Chasing The Wind

You ready, Brandon? You all set? Okay. Okay. Good morning. We're going to go ahead and stand and read our verses together today. Yeah. We're going to be reading out of Isaiah 55, and we're going to be doing verses 10 through 12 together. And it begins, "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose. I'll succeed in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray.

God, we thank you for today, and we thank you for the opportunity to gather here together and to be encouraged by one another, and for those that are watching online as well. We thank you so much for your creation and how it just constantly tells us of your greatness. And we ask that you today and allow it to glorify you. In Jesus' name. Amen. All right, our first Song we're going to do today is "Christ Our Hope in Life and Death."

That our souls to Him belong. Who holds our days within His hand? What comes apart from His command? And what will keep us to the end? The love of Christ in which we stand. Oh, say hallelujah. Our hope springs eternal. Oh, say hallelujah. Now and ever we confess Christ our hope in life and death. What truth can cause the troubled soul? God is good. God is good. Where is His grace and goodness known? In a great Redeemer's blood. Who holds our faith when fears arise? Who stands above the stormy trial? Who sends the waves that bring us nigh unto the shore the rock of Christ? Oh, sing hallelujah. Our hope screams eternal. Oh, sing hallelujah. Now and ever we confess Christ our hope in life and death. And to the grave, what will we sing? Christ, He lives. Christ, He lives. And what reward will heaven bring?

Everlasting life with Him. There we will rise to meet the Lord. Then sin and death will be destroyed. And we will feast in endless joy when Christ is ours forevermore. Oh, sing hallelujah. Our hope springs eternal. Oh, sing hallelujah. Now whenever we confess Christ, our hope in life and death. Oh, sing hallelujah. Our hope springs eternal. Oh, sing hallelujah. Now whenever we confess Christ, our hope in life and death. Now whenever we confess Christ, our hope in life and death. All right. We're going to be moving into our prayer and share time. So if you're watching online, there will be a phone number up for you to text. If you have any prayer requests or anything you'd like to send to us that we can share here, please do that. And then we'll be muted here during that time. So just give us a few minutes until we are finished up with that. And then we'll be back and continue with the rest of our service today. And with that, we're going to be singing "Blessed Assurance."

"Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood." This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. But this submission, all is at rest. I am my Savior, I'm happy and blessed. Watching and waiting, looking above, filled with His goodness, lost in His love. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day long. Alright, you may be seated. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray.

All right, as we move into our time of communion, we're going to be singing Man of Sorrows. Man of Sorrows Man of Sorrows Man of Sorrows

Has been on Jesus' name Silent as He stood accused Feeds Him mocked and scorned Bowing to the Father's will He took a crown of thorns Oh, that rugged cross My salvation Where Your love poured out Over me Now my soul cried out Hallelujah Praise and honor Unto Thee Send up heaven God's own Son To purchase and redeem And reconcile the very ones Who nailed him to that tree Oh, that rugged cross My salvation Where your love poured out Over me Now my soul cries out Hallelujah Praise and honor To me Now my debt is paid It is paid in full By the precious blood That my Jesus spilled Now the curse of sin Has no hold on me The sun sets free Oh, is free indeed Oh, that rugged cross My salvation Where your love poured out

Over me Now my soul cries out Hallelujah Please, and all will run To Thee See the stone is rolled away Behold the empty tomb Hallelujah God be praised He's risen from the grave Oh that rugged cross My salvation Where Your love poured out over me Now my soul cries out Hallelujah Praise and honor Are to Thee Praise and honor Are to Thee Praise and honor Are to Thee Praise and honor Are to Thee Praise and honor Are to Thee Praise and honor Are to Thee Praise and honor Isaiah 53 Chapter Begins like this Who has believed what he has heard And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, And like a root out of dry ground, He had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

And he had no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, As one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Spurgeon, when he preached on this passage, Begins his sermon by telling his congregation That these words are not light, And they are not easy, But they are ultimately wonderful. And as we just sang about Jesus being a man of sorrows, As we read the prophecy from Isaiah 53 About him being the man of sorrows, I want you to see why Jesus was the man of sorrows. Verse 4 tells us, Surely he has borne our griefs, And carried our sorrows, Yet we esteemed him stricken, Smitten by God and afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions,

