back to index2020-7-12 Eternal Hope in a Hopeless World
00:00:00.000 |
This morning, I have the privilege of sharing with you, essentially for my devotions, a 00:00:13.000 |
Because I'm going to be giving a bird's eye view of it, we're going to be hitting a lot 00:00:18.120 |
And so just as a forewarning, I'm going to ask you to refer to and kind of jump around 00:00:22.080 |
just a little bit between from passage to passage. 00:00:27.440 |
And before we jump in, we will take a moment to ask for the Lord's blessing on our time. 00:00:37.840 |
We thank you so much for your incredible grace. 00:00:42.360 |
You showering your mercies and your love upon us. 00:00:45.360 |
Thank you so much for Kat and what you have done in her life. 00:00:48.600 |
Thank you, Father God, for the light that you shine through her. 00:00:51.800 |
We pray that every single one of us would have a fellowship of spirit and unity because 00:00:56.360 |
of the grace we receive, because of our common relationship with you. 00:01:00.680 |
This morning, God, as we open up your word, this morning as we hear your truth, grant 00:01:04.480 |
to us greater conviction that God, our faith would be grown and matured. 00:01:12.240 |
Back almost like 12 years ago, I used to teach at an academy, an after school academy, and 00:01:19.040 |
I used to teach lots of subjects from English. 00:01:21.560 |
But one of the subjects was actually what's called public forum debate. 00:01:26.120 |
Now within the world of debating, there is a really common term that they use, which 00:01:36.440 |
And what that means is if you're debating and arguing anybody, you have to show somebody 00:01:44.800 |
If you're trying to win an argument or you're trying to enact a policy or you're trying 00:01:49.000 |
to convince your wife that you need a new tool in the garage, you have to show and convince 00:01:54.160 |
her or anybody that there is a need for this. 00:01:57.800 |
For example, if I did need a new tool, I could show her all day like, "Look how this thing 00:02:09.160 |
She's like, "I know it looks great, but you don't need it." 00:02:15.520 |
I have to explain to her like, "Oh my goodness, I just spent and wasted three hours because 00:02:24.440 |
I have to go over to my neighbor, like Jim's house, to borrow this tool and I know you 00:02:30.160 |
Whatever it may be, you just start to enhance the horribleness, how bad it is right now 00:02:38.960 |
That's what's called the horror of the status quo. 00:02:43.040 |
When you look at the book of Ecclesiastes, you guys know in general this book is not 00:02:49.600 |
This book is trying to summarize for you the horror of the status quo when King Solomon 00:02:56.480 |
From a bird's eye view as king, as one of the wisest men to walk the earth with discretion, 00:03:02.600 |
understanding, with prose, poetics, and proverbs, he is giving to us a reality, a picture of 00:03:10.960 |
And that's the wisdom we're supposed to gain from this book. 00:03:14.760 |
Turn your Bibles to chapter 1, verse 1, Ecclesiastes, and this is what he says. 00:03:20.000 |
The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem, "Vanity of vanities," says 00:03:31.400 |
When he is looking at the world, he is trying to convince you and give to you wisdom, and 00:03:47.840 |
And my case to you this morning is going to be that no, King Solomon is not exaggerating. 00:04:01.120 |
I want to begin in King Solomon's argumentation. 00:04:04.540 |
He tells you that this world is absolutely pointless. 00:04:11.460 |
What I mean by that is when something is pointless, it means there's no goal here. 00:04:28.740 |
To prove this point, he gives us a couple categories, and he says, "You know what's 00:04:35.760 |
Chapter 1, verse 3 tells us, "What advantage does a man have in all his work, which he 00:04:43.440 |
And then he gives to you in the rest of the book this rationale. 00:04:46.680 |
I've seen a guy sweat, toil, labor for days, sacrifice, and everything, there's 00:04:54.600 |
I've seen a guy work until he's old, and he doesn't even get to enjoy it, and he 00:04:58.240 |
gets to give it to his son, who squanders it away." 00:05:03.640 |
And if you recall, God himself has told us there is a pointlessness built into the current 00:05:09.800 |
system, because man will work by the sweat of his brow, and he will till the ground, 00:05:18.040 |
There is a fruitlessness into the pattern of the world. 00:05:21.360 |
Speaking of pattern of the world, we realize that King Solomon teaches us there is a pointless 00:05:27.680 |
For those of you guys, again, thinking about maybe work and sometimes how fruitless it 00:05:35.560 |
