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All you flower children out there. I’ve been trying to tell your parents for years that music is godly, right? And now you know. I don’t know what you should take from that. Um, maybe hippies love the Bible, I don’t know. Or maybe God loves hippies. I don’t I don’t want to go too far this morning. No, I’m just kidding. It’s good. Last week, Mick Jagger, this week, the Byrds. It doesn’t get any better, does it? Well, let me start with another game this morning. It’s called a review game. All right. Um, who? Well, let me just ask you this question. Um, who, after last week’s sermon, took this past week and read the book of Ecclesiastes. Anybody read the book of Ecclesiastes this week? Sweet. You get a book since you are a reader already. Let’s not. Let’s hope this doesn’t go off. Your sermon was so good. Yeah. It was. Um. All right. What’s this one? Can I watch this? It’s going to go quick. Who’s this? Nathaniel. You know, Mick, you don’t get another one. Here, I’ll give you one to give somebody else. This is, uh, David Platt’s new book. Follow Me. Okay. There you go. So we’re keeping it in the family this morning. If you guys want David Platt’s new book. There it is. After Stephanie reads it, you can borrow it. One last one. Who can tell me how the sheep know to follow the right shepherd? I heard I had Frankie. That row is just lucky.
So, um, Frankie, you get Francis Chan’s book because always in the back, man, I should have just carry these out. Uh, Francis Chan’s book, Crazy Love. Here we go, here we go. Great reading there for you this morning. See, now, if you pay attention, you win stuff. So. So there you go. But you take notes this morning, who knows? Next week I could give $100, right? That’s not happening. I’m just kidding. Unless it’s monopoly money. This week we’re going to be in the book of Ecclesiastes in chapter three predominantly, and a little bit of chapter four, and we’ll touch on chapter two for just a moment. But the reason we’re looking over such a large gamut of scripture, normally we don’t cover such a large portion of Scripture, but the reason that we’re doing that is because of the nature of the book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes is considered wisdom literature. It’s written in and it’s written. It’s written in poetry. And I always happens to me. Hold on. After all that singing. Got to get my lips ready. It’s written in, in, in poetry. And so a lot of it is repetitious. And, and Solomon repeats some of the themes throughout the book, and it’s also written in the form of what we call proverbs. And the idea of a proverb is that a proverb isn’t always true. So when God gives us promises, we know those are true. When God writes his laws, those are always true because God’s truth doesn’t change.
But when God inspires people to write Proverbs, the way a proverb works is that they’re mostly true and correct and pertaining to life. It’s it’s wisdom for godly living, but they don’t always necessarily fit in every area of our lives. And so you’ve got to walk wisely as you make the application to Proverbs. And so the reason that we’re looking at a few portions of chapter two, three and four is because there’s some major ideas and themes that Solomon is writing throughout those portions of, of these chapters in the Bible. And the theme that we learned in the book of Proverbs this past week was, was the phrase under the sun and vanity. Depending on what translation you have, they’re going to use those words differently. Some translate the word vanity as as vapor, especially if you like the King James. Others translate it as as meaningless. But the idea is when life under the sun is lived, it’s vanity. Or when life lived is lived apart from God, it’s meaningless. And Solomon’s conclusion that we saw last week in the end of chapter two. And it’s really or excuse me, chapter 12. And it’s really throughout the entire book as he continues to remind us that that while life apart from God is meaningless, God created you to enjoy him and live life to the fullest. And so the idea of the book of Ecclesiastes, if you if you read it, you’ll kind of walk away from this book feeling a little uneasy about life, a glass half empty kind of statements that Solomon gives throughout the book.
The tone throughout the majority of this portion of Scripture is somewhat negative, and the idea that Solomon wants to carry for all of us when we read this book is that we learn to engage our own ability to think, to ask the important questions of life. Why are you even doing what you’re doing? Because what our tendency is as people is we we oftentimes we we we don’t like to always make long term plans. And so sometimes because of that, we we plan to fail. Really. And so what Solomon’s idea is we need to consider the great questions of life, not just the the day to day things that we encounter, but the the motivation and the force for why we choose to live life the way that we do. And so he asks these uneasy questions. He gives these somewhat negative type of thinking to to spur within our own minds and answer questions for ourselves, to ask our own selves. How can I live my life for the glory of God and experiencing his goodness in my world? And so Solomon comes to this book, and the Bible tells us that he he writes this book somewhat as a, as a journal entry. The book of Ecclesiastes literally means the preacher. And about the life of Solomon, we understand as we study.
