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Welcome to Mariners Church Weekend Message Podcast. Inspiring people to follow Jesus and fearlessly change the world. Discover your purpose and get connected by visiting MarinersChurch.org or click the link in the show notes.

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So good to see everybody today. I wanna welcome our congregations that are watching right now. If we haven't met, my name is Eric. I'm the senior pastor here. For generations, people have wondered, how did Stonehenge become Stonehenge? Like, how did these rocks get placed there? And for 90 years, archeologists have been digging on a hill near there, trying to figure out all they could about the stones, the rocks, and also civilization surrounding those. And then recently, this is after 90 years of people excavating in the same spot, right? Recently, a geologist, actually a team of geologists, told the archeologists that they concluded they had been digging on the Wrong Hill for 90 years. Richard Bevins, one of the geologists, he said this. I don't expect to be getting Christmas cards from the archeologists who've been excavating at the wrong place over all these years. Can you imagine, you've spent your entire career trying to learn about Stonehenge, digging on a hill, and you find out that your entire career that you've been digging on the wrong hill. For some of you, this is a nightmare. To think that you'll give yourself to something and then find out in the very end it's not worth anything at all that you've been actually digging in the wrong place. I mean, just imagine for a moment if you're like this guy Rick. Rick was an archeologist who worked on the hill near Stonehenge. And Rick, as a kid, grew up, his dad was an archeologist, and his dad dreamed of being able to excavate a place like Stonehenge. There were pictures of rock formations all throughout their home. Rick goes off to college, he gets a master's degree in archeology, and he gets offered this dream job, a dream job to excavate surrounding Stonehenge. He spends his entire career there. He meets a wife, he marries her. He has two kids, he has pictures of Stonehenge all in his house. He's talking to his kids about rock formations. They ask him to come to science class. He goes to science class every year, wows all his kids, friends, drops Stonehenge facts at parties. I mean, Stonehenge is a big part of his identity. And at the very end of his career, he's told the hill that you've been digging on is the wrong hill. Everything you did was meaningless. Meaningless. Meaningless. We are beginning a teaching series called A Search for Meaning. We which is really, if you have realized it or not, is true of you that you are searching for meaning in every single part of your life. You want your life to matter. You want your career, your job, your relationships. You want it all to mean something. Viktor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor, a psychiatrist, and a famous author. He wrote man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life that this is what we want. We want to dig on the right hill. We want our life to have meaning and significance. We want it to matter. The good news is there's a book in the Bible that is about meaning. It's one of the books in the Bible that is known as the wisdom literature. If you're new to the Christian faith, the Scripture, the Bible that us Christians study, is 66 books. But it's really one overarching story that gets us to Jesus. But in the Old Testament, there's five books that are known as the wisdom literature. I mean, these books are incredible. They really do speak to the pain and the reality of life and offer you wisdom on. On how to deal with all that life throws your way. Many have said that the Psalms, one of the wisdom literatures, teaches you how to worship. Proverbs, another wisdom literature book in the Bible. How to behave, Job, how to suffer. Song of Solomon, how to love. And Ecclesiastes, one of the wisdom literature books. The book that we're gonna start studying this weekend, how to live, how to live, how to have meaning in your life. Now, we're gonna spend seven weeks walking through this incredible book. And every congregation, we gave you a guide. And I'm gon jump right in, in a moment looking at the Scripture together. Lots of people have loved this book. Herman Melville, the famous author, he said that this was the truest of all books. He loved how gritty and raw Ecclesiastes is. He was kind of a rough, tough man. He was like, I love this. This is the truest of all books. Abraham Lincoln quoted from Ecclesiastes multiple times and addresses to Congress. But even if you are not a Christian and you're here with a friend or just exploring the Christian faith, I think you might even like the book of Ecclesiastes. I say that because the LA Review of Books magazine published an article by an atheist saying, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in God. But I actually appreciate the book of Ecclesiastes because it's honest, it's raw, and it's Honest about how life really is. So are you ready to jump into this incredible book? Let's go. Let's go. All right. If you have the guide that we handed you, we are gonna be on page. This is God's word. The scripture opens this way. Verse one, the words of the teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem. Absolute futility, says