The Emptiness of our Endeavors

Turn with me in your Bible to the book of Ecclesiastes The book of Ecclesiastes and as you're turning, I want to read to you what was written on February 14th 1989 in the Chicago Tribune It was written by a 14 year old boy And before the column was printed The author of that column called the boy to make sure it was his and no one else's Because once you hear it, you'd think someone much older than 14 wrote it Young man's name was Jason Lehman And the title of the poem in which he wrote is called present tense This is how it goes It was spring But it was summer.

I wanted the warm days and the great outdoors It was summer But it was fall. I wanted the colorful leaves in the cool dry air It was fall, but it was winter. I wanted the beautiful snow and the joy of the holiday season It was winter But it was spring. I wanted the warmth and the blossoming of nature. I was a child, but it was adulthood. I wanted the freedom and the respect I was 20 But it was 30. I wanted to be mature and sophisticated I was middle-aged But it was 20 I wanted the youth and the free spirit I was retired But it was middle age that I wanted the presence of mind without limitations My life Was over But I never got What I wanted words by a 14 year old boy are truly a summation of the book of Ecclesiastes That insatiable search for satisfaction that was Solomon's search The never-ending chase for that which I so desperately want but never attained that search for meaning in life When life holds no meaning It's a never-ending journey And Solomon was on that journey And in chapter 1 He introduces to us his journey So let me set these verses in your mind, and then we will spend time talking about them In Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verse number 1 the words of the preacher the son of David King in Jerusalem Vanity of vanity says the preacher vanity of vanities all is vanity What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the Sun a Generation goes and a generation comes But the earth remains forever Also, the Sun rises in the Sun sets And hastening to its place It arises there again Blowing toward the south then turning toward the north the wind continues swirling along and on its circular courses the wind returns All the rivers flow into the sea Yet the sea is not full To the place where the rivers flow there they flow again All things are wearisome Man is not able to tell it The eye is not satisfied with seeing the ear Fill nor is the ear filled with hearing That which has been is that which will be and that which has been done is that which will be done So there is nothing new under the Sun Is there anything of which one might say see?

See this is it is new Already it has existed for ages Which were before us? There is no remembrance of earlier things and also of the later things which will occur There will be for them. No remembrance among those who will come later still I the preacher heaven King over Israel in Jerusalem And I set my mind to seek and to explore By wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven 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 the wind What is crooked?

cannot be Straightened and what is lacking Cannot be counted. 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 And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly I Realize that this also is striving after the wind Because in much wisdom there is much grief and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain Quite an introduction to his journal As he begins to explain to us Where he's going and what he's doing One author summed it up this way Boredom and monotony the same drag of life is an inescapable undeniable fact of reality Just look around How many do you know who regularly wake up each morning?

motivated about the day how many generally enjoy their occupations or anticipate a new week with the light or feel challenged and excited about their marriage or Insert creative ideas and activities into their day to keep life full of zest and enthusiasm Aside from a few exceptional occasions most folks live lives of quiet desperation They see no future in their employment little hope for their marriage a lack of challenge in whatever pursuit they might undertake And strong doubt that things will ever change Life to most adults is nothing more than chasing the wind empty futile purposeless grinding boredom Such as one's existence under the Sun And to make matters worse Not even the alleged enjoyments vacations Travel Extravagant possessions cruises sexual escapades delicious food booze professional and entertainment and a dozen others Bring lasting satisfaction when the brief excitement ends the inevitable monotony returns and Such as the bold jury message of Ecclesiastes chapter 1 Now think about that Think about your life your ambitions your drive your passions your desires Solomon says it's like spitting into the wind.

