We look above the sun. Listen, I am thrilled to continue our brand new sermon series in Ecclesiastes.
We started last week. Let me ask you all this. How many of you are figure it out people?
A couple of hands shot right up. Think about it now. How many of you are figure it out people?
How many of your spouses would say, yeah, he or she is a figure it out person? You're not going to call somebody to fix it for you.
You're going to figure it out. That's what you're going to do. You don't need directions. You don't need an instructions manual.
You definitely don't need GPS telling you where to go. You know the way there.
I was telling my son recently about the Rand McNally Atlas maps.
I used to be the navigator. That was fun. We were traveling all over America.
It's just different back then, you know? Missed exits happened a whole lot more, I think.
Wait, that was the one? Well, you got to tell me sooner.
All right. Figure it out people, man. You don't need directions. You don't need GPS.
You definitely don't need somebody standing over your shoulder telling you how to do something.
You'll figure it out. And truthfully, that's not always a bad thing.
You learn from that. You gain experience. You pick up wisdom from that.
You know how stuff works because you've lived a little.
Most of us have figured out a lot about different things.
Maybe you're somebody who knows a little bit about a lot of things.
But if you live long enough, you eventually figure something else out, too.
And that is this.
Figuring it out doesn't fix it.
It's the truth of it.
You can figure it out.
But that doesn't mean it's fixed.
What do we mean?
You can know exactly what's wrong.
You can understand why it's happening, where it went wrong.
You might even have a pretty good idea of what should be done.
But still, nothing changes.
It might be in the lives of those around you.
It might be in your own heart.
Marriage is still strained.
The anxiety is still there.
The diagnosis doesn't go away.
The family dynamic is still broken.
The situation at work hasn't improved.
And those are the problems that mess with us the most, aren't they?
Not the ones we can't figure out.
The ones we can figure out but can't fix.
So, this is where the teacher, the writer of Ecclesiastes,
picks up in Ecclesiastes chapter 2.
So, if you would take your Bibles and turn with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 2.
We're going to read from verses 12 down through verse 17.
These are the problems that can keep us up at night.
The ones that bring us fear, anxiety, depression.
Somewhere along the way, we realize that wisdom by itself is not the solution.
It can't be.
Now, don't hear what I'm not saying.
As you're turning to Ecclesiastes 2, understand that wisdom matters.
The Bible makes it very clear.
And life itself would make it very clear that wisdom matters.
The Bible values matter.
Wisdom.
Proverbs.
If we accept Solomon, King Solomon, as the writer of Ecclesiastes,
we also understand that he wrote Proverbs.
And in the Proverbs, we see admonishments toward wisdom over and over again.
Particularly in Proverbs 4, he's teaching his son, wisdom matters so much.
Make it be your goal.
Pursue it.
And you realize that Solomon did do that.
He asked God for wisdom.
God granted it to him.
Possibly more than anyone else in his time.
More than anyone else in recorded history, it's possible that Solomon gained wisdom from God.
And so he's teaching his son in Proverbs, hey, wisdom's a big deal.
It'll protect you.
It'll guide you.
It'll look out for you.
It'll keep you from stumbling.
It'll help you be successful in your life.
Just look at me, son.
Look at me.
I have been wise.
And look at all I've accomplished.
And then you get to Ecclesiastes.
And we got a very different picture from Solomon on the subject of wisdom.
So let's look at Ecclesiastes chapter 2 as we pick up our series, Catching Smoke.
How do we live this life under the sun?
Verse 12.
So I decided, the teacher is speaking, he's writing here, and he says, I decided to compare wisdom with foolishness and madness.
For who can do this better than I, the king?
I thought, wisdom is better than foolishness, just as light is better than darkness.
Obviously, right?
Verse 14.
For the wise can see where they're going, but fools walk in the dark.
Yet I saw that the wise and the foolish share the same fate.
Both will die.