the teacher. Absolute futility. Everything is futile. Wow. What an opening to a book. Now, if you're an optimist, you don't really love these words. And I love the optimists. I love optimists in my life. They help me see life more optimistically and positively. If you're an optimist right now at all congregations, raise your hand. If you're an optimist, they just go, like, tall, and you just raise all the way up. That's awesome. You're excited. What if you're a pessimist? If you're a pessimist, raise your hand. Whatever. Yeah, I won't ask the cynics to raise your hand. Cause you're like, that's dumb. I don't know why we're doing this. That's cynics. This is. All of this is futile. And that's really what Solomon appeals to you, who are cynics. Like, what's the point of even asking us to raise our hands? What's the point of all of this? He says the word futility multiple times in these very first verses. It's a Hebrew word, hevel, and it means vapor or mist, temporary, feudal, meaningless. It's a word that, in the book of Ecclesiastes is used almost 40 times. So it's throughout this entire book. And he's confronting life, and he's saying, it is life, the mist that comes off of the ocean in the morning. And it's gone real quickly. Or if you have a pool, it's the mist that you see. It comes, and it just goes real quickly. It's your life. It's a mist. It's here today and gone tomorrow. What's the purpose of this? It's futile. Absolute futility, he says. Now, who is this that is opening the words of the Teacher? Who is this that's speaking? If you notice in verse one, it's the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Most scholars agree this is pretty clear. The son of David, who's also a king is Solomon. And Solomon is known as the wisest person who ever lived. The reason he's wise is because God gave him wisdom. When he became king, God went to Solomon and said, you can ask me for anything you want. And Solomon said, I want a wise and discerning heart. God was a bit impressed. God said, wow, you didn't ask me to destroy your enemies. You didn't ask for riches or a long life because you asked for wisdom. I'm giving you wisdom, but I'm also going to give you a prosperous life as well. People came from miles and miles to hear Solomon pass judgments on opinions and questions people had. They came from miles to hear him speak eloquently about a bunch of subjects. The wisest person who ever lived. So imagine if in grad school you got invited to hear the wisest person who ever lived, and it's packed out this auditorium, and the only reason you got a ticket is because you have some kind of connection, because everybody wants this ticket. You go into this auditorium and there's no opening. There's no. There's no one playing a guitar. No. No opening speaker. Everyone's here to hear, why waste any time? We just want to hear from the wisest person who's ever lived. And he walks out onto the stage and he says, meaningless. Meaningless. Everything you chase after meaningless. That's how this book opens. So it's gonna get you uncomfortable. And I encourage you to allow this book to cause some discomfort for you. The level that you allow this book to confront you will be the level of your joy at the end. The level that you allow this book to challenge you and disturb you will be the level of liberation that you find from these words. Because these words are going to get really good. But before they get good, he's going to disturb us. And if you are unwilling to be disturbed, you won't get anything out of the book of Ecclesiastes. But if you're willing to press in and hear the words of the teacher who says, everything here is futile. He then asks a question in the next verse, verse three. And he's asking this rhetorically to help you understand why he's making such a bold claim that everything is futile. He says, what does a person gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun? The word there for gain is the same word of profit. He's essentially saying, what's the bottom line? Everything is meaningless, futile. Because when you look at life, what do you have left over at the end? What's the real bottom line here? Now, he knows that some of you. I know where we are, Southern California. Many of you are achievers and strivers. And you would say right now, man, he may be the wisest person who ever lived. But he doesn't know me. I've got a lot of bottom lines in my life. I've accomplished things, I've acquired things. The rest of this chapter, he's going to try and get in your face and challenge you, and you're gonna feel like it stings, but if you will allow it to sting, you'll actually, at the end, if you'll hang with me to the end, you'll actually see that his words are gracious to you. But he's gonna help you in this first chapter get to the realization that is it really just meaningless? Here's what he says next. Verse 4. A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. He's essentially saying, none of us, we don't last forever. The earth lasts, but we come and we go. I love going to the 4th street dining hall in Santa Ana, right near our Santa Ana congregation that's tapped in right now. And I love that Food Hall. I love. There's these huge pictures, if you've ever been, massive black and white photos all on sides of the wall inside the Food Hall. And they are pictures, photographs that were taken in downtown Santa Ana, I'm guessing the 