Ecclesiastes 2024

If you have a Bible, you want to turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 5. That's where our passage is going to be today in our our sermon. Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verses 1 to 7. Guard your steps when you go to the House of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools who do not know that they do wrong.

Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before god. God is in heaven, and you are on earth. So let your words be few. A dream comes when there are many cares, and many words mark the speech of a fool. When you make a vow to god, do not delay to fulfill it.

He has no pleasure in fools, fulfill your vow. It is better not to make a vow than to make 1 and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger. My vow was a mistake.

Why should god be angry at what you say? And destroy the work of your hands. Much streaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore, fear god. Well, good morning.

My name is Pete Woodcock. I'm 1 of the pastors of the church. We've been working our way through, Ecclesiastes. This strange old testament books, excuse me. And, it's it's been, you know, really fascinating, and it is a fascinating book because it's dealing with such issues of the day.

So here we are in chapter 5. The the German philosopher Heidegger. He coined a word. I love German words, don't you? It's Gevorvin Heights.

Sebastian who's German here, he keeps trying to persuade me that German is a very gentle language. And, and that I've got my ideas of German from from the old films, but Gevorwennheit, and it means thrown down. Just thrown down Gevoirven height. We're an accident. Humans, you know, we didn't have any choice about our existence.

We were Gevorvin heighted. We were just thrown down. You didn't choose what gender you would be. You didn't choose your body type. You didn't choose where you were gonna be born in the world, what time, what era you were gonna be you born born in what language you were gonna speak Gevoirvenheight.

Yeah. And that is really, really helpful word because In many ways, Solomon who's writing this sort of journal of trying to find out, what life is about has come come to this sort of Gevoirven height. We've been thrown down. We're under the sun. And, what is life about when we're under the sun?

And so he's been trying to find out and he's looked at lots of different things and he keeps coming to this sense of it's meaningless really in the end. There are some things that are better than others. It's better not to be a fool and better to be wise, but in the end, both die and it seems to be meaningless. It's better not to be drunk and better to be sober, but in the end, It's all the same. We all die.

It's it's all meaningless. And so he's been going through this stuff and and coming out with this, you know, what is the point? What is there any meaning? Trying to find it and writing a journal and diary. Now he's observed along the way that there are there are sort of little hints and that is that god should be involved in our trying to find meaning.

He talks about being satisfied and pleasing god in chapter 2, In chapter 3, he understands that there are patterns that god has put in this world and he's hoping that god will be a judge because if there is no judgment, then right and wrong doesn't mean anything, and that that would be meaningless. So there's sort of hopes there that there is somehow god involved. And so now he tries religion because isn't that about god? And lots of people say, no, no, no, we're we've been thrown down what we need to do is to rise up. We need to look up.

And so what Solomon does here is turn his gaze and start writing in his journal about religion. And the religion that he picks on is the Jewish religion because that that is is around the temple and he actually built the temple. So he's he's looked at what he would consider to be the best religion in the world. Now, whether it is or not is not the question here. He's going for the best to see really what religion does.

And his conclusion is verse 5. Remember, he's under the sun looking at religion. Verse 7, rather. Much dreaming And many words are meaningless, therefore, stand in awe of god. It's the first time he actually says to do something in Ecclesiastes.

You know, watch your steps stand in awe of God. This is the first time he's actually telling us to do something. But there's something unreal about religion he's saying. Much dreaming. It's not really very real.

That's what he seems to be saying here. So Solomon's gonna put under the spotlight religion, the best religion he can think of, and he's gonna be very critical. He's gonna come with a critical eye. Here's the first thing I think he sees. Religion is a trap.

And you see it in those 7 verses. Religion is a trap. Now you might think, what? What? Surely, the Bible says religion's good, but no, he's saying religion is the is is a trap.

Rather than take us above the sun, rather than take us to god, Actually, what religion does is firmly trap us under the sun and actually keeps us miles away from god. That's what religion does. So he's sort of, oh, Karl Marx is sort of following him rather than him following Karl Marx, where Karl Marx he said religion is the opiate of the people. And Solomon's saying, yeah, that that's true to a degree. Religion is the opiate of the people.

