More | Week 2

But but no, chips and salsa. Was great. If if you don't know what I'm talking about, you weren't here last week, watch it. It'll be great. So you'll like it, but welcome. So hey, some of you guys know, about two years ago, we we moved. We lived in the same house since we moved here in 2001,

but we moved. And it wasn't much of a, we moved 342

yards away in the same neighborhood. We just in laws went in with us, they wanted a room, and they said, we'll buy a house with you, so we need a little bit bigger house. We bought this house. And when we moved in, gifted us, they gave us a great present. Not only did they help us get into this house, but they said, hey, you know, we wanna donate to the cause of of fixing it up. So we they they gave us a certain amount of money. They said, just let us know what your plan is, but here's the amount of money we wanna give so you can do stuff to the outside. So once you know what you're gonna do, just tell me. I'll I'll give you the money and and all that. That was two years ago and we never did anything. Not because we're lazy, but because we learned our lesson when we moved into houses before and then spent money on landscaping and stuff. Then after you've lived in it, realize, you know what we should have done? Because you because you realize the sun's this way. Why didn't we put a tree there? Why didn't we do that? So we waited to live in the house to figure it out. And so Carrie's been, you know, my my wife, she likes that kind of stuff. So she's always like paying attention. We'll have conversations back and forth. Hey, maybe we ought to do this. Maybe we ought to do that. Maybe well, finally the day came where we figured it out, and we pulled the trigger in the last couple weeks we've been doing it. And and we got really blessed because with what the my in laws gave us, we thought we're just gonna do some stuff in the backyard. We're able to do some stuff in the front, and and and I thought the house already looked great. I mean, it was a it was a good house. So I was like, you know, I'm like, it's great. But Carrie was all excited, and so we just got done getting most of it. It's all done. And I came home from work to see it all cleaned up. And I go there and I'm looking at it. I go, this is so cool. We got better, more pavers here. It's a bigger area. We can get a big table, have family time. I'm getting all excited about it. I'm looking at it and she's the one. I mainly did it for her. She wanted to get it done. And so I'm getting all excited. Look, I go, what do you think? Isn't this awesome? And she's like,

Yeah, that was her answer. That's the book of Ecclesiastes. That's the book of the Bible we're in right now. That that it's one big, You go after a dream. You go after something you think is gonna be so great and in the end your response is, We started this last week. We were looking at the the Ecclesiastes,

that word means preacher. It's written by a guy named Solomon, who is the third king of Israel. And as we opened up and looked at last week, he had a very interesting perspective on life because God supernaturally gifted him the ability of wisdom, meaning he was the smartest guy that ever lived. And and through that, he ended up becoming the wealthiest man who ever lived too. He, they say by today in today's dollars, he was probably worth about $2,200,000,000,000.

So the only trillionaire ever. Wealthiest man who ever lived, smartest man who ever lived. He has the the kingdom. There was a great kingdom at the time. So this guy had ultimate power. He could do what he wanted to do. He had all the wealth to to to whatever he wants to do. He literally had the political power to do what he wanted to do and he was super smart. So you you put that all together and what he decided to do was, I'm gonna use all this wisdom and all my resources and go find out what's the real meaning of life.

And it took him away from God. And Ecclesiastes

when he's older and he's kind of come back, he realized he learned a lesson in all this. And he went after all these things to say here's where I'll find meaning. Here's where I'll find meaning. And every one of them after spending all this research, after going for it, going all in, he ended up going after any desire he wanted and he just goes,

And it's a valuable lesson for us because this is a book is almost 3,000 years old. And yet when you look at the things he said, here's what I tried to go after for meaning, especially we're gonna look at today, the list is the same list that we're still running after. And you would think we would listen.

And what he learned is it doesn't matter how much you get. And the problem we have that we should listen to the wisdom of Solomon is some of us are running after things for meaning and we're not gonna get meaning out of it. And what we think we eventually will because we think we just need more. If I can just get more

and so we think the reason we're not truly content is I just gotta get a little bit more. I get a little bit more. Well, this guy had it all. And he said, it doesn't get you there. And that's why we the big idea for this whole series is simply this. What the book of Ecclesiastes is trying to tell us is more is less.

It doesn't matter how much more we get of these things of this world, it's gonna give us less actual meaning. We're not gonna get there. And so we've been looking at this, we opened that up last week, and today we're gonna look at the first major thing that he spent

a chunk of his life trying to find meaning out of and it's a very common one, it's pleasure. And not that you think pleasure is just that you you only think physical. Pleasure is the idea of feeling good.