So I said to myself, since I will end up the same as the fool, what's the value of all my wisdom?
This is all so meaningless.
Anybody ever been there?
You're surrounded by something that you've pursued.
You've gone after it.
You've achieved it.
You've gained it.
You've got it.
You see it every day.
And at some point, you look at it and say, what good did this really do me?
It's all pretty meaningless, isn't it?
That's what we're getting from Solomon.
Y'all, I told you last week, this is a weird book of the Bible.
It's different than most of them.
But it's so important.
It's so crucial.
It's not what we're used to when we're reading the scriptures.
But we can gain so much from it.
Let's pick it up in verse 16.
For the wise and the foolish both die.
The wise will not be remembered any longer than the fool.
In the days to come, both will be forgotten.
In my Wednesday night, Pastor's Life group, they got a little sneak peek of this.
And toward the end of it, we just touched a little bit on, as we go back and dig a little
deeper into the text of the sermon on Sundays.
We dug into, what does Solomon mean?
This is all so meaningless.
We started looking at the different experiences that you have in life and how you want them
and you think they're great and then you taste them.
And it's like, yeah, well, what's the next thing?
On to the next thing.
So verse 17.
After he realizes this, he says, I came to hate life.
Because everything done here under the sun is so troubling.
Everything is meaningless.
Like chasing the wind.
Something you can never catch.
Like trying to catch smoke in your hand.
So, where does this leave us?
Let's look at number one.
What can we draw from this?
What are some main truths that we can take away from this unsettling passage in Ecclesiastes 2?
Number one, wisdom can explain life, but it can't fix it.
Wisdom can explain life, but it can't fix it.
Look back at verse 14.
The wise can see where they're going, but fools walk in the dark.
So I saw the wise and the foolish share the same fate.
Fools don't know what's coming next.
They miss the life lessons.
They don't learn the moral of the story.
They just blindly go through their life trying to appease their own desires, trying to get what they want,
trying to make themselves feel better, more comfortable.
And they miss so much along the way that wisdom can teach them.
But even the wise eventually share the same fate as the foolish.
So they may have understood far more along the way.
They may have learned valuable lessons, but the value in the end doesn't come from wisdom.
It doesn't come from the learning.
So the teacher speaks as someone who has reached the pinnacle, the ceiling of wisdom.
He's gotten the wisdom part down.
God gave it to him.
This is not earthly wisdom.
This isn't the wisdom that the world considers wise, but it's actually foolishness.
This wisdom came from God.
This is real, genuine, valuable wisdom from God.
And Solomon had it in excess.
And he gets to the end of his life and he says,
man, it was all pretty meaningless.
Didn't really help me all that much.
Why?
Why is that?
He had all the lived experience.
He had all the broad knowledge.
He had deep insights.
You can look at the ancient text, the wisdom of Solomon,
and you can see all the records of Solomon's righteous judgment.
Of course, we've got the famous one with the two women fighting over the baby.
And Solomon says, okay, I'll cut the baby in half.
And each of you can take half if we can't dispute over whose baby this is.
And of course, the real mother said, no, no, no, don't do that.
She can have it.
And then he realized it was hers and awarded the baby to her.
Wisdom was something that Solomon knew.
The kind of wisdom that people assume should make life work.
It should make you highly successful.
But Ecclesiastes is honest enough to say, the teacher teaches us that wisdom alone cannot save us.
There's a British corporate coach named Rashid Ogunlaru.
And he says it this way, intelligence is overrated.
Wisdom is underapplied.
Intelligence is overrated.
And wisdom is underapplied.
I thought that was a very appropriate and applicable sentiment to share with you in our study of Ecclesiastes 2 this morning.
Because intelligence just means gaining more information.
But it's what you, what?
Do with that information that matters.
And wisdom can be gained but not used.
Not utilized.
Not applied to our lives.
How many of us know a thing or two about life?
And how many of us don't follow those things that we know all the time?
