Ecclesiastes Introduction

Well, good morning, everyone. Nice to see all of you this morning. My name is Steve Walker. I'm one of the elders. This morning we're beginning a new series in the book of Ecclesiastes that will take us all the way through to the new year. So I encourage you to bring your Bibles every week. If you're not in the habit of doing that, you should do that unless you have it digitally and you're

looking there.

Open your Bible this morning to that Old Testament book that we all have loved so much. Or not Ecclesiastes if you're not really sure where it is because I mean, when was the last time you read it? Just look at your Bible, go halfway and if you hit Psalms or Proverbs, just go right. And if you hit Isaiah or Jeremiah, go left and you'll find it.

If the pages are probably stuck together and while you're turning there. Let me encourage you if you didn't know this, we're only a few weeks out from a national election. Probably not, yeah, But be not dismayed. God's got this.

The Scriptures assert that he alone installs and deposes kings and all who are in authority, and I believe that His sovereign Providence will determine the outcome. Our part as citizens, because we're born into this nation, we have citizenship. Our party citizens, is to take seriously our privilege and our responsibility to vote, to make our voice heard according to our consciences.

In our conviction. So God will do his part. Let's do ours. Please get out and vote.

The previous announcement does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of any political party, no. Got to say that. OK, let's break.

God, as we come to the Scriptures, we want to hear your voice. We love you because you first loved us. Your mercy and grace and presence has been utterly transforming to us. And so I pray that we could set aside everything in

our To Do List, every expectation that kind of grips our minds. Any frustration or heartache or trouble that obscures what you're going to say? I pray that you'd give us ears to hear, eyes to see, and heart to respond in a way that would be honoring to you and good for us. Pray in Jesus name and those who agreed said amen. 

Well, there's an outline here that will if you like outlines, we got one for you. If you don't, just ignore it.

Is Kindergarten enough?

So a number of years ago, a guy by the name of Robert Fulham scribbled a note that became a popular poster. And then it was expanded into a book. It was entitled All I Really Needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten. And its simplicity and innocence kind of warms our hearts. It's stuff. It's it's the light

hearted stuff. Let me, let me. Read some portions. All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how I should be. I learned in kindergarten, wisdom was not at the top of the Graduate School mountain, but there, in the sandbox at school. These are the things that I learned. Share everything Playfair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you're hurt, when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some things. Draw some paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic. Hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember

the little seed in the Styrofoam cup? The roots go down, the plant goes up. Nobody really knows how or why, but we're all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup. They all die, and so do we.

Everything you need to know is there somewhere. The golden rule in love and basic sanitation, ecology and politics and equality. Insane living. Take any one of those lessons and apply it to your family life, your work, your government, or your world, and it holds true and clear and firm. And it is still true. No matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold

hands and stick together.

Isn't that great? Yeah. As heartwarming as that is, I have to ask now, wait a minute, is kindergarten really enough? And if it were, why didn't God say it in a page rather than in over 1000 pages in most of our verses of the Bible? I mean, even more to the point, maybe not all of our problems are going to

be solved with cookies and milk at three, with a nap. Maybe more is wrong with the world and what kindergarten can address, much less solve.

Now there's a far darker picture of life in the Bible, one that asks harder questions and comes up with more troubling answers in the church. I dare say that this book has tended to be treated sort of like an uninvited uncle at a family reunion who speaks out of turn and spoils the moment by asking embarrassing questions and making inappropriate remarks.

I mean, we tolerate him, we hope he goes away. At least we hope that we can ignore him. But Uncle Ecclesiastes. Doesn't go away. He just stands in the corner staring and questioning and commenting and he troubles us. And justice, like we might ask, what's he doing here? So when you and I read Ecclesiastes, you might ask, now wait a minute, what's this doing in the Bible?

|. What’s this doing in the Bible?

You say my name is Steve. What do you mean by that? Well, let me just show you. Let me just sample a couple of these verses and you'll get the idea. Look at chapter one, verse 2, chapter 1, verse 2.

