The Worlds Okayest Pastor
Faith. Life. Real Talk.
I’m a pastor with a deep passion for teaching God’s Word and helping people discover a meaningful relationship with Christ. But I’m also human—living in the same world you do, facing the same ups and downs.
This space is where faith meets everyday life. I don’t want to ignore the struggles we all face—whether spiritual, emotional, or practical. My hope is to walk alongside you, offering truth, grace, and guidance for both this life and the one to come.
Let’s grow together.
The Worlds Okayest Pastor
Walking Dead or Fully Alive: Choose Your Legacy
What happens when the world's wisest, wealthiest man concludes that everything is meaningless? In this profound exploration of Ecclesiastes chapter 4, we journey through Solomon's devastating despair to discover the surprising solution he stumbles upon.
Solomon—gifted with extraordinary intelligence by God—reached the pinnacle of success yet found himself utterly alone amidst his achievements. His words echo with disappointment and desperation as he declares "meaningless, meaningless, all is meaningless." But within this bleak assessment lies a powerful revelation about human connection and spiritual purpose.
The sermon unpacks Solomon's startling observation that "the dead who had already died are happier than the living who are still alive," revealing the existence of "walking dead"—those physically alive but spiritually asleep, going through life's motions without making ripples in the waters around them. Yet amidst this darkness, Solomon discovers a profound truth: "Two are better than one... and a cord of three strands is not easily broken."
This timeless wisdom applies directly to our modern struggles. When we lose sight of Christ's promised return, we risk falling into the same despair that plagued Solomon. Our Christian community serves as both support system and motivation—helping us up when we fall and inspiring us to live authentically for Christ every day, not just Sunday mornings.
The sermon culminates with a challenging question: What legacy are you writing on the pages of your life? Will future generations read stories of devoted service to Jesus, or of someone who merely chased worldly gain? Unlike Solomon in his darkest moments, we don't have to face life alone—we have both the Holy Spirit within us and a community of believers around us.
What will your final words be? Share this message with someone who needs to hear that their life has profound meaning when connected to Christ and His people.
Ecclesiastes, and you guys have heard Jason read through parts of this scripture and you heard me say, a couple of weeks ago, the start of this book of Ecclesiastes is meaningless, meaningless, all is meaningless. In the King James, it says something more like vanity, vanity, all is vanity. And what that is is Solomon expressing that he's been through life, he's lived all of his life, he's experienced all these things and he's come to the conclusion that they're all worthless, all meaningless. Now, these are the words of the smartest man who ever lived, right, I mean? God gifted him with tremendous intelligence and he thinks everything's meaningless. So, people of woeful intelligence like myself I don't know if I have a chance to figure out the meaning of life. However, this is how he chooses to start his book, as he's pouring his heart out onto the pages that people will see in his time, some of them, and most of them, generations after he's gone. This is be, this will be what they read of him, this will be how they understand the way the mind of solomon works. So it can't necessarily be a good thing, right? I mean, does it strike you as odd that the smartest man, the most successful man who ever lived, is complaining that everything's meaningless, everything's worthless, all efforts are in vain. This highly intelligent, highly motivated, highly successful, highly gifted man, this individual who has achieved every aspiration he's ever had and made every dream he's ever had come true, in fact indulged in every whim of his being, to be honest. And yet the words that he's sharing, the words that he's choosing to leave behind for people to see inside of him, are filled with disappointment, desperation, discouragement, depression and despair. So, in view of that, you might say well, this book's been a pretty big downer and parts of this book are a pretty big downer. But I think and Jason's going to continue this series next week He'll be in Ecclesiastes, chapter 5.
Speaker 1:We're going to be in Ecclesiastes, chapter 4 today, and a lot of people would look at this. I mean, listen, man, if there's ever been anybody in the history of the world who needed some therapy and a hug, it's this guy. Okay, this guy needed possibly even mood stabilizing drugs. I'm not sure, but I mean, he was down, as they used to say in the old west, lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut. So he he's.