40s and 50s. They're black and white, really large. And I've stood in front of those pictures and seen just lots of people who are all gone now. But yet the street that they walked on, I walked on to. The ground that they stood on, I'm standing on as I look at their picture, and I have no idea who they are. But they're no longer here. People from Oceanside, San Clemente, Huntington beach, right now are watching. There's been generations and generations that have stood on the piers or stood in front of the ocean and marveled at creation. The view is still there, but the people who have beheld the view are long gone. Dang. Hang with me. It's gonna get good. But that's what he's saying. Actually, he goes a little bit further. He actually says, nature outlasts you, but even nature doesn't accomplish that much. Remember, he's asking, what do you really gain? Verse 5 the sun rises and the sun sets. Panting it hurries back to the place where it rises, gusting to the south, turning to the north Turning, turning goes the wind and the wind returns in its cycles all the streams flow to the sea yet the sea is never full to the place where the streams flow where they flow. Again, notice he references the sun, the wind, and the streams, and he says that they're always moving. The sun sets and it goes down. The wind's turning, turning, turning. The streams try to fill the ocean. They keep moving, but it's the same old same all over and over again. They don't accomplish much. The streams don't fill the sea. The sun keeps rising and setting, rising and setting, just like you. You rose today, you'll set tonight, you rise tomorrow. You'll set. You'll rise. You'll set like the wind. You'll go, you'll wake up, you'll do your morning routine, whether it's a cold plunge or ground yourself or work out, have breakfast, check your email, hopefully have a time in the scripture. Then you'll go to work and you'll answer some questions and be in a meeting or two. And then you'll have lunch and then you'll have more meetings after work. And then you'll. You'll just keep going, going, going. Then you'll come home, you'll do your afternoon routine, going, going, going. And then there's always something to fix. There's problems to fix at work, there's problems to fix at the house. And there's always a light bulb to change. There's always a smoke detector that goes off usually at 3 in the morning. That has to be changed. We just go, we keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. The sun rises, the sun sets, you rise. You said go, go, go. But the streams never fill the sea. Last summer I was studying Ecclesiastes and I was in Kauai with our family. We took a tour of the Nepali coast, which is just stunning and beautiful. And the tour guide took us in this boat. We were on the. And he took us to this place where the. Off the coast, this small waterfall, like a trickle of a waterfall, goes into the sea. And he says, the tour guide says this. And I had been reading Ecclesiastes. He says the water hitting the ocean right now started 30 years ago on the north side. And it's been working really, really hard to get all the way here 30 years later. And I thought, dad, that's exactly what Solomon was saying, that Water worked 30 years to get here, plops into the ocean, and the ocean hasn't changed one bit. That's your life. Welcome. That's what he's teaching now. Hang with me because it's got to sting before it gets good. Notice what he says in verse eight. All things are wearisome more than anyone can say. The eye is not satisfied by seeing or the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done. There's nothing new under the sun. It's a famous verse. Can one say about anything, look, this is new. It has already existed in the age before us. Now some of you will say, ha, I caught Solomon. He doesn't know there's new things. Now I've got the new iPhone. It's cosmic orange. It's awesome. You can't tell cause it's in a black case just like my other one was, but it's still awesome. And on it is the latest version of AI. And then I get into my car and actually connects to my car. I can go places that Solomon couldn't go. I can gather information that he couldn't gather and connect with people he couldn't connect to because of all the advances in technology. And though that is true, we have simply become more efficient at the same things. But there's nothing really new. We're more efficient at communicating, we're more efficient at gathering information, we're more efficient at community. But it's really the same desires as what he is saying. Then he says in verse 11, there's no remembrance of those who came before and those who will come after. There will also be no remembrance by those who follow them. If you know the names of your great grandparents, and it doesn't count if it's the same name you have, like if you're William V. I mean, if it's a different name, but you know the name of your great grandparents, will you at all congregations, will you raise your hand? Your great grandparents. Wow. Great grandparents, that's impressive. That was way more than our young adult service, by the way. They didn't know anybody. What about anybody know your great great grandparents name? Way less. Way less. No one's gonna know your name either. I'm here to pasture you. I'm here to love on you. This is what Solomon's trying to get at. It's gonna sting, but then it's gonna get really good. Now