Solomon is the King of Israel. He lived during the time of Israel at the height of its prosperity. You know, it’s the American dream. We have no need to depend on God anymore. We have everything that we need. And for 40 years Solomon lived this life. And it tells us in the book of Ecclesiastes, whatever he thought would bring him pleasure, he pursued it. Whether it would be money or fame or power, or women or home, or any type of security, anything that looked good to Solomon and pleased his eye, he went after it. And after those 40 years, he concludes with this book of Ecclesiastes. Life under the sun. Or apart from God is meaningless. In the beginning, those things may seem like they satisfy. But in the end, they leave you empty. Solomon were to write the book of Ecclesiastes today. He, he, he writes about every experience that we could really have or the majority of experiences we have in life. And if he were to write it today in our culture and thoughts, I can’t help but think that maybe, maybe he would sum it up like this. Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. Life is full of seasons and opportunity. You guys know where that came from, right? I have 100. I’m just kidding. I’m, um. Forrest Gump. He’s brilliant. Life is like a box of chocolates.
You never know what you’re going to get. And Solomon describes life this way. When you sang The Birds as a kid jumping through the lilies of the field. Right. This is it. Chapter three. And verse one. For every everything there is a season. A time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to harvest, time to kill, a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build up. I should probably explain what a few of these these scenarios that he sets up to us. A time to kill and a time to heal. I’ll tell you when you when you when you study that within the Bible. Um, no one, no one knows for sure what this means, according to commentaries. Because I think the reason is people are uncomfortable with the thought of killing people, killing each other. And so commentaries will say, well, well, it may not actually mean killing each other. It may not be. It’s not talking about murder, but it could. It could be talking about going to war in battle. It could be killing in battle. It could be government coming upon people because they’ve broken the laws. And so there’s capital punishment. It could be those things some other people say, well, it could also be harvesting, like you’re getting ready for a winter and you kill an animal and you slaughter it, and there’s a time to kill.
And then after winter, there’s a time for healing, right? We’re coming out of that. Thank God for recovery today. It’s beautiful outside. No one knows for sure. There’s speculation as to what it means, but there is a time things die and a time things heal. Time to tear down and a time to build up. Um, a time, a time to cry and a time to laugh. Time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. I don’t want to do either of those. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. I just want to say scatter stones and gather stones. In Israel’s time when when anyone went into battle the way that an army would really destroy a city after it went through and and defeated everyone through military strength, it would then come behind with the wagons full of rocks, and it would literally litter the fields, the farming fields with rocks. So? So if anyone tried to live there and habitate the land and farm the land, they would have a difficult time in doing it. And so that would really secure for them that that nation was going to be unstable for quite some time because they had no agricultural ability to feed themselves. And so there’s a time when they scatter those stones to defeat nations, and there’s a time when you gather the stones so that a nation can thrive.
This is a time to embrace, the time to turn away, a time to search, and a time to quit searching for your keys. That applies every day. A time to keep and a time to throw away. That happened to me this week. Um. Every once in a while, as may or may not believe this, but I still have clothes from high school and I can still fit into them. It’s amazing. I wore a pair of that this week. My wife would say, that is something you need to throw away. Daniel, that was a long time ago and I would say I love these pants, right? But there’s a time to time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. Time to love and time to hate. A time for War. A time for peace. Well, Solomon describes for us in this passage of Scripture is just the seasons of life. He’s saying to all of us in a poetic way, if you look in your own Bibles at chapter three, if you’ve got particularly a study Bible, you’ll know that. You’ll note that beginning with this, these verses, that there’s an indentation when when Solomon describes this in some Bibles, you’ll see it. And what it’s signifying for us is this is a poetic insert to the wisdom that Solomon is declaring for us in the book of Ecclesiastes.
And he’s poetically described for us that all of us go through seasons of life. Go to high school and learn what it means to fit in. You. You go to college and you learn to pick a career. You get married and you learn what it means to be married. You. You get a job and you learn what it means to be an employer. You have kids and Lord help you and and you retire and you have grandkids and seasons of life we all go through. You can’t stop it. It happens. You know what’s funny is about the seasons of our lives. They’re they’re really unique. We can kind of determine what are some things that are going to happen to us. Like we’re all going to live. We’re all going to be born, right? We’re here. You had no ability to control that. You’re here, you’re going to die. You have no ability to control that. The Lord knows. You look at the life of. Other things that God created, like the life of a bee. We could pretty much describe the life of a bee, right? He lives, he makes honey, he goes. See you later, I enjoy that. When it comes to human life. We all go through these seasons, but for many of us, some of our seasons are unique. And the thing that Solomon adds to this scenario is he begins in in chapter three and verse nine, what do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all.
Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So Solomon adds to the thought that we all go through these seasons, and he says, we go through these seasons and we recognize that God is, is, is with us. And God has put within our own hearts this longing for eternity, this longing for something greater to be a part of. But even still, we can’t see what tomorrow holds. We are creatures created from the time of birth to live forever. And the only thing that we can deal with is today. Knowing that we’re going through seasons in life and knowing that we’re created for eternity. What does tomorrow hold? It’s filled with uncertainties for us and some of us. We we gather our lives with anxiety, just curious over these things, and we can’t even focus on the moment because. Because what does tomorrow hold? And Solomon takes the idea of this poem of us going through these seasons of life. And he takes the idea of this verse that we only know what can happen for the day. And he gives us opportunity as people to learn. To enjoy the Lord. To learn to enjoy life. So Solomon reaches this conclusion that what you surround your life with matters.
And Solomon goes through the entire book of Ecclesiastes, and he lists item after item that we seek to please and satisfy ourselves with, and recognizing for us that what it ends in is vanity. What it ends in is meaningless. And so his desires that you live a life worth living, that we learn to discover for ourselves what it means to live life to the fullest, and whatever season you may be enduring, how to experience the joy of the Lord and his presence around you. What you surround your life with matters. It’ll determine. What you’re full of. The joy of the Lord. Or emptiness. If I were to take this phrase for us this morning and tell Forrest Gump about the Lord. I think you would end it like this. Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. But God does. And regardless if you know your future or not, God does. And that’s far better. There’s times in my life where I wanted to know what tomorrow holds. But I start to think about, you know, if the Lord just explained everything to me in the in the midst of the trial that I’m in, I don’t know that I could handle it. Bible tells us that we can only carry the burdens of today upon our shoulders. And so if life is like a box of chocolates, you don’t have to know what you’re going to get because God does.
He’s there for you, to strengthen you and encourage you. Matter of fact, Solomon says this in the beginning of Ecclesiastes chapter two. If we looked at that conclusion of that verse for just a minute, just before Solomon gets to the point where he starts explaining to us all the seasons of life that people go through, recognizing that we endure certain seasons. He says in chapter two and verse 24. So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him. God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to those who please him. But if a sinner becomes wealthy, God takes the wealth away and gives it to those who please him. This too is meaningless, like chasing after the wind. Solomon leaves us in a predicament of life where it gives us a choice. Do we? Do we act wisely and pursue the things of the Lord, or do we act foolishly and. Pursue things of our own pleasures, which in the end, in verse 26, leaves us empty? And he says in verse 24 that God has given us these things to enjoy. Or it has brought the joy into our lives. I should say in verse 25, he goes on and says that not only does God give you the things to enjoy, he gives you the joy to enjoy them.
You think about that? What does that look like in your life? Not only does God give you the house to live in, but he gives you the opportunities to enjoy the presence of him as you enjoy the home for which you live. Let me tell you how it changes and transforms your life to think that way. For instance, I get a car. I thank you for the car. Right? You gave me that to enjoy. But if I’m enjoying it the way that Lord talks about it, it’s not just about the joy or the gift that God’s given to me. It’s about the opportunities for which I experience in that. So the prayer could go like this. Lord, thank you for the joy of having a car and God. I was able to enjoy my journey to work this morning. God, thank you for my kids. God, thank you for my kids. But God thank you. For the joy of my children. And as I was just in my home that you gave me, thank you for that joy as well. And and thank you for the laughter that we were able to hear and, and the experiences that we were able to share. It’s not just about the joy of having the gifts that God has given you, but it’s about the enjoying of the gifts through which God has given you. Salemme’s going through all this motion of his life, and he’s beginning to realize, you know what the one thing that I forgot is? The presence of the Lord is imminent in all these things.
