Please open your Bibles with me to the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 2. We'll be reading verses 12 through 26 this evening. If you're using the Pew Bible, this will be found on page 704 of your Pew Bible. Hear now the reading of God's holy and inerrant word. Ecclesiastes chapter two, beginning in verse 12. So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceive that the same event happens to all of them. And then I said in my heart, what happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise? And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. For of the wise, as of the fool, there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool. So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool. Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun. Because sometimes a person who is toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God. For apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy. But to the sinner, he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. May God be pleased by the reading and hearing of his holy word. Let us pray together. Heavenly Father we come before you now gathered around your word would you by your Holy Spirit illuminate your word for us. May the things that I say and weakness be used to great power by your spirit. May I be clear and helpful. May we listen well. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. I recently read an anonymous testimonial in an online forum with the heading, I seem to have lost enjoyment for everything. The post included the following statements. When I was a kid it was extremely easy to appreciate simple things and each day had something fun for me. I used to be crazy about everything in nature and would read books about animals for hours. Nowadays I get bored and frustrated easily. Nearly every day I feel dead. Animals and plants are no longer interesting to me. I recall that as a kid, I could read novels for hours. However, when I pick up a novel now, my attention span can't last more than five minutes. I've tried various different hobbies, such as violin, trumpet, reading about other fields of science, art, ceramics, nearly every sport in my area, but I could never last in any of them for long. I don't know how to enjoy anything or anyone anymore and I would like to know how if possible. Of course we want to rule out sometimes there are physical or medical causes for feelings and situations such as this. But sadly, this sort of commentary on life in our world is a very relatable thing for many in one degree or another. The longer you live in this world, the tendency grows to become jaded or cynical and pessimistic. It becomes difficult to enjoy things, to have any sort of positive outlook. What can be done? Are you able to enjoy anything in life? And if not, why not? If so, on what basis? And the answers to these questions have life-altering and even eternal implications. Solomon, thus far in the book of Ecclesiastes, has embarked on a quest, a grand quest for meaning and, you could say, happiness in this life. And thus far, he has come up empty. This passage, these verses that conclude chapter two, really are the conclusion to the entire first segment of the book, which ends in the first two chapters. And Solomon is leading us to something. He's leading us to understand that joy and happiness in this life don't come to us as a result of anything that we do in pursuit of or in a quest after these things. Happiness and enjoyment and satisfaction even in this life are only possible as they are received as gifts from God in this life as a result of knowing him. What this passage is teaching us this evening is that life in this world can only be enjoyed as a gift received from God in a life lived in relationship with God. Life in this world can only be enjoyed as a gift received from God in a life lived in relationship with God. And as we follow along with Solomon to see this, the first thing to note in this text is Wisdom reconsidered. The passage begins with Solomon saying, so I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. And you could almost say he turns again to consider this because this language should ring a bell. Back in verse 17 it says, I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. And he now is turning to reconsider this. The verb translated, I turned, It really has the connotation of turning to face something. It comes from the same root, really, as the Hebrew word for face. He is going back to face this particular angle of the quest once again. The word translated consider, I have turned to consider wisdom, madness, and folly is a strong Hebrew verb. It carries the idea of looking very deeply into a matter, giving it your absolute full attention, if you will. So he's turning again to reexamine in depth this concept of wisdom. Sometimes when you can't find something, you go back and retrace your steps to see if you missed it. This is what Solomon is doing. Sometimes you look where you've already looked before. I'm notorious for losing things and not being able to find them, even though I'm looking right in the vicinity of them. Perhaps you missed something, Solomon, in your previous examination of this quest for meaning. Let's go back and check wisdom again. Why is he doing this? The second part of verse 12 is