My goal is to is to go after things that just make me happy and make me feel good. And that's that's kind of what he went after. And so here we are in chapter two of Ecclesiastes and it says this,

I said to myself, now whenever somebody talks about themselves in the third person, I don't think it's gonna end well for them, but that's just my thought. He said, I said to myself, come on, let's try pleasure.

Let's look for the good things in life. Nobody today just tries to look for the good life. Right? That this is old. We've grown in the three thousand years that we've evolved as human beings. Right? He goes, but I found that this too was meaningless. So I said laughter is silly. What good does it do to seek pleasure?

After much thought, I decided to cheer myself with wine. So as he's trying to go about to have pleasure, he's like, I don't know, this is doesn't seem to be working. You know what I should do? Drink.

That's what I should do. And now you're like, oh, I can relate to that. Now I know. And look what he says, he goes, and while still seeking wisdom, I clutched at foolishness. That's a nice way of saying, sometimes I drank a glass of wine, sometimes I drank

a keg of wine. That's what he's saying. He's like, I partied. I I I really was trying to find happiness through alcohol.

I was medicating to feel good. He goes, in this way I tried to experience the only happiness most people find during their brief life in this world. That doesn't sound pessimistic at all or condescending to all of us. I was just trying to do the only thing that you little people will ever be able to do to try to feel happy, drink.

But then he goes on in verse four and says, I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself. So now he goes, the first thing is he's trying to use alcohol to feel happy. Now he transitions into using possessions

to try to feel significant. And he starts off, now what I want you to catch in this because you got to understand this area is like, here's where we get trapped. When we went after things, the lie we think is the next thing will get me there.

Read what he says here. Like when he says I built huge, what did he say? Did anyone catch it? It's different than what you and I do about a home. What did he say? Homes.

There was an s on the end of that. How about you and me? But I might want to fix her up it and you go get some shiplap, make Joanna Gaines jealous. You want that nice house, maybe an extra bedroom, maybe a pool, maybe another garage, maybe maybe a little piece of land, something like that. We all want a better home. But he says when it came to trying to have a home make you happy, he had homes.

Everything he says on the list is plural. The things that we want one of, he was able to do multiple of it. And his first home that he built, of the homes, the first one was his palace. He built the temple.

And I don't know if you've seen a picture, I've been to Jerusalem, the temple's been destroyed, but the Temple Mount is still there. The Temple Mount is still one of the most magnificent, engineering wonders of the world. It's huge and amazing, and it doesn't even have the temple on it. So he builds this thing.

He spent twice as many years building his palace that he did to the temple. So imagine what his first home was. But he didn't stop there. He goes after homes. Everything is plural in this list. Because look what he does. He goes homes. He goes, and by planting beautiful vineyards.

Not just a vineyard vineyard. It's probably because of all the wine he was drinking. But he goes, I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees. So not just he's outdoors, hey, you know, your outside space is another room to your house. He built like central parks all over the place for himself,

and he would throw huge parties at these things. And so he has these parks and gardens filling it with all kinds of trees. And then look at this verse six. I built reservoirs to collect water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. Reservoirs? How many of you have a reservoir? How many have an armoire?

How many have more than one armoire? Most of us don't even have more than one armoire. He has multiple reservoirs. You know, had so much stuff, he had to build multiple storage places for water to just water all this stuff. You want to talk about landscaping.

This guy was not just on his riding lawn mower on a Saturday afternoon. So look what he's saying. He does all of that. So so he goes from using alcohol to try to feel happy. Next thing is what he's doing is he's using possessions to feel significant.

Starting to sound little familiar to our society and our world and maybe us. Well now, here's the problem. When you start to go after just pleasure, it gets even darker at times. Because verse seven says this, I bought slaves both men and women and others were born into my household. They think he had about a 150,000

slaves. Now now that's the part, well, that doesn't relate today. We don't we don't have have slaves. But why did he need all these slaves? If you want to go after all this stuff that you got to take care of, you need a workforce to take care of it and you want to be in control. So he ended up owning people.

Now, now we don't own slaves anymore, but you know what? If you are going after pleasure for meaning, we still try to own people. We still try to control them. What's this showing is as he was going in all in for pleasure, he's saying I ended up owning all these people. Because basically

I need to control people. There's the pleasure and the power of being in control. And if I'm all about me, I'm going to try to use people. I'm going end up using people for me to be happy. Now we might not do it with the direct act of slavery today but we still try to own people in a marriage.