You punch in, you punch out, and the day just repeats itself, and it's just like a wheel. 00:05:45.000 |
Starting from verse 4, Ecclesiastes chapter 1, verse 4, King Solomon says this, "A generation 00:05:50.080 |
goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 00:05:54.160 |
Also the sun rises and the sun sets, and the hastening to its place, it rises there again, 00:05:59.480 |
blowing toward the south, towards the north, the wind continues to swirl." 00:06:04.480 |
He is saying in poetical form, there is just this monotonous routine and pattern to the 00:06:11.680 |
world, and whether you like it or not, it's just going to happen. 00:06:17.920 |
What's going to happen is you're going to work, and then you're going to die, and then 00:06:20.760 |
the pattern is going to repeat itself, and someone's going to replace you. 00:06:24.480 |
King Solomon has this angst, like he's a king. 00:06:28.120 |
He asks this question, "I'm a king after another king." 00:06:35.120 |
There is this grievous thing, even if something is horrendous or something is good, there 00:06:38.440 |
is this pattern in life that you cannot escape. 00:06:45.360 |
I see sometimes people tell me, "Pastor Mark, I quit." 00:06:57.880 |
I couldn't see myself learning anything, and so now I just quit." 00:07:07.160 |
Part of it is there's a rhyme and reason behind that. 00:07:10.000 |
Do I think it's the wisest thing in the world to quit without something in Don Deck? 00:07:13.840 |
Not necessarily, but there's a rhyme and reason through that, and King Solomon sees it. 00:07:20.560 |
When people start to feel this kind of angst of the patterns and then the pointlessness, 00:07:30.440 |
Turn your Bibles over to chapter 2, verse 1, and look what King Solomon says. 00:07:35.320 |
He says, "I said to myself," he's talking to himself now, "Come now, I will test you 00:07:41.320 |
So enjoy yourself, and behold, to its futility. 00:07:45.360 |
I said to laughter, 'It was madness and of pleasure. 00:07:48.840 |
I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me 00:07:53.840 |
wisely, how to take hold of folly until I could see what good there is for the sons 00:07:58.240 |
of men to do under heaven for the few years of their lives." 00:08:02.000 |
Basically, he said, "You know what I decided to do? 00:08:10.360 |
At least in this short time of this whole monotonous routine, I can enjoy it." 00:08:25.440 |
Some of you guys are like on Redfin, on whatever websites, you're like, 'This might be a good 00:08:31.120 |
And then you think that buying that home is going to be grand. 00:08:38.280 |
This is broken, that's broken, and there's no end.' 00:08:43.560 |
But what's more, he says in verse 10, "All that my eyes desired, I did not refuse them. 00:08:48.280 |
I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my 00:08:52.600 |
labor, and this was my reward for all my labor. 00:08:55.480 |
Thus I considered all my activities which my hand had done, and the labor that I exerted, 00:09:09.040 |
He's speaking and he's saying, "Those of you who are younger, looking forward to your life, 00:09:14.040 |
Once I get there to that job, once I have that home, once I have that possession,' and 00:09:22.960 |
None of it is satisfying, and none of it seems to have a point." 00:09:27.480 |
And that's why there are individuals who are filthy rich, because King Solomon was filthy 00:09:32.320 |
There are individuals who have celebrity status, and they hate it. 00:09:37.040 |
Because they realize, 'I'm not sure there was a point to all that.' 00:09:40.920 |
You know, the sermon is starting to sound like a real downer. 00:09:45.400 |
As I was meditating and preparing for this, you know, I was doing devotions in this, and 00:09:48.800 |
I was going really slow, and I realized, "Wow, King Solomon has such a bleak look on life." 00:09:56.680 |
The next point is that the entire world is helpless. 00:10:00.140 |
When you see that there are these woes, there are these patterns of life, and then the pointlessness 00:10:04.780 |
of life, your temptation is to want to fix it, but what King Solomon says is, "It's helpless," 00:10:16.440 |
So I know we're flipping around here and there, but go to chapter 1, verse 12, and he says, 00:10:22.600 |
"I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem." 00:10:31.120 |
If anybody can see something and be like, "Fix it," that's the king. 00:10:36.160 |
"I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been under the heavens, 00:10:41.360 |
