Please open your Bibles with me to the book of Ecclesiastes. It should be found on page 703 in your pew Bible. We'll be reading the first two verses of the book of Ecclesiastes as we begin a series, I begin a series rather, in the evenings that I will be preaching in this book, introducing that book tonight. with this opening segment. Let us give ear now to the reading of God's holy and inerrant word. Ecclesiastes chapter 1 beginning in verse 1. The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities says the preacher. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Let us pray. Gracious heavenly father we come now before your holy word and we ask for divine aid. It is not by might not by power but by your spirit says the Lord. And so we would ask for you to illuminate for us your word and its truth to our benefit and to your glory. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Several years ago, when my wife and I were vacationing in the Dominican Republic, we rented a car, which is always a good idea in a foreign country, to visit a dear friend who was also living in the Dominican Republic at the time, but he was living several hours away from where we were staying. And when we were set to return back to the resort where we were staying, our friend had told us about a different way back, this amazing scenic route that we just had to see. The directions were allegedly simple. and the view would make it worth the slight detour from the main route. However, at some point during this scenic route, we found ourselves in the middle of a city that was a sprawling gridwork of bustling markets and side streets teeming with people and quickly became lost in a maze-like labyrinth of confusion and chaos. We had no map, we had no phone, And we quickly realized that communicating with frantic sign language and broken Spanglish was not a helpful solution to our problem. Somehow, I still quite can't remember how we made it out of the situation and back to our resort. Needless to say, I could have used a map and even a basic understanding of the language would have come in pretty handy to get us out of the situation. Well, the Book of Ecclesiastes can be a little bit like that. It can seem in places very foreign and confusing, perhaps even a little dark. And it's easy to take wrong turns in our understanding of the book if we don't understand the language or the layout of the book. And some commentators, as they help us to look at the book, seem as if they're holding a map to it upside down. Thus, the reader is left scratching his head in what appears to be a disorderly and rather confusing book. but a proper understanding of the language and the message and the purpose and the role and place of Ecclesiastes in the Bible is going to give us insight. It's going to give us divine wisdom for living in a fallen world in light of and with a view toward our eternal home. Here is a biblical worldview and theology for life. One that is characterized by the fear of the Lord and obedience to his commands and one that leads us to contentment and hope for afterlife. There's joy and satisfaction and hope to be found in the message of Ecclesiastes. John Currid, my Hebrew and Old Testament professor at RTS Charlotte calls Ecclesiastes the most joyful book in the Old Testament. I trust that we'll begin to see that. Doug O'Donnell as he summarizes the exhortation of Ecclesiastes says this, those who in the midst of all the hard truths and awful troubles of this fallen world come before the Lord with trembling trust are given by him the gift of grateful obedience, steady contentment, and surprising joy. Or as he puts it so succinctly, this is a guide to enjoyment east of Eden. Well, along these lines, by way of introduction and even from these opening two verses, I want to point out three features this evening of the divine wisdom of Ecclesiastes. And the first thing is this, Ecclesiastes is wisdom for God's people. It is wisdom for God's people. And to see this, we need to point out a few things about wisdom literature in general. Wisdom literature is a particular genre of biblical literature that teaches us in sometimes very unexpected ways and manners. There are riddles and metaphors and proverbs and questions. Sometimes taken individually, these verses are not exactly ones you would want to send home with your VBS kids to memorize. Think of Job, chapter 3. After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Not exactly a catchy memory item. Ecclesiastes, chapter 2, verse 17. So I hated life. Well, wisdom literature sometimes wades through deep turbulent waters for extended periods in order that we might come out the other side with a clearer and brighter understanding. And there's a helpful distinction that we need to make when we talk about the wisdom literature books. Job is one. There are certain Psalms that would fit into the category of wisdom literature. Proverbs, of course, and our book here that we begin this evening, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon as well. But there are two types of wisdom literature that we might think of. One is didactic wisdom literature. These are short sayings of instruction. Proverbs would fit mostly into this category. clear statements regarding behavior or descriptions of reality in God's world. This is a different