“Vanity of vanities, says the preacher. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.”

Wow, what do you think his point is?

Look at chapter 2, verse 17. Chapter 2, Verse 17. “So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, and for all is vanity and a striving after wind.”

Look at chapter 3, verse 19. “For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath and man has no advantage over the beasts. For all is

vanity.”

 I mean every chapter has statements like this. Can we just do a couple more?

Chapter 8. Verse 14.

Love to hear those pages turn.

Chapter 8, verse 14, “There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous.”

I said this also is vanity. Look at Chapter 11, verse 8. “So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in the mall, but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.”

Wow, he's got to spoil everything.

Verse chapter 12 verse 8, he ends like he began “vanity of vanity, says the preacher, all is vanity.”

So anyway you cut this, this does not sound like Moses who said love the Lord your God with all your heart. It does not sound like King David. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. This does not sound like Isaiah. Come, let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be white as snow.

This doesn't sound like Jesus. “I am the light of the world”.

It doesn't sound like Paul. “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.”

||. Who wrote it?

This writer's voice is hoarse. It's hollower. It has a harder edge to it. Vanity

of vanities. All is vanity. Now wait a minute. I mean, who wrote this well?

We get a clue from chapter 1 verse one where it says the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. The son can mean descendant. It doesn't have to be the immediate first generation.

Of a father to a Son, I mean any descendant. But chapter one verse 12 narrows it down. Look at chapter one, verse 12. It says “I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. Now there were only three kings that reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel, their soul.”

There's David and there's Solomon. And then at the end of Solomon's life.

In 931 BC there was a civil war and the king split into two. 10 northern tribes or states were called Israel, and two southern tribes were called Judah. So

Jerusalem was actually in the southern Kingdom of Judah, and there was no king after Solomon that could accurately claim to be king over all of Israel. So it probably is Solomon.

There's another clue to the author in chapter 1, verse 16. Where it says that the writer says. I said in my heart. I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who are over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. Now look at chapter 2, verse 4. Chapter 2, verse four. I made great works. I built houses. I planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks. I planted all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house. I was also great.

Of herds and flocks more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of men. So I became great and surpassed all who were

before me in Jerusalem.

Now look there, there can be nobody else, none other than King Solomon, who would fit this description. Solomon at the beginning of his reign, God appeared to Solomon and in his life he, God said, he asked, he said to Solomon, you just asked for anything at all, anything from me.

It was sort of like, you know, 3 wishes from a genie, except that it was one prayer request from God. So it's a little different, but. So he said ask anything.

And Solomon, surprisingly, simply asked to be wise. That's a very wise thing to ask for wisdom. And God was delighted with that request, and he answered this way. He said, “Behold. I give you, Solomon, a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you, and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked for, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you all your days. However, as the years passed, Solomon's success went to his head. And as so often happens when God blesses a great leader, the leader begins to think that he's really someone special, someone indispensable, someone for whom the rules don't apply. And so, you know, you can almost hear Solomon or people that you know who are so important say, you know, God has chosen me, he's used me, he needs me.

Where would this Kingdom be? Without me. And so Solomon began to make excuses for not following very clear commands. He rationalized his compromises. And over time, he simply moved away from including God in his

life. He didn't stop believing in God. He stopped living like he did. But the ancient command was clear from the beginning. Deuteronomy chapter 17 says this, “Only he that is the king. Must not acquire many horses for himself, or he shall not acquire many wives for himself. That's just heart turn away. Nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver in gold.

To stop there a minute. You think? OK, now what? A minute. What is excessive?

Well, let me show you what it is and we'll do a little math here. So what did he do? First Kings records the life of Solomon and it says now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold. Wow, that seems like a lot. That's 660. Well, let me I did the math. Really I did so you say.

Is 60 minus. There you go. OK, that cleared up. OK, maybe not one minor is 100 drachmas. Is it getting clearer now? Maybe not. OK, how about this

one? Drachma is a day's wage.

