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[0:00] Ecclesiastes 2, the book of Ecclesiastes, in chapter 2, we read the first 11 verses.

[0:17] ! This is God's Word. I thought in my heart, come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good, but that also proved to be meaningless.

[0:30] Laughter, I said, is foolish, and what does pleasure accomplish? I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly, my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

[0:46] I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees.

[1:00] I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself and the treasure of kings and provinces.

[1:16] I acquired men and women singers and a harem as well, the delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. And all this, my wisdom stayed with me.

[1:30] I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless.

[1:47] Chasing after the wind, nothing was gained under the sun. May God bless the reading and the preaching of his word as our brother comes now to open it to us. Woody Allen is lying down on a couch in the movie Manhattan, and he asks himself, all right, why is life worth living?

[2:19] Like what? For me, I would say, what, Groucho Marx? To name one thing, and Willie Mays, and the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, and Louis Armstrong recording Potato Head Blues, Swedish movies, naturally, Sentimental Education by Flaubert, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by Cezanne, the crabs at Sam Woe's, and Tracy's face.

[3:04] Why is life worth living? Do you ever wonder that? Do you ever wake up on a Thursday morning and say, why am I doing this again?

[3:16] Why is, what's the point of all this? Crabs and music? Groucho Marx and Frank Sinatra, Willie Mays and his young lover's face, that's what Woody Allen said made life worth living?

[3:32] Well, is he right? Is life worth living because of the pleasures that we get from it every now and then, that come our way? Should we live to enjoy music and alcohol and women and comedy?

[3:51] It's a question. It's a lot of, it's a question that a lot of people ask, and Coleth asked the same question. That's our teacher. The teacher, the son of David, the king in Jerusalem. He asked that question.

[4:02] And it wasn't just an idle question. This was a question that was gnawing at his insides. He wanted to know what was good for man to do.

[4:14] And so he went looking for an answer. He went in several directions. He went to wisdom. And tonight he's going to pleasure.

[4:26] But you already know what he's found. He's already told you what he's found. Meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless.

[4:36] It's all, the Hebrew word is havel. It's all havel. No matter where you turn under the sun, life is fleeting. It's futile. It's confusing.

[4:47] And it's frustrated. That's life. It's a chasing after the wind. You put your hands around you and you look at what you've caught and you've caught nothing.

[4:57] Coleth has designed Ecclesiastes like an old Columbo movie. I don't know if you remember these.

[5:08] But they basically all have the same plot. The same way of doing the story. In the opening scene, you saw the murderer committing the murder.

[5:21] And so the viewer, you, you have all the answers, right? You know who did it and how they did it. And it's Columbo's job now. He doesn't know. He's in the dark.

[5:31] And he has to figure out who done it and why did they do it and all that. And Ecclesiastes is designed the same way. You know all the answers up front. But he told us everything that we need to know in verse 2.

[5:46] That meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless. So that's it. But Coleth, the teacher, he doesn't know that yet.

[5:57] He is giving us the answer ahead of time. But we get to watch as he figures it out. We get to watch as he does this performance to decide, to find out what is good for man to do.

[6:10] And we get to see as he investigates life and tries to solve the mystery. Last week, he tried analysis.

[6:22] He was going to use his mind, his God-given wisdom to try to peer into the darkness. And what did he find? He found grief. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow.

[6:34] The more knowledge, the more grief. So wisdom, even God-given wisdom, didn't solve Havel. He didn't peer into the darkness and peer into the confusion and the frustration of this life and discover anything.

[6:51] He didn't discover anything that makes life worth living. And so he said, forget it. And let's let the good times roll. And that's what we see this week.

[7:05] Harvard for Coaleth didn't work. And so he leaves Harvard and he goes to Nashville. Because I have friends in low places where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases all my blues away.

[7:20] And I'll be okay. I can't find meaning in the university classroom. So let's try Margaritaville. Let's try the comedy club.

[7:32] Let's try the Playboy lifestyle. The good life. The American dream. It's not in wisdom, but maybe it's here. So you see that in chapter 2, verse 1. I thought in my heart, come now, I will test you with pleasure to find what is good.

[7:48] So wisdom doesn't hold the meaning to life. It doesn't answer that gnawing question that's driving him. That gnawing futility of life. It feels all wrong.

[8:00] And so maybe pleasure will. And what did he find? You see it there. But that also proved to be Havel.

[8:10] That proved to be meaningless. So Woody Allen is wrong. And we know that from the very beginning. Art and Groucho Marx and good music can't drive the Havel of life away.

