Amen. Is the Lord the king of your heart? I trust that he is. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you again for the opportunity to come before you. We ask that you would reign forever, that you would do what you promised. And Father, we claim that promise here this morning, even in our own hearts, that that reign would begin here and now in this building, that you would take over hearts, that you would reign in hearts, that you would take your word and that it would do its work, and that it would not return empty this morning, but that your Holy Spirit would be effectual in its ministry here today, in his ministry. Father, we do ask this morning as we come to you that you would give grace. You would give grace as we minister to each other, as we worship you together, But here this morning even now as we open your word Father we do ask that you would help this morning Us that we would be faithful to your word That is our heart We do not want our thoughts my thoughts to come in between the pure unadulterated Word of God Father we do ask this morning that your word would take its effect and take its hold on and that it would do its saving work in our hearts, that it would do its sanctifying work in our hearts. And we ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. It's good to see you. Again, we're going to open up to Ecclesiastes chapter 7 this morning, continuing our march through this memoirs of Solomon. A few housekeeping matters here. At the beginning, I do I do want to just thank, first of all, Chris and the praise team for ministering to our hearts every week in music. They honestly don't get the credit where credit is due. Thank the sound booth team for really helping us in our endeavor to lift up the Lord and make his name famous to each other. And so I really appreciate their work. Some of you, many of you, had an opportunity to be here last Sunday. and had the opportunity to sit under the teaching and ministry of Dr. Dave Dietz and his team with Michael. And so in regards to that, last Sunday night, we went through some of the results, some of the conclusions, I would say, that we arrived at regarding our ministry, where we had been, and then some of the things of where we want to change and where we want to go. And we're going to continue to develop that vision as we move forward. But in regards to specifically last weekend, the elders and deacons took the entirety, almost the entirety of a Saturday, and really just flushed out the ministries of the church and then put them all back together and hopefully a more succinct way. And so the results of that are back on that back table. If you would like to pick up one of our org charts, you can take that home. You can see it's not entirely complete because there are some duties that still, some positions I would say that are still needing to be either filled by a group of people or by one person, but that is the vision. I would say that we came up with in terms of our polity, the way our church functions. So, if you have any questions about that, you can see the elders. When I say the elders, I mean me as one of the elders or any of the other elders, in the building or who are not in the building. We don't have all the elders here this morning, but if you have questions, you can direct those at one of us. We'd be happy to help you out with those questions. If you have any helpful comments or suggestions, we always welcome those as well. So just moving forward, we really want to empower each person here to live worthy of the calling that each one of you have in Christ Jesus, and to empower you to minister effectively both to each other and as well into the community as we seek to serve each other in our mission to make disciples for the cause of Christ, all right? So hopefully that'll be a blessing to you and helpful to you. And as I mentioned, there will probably be more of that type of content coming in the future as the elders kind of meet together and look towards the future of how the Lord can use us here in this community of Wilton-Montevallo. Ecclesiastes chapter 7 this morning. We are finishing the section of betters here. Solomon is going through a number of things that are better than other things. Specifically, he's dealing with wise or wisdom. Wise people, or we could say people who embrace wisdom, are better than those who are foolish, or we could say people of folly. And so you can see in verse one, a good name is what? It is better, right? Verse two, it is better to go to the house of mourning. Verse three, sorrow is better. Verse five, it is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise. Verse eight, better is the end of a thing than its beginning. Verse 10, why are the former things better than these? Verse 12, what advantage or better is the knowledge that wisdom preserves? So on and so forth. And so here we are, Solomon is going through this text that deals with things that are better. And we're concluding that this morning with verses 13 and 14. I thought about jumping in to the next section. But as I think I mentioned last time towards the conclusion of the study, that I wanted to just kind of sit down and chew a little bit on verses 13 and 14. And so that's what we're going to do this morning. And then verses 15 through 18, 19, hopefully we will deal with that next time. And those are some challenging thoughts. If you read ahead, you'll see there's some challenging thinking in terms of maybe the theology that you have been taught growing up. And so as I concluded last time, I would encourage you to continue to read ahead and really Just continue to think about these types of things. So we're dealing with wisdom literature