He was crushed for our iniquities, Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, And with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, We have turned every one to his own way, And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. See, Jesus wasn't sorrowful, Because he had a lot to grieve, He was sorrowful, Because of our sin, Our brokenness, Our sorrows, And our hurts, And it says that he picked them up, He bore them, And he carried them, And ultimately he pays the price for them, For this, So that you and I could have peace. You see the picture of the Gospel, Is not that we earn what God is offering, But rather that Jesus came, And he took all of our hurts, And all of our brokenness upon himself,

And paid the price for our salvation. And so as we break this bread, And drink this cup, And we turn our eyes, And our hearts, And our thoughts, And our faith, Toward Jesus, The man of sorrows, It was in our account, That he was a man of sorrows. It was because of us, That he went to the cross. And as a result of his sacrifice, We have peace, We have hope, We have joy, And as we were just saying about, We have a future in the resurrection. So let's pray, And then we'll partake together. Father, Thank you for grace. Thank you for doing what you did not have to do. Thank you for saving broken, sinful people. Thank you that you take our hurts, and our fears, and our sins. Thank you that we are free from those things through your Son.

So this morning, as we celebrate this together, may you focus our hearts on this sacrifice. May you help us to see your goodness, and your grace, and your love. Encourage us. I ask that you bless this bread and this cup. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. If you would take the bread with me, Jesus invited his disciples when he said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." And in the same way, he took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me."

"For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." So we've been moving through a series talking about how God refreshes us. We've seen how God refreshes us by his faithful character. We've talked about how he refreshes us through his word. We talk about how God calls us to rest, something that is so hard for people who are oftentimes so busy that he calls us to rest. This morning we're going to talk about how we oftentimes pursue the very things that lead us to needing to be refreshed, and that when we focus our hearts and our purpose on the goodness of God, that it brings us to refreshing. And just sort of by way of an announcement, next Sunday, Stu is going to be preaching, sharing the word with you.

We're going to be talking about how we are refreshed by community, that's one another. If you look through the New Testament, Paul ends almost all of his letters by saying, "I hope to see you soon so I can be refreshed by your company." There is something in the body of Christ, in our brothers and sisters in Christ, that restores our souls, that encourages us, and so I'm very excited. We'll be here. I'm not going anywhere, but Stu is going to be preaching next Sunday, and I'm very much looking forward to that. Also, by way of announcement, normally when I preach, I have kind of three full pages of notes, and I think this morning I have nine. And so it's a good thing we all brought lunch, so if you need to run out, get lunch. No, we're going to move through it pretty quickly.

There's just a lot of interesting, wonderfully encouraging, but also deeply convicting things in what we're looking at this morning. So let's pray. Father in heaven, help us this morning as we move very quickly through these verses. Help us to see the depth, the hope, and also the fruitlessness of so many of the things that we chase and strive after. I thank you for Jesus, and I thank you for grace. It's in his name we pray. Amen. So there is something frustrating in trying to chase something you can't quite catch. And some of you will remember that for a period of time, I think it's probably been about six months since this has really happened to us, Dodger really liked to go bolting out the front door of our house. And it's not that he wanted to run away.

It's like he wanted to go explore the neighborhood and then come back home. And so there would be times where I'd be chasing him. There'd be times where I would recruit some neighbors to help. Once, I think I shared with you, a neighbor down the street caught him with a brisket. I'd be driving down the road just yelling at him, and he'd be running like a doofus alongside the car. And so it's frustrating. And the most frustrating moments of that was when it happened on Sunday morning. You know, like 10 minutes before church, and I'm wearing clothes that aren't by sort of necessity very cool. So you're running in the sun, and you're trying to run down the street to catch this stupid dog, and it's just frustrating. And many times, I think in life, we feel like we're just sort of chasing what it is that will make our heart happy.

