Good afternoon. Thank you for being back in your place. If you would stand we'll get started with our service Romans chapter 5 verse number 19 says for is by one man's disobedience many were made sinners So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous moreover the law entered that the offense might abound But where sin abounded grace did much more abound that as sin hath reigned unto death even so might grace reign through righteousness Unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord good to be in the Lord's house today brother Lala. Would you open us? I? and join me in singing page number 424, O Come, All Ye Faithful. O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him In exultation proceed. Amen. O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him Amen. Journey into me. Page number 433. Away in a manger. ♪ Stars in the sky, look down where we lay. ♪ ♪ The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. ♪ ♪ Lord Jesus, look down from the sky ♪ ♪ And stay by my cradle till morning is nigh ♪ ♪ Believe me, Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay ♪ ♪ Close by me forever and ever ♪ by tender care. thought on these things. Behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. I see why you would choose Mary. She's a virtuous girl. I understand why you'd use her to bring your son to the world. But what I don't understand, what doesn't make sense is me. When there are so many others who could serve you faithfully, How can I be a father to a king? Lord, I just don't know why you've chosen one like me. Take my hand and just show me what to do. Help me be a father just like you. How would you have me to raise him? There's not much I know. What can a carpenter teach that will help a king grow? But I will give him my best, I will follow wherever you lead. And though I don't understand, I will serve you faithfully. How can I be a father to a king? Lord, I just don't know why you've chosen one like me. Take my hand and please show me what to do. Help me be a father just like you. Patient and kind, merciful and righteous, I will give him my best. And when he's old, he'll embrace the world with arms outstretched, with arms outstretched. How can I be a father to a king? Lord, I just don't know why you've chosen one like me. Take my hand. And please show me what to do Help me be a father just like you Help me be a father just like you So we have the college kids home, and since we don't let girls preach, Alyssa's not gonna preach, but Jared is, okay? So Jared, good to have you home. And in case you didn't hear, Jared is, how'd you do that? Show us how you did that. How'd you do that? Go ahead. How'd you do that? Yeah, I wanna see it, I wanna see it. Whoa, yeah, okay, yeah. You good? Awesome. All right. Apparently this doesn't want to stay on me. Thank you, Pastor. Love you, too. All right, if you have your Bibles, which you should, we are in church. We're going to be in Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes chapter number one. is where we're gonna be today. It's not necessarily a Christmas sermon, but pastors wasn't this morning, so I'm in the clear. So we're good there, but Ecclesiastes chapter number one, if you're there, please stand for the honor of reading God's word. We're gonna begin in verse chapter number 12, and in this sermon, we're gonna really focus in on the question, what is your heart given to? So if you will join with me in reading Ecclesiastes chapter number one, beginning in verse 12. The Bible says this, I the preacher was king over Israel and Jerusalem, and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven. This sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that had been before me in Jerusalem. Yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. and I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly, I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increases knowledge increaseth sorrow. Let's go ahead and pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we just want to thank you for this opportunity that we have to be in your house, Lord, and to hear from your word. And just thank you for the life of Solomon and his example he's given to us and the wisdom you gave to him that you now allow us to glean from. Lord, I just pray that you would be with me now. Give me your words to say to help your people today, Lord. We love you and we pray this on your name. Amen. Thank you for standing. You may be seated. Now many of us, I'm sure when I talk about Solomon, we know who Solomon is. He's this great king of Israel following his father David, possibly the greatest king that Israel ever had with David. And he was a man of war and David wanted to build the temple for God. And we see that God didn't allow David to do that because of his sin with Bathsheba and because he was a man of war. So we see that David He conquered much of the land. He put Israel in a great place where they began to prosper. They had all this land. Israel's becoming to be a powerhouse of a nation under King David. And now Solomon comes on the scene and he's king over Israel and he's got all these things going for him. He's got so much under his power. He's got land. He's got money. He's got it all. And we see that even all these things Solomon was given, God came to him in 1 Kings 3, verse 5, when he was early on in being king of Israel. And he came to him in a dream and he asked him what God should give to him. He gave him the choice to have whatever Solomon wanted God would give to him. And we see Solomon made a great request to God. He requested for more wisdom. And in that passage you'll see that God is glad that Solomon