Sermon Transcript
Good morning. I’m gonna start this morning by doing a little exercise. We’re gonna go back in time to the distant past. So I want you all to close your eyes right where you are. Don’t fall asleep.
Close your eyes, and we’re gonna go back in time. Okay, your eyes closed. We’re going back in time to the distant past, and boom, open up your eyes. We’re at March 5th of this year. I know that some of you are probably saying, Steve, that wasn’t that long ago, but just go with me on this.
What was the world like all the way back on March the 5th of this year? Things were so different, right? Not really, but we had just finished our Daring Faith study, remember? What was in the headlines? Well, every day it seemed like we were opening up the newspapers and looking online and reading about articles about This person in Washington, D.C. being mad at this person, and this group being mad at that group.
Things are so different now, right? No. Just go with me on this. The Giants had lots of optimism. They had a perfect record, 0 and 0, back on March the 5th.
They hadn’t blown any saves or any late-inning leads yet. Here we are at the end of May, and not as much optimism. The end of February, if you follow the Golden State Warriors, Kevin Durant, their star player that they had acquired last summer, had just gotten hurt, and people were freaking out because the Warriors actually lost a game or two. And now you look at where they are. Things were so different.
But you know what we also did on March the 5th? Is we started our series in the book of Ecclesiastes. And today we conclude that series. And if you haven’t been with us, or even if you were, I’m just gonna give you a quick recap. Solomon was a miserable human being.
He tried everything. He used all of his resources as the 3rd king of Israel, all of his wealth, all of his resources, all the things available to him to try to find meaning in life. And the book of Ecclesiastes is the book of regrets as he looks back now as an old man looking back on his life saying, He couldn’t find meaning and satisfaction in any of the things that he tried. He tried to find the meaning of life. He tried to find answers to all the deep questions of life.
What is the meaning of life? How do we deal with evil and sin and injustice in this world? How do we deal with death? And the more that he tried to pursue the meaning of life and to find meaning and satisfaction, he couldn’t find it. And he was a miserable person by the end of his life, saying, don’t be like me.
Learn from my mistakes. And he was frustrated. He was frustrated at the crookedness of this world. He was frustrated at his inability to find satisfaction in all the things that he tried to pursue. And so he now brings us to the end of this book, and he’s looking back over his life, and we can all relate to his journey, can’t we?
We all at different times have said in our lives, in order for me to be happy, I just need And then we fill in the blank for our lives. And we pursue those things, yet we don’t find satisfaction from them. We all, like Solomon, have sought meaning in created things rather than in the Creator himself. And we come up empty. And it’s frustrating, isn’t it?
And yet we keep going back to the same things. And so now we come to the end of Ecclesiastes, And we come to the last chapter, chapter 12, and Solomon has a final word for us. A lot of times we think about final words at special moments in our lives. We think about final words perhaps at a graduation. In about a week, I’m gonna be speaking at the baccalaureate service for our 8th grade students here at Los Altos Christian School, and I’m grateful to have that privilege.
I’ve gotten to do that before for my oldest son, and now I’m gonna get to do it for my youngest son, and I’m gonna try to make it through that service without becoming emotional, but I can’t promise anything. But you think about what can you share with a young person at that time before they graduate from middle school and move on to high school, or perhaps somebody graduating from high school and moving on to college. What are some final words that you would wanna share of wisdom? You think about final words before a person transitions into a new phase of life. You think about final words like I did this last Friday, a couple days ago, when I spoke at Nancy Carpenano’s graveyard service, or graveside service.
It was a beautiful service, but I prayed and just asked for God to give me those words that I could share with that family. And I know that the family was thinking about final words that they had had with Nancy before she passed. You think about final words, and so Solomon now is much older and much wiser, looking back. What are the final words he’s going to leave us with? This book of regrets, what is he going to tell us?
And he leaves us with one word. We see it there in verse 1 of chapter 12. It’s the word remember.
That’s a word that’s familiar to us as we celebrate Memorial Day. Remember. What are we to remember? Are we to remember Solomon? Are we to remember all of his various pursuits and all the ups and downs?
No. It says it there in verse 1. Do you see it? Remember your Creator. Remember your Creator.