Have you ever heard the phrase, well, I knew better?
Or I should have known better.
Of course you did.
That means wisdom not applied.
And I think this is where Solomon found himself.
And I almost wonder if he overstated a little bit in Proverbs when he said, wisdom's going to do it, man.
Wisdom's going to go before you.
It's going to do, basically, the sentiment, he didn't put it in these words,
but the sentiment that you could glean from it is, wisdom's going to do all the work.
You just hang on to wisdom.
And the truth is, wisdom can only get you so far.
So, the teacher tells us that as his wisdom increased, so did his sorrow.
Why would that be the case?
As I got wiser, I got sadder.
I got more sorrowful.
Why?
Because wisdom helps you see what's broken.
It helps you see what's broken in the world around you,
and it helps you see what's broken in your own heart,
in your own soul, in your own mind,
in your own relationships, in you.
Wisdom helps you see yourself more clearly,
but it doesn't always give you the power to heal it.
Wisdom explains why relationships fall apart.
Wisdom explains why injustice persists.
Wisdom explains why systems fail.
Wisdom reveals why life is unfair.
And I hate to say that to some of the younger people in the room.
Man, life's just not fair.
Look, you're going to learn it at some point.
That's why Jesus is so great, because he is.
That's why he stands apart from everybody else,
because he's different than this broken world around us.
So, wisdom can reveal the brokenness,
but it can't help you heal it.
So, Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 and 29.
This is where Jesus steps into the gap.
Ecclesiastes needs some help here,
and it points us ahead to Jesus.
Jesus never criticizes wisdom,
but he refuses to make it the solution.
He doesn't say, figure it out.
He doesn't say, learn more.
He doesn't say, become more wise.
You will become more wise the longer you spend with the Holy Spirit,
the longer you spend in the Word of God,
the longer you spend around those who have learned wisdom from God and applied it.
You will become more wise.
But Jesus says, this is not the end goal.
This is not what you should be chasing.
You should be chasing me.
He says, come to me.
The invitation is to me.
He says, come to me, all of you who are weary,
and carry heavy burdens.
Maybe you've learned a little bit.
Maybe it's increased your sorrow.
Maybe you've realized the truth about the world around you
and the truth about yourself.
And he says, come to me.
Carry those heavy burdens over here to me and give them to me.
I will give you rest.
He said, trade those heavy burdens for my burden, for my yoke.
It's light.
It's easy comparatively.
Trust me.
Let me teach you because I'm humble and I'm gentle at heart,
and you'll find rest for your souls.
Wisdom can name your weariness.
Jesus invites you to bring that to him.
Ecclesiastes helps us understand why we're tired.
Jesus says, give me your tiredness.
I can give you energy that you don't understand.
It doesn't make any sense.
I can give you peace that surpasses your understanding.
So wisdom diagnoses problems, but Jesus delivers people.
Let's say that one more time.
Wisdom diagnoses problems,
but Jesus is in the people delivering business.
He can deliver your heart.
He can free your soul.
And I could ask for a show of hands.
Let's do that.
How many people in this room today would testify
by just slipping your hand up and say,
Jesus has delivered me?
Yeah.
All across this room.
Those are testimonies,
and you're probably thinking of something in your mind right now,
if not many things,
that allowed you to raise your hand and say,
Jesus delivered me from that.
Time and time throughout the pages of Scripture,
we see the deliverance of the one they called Jesus,
the Christ, the Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us,
who took on human flesh to walk among us and say,
this is how you live this life.
There were some wise rabbis,
some wise Pharisees who came before him
and who were his contemporaries there during his time on earth,
and they would go toe-to-toe with him in the Scriptures,
and with all their wisdom,
they were broken.
And their whole system of religion,
which was based on wisdom from God in the Old Testament,
they knew it inside and out.
They'd studied it.
Their study habits put ours to shame.
These kids growing up in synagogue school,
rabbi school,
they knew it all.
