Yearning for Eternity

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, back in the summer, I was thinking about the upcoming year. The theme for the year was still undecided at that point. I was preaching sundry sermons on idleness and fear of man, fear of circumstances.

And during those days, I really thought, I spent a lot of time, in fact, thinking about whether or not we should abandon Ecclesiastes midstream, middle of chapter seven, just a paragraph or two beyond the middle of the book. I actually gave a lot of thought to to Jump and Ship from Ecclesiastes. The last time we made any headway on a week-to-week basis in Ecclesiastes was January. The last message I gave from Ecclesiastes was a repeat from Ecclesiastes 3 in Big Church maybe later in July. The last time we actually did any new verses in Ecclesiastes was a Big Church sermon on July 1 from Ecclesiastes 7 1 through 14 on the advantage of adversity. Some of you perhaps remember that. Otherwise, this whole year has been filled with our study on Calvinism. That took a really long time for a number of months and then the intern was speaking over the summer and then I was doing some various topical kind of subject sermons. So I wondered if we should make our practical abandonment of Ecclesiastes official.

When we’ve practically abandoned it maybe we should just sign it off and send the paperwork in and be done with it. Besides I don’t always get the feeling, and as I was looking back over my notes from some of the previous Ecclesiastes messages, at least a few times I have started messages by identifying or acknowledging the fact that so many of you don’t actually seem to give a rip about Ecclesiastes and are really paying minimal, if any, attention to Solomon whatsoever. Perhaps some of you even feel like Sunday after Sunday of sermon from Ecclesiastes is the epitome of vain repetition. However, I really do believe that repetition of some of the truths in Ecclesiastes is the farthest thing under the sun from the sun from being vain. We often need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed.

And these are life and death issues that Solomon is dealing with. So there is no way I’m going to abandon ship. Just no way. And potentially, if you know me in any kind of personal way, You might have been able to guess that even for thinking about abandoning, that that’s not really what I do. I am committed to staying the course of Ecclesiastes with Solomon, and I don’t just want you guys to come along for the ride. I want you to get passionate about the destination. I came across this quote earlier in the week. If you want to build a ship, don’t summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs and organize the work.

Rather, teach people the yearning for the wide boundless ocean. And it’s my desire, in the midst of the work that we have ahead of us, to finish this book. My plan is to, for as much as depends on me, finish the book of Ecclesiastes by the end of the school year. So we totally better get out the tools. We need to organize ourselves and distribute the jobs, I guess primarily to me, we’ll distribute the Sundays about what paragraphs we’re going to cover. There is totally a lot of work to do, but I want for us to get passionate about the destination and this morning we’re going to talk about the destination of Ecclesiastes and we’re going to talk then about some reasons why Ecclesiastes is so key to getting us there.

So really two primary subjects or parts of my message this morning. The first is yearning for eternity. The aim, the destination of Ecclesiastes is to get us ready for eternity. God has put eternity into every man’s heart. We looked at that in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 11. Even though we can’t figure it out on our own, it’s in there.

built it into every person, they understand that something is beyond what we see right now and beyond this life. Eternity is in every man’s heart and for all of Solomon’s observations and advice about life under the Sun, he is clearly trying to prepare us for something somewhere else, namely eternity. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 11 verse 9. Ecclesiastes chapter 11 verse 9 says, Rejoice, O young man in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. There is coming a day when our time on this celestial body, that’s a fancy way to say this planet, there is coming a time, there will be a day when our time on this planet is done, is over, and how you live now makes a difference then. We’re not big planners for the future, But I promise you how you live now is preparing you one way or the other for the time when your life on this earth is done. And Solomon presses the point all the way literally to the last page

and the last sentences of the book. Look at chapter 12 verses 13 and 14. The end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing whether good or evil.” Ecclesiastes 12, 13, 14 is the final and primary passion of Solomon the preacher. It is the end of the matter. All has been heard. That’s it. There is nothing else to say. This is what it comes down to. Here’s what you need to do. Fear God and keep his commandments. That’s the bottom line. How you think about God and how you follow his instruction is the main thing. A proper attitude and then right obedience is what life is all about. And there are two reasons for this. They come right from these verses themselves. The first reason comes at the end of verse 13. The second reason comes in verse 14. But the first reason is at the end of verse 13, this is the whole duty of man. Your attitude and your obedience, your fear of him, your reverence for him, and your obedience to him, obeying his commandments.

