Opening words for Sunday’s sermon: “Experience is a pretty good teacher. Life gets in the way of how it ought to be or, that’s the notion we have when we’re young.” Right then I knew something was coming. Grabbing my pen, I set to scribbling every word I could. Pastor Josh gets that way. He likes to stir things up to see if we’re paying attention.
He said it would help our theology to start with what was at the end—the end is Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. The example was a Macro-Economics instructor at a university that is Southern Baptist. The question he posed to his class was, “What is the conclusion of the matter?” No one had a handy response so, Josh, who was at the time a young preacher, responded by saying, “Fear God and keep his commandments.” This was the opening of the sermon.
Ecclesiastes 12:13, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments.” Life and living, all the things that our lives are filled with. And when we get down to the end what is it that really counts? Is it the big house, the career, relationships, family, trips, etc., etc., etc.? Pastor Josh, with arms outstretched, “I’m just a dying man standing up here trying to tell dying people how to live.”
Sometimes Scripture is easy to understand but difficult to execute. The God-breathed scripture says ‘fear God and keep his commandments’. God is our boss. In real-life situations if the boss tells us to go do something, we do it (execute it, carry it out). This is our Boss (God) that says you need to do this, that it’s our duty to do it.
Why should we do it? Verse 14 says that when our life is finished every work; the good, the bad, and the secrets will be brought into judgment. There’s a time coming when e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g will be spread out before us to be judged. Imagine it, standing there looking up at the virtual reality screen and watching life play out before our eyes. The Holy Spirit is working overtime to get us to see our true duty. So is Pastor Josh.
He said it would help our theology to start with what was at the end—the end is Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. The example was a Macro-Economics instructor at a university that is Southern Baptist. The question he posed to his class was, “What is the conclusion of the matter?” No one had a handy response so, Josh, who was at the time a young preacher, responded by saying, “Fear God and keep his commandments.” This was the opening of the sermon.
Ecclesiastes 12:13, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments.” Life and living, all the things that our lives are filled with. And when we get down to the end what is it that really counts? Is it the big house, the career, relationships, family, trips, etc., etc., etc.? Pastor Josh, with arms outstretched, “I’m just a dying man standing up here trying to tell dying people how to live.”
Sometimes Scripture is easy to understand but difficult to execute. The God-breathed scripture says ‘fear God and keep his commandments’. God is our boss. In real-life situations if the boss tells us to go do something, we do it (execute it, carry it out). This is our Boss (God) that says you need to do this, that it’s our duty to do it.
Why should we do it? Verse 14 says that when our life is finished every work; the good, the bad, and the secrets will be brought into judgment. There’s a time coming when e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g will be spread out before us to be judged. Imagine it, standing there looking up at the virtual reality screen and watching life play out before our eyes. The Holy Spirit is working overtime to get us to see our true duty. So is Pastor Josh.
