More | Week 1

wanna start off with just asking a couple questions here. As we go into this new series and first of all, think about when you were a kid, what your favorite toy was.

That toy that maybe you just had to have. It was your Red Ryder BB gun, you know, and everyone said that you'd shoot your eye out, but you you just had to have this toy, and maybe you wanted it for Christmas, you saved up your money, you begged, you borrowed, you stole, whatever it is. You know, we don't judge, but but anyways, you it's that one that you really, really, really just wanted, and it's probably you you you you hung out with it, you almost hang on, you almost play with it longer than you probably should have for your age and stuff like that because you just liked it so much. For me, it was the Millennium Falcon that that I got for Star Wars. I just love that thing. But but what was it for you that was like that was you remember actually just getting so excited even thinking about it just half my life

will be complete when I have this easy bake oven or whatever it was. You know, whatever it was. Know, some of you are old enough it was a stick. You just wanted a stick. No. Just kidding. Sorry. Every service I say something that I immediately regret.

And so anyways, my wife was when she said she'd marry me. That was her immediate regret. But still, think about the toy you really wanted. Now, you got it? Now, what if I came you and said I have that toy up here, and I'll trade you for your favorite toy you have right now?

What's your fave because you know what a toy is? It's just recreational thing. So we we as adults, we still have toys. You know, we do. And I go, what is it? I'll trade you that old old toy from from from back then for your 75 inch TV,

or your boat, or your jet ski, or your favorite gun, or whatever it is that you you that is. Whatever. Would you do it? No. You're probably not gonna do it. Alright. What about what about let's go back. What about your first computer?

If I had your first computer, would you trade me for your current one? Man, you won't even trade your computer ten minutes after you buy it. You're already like, oh, man, this is so outdated. Alright. What about what about okay. Here's a good one. Your first car. Remember that car that gave you freedom?

You could go someplace on your own. Remember how exciting that was? What if I came and said, alright, I'm I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna trade you your first car for your current car. No. No. No. No. Sonny, that's not a perfect illustration because some of you, because you made such bad life choices,

your first car might be a better car than what you're driving right now, but for the rest of us, you wouldn't do that, would you? That car might have, but but at the time, didn't that car seem like it was the greatest thing ever?

But you wouldn't trade it for the one you have now. You wouldn't trade the computer for the one you have now. You wouldn't trade your favorite toy for for for for the one you had back then, would you? You wouldn't do it. Why?

Why? Because because there's a principle at play. There is. There really is this principle at play, and here's what's funny. We all get it. That's an obvious illustration, and we all get it looking backwards. But do you realize the same principle is at at play moving forward?

That's not something that happened to us. That's something that's happening to us even right now. The principle that at play is still at play. Like, everything I just ask that you would not trade away, if you give it enough time, weeks, months, years, I can come back and offer you the thing you wouldn't trade right now

for what you have then, and you'll say no again. Mind blown? Or does that make you're like, no, duh. What's going on with that? Why do we keep falling for it?

Because here's the deal. Every time we're in that moment that you got that favorite toy, you got that car, you got that computer, you got that thing that you really were looking forward to, you really did think this is it. I will have satisfaction now.

And the thing that you think is the greatest blessing in the world down the road becomes a burden or something you don't can't get rid of fast enough, and you would never trade what you have then. Because we're stuck in this cycle of always wanting more, that that more is better. And not just more in quantity,

more quality. Like, I I need more of this, or I need I need more avenues to this. I I I just I I want more. We think more is better. More quality,

more time, more this, more and more and more is better. But here is a principle that's at play. We're gonna start unpacking in this series that we're gonna learn that that that we're never gonna get satisfaction in life. We're never gonna truly have contentment if we keep playing this game.