That’s what we’re made for. We’re not made for anything else. As his creatures, our purpose on this planet is pretty simple. That’s not complex. That’s not hard to figure out. Fear God and keep his commandments. The meaning of life is not a mystery. We are made for him. We are made to worship. We worship Him with, again, the attitude of reverence and respect and awe and fear, and we worship Him as we obey what He says, as we consider His instructions and His orders more important than our own desires and our own opinions. That is a way that we worship Him. That’s what we’re made to do.

But the second reason comes in verse 14, for God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. And we’re back to the exact same concern as we looked at in chapter 11 verse 9. However much we want to avoid it, however much we try to distract ourselves from it with various pursuits and pleasures, however proud we are of our own accomplishments, we cannot, we will not escape the one with whom we have to do, which is God. There is coming a time when you will be face to face with God. At best, we are temporary residents on this earth. And that’s why this passage, Ecclesiastes 12, 13, 14, is so crucial to our theme for the year, playing for keeps, specifically in our series in Ecclesiastes, playing for keeps eternally. We are at best temporary residents on this globe.

This is not the end. A generation goes and a generation comes. Solomon says that, but you realize that the going out generation is not leaving into some soul sleep or into non existence. A generation comes and a generation goes to God either separated from him or with him for their joy. We go into the immediate and obvious presence of God where we’re either judged to forever punishment and misery. You got two options here. to forever misery and punishment or rewarded with an incomprehensibly joyful inheritance that is imperishable and undefiled and unfading. In his presence there will be fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore and that is the place you want to be.

You do not want to be dismissed from Him into everlasting punishment, weeping and gnashing of teeth, the place called hell for eternity, for forever. You don’t want to go to that place. The destination you want to aim for is eternity with God. is nowhere better and you can get there if you fear God and keep his commandments specifically then we understand that is enabled through Jesus Christ as then Jesus is revealed in the New Testament. And Solomon is teaching us to yearn for the wonderful boundless joys of eternity with God.

Like I said for all of his observations and advice and even complaining it seems like sometimes about life here under the sun, life on this earth. I truly believe he is trying to get us to think beyond the sun. He’s trying to get us to consider eternity that we know that we have a sense of that’s built in to begin with. He’s trying to get us ready for that next stage. And we are all going to eternity. The question is whether the destination for us is going to be one of punishment or one of reward and pleasures with him.

Well other than telling us about the destination does Solomon have any help for us to get there? Now I don’t want to necessarily go through and review every paragraph, paragraph by paragraph through chapters 1 to 7 that we’ve covered already in Ecclesiastes. So I thought I’d try to cover where we’ve been and aim at where we’re going a little bit differently this morning because some of you I realize you seventh graders have actually never heard say for maybe big church you have never heard a message from Ecclesiastes that’s how long we have been away from it I understand that others of you who have been here maybe even weren’t here mentally you were not engaged during some of the sermons that we’ve had in Ecclesiastes 30 something messages getting us up through the middle of chapter seven. So I’m gonna try to review some of the things, some of the key ideas that we’ve covered, while in particular telling you about the aim, the destination of eternal joy with God as we get back into our week-to-week study. Okay, I’m gonna do that by giving you

three reasons to stay the course of this Ecclesiastes series. Three reasons to stay the course of Ecclesiastes. Number one, the Ecclesiastes series is a sale filled with scripture in feudal waters. I’m giving you a little key right now. The quote I gave you at the beginning about if you want to build a boat, you don’t get people to get the wood and the supplies and the tools and then distribute the work, but you teach them to yearn for the boundless wide open ocean so and so forth. I’m going nautical this morning with the illustration and with these points through here. I’m not a sailor or a son of a sailor but hopefully these will these will be a good way to help you think through where we’re trying to go again as we’re trying to get to the destination of eternal joy. The Ecclesiastes series then is a sail filled with scripture in feudal waters. Obviously a sail is some big piece of material, whatever it’s made out of. It’s a huge piece of material that is extended out on a mast that is