Have you ever done that? It's kind of a messy ordeal But that's how Solomon describes life it's chasing after the wind you just can't catch up to it But it's that never-ending monotony of life That when you live life under the Sun That's exactly what you get Nothing So tonight I want to cover these 18 verses with three points One is an introduction The second one is an explanation The third one is an application The introduction deals with the life We've come or the lies we've come to believe about life The explanation is about the truth we need to believe about life and The application is The perspective We need to have on life First of all the introduction It deals with the lies that we tend to believe about life Because the world wants to convince us that they speak the truth And have you ever noticed how easy it is for us to believe the lies of the world So many things that just aren't true at all We know what the world tells us isn't true, but we have this this urge To explore it even though it might not be true So let me give you just a few of them you can probably think of a lot of them But let me get you some of the lies that we tend to believe About life One is this Follow Your heart Let your heart Be your guide In other words, whatever you feel whatever your emotions might be Whatever your heart tells you to do You need to follow your heart Now we would say that well jeremiah 17 9 says that your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked Who can know it?

Be it is it not true that for the majority of a majority of us we really do tend to follow our hearts in fact Solomon would speak against that Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verse number 3. He says these words He says this is an evil in all that is done under the sun That there is one fate for all men furthermore the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity He got that right In chapter 11 verse number 9 he says rejoice young man during your childhood Let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood and follow the impulses of your heart And the desires of your eyes Yet know That god will bring you to judgment for all these things And that's true He will bring you to judgment He would tell his son in proverbs chapter 4 guard Your heart Praise you don't follow your heart but guard your heart for out of the flow all the issues Of life But think about your feelings And how often we make decisions Based on how we feel about a person or about a situation or about circumstances And we tend to believe the lie the world tells us I came across a verse this past week in the book of numbers.

I thought was quite interesting You know israel was Not to be like the people of the world that's why god gave them a special diet Because the way they eat and what they eat is supposed to be different than the world He gave them a dress code Because he didn't want them to dress like the world He wanted them to be be completely different than the world Because they were his In the book of numbers the 15th chapter the 37th verse the lord also spoke to moses saying Speak to the sons of israel And tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations That they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue It shall be a tassel for you To look at and remember all the commandments of the lord so as to do them And not follow your own heart And your own eyes after which you Play the harlot So you may remember to do all my commandments And be holy to your god I am the lord your god who brought you out of the land of egypt to be your god I am the lord Your god He says you need to be reminded that you need to follow My precepts My purity My power And so I want you to take the tassels on the corners of your garments and take a thread and dye it blue Why blue Because the dye came from the sea and the sea is blue And the blue sea reminds them of the blue sky and the blue sky reminds them of sapphire and god's throne is Made of sapphire Therefore you're always thinking on things above and not below That's why the blue thread So he tells them this is what you do because you can't afford to follow your own heart It will lead you away from me Solomon did not even take his own advice For he did not guard his heart His heart was fixed as we saw in first kings 11 last week on foreign women And his love was fast as says in first kings 11 toward foreign women But that's a lie.

The world tells us that we tend to believe Even though we know what the bible says The urges and the desires of our heart tend to govern the decisions that we make from day to day It feels good.

So I'm gonna do this Here's another lie The lord Helps those who help themselves Now that might get you motivated to do something for the lord But we got to remember that the lord is not like some kind of rabbit's foot that we have in our Our pocket that we rub or some kind of lamp that we rub and hopefully he's the genie on the inside that comes out And does what we want because we've been obedient to him For god blesses more so in spite of us than because of us We tend to think that god will bless us if we do so much for him But god really truly blesses because he's a god of blessing we can't manipulate god But we tend to believe the lie that we we can coerce god into doing things for us So the lord helps those who who help themselves Another one Is this You can be whatever you truly believe you can be in other words Believe it and you will achieve it That's a lie Because there's a lot of things I believe that i'll never achieve I I believe I can sing Yeah I will never achieve that opportunity Tim will never ask me to sing up front No matter how hard I try no matter how hard I believe i'll never achieve it But the world wants you to think that if you just believe something long enough and hard enough you can achieve it And so we expend all of our energy believing in things that will never ever happen But we tend to believe the lie Because what happens in our lives is truly all in god's hands Not my hand Another lie we tend to believe is that things are always going to get better The sun will come out tomorrow And things will be better tomorrow.

