It's all sand forage. I was an orphan. I was an orphan lost at the fall. Running away when I heard your call. Father, you were a joke, man. I had no righteousness of my own. I had no right to draw near your throne. Father, you loved me still. And in love before you made the world's foundation.

You predestined to adopt me as your own. You have raised me up so high above my station. I'm a child of God by grace and grace alone. You left your home to seek out my loss. You knew the great terror of my cause. Jesus, your face was seen. I worked my fingers down to the bone.

Nothing I did could ever atone. Jesus, you paid my debt. By your blood, by your blood I have redemption and salvation. Lord, you died that I might be, but you have sung. And you rose that I might be a new creation. I am born again by grace and grace alone.

I was in darkness all of my life. I never knew the day from the night. Spirit, you made me see. I swore I knew the way on my own. Head full of rocks, heart made of stone. Spirit, you moved me. As your touch my sleeping spirit was awakened. On my darkened heart a light of Christ has shone.

Called into a kingdom that could not be shaken. Heaven saved sin by grace and grace alone. So I'll send to faith by grace and grace alone. I will run the race by grace and grace alone. I will slay my sin by grace and grace alone. I will reach the end by grace and grace alone.

Oh, great God of highest heaven, occupy my lowly heart. Own it all and reign supreme. Conquer every rebel power. Let no vice or sin remain that resists your holy word. You have loved and purchased me. Make me yours forever. I was blinded by my sin. Had no ears to hear your voice.

Did not know your love affair. Had no taste for heaven's choice. Then your spirit came alive. Open up your words to me. Through the gospel of your son, lay me in this home. Call me now to live a life that's dependent on your grace. Keep my heart and guard my soul from the evils that I face.

You are worthy to be praised with my every thought and faith. Oh, great God of highest heaven, glorify your name through me. You are worthy to be praised with my every thought and deed. Oh, great God of highest heaven, glorify your name through me. This time our sister Katerina will come give her testimony.

Good morning, church family and friends. My name is Katerina, and I have the privilege of sharing my testimony with you all today. I grew up in a Christian home with parents who taught me about God, brought me to church, and enrolled me in Christian school. I was often described as a good kid as I followed the rules and I stayed out of trouble.

But good appearances are not enough to save me. God is all-knowing, and he saw the depth of my sin. God is also holy, and so my sins against him were not just minor indiscretions, but cosmic treason. I deserve judgment, but God was rich in mercy, and he loved me greatly.

He sent his only son to be condemned in my place. Some of you may know that my husband and I are adopting a little boy from Korea. I can't even begin to fathom the amount of love it must have taken for God to give up his only son. This profound display of love and gospel truth changed my life at the young age of five.

I still vividly remember finding a small space in our home on our playground and praying quietly that the Lord would forgive me of my sin and that he would use my life for his purpose. In that moment, I was justified, but I'm still being sanctified. In particular, I struggled a lot with control.

Those who know me know that I like things very neat and very tidy. I believe that if I worked hard at something, that it should yield the results that I expected. This was often manifested in my relationship with other people. I worked hard for other people's affirmation, but disappointments would often cause me deep despair and anger.

In hindsight, I see how God withheld certain friendships from me because he knew that they would become idols in my heart. It is in vain that I struggle to control my life. My hope cannot be placed on things that change, because otherwise my hope and my joy will also fluctuate.

Rather, the safest thing for me to do is to trust and surrender in the Lord, one who is unchanging and in control of all things, because then I can be content in every circumstance. At the age of 16, I chose to undergo sprinkling as a profession of my faith in Jesus.

At the church that I grew up in, this was the method of baptism, and I believed at that time that it was sufficient as an act of obedience. This past year, God has led me to meditate on Romans 6, specifically verses 3-5, which states, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in death like this, we shall certainly be united with him in resurrection like this." Through this passage, God led me to realize that baptism is meant to display his death and resurrection.

Just as he died, was buried, and was raised, my baptism shows how I die to myself and my plans. I am buried and then raised to live a new life with him. My decision to be baptized through immersion is an act of obedience to the convictions that God has placed in my heart through his word.

I am a child of God, and my aim in this life is reflected through the words of Apostle Paul in Galatians 2.20, which states, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." May he receive all glory and praise.

