Harris Creek Sunday Service Live Stream - 11a

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] hey friends good morning from harris creek we're live in waco texas we're so glad you've joined us here at harris creek whether you're here in waco or around the world thank you so much for joining us this morning and being a part of the harris creek family well this morning we're starting off a brand new sermon series on the book of ecclesiastes we want to help you get to know the bible better we want to make sure that you know everything you can about this book so our trivia question this morning has to do with the book of ecclesiastes and the trivia question is this who wrote the book of ecclesiastes if you want some free harris creek gear go to harriscreek.org trivia answer that question who wrote the book of ecclesiastes for your chance to win some harris creek here we're going to choose one winner and we'll send it to you whether you live in indiana or minnesota or washington wherever you are we want to make you feel like you're part of our family because you are well thanks so much for joining us this morning we've got a great morning prepared for you to help you love jesus [Music] harris creek how we doing and it's so good to see you guys let's stand together welcome we're going to sing to the father let's go before [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] by his love his careful hands they hold us safe within his cross the calling end [Music] and i'll remember [Music] until the next to [Music] love thee always chasing me kindness up on me [Music] [Applause] me [Music] [Applause] how yeah you carrying me [Music] is you are [Applause] there was your love has been true [Music] it was your love has been true [Music] [Applause] [Music] but worship his name today for he is good there won't be a day you won't believe this together [Music] [Music] my life your love will be true [Applause] well good morning welcome everyone so glad that you are here whether you are here in this room with us in waco or tuning in from online thank you for joining us at harris creek as we often say around here welcome home it's parents weekend and eat parents here with us in the room come on we're glad that you're here fun weekend it's been a little bit of a cyclone of activity here in waco sick and bears uh and i we hope it's been a great time for you as you visit your kids and thankful that you're here with us today i get to share a couple of really fun things with you this morning so we've got a couple things coming up in the fall the first i get to share about is our money-wise ministry it's a four-week class that's designed for single married old young anyone come through with your life group or on your own a great opportunity to learn how to manage and steward the resources god has entrusted to us it meets here on wednesday night starting october 6th and goes for four weeks all the details on that are at harris creek.org events second is for the ladies and so you've got the assist i think that sounded like a guy who whooped there and if you whooped no aggies here all right so uh for the ladies sisterhood study we're going to study the book of genesis seven women in the book of genesis and so that's going to start october 5th and on 6th online opportunities and also in person that will fill up and so go to harriscreek.org events to learn more about the sisterhood study a great opportunity to meet other ladies to grow in your love for the lord understanding his word and to grow in your relationship with others as well we got something for the guys as well that also starts that same week it's called becoming a man of god's work you can find the details about that at harriscreek.org events as well last thing i get to share with you is a ministry that i love it's called regeneration recovery it meets here on monday nights it's our christ-centered 12-step biblical recovery ministry whatever your challenge is issue habit addiction i've been through this a couple times for people pleasing and lust and anger and it is a great way to see what god's word says about any struggle we walk through it's a safe place for you to come work through any challenges in the context of community every single monday night at 6 30 p.m here at harris creek all the details on that are also at harris creek.org events everything i shared men's women's regen money-wise and more you can find out the information through something that we call a creek connection if you text the word harris creek to 9700 every sunday you'll get a link to a newsletter that gives you all the details everything i shared and much more and so get the creek connection by texting the word harris creek to 9700 we are so glad that you are here with us would you please stand as we continue to worship together this morning we worship a great god amen and he has promised his presence here with us the night before he was to be killed he took communion with his disciples and said hey do this every time that you eat or drink as often as you can and so at harris creek that looks like us having communion available for those who'd love to take it who are believers in jesus and that's in the middle of the room just behind this seating in the front and then the fixed seating in front of that and if you're a believer in jesus any time you're in this service if you'd like to go take that and remember that christ died for you you can do that and that's what we're going to remember today as we sing we're going to remember god's goodness towards us we're going to remember that he is faithful always and we're going to sing about who he is let's do that now [Music] all the poor and powerless [Music] and know that you [Music] out we will cry [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and [Music] we will cry [Music] [Music] [Music] go on [Music] [Applause] who is he that he's got that he is [Music] [Music] go on and tell it [Music] is [Applause] [Music] myself [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we will cry [Music] [Music] we cry [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] nothing but the light of jesus [Music] [Applause] jesus [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] jesus [Music] is [Applause] [Music] this is jesus this is all my righteousness is [Music] [Music] is [Music] nothing but the blood of jesus [Music] jesus is only your blood i love the line that says not of good that i have done and how often do i forget that i cannot earn your love there's nothing we can do god to earn your favor and grace and righteousness you god you give that to us freely and so we thank you we sing as redeemed people god we give you the breath back that you have given us that we didn't deserve and we just say thank you we simply say thank you jesus for all that you've done and all that you will do and we pray this in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit amen [Music] [Music] church how we doing [Applause] voice is hanging on by a thread thank you refs [Music] but i didn't sin though some of you yeah i'm glad you're here i'm glad you're here i know there's a lot of you out in the lobby and when you were driving to church this morning you probably were not anticipating watching from the lobby and so i just i want to thank you for serving us in here for being out there and hopefully you're still going to be able to get the message by way of of that large screen out there so thank you for joining us parents that are coming from other places we're so glad that you uh get to to be here and so that you can continue to pray for what god is doing in and through this place here in waco texas and surrounding areas if we haven't met my name is jp or jonathan pacluda it is a privilege to serve you we're starting a new series this morning on ecclesiastes and there are these things in life that happen where you're trying to discern what is meaningful to you what what matters to you and i'll give you a couple hypotheticals and i'll tell you one that's relevant to me but it's like what matters to me what really matters to me so one of these events is dying so as a pastor you sit with people who are coming face to face with death sometimes they survived a loved one who's passed away or they just got that that terrible news from the doctor that you have two more months three more months six more months and i have seen now many times just the way the priorities change okay now i'm going to start living for something else i i want to prioritize my time in this way prioritize my resources in this way prioritize my conversations in this way and so you begin to see in that moment with that diagnosis what really matters another one is like if your house was on fire hypothetically speaking someone said hey the house is on fire and so you realize you're safe but you go and you start grabbing things that that matter most to you hey i don't want this to be destroyed let me grab this let me get this this is what really matters for us i i haven't died and and i'm still with you and and i haven't been in a fire but we did move okay we did recently move i told you this a couple weeks ago and so in moving you're trying to sort your things right what's going with me but our move is interesting because we're moving into a place temporarily for a year and so the vast majority of our belongings went into storage and we tried to just grab those things that that matter to us in the day-to-day the things that we use does that make sense so some stuff went with us in our rent house and and most of our stuff went in storage which is really just in our garage stacked up and so here's a picture of our garage there it is that is a hundred and seventeen boxes if you're curious uh that's what 117 boxes looks like and and the reason that they're so disheveled some of them opened and whatnot is because it didn't work out perfectly right uh i i got in the day-to-day life and i was like where's my backpack okay my backpack has my computer in it has outlines and it has my bible in it i need to find my backpack and i can't find it in all of the things that we said matter to us in the day-to-day which means i have to go tearing through those boxes in the garage so i'm like i'm you know you can imagine this i'm i'm opening the box because they're taped shut i'm i'm looking inside they're labeled on the outside but not one of them says backpack okay somehow that and so i'm just i'm looking into the boxes and this is i'm about two hours in to this assignment i'm going through a stack of boxes right uh where they're and monica walks by she says hey i packed those i know it's not in there right which isn't all together that helpful because she didn't tell me where it was but it is somewhat helpful because as i'm looking for it i don't have to look in there and so i'm now to 115 boxes instead of 170 i'm right and and as i go look somewhere else she goes no i packed that one i know it's not in there and this is what solomon is going to do for us over the next several weeks he's in a search for meaning he's trying to find the reason for living and he's going to start looking into hypothetical boxes and he's going to tell you to look come face to face with you and say it's not in there you do not need to look in there and and it doesn't actually tell us where it's found he just slowly through 12 chapters through 12 chapters tells us where it's not found and he's going to ask some of the biggest questions that all