requested this because he says, most kings, they would have wished for power or wealth or long life. And he says, but ye have asked for wisdom to guide my people. And because of that, I'm going to give you power, and I'm going to give you great riches, and I'm going to give you long life as long as you serve me. So we see here that Solomon, he's off to a great start. And Solomon, he's begun to, He is known as today one of the greatest kings of all time. The greatest king in the nation of Israel. The most powerful king of all time. And we have seen that he's beginning off by doing what God wanted him to do. And we see even just some interesting facts about during his reign, 1 Kings 10.27, that tells us that during Solomon's reign, the silver was worth as stones under him, which is crazy, because I would like some silver thrown my way. I mean, if I could just go collect stones and be rich, I would do it. But that's just how rich he was. And I went to trusty Google, and many people say that his wealth today would have been worth $2.2 trillion. under his kingdom during all that time, which is just insane. So we see that here that Solomon had more wisdom and more wealth than anyone else before him or even after him. God promised that there would be nobody with as much wisdom after him either. But even though he had all this wealth and he had all this power and all this wisdom, sadly our text shows Solomon being in a place we would never expect him to be. We find him in a place that if you imagine this person that had all this going for him, had God on his side, knew what it was like during that time. If you think back even early on in Solomon's time when he built the temple and dedicated it to the Lord, God's Shekinah glory came down and filled that temple. I mean, imagine that scene. God was with Solomon at this point. God was moving on the behalf of Israel here. God was doing something great. But how come we find in this passage that he's saying life is vanity and vexing to his spirit and that he's at this low point in his life. How did he go from that to this? And that's the question I'm trying to focus in on tonight is what is your heart given to? We see in our text that Solomon experienced vexation of spirit, grief and sorrow because he gave his heart to gain wisdom rather than trusting and obeying God. We see in our passage here in verses 13 through 15, let's just read them again. He says, I have seen all the works that are done under the sun and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. We see that Solomon says he's given his heart to use this wisdom God has given him to understand more things about this world, to understand all things done under the sun, done under heaven. Then the word there in gave means to addict or to devote oneself to. And the meaning of the word heart there is the seed of affections and passions. I mean, we know what it means when we attach our heart to something. Our heart is where our passion resides. Our heart is where our life and our desire to live is, and it controls what we want to do. Our heart is where our passions lie, which affects our mind, which affects what we do. So we see that Solomon's heart was placed on the wrong thing here. Solomon's heart, he took his wisdom God gave him, and he placed it to gaining more wisdom. He placed his heart, he addicted himself to, he devoted himself to understanding all these things that are done under the heaven, done under the sun. And we see that he claims this to be a sore travail. This exercise of gaining wisdom, it was a tiring process for him. It would have been a wearying thing. I mean, we aren't just born knowing everything. It takes some work to understand some things. It takes some work to learn some things, especially if you're going to try and learn everything under the sun. That seems like a very taxing task at hand here. But we see, this is what Solomon devoted himself to at this moment. At this time in Solomon's life, he thought he wanted to know more about this world. He thought he wanted to understand everything that goes on under this world. And he says he did it. He says, I have seen all the works that are done under the sun. But he says, behold this, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. And that which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. We see that he finds that everything done on this earth is empty. It was unsatisfying, and it troubled his spirit. This thing he devoted his heart to is not turning out to bring results that he thought it would bring. He thought this would bring satisfaction to his life. He thought this is what he wanted his life to be about, to gain all this wisdom. And as he did this, he starts to be troubled. He starts to understand some things. He's understanding, the more I know, the more vexing it is to my spirit. The spirit simply means a dispensation of mind. It is where thinking and doubting abides. As he's contemplating what he's understanding, the wisdom he's gaining on this earth, His thoughts begin to become uneased. He's starting to be troubled with some things in his life. He says, that which is crooked cannot be made straight. If we take a look out on this world, we're gonna see there's some problems. There's gonna be some things that, you know, you're gonna look at and say, hey, that needs fixed. And Solomon sees that, he says, okay, this thing needs fixed. And he might even had, with his wisdom, tried to solve ways that this could be fixed, but in his finite wisdom, found that it could not be made straight. Because this world is under a curse. This world, we are under the fall after Adam's sin. We are under the curse of sin. And there