Thank you. Baptism is communion with Christ's death by coming out of the water, symbolizing communion with Christ's resurrection. I baptize you in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Okay. All right, we're grateful again to be able to hear her testimony.

What a fellowship of spirit that is, thinking through how God has led us. I know perhaps a lot of you guys could sympathize with learning things when you were young, and then following in obedience as you continue to walk with him. This morning, I have the privilege of sharing with you, essentially from my devotions, a bird's-eye view of the book of Ecclesiastes.

So would you please turn your Bibles there? Because I'm going to be giving a bird's-eye view of it, we're going to be hitting a lot of passages. And so just as a forewarning, I'm going to ask you to refer to, and kind of jump around just a little bit, between from passage to passage.

Okay? And before we jump in, we will take a moment to ask for the Lord's blessing on our time, so let's pray. Father, we want to thank you so much. We thank you so much for your incredible grace, you showering your mercies and your love upon us. Thank you so much for Cat and what you have done in her life.

Thank you, Father God, for the light that you shine through her. And we pray that every single one of us would have a fellowship of spirit and unity because of the grace we receive, because of our common relationship with you. This morning, God, as we open up your word, this morning as we hear your truth, grant to us greater conviction that God, our faith, would be grown and matured.

We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Back almost, like, 12 years ago, I used to teach at an academy, an after-school academy, and I used to teach lots of subjects from English, but one of the subjects was actually what's called public forum debate. Now, within the world of debating, there is a really common term that they use, which is the horror of the status quo, okay, the horror of the status quo.

And what that means is if you're debating and arguing anybody, you have to show somebody why they need to hear you, okay? If you're trying to win an argument or you're trying to enact a policy or you're trying to convince your wife that you need a new tool in the garage, you have to show and convince her or anybody that there is a need for this.

For example, if I did need a new tool, I could show her all day, like, "Look how this thing shines. Look how sharp it is. Look how amazing and great it is. Look how much on sale it is." But what's she going to say? She's like, "I know it looks great, but you don't need it." Right?

"You don't need it." So what do I have to do? I have to explain to her, like, "Oh, my goodness, you know, I just spent and wasted three hours because I didn't have the right tools. I almost cut my hand. You don't want me to hurt myself, do you?" Right?

I have to go over to my neighbor, like, Jim's house to borrow this tool, and I know you don't like Jim. You know, like, whatever it may be, you just start to enhance the horribleness, how bad it is right now that I don't have this tool. Right? It's dangerous.

Okay? That's what's called the horror of the status quo. When you look at the Book of Ecclesiastes, you guys know, in general, this book is not like an upbeat book. This book is trying to summarize for you the horror of the status quo when King Solomon looks at the world from a bird's-eye view as king.

As one of the wisest men to walk the earth with discretion, understanding, with prose, poetics, and proverbs, he is giving to us a reality, a picture of the world. And that's the wisdom we're supposed to gain from this book. Okay? Turn your Bibles to chapter 1, verse 1, Ecclesiastes.

And this is what he says. The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem, "Vanity of vanities," says the preacher. "Vanity of vanities." All is vanity. When he is looking at the world, he is trying to convince you and give to you wisdom. And he wants you to see it like he sees it.

Everything is vain. There is emptiness. There is futility. There is meaninglessness. And my case to you this morning is going to be that, no, King Solomon is not exaggerating. He's not just speaking in literary form. He's telling you the truth. He's giving you godly wisdom. I want to begin in King Solomon's argumentation.

He tells you that this world is absolutely pointless. Okay? Absolutely pointless. What I mean by that is when something is pointless, it means there's no goal here. What's the point up there? Right? What's the motivation here? What's the meaning? And he says, "There's nothing. It's all vain." To prove this point, he gives us a couple categories.

And he says, "You know what's pointless? It's all the work you do." Take a look at verse 3. Chapter 1, verse 3 tells us, "What advantage does a man have in all his work, which he does under the sun?" And then he gives to you in the rest of the book this rationale.

"Well, you know what I've seen? I've seen a guy sweat, toil, labor for days, sacrifice, and everything. There's actually no reward. I've seen a guy work until he's old, and he doesn't even get to enjoy it, and he gets to give it to his son, who squanders it away." What on earth is the point?

And if you recall, God Himself has told us, "There is a pointlessness built into the current system, because man will work by the sweat of his brow, and he will till the ground, but it will bear no fruit." There is a fruitlessness into the pattern of the world. Speaking of pattern of the world, we realize that King Solomon teaches us there is a pointless pattern to everything he sees.