a really difficult verse in the Hebrew. Some commentators even sort of shrug their shoulders and say, we don't really know what exactly it means. Others kind of chalk it up to saying that it's another way of saying, well, there's really nothing new under the sun. A wooden kind of literal translation of this might go like this. For what kind of man is it who will come after the king in the matter of what has already been done? And I think the best way to understand this is that he's giving an explanation for why he's doubling back and re-examining wisdom in this quest. Phil Riken puts it like this. He is looking ahead to the future and wondering who else will have the same questions that he has about human existence. And with those people in mind, he wants to write a definitive statement about wisdom and mad folly. In other words, this is going to be an absolutely thorough and complete quest. No stone will be left unturned. He's after final answers. And frankly, who better to discover the answers to these questions, particularly about wisdom than Solomon? Who could possibly be better equipped than Solomon to once and for all come to a definitive conclusion regarding this. So he will double back after pursuing pleasure and accomplishments and finding them to be inadequate. He's going to take another close, intense look at wisdom. And when he goes back to reconsider wisdom, it turns out that wisdom is indeed better than folly. Walt Kaiser puts it like this, wisdom was vastly superior to any of the acquisitions or the pleasures that he had secured from things. Solomon concludes that wisdom is much better than its other options than light is to darkness. Compared to folly, he says wisdom is like having eyes versus not having eyes. It's like someone who has the full use of their vision versus someone who is stumbling in blindness and darkness. It's better to have a light than to try to stumble your way around and feel your way around in a dark room. The foolish people, Solomon says, stumble their way through life, whereas the wise man has his eyes in his head. He can see what's ahead. He can see what's around. It turns out seeing is a rather large advantage compared to not seeing. Wisdom is much superior to folly. Wisdom is a guide in this life to many good things. It helps us navigate danger and mistakes, and it leads us to success in our endeavors in this life. It helps us to figure out often convoluted and complicated personal conflicts. There is real profit to be had in wisdom, Solomon concludes. Later in chapter 9, verse 16, he'll say that wisdom is even better than being the strong and the mighty in this world. Athens is indeed superior to Sparta. A life of wisdom is superior to a life of pleasure. Wisdom is superior to laziness and of course to stupidity. I came across a book recently entitled Death in Yellowstone. accidents and foolhardiness in the first National Park. It's a pretty intriguing book. One of the stories in the book is that of a 24-year-old young man whose large dog had jumped into one of Yellowstone's 200-plus degree boiling hot springs. The man began preparing himself to jump into this hot spring to rescue his dog while bystanders were yelling at him not to do something so incredibly stupid. And the man defiantly proclaimed that he was absolutely going to do this, taking two steps. And then what was described as a flying swimming pool dive went headfirst into the boiling spring. He did not survive. One of the last things he was heard to have uttered was, that was a stupid thing I did. Wisdom in this life is kind of a big deal. And so for the first time in the book so far, really, Solomon turns to a positive note in his quest. He comes to a positive conclusion that wisdom is vastly better. It's categorically different. So are we finally getting somewhere in the quest for satisfaction and meaning? Is this the answer to the quest? And as you might hear sometimes on Saturday mornings, not so fast, my friend. In this pursuit of joy and meaning, wisdom, it turns out, although it's massively important, wisdom in and of itself does not bring the return Solomon was searching for and hoping for. And yet I perceive that the same event happens to the wise and to the foolish. Wisdom is good. It's to be valued. But in the end there is something Solomon says that negates its place as a source of ultimate meaning and lasting significance. This brings us to the second feature as we follow Solomon and his conclusion regarding this pursuit of happiness. The second thing I want you to see is death's leveling perspective. Up until now, the concept of the brevity of this life has been a part of the theme, even with the word that echoes throughout this book, vanity, the Hebrew word hebel, which means a breath. Everything is fleeting. But here at the end of this quest under the sun, death itself explicitly, officially takes the scene. Death puts a stop to the quest for meaning under the sun. Death stalks. the pleasure seeker, death stalks the successful, death stalks the fool, and death stalks the wise man. Verse 15, he says, the same event happens to all of them. That word is usually, as it's used, rather ominous. It refers to often calamitous things that befall people in this world, often unexpectedly. And from our perspective, death is like that. We don't know