They could quote massive portions of the Old Testament.
But it didn't do them any good
because Jesus hadn't changed their hearts.
What good does your knowledge,
your information,
your intelligence,
your wisdom that you've gained,
do you
if Jesus hasn't freed you?
So,
that's number one.
Jesus delivers people.
This is discipleship.
This is learning how to follow something else,
how to pursue someone different.
Discipleship is not about knowing more information.
It's about learning how to follow.
A church can grow smarter
without growing more faithful.
Direction,
not perfection.
We've been talking about it every week
and we'll continue to do so.
Direction,
not perfection,
means we pursue
the person of Jesus wisely
only through obedience and trust.
We don't chase wisdom
by itself
that leaves us informed
but exhausted.
And that's going to lead us
to our next main point.
Main truth number two,
wisdom without God
eventually leads to despair.
Wisdom without God
eventually leads to despair.
Would you turn back a page
in Ecclesiastes?
Let's go to Ecclesiastes 1.
Wisdom without God
eventually leads to despair.
We were in Ecclesiastes 1 last week.
We're going to jump ahead.
I think we hit verses 1 through 11.
We're going to jump into verse 12 now.
Verse 12, Ecclesiastes 1.
I, the teacher,
was king of Israel
and I lived in Jerusalem.
I devoted myself
to search for understanding
and to explore by wisdom
everything being done
under the heaven.
I soon discovered
that God has dealt
a tragic existence
to the human race.
I observed everything going on
under the sun.
And really,
it's all meaningless,
like chasing the wind.
He repeats himself a lot
in this book, doesn't he?
This is the theme
that we see
throughout Ecclesiastes.
What is wrong
cannot be made right.
What's missing
cannot be recovered.
So I said to myself,
look, I'm wiser
than any of the kings
who ruled Jerusalem before me,
including his father David.
That's a big statement, isn't it?
He's kind of flexing
on all of them,
saying, look at me, man.
God has given me
so much wisdom,
so much wealth,
so much success.
I've gone higher
than any of them did.
I've got greater wisdom
and knowledge
than any of them.
Verse 17,
so I set out
to learn everything
from wisdom
to madness
and folly.
But I learned firsthand
that pursuing all this
is like chasing the wind.
And he did.
You read about Solomon?
He couldn't get enough wives
to marry.
And then he wasn't
satisfied with that.
He had a stable
of what you'd call concubines
in his palace.
He had everything
that the flesh
could desire.
And it left him
saying,
it's like chasing the wind.
I keep chasing it
and I can't catch it.
The greater my wisdom,
the greater my grief.
To increase knowledge
only increases sorrow.
So wisdom without God
eventually will lead you
to despair.
Being right
doesn't keep you
from being empty.
You can be right
and it doesn't always feel good,
does it?
You can be right
and you can even win
and sometimes
it's not very satisfying.
Gaining wisdom
and knowing the end result,
knowing the outcome,
knowing how it should go
and knowing what the problem is
does not guarantee you joy.
Doesn't guarantee you fulfillment.
That's what the teacher
is trying to teach us
in Ecclesiastes.
He's comparing wisdom
and foolishness honestly.
He's not saying foolishness
is better than wisdom.
He's saying none of it
is going to fulfill you.
None of it is going to help you.
Wisdom is better than foolishness.
Light is better than darkness.
But wisdom still runs into a wall
that it can't get through.
It still slams up against a wall
that there's no doorway through
until Jesus steps in and says,
I'm the door.
I'm the way.
The wisdom should lead you to me.
And if it doesn't,
you'll never be happy.
It'll never do you any real good.
It must lead you to me
because death is coming.
Death is coming for you.
It's coming for me
and it doesn't care how smart you are.
It doesn't care how much wisdom you've gained
or how much you accomplished
or how successful or unsuccessful
you were on this earth.
It comes for all of us.