Remember in this context is not the same thing as opening up a photo album or a yearbook on your lap and taking a trip down memory lane. Remember in this context is more than just to think about God or to remember that He exists. He’s saying to remember your Creator. It’s to be mindful of God in every circumstance of your life and in my life. It is to include God in all of your plans, to remember your Creator, to thank God at all times for all of the things that He gives you and all the things that He allows in our lives, the good and our bad.
It is to pray to God through all of your struggles and the trials and troubles of your life. It is to keep God at the forefront of your mind and of my mind and to love Him. At all times. Solomon is saying, remember your Creator. When all is said and done, remember your Creator.
Remember your Creator when you’re at home. Remember your Creator when you’re at work, when you’re at school, when you’re studying, when you’re at play. Remember your Creator when you’re indoors, when you’re outdoors. Remember your Creator when you rise, when you, when you lie down at night. Remember your Creator at all times.
Don’t forget about Him. Remember Him in all things. Don’t just think of God as someone who created in the past but is now distant and separated from us. Solomon is saying, remember your Creator. Remember Him as somebody who even today creates.
Do you know that God still creates today? That God is at work, that He speaks? Remember your Creator. This is his last words to us. Much older, much wiser, looking back saying, People, remember your Creator.
Well, when are we to remember our Creator? Verse 1, remember your Creator in the days of your youth. That’s the first time we’re to remember our Creator, in the days of your youth. Remember your Creator in your youth. Well, what is he talking about?
What age does youth mean? Well, in the ancient world, youth was considered— you were considered a youth or you were considered young up until the age of 40. Some of us like the idea of that.
Yeah? But if you talk to a 5-year-old about who is old, they’ll tell you that a 13-year-old is old. If you talk to a 13-year-old, they’ll tell you that somebody who’s just out of college is old. Some of you sitting here today look at me and say I’m considered young, but there are plenty of people in youth group and in college that would look at me and would disagree. So age is a relative thing, isn’t it?
But I think he’s talking about not so much a specific number here or an age. I think he’s talking about a season of life. I think he’s talking about a season of life because our younger years are characterized by various things. First of all, they’re energetic years. These are our most active and most healthy years, typically, our younger years.
Our bodies are strong, our minds are sharp, our senses are focused, our wills are determined, our optimism, our enthusiasm is higher.
These are energetic years. Our younger years are also sensitive years. This is why many people who come to faith come to faith as a youth or as a younger person. It’s because as we age, our hearts get harder. We become more indifferent to sin and to evil.
Our younger years are also teachable years. We learn more in our youth, right, than we do just about at any other season of our life. But our younger years are also dangerous years. They’re minefield years, filled with minefields of dealing with peer pressure and temptation and immorality and Dealing with substances and who you’re gonna hang with and all of those types of things that are before you. And Solomon is saying, young people, whatever is considered young, remember your Creator in your youth.
Why is he telling us that? Because it’s especially in our youth that we’re prone to neglect our Creator. It’s especially in our youth when we think that we’re infinitely powerful and we have all the time in the world ahead of us that we tend to neglect our Creator. When you’re young, you have all of your time, you have all of the possibilities, you have all of your life decisions and life goals in front of you, and Solomon is saying in the midst of your fun, people, remember your Creator. Don’t forget about Him, don’t neglect Him, don’t wait ’til you’re older to get serious about God.
And so he’s saying to remember Him. One of the worst mistakes that a person can make when they’re young is to think that they have all the time in the world, because before we know it, the sun starts setting in our lives and troubles start increasing. Solomon is saying remember him now, because later on in verse 1 he says, before the days of trouble come. He’s saying there’s trouble that’s coming as you get older. And the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them.
Remember your Creator before those things happen. One of the worst moves you can make as a younger person, or whenever you’re younger, one of the worst moves you can make is to forget your Creator. Think about all the decisions a person makes when they’re young, about who they will marry, if they will marry, who they will hang with, who their relationships will be with, how they will spend their time, how they will spend their finances, where they will go to school, what their vocation and career will be. And if you don’t lean on your Creator in those early years, you’re prone, and I’m prone, to make decisions that will end up poorly. You don’t believe me?
Ask Solomon. As a younger man, he started off well, but then he got off track, didn’t he? He forgot his Creator in his youth, and he began to make little compromises that resulted in disaster. His heart, the Bible tells us in 1 Kings, his heart was led astray by many ungodly women who led him into idolatry. It wasn’t their fault, it was his fault.