So. If a talent is 60 minus and a minor is 100 Drachmas, and a drachman is a day's wage, then one minor is 100 days wages. And if 60 minus is that you know that is a talent, then a talent is 6000 days wages. Everything that you could earn for 6000 days. Is what a talent is.

You don't spend a nickel 6000 days and it's not one talent, it's 666 talents. In other words, if you do the math there, it's about two talents in a lifetime. The guy, the guy who works all his life, spends not anything. All that money is in gold and that lifetime, there's over 300 lifetimes.

And it's in Solomon's treasury. I think that's excessive. That was bad enough, but note the straw that broke the camel's back.

First Kings 11 says now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian and Hittite women. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines and his wives turned away his heart. His heart was not wholly true to the Lord is God. So it had not been an overnight defection. It was a quiet erosion over time. Too many marginal insurance eventually caused a spiritual cave in.

And Solomon? Lived for quite a while as though the living God were dead.

He lived making his own plans, going his own way. He lived on his own. He was the ultimate self-made man. He squeezed from life every ounce of satisfaction and meaning that he could, all apart from God. And the results were that he said it was empty, it was hollow, it was bitter, it was vain.

And Ecclesiastes is his testimony that speaks to you and me this morning.

So, OK, wait a minute, why did he write it? Why did he write it?

|||. Why did he write it? Three interpretations.

Well, there are three approaches or interpretations. The first is that, you know, it's kind of the Confessions of a worldly cynic. Some people think that this is, you know, Solomon's journal of his sour and cynical and dark perspective apart from God. And the only benefit of reading this is that it's a good example of a bad example. You go away from God and this is what you end up with.

I guess I can see it. I mean, but I don't think that Solomon wrote it while he was on this big spiritual slide. There are too many reflections, too many insights that are in this book, that pepper this book. And you'll see that he's very intentional about pointing out lessons for us to learn in the midst of this whole thing.

Some people approach this as musings on. You know, kind of as good as it can get. In other words, everything Solomon scribbles describes what life looks like from the underbelly of despair, the absence of God and a man's life leads to emptiness. And pretty much every area, no matter how much you succeed, how hard you try to make sense of it all, if life doesn't have any meaning, then everything in life is meaningless too. And you know, he just then the idea is that is right at the end he says, well.

You know, you gotta go back to God and then it can be better. This view kind of makes a lot of sense if it weren't for the last 6 verses in the book where he explains his purpose and method.

And sometimes we just forget that people who write the Bible were not insane, that they made sense. And oftentimes they are. They're telling us what they're doing. And Solomon does this at the end of his book.

And that is, he confessed that he's the wise teacher prodding his students.

So look at chapter 12, verse 9, and I just want to read a couple of verses here because he explains what he's doing. Chapter 9 or chapter 12, verse 9, he says besides being wise, the preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. He's the author of Proverbs. The preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth. We'll come back to that. The words of the wiser, like goads will come back to them, and like nails and we'll come back to that firmly. Are the collected sayings they're given by 1 shepherd my son, beware of anything beyond these of making many books. There is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh, the end of the matter.

All has been heard to fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. So let me just make a couple of observations about what he just said. He claims to be fulfilling the role of the teacher. He sees himself filling the office of the teacher, that's what he says in verse 9 and 10. And actually this is where we get the title to the book.

In Hebrew, the word for the title of this book is Kohli, and it refers to one who calls an assembly together in order to teach them. In the Greek version of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, this person is called an Ecclesiastes, from which we get the name of the book. And so the point is he's calling us together.

And he's going to teach us. The question is what he's teaching? Right. And I would say absolutely yes. He says he's wise and imparting knowledge. He says he didn't write haphazardly, but he carefully composed what he wrote with just the right words. That's what verse 10 says. What he wrote were words of truth. It didn't sound to me like he's admitting that what he wrote were Confessions of a cynic that were really just off base. No, he's saying. “What I wrote is the absolute truth. In fact, he claims divine direction. He says these words are from 1 shepherd. That's not Solomon. This is referring to God. In other words, this is inspired stuff. It's not like most other books. It represents the absolute truth from God's point of view. Now if you look at verse 11.

