If you turn please to the Old Testament to the book of Ecclesiastes, we're about to finish our study in Solomon's memoirs. We have tonight, and next Sunday night, and we'll be done. So we'll be in chapter 11 tonight. As Solomon talks about taking the long view of life, that's what he's doing in this book of Ecclesiastes. It is a memoir. He is talking about his experience as a king, as a husband and father, as a citizen of the heavenly realm, and as a follower of God, a believer. He talks about how he kind of was wayward, and went away from the Lord in his youth, and how he came back in his old age. So you should have noticed, there is a definite move from pessimism and anxiety, and even latent anger to a more positive wise and settled approach to life into God as you progress through this book. If you're talking here about what happens at the end of life, and one of my favorite movies is kind of a whimsical science fiction movie called Bicentennial Man, probably very few people have seen it. It's a film that came out in 1999. It's written by Isaac Ashmav and Robert Silverberg, the first had it in a small novella called The Positronic Man, that was later turned into a novel called The Bicentennial Man. It's about an android, a robot, who was built in 2005 to perform basic household duties. In other words, he's a robotic butler. He cooks, he cleans, he does the laundry, and so forth. He's purchased by the Martin family, and when he's delivered on the day of his birth, the little girl named Amanda asked what's his name, and he simply gives his name as android in a certain number. So she doesn't understand that, and she calls him Andrew, and that becomes his name, Andrew Martin, as part of the family. Andrew is amazingly misprogrammed. He's part of the NDR series of domestic robots, and those built before 2005 had a computer chip in it that was bad. In the sense that Andrew can reason, he can perceive emotions and reciprocate in kind. When Richard Martin, the father decides to take him back and having reprogrammed, he realizes that he'll really be junked, and a new android will begin into them, and so they decide to keep Andrew. And Richard begins to invest in him. He finds an amazing level of creativity, learning skills, unbounded curiosity, and a longing to be helpful. Andrew is programmed to respond whenever you say thankful, he is programmed to say, one is glad to be of service. But Andrew begins to say that even when he shouldn't. Because Andrew has the capacity to help, to love and care for people, and to want to be loved and returned. So over time, as he learns, and he reads books, and as he practices his creativity, and as he makes his own income, Richard stockpiles the money away, and finally, Andrew comes to him one day and asks if he can be free. If he can take his money and leave, and pursue a life on his own, and so he is begrudgingly granted that privilege by the family who's come to appreciate him greatly, and he goes out and he finds a scientist, the son of a man who invented these robots named Rupert Burns, who is able to slowly but surely make him more human-like through improvements over the decades, and was altered until it becomes human-like. And eventually he falls in love, and then marries in his own ceremony, the granddaughter of the little girl he grew up with, young lady named Portia. In the year 2120, he applies to the world congress to be granted the status of human being. Because he has created and found and discovered a lot of medical procedures that have prolonged life, he even finds and discovers a cure for cancer. But the world congress decides that he cannot be granted the status of human being because he cannot die. Then Andrew asks Rupert if he will inject blood into his system, and Rupert warns him that when he does, his constructed organs will begin to deteriorate. He will cease to function eventually, in other words he will die. But Andrew chooses to do that because he says dying is part of being human, it is part of the experience of humanity. So in 205 Andrew and Portia who's been kept going and living much longer than her natural years through his medical improvements and scientific knowledge, choose to let their life expire on the same day. As the lay in the hospital before a large television screen, the new president of the world congress announces that not only has Andrew officially achieved the status of human being, but they have validated his marriage to Portia. And the speaker of the world congress says, assigned from Methuselah and other biblical figures, Andrew is the oldest human being in history at the age of 200. He has become, she says, the bicentennial man. What was unique about this movie is that Andrew was never afraid to take risks, to get hurt in order to experience all the aspects of human life. He even spires other NDR series robots, like a little female robot named Galatia to explore their potential and to become human. As Andrew expires, Portia his wife asks the nurse Galatia to administer the lethal injection that will end her life. Portia whispers to him, see you soon, and then she grabs his hand, looks at the nurse and says, thank you. And the nurse responds, as the great Andrew Martin always used to say, one is glad to be of service. This film explores the themes of humanity, what it means to be a human being of service, of slavery, of prejudice, of maturity and love, of sex and marriage, of family and friends, of conformity and mortality, intellectual freedom and most of all what it means to be human, which is amazingly like the subject matter of Solomon's ecclesiasties. Now conservative Christians won't like that movie because they'll say it's impossible for a robot to be human, of course we know that's true. Now look at me, it's just science fiction. Whereas my grandchildren said, pamphol, it's just tending. That means pretending. It's not a serious movie, but it has a serious message that the essence of life is not in playing it safe, but in taking the risk