Never Enough | Week 1

Hey. How's it going? What

is this? It's well, that's the truth. Everyone needs a little Jesus in their life. Aw. That's stupid. Okay. I mean, it's true, but it's a dad joke. Sorry. I'm still getting over Easter. I don't think I think I got five brain cells left right now, so we'll see how this goes. But no, it's it's good. You know,

back when I was a kid in, like, the seventies, I I would read comic books, and I got to the last of one of the comics, last page, and there was an ad that was like, this is gonna change my life. I was like, oh,

I I I need this. If I can get this, I will conquer the world and I will be happy until the day I die. And I actually found the ad actually for sale,

and then I got a picture of it. Okay. And the reason it became valuable is that's, the guy that drew that ad that did the coloring went on to become a famous DC Comics illustrator. And and so but but I saw this thing in the back, a 100 piece toy soldier set. It was a little steep in price, a dollar 50. But

I had the money. You know, I'd saved up some of my when I was a little kid, like, this is, 1975 or something like that. And I saw a 100 peace look at all those soldiers and look at that. All I could imagine was conquering worlds with that thing. I mean, if you look at the list says, what's included?

What that says because you can't read it there. It's a blurry. It said it says four tanks, four jeeps, four battleships, four cruisers, four sailors, four riflemen, eight machine gunners, eight sharpshooters, four infantrymen, eight officers, eight WAFs, eight WACs, four bombers,

four trucks, eight jet planes, eight cannons, four bazooka men, four marksmen, all for a dollar 50. And on top of that, it is packed in a footlocker. And I was like, I have to have this.

I I I just gotta get it. And so I I sent off, which shows you how things have changed in the world, that you tear off that little thing there, you fill it out, your address, you put it in an envelope, you put a dollar 50 cash in the envelope,

and then you send it to them, and you just trust that six to eight weeks later, your rush order will show up. So I did, and I got it. And, you know, I don't have any of the toys left. They all I get you know, you destroy them and dog eats them and, you know, they get melted in the Arizona sun if you leave them outside.

But I kept the Foot Locker. Okay. You guys wanna see it? I I can drag it out here. Alright. I I I I have to drag it here. Might need some help. But

there's my Foot Locker. Probably can't see it in the back. 100 piece toy soldiers set. They promised me a footlocker, a 100. I was imagining a real footlocker. When my mom brought she comes like, hey, your footlocker showed up with your 100 piece set. I go, really? You need help bringing it in? She threw this to me.

And the worst part is when I opened it, it's like chips are now. They give you this big bag, but it's half full. It only took half of this box to hold all 100 pieces. Half of it. And then I counted them and there was only 97. They ripped me off.

But there's nothing you could do about it. You you you can't do anything about it. I can't go call them. All this entire company only has a PO box. That's it. There was nothing you could do about it back then. And that's why this was the most successful one of those campaigns of selling a product, not totally ripping you off, but misleading kids. They did this from the late fifties. These were sold from the late fifties until,

1982. And and and they they made a bunch of money off of it because I'm sitting there going, this is gonna change my life. And and it did. It gave it taught me about disappointment and and in a great way. And that's really what we're gonna talk about. It's funny that as a kid, I saw this and I thought, that'll be it.

If I can get that, I'll be so content. And the reality is, if you look in our world, and what we're gonna be talking about through this book of Ecclesiastes is this simple truth. We haven't changed much as we've gotten older. We we we spend more than 1.5 on the next thing, And it's more than just stuff.

We run after relationships. We run after jobs. We run after entertainment. We run after pleasure. We run after political power. We run after all these things thinking that that's gonna fix the brokenness in the world, the brokenness in my heart, and it's gonna fulfill the longings that I have.

And the truth is it will never do that. And that's what we're gonna unpackage in this never enough because the things of this world will never be enough. But yet we don't learn that. We just get more advanced in the ways we try to go about making that work.

And so the big idea for today and kind of for this whole series over the next few weeks is simply this. Temporal things will never be enough for a heart that's made for eternity. The temporal things, everything And we're gonna be looking in Ecclesiastes. That word Ecclesiastes means the one who assembles.