The wise and the foolish
share the same ending.
Both are eventually forgotten.
Both lose control
of what they've built,
of what they've accomplished
on this earth
and your family
and your job,
your career,
your friendships,
your hobbies.
It's where wisdom runs out.
And so if wisdom is your ultimate hope,
what happens
when it can't save you?
It's a gift,
but it's never meant to be God.
Wisdom cannot be God.
But here's the good news
that Ecclesiastes cannot yet announce.
Go to John chapter six.
Jesus steps directly into this limitation.
This is the good news
that it was too soon
for the teacher to write about
in Ecclesiastes.
John six,
chapter six,
verse 64.
Jesus is teaching his followers,
large group of followers
gathered around Jesus,
many more than just his 12.
He had a large group
of those who had jumped on board
and said,
man,
this guy's great.
I love his teaching.
He's teaching something different.
We want to follow him.
And Jesus says,
some of you,
some of you don't believe me.
Y'all,
I'm sorry to say
we could probably look out
across a group this large,
statistics would say
and say some of us,
some of us probably
don't believe Jesus.
We'll act like we do.
But just like this large group
of followers
that Jesus attracted,
he said,
some of you don't believe me.
And then he said,
this is why I said
people can't come to me
unless the Father
gives them to me.
At this point,
many of these disciples
turned away
and deserted him.
They quit following.
Said,
oh, well,
this is a different vibe here,
Jesus.
Thought you were just
teaching all the feel-good stuff.
You're going to bring
life and peace
and joy and hope
and this is all great.
What do you mean
some of us don't believe you?
What do you mean
we can't follow you
unless the Father
has given us to you?
And they started
to drift away.
And then Jesus
turned to his 12
that he called out
specifically
and he said,
are you also
going to leave?
And Simon Peter,
of course,
the spokesman of the group
speaks up
and what does he say?
Lord,
to whom would we go?
you have the words
of eternal life.
We believe
and we know
that you
are the Holy
One
of God.
Notice what Peter said.
Notice what he didn't say.
He doesn't say,
Jesus,
you explain everything.
You make it all
make sense.
Y'all,
the truth is
if you've ever
opened up the Gospels,
Matthew,
Mark,
Luke,
and John
and you've got
a red letter Bible
and you see the words
of Jesus
in red
but even if you don't,
you go read
the words of Jesus,
he usually didn't
explain everything.
He usually didn't
make it all fit together.
He was pretty cryptic.
He was pretty hard
to understand
about a lot of things.
And so this wasn't
based on Peter saying,
oh wow Jesus,
you just overwhelm us
with all this wisdom.
Half the time
they couldn't figure out
what he was saying.
But what they did
figure out was
he's got the words
of eternal life.
This is different.
This means something.
He's different
than all these other rabbis
just spouting their wisdom.
He's giving us
real hope.
He's giving us
real truth.
Peter doesn't say
your teaching,
Jesus,
lines up with the
historical Jewish
doctrine handed down
to us from generation
to generation.
He doesn't say,
Jesus,
you are everything
that we've been
studying about
and how it all,
you make it all
fit together,
Jesus.
Funny thing is,
Jesus did make it
all fit together
but they couldn't
even understand
all that back then.
But instead,
Peter says,
you have the words
of eternal life.
We believe
and so that's
how we know.
Because we believe,
you have born
faith in our hearts.
How many of you
remember the day
when you said,
I believe in Jesus
and faith was birthed
in your heart
by the Holy Spirit
of God that day?
Can you remember
that day?
Yeah.
Stoney just gave
testimony of that day
when he was a child
and he stood up
and said,
yes,
I believed then,
I still believe today,
I have this faith
that God gave to me
and he has established
it in my life.
I'm going to get up
and testify
and identify
as a follower,
a disciple of Jesus.
And he set the example
for his family
and many others
to come
who are going to do
the same thing.
Peter said,
we believe
and now we have
this wisdom from you.
