10-14-12 Sermon
straight talk about life and death Eccl 3 9-14
What does the worker
gain from his toil?(E) 10 I have seen the burden
God has laid on men.(F) 11 He has made everything
beautiful in its time.(G) He has also set eternity in the
hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom(H) what God has done from beginning to
end.(I) 12 I know that there is
nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That
everyone may eat and drink,(J) and find satisfaction(K) in all his toil—this is the gift of
God.(L) 14 I know that everything
God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from
it. God does it so that men will revere him.(M)
Need some volunteers
for the orchestra
The scripture says
To eat and drink and find
satisfaction in your work. This is a gift of God
How many people really
find satisfaction and joy in life?
We are asleep in this
life
Walking with our heads
down
We are exhausted
We have allowed ourselves
to be drug into parts of life that don’t matter
We have lost the party
We have lost the
celebration
We need to remind each
other that life is good.
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Most babies understand
that life is a celebration.
Everyone is
happy. Everything is
good.
There is a general trust
in the world
Yet it doesn’t take very
long and we grow out of that simple innocence.
Partly because of what
others do to us
We carry many Burdens upon
our backs
Woe to the Pharisees u put
them on others, but won’t carry them yrselves
Voices of authority that
hurt us
Voices that are still in
the back of our heads- years later
Partly we get hurt because
we take the messages in.
We take them in. we
allow these voices to hurt us
You can be in pain and
suffer, or you can be in pain and not suffer.
Monk found
enlightenment. Before enlightenment, I was depressed and I
suffered. After enlightenment, I am still depressed, but I no longer
suffer
Jesus said, don’t worry
about your life….
He talked about the birds
of the air and the Lilies of the field
We worry about so much
The dog and the rabbit.
One runs for fun the other
runs for its life.
Which does you life feel
like?
Awake thou that
sleepest
Eph 5:14 Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall
give thee light.
This is about more than
saying yes to Jesus.
Some Christians punch
their ticket for heaven
they believe but have no
joy - no celebration
We are missing a great
thing in this life
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Mom’s norman Rockwell
“lift up thine eyes”
We spend a lot of time in
this life looking at the wrong things
We focus on and invest in
things that will not satisfy
Cars, clothes and
stuff.
The one with the most toys
at the end wins.
When we focus on what we
want we are never happy.
When we focus on the good
parts of life, then we are whole.
Life is both work and
spirituality
I know that there is
nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.
God has placed eternity in
their hearts- we know that there is more
I was speaking at a
funeral recently, it was my job to talk about the person’s spiritual life. But as I listened to the family
and friends talk about the person’s personal life, I realized that their entire
life was spiritual.
So is yours.
Imagine asking Jesus –
“How’s your spiritual life?”
Its all spiritual.
The trick is to wake up and act like it.
To see life for what it is
What if you stop thinking
of yourself as tall or short, rich or poor. Wearing nice or cheap
clothes.
Nice car, old car.
You are not your house,
your clothes or even the people around you.
You are not them and you
are not defined by them unless you allow yourself to be
What if you think of
yourself right now as the sum total of the love that is in your life. Are you empty or are you
full?
When you think of the love
that you have, even if it is just a little bit. Doesn’t that make you
happy? When we think of the love in our hearts, doesn’t the rest of life
cease to be important?
People that are awake are
no longer trapped by everything that happens to them
They are no longer
dominated by the worries of life.
The Symphony
they see life as a
symphony. Every person, every part, is a beautiful layer of the music.
How do you know if you are
awake to life? How do you see yourself? How do you see others?
It is a difficult journey
that not everyone undertakes.
One writer describe his
struggle in terms of trying to make progress on the three most difficult things
The three most
difficult things for any human being
1.
Returning love
for hate
2.
Including the
excluded
3.
Admitting you
were wrong
See the world as god sees
the world and you begin to make progress really living.
When we are looking at
others in a human way, our eye is obstructed. Jesus said take the board
out of your eye.
When we stop trying to
look at others and things that we don’t like, and instead look at God, then we
can see as we should
Romans 8:28
28 And we know that in all
things God works for the good(BD) of those who love him
Ok god if I love you more,
the painful things will go away
Instead of
I trust you god. I
am going to stop resisting this thing, & see the good in it.
That is when we begin to
wake up. Circumstances don’t change. We chg
The sermon is straight
talk about life and death
Lets talk about the death
part for a moment
I witness so many fine
Christian people who are terrified of death
Why should we be?
Death is a natural part of
life.
Last time I looked every
one of us was going to die.
So why are we surprised
when it comes to those we love?
Everyone else can die but
not my family?
When we learn how to live,
we learn how to die.
Great people show us, not
just how to live, but also how to face death
They don’t just talk about
trusting god, they trust God
This is then how we come
to know how to die
When our hope is finally
no longer in things, but in god
Spirituality is not
attained by adding more things to our life
It is largely found by
removing the things that should not be there
When we stop loving that
which should not be exalted,
When we let god have his
rightful place, then the result is peace.
When we put no other gods
before him
There were many people
that Jesus could not help.
The same rain falls on
all, in some it produces thorns, in others, flowers
You will decide if your
life is filled with joy or worry.
you must seek this
awareness. No one else can do
it for you.
Either you will pursue it,
or you will not have it.
“Every man dies, not every
man really lives.” – Wm Wallace in Braveheart
May God bless you and fill
you on this journey w/the things that truly matter May you be filled with the
life that truly is life.