Just keep looking toward tomorrow Things will always Get better There's always the light at the end of the tunnel Not necessarily In fact in all reality things are going to get worse Before they ever get better All you gotta do is look around We think that if if if the next election goes my way things will get better What happened at the last election People thought the same thing Things got worse But we tend to believe that That things will get better That climate change is the answer That if we can just control the climate as if we're in charge of those things But you'll be surprised on how many professing christians really truly believe in in climate change But yet god's in charge of all those things as we will soon see How about this one If you work hard You will be successful Now I believe in working hard I believe you need to work diligently You need to be disciplined But it all depends on how you define success God told joshua way back in in joshua chapter one very familiar um set of verses To understand exactly what it is he was supposed to be doing joshua chapter one God says these words Be strong and very courageous and be careful to do according to all the law which moses my servant commanded you Do not turn from it to the right or to the left So you may have success wherever you go This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth But you shall meditate on a day and night say you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it For then you will make your way prosperous And then you will have Success Joshua's success in god's eyes was all dependent upon his observing the law Meditating upon the law and living that law But the world tells us that if you work hard you'll be successful so we expend our energy working longer hours working more jobs climbing the ladder of success thinking that that will Reach help me reach the the pinnacle of of joy and satisfaction solomon says It's all vain It's all empty And just for fun There is a lie your parents told you there's a lie my parents told me And that was as my dad got out his big black belt It was about to spank me he would say these old familiar words This is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you You know what I I'm not sure I believed that lie so I would say to him okay then keep wailing away Because I want you to hurt as much as I hurt But that never happened I never told my kids that because that's just not true You know, it's gonna hurt you a lot more it's gonna hurt me But we tend to believe the lies of the world and there are so many of them that are out there Why does the world tell us that?

Why because they want you to have hope? Hope that there's a better tomorrow. Hope that you can achieve success Hope that if you follow your heart your dreams will come true All your fantasies will be accomplished And you have no worries The world actually believes that and we tend to fall in line with that and think well that could be true for me It really could And so I I I search out the matters. I I seek for opportunities To try to take care of all that I have so that Things will be better Because the way things are Are not the best Yeah, there are there are moments of fleeting happiness we all experience them You get engaged That's joyous You're getting married your wedding day That's joyous a joyous occasion You get pregnant you have a child Right, all those things are joyous occasion.

You get a promotion at work Right or you get a job you've been looking for one you finally get one or you get the job you've always dreamed of having Those are joyous occasions But those are few and far between For the daily grind of life Is long hard Can be monotonous For the world Is really not wonderful.

It's wicked Man is not kind He's depraved And although work at times can be fulfilling Work can become a bore same old Location same seat same desk same route to work Same people i'm working with over and over and over again Same paycheck never changes It can become a drudgery at times But all those things will always be unfulfilling when you live life under the sun And that's solomon's Warning So from the introduction, let me go to an explanation that he gives to us In verses 1 to 18 And that explanation is summed up in three ways He begins with a summation From his summation He moves to his observations Then from his observations he moves to his mission And that mission will take you all the way through chapter 6 But he introduces everything to us in chapter 1 First of all with the summation This is not his conclusion His conclusion is in chapter 12 His conclusion is at the end But this is his beginning summation Of life so he begins this way In chapter 1 Vanity of vanities says the preacher vanity Of vanities all is vanity empty futile meaningless purposeless Everything is that's his summation Of life under the sun now remember he's going to give you a perspective from a life That doesn't have god as its objective That doesn't have god in its influence He's looking at life under the sun A life of exploration without god He says all vanity Is all empty soap bubbles Once the bubble pops what's left is what you get Nothing And he repeats it for emphasis sake vanity of vanities vanity all is vanity He wants to put an exclamation point on it So you begin to understand that everything is futile He says in verse number two what advantage what profit does a man have In all his work, which is done under the sun In other words, he asked the question.

Is there any profit in what you are doing in all of your efforts to achieve success? Is there any profit in what you're doing to achieve some kind of status quo Is there any profit any advantage any gain In the continual search for the meaning of life and satisfaction under the sun Is there any advantage The answer is no there's not But we don't believe him we really don't That that's why there's this constant push and constant Uh drive that we have to somehow find meaning in this life Satisfaction in this life There's this constant push Toward that And yet It doesn't happen There is just no profit In life without god And solomon wants you to understand that from The get-go and so You move from the summation to his observations And his observations are are grossly grocery list of cycles Cycles that that show you that once they occur There's nothing that happens after that There's just no profit in it.