where often, we don't know when. Often we don't have a clue how it will strike us, but we know that it will. Death is coming. To borrow the line of the hymn writer, time is now fleeting. The moments are passing, passing from you and from me. Shadows are gathering. Death beds are coming, coming for you and for me. Death doesn't devalue wisdom. It's not what Solomon is saying, but it puts it in perspective. Remember, this is part of the quest of life under the sun, life east of Eden, if you will. And death, Solomon's going to say, renders us forgotten. At some point, we will be forgotten under the sun. Listen to Phil Riken. Whatever advantage we gain from wisdom, and we gained a lot, it is strictly temporary. Otherwise, either we are wise or foolish, either way we will soon be dead. And who will remember us then? Death is the great equalizer. Solomon realized also that wisdom offers no insurance for our legacy. Verses 19 and 21, who knows whether he will be wise or a fool. The one I leave behind everything I worked for. Verse 21, sometimes a person who is toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who didn't even toil for it. You might be leaving it behind to a total fool. Death is no insurance for any legacy in this world. Sometimes a person who has toiled with the utmost wisdom and skill and built something really to be admired will leave it behind to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it and might completely waste and ruin it. Thus, in this case, even wisdom under the sun, wisdom is a vanity. It's a breath. It is fleeting. It is transient. Wisdom isn't going to give us what we want. Solomon is trying to make us face the reality of death in order that we do not place our hopes in things that cannot grant them. The sphere of all this, as he echoes throughout, especially in verses 17 through 23, the sphere of all this has to be kept in mind. He repeatedly uses the expression, under the sun, under the sun, my toil under the sun, This is the human experience in this world, in this fleeting life, and in this life under the sun, if we put our expectations even in the best things, joy will evade us. Indeed, we will never find it. In verses 17 through 23, really, you see this grievous nature of the fleeting life under the sun, and it means that no happiness can find its source under The sun, because it is temporary, says, I hated life, I hated my toil. There's really almost a cynical despair that can come when we confront these very true realities about the brevity of life under the sun, if we confront them as if that's all there is. Think of Voltaire and what he said, I hate life, yet I am afraid to die. Or as Shakespeare put it through the mouth of Macbeth, out, out, brief candle. Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour on the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. If under the sun is the limits of our expectations, if this mortal life is all that we think about, what is the point Back in Chapter 1, verse 3, he asked the question, what does man gain by all the toil with which he toils? In verse 22 of our passage this evening, he asks a similar question. What has a man from all the toil with which he toils under the sun? Walt Kaiser says this, day and night he has seen only toil of body and mind. A mortal does not possess anything within or outside him or herself to aid in securing permanent happiness. The quest then is not necessarily going all that well. Solomon has again come up empty under the sun. The language in verses 18 through 23, over and over the word work and toil is repeated. The idea of despair in this toil and he hated it and there's a vexation and a sorrow If our priorities in our work are to build something in order to be remembered, to build some kind of a legacy that carries on even after we're gone, there will result nothing but vexation and ultimate sorrow. And even if you've done it with the utmost wisdom and skill and knowledge, it offers no comfort against what is coming for you and for me. And so he, in verses 20 and 21, turns his heart to despair The sorrow over the brevity of life is very real. It's true. It's the logical end for anyone seeking to find satisfaction in the things of this creation, in this mortal life alone. Even in the night, he says, his heart cannot rest. What he's doing is he's forcing every reader, wise, foolish, believer, unbeliever, to put away distractions and confront the reality of your and my coming Death, it is coming for you and nothing you or I do will be permanent. We are all going to die. And Christians ought to be the first ones to honestly confront this reality. We ought to be the most willing to face and speak about the reality of the fact that death is coming. It doesn't make us all that fun at parties. But, and maybe we shouldn't bring it up like that, but we're never to be afraid to talk about or to face the reality of our mortality, to, to deal with that even in our own minds and the way we think about our existence in this world for our own lives, for the lives of those who we love, the lives of those we meet on the street. This isn't flippant. It's not glib. It's, it's grievous. Death is coming and that is not good. There are sad realities that Christians need to reckon with and Ecclesiastes really as much as anywhere in the Bible is doing