to love people and to serve people and to give oneself for the benefit of others. The theme song was written by Will Jennings and James Horner. It's called, then you look at me and it's performed by Celine Dion. Listen to the words, laugh and cry, live and die, life is a dream we are dreaming. Day by day I find my way looking for song in the meaning. When you look at me and I always see what I have been searching for, I'm lost as can be, then you look at me and I'm not lost anymore. People run sun to sun, caught in their lives ever flowing. Once begun life goes on till it's gone and we have to go where it's going. You say you see when you look at me the reason you loved life so though lost I have been, I found love again and life just keeps on running and life just keeps on running. You look at me and life comes from you. I think we could take those words and impose them over the message of Ecclesiastes and that is what Solomon is saying. We laugh, we cry, we live, we die, life is a dream we are dreaming. People run sun to sun, caught in their lives ever flowing. Once it's begun life goes on till it's done and we have to go where it's going. Then God looks at us and we begin to see why He loves us so. We were lost as could be but God looked at you and me and we're not lost anymore. Solomon as a young man was lost. There was a man who was a prodigal son with a capital P, it was Solomon, lost as a man could be. But by the end of his life God had looked upon him with favor. For no other reason than his elective and sovereign mercies, God had saved this young man and imparted to him a great deal of wisdom which he inculcates in his writings. Even his memoirs of life called Ecclesiastes and he tells us what life is really all about. Solomon is telling us in his memoirs that life is the greatest adventure in all of the universe, the journey through space and time, into eternity. With God and others made in his image, the living of life, he says, takes great courage, relentless hope, it needs the deep love of other people and an enduring faith. Solomon has learned these things, courage, and hope, and love and faith the hard way as he lived life and as he writes about these things, he comes in chapters 11 and 12 to what he calls the end of the matter. He's talking about how a person should think, should feel, and should live when they become an old man. Derrick Kiddner comments, the pace quickens now in chapter 11, but the scene is unaltered. It is the same deep shadows and occasional highlights as before, but now we look at it with resolve rather than wistfully. We know the worst and so much the better. We can strike out in the right direction, three separate thrusts put us on the way toward the end of the matter. We can summarize them in three headings, the three headings we choose here. Be bold, be joyful, be godly. Look at chapter 11, verse 1, where Solomon says that in life we should be bold. Cast your bed upon the waters for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven or to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on the earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, and the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. He who observes the wind will not so, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know the way of the spirit, how it comes to the bones and the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning so your seed, in the evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good. So be bold, take a risk, and also he says be joyful. In verse 7, light is sweet and a displezzant for the eyes to see the sun, so if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all, but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many, all that comes is vanity, rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart show you in the days of your youth, walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment, remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. And finally, next week he'll tell us to be godly. The end of the matter when all has been heard is this, fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, for God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing whether good or whether evil. Be bold, be joyful, be godly. Solomon says life is very much worth living, whether it's life under the sun, or life above with God, life is a great gift, but it's a gift he says to be handled well, to be handled wisely. And tonight I want us to look at these first two of his last three exhortations, to be bold and to be joyful. Someone says that God intends for us to be bold in our life. Look again at these verses 11, 1 through 6, and you'll notice that life is full of risks according to Solomon. In fact, life under the sun can be nothing but one great risk because if it's fallen and broken nature, the only thing that is certain is uncertainty. Love is risk. Work is risky. Real investments and business of volatile, weather is uncertain, and even the caring for other people may not turn out as well as we had intended. The human heart has a tendency to play it safe, always to hedge our bets, to diversify our investments, to purchase all kinds of insurance to surround ourselves with lawyers and advisors and doctors, to live amidst endless laws and policies and procedures, to be dominated by fear that the rainy day might come, the lawsuit, the crash, the accident, the tragedy. And we end up taking the joyful life that God has given us and living in a prison of our own fears and apprehensions. It is amazing how many of us don't realize how much we are dominated by fear. And how debilitating fear can be because fear is the opposite of faith. Solomon has a different approach. He says, go at life with the proactive boldness measured by a common sense. He selects five common ventures in life, all of which are risky, but all of which yield great reward for the person who will step out with boldness and with faith. First he talks about commercial enterprises, business