type of wisdom literature. The second type would be known as reflective wisdom literature. Reflective wisdom literature deals with the questions, deeper questions of meaning, exceptions to those general rules or proverbs of life. This is sort of like the child in a class who, when the teacher gives an axiom, says, well, what about this? For instance, you'll have information in Proverbs that explains to us the value of diligence and the prosperity that results from diligence. And Ecclesiastes will present us with a situation where a diligent man loses everything to someone who never worked for it at all. How are these things to be in this world? It wrestles with the whys and the what about this questions. Job does this in a different way. Why did the righteous suffer? God loves the righteous. There are general principles that it will go well with the righteous, aren't there? Well, what if it isn't going well with the righteous? And Ecclesiastes wrestles and reflects on the big questions of meaning, especially when there are troubles and injustices and unanswered questions abounding. Ecclesiastes will help us to walk through this with divine wisdom for God's people. And our New Testament understanding of life is not unlike this. God's people, Paul writes in Galatians 1, have been delivered from the present evil age. And in Christ, in 2 Corinthians, we're told we've been brought into the new creation. But even though we are not of the present evil age, we still find ourselves dwelling in the midst of it. Well, how do we do so? How do we face the suffering and the uncertainties which on the surface seem incongruent with the principles of God's word? And one way wisdom literature like Ecclesiastes instructs God's people is by showing us that there are shortcomings. to the wisdom that we have access to in this world. Solomon's going to make the point that even the very heights that we are capable of gaining in wisdom are sometimes not sufficient to help us to understand all that is going on or to make sense of our life. Biblical wisdom is never meant to be comprehensive wisdom. Biblical godly wisdom is not so much a blueprint or a behavioral code or some tidy little box into which everything that happens fits in a way that we can perfectly make sense of. We do have guidelines and boundaries, no doubt, but biblical wisdom is as much a posture as anything else. It's a posture that I am finite. It's a posture that I do not have all of the answers, but God is not finite. God is infinite and God has all the answers and that is okay when I don't. Biblical wisdom in part, especially in Ecclesiastes is, is simply understanding that ultimately all of the answers will lie with and in God. The fear of the Lord is a concept that wisdom literature in particular and Ecclesiastes as well will continually drive home. Solomon is going to make sure that we understand like Job did at the end that God is God and I am not and that is a good thing. We are to properly understand this in order to free us up to be content in a world full of sometimes very perplexing things. And we're looking for a far greater hope and wisdom that lies then lie within this mortal life. And so for the Christian, uh, the wisdom literature of the Bible and Ecclesiastes in particular are going to lead me and lead you to walk by faith. Walk by faith in that God who has redeemed you from your sins and promised you his care forever and ever, the God who is in the process of making you holy and in bringing you home. Another way we see that Ecclesiastes is wisdom for God's people is right at the outset of the book, the very first words of the book, the words of the preacher. The word that's translated preacher in Ecclesiastes 1 verse 1 is a rather unique Hebrew word and sometimes it's translated as teacher or preacher as we have it here in the ESV. Sometimes it's translated as the gatherer or if you see the footnote in the ESV, the convener or the collector. The word is koheleth in the Hebrew language and it's a variant of another Hebrew word Qahal. In its verb form, Qahal means to gather or assemble a community of people, especially for the worship of God. 1 Kings 8 and 2 Chronicles 5, Solomon would do this very thing as the word is repeated over and over again when he assembled all of the people of God for worship. In fact, the consecration of the temple itself. and throughout the entire Old Testament this word in its noun form is is the designation for the congregation of God's people assembled for worship and in fact the Greek translation of this word ecclesia is exactly the word we translate as church in the New Testament and it's from which we have the title of this very book Ecclesiastes. Phil Reichen says this, Kohalath is not so much a teacher in a classroom, but more like a pastor in a church. He's preaching wisdom to the gathering of God's people. Solomon has assembled God's people in order to give them a message, the words of the preacher. And we might call him Pastor Solomon, the son of David. Jeffrey Myers argues this, this is Solomon speaking in his office as shepherd king. of Israel. Throughout this I will strongly maintain that Solomon is the author of Ecclesiastes. We're going to see some of the reasons for this along the way, but for now let me just state that there is extremely compelling evidence in this