And here's the big idea for today and really kind of this whole series more,

is is there's this. More is less. More is actually less

as we're gonna see as we we unpackage that. So it might not make a lot of sense to you right now, but hopefully by the end it does. If it doesn't, then I really did a bad job, and I apologize. But but more is less. Now now what do I mean by that we're gonna see is we're gonna look at the life of a man. We're actually gonna look at part of a a a book he wrote. I'm gonna encourage you to keep reading the whole thing and and through the series. We're gonna only be in the first few chapters of it as we we dig through. But we're gonna be looking at an example from a life of a man named Solomon.

How many of have heard of Solomon? Alright. Cool. What do you know about him? Solomon was he what? Rich? How many said wise? Wise. He was rich. He was wise. What else? He had, he was a king. He he had lots of wives. So he had a lot of headaches.

Again, I'm just kidding. Some of you are new. I need to break you in easily. But but, yeah, he he he was he was he was wise king. He was he was king David's son. He was the third king of Israel, and he grew up in a little bit of a dysfunctional family. We know because he was actually his mom was Bathsheba,

the the woman who David did his greatest moral failure with, and and got her pregnant, tried to cover it up, ended up killing the the husband,

and who was actually one of his mighty men and a friend of his. And then when that didn't happen so at the end, he ends up marrying her. That baby dies, but the next child they have is Solomon.

And so think about being that kid growing up as the the the with your half brothers and all that, and and the weird stuff. And then at the end, when David gets older, for some reason, he chose Solomon to be the heir to the throne. That probably didn't go over well with some of the the brothers.

And and so he he he chooses Solomon, and and when he picks him, he talks to him. As you can in in scripture, there's this conversation he has, and he challenges him. He says, son, here's what you gotta remember as you as you become king. Be courageous. And be courageous in following God.

Don't run away from God. Trust God. When you follow him, it'll work out according to plan. God will bless your ways. It'll work out the way it should. And in other words, he was almost saying learn from me.

I'm a man that always went back to the Lord. I always asked for forgiveness, but I got off track a few times. And every time I didn't follow God, it didn't go so well. So trust me. Do that. Have courage. And and and so he he he took that to heart.

And a matter of fact, he has this vision. It was a dream, but it ended up being a vision, and God actually spoke to him and said, Solomon, you're gonna become king.

I'm basically in a grandiose. What do you want? I'll give you what what what's one thing you want? I'll give it to you. And Solomon answered God, he said, I wanna be wise. I wanna have the wisdom to be a good king. And so God says, great answer. I'm gonna give that to you. So you understand when we say Solomon is smart?

He wasn't just smart like naturally smarter than everyone around him, like me. He had a supernatural gift. I just think I'm smarter than everyone else. He had a supernatural gift. It was a wisdom. God just made him massively smart. Matter of fact, when you read his his words, he wrote the Proverbs.

And when you read a lot of what he wrote and and and stuff and the wisdom of the philosophy there, It's pretty deep stuff.

You realize he wrote that about seven, eight hundred years before Plato even walked on the Earth. And if you lay out the the the great philosophers of the Greek time that everyone have revered and says this is so deep, and you look at the words of Solomon, you're like, this is so much deeper. And it was

hundreds of years before. He was given a supernatural gift of wisdom. But God said, because you asked for that and not to be rich and famous like most people would, you're gonna get rich and famous also. Now, I look at that a little different. A lot of people say that God was like, so since you asked for the good answer,

I'm gonna give you the bonus round. I think the rich and famous as it played out in his life was actually a byproduct and more of a challenge to him. God wasn't saying here's a reward. God was warning him, I think. You're also gonna have to deal with this because of your wisdom. That's how I see it.

And so he he he goes on, and he does become rich and famous, mainly his wisdom. He leads, Israel into this great time. They make a lot of money off of there's no dominant,

empire controlling them, So they control these trade routes. If you've over to Israel, anything that wants to travel anywhere in the ancient world, it had overland. It would have to come through Israel, and then he got massive amounts of money from that. Matter of fact, he got about 25 tons of gold a year, which is it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Matter of fact, if

Bill Gates entire net worth in today's in in in that time is worth about 18 tons of gold. So Solomon was getting 25 tons of gold. He was getting more than Bill Gates' worth every year, and that was just one stream of of revenue.