For those of you guys, again, thinking about maybe work and sometimes how fruitless it is, many people complain, "Oh, the drudgery. You punch in, you punch out, and the day just repeats itself, and it's just like a wheel. You just keep going and going. I don't know how much more I can take this." Starting from verse 4, Ecclesiastes chapter 1, verse 4, King Solomon says this, "A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.

Also the sun rises, and the sun sets, and the hastening to its place, it rises there again, blowing toward the south, towards the north, the wind continues to swirl." What is he saying? He is saying in poetical form, there is just this monotonous routine and pattern to the world, and whether you like it or not, it's just going to happen.

And you have very little control over this. And what's going to happen is you're going to work, and then you're going to die, and then the pattern is going to repeat itself, and someone is going to replace you. And King Solomon has this angst, like he's a king. And he asks this question, "I'm a king after another king." And then you remove a guy, and another guy comes in.

There is this grievous thing, even if something is horrendous or something is good, there is this pattern in life that you cannot escape. And I think people feel that angst. I see sometimes people tell me, "Pastor Mark, I quit." "What did you quit?" "No, no, no, it's just my job.

I just couldn't take it anymore." "I just didn't see a future. Every day was the same." "I couldn't see advancement. I couldn't see myself learning anything." "And so now I just quit." "Do you have anything lined up?" "No, I just couldn't take it." Sometimes people do that. And part of it is there is a rhyme and reason behind that.

Do I think it's the wisest thing in the world to quit without something in Don Deck? Not necessarily. But there is a rhyme and reason through that, and King Solomon sees it. You know what else he says? When people start to feel this kind of angst of the patterns and the pointlessness, what they do is they turn to pleasure.

King Solomon has done the same. Turn your Bibles over to chapter 2, verse 1, and look what King Solomon says. He says, "I said to myself," he's talking to himself now, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure." "So enjoy yourself, and behold!" It too was futility. "I said to laughter, 'It was madness and of pleasure.

What does it accomplish?'" "I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely," "how to take hold of folly until I could see what good there is for the sons of men" "to do under heaven for the few years of their lives." Basically, he said, "You know what I decided to do?" "I just decided to live it." "I decided to go look for some meaning." "I decided to go look for some pleasure, at least in this short time of this whole monotonous routine." "I can enjoy it." And then he says, "I enlarged my works, I built a house for myself, I planted vineyards for myself." He basically just says, "You know what?

You name it, I had it." "I had houses." Some of you guys are like on Redfin, on whatever websites, you're like, "This might be a good time to buy. The rates are so low." And then you think that buying that home is going to be grand. You talk to any homeowner, they're going to be like, "Oh my goodness." "This is broken, that's broken, there's no end." It's a different perspective.

But what's more, he says in verse 10, "All that my eyes desired, I did not refuse them." "I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor." "And this was my reward for all my labor." "Thus I considered all my activities which my hand had done, and the labor that I exerted." "Behold, all was vanity." King Solomon is giving you wisdom.

He's speaking and he's saying, "Those of you who are younger, looking forward to your life, thinking," "You know what? Once I get there to that job, once I have that home, once I have that possession," "and you think you're going to be satisfied," "I have gone before you." "None of it is satisfying, and none of it seems to have a point." And that's why there are individuals who are filthy rich, because King Solomon was filthy rich.

There are individuals who have celebrity status, and they hate it. Why? Because they realize, "I'm not sure there was a point to all that." You know, this sermon is starting to sound like a real downer. And as I was meditating and preparing for this, you know, I was doing devotions in this, and I was going really slow, and I realized, "Wow, King Solomon has such a bleak look on life." But it gets worse.

The next point is that the entire world is helpless. When you see that there are these woes, there are these patterns of life, and then the pointlessness of life, your temptation is to want to fix it, but what King Solomon says is, "It's helpless," meaning it's unfixable. Take a look back at chapter 1, verse 12.

So I know we're flipping around here and there, but go to chapter 1, verse 12. And he says, "I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem." Wait. He's king. He's got authority. He's got power. If anybody can see something and be like, "Fix it," that's the king.

But you know what he says? "I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been under the heavens, and it is a grievous task which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with. I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind." Now listen to this.