and it is a grievous task which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with. 00:10:46.320 |
I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity 00:10:55.320 |
What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted. 00:11:03.200 |
Number one, whenever you're trying to look for a solution, you have to thoroughly understand 00:11:12.600 |
I tried to wrap my head around it, and I couldn't because it could not be counted how many things 00:11:19.320 |
Just this past weekend when it was 4th of July, I went down to San Diego to visit. 00:11:22.960 |
It was wild because what ended up happening was right when we were there, just before 00:11:28.440 |
one of their neighbors, their three-year-old drowned in the pool, in an induced coma in 00:11:35.600 |
And then you look on the news in San Diego, there was a man who drove off the cliff with 00:11:43.080 |
If you're the type to like listening to news, you know what he's saying. 00:11:53.480 |
Even if you were king, could you even count all the vices, all the injustices that happen? 00:12:01.320 |
You keep reading chapter 1, verse 16, and he says, "I said to myself, 'Behold, I have 00:12:06.960 |
magnified and increased wisdom more than all who are over Jerusalem before me, and my mind 00:12:12.040 |
has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge. 00:12:14.040 |
I set my mind to know the wisdom and to know madness and folly. 00:12:17.440 |
I realize that this also is striving after wind, because in much wisdom there is much 00:12:24.680 |
Brothers and sisters, when you look at the world, there is sin, there is wretchedness, 00:12:37.800 |
And for anybody who thought, "We can fix this." 00:12:41.080 |
For anybody who thought, "If only we had greater know-how and wisdom." 00:12:47.760 |
He was the king who was much wiser than any before him. 00:12:53.980 |
And he's telling us in wisdom, "I have dedicated myself to learn how to govern this kingdom. 00:13:02.720 |
And let me tell you something, it's been painful." 00:13:09.480 |
Now, when you think about this, he was a bona fide genius. 00:13:15.840 |
He was somebody who actually had the power to tell a subordinate individual, "You, stop 00:13:20.640 |
or kick somebody out or do this," and instantaneous. 00:13:23.760 |
He didn't even have to go through a procedure. 00:13:25.680 |
He spoke in the kingdom and it was, and yet still, he is convincing us, "I tried. 00:13:36.400 |
I got to be honest, as I was doing my devotions, there's a part of me is like, "Why so down, 00:13:46.960 |
Like, "You are probably the most like, you know, bawl-humbug person I've ever read in 00:13:54.000 |
But my goodness, chapter after chapter of this, you know, for those of you guys who 00:14:03.480 |
Now, I might say to him, "King Solomon, I think you're maybe a little over exaggerating. 00:14:11.920 |
And what King Solomon is going to say to us is, "No, you don't understand. 00:14:19.600 |
He is trying to show us in wisdom and prove to us this world is not as it seems." 00:14:29.200 |
He tries to convince us and say the next point that this world is hopeless. 00:14:34.540 |
Not only is it pointless, not only is it helpless, it is utterly hopeless. 00:14:41.640 |
Turn over to Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 18. 00:14:46.540 |
In Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 18, this is what King Solomon says, "I said to myself 00:14:51.580 |
concerning the sons of men, 'God has surely tested them in order for them to see that 00:15:00.720 |
The fate of the sons of men and the fate of the beasts is the same. 00:15:05.960 |
Indeed, they all have the same breath, and there is no advantage for man over beast, 00:15:13.520 |
All came from the dust, and all return to the dust. 00:15:17.540 |
Who knows that the breath of man ascends up, and the breath of the beast ascends down to 00:15:26.020 |
The question is, why do you assume you're that much better than the beast? 00:15:30.400 |
Why do you assume your future is so much better? 00:15:34.260 |
Now truth be told, way of wisdom and way of righteousness is so much better than folly, 00:15:39.060 |
but there is this radical truth King Solomon bears upon us to convince us, look at the 00:15:46.380 |
Whether you're wise or you're a fool, your destination is the same, which is you will 00:15:55.120 |
This is the horror of the status quo, and his logic is sound. 00:16:01.220 |
Someone might say, "Wait a minute Pastor Mark, you believe in fate?" 00:16:08.940 |
And what you realize is, you know what the dictionary definition of fate is? 00:16:13.580 |
The dictionary definition of fate is simply a development of events that is radically 00:16:22.480 |