And when he says rich, you're talking rich. When the economists have read the articles, they went back and they've studied historical figures and tried to come up knowing kind of what kind of money they're making, what they did and applying it to today's money. They've ranked like the top 10 richest people of all time. Number two on that list, John D. Rockefeller.

He's worth $660,000,000,000, and that's about 10 times Bill Gates. He died in 1937. That's number two on the list. Number one on the list, Solomon, was they guesstimate in looking at his income and all that was worth about four times of Rockefeller. In other words, 2.1 to $2,500,000,000,000

He is the first and still only trillionaire. Trillionaire. Can you imagine? His point two, 0.3, point 4 trillionaire is is pretty much that's John D. Rockefeller. The point part is the second richest guy that's ever lived.

He was a trillionaire. I mean, think about it. When was the only time you ever hear someone talk about trillions of dollars? Our national debt. That's the only time you hear trillions. I mean, think about how much money it had. Matter of fact, it says in in in in one of the kings first, second, don't

don't quote me right here. It it says that he he once had to had to have them build ships because he had to go pick up a payment that he was getting from somebody on a deal. He was getting 16 tons of gold just in that way. That is roughly what Bill Gates is worth if you converted all of his money into gold.

So basically, can you imagine going, hey, I need to rent a bunch of U Hauls, because Bill Gates owes me all of his money, and he's paying me in gold. So I gotta drive up and get it. Can you imagine that kind of wealth? He didn't just was he didn't have some of the money. He pretty much had all the money.

He had all that wealth. He was a king at a powerful time, so he had complete control over the political movement, meaning he can enact any kind of social change he wants.

If he wanted something to happen in his his country, he can enact that and do that. He had the wisdom, the supernatural intelligence that God gave him. He had the fame of the world. He had every resource that we think we would like to have more of. He had basically all of.

And he did one dumb thing. His smarts got him to walk away from the one thing his dad told him to do. Have the courage to trust me. And he decided he was gonna go figure out the meaning of life. And he said, I'm gonna go use all of my resources and my intelligence,

and I'm gonna go after everything under the sun, he calls it, to see what really will bring satisfaction in life. And he did this experiment for years and years and years and years. And he poured everything he had into it. So we should listen to what he said was his results of this experiment.

Because he had more money than you and I had. He had more ability to empower social change. He had the ability to do projects of good. This is not just bad stuff. He didn't just run away from God to be evil. He just ran after everything that we think we can go after, And in that, he basically tried everything that we still try today.

And here was what he said about it. In Ecclesiastes

verse two, he says this. Everything is meaningless, says the teacher. Completely meaningless. So it's useless. So let's just close in prayer and I'll go home depressed. No. He says, what do people get for all their hard work under the sun? Generations

come and generations go, but the earth never changes. The sun rises and the sun sets then hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south then it turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles.

He said that that that that's everything's just going in a circle. That's a theme. Rivers run into the sea, but the seas never fold, and the water returns to the rivers and flows out to the sea again. Everything is worrisome beyond description.

It gets cool in Arizona for about seven weeks, and then it gets hot again. Now that's no. No matter how much we see, we're never satisfied. This is a if you have your Bibles, if you bring a Bible with you, know we put on the screen for people who don't have a Bible. If you don't have a Bible, you want one, we'll give you one. So I encourage you to bring one. And and if you do have yours, just underline this. Write this. This is an important phrase here. No matter how much we see, we're never satisfied.

No matter how much we hear, we are not content. That's a critical thing he's saying. No matter how much more you get in this life, is what he's saying. No matter how much more you have,

we're never really content.

History really merely repeats itself, he says. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. Sometimes people say here is something new, but actually it is old. Nothing is ever truly new. We don't remember what happened in the past and the future generations.

No one will remember what we are doing now.