Where he talks about goats and nails. He says his intent is to push us into God's arms, and to do that he uses his words as two things #1 goads. Goads prod and move us and make us think. He intends to goat us away from living our lives independently of God. And if you know what a goad is, it's a sharp stick used to push an oxen on when plowing. If it goes the wrong way, you poke it. And it is, so you keep it going.

Right way. It's kind of like our modern cattle prod that delivers an electric shock to a resistant animal. And you know, there's two ways to get the dumb locks going in the right direction. You can try to pull. That doesn't work very well. You can prod and that typically does work. A goad hurts and he says, I'm going to say things that are going to sting and hurt. So you'll go the right way.

Some of what he says goads us, and then and then he says my words are also nails, and those nails develop convictions. He uses his words to nail down what we believe about where meaning and purpose and fulfillment in life are and where they're not.

And Solomon said, look, I've been there, and I want you to develop clear and stable convictions about why there isn't a very good place to be. So let's just look at the book from a bird's eye view. This is on the back of your outline, so you don't have to look at it. Now you got it. You can take it home. You can stare at it. I just want you to look up here and I'll talk you through the chart.

So Solomon asks the teacher's question, the question that's really important, and that is, “can a person find meaning and purpose and fulfillment apart from God?”

That's the question that the book answers, and he says that he's looking at life from the perspective of under the sun. The phrase under the sun is used 29 times in our English standard version, and the related phrase under heaven 3 three more times. It just refers to looking at things from a purely human point of view without any help or reference from God. So God's in heaven you're.

Earth. And maybe you're not on talking terms, you're just pretty much on your own. So how do you find out what life's all about? How do you, how do you know what's fulfilling, what's meaningful? What's the point of it all? What's going to make me happy?

Well, you investigate by observation and you see these words. I saw, I searched, I perceived, I considered, I realized.

In science we would just call this. Investigation by observation, the empirical method where you observe using your eyes and ears. You think about it, you draw conclusions strictly from the data at hand, with no outside help and and

Solomon was uniquely empowered to do that very thing.

Commentator Derek Kidner calls him quote, one of the most brilliant and least limited of all men. I mean, he had everything. He had wisdom, opportunity.

Resources, time, power.

Look, I'm, I don't know, Dave and I are in no position to do this. I mean, I mean, if we wanted to cast all responsibility to the wind, live high on the hog, drive off into the sunset, both of us would need to get a loan. But the unknown sometimes calls to us from, you know, from the other side of the fence. And so

we think, you know, who wants to be a billionaire? Anybody who wants to be a billionaire. Yeah. There's two of us. We'll split it. OK. Yeah. All the rest of you guys forget it. You had your chance.

We think. Yeah. I'd like to be a billionaire. I'd like to have unlimited resources because even if it wouldn't make me happy, it would make me happy. What I am right now. So Solomon had that blank check and he spent it on everything that he could think of. And at the end, the verdict is blunt. He says life apart from God, no matter what else you fill it with, is vanity. 35 times he uses that word vanity, and in English vanity can mean either conceited or self absorbed,

but it can also mean meaningless to no purpose. And the Hebrew word is hebel. Hebel say it with me. Hebel, say it with me. Hebel.

It's harder to translate because it's a picture word used as a descriptive term that literally means a swirl of fog. A wisp of vapor, a puff of wind, a passing breeze, a mere. Breath.

It's nothing you really can get your hands on. It pictures something elusive and fading and passing away, and so when it describes purpose, it means meaningless.

When it applies to tasks or lifetimes or effects it pronounces the mall fleeting or unsubstantial or momentary. They ultimately mean nothing because they don't have any lasting effect. The word has been translated in a variety of ways in our Bibles. Meaninglessness. Vanity. Futility. You get the point. Pointless.