He gave in to that because he didn’t remember his Creator. And even though he had all of the things that a young man would want, wealth, women, and wisdom, and work, and all of these things, he was miserable and he didn’t find meaning in all of those things. Solomon is saying, people, remember your Creator when you are young. But then in verses 2 through 5, he says, remember your Creator in your older age. Remember your Creator as you get older.
People are living longer now, right, than they ever have. In the year 1900, the life expectancy here in the United States was 47 years old. And only 4% of the population at that time was ages 65 and older. Now life expectancy here in this country and in other places around the world are considerably longer— 75, 80, perhaps even longer. More people are living all the way to 100.
But the United States is unique, isn’t it, among other cultures, in that we don’t tend to prize age like other cultures do around the world.
In other cultures, we look at a person who is older and we say that that’s a sign of wisdom, that the elderly are those that we should revere and honor for their lives. But we in the United States tend to distance ourselves from getting older. We do it in a variety of ways, right? We do it with Only putting younger-looking people in the advertisements and on TV and in the movies, people who are deemed more attractive. We, we do it with computer enhancements and photos to try to cover up any signs of aging or to hide those unsightly parts that we wouldn’t want anybody to ever see.
We do it with workouts and special diets and nutrition and vitamins and creams. We do it with billions of dollars that are spent every year on Botox injections and plastic surgery. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons says that in 2015, there were almost 16 million surgical and minimally invasive cosmetic procedures that were performed in the United States. Almost 16 million. And that number is up 115% from just 15 years prior.
And most of these, almost all of them, are deemed medically unnecessary. Why do we do this? Because we’re afraid of getting old.
We don’t like the idea of getting old. We don’t like the idea of breaking down. We don’t like the idea of aging. So we try to distance ourselves from it. And yet, no matter how much you or I invest time and money into Staying young, the bottom line is we get about 100 years max in this world, and then the sun begins to set on our lives.
And it happens to all of us. And rather than looking at it with dread, Solomon wants us to kind of chuckle about it, and he’s gonna give us in verses 2 through 5 one of the most amazing descriptions of getting older that you could possibly imagine. I came across a list this last week of signs that you’re getting older. Perhaps you can find some humor in these things, or at least I hope you can. You know you’re getting older if you and your teeth don’t sleep together.
You know you’re getting older if at the breakfast table you hear snap, crackle, and pop, but you’re not eating cereal. You know you’re getting older if it takes multiple attempts to get up from the couch. I can relate to that. You know you’re getting older if when your idea of a night out is sitting out on the patio. You know you’re getting older if everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work.
You know you’re getting older if it takes twice as long to look half as good.
Look at verse 2. Solomon is saying, remember your Creator as you get older. Listen to this description. Remember your Creator before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark and the clouds return. After the rain.
Solomon’s saying remember your Creator now because eventually the lights will go dim.
And eventually the dark storm clouds of trouble will be at your door. He’s talking about the winding down of a person’s life, isn’t he? He’s talking about the older you get, the more that these troubles start to come and our body starts to break down. And we experience the effects of aging. Remember your Creator in the midst of that.
And some people hear that imagery, some commentators hear about the clouds, and it’s talking about the loss of memory as we get older. Solomon is pointing us toward a time when the clouds begin to form in our mind, and we rely on our memory all the time, but there’s coming a day when we will struggle to remember. So he’s using this metaphor here. Let’s keep going. He says, remember your Creator when the keepers of the house tremble.
What are the keepers of the house? It’s our arms and it’s our hands that will involuntarily tremble as we get older. It says, when the strong men stoop. What are the strong men? It’s our legs, it’s our knees, it’s our shoulders, it’s our back, it’s our muscles, and we will begin to walk hunched over.
We will not stand as tall and straight as we get older than we do now. And this is especially going to be true for a generation that is hunched over looking at their phones and at their computers. Looking at a tiny screen. Isn’t that true?
It says, remember your Creator when the grinders cease because there are few. What are the grinders? Your teeth. You begin to lose your teeth. Chewing becomes difficult.
And those looking through the windows grow dim. Your vision begins to deteriorate.