look with me the conclusion of chapter one. Let's skip down to verse 14 and 15. He says, I've seen all things that are done under the sun and have found everything to be futile. A pursuit of the wind. What is crooked cannot be straightened. What is lacking cannot be counted. So he says, and I'm going to come back to this. This is a really important verse in Ecclesiastes, verse 15. If you want to circle it, he just calls it out, something's crooked here. The Reason it's futile is something's been bent out of shape. The world is not what's supposed to fill us. It's not working. Something is off. So chapter one is his conclusions. Then in chapter two, I'm gonna give you a summary of chapter two today. He describes an experiment that he goes on trying to find meaning in life. And some of you are on this kind of experiment right now. I would hope that you would learn from Solomon's words because he was able to go on an experiment more than you will be able to because of all the resources that he had. He had way more money than you'll ever have, way more wisdom than we have. If he's the wisest person who ever lived, he was able to go on an experiment trying to see if there was something left over at the end. Any gain cause. Chapter one's his conclusion. He's saying all of its havel is just meaningless as a vapor. But chapter two, he describes this experiment that he went on and he could finance it with all of his resources. I'm going to see if I can find if there's any real meaning in this world, though. His conclusion is, it's crooked. And here's what you'll see. Pleasure is futile. Pleasure is futile. Verse one of chapter two, I said to myself, go ahead, I will test with you. Pleasure. Enjoy what is good. But it turned out to be futile. Now, this is a big statement for Solomon because he could afford anything. In chapter one, we read that he said, the eye is not satisfied with what it sees, and the ear is not filled with what it hears. This is Solomon, who could afford to have any musician in the world play in his palace for his parties or while he goes to sleep. While he goes to sleep. This is Solomon. He can afford to have any artist paint any picture, to commission any work of art to fill his palace in. And he said, everything I looked at, it wasn't enough for my eyes. Everything I heard, it wasn't enough for my ears. And we know that Solomon also threw himself into sexual pleasures and sexual exploits. Not only did he have many wives, but he had many concubines. Women that he would have sexual intimacy with and sexual pleasure with. He didn't only have friends with benefits, he had concubines with benefits. He threw himself into all kinds of pleasure. And he said it wasn't. It wasn't enough. It's futile. There is a whole realm of philosophy called hedonism, that life is about pleasure. Solomon, before the word hedonism was even invented, Solomon's saying to the hedonist, listen, man, I out pleasured you and it was empty. I had more money than you had to go after it and it wasn't enough for me. Pleasure, he says. He also says acquiring is futile. Basically, pulling resources to yourself is not going to be enough for you. John Rockefeller, who's known as the most wealthy American to have ever lived, famously was asked one day, hey, when is it going to be enough? How much money is going to be enough for you? Where it's enough? And Rockefeller famously said, just a little bit more. Elon Musk, some believe, has surpassed John Rockefeller. He recently posted on social media. Whoever said money can't buy happiness really knew what they were talking about. Solomon said this in verse 11. When I considered all that I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile. In a pursuit of the wind, I couldn't make enough. In the end, it was futile, meaning there's no gain. It wasn't enough for me. Now, this is shocking. He actually says wisdom is futile. Wisdom is futile. Notice what he says in verse 15. I said to myself, what happens to the fool will also happen to me. Why then have I been overly wise? And I said to myself that this is also. Now, the scripture encourages us to pursue wisdom, but what Solomon is saying is that wisdom just under the sun, wisdom apart from knowing God and really understanding him, in the end it just turns out to be futile because I have wisdom and the fool doesn't have wisdom. But both of us die. A wise person builds, a great business, dies, it gets handed over to others and they squander everything. It's meaningless. That's what he's saying. So what's the whole point? He's just being cynical, but he's being raw and honest. He then says that accomplishing is futile, that the more that he brought to himself, the more wins that he had. It wasn't enough for him. Lee Iacocca famously wrote in his autobiography, Here I am at the age 58. I've had all the money and all the fame I could ever want. But the truth is, when you get right down to it, money and fame don't amount to much. Therefore, the birthday. Now, to prove the point of Ecclesiastes, some of you don't know who Lee Iacocca is. He was the CEO of Ford and of Chrysler. And he's saying that everything that I accomplished, in the end, it wasn't enough. Solomon just speaks about the sleeplessness that he faces at night. Look at verse 22 and 23. For what does a person get with all his work and all his efforts that he labors at under the sun? For all his days are filled with grief and