It just keeps people happy. It keeps people trapped in an untrue storyline. We're very naturally religious religious people. That's what people are. We're we're we're worshipers.

You can go anywhere in the world. You can dig up any, you know, age of people and there's always religion, isn't it? You can go back to, you know, the the the the stonehenge, you know, is about religion. And you you dig up our ancestors. There's always something religious.

Human beings are religious beings. We can't help it. We're always looking for something more than this world. Some some kind of transcendent experience that's bigger than this world that will take us out of the world that won't limit us just to our body experiences or to put it in the terms of this book, here we are under the sun, but we really desire to experience above the sun experience because this world is just not big enough for us. It doesn't satisfy us.

There's some wonderful experiences to have in this world, but you can do all your bucket list and still you die. You can do all your bucket lists and still it doesn't really fulfill at everything. And so what do human beings do, they turn to religion. And there is the problem. Because why are we turning to religion?

We're turning to religion because it gives us a sense of something bigger, but it doesn't necessarily bring us to god, and so it traps us. So he sees that the vast majority of what goes on for worship of god is not worship of god at all. In fact, it's an unbelief in god. So people turn to religion, actually, to hide from god. Let me explain.

The Horven his Horven height. I'm sure I'm saying it wrong, but I like saying it. As I'm gonna say it again, If life is just Gevolving Heights, you know? How do you say that nicely? Gevolving Heights?

It doesn't work. Is it? If life is just Gevoirven height, then everything is meaningless. But how do you live with that? How could we live knowing that everything we do is meaningless?

You you can't. You you wouldn't even get out of bed, would you? What's the point of getting out of bed? If everything is meaningless, why get out of bed? So how do you live with that?

So the philosophers say, no, no, what you need to do is make up a meaning, find a meaning, look within, discover a meaning. It won't be true because nothing's true. Everything is meaningless, but the pretend helps us sort of get through life. It's a bit like the whole idea, you know, when you're you're walking down a a dark alley and you think there might be someone behind you and you whistle, don't you? That that was always the British way.

You sort of whistles to cheer yourself up. And whistling sort of gives you confidence which is mad when you think about it because whistling only just tells the murderer that you are there and exactly where you are. It doesn't help in anything, but you whistle in the dark just to cheer yourself up. We just pretend there was a song I used to listen to, before I was a Christian with with 1 of the bands I used to love and it it goes like this. We're living in the land of make belief.

We're trying not to let it show. Maybe in the ma land of make belief, our heartaches will turn to joy. We're living in a land of make believe, and that's what he seems to be saying religion is. We like to pretend. So it's not worshiping god.

It's really worshiping ourselves. We're not having an encounter with the living god above the sun. We're just trying to find meaning so we have an experience. So it is like taking drugs. I don't know whether any of you have ever taken LSD, sort of a mind blowing drug.

You take LSD, what happens? You take LSD, and suddenly the sofa you're sitting on turns into a big mushroom. You take LSD, and your wife becomes a cheese. And grows bigger and bigger and has purple spots all over her. And that's an experience.

If you've ever had that, But it's only tracked you down here in this earth. It's never taken you above. So Solomon, he keeps on saying, doesn't he? He keeps on referring to religion like a dream. Look at verse 3.

See, it talks about a dream in verse 7. He talks about it being a dream. It's it's not real. It's a land of make belief. It's LSD.

It sort of gives you an experience, and that is why religion is so full of feeling stuff, atmosphere stuff, dark buildings, if you're into that type of religion. Dark buildings with just a few candles and a lot of gold glittering, music, singing, chanting, or silence, You know, different religions use different things to move us, to make us feel we're we're taken up with somewhere bigger, but we're not. Or prayer, endless prayer, endless repetition, or prayer in a language that actually most of us don't understand, but it feels like it takes us up somewhere because we don't understand the Latin or or whatever the the language might be. The Arabic or posture and repetition of moving backwards and forwards or doing things in large groups together that makes us feel like we're bigger than the world because there's a whole group bowing down or doing whatever it is we do or the bringing of sacrifices or fasting to make ourselves hungry so that we're we're longing for for some kind of filling above or smells or bells or that's what religion is full of us to give us a sense of the transcendence, but it just traps us in the physical world of eyes and feeling and nose and of the senses.