"What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted." Do you hear that? Number one, whenever you're trying to look for a solution, you have to thoroughly understand the problem, but he says, "I tried. You guys, I tried. I tried to wrap my head around it, and I couldn't because it could not be counted how many things are wrong.

Just this past weekend when it was 4th of July, I went down to San Diego to visit. It was wild because what ended up happening was right when we were there, just before one of their neighbors, their 3-year-old drowned in the pool, in an induced coma in the hospital.

And then you look on the news in San Diego, there was a man who drove off the cliff with his daughters, young daughters in his car. If you're the type to like listening to news, you know what he's saying. There is so much wrong in the world. You get sick of it.

Yes? Even if you were king, could you even count all the vices, all the injustices that happen? You keep reading chapter 1, verse 16, and he says, "I said to myself, 'Behold, I have magnified and increased wisdom more than all who are over Jerusalem before me, and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.' I set my mind to know the wisdom and to know madness and folly.

I realize that this also is striving after wind, because in much wisdom there is much grief." Brothers and sisters, when you look at the world, there is sin, there is wretchedness, there is wickedness built into the system. And for anybody who thought, "We can fix this!" For anybody who thought, "If only we had greater know-how and wisdom!" King Solomon had it.

He was the king who was much wiser than any before him. He was given wisdom to rule his nation. And he's telling us in wisdom, "I have dedicated myself to learn how to govern this kingdom." And let me tell you something, it's been painful. That's what it's saying. Now, when you think about this, he was a bona fide genius!

He was somebody who actually had the power to tell a subordinate individual, "You, stop!" or kick somebody out or do this, and instantaneous. He didn't even have to go through a procedure. He spoke in the kingdom and it was, and yet still, he is convincing us, "I tried, but this world is helpless!" Oh my goodness.

I've got to be honest, as I was doing my devotions, there's a part of me that's like, "Why so down, King Solomon? Why are you so pessimistic? You are probably the most bawl-humbug person I've ever read in the Bible." I mean, there are many, but my goodness, chapter after chapter of this, you know, for those of you guys who have read through Ecclesiastes, this is the bulk.

Everything is futility. Everything is vanity. Now, I might say to him, "King Solomon, I think you're maybe a little over-exaggerating. Everything, like everything is hopeless." And what King Solomon is going to say to us is, "No, you don't understand. I'm not exaggerating here. He is trying to show us in wisdom and prove to us this world is not as it seems." And so he continues.

He tries to convince us and say the next point, that this world is hopeless. Not only is it pointless, not only is it helpless, it is utterly hopeless. Turn over to Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 18. In Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 18, this is what King Solomon says. "I said to myself concerning the sons of men, 'God has surely tested them in order for them to see that they are but beasts.

For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of the beasts is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. Indeed, they all have the same breath, and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All came from the dust, and all return to the dust.

Who knows that the breath of man ascends up, and the breath of the beast ascends down to the earth." What he's saying is, why do you assume you're that much better than the beast? Why do you assume your future is so much better? Now truth be told, way of wisdom and way of righteousness is so much better than folly, but there is this radical truth King Solomon bears upon us to convince us, look at the world for what it is.

Whether you're wise or you're a fool, your destination is the same, which is you will die the same horrible death. This is the horror of the status quo, and his logic is sound. Someone might say, "Wait a minute, Pastor Mark, you believe in fate?" King Solomon talks much about fate.

And what you realize is, you know what the dictionary definition of fate is? The dictionary definition of fate is simply a development event that is radically beyond a person's control. Then yes! You see, King Solomon is trying to convince you in wisdom. You presume way too much about yourself.

You presume way too much about this world, because his scenario is not too far off from ours. To think that because you're wealthy, to think that because you're in power, that the world is as it should be is actually false. You do recognize the kind of time of peace we are in compared to the rest of history.

To assume that this is the way it ought to be, we are living in a unique time. What's more, you don't even have to look that far into history. Look compared to the rest of the world. You and I are living in a radical sense of privilege and peace compared to the rest of the world.

But then to assume this is the way it ought to be, King Solomon is saying, "You don't understand. We are so subject to fate, because you are not in control. And the humility you need to learn is actually you're just like the beast." When you think about this, what he's saying is, "You're hopeless.