This knowledge
of you
has come
from us believing
you
and the faith
that you have given
then to us.
We believe
so this is how we know.
Our faith in you
has unlocked
wisdom for us.
Wisdom runs out
but Jesus does not.
The teacher
in Ecclesiastes
shows us the wall
and Jesus says,
I'm the door
through the wall.
We don't follow Jesus
because we have
all the answers.
We follow him
because we believe
he is the answer.
So even when wisdom
runs out
and certainty
is not available,
we follow
the direction
of Jesus
and that is what
I believe God
has laid out
for our church.
Jamie referenced it
in her prayer
just a moment ago.
God has been working
in this church.
I can only testify
for the last few years
since I've been here
but I've seen
with my own eyes
God working
in our church
throughout our Sunday
school classes,
throughout our small groups,
the men's group
that meets
on Monday night,
the couples group
that meets
on Tuesday night.
Penny has her
Bible study
that she leads
over in Lily's.
Listen,
God is working
through the people
of this church.
That's what he does.
He doesn't use institutions.
He uses people
and he called
a bunch of people
together
to say fellowship
together,
stick together,
do this life
together
as a church.
You're my church.
I died for you.
I love you.
I care about you.
Care about each other
the same way.
So that's the wisest
direction for our church.
Practically speaking,
what does this look like?
Discipleship.
God,
help me follow you
more closely
and if we're all
doing that together
then our church
will follow you
more closely.
God,
make me more hospitable
to each other.
Make me actually
care enough
to go out of my way
to help somebody.
You want to see
what Jesus was
on this earth?
He was hospitable.
He was kind.
He would help people.
He would meet
their immediate needs.
They were hungry.
He would feed them.
They were hurting.
He would heal them.
Their souls were broken.
He would speak life
to them.
How can we be hospitable
in the way of Jesus?
And then the mission.
We've seen the mission
clearly laid out
for our church.
We love God best
by loving whom
he loves.
So we go share
the gospel,
the good news of Jesus
with anyone
that once
we were all sinners
and Jesus came
and died
for the punishment
for our sin.
He took our place
when he hung
on that cross
and allowed himself
to be killed,
put to death,
suffer all that torment
for your sin,
for mine,
so we wouldn't have
to face the eternal
wrath of God.
And instead,
we get to place hope
not in just the one
who died,
but also the one
who rose from the dead
and said,
I'm alive today.
I've proved I'm God.
I've walked with you.
I've showed you
how to live this life.
Put your faith in me,
Jesus says.
Come to me
and I will give you hope.
I will give you rest.
And that's the mission.
We take that message
to everybody
who will listen
and we show them
hospitality.
That's how we become
more and closer
disciples of Jesus.
That's how we obey him.
That is the direction
for our church.
We obey God
and we strive
to walk more closely
with him.
We're kind
and loving
and going out
of our way
to help those around us
and we keep his mission
above our own.
That's wisdom
unlocked
by our faith.
Ecclesiastes
does not instruct us
to abandon wisdom.
It warns us
to stop
worshiping it.
Wisdom matters,
but it was never meant
to carry the weight
of eternal meaning.
Only God
can handle the weight
of eternal meaning.
That weight belongs
to him alone.
Ecclesiastes
shows us
the limits
of wisdom
under the sun.
Jesus invites us
to take all
of our wisdom,
our earthly wisdom,
all of our understanding,
even that which we've
gained from him
and say,
God,
thank you
for teaching me
in this life.
Thank you
for showing me
things,
for guiding me
through,
for helping me
learn valuable lessons,
but God,
that's not the end goal,
not to say,
look how much I know.
That puffs us up.
Paul teaches us
that knowledge
puffs up.
I get the picture
of a balloon head,
you know,
just getting bigger
and bigger
the more it learns.
And I just want
to stick a pin
in it sometimes.
Watch it pop.
That's not how
God wants us
to live this life.