book and outside of this book for trusting that Solomon is the author. Here is his pastoral wisdom, if you will, for God's people. Solomon is the pastor shepherd. What does a shepherd do? He gathers and protects and comforts and warns the sheep. He reassures frightened and confused sheep and understood properly in Ecclesiastes. Solomon is doing just this. There's a warm pastoral tone to the entire argument and unity of the book of Ecclesiastes. Notice that he, he places the name preacher in the foreground. Almost as if this eclipses his role as the king. It is the content of the message for God's people that is of the utmost value. These are the words of the preacher. I have a message and it's absolutely vital. So come gather as God's people and hear this message. Hear the words of Pastor Solomon. It's a real sense of the value of what it means to gather on the Lord's day under the ministry of his word, isn't it? Isn't it good to be assembled, to be gathered as God's people in one place and hear the proclamation of his holy and divine word. And there's a message of grace and hope for God's people in this too, because in all likelihood, this is Solomon in his old age. This is Solomon, and I think those commentators are right, who view this as evidence of Solomon's repentance after what we know to be very terrible backsliding. And this isn't something we can say with utter certainty, but why would we be surprised or doubt that this is the case? What a testament to God's grace and his power to redeem. Walt Kaiser puts it like this, there is in the book an air of repentance and humility for past values and performance. In that being the case, what an impetus there is knowing who this is to listen to what he has to say to us. The one who would warn us of the dangers of the wrong values. The one who would lead us and guide us and teach God's people. This is one who knows firsthand what he's talking about. And this is relevant wisdom for God's people as well. There are hard things in this book, and Solomon takes an undiluted look at many of them. Without the proper perspective, life will overwhelm us. Worldly philosophies would answer these problems in various ways, whether it be a hedonistic, pleasure-oriented lifestyle, or whether it be a nihilistic fatalism, or simply an agnosticism, a shrugging of the shoulders, or even an atheism. And Ecclesiastes is going to show us very clearly that the worldly attempts at satisfaction and solving these perplexing situations are ultimately a road to despair. Christians have better answers. And the book of Ecclesiastes is going to show us that God is not merely concerned with our final destination. Here in Ecclesiastes is divinely revealed philosophy for living in a fallen world. He's not left us to guess how to live in light of very sometimes perplexing realities. And wisdom literature is one of the ways he helps us to navigate. And that this is a message for God's people and how to do that makes it true that there's an implicit message here for unbelievers. There's a supreme apologetic and evangelistic value attached to Ecclesiastes. We'll see more on that in a little bit. But Solomon had worldwide renown. He had a worldwide potential audience, therefore. As Walt Kaiser puts it, Solomon may well have intentionally written Ecclesiastes with an eye to a wider circle of readers than just the Hebrews. Perhaps those from other Semitic nations that were subject to his government and those nations that had caused a good deal of his spiritual downfall. The book would then have a missionary flavor as it attempted to use a sort of what we call cultural apologetics to call Gentiles to straighten out their thinking, acting values, and preparation for their eternal destiny. It's a message for all people indeed. And so the second thing I want to point out about the wisdom of Ecclesiastes is that Ecclesiastes is wisdom that reorients our perspective. The opening phrase of the preacher in verse 2 is quite a jolt. Vanity of vanities says the preacher. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. It's a pretty bold opening. You wonder where he's going with this. And the strength of the metaphor of the word he uses here is going to unfold throughout the book. It's a very important structural theme in the book. In fact, at the end of the book, he uses the exact same phrase here as sort of a bookend to both sides of the book, um, structuring the entire thing. In fact, the word is used 78 times in the old Testament. 38 of them are in our book. Ecclesiastes. Not only that, he uses the construction here of the Hebrew superlative. The vanity of vanities would remind us of a phrase like the holy of holies or the king of kings. In the Hebrew language there was no stronger way to communicate a superlative. We cannot say this any stronger in other words. The Hebrew word that's translated vanity in the ESV is the Hebrew word hebel. And I would argue that vanity is not the best way to translate this word due to its strictly negative connotations that come to our mind. You think of bunions, Pilgrim's Progress, and Vanity Fair, full of the vices and immoralities of the world. This trend to translate the word as vanity really began as early as the Latin Vulgate when Jerome translated the Hebrew and used the Latin word vanitas to communicate that And the English