are things that are messed up in this world that will not be made right until Jesus Christ comes back. and sets up his reign, and as Jesus comes back and he renews these things back to him and he fixes these things, right now in this present earth, there's going to be things that cannot be made straight. There's going to be some things that are out of order, that are out of whack, that are causing problems, and they're not going to be able to be fixed. Not all of them are during this time as we are under this curse. And Solomon is understanding this. And if you looked out on this, if you put your heart onto trying to fix these things, trying to understand and try and fix these problems in the earth, you're going to get wore out. It's going to tire you down. It's going to make you vexed to your spirit. You're going to say, there's so much trouble and I want to fix it, but I can't. And that's what Solomon's doing here. He's trying to understand some things. He's trying to fix some things or even just understand how to fix some things in his life. And he says it can't be made straight. And he says it's all vanity and vexation of spirit. So we see that this kind of, after this task, we see Solomon have a meeting with himself here. In verse 16, the Bible says, He starts to look into his heart and understand some things. He says, And I've gotten more wisdom. I mean, look at how smart I am. I know these things. People are recognizing my wisdom. People come to me for answers. I have gotten more wisdom than all of them that have been before me. Nobody has ever had this much wisdom in Jerusalem before. And my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. I have experienced some things. I have gained some knowledge. I have had some great wisdom in my life. And I gave my heart to this, in verse 17, and I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know all the madness and the folly of this world, all the crazy things that go on in this world. I've given my heart to it. But I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth in knowledge, increaseth sorrow. He comes to a realization in his life concerning his wisdom and knowledge he gained. His quest, he says, was successful. I mean, he gained more wisdom than anyone before. He has seen some things. He's given his heart to gain wisdom and to know madness and folly. But what he found was that it all led to grief and sorrow in his life. The word grief there means a pain of mind due to a misconduct. And the word sorrow means a pain of mind due to frustrated hopes. So we see that here, Solomon was grieved in his mind. He had sorrow in his mind. at the state the earth was in because he could only see that which was temporary. As a human being, he was stuck in this finite being as a human, but though he had wisdom and he understood some things, they didn't sit well with him because he could never see how they were gonna be fixed. And though God gave him this gift of wisdom, wisdom is good. And God tells us to gain wisdom. And he tells us to ask for wisdom. But the more wisdom we get, the more responsibility we begin to have. The more responsibility we have to live by that wisdom we know. But Solomon here is finding that the more wisdom you gain about this earth, the more wisdom you get about madness and folly, it's going to bring grief and sorrow in your life. And he's seeing everything as temporary. He's seeing all these problems that he cannot fix and he can't handle it. And the truth is that God is the only one who can handle all of the wisdom this world has. All the wisdom about the things in this world. God is the only one that exists completely out of time. Here he knows exactly what's gonna happen in earth before it's destroyed and before he sets up his kingdom forever and before we go to live with him in heaven forever. God looks at the problems in this life. Yes, it grieves his heart. Yes, God wants them to be fixed and he knows that they're not gonna be fixed until his son comes back and fixes them. So he sees the problems. But it doesn't cause his spirit to be burdened down like it was for Solomon. Because he knows what's going to happen. He knows how to fix it and he knows that he will one day fix it. So in our life, just as Solomon, once the wisdom we gain, we might become burdened down with this. And this isn't to say that we shouldn't... try to use wisdom properly in our lives, but it is to say, with the wisdom we do get, we need to understand that the one who has all wisdom is the one that we need to be giving our heart to, because he's the only one that's gonna give us the wisdom that we need to navigate in the madness and folly of this world, to live in this wicked world, to live in this crooked world. So we see that Solomon gave his heart to a vain act of gaining wisdom concerning the things of this world. and what he experienced brought grief and sorrow to his life. But sadly the truth is that we often experience vexation of spirit, grief and sorrow in our lives because we give our heart to that which is in vain rather than trusting and obeying our God. You see, just dealing with the text even here today, someone in this room today could be, their heart could be set on gaining wisdom of this life. Just to deal with what Solomon was dealing with. We could, maybe some trials are coming in our life. We could, in ourselves, want to gain wisdom about that problem. We could, in ourselves, want to understand why is this happening to that person? Or why is this the path that God has set for me? Or why is this crooked thing happening to these good people? that are just trying to walk with the Lord. I mean, if you look on the world, you're