Think about it. If you're about pleasure is the highest meaning, you get married, have you ever noticed you put two people, husband and wife in the room, you often have three opinions Because one of them keep changing their mind? I won't tell you which one. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

Just making sure you're with me. Don't turn on me. But think about it, you try to be married, if you're both going for pleasure, what happens if you don't agree? Someone has to control the other. Someone is gonna use the other. So the principle that drives slavery is still very present in our today,

in our hearts, in our society. Matter of fact, slavery itself still exists today. There are more people enslaved on this planet than at any time in all of history. Because we still seek pleasure. And if I'm going to seek my pleasure, my best, I will use other people.

And that happens. People get used all the time. And even in a non slavery position, if I am trying to seek pleasure, I'm gonna wanna control the people around me to make me happy. Same exact thing, still happens.

So then you go on and he goes back to wealth, but this is a different thing. He was using possessions before

to try to feel pleasure. But now he says, I own not just these slaves, I own large herds and flocks more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces.

So he's basically saying, I had all this stuff I was able to buy and purchase, but then I, you know how much cash I just had sitting around? He goes, I had stockpiles of gold that was more than other countries had in their whole country. Meaning, I had a huge savings account.

See some of us, you think possessions and materialism and all that is like, don't have a problem with that. I don't seek those things for happiness because I don't spend my money. But you hoard your money.

Some of you like like like that you work so hard because you like just the act of winning and then you like to keep the money. You just like having it. And and the reason I like having it is because when I have a lot of money, you feel secure. So he's trying to he says, Ike was even able to get pleasure through security.

Meaning I had all the savings account in the world. And some of you, some of us, I feel I fall for this too. It's like, don't you just have that next thing? Like if I can just get this much saved. If I can get to there, I think I'll feel so much more relaxed. I'll I'll I'll feel content. I'll feel okay.

Most of you are looking at me funny because in our culture, of you are like, don't understand the words that are coming out of your mouth because I've spent so much money that I have to work till I'm 175 years old just to break even. But but some of us in this room, security is pleasure to you.

Just knowing you got that money stuffed away in that mattress somewhere makes you feel okay. He's searching for security there to make them have meaning.

He also had so much wealth sitting around. He says, he goes, I hired wonderful singers, both men and women. Now think about it, he hired the wonderful singers. Now what he's saying about there is, you know, we have Spotify and all that stuff. Back then you didn't, you don't have these things. So what he's describing, what he did was, it's where you almost get the term house band from. He would go to the greatest singers and actually pay them. They would live in his house, in his palace. And when he wanted to hear their music, bring them in. I wanna hear them sing. Can you imagine if you had that much wealth? Can you imagine if you called up Adele in Timberlake

and said, hey, you're you're my house band. And so you're sitting there just eating your your your your Fruit Loops or whatever, and you're like, you know what? I really want an inspirational song. Get in here. Sing me a song. And you're like, I got Adele. I got Timberlake. I got Nickelback. Not to sing. Nickelback's just community service. I paid them to not sing. And and I'm I'm

I probably just offended the one Nickelback fan in here who's probably also owns cats and is a Seahawks fan. No. No. I randomly said that last service. It's the only time I said it. And someone came up to me, she goes, you know what? I own four cats. I'm from Seattle, and I just went to a Nickelback concert.

And I said, well, it was nice that you came to our church for a little while. No, she liked it. She laughed. I'm just teasing. It's all in fun. But now look where he goes. He tries to have wealth for security, big savings account. But then it says, and had many beautiful concubines.

And with that, he said, had everything a man could desire. So what's a concubine? A concubine is in this culture, was is is you're not really necessarily a slave. You're a wife technically, but it's like a second tier wife.

Which is interesting because for a guy like Solomon a king, you end up with a lot of wives, especially if you went after the ways of the world, which we're going talk about in his life later, is a lot of the marriages were just political things. He probably never even met a bunch of his wives.

And one of his wives was the daughter of Pharaoh. And that was a 100% I just secured my southern border because Egypt was a powerful, powerful nation. And so now you don't attack family.

So you would do these marriage things. So you might not even like the person or even really see them. You just married them, that was it. Concubines on the other hand was a marriage that was more for fun. It was like play thing. And so he's saying I had many beautiful.

Basically saying I could have all the sex I wanted with with a ton of beautiful women. Matter of fact, he only had 300 concubines.

300.

So he's like, could have as much sex with as many beautiful women as I want whenever I want. Now that's the second one. Just like slavery, we think, that doesn't exist anymore. No guy has you don't have 300 concubines. Slight throat punch here. Some of you in this room don't have 300 concubines. You probably have thousands.

