The Conclusion

So the past few weeks we've been in this series, walking through the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is a wisdom book in your Old Testament. I'm just gonna tell you, if you have not been here, I hope you'll go online and watch and listen to the entire series because it will help you. This book of the Bible was written by Solomon. Solomon is considered next to Jesus. Jesus is the God man, he's God incarnate, he's unique. Solomon is considered, in the realm of a regular man, Jesus is unique, to be the wisest man that's ever lived. Solomon is the wealthiest man that's ever lived. He's accomplished more than any other man that's ever lived, probably experienced more pleasure than any man that's ever lived. Solomon was extremely blessed by God. And through all of this experience in his life, he writes as an old man the book of Ecclesiastes to help you and I to live wisely. And so today, we're in the final part of the book. If you brought your Bible, you can turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 12. He's talked about all these different things, and today he's going to give us the conclusion of the matter. Before we get into chapter 12, let me remind you of the verse for the series. This is Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse two. I hope that you will memorize this verse if you have not already.

I always share this verse of Scripture when I do funerals. Here's what the Bible says. It is better to go to a house of mourning. It's better to go to a funeral. It's better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting. For death is the destiny of everyone, and the living should take this to heart. Let me give you this for your notes. This is kind of the bottom line for Ecclesiastes. It's why we called this series what we've called it. Here's the bottom line of the book of Ecclesiastes. You ready? You will be dead soon, so live wisely. That's what the whole book's about. You'll be dead soon, so live wisely. This is your one and only life. This is not a dress rehearsal. This is not a warmup. This is it. What are you doing with your one and only life? Solomon says you wanna remember that you're gonna die, that you're gonna be dead soon. That's why it's better to go to a funeral than it is to a party because death is the destiny of everyone, and we should all take this to heart. You've got one life, and so what he's telling us in this book of the Bible is you and I wanna live backwards.

We wanna think about what people are gonna say at our funeral. We wanna ask ourselves what will our story be, and we wanna live backwards from that moment so that we make good choices and so that we live wisely. All of us are born, and all of us are gonna die, and right now, we are living out that little dash between those two dates. We've talked about this over the past few weeks. All of us have regrets. We've got all of these different things, and here's the beautiful part. No, we can't regain time, but we can redeem it, and that's what Ecclesiastes is about. Ecclesiastes is about how will you redeem the time that you have moving forward from this day until your last day. Let's take a look at the final chapter. Ecclesiastes chapter 12. He's talked about the various aspects of life, and now he's going to give us the conclusion. Ecclesiastes chapter 12, beginning in verse eight. Here's what he says. Meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher. Everything is meaningless. This was originally written in Hebrew, and the word meaningless there is hevel. Hevel means vapor or smoke. All through this book, he's talked about how we chase things to satisfy our souls, and it's like trying to grab vapor.

It's trying to grab smoke. In fact, he says our lives are like a vapor. We're here and gone, and there's so many things that we think are so important in this life, and he's reminding us, no, no, no, no, no. Meaningless, meaningless. There's so many things we're chasing, and it's like trying to grab smoke, and he's like, beware. Wise, don't be foolish. Verse nine, and by the way, when I read the next two verses, he's writing about himself, and so not a lot of humility here, but let's just keep this in mind, here's what he says. Not only talking about himself was the teacher wise, but he also imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. By the way, Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs in your Bible, there's 31 chapters, you can read a chapter for each day that matches that day of the month. I have done that for years. Proverbs is a great wisdom book. Solomon's not the only one who contributed to the book of Proverbs, but he's the primary author. So he wrote Ecclesiastes, he wrote Proverbs, he's like, I'm wise, I'm smart, this was for the good of the people. That kind of reminds me of Dwayne Johnson, The Rock,

you know, just for the people, right? He's just doing it for the people. I don't know why I said that, but Solomon says he's imparted wisdom to the people. You got Ecclesiastes, you got Proverbs, verse 10. The teacher searched to find just the right words and what he wrote was upright and true. He's like, everything that you have here, the wisdom that I've given you, it is solid. And friends, it is solid, it's in the Bible, it is wisdom for the ages. If you read the entire book of Ecclesiastes, he talks about three main categories of life, things that we all search and chase that are meaningless. I'm gonna give you the three, these are not in your notes, but you can jot them down to the side. The first thing that he says is meaningless is wealth. Wealth is meaningless, and I'm gonna compress these things for you. Why is wealth meaningless? He says wealth is meaningless because it cannot stop death. No matter how much money you make, no matter how much you accumulate, here's reality. You came into this world with nothing and you're gonna leave with, guess what? Nothing. He says you can spend your whole life just building it, just piling it away, right? Your net worth is massive, but you can't take it with you. And then he says, in fact,