here in this book. A wise man, I mentioned numerous times that somebody who is wise lives life to the fullest. In other words, he exercises the wisdom that God has given to him in order to use that, leverage it, we could say, to its fullest extent and enjoy life. And enjoy life. And these wise people are people who understand that life and everything that is in it under the Sun that is in our earthly existence Ultimately is a gift from God and the ability to enjoy those things actually also is a gift from God the fool on the other hand He is careless he doesn't apply or use God's gifts appropriately and Both of them receive God's gifts. In other words, both the wise and the foolish person enjoys the blessings of God. God causes the rain to shine, or rain to shine, the sun to shine and the rain to fall on both the good and the wicked. But the wise person is able to leverage those so that they can understand and enjoy life more fully. And so a wise person or a skillful person has this, we're gonna say this, has this advantage. It is better for him. He goes about life and he has a better experience because he embraces the wisdom of God. And so in chapter seven, we mentioned this word better is used time and again. But we also saw last time that the wisdom of God, or I would say man's wisdom, those two go together obviously hand in hand. But wisdom in general, the skill to be able to understand life, ultimately even that is not giving us the answer to all of life's mysteries. Wisdom, even of itself, has limitations, even though wisdom's a gift. In chapter 7, we saw that even if you have wisdom, you will experience frustration. You'll experience oppression. And wisdom has its limits. Both wisdom and foolishness stop at death. In other words, not going to help you after death. And so even with wisdom, also sometimes you get caught up Even the most wise people are subjected to the futility of life in this world and do get caught up in things like bribes, verse seven. Wisdom can't guarantee that you will always have bread to eat. We have people out there that are very wise, that do embrace God's wisdom, and still they struggle in this life under the sun. And so even wisdom won't unlock the mystery of life for you, but ultimately, we saw last time, The answer to that, to unlocking the key to the mystery of life is found in a relationship with God. It's found in fearing God and keeping his commandments, and that's really Solomon's conclusion to this entire book. And so, even as we face the uncertainties of life, when you kind of feel the weight of the insubstantial nature of what we have going on around us, a person who lives in relationship with God, even in the middle of that pressure, of that kind of constantly why, why, why, why are these things going on, that person can have and live with stability. That person can have and live with satisfaction. And so Solomon wrote in Proverbs, whoever finds God, finds life in the fear of the Lord, that is the beginning of wisdom. And so this section calls us to be attentive to the work of God as it is fleshed out in our own lives and the world around us by going along with life's confusing moments, with life's enigmas, we could say, instead of trying to constantly fix it, okay? I'm a fixer. I'm a fixer. When my wife has a problem, sometimes she just wants to listen and I just want to do what? I want to fix it. I don't know how many of you men are like that. But I have to really understand that some things just can't be fixed and that I just need to allow God to be God and that's really we're going to be dealing with here this morning. Maria Dyer was born in 1837. You may or may not be familiar with her name. But she actually was raised on the mission field in China, where her parents were pioneer missionaries in the mid-1800s. And so Maria had a very difficult upbringing. In fact, both of her parents died when Maria was a little girl, and she ended up going back to the United States and being raised by her uncle in England. The loss of her parents, however, did not deter her from really following the Lord. Here was a young heart, but she understood the importance of not fighting against what life had thrown at her, but rather embracing those things as under the sovereignty of God. And she continued to follow the Lord. And at the age of 16, along with her sister, the two of them returned to China to start a girls' school, or to work in a girls' school, and she became a missionary herself. Maria couldn't undo the death of her parents, but she did choose to embrace God's wisdom and his grace in her life. And she lived in light of God's sovereignty. And so even though wisdom can't help you or protect you from life's enigmas, when life throws you, we could say a curve ball, there are some things that you have to simply admit that you don't understand. and trusting that God is going to work out through those things. You have to trust in God's providence. And so today I wanna preach to you this morning on this topic, living in light of God's sovereignty. Living in light of God's sovereignty. Verse 13, this morning of chapter seven in Ecclesiastes. Consider the work of God, that is God's working in your life, who can make straight what he has made crooked. Who can make straight what he, that is God, has made crooked? And really the answer is, in terms of humanity, the answer is implied no one. Here the king returns to the statement he made in chapter 1 verse 15, and we're not going to recover that fully, but it's been a long time since we were in chapter 1. I think it's been actually a couple years. Chapter 1 verse 15 says, what is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted. Crooked can be