So he says, basically, life is this big circle. We're we're caught and and and and generation after generation runs after the same things, keeps doing the same thing over and over again, and the next generation forgets, doesn't know what they did. And we go, we got a new idea. We're gonna do it different than them. And we do the exact same thing. It just looks a little different, and we just keep doing that over and over and over again, and he says, you're never ever gonna get enough. More is less. Doesn't know how much more of life, more of this, more of that. There there is not enough more under the sun to provide satisfaction

and contentment in life. It's kinda sad. And then he kinda finishes this little section with actually talking about the first thing he thought could bring satisfaction.

As he said, I, the teacher, verse 12, was the king of Israel and I lived in Jerusalem. I devoted myself here's another one under. I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done under this 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 is all meaningless, like chasing the wind. Verse 15, another important one to highlight. What is wrong cannot be made right. What is missing cannot be recovered. Some translations say what what is crooked cannot be made straight again.

That's critical. Critical. I'll come back to that in a sec. He says, I said to myself, look, I'm wiser than any the kings who ruled in Jerusalem before me. I have greater wisdom and knowledge than any of them, and I'm also humbler. No. 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. The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief. To increase knowledge only increases sorrow.

So here's what he does. He kind of finishes saying, hey, life is just one big circle. And we keep trying the same things over and over again. And doesn't matter how much more we get, we never get satisfaction. And then he ends it with saying, and the first thing I thought would bring satisfaction is wisdom itself. Just getting smarter, that we'll figure our problems out. He basically says the same thing a lot of us try to figure out. We live in a culture right now that is still claiming that. That's why people in our culture, especially young people, are walking away from God because they're saying, you know what? God and science, which they actually are not competing if you really look at it, by the way. But but but people are walking away and go, but science, you know, I believe in science. That's gonna solve our problems. And and and we we we just we just keep evolving and we're gonna have all the answers.

That's what people are saying today. That's what he finishes. The first thing he thought would solve problems was being smarter than everybody. He goes, wisdom itself, we will outsmart our issues and be satisfied. He said this three thousand years ago,

and we are still saying, oh, we're gonna figure it out. Oh, it's gonna work. Talk about stubborn. Talk about the guy who's driving somewhere and won't ask for directions. I'm gonna figure it out. Three thousand years later,

we add more information to our knowledge base every day than they would in in in a hundred years back then. And we are no closer to solving our problems or being satisfied. And he knew this three thousand years ago.

And you know why he knew this? There was a great point that he landed in there of why he knows this why it doesn't work. It's verse 15. When he said this, what is wrong cannot be made right again. What is missing cannot be recovered. He's talking about the fact that we live in a broken world.

We live in a world that's crooked and it can't be made straight. Meaning, we live in a world that is broken by sin and rebellion and fallenness, so we hurt and we have issues. And what we try to do is we try to go solve these eternal issues with with temporary solutions. And we think we're smarter than God.

And he says, you know what? You're never what we try to do in our broken world will never fix it.

It'll never fix. Matter of he wrote a proverb about this. It's one of my favorite proverbs. I I quote it all the time. It's my soapbox proverb. Proverbs fourteen twelve. You know what that says? There's a way that seems right too, but in the end it leads to that was Solomon that wrote that.

He just you know how he knew that? He experienced it firsthand. He went after all these ways that seemed right to make life better, and he went after more and more of it, and everything you and I'd run after to try to we think life's gonna make us feel better, we're gonna see in the next week. You don't wanna miss. You are gonna be shocked that everything he tried is the same thing you see on TV today. The same things that advertise, the same things we drive after, the same things we try to do. It's the exact

same things. Three thousand years ago has

not changed, But we fall for the line. We say, oh, we're the different judge. We're in we're evolved. We're further along on that. We're playing we're doing exactly what he said. We're stuck in this circle of a crooked world that we can't get out of. And you know what he's saying? He says life under the sun is just that way.

And he'll say this like 38 times he talks about life under the sun. If you read this whole book, I'm gonna say go read it. So many people read it and go, I'm just depressed now. Because it just sounds like he's just saying life sucks and then you die. He's not. He's saying life under the sun will never satisfy.