Remember your Creator, verse 4, when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades. When people rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint. He’s talking about the loss of hearing. And he’s saying that even though you can’t hear during the day as you get older, you’re gonna wake up at the slightest sound in the middle of the night. You’re gonna wake up with the birds early in the morning, and you’re not gonna be able to go back to sleep no matter how much you try.
And it’s gonna be so frustrating. He’s making light of it.
When people are afraid of heights and of danger in the streets. When I was younger, I would hear about people who were older falling and having to go to the hospital or being hurt, and I remember thinking, falling? I fall down all the time, as a young person, right? You go to our elementary classrooms and our middle school, and they’re preschoolers, they fall down, they get right back up. That’s hard as we get older.
And the idea of climbing a ladder, climbing stairs, or being up on steep places causes us fear. It says, remember your Creator. When the almond tree blossoms, what’s he talking about? Well, what is the color of an almond blossom? It’s white.
If you have any hair left, it’s gonna turn bright white. And some of you have already taken steps to remedy that problem in a variety of ways this morning. If you catch my drift.
Happens to all of us. And he says, and the grasshopper drags itself along. A grasshopper is supposed to spring up in the air, but a grasshopper that drags itself and scrapes itself along on the ground is a goner. You look at it and you say, this grasshopper is not doing what it was supposed to do. It’s a metaphor for the loss of our mobility.
We can’t get around as well as we used to. It takes longer to get from point A to point B than it used to. Isn’t this an incredible metaphor? And then he talks about, and desire is no longer stirred. He’s not just talking about appetite, he’s talking about sexual desire.
Some translations say, and the caper berry is ineffective. The caper berry was a known aphrodisiac in that time. And Solomon is saying it doesn’t work on him anymore. He’s much older now. And this is ironic, isn’t it?
Because he had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and he’s known for his voracious sexual appetite, and he says, meh, it doesn’t move me anymore. He’s just not interested. He said, remember your Creator before all of these things happen. Then people go to their eternal home, and mourners go about the streets. All that’s left is death, people to mourn our death, and then they’ll go on about their lives, and eventually Somebody will mourn their death, and it’s the cycle of life.
Remember your Creator before these things happen. Don’t wait. Remember your Creator now.
And as I began to study that section, it reminded me about how you can gauge the passage of time by the way that people approach the aisles of a drugstore. Have you ever noticed this? You can gauge the ways that we approach life and age by the way that we approach the aisles of a drugstore. When you’re young, what are you interested in in a drugstore? 2 aisles, toy store or the toy aisle and the candy aisle.
None of the other aisles have any interest to you, right? They have no appeal to you. Why would you go to the razor aisle? Why would you go to the deodorant aisle? All you care about is the candy and the toys.
And then as you get a little bit older, all of a sudden you start exploring new aisles, maybe to deal with acne, or you find makeup or deodorant. Lo and behold, as a teenager, you wanna impress somebody, you don’t wanna smell so bad, you have body odor, and so you start exploring new aisles. And as we get older, we start exploring new aisles, but there are still 2 or 3 aisles out there that are like no man’s land in the drugstore, and nobody wants to go down those aisles, right? And yet eventually we all go down those aisles. We don’t want to, but we all eventually end up there.
We have to laugh about that. Solomon is saying, remember your Creator before you reach that point.
And let’s laugh about the fact that as we get older, we’re all sort of like a house that is just falling apart piece by piece. Don’t wait. Until you’re too old or until it’s too late to remember your Creator. God holds these things together. But then he tells us at the end of verse 5 and then in verse 6 and 7 to remember your Creator before you die.
Remember your Creator before you die. He says, then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about the streets. Remember him before the silver cord is severed and the golden bowl is broken. Before the pitcher is shattered at the spring and the wheel broken at the well, and before the dust returns to the ground it came from and the spirit returns to God who gave it. He’s talking about death.
He pictures a silver cord holding up a golden bowl, almost like a lamp that’s being suspended from the ceiling. You cut that cord and the lamp falls and it shatters and it breaks. And when the fragile cord of life is severed, the light of life goes out. Remember your Creator before that happens. And then he pictures some sort of a wheel well type of a mechanism that’s used to draw up water, deep spring water with a pitcher.
And in the ancient world, the fountain was a metaphor or an image for life. And he’s saying when the machinery of life stops working, the water of life stops flowing, the heart stops pumping, the blood stops circulating, and death has come. And our body begins to decay and we return to dust.