gonna find some things that are messed up, some things that don't make sense to us. But we know that, just as Solomon experienced that, if we can attach our heart to that, if we keep our heart and we addict ourselves to knowing that, then we're gonna be burdened down. We're gonna have some grief and sorrow in our life, and it's gonna start affecting our mind, and it's gonna start affecting what we do. It might continue to, it might affect our family. It might affect the way we treat our loved ones, because we're so burdened down by something we've given our heart to. By the fact that we have given our heart to trying to understand why God is doing something in our life, or why this thing is happening to other people, or even to ourselves. But if you attach your heart to that, and you get so caught up and focused on that, that it is what you go to for your source of life, it's going to grief you. It's going to bring sorrow to your mind. And you're going to start affecting the loved ones around you and people you never even thought it would affect. You're going to start affecting them, too. Because when our heart is in the wrong place, it starts to mess up some things in our lives. I mean, it's a simple truth. And it is something we know for sure. And we've heard over and over and over and over again, but it needs to be repeated because if we don't have our heart in the right place, we're never going to be doing the right things. We're never going to have the right outpouring in our life because, like I said before, what's in our heart is going to affect what we think and it's going to affect what we do. And that's what happened here to Solomon. What he gave himself to affected the way he thought, affected the way he looked out on the world, and probably, definitely affected his kingdom. Definitely affected the people of Israel under him. And we do the same thing in our life. And I know that maybe some of us aren't really dealing with what Solomon dealt with here, giving our heart to wisdom. But we also see Solomon gave his heart to many other things. Solomon gave his heart to many other things, and we have the tendency to do the same thing as well. We see that Solomon gave his heart to women. He gave his heart to riches. And he gave his heart to pleasure. He gave his heart to other gods. I know that in the Bible, God warned Solomon. He says, if you get wives of these lands, they're going to turn your heart away from me. They're going to turn your heart to other gods. And what does Solomon do? In his great wisdom, he goes and he gets these women and they do exactly what God told them they would do. They turn his heart away from him and onto these other gods. And we see Solomon, he begins this terrible process in his life. He starts attaching his heart to things that he thought would give him satisfaction. He starts attaching his heart to these other gods. And maybe they don't start satisfying things and some problems start popping up in his life, so he says, okay, I'm gonna give my heart to pleasure. Whatever I want, whatever pleases me, I'm gonna give my heart to that, and that's gonna satisfy me. And when you see that he goes down this path and he gets all these things to him, he does all these things for himself, but same thing. If you keep reading the book of Ecclesiastes, we'll see that he says those are vanity as well. Those are vexation of spirit as well. He gives himself to riches. He says, no, I'm just gonna get all these riches to me. If I have enough money, I'll be okay. But everything Solomon attached his heart to besides God, The same thing happens to our life. And it happens over and over and over again. And the times we think we're good, we're doing a great job, we have our heart attached to God, those times we have peace just as Solomon did. Things are prospering in our lives. Hard times sure do come, but we're walking with the Lord. Our heart is attached to Him. He brings us through those things, and we see great victory. We see great things done, but then we give our heart to something else that next day, and we start to have some problems. We start to affect the loved ones in our lives because we simply moved our heart away from God, just as Solomon did here. And this has been a very sad topic up to this point. And I'm sure Solomon in his life experienced some very sad times because of the things he attached his heart to. But thankfully, in Ecclesiastes chapter number 12, if you will turn there with me, we see that Solomon got the best wisdom he could have ever got. We see that Solomon He figured it out. Towards the end of his life, he understood what the greatest thing men could be about. And it says this in verse 13, if you're there, Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse 13, Solomon says this, fear God, and keep His commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. So we see Solomon concludes at the end of his life, after giving his heart to so many things, giving his heart to God, he had that time, and then moving his heart to other things, we see that at the end of his life he says, listen, I have done everything there is to do, I have gained wisdom on all the things under this earth, I have experienced so many things that most people aren't going to be able to experience. And do you know what I found? I found that the whole duty of man is to fear God and to keep His commandments. It doesn't matter what happens in this earth. It doesn't matter what you think is going to satisfy your life. If you don't give your heart to God, if you don't fear Him, and if you don't keep His commandments, you're never going to be satisfied. You're always going to be living in