The Lord’s Day Evening
October 3, 2021
“We’re Not of This World for Long”
Ecclesiastes 5-6
The Reverend Mr. Wiley P. Lowry III
If you would turn with me in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 5, you can find that on page 555 in the Bibles located in the pew in front of you.
As we come to this point in the book of Ecclesiastes, when I think about the book of Ecclesiastes, I think about some of my favorite childhood characters in movies and TV shows. Do you know who some of my favorite characters were? They were Eeyore and Oscar the Grouch, saying things like, “Oh well, I guess this will do.” Or, “That’s trash.” We think of Ecclesiastes that way sometimes. I looked down this morning at one of our sons and he was wearing the Grinch socks, so we are getting in the Christmas spirit at our house as you can tell. We think Ecclesiastes falls into that kind of category. We think Ecclesiastes is all about the vanity of life under the sun because the Preacher is brutally honest. He’s honest about the disappointments and the frustrations that come from living only for what this world can give, only for what this life can give in the days that we have of this life. And he says it’s vanity. It’s all vanity. It’s a striving after the wind. It’s an unhappy business that God has given to men.
But then, but then at the same time he is saying those things, he weaves this thread, this refrain through the book that is full of joy. He says it’s best to enjoy life and to eat and drink and rejoice in our work. What we thought was a book that is maybe pessimistic and bleak, is actually a book that is about joy. It’s about enjoying God’s gifts in the fear of the Lord. The Christian life is about that. Sometimes we think that the Christian life is to be all somber and serious and strict, and yet it’s actually about hope and about joy that transcends anything that we can imagine.
Eugene Peterson wrote in his book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, he said, “I know there are so-called Christians who never crack a smile and who can’t take a joke, and I suppose Presbyterians contribute their quota, but one of the delightful discoveries along the way of Christian discipleship is how much enjoyment there is, how much laughter you hear, how much sheer fun you find.” You know, that’s one of my favorite things about working on the staff of this church – is laughing together with my friends, sometimes even laughing at them – in Christian love, of course! But what Peterson is talking about – there’s one right there. What Peterson is talking about, what the book of Ecclesiastes is talking about, is the fruit of the Spirit. He’s talking about joy. Sometimes when you read the book of Ecclesiastes it sounds like he’s saying things that you’re not supposed to say in church. Or maybe he’s saying things in a way that we’re not used to hearing them. And what commentators say about this refrain that goes throughout the book, about enjoying life today, they call those the “carpe diem” passages in the book of Ecclesiastes. “Carpe diem” – seize the day. Enjoy God’s gifts as God’s gifts today, for the glory of God. And so we’ll see that tonight from Ecclesiastes 5 and 6.
Before we read, let’s ask God to bless the reading and study of His Word. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for Your Word. We give You thanks for showing us the way to joy, the source of joy, that You are the source of all joy and You bring us and draw us to Yourself through Your Word. All Scripture is breathed out by You and is useful for teaching and rebuking and correcting and training in righteousness that we may be fully equipped for every good work and that we might cultivate, by the fruit of the Spirit, a life of joy as we rest and trust in Jesus Christ. And so we pray that You would help us to see Jesus tonight. Work by Your Spirit with great power and bring joy into our lives. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Ecclesiastes chapter 5:
“Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words.
When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.
If you see in a province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and righteousness, do not be amazed at the matter, for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them. But this is gain for a land in every way: a king committed to cultivated fields.
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes? Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.
There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt, and those riches were lost in a bad venture. And he is father of a son, but he has nothing in his hand. As he came from his mother’s womb he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand. This also is a grievous evil: just as he came, so shall he go, and what gain is there to him who toils for the wind? Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness in much vexation and sickness and anger.
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 much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.
There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil. If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he. Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to the one place?
All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living? Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite: this also is vanity and a striving after wind.
Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he. The more words, the more vanity, and what is the advantage to man? For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
Glorify God and Enjoy Him
If you look back at chapter 5 verse 7 that we just read, it says that “God is the one you must fear.” And then going down a little bit further to verse 19, it says, “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.” So we see in these chapters that it starts with the fear of God, the glory of God, and then it moves into this idea of enjoying the gifts of God, enjoying God. What is the chief end of man? What is the chief purpose in this life for man and woman? It is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That’s the first question and answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. And we see that in these chapters but I think we can also say, from Ecclesiastes 5 and 6, is that they are teaching us that we can also say that man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him today; to glorify God and to enjoy Him now.