Even Richard Dorkings has just written. Richard Dorkings the number 1 big atheist in this country. Yeah? He said this. I am not a believer.

Yeah. Well, we know that. I am not a believer, but there is a distinction between being a believing Christian and a cultural quest Christian. He's trying to ride the wave of the intellectuals that are all saying about cultural Christianity. I'm not a bullet.

Sorry. I shouldn't have anyway, let me read it again. I am not a believer, but there is a distinction between being a a believing Christian and a cultural Christian I love hymns. This is Richard Dorkings. I love hymns and Christmas Carols, and I sort of feel at home in in Christian ethos.

But I feel, and I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense. He loves Carols. He loves hymns. He loves the Christian ethos, and that's an atheist. He's taken up with something transcendent that he doesn't believe in.

Carl Young was, a psychotherapist and, you know, very famous after Freud and stuff like that. Someone summing up what Carl Young really believed. It says this. Talk of god is for for young Carl Young a way of talking about ourselves. He claims all people have a natural religious condition And our psychological health depends on being in touch with that part of our makeup.

Any idea of a transcendent personal being beyond the self is dismissed by young. The real task is to honor our inner archetypes in the search for personal hole hole hole in it, to discover the god within. In other words, he loves religion. He encourages people to have religion. He encourages people to have these experiences.

But All it does is trap you down here because all it is is about you. You've never gone any bigger. You've never gone above the sun. That's the first point. Religion is a trap.

Secondly, Religion is therefore dangerous. And again, you see that in these 7 verses of chapter 5. It's so dangerous. Now get this. It's so dangerous religion that it makes you treat the above the sun god as an idiot as a fool or just a concept.

That's how dangerous it is. See, what's the big problem in these verses? What's the big error that these worshipers are falling in into? The big the real big error is that their act actually missing god when they're talking about god. Did you notice that?

God is missing in their rituals. God is missing in their in their words. God is missing in their vows. They're carrying on all the time doing stuff and they've got no idea whether god wants them to do that or likes it or anything. In fact, they don't really care.

If you want a wanting an experience of god, says Solomon, guard your steps. Because god is not interested in meaningless words that you don't even know what they mean. He's not interested in rituals. See, look what's going on here or at least what's implied in going on here, and that's how I would take these verses They're not guarding their steps. That's why he says guard your steps.

They're not listening. There's a lot about listening. They're offering foolish sacrifices. They're quick to talk and quick to commit. It's all like a dream.

You know, there's words and strange things happen in dreams, but it's not real. They're expecting god to be pleased with the outward, and he's not. Their worship actually has nothing to do with god at all. Their worship is to do with how they feel And what they think, there's a total denial of a relationship with god in the sense that god is god and I'm the creature and I ought to listen. They've forgotten he says in verse 2.

They've forgotten that god is in heaven and they are on earth. They've forgotten that. What they need is a revelation from god from above the sun, and they've forgotten that. So because they've forgotten that, they're not listening. And because they're not listening, there cannot be a relationship.

Can there? I mean, let's be honest, why do relationships break down in any level? It's because people don't listen, isn't it? That's what happens in marriages. It's 1 of the biggest things, isn't it?

On our marriage course, 1 of the big things we talk about is listening, is talking and listening. It's 1 of the biggest things Yeah. Haven't you blokes had to learn to listen? Yes. I mean, Dave Glenn, who who who does, what do you call it?

Hearing aids works for a hearing aid company and sells, hearing aids to people He says, and you can talk to him. He's, I don't know where he is. Where are you, Dave? He's at the door, not listening. He he says that very often the woman brings the the the the wife brings the husband's in and says he's deaf.

Do some death death tests on him. And, he does all the death tests, and he says to the wife, No. His hearing is perfect. And then she says, why doesn't he hear even? And he says, that's another subject.

But that's what happens, isn't it? You know, if you don't listen, and what happens in arguments when you're arguing? You don't listen, you're thinking of the thing to come out. It's and it's like a tennis match. And you're just you're not It's just get that ball back into their side.