not only can you not take it with you, you're probably gonna leave it to an idiot. He's like, people are gonna fight over it, and they're gonna be dumb with it, and they're gonna waste it. And so no matter how much you make, you can't take it with you, and then you're gonna leave it to people that are not as wise and smart as you, and they're just gonna blow it. They didn't work for it, they didn't earn it, and it's just gonna be like smoke. It's gonna fly away like an eagle. It's going to be gone. Wealth is meaningless. Here's what he's saying. What you think you own is really just on loan. Let me kind of take all of the Bible. What does that mean? What you think you own is really just on loan. Everything ultimately belongs to God. Even your very breath is borrowed. And one day the owner of all things will take it back, and you'll give an account for your life. Two big themes of Ecclesiastes, two big themes of the Bible. Okay, here it is, you ready? Salvation and stewardship. Just about every page of the Bible is about one of those two things,

salvation and stewardship. Okay, so really big book. The Bible gives us God's plan for salvation, the redemption of mankind. There's the fall, and then it's prophesied there'll be a savior, and then you've got God's people, and the savior's gonna come out of that line. And then Jesus shows up, and he dies on the cross to pay for all sin for all time. He rises again on the third day. 40 days later, he ascends to heaven. The Bible ends with he's gonna return, and he's gonna wipe out all evil for all time. All the planet will be redeemed, and everyone who is trusted in Jesus will be redeemed forevermore, and everything will be made perfect. That's God's full redemptive plan in Scripture. That's salvation. And so obviously, there are lots of pages of Scripture that cover salvation. If it's not covering salvation, here's what it's covering, stewardship. What's stewardship? Stewardship is about the principle that Solomon is trying to teach us, that wealth is meaningless. What you think you own is really just on loan. Everything that you have is just borrowed for a time.

A steward is somebody that manages something for the owner. A steward is a manager. So here's the point. The biblical principle is stewardship. God owns it all, and we're just managing in this life what he's given. to us during our time during our moment. What does that mean? You don't actually own anything. You're not going to take your house with you, your car with you, your jewelry with you. You're not going to take anything with you. You came into this world with nothing. You're going to leave with nothing. Let's go a little further. Your family doesn't belong to you. Husbands, your wife does not belong to you. I mean, in this life, in some way she does, but here's the deal. You're going to exit without her, or she's going to exit without you. If you die first, or when you die, all right, you will give an account to God for how you manage that relationship. She belongs to God. Your children don't belong to you. Ultimately, they belong to God. And if you're a parent, we will give an account as parents to God with how we loved and led the children that he gave to us. Everything is just on loan. Make sense? Salvation and stewardship. So life is about trusting Jesus and experiencing his redemption and managing life the way that God tells us to. Now Solomon is just talking about wealth, but the truth is everything falls into one of those two categories, salvation and stewardship. So Solomon says, look, you can spend your whole life chasing wealth, but it's like trying to grab smoke because you're going to leave it behind. Wealth is a vapor. And by the way, Solomon cares about money. And just, okay, let me just keep it real with you. Anybody who says they don't care about money, they're going to lie about other things too. All right? So in no way in Ecclesiastes is he saying that money is not important. It is important. You got to have it. And so work hard, do your best, build some wealth, you know, plan for the future when you're old and you can't work anymore, you know, build for retirement, all those kinds of things. All right. Let's be wise with money in the book of Proverbs. Okay. Cause Solomon wrote that too. I mentioned it a moment ago, 31 chapters. I've actually gone through the book of Proverbs and every