of you ask why are we here why does it matter what am i supposed to do with my life and so this is a series that i think we really need and so it's ecclesiastes if you have your bibles you can turn there we subtitled this the search for meaning because that's what he's doing he's searching for meaning uh ecclesiastes is a poetic book and so you have genesis through nehemiah the historical books you have isaiah through malachi the prophetic books and then right there in the middle you have the poetic books you have jobs psalms proverbs ecclesiastes song of solomon and so this is one of those poetic books or one of the books of wisdom within the poetic books the book of ecclesiastes it's it's 12 chapters of searching for meaning i've titled the message today the search for meaning begins that's what we're talking about the search begins as we're looking for meaning and i as i said the book addresses life's biggest questions uh he's going to talk about where not to search for meaning and i want to say this to you a wise person learns from their mistakes okay a wiser person learns from the mistakes of others and so we get to learn from the mistakes of the wisest person who has ever lived well documented the wisest person who has ever lived we get to learn from his mistakes over the next several weeks together one of the dumbest things that you can do one of the worst things that you can do is leave here and repeat the experiment does that make sense that would be like him saying hey it's not in that box and you spending the rest of your life searching in that box where he told you you're not going to find meaning there repeating the experiment would be as foolish as as like someone's pouring gasoline all over themselves and grabbing a match and say let's see what happens and you watch what happens and then you go oh i got to try that at home right that's what some of us do with this book it is going to teach you where meaning is not found and you're going to be tempted to leave here and look for it there interesting things about solomon in first kings chapter 3 god shows up to him and says what do you want this is what all of us want to happen it's like god shows up like a genie and just says hey what do you want make a wish right and solomon says i want wisdom to rule your people and god was pleased with that answer that he didn't ask for riches that he didn't ask for fame that he didn't ask for palaces that he didn't ask for the envy of his enemies that he didn't ask for women or pleasure right he didn't ask for those things and so what god does is he opens the spigot of worldly blessings on his life like anything worldly that you could want this man has significantly more than you will ever have or anyone you know will ever have and it's just a fact it's rooted in history like this guy really lived he really was a king okay uh he let we could just talk about women he he had 700 wives and 300 concubines concubines are are like a wife but you don't have to buy them a valentine's day present it's it's like they don't have the they don't have the truly like the best way for me to describe it they don't have the privileges that wives would have so he's got 700 and 300 making a thousand wife equivalents right this guy makes hugh hefner look like a nun right if you understand who hefner is he had seven wives solomon 700. he's good-looking like ryan gosling okay he he dresses well like michael b jordan like even jesus says in matthew 6 hey none of you are dressed as well as solomon was a thousand years later like i mean that's when you're well dressed if jesus is talking about your drip like you're well dressed like let's just i'm just saying man we could talk about money uh he has more money than jeff bezos elon musk and bernard arnault and bill gates combined they don't come close to his 2.2 trillion dollar net worth you can go to secular websites today websites that denied the resurrection or or christianity and they would tell you you could say who is the wealthiest person that ever lived and they will tell you king solomon was king solomon is the wealthiest person who has ever lived uh i just his gardens okay his gardens he created pools to water his gardens that now three thousand years after his life you can go see them and they are still there look at this image from google maps this is the solomon's pools that's what he used to water his vineyards here's a picture like if you were to look at it on the ground okay those are still there that's cute that you have a swimming pool 3000 years from now it will not be there a thousand years from now a couple hundred years from now your pool will not be there three thousand years you can still go see his pool he's the most powerful person in the world at this time more powerful than the president of the united states of america he single-handedly crashed the silver market he had so much silver in his personal collection it became uh the equivalent of rocks uh just he he crashed it and the dumbest thing that you can do is repeat the experiment and the greatest thing that you can probably do with this text is to learn from it who god is and what he desires for your life as i move to this text i've got three points they're all alliterations like a good baptist preacher we're going to talk about the rut we're stuck in how we'll be remembered and where our reason and rebellion get us king solomon wrote this most uh scholarship vast majority of scholarship agrees some say he didn't but it was written about his life regardless solomon is the subject written about a thousand years before jesus christ shows up on the scene so about a thousand bc ecclesias ecclesiastes chapter 1 verse 1. the words of the teacher son of david king in