It's called pornography. It's the same thing. He's running after sex for satisfaction, to feel good. And and we have a rampant problem with that in our culture. Where we just and you know, our culture even says lots of sex is good, more is better. I mean, may not have concubine in our culture,

but we have multiple sex parties, sleep around, and you know, pornography,

look on the Internet, was many beautiful women, more is better, it's harmless, doesn't hurt anybody. We even say stuff like, you shouldn't marry someone till you sleep with them, because you got to know if you're sexually compatible. Can I just tell you something?

Sex doesn't make a good marriage. A good marriage makes great sex. Okay? The world says it backwards. It says it backwards because it says more and more and more. And the problem is it gives less and less and less. So he's going after all the usual suspects here.

All the same things we run after. He was doing this thousands of years ago.

And look what he ends up saying. Verse nine, he says, so I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me and my wisdom never failed me. Now here's the thing you understand. Verse 10, if you have your Bibles underline this. Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure.

I even found great pleasure and hard work. We're gonna look at work in I think next week. A reward for all my labors. But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere. At the end of all of this, he got everything that most of us are running after thinking that's gonna make me happy. If I can just get a little bit more, he had more than anyone would ever dream of ever happening. And at the end of all he went,

That was the end. How

come? Well, it's a little bit what we looked at last week. The problem with more of even pleasure, feeling good, is that God created, He created us. He put eternity, planted it in our hearts, it says in chapter three. And what he's learning, what the whole book is trying to say is,

there is a longing and a thirst and a hunger in our in every one of us for the eternal. And the eternal is something longer lasting. It goes on forever. And really the longing for eternal is a longing to be in relationship with our creator. We were built for that. That's why we worship things.

If you don't worship God, worship something. Because we were built for that. And the problem is we run to the temporary to try to fulfill an eternal longing. And every time we do that, we think that I just need more and more. It doesn't matter how much of the temporary you get.

It's never gonna quench that thirst and that longing for the eternal. And here's the problem, when I run after the more of more of the temporary, a lot of the temporary stuff he talks about, you realize he wasn't depressed through all this. He had fun.

That's not what he's saying. He wasn't saying like well he was just a depressed guy. You give me all that money and time, I think I'll enjoy it. He never said he didn't enjoy it.

What he said was at the end, it never fulfilled the deeper longing. That deeper longing always caught up to him. He was never truly content. He says there's got to be more. There's got to be more. And so the problem is we're always trying to catch up

more and more but it gives less and less. It wasn't about the pleasure itself. Matter of fact, most of this list in the right context, the actual pleasure, there's nothing wrong with it. We're going see that. By the end of the service you're going to see that when you trust God,

not only do you get the eternal longing met, you can actually enjoy the temporary pleasures. Even if it seems like you have less of it. Because less ends up equaling more. Here, let me show you why. The one biggest problem with about seeking pleasure is you end up with an eye problem.

Solomon uses eye over 40 times in in in in what we've been reading here. Over 40 times he says eye because when you go after pleasure it's all about you. And the problem is when I have an eye problem, I can't see past myself.

And it creates tension and it makes me go to unhealthy places. The places where God says, now you're running after this level. And even though this thing might be good, like sex is good. God created it. But if we run after more and more, we go after it in unhealthy ways that God says this is gonna destroy you.

And we use other people. It it it gets warped.

Matter of fact, he he talks about this in in in the New Testament. I wanna turn to second Timothy. Timothy is this is a letter. This is the last thing Paul ever wrote before he was killed and he knew he was gonna die. You know, this is it. And he's been pouring into this younger pastor Timothy and his some of his last words. And he's trying to go, I need to encourage you before this is all said and done of here's some troubles you're gonna run into trying to be a preacher.

And and and and here's what he says. He goes, you know this, you should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times.

For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God. That's interesting. When you first read boastful and proud, some people are like, that doesn't sound like me. I don't walk around thinking I'm better than everyone else. But it's connected

to the scoffing at God. When he's talking about this kind of pride is when you hear what God says, hey trust me on this. This is how you should live your life. And then you like, no.

I I might like God, but I'm like, I'm not going to do that. I might do this, but I'm not going to do that. And you start picking and choosing, you're scoffing at God. You're boastful and you're proud.

And the reason I'm challenging you, if that's you, if there's some things like, I'm just not gonna listen to this. I don't care. You're a boastful, proud scoffer of God. And it doesn't end well for people like that. And the reason I show this, I don't want you to be stuck in that.

Because I want you to experience the fulfillment of the longing for the eternal that's actually in you. And I also want you to actually enjoy the temporary. Because the temporary things are actually gifts from God when we follow him. So he says they're they're scoffers of God, disobedient to their parents and ungrateful.