understand, really should be understood in the sense of inscrutable. In other words, this is something that is un-understandable, impossible to fix. We can't figure it out. We can't resolve what is going on. It's inscrutable. The word does not mean this ethical sense and you might have even heard it or some people take it even as such as crooked being wicked or even corrupt or sinful. Consider the work of God who can make straight what he has made and you could insert that word wicked or sinful there if you are translating like that. I do not believe that is the intent of the writer, or the Holy Spirit is the writer, but even the human writer in this point. Crooked things in life also does not refer to fate or luck. Sometimes we can think about, well, when something goes wrong, well, You know, that's my fate. That's what I deserve, all right? Josiah was actually talking to me about a song that deals with this topic this week, okay? So, notice who made things crooked in the text. Who does it say? So, it says, consider, think about the work of God. Who? Well, who is who? Well, God is who, right? So, who made the crooked things or who made these things crooked? Well, it's God, right? God did. So, who can make straight what he has made crooked? God made crooked things. He made the messed up things in the world. We must subject ourselves to that reality. It's amazing to me how God just providentially, works in terms of sometimes fitting things together when we don't even realize it. Eric was going through, for those of you who were in Eric's Sunday school class, the idea of fitting in the concept of the wrath of God with the goodness of God. And how sometimes we have a skewed view of God because we don't embrace the whole counsel of God, but rather we kind of make up our little G God as we go about life. And I fear that sometimes we do that because we don't really take to heart and read the scriptures as they were written. And here we have this stark reality that God makes crooked things. Romans 8 verse 20 says this, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but It was subjected to futility because of him who subjected it, that is God, in hope. How do you feel about God being the originator of crooked things, of imperfect things, of imperfection? You know, how do you fit verse 13 in your theology? You know, we know from scripture that God is not the author of, fill in the blank, evil. God is not the author of evil. But we do know that he leverages evil in human hearts to accomplish his will. The Bible Knowledge Commentary says this, no one can change what God thinks, or I should say, no one can change what he thinks, that is humans. No one can change what he thinks is wrong or unfair in life. So we can't change what we think is wrong or unfair in life. It is not just that God allows it. But this commentary goes on to say, but that this is God's work. This is what God made. There is always or there will always be aspects of the fallen nature of humanity, life in a fallen world that remain to us mysterious. You know, we could say the crooked things and the implication here of the text in verse 13 is that some things will not be made what again? Will not be made straight, right? The bent things out of shape because God has chosen not to reveal the answers to all of mankind's questions. Bottom line, verse 13 teaches us to submit to God's sovereignty. So what's the answer to the rhetorical question here? Well, we already gave it to you. Who can fix what God has made crooked? What's the answer? What person under the sun can fix what God has made crooked? The answer, no one can. No human can. That includes you, and that includes me. God is the only one who can make things right again. And ultimately, he won't do that until Jesus returns. And that is the hope that we have. That's why we say, Maranatha, Lord, come quickly. Because we want to see everything be made right again. The problem with a lot of people, and I think I, at times, find myself in this category, is that we try to straighten out crooked things. Our life is on a mission to straighten out crooked things. Adversities of life, instead of allowing God to work in and through those difficult times, and the temptation is to argue with God and say, you know what, God, you shouldn't have done this. This is unfair. I don't understand why you allowed this difficult, crooked thing in my life. Right? I don't understand why God would do this to me. Kurt was just remarking to me, I believe last week, he gave me the information of a young man, 30 years old or so, has two young children. Just found out that he came down with stage four cancer and has literally weeks to live. And you ask yourself, why? Right? And the temptation is to argue, and the temptation is to run and try to fix it. And I'm not saying don't go to the doctors, right? I'm not saying don't try to do whatever's medically necessary to try to extend your life. But what I am saying is that if your intention is, you know what, I am only gonna be happy, I'm only gonna be satisfied. If this gets fixed, then you have the wrong mentality. You are not thinking God's thoughts. You do not have a biblical philosophy of life. Because even in the New Testament we are told that we are to have joy. We are to experience a settled state of contentment within the trials of life. James talks about that. And so constantly arguing and asking why. Guys, ultimately you are wasting your breath. You can't straighten what God makes crooked. If God brings suffering into my life, and that's his sovereign plan, I can't argue with him. And I shouldn't try to change it or fix it in whatever way I can, thinking that I, in some way, can outsmart God. Guys, we