Monday, June 25, 2012

Monday, June 25th

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is 1 Kings 15:1-24, 2 Chronicles 13-16
Today's scripture focus is Ecclesiastes 12:6-8

Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
or the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
or the wheel broken at the well,
and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.
“Everything is meaningless! ”


Before you break your spinal cord and die (silver cord is severed), before you take a blow to the head and die(golden bowl broken), before you have a heart attack and die (shattered pitcher), before your arteries corode and collapse (broken wheel at the well), before your body goes down to the grave while your spirit returns to God - remember Him.

More from Mark Driscoll's sermon, Threading the Needle.

“Meaningless, meaningless,” says the teacher. “Everything is meaningless.” That’s not a great translation.

The word there in your Hebrew text appears some 38 times in the book of Ecclesiastes. The word there is “Hebbel”. Oftentimes, particularly in the book of Psalms, it means “vapor” or “breath”. He’s not saying that life is without meaning, devoid of purpose. What he is saying is that life is a vapor. It moves quick. How many of you, on a cold morning, you get up. You go outside. You exhale. You see your breath, and then it’s gone. That’s a vapor. That’s your life. It goes quick. How many of you are at the place where, man, all of a sudden life has moved far more quickly than you were anticipating. Days have been fast. That’s what he’s saying. Urgency is of utmost importance. You’re gonna die. You’re in the process of dying every day. If you’re young, if you have life, if you have health, if you have breath, remember God. Delight in God. Enjoy God.

Pursue life with, in, through, for, to God,
so they don’t get at the end, as a decrepit falling apart, decayed, burned-out pervert like Solomon, having to write your biography and tell all your grandkids and great-grandkids, “Please, please, please do not walk in my steps. I was an idiot. Please use your days more wisely than me. If you have a wife, kiss her. If you have a steak, eat it. If you have some jogging shoes, run in them, because the days are few and the time moves fast.” That’s why you’re here. Some of you are here because you have forgotten God. So consumed with all of the stuff of life, that you have forgotten through whose hand this life has come. The reason we gather together in church is to heed Solomon’s words and to remember our Creator – to remember him.

As we hear this, we realize that we all, in various ways, have fallen into folly and sin and rebellion. The good news is this: not only did your Creator make you, but your Creator will also remake you. Here’s the beauty of it all. We always call you to repentance in this church. It is particularly fitting for this book of your Bible, because this is a book of repentance. This is an old man who has blown it hardily, telling it like it is. He is repenting and we should follow in his example. We should – as he has done, name our folly, our sin, our stupidity, how we waste our time not delighting in God and subsequently pursuing things that we just shouldn’t be giving our time, energy, and attention to, and repentance for us means naming those things and bringing them to God.

And the beauty of God is this: some of you today may feel very, very, very far from God. Okay, and that’s what sin does. Sin separates us from God, and there is great distance between us and God, but here’s the good news. This is the beauty of it all. Everyone in this room is very far from God because of sin, but, also, everyone in this room is equally close to God, because do you know what closes the gap between you and God is the love of God. That’s the beauty. That’s the beauty of the truth, that you are close to God because he loves you. You need not repent, turn around, and then labor mightily for a great multitude of years to draw near to God. God loves you and he has been pursuing you, and he is right on your heels. As soon as you stop sinning, turn around – which is your act of repentance, you will find that God is right there.



Tomorrow's scripture focus: Ecclesiastes 12:9-14
Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: 1 Kings 15:25-16:34, 2 Chronicles 17

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