And understanding how to to practice his presence in the seasons of life is important for all of us. So we talk about the joy that God gives us and enjoying the things that God gives us. May I ask you, how do you typically respond to the seasons of life that you go through? So the tendency is us as people, and maybe even me in general. When things go well. Things are going well. I don’t need the Lord. It’s just good. I call on him when I need him. But it’s enjoying. And then when things go bad, rather than call on the Lord, I complain. God when the world. Man. This is horrible. Call my friends up. Do you know what just happened? Oh, man, I should probably pray. So when we talk about enjoying the Lord, it’s about learning to carry his presence in our lives. Reality is, when we think about the goodness of our lives and the things that we’re going through and the joy that we experience if we’re not taking the thankfulness to, to God and, and just pouring out praise to him for what he’s done, we’re living life like atheists. I mean, we may acknowledge him with our lips, but we’ve not really invited him into our lives. And when things go bad. And the first thing I think about is, is complaining.
Or telling someone about it. It’s living life like an atheist. Rather than calling upon the one who oversees everything first and foremost. Life’s like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get, but God does. And so Solomon goes on at the end of that portion of chapter three, if we’re to pick up there, it says. So I concluded, there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. So you can’t worry about the stress of tomorrow. Only God knows what it holds. You can’t carry the burdens of the past. God’s created you to enjoy the moment, he says. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him. What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before because God makes the same things happen over and over again. And what he’s saying to us is there’s nothing new under the sun. Your situation isn’t unique to God. I don’t know what I just did. Your situation isn’t unique to God. God understands all things, and there’s nothing new that exists. You can’t control when you’re born. You can’t control when you die. You can’t control when you harvest.
You can’t control when you reap in joy the day because the Lord has made it for you. Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get, but God does. The challenge that thought this morning. How do you really know that God is in control? And when you’re going through adverse situations and sometimes it feels like God is distant or things are going well, but his presence isn’t there. How do I really know that God cares? How do I know that God is in control? How do I know that God even wants to be a part of your life? Portions of the Bible. Just share the thought of Jesus and concern for you. Jesus actually said this. He says, for this reason I say to you, don’t be worried about your life. As to what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, nor for your body as to what you’ll put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They that they don’t do not so they do not reap or gather in barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you, by being worried, can add a single hour to his life. It does no good to carry concern for those things. Just to recognize the presence of the Lord. And I could say this morning to those who might doubt that God’s concern and care is reigning over your lives, to figure out how God specifically does that for each individual, we would have to get to know each individual and try to recognize the hand of the Lord has moved in your life.
But here’s what I do know. We ask the question just corporately this morning, how do I know that God really cares? How do I know that my tomorrow is taken care of? How do I know that Jesus has interest in my life and everything that’s going to happen? The answer would be this. Romans chapter five and verse six. God’s already seen your needs. God’s already met them. It’s just for a while. We were still helpless. At the right time. Christ died for the ungodly. Saying this to us as individuals. Jesus was looking at the needs of the worlds and the season. Of life in general. And the pervading thought of coming into your world and providing what your need was, what was heavy upon his heart. So much so that at the right time Jesus came for. Insert your name right there. Jesus saw your need and Jesus gave everything to meet that need. So when we look at the passage of Ecclesiastes, while we can walk in confidence in what Solomon is saying this morning, because God has already begun to meet needs in your life. God doesn’t carry the stress of your past to the cross of Christ. He’s removed it and forgiven you that you may enjoy him.
God’s not worried about the concern of your future because he holds it in his hand. And so today. You get to enjoy today. With his presence in your life. Jeremiah said it like this, for I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for your calamity, to give you a future and a hope. See the scary part of life when you consider seasons is we don’t know what tomorrow holds. It’s like a box of chocolates. But God does. My favorite story in the Bible, or one of my favorite stories, I should say, when I first became a believer and I wanted to boldly follow after Christ, I remember I started telling family and friends and and went on these mission trips and lived overseas for a few months and, and and started thinking about following after Jesus. And there was a little reservation in my life and I thought, man, Lord, I don’t, I don’t I don’t know that you’re going to meet my needs. I don’t really know experientially. I know the Bible says it. I don’t know what it’s going to look like for me. I’ve got concern. I see other people follow after you. It looks great and their lives are full of joy. I’m going to do this thing, but I’m a little concerned with the way it’s going to work out for me. Let’s turn to the Book of Joshua.