And life under the sun is a term for life in this crooked world. It's what this world has to offer. It's living life by the world's way. It's and what he's saying is, if you are trying to find satisfaction and true contentment out of any of this stuff, it doesn't matter how much more of it you get, you'll get less.

You will never find what you're looking for down that road. Now that just if we stop there, sounds depressing. Matter of fact, he he made a point out of it. If you turn over to chapter two, before I read this verse, in other words what he's saying is, we try to find satisfaction

on a pathway that a road that we think is a straight road that the more we learn, the more we get, the more we get. We're gonna slowly rise up and go up into the mountains, and we're finally gonna get to this nice beautiful mountain city called contentment and satisfaction. Meaning.

And what he's saying is I discovered in my experiment that the road we're on is not a straight road out of town, it's a cul de sac. It's called life under the sun circle. And we just keep going around the same circle.

And we keep going. And and and all the houses are the same houses every time, every generation. There's I'm gonna find satisfaction through wealth. I'm gonna find satisfaction through pleasure. That's the next house. Then the house is I'm gonna sound satisfied with the good things. Work. I'm gonna pour into work and build something. I'm gonna find satisfaction. He even talked about political activism and how we will just enact governmental we'll just be the leader that enacts the government that's gonna solve the world's problems and everyone's gonna be happy. That house. And he he keeps going around physical pleasures. All these things. All the same things we do. Same things that are still today. And he goes, we keep going into those houses and moving in and moving out. And every generation, we're going around the circle. I'm gonna live in that house. That's because that didn't work. I'm moving next door. I'm gonna move over here. And we just keep going around. And every generation, we we we we pretty up at the house. We rebuild the house. We fixer upper it.

We make it look modern. So when we think, well, we're not like those old timey people back then. Yes, you are. You're still living in the same house. You just shiplap the walls or something like that. You got your farm sink or whatever they call it.

Man, I just I just made a fixer upper reference. What is wrong with me? It's a cul de sac. We think it's a straight line. And when he realized this after pouring, guys, I'm telling you, he had a lot more of everything than we had. He took this to the nth degree. Tell him you're listening to God right now. Not me. God.

God's talking to you right.

But we think that we we we we think a lot of us the problem is by not being a trillionaire, we get stuck on the circle because we think we just don't have enough of. If we had more, then I'd be happy. That's not true.

He's saying more will never get you there, and so here's what he says in chapter two after this. We're gonna go back through two next week. He says, so I came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling. Everything is meaningless like chasing the wind.

So if that's true, what are we supposed to do?

Well, he provides hope and a little bit of an answer that's really more fully turned out later on in the story of the Bible, which the next few weeks we're gonna be looking at a part here and then going to the New Testament and kind of seeing an answer. But right here in chapter three verse nine, he says this, what do people really get for all their hard work?

I've seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful in this for its own time. There's hope. He says, I've seen all the hardness, but there is some beauty here. But you gotta understand how it works. Next verse. 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. There's a great one underlined. You know what he's saying there is? He just diagnosed why more of what we think is good in life under the sun will never satisfy.

The problem is we're trying to make more of life under the sun, this cul de sac life, satisfy a longing that this never can because this is temporary, and God built us with an eternal longing. He said God planted eternity in our hearts. You know what that's saying? It's saying that our dissatisfaction

with life, every time we accomplish a goal, then we go, there's gotta be more, gotta be more. You've probably heard a lot of preachers say that desire to have more is bad. No.

The way we try to fulfill that desire for more is what's bad. The desire to long for more goes, there's gotta be more than this. There's gotta be more. That is actually driven from the fact that god built us for eternity. He built us to be in relationship with him, the eternal,

the all encompassing god of the universe. That's what we were designed for and just because we live in a broken world, that drawing, that desire, that thirst, that hunger, that longing is still in every one of us. The problem is we try to satiate that hunger with things from the cul de sac, and it will never ever,

ever, ever, ever satisfy that. No matter how much more you get. And that's why, look, we live in a culture that we should get it. We know it instinctually. We know it. You move out here, this part of the world, do you realize Gilbert, safest city under 500,000 or whatever in the country?

