasting your life. You're chasing vapor. It's going to disappear on you. I think he would look at the vast majority of people in our culture and remind them, all the rivers flow to the sea. It's never going to be full. You aren't either. You're wasting your life. The good news is, God gives us something that's not vapor. That's not a waste. But we're going to talk about that next week. Let's pray. Father, would you let the weight of Ecclesiastes rest on us? Would you let us sit in this? Would we honestly consider what in our lives is vapor? Will we consider, God, what are we chasing that we can never catch? What is it that we want that will never satisfy? Father, I ask specifically for those listening, those people who call grace home, would you give us the courage that Ecclesiastes requires to admit to ourselves and to you where we're chasing things that we can't catch? Would you create in us an earnest desire to reach for the things that we can have that will satisfy us, that will ultimately draw us near to you, that will help us desire Jesus even more. Would you be with us throughout our weeks, Lord? Help us to be people who pursue you, who want to know you, God, who lean into you. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.