can't outsmart God. Neither wisdom, nor money, nor anything else in this world can overcome the futility of the curse. Have you ever heard of life hacks? You see these YouTube videos all the time or these clips, these shorts, you know, you got a hack for this, life hack for that, you know, and all these life hacks, you know. And they're actually are pretty cool. Some of them are pretty helpful, you know. You know, there's these kitchen hacks and these, you know, laundry hacks and all these cool ideas that are out there about how to make life simpler. Okay. There isn't a life hack that's going to give you an answer to all of your problems. If God's made something crooked, we live in a fallen world and basically you can't put hope in a fallen world. Guys, we live in a world where things do what? They rust, right? We live in this world where moth, right, eats up things. And so the scriptures tell us don't live for things that moth and rust corrupt. Live with a higher calling. Live with a heavenly calling. The only correct response to God's sovereignty is to submit and pray that God's will would be done in our hearts and life. That's why Jesus prayed that thy will would be done on where as well as in heaven? On earth as well as in heaven, right? So what did that mean for the Lord? What did that mean for our Lord? That God's will would be done on earth for our Lord. Well, in his case, suffering and death, that he would bear the cup of God's wrath. That is what he was praying for. We must bow before him and accept the fate he has dealt with us, or dealt for us. In the next chapter in Solomon, he comes back around to this idea in chapter eight, verse 17. Let me read this for you. Verse 17, then I saw all the work of God. That man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in his seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out. That's what the next chapter says. We must realize that sometimes God's bring things into our lives. And ultimately they are crooked and they're bent and we don't understand that and we're not able to fix it. And we say, I don't understand, how am I gonna deal with this? I would say take the example of Paul, right? It reminds me of Paul's thorn in the flesh. In other words, there is something in Paul's life that God did not straighten out. This could be something huge. I already mentioned, you know, stage four cancer, right? It could be something huge like the loss of a retirement savings in a stock market crash. We watched a movie last night about the depression and the realities of living in the depression. It could be a small thing. It could be living with diabetes. It could be a family member that you are estranged from. It could be not making it to work on time because there was an accident. And you were supposed to be there. And people were relying on you. And you didn't make it. And it's frustrating. And you can't fix it. It's over. The opportunity's done. You didn't make it. So are we supposed to just resign ourselves to a fatalistic view of life? Are we just supposed to basically, you know, buckle up and bear up and just figure it out? I don't think that's really what God is calling us to do. Werbe hits it on the head when he says this, a call to wisdom is not a summons to slavish fatalism. Instead, it is a sensible invitation to a life yielded to the will of God. Can you yield yourself to a sovereign God this morning? Let me remind you of chapter three, verse 11. We've already covered this, but I wanna remind you of it. It says in chapter three, verse 11, he has made, that is, God has made everything beautiful in its time. You say, wait a second, even the crooked stuff? Yep, that's included in everything last time I checked, right? He has made everything beautiful in its time. Can you accept that the unexplained challenges and trials will be made beautiful, appropriate in its time? The text goes on to say, also he has put eternity in a man's heart. Every person has a built-in DNA that this life isn't over at death. Yet so that, here's the purpose, here's the purpose, continue reading here. Here's the purpose, chapter three. You cannot, not that you can, no, no, no, you cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. He's made everything beautiful in his time, why? so that you cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Newscaster Paul Harvey told a remarkable story of God's providential care of our thousands of allied prisoners in World War II, many of whom were Christians. Maybe you've heard this story before, maybe you've heard this illustration. I think it does a good job of illustrating what we're getting to here. One of the Americans, bombers, took off from an island of Guam, headed for Kokura, Japan, with the deadly cargo, the deadly bombs. Because there was clouds that were just constantly hovering over the target, this B-29 circled and circled and circled until finally they were almost, they knew that they would barely have enough fuel to be able to make it back to base or to the aircraft carrier. The captain and his crew frustrated, you know, that they couldn't hit the target. They couldn't see the target. They were not able to fulfill their mission. They finally decided, well, we're just going to go ahead and hit a secondary target on the way back. Changing course, the sky cleared up, and the command was given, bombs away, and the B-29 headed for home base. Sometime later, an officer revealed some startling information from military intelligence. Just one week before that bombing mission, Japan had actually transferred one of the largest contingents of American soldiers, American prisoners, to this very base that this bomb was going to hit. Upon reading