jerusalem tells you who is about to speak that word for teacher is coalette uh it means like philosophy professor because a good teacher explains a good teacher answers questions this book will not answer your questions okay it will just ask them everybody has that friend you know that just asks all the questions well what about well why are we here well why well why well why you have a friend or an eight-year-old right either one they're asking those questions uh interesting that the title ecclesiastes means the same thing the teacher just like here the teacher is who is saying this and he's big in the socratic method he's just questioning everything and this is what he says meaningless meaningless says the teacher utterly meaningless everything is meaningless welcome to harris creek what do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun this verse is key to understanding the rest of the chapters where it says what do they gain that word gain is referenced in this book 10 times and it translates literally profit what do they profit at the end of their life what is their excess what can they take with them what did they gain from their 76 or whatever years on this earth what do they have to show for it and then he says when he says on this earth he says under the sun that phrase under the sun is in this text in this chat uh this book 28 times and it's a metonymy does anybody know what autonomy is a metonomy is is a phrase to describe a place so like if i said i love high school football right and i might say it like this i might say man i love the friday night lights and i'm not talking about the the show and you would know i was talking about high school football that's autonomy friday night lights is an autonomy if i said i'm going to go to silicon valley you know where i'm gonna go but not because i told you the name you know of that the literal name of the geography but i described it with a phrase or like is it man waco has church on every corner we're a part of the bible belt those are metonymies so when he says under the sun he's describing a place he's describing the world that's important to understand as we move in because he's going to tell us where meaning is found or better said where it's not found under the sun generations come and generations go but the earth remains forever the sun rises and the sun sets and hurries back to where it rises again the wind blows to the south and turns to the north round and round it goes ever returning on its course all streams flow into the sea yet the sea is never full to the place the streams come from there they return again all things are wearisome more than one can say and what he shows you is second grade science class the water cycle and he says hey the the streams run into the ocean and the sun evaporates the sun the sea into the clouds and the clouds move over the mountains and rain down and the streams run back into the oceans and evaporate into the sky and it runs down and the earth turns about a thousand miles an hour as it orbits around the sun the sun comes up and the sun goes down and the sun comes up and the sun goes down and as it turns the wind blows to the south and turns to the north and it does it all over again so my first point is we are in a rut of relentless repetition we're in a rut of relentless repetition you can see the gears and the clock if you've ever opened the inside of a clock you see the gears turning like spinning like planets around our solar system day after day after year after decade after century after millennia like gears in the solar system and the teeth on those gears will grind you up they will chew you up in it so glad you're here it looks like this kindergarten first grade second grade third grade fourth grade fifth grade sixth grade seventh grade eighth grade first period second period third period fourth period fifth period sixth period seventh period eighth period ninth grade fall winter summer spring summer fall winter spring summer sun goes up sun comes down sun goes up sun comes down this repetition this is where you're stuck all the way through college and then the real rat race starts because the sun comes up you wake up you go to work sun goes down you go to bed sun comes up you wake up you go to work sun goes down you go to bed and then the weekend and then monday sun goes up and sun goes down sun goes up sun goes down right and i'll tell you a publisher came to me it's not a plug it's important hitting me and said hey you we want you to write a book what do you want to write on and so you can write on anything you want to and as i thought and prayed about that first book i ever wrote or was published i wanted to write the answer to the question of all of these young adults these fresh from grad school fresh from college coming into my office tears running down their face saying is this all there is like is this why i really went to school for my entire life just to work to make somebody rich the people at the top of this pyramid scheme called corporate america they get their pockets fat and i just wake up and go to work and go home and go to bed is this all there is so i wrote 12 chapters of yes there you go right because because then you have kids and the sun goes up and you wake up and you pack lunches and you become an uber driver and and then you go to work yourself only to be an uber driver again to go home to clean the house to mow the lawn the sun goes down you go to bed and then you die and this is the cycle that we're stuck in so listen some of you you came in today you're watching right now and you know you feel this low hum of despair in your life and you're like why why can i not find joy why can i not find happiness why can i not find meaning