this bubble of vanity and vexation of spirit. He comes to the point in his life where he says, vanity is vanity. Vanity, oh vanity, all is vanity. Everything he saw on this earth was vanity. Because it's all going to come to an end. He comes to that conclusion. He says, listen, all we need to be about, our whole duty on this earth, is to fear God. To have a holy reverence for Him that makes us want to obey Him. If our heart is on to God and our passion is to obey God, then we're going to fear Him. If our heart is a given to God, we're gonna have a holy reverence for him. We're gonna know he's holy. We're gonna know he's almighty. We're gonna know he's all-knowing, and we're gonna love his word, and we're gonna seek to live by it, because that's our passion. Because remember, what's in our heart affects what we think, and that affects what we do. So when we get our heart attached to God, we're gonna start fearing him. We're gonna start understanding our God is a great God, and he is holy, and he wants something for my life, and it's better than anything I could ever give. It is better than anything I could ever get to myself. It is better than anything else I could attach my heart to. And I'm going to keep His commandments. I'm going to obey Him because He has my heart. And sadly in this world, we attach our heart to so many things. To make a little, just a funny jump here, I think of an illustration. I work at Sam's Club there at college. And if you know me, I love the movie Cars. The Disney movie Cars is the best movie ever made on this planet Earth. I'm just telling you, it's fantastic. As a little boy, there's nothing better. I mean, it's literally cars with faces. It's so awesome. And they're driving around. There's so many awesome scenes in that. I loved it. And I love Lightning McQueen. And so there at Sam's Club, they have this remote control Lightning McQueen. It is amazing. Mom, Christmas, if you want to write this down. There's a remote control, Lightning McQueen, and it glows in the dark. It glows in the dark, people. I could drive that thing in the dark. It's amazing. And my heart's on it. I'm just telling you right now. I need it bad. If you ask Abigail, I have told her that I've wanted that more times than she could probably count. Every day I see it and I walk by, I say, it's still here. So right there, $32 if anyone's wondering. 32.98, I think. As you can see, my heart's on that. I want that thing bad. It's so cool. I'll play for it for like five days, and then probably be done with it. But it's really cool. But it's a silly illustration, because even if I got that Lightning McQueen, if that was truly my source of joy in this life, if that was truly my source of satisfaction in this life, how long do you think that's going to last? Not long at all. And I'm going to start experiencing some vanity. And I'm just going to start vexing my soul. Maybe Lightning McQueen might not start glowing as big. And it's going to hurt. He's going to start wearing off. His battery's going to die. Well, all these things, it's a silly illustration. But the truth is, there's so many things in our life that can have our heart. And in Exodus 20 verse 3, the Bible tells us thou shalt have no other gods before me. It says God knows that we have the tendency. God knows that we are prone to give our heart to things that aren't supposed to have it. God knows that. And He knows that we would begin to even idolize these things. To begin to worship these things. To give our lives to these things. And we might sit here in a church service and hear a message like this and be confronted with the Word of God and say, that's never going to be me. I mean, do you see how silly that is? I would never put my life's joy on a Lightning McQueen RC car. I would never do it, guys. But the truth is, it might not be that silly. It might be you've put your heart on your family. A good thing, a really good thing that God has told you to put effort into and to lead. But here's the thing, even a good thing, we have the tendency to ruin. We have the tendency to ruin blessings God has given in our lives because we make them our God. Or we make them the thing we've addicted our heart to. Even a good thing like family can cause vexation of spirit because children are gonna disobey. Kids are gonna disobey. Kids are gonna go astray. Things are gonna happen that aren't gonna be very satisfactory in your life. if that is what your heart is given to. So we can't just attach ourselves to these good things God has done, and we know that there's wicked things that we should not give our heart to, but people are giving their heart to, and Christians are giving their heart to these wicked things, but I'm not just saying here, beware of these wicked things, like Solomon gave himself to, like polygamy, and giving all these things, these wicked things he should not have done, but he gave his heart to something good. He gave his heart to getting wisdom. That's a good thing. And we gotta be aware of both. We gotta know that, okay, good or bad, it can't have my heart unless it's God. God is the only one that is to have my heart. God is the only one that is gonna bring satisfaction. Can I just help you? Can I just help you out right now, this afternoon? There is nothing that's gonna replace God as the sole source of satisfaction in your life. There's nothing that is going to do it. Everything else is a poor substitute. Everything else is going to just bring you to a point of breaking, a vexation of spirit. It's all vanity. We get caught up in our minds, and we think that this thing, if we just have it, oh man, if we just pour ourselves into it, if we addict