It's the teacher who assembles. It was written by a guy named Solomon, and he basically walks through this whole principle of how how how life under the sun, a few key words, he'll say a lot. Under the sun means a life lived from the perspective of this world, our perspective here,

and trying to find fulfillment and everything about under the sun will never fulfill.

And then he goes on and the whole thing is an experiment. Because Solomon was a guy, if you're not familiar with church, he was king David's son. That's the third king of Israel. He presided over Israel's greatest expansion, its greatest wealth.

And and he started off really, really well, very faithful. He wrote the book of Proverbs when he was younger. And the reason he had such wisdom from the Lord is the Holy Spirit inspired him, but also God gave him wisdom beyond

most people because he asked for it. When he was young, God asked, what would you like? And he goes, I wanna be wise so I can be a good leader and a good king. And he says, hey, since you asked for that and not for wealth and all that, you're gonna get wealth. You're gonna get success. You're gonna get that too. And

and he became extremely wealthy, presided over that, but he also kinda got pulled away from the Lord. So he wrote Proverbs when he was younger, and then he kinda got dragged away from trusting the Lord, got pulled into the things under the sun. And part of how he got wealthy and Israel expanded was by not trusting God.

He would make political alliances with a lot of countries, and every time you did that, you sealed it with a marriage because, you know, if you get those people to be your in laws, you'll get along, and it'll be great. That well, that was the philosophy. So he ended up with, 800 wives.

And a lot of his wives that he tried to be nice to, they wanted to worship other gods on it, so he was, okay, fine. And he got dragged away into it. So then he walked away. Well, then he wrote Ecclesiastes when he was older.

And what he talked about is how I went on a I tried as an experiment. I not tried like being nobody. He's like, I tried to use wisdom, and I tried everything under the sun to find out if life can have not be meaningless. And we'll talk about that word. It's it's just means a vapor.

Can it be something of can it ever fulfill? And he came to the conclusion it can't. And here's the thing. This is a guy that got to try everything, he had the means to do it more than us. And I think that's why we get trapped. We think if I just had more of this, I'd be okay. He had everything he needed. Economists

have looked back and tried to evaluate how wealthy was his wealth if you put it in today's dollars, How much in the amount of wealth he had compared to the world and all of that. And they look at it and they have an estimate. And just by comparison,

right now, the top 10 wealthiest people in the world, if you add all of their wealth together, it's about 1,500,000,000,000 They estimate Solomon was worth about $3,000,000,000,000 So he was twice as wealthy as the top 10 richest people on the planet right now. So he could walk into a party,

and you would have Elon Musk and Bill Gates and whoever's got owns Apple right now and, you know, Disney. I mean, whatever. I don't know. But the richest people on the planet, you know, Jeff Bezos could be there, you know, getting off his yacht. And and and and and and he would look at all that and go, oh,

I have to party with the peasants. That's So when he says, I tried everything, he really could. And he discovered all these things never brought contentment. And what's interesting as we get into this over the next few weeks, we're gonna look at the different things. And the list

is exactly the same as what everybody struggles with today. It's exactly the same. And so today, we're looking at chapter one and this idea that the whole idea of the book, and he lays it out that these temporal things will never be enough for a heart made for eternity. And I get it.

As we go for the next few weeks, some of you are like, well, easy for him to say. We're like, it's nice when someone who has a lot of money can say, it's not everything to have money.

And and and I if you're like me, I wanna say, well, you know what? God, I've learned how to handle being poor. Can I have the opportunity to learn how to handle being rich?

But it's deeper than that. It's not just about stuff and money. We'll see that. So I just wanna read chapter one, and what chapter one can be broken down into two parts.

Here's the problem, and here's the problem with how I tried to solve the problem. There's a problem and the problem with trying to solve the problem. And let's read it. He says this. These are the words of the teacher, king David's son who ruled in Jerusalem. Everything is meaningless.