One commentator's take on Solomon's description of life as Heville. Is really insightful. He says that it points to life being short, elusive, repetitive. And

seemingly pointless. So we should learn to live by preparing to die. There's a hard stop at the end of every single life.

Wow, that's encouraging. Why don't we close in prayer and we'll slink out of here? So Solomon confesses that he pretty much did everything and experienced everything and accomplished everything you could.

Chapter 2 recounts that he built buildings and parks and, you know, indulged

in pleasure for everything from great cuisine to sexual dislikes. He owned

the newest and the best of everything. He had an iPhone 16. He withheld nothing from his wish list. He wielded power like none other. He was known and praised and he savored his popularity, and when it all went dead in his

hands, he turned to the pursuit of education and philosophy and wisdom, and it led him to uncertainty and doubt and despair.

And Ecclesiastes blasts the notion that life apart from God can be fulfilling. Solomon makes us face how meaningless and pointless life is apart from God. In fact, apart from God there's no greener pastures, just dead ends. And so he strips bare the self-sufficient, self-contained, self absorbed life. Life apart from God leads to confusion and discouragement and despair. And so Solomon kneels down 3 insightful observations in this book, and he says, look apart from God, a person cannot enjoy even the simplest of pleasures.

He confesses that even enjoying the little things of life is really a gift from God, that we can't even eat a meal and feel satisfied with a day's work unless God is quietly behind it, giving it meaning and purpose. Life is something that we receive as a gift. It's not a result of striving. And you'll hear that in very pointed ways throughout this book as we go through it.

Apart from God, a person can't even discover the meaning purpose of life, he

says. The meaning of life is not in this life, it's out of this world. And any perspective of life that doesn't rise above the world, it stays under the sun. It's doomed to uncertainty and emptiness. You try to live life apart from God, You'll have to fill your life with amusements. You know what amusement? You know what amusement means?

Ah, muse. You know what means we muse to think ah is primitive? It means not. When you engage in amusements, what are you doing? You're not thinking. OK, I guess that's OK. Do you ever feel like you want to go home, sit down, turn on the TV and zone out?

That's an amusement. We better keep going because you're feeling a little awkward.

Albert Camus. Was a philosopher a French philosopher? Existentialist writer. He confessed there's no meaning to life, no purpose at all. The only meaning can only be found in rebelling against a meaningless existence by pretending to live as if there were meaning when there isn't. Did you get that? Yeah, yeah. And then he shot himself.  Yeah. Yep.

And Solomon will remind us that we are created beings and that we derive our

importance and meaning only from our relationship to the One who made us our Creator. And so he says apart from God, a person cannot understand God or his ways. I mean, you got to have God reveal himself to us. And if we, if he doesn't, if he doesn't, then we'd all be in the dark about God in his ways. You can't get there simply by trying to reason it out. You can't figure out who God is, why he's the way he is, what he plans to do. You can't understand the significance of events or put them in their proper perspective apart from God.

Life under the sun is confusing and contradictory. Solomon. Charles Swindoll presents the raw truth about life as emptiness when it is lived apart from God. Man, I'll tell you, I've just beat this dead horse, so let's turn it. The book doesn't end as it begins. I know at the front door of the book, Solomon pronounces vanity of vanity. All is vanity chapter one verse 2 and then chapter 12 verse 8, he repeats it, but then in concluding instead of concluding that everything is nothing, that it's all fleeting, everything is pointless, end of book.

No, no, he doesn't end there. He says this chapter 12 verses 13 and 14.

This is: 1. You just want to underline. Look at chapter 12 verses 13 and 14.

The end of the matter. All has been heard. Notice what he concludes. Fear God.

And keep his commandments. Fear God. And obey God. Because when you do, things matter.

In fact, at the back door of this book. At the back door of this book, Solomon is concluding that it's only apart from God that life is meaningless. With God, life is filled to the brim with purpose. Fear God and keep his commandments.

Verse 14 but this is the whole duty of man, for God will bring in. Bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. Not only

are things not meaningless. Just the opposite is true.