You see King Solomon is trying to convince you in wisdom, you presume way too much about 00:16:30.180 |
You presume way too much about this world, because his scenario is not too far off from 00:16:36.640 |
To think that because you're wealthy, to think that because you're in power, that the world 00:16:46.900 |
You do recognize the kind of time of peace we are in compared to the rest of history. 00:16:52.100 |
To assume that this is the way it ought to be, we are living in a unique time. 00:16:59.220 |
What's more, you don't even have to look that far into history. 00:17:06.180 |
You and I are living in a radical sense of privilege and peace compared to the rest of 00:17:14.320 |
But then to assume this is the way it ought to be, King Solomon is saying, "You don't 00:17:19.540 |
We are so subject to fate because you are not in control. 00:17:24.820 |
And the humility you need to learn is actually you're just like the beast." 00:17:31.420 |
When you think about this, what he's saying is, "You're hopeless. 00:17:37.340 |
You're going to strive, you're going to toil, you're going to labor, but when it comes down 00:17:40.620 |
to it, you're going to face the same exact consequence of our finite human sinful state. 00:17:58.480 |
But I am willing to bet a lot of you, I'm willing to bet a majority of you, you know 00:18:03.900 |
very well there is nothing guaranteed that you're going to have 70 years of your life. 00:18:08.380 |
The vast majority of you probably by the time you hit high school, you already knew somebody 00:18:14.820 |
You probably already know individuals that have, you can say, like, it was so unfortunate. 00:18:20.660 |
But the fact of the matter is none of us are guaranteed that. 00:18:28.460 |
Now moving to the second kind of section of the sermon and transitioning, you could take 00:18:34.160 |
a look at this and just say, "Wow, this is just so sad." 00:18:36.900 |
But there is a question, what do you do with this knowledge? 00:18:39.900 |
When you see, like King Solomon sees, when you see the pointlessness and the meaninglessness, 00:18:46.660 |
when you see how helpless it is, when you see how hopeless it is, what are you supposed 00:18:53.080 |
Because the scenario is so far above and beyond worse than we think it is. 00:19:01.400 |
Just right now, some of you guys know I'm in school. 00:19:03.540 |
I have to write a paper on youth suicide and to look up statistics. 00:19:10.820 |
The sad state of affairs is in any given day, there are over 135 individuals who commit 00:19:20.820 |
But that's not even counting just simply individuals who have attempted suicide. 00:19:25.220 |
The attempt count is above 1.4 million per year. 00:19:30.380 |
Okay, King Solomon, my point to you was King Solomon is not exaggerating. 00:19:35.980 |
If you try to sit and count, if one death is grievous, how many more is 50,000? 00:19:45.540 |
How many more individuals were at 1.4 million individuals attempting suicide in America? 00:19:52.020 |
What I'm saying here is, what do you do with that? 00:19:57.380 |
Turn your scriptures over to chapter 2, verse 17 of Ecclesiastes. 00:20:04.860 |
And when you think about this, if we actually believed and saw like King Solomon, that all 00:20:10.780 |
your feeble attempts to fix deaths didn't work. 00:20:13.340 |
And as a matter of fact, maybe some of us desperately looked to other people to help 00:20:18.100 |
And we desired other people to come and save us. 00:20:21.180 |
And we recognize people themselves are very disappointing. 00:20:23.700 |
And sometimes when people try to get involved, it just makes matters worse. 00:20:33.740 |
Well, King Solomon says this, verse 17, chapter 2, "So I hated life. 00:20:40.320 |
For the work which I had done under the sun was grievous to me, because everything is 00:20:54.060 |
Ecclesiastes chapter 4, for the sake of time, just listen to this. 00:20:58.860 |
He says, "I look again at the acts of oppression which are done under the sun." 00:21:03.620 |
"I and I saw behold the tears of the oppressed, that they have no one to comfort them. 00:21:08.940 |
And on the side of the oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them. 00:21:13.440 |
So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. 00:21:18.060 |
The better off than both is the one who never existed." 00:21:48.100 |
And I'll tell you what, even in my own heart as I was doing devotions through these passages 00:21:53.740 |
and meditating on these truths, there was a part of me that was resisting. 00:21:57.540 |