this, the officer exclaimed, he said, thank God for that protecting cloud. If the city had been hidden from that bomber, it would have destroyed thousands of American boys and men. Darby said this, God's ways are behind the scenes, but he moves all, every single one, all the scenes which he is behind. We have to let him work. You say, but that was crooked. It wasn't the plan. I know. But it was God's plan. Wonder how many clouds God has moved into our lives. Maybe this week. Some clouds may never move as long as you live. Sometimes you might not even have the military intelligence to know what was behind the cloud. But can you just trust? Can you simply submit to God? One day we will see his perfect providence, every single aspect of it. Davies says this, God has created crooked winding paths. Your life isn't a race downhill, straight downhill. It isn't a straight line from earth to heaven, okay? He created a winding road for each of our lives, Davies says. He did that for reasons we never know. He may never explain. And so, with humility, we bow before his throne. The Living Bible paraphrases like this. It's kind of a crude way, but it says, don't fight the facts of nature. That's how it translates this verse. You are powerless against God. So this morning, stop fighting God and just embrace his sovereignty. It's as simple as that. Will you be willing to submit yourself to the loving hand of an almighty, all-powerful God? Some people think if I don't believe something is true, then it's not true. Have you ever heard that? If I don't think something's true, if I don't believe it, then it must not be true. The reality is, is that if something is true, it's true. Okay? No matter what you think or believe. And that's the case with God's sovereignty. There is this extent of his dominion over humans that is oftentimes argued in the theological circles. But ultimately, the Bible answer is simply this. God's dominion, his sovereignty, is over every single thing that happens on this earth. God rules over all people, all places, all circumstances, and it really, guys, in essence, this is the message of this entire book. God is sovereign over everything under the sun. Whether you believe it or not doesn't make it not true. You can stand up to yourself, and you can stand up with others, and you can say, you know what? I don't believe it. The Bible's true. The Bible's true. To be a wise person and choose to embrace God's mind means that you're submitting to his control over your life, and the scripture is the key to answering the whys of life. And sometimes the key point is simply this, what is done is done, and it cannot be undone. Are you okay with that? Are you okay with not making straight what is crooked? Learn to live as James admonishes. Count it all joy when you face the crooked things of life. I'm inserting that, when you face trials and temptations, but count it all joy when you face the crooked things of life. This is humility. It reminds me of 1 Peter 5. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in the proper time, casting all of your what on him, all of your anxiety, all of your cares. Why? Because he cares for you. Guys, If he made it crooked, he does it because he cares for you. One pastor friend of mine said, anxiety is the absence of humility, and humility is the absence of anxiety. If you're always anxious and worrying all the time, it's because it's likely due to the fact that you're not humble enough just to submit to God's sovereignty. Can you just trust and obey? No. If you're anxious because, no, you need to be in control. And when you don't have control, man, watch out. Watch out, world. You see, the absence of humility is anxiety. And so, you have to be in control. Sometimes God takes control out of our hands to teach us that He is God and we are not. We must simply live humbly in light of his perfect sovereignty. What does the world run to to deal with the crooked things of life? What would you say, you know what, this is where the world goes to really figure out how to live, to deal with the crooked things that can't be made straight. Okay, this is where the world goes, okay, you know, what is different in my life, or what should be different in my life now, right? Well, we can name a lot of things the world runs to, right? Some illicit things like alcoholism and drugs and this kind of thing. These life, we could say, domineering sins, these addictions. But a lot of times the world runs to overall some pretty good things like this, friends and family and work and sports, music, hobbies, medicine. A lot of people run to medicine to deal with the crooked things in life. And I'm not a doctor. We have one here, but I'm not the MD. I'm not arguing, if you need to take medicine, take your medicine. But I am arguing the fact that if that is the only way that you are dealing with the crooked things of life, there is a bigger, better, remember the word better, that's the whole point of this section, better reality and solution. And that is to embrace living in relationship with God. None of these things are bad per se. There are tools, you know, friends, family, sports, can be used to cope, medicine, but none of them ultimately gives us the answer, the lasting peace and joy that only God can give. And so, what are you struggling with today? What do you have in your life that you might think, you know what, that might not ever be the same again? Maybe it's something in your past. And it's something that's crooked. And you're like, I don't know. I don't know if I can continue to deal with this. How are you handling it? The answer is not just to grin and bear it. It's to rest in God's grace by submitting to his plan