Get my words over to them. These people are assuming that god is as vague as their thoughts about him that he's not personal speaking god. Look at verses 2 and 3. Do not be quick with your mouth. Do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before god.

God is in heaven and you are on earth. So let your words be few. As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of fool is when there are many words. Stop your babbling. Says Jesus.

Stop babbling like a pagan. Says Jesus. Stop many words. Don't mean you're getting through to god. It's the other way around.

You're speaking when you should be listening. And religion is full of this dangerous stuff. When I used to work at the university in Kingston, when we planted, cornerstone, there was, a sign went up for the Islamic Society. And it was an amazing sign because it was a quote from the hadith, 1 of their holy books, and it goes like this. Let's just listen to this because there's no relationship here with a god here.

It's whoever washes himself up for prayer You wash yourself in the right way. And then you go to the place of prayer to perform prayer, every step on the way, a sin is forgiven. Well, I I don't know if I was walking, I'd go right around the block I think a few times. But you see, there's no relationship there. It's if I do this, sin forgiven, sin forgiven, sin forgiven.

Sin forgiven, sin forgiven, sin forgiven, sin forgiven, sin forgiven. There's no sorry. There's no lord I wish I wouldn't do this. Lord help me. It's a sin forgiven s just automatic.

It's like a washing machine. Many years ago, I was, I was in a cafe in Wimbledon. I can't remember why, but it was full of women. And I was like, a bloke there looking around, doing what I normally do, listening in on other conversations. And there was a whole group of women talking about how to get into the Church of England schools.

What you have to do is to make a vow You you have to promise to go to the church, and you only have to go, like, 3 or 4 times a year. You know, at the start, go a little bit more than that. And you make a vow, and you make a vow to god, and then you get your kid in the best schools. That's religion. That's dangerous, isn't it?

I was at a a service, at the Albert Hall once. And I was just coming out, and I heard a girl say, Whoa. That worship did me good. What worship? Worship, did me good?

Now, there is proof and evidence that singing and being together does do us a lot of good. But do you see the emphasis there? It's about me. Religion is dangerous. Because it looks like it takes us up with god.

It looks like we're connecting with god when in fact we're not listening at all. So it's dangerous. Someone said better to bribe a judge than to ply god with hollow words. Better to slap a policeman than seek god's influence by meaningless gestures Don't try that 1. Better to purger yourself in court than to harry god with promises you cannot keep.

So religion is a trap, and it keeps us down here. It's a drug that makes us feel we are up, but we're not. We're down. And religion is dangerous because it makes us treat god as if he isn't god, as if he's just a concept. But thirdly, religion reveals our real problem.

So what's our real problem? It's to do with listening. Look at verse 1 of chapter 5. Guard your steps when you go to the House of God, go near to listen rather than offer sacrifices of fools. Who do not know that they do wrong.

We must listen. We've got ears, and they must go before our lips, go into the presence of god, And not to listen is to bring foolish sacrifices, the sacrifices of fools. Yeah? And why don't we listen? And this is what it reveals.

It's because we don't trust god. We trust ourselves, and we trust other things. If we trusted god, we'd listen. 1 of 1 of my favorite scenes in any film is in the Jason Born films. Born I think it's born ultimatum.

Jason born is like, you know, this broker has lost his memory, but he can do anything. He can speak every language. Have you ever have you seen the Jason Born films? It's like way better than than double o 7, you know, James Bond. He's like a real, you if you wanna be someone, it's Jason Born.

He speaks every language he can fight in every way. He knows everything about everything. Yeah. And 1 of the great seats I love this scene. I would watch it again and again is in Waterloo Station.

And even Chestington's self comes up. Yeah. It's amazing. This is where I live. And so Jason Born is trying to get a reporter through Waterloo Station when there are loads of of, snipers and terrorists and you know, they're they're all around wanting to kill this witness this this reporter, and they're all up, and they're around, and they're clever.

Jason Born understands everything about these terrorists, everything. He knows where they are. He can see them all. He understands what their actions will be before they even understand it. He's a flipping brilliant bloke.

Yeah? And he's on the phone to the reporter who has to Get his way through to get into the door to feel to to be safe. So that's the whole scene. It's very exciting. It's worth just getting the feel like just for that scene.