And as a result, we end up sort of tired and frustrated, never sort of being able to catch it. And then sometimes when we do catch it, it sort of satisfies us for a little while. And before long, we say, "Well, I got this. Now what about that? If I really had that, it would make me happy." And there we are, off again, chasing something. And so what I want to do this morning, as we think about being refreshed, is I want to direct your attention toward a man who spent the majority of his life chasing things. And he did so on a scale that makes our chasing things look like the difference between graduate student and kindergarten work. And the man's name is Solomon, and toward the end of his life, he wrote a book sort of distilling what he had learned from this pursuit.

The book is Ecclesiastes. And as we begin, we're just going to look at a few verses in chapter 1 and chapter 2. But as we begin, there's two terms that sort of sum up this chasing of all of the different things in life. And the first one is one that's used 34 times in this book, and it's the word "vanity," or some of your translations may say "meaningless." And that's literally what it means, that it's meaningless. The picture is like if you've ever seen fog early in the morning, and then the sun comes out, and the fog disappears, or if you go outside on a cold day, and you breathe out, and there's this sort of pop of steam, and then what happens? It just disappears. When he says "vanity" or "meaningless," that's what he's talking about, that I pursued this,

and it was "vanity" or "meaningless," that it just sort of disappeared. The second thing that he is going to say is that he says it is "striving after the wind." And it's a phrase that he uses something like nine times. The first time he uses it is in verse 14, where he says, "I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity, and a striving after the wind." And so when he says "striving after the wind," he means the same thing as "vanity" or "meaningless," that it's worthless. Because the wind can do a lot of good things. It can push our sailboats on a hot day. It can cool us off. Sometimes it can be frustrating when you go outside on a cold day, and that wind hits you and cuts right through you and makes you even colder.

It can be damaging. A storm comes through and knocks down a tree or blows off some shingles. But there's one thing that the wind cannot do, is it cannot be caught. You can get a big jar or a bag and run out in the wind, and you close it up, and what happens when you open it? Absolutely nothing, right? Because you can't capture the wind. And it's sort of a picture of a fruitless chase, that you're chasing after something that can never be caught. And what Solomon is saying is that this is meaningless, and to try to pursue it is like trying to catch the wind and put it in a jar or put it in a bag, meaning that it will never, ever work. And so what we find, I think for all of us, is that sometimes life feels that way, right?

It feels like the things we're doing maybe don't matter, or it feels like we're sort of striving and chasing after something that cannot be caught. And it's in this sort of opening section of Ecclesiastes that Solomon is going to make this very cheerful point. He's going to say the sun will rise and set, the wind will blow, the rivers will flow down to the sea, and you and I will die and then be forgotten, right? This book does not start in a very cheerful manner, but he's expressing something that if we're honest with us maybe that we've wrestled with, right? What in life truly matters, right? We see the rain comes, it gets humid, the water goes back to the clouds, you have this water cycle of rain and evaporation and rain and evaporation. It goes to the sea. All of these different things happen and then we die and we're forgotten. It seems like it might be hopeless.

And it's not just Solomon, and it's not just us. Throughout history, all of the world has faced this question, right? Where can I find meaning? Where can I find purpose? Where can I find success? How do I define success? And every generation has sought these things, and all of us have come up in some way or another empty. That nothing truly satisfies our soul. And so what happens is we set out to try to find meaning and purpose. And sometimes we do so by trying to sort of drown out those questions from it. I remember when I was in high school, and I was riding with some of my co-workers, and we were going out to eat one night. And I was in the front seat of this car, and I go, "What is that noise your car is making?"

She said, "Oh, it's fine." The lady I was riding with just turns up the radio, right? And I learned a very valuable thing about maintenance. You really don't need to do it if you have a loud radio, right? You just turn it up, and you don't hear the noise anymore, right? And so sometimes that's what we do in life, right? It's a struggle, and I'm upset, so I'll distract myself. I'll entertain myself. I'll get a new hobby and try to drown out those deep-searching questions. And then sometimes we try to accomplish our way to those kind of things, right? If my accomplishments are big enough, great enough, and grand enough, I will be remembered, and I will have achieved something. In the first chapters of the New Testament, we meet a guy by the name of Herod the Great.