i'll just say because you're looking for it in the wrong places you're searching in the wrong boxes it's not there it's not there generations common generations go but the grinder remains you become worm food you tracking like the greatest apex predator there is the earthworm because the earthworm eats lions tigers and bears oh my and he will eat you welcome to harrisburg the eye never has enough seeing nor the ear it's feel of hearing he's saying we're always looking for something new we turn the corner we're trying to find something new what has been will begin again i'm sorry what has been will be again what has been done will be done again there is nothing new under the sun and you might think no man there's there's new things all the time like we can build a new house and live in a new school or go to a new school right he's like we are ants in an ant farm have you ever seen this like a window the ants live in and they go and they dig a tunnel they move one piece of grand grain of sand behind them and another piece of grain is sand behind them and they dig a hole and they say look a new hole and you're looking at the side you're like no it's just like your old hole right beside the new hole you're just doing what all the other ants before you did there's nothing new and you say wait wait there is something new the iphone 13. i say they just moved the camera and made it faster that's the iphone 12 right we've been communicating for decades and centuries and ammonia past what he says is there anything of which one can say look this is something new it was here already long ago it was here before your time let me prove it to you you're going to hear right now in our culture all the time unprecedented unprecedented pandemic you ever heard of the bubonic plague 200 million people died okay spanish fever yellow fever our spanish flu yellow fever cholera black plague we it's just new to us it's just you'll see here unprecedented division unprecedented division in our country in our nation's history this is unprecedented division there was this thing in the 1860s where we were walking around with muskets shooting each other okay i don't think it's just new to us that's how we see the world if it's new to us it must be brand new never happened before no one remembers the former generations and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them it's important it's important how many of you how many of you know the names of your grandparents how many of you know the names of your grandparents okay thank you so allah how many of you know the names of their grandparents not their parents but their grandparents okay that's a whole lot less of you your kids kids they may know your name their kids will not your kids kids they may do that project where they got to draw the tree and and in their entire existence of 76 years on this earth they might ask two questions about you because they needed it for a grade their kids won't they won't they won't even know your name they will be sitting in a sermon 50 years from now and someone will say do you know your your grandparents and they'll raise their hands and supposed to say do you know your your grandparents grandparents and they will they won't know you that's you by the way in the story that's your role and it's super heavy on one hand but it's incredibly liberating on the other because right now i get everybody take a deep breath and exhale you don't have to be remembered it's okay you can stop striving because it's you're not going to if you get the name your name on buildings those buildings will topple like your swimming pool it's going to be fine our routine will not be remembered that's my second point our routine will not be remembered so not only is it meaningless but it will also not be remembered nothing is forever and you know this nothing is forever right there there's permanent markers permanent permanent but then you got the magic eraser right and i know some of you are still working on that right but but it's like super glue super glue never un if you know praise god uh it's not so super otherwise my hands would still be stuck together uh vows right no forever no even if you make it to the finish line there's no marriage in heaven a perm short for permanent praise god it's not diamonds are not forever that name you wrote in the concrete when you're in the seventh grade it's not forever every week i write my sermon notes on a whiteboard and the entire message starts on a whiteboard we come together we work on the message for hours ultimately like the where we're going to start where we're going to go uh interpretive challenges in the text to try to come up with points all of this ends up on the white board is this picture a story that we're going to take you on through the text right anybody who teaches up here goes through that same process and and then at the end of that meeting take a picture with my phone and then someone comes behind me and erases it because when i walk in there the next week it's no longer there and this is a picture of our lives that we're putting things on the whiteboard we they're they're we are in our hometown and there's just this life map and we grew grew up here work went to school here worked here here's our children there's their names right here's our our golden retriever or 2021 our golden doodle and and uh you know here it is this is the picture and then one day you're going to come in a room like this but you'll be wheeled in or carried in by six people and and those that are still alive who are close to you will come around you and they'll say some kind things about you but make no mistake about it it was something on their calendar that they felt they needed to be at and