So what is Solomon’s response to all of this? Verse 8, meaningless, meaningless. Well, we’ve heard this. This was the— This— you go all the way back to the beginning of the book of Ecclesiastes, the 2nd verse, he says this very thing: meaningless. He said it more than 30 times in the book, and thankfully he’s now gonna say it for the last time.
Meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher. Everything is meaningless. He’s saying, apart from your Creator, apart from remembering the one who created you, it’s all empty. It’s all meaningless. And indeed it is.
If your focus is on anything but your Creator, you will reach the end of your days and you’ll say it’s all meaningless.
Solomon is saying, don’t get there. Do it before you die, before it’s too late.
This is a pretty interesting and depressing way to end this series, isn’t it? I thought about just titling this sermon, Wise Up Everybody, We’re All Just Gonna Die. But I thought that was a little drastic and a little extreme.
But the Bible constantly challenges us to face the reality of time.
Not to be morbid, not to manipulate us or to cause us fear or anxiety, but just to be sensible that our time is so finite and it goes by like this. Take advantage of the opportunities that are available to you. And if you’re here today saying, well, I’ve already squandered those years, I’ve already squandered my opportunities, then remember your Creator today. Don’t wait. The Bible always speaks in the language of now.
Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the time to be reconciled to God. Not tomorrow, today, now. Get right with God now before it’s too late.
Remember your Creator.
How do we do this? How do we remember our Creator? Look all the way down at verse 13. It says, now all has been heard. Here is the conclusion of the matter.
Here’s the final word. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. Hey Solomon, can you sum up everything that you just wrote about in the previous 11 chapters? Fear God and keep his commands. That’s the heart of the matter.
He’s saying that’s the way that we discover the meaning of life. That’s what God has called us to do. Fear God and keep his commands.
If you wanna understand life, you start there. That’s the sum total of all of his learnings. Fear God and keep his commands. Well, how do we do that? He gives us a couple ideas in verses 11 and 12.
He says, the words of the wise are like goads. Their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails given by one shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. One of the ways that we can fear God and remember our Creator is to take God’s word seriously. He’s saying the Bible is like a goad.
A goad was a sharp stick or a herding tool that shepherds would use to redirect cattle and sheep when they’d get off the path and wander into danger. And it didn’t feel good to the animal, but the shepherd used the goad, his rod and his staff, to protect and to draw that animal back and to keep it from winding up in foolishness. And the Bible is like a goad to us. It doesn’t always feel great. It’s meant to convict us.
It’s meant to keep us from doing foolish things. One way to fear God is to be in his word on a daily basis. He’s saying that God’s rod and his staff may not only convict us, but they will also comfort us. It’s comforting to stay on the right path. It’s comforting to remember your Creator now.
And then he uses the imagery of a well-driven nail. In Solomon’s day, if you walked into a home there in ancient Israel, they didn’t have a coat rack. Took a nail or a wooden peg and drove it into the wall, and then people could hang their most important articles on that. It’s a well-driven nail. Solomon’s saying God’s word is like a well-driven nail on which you can hang your life.
How do we know that we can do that? Because it says it comes from one shepherd, and that phrase there, given by one shepherd, that one shepherd imagery is only used 3 other times in scripture, and every time it refers to the Messiah. Solomon’s saying God inspired him. To write this message. And God inspires all the writers of Scripture.
This is God-breathed, and we can hang our lives on these things. We all hang our lives on something, but are you hanging your life on the truths of God’s Word? Part of fearing God and keeping his commands is to hang your life on his eternal truth.
Sadly, we spend Many of us spend more time looking at our emails, reading our texts, and reading our social media feeds than we do spending time in God’s Word. Remember your Creator because that is, if you want to know God, that’s the starting place. God’s Word revealed to us. Take God’s Word seriously. And then he says in verse 14, for God will bring every deed into judgment.
Including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. So a second way that we can remember our Creator is to prepare for judgment. You thought about the fact that all of us prepare for retirement, but how much time do you and I spend preparing for life beyond retirement?