The Queen Creek area over here, most affluent area in the country. Most affluent doesn't mean we have the overall most amount of money. But when you do quality of life, cost of living, debt ratios,

we are the most affluent. And, you know, no way. There's no way. You know why you don't wanna believe it? Because you're like, if I was most affluent, I would feel happier. That's the point. You've bought into the cul de sac. You don't feel happier. Kids or teenagers are still killing themselves

because there's no hope. Because the cul de sac cannot satisfy the need and the desire that we have built in us. That's what he's saying. He's saying I figured this out. I figured out. He goes there's there there life under the sun can't satisfy is what he figured out.

But he does hint at that the rest of the Bible tells the whole story for. Spoiler alert, we'll talk about this last week. Go read chapter 12. He kinda comes back to the answer. He says, so here's what I learned.

And basically in a flowery, super intelligent kinda guy way, he writes, I should have done listened to my daddy, is what he says. I should have had the courage to just trust God with my life. Where he wanted me to go, I should go. Seems pretty simple, doesn't it? Then why do we still run after more and don't trust God?

Why do so many of us that actually are sitting in here and you say, I'm a Christian, I believe in Jesus, But if you really look at the goals of your life, you're chasing more.

And you're probably spiritualizing it. You're praying to God. And you're actually some of you are mad at God because you've been a good boy or girl and he hasn't given you more. Because you think the goal of life is even with God is to have a relationship with God so I can get more. You still want the cul de sac.

And he's trying to say is it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. What he says is is is is life under the sun can't satisfy, but you know it can? Life with the sun. Life with the son of God. Life with Jesus. That will fulfill the eternal longing. But see, that's scary. That's why it takes courage.

It takes courage to do life with the son. That's why David said courage. Because he's gonna ask you to do stuff that flies in the face of the lie.

The lie says, I need more of this. And Jesus is gonna challenge us to go after less of some things. And we're like, well, if I get less, I'll be less happy. And we don't wanna believe that. Jesus said these words, if you're gonna follow me, count the cost, take up your cross. There's gonna be some sacrifice.

He also said, here's the best way he said this. He goes, if you're looking to save your life, you're gonna lose it. But if you look to give up your life, you'll truly find it.

What he's talking about is save your life is in the cul de sac. If you're gonna look to even follow me, but still try to use me to get more of the cul de sac, it ain't gonna work. But if you're willing to say, you know, God, I'm gonna do with what you've given me on this planet. I'm just gonna do what you want me to do. You will find life. But the problem is that means I might have less of time to myself because God wants me to serve Him. I might have less money because He wants me to steward it and give it to His cause, and He wants me to use it that way. And we freak out and go, well, I'm already feeling like I don't have enough. If I give that, I'll have even less.

And that's why David said courage. You know what courage means? We think courage means I'm not afraid. That's not true. Without fear, there is no courage.

My dad would challenge me that. All growing up, he's like, son, you gotta have courage. But I'm scared. And my dad look at me and go, son, if you ain't scared, it ain't courage. So if you're waiting to trust God for something till it's not scary, it's not ever going to happen.

You have to do it when it's scary. And the reason it's scary is because Solomon discovered we live on a cul de sac, and we're stuck in this lie of a broken world. And we are trying to fulfill the eternal with the temporal.

Now, what a lot of us hear that means, courage means, so I guess I reject everything in this world. It's no good, and that that's not true. This is where he goes a little deeper, and I hope you hear this part. Because look what he says next. Look what he says next.

It sounds like he just says the opposite of what I just said. Verse 12, so I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can, And people should eat, drink, and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

That sounds like he said, so what I discovered is just lean into it. Throw a block party on the cul de sac until we all drop dead.

But look what he says right at the end, comma, for these are gifts from God. And when you read the whole breast of the letter book, and you go into the rest of the Bible, and you go into what Jesus is talking about, that this just illustrates what Jesus actually gives us principles for in the whole New Testament.