they'll leave here and they'll get in a row of cars and they'll drive to a plot of land where they've dug a hole and they'll place you in it right at the end of this race you'll get a rock with your name on it that no one visits that's the truth that's the truth like that that we have to we have to feel that and and they it's like they will walk up to that white board just erase it for someone else to draw on it after you entire civilizations have been forgotten our family we or our family monica and i go to mexico every year that's just a place that we retreat to sin we went there on our honeymoon we've gone there every year since i love it and when i go i try to visit uh the mayan ruins i really enjoy that aspect of of mexico's history that there's this entire civilization that has been wiped out they're not there anymore and one of the ruins one of my favorites is called ekbalam and the reason it's one of my favorites is because it was only recently discovered so in recent history did they find this entire city the city with grocery stores and schools and these giant pyramids much bigger than this room were completely hidden for centuries by the jungle no one knew that it was there like vines had just grown over it and people like even google satellites didn't pick up on it they didn't know it was there and now they've uncovered this and there's this huge city that exists that you can go and visit and you it's these people that have been forgotten you say no wait wait they haven't been forgotten because you can go visit it but make no mistake about it the jungle will cover it again and the very rocks that built those pyramids will disintegrate into sand and and the city that once was thriving with so many people will be forgotten and so will ours listen so will ours don't you understand like like centuries from now people are going to be looking at waco and they're like what are the those are silos what did they use those for oh like communicating with aliens no i don't think so they'll be looking at like a stonehenge you know like communicating with aliens no it's like where you went it's like buy candles and stuff they're like in silos grain style and like you're trying to explain they'll be trying to make sense of something that's very normal to us because we're gone i verse 12 i the teacher was a king over israel in jerusalem i applied my mind to study and explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens let me say this right here up until right now it's just been set up for the experiment and now we're going into the experiment he's starting to open boxes okay what a heavy burden god has laid on mankind why would he do that why would he lay this heavy burden on us so that we would seek him and we would find him i have seen all the heavens that are all the things that are done under the sun all of them are meaningless a chasing after the wind what is crooked cannot be straightened what is lacking cannot be counted he's talking about he's been talking about um creation and nature and he's saying our greatest reason cannot fix that which is lacking in nature i said to myself look i have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ever ruled jerusalem before me i have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge then i applied myself to the understanding of wisdom and also of madness and folly madness and folly but i learned that this too is a chasing after the wind the word that's repeat here repeated here 28 times is the word meaningless is the hebrew word hevel and havel literally translates into our language a a smoke or a vapor it is to grab in your hand to grip smoke that's what he's as he starts this experiment he says this is what you're doing if you continue to search in the boxes from which i have searched you're grabbing smoke you're trying to possess vapor for much for with much wisdom comes much sorrow the more knowledge the more grief blessed are the naive for they do not know what's going on blessed are the naive for they do not know what's going on because when you start peeling back the layers you start to see death and disease and decay and despair and sorrow and heartbreak and breakups and sadness and things that don't last forever under the sun let me say this real quick here ecclesiastes is a challenging book to teach because it repeats itself he cycles he says ideas and he goes back he goes back and revisits them and so we won't expound on everything like sometimes you'll have to stay with us if you miss a a week you can go on the harris creek app and catch up you can go on the website and catch up and so this is week one but like in chapter two he says this then i turn my thoughts to consider wisdom and also madness and folly what more can a king successor do than what has already been done again so he's going to come back to these ideas but my third and final point today in this text is our reason and rebellion are red are ridiculous our reason and our rebellion are ridiculous and the way that he got to that conclusion is he explored two paths the first one is he says i want to go learn everything i can learn i'm going to run these experiments i'm going to go be formally educated right and here in waco we value formal education because at the center of our city is a great university that has benefited so many of us so many of you some of you are employed there your entire uh job your career path is rooted in helping people be educated and so we value that and i'll say this to train the mind to sharpen the mind is a great thing to want to have a sharper mind i've heard it said the holy spirit has an affinity for the trained mind to sharpen your mind is a great thing to make your mind an idol will leave you in