Alright. Let's close in prayer because I guess it's meaningless. I already told you that word meaningless is the word hevel. If and what it really means is a vapor, a breath, a mist. It's describing something that's real but is impossible to grasp or hold onto as ultimate. So

he says, it's just this it doesn't mean the things that God has us do in the world, things we do, they're they're not, like, bad. They just can't be held on to as the ultimate. They'll never provide the ultimate satisfaction. So verse three. Well, he says, says the teacher, completely meaningless.

What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? I already told you what that meant. Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. The sun rises and the sun set, then it hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles.

Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. The Cardinals play in the NFL, but they never win. The Seahawks win, but their fans never shut up.

Oh, you guys are a good service. Every other service, some sea oxman went, woo. And I said, see? Some things never change. Then the water returns again to the rivers and then flows out into the sea. Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we're never satisfied. No matter how much we hear,

we aren't content. History merely repeats itself. It's all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. Sometimes people say, here is something new. But actually, it's old. Nothing is never truly new. If we don't remember what happened in the past and in the future generations,

no one will remember what we're doing now. Isn't that true? Even with trends. You ever see because nobody pays attention to the past, I'll see someone wearing bell bottoms and act like this is a brand new thing. And I'm like, no. I wore corduroy bell bottoms to school when I was a kid. So here you go.

Then he goes into and here's the problem with trying to solve the problem. Verse 12. I, the teacher, was the king of Israel, and I lived in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything done under the sun under 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. What is wrong cannot be made right. What is missing cannot be recovered.

And now in that, the verse 15, the literal translation says, what is bent cannot be made straight again. It's implying a circle versus a path. Meaning, what is in a circle can never be made into a straight line again to get anywhere. It's like you're stuck in this circle.

And he says, I said to myself, look, I'm wiser than any of the kings who ruled on Jerusalem before me. He's talking about his dad and Saul. And he goes, I have greater wisdom and knowledge than any of them, and I'm also the most humblest. I added that part.

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 what he's saying

in his wisdom that came from under the sun and his experiment trying everything, all he discovered was how bad the problem really is. It was like he just discovered the world's more broken than he thought. The system doesn't work. I'm more broken than I thought. I can't

so I know the I know what the problem is, but I don't know what's the answer. Because that's what we do. It's accurate. Very accurate. We never find true contentment in the things of the world. We can have it for a little while, but then it's gone. Then it's gone. So what does this say?

Two points about this, about how temporal things will never be enough for a heart made for eternity. First thing is it's saying that life is a cul de sac that cannot fulfill. Like I said, it's bent.

You know, if you're in a cul de sac. If you live in a cul de sac, you can't really get anywhere. I live in Power Ranch, which was designed around every street with houses as a cul de sac.

You can't get through on any of them. So there's these main roads, and it's great if you live there because you feel better with your kids. They're not running out into a street that has a lot of drive by, know. But it makes it a little bit weirder getting in and out. I live pretty close to Queen Creek and Road

and to Power, but there's no direct way. I can't you know, because my street doesn't follow through. You gotta get around. You gotta get to here. It's it's more complicated. This is saying that this whole world, the life under the sun that we live in, is one giant cul de sac. And so we keep going in a circle,

and we keep running around and doing the same things in the same way. It's basically the definition of insanity, trying the same things in the same way and hoping for a different result. And we keep thinking, I can get there. I will be content when I get there. Like, let me ask you this.

I am pretty confident, if you think about this, everyone in this room is the same place where I get, even though I know this. I still think if I can just get this or a little bit more of this or when it comes to problems and struggles or a little bit less of that, then I'll be set.

If I can get to this much in my savings in retirement, if I can get to this job, if I can get to here, then I'll be set. I bet every one of us has that thing. Now it's okay to say, When I get that, I know I'll be happy. It'll be a good goal. But in our hearts, we think that'll be it. I'll finally be content.

But it won't stick. It won't stick. There was a study done by a guy named, two guys. What was their name? I wrote it down here somewhere. Brickman and Campbell in 1971.