And Herod the Great was a guy who was really worried about being forgotten. And so one of the things he does is he begins to build, and he hires amazing engineers, and he undertakes great, great building projects. One of them was the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem. He builds harbors, he builds palaces, great works. And now 2,000 years later, a little more than 2,000 years later, out of all of his great bellowing achievements, which historians agree some of them were truly great, only one is left, everyone is in, all the others are in ruins. And ultimately that one will someday be in ruins as well. And the only reason that Herod isn't simply a historical footnote is because he's mentioned in the Bible. It wasn't because of his greatness, it was because of his opposition to Jesus that he's ultimately remembered.

So we try to drown it out, we try to accomplish our way to meaning. And then sometimes we think, "Well, my life is pretty good. If I could just fine-tune things a little bit, I would be better." And so there's a whole genre of TV shows, of people trying to achieve something that sort of fine-tunes their life. So if I can be in better shape, if I can get fit, if I can lose weight, if I can do that, then I'll be happy. Or if I can achieve my goal of becoming a singer or dancing with the stars, or if I can redo my house so my kitchen is open concept, so we have all of these home renovation shows, and then I'll be happy. If I can get my car redone so it's nicer, I'll be happy.

All of these different things that we change, if I can just fix this one detail in my life, I'll be happy. The problem with that is we live in a life of never-ending detail, right? So yeah, we may get this, but then there's this. And we may get that, and then there's this, and we still find ourselves back to where we started. And when all of that fails, we try to seek new things. And so what Solomon is going to do is he's going to say, "Hey, I tried new things. I tried them in big ways." Let's pick up in verse 12 of Ecclesiastes 1. "I, the preacher, have been king over Israel and Jerusalem, and I applied my heart." So what he's saying here is I applied my entire being. The heart is the center of the being, and what he is saying is that I did not go about this in sort of a small way,

but I put every part of myself into what I am about to do. I applied my heart to seek and to search out wisdom, all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. And I have seen that everything is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after the wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight; what is lacking cannot be counted. I said in my heart I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all over Jerusalem before me. And my heart has great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I applied my heart to no wisdom and to no madness and to no folly. And I perceived this is also but a striving after the wind. For in much wisdom is vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."

So Solomon says, "I applied my heart." I made it sort of the center of my being to find answers. He says, "I applied my heart to everything that is done under heaven." Right? I didn't just sort of look at one area here, one area there. I looked at every single thing. Nothing is off limits. And he says, "I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and I didn't find answers." And he comes to a couple of different conclusions. One of those conclusions is that life is difficult. Another one is that life doesn't fit neatly into a box. That's what he means when he says, "What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted." We can't categorize everything all of the time. And then he'll go so far to say, "I'm really wise."

And what I realize is that it's kind of better sometimes to be foolish because we don't see the problems. We have a saying for this today, right? Ignorance is bliss. If I don't understand the problems, I don't have to worry about them. And so Solomon says, "I devoted my entire heart to this. I searched the world. I saw everything there was to see. And here's what I came up with. Life is difficult. It doesn't fit neatly into a box. And sometimes it's better just not to know the answer. It sounds like a pretty depressing beginning. And now he's going to entail what he does, how he searches. And he'll say this, "I said to my heart, Now I will test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself. But behold, this was vanity. I said of laughter, it is mad.

And of pleasure, what use is it that I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine, my heart still guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the days of their life." And he says, "I pursued two kinds of pleasure." It's sort of a passing pleasure. The joy of the moment. Someone tells a joke, or you have an exciting or wonderful, pleasing experience. And he said, "I sought deeper pleasures." These are the ones that are sort of more serious. They go below the surface. And maybe we don't sort of experience the outer joy, but we find ourselves satisfied and content for a moment. And he says, "I explored both the superficial and the depth of real pleasure,

and I didn't find it." Let me give you one example of Solomon and how he sought pleasure. One of the things that Solomon was very well known for was being able to throw a really good party. In 1 Kings 4, here's his grocery list for one day: "30 cores of fine flour, 60 cores of meal, 10 fat oxen, 20 pasture-fed cattle, 100 sheep besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened cows." So, fattened fowl. So, if I'm heading to the grocery store, and Rachel says, "Get me a core of wheat," that doesn't translate very well to me. So, to put it into ideas that maybe we can get a hold of is one core is equal to about six bushels of wheat. And so, just those 30 cores of flour is 180 bushels of wheat. Maybe close to like 10,000 pounds of flour.