exactly that. Doug O'Donnell says this, the book of Ecclesiastes assumes the sinful actions and consequences of the fall. What does life after Genesis 3 look like? Open Ecclesiastes and see it illustrated in living color. One of the best things I think we can do in our evangelistic efforts in our apologetics is is to boldly yet gently push people to realize all of the implications of their worldview. Where will these ideas end up? This is where you must end up. Unless you just want to play pretend until the very end. The alternative is just that. It's to live in utter denial and to allow others to live in denial. to fill up our time with distractions and diversions in order to do anything we can to avoid thinking about the impending reality of my own demise. Blaise Pascal described the desperation of people avoiding the reality of death. He says this, being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided in order to be happy not to think about such things. Despite these afflictions, man wants to be happy, only wants to be happy, and cannot help wanting to be happy. But how shall he go about it? The best thing would be to make himself immortal. But as he cannot do that, he has decided to stop himself thinking about it. Peter Kreeft elaborates on this thought of Pascal. He says, if you are typically modern, your life is like a rich mansion with a terrifying hole right in the middle of the living room. So you paper over the hole with a very busy wallpaper pattern to distract yourself. Or you find a rhinoceros in the middle of your house. The rhinoceros is wretchedness and death. How in the world can you hide a rhinoceros? Easy. Cover it with a million mice. Multiply diversions. We do this, don't we? We find ways to distract ourselves from those moments of quietness alone when we have to deal with the reality of life in this world. And the unbeliever does it as well, and they do it at a reckless pace. It's all they can do. So at the end of this quest, what can possibly be the answer to the quest for satisfaction under the sun in light of these conclusions to this search? What Solomon is going to do now is explicitly show us what he's been walking us toward, what he's been implicitly pointing us toward all along this whole time. The ray of light is finally about to shine on this dark canvas under the sun. The last thing I want you to see in this passage is God's gift of joy. See what he's doing with death is he's using death as an apologist. In Ecclesiastes, in fact in several places through the book, death is pushing us to God. It's forcing our hand. It's helping us reorient ourselves in whatever search for happiness and wherever we're at on that search. David Gibson says it like this. The reality that is that if death doesn't inform the way we live, then death is something we are pretending doesn't exist. When we accept in a deep way that we are going to die, that reality alone ought to stop us from expecting too much from even the good things that we pursue. We learn to pursue them for what they are in themselves rather than what we need them to be to make us happy. Death reorients us to our limitations as creatures and helps us to see God's good gifts right in front of us all the time, each and every day of our lives. Verses 24 through 26 form the conclusion, as I said earlier, to this entire first section of Solomon's argument in the book. Listen to his language. There's nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to the one who pleases God. Heretofore, God has really hardly been mentioned even in the thought of Solomon. And yet in these last three verses of this concluding segment, God is referred to explicitly or with a pronoun six times in a row. It's easy to misunderstand these verses from Solomon. I think the translation in all of our English versions isn't all that great. It's easy to kind of hear him as saying, well, we're going to die, so let's just enjoy what we have while we have it. That is not what he is saying. A more wooden, but better literal translation might sound like this. There is nothing inherently good in a person to enable him to eat drink and cause his soul to see good in his labor. Even this I realize was from the hand of God for apart from him who can eat and who can find enjoyment. No, this isn't a blanket hedonism in the face of the reality of our death. This isn't simply giving up to simply enjoy whatever you can while you can. Here at the end of this epic quest through all of the human experience in search of happiness with pleasure and accomplishment and wisdom, he discovers after all where it comes from. Not from his efforts to gain it, not from his pursuit, not from his quest. That all worked in the opposite direction, to be honest. It comes from God giving it. It's a gift to be received. And it has to be this way too. Why does it have to be this way? Because the problem is inherent in man. There is nothing in man to enable him to enjoy. Not only is man not the source of happiness, not only does man not have any source of happiness within him, we don't even have the ability to enjoy anything inherently within us. That is a pretty offensive message. What do you mean I don't have the ability to enjoy things? Not truly enjoy them, not as they're meant to be enjoyed, not as they've been given to us. outside of a