Speaker 1:He's pretty far down there and he's pretty disgusted with what he's seen and what the world has shown him and what his life has shown him. And he says here in, in the very first verse of ecclesiastes four again, I looked and I saw the oppression that was taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they have no comforter. Power was on the side of their oppressors and they have no comforter. So not only is he looking at the people who are being oppressed and feeling they've got nothing, no way to cope and no one to comfort them, he's looking at the people who were the oppressors and saying they have nothing and no one to comfort them. So in his mind, looking at the world as he saw it lose, lose, everybody's losing.
Speaker 1:He returns to this under the sun statement 30 times in the book of Ecclesiastes. We've all heard part of that phrase. Right, you know? Nothing new under the sun, right? Okay, that's been in, that's been in in the vernacular of of Americans for a long, long time and in in foreign countries for a lot longer than that. Nothing new under the sun, right? And that's really what that's really like, the mantra of this piece of scripture.
Speaker 1:This entire book is fueled by that under the sun comment. It's almost like this droning chorus in the song of Solomon's life Nothing new under the sun, under the sun. Under the sun. He is just disgusted by everything the light touches, because he doesn't see any reason for hope. In the second and third verses it says there in chapter 4, and I declared that the dead who had already died are happier than the living who are still alive, but better than so. You might read that, and if you're reading along with us and you haven't studied ahead maybe this is the first time you're going through the book of Ecclesiastes you're, at this point in chapter 4, going oh man, I don't know if I can keep on going, right, I don't know if I can keep on reading. I'm not sure that I see the point, because at this particular juncture, solomon's not even sure that he sees the point of life. Solomon's not even sure that he sees the point of life. So what helps us to better understand what God is doing in our lives and for us, through the Son of God? Well, we're going to explore that a little bit today, but before we do that, let's pray.
Speaker 1:Heavenly Fathers, come in prayer this day. We thank you for the opportunity to meet here in your house. We thank you, lord, that we can come together, free of reprisal, to break open the word and to hear a message and to see all the good that your word has for us. I pray that you'll be with those who are here listening to the message, lord, that they'll hear exactly what you're dying for them to hear today. Be with me as I present this message. Help it not to be my words, but yours coming through. That will allow them to hear loud and clear what the vision is that you have for their life. Be with the many who are sick and in need of prayer. Be with those who have lost loved ones and comfort them in their time of need. Be with each of us in all that we do and keep us safe, both physically and spiritually. In this we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:So I want to draw your attention to something that Solomon wrote here. He says I declared that the dead who had already died are happier than the living. The dead who had already died are happier than the living. The dead who had already died were happier than the living. That seems to indicate that there are dead who are living right, and that's exactly the way I take it. It's the way I've always taken it. He's saying there are people out there who are walking dead, one of the most popular TV shows on television for what? Probably 10 years, right, not quite capturing the feeling that I'm going for. But the whole point is that we can mindlessly and senselessly go through things in our lives. We can sort of do it by memory. They call that going through the motions. Right, we can go through the motions and live our lives apparently being godly people, apparently being Christians, without ever making a ripple in the waters around us, and that would be the description of somebody who's spiritually dead.
Speaker 1:You may remember that a couple of weeks ago, and I was talking about, I was talking at communion time and I shared a scripture from 1 Corinthians, chapter 11, verses 24 and following. I didn't go all the way to the 30th verse, but the 30th verse of that run of scripture says it's talking. You know, paul is talking about the Lord's Supper and the way it was instituted and why it is used. And he talks about the, the lord's supper, and the way it was instituted and why it is used, and he talks about the importance of it, and he talks about the importance of examining yourself. And then he said eat of the bread, drink of the cup and examine yourself and show the lord, show the proof of the lord's sacrifice each time that you do it. And then he says some of you will eat and drink unworthily. And then then, down in the 30th verse, he says that is why so many among you are weak and sick and a number of you have fallen asleep. This is the same kind of sleep that Solomon is talking about.