intended to catch the wind, not just because the wind is cool, but because in catching the wind, that wind then propels them and drives them, at least if they’re managing the sail correctly, the direction that they want to go. Well here are a couple questions as we we talk about this. What is filling your sail? You are in this illustration, you are a boat, you are a ship, you are on your way someplace, you have a sail as a ministry, same thing we have a sail. What is filling your sail? In other words, what is driving you in your life? What is motivating you? What gets you going? We are in very futile waters and by that I mean we live in a culture of pointless, useless nonsense that is being published every second, let alone every minute on Myspace that’s being promoted on TV, that’s being presented in movies, that’s being proclaimed in pop music and some of you are just adrift out in the water.

You are being tossed to and fro by every wind of opinion, by whatever the crowd thinks is cool. Literally, you are going with the flow. There’s no clear direction for you, no real force that moves you in any direction. That so sadly describes too many of your lives. aimless, driftless, just out there on the water, not headed towards, not being driven towards anything in particular. But God’s Word is a powerful force. God’s Word is powerful to aim us in the right direction and powerful to propel us, to thrust us to move us in the way that we need to go. In particular, there is something special about verse by verse, line upon line. The fancy term is sequential exposition of God’s Word. I’m not saying that there’s anything necessarily wrong with systematic study or study by subject of various things in scripture. We do that a lot. We just got done doing that with the Lord’s Day series.

And we’ll do that again on the Godly Man and Godly Woman Wednesday series. Those will be more topical things. Hopefully the truth comes from scripture. So it’s not that we’re choosing between verse by verse and no Bible. We’re hoping even in our topical messages to be talking about things from scripture and be driven by scripture, but nevertheless, there is still something special.

I think we need to examine this Old Testament wisdom literature, almost 3,000 year old inspired document to drive us towards eternal joy. And I’m unwilling to jump the ship of this series because I think that’s just a horrible example. Where are men and women faithful to finish. How are you going to learn to be driven by Scripture in its original context if even the preacher isn’t? I don’t want to leave you that example of not being driven by not having our sale filled with Scripture. As timely and as beneficial as studies by subject can be, there is something special, something unique about investigating and examining and about studying God’s Word in its original context and to see the order that God puts things.

You can look up verses on any particular subject and that may be a very profitable study for you. But what about studying God’s Word as God arranged it, as God ordered it? In the proportions that God gives. When God takes a lot of verses, maybe a whole paragraph or many chapters to cover a story or a principle or to make a point, we should really pay attention. If he says something in a phrase, we still better pay attention. But if he says it in like half of a book or an entire book or multiple books, he’s probably intending to have our attention about that. And so studying in its own context and seeing the grammar and the connections as we move from one subject into another subject, some of the things even in Ecclesiastes I could not put together on my own.

But God has arranged and specifically in Ecclesiastes through Solomon some just terrific connections And there is no more suitable study than getting the point in a paragraph and seeing how the author introduces his point and makes his point and summarizes his point and connects that point with the next point and then sees how all of those go together to maybe make the point of the whole book. And so I want this series to be an example of that kind of Bible study and no doubt it’s hard. It’s tough. It takes work. discipline, at least for me. Like I said, I can’t always figure out at least immediately what Solomon is saying. I think there’s a couple reasons for that.

Number one, he’s a smart guy and God says he’s the smartest guy who has ever lived apart from Jesus. God made it to be that way. So Solomon’s own wisdom is way above mine. It is an inspired document that is God used Solomon to write what he wanted. So it’s not just Solomon’s ways are higher than my ways and his thoughts different than my thoughts. These are God’s ways and God’s thoughts. And so it definitely takes work to understand that. Maybe you remember this quote I gave from Martin Luther. In 1526, he was lecturing through the book of Ecclesiastes to a group of students who had stayed behind in Wittenberg during the plague. And he said this about his, his study of Ecclesiastes quote, Solomon, the preacher is giving me a hard time as though he begrudged anyone lecturing on him. But he must yield. He is going to give up his message and I’m gonna find it. And that’s what we want to do. And I think especially in a culture where opinions are free flowing and emotions are so high and distractions are all around, we want our sail as a ministry and I think