If you're all about you, you're always ungrateful because there's nothing's ever good enough. They will consider nothing sacred. They'll be unloving and unforgiving. They will slander others and have no self control.

They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends and be reckless. See what I said? It's like it's like you use other people. When you're all about yourself, you start using, you'll even betray friends. Because friends are are not really friends, they're just resources to be used.

He says, you'll be puffed up with pride and love pleasure. And here's the part, love pleasure rather than God. So what he's saying is what's happening in this cycle is people have become pleasure seekers instead of God seekers.

And you know, you you you see that and you say, well, makes sense. How many say that just sounds like our our society as a whole? And say, that's right. Yeah. Preach it, brother. Preach it. Some of you are saying, amen. You know, if we were a little bit more Pentecostally in here,

where you'd be like, preach it. That's right, man. All that world is going to hell. Jesus, come back soon. You know, we want him back. And you would think he's talking about all the people out there. That's what you assume he's talking about. But look what the next phrase says. They will act religious,

but they will reject the power that could make them godly. You stay away from people like that. Is he saying that people that are lost need to be shunned? No. What he's saying is, Timothy, you know the problem you're gonna have? He's describing church people.

That's what he's describing. He's not trying pagans out there that desperately need to know Jesus. He's talking about you're gonna run into people in your church that come and say they love Jesus. They're gonna act religious, but actually, they're pleasure seekers. They were using religiosity.

Wow, I said it right. Fifth time is a charm. They're using that to still just feel good. And and think about it, just think about it. This might be you.

Is your faith all about just feeling good? The reason I love Jesus is because I feel good. I sing because it makes me feel good. I serve because it makes me feel good. I give because it makes me feel good. Here here's the thing. When we do it right, when we seek God, those things will feel good. I'm not saying it should feel bad. Well, if I don't hate it, guess it's not of God. No. What I'm saying is if you are a pleasure seeker instead of a God seeker,

you might still be doing all of the religious things.

But your orientation towards it is you do it because it gives you pleasure. Not be because you have this great relationship with God or you're seeking him. Meaning you could do all kinds of stuff that looks good, but is it really for the right reasons? One of the most common ones I see sometimes is singing.

Singing. I see people that just love to sing. And you think if you're standing, you got your arms up, you're in the front row, you're doing this, like, oh, that must be the spiritual person in the room. Or they're a little bit, you know, whatever. But but here's the problem. A lot of people love to sing is like you just love to sing.

And it makes you feel good to sing in church to God. And and a lot of you like, I just love our style. But here's the problem. We gotta pick a style. But what happens when we start singing songs you don't like? Do you stop singing?

Uh-oh. If you stop singing when you don't like a song

then what does that say about your motive of why you're singing?

Do you not sing happy birthday to someone at their birthday party because you hate happy birthday?

I just don't like the song.

I mean, liked it in the original hymn form, but now that they've contemporary it up and putting drums to happy birthday, I just I can't sing happy birthday. They've corrupted it beyond all belief. It's it's it's not the way Jesus sang happy birthday. You know, and you're not gonna sing it anymore. Here's the problem. Happy birthday is not for you.

It's for him. It's for him. So what happens when it changes? What happens when I don't like the lights or I like the lights or the song's too new or the song's too old. Matter of fact, someone you get mad at us, but we mix it up. We just sing, be thou my vision. Any of you who grew up in a church with hymn books?

Do you realize that is the oldest book in any hymn book made? Do you know when be thou my vision was written? It was written in Scotland two hundred years before William Wallace said they may take our lives but they never take our freedom. September

that song was written. So if you're ripped like they don't sing the really good song, we mix it up. But here's the reality, you should be, if you really are seeking God, you're gonna sing whatever worship song we sing, whether you like it or not. Now some of the songs you're gonna like more. Fine.

Some you won't like as much, But it's not about whether you like it, it's about whether he likes it. It's for him. That's the difference. And too many people act religious, you say you're mature, and you might not even be a Christian because you're running after the wrong goal. You might have Christianized

or religiously ossiated, whatever, I just make up words, to say just to go after what makes you feel good. And the problem with the pleasure seek, it doesn't mean you don't have pleasure in doing the godly things. But if you are seeking pleasure not God, what happens

is the good things you do because they make you feel good, is what happens to the good when it doesn't feel good anymore. When it doesn't feel good to do good, you'll stop doing good. Stop singing, serving, giving, all those things go away based on how you feel.

Jesus did a parable about it. Parable of the soils. He said there'll be the soil that roots up,

the seed is the word of God. God will come in, it'll root up, you'll like it, you'll grow, you'll enjoy it. But then the worries of life will come and choke off. Meaning things will come and say, it's it's it's not as fun to do this anymore. It's uncomfortable, so I stop.