the deepest darkest despair you can ever consider you understand because your mind's who is stuck in the gears it too will fade and you will not only not remember where you put your car keys but you will forget that you have a car what kind of car it is you will forget the names of your children and you will not recognize them and when you make your mind an idol there's a despair that sits under that that is so incredibly deep and dark and heavy so good to sharpen it don't worship it here's what he's saying i did it right i learned lots i excelled in school i got the diploma i read i was promoted i had the corner office i was summa laude i became king my education afforded me the ability to be the most powerful person in the land and what i have to say about that is it's meaningless it left me wanting some of you you're here and and you know you're like man i'm so i'm so smart but nobody wants to be around me because i know it all and i really thought they were going to appreciate somebody that knew it all but it just doesn't seem like they do you get into that last quarter of life and you you you become intolerable to the people around you because you know better than everyone else and the things that you fed yourself that you paid so much money and so much time to gain has now actually cost you he says i rebelled i partied had i participated in orgies and drugs sex i hit scruffs on the weekend then i went to showtime over on lasalle i partied on barges on lake waco and i took shots at crickets and drank all of the drafts that they have to offer and what i want you to know is it's meaningless it left me with the hangover hugging a toilet wanting more and what's worse is i got stuck in it wash rents repeat i actually looked forward to that which was going to poison me so that my body would reject it so that on friday or thursday i could do it all over again sin robs you of creativity you get stuck in that relentless cycle constantly oh man it's gonna be amazing 130 bar tab and a hangover that's life yeah and i speak from experience let me just say that in the city got arrested right across the street from the farrell center okay i've seen the inside of the highway 6 jail i've looked for life and alcohol in the party scene in drugs insects i ran that side of the experiment some of you you ran the education experiment right you're here you're like man i like i've got doctorates on doctors right i've got so many letters behind my name like the alphabet sitting there in my signature and both of them solomon is telling you is meaningless he's comparing the two he's he's he's pitting the valda victorian against the president of their sorority fraternity you know and they're fighting and some of you are like well can you be both you were both you excelled in both of those things you're i know you're here right you you partied hard and somehow made the grade you're that smart and it's still meaningless it says i must live for something beyond myself some of you you're here you you squeaked into church on a sunday morning but you know that in your heart of hearts you believe that when you die the lights just go out this is really all there is and you feel a deep despair right now and to you what i want you to what i want you to hear me say is you should you should if this is all there is then what are we doing if you know my god right if you know the one true god then this is just a commercial of heaven this is the greatest moments here are just commercials for where we will be in his presence forever and ever and ever and ever but if you do not know that one true god through his son jesus christ then this is the only heaven you will ever sense the one with death disease sickness and sorrow it's the only flavor of heaven you will ever experience and so i plead with you to know him in summary we are in a rut of relentless repetition our routine will not be remembered and our reason and rebellion are ridiculous for centuries greek philosophers would sit outside the city and ask a question what is the logos of life this is what they would ask the greek word lagos what is the logos of life now if you've been in sunday school long or church long you know that word logos it translates word but it also translates reason and that's why they would ask this they were asking for centuries what is the logos of life they're trying to figure it out so you can imagine they're asking what you ask i mean every person asks this right when they're everyone right they ask this question what why am i here what am i doing what's the point of it all does it matter am i doing it the right way what is the logos of life so you can imagine god in his kindness to offer the clarity in john chapter one verse one when he says in the beginning was the lagos and the logos was with god and the logos was god talking about jesus he goes on to say the logos became flesh and made his dwelling among us he's telling you something really important you're not going to find meaning separate and apart from jesus you just will not like a fish was made for water the only purpose that you will be able to find is through the sun you will not find it under the s-u-n you know do you hear me the atheist would say about you your faith is a crutch the the only reason you have religion is to find purpose here that you can't find purpose here without your faith to that last statement what i would say mr atheist you're absolutely correct because the moral atheist makes no sense to me why just want to make the world a better place why and who gets to decide what better means is better drenching in gasoline and lighting it on fire why is that not better why do you get to decide what's better it seems there's another place beyond the