Is what he's saying is, when I learn to do life with the sun, not just try to make life under the sun have meaning. I will find a new way of living under the sun where I steward all these things on the cul de sac that are not necessarily wrong. Money's not wrong. Having fun isn't necessarily wrong.

You know, laughing isn't wrong. If it is, I'm in a lot of trouble. It's not wrong. Working hard and being good at your job and wanting to do something is not wrong. That's not the problem. It's not to reject those. It's to actually have the right perspective on those. Those are gifts, bonuses, extra added on

to this life with the son. And when I understand that these things are not the goal, I'm not trying to get eternal satisfaction from. I'm not trying to get the meaning of life out of them. Let me step away because you hear money, you hear this.

Bible's pretty clear too. A lot of people, you're not happy in your marriage, and some of you, you're not happy in your marriage because you think your marriage is supposed to fill that longing.

You think now I'll truly be happy, and the the part you feel unhappy about is you still feel that eternal longing, and you think, I thought they were gonna solve that problem. And it's not. And the problem is you're putting something on this relationship, an expectation that it was never able to fulfill.

And that drives the unhappiness.

So what he's saying is when I understand that's not what these things are supposed to do, I just see they're gifts from God as we go around this circle. And if they can be gifts, if I put them in the right perspective, and the right perspective is they don't bring the fulfillment,

but they are things that I've been given to steward by God. And the second I learned to steward them, which you probably heard a million sermons on all the time. Steward your time. Steward your talent. Steward your money. Steward your relationships. But he's saying is when I learn that, less becomes more.

Because not only do I learn that, but as I have the courage to trust God in that, I disconnect the expectation of what they're supposed to fulfill, and they just start to fulfill what they should be. As Solomon said, I actually enjoy them now. Because I'm not trying to make them give me something they can't.

So I have no problem doing them with what God wants me to do, and I get to enjoy my life having it.

And I'm telling you, people that figure this out, go back to the money thing, it's easy thing. So many people are chicken to trust God with their money because you think you need more more more more. When you trust God, the biggest testimony here over and over again was, yeah, was tough. I had less money than I thought I was have because I gave it away.

But you know what happened? You find out God took care of you, And next thing you know, you realize God does take care of me. And you know the part you didn't think about the bonus you get on that? Is you stop having the fear of what if I lose what I have? Most of us when we have a lot, you still feel that burden.

Guys, you know what I'm talking about. The reason we keep driving forward is I'd have enough. I can support my family, but this could go away in a minute. So I better keep going. So even when you're successful,

you feel a weariness. That's what he's talking about. You feel a weariness because I gotta stay successful because I could lose it. When I steward it with God, it unattaches the what I think it's supposed to fulfill, which brings contentment.

But then it frees me from the burden of it, and so then I actually just enjoy it. That's what Paul said when he said, I've learned the secret to contentment in when I had a lot or when I had a little. And he basically said I've learned to just want what I have.

So you understand if you have the courage to let go of the lie and understand that when God asks you to give, ask you to serve, it's not just about what he's gonna do with what he is, what he's gonna do for you. It frees us. Less becomes more.

Does that make sense? That just felt like it needed an amen. I don't know why. So I'm staying like this till I get one. Alright? There you go. Good.

That's what he's talking about. Life with the sun can help you enjoy life under the sun. Bottom line, let me let me close-up. Here here's the the simplest, deepest way for me to explain this is this. Chips and salsa. I get it now. How How many love chips and salsa? How

many you kind of understand what I'm the point I'm making already? See, told you. Chips and salsa. Chips and salsa are good, aren't they? Sometimes you go to a Mexican restaurant, I don't even want Mexican food, but I want some chips and salsa.