translations have sort of, since the King James, just carried that tradition along. The new international version has taken it an even further direction in the negative sense and translated this as utter meaninglessness. I think that's absolutely an incorrect translation of this word. Meaningless is not the essence of the word Hebel in the Hebrew language. And furthermore, what would be the point of reading on? If everything is utter meaninglessness, then what are we reading this for? And Solomon will say in the rest of the book, plenty of things that are far from meaningless in Ecclesiastes. A Daniel Fredericks points out that of the other six Hebrew words that are used as synonyms for vanity or futility or meaninglessness that are used over 100 times in the old Testament, none of them appear in this book. So the word, uh, what I would argue along with many commentators to be translated literally simply means a vapor or a mist or a breath or a puff of smoke, a puff of wind. Robert Alter, the Hebrew scholar translates verse two like this, merest breath, merest breath. All is mere breath. Daniel Fredericks would say, breath of breaths, breath of breaths. Others would use vapor of vapors. Well, what is this concept that Hebel or vapor or breath, what is this concept doing for us? Solomon is going to develop this theme throughout the rest of the book with various nuances because the metaphor has different nuances. But for now, let me just point out two different aspects of the metaphor of vapor for us this evening. You think of a puff of smoke in the air. You can see it. It's real. It's right there. But how long does it last? Think of your warm breath on a cold winter day. That sounds good right about now. How long does that breath hang there in the air? Not very long. You can see it, but it's transient. It's temporal. It's fleeting. There's a sense of the impermanence of all things with this metaphor. Psalm 39 uses the same word. Surely all mankind is a mere breath. That's our word, Hebel. In Psalm 144, the psalmist writes, man is like a breath. His days are like a passing shadow. James would write in the New Testament, what is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. It's not meaningless. It's fleeting. Even for Christians, my life here under the sun is a breath. It is temporal. It is transient. It is fleeting. It is here now and it will be gone. tomorrow and Solomon is demanding that we look at this reality and know it. If that's true, if life is transient and temporal, then I need to look at things differently. I need to live for things other than just in this life. Jesus talked in the same way. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust corrupts and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The second idea that this metaphor of a vapor conveys to us is the idea of something that's elusive, something that's ephemeral, something that is perplexing. You think about the idea of a puff of smoke again. It's real, it's there, and then it's temporal and it's gone. But try to grab it. Try to grab a handful of it and put it in your pocket. You can't, you can't grasp it. It eludes your grasp. Your fingers go right through it. In fact, the very attempt to grab the puff of smoke will cause it to dissipate all the quicker. And that's true of life. When we place ultimate value in the things of this world, it will elude our grasp in any sense of lasting significance or its ability to satisfy. You try to gain control of the world or, or any minor detail of your own life and you will find out soon enough that you cannot control anything. Life in this world is, is elusive, often perplexing, full of change, unexpected change. And if life in this world is, is like a breath, then the things in this life will not, indeed the things in this life cannot bring full permanent satisfaction. And when we look to those things to provide contentment and peace and satisfaction, we even lose the ability to enjoy those things. Life is elusive. When we try to find satisfaction in things that were never meant to and are not capable of providing contentment and peace, Solomon would say that's like trying to chase the wind. This this hebel, this fleeting and elusive nature makes the world a often very scary place. My life and your life is full of things that we cannot control. You cannot guarantee the safety of your children. You cannot guarantee your own health. the future of your bank account, let alone major disasters or world events. We cannot eliminate or manage things in this world that cause us to fear. Even the daily scheduling details often elude our planning and control. We like to think that we can control at least some things. I remember in the last couple of years we lived in the path of three hurricanes. It just so happened. Living only 50 miles from the coast. And so we, like most people, were glued to the weather channel for about a month at a time. And of course the music that would play every time they would come around and update where the storm was still sort of gives me panic. And there was a commercial that kept playing during this time for a generator. And this was supposed to be an amazing generator. And you know, you have a generator when your power goes out, it's really quite helpful, but they said this about the generator. There was a