sun and i'm telling you you will only find meaning there and so as i'm looking for my backpack you can imagine if monica says hey it's not in that box it's not in that box it's not in that box either in fact your backpack's not in here it's not in this storage container how foolish would i be to continue to spend hours and days looking for it in that storage container that's what solomon's doing say hey you're looking for meaning under the sun in the earth you're not gonna find it there the only place you're gonna find it is beyond the sun outside the sun it's not in that storage container it's past it and so you and i might be like oh well great well let's go see it you can't go yet you can't go there yet but you can talk to someone who's there anytime you want it's called prayer you can't go where meaning is found but you there's been a book written about it you can read it and study it and learn to live according to it and find why you're here and how to live here god was so kind that all of the meaning that's found in that storage container has been documented in a book and given to you you can't go where meaning is found yet but you can circle up with others who are looking for meaning in the same way that you are and they too have found where it is and you can gather with them and these things we call churches and yoke yourself to them and they can remind you repeatedly that it will not be found in your education it will not be found in your rebellion that's the first place we're going to look today as we tear through these boxes he says you don't need to look in those two boxes because any eternal significance will not be found there make sure that's not most who you are make sure there's something that marks you beyond that let me pray you would father would you help us believe that know that to be true would you stir in our hearts direction and reason and help us not to get to the bottom of any box see that it's empty and keep looking help us to not keep searching in areas you've told us not to search for meaning would you fill our hearts with hope would you fill our hearts with peace would you fill our hearts with faith and god as we sing i know you gave us our vocal chords that the father son and spirit tuned us as musical instruments to sing of your glory lord help us to redeem that which the enemy has tried to steal to sing of the hope that we have to sing now and to sing forever amen let's stay together [Music] i love you lord [Music] oh your mercy never fails me in all my days i've been held in your hands from the moment that i wake up until i lay my head i will sing of the goodness of god [Music] you have been so so good with every breath that i am [Music] [Applause] of god i love your voice [Music] [Music] [Applause] know you as a father i've known you as a friend i have lived in the goodness of god [Music] [Applause] [Music] with every breath that i [Music] [Applause] [Music] your goodness is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] is me [Music] and all my life you have been faithful all my life you have been so so good with every breath that i have made [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] of god [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all my life [Music] [Music] of god [Music] i know that as we move through ecclesiastes there's going to be a lot of these like but wait moments like but what about you know but well hold on are you saying you hang in there with us as we move through and get to expound on these ideas more uh stay with us i know not all of you who live here i just want to thank you for for visiting and um i just really i do i want to leave you with this mental image because it's like if i'm looking for my backpack rummaging through our storage and boxes and tearing them apart and my wife comes up and says no it's not in here i just saw it it's over there i know where your backpack is like how crazy would i be just to continue to look up acknowledge what she said and then just to spend the rest of my life tearing into those boxes it sounds like madness but it's what so many people you know will do and some of us are tempted to do and it's going to leave you empty the reason you're here is there is a god who created you and the purpose that you exist for it's his purposes for you and they go way beyond your 76 years so the greatest thing that you can do as parents and grandparents are entrust him to your children and others to your children candidly it's fine that they don't remember your hobbies and your favorite color and even what you did for a living as long as they know your god as long as they know the way to him you can be forgotten you have holy supernatural permission to be forgotten and that's great so that he would be remembered for those of you that joined us in the lobby we're thankful you're here you're going to hear from my friend rich who is going to dismiss you now and so thanks for for sitting up there with us for those of you that are in this room if you have kids and kids ministry i just want to release you to them and as you go i would just remind you all that hello harriscreek.org is an email that you can always reach us if you email hello anything at hello harriscreek.org we will make sure that it gets to wherever it needs to go you can ask any question that you have there and it will end up wherever it needs to go so whoever can answer that if there's any ways that we can serve you there'll be a team of people up here at the stage i love you guys go in peace to love and serve the lord [Music] you

Channel: Harris Creek Baptist Church

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Length: 95min 7sec (5707 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021