his occupation is sorrowful. Even at night his mind does not rest. This too is futile. Some of you know what he's talking about. And Solomon gets you. You have the sleepless night. Some of you have the sleepless night right now because you are just imagining. If you will get this thing, this possession, this relationship, this promotion, this acquisition, this cell. If you will get this exit, whatever it is, if you will get this thing, then you'll be able to rest. And so you're sleepless. Cause you're so badly, are putting your hope in that thing. Some of you are sleepless because you got that thing and it wasn't enough. And you're sleepless because you're wondering, why do I still feel this way? Solomon gets you. He totally understands the sleeplessness. He's saying of his experiment in chapter two that I just wanted one more. I wanted one more pleasure, one more possession, one more accomplishment. One more would be enough. Adam and Eve, when they were placed in the garden of Eden, God placed them there. They wanted just one more tree to eat from. What they had wasn't enough. Kendrick Lamar in his song United in Grief. I don't know if he intentionally did this or if it just happened. His song really reads like the book of Ecclesiastes. It opens with him pontificating about life. There's a singer at the very beginning saying, I hope you find some peace in this lifetime. And then he begins the opening lyrics, which are him similar to Solomon pontificating about life. And then the closing lyrics are him sharing his experiment. He wraps this shaking and moving like what am I doing? I'll just read it. I'll just read it. I'll just read it. Says shaking and moving like what am I doing? I'm flipping my time through the Rolodex indulging myself and my life and my music. The world that I'm in is a cul de sac. It's very similar to what Solomon says. I'm shaking, I'm moving like the wind. I'm turning, I'm twisting. But it's a cul de sac. It's just, it's havel. Then he describes his experiment. He throws himself into fame. I was 28 years young, 20 million tax bought a couple mansions just for practice. But notice what he says throughout the song. I grieve different. So what I got still only results in grief. I Grieve differently than I did before. But I still grieve. Then he talks about throwing himself into pleasure. The first tour I sex the pain away. I grieve different. Then he throws himself into possessions. I bought a Rolex watch I only wore once. I bought infinity pools I never swam in. The money wiping the tears away. I grieve different. Everything I received, it didn't take the pain away. I grieve different. Solomon threw himself into experiment and said it's a cul de sac. It's futile. So why? When you step back and you look at the book of Ecclesiastes in light of the whole Bible, the scripture actually gives you the answer to Solomon's question, why is this crooked? Something in this world is bent out of shape. Remember in Ecclesiastes he uses the word futility almost 40 times. It's only used one time in the New Testament. Here it is. And it's actually the answer of why there's futility. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 8. For the creation was subjected to futility not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in the hope that creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God's children. I want you to understand what the Apostle Paul is teaching. He is saying that the reason our world is crooked and bent out of shape, it was subjected to futility by God. What? When sin entered the world, when Adam and Eve wanted one more tree, when they disobeyed God and went their own way, God judged their sin. And. And because God judged humanity's sin, everything that humanity was over was then subjected to futility. Meaning this world is now bent out of shape. This world will never then be enough for you will not be enough to satisfy your soul because you were created for much more than a world that is bent out of shape. But the Apostle Paul says it was subjected to futility and hope that one day when one is gonna return, Christ Jesus is going to return. He's gonna enter into this world and he's gonna one day make everything right and new. He's gonna straighten out all the bent out lines. Everything one day is going to be made right and perfect. And the one who can make everything new is also the one who can bring meaning into your life right now. Now the world here is bent. CS Lewis said it this way. If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world. You weren't made for a bent out of Shape world. Okay, so if this world won't be enough, then what is the Apostle Paul? So you want to read Ecclesiastes in light of the whole scripture. He defined why the world was futile. He also defines where you can really have gain. Because Solomon is saying, what do we gain? Notice what the Apostle Paul says in the book of Philippians. But everything that was a gain to me, I've considered to be a loss because of Christ. More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. Because of Him, I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung so that I may gain Christ and be found in him. Now the Apostle Paul is sampling. He's going back to Solomon's words, and he's saying, I agree with Solomon. When I tried to find gain in this life, it was really not enough. It wasn't satisfying. But when I was willing to lose all the