proverb about money. I just put a little dollar sign next to it. And it has really, really helped me in life. Money matters, but money is not the end all be all of life. Money is just a tool. That's it. That's it. This is why in the new Testament, in the book of Ephesians, it says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It doesn't say that money is evil. It says that the love of money is, is evil. Because if you love money, you'll just use people. What we're supposed to do is love people and use money. See the difference? So money's important. Money is a big deal, but in the end, obtaining wealth ultimately is meaningless. Cause no matter how much you have, you're still going to die. Have you guys heard about this guy in California that's convinced he's going to live forever? Have you guys seen this guy? I didn't want to say his name and I didn't want to, you know, but there's this guy that he's spending, I read an article on him, a million dollars a year, all kinds of vitamins. And he walks around outside with an umbrella. He's like doing all of this stuff. He looks kind of, he looks kind of weird, but he's convinced he's going to live a long, long time. Let me help you. That guy's going to die. He's going to die and he's not going to take anything with him. And this is what Solomon says. Ultimately, wealth can't keep you from dying. So the accumulation of wealth ultimately is, is meaningless. What you think you own is really just on loan. Second big category is Solomon says that success is meaningless. Why? Because accomplishments don't guarantee happiness. I looked this up. This is a quote from Jim Carrey. You know, the actor Jim Carrey. He was in the Truman Show, Bruce Almighty. Have you seen that movie? Yeah. And then the classic, my favorite, Dumb and Dumber. How great of a, that's just good cinema. Okay. Yeah. So Jim Carrey accomplished all these different things. There's this big story about how he wrote a check to himself for a million bucks, uh, for acting services. And he kept it in his wallet. Cause that was his dream. That was his vision, right? Well, he accomplished all of his goals. He did all the thing. He achieved his success. This is a Jim Carrey quote. Here's what he says. I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so that they can see that it's not the answer. What's Jim Carrey saying? Well, he's echoing whether he realizes it or not. Solomon. He's saying I've achieved everything I set out to achieve. And here I am going just hit meaningless, meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

and success cannot guarantee happiness. You know what drives us, most of us, to be successful? Is we're trying to prove our own worth. Now here's the thing, that's a two-sided coin. There's a side of that that's actually healthy, okay? So let's not go nuts here, let's use some common sense. There's a side of trying to achieve success that is actually healthy and good. We're all stewards, we're managing what God has given us. You have gifts and abilities. You have talents that were given to you by God, and here's what he wants you to do with those. He wants you to maximize them. He wants you to leverage those for the glory of God and the good of people. And so hard work and accomplishing things is part of what God wants for us in life. It's really, really good for our souls. One of the things that Solomon says in Ecclesiastes is that we're to find joy and satisfaction in our toil. In other words, it's good to be satisfied with a job well done. And so this is part of life, and this is good, and we're to work hard. Some of you, the reason you're miserable is because you're lazy, right? And you need to move out of your mom's basement, and you need to get a job, and you need to stop playing video games, and you need to become a man.

So all that's going on, okay, part of life is working hard and accomplishing things, and that's good. But here's Solomon's point. That's a good thing, but don't make it the ultimate thing. This is what he's saying. Don't make wealth the ultimate thing. Don't make success the ultimate thing. Because if you make success the ultimate thing, and you make that the idol of your life, you are making smoke and vapor what you worship. It's a good thing, don't make it an ultimate thing. Money's a good thing, don't make it an ultimate thing. Don't make it a little G God in your life that you live and die and breathe for. Keep these things in their proper place. And so work hard and become successful, but don't make it the end all be all of your life. Now I ask you, so how are you doing with that one? How much do you love money? And what are you sacrificing for it? Is it the end all be all of your life? How much do you love success? Has it become the ultimate thing in your life? Or you would sacrifice what really matters, devotion to God and love for others for it. What Solomon's trying to do is just keep us in check. If you make these things the ultimate thing, it's just meaningless, meaningless. It's a chasing after the wind.

It's vapor, it's smoke. Wealth, success, the third big category of meaninglessness in Ecclesiastes is pleasure. Pleasure, wealth cannot stop death. Success cannot guarantee happiness. And pleasure cannot remove emptiness. In fact, a pursuit of pleasure, especially sexual pleasure will just make you emptier. Pleasure, when Solomon talks about that, he talks about it in two categories, wine and women. So he's talking about you drink too much, you're wasting your life. Yes, wine is good going down. Solomon had vineyards, it's something that he enjoyed, but he's like, be careful with it. Moderation, treat it correctly. I'm just gonna be the pastor for a second. For all the women, be aware of mom wine culture. It's a thing people laugh about and tease about and all that. It'll also ruin your life and your health. It's not a sin to have wine. It is a sin to have too much wine. Be wise with those kinds of things. And men, this includes all of us too. I'm just calling mom wine culture out. But be careful with that. He's saying pleasure with wine, you wanna put that in its right place, it can ruin your life.

And for him, it was wine and women. But the other side, when he talks about women, he's talking about sexual pleasure. And Solomon had, Bible's real, okay, so I'm just gonna tell you. He had a bunch of wives. He had a bunch of concubines. He actually had a really massive harem, okay, of the most beautiful women that he gathered from all over the world. And Solomon says, all that does, that pursuit of pleasure, is it doesn't fulfill you, it actually makes you. you emptier. I was talking to a young man not too long ago, who his whole life for a while was about sexual exploits. I'm like, how did that work for you? He's like, I am so miserable. Because at the end of the day, it's an appetite that can never be fully satisfied. The Bible teaches that sexual sin is the only type of sin that actually damages your soul. Because sexual contact is more than just physical. Everybody always says, no, no, it's just physical. Come on, you know better than that. That's why if a woman is mugged and beat up, that's a bad thing. But if she's violated sexually, that's a horrible thing. One will like scar her body, the other will scar her soul for the rest of her life. There's something on a soul level that happens when we're with someone physically, sexually. It's on a deeper level. So Solomon says, we want to be careful with this. And we want to be wise with this. Because if that's what you're pursuing, it's not going to fulfill you. It's actually just going to make you emptier. And the Bible in different parts, as you read through the scripture says, it's actually really damaging to your soul. And so it's meaningless. So you can gain all the wealth in the world and you're still going to die. You can't take it with you. You can obtain all the success in the world and it still doesn't guarantee happiness. And you can go for pleasure in the pursuit of pleasure, but it'll still leave you empty, which is why he says, meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless.

And then he continues verse 11. He says, the words of the wise are like goads. What's that? Think like a cattle prod, or you can even think like a spurs on boots. I tend to wear boots on the weekend here, a spurs on your boots, you know, to kind of goad the horse and make it, make it go. The words of the wise are like goads. They're collected sayings like firmly embedded nails given by one shepherd. Okay. So here's, here's the shift. He's saying, remember these other things, these three big categories, wealth, success, pleasure. Ultimately, if you make them the ultimate thing, they are meaningless. Enjoy money, but don't make it an idol. Enjoy success, but don't make it an idol. Enjoy pleasure with your spouse. Enjoy pleasure of wine, but do it in the context of God's commands. That way you get some fulfillment from it and it doesn't cause you to be empty. You take these things out of their proper place, they will be meaningless. They will hurt you and harm you. And so then he shifts. What you want to do is you want to practice wisdom. And so he starts with selling us on wisdom. He says, wisdom here in your notes, corrects and protects wisdom, corrects and protects when he says it's a goad. What wisdom will do is it will move you in the right direction. It will cause you to go the right way. Everybody look at me here for a second. Wisdom will correct you. If God always thinks what you think, if God always feels how you feel about everything, you don't worship the real God and you're not practicing real wisdom. You're just worshiping an extension of yourself. God will correct you. God will convict you. God will help you in his wisdom get on the right path. You don't always need to feel good about God. Sometimes you need to feel some guilt and you need to feel some conviction. Don't stay there. God's not trying to shame you. He's trying to help you. But in that guilt and conviction, the goal is to change and repent and wisdom corrects us. You don't know everything. You're not ultimately wise, but wisdom is in the scriptures. Wisdom comes from God and wisdom helps us. So it corrects. It also protects. There's a bunch of things that you tell your kids for their protection and they don't understand it and they don't like it. But you're like, I'm older than you, right? I'm smarter than you. I know more than you just trust in my wisdom. This is what Solomon is saying. You want to hear from the wise. You want to listen to other people. One of the things that I like to teach is wise people learn from the stupidity of others. You want to look at people that are ahead of you in life. Did they pay a dumb tax about something because they made a foolish decision?