That's what he's saying. In other words, he's saying, but see, pleasure itself is not wrong. God wants us to enjoy things. He gives us these pleasures of life. Like I said, we can enjoy our homes. We can enjoy the hard work, the fruit of our hard labor. We can enjoy sex. We can enjoy all these things when we do it God's way and we do it first. But the goal, the problem is when we make those the purpose.

We make the gifts the purpose instead of the gift giver. We make the presence the goal over the His presence. In other words, it's this phrase, it's better read than said. Seeking meaning through His presence will deny you the power that is only found in his presence.

That's why he said you will you will have this religiousness, but you will lack the power because you don't really have the power of the gospel in your life.

And that is why so many people, you come here, you're here. Some of you might be right on this edge and you're liking this church thing because it feels good right now. But what happens when it gets hard? When it's not the same? You'll stop because you made the presence that God gives us the goal instead of the byproduct.

Instead of this is something to be enjoyed. So which one are you? Because that's really what Solomon was almost prophetic about, you know, over a thousand years before this. If you go back to Ecclesiastes in in verse, 24,

he says this, so I decided there's nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction at work. Now that sounds like he said, so I decided just have as much fun as you can till you die. But that's not what he's saying because look what he says next. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God.

For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from Him? So you're saying what I finally realized is going after pleasure is the goal never met the purpose of meaning. I never had that longing fulfilled. And then the sad thing on the other side knowing how much I got, it actually stopped even giving me that simple pleasure.

It stopped even being fun. So I lose the more lend to less. He goes, the only way you can truly even enjoy the pleasurable things that God does give us is through a relationship with Him and done in the way He laid it out to be done. And that's why less equals more. Don't go get more and more sex.

Marry someone, commit to them, have sex with one person. The world says you're not gonna get as much sex. True. I didn't mean it that way.

Maybe it will be a lot better. That I meant. It will be because it'll have meaning. And it won't be about using people. Do you want a partner or a play thing? Partner's a lot better.

And so that's what he's saying. He realized this. That that it's all from the hand of God. For who can eat apart from him. Because look what he says, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who please him. So you have the wisdom, you follow Him, you're in a relationship with Him, and then you get the joy of enjoying the things that are pleasurable but you're gonna do it in a way that pleases Him.

And because of that you actually enjoy it, less becomes more. Maybe I should give money. Well if I give money, if my goal is to have possessions and stuff, I don't want to give to my church because I want to spend it on me. I need more, more, more. If I give to you, I'll have less, less, less. He goes but you don't understand, less with me is a lot more than all of you to yourself.

You won't have the guilt, you won't have that pressure

and you'll learn that it's God that takes care of you. And you're gonna go, once you learn that it's God that takes care of you, you're not driven and so worried about losing what you have so you're like, hey, if I have a lot, it's awesome. If I don't have a lot, it's still okay because I got the Lord and that's what really gives me meaning in life. And so it doesn't matter either way. It frees me from the burden.

That's why God asked us to give. He could open up this roof and just, you know, make it rain if he wanted to. Dollars could just fall from heaven like manna did. But he asked us to give because we need that to know that it is God that gets you through. Not your job, not your stuff, but God.

And so it's a it's a it's a gift from God to even do that, to be generous.

He gives wisdom. Because look what he says, but if a sinner becomes wealthy, meaning you're just hoarding your wealth, God takes the wealthy, dwells away, and gives it to those who please him. He goes this to his meaningless. You know what he's saying is, who cares if you go get success in all this wealth and you hog it to yourself? You're gonna die and you'll be dead and then God will redistribute it. And he'll go, I'll just go send it here and there and there. It doesn't matter. You didn't get to enjoy it. It didn't help you any. It didn't give you any peening and all you are is dead.

But we hear that and some of you are hearing that and you're Christians and you won't give. Why? Because you won't let go of the lie. You're trapped. And I am not trying to rattle your cage and make you mad to generate profits. The only profit I want is for you to profit

from the freedom that comes from trusting God. Because he says, when you please God, not only do you get that longing for the eternal, you can actually enjoy the temporary. You can truly enjoy it. It frees you.

So what is this? What is this that I need to do? How do how do I please God in a nutshell? I'm just gonna give you a quick bottom line cliff note version because there was a guy that walked up to Jesus and said too many words in the Bible. Give me the cliff notes. How do I please God? How do you really just what's the most important commandment in all of scripture to remember? And he had an answer.