And they did this study. It ended up being called the hedonic treadmill. So we've known this. What what Solomon's writing about three thousand years ago, they've discovered in in the seventies, and they were probably wearing bell bottoms. And

and the hedonic treadmill is they did this research of everybody, and they said, what happens when they got better circumstances? They got all the way from a kid getting a new toy, all the way up to someone who was kinda broke winning the lottery and finally becoming wealthy. And they discovered

the research found this, that people adapt to improved circumstances. They adapt end up adapting to it and then returning towards the baseline of how they felt before. In other words, upgrades do not satisfy for very long. There's a peak, a moment,

and then you go back to your baseline. So here's the problem. If your baseline was kinda depressed and frustrated and you were just like, I just because because of this issue you're in, you're like, if I just had this,

if it was really about that, and then you got what you thought you just had, you're happy for a little while, and you always end up back feeling how you did before. It's that's not even Christians that did that study. That's a secular, non Christian study. The Bible talked about this three thousand years ago.

But why do we still think why do some of us that are going, No, I'm happy right now. Or I know I'll be happy when I get this. Well, some of us that still feel happy right now is because so far, your life has been not blocked by hardness as much. You've been able to get from one thing to the next. You've had success.

So when this didn't work, when this started to fade, you were able to jump over to the next thing and jump over the next thing and jump over so you think it's working. What happens when you can't? What happens when you hit a wall? What happens when you fall over? Or what happens when you die?

And you realize you never fulfilled? You just distracted yourself your whole life. See, life is this cul de sac under the sun. That's important. Under the sun is just from our perspective with just us and our wisdom. In other words, it's one giant Groundhog Day. And the truth is that could be fun at first,

but eventually waking up to I got you, babe, gets annoying and gets defeated and depressing. And the added problem is the next thing he talked about at the end of this chapter is wisdom can diagnose the problem but not deliver us from it. It could say, Here's the problem, but it can't deliver us from it. Because he says

he talks about how the more you know, the sadder you are because you find out more about brokenness, more about this, being more and it just doesn't work. And and and he finds out he calls it meaningless. He says chasing the wind. That's what it's like. And that's interesting.

Because years ago when I was at a men's retreat, one of our guys had to go to the hospital. So I went to the

hospital. It was late at night, found out. So I went down to see how he was doing. And before I tell the rest of the story, almost every service someone's come up and says, you never finished the story. Was the guy okay? And I go, no, he died, but that would ruin the story. So I didn't wanna say that.

He was fine. I was just kidding. So stay with me.

And so when I showed up, I pull in. There's this guy walking around in a circle kind of in the parking lot a little bit, and I couldn't hear what he's saying. But it just I thought he was on the phone at first, I realized, oh, he doesn't have a phone in his hand. And I noticed that he was just kept kinda

And so then I got out. I'm like, maybe I should steer clear, now I'm kind of invested. I wanna know what's going on. I don't wanna get too close because he seemed odd. So I got close-up so I can hear him. And what he was yelling is he's like, come out and face me. Why? Oh, hitting me from behind.

Face me. Like, oh, there you are. And he's like, go get over here. And I watched for a minute or two. He's like, what is he saying? He keeps saying someone's coming up behind me. And then I noticed every time his hair changed direction from the wind was it was swirling,

that when it would blow forward, know that you'd turn around and turn into the wind and then go, there you are. And I go, he was trying to fight the wind, literally. And the first thing I thought is, that must be one of our congressmen.

He's not gonna get anywhere. But, man, he needed to be inside the hospital, not outside the hospital. Why would you try to and he was messed up. But you know what? You can feel the wind. It's a real thing. But you can't grab it, and you can't fight it to submission and get a victory out of it. You just feel it.

And that is what he's saying here. I realized that even trying all the wisdom, trying everything, I found out I am trying to chase the wind down. I'm trying to wrestle the wind. I'm trying to get ahold of it in a way that brings contentment and satisfaction. And I realized you can't. And it's crazy to keep trying.