Speaker 1:A thousand years ago, a thousand years prior to Paul writing those words, solomon was having the same realization. There are people in this world who are walking around in a fog, in a daze, asleep and spiritually dead. And he was remarking at this and he was noting. Generations later and a lot of people would read through the book of Ecclesiastes and would look at it as a cautionary tale, and I think it is a cautionary tale. It's a cautionary tale about being so smart and so motivated, so success-driven, so goal-oriented, that you speed off down through your life and you leave God behind you in the dust. Now we have seen many examples of that in our lifetime and all of us probably have known people personally who would exemplify that statement or epitomize that statement. We see people who have lost everything, chasing their own dreams. And actually what I think is kind of refreshing about the book of Ecclesiastes is that Solomon is saying basically here I am a man who's wasted every gift that God has given him, and so to me everything looks hopeless. So it is a cautionary tale.
Speaker 1:But I think another thing that's happening here is this is a journal. This is a journal as and if you read all the way through the book of ecclesiastes, I think you'll see this. You're, this is a journal and solomon is journaling his experience in coming back to God. Now we don't see necessarily in the scriptures a complete turnaround, a complete repentance, but you can tell from what you would read here in Ecclesiastes that Solomon not only is realizing his mistake, he's looking for a path back to being the kind of person God intended him to be. So, from this devastatingly low place that Solomon stumbles into, he's also stumbled upon a solution. Right, if you look in your Bibles in Ecclesiastes, chapter 4, you'll see that he's looking for a path back to being the kind of person God intended him to be. You're going to come upon, we're going to read down through all the way through oh, I'm going to say through the 12th verse and the key scripture that I'm going to talk with you about today is really the focal point of this scripture is verses 9 through 12. But we're going to read down through this because I want you to get a full sense of how the book lays out and what you're seeing take place here. We've already had 1, 2, and 3, so we're going to start there at 4.
Speaker 1:And it says and I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person's envy of another. This, too, is meaningless. The chasing after the wind and I'm reading from the NIV here, for, excuse me, fools fold their hands and ruin themselves. Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil. And chasing after the wind Again, I saw something meaningless. Under the sun. There was a man alone. He had neither a son nor a brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. For whom am I toiling, he asked, and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment? This, too is meaningless, a miserable business.
Speaker 1:So what he's describing for you there is he's seeing lots of people who have spent their lives in vain, just like he has, chasing dreams, chasing goals, and not necessarily having a purpose or feeling a sense of purpose for their life. He actually described. This is what he's describing as fools folding their hands and ruining themselves. He's talking about people who are envious of what other people have, and so they sit down in their chair and they fold their hands and they kick their feet up and say it's not worth trying. Okay, well, we all know that if you don't try, you're going to fail. We all know that if you don't move, you can't go forward.
Speaker 1:But what he's describing to you is the frustration of people who have looked around at everything that everybody else has and everything that the world has to offer and determined they can't get it with their best effort and therefore they're not going to try. Now I mean, can you guys, can you relate to that? You've seen people who've quit life. Okay, you've seen people who have given up. You yourself may have been driven to the point where you've given up a little bit. So that's what.
Speaker 1:That's what that's what is being described here by solomon in ecclesiastes, chapter 4. And then he talks about this man who is all alone, despite all of his toil, he's got great wealth and he's not satisfied and he has nothing and he has no enjoyment, and he says. He catched that by saying what a miserable business. Now, my version of the Bible has an exclamation point there. I don't know if yours does, but I think that's right, because he's saying what a miserable business. Okay, he's utterly disgusted, he's totally frustrated by the thought of this. So at the end of this or at the middle of this chapter, though, in the ninth or twelfth verses, he stumbles upon what the solution is.
Speaker 1:How many of you have ever accomplished something of relative greatness? You know, have ever accomplished something that you were able to look at and go man, I'm proud of myself for doing that. Anybody been through that. Anybody had an experience where that was okay. What made that experience great for you? Sharing it with other people, right, sharing it with other people.