There's no gain in it He uses generations He uses the sun He uses the the wind He uses water Takes that from nature And then goes to your eyes and to your ears a personal approach To show you that there there is no satisfaction in any of it For it's all empty And so this is what he says He says a generation goes and a generation comes but the earth remains forever Think about it. There's a whole generation of people And they have children to raise the next generation but that whole generation dies off Then a new generation rises up Then they die off It's a cycle of generation after generation after generation The earth remains forever They just live on the earth Now we know that the earth doesn't remain forever because the lord's going to destroy it all we understand that But from life under the sun, that's all you see Generation comes a generation goes People live people die It's a point of demand wants to die after that you judgment Nobody lives forever Live for a while then you die and solomon has a lot to say about death in ecclesiastics Because it's one of the realities of life that we refuse to to consider or to think about So then he says this he says And also the sun rises and the sun sets and hastening to its place it rises there again You see the sunrise You watch the sunset And guess what it's going to rise tomorrow It's going to set tomorrow It's the cycles of life What's the end product of all that it just goes around and around And around he's very sarcastic But but he is because life under the sun Is meaningless And then he says this he says Blowing toward the south and turning toward the north the wind continues swirling along and all its circular courses the wind returns It's a blowing of the wind All the rivers flow into the sea yet.

The sea is not full to the place where the rivers flow There they they flow again The rivers flow to the sea when it rains they fill up they flow to the sea But the sea is never full The sea has its boundaries But yet it rains again the rivers fill up they flow to the sea But the sea never fills It's that cycle of life that happens every single day. What's the what's the gain? What's the advantage of all that? Well life under the sun you see no advantage You you see no gain He says all things are wearisome man is not able to tell it the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor is the ear filled With hearing in other words, your eyes are never satisfied.

They're always looking for more The ears always want to hear more They're never fully satisfied That which has been is that which will be and that which has been done is that which will be done So there is nothing new under the sun is there anything of which one might say see this it is new already It has existed for ages which were before us There is no remembrance of earlier things and also of the latter things which will occur There will be for them no remembrance among those who will come later still You still remember You think you do but you really don't remember Who won the superbowl six years ago You remember that?

No Who cares? You know Who won best picture? Four years ago the oscars Do you remember? No Do you remember what you had for lunch last tuesday? No, you don't because life under the sun is meaningless is purposeless There's nothing lasting that's there That's the whole point of living life under the sun But that's that's a major problem Why? Because the key to understanding ecclesiastes Is know what it means to live under the sun or below the sun and what it means to live beyond the sun because beyond the sun Is what the bible calls the sun the sun?

of righteousness Remember the book of malachi malachi chapter four verse number two But for you who fear my name the son of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings And you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall There is hope for tomorrow because of the son of righteousness He lives beyond the the earthly son For he's the king of kings He's called the lord of righteousness In fact peter calls him the day star that rises in your heart In the book of revelation is called the bright and morning star because he shines in a place of darkness And so when you come and understand what it is It means to live life Beyond the sun The psalmist did listen to psalm 19 The heavens are telling the glory of god and their expanses declaring the work of his hands Day to day pours forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge verse 5 In them or excuse me verse 4 in them He has placed a tent for the sun which is as a bridegroom coming out of its chamber It rejoices as a strong man to run his course the psalmist saw the sun a lot different Than solomon saw the sun Under the sun He saw this rising and setting rising and setting with no purpose But the psalmist says the heavens declare the glory of the lord And so you begin to see it's all about perspective it's all about how you see things in life I love what it says over in psalm 113 113 verse number three Or verse number one praise the lord praise those servants of the lord praise the name of the lord Blessed be the name of the lord from this time forth and forever from the rising of the sun to its setting The name of the lord is to be praised So psalmist sees the rising of the sun as an opportunity to praise the lord Not look at life as a cycle that has no meaning in no end But look at life as something as an opportunity to praise the lord Jeremiah Jeremiah would see that with the rising of the sun there comes new mercies every morning So jeremiah had a perspective on the rising of the sun that solomon When living under the sun did not have the same perspective because it's a life without the influence of god So important to understand those things You go back and you look in the scriptures To understand what the bible says in psalm 104 My wife and I were reading psalm 104 last night Looking at the importance of what the bible says about creation And in psalm 104 The bible says this Bless the lord.