Yeah. And so born is saying, right now. Ben down now. Ben down now. Now hide behind that trolley.

Walk along the trolley. See the man with the mustache. Gip how I did now. And the broach's doing everything. And you think just but then he starts to think, shall I listen to Jason?

And and you're shouting at the film, if you're, you know, if you're into it. Listen to Jason. Listen to Jason. And he and and then he's slightly doubting. Listen, don't.

Don't. If you don't listen, you've had it. Oh, he's listening. He's listening. Now, there's see that bloke with a little truck thing.

Get on the back of that truck. That's it. Right. And then just before the door, the bloke thinks he knows better than Jason born, and bang instead immediately. That's it.

Now I just like telling that illustration. What's that gonna do? Listen. Why didn't he listen because he didn't trust? Right at the last minute, he trusted himself and his own instincts and his own feelings, and he was wrong.

The Bible says the real problem is not that we don't believe in god, because nearly everyone does, but we don't trust him, and we don't trust him by listening to his above the sun revelation. We don't listen. And if you don't trust him, you won't listen, and you're all your religion is a waste of time. 1 child psychologist, very famous 1, Eric Ericson. He outlined sort of 8 levels of of social development, in children up to adulthood.

He says every stage, there's a crisis that you have to win or lose, and if you lose, it's going to affect the rest of your life. But the biggest level, the biggest crisis is 1 of trust. And he says that the parents in your life, if if the parents, which are the godlike figures you know, they're like god to children. If the parents are untrustworthy or the kids don't trust the parents, then it's very call in future life. And we we know that, don't we?

We know that, ourselves, perhaps. So children then develop not to trust anyone And so what happens he says is they they not only not trust anyone. They they they're in fear and fear makes you then trust yourself. They're doing what that reporter did. Instead of trusting Jason, they trust themselves.

And so they defend themselves. They look to themselves, and they never give themselves in service of others. You'll never give yourself in service of others. Because you don't trust them. So all you do is serve yourself.

That's his whole theory. Now the Bible says that fundamentally, we don't trust god. And that was the great sin, wasn't it? Adam and Eve had the word of god, but they didn't trust the word of god. They trusted the serpents word and their own feelings when their eyes saw what they could be.

And they fell, and they were shot like that reporter. So religion, shows us the real problem. Nothing so tends to mask us from god. As religion, it's a substitute to god, says Tim Keller. It's a substitute to god.

Well, so that's damning. Okay? That's pretty damning of religion, and we need to know that, I think. So religion without god keeps us under the sun. Therefore, he ultimately, it's meaningless.

But there's a fourth point I want to to bring out here, and then I'll close with that. That sometimes, as we use religion to cover up like Adam and Eve used the fig leaves to hide from god to cover up their sin. As we use religion to cover up sometimes, god in his kindness brings shafts of light through the covering. There's shadows and realities that he brings in, even through religion. So here's my fourth point, above the sun flashes.

So religion, people will argue, could bring you security as a person. It can bring a sense of identity, a structure of morality, and a sense of transcendence, but Solomon is saying it's all meaningless if it doesn't bring you to god. That's his point. But sometimes in those meaningless actions, those meaningless religious acts sometimes we hear a distant voice. We hear a distant voice.

C s Lewis in this really classic book called miracles. He expresses it this way. He's so good Lewis on these things. He he he talks about the tremor. I'm just quoting in there, the tremor which passes down the human spine at the, suspicion that perhaps god might be real.

And that he perhaps might be more than a prod a project. He talks about this feeling that happens. And then he says this, There comes a moment. I just love the way things. There comes a moment when children who have been playing burglars are hushed suddenly because they hear the footstep on the hall.

Do you see what you're saying? They're playing burglar. It's suddenly they're reminded that there might be a real burglar. And then he says there comes a moment when people are dabbling with religion and suddenly they draw back and There really is a god there. And I think that's what happens.

So religion is all of these things. It's a, you know, it's a trap and It's meaningless. But in that, sometimes there are flashes that god uses to actually draw our attention to himself. So questions arise when you're bringing your your sacrifice to god is, is god really pleased with this? Have I done enough?