You want to learn from them so you don't have to pay the dumb tax through the foolish decision. Does this make sense? Please say, yeah, yes. Let's learn from each other. That's one of the beautiful things about the church. You and I can learn from each other. Like iron sharpening iron. We've all had different experiences. We're all about to have experiences other people have had. We can learn from one another and in that gain a heart of wisdom. Wisdom corrects and wisdom protects. And yes, that rhymes and you can feel free to use that. The other thing wisdom does, just to say it differently, is it guards and it guides. Wisdom guards and guides. I'd like you to write these two words down, okay? So here's how to hear from the Lord. You ready? I'm gonna give you a quick lesson on how to hear from God. Two words. And the words are word. That's one of the words is word. And the other word is wisdom. Word and wisdom. Okay, word, think Book of Acts in your New Testament. Wisdom, think Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. We've been in Ecclesiastes today and the past several weeks. Okay, word and wisdom.

This is how you wanna make decisions in your life. The Book of Acts, word. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will speak to you. If you're a follower of Jesus and you've put your faith in Him, His Spirit has moved into your life and the Holy Spirit will guide you. Everything that the Holy Spirit ever says to you will fall in line with what the Bible teaches. The more that you know the Word of God, the more that you will be able to identify the Word of the Spirit. The Spirit and the Word of God work together. Here at Sun Valley, we're a Word and Spirit church. A Bible church led by the Holy Spirit. Both things are working here in the way that we're guided. Okay, so sometimes the Holy Spirit will speak to you and guide you in your life and you wanna listen. Because the Bible, even though principally it addresses everything, it doesn't specifically address everything. Meaning you can't look a verse up that's gonna say, hey, Bob, take this job and not this one, right? But you can look at principles and you can ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. The Bible's not gonna tell you the person's name that you're supposed to marry. You've gotta ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in that. There's all these things

and you wanna practice biblical principles. But the Holy Spirit will speak to you Word. If you do not get a word from the Holy Spirit and you wanna hear from God, then you ask yourself the best question ever. Here's the best question. What is the wise thing to do? So if I didn't hear from God on it, what is the wise thing to do? Because all wisdom ultimately comes from God. So Holy Spirit speak to me. I don't know what the Holy Spirit's saying. I don't know if he's saying anything about this. Okay, then what is the wise thing to do? When you ask yourself what is the wise thing to do, you wanna talk to people who are ahead of you, who you know have some smarts and the fruit of their life is the type of fruit that you want. When you get advice, don't go to somebody that's blowing up their life. Don't go to somebody that everything around them is a mess. You wanna go to somebody that the fruit of their life looks solid. Now they're gonna have challenges and there's gonna be issues. We all live in a broken world. But friends, you know who has wisdom and who doesn't. So be careful who you listen to. And usually wise people will care more about your future

than they do your feelings. They will tell you the truth whether you like it or not. Because wisdom does what? It corrects and it protects. And so you need wise people to help you. So that's how you hear from God. Holy Spirit, do you have a word for me? Okay, whatever the Spirit says is gonna fall in accordance with the Scriptures. Okay, if you don't get a word from the Holy Spirit, then based on all the information I have, what is the wise thing to do? And just get help with that when the people around you are asking you that question. Wisdom, we're trying to live wisely. Wisdom corrects and protects. Verse 12, he continues to write here in the conclusion of the matter. He says, be warned, my son. He's talking about these wise words that he's written down. They're like a goad, they're like embedded nails. I didn't cover that. Nails mean they hold your life together. Nails mean they hold your life together. Nails mean they hold your life together. Nails mean they hold your life together. Okay, they keep you solid so your life doesn't fall apart. So wisdom's like that. It corrects, it protects. Verse 12, be warned, my son,

of anything in addition to them. Of making many books, there is no end, and much study wearies the body. What does that mean? Here in your notes, here's what it means. Wisdom is better than knowledge. Wisdom is better than knowledge. Wisdom is better than knowledge. Here's what wisdom is. Wisdom is not about what you know. Wisdom is about what you show. Wisdom is not about your IQ. Wisdom is about what you choose to do or not do. Wisdom is about your actions. There are a lot of high. intelligent fools. Have you ever met a really smart idiot? That's because wisdom and intelligence is two different things. Wisdom is how you live your life. Wisdom is knowing the right thing to do and then actually doing it. You're not wise until the follow through. It's knowing the right thing to do and then it's doing it. Wisdom is better than knowledge. Here's what Solomon just said. You can read all the books in the world. There's no end to that. There's no end to information.