things that I thought was gain so that I may gain Christ, I found that they're nothing compared to him. That they're nothing compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I was willing to lose everything. When I found Christ, I found ultimate gain. He's the one who gives meaning and significance to my life. The world itself is empty, but Christ is ultimate gain. He's the one who's gained. Which is how Solomon closes out chapter two. Now, if you were willing to be disturbed, this will now be really good news for you. He was trying to disturb you, to get you to this point. He was trying to get you to stop viewing life as what would satisfy you. He was trying to get you to the point where you would not look at life as gain. So if you're not gonna look at life as gain, then how should you look at life? This is the wisdom literature right here. This will help you. This will liberate you. This will serve you for the rest of your life. Verse 24 and 25. There is nothing better for a person than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. I've seen that even this is from God's hand. Because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from Him? For to the person who is pleasing in his sight, he gives wisdom, knowledge and joy. If you look for your career or a pleasure or an accomplishment or a possession, that to be your life, to be your God, it will be futile. If you look to God to be your God, he will give you blessings in all of those other areas, and they will actually be gifts. That he gives you. If you look at the gifts as your God, they won't be enough for you. But if you look to God as your God, he will then give you gifts and blessings in this life. Here's the point he's making. Receive life as a gift, not achieve life as gain. You've heard many people say life is a gift. To believe that life is a gift, you must also believe that there is a giver. Us Christians believe that God is the giver, that he's the One who has given us life. And therefore we receive all that he's given, given us as a gift. And if you receive life as a gift, you'll enjoy it more. You will enjoy the meal you have more if you receive it as a gift, you'll enjoy the relationship more if you receive it as a gift. If you receive everything that he gives as a gift from him, then you will find him giving meaning and significance in all things. But if you look to things that he gives you as your everything, they will turn out to be nothing. But if you look to God as your everything, then he breathes meaning and significance into every single part of your life. Which brings us back to Rick at Stonehenge. Forty years of a career digging on what many are now saying is the wrong hill. Rick, man, how's it feel? You wasted your entire life digging on the wrong hill. But what if Rick is a follower of Jesus? What if Rick isn't looking at that hill as his everything because Christ is his everything? Then Rick would say, wrong hill. What are you talking about? That was the perfect hill for me. I spent 40 years going to work there every day. I worked hard for the glory of God, and I got to come home and have dinner with my family. That hill was the perfect hill for me. It provided the blessing of work where I could then go to sleep at night knowing that I had worked really hard for God's glory. It provided economically for our family where I could provide for. We could have dinner together as a family. We talk about the wrong hill. That was the perfect hill for me. Do you know, every morning when I went to work, most mornings, the sun would rise while I was working and the breeze would hit my face and I would think about the goodness of God. The wrong hill. Oh, man, I grew so much closer to my Savior on that hill. That wasn't the wrong hill for me, man. Do you have any idea how many times with the crew I worked alongside for all of those years on the side of that hill? We died laughing at some story or some joke or something that had happened. I have such memories of joy and laughter. That was the perfect hill for me. A couple years ago, I went through a deep tragedy in my life, and what kept me going was the crew on that hill. So you're offending me by saying I wasted my life. God used that hill. That hill was the perfect hill for me. And you know, there's people that I worked alongside that over time I got to share with them the hope that I have in Jesus. Because that hill isn't my everything. Jesus is my everything. That was the perfect hill for me. If Jesus is your everything, you're able to receive everything else as a gift. As a gift from Him. So you look at life. This is the. This is the the, the secret or the clue or the wisdom that Solomon wants you to see in this first couple of chapters. If you are trying to find gain in life, meanless, meaningless, meaningless. If you'll just, with open hands, receive life as a gift, he will breathe meaning and significance into everything. So are you approaching life as gain, or are you approaching life as gift? All right, extend your hands, please, and let me pray a prayer of blessing over you as we go. Jesus, I pray you'd bless your sons and daughters this week, that you would remind them that you were gentle, approachable and that you love them. Cause your face to shine on them. I pray they will experience your mercy and your joy this new week. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Go in peace. Have a great week.