That actually, though, can be rather challenging. Can’t it? I mentioned last week that we live in an age of anxiety. It’s also been said that we live in an age of distraction. I can’t help but think that those two things go together, that in all of the distraction there comes all of the anxiety. But we live in this time of distractions. It’s easy to point out the ways in which our phones or our watches or our Alexas or whatever it may be, is constantly drawing and calling for our attention. Almost all of us are familiar with those conversations, aren’t we, where we’re talking with someone – maybe face to face, it could be sitting together at a dinner table – and you’re talking with them and they basically have an out of body experience because they’re still there, right, but they’ve gone somewhere else. Their attention is elsewhere and they are taking care of some matter or they are responding to some text. They’ll be back, they’ll come back at some point, but not at the moment. And when they come back they may say something like, “What were we talking about?” And we’re all familiar with that. For that moment, they were somewhere else.
And how often are we not distracted and distant to others because of the dings in our pockets or in our purses or because of the screens in front of our faces or the earbuds in our ears? How often, when we have any moment of downtime or when we’re waiting in line that we move toward disengagement and tuning out? And even when we are engaged in the moment, so often we do so by taking pictures or videos in order to share and to show to someone who is not there. I’m as guilty of those things as anyone else, of being distracted throughout the day at many different points in the day. And then there’s the busyness; not only distractions but busyness that’s always calling our attention to the next thing. They’re drawing our attention; they’re taking our minds away and they are leaving us exhausted. There’s distractions and there’s busyness. There’s work and there’s sports and there’s travel and there’s doctor’s appointments and on and on and on it goes.
But what are we missing with all of that activity? What enjoyment is slipping away right in front of us? That’s why I think one of the saddest songs is Harry Chapin’s song, “The Cat’s in the Cradle.” You probably know the song fairly well. He says, “My child arrived just the other day. He came to the world in the usual way, but there were planes to catch and bills to pay and he learned to walk while I was away. And he was talking before I knew it, and as he grew he’d say, ‘I’m going to be like you, Dad. You know I’m going to be just like you.’” And then the next two verses, they’re about the father not having time for the son, the son not having time for the father, and they say, “When are you coming home?” “I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then.” And then there’s that last verse. He says, “I’ve long since retired, my son has moved away. I called him up just the other day. I said, ‘I’d like to see you, if you don’t mind.’ He said, ‘I’d love to, Dad, if I can find the time. You see, my job’s a hassle, the kids have the flu, but it’s sure nice talking to you, Dad. It’s sure nice talking to you.’ And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me, he’d grown up just like me. My boy was just like me.”
See, there’s somewhere else, there’s someone else, there’s some time later that’s always calling us away. And I’ve heard it said before that we live oftentimes with a mentality, a “just as soon as” mentality. We think, “Just as soon as I graduate. Just as soon as I get married. Just as soon as I make enough money. Just as soon as I retire – then I’ll be content. Then I’ll be happy.” But what about now? What about the present moment? Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verse 18-20 says, “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.” It says, “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 also is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.” In other words, life is short. Enjoy it. Have fun. Make the most of God’s blessings. These verses are about joy in this life. In fact, The Message translation of the Bible translates verse 20 saying, “God deals out joy in the present, the now.” There’s good enjoyment to find today in food and in drink and even in our toil. And Ecclesiastes is saying to us, “Don’t miss that. Don’t miss the enjoyment that God has given to us today. Every day is a gift. Don’t forget about that.”
And this isn’t just an Ecclesiastes thing either. All throughout the Bible there is this celebration of the goodness of God and the goodness of God in His creation. You remember the refrain that we hear all throughout Genesis chapter 1 as God created the world. He said, “It was good. It was good. It was very good.” The first command in the Bible is actually a blessing. It’s, “Be fruitful and multiply.” God prospered Abraham. He gave the people of Israel an exceedingly good land. It was flowing with milk and honey. The psalm that we read, Psalm 34 verse 8, for our call to worship is, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” And then Jesus came, and what was Jesus doing? He was eating and He was drinking and He was enjoying fellowship at the table with other people. Paul, later in the New Testament, says to Timothy, “Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.” And later he says that, “God richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” And how does the Bible end? It ends with the culmination of all history. And what is it? It’s a banquet. It’s the wedding feast of the Lamb. There’s almost an embarrassment of riches, an abundance of God’s riches on display throughout the Scripture and on display all around us in the world around us.