ourselves into it, it's going to give me everything I ever wanted. God is, Solomon is pleading with us. He's pleading with us. He wrote a whole book on the experiences he had. And God and the Holy Spirit chose to preserve this for us because He says, hey listen, Solomon was wise, but he did some foolish things. Solomon was wise, but he did some very, very foolish things, and God, because He loves us, is trying to point it out to us today in His Word. He says, listen, you can give your heart, I know you're gonna, I know you're gonna want to give your heart to these things, but listen, here's your whole duty, fear me and keep my commandments. Have a holy reverence for me and you keep my commandments. Because we could even be here today serving in the ministries of the church. We could be doing great things for God. We could be soul winning. We could be telling people about Jesus. We could be doing all these things. But if our heart is in the wrong place, the Bible tells us in John 15 we're nothing. Because if we're not abiding in Jesus Christ, we are not anything. We are nothing without Jesus Christ. The work he has done in our life has given us life. It has given us a source of life. It has given us something to do. We are bought with a price, and now we gotta give our heart to him. The Bible tells us in Romans chapter 12 that this is our reasonable service. to do it. It makes sense. Giving your heart to something else doesn't make sense. It does not make sense to give your heart to all these things. It only makes sense to give your heart to the one that saved it, to the one that created you, to the one that loves you, to the one that cares for you and cares enough for you to give you all this wisdom, to give you all this direction of life, to show you what he wants from you. This makes sense. Everything else doesn't. Because in this world, we can get so caught up, we can get so focused on all these things that they tell you, oh yes, if you get this, it's going to satisfy you. If you do this, it's going to satisfy you. Oh, that didn't work out for you? Hey, try this. Hey, try this. Hey, try this. Hey, try this. Do you see where this has led our nation? Do you see where that has led our earth? Do you see the problems in this world? Do you see all the people groaning and vexed to their spirit? These homeless people that are just begging and begging and just trying to get the next drug to just get their mind off of it. It's everywhere. It's breaking families. It's breaking homes. It is tearing our nation apart. It is beating people against each other that shouldn't even be put against each other. It is causing some issues because people are giving their heart to things that never were meant to have it. Why would Christians do the same thing? Do you guys know what Jesus did for you? Do you know what he has done in your hearts? Do you know the life he has given you? Do you know the price he paid? Guys, it's Christmas. We know that this is the time where we celebrate Jesus coming to this earth. What did Jesus do for us? He lived a sinless life. He lived in this wicked world. Do you know how much that grieved him? Can you imagine if it grieved Solomon so much what it did to the Holy Son of God to be down here to see what it was doing to his creation? To see all the people demon-possessed and in peril and just crowding to Jesus for a source of help. Can you imagine what it did to his soul? Yet he saw all these things, and he kept himself from sin, and he's paid the price. He humbled himself. The amount of humility it took for him to even come is more humility than we could ever show. And he even took it a step further. In Hebrews it says that he humbled himself even to the death of the cross. He endured the cross, despising the shame. He knew what it was going to cost before he came. He knew the plan. He knew what it was going to take. And he did it! He did it for us, because He loves us. And not only that, He gave us His word, because He knows we are finite people, and we forget, and we try to do our own thing, and we try to give our heart to things that never should have it. So He loved us enough, He gave us His word, because He knew that He wanted something great for our life. He said, listen, I sent my son to pay for you, and I didn't just send him so that you could come live with me. No, I sent him so that you could start working for me. I sent him because there's a life that you can live down here. Yes, it's going to be perfect in heaven, but listen, it can be good down here too, in the midst of all the folly, in the midst of all the crooked nations you're in. It can be good, it can be great, and you can start building riches in heaven for when you are there in eternity. You can start today living like you're going to live in heaven. You can start today living for God and doing what you're going to do for God. If you don't fear God now, guess what you're going to do in heaven for all eternity? You're going to fear God. You're going to say, He is holy, He is holy, He is holy, He is holy, and you might get tired of it because we're going to be saying it forever. We're going to be saying it to all eternity. Listen, there is a God who is holy. There is a God who wants us to fear Him. So quit giving your heart to something that was never supposed to have it. We look at Solomon and we think, oh, that's a great story. I've heard those stories all the time of what he's done in his life and how he experienced all these things, but I would never do it. But we do it. If you look in your heart, if you ask the Lord to search your heart, then he's going to start pointing out some things that are there that should not be