According to the National Bakers Association, it's probably not quite accurate because it's modern day wheat, they're talking like 16,000 loaves of bread just from that. Right? And that's just the bread course, right? Here you go. Would you like to start out with some bread? Here's 16,000 loaves of bread. And then he goes on to talk about how he has oxen. Something like six and a half tons of meat from those oxen. That's taking the average weight of an ox, the average meat you get out of an animal like that, which is about two-thirds the body weight, multiplying it by ten, six and a half tons of meat, just from the oxen. There's ten of them. Then you've got twenty cows, and you've got a bunch of sheep. Think about the amount of people and the amount of food this would take,

and this is for one day, right? This makes the kind of parties maybe we went to in high school where we thought we were really partying, right? That makes it seem pretty small compared to Solomon. And he says, "Even with all this, I ended up empty." And he doesn't say it was unpleasant. He just says it's unsatisfying. Right? It doesn't meet his needs. And then he's going to try to build stuff. "I made great works. I built houses, planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools to water the forest of growing trees." So essentially Solomon here grows up. He's moved from the partying to the building, right? He's sort of gone back to responsibilities, set aside the crazy parties, and now he's moved on to try to accomplish things.

Maybe he gets tired of ending the party and he wakes up in a chariot on the way to Egypt. How did I get here? Solomon, if you read the accounts of Scripture just from the grocery lists, this was a big deal. Now he's moved on to building things. He doesn't just build a house, he builds houses, plural. What's interesting is that when he builds the temple, it takes seven years. You can read the descriptions about the gold and the wood, and then he goes to build his house, and it takes 13 years. And I want you to see just one of his summer houses. This is 1 Kings 7. He built a house of the forest of Lebanon. Its length was 100 cubits. His breadth was 50 cubits. His height, 30 cubits. Built on four rows of cedar pillars with cedar beams on the pillars.

So what this comes down to, this house would measure 150 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall. So just the floor plan is 11,000 square feet. And you probably, with being 45 feet tall, probably have a few floors. And this is his summer house, right? 11,000 at least. Maybe 22,000. Maybe if it's three floors, 33,000. Maybe if they use the roof, it's even more. This is a massive accomplishment of building. And we read in Scripture how he builds. He doesn't just sort of throw some stuff at it. He gets the finest wood, the finest craftsmen. In fact, it will even say of his foundation, they're 12 to 15 feet tall, the foundation blocks, and cut and finished for these buildings, in addition to gardens, trees, parks, and forests. He's going to move from this to saying,

maybe I should enjoy some things, right? I've partied. I've built. Now let's enjoy what I've built. So I bought male and female slaves, herds, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, many concubines, the delight of the sons of men, right? So now he's shifting from partying to building, now to enjoying. And so he starts by talking about his leisure. When he talks about these male and female slaves, what he's saying is I didn't have to do anything for myself, right? You know, if I didn't want to, I didn't even have to chew my food, right?

He's got a guy for that, right? You hear somebody say, "Well, do you know anybody who can do electrical?" "Yeah, I've got a guy for that." Or, "Do you know anybody who can help me?" "Yeah, I've got a guy for that." Solomon has somebody for everything. And then his wealth, herds, flocks, silver, and gold. And it doesn't just measure it in amounts. It measures it in terms of kingdoms. That's what he means when he says, "The treasure of kings and providences." How much money do you have? Australia, right? That's the kind of wealth we're talking about. In one place in Scripture it will say that silver was worthless in Jerusalem because of the amount of money that he had. His household implements were described like this. All his drinking vessels were of gold. The vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon,