Oh my soul. Oh lord. My god. You are very great You are clothed with splendor and majesty covering yourself with light as with a cloak stretching out heaven like a tent curtain He lays the beams of his upper chambers in the waters. He makes the clouds his chariot. He walks upon the wings of the wind He makes the winds his messengers flaming fire his ministers Over in verse 32 he looks at the earth and it trembles he touches the mountains And they smoke literally All you have to do is look at our mountains And they smoke See we forget if there's calamity in a city It's the lord who did it amos chapter 3 verse number 9 We forget isaiah 45 verse number 7 that god is the author of calamity We forget those things because we live life under the sun instead of beyond the sun looking to the sun s-u-n of righteousness So important to to realize those things over in psalm 147 Psalm 147 the psalmist said these words psalm 147 Verse number 18 He sends forth his command to the earth His word runs very swiftly He gives snow like wool.

He scatters the frost like ashes. He casts forth his ice as fragments Who can stand before his cold? He sends forth his word and melts them He causes his wind to blow And the waters to flow How do you think water flows how do you think wind blows God causes all that He's in charge of those things Living life under the sun the wind blows it stops it picks up again It stops it blows again. It stops the rivers flow. They flow into the sea Then they fill up again they flow back into the sea the sun rises the sun sets but life under the sun is seen from a Negative perspective a sarcastic perspective but life lived beyond the sun the son of righteousness you see things from a biblical perspective from a godly perspective from heaven's throne perspective Big difference When the creator is in charge you see what you see when you see creation is you see the faithfulness of god You see the orderliness of god You see the creativity of god, right?

You see the constancy of god everything runs Constantly because he was one three. He upholds all things by the word of his power How do you think the universe stands on its own? He upholds all things by the by the word of his power Colossians 1 17 tells us very clearly that the lord holds all things together He does it with the word of his power Just by speaking a word and so when solomon says there's nothing new under the sun well from From that perspective there isn't but from a heavenly perspective there is why because god says he's going to make all things new He said in jeremiah 31 verse number 22.

I am going to create a new thing in the earth That a woman shall encompass a man speaking of the the virgin birth of the messiah That was something new that's never happened before it never happens going to happen again, but it was something new He he makes you a new creation. He gives you a new heart ezekiel chapter 36 he makes you new creation. 2 corinthians 5 17. He makes you he feeds you 444 into a new self Why because our god is in the business of creating all things new But if you live life under the sun, you don't see that you don't understand that you can't grasp that He gave us a new covenant that was ratified by his his blood So through solomon's observations He shows you what life is like under the sun But you move from his observations to his mission He sets forth on a on a mission I the preacher have been king over israel in jerusalem Now, you know you can read over that just pass by and think well, that's solomon He's king in jerusalem a lot of yada yada yada, but it goes way beyond that to understand.

He is the king in jerusalem You'll never be a king And you won't be a king in jerusalem But if you read first kings chapter 10 You realize that this king annual salary Was 45 tons of gold Translated today Is 1 trillion 24 billion dollars That's his annual salary I don't believe me like that Nobody that rich Nobody with that amount of resources But that's his annual salary That's not counting all the gold he received from people who came to visit him Like the queen of sheba and all those others who came to give him gifts That was icing on the cake Could you imagine making 1 trillion dollars a year That's just beyond my comprehension so I the preacher king In jerusalem Understand who I am.

I have all the resources. I have all the money There are no restrictions There's nothing holding me back And when you have a trillion dollars you can do anything you want And who's going to stop you? You can't be stopped So he says I The preacher had been king over israel in jerusalem and I set my mind to seek and to explore I set my mind to to investigate And and to examine every side of everything Seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven 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, he says that for emphasis sake behold stand amazed All is vanity and striving After the wind or spitting into the wind That's what it is It's nothing but unhappiness and emptiness that's why it's so grievous That's why it's so painful He goes on to say in verse number 18.