there. You know what they're doing? They're affecting the way you live. They're affecting the way you think. They're affecting your actions. They're affecting the role you're supposed to play in your house or in your church. It's affecting more things than you think it is. And Solomon here, he said, I imagine him broken. As he's writing this down, as he's looking back at his life, and understanding all the things he's done, I imagine him just wanting for the people of Israel, for his children, to understand, listen, your whole duty is to fear God and keep his commandments. Your whole duty, everything you're to be about, is to understand that God is holy, and he's got a path of life he wants you to live, and you just gotta obey. And the hardest part about that is submission. The hardest part about that is being humble enough to give up control of our heart, to attach our heart to the only one that can keep it, to attach it to the one that is meant to have it. Your spouse is not to have it completely. Nobody is supposed to have it as your source of life, as your source of satisfaction other than God. And once you give it to God, you're going to start experiencing some great things like Solomon did. You're gonna start experiencing the joys of a loving relationship with your spouse or with your family. You're gonna start experiencing peace in hard times. Something this world knows nothing about. Something this world cannot understand that a Christian would be going through this unspeakable problem in their life, but with a smile on their face. With joy, with peace, with a song to sing, with something to tell or encourage another person they come along with, these things don't make sense to the world. But it makes sense when you give your heart to God. Because once you give your heart to God, it's going to start affecting the way you think. It's going to start affecting, hey, I serve a holy God. This probably doesn't fit. If I serve a holy God and He's got my heart, I'm addicted to, and an addiction to God is not a bad thing. That is something good. We say addiction and we have a negative connotation about that, but no, we can addict ourselves to some good things. If we're addicted to reading the Bible, I don't think anything bad's gonna come from that. If you're addicted to walking with the Lord and you have devoted yourself to living for Him, to giving your heart to Him, there's only gonna be good that comes from that. Yes, you're going to experience some madness and folly in your life. You're going to experience some hard things. But who cares? It's part of the walk with God. I would much rather do it with Him than without Him. I would much, much rather. And I'm sure Solomon thought the same thing. I'm sure Solomon thought, man, I could have done some great... I'm sure he thought he could do way more for God if he would have just kept his heart with Him. And I'm sure that God could have. I'm sure of it. And I'm sure that God wants to do so many great things in each and every one of our lives today, if we will just give our heart to Him. He has given us a purpose. He has not left us clueless. We don't just get saying, okay, I don't know what to do. No, because when God moves in, There's some things that you know you ought to be doing. There are some things that just should naturally come out. Some love should come out of you if you've been saved. Some joy should come out of you if you're saved. Some forgiveness should come out of you if you're saved. Some patience should come out of you if you're saved. But you've got to give your heart to God. And you've got to give it up. You've got to allow Him to have control of it. Because this thing is deceitful and desperately wicked. I know that if I gave it up to whatever it wanted, it's not going to go after anything good. It's not going to produce anything good in my life. It's going to cause some vexing things in my life. But when it is placed in the hands of the Creator, when it is placed within the hands of the Almighty God, there's going to be some great works done. There's going to be some great things happen in churches. There's going to be some great things done in America. And what this world needs is more Christians to get their heart out of the world, and to get their heart up to God, and to let Him have it, and to let Him control them. Because that's the only way this world is going to change. And it's the only way we're going to have peace. It is the only way we're not going to experience vanity and vexation of spirit. Jesus came to this earth and he taught some radical things. He taught some things that in our culture blew people's minds. And I'm scared today that many of us Christians, me included, want to just fit in with the world. Want to come to church and serve God and have a hallelujah fit in church, but then go out in the world and just fit in. Go out in the world and just not really cause any ripples. But no, Jesus came in and he caused some ripples. He caused some people to be upset. He came in, the way he lived, the things he taught, people noticed. People notice there was something different, and the disciples did the same thing, and the apostles, and the early churches, they were stirring up some things. And the churches of today need to start stirring up our communities. We need to start getting out of there, standing up for things, standing against abortion, standing against gay marriage, standing against these things, because they're not coming out of a heart given to God. They are not coming out of keeping God's commandments. It is not coming out of a heart that has a holy reverence for God. We need Christians to get their heart onto