Speaker 1:So what Solomon's realizing is that he and it was funny because my wife and I were talking about this passage a little bit and she said well, was he alone? Was Solomon alone? Solomon was not alone. Solomon had people everywhere. He had sons, he had multiple wives, he had concubines you think y'all know what those are hundreds of them. He had people all around him, but none of them were sharing in anything that he did that was of value. None of them were walking this journey of life with him, none of them were supporting him and none of them were cheering him on.
Speaker 1:So it's at this point that Solomon actually goes. Oh, wait, a second, I think I get it. So if you look at verse 9 in Ecclesiastes, chapter 4, it says two are better than one because they have found good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up, but pity anyone who falls down and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? In verse 12, you guys have heard this probably a million times. This is a big-time marriage counseling verse. Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves, for a cord of three strands is not easily broken.
Speaker 1:So what is it that Solomon discovered? Like all of a sudden, out of the blue here you got to have somebody sharing this journey with you, and even more than that, you've got to have somebody sharing this journey with you, and even more than that, you've got to have somebody that you can lean on whenever you're too weary to stand. Okay, that song that we did at communion time here has a line in it that says when I cannot stand, I'll fall on you. He's talking about when we can't physically stand. We're going to fall on the mercy and the love and the support of christ and we're going to lean on it for all right. That's what solomon is finding out here that if you don't have god to fall back on and his promises and his well-being and his blessings for your life, you got nothing. Now, by extension, you can surround yourself with godly people, and that gives you a group. That's what we're doing here, okay, so so really, what the?
Speaker 1:The picture that solomon is painting in ecclesiastes, chapter 4, would not allow for a gathering like this. We, we're all here today sharing a common interest, right? We love God, we want to serve God, we want to have a solid connection with Christ. We want to make sure we show that example to the world. In Solomon's world, he didn't see any way that that would exist. That's pretty pitiful when you think about the fact that he is the king of God's chosen people. But he doesn't see any remnant of it anywhere. And I'll tell you, the sad part is that he doesn't see any remnant of it anywhere because he failed. He failed to do exactly what he was supposed to do and follow in God's footsteps and see God's vision, and then he would have created this world that we live in, where we have this mighty abundance of support from not just our families, not just our friends, but our church families. And I've told you guys a lot of times before I've got, I've got blood relatives who I'm not as close to as people in this room. The DNA means nothing to me. What means the most to me is the bond that we have in Christ, what we share here together, working together.
Speaker 1:It was a beautiful experience last week. We were out in the afternoon praying over these schools, holding hands with people who love us, people who love us and are supporting us in our effort to pray for these schools, because they love the community that they're in and they love the people that are going to be there. They love these people unconditionally. Think about that. It's what we did last week, and praying over these schools and doing so on those locations, there were two things that were really important that were happening. One was we were bringing the presence of God to that location, and we know through the scripture that where two or three are gathered, god is there also. So we brought God onto that location and thus created holy ground. I had somebody ask me well, why is it so important to go to the school and pray? Because we want to pray on that ground. We want the presence of god to fill it up. We want to create not a sanctuary for learning, a sanctuary for the love and understanding that god brings with him, and the only way that that can happen is if we're there on site praying together, and I hope that you guys did.
Speaker 1:Experienced that, came away with a positive experience and I hope you had a good time with it. We didn't face any crazy stuff. That was good, it was a bonus. Didn't have to get a fight or anything like that. We're just able to pray and nobody really bothered us. We actually had at the one school we went to, we had people come and go who didn't even bother us. They didn't bother us to say hi, they didn't bother us to say what are you doing? They just came and went. It was like they were going. I don't want to get the Jesus on me. I got to tiptoe on past here and so they just kind of let us be, and so that was good. It was good.
Speaker 1:But I think it speaks to the power of god because, if you guys recall, you know, last week when this announcement was made, some people get had some pretty nasty things to say and it got some, got some negative publicity, but god took care of that, didn't he? We didn't have a single problem because god's taking care of us, because we're his and because we're out there doing things for him and promoting his name, his kingdom, so that that should be a lesson to you. But but the one thing that ecclesiastes is pointing out to us here in the fourth chapter, as solomon continues to walk through this progress or this process, is that you got to have people to share it with. You got to have people to help with the work. You got to have people to support you in every circumstance.