that big 11,000 at least square foot house, were of pure gold. None were of silver. Silver was not considered as anything in the day of Solomon. And then it says he went and got singers. And what that means is he bought the band, right? We go to a concert. You go to the merch table. Say, "I'm going to get a CD." Solomon goes, "Alright, you guys are all coming back with me because I've just bought you." Right? He doesn't just buy the CD. He buys the band in and of itself. And then he seeks love. Now, King Solomon loved many foreign women, this is 1 Kings 11, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidon, Sidonian, and Hittite women. And 1 Kings 11:2 will say this, "Solomon clung to these in love." I hear a lot of people talk about how Solomon's wives' relationships were a business transaction.

1 Kings 11:2 says, "He clung to them in love." Right? Not just one or two. He had 700 wives who were princesses and 300 concubines, right? It's too much, right? It's so easy for us to try to find meaningful purpose in relationships and sex. If I could have this relationship, if I could find this person. And Solomon says, "I tried it." I got married 700 times, had 300 mistresses, and it still left me empty. Listen to what he says. He says, "So I became great, surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem, and my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil. And this was the reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done. The toil I expended is doing it.

And behold, all was vanity, striving after the wind. There was nothing to be gained under the sun." He's thrown parties that make the craziest party we've ever been to look small. He has meals that make us go into Texas Roadhouse and go, "I'll take the 42-ounce steak," making that look like a happy meal. He's built things that make our great accomplishments look small. He's achieved a level of wealth we have a hard time imagining, and he's done all of this while still keeping his head about it. He says, "My wisdom did not leave me." He's tried everything. Verse 10 says, "Anything my heart desired." He sees it. He tries it. And his conclusion was, "My satisfaction was only temporary." He'll say, "First of all, I had joy for a little while, and then what happened when I began to think about it?"

That joy disappeared. It just disappeared. And the problem, what Solomon is going to say, the problem isn't enjoying things. It's not accomplishing things. It's not taking those possessions that we've gathered and enjoying those. The ultimate problem is when we're chasing after the wrong thing. The problem isn't the things that maybe we enjoy along the way. The problem is where we're setting our hearts, the ultimate destination. He's going to go on to talk about this just a little bit. He's going to talk about wisdom and folly. He's going to talk about his legacy. And as he thinks about his legacy, he's frustrated, because I've built all these things, accumulated all this wealth, now I'm going to die, I'm going to give it to my kids, and I don't think they're worthy to take what I've built and use it wisely.

And so all of this leads to sleepless nights. "What has a man, from all the toil and striving of heart, with which he toils beneath his son? For his days are full of sorrow, and his work is vexation, even in the night his heart does not rest. This is vanity." He goes, "What is there to gain?" You're hard, you die, somebody else gets your stuff, they ruin it, and then you're forgotten. And we've experienced this. We work all day, we're tired, we go home and we worry all night, and all of us have had those moments of a restless night where we struggle with these big questions. Maybe about our jobs, or our relationships, our accomplishments, our future. Being a parent, being a spouse, being able to pay bills, and we sit there at night,

and all of these things run through our head. And then he gives us a glimpse of hope. There is nothing better for a person than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God. For apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom, knowledge, and joy. And to the sinner, he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to the one that pleases God. This is vanity and a striving after the wind. Now you might say, "Wait a minute. He just got done telling me all of these things were bad." And then he says, "They're joy, and they're a gift from God." The big difference is, look at what he says in verse 24.

"This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart who can eat or who can have enjoyment." So if we are pursuing things simply in an earthly fashion, we end up with two fears. One of those is that it'll never be enough, right? So we get a job, and we have to advance, and we have to get better, and become more accomplished, and we live with that fear of not succeeding, or on the other hand, we live in fear of losing that, right? What if I don't do well enough? What if I get fired? What if I get laid off? And so if this is our striving in and of ourselves, we're going to end up being afraid of not accomplishing it much, or being afraid of losing it all. We either have to strive, or we have to protect what we have.