Just ask yourself, what is the one thing that you are convinced if you got or got more of or if it's pain and struggle you got less of that you think that will finally put contentment in your heart?

We all do it. And we're all acting like that crazy guy in front of the Flagstaff Hospital. And we keep thinking the next turn, the next thing, I'll finally get it. But you won't. You won't.

Why, though? Why do we do that? Why, as I wanted to call this series a James Bond themed series, The World Is Never Enough. Couldn't get the rights to the music though.

Well, he kinda answers that. And we'll see ahead, but I don't wanna leave it on just here's the problem and here's why we can't solve the problem. So I wanna jump into chapter three because there's one verse in there that kinda sums up what everything around it is talking about, why life under the sun will never satisfy.

And in chapter 11, he starts off. He goes into this famous passage, there's a time for everything. He doesn't mean everything's good. He says that in this circular life, things are gonna happen, good things, bad things, and and we wanna get depressed by them because he's not trying to say this is he's trying to say there are good things to do, and we'll unpackage that over the weeks. We're gonna talk about each of the things that he said he ran after and why it didn't work, but then we're looking at it from a scriptural perspective and say, then what does God say we should be doing with these things?

And and what he's trying to say is these things can be enjoyed, And even if they're suffering, that you can learn and get through them, and there's a good to that. The problem is what you're trying to make them into. And so he says at the end of this list of stuff,

and he he goes back and he says he has this burden placed on us all. But in verse 11, he all of sudden stops and says, yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. Meaning, there's a purpose for these things, but it's just not what we think the purpose is.

And he answers what the purpose is and why we have this problem in the second part of this 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. And he goes on, so I think we should just be happy and enjoy what he's given us

and deal with the bad things, but not in a in a give up way. What he's trying to say is everything can be beautiful, but our struggle is God planted eternity in our hearts. And that is why we don't understand what he's doing. He's saying we get frustrated. We get depressed because we long for something

that this world cannot fulfill. We try to fill it with the things of this world, and then we get frustrated and confused on what God's trying to do. And we think, if God loves me, why didn't he take this pain away? Or if God loves me, why didn't he give me more of this?

Because we are convinced that what will give me contentment is these things. And he goes, no, it won't. So here's the false teaching that many of us have thought that even Christians have taught, is there is one false teaching, this thing called a prosperity gospel,

which says, no, no, no. God does want you to be healthy and get everything you want and have the riches and all. All you have to do is trust him harder and then you get it all. That's a lie from the pit of hell. Because even if you did get rich, it's not gonna fulfill this longing. That's a lie and a false teaching.

But the other extreme is to teach, you know what? You are so bad and evil because you want more. The desire is not the problem. The fact that we want more, the fact that we say, I never have enough of this, is not the problem. It's just pointing out the problem that we do have a desire for more.

We were built for more. At the end of this sermon, we're gonna sing a song, Made For More. Because we were. We're made for more. But not like prosperity gospel, just more of this world. That'll never fulfill. The problem isn't the desire for more.

The problem is how we're trying to fulfill it will never fulfill us. It'll never give us fulfillment. It'll never give us peace. It'll never give us contentment. So that's what he's talking about, how life is meaning, and we're caught in this cul de sac

because we keep thinking. Then we get confused about what God's doing. We can't understand, and we want answers. When we don't live by answers, we live by promises. And he has told us what he's gonna do, and we get stuck. And that's the biggest struggle I see amongst those of us that are in church all the time.

We say we believe in Jesus, but our goals and our actions and our attitudes are exactly only under the sun attitudes. And that is why we're not happy, yet we get frustrated with God. And God's saying, nope. The problem isn't the problem you have. The problem

is usually never the problem that we think it is. And that's the problem. You should write that on your refrigerator. None of the other services got it. It takes me about three services to figure out my sermon. Just kidding. So ask you, what if the problem is not what you don't have enough?

It's not that you don't have enough or you have too much of something you don't want. But what if we're asking the world to do something it can never do?