What's the cheapest thing I can order? I'm just gonna keep getting chips and salsa. And and and and and if you go to one of those fancy ones, get bean dip. But think about chips and salsa. My wife

got me I already like chips and salsa, but she helped my addiction go to a whole new level. But she loves chips and salsa. Loves it. So we'll go to we'll go out and and and you know, you start getting and we she'll order a salad and and and and I'll get something not as healthy as a salad, but the meal itself might be fairly healthy. The

problem with going to the Mexican food place, especially if you have a good waiter,

you're gonna get a lot of chips and salsa. We went over to Casa de Mina today. It took them a while to get our food, but man, the waiter, he was Johnny. You're grabbing the last chip and another whole basket came in. It was just the two of us. We must have downed four baskets, five baskets easy.

And and and I ate a lot faster, so I'll own I ate most of them. But but we're going and going, and and and it's like there's something about chips and salsa that you just keep eating them medium and you just but you can never get enough. It never satisfies.

They're yummy, but they just you can eat 10,000 calories, and you're never full. Matter of my wife was so inspired by this idea of how chips and salsa bother. She saw this statement. She printed up real fancy, put it in a in a in a frame, and put it in our kitchen. And so this sign is hanging in our kitchen. How do I stop eating chips and salsa? Do they run out, or do I die,

or what? How many of are wondering the answer to that same question? How do I stop doing this? Do they just run out? Do I die, or what?

Because you're you realize no matter what. Now now when we were out the other night, she found out there is another option. There's a third option. She stopped eating. I'm like, what? Are you finally full? She goes, no. But I feel sick.

So she got herself sick. I go, so the options are you run out, you get sick, or you die. That's your options. You never eat enough chips and salsa to say, I'm absolutely satisfied. My life is good now. I'm either sick or they stop bringing them to me and I'm irritated. I wish I had more chips and salsa or I die.

You realize that's what Solomon is saying. That when we run after the things that we think are gonna fulfill us in this life, and you think they're gonna actually fulfill the eternal longing, it's all chips and salsa.

And you are either gonna run out, and that's what traps us a lot. A lot of us will not buy into the truth on this because you just don't have enough chips and salsa. So you think your dissatisfaction,

you think your problem is the great cosmic waiter God is not bringing you enough of the chips and salsa you keep asking him for. So you feel like your problem is I just need more. Some of you want more salt on it. Some of you want them to be warmer. Some of you are actually already sick.

You have just indulged in more and more and more, and it's already messing you up. That's what addiction is. We run down a unhealthy coping mechanism, and we can turn stuff that is normally healthy into an unhealthy coping mechanism. Fitness can be an unhealthy coping mechanism that makes you sick.

So you're either sick, thinking you want more, or you're just gonna keep at it till you die. Drop dead in that cul de sac, never being satisfied. So here's what I wanna do. I wanna pray with you. I'm gonna challenge you. Keep coming back for the rest of the series.

And we're gonna unpackage some of these different houses on the street. And what does the New Testament say? How do we deal with them if that's the issue? But here's what I wanna deal with right now. Close your eyes. I'm gonna pray.

And I just want you to think about this question because this is important to know this going into the next few weeks and into the next few minutes. And I wanna ask you simply this. Right now, if you're honest with yourself and honest before God in your heart, what is my chips and salsa?

What is the chips and salsa that I keep running after and I just want more and more, and somehow I think it's gonna make me happy? And some of you have been arguing with God about it. You're mad at God or you're depressed or you're sad because you're like, why would God not just give me these chips and

What is it that's keeping you from really living life with the sun, which will then unlock your ability to enjoy life under the sun? What's your chips and salsa?

Father God, I just thank you Lord for your words through the wisdom you gave Solomon, and as he learned through a whole life of going after everything we think can provide that satisfaction, and in the end realizing it doesn't. Lord, may we learn from his wisdom now.

God revealed to me as well the chips and salsa I'm running after right now. The things that I'm trying to replace you with. That'll never be enough. More will only equal less.

Lord, help us all to realize that. And over the next few weeks, help us to to lay those chips and salsa before you and say, God, I I wanna be able to enjoy these in the right way. And the only way I can do it is by living life your way with you.

Help me to do that. Help me to understand what that means. Help us all to understand what that means, and help us all to have courage. The ability to step out in the fear of less to experience the more of your love. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, amen.