testimonial of folks who had bought the generator and they said, we now have control over what happens in our lives. That's a bold claim for a generator. You have no control. You can't even understand situations according to Ecclesiastes, let alone control them. You can do the right thing and you ought to do the right thing, but you have to let go of the pretense that there's any control over the situations of life. What did Jesus say? I can't even add an hour to my lifespan. I'm anxious because I cannot guarantee where my next meal might even come from. And for the believer, the one who fears the Lord, that is okay because your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things. Doesn't this give us a reason, though, to understand the struggles of our fellow Christians? How many struggle with anxiety and uncertainty and worry and fear? Because we live in a world that we know that we cannot control. So seek first, Jesus would say, the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness. But for the unbeliever, the fleeting elusive nature of this life is, is a horrible truth. This life is all that the unbeliever can live for. This life for the unbeliever is as good as it gets, and it's often not very good. You've got to distract yourself with all sorts of pleasures or hobbies or worse. This gives us an insight into the mind of our neighbors who are trying to deal with the reality of a fleeting life. Doesn't this give us insight into how to speak into the life of someone who is desperately trying to avoid the reality that life is altogether brief and elusive. They're either living somewhere between denial and despair. They are not able, they do not have a clue how to cope with the reality that life is a breath. Pastor Solomon would call on the unbeliever to look at the brevity and the ephemerality of life right in the face. And he would have them use that reality to point to something that has real substance, to true and lasting eternal life, to the knowledge of God himself, to a picture of eternity beyond a fleeting life, to the reality of coming judgment to God himself. And for the believer, this reality that Solomon is confronting us with and forcing us to acknowledge, this is reorienting how we look at everything from daily life to major events and the tendency that we have to, to often, what are we prone to do? Put too much stock in, in even the good things of this life to ask too much of them more than they're capable of delivering. And Solomon is, is doing so to, to reorient us from our tendency to live for the here and the now to remind us that the here and the now is exactly that it is here and it is now and it will be gone. It is a vapor. and to remind us of our greater hope, one that is not fleeting, one that is not brief, one that does not and will not elude us forever. And so when we understand the argument of this whole book, it's going to lead us to actual real joy. to contentment and adoration of God. This fleeting nature of all things is going to point us to the one thing that has ultimate and real substance, the knowledge of God. What did Jesus say when he defined eternal life for us in John 17? This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. The knowledge of God Ecclesiastes and Solomon is going to agree is the key to joy in a fleeting life, an elusive life, a perplexing life. And then when we understand and know the Lord, uh, it, it frees us to actually enjoy things in a fleeting life, to enjoy them for what they are as gifts from the hand of a good and kind heavenly father, not to seek meaning in them, but to receive them gratefully and to be thankful. Believer, we are to remember our creator, to know and fear the Lord and trembling trust in this fleeting life with joy in his gifts and to look for the eternal home beyond this transient and brief life for all of our satisfaction and never ending joy. Ecclesiastes is wisdom that reorients our perspective. Well, there's eight other times that this word Hebel is used in the Old Testament, but it's used as a proper name. It's used, in fact, the exact word, the English transliteration is the name Abel, the first murder victim in Scripture, a life cut short. His name was literally Hebel, all too brief. The death of Abel, the first death, In a new creation, post-fall, what a shock in a world that never before knew what death was. Jeffrey Meyers says this, Hebel's death was a concrete instance of man's tragic plight and a sobering wake-up call to Adam and Eve. Life is a vapor, a wisp. Things under the sun are no longer as they were originally meant to be. And that brings me to the third thing I want to point out to you about the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. It is wisdom that points us to Jesus. It is wisdom that points us to Jesus. How do we read and hear the book of Ecclesiastes? We hear it as the words of the preacher, the words of the pastor, a shepherd. But even more so, when we turn to the end of the book in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, we're told that these words in verse 11 and 12 are the words of one shepherd. There's a claim here to divine inspiration in the book of Ecclesiastes, but even more so, we're told that these are the words of the one shepherd. Throughout the Old Testament, Yahweh, Jehovah, the Lord is known as the shepherd of his people. And the New Testament will clarify for this even more for us. The good shepherd who knows his sheep and his sheep know him and they hear his voice. We are to look to the words of the one shepherd. First Corinthians chapter one calls Jesus the power of God and the wisdom of God. Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God. Colossians Paul would write that in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The one shepherd is the greater Solomon. Jesus would say as much in Matthew chapter 12. He said this, the queen of the South will rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it. For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. These are ultimately the words of the one divine shepherd, the one who came to lay down his life for his sheep. And the major way that the wisdom of Ecclesiastes points us to Christ is that we understand the book in the context of redemptive history. And that context is a post-Genesis 3 world. Ecclesiastes doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists in a Genesis 5 world with the recurring refrain, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died. It's an able world where life is often cut short, where evil often seems to triumph. Hebel was not a feature of the original creation. This world described in Ecclesiastes is part of a world that exists in judgment. And this is the world that the one divine shepherd entered. This is the transient and fleeting world of Ecclesiastes that is the world into which Jesus was born. where canes murder ables, where life is altogether fragile and altogether brief and Pastor Solomon is driving us and pointing us toward the good news of the incarnation of the Son of God. The God who is the Good Shepherd King came and took on human flesh in all of its brevity, in all of its hebel, in all of its weakness who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was made man in a fleeting world and he suffered at the hands of another evil man to redeem us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. It is a shame in one sense that we only sing this around the Christmas season But I love the stanza in the hymn, Joy to the World, he comes to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found. And you get to repeat it, as far as the curse is found, as far as the curse is found. I heard Ian Hamilton one time say this, we laugh when little kids give the standard Sunday school answer of Jesus to every question, but Ian Hamilton said this, the answer to every question in the cosmos is Jesus. Every aberrant thought, every defective perspective, every discontentment that we have, every confusion can all be now or one day will be answered by Jesus. Adam hurled our race, the entire cosmos, into a tailspin of hebel and misery and sin. And Jesus, that final shepherd king, came to remedy that situation by laying down his life as an atoning sacrifice. And when we believe in his name, we have life eternal in a fleeting world. And even the life in the fleeting world takes on real meaning. It is not meaningless. It takes on permanent hope. And so when we read Ecclesiastes, we read it in light of the finished work of Jesus. And it further amplifies a longing that we have in our hearts to finally be home where there will be no more troubles, where life will no longer be fleeting or elusive. Ecclesiastes is wisdom that gives us a longing for heaven and eternal life. The book of Hebrews speaks of men in the Old Testament who lived in light of their desire for a better country. Those looking for a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God, and a sense of eternity. When we listen to the pastor and the preacher in Ecclesiastes, a sense of eternity makes this fleeting breath of a life, one that we begin to hold on to more and more loosely. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. The hymn writer puts it like this, when ends life's transient dream. When death's cold sullen stream shall over me roll bless Savior then in love fear and distrust remove. Oh bear me safe above a ransomed soul. This life is a vapor. You are not in control but the one who is wisdom itself is raining on high over you and for you and he is coming back for you. The wisdom of Ecclesiastes enables us to say with another much later preacher, the Apostle Paul, so we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day for this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. I might read the words of another preacher much later, Samuel Rutherford, the great Presbyterian minister He said this, when we shall come home and enter to the possession of our brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings, then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory. and that our little inch time of suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome home in heaven. Amen. Heavenly Father, would you enable us to use divine wisdom given to us in your word so graciously that we might live with hope and contentment in a fleeting life, that we might look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, that we might live in light of his atoning sacrifice for us, which gives us the hope itself of eternal life. Help us, oh Lord, to do this as we go out into your world and your week, even now, as we close out this service in Jesus' name. Amen.