Solomon wrote this, you know, quite a while ago, right? Now we live in the information age. You have all the knowledge of mankind at your fingertips. You don't even have to look it up anymore. You can just ask chat GPT to do it for you. But in the information age that we live in, there is very little wisdom. Wisdom is about knowing what God says and actually doing what God says. In fact, the gap of foolishness is the gap between knowing the right thing to do and then actually doing it. A bunch of us know what we're supposed to do, but we don't do it. The Bible calls that foolish. So wisdom is better than knowledge. Verse 13, let's wrap it up. He writes, now all has been heard and here is the conclusion of the matter. Okay, we've talked about the meaningless of things. We've looked at life. We've searched wisdom. He's like, here it is. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. Last thing about wisdom. What does wisdom do?

It always honors God. Okay, you wanna be wise? This is real simple. Okay, he was profound. It's philosophical. You know, he's written about all these things. He's thought through it. He's experienced all kinds of wealth and pleasure and success. And what did he learn from all these things? Here's what he learned. Life's about honoring God. How do you honor God? You just do what he says. That's it. That's it. Honoring God is as simple as your next step of obedience. What does God want you to do? Do that. What does God not want you to do? Stop doing that. Ta-da. That's it. All through Ecclesiastes, he talks about life under the sun. There's nothing new under the sun, but here's the beautiful thing. There's all kinds of beauty in the things above the sun. That's the point. Live for that which is above the sun.

Live for God. What does God say? What does it mean to honor him? Years ago, and I've told this story before, some of you have heard it, but years ago, I was driving down the road and I listened to this pastor regularly when I was in college. He was an African-American pastor and I was gonna imitate him, but my friend Ricky is here next weekend. And so I didn't wanna embarrass myself with Ricky, just in case you're wondering. Ricky's one of my best friends and yeah, he's black. So I didn't wanna do the black preacher thing when I have my black preacher friend coming next weekend. I'm just gonna keep it real with you. There it is, all right. Love Ricky. He's gonna be great. But I heard this African-American pastor and it was a service where college students were being honored. And so-and-so's graduating from this school and so-and-so's graduating from this school and you could hear the moans and groans of the congregation. My, my, my, yes, yes, yes. Thank you, Jesus. And this person, you know, they're going to Juilliard because they're really into art.

My, my, my, yes, yes, yes. Thank you, Jesus. And this person's going to MIT and they're gonna be an engineer. My, my, my, yes, yes, yes. Thank you, Jesus. And then the African-American pastor walks up on the stage and in my mind's eye, as I'm listening to the service, I can see these college students, right, just sitting on the front rows. And this pastor walks up. I'm gonna do the imitation just a little bit, all right, and then I'll calm down. But I can picture it. And he looks at them. I'm listening to it on the radio, but he looks at them and here's what he says. He says, children, children. He says, you're gonna die, you're gonna die. They're gonna take you, put you in a hole in the ground, throw dirt in your face, and then go back to the church and eat potato salad. That's perspective. Then he said this, I'll talk normally now. He said, when you were born, you're the only one who cried. Everybody else was happy. Then he said, but when you die, everybody else will be crying and you'll be the only one who's happy.

And then he said this, and here's what I want you to remember. He said, but the determining factor of whether you're happy or not is whether you live for these titles you've been given or whether you live for testimony. What's testimony? It's your life with God. Did you honor God? Did you live for God? He says, don't live for titles, live for testimony. And he did this run through scripture. He said, oh, there was Pharaoh. Pharaoh went up against Moses. Pharaoh had the title, but Moses had the testimony and David and Goliath. Goliath was the baddest man in town. Great title, but it was David who had the testimony. And he just went all the way through scripture. Don't live for titles, live for testimony. Let's finish with this. And then I want to pray for you, Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse two, it is better to go to a house of mourning and to a house of feasting for death is the destiny of everyone. And the living should take this to heart. Let's pray together. Holy spirit. Give us wisdom of this truth. Life is short. This is not a dress rehearsal. May we take it to heart and we practice wisdom, wisdom because it protects and corrects. And we choose to trust you and honor you and live for what matters most. Jesus, we pray and may we live lives of wisdom. May it be for the glory of Jesus and also for our good in his name. We pray in Jesus name, amen.