And John Stott makes the comment in one of his commentaries that we tend to have a better doctrine of redemption than a doctrine of creation, but that we need to recognize and acknowledge and appreciate and to celebrate all of the gifts of our Creator. And what are those gifts? Stott says it’s the glory of the heavens and the earth, the mountains, the rivers, the seas, the forests, the flowers, the birds, the beasts, and the butterflies. And all of the intricate wonder that holds creation together and sustains it. There is the unique privileges and the dignity of our being human, being made in the image of God. There are the joys of gender, marriage, sex, children, parenthood, family life, extended family and friends. There is the rhythm of work and rest, of six days of labor and the Lord’s Day of worship. There’s the blessings of peace and freedom, justice, good government, food, drink, clothing, shelter, as well as our human creativity that’s expressed in music and literature, in painting and sculpture and drama and the skills and strength displayed in sport. What else would you add to that list? We could add many more things to the lists that demonstrate God’s goodness on display in the world around us. And what Stott says is that, “to receive them thankfully and to celebrate them joyfully, is to glorify God who richly gives us all things to enjoy.”
Now doesn’t that sound familiar? Does that sound similar to what David Strain preached a week ago on the Lord’s Prayer when he said that God made our bodies to enjoy all the riches of this life to His glory and praise? And that when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we are affirming the goodness of food and drink and bodily needs and every lawful pleasure that God gives us in this life. That’s what these verses are saying too. God made us to enjoy His creation. We were made to enjoy the life that He has given us to the praise of His goodness and glory. And yet all of our distractions, all of our busyness and our complaining and our withdrawing and our self-medicating and numbing and worry, all of our disengagement with the present moment is really an expression of ingratitude for God’s good gifts. It’s a failure to recognize the goodness of the One who gives us those gifts. Think about all the beatitudes in the Bible, all the times in which God says, “Blessed are,” “Happy is” – God wants to bless us. He wants us to enjoy and to experience the blessing of His goodness.
But isn’t that dangerous to say? Is that saying too much? What about suffering? What about worldliness and self-indulgence? What about the lusts of the flesh and the lust of eyes and the pride of life? Yes, sometimes God works His blessing through suffering and He brings about blessing more through pain than through pleasure. And that teaches us a dependence upon Him. It humbles us and it makes us let go of the things of this world to cling to Him more tightly.
God works through suffering, and yet there’s also something in which we can see in these verses, they have something to say about the dangers of idolatry as well; about the danger of loving the gifts more than loving the Giver. If you look back at verse 10 of chapter 5, it says, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.” Now that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That’s Paul telling Timothy in his letter that, “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” And you can see in this passage in chapter 5 as the writer is dealing with, he’s unfolding all of the challenges and the troubles that come with the love of money. He says in chapter 5 verse 11 that there comes increased demands and responsibilities. “When goods increase, they increase who eat them.” Then there’s sleeplessness and stomachaches. Verse 12, “Sweet is the sleep of the laborer, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.” There’s exposure to risk. Verse 13, “Riches kept by their owner to his hurt and those riches were lost in a bad venture.” We find that money and wealth is perishable and it’s transitory. Verse 16, “Naked as he came, and he shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand.” We were born with nothing and we die with nothing and all throughout our lives money tends to bring about worry, anxiety, impatience, aggravation. Look at verse 17, “Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness, in much vexation and sickness and anger.” Then when we get to chapter 6, it’s all about the vanity or the futility of having it all and yet not being able to enjoy it, never having enough to satisfy our appetites or desires.
There was a comedian years ago who had a bit about how parents are always saying, they’re always worried about their children ruining their appetite. And he says, “Who cares if you ruin your appetite? When you get to be an adult, you understand that even if you ruin your appetite, there’s another appetite coming right behind it. There’s no danger in running out of appetites.” He said, “I have millions of them! I ruin them whenever I want!” And Solomon is saying something similar about our appetites and desires, isn’t he? He’s saying all the toil, chapter 6 verse 7, “All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied.” Verse 9, “Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.” You see, that’s the tension of living in a fallen world. For all of the blessings that we have to enjoy in this life, there is really no end to the problems that come with the love of pleasure and money. And I think J.C. Ryle gets this simply and concisely better than anybody I’ve heard say it. This is what Ryle says. He says, “Truly, money is one of the most unsatisfying of possessions. There is trouble in getting it, there is anxiety in keeping it, there are temptations in the use of it, there is guilt in the abuse of it, there is sorrow in the losing of it, and there is perplexity in the disposing of it.”