And here's what he said in Matthew 22 verse 37. Jesus said this, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. So basically you need to love God with all of you. And you know what all means? All means all and that's all all means.

All means all and that's all all means. Meaning his command for you is to not love him with some things and hold this back. Not going a little bit here. He says, I want you all. If I don't have all of you, I really have none of you. If you're deciding how much you follow God, think about it. If you're in the military

and you're at war and you got a lieutenant and you're a sergeant, my dad was a sergeant, and you only followed eight out of 10 orders. You know what that's called? That's called getting yourself in front of a firing squad is what that's called. You have failed even nine out of 10. All means all and that's all, all means.

And so it's love the Lord your God with all of you. Now here's the thing, the reason a lot of us struggle with it is because of what it says in first John. The only way we can truly love God is because he loved us first. You need to look at how much he loves you. Don't do this out of fear or a threat.

Really study, really look and see like Jesus died. We completely ignored him. We completely violated what we got. We ran our own way. We did what we want. And Jesus, God the son came and died for you. He gave his all for us. Absolutely, 100% all when we were completely in the wrong.

That should prove to you, you can trust him. So when you understand how much he loves you, you can then say, well, what he asked me to do with the other stuff, if he's willing to do that for me, maybe I should believe him.

So if you're willing to go all in, there's a second part to this. And this is where I see a lot of people get hung up on as we mature as believers. Because it says next, it says this, love the God Lord your God with all of you. That's the the first and greatest. But then verse 39, he goes, a second.

The second part, he goes, is equally important. Some of you've heard this verse a million times and you probably never stopped and caught that word, equally important. That's actually words, plural. You never caught. This is this isn't secondary. This isn't optional.

This isn't part two. This isn't I'll I'll grow to this. This says if you are completely going all in your love with God, this comes with it. He says love others as yourself. That's why seeking pleasure never works. Because God built us to really not for what we get from the world,

it's it's what we get in the relationships we have in the world. It's a relationship to God and to others. We're to love God and love others. And so we should be believers that want to love others. So one of the reasons why God wants us to serve and to give and to go share our faith and to be a church that grows and be a church that adds services and tells people don't come to 10:45, come to 11:30.

Thank you. And always do that. Then they go, once we fill this, we're almost too full. You realize five services, we're not gonna have enough room for the next two years. Something else is coming that's gonna be really uncomfortable, Mace mainly for me.

But there's gonna be things I'm gonna say challenge, give. We need to build a bigger building. We need to keep reaching out. People go, well why do you care about reaching out so much? All you care about is outside. Now you care about outside. Because he said love God and if you love God you're gonna love others.

You can't say you love God and not care about reaching other people. It's impossible. If you don't care about outreach, you don't love God. For God so loved the world, he gave his son.

God loved the whole world. If we don't care about doing, to do that we need more room, we need to give, we need to serve, we need people to serve in ministry, we need more people to get involved. We don't need Christians to say they're a Christian, come to our church and sit.

And if you come as a Christian and sit, you don't love God. That's what this is saying. You don't. You have this act of religiousness, but no power. So we got to do both. That's what it means to please God. But here's the thing, we resist that because we're stuck in the lie that more is meaning.

And everything I just said, if you're stuck in that lie, you said I'm gonna have to give up and have less of my own time, less of my own money. Less, less, less. I guarantee if you go all in and trust God and love him like he loves you, that less will cut you to so much more. So much more.

Because otherwise you're gonna sit there and you're gonna have these moments. If you're gonna sit there and you're gonna start medicating. Because that's really what what what Solomon did. If you look at the list of what he did, he medicated, he accumulated, he subjugated and he fornicated.

That's pretty much what he was doing. And that's pretty much what we all do. If we run after anything other than God for meaning, that's what we run after. We won't say that in church. But a lot of us, your main goal is fornicating.

I want sexual satisfaction. Some of you is accumulating. I just wanna have more stuff. That's gonna make me happy. Some are subjugated. I'm gonna control the people around me to get what I want from them. We won't say that in church because we're smart enough to know that the answer in church is always Jesus. So no one's gonna say, what's the answer for your life? Fornication. Oh, wait. Did I say that in front of church? But we leave here. How many leave or get in your cars? And one of those four things, that's what your life is answering.

That's what you're really doing. You're never gonna get the joy. You're not gonna have the power of the gospel. You're gonna miss it. I'm not hollering because I'm mad. I'm trying to say, don't miss it. Because otherwise, at some point in your life, you're gonna have the Solomon experience.