What hope do you have? You're going to strive, you're going to toil, you're going to labor, but when it comes down to it, you're going to face the same exact consequence of our finite human sinful state. You're going to die." That is an absolute reality. Let me just say something here.

This is, yes, is a sad, sad state of events. But I am willing to bet a lot of you, I'm willing to bet a majority of you, you know very well there is nothing guaranteed that you're going to have 70 years of your life. The vast majority of you probably by the time you hit high school, you already knew somebody who died way too early.

You probably already know individuals that have, you can say, it was so unfortunate. But the fact of the matter is none of us are guaranteed that. You're going to have a sad state of hopelessness. Now moving to the second kind of section of the sermon, and transitioning, you could take a look at this and just say, "Wow, this is just so sad." But there is a question, what do you do with this knowledge?

When you see, like King Solomon sees, when you see the pointlessness and the meaninglessness, when you see how helpless it is, when you see how hopeless it is, what are you supposed to do? Because the scenario is so far above and beyond worse than we think it is. There's so many things that are hidden.

Just right now, some of you guys know I'm in school. I have to write a paper on youth suicide and to look up statistics. The sad state of affairs is in any given day there are over 135 individuals who commit suicide in the U.S. And we're thinking, "What?" But that's not even counting just simply individuals who have attempted suicide.

The attempt count is above 1.4 million per year. Okay, King Solomon, my point to you was King Solomon is not exaggerating. If you try to sit and count, if one death is grievous, how many more is 50,000? How many more individuals were at 1.4 million individuals attempting suicide in America?

What I'm saying here is, what do you do with that? And King Solomon gets real really fast. Turn your scriptures over to chapter 2, verse 17 of Ecclesiastes. And when you think about this, if we actually believed and saw like King Solomon, that all your feeble attempts to fix stuff didn't work, as a matter of fact, maybe some of us desperately looked to other people to help us.

And we desired other people to come and save us. And we recognize people themselves are very disappointing, and sometimes when people try to get involved, it just makes matters worse. And you feel this hopelessness. There are no other recourses to turn to. What ends up happening? Well, King Solomon says this, verse 17, chapter 2, "So I hated life, for the work which I had done under the sun was grievous to me, because everything is futility and striving after wind.

Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor." What is he saying there? He hates life. Ecclesiastes chapter 4, for the sake of time, just listen to this. He says, "I look again at the acts of oppression which are done under the sun." He looks at injustice. "And I so behold the tears of the oppressed, that they have no one to comfort them.

And on the side of the oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them. So I congratulated the dead who are already dead, more than the living who are still living. But better off than both is the one who never existed." Whoa. We have to take a moment to meditate.

Is King Solomon saying to die is better? Is he even advocating? How dare he? Like suicidal thoughts? This is not what you teach children. This is not what you teach the church. This is not how you encourage people. What on earth is he doing? Isn't this bothersome? This is very bothersome.

And I'll tell you what, even in my own heart as I was doing devotions through these passages, and meditating on these truths, there was a part of me that was resisting. There was a part of me that was resisting and saying, "Ah, King Solomon just sounds like a bitter guy." Maybe it was because he had way too much.

Maybe it was because he was relishing in all these pleasures and it got to his head. Maybe that's why. No, no. King Solomon actually begins to show us there was another way for me to behave. There was another way for me to react. You know what that way was?

It's the way what I like to call, "You just do the best with what you got." Right? You essentially kind of deceive yourself and you lie to think you try to make the most of what you have. And the motto that a lot of parents teach their kids is, "You know what?

When you get lemons in your life, what you do is you add a dash of sugar and you make lemonade." And we think that's such good advice. What's really interesting is to some degree King Solomon gives this kind of advice in almost a sarcastic tone. Turn your Bibles over to Ecclesiastes 5, verse 18.

Ecclesiastes 5, verse 18. So what I'm saying here is, number one, when you see the hopelessness of the world, you can end up simply hating your life and wishing you never existed. Or number two, you can do what's called, "You make the most of it." You just live. And this is what he says.

Verse 18, "Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting, to eat, to drink, enjoy oneself in all one's labor, in which he toils under the sun, during the few years of his life which God has given him. For this is his reward." You know what's kind of funny?

I read that as though he was actually giving an advice. I'm going to take a moment to do a little personal confessing here. There was a part of me as I was looking at the wretchedness of the world through the eyes of King Solomon, I felt resistance. And I couldn't necessarily put a finger on it, but I think I want to explain it to you in this way.