That's where we struggle even more. Because what he means by it's the same, it's made look different. There's different novelties. There's different ways to do the the exact same thing. And we get confused by that. In other words, I'm not talking about just more money, more stuff.

I'm talking about anything that we chase after that are a gift from God,

but we turn it into a God. Because the gifts from God make great gifts. They make terrible gods. When we replace and try to fulfill the eternal longing because that eternal longing

isn't just to live forever. That the eternal longing is the longing to be what God made us. He planted his image in us. He planted us with this idea that there is more than this this earth. There there is an eternal concept. We understand that. He planted in us the desire for relationship that's true and real. He planted us with this idea of an eternal love and all these things, but we keep thinking we can fulfill that with the temporal things, and that's what gets us frustrated. And

it's not just about I'm not talking to just like, oh, you keep working. You're trying to get this, and you're trying. I'm not just talking to the person that's a workaholic because you just want the money so you can have be a materialist. I'm talking about it as deeper. It goes in anything that you try to fulfill the eternal with the temporal. For example, it the the the the workaholic in this room and the alcoholic in this room are doing the exact same thing.

It's the exact same thing. You are trying the alcoholic might be running to alcohol to feel good for a moment and to forget something. But you are trying to find a contentment in the moment from something that's temporal and it won't do it. In the end, it's unhealthy for you too. Same thing with a workaholic.

Why are you workaholic? Is it's either you gotta have success, you think the success will help or the money will help, or and even some of us guys, I gotta support my family. You probably stopped needing enough money to support your family a long time ago. It's not really about that.

It's about you think that this is what's gonna give you purpose in life. It's gonna give you status. It's gonna give you contentment. It just isn't healthy. I'll go another step. Marriage. Now don't get me wrong. There's real problems in marriage. Some of us struggle in our marriages and have struggled in marriages we had.

And and the struggles were real. You didn't communication issues, betrayals. All those things are real things you have to navigate. So don't hear what I'm not saying. But for many of us, the reason you are so hopeless and can't even get help and get it fixed, Even if you've tried,

it's often because you have the wrong idea of what the purpose of the marriage is supposed to be. You think that marriage is supposed to be Jerry Maguire. You complete me. That is so unscriptural. God didn't say your partner completes you. God created marriage because your partner complements you. In other words, God did not

create marriage to make us happy. It's not about making us happy. And being, oh, good. Whew. I thought I completely missed the purpose of it.

Sorry. This is a real issue.

He made it to make us holy. Because when you learn to work those issues, when you learn to love somebody and it gives you the closest relationship where you can learn to sacrifice and be like you can be Jesus to one another, and that makes you both closer to God.

And when a marriage focuses on both becoming holy and becoming like Jesus, guess what happens to the distance between each other? But if you think and I'm not seeing you say it consciously.

We put on a marriage thinking because that's one of the things. I got the toy. I got this. I got this. And then I gotta get married. And you think the married part is supposed to answer that eternal longing. And then the honeymoon's over, the real problems start happening,

and the problems are real. They need to be dealt with, but they get exaggerated because you think something's wrong. This isn't fulfilling me. This is not giving me because you're trying to make it be something it was never supposed to be.

What would happen to your marriage right now? If both of you, if you're struggling around this, if you both just look at your children and realize you're not supposed to replace God. You are not supposed to fulfill my eternal longings. So why don't we just set that expectation

aside? Because here's the problem. Expectations are planned resentments. And that's why you start resenting each other. That's why we start resenting God. When we expect God to give us fulfillment in in in earthly things. And then we don't get it, we start to resent Him. And He's trying to say, that isn't what you need.

See how much deeper this is than what you thought it was saying? He wasn't just saying, Dude, life really sucks and then you die. Well, true, have as much fun as you can before you die. Party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth. Man, I just revealed my age. In other words, Ecclesiastes, he is not anti life. He's anti idolatry.

Because the things God gives us are not bad, but the gifts make terrible gods.