He says these words. He says because In much wisdom, there is much grief and increasing knowledge results in increasing Pain See that's the quest without god It's a never-ending search that never satisfies It just leads to frustration after frustration pain after pain grief after grief Oh, yes, there are moments of pleasure and moments of joy. Solomon experienced those with his thousand women with all of his riches He experienced those moments of of of happiness But they never lasted Because once they were over It was done So That's very important for all of us to understand Get this principle the passing pleasures of gratification Never provide permanent satisfaction The passing pleasures of gratification Never provide permanent satisfaction There's gratification in the act but when the act is over What's left Emptiness and unhappiness not fullness and certainly not satisfaction Gratification You see because man was never meant to find meaning in life outside of his creator Never But man so desperately tries that's why romans 1 is so important Because why you live life under the sun Everything about the sun and everything about creation Describes to us the the invisible attributes of god the power of almighty god.

There is a creator There is a designer behind all of this but man says no to that Suppresses the truth pushes it down and tries to engage in all kinds of immoral depraved behavior Because he doesn't want to think about the truth, even though eternity has been set in his heart Because he believes he can find some kind of satisfaction under the sun without god, but he can't It's a never-ending search It's living life anticipating the next event the next person the next job the next Marriage the next child thinking that somehow this will be it.

It will satisfy but it never does It was never meant to So solomon says verse 15 What is crooked? Cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted That's a parable He's he's great on i'm assuming a proverb He's great with proverbs In fact, he says over in ecclesiastes 7 these words Verse number 13 consider the work of god for who is able to straighten what he has bent You can't he said I've come to realize that that which is crooked will never be straightened It is what it is And if it's if it's crooked, it's made crooked by god You can't straighten it and you know what you can't add anything to life or anything to happiness because what is lacking can never be counted I've come to that conclusion So I said to myself And next week we're going to see where he talks a lot to himself Because you see when you live life under the sun and you're not satisfied, you know, and and you just talk to yourself I mean who does solomon talk to?

Who talks to the richest man in the world? Who talks to the most powerful man in the world who's his counselor? Then doesn't need one. He has everything He has no needs materially And so he talks to himself 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 And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly which is his immoral disobedient behavior And I realized that this also is striving after the wind I set my mind to fulfill every desire of my heart madness and folly Only to realize it's Spitting into the wind no satisfaction whatsoever Ecclesiastes Is one source That shows us How god destroys Human wisdom Christ to us is the wisdom of god 1 corinthians 1 19 Paul says I will destroy the wisdom Of the wise That's why jeremiah said let not the wise man boast in his wisdom Because human wisdom brings nothing And here's solomon the wisest man who ever lived Asked for wisdom god granted him wisdom But wisdom without the god of wisdom is just human understanding that accomplishes nothing Why is there so much turmoil on university campuses Because you have a lot of people with reprobate minds those are unthinking minds according to romans chapter 1 Minds that cannot think straight trying to teach students who have trouble thinking straight as it is battling out That which they think is right by human wisdom And they can never agree Because you can't come to a conclusion Unless there is truth that's absolute that governs your relationships your teaching Your scholastic efforts So what's the what's the application let me give you two points this is the perspective we should have about life Two points what is this?

Your hope Is never below the sun but beyond the sun It's never below the sun Paul would say if our hope is in this life only we are Of all men most miserable that's true Our hope must be beyond the sun this life is but a vapor james says Job said my my life is but a breath. He also said In job 5 verse number 7 that man is born under trouble as sparks fly upward That's also true So if your hope is is tied to this world you will live in supreme misery Oh, you can drown your misery in a bottle You can do that numb your thinking senses You can numb your misery in sexual escapades Thinking that that will somehow satisfy you can do that You can numb your misery in entertainment Thinking that that will ultimately Satisfy, but when the entertainment's over The sexual escapade is done And you wake up sober The misery is monumental It just is And so all the dreams and wishes and fantasies and even religious promises never satisfy the innermost part of a man's soul Our hope is only in christ christ in you the hope of glory That's it we have as Our hope and anchor as hebrews 6 tells us for our soul It anchors us Hope is Is rooted only in god because he's called the god of hope Romans 15 verse number 13 psalm 71.