There was a part of me that was resisting and saying, "Ah, King Solomon just sounds 00:22:06.280 |
Maybe it was because he was relishing in all these pleasures and it got to his head. 00:22:12.140 |
King Solomon actually begins to show us there was another way for me to behave. 00:22:24.260 |
It's the way what I like to call, you just do the best with what you got. 00:22:29.100 |
You essentially kind of deceive yourself and you lie to think you try to make the most 00:22:34.380 |
And the motto that a lot of parents teach their kids is, "You know what? 00:22:37.420 |
When you get lemons in your life, what you do is you add a dash of sugar and you make 00:22:45.860 |
What's really interesting is to some degree King Solomon gives this kind of advice in 00:22:52.860 |
Turn your Bibles over to Ecclesiastes chapter 5, verse 18. 00:23:01.140 |
So what I'm saying here is number one, when you see the hopelessness of the world, you 00:23:05.540 |
can end up simply hating your life and wishing you never existed. 00:23:08.980 |
Or number two, you can do what's called you make the most of it. 00:23:16.180 |
Verse 18, "Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting, to eat, to drink, enjoy 00:23:20.540 |
oneself in all one's labor, in which he toils under the sun, during the few years of his 00:23:29.860 |
I read that as though he was actually giving an advice. 00:23:32.460 |
I'm going to take a moment to do like a little personal like confessing here. 00:23:37.660 |
There was a part of me as I was looking at the wretchedness of the world through the 00:23:44.780 |
And I couldn't necessarily put a finger on it, but I think I want to explain it to you 00:23:53.740 |
And there's a part of me that wants to fight back and say, "But are you saying like give 00:23:58.980 |
Should I teach my own son like don't go to school?" 00:24:02.540 |
Should I tell my church people like, "You know what you're doing? 00:24:10.280 |
You're supposed to still live, come to church. 00:24:14.980 |
So part of me felt this like reactionary thing. 00:24:17.860 |
But what's really interesting about this is in another passage, King Solomon tells a young 00:24:27.500 |
But just remember God's going to judge you for all of it." 00:24:38.820 |
And so now this is the center and heart of the message. 00:24:42.500 |
I'm trying to show you that King Solomon has words of wisdom for us. 00:24:47.380 |
Even if your heart is resisting, first recognize that he is seeing the world appropriately 00:24:55.580 |
There is, yes, a temptation in our heart to look at King Solomon and say, "No, King Solomon." 00:25:00.340 |
Again, straight up like I was kind of like, "You know what? 00:25:02.460 |
Maybe King Solomon is doing this kind of like woke culture stuff where he's like, 'You think 00:25:18.260 |
He is trying to teach us any kind of hope in this world is going to be a tragedy. 00:25:24.540 |
When you think that you're going to wisen up, when you think that you're going to self-improve 00:25:30.140 |
so that incrementally you can make this life better, it's all monopoly. 00:25:36.100 |
I meditated deep and long about this, so jot this down in your notes. 00:25:43.260 |
Let me try to explain why I found this to be both in my heart and yet this to also still 00:25:55.740 |
That game Monopoly, it's a game that takes a long time to play. 00:25:59.260 |
It's a game where you win property and you get to charge people rent when they land on 00:26:05.020 |
You know what's really funny is I Googled that game and I asked this question of Google, 00:26:12.380 |
And what's really funny is there's so many entries. 00:26:15.220 |
There was like blog posts about this and some people responded by saying, "You know when 00:26:24.900 |
It's when your brother points the finger at you, accuses you of cheating, flips the board 00:26:36.060 |
And then somebody wrote, "You'd have to be one kind of special jerk to insist that we 00:26:42.560 |
Because you guys know who've actually played this game, how it ends. 00:26:48.540 |
The game ends when everybody else has to declare bankruptcy and you're the only person standing 00:27:02.580 |
The little one, he's sitting there, he's having to pay all this rent and stuff. 00:27:06.460 |
He's got like $4 in his little hands and he like, he stands up to look at the board. 00:27:11.220 |
He rolls and you know us as parents, we can count the squares faster so we're like, "Oh 00:27:17.540 |
And part of you, you feel sympathy so what do you do? 00:27:36.420 |
Part of you wants to almost cheat him and like miscount and be like, "Oh no, you land 00:27:41.780 |