knowledge of God. Things are not enjoyed. Not really. They're misused. They're abused. The key to everything is God. This is from the hand of God. This is an emphatic statement at the end of verse 24. This I saw, I myself, that it is from the hand of God. You can't even eat or enjoy what you're eating without that being a gift from God. A human being is not capable of enjoying even everyday things like a drink of water or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich apart from the hand of God and our personal relationship with the living God. David Gibson says this, instead of using these gifts as a means to a greater end of securing the ultimate gain in the world, we take the time to live inside the gifts themselves and see the hand of God in all of them. Some of the most miserable and unhappy people I've ever known or been around or observed have really had no temporal worries. They never had to wonder where the next meal was coming from. And yet they led cynical, miserable lives with absolutely no lasting happiness. They're not capable of it, apart from knowing God. Walt Kaiser says, God alone, not things or wisdom, is the giver of satisfaction and joy. Until God gives persons the ability to enjoy the good things in this life and to obtain any satisfaction from them, they simply cannot, in and of themselves, compensate for the joy that comes from fearing God and knowing Him. If you're living For this life only, you cannot enjoy anything in this life. Verse 26, he says, God gives this to the one who pleases him. This is God's gift to those who know him. Not to those who have earned their way into his good graces. This is a gospel logic that is being disclosed here. This is for God's people. The true enjoyment of God's gifts is a gift from God to his people without the gospel, without understanding that under the sun is not the limit, without understanding that there is eternal life that begins even now in Jesus Christ. The brevity of life ruins any chance any of us ever has to enjoy anything. The best we can do is misuse pleasure. Seek it for the wrong reasons and know that it's fleeting and shrug our shoulders and try to do the best we can to have a good time anyway and ignore it. When you try to take God's gifts and use them to find satisfaction apart from knowing Him, in one sense it's treason, but it's also futile. It will not work. But with the gospel, With the personal relationship with our Heavenly Father through our Lord Jesus Christ, we now possess the key to understanding and unlocking everything under the sun. Yes, it's fleeting. Yes, death is coming. That is not all there is. And God in Christ has reconciled his people to himself. We have heaven to look forward to. And even here, even here in what is often a veil of tears east of Eden, he is the giver of gifts and joy and wisdom and knowledge for those who know him. We don't even have the ability to enjoy a sandwich apart from him, but with him we have it all in this life and even into the next. Later in the book, we're going to see the same contrast between the good and the sinner. Uh, it's two worldviews. completely opposed to one another being talked about here. Those who know God and those who do not know Him. The sinner is one who does not fear God, who does not please Him. The man who pleases God is the one who fears Him and knows Him and knows His smile. To fear Him is to know Him, not only in His awesomeness and His holiness, but in His forgiveness and in our relationship with Him. And then to receive. with open hands, whatever he determines to give us with gratitude. The alternative, the solution to pessimism is faith and gratitude. Thus, there's a positive requirement implied here as well. Knowing him, when we know him, we are those who are to be people who enjoy his gifts. We're to enjoy things in this life. To do so other to do otherwise is the epitome of thanklessness. Thankfulness is something that ought to be cultivated and grown in the heart of the Christian. We ought to be those who in one sense are kind of in a constant state of surprise at how good the Lord has been to us. We ought to be almost shocked that God is doing so many things in us and for us like a child who expresses surprise when given a gift. You did this for me. If a child were to receive a gift and then proceed to just flippantly ignore the giver of the gift, that would be a sad thing indeed. Thankfulness and gratitude for God's goodness, even in the littlest things, is the Christian's duty and it is the Christian's joy. Enjoying the things in this life as gifts from our Heavenly Father, the delight in a simple meal, the color of the sky, The smell of a gardenia bush on your way into your house, a nice car or a home. Whatever the case may be, we ought to be enjoying God's gifts if we know him. Do we ungratefully overlook the simple pleasure of a nice meal? We might never be the most interesting people in the world, but Christians really ought to be viewed as the most interested people in the world. We have to be fascinated with what's going on in the world, with what God has made and with what he does for us and around us. I'll use my youngest child because he's not in the room. He's only two. But this kid is fascinated by everything. I mean, he looks up at the ceiling and sees a fan and it makes his