We recognize there's impulses of our hearts. And there's a part of me that wants to fight back and say, "But are you saying give up on everything? Should I teach my own son, like, 'Don't go to school'? Should I tell my church people, 'You know what you're doing? It's stupid.

Stop.'" No, you're supposed to still work. You're supposed to still build a family. You're supposed to still live, come to church. You're supposed to still grow. So part of me felt this reactionary thing. But what's really interesting about this is in another passage, King Solomon tells a young man, "You know what, young man?

You have a short time to live. Go pursue your passions. Go fulfill your lusts. But just remember, God's going to judge you for all of it." What he was doing was being sarcastic. This is purely just wisdom of the world. I'm trying to teach you something better. And so now, this is the center and heart of the message.

I'm trying to show you that King Solomon has words of wisdom for us. Even if your heart is resisting, first recognize that he is seeing the world appropriately for what it is. Right? There is, yes, a temptation in our heart to look at King Solomon and say, "No, King Solomon." Again, straight up, I was kind of like, "You know what?

Maybe King Solomon is doing this kind of like woke culture stuff." Where he's like, "You think you have it good. You don't know. This is so bad." You know? Like, is he exaggerating? And again, my conviction is, no. He is trying to teach us. Any kind of hope in this world is going to be a tragedy.

When you think that you're going to wisen up, when you think that you're going to self-improve, so that incrementally you can make this life better, it's all monopoly. I meditated deep and long about this, so jot this down in your notes. It's all monopoly. Let me try to explain why I found this to be both in my heart and yet this to also still be vanity.

Have you guys all played that game Monopoly? I'm sure you have. It's such a classic. That game Monopoly, it's a game that takes a long time to play. It's a game where you win property and you get to charge people rent when they land on it. You know what's really funny is I googled that game and I asked this question of Google.

When does the game end? And what's really funny is there's so many entries. There was like blog posts about this and some people responded by saying, "You know when Monopoly ends? It's when you cry." It always ends in tears. You know when Monopoly ends? It's when your brother points the finger at you, accuses you of cheating, flips the board and all your houses go flying.

You know when Monopoly ends? And then somebody wrote, "Never." It never ends. And then somebody wrote, "You'd have to be one kind of special jerk to insist that we actually end the game." Because you guys know who've actually played this game, how it ends. There can be only one.

The game ends when everybody else has to declare bankruptcy and you're the only person standing with property. That's how the game ends. I played this with my family recently. It's so sad. The little one, he's sitting there. He's having to pay all this rent and stuff. He's got like $4 in his little hands.

And he stands up to look at the board. He rolls and you know us as parents, we can count the squares faster. So we're like, "Oh no." And part of you, you feel sympathy. So what do you do? You almost want to cheat the game for him. Just roll again.

That roll didn't count, right? Because you know where he's going to land. The party is like, "Oh no, it's okay." You want to loan him some money. You know what the game rule says? You're not allowed to loan people money. Part of you wants to almost cheat him. Like miscount, be like, "Oh no, you land here." Or you just desire to keep this game going.

Even though you know there's no chance for him to survive with $4. This is where I realized my heart was too. There is this weird defense against King Solomon to say, "No, no, no, we can make this work. Give me a little bit more time. Give me a little bit of your knowledge." People are doing to King Solomon what people do in our day.

They hold blog posts and they interview people. They have YouTube channels. They're like, "Let's interview King Solomon." They go over there and they're like, "What did you do here? What laws did you enact? How did you get so wealthy? How did you get so wise?" And King Solomon is going to turn to them and say, "Your pursuit of reproducing this kingdom on earth, vanity of vanities.

All is vanity." You see, what you realize when you're playing that game, you're simply delaying the inevitable. He's going to be the first person out, but I feel so bad. I just want to, like, give him some of my houses and give him some of my money. What does that do but build false hope?

Monopoly is wicked. Okay, that's my point. I'm just kidding. You can still play. We ended up not finishing the game. Now, moving on to the spiritual application. I am a parent thinking regularly about, "Oh, my goodness. What world am I going to bring my kids into? What life are they going to have in America now that the country is so divided, that people are lovers of themselves, that there's so much subjectivity and nobody even knows right from left?