So what's the answer? John ten ten, just one verse here in the New Testament

is what he was pointing to. But see, here's the problem. This is a precursor of the gospel. What Solomon is figuring out is is the my wisdom. The wisdom from Moses can't answer this question. We need a greater wisdom. And the book of John opens up with, in the beginning was the word, and the word was God.

The word was with God and the word was God. And then it goes on to say the word became flesh and it describes Jesus. Jesus is the logos, the Greek word for the word. He is the living embodiment of the word of God. We need the word, the wisdom

that's from beyond what we have. And in John 10, he's describing part of what that need is. He says, We're sheep, but he's the good shepherd. And he goes, There are animals and people that try to steal sheep, and animals try to jump in and kill sheep. And he says, A good sheep will listen to the

voice. Sheep actually are pretty stupid, but they get to learn the voice. They know the voice of their shepherds. So if they hear a false voice, if they're smart, they they don't listen to it. They need to listen to the right voice and avoid the thing that'll kill them.

And he goes, so he's writing about that. He says, I am that good shepherd. And then in verse 10, answers it, why? He's saying something about us and very spiritual. In verse 10, he says this, the thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

And that word for life is Zoe. That's where they add rich and satisfying. It's just adding that so we can understand what kind of life. Because in English, you just hear life. You think, oh, I'm not gonna die. Well, you know, no. It's not just living on forever. It's rich and satisfying. Zoe means real life, a depth. It means a life with fulfillment,

with satisfaction, and contentment, and get this, despite your circumstances. Life under the sun, we only feel good when our circumstances feel good. The life that Jesus died to give us when we put our faith in him is a life that you can be in bad circumstances and be content. You can be in a tough spot and have fulfillment.

It doesn't mean you feel good. It doesn't mean that it's not hard. I mean, read the Psalms. It means we cry out to God and it is tough. But we know that there is a hope, there's a purpose, there's a power, there's a life, there's a strength that is not under the sun.

It is over the sun and beyond the sun, and that life under the sun only makes sense, and it can only be lived when you realize that it needs to be a life lived with and through the sun. That's how it works. And yet so many of us as this is one of the biggest struggles we have in our Western culture

with all the freedom and all the wealth we've had to figure out. We as Christians go through our everyday life with the same attitudes, the same goals, the same purposes that people that don't know Jesus have. We just spiritualize it and throw Jesus in and use him as the resource to get us there. He's not the resource.

He is the source. Period. And Solomon didn't know Jesus' time, but he knew that's what we needed. We need the voice of the good shepherd. And that's what he's saying is we need to put our trust in him.

What would it look like if we did stop asking temporary things to do eternal work? Receive the things of this world, the good things, the gifts of God as what they are gifts to be stewarded and managed and used and enjoyed, but done properly. But not make them gods. And instead, when we're struggling, name the idol beneath

the ache, the idol beneath that ache, and bring that ache to Christ instead of endlessly feeding it? What if we cried out to God when we're running the circle and realize, this is not getting me anywhere? And maybe you're getting some, you keep feeling good, feeling good, you realize it is a treadmill.

You do have to jump from one thing to the next to the next to the next to keep that going. And you know in your heart, every time you got to that next thing, you thought this is it. And then for all you realize, I had to get to another thing. Well, what happens when you fall over and hit your head?

You're not getting to the next thing. I was here

Friday, first time that in, my daughter was here too. And she came up to me and was talking, and apparently we had in our family text channel my youngest grandson, Ollie, three and a half years old. He's basically David, our worship pastor. Basically, he is his son. Not basically. But that was a really weird way to say it.

But he goes to our childcare that we provide for the staff here. And he he was playing outside and apparently fell, hit his head,

and and and he got this big the picture, it just looked like he had this swollen tumor. My daughter was like, what in the world is it? Found out he he's fine. But then we hear she's like, I just don't understand. How did it get hit? How did that happen? Not in a bad, angry she just couldn't figure out how did he fall that he just got this big lump on his head. And I go, have have you seen kids? I mean, that's just but she was curious and wanna know. I go, you know, we can go over to our security thing, and the guy's over there and ask him to look at the film because it's over here in this playground area right here by our C Building. And a lot of you, your kids do the same thing. It's funny. We my wife bottled that wood kind of play stuff thinking it thought it differently, and everyone just ended up setting in a circle. And the kids just run around the circle for a long time.