Just puffing
ourselves up
with more knowledge,
more wisdom.
He says,
take all that wisdom,
hand it back to me
and say,
God,
teach me
how this
will lead me
to you.
Teach me
how this
will make a difference
in your kingdom
on this earth.
Teach me
how this will help
accomplish your mission
on this earth.
Then we can get
to the end of our life
and we don't have
to look back
and say,
man,
I did it all,
I gained it all,
and it didn't really
mean anything.
We can look back
and say,
all the wisdom
that God gave me,
all the resources
he gave me,
all the experiences,
good and bad,
he gave me,
he used to make
a difference
in something
that matters.
So when we live
life under the sun,
what do we do?
We look above the sun.
Can we say it together,
church?
We're going to keep
asking this question
and answering it together
throughout this series.
How do we live
under the sun?
Let's say it together.
We look above the sun.
One more time,
how do we live
under the sun?
We look above the sun.
God,
that's what we're doing
right now.
We're casting our eyes
above the sun,
above this world,
above the highest point
that we can see.
We're casting our eyes
on you.
Hebrews 12 says,
we look to Jesus.
He's the author
of our faith.
He'll be the finisher
of our faith.
And until that day,
teach us
how to keep our eyes
fixed above the sun.
because everything
under it
is meaningless.
But you bring
the meaning.
You bring
what matters.
You bring
the why.
Help us
to never
forget it.
There's somebody
here today
who doesn't know you.
Help them
to make this
the day.
Speak to their hearts
right now.
Convict them
of their need
for you.
And let this
be the day
that they make
the decision
and say,
I believe.
I put my faith
in you.
We'll give you
the glory for it.
Church,
while your heads
are bowed
and your eyes
are closed,
I'm going to ask
that question.
If there's somebody
here,
maybe a guest
or maybe somebody
who's been coming
for a long time,
but you say,
today is the day
that I want to make
this decision
for myself,
not because I was
raised around the church
or not because I
always figured
I was a Christian,
but I'm going to,
for myself
and my family,
today,
I'm going to put
my faith in Jesus.
Would you slip
your hand up?
I'd love to talk
with you.
I'd love to pray
with you.
If that's you
right now,
I want to put
my faith in Jesus
today,
I believe.
And slip your hand
up now.
Thank you.
For the rest of you,
let me ask you
this question.
If God's working
on your heart
to keep your eyes
fixed on him,
to not chase
what you think
will fulfill you,
what you think
you need in your life,
but to chase
Jesus first,
whether it's wisdom,
whether it's wealth,
whether it's anything
else.
You say,
God's working on me.
I need to place him
as the most important
thing that I can gain
on this world.
Would you slip
your hand up now
and I'll pray
for you as well.
Thank you.
God,
across the room,
your people
are in an attitude
of prayer with you.
Your spirit
has free reign
in this place.
I pray that you
would move
in our hearts,
that you would
reveal to us
how we can learn
from this valuable
writing centuries ago.
It says,
don't fix your eyes
on wisdom.
Don't fix your eyes
on anything else.
Fix your eyes
above the sun
on God himself,
Jesus Christ,
the one
who will always care.
We'll give you
the glory for it.
church,
let me close us
in prayer this morning.
God,
we thank you
for worshiping
with us today.
We thank you
for joining us
as we gather together.
We don't want this
to be a one time.
We meet on Sundays
and then we get back
to the rest of our week.
We want to carry you
with us
when we go home,
to carry you with us
whatever we're doing
in this life.
That's what will
make the impact.
That's how we apply
the wisdom we learn
is when we live it out
through the filter
of Jesus,
guiding our thoughts,
guiding our words,
guiding our actions.
Would you remain
in an attitude of prayer
for me
for just a minute longer?
Linda's going to
keep playing
and
if there's something
God's working
on your heart
about right now,
give him time
to speak to you clearly
in the stillness
of this moment.