In chapter one. Book of Joshua starts after the life of Moses. Could you imagine following Moses? I know. Thank you for the guy who follows after Moses. That ain’t for me. But Joshua comes in. He follows after Moses, the children of Israel. They estimated as high as 2 to 2.5 million people. Wandering through the wilderness. Joshua comes in and control. He’s supposed to lead these children of Israel into the Promised Land. Could you imagine the burden of responsibility? A people just nomads wandering around. And Moses with the people. Literally. They’d failed for 40 years. They wandered in wilderness. How am I going to top Moses? I mean, the man turned, turned the river into blood and a and a staff into a snake. How do you top that? And all these concerns are filling his mind. Got the season of life that I’m going through. I don’t understand it. It’s looking difficult. And then God comes into the life of Joshua. The very beginning. It says in verse nine. Have I not commanded you? Be strong. Be not afraid. Because the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. I think about the idea of what Solomon shares this morning. Not because I don’t understand it or don’t realize it. It’s because an honesty. I don’t practice it. To learn to trust in the Lord in all things. Solomon shares it with us. Like this. Enjoy the Lord. You have no power over the future.
Enjoy the Lord. God knows what’s in store. And God has the strength to provide. They also adds this last thought. He starts talking about community. He ends chapter three, talking about these horrible things that happen to us in individuals. He. He then begins chapter four, talking about the loneliness that we can experience in life. But then Solomon says to us, as we go through the seasons of life, one of the opportunities that we have to encourage ourselves as we endure different seasons that we go through, the delight of different seasons, is that God has given us community. God himself even lives in a triune community. And it says in verse nine, two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help, but someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back to back and conquer. Three are even better for a triple braided cord is not easily broken. So keep in mind, as Solomon wrote this passage of Scripture, the New Testament church hadn’t come into existence yet. Christ said, I will build my church, and the spirit came. And so Solomon doesn’t typically talk in community in terms that we do today. But here’s what we know about community.
When you read about the Bible and you begin very early on in just the book of Genesis, you you discover in the very first chapter that God created you, breathed His Spirit into you. His spirit exists within you, that you may have community and life with him. God created you for a relationship with him, that in that relationship you reflect his glory. God is all about community. God is a triune being. The Bible tells us that God is love. The reason we know that God is love is because we’ve seen that love exercised and father, son and spirit and loving and honoring one another. Bible tells us as soon as he made man, he created spouse because he said, it’s not good for you to be what alone God created community for you to pour into in the seasons of life. Because if you live seasons of life for personal pleasure seeking after things apart from community, it ends hopelessly for you. If your pursuit is money and fame and power and home, and you don’t do that with community, you do it meaningless because eventually you’ll die and everyone else will fight over it and they’ll take it and they won’t even think about you. No one gets to the end of the life and says, you know that life was well lived. Thank God they worked a ton. Thank God they’re always at work and made a ton of money. Their work, they were really good at work.
Thank God they were so busy and pursuing their pleasures and activities in life that they always left me. Thank God for that. When someone passes away. The things that we reflect on is the relationship and the time and the experience that we have with them in this world. I thank you for them. God, thank you for the way they bless my life. God, thank you for what they taught. God, I grieve in the season of life. But Lord, I know these things are in your hand. Your job can replace you on a dime. But your kids. Well, we have one, dad. One, mom. Your spouse could have married anyone. But they chose you. God created you in the seasons of life to enjoy. This time of community together. In addition to that community, God also created the church. It’s God’s plan to reach the world. If you want to see God’s glory reflected most powerfully. It happens in the life of his people. God implanted His spirit in you and I. And so the place where God should move most powerfully in this world is in us and through us. And so when we gather in community, it becomes significant for us to seek the glory of the Lord. God is about community. And Solomon says to us in this passage of Scripture, unless you seek community and you seek it appropriately, life is meaningless. And take these areas of community that God has created for us, the the church and the family and these relationships.
And we seek to honor and glorify him and bring Him and His presence and all of those things that we may learn to enjoy him in every season of our lives. I want to be careful when I talk about the church’s community, because this was this is what was taught to me as a young kid. You may already know this, right? I’ll show you real quick. Here’s the church. Here’s the steeple. Right. Open the church. And you see all the people. I see this one. It’s great. But here’s the method that was taught, or the thinking that was brought to me as a kid. This is the church. And in reality, when I think about church like that, um, I do not want to worship there. It’s a liturgical all about the structure and nothing to do with relationship with the Lord. We just look at it as a building. But the reality of what church is, is, is the phalanges, right? It’s the people. That’s what makes the church. That is where the beauty is. That’s where God’s presence is made known. And so when I talk about the church, I’m talking about people that are real. I’m talking about people who are with you for the worst of times and see the best in you during those times, the ones that open up to you and just share their struggles as you share yours and their thoughts are because the presence of the Lord is with them.