What does it profit a person, Jesus would say, what does it profit or benefit a person if they spend so much time developing their retirement portfolio and have everything lined up, and yet they lose their soul? What does it benefit you and I if we spend our 100 years or so in this life accumulating things for ourselves but forget our Creator, and we’re not prepared for judgment, and we’re not prepared for the fact that our— there’s coming a day when all of us will stand before God and answer for The things that are known, but also even the things that are hidden that we think no one else will ever know about. And we’ll be called to account because life is a stewardship. It’s a gift. Time is a gift.
And there’s only 3 ways to use that gift. Warren Wiersbe, the Bible commentator, says that some people spend their time, Other people waste their time. Only a few people invest their time and do it wisely, storing up treasures in heaven for themselves, setting their minds on things above, loving God with all of their heart, soul, strength, and mind, seeking God first, delighting themselves in the Lord. Only a few people invest their lives wisely. And receive the benefit from that?
How are you using the gift of time that God has given you? Are you preparing for judgment? Am I preparing for judgment? Because let’s be clear, even though he doesn’t mention it here, we know the rest of the story here in Scripture, that there’s coming a day when we will be called to account for what we have done, not only with our time, but in relation to the Lord Jesus himself. Those who say yes to his gift of eternal life, like Nancy Carpenano did, We can rejoice when they pass.
A life well-lived, immediately in the presence of God.
But to any who says no, or who rejects, or who ignores God’s invitation to follow him, will experience eternal separation in hell. We don’t spend enough time preparing for judgment. We spend more time preparing for things here in this life instead of having an eternal perspective. So we fear God by taking his word seriously and by preparing for judgment. I have 3 concluding thoughts I just want to briefly share with you as we wrap up not only this message but also this series.
First, what is the meaning of life? That’s where we started. It’s this search for something else, but the search for something else that we are all on is actually a search for someone, not something, and we just don’t even realize it. The meaning of life is only found in relationship to God. To know God.
That’s the starting and the ending place. If you try to find the meaning of life in anything else than in knowing God, you will wind up empty and you will miss it.
Start there. That’s why you and I were created for relationship with God. Yet that’s part of what we lost in the fall when Adam and Eve fell in the garden. Adam had a perfect relationship with God. The world was as it should be, and everything in Adam’s life flowed out of the context of that relationship with God, that perfect relationship.
Everything in life made sense, but God is no longer the default reference point for our lives because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, and that’s why the world is so confusing. If you want the world to begin to make more sense, the only way that you can begin is to start to know God and his ways. And we never forget that. That’s the meaning of life. Second concluding thought, I think that this is rather good news.
Even if you don’t remember your Creator, do you know that your Creator remembers you? You don’t have to reintroduce yourself to God each time you come to him in prayer. Your Creator knows you. He knows you by name. He has your name inscribed on the palm of His hand.
He rejoices over you, the Scriptures say, with love.
That should, rather than driving us further away from our Creator, cause us to say, God, help me to remember You in all things. Thank You, God, that if I am a Christ follower, that I don’t have to depend upon me remembering You for the security of my salvation. That’s based on You remembering me. Nevertheless, help me to remember you.
One more concluding thought as I think about this message and about, again, all that we’ve studied since all the way back on March 5th, is that this notion of getting older and of dying, may we never forget that those things are consequences of the curse that we received in the Garden of Eden, the curse of sin.
Yet Jesus came to the earth and died on the cross to become a curse for us, and he paid the penalty for our sins.
And because of that, when we say yes to his invitation to have eternal life, Death no longer has to have the final word.
Aging is not the end.
Many people this weekend will be visiting cemeteries, and I was at one on Friday for Nancy’s service, and it’s just grave plots as far as the eye can see. And this world is filled with grave plots, but you know that there’s one grave that is still empty. It’s one that the dust could not hold back, could not claim Jesus, because he rose again so that we could have eternal life.
May we remember our Creator, and may we remember the one who gave his life for us. May we hang our life on him.
Let’s pray.
Father, we thank you for How fun it’s been to study Ecclesiastes. Some people would say it’s a miserable book, Lord. I’m grateful that it just is honest and reminds us that we’re here for just a short time, and I pray that you’d help us to invest our time wisely.
I pray that everyone here, including, Lord, myself this week, that we would remember you as we come and as we go.
Not just on Sundays, and not just when we’re in need, but all the time, crying out to you, remembering what your Son Jesus did for us.
Father, we thank you for your word. May we hang our lives on you and on your word every day. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