Have I prayed enough? I mean, you get significant conversions throughout history. I have no time to talk to you about them, but Martin Luther was 1 of these. The great reformer. He was religious and religious and religious and religious and religious and then went to Rome and on his knees went up the the steps and all of this stuff, have I have I done it enough?

Have I gone up those steps enough? I found those steps, by the way, once, when I was in Rome, and I started walking up them. And I broke up the top saying, on your knees. On your knees, I was when I was I was just going up the steps, you have to go on your knees. If you go up the top on your knees, you get a million years off purgatory.

It's phenomenal, but I was going on my feet. And he said I had to do it on my knees. And I said, no. I'm not I'm not doing that. He said, we'll go down there.

So I only got halfway up. So I only got, like, half a million, maybe because I was on my feet 250000 years off, something like that. But anyway, I've got more off than you. But Luther did all of this have I done enough? Have I done enough?

Let's have a think about it. Think about your steps. Verse 1. Guard your steps when you go to the house of god. You can't just stroll into god anyhow you like to have an experience, but have I guarded my steps enough?

See, when I go to do rel have have I? That question can come as a flash of light. Where have my feet been? Have my feet always been doing godly things? Have I got filth on my feet?

Have I got dust that's offensive to god on my feet? Have I really guarded my myself? I have to consider god's response to my worship, not my response, Have I guarded my feet? Are they really clean? Can I really clean my feet just by washing water?

Isn't there need for for an above the sun foot washer? If only someone would come down from above the sun to clean my feet, then I'd know my feet were clean, and I would have guarded my steps. Jesus got up from the meal. Took off his outer clothing, wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with his towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, he said to him lord, Are you gonna wash my feet? Jesus said, you do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand. No, Peter said, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus said, unless I wash you, you have no part in me. You see religion can suddenly think am I clean?

Don't I need a bigger, cleaner, foot washer than me? Well, think about words. Look at verse 1, the second half of right the way through to 3. Go near to listen rather than to offer sacrifices of fools who do not know what they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth Do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before god.

God is in heaven and you are on earth. So let your words be few. As a dream comes when there are many cares, so speech of fools, when there are many words. 300 years before Christ, the philosopher Zeno said the reason why we have 2 ears and only 1 mouth is that we may listen more and talk less. 600 years before Zeno, Solomon said, the same thing.

Jesus said, he who has ears, let him hear Beegon listening. James, a writer in the New Testament, says everyone should be quick to listen and slow to speak. Sometimes we don't listen because we don't wanna listen, and so we speak, speak, speak, speak, and we've never listened to god. Jesus says when you pray do not keep on babbling like the pagans for they think they will be heard because of their many words do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him. This then is how you should pray.

Listen. Our father, we've just prayed it, our father above the sun. Our father, above the son in heaven, talk to him, Listen to him. Isaiah 55 verse 3, give ear and come to me. Listen that you may live I will make an everlasting covenant with you.

My faithful love promised to David. I'll make a covenant with you. If you listen to me, you'll understand it's not religion and those stat stuff you're bringing me and all the words you're just babbling at me. If you listen, what do you hear? You hear about a covenant god, a god that loves us, a god that sends a savior.

You hear about a savior when you listen. Hebrews won in the past, god spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times in various ways, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by his son whom he appointed air of all things and through whom he made the universe. He's spoken by his son and when you listen to the son and that the son is the savior, then you can come to the father and call him father. It's not religion. James, I'm giving you trying to give you what the Bible says.

James chapter 1, he chose to give us birth through the word of truth. When we listen, we will have a transcendent experience. We'll be born again, born of god, birth through the word. 1 Peter 1, for you have been born again, not with perishable seeds, not with things of this earth, not under the sun where everything dies. You've been born again with imperishable.

The living and enduring word of god. Romans chapter 10, How then can they call on the 1 they have not believed in? How can they call on the 1 they've not believed in? And how can they believe in the 1 that they've not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. That's why I'm preaching. That's why we believe in preaching, because preaching brings the word of god to your very soul. You don't come here to do God a favor. He's brought you here to do you a favor.