And and that's what they were doing. So we we we went over to to to pull up the film just so she can see it. And I wanted to see it for curiosity's sake too, but not hers. Hers was like, how did my kid get hurt? Mine was like, I wanna watch this happen. That's why she's called mom and I'm called pop.

You know, like so so I bring her and they they started they had to fast forward. They rewinded too far, then they're fast forwarding. And it was funny when you're watching them fast forward. These kids are like especially the boys are like they're jumping over these things and they stop.

You know, they'll stop for a little while. Hey, this is fun right here. Alright. We're bored. Let's keep going. And then there's

and it was so fast. Like and then all of a sudden, he slowed it down to to normal speed to get and it didn't really slow down much. Apparently, he only had it on one. That first dot that barely speeds it up, it looked so crazy. I realized, kids are crazy. They were still like

you know? And and and then we get there and we see what happens. And what happens is he's running and jumping, and then one of them was further away than the other. So he stops. He gets his footing, and he goes,

and he jumps. And he made it, but he landed right on the lip on this side. He and then fell and went face planted into the next one. And then he's laying flat on the ground. He does what because he starts kicking his legs because you know it hurt. And they get kinda sad, but all these men do.

The boys, he didn't cry right away. He got angry first. That's another thing that us guys never grow out of. Just know if you have a guy in your life and he gets angry at first, he's most likely sad or tired or hungry or want special married time. That's usually the the the usual suspects. But he kicked first,

but then he sat up. And his friends came around. When he sat up, you see him crying. And then his his friend's little boys were like, I don't know what to do in this situation. And the reason my daughter really wanted to watch is because she had asked him, what did you do

when you were crying? And she wanted to see it happen. Because what he told her and she said, well, what did you do when you were sad and hurt and crying? And he goes, miss Elizabeth picked me up and cuddled me. And then I was okay. It didn't change the fact that he hit his head. It didn't change the fact he had a huge lump.

It didn't change anything. But it changed everything. Because she picked him up and took him outside the circle and just held him.

That's what this is saying. God planted eternity in your heart and my heart. And I don't care how fast and how successful you're running around that circle, You are longing for the arms of Jesus to cuddle your heart, to cuddle you when it's hard to cuddle you when it's good, to be a person that is it's real.

It's a real relationship. It's an absolute love that transcends time and space itself. We want the eternal relationship. And that is the only thing that'll fulfill that longing that is driving the never enough attitude in our lives. So we're gonna sing the song I said, Made for More, because we are.

But to be made for more, you gotta know who you are. And you can't know who you really are or who you're supposed to be if you don't know who he is. And you gotta surrender. You gotta cry out to him like Ollie did. And you gotta surrender to his love and let him cuddle you.

And that way, it doesn't matter what your circumstances are. That's where you find peace. That's where you find contentment. That's where you find the hope and the strength to live life under the sun. Because there is a time for everything.

But what we really need is the eternal one. So as we sing this song, there's two types of people in this room. Some of you are like Ollie. You know, you've hit your head. Some of you might be in the anger stage. You're frustrated. If God, why did this happen? Or why is he not letting this happen? Or maybe

you are now to the tears stage. Let this song sing it out as a cry for your

missing out. I would just ask you to think about what we just talked about, think about God's word. Maybe listen for this the the voice of the Holy Spirit and listen to the words of this song of this song. And just contemplate what it means. Because whether you realize it or not, we were all made for more.

Praise God. What an awesome truth that we know that we were made for more. We have been chosen, We are free, and we are forgiven. Just wanna remind you, check out rockpoint.io

for your next steps. If your next step is to talk to somebody and get some prayer, our prayer room's open to my right and your left. Love We worshiping with you. We're so glad you were here, and we can't wait to see you next weekend.