or work, verse 1, cast your bet upon the waters. If you will find it after many days, here's the risk of engaging, we think in particular of maritime trade, Trevor Longland says, this proverb says that in spite of the risks of loss involved, one should go ahead and engage in maritime trade. This view seems most likely in the context, the word bread, the lahem, thus stands for any kind of commodity of trade in the marketplace. The idea of the verse then is that as people engage in trade, profits may flow back to them. Greek is involved, but reward will come. This view is widely held by Bible commentators. Solomon says, engage in commercial enterprises, for though they are risky and losses will come, the tide will flow in and flow out, eventually the bread that is cast upon the water of the profit will return to you, therefore you should take the risk. Secondly he talks about diversifying our wealth, verse 2. Give a portion to seven or even to eight for you do not know where the disaster may happen on earth. He's not talking you about charity. He's talking about the age old principle of diversified investments. He says that we should take what we have, invest it in a lot of different enterprises, different commodities, because although some will fail, and all will fail at some time, not all will fail at the same time. This quite frankly, is the principle between most of our portfolios and retirement accounts and our stock market. Dwayne Garrett says, this is not an exhortation to charity, but advice on investing one's wealth. Seven and eight represent a wide diversity of investments. Much diversification is necessary because it affords protection against unforeseen calamity in one or two enterprises at the same time, and English equivalent might be, don't put all your eggs in the same basket. You know, if you never invest in the stock market, if you never put your money in the bank because there could be a failure, if you never bought a certificate to deposit because the bank might go out of business, then all you would do is stuff your money in a mattress. But then again, there could be a house fire, so he says, spread your investments abroad. Take the risk. Thirdly, he says, whether it cannot prohibit the living of life, verse three, if the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth. If a tree falls to the south or to the north, and the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. Solomon is saying poetically that national disasters will come, win storms and tornadoes and hurricanes and falling trees, and one cannot use the possibility of misfortune as an excuse to play it safe. There's another proverb that Solomon wrote about the slugger, the lazy man, he wrote it to his sons in the book of Proverbs, and he says, the lazy man will not go out to work because he said there may be a lion in the street who will devour. Think of all the natural disasters that can happen. Think of how new people get up in the morning, decide to go to work, and come home at night in the dark, and all of a sudden a deer runs out in front of the car and they're dead. They and the deer. How many people decide to go on vacation, to go to the beach and they drown, or to go with the family on a ski vacation in the Rocky Mountains, and they're killed. Well if you hedged yourself against every single natural disaster that could happen, you would never go anywhere or do anything. One commentator said, the thought of verse 3 and 4 brings together again the things that we know nothing about and those for which we have no control over. These two examples given here, the clouds which fall their own laws and the times, and the trees that fall, consulting no one's convenience, to start us thinking of many, many may bees and might have been, that prohibit our free exercise of life. Our business is to grapple with what actually is, what lies within reach, and not what may be, or could be. New great enterprises have waited for ideal conditions, and no more should we. His fourth example may be the most risky business of all, and that is farming. He talks about it in verse 4 and again in verse 6. He who observes the wind will not so, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. In the morning so your seed, and in the evening withhold not your hand, for you to not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good. I think that if anybody in life knows about living with uncertainty of losing everything with one dry spell or one rainy season, losing everything one year only to work and gain it back the next, it is farmers. And here he says the farmer who hesitates too much over threatening wind and clouds will never get to the business of sowing and reaping, and therefore will never prosper. Rather he says you should aim not at what is possibly bad, but what over the long run God has built in nature to be good. You can look at the wind in the rain, and you can look at all the bad weather, and forget that for the most of the time, over most of the years, over most of human history, what we put in the ground in small seeds comes up in a great harvest, because it got his built into the very nature of the earth, the capacity to bless and to reward hard work. And finally, in verse 5 Solomon talks about the greatest risk of all, the risk of having children, as you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones and the womb of a woman with child. So you do not know the work of God who makes everything. We may say this is the view of a primitive man because we know the way the spirit goes into the bones of a woman in the womb to produce a child, and in fact, we don't. Talk to a doctor. Ask a doctor how the seed of a man and the eggable woman somehow bring forth life, and he, if he's an honest man, will say, we don't know. We just know the most of the time they do. We make love to our wives, a child is conceived, and the mystery of gestation begins. But we do not know what God is making in the womb. Is it a boy? Is it a girl? Is