You know I’m praying for you, I love you, I want to see the best happen in your life. When I talk about community, that’s what I’m talking about. Because apart from that, it’s really meaningless. Just a building. It’s meaningless. Got no interest in investing in each other. It’s meaningless. God’s about the community, the struggles and the seasons and the challenges and the joys. And we bring that with his presence. And we just enjoy that in community. And we say, God, we don’t know what tomorrow holds. But here now we practice your presence and we seek to worship you and experience that joy in all things. There is a season. Turn, turn. What you surround your life with matters. God’s concern is that you be about community. You be about his presence? You understand his presence is important through all seasons that you go through. And that you experience that with one another. So here’s what I learned is the older I get. We go through all these seasons in life. And every time I go through a new season, I have to relearn what it means to experience the presence of the Lord in my life. Meaning when I when I was a young kid going to school, I have to learn what it means to experience the presence of the Lord, going through the tragedy of high school and then into college. How do you do that in college? Lord? Who knows? Mothers, pray for your kids.
You know college. It’s a wild place. How do you follow the Lord and you get a job? How do you do that? And you get married? What does that even look like? Can imagine. We had a kid a few years ago. We’re about to have another baby here soon. And and when I, when that child was born, were in the hospital, and I’m about to walk out and I’m thinking, they want me to take care of this. It was the manual on this kid. What is it? Okay. I’m leaving. You sure? Okay. I’ll take care of it. What does that look like? The challenges in my own life. You start having these floods and these seasons of your life. You know, my dad wasn’t around a whole lot as a kid. What does. What does it mean to be a dad? God, am I even going to be able to do this? How do you love and some of you, even in your own lives, going through your own struggles? If if parents weren’t around or they had horrible marriage relationships, the modeling of that in your life, Lord, how do I do this? I want to follow you. But God, what does that season look like? And you retire or grandkids. You’ve got to relearn all this. You’ve finally perfected this one way of life and this one season of following God. And now it just changes.
How do you do that? And that’s the point. Solomon leaves us with those questioning thoughts that we can stop within our own mind and recognize. You know what? I am going through a new season. I’ve just moved. I just got a new job. What’s it going to look like for me to follow the Lord? Ecclesiastes. It’s about wisdom. Encouraging you to ask the questions to stop you living foolishly, to challenge you in the new seasons of life. That the presence of the Lord can be made known and you can live that out in community. Here’s the valuable resource of a church. We all go through these seasons and some of us have been there before. Others have gotten there. And so it gives us the opportunity to gather together and realize, you know what? We just came out of that. And what’s their face? That’s a good family in our church. They need some encouragement. Man. Let’s bring them over. And let’s be real in community. Let’s stop living like an island and start living like the way the Lord has called us to. To everything there is a season in. Our Lord has called us to experience his presence and not live like an atheist. And so let me just end with this. At the bottom of your page it says this stop and think. Ecclesiastes is a time where it just says stop and think. Just talked about three areas of life where we stop and experience the Lord.
Uh, and it gets us to stop doing one thing so we can start doing something else to experiencing. It says I can’t meet with the Lord because what is your excuse? It gives you a tiny blank that you can’t even fit it in there. So you got to think it. What? Why is it I’m not meeting with the Lord? I mean, is it something that my season of life that’s that I just haven’t quite learned how to fit with God in this. So I’m going to start doing this. I’m not trusting in the Lord in the season of life. And and I’m going to miss out. It’s going to be meaningless. And so, Lord, how can I trust in you in this? And I’m not investing in godly community. And here’s here’s my excuse. And whatever it is, it’s not good enough. But God. How can I discover you in this? Ecclesiastes ends here. It says this in chapter three and verse 22. I saw that there is nothing better for people and to be happy in their work. That’s why we’re here. No one will bring us back from death to enjoy life after you die. You get a season of life to get it right. You get one season of life to enjoy the Lord. So I don’t have the magic wand to make you stop complaining. I don’t have a magic wand to make you be happy. I think the Lord. The Lord holds the joy for you. You only get one shot. Solomon says to us, live life to its fullest.