But then do I teach them, 'But you, son, you have potential. You have value. You have worth. You can do it. Put in your time. Put in your energy. Sacrifice your friends. Sacrifice this and that so that you can succeed.' Is that what I'm going to teach them?" Only to have them return to me later and say, "But Dad, I thought I was going to be happy after having sacrificed all this stuff." Is that what's going to happen?

No, I'm going to teach them the realities that King Solomon is going to teach them. Sons, hard truth. You're entering into a corrupt world that already stands condemned. You need to look to God. You can't look in. You can't look out. You need to look to God. So I want to take this opportunity to introduce you the third way that you can respond when you see what King Solomon sees.

When you see the hopelessness, the helplessness, and the pointlessness, you can just hate life and be like, "You know what? I'm out. I don't want to live here anymore." You can lie and be like, "You know what? Let's make lemonade." Or you can look to God who will tell you like it is.

God has already told you, brothers and sisters, listen to Him. As an exhortation to you, you need to listen and harken your ears. You need to call upon the Lord and hear His wisdom. God has already told you that this generation is wicked and perverse and the axe is already there at the base.

This world is ripe for judgment and it's going to get worse. What's more, our Lord Jesus already said that His kingdom is not of this world. Let's take a moment to thank God. Amen? If we believe all that King Solomon believed without God in our lives, we are only left to our devices.

And you don't need all of King Solomon's wisdom to see that because already there are case examples of people who have been rich, wealthy, famous, who hate their lives but it's so unsatisfactory, so disappointing. Hear King Solomon's exhortation to us. Turn in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes 12:1-7. Brothers and sisters, hear it.

Hear His wisdom. He spent 11 chapters in the book of Ecclesiastes showing you that there is no hope in this world including in you. But He says to you, Ecclesiastes 12:1, "Remember your Creator. In the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near, when you will say, 'I have no delight in them,' before the sun and the light and the moons of the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, remember your Maker.

Consider God. Look to Him." I can't read that whole section because of time but it's so beautiful and poetic how He describes to us, "You have but a short life on this earth while you have a moment. Listen to God. If anybody's sitting here telling you, 'No, no, no, you gotta play this game,' let them know this is all monopoly.

King Solomon was on the top of the world. He was the king with power, resources, and he had all the pleasure in the world and he looked up and realized, 'Oh my goodness, we're just playing a game. You're taking turns rolling the dice and by chance we're landing on spaces but at the end of the day, I gotta turn all this in because all of us, we're going back in the box.

We're all going back in the box.'" So what does he do? He points up and says, "You need to listen to God." Thanks be to God. What he says is first and foremost, "Yes, this world is condemned." But secondly he says, "I have a better plan for you. You may ask of kings, 'What's your plan for our country?' You may ask of politicians, 'What's your plan for us?

What's your plan for your term?' You may look to family, friends, you may even look to this church asking them, 'What's your plan to lead me, to guide me?'" Brothers and sisters, we are of those who believe our Lord and His kingdom. He has a better plan for us.

Amen? Turn your Bibles now over to Hebrews 11. As you guys know, chapter 11 is a chapter on the great hall of faith. Faithful men who have walked this world with courage made incredible sacrifice that astounds us. But listen to what it says of them. Hebrews 11:39. Take a moment to get there in your scripture.

And he says, "These, these faithful ones, were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised since. God had planned something better for us, so that you, sorry, that only together with us would they be made perfect." Brothers and sisters, let that soak in for a little bit.

God has something incredibly planned in His kingdom that's so much far above and beyond. And we could take days to meditate upon how much greater it is for us to have Him as our King, the Righteous One who has perfect justice, perfect knowledge, perfect power to enact for us His justice.

We could sit here and meditate on this idea that God not only has this desire to make for us the better kingdom, but He's going to make you perfect. He's not going to just make sure that there are laws to guide you. He's going to make sure that you're blameless.

You no longer will have pride. You no longer will have greed in here. You no longer will have selfishness. This is the kind of kingdom to which we are hoping in. This is to us the eternity that we're going to have. And the challenge for us then is to make sure we're thinking on this level.

And so I want to give some final exhortations to you. Final exhortation first being that make sure that you're not evaluating this world according to the flesh. Make sure you're not seeing things according to this world. But rather, you're seeing things in the Spirit. You're seeing things according to the eternal perspective.