How much have we not found that to be true? We ruin joy and we ruin the gift when we make the experience of the enjoyment or when we make the gift itself our chief focus and motivation; when we make those things our idols. The glory of God has to come first. The worship of the Creator, the worship of the Giver must be our dominant and controlling motivation and passion. That’s why chapter 5 verse 7 says, “God is the one you must fear.” You see, I think that’s one of the other misconceptions about the book of Ecclesiastes – that it’s describing a secular view of life that leaves God out of the equation until we get to the very end of chapter 12 and the conclusion of the whole matter. But really that’s not quite right, because yes, the Preacher is talking about life under the sun, and he’s talking about life in a fallen creation, but he can’t leave God out of it. He can’t get away from talking about God in his exploration of life under the sun.
In fact, he comes back again and again and again to show that the fear of God is the only way to live under the sun. The fear of God is the only way to enjoy anything in this life, in a world of vanity and frustration and disappointments. It’s the fear of God that is central and most important. We saw it maybe last week in chapter 3 verse 14. It said that, “God works everything so that people fear before Him.” And we’ll see next week in chapter 7 verse 18 that, “The one who fears God is delivered from the extremes of self-righteousness and wickedness.” And then in chapter 8 he says, “I know that it will be well with those who fear God.” And all of that, all of that talk and teaching about the fear of God comes before the conclusion of the matter that he comes to in chapter 12 when he says, “Fear God and keep His commandments.” See here, in chapter 5, Solomon is talking about how the fear of God, a reverence for God, is at the heart of worship. That’s what he’s talking about in verse 1. “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God.” What he’s saying is that we can’t approach God flippantly. We can’t say one thing and then do another or live in a way that is inconsistent with our profession. It’s foolish, he’s saying, to make vows that we have no intention to keep. It’s better, he’s saying, to be humble before God. It’s better to listen rather than being boastful or being a slick talker with the gift of gab. It’s better, he says, to be faithful in our commitment to God than to do our own thing and to seek our own desires.
And I’ve repeated before what Sandy Wilson has said about keeping our vows, the vows that we make before God. And if we were to prioritize our lives based on the vows that we make before God, particularly with vows of church membership and of marriage and of baptism, and if we make those things the most important parts of our life, then we are well on the way of living a life of wisdom and the fear of God. The fear of God is at the heart of wisdom. What is the beginning of wisdom? It’s the fear of the Lord. It’s the fear of God. It’s the worship of God. It’s the glory of God. That is the beginning and central point of all of wisdom. This is Bible 101. The first question of the catechism – “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” To glorify God and to enjoy Him now. That’s what these chapters are talking about, and it starts with the fear of God and it goes to the enjoyment of God’s creation. This is basic Christianity, and yet we can talk about this and wrestle with this and think about it and try to work it out in our lives to no end, and yet none of us will ever get it right. We will mess up all along the way in doing things for our own glory and enjoying the gift more than the Giver.
That’s why we need Jesus. That’s why we need to see Jesus and to receive His forgiveness and His righteousness that Tony was talking about in the children’s devotion. We need to see and to receive Jesus’ wisdom that comes to us through the Holy Spirit. We need to see Jesus as the wisdom of God in the flesh. Jesus is the one who glorified God and He enjoyed Him perfectly. What does the book of Hebrews tell us? It says that, “For the joy that was set before Him, Jesus endured the cross, He despised the shame, and He sat down at the right hand of God.” Jesus, who did everything perfectly for the glory of God, He pursued His own joy through sacrifice, through giving His life. He gave and sacrificed for the good of all those who trust in Him for salvation. His joy includes giving. It includes giving His life. It includes giving to His disciples all of the blessings of fellowship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit forever in the presence of God. It enjoys giving to His disciples, giving to us, all of the joys and blessings of creation, and not just this creation, but a renewed and a restored creation; the new heavens and the new earth, the new creation. That’s what Jesus has come to do on the cross by giving of Himself. See, as we look to Jesus, that should reshape and reorient all that we think about joy in our lives.
And it gives us a way to summarize. How do we deal with this tension of making God supreme and seeking His glory above anything else, and yet also enjoying the gifts that He has given to us? How do we avoid the errors of falling into ingratitude and neglect of His gifts or the error of idolatry and making His gifts supreme? I think there’s three things we can say as we come to a close. One, one is God’s glory. Two, is gratitude. And then three, is giving.