you, especially as young people, we want our sail to be filled with Scripture and to let God’s Word be what drives us towards the right destination. And this series is crucial to thrust us towards eternal joy. A second reason to stay the course of Ecclesiastes. This series is a map drawn by Solomon specifically for young people. No matter what you have thought about any of the previous messages, no matter if you have thought in your own reading of Ecclesiastes that this must be for somebody else or for old people, and I admit I think having read through Ecclesiastes a number of times, it so would make sense and resonate with somebody who is older, who has given maybe even the majority of their life to trying to find satisfaction under the sun.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this book then just has to resonate that all of that is emptiness and striving after wind because they themselves have been there and they They have experienced the exact same thing that Solomon describes. But for as much as it may resonate with people who are older, this is intended to instruct those people who are younger, who haven’t made those decisions and who haven’t tried to pursue all of that junk yet. We read it earlier, but for a different reason, look at Ecclesiastes chapter 11 verse nine again.

He says, rejoice, O young man, in your youth and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth.” Clearly in Solomon’s own mind he’s directing this towards younger people. Walk in the ways of your heart and the side of your eyes but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Prepare now for what is coming later. Look at chapter 12 verse 1. Remember also your creator when? Remember your creator in the days of of your youth. When you are a young man or a young woman before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you say I have no pleasure in them. Solomon’s focus is obviously on those who still have the critical decisions of life ahead of them. And for as much as this reveals at the end of Solomon’s life, all of the things he pursued, and all of his observations that he had seen and experienced himself, he intends to share those things with us so that we won’t make the mistakes he made.

It isn’t to say, I’ve done this, you know, we do this kind of thing all the time. We’re sitting down to dinner and we get a whiff of just some odious, atrocious smell. what do we do? We say, this smells awful. You smell it. Or, you know, maybe we have hurt ourselves by doing something. We’re like, no, seriously, try this. This kills. Wanting other people to experience the pain or the whatever. That is not what Solomon is trying to do. Life is really hard and then you die. Give it a shot. The point of his instruction is to say, I’ve been there, it’s bad, don’t go there. The preacher here is no punk pundit. You remember that maybe from my introduction to this series. Solomon, these are some reasons why we listen to the guy, okay? He possessed the greatest mental, material, and political resources that one man has ever had.

He had more brains and more stuff and more popularity and more power than anybody. More than Jesus. Jesus was not popular. Jesus did not have a lot of stuff, at least while he lived on earth. Jesus was not king while he was here the first time. Jesus obviously, when he comes back the second time, will demonstrate that he has more. Solomon so far has had more brains, more stuff, more people to serve him, more power and praise than anybody can imagine.

And as we’ve already seen, the whole thing is a tale of his searching and experimenting and groping for meaning. This was not something that he just did in some elevated tower or or library or in his palace den, where he just sat back in his chair and stroked his goatee and thought about life. He was out there doing it, trying to get the satisfaction and the meaning. And it’s good to get counsel from people with experience. And the map that he makes here that he draws for young people will help them to navigate at least three different things. It will help them to navigate trials, temptations, and toil. I’m going to come back and just mention each one of those again briefly. His map is intended to help us get through trials, through difficulties that we see in this life under the sun.

It is a trial. He talked about this in the last part of chapter two. It is a trial to realize that everything you work for you will take Jack’s squad of it with you. All of the stuff that you accumulate you will take none of that stuff with you and more than likely you’re gonna give it to a moron who comes after you. Your successor will not deserve all of the things that you have accumulated. That is grievous. That’s evil. Solomon calls it that. In chapter 3, Solomon identifies the fact that wickedness typically prevails where we hoped for righteousness. I think he certainly can apply that to government, to law enforcement. Our court system certainly continues to prove that today that there is wickedness where we had hoped for righteousness. In chapter four he tells us that there is no escape from oppression. The haves are always sticking it to the have-nots. Everyone around us is motivated by envy and just trying to get more than what their neighbor has. People are lonely and unhappy. Nobody is going to remember you. In chapter five he warns us against

irreverent worship, government conspiracy and exploitation. Then he tells us that even you can have all the money you want and that’s no guarantee of happiness. In chapter 7, specifically dealing with adversities like death and rebuke and corruption and chronic struggles, how are you going to get through that without a guide? Because that’s life, baby. And however much you’ve tasted of life’s bitterness now, just wait. You think that’s bitter? Try this.