[8:21] Can't drive this frustration that we feel. And so now Coleth is going to tell us why it just doesn't work. First he says, first I looked at laughter.

[8:33] And so let's talk about Groucho Marx. Let's talk about Monty Python. Let's talk about Saturday Night Live and Jerry Seinfeld. Can you laugh your way out of Havel?

[8:45] Laughter, I said, is foolish. It's madness. And what does pleasure accomplish? The answer is nothing.

[8:58] Later in chapter 7, Coleth is going to tell us about the hollow laughter of fools. And how it's so quickly gone. They laugh for a minute and then their laughter is over.

[9:08] It's Havel. It's quickly over. And so he says, I went down to the comedy club. I watched my Monty Python movies. I watched my sitcoms. And I tried what people were saying. And I tried what the world says was the good life.

[9:21] And it was just foolish. It was madness. It didn't mean anything. And at the end of the day, all your laughter, all the laughter was over.

[9:37] Life was still a pain. Life was still, still futile and frustrated. So, young people, are you listening?

[9:51] Coleth is going to tell you later to enjoy life, to laugh in the days of your youth. But if you're trying to escape Havel, if you're trying to escape the curse through endless jokes and frivolous humor and stupid humor, if that's where you're trying to live as a way to escape this world, then you have to see it for what it is.

[10:16] It's meaningless. It's pointless. It doesn't add up to anything. So it's madness.

[10:27] You do it, and at the end, you've accomplished nothing. See, you can't laugh at the twisted facts of reality. You can't laugh at all those things and then come up with anything profound.

[10:39] It's a dead-end street. It doesn't work. And so people often say things like that. They say, oh, all you can do is laugh it off. Coleth says, that's madness.

[10:53] That is just sheer madness to look at a problem and just laugh at it. That's insanity. Laughter is the best medicine. Coleth says, ha, yeah, right.

[11:04] You can tell that to Chris Farley or Jim Belushi. Both of them were very funny, funny people.

[11:14] They loved to tell jokes. They loved to make people laugh. But all the jokes in the world couldn't cure the gnawing sense of frustration and despair that they felt.

[11:26] And so they both overdosed on drugs as they tried desperately to numb themselves to the realities of life. And it's to drugs that Coleth turns to next.

[11:39] Look at that verse in verse 3. I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly. My mind still guided me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

[11:52] So, laughter is foolish. It's madness. Maybe wine will help. Maybe wine will help. Now, some folks try to guard his dignity here and say he didn't get drunk.

[12:07] He still kept his wisdom. He wasn't fall down, throwing up, drunk. He just wanted the nice buzz. And to be honest, I don't know. It doesn't say.

[12:17] And it really doesn't matter how much wine he drank. Because this was his experiment. He's not doing something because it's good or bad. He wants to experiment and to see what makes life worth living.

[12:31] And remember, this is a performance to watch and not to be repeated. And so, maybe he wasn't getting drunk for getting drunk's sake. He was seeing if this was the way to go.

[12:42] And so he embraced folly. And maybe he only went for a happy little buzz. Or maybe he totally got drunk. Whatever the case is, the answer is still the same.

[12:54] What does pleasure accomplish? Nothing. It was still havel. See, you can't drink your way out of the vanity of life. You can't cure vanity with more vanity.

[13:07] You can't dig out of a hole by digging down. And that's what that is. And so, so much for every beer commercial that you've ever seen.

[13:19] And maybe that could go without saying for most of you. Probably could. But I would ask you young people to listen to Coaleth.

[13:30] Because you are going to go to school if you go to a big university. And you are going to see kids doing the most outrageous things. I've seen college kids lining up at a bar at 6 in the morning to drink themselves into oblivion on a Saturday.

[13:49] But they didn't drink themselves out of their problems. They didn't come up with some profound new way of living. At the end of the day, life was still there.

[14:04] So is there a place for wine? Later, Coaleth is going to say, Go eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart. For now, it is now that God favors what you do. Wine is not the answer.

[14:17] There is a place for it, but it's not the answer. And if I could add here, food is not the answer either. No physical stimulus is the answer. Many Christians don't drink.

[14:28] But instead of drinking and trying to numb themselves with wine, they anesthetize themselves with food. So you don't get drunk, but if you get depressed, you're at the cupboard eating yourself into happiness.

[14:41] And at the end of it, do you feel any better? No. You're just trading one panacea for another, and neither of them work. And so none of it eases the frustration of life.

[14:53] Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, it's still frustrating. And none of it can shake that horrible realization that's growing on Coaleth, that I'm trying to grab life, and it is falling between my fingertips, and it's escaping me.

[15:10] Well, so much for that. It doesn't work. Well, he turns from the sensuous, fleshly pleasures, and now he turns to the good life.

[15:24] He leaves the bar and the comedy club, and now he's going to strive for the good life. He's going to strive for the American dream, to have everything that you want and need.

[15:40] And this is a much more serious effort. He dismisses laughter and wine pretty much out of hand. He does it, and then it's obvious it doesn't work.

[15:51] But he's going to put some effort into this. Wine is for amateurs. The poorest man in America could try that. And Coaleth has the riches of Solomon.

[16:02] So remember, he was the king. And so in his day, there was no equal to his wealth. And how wealthy was he?

[16:14] 1 King 10 says this, Well, how rich was Solomon?

[16:41] How rich was he? Well, silver was worthless to him. There wasn't a single butter knife in his whole house that was made out of silver because it would have been out of place.

[16:56] And Coaleth had all that, and it wasn't enough. And so he decides to take it further. Question, or verse 4. I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself and planted vineyards, and I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.

[17:14] I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. So, just a big pile of money there, sitting there, that doesn't solve Havel.

[17:24] So maybe if I can put it to use, that will give me some of the satisfaction that I'm longing for. And so he undertakes great projects. He becomes a home builder. I used to have a fantasy about home building.

[17:38] And I would daydream that somehow I came into a vast fortune, which hasn't happened yet. And with that fortune, I would build this fantastic dream house in secret.

[17:52] And then, when it was all done, I would take my wife and say, Here, hon, this is for you. And it would be great, wouldn't it?

[18:02] Well, Kohleth didn't have to daydream, did he? If he wanted a house, he built a house. And he built it however he wanted.

[18:15] Solomon took seven years to build the temple. Do you know how many years he took to build his house? Fourteen.

[18:28] Fourteen years to build his palace. And he did things right. See, money was no obstacle to him. And so he did what he wanted. He had the house of his dreams.

[18:39] But, you know, there's more to life than a house. You have to have a house in the proper setting. And so he says, I planted vineyards. And maybe that was his side business.

[18:50] Maybe that's just, he liked that. That was his hobby. And so there he was. His house is in the middle of all his vineyards or whatever. And so that was his life. Row after row of vines cascading down the mountains.

[19:05] And it would have been beautiful. But there's more to do. He plants gardens and flourishing trees with springs watering them.

[19:16] And in the garden were fruit trees. And it was gorgeous. Now, some of you have nice gardens. Or you will in spring. They're not looking so hot now. You have nice gardens.

[19:30] And what you do is you get one of those magazines in the mail. And it has this beautiful picture of a garden. And you look at that picture and you say, that is good. I want to imitate that. And so you go out and you do what they show in the picture.

[19:44] Well, Kohath left, didn't look at magazines. He went straight. What he's going to copy isn't something out of a magazine. He went straight for the original garden.

[19:55] He wasn't going to recreate what other people do. He's going to recreate what God did. And so what he did was try to recreate the Garden of Eden.

[20:06] And that isn't clear in the English. But in the Hebrew, it's quite clear what he is up to. The words plant, fruit trees, garden, reservoirs to water, flourishing trees.

[20:20] All those words are found in Genesis' description of the Garden of Eden. And individually, you know, if it was just one word, it wouldn't mean anything. But he's just piling it on.

[20:32] And he's taking it straight from that, the Garden of Eden account. And so you know what Kohath is doing. He's saying, I can't get back to Eden. But you know what?

[20:43] I sure can try to bring Eden to me. And so that's what he did. And can you imagine it? It must have been great. You know, fruit trees and fountains and stone statues of those beautiful water fairies and beautiful row after beautiful row of fruit trees.

[21:06] And little streams running through the green grass with little wooden bridges that you could walk over. And the aroma must have been breathtaking. I don't know what kind of fruit he had.

[21:19] But imagine apples and oranges wafting through the air as you strolled across the little, the green lawn. And off to the side, you would see animals grazing because that's what a park is.

[21:32] You bring the animals in. And that's what Solomon, that's what Kohath did. And it was the good life. It was the good life. But it's not enough.

[21:44] He's built the finest house you can have. He's recreated Eden. But that's a lot of work, isn't it? You can't manage that all by yourself.

[21:55] So he buys slaves. Male and female slaves. He purchases them. And those slaves had children. Now, in Old Testament Hebrew slavery, you could have a slave for seven years.

[22:07] And then you had to set him free. But the children, if any children were born to that slave, those were yours for good. Those were your property. And so he has all these slaves that he's purchased and that are born into his family.

[22:23] And those slaves weren't treated poorly. They were just basically servants. And so Kohath had hundreds, probably thousands of servants to do everything for him.

[22:36] Now, think. Think about how good that would be. Kids, you would never have to clean your room again. Because someone else would do it for you.

[22:49] And moms, never have to do the dishes again. And you never have to do the laundry. And there's no more vacuuming. And there's no more hassle. And there's no more errands.

[23:01] There's no more running out of milk and having to go to the store at 10 at night or whatever your problem is. There's no more scrubbing floors. There's no more work. It would be the life.

[23:12] And think, dads. There's no boss. Because you're the boss. Right? And if your car, there's no more your car breaking down and you have to fix it in the middle of the night.

[23:23] You have servants to do it for you. And there's no more leaky faucets. And there's no more honeydew list. It would be the life. That's the point.

[23:35] And Colaleth goes on. Verse 8. I amassed silver and gold for myself and the treasure of kings and provinces. In other words, life was good.

[23:49] My assets were up. My liabilities were down. My liquid assets were through the roof. And my solid assets, my animals, they're growing too.

[24:00] I had silver. And I had gold. And remember, we talked about Solomon. He received every year 25 tons of gold. Well, I did a little math.

[24:12] And what that comes out to you today and what gold's worth, that would be $805 million every year was coming into him.

[24:24] And that isn't a bad return on your investment. Really. But it's more than gold and silver and your investments going well.

[24:36] He had the treasures of kings. And that means antiques and tapestries and fine automobiles and oriental rugs and beautiful houses and luxury goods. He had it all.

[24:47] He had everything that he could want. He says later that I didn't deny myself anything. I went to the mall. And if I wanted it, I bought it. And I did not think about it for a second. It was mine. And so things were good.

[25:01] Life was looking up. Coleth was working hard. He's playing hard. His IRAs are fully funded. His kids' college funds are maxed out. He has no mortgage. His stocks and bonds are growing.

[25:13] And he has gold and silver just in case the floor fell out of those. And life was good. But, you know, everyone knows. Even Hollywood pretends to know that, you know, life is more than silver and gold.

[25:29] Money helps, sure. But there has to be more to life than that. Everyone knows that. And so Woody Allen, he liked, right? He liked Louis Armstrong.

[25:41] And he liked Frank Sinatra. And he liked the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony. And Coleth is no different. And so now he dives into culture.

[25:55] And he says, I had men and women singers. And so he enjoyed the finest of the fine, musically speaking. Now, you young people, not me because I'm not there yet.

[26:11] You young people have a lot of musicians on your iPods. You probably have, I don't know how many, a lot. And so anytime you want to listen to them, what do you do? You click them up, you find them, and you listen to them.

[26:23] Well, Solomon had a different system. See, he didn't have the Beatles on his iPod. He had the Beatles in his bathroom. And, you know, if he's shaving and he says, hey, guys, hit it.

[26:35] They're sitting there hitting it. Hey, Jude, we're singing. And that would be good. I mean, that's totally out of the realm of our thinking. But that was what he did.

[26:46] That was his life. If he wanted music, they were there. Whoever he wanted, they were there. He could buy any man, any musician, any time. And they were his. And that would make life worth living, right?

[27:01] Sure, it has to. Well, there's one more area of pleasure that no good life is without. And that's the pleasures of sex. Yes. And Coleth says, I had a harem.

[27:14] He had all the women that he wanted to please him any time that he wanted. One person said that he made Hugh Hefner look like the junior varsity. Solomon, you know, he had 300 wives and 700 concubines.

[27:31] And yeah, a lot of them were just purely political marriages. But a lot of them were just for fun. And he had fun. So Coleth dove into the good life.

[27:44] He had everything. He recreated Eden. He enjoyed wine and women and beautiful houses. And his stock portfolio was doing great. And he had a life that any man would envy and long for.

[28:00] And at the end of verse 9, he sums it up. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. And in all this, my wisdom stayed with me.

[28:12] So he wants you to know that, remember, this is an experiment. He's testing to see what is good for a man to do.

[28:23] And he's testing his heart with pleasure. And so this isn't some mindless exercise. He's trying to answer the question that we started with. What makes life worth living?

[28:35] Well, what did he find in his experiment? Well, he found two things. Verse 10, he says, I denied myself nothing my eyes desired, and I refused my heart no pleasure.

[28:45] My heart took delight in my work. And this was the reward of all my labor. I did everything I could to bring pleasure to my life.

[28:56] And you know what I found? I did find delight in it. And so he found the reward for his work. He had worked hard, and so now he enjoyed it. He worked hard, and it was fun.

[29:09] He says, I really enjoyed it. It was a good time. We can't be so naive to think that it wouldn't be good. The point is, it was good.

[29:19] It was the life that any person in their wildest, wealthiest fantasies would try to get. And he said it was a good time. But that's not the question.

[29:31] He asks, what makes life worth living? Did he actually find his way out of the Havel?

[29:42] It's pleasure and fun and wealth. The answer to Havel. To this, what God has done in this world. This frustration that we feel.

[29:55] This confusion that we feel. The sense of my life is slipping away from me. And the things gone are gone. And I can't get them back. And I miss them. But there's nothing to do.

[30:06] And you know the answer. Was pleasure the way out? Verse 11. When I surveyed all that my hands had done. And what I had toiled to achieve.

[30:20] Everything was Havel. A chasing after the wind. Nothing was gained under the sun. And just like that, the balloon pops.

[30:31] And the bubble bursts. And everything blows away. See, it was a mist. It was a fantasy. All the laughter.

[30:44] And all the beauty. And all the wine. And all the women. It was a mirage. And when he opened his hands. He found that he was clutching.

[30:56] Nothing to hold on to. Nothing to truly. Satisfy. That longing that he had. He says nothing was gained under the sun.

[31:07] See, Coleth went looking for the good life. And he lived the good life. But in the end, the good life. Didn't make. Life. Worth. Living.

[31:19] It didn't. So what can we learn. From Coalesce Experiment. We can learn. That the American dream. Is exactly that.

[31:30] A dream. A fantasy. A mirage that promises ultimate fulfillment. And does not deliver. And so. We can learn.

[31:42] That every TV commercial. That you have ever seen. Is a lie. Every commercial says this. If you only had this.

[31:53] You would be happy. If you only had this. Your health problems would go away. So watch a Saturday morning commercial sometimes. And what will you see.

[32:03] If it's like on a place where they're showing cartoons. You're going to see. This kid riding his Hot Wheels tricycle. And he's ecstatic. As he goes around the driveway. And life is great.

[32:14] And with every picture. And every frame. The message is going out. This is where life is. If you had this. You would be satisfied. And we laugh at that.

[32:24] We say that's stupid. I mean obviously. Riding a tricycle. That's. That's not where life is. You got to be kidding me. Life isn't found in riding your Hot Wheels in your driveway.

[32:35] And you know that. Because you've tried it. Didn't you? And it didn't work. And. So kids. You're not going to be happier. Any happier. Your life isn't going to be substantially better.

[32:46] If you have that. Or you don't have it. See. Because what happens. Is this problem. You start out with a tricycle.

[32:58] And it's great. And then you notice your friend. He has a bicycle with training wheels. And wow. That's good. That's what I want. And so.

[33:09] You say. If I only had that. I would really go places. I would really have fun. Life. I would have life by the tail. I could go in the street then. And so. You leave your tricycle.

[33:20] And you get your bicycle with the training wheels. And you're riding it for a few days. And then you look at your big brother. Or whoever. And there he is. And he has his bicycle. And it doesn't have training wheels.

[33:31] And so you think. Wow. That is what I need to do. I need to get there. That's where it's at. And so. You get your bicycle. And. Man. You have life. You got it.

[33:42] It's what you want. And then pretty soon. Your friend gets a moped. And. You say.

[33:53] Man. If I just had a moped. Life. Would be good. I could really. Finally. Start living. And so. You get a moped. And your friend gets a car.

[34:04] And then your moped. It's just not so cool anymore. And you say. Only if I had a car. And so you work hard. Don't you? You save up your money.

[34:14] And you go. And you buy your car. And after a while. Your car is not looking so hot. The 1902. Pento. Isn't all that you thought it was going to be at the beginning. And so you need a better car.

[34:26] And then a better car. And then a better car. Now we as adults know that. That that commercial to that kid is a lie. That that tricycle. Is not going to satisfy them.

[34:38] But. I mean. We've tried that. We've been down that road. We're past that. You know. We've grown up. And we know that that commercial is a lie.

[34:49] But the commercial. For the Lexus. That's the truth. You know that. If I could just get out of this minivan. And into that Lexus.

[35:00] Then boy. I would really be finally happy. And we aren't any better. Than a kid begging his parents. For a Hot Wheels tricycle.

[35:11] Our tastes are more mature. But we're believing the same lie. And Koholath is standing. At the beginning of the road. And he's saying.

[35:22] Don't go that way. It's a dead end. There's nothing down there. That is going to satisfy you. The American dream. It's a lie.

[35:32] It's a lie. It's a lie. So will you believe him? Young people. Will you believe him? Or will you walk down the same dead end road.

[35:44] And find the same thing that he found. At the end of it. That it was all. Empty bubbles. It was nothing. Or. Are you going to do better than he did?

[35:57] Are you smarter than he is? Are you richer than he is? Can you recreate Eden? Well.

[36:10] Are you really going to succeed. Where Koholath failed? And parents. Are you chasing the wind? Are you teaching your children.

[36:23] Are you teaching your children. To chase the wind? Are you telling them. By the way that you live. That materialism. Commercialism. Getting the next newest. Best thing.

[36:33] Is the way to live. Or have you learned. The lesson that Koholath. Is teaching us. That the ultimate satisfaction. In our life. The things that we work for.

[36:43] Or. It can't be. The bottom line. On our savings account. Or our IRA account. Or something like that. It. It just can't be. Because he had it all.

[36:54] He had more money. Than we'll ever. Ever have. And he'll have. He had everything he wanted. And it didn't work. Well. The final lesson. Is this. If the good life.

[37:07] Is not the way. Out of Havel. Then everything. That we have heard. From our culture. Has been completely wrong. And that we need.

[37:18] A new. Way. We desperately. Need. Outside. Help. Because. Everything in our culture.

[37:29] Everything inside of us. Is saying. Do this. If you had this. You'll be happy. Do this. And you'll have it. And. He did. The best.

[37:39] That anyone can do. In this world. And at the end. He had nothing. And so. We need a better way. Than what he did. And so.

[37:50] Thank God. For Jesus Christ. Because. He saves us. From this. Addiction. To the American dream. He saves us.

[38:02] From it. So we don't have to. Keep living. And pursuing. A fantasy. And. Thank God. For Jesus. Because he died. To the curse. Of sin.

[38:13] And. So he was. The redeemer. That wealth. And pleasure. Never. Ever. Could be. And see. That's what so many people. Are trying to do.

[38:24] They're trying to save. Their lives. By gaining money. And gaining things. And. It's not the answer. But Jesus Christ is. See. No one can drive.

[38:36] The futility. Of life. The frustration. Of life. The curse. Of life. Away. You can't do it. With. No matter how much money. You have. And so.

[38:46] Do you see. The power. Of the cross. Because in six hours. Jesus did. What men.

[38:57] With all their wealth. And all their money. Were trying for six thousand years to do. And fail. And in six hours. He succeeded. And he gave us a place to stand.

[39:10] In this world that is frustrated. And dark. And so we can say. Thank God for Jesus. If we have him. We have a place to stand. But if you don't have him.

[39:21] You have no place. To stand. Are you walking. Down the dead end road. Or have you. Come to your senses. And started walking.

[39:32] Towards Jesus. Because. At the end of education. The myth of education. At the end of. The myth of. Commercialism. It's a dead end road.

[39:43] But Jesus is standing. At the. At the front. And saying. Come to me. And if you have me. Then. You'll have life. See Jesus is the way.

[39:55] Back to Eden. He's the way. Back. Home. The place that we're longing for. And so come to him. And he will save you. Let's pray.

[40:06] Heavenly Father. We. Thank you for the Lord Jesus.

[40:18] Our Savior. And our Redeemer. Thank you that he did what we could never do. And. He did what money never could do.

[40:28] He began. He began. He began. He began. To roll back. The curse. Of God. For our sin. By taking. That curse.

[40:39] Upon himself. And becoming. A sacrifice. To atone. For our sin. Thank you Father.

[40:50] That you are sending your son. And that one day. He will welcome us home. And. We will be at home with him. And then there will be no more crying. No more tears.

[41:00] There will be no more groaning. As we eagerly await. Our adoption as sons. It will all be over. And. We will have. The life.

[41:11] That we are longing for. And so. We do say. Come Lord Jesus. Will you help us to live wisely. In these days.

[41:21] Will you help us to live wisely. In this culture. That is shouting at us. To pursue wealth. And things. Help us to see. How futile they are. And will you help us to run.

[41:33]  To Jesus Christ. The only solid rock. We pray this in his name. Amen.