Through what God has given you as the value of eternity in heaven, you are putting in its appropriate place everything from your fears to your setbacks and including your successes. Imagine with me if this world and this generation right now in this moment, this day was different and we had so many things going for us.

There was low crime. There was low unemployment. You guys were being successful. You were living life with all the accomplishments in your world. What do you think King Solomon would say to you? Still vanity compared to eternity. Right? Still empty compared to what God has in store. God has better plan for us.

And so in our day when we talk, in our day when we speak, because right now there are so many people with so many opinions, and I for one are one of those people who's been contributing to that. You know online people are typing and people are saying this, that opinion.

We have social commentators. We have social influencers. We have political anchors and this and that. Journalists. Everybody has an opinion. But for us, make sure, let us make sure that we are speaking in the wisdom of King Solomon. Let us make sure that we're speaking with the eternal perspective.

If you turn your Bibles, we're already there in Hebrews 11. Not Ecclesiastes, but Hebrews 11, verse 13. Continuing on with the reflection about those who've been faithful in the old. Of them it says, all these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised.

They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.

But instead they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Brothers and sisters, as an exhortation to you, is it pretty clear you're looking for a better country? Is it pretty clear when you're frustrated and you have angst and you're looking at all the woes of the generation and you're counting all the injustices and you're like, "Oh my goodness!" Is it really clear that you're not just simply trying to defend your home here, but is it evidently clear you're a stranger?

And is it evidently clear you're looking for God's better plan? For to us, our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly await for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen? Let's take a moment to bow and pray. Lord God, we thank you so much. Although the sermon had so much to do with how fallen this world is and we know you told us, God, this whole world and all of creation groans in agony until redemption happens.

But Lord, we thank you that in light of all that, we recognize that we have a true, unwavering hope in Christ. Thank you, Lord, for securing our future. Thank you, God, in loving us in such a way where we can walk this world with confidence, even if all things were to fade and fall away, even if all our ambitions and desires are passing.

We thank you, God, that you prepare a way for us. And Lord, I pray then that we would live by such faith, that, God, we would live by such eternal hope. We thank you, Lord. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Let's all stand for the closing praise. Now, why this fear?

Now, why this fear and unbelief? Has not the Father put to grief His spotless Son for us? And will the righteous judge of men Condemn before that debt of sin? Now cancel that the cost. Jesus, all my trust is in your blood. Jesus, you rescued us through your great love.

Complete atonement. Complete atonement you have made. And by your death have fully paid The debt your people owe. Wrath remains for us to face. You're sheltered by your saving grace. Sprinkle with your grace. Sing, Jesus. Jesus, all my trust is in your blood. Jesus, you rescued us through your great love.

How sweet the sound of saving grace. How sweet the sound of saving grace. Christ died for me. How sweet the sound of saving grace. How sweet the sound of saving grace. Christ died for me. Still my soul and know this peace. The merits of your great high praise. The heart your liberty.

Hiding on his precious blood. I feel banishment from God. Since Jesus sets you free. Sing, Jesus. Jesus, all my trust is in your blood. Jesus, you rescued us through your great love. How sweet the sound of saving grace. How sweet the sound of saving grace. Christ died for me.

How sweet the sound of saving grace. How sweet the sound of saving grace. Christ died for me. How sweet the sound of saving grace. How sweet the sound of saving grace. Christ died for me. Amen. Let's bow in a word of prayer as we end our service. Lord God, we again want to say, Lord, that we place our trust in you.

Lord, we trust you with all of our lives. Anything from the past, Lord, that seems to us too big of a burden. All guilt and shame, God, you have dealt with in Christ. But we also know, Lord, our entire future, our entire well-being, everything that we are and that we long for.

That too, Father God, fully taken care of in Christ. And so, Father Lord, we say to you that we trust you with all of our hearts and we dare not place confidence in this world. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy, for the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever.

Amen. God sent his Son They called him Jesus He came to love Heal and forgive He lived and died To buy my pardon An empty cravings there to fill My sacred land Because he lives I can face tomorrow Because he lives All fear is gone Because I know He holds a future And life is worth the living Just because he lives Amen.

You may take a seat. We pray that you have a blessed week. I'm just going to dismiss you now and just as before, please go ahead and use either side of the church building. We're just going to work from the front and just make a nice exit through the building, trying to keep your physical distance as well.

Thank you so much. You're dismissed.