Or you just desire to keep this game going even though you know there's no chance for 00:27:53.860 |
There is this weird defense against King Solomon to say, "No, no, no. 00:28:04.300 |
People are doing to King Solomon what people do in our day. 00:28:06.740 |
They hold blog posts and they interview people. 00:28:09.860 |
They're like, "Let's interview King Solomon." 00:28:11.460 |
They go over there and like, "What did you do here? 00:28:19.700 |
King Solomon is going to turn to them and say, "Your pursuit of reproducing this kingdom 00:28:32.780 |
You see what you realize when you're playing that game, you're simply delaying the inevitable. 00:28:39.420 |
He's going to be the first person out, but I feel so bad. 00:28:41.860 |
I just want to like give him some of my houses and give him some of my money. 00:28:59.580 |
I am a parent thinking regularly about, "Oh my goodness, what world am I going to bring 00:29:06.060 |
What life are they going to have in America now that the country is so divided? 00:29:12.620 |
That there's so much subjectivity and nobody even knows right from left? 00:29:27.420 |
Sacrifice this and that so that you can succeed. 00:29:32.500 |
Only to have them return to me later and say, "But dad, I thought I was going to be happy 00:29:43.420 |
No, I'm going to teach them the realities that King Solomon is going to teach them. 00:29:51.420 |
You're entering into a corrupt world that already stands condemned. 00:30:06.900 |
So I want to take this opportunity to introduce you the third way that you can respond when 00:30:14.460 |
When you see the hopelessness, the helplessness, and the pointlessness, you can just hate life 00:30:25.060 |
Or you can look to God who will tell you like it is. 00:30:30.220 |
God has already told you, brothers and sisters, listen to Him. 00:30:34.540 |
As an exhortation to you, you need to listen and harken your ears. 00:30:39.020 |
You need to call upon the Lord and hear His wisdom. 00:30:43.260 |
God has already told you that this generation is wicked and perverse and the axe is already 00:30:50.780 |
This world is ripe for judgment and it's going to get worse. 00:30:55.180 |
What's more, our Lord Jesus already said that His kingdom is not of this world. 00:31:08.200 |
If we believe all that King Solomon believed without God in our lives, we are only left 00:31:16.980 |
You don't need all of King Solomon wisdom to see that because already there are case 00:31:22.620 |
examples of people who have been rich, wealthy, famous, who hate their lives but it's so unsatisfactory, 00:31:36.820 |
Turn in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verse 1 through 7. 00:31:44.500 |
He spent 11 chapters in the book of Ecclesiastes showing you that there is no hope in this 00:31:51.900 |
But He says to you, Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verse 1, "Remember your Creator. 00:31:58.860 |
In the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near, when you 00:32:03.860 |
will say, 'I have no delight in them,' before the sun and the light and the moons 00:32:08.100 |
of the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, remember your Maker. 00:32:18.780 |
I can't read that whole section because of time but it's so beautiful and poetic how 00:32:24.400 |
He describes to us, "You have but a short life on this earth while you have a moment." 00:32:33.220 |
If anybody's sitting here telling you, "No, no, no. 00:32:35.300 |
You got to play this game," let them know this is all monopoly. 00:32:41.140 |
He was the king with power, resources, and he had all the pleasure in the world. 00:32:45.180 |
And he looked up and realized, "Oh my goodness, we're just playing a game. 00:32:48.980 |
You're taking turns rolling the dice and by chance we're landing on spaces. 00:32:52.660 |
But at the end of the day, I got to turn all this in because all of us, we're going back 00:33:04.740 |
He points up and says, "You need to listen to God. 00:33:10.220 |
What he says is first and foremost, "Yes, this world is condemned." 00:33:14.140 |
But secondly he says, "I have a better plan for you." 00:33:19.440 |
You may ask of kings, "What's your plan for our country?" 00:33:23.140 |
You may ask of politicians, "What's your plan for us? 00:33:30.220 |
You may even look to this church asking them, "What's your plan to lead me, to guide me?" 00:33:36.820 |
Brothers and sisters, we are of those who believe our Lord and His kingdom. 00:33:45.900 |
Turn your Bibles now over to Hebrews chapter 11. 00:33:49.460 |
As you guys know, chapter 11 is a chapter on the great hall of faith. 00:33:55.460 |