it a genius? Is it a little one with special needs? Is it the son who will bless our hearts or the daughter who will break them? We don't know. If you're a smart man, you'd never have children. But then again, you wouldn't be a happy man. For the risk of having children, of loving them and rearing them, is well worth all of the struggle and pain in the heartbreak for the blessing they will be to you, and to mankind, for they too will be glad to be of service. The message of the Bible from beginning to end is that children are a gift from the Lord and that are a blessing. Not all of them, and not all of the time. The teacher uses the mystery of life to drive home the point that since people are ignorant of God's will and ways, they may as well leave all things in his hand. Verse 5 should be translated just as you do not know how the breath of life enters the fetus in the womb of a pregnant woman, so you do not know the work of God who does all things well. In this context, Wayne Garrett says, he means that since you do not and cannot control all that will go well, do not demand assurance of success before you begin any great enterprise. Just as in pregnancy, a couple can only trust God that all will turn out well even so in business enterprises or in farming or in anything else, but can only leave the outcome to Almighty God. Pregnancy is the supreme example of a human endeavor, the results of which are out of human control and are the gift of God. Our church is full of conservative people, and conservative people are by nature, people who are immobilized by fear. We don't want to hear that, but I beg you to just listen to me for the next minute. Conservative people are often immobilized by past failures and parableized by the fear of things that may come. Man has been sued, who ensures himself against every disaster of possible studies insurance poor, and a horrible to live with. The banker who won't lend money because the recession crushed his business sense of enterprise. The young lady from a troubled family, perhaps brutalized by a brutal marriage of her parents, who is single and won't date and won't marry, it's lonely and fearful and unhappy, but the risk of getting hurt outweighs all of her misery. The divorced man who will never take the risk of loving a woman again, a childless couple afraid that their children will turn out like their siblings, a jobless man who doesn't want the church to spend any money on anything except other people without work because everybody must experience his pain. And the list could go on and on and on. We are generally as conservative people, more fearful than what we would call liberals, because our goal in life is determined by our title, conservative. We want to conserve or preserve the status quo because we are afraid of what the future and change may bring. Disaster could strike. Slipper slopes might suck us into the abyss. We are people of chicken littles. The sky is always falling and we're the only ones who know it. This is the reason conservative people seldom do great things, invent new technology, germinate new ideas or blaze new trails or make new discoveries because there's too much risk involved. Our counterparts call themselves the progressives because they aren't afraid of change or of a new idea or of a new venture. We're angry that I'm praising them, but let's look in the mirror. Let's do a James chapter one that's look in the mirror and not walk away and forget the man we saw. Let our natural tendency, especially Presbyterians, I don't know what Presbyterians are going to do in heaven when there's no book of church order to tell us what to do for it. No clerks to tell us we're out of order, no robber jewels of order. We may actually talk to each other for a change. What this really means is that we are people of fear more than faith and we're not going to do anything. We're not going to step out and try something until God guarantees our success. But the key to understanding this section is that a person who is bridal with such fear really lacks faith in the goodness of God. Sure, some children are born and they break our hearts, but the majority don't. We just fail, but the majority of husbands and wives love each other. More investments succeed than fail or we wouldn't have any wealth. Most of us spend all of our life at work and we're blessed by it. Weather changes all the time, but how many people do you know personally who've been killed by bad weather? Life is difficult, but life is good, Solomon says. Good because there is a good God behind it. And Solomon is causing us to be bold. He's telling us that we should walk by faith and not by sight because faith is the assurance of things hope for, the conviction of things not seen. Folks, I have been 30 years in the ministry and I don't know how many young, sincere, Christ-centered reformed, godly parents have come to me absolutely with livid fears about their children growing up, rank pagans who walk away from the Lord. I've seen them be harsh with their children, fill the children's lives with rules. I've sometimes wanted to ask the children, did your mommy and daddy ever have any fun? And I'm here to testify that the vast majority of these children, in spite of their mothers and fathers, faithless, joyless way of life end up following the Lord and have not only a grace filled but a good life. Faith does things. It is not inactive. In fact, the Bible says that faith without works is dead, dead. And Solomon is calling us to this grand conclusion that if we are never sure which endeavors will prove fruitful, then the right approach to life is to give ourselves to the responsibilities at hand and await the course of events and trust that the good God will be good to us. The response of faith is not to hunker down in uncertainty and conservative preserving of the status quo, but to step up boldly and do something new in the belief that God will bless our faith. It is interesting to me that the very last words we have spoken by Jesus Christ in the Bible are these words behold I am making all things new. Jesus Christ is a progressive. He does not say behold I am establishing the status quo. Do you want for eternity? But we have now in the world or do you want Jesus Christ to do something new? It takes a great risk, but it is in the hands of the sovereign king of kings and Lord of Lords. And what is true for Christ should be true of you and me, Christians who follow Christ. We should not be afraid to step out with common sense and with boldness and faith, trusting that the majority of situations in the majority of our endeavors, God will be the majority of the goodness in our life and will bless us. And because of that, God intends for us to be happy. God intends for us to be bold in life and Solomon says God intends for us to be joyful in life versus seven through ten. Light is sweet and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. But let him remember that the days of darkness will be many all that come is vanity. Rejoice a young man in your youth. Let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. Remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. You can't miss the key word in these four verses. It's the word rejoice. Rejoice old man. He speaks to the older man in verses seven and eight. Rejoice a young man. He speaks to young people in verses nine and ten. Our present life, Walter Kaiser says, was meant to be joyous as pleasant to the eyes as the rising sun in the morning light. But with the consciousness that we must render account unto God for all we do with this life. So Solomon first addresses old people in verses seven and eight. Light is sweet and is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. In other words, it's better to be alive than to be dead. So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. Let him remember the days of darkness will be many and all that comes is vanity. He's talking about the bliss of being alive, captured in verse seven. It's pleasant to be alive and to see the sun each day. Life under the sun can be enigmatic, but life under the sun as full as it is, as uncertainty is often full of joy. At other times, earlier in the book, Solomon would say it's better to be dead or not born than to live in the vanity of vanities. But now as he grows older and he's learned to grow through all the pessimism that typifies young people into the optimism of an old man with biblical wisdom, he says the opposite. That life is a joyful blessing. This is no longer the voice of cynicism at the stare, but the voice of serious thought. He says, if you live long, you should be joyful. Length of days is seen by the Bible as a gift from God, a blessing for the godly. It's God's gift to the righteous, but beware, he says, old age brings with it sobering realities of encroaching darkness, the loss of sight, and then the loss of life. And all that comes as vanity, meaning that all you work for in life is to be enjoyed. It eventually comes to nothing. And the only thing that remains forever is the soul. Look at chapter 12 verse 7 and the dust returns to the earth, that is the body, as it was, but the spirit returns to God who gave it. So Solomon says to the old people like me, enjoy life, but don't cling to life as is it where the ultimate good and the final state of blessing, there is more to life beyond living. There is God. And eternal life with him. Then he turns to the young man, to young people, rejoice, oh young man in your youth, let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart, the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. The gist of what he's saying to young people is enjoy your youthful life, with all its vigor and health and promise and excitement, follow your heart and what you see to be the good thing to do. But realize that what you do in your youth, you will pay for you in your old age and eventually you will be judged by God for your youthful actions. So he says, remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body for youth and the dawn of life or vanity. Just as soon as life leaves, even quicker does youthfulness flee, remove vexation from your heart, the sins of youth that cause broken hearts and wounded souls and keep you away from God and remove pain from your body, the excesses of youth that shorten life and endanger health. What Solomon is saying to young people is the rejoice and delight yourself and the journey of life and this joy of living but be prudent and wise because youthful nightivity can lead to vanity and sorrow and in the end the old man and the young man face the same reality they will be judged by God. For what they have done with their life is brief or as long as it was. There's a warning here, my friends, for 24-century Americans, we who tend to idolize the state of youth and dread the process of owing old. We must see that our youth as a beautiful time of life is not a permanent part of life. And beyond it are the quiet pleasures of age and wisdom and beyond them a glory of being with God. Will Jennings was right when he penned those words to the song I quoted. Will run sun to sun, caught in their lives ever flowing. Once begun life goes on till it's gone and we have to go where it's going. Do you know where all of life is going? It's going back to God. Every life, young and old, happy and unhappy, conservative, progressive, believing and unbelieving, every life will stand before Christ on his throne and will give him an account for what they did with this precious gift of living. Solomon is saying, you'll give a much better account to God if you're bold in faith and you're joyful in your spirit. You'll need a better life. You'll have more to account for that's good and worth of blessing than that which is worth condemnation. A long time ago, when I was a little fellow, maybe 9 or 10 years old, I sat in the upstairs bedroom that I grew up in looking out the window on a winter day much like today and I prayed a very simple prayer. I