Right? If this is all I have, I better work as hard as possible. What Solomon says when he talks about joy in these things, he says joy comes from realizing these things aren't ultimate. The joys and pleasures of life, the building and accomplishment, all the things you accumulate, he says that's not where our joy is found. He says they come from the hand of God, and notice what he says, "Apart from him who is able to enjoy these things." Right? He's saying our ultimate pursuit, where you and I are running, is what will ultimately bring us to joy. He's changing our perspective. So I've always liked books, and I think probably most of you know that. One of the things that I'm still extremely bitter about toward my brother, I think he's not here this morning, is when we were younger, one of my favorite things were Calvin and Hobbes books.

And I remember he took one of them, without asking, or a couple of them, and we had this little outdoor fort, and you climb up a ladder, kind of like a tree house without a tree, and he took some of my Calvin and Hobbes books to the fort and left them there overnight in the rain, ruining them. I'm still mad about it. Thinking about it now, I'm going to go home and write him an invoice for those books. I've never been able to really let that go. And I was thinking about this. I remember I was reading and working on something with like a real book, an important book, when Evelyn was just like a little toddler, just barely able to walk. And she comes over, and you should know toddlers by definition are gross, right?

She's got like jelly on her hand, comes over, wants to sit with me. So here I go, pick up this little baby, little toddler, sit around my lap, and she's got her sticky hands on my book, and you know what? I didn't care. You know why? Because there was something more important. That's what Solomon is trying to tell us. Like these things that he pursued, it could maybe just stick with one wife rather than 700. He's like, these things aren't necessarily bad. The problem is, you've got to put them in perspective. That they can only be enjoyed when you're with God, and when you're pursuing God, and when they're from God, and when you're next to God, right? He's seeking to change how we think. I want to give you just a couple of examples of how this plays out.

You remember Job loses everything: his children, his flocks, his house, even his health, ends up with a place. And in Job 1:20, after this damage has happened, Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell on the ground and worshiped, and he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb. Naked shall I return." The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. And then he says something that is so startling: "Blessed be the name of the Lord." The guy who has everything: the wealth, the flocks, the houses, the children, loses it all. And what does he say? "Blessed be the name of the Lord." Spurgeon will say this: "I am so pleased to think that Job recognized the hand of God in everywhere giving. He says, "The Lord give." He did not say, "I earned it all." He did not say, "There my hard-earned savings go. Gone. Oh, me."

He might have said, "All the care for the sheep, and the dreadful expense of those camels, and the trouble that I have had with those oxen, and now they're all gone." It does seem hard. He does not put it so. But he says, "The Lord gave them to me, and they were a gift." And though they are gone, they were a gift from him who had the right to take them back. For all he gives is only lent, and alone should go laughing home. And if God lent me these things, and now has called them back, I will bless his name for letting me have them for so very long." You see, Job's hope, when we see this play out throughout the book, wasn't in the stuff, it was in God, and the struggle that he has in the book

is that he hasn't heard from God, and he doesn't understand why God, but Job's hope ultimately is in the righteousness of God. Or you have Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Those three Jewish men who would not bow before the idol. The king orders the furnace heated seven times hotter, prepares to throw them in, and says, "Will you guys bow down to the idol?" And they respond like this, "Oh Nebuchadnezzar, there's no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace. And he will deliver us out of your hand, O King. But if not, let it be known to you, O King, we will not serve your God, for worship the golden image we have set up." We're familiar with this courageous. God's gonna save us.

But what we miss is what they say. Even if He doesn't, right? Even if God doesn't save us, He can. We think He will. But even if He doesn't, we will be faithful. You know why? Their hope wasn't based on the things they had, or the life they live, or even their physical well-being. It was based upon the goodness of God. And they said if it's God's plan for us to die in this manner, He is good, and we will serve Him until the end. Paul will say this: "To live is Christ, but to die is gain." You see, when we fix our hope on Jesus, when we pursue Him, it changes how we see everything else. We sing this song that has a line that goes like this: "What heights of love, what depths of peace.