God. To give their heart to God. Not to control it and not just allow certain things to get in there that we are comfortable with. No, to give it completely over. When you devote yourself to something, you're not just giving part of you to it. You're giving everything you got to it. You're letting him have control of everything in your life. And that is the whole duty of man. You see, the Christian life at its core is a relationship and it's a personal walk with God. That is what it is. And we have been given the great privilege to walk with God. Think about that. The God that created all things, the holy God that we've been speaking about. He cares enough to talk to you, to walk with you, to care about you and your problems, to go about, and he cared enough to send his son to experience the things you've experienced, and to care about you, to save you, and to want to walk with you. We have a great privilege here. This is something amazing that we get to have. Why give it up for a poor substitute? There's nothing worth it. Solomon experienced it all. And he says, guys, it's not worth it. Guys, it's going to trouble you. Guys, it's going to bring some grief and sorrow in your life. I know where it takes you. Having a personal walk with God is not going to come out of a heart that's not given to him. A heart not given to God isn't going to want to walk with God. Because a heart, as we said, is desperately wicked. A heart is just going to stray away from God. We are the enemies of God when we live abiding to our heart. Because we're sinful. And we're fleshly. And we're carnal. But when our heart is given to God, he starts to do a work. And then we can start being holy as he is holy. And we can start to experience some great things in our life. So Solomon concluded that to give your heart to anything but God is vain. Everything in this earth is gonna pass away. Nothing's gonna stay for eternity. And only what we have done for God is gonna last. Only what we do for the Lord is gonna last in this life. Jesus taught to lay up treasures in heaven. So let's get busy about it. Let's get busy about doing what our whole duty is to be about, if that sentence made sense. But yeah, we need to just give our heart to what Solomon has said and what God has put in his word as truth. To give our heart to God, because that is the only thing that's not going to be vain. So, this afternoon I want to challenge us to have a heart that is given to God, and allow that heart to be the filter for everything else in your life. If it doesn't match up with your heart for God, you're going to know. If you're walking with God and your heart is given to Him, you're going to know if this thing shouldn't be there, or if this thing is taking away from God, or taking a spot that God is only supposed to have. So give your heart to God and let everything else be filtered through that. Do not waste your life like Solomon did by going after things that are vain. Live your life for God and do the whole duty of man. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, just thank you so much for your word this afternoon. Thank you for the truth and thank you for the wisdom you gave to Solomon here and just the conclusions he came to, Lord, that are biblically sound and that are helping help us here today. Because Lord, we need this. We need to know that there are things in our life that aren't gonna satisfy us. We need to know because we have the tendency to give our heart to things that should not have it. So Lord, help us. Help us to give our heart to you and to serve you. We love you, Lord, and we pray this all in Jesus' name, amen. If you're troubled down this afternoon, and you know your heart's given to some things it shouldn't be given to, come down to this altar, pray where you are, and realize that your heart's been given to some things it shouldn't be. Make it right. Give your heart to God this afternoon as Jay sings. So, Jay, I give my heart today Still I'm standing on my own. I can't see. Amen. Y'all can go ahead and stand. Thank you all for being here today. It was a great day in the Lord's house. It was good to have our college students home. Got to hear Jared preach, praise the Lord for that. Next time it'll be Alyssa. So that'll be exciting. That's one of the things pastor said, he's not gonna change, right? So just some points of interest here from the bulletin. Again, today starts our giving for the Christmas missions offering. You can just mark that on your envelope there. There'll be next Saturday will be a graduation ceremony here for Jay Hyatt. It'll be at 2 p.m. here at the church, and there'll be some light refreshments to follow after the ceremony. Christmas Cantata next Sunday, December 8th. It's a great time to invite friends and family to come and be a part of that with us. There's a sign-up sheet on the table in the foyer for the Cookie Fellowship that's gonna follow the cantata there. Teen Christmas Party, it's gonna be at our house on Friday, December 13th. It'll be at 6 p.m. Ladies Christmas Party coming up December 16th at 7 p.m. at Pastor's house there. and then patch program coming up as well as Gilson Christmas. And I also wanna personally thank every single one of you. A lot of you showed up and you guys were a huge part of our teen fundraiser last Sunday. And so we raised $1,000 for that. So it was one of the highest we've ever raised. It was awesome. Thank you guys so very much. Laura answered a lot of prayer through that. And I just wanna thank every single one of you so much for that. Again, great day being in the Lord's house today. Brother Daniel Decker, do you mind dismissing us in a word of prayer? you