God’s Glory
One, God’s glory. We have to keep worship, we have to guard our steps as we enter the house of God, guard our worship as the ordering event of our entire week and of our entire lives. And then make worship the central point and focus of our entire lives. That everything we do is worship and all that we do in enjoying His goodness and His gifts and seeking joy is done in obedience and submission to His Word. The glory of God comes first and to the end as well.
Gratitude
And then there’s gratitude. We can acknowledge and make a list – “count them one by one, all the things that God has done.” Acknowledge and recount the goodness of God, the gifts that He has given to us right now in our lives. And resist that urge to complain. Fight the temptation for discontentment and live within the means that God has given to us. Don’t you find this to be the case – that oftentimes our temptation is to seek a lifestyle and then make our lives fit into that lifestyle. And we may think, “This is the lifestyle I want. What can I do, how can I make enough money to get to this lifestyle?” And maybe we think, “This is the retirement lifestyle that I want. What can I do to get there?” instead of thinking, “This is what God has given me today, right now. How can I enjoy that and make the most of what God has given to me?” Yes, we need to plan and live wisely for the future, but what has God given me today in order to enjoy His gifts and to have a lifestyle that is consistent with the provision that He has given us today. And then give Him thanks for that. Give Him thanks for every blessing. Give Him thanks in all circumstances. Give God thanks for today, because every day is a gift of God.
Giving
And then third, giving. These chapters are really about giving because it’s talking about the dangers of accumulation. And what’s the way to avoid or fight the danger of accumulation and the danger of making money central and of loving money? It’s to give it away. It’s to be generous with the gifts and the money that God has provided to us. It’s to sacrifice. Sacrifice for us as it was for Jesus is required for our joy. If you think about the good of the Church, the good of our marriages, the good of our neighbors, it requires our sacrifice – that we would give of our money, we would give of our time, we would give of our gifts, we would give up our rights for the sake of someone else. And when we see their joy experienced through that, all of our joy increases. The enjoyment expands as the group’s enjoyment expands. You think of that saying that, “A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved, and a joy shared is a joy doubled.” That’s not in the Bible, but it kind of is in the Bible. It’s because that’s what we do – we share one another’s sorrows and as we share joy and sacrifice for the good of others, that it expands our joy.
And what happens when we do that? It really goes back to the first thing – it brings glory back to God. As we give gratitude to God and as we give of ourselves for the good of others and for the glory of God, all glory goes back to God, which is our greatest joy. Our greatest joy is bringing glory to God’s name. A joy that is for today, a joy that is forever, and a joy that nothing can take away. Isn’t that what the hymn we sang, the last hymn we sang before the reading of the Scripture – “Father I Know that All My Life.” It says:
“Father I know that all my life is portioned out for me. The changes that are sure to come I do not fear to see. I ask Thee for a present mind content on pleasing Thee. I would not have a restless will that hurries to and fro, seeking for some great thing to do or secret thing to know. I would be treated as a child and guided where to go. I ask Thee for the daily strength to none that ask denied, a mind to blend with outward life while keeping at Thy side, content to fill a little space, if Thou be glorified. In service which Thy will appoints there are no bonds for me. My secret heart is taught the truth that makes Thy children free. A life of self-renouncing love is one of liberty.”
That’s what’s countercultural about the Christian life. That’s what’s countercultural about Gospel joy. That yes, we can enjoy God’s gifts and the pleasures that He gives to us today, but we can even experience joy in times of suffering and in sacrifice. That’s what brings us joy, an eternal joy, a joy that can never be taken away. That’s the goodness of God. Only God can give that kind of joy and He offers it to us, He gives it to us in Christ Jesus if we would just bend the knee to Him and turn from all of our self-seeking ways and trust in Jesus for salvation and live for His glory in all that we do – in the ways we enjoy God’s gifts, bringing glory to Him and gratitude to His name.
Glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Glorify God and enjoy Him now. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for Your goodness that You have poured out upon us abundantly. Your mercy overwhelms us. We are undeserving; we are unworthy. We are so often ungrateful and distracted. And so Father, we ask that You would work in our hearts to help us to see Your goodness again as You teach it to us in Your Word. Help us to see Your goodness to us in Christ, Your goodness in that in Christ we get You. We get the Giver and we get the Creator. We get our God and to enjoy Your presence forever. So we pray that You would fill us with joy and we pray it in Jesus’ name, amen.