Apparently. Everything matters if you didn't know this, I'm a Calvinist. I mean, I'm, I love Calvin and Hobbes. I don't know if you know. And I think Bill Watterson through his cartoon says amazing things. There was one of them I was reading and it said Calvin is playing with Hobbes. And he says we all want

meaningful lives. We look for meaning and everything that we do. That's

true. But suppose there is no meaning. Suppose life is fundamentally absurd.

Suppose there's no reason or truth or rightness in anything. He conjectures What if nothing means anything? What if nothing really matters? And then Hobbes says, I guess there's no harm in a little wishful thinking. Or suppose everything matters. Which would be worse?

And that's exactly what Solomon is saying. Not that nothing matters, but because God brings every deed, even the smallest thing, into judgment. Not, not to judge you in terms of where you're going to go to heaven or not that's taken care of in Christ, but to judge the significance of what you do, to weigh it, to give it purpose. Even the smallest thing is how you treat another person.

Whether you eat or drink with thankfulness in your heart. The smallest things come into judgment, and so not. It's not true that nothing matters. Everything matters, and that should make us think.

OK, so where do you go from here? Well, I think I want you to read Ecclesiastes. Dave's going to be jumping into chapter 1, and you're going

to go to verse 11 or so. Yeah, Verse 11, chapter 1, verses one through 11. Go ahead and read chapter 1, one through 11 this week and just ruminate on

it, ponder it over. And Solomon has reflected on his mostly trashed life.

And he just shoots straight with us. I don't want you to take these lessons.

Stay in this sermon. I want you to talk about them with your friends and with your family and in your life group and let them sink into your heart and blossom in your life. Bring them up again and again and say boy, what did he mean by that? What does this mean in my life? Am I like that? Think about it and talk about it and then ponder Jesus' question Mark 836. Jesus asks him to interrogate the people listening, he says. “For what does it profit? What good is it to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? And I know what we do is we

tend to see this in Christian and non Christian terms in whether or not a person is saved or lost, whether he's going to heaven or not. And it's certainly true that the most important question is what do we do with Jesus? Do we put our trust in him holy to forgive us and give us new life? Is what he did enough to make us right before God?

And here's the thing. We who believe in him. Can rest in his promise to save us. That will never change. Once we accept him, we might think that the question is settled. That we’re good and let me just push you on this. Is it possible that the question is good for us too?

Even after we believe. What if we do what Solomon did? We gain everything, but we lose what deeply matters. Even as a Christian, is it possible to pursue the trappings of life and let go? Of life itself.

Is Ecclesiastes, speaking to any of us who are either tempted to or involved right now in a self seeking, self fulfilled, self-contained, self-directed life.

And I will tell you that Solomon is shouting at us and telling us how dead the end is without God, just how small the package is of a life all wrapped up in itself.

And we should ponder Jesus' question. He wants us all to think that's why

he asked the question. You make a bad deal if you live apart from God.

And so in the coming weeks, Solomon will go into thinking he'll help us kneel down our convictions. But just this coming week.

Question for yourself, does my life matter? Can I find meaning and purpose and fulfillment apart from God? Am I trying to? Is it possible to waste my life and live for what doesn't matter and is destined to blow away? Or.

Can I invest in the smallest things of life, the briefest of interactions? How I raised my kids. How I write that note or not write that note. How I listen attentively to another person, how I pray for the small things of my life. Do they all? Deeply matter.

These aren't questions kindergarteners would ask. But then again, maybe there's stuff that we didn't learn in kindergarten. And maybe it's time for us to grow up and think hard, because at stake is all that really matters if we really intend to escape an empty life.

Let's pray. God, we know that we were created to live closely to you.

And we find our meaning and purpose and fulfillment only in you. And so this morning we confess that when we have ignored you, we have been the most frustrated and unhappy. Remind us today just how desperate we are for you, how much we really need you and we trust your love for us, your grace for us. Work in our hearts, we pray in Jesus name. And those who agreed said, amen.