What a terrific map that somebody who has seen it all can give us to guide us through it. Not only does he help us get through trials, he’ll help us avoid temptations. I’m thinking specifically back in chapter two verses one through eight, where he tells us about all the things he pursued for pleasure that were all empty, that We’re all vanity, the vanity of pleasure, the vanity of getting a buzz with alcohol or drugs would have application for today, the vanity of pouring yourself into work, the vanity of music and entertainment. Well, some of you need to listen to that message like every day when you get up. The vanity of women, sex, relationships, the vanity of accomplishments and people thinking you’re cool.

are major temptations that all of us face. We keep thinking that if we just put ourselves in position to get this thing, whether it’s actually a stuff thing or a position thing or recognition thing, we keep pursuing all of that junk of the world thinking that that is what’s going to make us happy. And Solomon has told us and will continue to tell us that all of that is vanity. Hebel Habalim, Vanity of Vanities, all this vanity. It’s a striving after wind. You catch it, you won’t know what to do with it. It will slip through your hands. No one was in a position, a better position, to get whatever he wanted. He had the finest possessions.

He always got himself the right toy. He spoiled himself like nobody’s business. He did anything he wanted to indulge some kind of gratification. He denied himself nothing. He looked for life in every wrong place you can imagine. And how are you going to avoid those temptations without a guide when everybody else in the world is running headlong after that stuff day after day, all day long? We’ve got a map. And then third, he’ll help us understand and get through and even enjoy toil. Toil is one of the key or main ideas in all of Ecclesiastes. No matter what you do, you are going to toil. That is why I keep repeating the phrase, life is hard and then you die.

There is no way. If anybody could have had more people serve him, it would have been Solomon. Doing stuff for him. If anybody could have just applied his money, his resources, to making other people do his stuff, that would have been Solomon. If anybody could have had life as a vacation, life as a weekend, whatever, that was Solomon. We don’t even come close to that. And it comes back to toil, labor, work, being tired. That is what this life is about. And yet he tells us that it is possible to enjoy the process. In fact, he says that is the best possible thing you can get under the sun. It is a superlative, nothing better prospect than to get the gift of joy in the middle of your toil.

Not to get out of toil, not to have a better paycheck for your toil, not to get other people to do your toil for you. The best this life has to offer is God’s gift of joy in toil. He has a map here. He’s got a chart to tell us how to get into position for that kind of joy. And actually that leads to the third reason to stay the course. As a series, Ecclesiastes is a life jacket given by the sovereign, the sovereign God God for God-fearers. The book of Ecclesiastes has a very simple and very depressing motto. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. The dominant chorus, the refrain that resounds over and over and over again is that everything under the sun is full of futility and striving after wind.

That 3,000 year old message is as relevant today as it has ever been. Our own day has no shortage of broken lives and bitter people. And for all of our busy activity, for all of our organized routines, for all of our relaxation strategies, for all of our bottomless consumption, our culture is plagued by unrelieved emptiness. For everything we have, we are not satisfied. So many people live their days in a thick fog and they are drifting with the world and that is as depressing as you can imagine. But throughout the book of Ecclesiastes we come to passages and to truth that buoys us back up to the surface. For all of the times that life shoves our head down underneath the water so that we can’t breathe and we’re struggling to get back up to the top, there is truth that will help us to get our heads back up above the water at least long enough to get a a good breath of air before we’re shoved back under.