for your life. I would say it even more forcefully. You must embrace God's grace. because His grace is sufficient, and it is made powerful in your weakness. Will you live for God's grace? Will you live for His eternal purpose this morning? You know what a huge problem in our churches today is? Christian people who fail, really just fail to walk around, really embracing the transforming grace of God in their lives. They walk around with this burden. They walk around lost, and they're so burdened by their own problems, by their own brokenness. And we get so caught up dealing with our own stuff, and the stuff that's crooked, and we're in this constant mentality of just deal, deal, deal, deal. We forget why God has put us here. We're here to embrace the grace of God so that he can transform us, so that he can give us joy in the midst of trial, so that he can satisfy us even in the midst of crooked things. But more importantly, why did God put you here? Not to wallow in your own problems and brokenness. No, God saved you from that stuff. He died on the cross so you could be free from that stuff. Why did God put you here? Wise people live with eternal vision and purpose. Wise people live with a purpose that is out looking towards others. Let's make sure we get this correct here this morning. God doesn't just permit bad things. What does he do? He makes it. He makes them happen. He ordains them, along with the good things of life. And that's our next verse, verse 14. Here we see God mingles together adversity with prosperity, and a man cannot discover anything about his future. He must simply trust and obey. Verse 14, in the day of prosperity, be joyful. That is literally the Hebrew, if you're translating it directly, in the day of good, or in the day of goodness. So on our good days, be pleasant. Well, you think to yourself, okay, well, that's not very hard. I can be a pleasant person when things are going well, right? On the good days, when things are going my way. But notice, the verse continues. And in the day of adversity, consider, well, consider what, Solomon? That God, here we have it again, God has made the one as well as the other. He just doesn't permit it, he does what? He makes it. He makes the day of adversity along with the day of prosperity. Why? Why does he do that, Solomon? So that, look at the end of verse 14, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. So that you won't be able to know anything that comes after you on earth. Remember, we're talking about in context under the sun here. That's the context. I don't think it's talking about eternal purposes. I think it's talking about under the sun. It's talking about you're not gonna know your future in this life. Notice the spectrum here, from prosperity, good times, you know, to adversity, bad times, everything, the whole spectrum is under the handiwork, the creation, the making power of God. As one commentator says, enjoy yourself on a good day while making the best of a bad day. Well, how do you do that? You do that by submitting yourself to God. God doesn't just ordain the good things in times of prosperity, he also ordains the bad things, the days of adversity. You could say God not only makes the good days, he also makes the bad. One guy said the people around you may be intermediate agents of adversity. You know, you think of people like your family. You know, sometimes your family is, you know, an agent of adversity, right? Your boss, okay? The stock market, the government. You know, even Satan himself could be an agent of evil or adversity. But ultimately, God makes adversity. We need to see trials in life from God's mind. Instead of wallowing in our self-pity, we need to be willing to learn from suffering. Isaiah 45.7 says this, the one forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity, I am the Lord who does all these. Lamentations 3.38 says, is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both the good and ill go forth? Why should any living mortal or any man offer complaint in view of his sins? Let us examine and probe our ways and let us return to the Lord, Lamentations 3 says. It isn't just that God permits adversity, it is that he creates it. You might think, well, I wish I didn't have so many of those days of adversity. Well, sometimes I think that too. Okay, but remember chapter three, verse 11, he's made everything beautiful. As one Puritan put it, we must consider all the afflictions of life as emanating from the unerring heart of our loving Father. Let me repeat that. We must consider all the afflictions of life as emanating from the unerring heart of our Heavenly Father. So by faith, we simply must trust and obey. Are you okay with a God that works like this? So many Americans never pick up their Bibles outside of Sunday morning. And their God is the one they've pieced together from culture, some Baptist tradition, maybe some of their own ideas. And you end up with a distorted view of creator that's not the God, but a God. So end of verse 14, the message is that no matter how much you try to plan and prepare, you can't know the future about tomorrow, about next week, or about the next year. And we shouldn't automatically expect that God is gonna make everything awesome and that God is gonna prosper us, that's prosperity gospel nonsense, because it might just be that next year for you, that this year is a year of what? of adversity, he might make that type of year for you. And as a disciple of Christ, I have to simply say this, I'm good with it. I'm good with it. Because I'm trusting in God to work out things for my good and his glory. Where he says, Job reminded his wife of this truth when she told him to curse God and