day. I'm not saying we have to be fascinated by fans. That would be a little weird. But we ought to be fascinated by things, by what God's world is like, by the taste of a sandwich. We ought to be fascinated and interested in the things of this world. There's a balanced wisdom in this passage from start to finish. There's a balanced wise, I might add, view of the Christian life here in what is a sad world east of Eden. Things are not as they should be, yet it's also a good world. It's a good world for those who know Him. We don't want to be morbid, yet we want to acknowledge and mourn over sorrows. Yet we do so, we do not grieve as those who have no hope. We do not mourn as those who don't know the whole story. And when we mourn, we do so crying out to the God that we know and we wait on Him. and we pursue the relationship with him and the happiness and the gifts that he gives us and promises to us. The sad Christian can at the same time say, isn't it wonderful to be a Christian? Yes there is a time to mourn. Yes death is coming for you and for me. This is not something that we ought to skip in happiness over. This is not something that we take delight in. It's something that frankly that is wrong with this world. But we in the midst of all that need to remember that there is also a time to laugh. A time to dance and it's only possible when we know what we know to be true. Here is a comforting cordial for the Christian who's been through tragedy. In this life, you have a God who loves you, who will never leave you, who has given, who has not spared his own son for you, but delivered him up for you for your everlasting blessedness. And even though this pilgrim life has been one of trial and suffering, he is one day going to wipe tears out of your eyes. And so we trust him and we walk by faith, often blindly and yet faithfully. We know that he lives and he reigns and he's right now interceding for you and for me and he grants us little moments of joy in this sad world to enjoy the good that comes from his hand. This is corrective medicine for the grumbler, the malcontent. One of the fictional characters I've always been able to relate to more than others is the Winnie the Pooh character Eeyore. He cannot find it in Himself to enjoy things in this world. This is corrective medicine for serious, sour, dour Christians. Not enjoying things is not a virtue. Laughter and enjoyment in this life is a gift and we ought to receive it. When we are those who please God, those who fear Him and know Him and trust Him and follow Him, The knowledge of God. He gives this joy and wisdom and knowledge. We cherish the little things and the big things. Not as a distraction from reality. Not as a source of meaning or satisfaction in and of themselves. If we do that, we will lose all joy in them. But we enjoy the good things that God has given to us. It is a gift. Let us not spurn it. Let us not be of the persuasion that holiness always equals seriousness. and sternness. And finally, there's another side in verse 26 to this gift of joy and satisfaction. Solomon says to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom, knowledge, and joy, but to the sinner, he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. This, you could translate that last phrase as it's referring to the act of a sinner building up these things only to give them to those who are righteous as a breath. This is truly, this is indeed a breath. This is all there is, and you will lose it all. Jeff Myers says this, the wicked who cannot give up their quest for advantage will ultimately be frustrated in their attempt to seize these gifts from God. God will see to it in the end that everything the wicked have accomplished is handed over to the righteous. You might live your whole life desperately trying to enjoy anything and never be able to do so and in the end you will also lose it all. You live your whole life only to lose it when we know from the mouth of Jesus that God's people are going to inherit the earth. There's an invitation to the wicked in here too, to the hopeless. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth. Jesus invites you who are weary in your quest for pleasure and satisfaction. He invites you who are weary and heavy laden to come to him and find rest for your souls. And when you do, the gift of knowing what the psalmist said is going to be yours. In his presence there is fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures. forevermore. This is great encouragement to the believer as well. Do you know how you know him? Do you know how you know him that he did not spare his own son for you? And now he showers us with good things, things which are just a tiny little foretaste of how good he is and how much we will enjoy him forever. Let us find happiness in him forever. May God make us joyful Christians, everyone. Amen. Heavenly Father, would you help us to be happy Christians when we can, to accept the things from your hand that you give us with joy and thankfulness. You are a good Heavenly Father. We ask you to help us know this more than we do, that we might be an example to others, that we might show forth the joy of knowing you, that we might be a light to others around us. Help us now as we prepare to take the sacrament of communion, O Lord. Be with us, in Jesus' name, amen.