And there are times when our heads above water for a while, there are times where that while is not very long, but things that can sustain us through the very depressing and often difficult days of our lives. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter two, verse 24. This was the beginning passage of the whole ETP series, enjoying the process. Ecclesiastes 2.24, there is nothing better, nothing better, nothing better. This is the best, nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God. This is God’s gift. Not for you to have a better job necessarily, but for you to enjoy the job, the life, the work that God has for you.

over to Ecclesiastes chapter 5. This was enjoying the process redo, you know, part 2. Ecclesiastes 5, 18, behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil, this is the gift of God, for he will not remember much the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.”

That is a life jacket. To know that that kind of joy, even now, on our way to eternal joy, is possible. Maybe you remember the can of peaches and the can opener illustration. Some people have warehouses full of canned peaches. Some people God gives. God is sovereign in that. God has enabled them to collect and to accumulate all those cans of peaches. But if God doesn’t also give a can opener so they can enjoy those peaches, that’s miserable. That’s loathsome. That’s loathing the process which actually comes at the beginning of chapter 6, I think, chapter 6 verses 1 through 6 is the opposite, loathing the process, those to whom God gives power and wealth and whatever but does not give the power to enjoy them. That’s really miserable. But to those whom God gives not just the can of peaches, but the can opener, that’s a life jacket.

We’ve kind of been talking about this whole trip as being out on the ocean. I was thinking about the few times that I’ve been whitewater rafting, and I was thinking about the difference between going down a Class 5 rapid with a life jacket on or without. You may make it through without the life jacket, and it’s going to be difficult even with the life jacket, but there is a hopefulness that having the life jacket brings with it as you’re traveling the rapids. And the truth here about God’s gift of joy in the midst of toil is very much so a life jacket for us. And the effect is, or the outcome of this gift of joy is that a person won’t even You can think about how hard and how bitter and how short life is because they’re just going to be filled with this joy all the days of their lives.

They won’t even remember much, is what Solomon says is possible. It’s not just that time flies when you’re having fun. It’s that time flies when you’ve got the gift of joy from God. In whatever you’re doing, in your toil, you’ll get to the end of your life and you won’t be badgered by regrets and resentment. Instead, you’ll look back and it will have flown by because God has filled your heart. You have been occupied with joy in the process. God will make it so that everything works to make your heart glad no matter what it is. And that’s not just an external kind of joy or circumstantial thing, not at all. It’s a soul satisfying, untouchable kind of joy.

And the biggest thing is that joy in the process will lead to eternal joy. But it goes to God fearers, those who fear God and keep his commandments. It is ironic that as we consider the destination of eternal joy and preparing for that, that will make a difference for the process now on our way to get there.

And I want so much for Ecclesiastes as we study it verse by verse to fill our sail with scripture so that we’ll be directed and propelled towards our destination of eternal joy. I so see Ecclesiastes as a map drawn by Solomon to help us navigate through difficult times and it very much so is a life jacket that when the boat crashes and the waves crash in on us and we’re in the midst of just awful hard adversity that we will have this life jacket of joy in the process as God provides it as a gift. So as we try to stay the course I think this series is significant because it keeps us advancing, it keeps us aimed, it keeps us afloat. It’s a sail, it’s a map, it’s a life jacket. Not only that, as we consider the destination, this series spurs us towards eternal joy, it steers us towards eternal joy, it sustains us for eternal joy. It’s a sail, it’s a map, it’s a life jacket.

Hopefully what I’ve done is remind you from the two and what the point of this book is. It’s from God through Solomon. This is not just the wisest guy who ever lived. This is the wisest guy who is writing inspired stuff from God himself. This is divine instruction, not just kingly instruction. It’s two young people and the whole point is that we would fear God for the sake of our eternal joy. We are playing for keeps eternally. What you do now, how you live now will make a difference then. I want it to be for your eternal joy.

Father, thank you for this opportunity to review, to recap some of where we’ve been, to let scripture drive us towards this goal of eternal joy, even as we learn and study from Solomon and Ecclesiastes help us to navigate and to avoid certain of the temptations that this world throws at us, help us to be buoyed back up to the surface in the midst of trials, heaviness and hardness, certainly through the midst of our toil and through our work, make us those who are serious about the destination that that would change how we live today. We beg you for instruction, for illumination. Keep us propelled towards the destination of eternity with you for the sake of our joy and your glory. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.