He the psalmist says thou art my hope Oh lord Job says in job 8 13 the hope of the godless will will perish The ephesians 2 12 paul says without god we have No hope The world promises hope That's why they feed you lies If you believe the lie, there's hope but it can't guarantee anything Because god is the god of all hope And that hope that's rooted in god is only received by grace I love what the apostle paul says in Second thessalonians Chapter chapter 3 I'm, sorry chapter 2 verse number 16 May I now may our lord jesus christ himself and god our father who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace Comfort and strengthen your heart in every good work And word Hope that's rooted in god is only received by grace And if you're here tonight, and you've never received the hope that god himself gives your endless pursuit of meaning And satisfaction in life will never be accomplished Oh, you'll try You'll give it all you got you'll spend whatever you have to spend to do it But it'll never bring you satisfaction It just won't I'd give my life to the lord when I was 14 When I was 17 my senior year in high school We had a new football coach And he came to us and and said I i'm going to ask you guys to do something for me only 10 times That's every friday night You need to be great That's it You have to be great on monday tuesday wednesday thursday saturday sunday, it's got to be great on friday And we bought in to that And we were great Every friday we never lost We never came close to losing We won every game We've never done that before When it was all said and done he says I need you to be great for for one more weekend as we go into Playoffs Just one more We were great and we won demolished the team He came back and said you just need to be great one more time Next weekend and we were And we won We kept winning till we came to that last game for the state championship.

He says you got to be great. Just one more time And once you're great one more time The joy Will be unending And we were great one more time and won Never lost a game Never came close to losing the game Destroyed everybody we faced Got on the bus to go home And I realized that that there really wasn't any joy We just got undefeated and and we'd we won the state championship and and and and what was promised never never really delivered And I couldn't understand why why there wasn't any any any joy and and satisfaction And and going undefeated and winning the state championship having never been done in our school's history before we accomplished this feat we did it But it was empty Driving home in that bus.

I all I could feel was that gnawing emptiness in my in my gut And Got back had the parade had this big Assembly thing. We all got our championship paraphernalia and and just realized it was nothing but emptiness I was 17 And I realized at that moment That no matter what I accomplished in the realm of athletics or scholastics or anything else Would really never feel feel the the inner turmoil in my soul Only christ could do that Only the lord could do that And it drove me more to the word it drove me more to my god I began to realize that without christ There is no hope Without christ.

There is no glory without christ. There's nothing Hope Will never be found below the sun It's only found above the sun beyond the sun Number two Your help Is not found in that which is visible But that which is invisible your help Is not found in that which is visible but that which is Invisible you'll recall these verses in the book of hebrews Verse number 24 when it says chapter 11 by faith moses When he had grown up refused to be called the son of pharaoh's daughter choosing rather To endure ill treatment with the people of god Than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin Considering the reproach of christ greater riches Than the treasures in egypt For he was looking to the reward Of the people by faith he left egypt not fearing the wrath of the king For he endured As seeing him Who is Invisible his help was not in what he should see But what he could not see The invisible king of the universe and moses was a man Who portrayed The incredible Because he preferred The imperishable He could perform The impossible Because he perceived The invisible That's what made moses the leader that he was That was his help His help came from no one else other than the invisible god Of the universe That's why the writer of hebrews would go on to say these words Therefore since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us Let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us fixing our eyes on jesus the author and perfecter of faith Who for the joy set before him endured the cross despising his shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of god for consider him Who has endured such hostility by sinners?

against himself So you will not grow weary and lose heart Paul would say it this way Therefore we do not lose heart But though our outer man is decaying yet our inner man is being renewed day by day For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison While we look not at the things which are seen But the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal But the things which are not seen are eternal So Your help Does not come from that which is visible Only from the god who is invisible Trusting in him believing in him Because your hope Is never found under the sun But above the sun where the sun of righteousness dwells