You're gonna have kid. You know what? Great theologian already proved this. His name's Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey recently said this in an interview. I wish everyone would get rich, famous, and get to do everything they ever dreamed of doing just so they would find out that that's not the answer.

What he's saying is he came from nothing and got everything and thought it would be it and he's not a happy person. He's searching. He's finding out what Solomon already said thousands of years ago, that no matter, you might be having fun right now,

But you're gonna not have that meaning. At some point in your life, you're gonna have the moment. At some point in life, you're gonna realize the drinking and the medicating is never gonna stop the pain. And you're gonna go,

At some point you're gonna realize all those things you worked hard to get the bigger houses, the bigger this, the bigger that. You're gonna realize, wow, my relationships are a mess and something didn't work and I have all this stuff. You're

gonna go out and maybe you're gonna go after all the sex, got all the pornography and all these things to try to make yourself happy. And then guys your testosterone level is gonna drop and it's not gonna be that big of a deal and you're gonna go, Sorry.

Let me go back. You go after all this stuff and you have a Or you could be running after just trying to just be successful in life. Even I'm gonna work hard, I'm gonna be I'm gonna build this business, gonna change the world and it might. And it's okay. Those are not Like I said, a lot these things are not wrong things. They're just not the goal. And you might go do all that stuff and they see I changed the world until the world changes again. And you're gonna go,

And all the time you're gonna be,

Just like I was there with my wife when she looked at this landscaping and said, And then I was like, what?

Are you kidding me after all this? What do you mean? And I realized she kinda didn't know how to react, so she's a little bit mad because I was starting a fight because we're both stressed out now. And I've learned after twenty six years, just walk away. Don't break eye contact, but walk away. And just leave her alone.

And within an hour, within an hour, she came and we're talking. She goes, you know, I know why I said, I know I'm I'm I'm I'm I don't feel good about why I'm not as happy as I thought I would be. I should have been. I was super happy, but I'm not. I go, well, why? And she goes, well, well, it starts with you.

Now I'm going, Is this should I be admiral Akbar? It's a trap. You know, get away. The shields are still up. And yeah, Star Wars reference, yay. But so I didn't know. She's like she's like, no. No. No. What I mean is like,

I cast on the inside and I immediately feel regret or guilt or I start to look for the flaws and I start then I watch you. And whenever we get some blessing or a gift like that from God, you don't overthink it. You just enjoy it. You're just like because I'm sitting here going this is awesome. You just you just enjoy it. So I think okay, this is a good thing. And then she goes you enjoy it like a dog with his head out the window while the car is driving down the street.

And now I'm like, wait, it is a trap. So I'm the dog just like, that's me. So I go, wait, did she just say I'm too stupid to realize we're going to the vet and I don't know what's actually happening?

And I go, are you saying I'm She goes, no, no, I really mean that you just let go and you can enjoy it because you know that this was just a gift from God. You've already honored God. You're not looking for it and she goes, I realized it started with you because I see you doing that and I go, why can't I do that? And as I thought about it, I had a moment. And she goes, she realized I'm trying to find purpose in pavers.

I'm trying to find meaning in the design. I wanted this to mean more than it meant. Instead of just a blessing that makes it a better house to use and and we're fortunate to have it. She's like thinking like I want Joanna Gaines to be impressed. I want people to walk up to my house and say, wow, this really says Carrie.

And she goes, I was trying to find meaning in the present. She was trying to get something out of our house that a house was never supposed to give. And that's what Solomon is saying. You can enjoy these things and you could decide to either do all these moments, running after all these things to be either this, this, this,

this, or you can stick your head out the window of life and just smile like a dog that's going down the street, super happy, pumped, just thinking, this is awesome. It's your choice, which one do you want? Because that's all I got to say. That's all I got to say. So let's pray.

Let's pray. Father God, I thank you Lord for how you do love us. And Lord, thank you that you not only want to fulfill that longing for the eternal, if we trust you, you want to make the temporal joy and pleasure actually be a joy. But we buy a lie that makes us run from the eternal

and then run with the more of the temporary that really just takes us away from you. So Lord I pray for anyone in this room that's having an a a a moment Or maybe those are super happy right now and what they're running after and they haven't had the moment yet.

But I'd pray that maybe today would be the beginning of a moment where that, can be an Like what my wife realized. Maybe they can look at the things that are frustrating in their relationships and their life and instead of saying, that can turn to an of I see how much God loves me.

I choose to go all in and love him back and just just go where he wants me to go to free me. Lord, I pray that every person would think about that and look for the and Lord, you are the God who can speak to him, not me. So speak to each one of us about what that means. Give us clarity

and the courage to run with that moment so we can get away from the moments. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.