Speaker 1:Now, this is not really very much different than what Jesus did, right? I mean, jesus was preparing to leave the world and go back to heaven and be in his rightful place on the throne next to God, and he was giving instructions to his people. And in John, chapter 14, starting at the 14th verse, he says If you love me, keep my commandments and I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever the spirit of truth. See, I, I, I think it's remarkable actually that solomon missed this. Solomon's had all the same profit prophecy for hundreds of years that christ is coming. He's he's had all the same prophecy that everybody else's has, that there's a messiah coming.
Speaker 1:And you remember me telling you a couple of weeks ago or maybe this is last, I don't know, I've lost track uh, at the communion time, I, I feel like solomon took his eye off the ball. His desperation, his despair, his discouragement, it was a product of losing sight of the big picture, and that was. He. Did not continue to look for the messiah to show up. And I have news for you we're as guilty because we've stopped looking for the messiah to return. We should be living every day like jesus is coming back in the moment, but we don't't. Why don't we? Because in our minds, the human part of us is saying, ah, that's not going to happen right now. I got some time. That's not going to happen. You don't know when it's going to happen. So you got to live your life every day like he's coming back. But it's that sense of urgency that you create in looking for Christ to return is the same sense of urgency that you create in looking for Christ to return is the same sense of urgency that Solomon needed in looking for Christ to arrive. He looked around. It says he looked around and he saw no comforter. Right, that's because the comforter wasn't there yet.
Speaker 1:Solomon needed to stay the course. Solomon needed to be the guy out there pounding the drum and saying Jesus is coming, life is going to get better. He needed you know. Listen, man, I can tell you right now, if you're in any kind of ministry, you've had to pump yourself up from time to time. You can do it, man. Keep it going. One more day, one more message, one more song. You're good. One more message, one more song. You're good. You're good, you got this. You can make it happen, because there's not enough to carry you sometimes and you have to lean on the Holy Spirit to carry you through that and remind yourself that you are working a plan that God has given you. You are seeing through a vision that he has given you and you just have to keep on going. The reason there was only despair and discouragement and disappointment for Solomon is he forgot that. He didn't know what he was living for anymore. He didn't know what he was supposed to be doing. He'd not only forgotten what his ministry was, he forgot what the prophecy was, and he was filled with despair because he could not see an end in sight to the terrible things that were happening.
Speaker 1:When I look at the book of Ecclesiastes kind of reminds me how many of you have seen Forrest Gump? All right, you've all seen Forrest Gump, right. And he's on this great run across the country both sides and back, up and down and back, and he finally gets done. He's just done running, he stops and he's got this whole crowd of people behind him and they're waiting to hear what he says. He turns around and he says I think I'll go home now. I'm kind of tired, and he just walks off and he leaves these people standing here, these people who thought they were following something important. They thought he was going to have something important to say and he was just like I'm tired. And that's really kind of how this book of Ecclesiastes reads, until you start studying deeper into it and you see this cathartic journey that he's on right. Cathartic means like a journey of discovery, just in case you don't use that word all the time. In the hillbilly country where I'm at, that word would be a problem. But anyway, I think you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:But it's this importance of working together In Solomon's case, in Solomon's time, the importance of working together with an eye on the arrival of Christ. In our case, it's working together, loving one another and loving people around us with an eye on the return of Jesus. Now, how important is it to have people around you that support you and help you. You know, here in the fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes, here in the fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes sorry, my screen disappeared here in the fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes, the way that Solomon describes it is in verse 10, if either of them falls down, one can help the other. Okay, so what do we have for this great group of believers? We have help, we have assistance. We have support whether it's through prayer or physical assistance. We have that in christ. And you know what people out I've met? People in the world who have the same outlook as solomon utter hope and despair, orter lack of hope, complete despair, complete discouragement, because they can't see the value of life or anything in it. We're the ones that are bringing the promise of Christ to their life if we live our life right and we've got all these people here who are willing to help us with it. When you think about the importance of having people around you, sometimes the importance of having other people around you is they make you better. Sometimes I'm not good enough to be good on my own, even with God's help, but the proper motivation at times is not wanting to disappoint the people who love me and the people who support me, not wanting to disappoint the people who love me and the people who support me. Okay, so those people being around me provide a very important and very real motivation to be what God has intended me to be.