can't remember the exact words but the gist of it was that I wanted God to let me lead an exciting life. I remember asking him to not let me be bored until I was an old man. I asked him to take me to exciting places and let me do grand things to keep me from harm and sorrow and to give me a happy life. That's all I pray. It's simple, not very profound. But as Paul said, God has done exceeding abundantly beyond all that I could ask or think. God has allowed me to travel and visit 26 countries from Australia, to India, to Peru, to Spain, to Malawi, Africa, and more. I have been to 31 of our 50 states and lived in seven of them and loved them all. I've met presidents. I got to shake hands with the queen of England and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, archbishop and famous people. This will mean nothing to you but I personally had the opportunity to speak to Woody Hayes and Jim Tress and the urban mire in Ohio that's known as the Trinity. One time when I was in England I stumbled upon the very last tour of Buckingham Palace on the 50th anniversary of the Queen. I got to go through the palace. One time when I, another time when I was in London with my family I asked the person in the Westminster ad, if I could go into the Jerusalem Chapel where the Westminster Confession of Faith was written. And she said, on those, that's been close to the public for over a decade. I said, oh, I said, I'm sorry, I said, I'm a Presbyterian minister and this is my wife and my four little children, we've come to London hoping to see this. So she said, wait just a minute. She walked off and talked to somebody and came back and gave me the key and said, now you can go in there and just don't have the children touch anything and we spend a half an hour as a family praying in the Jerusalem Chapel. I've passed with three wonderful churches, fathered four wonderful children and I love the most wonderful woman in the world. I have more funny, amazing and tragic stories to tell you than ten men put together and one of my assistant pastors used to go, Rick Stark said, Mike, your life has been a real forest come story and you know it has. I just kind of stumbled into amazing opportunities with amazing people but in all of these things, all these people I've met in places I've gone and things I've got to do including preaching the word of God in a dozen different countries around the world. I've had to overcome two great obstacles. I am by nature a man of fear. I am cautious, anxious and immensely conservative to a fault and I'm a man who does not grow old gracefully. I hate getting old and I love being young. I'm not afraid of death, just the process that gets you there. But I've learned through life what Solomon's learned here. I've learned these five things. You cannot have excitement without uncertainty. You cannot undertake great things without risk. You can't have joy without sorrow. You can't be young and live without growing old and dying. And you must trust God with all of your life or life will be vanity, misery and a tragic waste of time. Solomon said, as you do not know the way of the Spirit, how it comes to the bones and the womb of a woman with child. So you do not know the work of God who makes everything. That is true. And like Andrew the andjord, I have spent my life on a journey of exciting ventures of wonderful people learning to be human. And I've learned that life is about two things. It's about loving God and serving Him and loving other people and learning how to care for them. And I hope that when I die, the grace of God will carry me to the threshold of eternity and I will grasp the hand of my wife, look at my children and grandchildren and say, one is pleased to have been of service to you because the higherling comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. But Jesus Christ came that we might have life and have it abundantly. Abundant life is what Jesus Christ intends to give us and that doesn't mean just in heaven. Abundant life can begin now. If we're bold in faith and if we're joyful with common sense, we can end our life with a smile and saying, wow, what a marvelous journey that was and what a great privilege it was to be of service to God, I wonder if you're willing to live life that way, this abundant life could follow Jesus Christ into the uncertain future that is certain to be blessed. Let's pray. Father, we don't know where life is going, but we don't have any of the choice but to go along in its flow, sovereignly directed by and guided by your gracious and good hand. We want to ask your forgiveness tonight for all of the times that we have lived in fear, which has really been a dishonoring of you, failing to recognize in our past all of the great and glorious ways you have enriched and blessed us, spite of all the uncertainty and sorrows and dangers we have been through. And we want to ask you tonight to increase our faith so that we are joyful with our children, that we are venture some in our faith, that we would take risks and strike out into new avenues of service and possibilities of ministry in our church and the future so that as we trust you more with our life, we can see more of this abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give us as the good shepherd. In this night, as we go home to be with our family and friends at this holy holiday season, we are mindful of the great adventure and the great uncertainty, that a little baby in Bethlehem faced, as he undertook to give his life for many, that we might have an abundant life with you. We thank you for the faith, for the boldness and even the joy of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for his God-word way of living that brought us to him and to you. We ask this evening as we close in him, to increase our faith so that we too might live life to the fullest and might end with a smile on our face, being glad that we served you and other people for Christ's sake. For this we ask and pray in his name, amen.