die. You know, how would you like that for a wife's advice? Ah, just curse God and die. Notice Job's response to his wife, his loving wife, all right? What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil or trouble? In other words, we must both embrace both. Job said, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of whom? Yahweh. Where he goes on to say, God balances our lives by giving enough blessings to keep us happy and enough burdens to keep us humble. Do you ever feel like right about the time you get the hang of something in life, things are really going smoothly, that's the very moment that God just kind of pulls the rug out from underneath something? You know, it throws a wrench into your job or your marriage or your home that you did not anticipate. God's trying to help you to understand that the world we live in is sometimes just a crooked world and we can't make it straight. That maybe he's made the adversity in your life and you need to simply embrace that. As we close, I want to really focus our hearts on this reality. You need to be a citizen of a different kingdom. Yes, we live under the sun, but you're not citizens under the sun anymore, if you're a believer. Who are you citizens of? You're citizens of a heavenly kingdom. Why does God do these things to keep us from thinking that we know all and can do all life by ourselves? Kaiser contrasts these things of life, and he says, the contrasts of life are deliberately allowed by God so that men should ultimately develop a simple trust and dependence on God. I love that song, Trust and Obey, that I grew up singing in children's church, or junior church. It's such a simple song, but the truth and the reality of it is so profound, and it's so hard to do. It's so hard to live. Just like so many things, it's easy to say it, but it's hard to live it. Maria Dyer returned to China to work in a girls' school as a missionary herself, despite seeing her parents die working for the gospel in that very country. Five years later, she married a man. This man's name was Hudson Taylor. Together, they moved forward, embracing the crookedness of their lives. The death of her parents to serve the Lord. Taylor, of course, had a very difficult time at times as well. But he went on to be a great missionary. and had great gospel impact in China. Why? Because they decided that they were simply going to submit to God's sovereignty and embrace and walk worthy of the calling that God had called them to live. Will you lean into God this morning? Will you choose to trust him through adversity as well as the good? One commentator said this, trust in the Lord's sovereign purposes knowing that he once used the worst day in human history the day of Christ's crucifixion, to bring the greatest hope and happiness to the world forever. Most people would say, you know what? God killing his son was pretty crooked. But guys, that is the greatest thing that ever happened. These verses just clip the wings of our self-sufficiency. They call us to acknowledge that God is in control and you're not. Luther said, let us therefore be content with the things that are present and commit ourselves to the hand of God who alone controls both the past and the present. I don't think anybody here doubts the sovereignty of God, that his grace is powerful enough to save you. So why do we have such a hard time believing that God's grace is powerful enough to sanctify us, to bring us through the days of adversity, Don't allow something in your past to be a roadblock to you walking forward in Christ's likeness. Just submit to God. Go out into all the world and preach the gospel. Don't be so inwardly focused on yourself that you lose sight of why God placed you here on this earth. The prince of the power of the air would love nothing more than to bog you down in a fatalistic mentality. He wants to keep you depressed. He wants you to keep you medicated. He wants to keep you never pressing forward to the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus. But guys, we're Senate Browns. What happens? Grace much more abounds. Will you embrace that here this morning? Will you unhook the wagon of your past failures and embrace the gospel of grace? Will you believe that God's grace is sufficient? You say, well, I've tried, I've tried. Well, tell that to God. Tell them, you know what, God, I tried. I don't think that you can, right? I don't think your grace is enough. Is that true? If you believe that, is that true? No, it's not true. What God says is true. So believe it. Believe God's word. Humble yourselves unto God's mighty hand, and he will exalt you. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would help us to look to the Savior here this morning. That we can take to this promise that some things in life are unavoidable. Some things in life are outside of our control. Some things in life are just plain out crooked and will not be made straight. That you are the one who makes those things. That you are the one who creates and makes adversity. as well as prosperity. But Father, there is great joy in that reality, because you are in control, and you are a loving and wise and perfect God. Help us to embrace your calling in our lives here this morning, that we would walk with the wisdom of God dominating our thinking. that we would think God's thoughts, that we would not run to the world's solutions, to the answer for our problems, but that we would embrace the almighty, the all-powerful God who says that his grace is sufficient and that his strength can be ours, even in our greatest weakness. Oh God, help us to humble ourselves this morning and submit ourselves to your hand And we ask these things in Christ's name.