All men who have walked this world with courage made incredible sacrifice that astounds us. 00:34:06.060 |
Take a moment to get there in your scripture. 00:34:08.860 |
And he says, "These, these faithful ones were all commended for their faith, yet none of 00:34:17.780 |
God had planned something better for us so that you, sorry, that only together with us 00:34:26.740 |
Brothers and sisters, let that soak in for a little bit. 00:34:33.140 |
God has something incredibly planned in His kingdom that's so much far above and beyond. 00:34:40.340 |
And we could take days to meditate upon how much greater it is for us to have Him as our 00:34:45.100 |
King, the righteous one who has perfect justice, perfect knowledge, perfect power to enact 00:34:53.700 |
We could sit here and meditate on this idea that God not only has this desire to make 00:34:58.720 |
for us the better kingdom, but He's going to make you perfect. 00:35:04.860 |
He's not going to just make sure that there are laws to guide you. 00:35:08.940 |
He's going to make sure that you're blameless. 00:35:18.920 |
This is the kind of kingdom to which we are hoping in. 00:35:22.760 |
This is to us the eternity that we're going to have. 00:35:25.820 |
And the challenge for us then is to make sure we're thinking on this level. 00:35:30.820 |
And so I want to give some final exhortations to you. 00:35:34.300 |
Final exhortation first being that make sure that you're not evaluating this world according 00:35:40.600 |
Make sure you're not seeing things according to this world, but rather you're seeing things 00:35:47.420 |
You're seeing things according to the eternal perspective through what God has given you 00:35:54.740 |
You are putting in its appropriate place everything from your fears to your setbacks and including 00:36:03.140 |
Imagine with me if this world and this generation right now in this moment, this day was different 00:36:15.880 |
You were living life with all the accomplishments in your world. 00:36:18.980 |
What do you think King Solomon would say to you? 00:36:29.320 |
Still empty compared to what God has in store. 00:36:36.020 |
And so in our day when we talk, in our day when we speak, because right now there are 00:36:44.140 |
And I for one are one of those people who's been contributing to that. 00:36:48.680 |
You know online people are typing and people are saying this of that opinion. 00:36:55.860 |
We have political, you know, anchors and this and that. 00:37:03.820 |
But for us, make sure, let us make sure that we are speaking in the wisdom of King Solomon. 00:37:11.060 |
Let us make sure that we're speaking with the eternal perspective. 00:37:15.060 |
If you turn your Bibles, we're already there in Hebrews 11. 00:37:23.700 |
Continuing on with the reflection about those who've been faithful in the old. 00:37:29.360 |
Of them it says, all these people were still living by faith when they died. 00:37:36.960 |
They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners 00:37:43.260 |
People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 00:37:49.860 |
If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity 00:37:54.620 |
But instead they were longing for a better country, a heavenly, heavenly one. 00:37:59.880 |
Therefore God is not ashamed to call, to be called their God, for he has prepared a city 00:38:07.260 |
Brothers and sisters, as an exhortation to you, is it pretty clear you're looking for 00:38:13.780 |
Is it pretty clear when you're frustrated and you have angst and you're looking at all 00:38:17.220 |
the woes of the generation and you're counting all the injustices and you're like, "Oh my 00:38:23.700 |
Is it really clear that you're not just simply trying to defend your home here, but is it 00:38:33.060 |
And is it evidently clear you're looking for God's better plan? 00:38:37.980 |
For to us, our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly await for the Savior, the 00:38:57.980 |
Although the sermon had so much to do with how fallen this world is, and we know, you 00:39:03.140 |
told us God, this whole world and all of creation groans in agony until redemption happens. 00:39:09.380 |
But Lord, we thank you that in light of all that, we recognize that we have a true, unwavering 00:39:22.120 |
Thank you, God, in loving us in such a way where we can walk this world with confidence, 00:39:26.420 |
even if all things were to fade and fall away, even if all our ambitions and desires are 00:39:31.540 |
passing, we thank you, God, that you prepare a way for us. 00:39:35.300 |
And Lord, I pray then that we would live by such faith, that God, we would live by such