My fears are stilled when striving cease. My comforter, my all in all, here in the love of Christ I stand." And that's what Solomon's getting at. All these things that you can strive for and you have sleepless nights over, they're not bad. God gives us things as good gifts to enjoy. The problem is when we chase those things rather than chasing God. So what I would challenge you to do, not just you, but me as well, to look at those things in your life that you chase and you have sleepless nights over, and ask yourself, "Am I chasing these things? Am I worried about these things? Or am I chasing God?" As a moment of evaluation, but also as a moment of thankfulness as we see the good that God has done, the things that He has allowed us to enjoy,

and understand that if we are to truly, ultimately have peace, if we're truly, ultimately to be refreshed, that has to happen, not from us and from our strivings, but from being with God. Let's pray. Father, we chase so many different things. We chase accomplishments. We chase temporary joys. Help us to see that these things are not bad in and of themselves, but ultimately, true joy comes only from you. May we cease our striving after all of these other things and strive after you alone, that you would give us rest and that you would refresh us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's stand and sing "Behold Our God."

Who has held the oceans in His hands? Who has numbered every grain of sand? Kings and nations tremble at His voice. All creation rises to rejoice. Behold our God, seated on His throne. Come, let us adore Him. Behold our King, nothing can compare. Come, let us adore Him. He has felt the nails upon His hands. Bearing all the guilt of sinful man. God eternal, humble to the grave. Jesus, Savior, isn't now to reign. Behold our God, seated on His throne. Come, let us adore Him. Behold our King, nothing can compare. Come, let us adore Him. I'd like to thank you for being with us this morning. Just a few announcements before we set up and enjoy some lunch together and celebrate Derek and Chrissy. We will be here Wednesday night, continuing on in our study. We've been talking just a little bit about Jude

and what's happening in that short little book. Also starting in September, we're going to begin a series on the book of James. We'll have a preview for you next week, taking a look about how faith takes action. So we'll walk through that series together. I'm just going to have Derek put the next announcements up one at a time, so I can't remember what order they're in. So after church today, baby shower for Derek and Chrissy and maybe Theo. I think we're going to eat up here. So Rachel's going to kind of tell you what we need to set up, so we'll help with that. We've got food to put together. You told me that's what I'm supposed to say. Alright, we're going to move some chairs and set up some tables up here where there's air conditioning and we're out of the sun.

Also, next Saturday, the Bradfield Family Reunion Concert. This is Rachel's family singing gospel music. It's in Augusta, so there's a meal at 4pm. If you're going to the meal, they'd like you to RSVP. There's Grandma's Favorites, which I guess is another singing group. I don't know.

Yeah, so that's 5:30, and then 6pm, the Bradfields will be singing, so kind of southern gospel, and so that's in Augusta at Hope Christian Church. I can give you more details, and there's some flyers around if you want to see that. Also, just very quickly, starting in September, we're going to start, I think the plan is to start with the kids. We'd like to ask any adults who want to participate. You're welcome to as well. We're going to be doing something, it's called the Bible Memory Project. It's four verses a month. They send you a little package with the verses. They kind of have a unique way of memorizing them. They sort of help you. The first letter of each word kind of helps you remember them, and so they give you a little armband for each week to help you remember the verses,

and some stickers and cards to help you work through these verses together. If you'd like to participate in that, just let me know. I think we've talked to most of the kids, but if we haven't and your kids are interested, we'd love to do that. Also, if you're an adult and like to, let me know so we can go ahead and get those set up. Is there anything else there? All right, let's sing the doxology. We'll pray, and I'll read a verse of Scripture. Actually, we're going to pray, read a verse of Scripture, and then we will sing the doxology. Father in heaven, thank you for allowing us to be here this morning. Thank you for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Thank you for your word. Be with us during this time of celebration,

so that we would be able to celebrate and bless Derek and Chrissy and Ezra and look forward to the arrival of baby Theo. Thank you for Jesus and grace. It's in his name we pray. Amen. In Isaiah 55, we read some of this this morning. God speaking through Isaiah, "Why do you spend your money on that which is not bread, and your labor on that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, come to me, and hear that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David." Let's sing the doxology. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise God. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.