Speaker 1:When you think about the account of Noah in the book of Genesis, okay, I want you to think about something. Noah is described as a righteous man. Okay, god looking down and seeing this one righteous man, noah, he calls him to build an ark and he's going to make a way of escape for Noah and his family. Now, do you read anything in the Scripture that says that Noah's wife and Noah's kids and their wives were good people? No, in fact, you see parts of that account where they were not very good to Noah, but yet they were saved Just because God needed to populate the earth? I don't think so. God did it once. He could have done it again. Okay, they were saved because Noah was righteous.
Speaker 1:You have that same ability to impact other people by being a righteous person who shines a light for Jesus. They may ask you what is the reason for the hope that lies within you, and you can tell them praise God, it's Jesus Christ. Right, so you can take a group of godless people that could be outnumbering a group of Christian people, and those Christian people could have a huge effect on those godless individuals, right? Imagine what you could do if you kept on growing that group of Christian people until it was so large that it rivaled the people who were godless. You know we got. About 30 percent of people in the world right now are christ-believing people. That's a small number. That means you got to stand up tall if you want to stick out. You got to shine your light if you want people to see it.
Speaker 1:It's not going to do for you to be a part-time Christian. You know what do they say Saturday night saints, sunday morning, or Saturday night sinners, sunday morning saints. There's no room for that. Your Christianity better be on display every minute of every day. You know why? Because God called you to be that way. Doesn't mean you won't fall, doesn't mean you won't fail, doesn't mean you won't stumble, but we're all going to be here to help and support you, and the Holy Spirit indwelling you is going to continue to convict you when you're wrong, so you get right back up on the right path and you start shining that light again. But if you just drop your torch and take off, you're never going to shine a light for anybody. It's just going to be darkness and you're going to create this world that Solomon was writing about.
Speaker 1:So the question really becomes if you were to look at the book of Ecclesiastes in total and say you know, this is the word left behind by Solomon to tell you about his life and his times, I mean, what kind of message does it send? It's a meandering message. There doesn't feel like a lot of hope. He acts like hope's a four-letter word and I'll wait for you to get that. There's not a lot of room for hope in what he's sharing, right, because he's he's so beaten down. So what kind of legacy do you want to leave? What are you writing on the pages of your life that people around you are going to read now and later and forever. Do you want to be that person that's here and gone and made no difference? Or do you want to be that person who's here and makes a difference in the lives of the people that they come in contact with and it just ripples out as far as it can possibly go? That's what I would want to be, you know again, go back to Forrest Gump. He goes into the jungle and he saves his best friend, bubba, and he brings him out and Bubba's dying and he don't know it. But he says hey, bubba. And then later on he says if I'd have known it was going to be the last time I was going to talk to him. I thought of something better to say Don't be that guy. You don't know what. What opportunity to share jesus with people is going to be your last one. So make it worth something, and the only way that you can do that is by living for jesus every day. It's a funny thing that happened.
Speaker 1:In 1994. Billy joel recorded what he said would be his last studio album of pop music, and it has, to this point, been his last studio album of pop music. He put a song on there to close that record that was entitled Famous Last Words and the song talks about these are the last words I have to say, meaning I'm done. This is it. This is the last you're getting from me. We're packing it up. Meaning I'm done. This is it. This is the last you're getting from me, we're packing it up.
Speaker 1:And that proved to be true until somebody called him in the wake of the September 11th attacks and what he thought he thought he was done. He was not performing. I want you guys to understand. From 1994 to 2001, he did nothing but live his life. But in 2001, in the wake of the September 11th attacks, they called him and asked him to be part of a benefit concert. He went into the show planning to play a couple of songs and he wound up playing for like half an hour. Here's what happened. He discovered that he loved it. He discovered that it sounded pretty good and, more importantly, he got to the point where he thought the music he was making was meaningless. But he looked out on that crowd in 2001 and realized he could still move people.
Speaker 1:That's the power of making sure that you put yourself in front of people and bring your message. You know what. Some people are probably tired of hearing you. I know people are tired of hearing me, but some people aren't. Some people need to hear every word that's fallen out of your mouth, because it might be what's convincing them to continue the struggle. They might be what's convincing them to look for something better than this world has given them, and the only way they're going to find that is through jesus christ, and hopefully they find that through the example that you give them. So what are your final words? You know what are?
Speaker 1:The Jason's going to come back and talk more about the book of Ecclesiastes. He's going to really put a cap on this, but I want to beg you at this moment to think about what your final words to the world are going to be. What impression are you leaving with people for the generations to come? What sentences are they going to read about your life, whether it's family, christian family, complete strangers? Is the story of your life going to speak of decades of devoted service to Jesus and somebody that had a chance to share Jesus at every opportunity and did it? Or is your legacy going to be that of someone who chased worldly gain and gave up on serving Jesus at all.
Speaker 1:Or perhaps maybe even worse, you're putting in your time. Maybe you're just putting in your time and you think, well, I'll go to church on Sunday because I've got nothing better to do, and you're just putting in your time and thinking, well, I'm good enough, jesus will bring me back. But what message is that sending to the people around you, even if you think you've got your ticket punched? What message is that sending to the people around you, even if you think you've got your ticket punched? What message is that sending to the people around you? That it doesn't matter, that you don't care? God has a specific plan for your life and if you don't work to embrace it, see it and understand it and live it, execute it, then your time on earth will be wasted.
Speaker 1:So don't be like Solomon was and later in your years, looking back and going, wow, I've wasted everything God has given me. Be that person who continues to invest in yourself and invest in other people. Okay, I mean you look over here. Invest, build, multiply. It's not a mistake. We invest in other people. Okay, we build this community of christ together and it multiplies. So, honestly, I don't think you know solomon.
Speaker 1:In these passages he feels alone. But he's not alone and he needs to start embracing god, and that's what he's starting to find out. But what he's describing in a lot of ways can speak to us right, we've all been there. We've been down, depressed, disappointed, but don't let the world keep you there. Get back up. That song we sang this morning to start up rise up. You gotta rise up. God's got a plan for you. You just got to stay the course and make sure that you follow it through.
Speaker 1:There was, uh, in 1830. There's a guy named george wilson sitting on death row. He had been put there because he had killed a government employee while he's robbing a train, and he had people who loved him around him who, uh, were just trying to save his life. They weren't trying to get him out of prison, he's trying to save his life. And so they wrote every politician you could think of has finally got the attention of the president, andrew jackson, and andrew jackson wrote the man a pardon. He wrote the pardon you could think of has finally got the attention of the president, andrew Jackson, and Andrew Jackson wrote the man a pardon. He wrote the pardon, sent the letter to the jailhouse and George Wilson read the letter and refused the pardon, actually caused like a major court case.
Speaker 1:They fought this out in Supreme Court Can a pardon be refused? And so they come down to the end of it all and said, yeah, you can refuse a pardon. Now that seems unfathomable, right? Who? Who the who was who being pardoned would refuse a pardon. But this guy didn't want the pardon. He believed that he was in the right place because he had done what he done, what he'd done, so he refused the pardon. So what, ultimately, did that letter prove to be just a worthless piece of paper. Okay, and because he didn't cash it in for the new life that he could have. You're sitting out there today. You might be in a worthless life, you might might be living in a worthless way, you might not be a benefit to anybody, but you can change all that because Christ is offering you a pardon today. Don't refuse it. This is your opportunity to find the repentance that you need to find, to find a friend in Jesus that you need to have so that your life can.