He's brought you here to hear him. He's not interested in your fine words and your vows and your cleverness, your silences, and your singing in your chanting, until you're born into his family, and religion Sometimes, when you're doing it, suddenly there's this shaft that comes through. Think about your sacrifices. Look at the second half of verse 1. Go near to listen rather than offer the sacrifices the sacrifice of fools who do not know what they do wrong.

They're just bringing things to god, thinking he'll like them. If I did that with Anne, it wouldn't be a great relationship, would it? Or think of think of the army. Think of a sergeant major. Yeah?

If the sergeant major says, Woodcock, I want you to go and guard that door, sir. But I don't have never been in the army, but sir. And I actually quite like this sergeant major. It's a nice bloke, actually. I tell you what, just before I guide the door, I think I'd just go down and get him a box of chocolates.

I'll just go to town. It won't be long, be half an hour or something. Door can wait. And I come back with a box of chocolates, and I give it to the sergeant manager. I just wanna say, I actually quite like the way you go.

What cock? I like the way you shout. It's quite nice, and and you're quite a nice blow. So, I bought you some chocolates. What do you think he'll say?

I didn't ask for chocolates. I ask that you'd be at the door. It's like us blokes when we're first married. We think I know it's a I know how to love Anne. I'll get upset this morning and put a shelf up.

Yeah? It's always doing that. Put a shelf up, and and then Anne's not that pleased with it, especially when things roll off it, Yeah? What? She wanted to talk.

I didn't know that, and I just thought I'd put a shelf up. What? Think about the thilies. Do, do, do, do, do, do things for god. When he says, listen.

That's why when you look around at posters outside churches, we've got the eucharist on or we've got this on. And that's on, and it's all doing things. We do things, but we need to listen. But, of course, When we listen, we do become doers. When we listen, the dream becomes a reality.

We now know god and do. So verse 4, when you make a vow to god, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools. Much dreaming and many words are meaningless, therefore, stand in awe of god. When you know god, When you know what he wants, which is us to worship the lord Jesus Christ, and say we need him.

When you know god, you hear him and you're a thankful believer, and that makes you a servant, and not a dreamer. You are not a daydream believer. You're a real person that now knows god, and it affects the way you live. So where are you in all this? Where are you in all this?

Religion or real relationship with god that you've heard speak to you about the savior who's come and died for you and loved you and done it all for you so that you're born into the family of god So you're not praying to a god, you're praying to father god. Let's pray. Heavenly father. The 1 who dwells in unapproachable light above the sun We thank you so much that you have not left us on our own to grope around in the darkness, but you have spoken And we thank you for that. We pray that you would help us to listen.

Or we pray that you would give us ears to hear. Father, we are We are so sorry that we don't listen. We're so sorry that we don't trust you, which proves that we don't listen. We we ask for your forgiveness. We pray that you would forgive us for not hearing your word and not doing your word.

Lord, we're sorry when for when we think we are doing the right thing, but we're just going through the motions. Where we're just treating our relationship with you as as a list of do's and don'ts, and there's no real heart. Lord, it's so easy to fall into this trap. Feeling good about ourselves, lord we are we we don't wanna be like this. We want to We want you to change us.

And we thank you that we can come together and hear preaching from your word that will warn us and rebuke us and, preaching that will shout about our wonderful savior who has died to forgive us. And we thank you that we can We can live in the freedom of of the wonderful good news of Jesus. We thank you that we can sing about having our guilt taken away. Law, we do thank you so much to Jesus. When he came, he He gave us these, things, these sacred, and special celebrations, these feasts, We thank you that he, on the night before he was betrayed, he took bread and and broke it And he said, do this in remembrance of me.

We thank you that the, that the bread and the wine The juice reminds us of his body that he gave for us on the cross. We thank you that he did he scorned the shame lord. We thank you that he shed his blood. As the perfect sacrifice. For us, what a what a what a god you are What a wonderful savior Jesus is that he would die for us even while we were still sinners?

So lord, as we as we take the bread together now and drink the cup, we pray that you would help us to rejoice in our savior. And lord help us to be careful as we resolve to follow you but help us to do that in faith that we will live change lives by the power of your spirit. So we thank you once again for for blessing us this morning. And we pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen.