9 Then the people rejoiced because they had given willingly, for with a whole heart they had offered freely to the LORD. David the king also rejoiced greatly.
David Prays in the Assembly
10 Therefore David blessed the LORD in the presence of all the assembly. And David said: “Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. 11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. 12 Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. 13 And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.
14 “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. 15 For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding.116 O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own. 17 I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness. In the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered all these things, and now I have seen your people, who are present here, offering freely and joyously to you. 18 O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts toward you. 19 Grant to Solomon my son a whole heart that he may keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes, performing all, and that he may build the palace for which I have made provision.”
20 Then David said to all the assembly, “Bless the LORD your God.” And all the assembly blessed the LORD, the God of their fathers, and bowed their heads and paid homage to the LORD and to the king.
Footnotes
[1]29:15Septuagint, Vulgate; Hebrew hope, or prospect
26 Thus David the son of Jesse reigned over all Israel. 27 The time that he reigned over Israel was forty years. He reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem. 28 Then he died at a good age, full of days, riches, and honor. And Solomon his son reigned in his place.
9 Then the people rejoiced because they had given willingly, for with a whole heart they had offered freely to the LORD. David the king also rejoiced greatly.
David Prays in the Assembly
10 Therefore David blessed the LORD in the presence of all the assembly. And David said: “Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. 11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. 12 Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. 13 And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.
14 “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. 15 For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding.116 O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own. 17 I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness. In the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered all these things, and now I have seen your people, who are present here, offering freely and joyously to you. 18 O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts toward you. 19 Grant to Solomon my son a whole heart that he may keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes, performing all, and that he may build the palace for which I have made provision.”
20 Then David said to all the assembly, “Bless the LORD your God.” And all the assembly blessed the LORD, the God of their fathers, and bowed their heads and paid homage to the LORD and to the king.
Footnotes
[1]29:15Septuagint, Vulgate; Hebrew hope, or prospect
26 Thus David the son of Jesse reigned over all Israel. 27 The time that he reigned over Israel was forty years. He reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem. 28 Then he died at a good age, full of days, riches, and honor. And Solomon his son reigned in his place.
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:
If you would turn to 1st Chronicles 29. 1st Chronicles 29, we're continuing our theme of prayer, and this is actually gonna be the 3rd prayer that we look at from King David. It's a prayer that he prays at the end of his life. It's a beautiful prayer, and we could never have this prayer unless we had last week's prayer from Psalm 51 in which David does a prayer of repentance. David blew it big time often.
Joel Brooks:
He had some pretty major sins, but he always repented. He was transparent. He was vulnerable. He repented publicly, and that's why he was called a man after God's own heart. Just because he continually repented of his sins, and because of that, when it comes to the end of his life, he could pray prayers like this.
Joel Brooks:
We'll begin reading in verse 9. Then the people rejoiced because they had given willingly, for with a whole heart they had offered freely to the Lord. David the king also rejoiced greatly. Therefore David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly. And David said, blessed are you, oh Lord, the God of Israel, our father, forever and ever.
Joel Brooks:
Yours, oh, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, oh lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.
Joel Brooks:
But who am I, and what is my people that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you and of your own have we given you. For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on earth are like a shadow and there is no abiding. Oh, lord, our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house, for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own.
Joel Brooks:
I know, my God, that you test the heart, and you have pleasure in uprightness. In the uprightness of my heart, I have freely offered all these things. And now I have seen your people who are present here offering freely and joyously to you. Oh, lord. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.
Joel Brooks:
Our fathers, keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people. And direct their hearts towards you. Grant to Solomon, my son, a whole heart. That he may keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes, performing all, and that he may build the palace for which I have made provision. Go down to verse 26.
Joel Brooks:
Thus David, the son of Jesse, reigned over all Israel. The time that he reigned over Israel was 40 years. He reigned 7 years in Hebron and 33 years in Jerusalem. Then he died at a good age, full of days, riches and honor. And Solomon, his son, reigned in his place.
Joel Brooks:
This is the word of the Lord. If you would pray with me. Yes. Father, we ask that through your spirit, as we open up your word and we seek to understand it, that you would give us a whole heart. A whole heart completely devoted to you.
Joel Brooks:
Lord, I pray that real change would happen in this place this evening. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:
So when I look out at our congregation, one thing hits me immediately. And it probably hit you as well, maybe the first time you came in here, and that's that we are so young. We're young just in the fact that we've only been around for 10 years as a church, but also our demographic is just so young. When I look out, I see mostly working young working professionals. There's a few older, you know, mid forties like me, in their prime.
Joel Brooks:
Then we have a few that are that are older than that. Now I realize not everybody is as young as I think they are. Maybe you've made the same mistake I have. You know, I I've possibly met you at one time and just asked, so what school do you go to? And you're like, and this is my wife and 3 children, but as you age, everybody looks pretty young, but but as a whole, we are a young congregation.
Joel Brooks:
99 of you, it seems like this message wouldn't apply to. The other 1% listen carefully. So why why are we looking at a prayer that's prayed at the end of somebody's life? So a prayer that doesn't really apply or seem to apply to, you know, 99% of you here. The reason we're gonna look at this prayer is because we don't have that voice in our congregation, or so few of those voices.
Joel Brooks:
And we need to hear that voice. We need to learn from a person who can look back on life way more than they have to look forward in life, and we can glean from their wisdom. You know, before I was married, I used to think I knew a lot about marriage. And then you get married and you realize you didn't know anything about marriage. Before I became a parent, I actually thought I could write a book on raising children.
Joel Brooks:
And then you have kids. I I mean, there were times that when I didn't have kids, I secretly judged other parents. Alright? You know, you would see parents that have their kids in public having total meltdowns, and I'm like never will my kids do that. Oh gosh, do kids humble you, and then not only would my kids have meltdowns, but then I would also do things like, you know, just throw M and M's or donuts or chips at them.
Joel Brooks:
Anything to keep them occupied. Things also thought I would never do. Never buy a book on parenting from somebody who doesn't have children. Experience is the best teacher. I mean, you can read about these things, but there's no substitute for living them.
Joel Brooks:
Soren Kierkegaard, he famously said, life is lived forward, but it is understood backwards. It's lived forward, but it is understood backwards. And what this means for us is that most of us here don't really have a clue as to what's happening in life, because we haven't lived enough of it yet. But once we live enough, then we can look backwards and we can have understanding. But till then, we need to lean on the wisdom of those who've gone before us.
Joel Brooks:
We need to perhaps humble ourselves before people like David and say perhaps you know more about the things I should be valuing, more about the things I should be pursuing, spending my time, energies, and passions on. Perhaps you know more about those things than I do, and so we need to listen intently to his prayer. The occasion for this prayer is that David knows the end is near. He's he's at the end of his life, and so he he's handing off the reigns of the kingdom to his son, Solomon, and he's also handing off the project of building the temple of the Lord. Now David had wanted to build the temple of the Lord, but God told him no.
Joel Brooks:
Said I'm not gonna allow a man of war to build the temple. Your son's gonna have to build the temple. And that just tells me right off the bat that even King David, even somebody who loved the Lord like that, would at times have the desires of his heart denied by God. Said, no. That is not gonna be for you, but it will be for your son.
Joel Brooks:
And so David, he he heard that. He didn't pout. He he instead, he spent his life making preparations for the temple, preparations for the next generation. And so he hired architects and he made drawings for the temple. He, he began to collect all the materials that would be needed to build the temple.
Joel Brooks:
And then for 2 decades, he's been saving his own personal money that he could give towards the temple. And then he he went before the congregation and he he told them, I would love all of you to now give towards this temple project. And then he modeled it. He gave all of his fortune in front. That's what a good leader does.
Joel Brooks:
A good leader models things and then tells people to hop on board, and the people did. All of Israel gave generously, and it's when David sees all of this generous giving that he then launches into prayer. This is actually a beautiful model of what giving should look like for us. So much of what we give, we give for a future temple that we will never see this side of glory. We give towards a temple that someday is is is currently it's being built from every tongue, tribe, and nation, but we're not seeing it now, but we give towards that end.
Joel Brooks:
And we give joyously. As I was reading this, I was reminded of, when we opened a time capsule here at the church. I don't know if y'all remember that. This church, a couple years ago, we celebrated the 100 year anniversary of this church building. We found a time capsule, we opened it, there was a letter there from the church, or from the pastor who helped build this place, and one of the things that he said was this, because it was a time of poverty.
Joel Brooks:
They were in the midst of a war. And he said, if you were to collect all of the money within a 10 block radius of this building, it would not be enough to buy a single new car, yet we have built this building. And a 100 years later, we are the beneficiaries of that. Of their sacrificial giving generations ago, they gave and we are now still worshiping in this place, and they joyfully gave. We read that here in verse 9.
Joel Brooks:
It says the people rejoiced because they had given willingly, for with a whole heart, they had offered freely to the lord. And David the king also rejoiced greatly. Now it's in response to this that he now launches into this prayer, because this is his final act before he fades off into the sunset. And so he says these words, he prays this, but he prays it out loud because he wants everybody to hear. Now the first thing he prays is this.
Joel Brooks:
The first thing he does is he acknowledges publicly that everything he has and everything he is has come from the Lord. Everything he has and everything he is has come from the Lord. Listen to these words again, beginning in verse 11. Perhaps you recognize these words. They're powerful words.
Joel Brooks:
They're they've become part of the Lord's prayer. Yours, oh Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory, and the victory and the majesty. For all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, oh lord, and you are exalted as head over all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all.
Joel Brooks:
In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name. But who am I? And what is my people that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you and of your own have we given you.
Joel Brooks:
Those are good words to underline, perhaps spend the rest of your life meditating on. Everything you have, everything you are has come from God. This is another way of saying you are who you are by God's grace alone. Let me ask you the question, do you actually believe this? That who you are is by God's grace alone.
Joel Brooks:
Or do you believe that whatever measure of control you have, whatever measure of power you have, or or measure of of wealth you have, has actually come because you've worked for it. At least worked harder than your neighbor or worked harder than your coworker or friends for it. You're more deserving than them, and so you want you believe actually you could take ownership for the things that you believe are yours. Or do you think it's all by God's grace? Now we've talked about this before, but 99.9% of who you are, you realize you had nothing to do with.
Joel Brooks:
You believe that whether you're a Christian or not. I mean, who here willed their own birth? Who here, like, you know, decided you would exist? Nobody decided their own existence. You you didn't choose to be alive.
Joel Brooks:
You didn't choose your parents. You didn't choose, your skin color, your gender, what nationality you would be. You didn't choose what time period you would grow up in. You could have been born 200 years ago in in Ethiopia or something. You would have had a vastly different life.
Joel Brooks:
You are who you are because of God. David recognizes this. As David looks back at his life, a very blessed life, he says, I'm only here because of you, Lord. Now you need to realize if any person could have proclaimed to be a self made man, it was David. David could have proclaimed this, because David literally fought for everything that he had.
Joel Brooks:
I mean, you think you fought for things like, I had to fight for that promotion. I had to fight to get in that neighborhood. I had to fight to win that girl's heart. You know, I had to fight for these things. You didn't fight.
Joel Brooks:
David literally fought for everything. He had 7 older brothers, so the fighting began early. Just to even be noticed. He fought Goliath when he was just a youth, and then he won. And then he kept fighting battle after battle, enemy after enemy.
Joel Brooks:
David wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was a shepherd who had to rise up through the ranks through hard work. He had to win over the people in order to become king. Fighting enemy after enemy, it was not easy at all. And and in addition to all of that, being this incredible fighter, he was also really charismatic.
Joel Brooks:
He was incredibly intelligent, and he apparently picked up the guitar, became a musician, and a great singer songwriter at the same time. He was this self made amazing man. The middle picture I have in my head is I used to have a neighbor, he lived across the street, who he just he was a really hard worker, self made man, Good looking guy. I mean, he started he became a model for Ralph Lauren. Alright?
Joel Brooks:
He would get out in the front yard, tight jeans, shirt off, and he would chop wood. Alright? And he was just like, he just like, he exuded like manhood, and he would just he would just do that for a while, and then no kidding, when he was when he was done with that, he'd put the ax aside and he'd pick up a guitar and he'd sit down on one of the logs and he would start playing and he would sing John Denver songs. Alright? He'd do that, and, like, you know, women will walk by with their dogs, and they will walk around the block and go again and again, borrow other people's dogs to walk by.
Joel Brooks:
And I realized, like, I hated that man. And, like, there's just this self made amazing man there. It's David. David could proclaim this. I am who I am because of me, my hard work, But David knew he couldn't say this.
Joel Brooks:
All it would have taken was one stray arrow, One popped blood vessel. One time for being passed over for a promotion that he thought he deserved. Mean he didn't even lose his kingdom after adultery and murder. He is who he is because of God. He realizes that.
Joel Brooks:
And this is why he could say in verse 14, who am I? Who am I? And what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly? For all things come from you and of your own have we given to you. Hear me.
Joel Brooks:
Stewardship is not is not so much about you giving 10% to the church or to whatever charity. Stewardship is much broader than that. Stewardship is a matter of of your heart. It comes from recognizing that everything you have comes from God, and he gives it to you, and you are to never close your hand. Ever.
Joel Brooks:
He gives it to you and you get to give it back to him. Every father understands this come father's day. My kids, you know, father's day, they go and they buy a tie, and they give it to me. Okay, who bought that tie? I mean, I bought the tie.
Joel Brooks:
And you know, they're They took money out of my wallet. They went, they bought the tie, and they gave it to me. But but here they are as these kids and they're just beaming they're smiling dad we got you a tie and I'm beaming and I'm I'm smiling that they gave me the tie, but I'm actually giving it to myself. That's that's our relationship with God. He blesses us.
Joel Brooks:
He he gives us everything we have in this life, and we, in turn, we have the joy of giving it back to him, And we have this incredible smile on our face as we do so, and he smiles in receiving it. But every gift we give to him is actually just the grace he's given us returning back over and over, and we spend an entire life of this. So David, he's aware of this. And the next thing that David acknowledges in his prayer is that life is short. Look at verse 15.
Joel Brooks:
For we are strangers before you, and sojourners as all our fathers were. Our days on earth are like a shadow and there is no abiding. So a sojourner or a resident alien, was a person who lived among citizens, but wasn't a citizen. So they actually could not own any property and they didn't have the same legal protection as the citizens. Now David's saying this is absolutely astounding, because as David is praying this, he owns more property than any other citizen in all of Israel.
Joel Brooks:
He has more security than any other citizen in Israel. And yet David is saying, it's all a facade. It's all a facade. I am just a sojourner. No property.
Joel Brooks:
No real protection. Those things come from God. I remember hearing, the author Stephen King. He was speaking in a commencement address. And, for those of you who don't know Stephen King, he, he nearly died at one point.
Joel Brooks:
He was walking on the side of the road. He was hit by a van and nearly died. And what he said in his commencement speech was after he got hit and he's just been laying in that ditch for the longest time, all he could think of was this one thing. I've got a Mastercard in my wallet, and what good does that do me? I've got a Mastercard in my wallet, but what good does it do me?
Joel Brooks:
I thought I had all this wealth and all this power, but I've got nothing. And he said this at the commencement. He says, I'm going out broke. Warren Buffett, going out broke. Bill Gates, going out broke.
Joel Brooks:
You guys broke. Not a crying dime. And how long in between? How long have you gotten the chips? I am now aware of time passing by, and in the end, it's just a blink of the eye.
Joel Brooks:
That's how long you have, a blink of the eye. It took getting hit by a van for Stephen King to realize that he's nothing more than a sojourner in this life. David then goes on to say that his days on earth are like a shadow. Just a shadow. Just here for a moment.
Joel Brooks:
I don't know if you have this saying at your house, Lauren, and I say it all the time. The days are long, but the years are short. The days are long, but the years are short. You know, there are some days that you feel are never ever going to end. I don't know if you have those days.
Joel Brooks:
Some days, it's 9 AM to me. By 9 AM, I'm already looking forward to bed. But you have all these meetings and all these things you have to do, between now and then, but the day just seems so long. But then the years are short. You know, I can still vividly remember when my oldest daughter Caroline was born.
Joel Brooks:
I don't have a good memory, but I can vividly remember that. And I remember holding her for their first time, and she wrapped her her little hand just around my finger. It's the other way around now. I'm wrapped around hers. But, but I remember just looking at at just that little little hand there, those little fingers.
Joel Brooks:
She is now older than Lauren was when we first started dating. She's been alive for 5,720 days. Yet, that seems like yesterday. I mean, it seems like yesterday. I remember it so vividly.
Joel Brooks:
Time passes by. The days are long, but the years are short. Now when you are younger, you don't sense that. You don't really believe that. You think you have all of this time ahead of you.
Joel Brooks:
Time seems to move slowly, but when you're older, you realize that your life is a shadow. You realize that it's it's like breath on a cold day, and it's just kinda this mist that goes forth, but then it disappears. I was reading a sermon on this written by, the late, Bishop Edwin Hughes, and he was preaching a message on this, and it was entitled All Things Belong to God. And he actually wrote about something that happened after he preached that. He said a person who was in his congregation, a very wealthy man, had a problem with what he just preached because the wealthy man thought he was a self made man.
Joel Brooks:
And he actually went to the preacher and he said, are you saying that despite me working hard, harder than anybody else, and building this business that I have from the ground up, Are you saying that this business isn't mine? And I loved Bishop, Edwin's response. Because why don't you ask me that question a 100 years from now? Ask me that question a 100 years from now. You come and you go.
Joel Brooks:
All the things we think we are really ours, they're the Lord's. He's the one who gives to us. We freely give back to him. And as we freely give back to him, you know what we're recognizing? We're recognizing our mortality, that our days are a shadow, and it was all his all the time anyway.
Joel Brooks:
So David, he he recognizes the brevity of his life. The final thing that David prays for is for the future of his people, in particular the future of his son Solomon. Look at verses 18 and 19. Oh Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people. And direct their hearts towards you.
Joel Brooks:
Grant to Solomon, my son, a whole heart. That he may keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes. Performing all, that he may build the palace for which I have made provision. So here David prays for the people of Israel, and he prays for his son Solomon, that they would know their purpose in life, and that they would do it with a whole Notice what David does not pray for his son. He does not pray that Solomon would have continued health.
Joel Brooks:
Solomon would live a long life, perhaps be able to see his great grandchildren. He doesn't pray for riches or success for Solomon. He doesn't pray that Solomon gets into some Ivy League school, you know, becomes the CEO of some company or becomes a famous author or He doesn't pray for that. He doesn't pray for fame. He doesn't pray for glory.
Joel Brooks:
He doesn't pray that Solomon expands the kingdom more and becomes more powerful. He prays, God, give my son purpose and a whole heart. Purpose and a whole heart. When he prays that he would have a whole heart, what he's praying is may his heart be not divided in what it pursues. Maybe a heart maybe you have a heart that doesn't think it has to do everything in life, but instead has to do the one thing that matters, loving you with all your heart, soul, and strength.
Joel Brooks:
That's what matters. For Solomon, his purpose, his calling was to build the temple of the Lord. Here it's translated as palace, but what David is referring to is the house of the Lord, or the palace of the Lord, or the temple of the Lord. And what David wants here, what he desires is that not just Solomon is a good, morally upright person who works really hard doing this task, because he realizes that if he's just a morally good, upright person working hard, doing what this calling, it'll all be empty. It will all be vanity apart from having a whole heart.
Joel Brooks:
Actually, trying to be morally upright, trying to obey God, trying to to do all these things for God, and not having the whole heart, that's a prescription for exhaustion. You'll actually spend the rest of your life being completely exhausted, which I know a number of you are. So you're just trying to churn out these things, but you could tell they're empty gestures. So that's why David prays here, give him a whole heart. Make him a man who loves you with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind, And then may he obey his calling.
Joel Brooks:
Do you know what your calling is in life? As a child of God, do you know what your calling is? Now, let me be clear. I'm not asking if you know what your vocation is. I'm not asking if you know what your career is.
Joel Brooks:
I'm asking if you know what your calling is as a child of God. The calling you have to your neighbor. The calling you have as a citizen, the calling you have as a single or as a husband or wife. Do you know what your calling is? Your calling is pretty simple as this child.
Joel Brooks:
Your calling is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. To love your neighbors. To obey the Lord and to tell people about him. Now that calling is gonna manifest itself in many other ways, but that is your calling. I feel like I I perhaps need to be a little direct in this.
Joel Brooks:
If you are married here, let me tell you what you were called to do, a way that this is manifested in your life, is you are to love your spouse and be present with your spouse well. Anybody can do your career, but God has called you husbands to be the one husband for your wife and wife for you to be the one wife to your husband. Nobody else can do that. God has called you to be the parent of your children. Nobody else can do that.
Joel Brooks:
I have to remind myself that, I'm not that important. That anybody else can be the pastor of Redeemer Community Church. I have no doubt that probably some of you could do a better job than I'm doing, But not one of you is called to be the husband of Lauren. And not one of you is called to be the dad to Caroline, Natalie, or Georgia. Those are particular callings that the Lord has placed in my life, and I need to, in loving service to him, obey those callings.
Joel Brooks:
That's a way that we love the lord our god with all our heart, soul, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourself. I I once heard Paul Tripp. Perhaps you know him. He's a pastor, counselor, speaker, author, but he said this. He said this of Christians.
Joel Brooks:
Said, we don't lack calling, we lack faithfulness. We don't lack calling, we lack seriousness. We lack willingness. We lack perseverance. And if I might add to that, I I would say we lack courage to actually value the things that God values even when the world doesn't.
Joel Brooks:
But we certainly don't lack calling. There's gonna be a day for some of us. Some of us are gonna have a severe trauma when it comes towards the end of our life. And I'm not talking about the trauma of whatever, you know, physical suffering you might have. The trauma is gonna be this, regret.
Joel Brooks:
It's gonna be you wrestling through the regret of knowing that you spent much of your life valuing things that at that moment, as you near your death, you realize had no value. That's gonna come crashing down on some of us. What we value at the end of our life needs to be what we value now during our life, And God's the one who tells us what we should value, and it's him, wholehearted devotion to him. Can I just ask you a question? Are are you gonna listen to David's prayer?
Joel Brooks:
Will you listen to him? It's not a prayer of sorrow. It's heavy, but it is not a prayer of sorrow. David is rejoicing as he is praying this prayer at the end of his life. He's full of joy acknowledging everything I have has come from you, God.
Joel Brooks:
I can't believe I get to do this. It all comes from you. Yes, my life is short. Yes, it was temporary, but in this time I have the joy of giving to you this way. Then he looks forward, and he's like, oh, can can my child know this?
Joel Brooks:
Can you give him wholehearted devotion to where he would fulfill his calling? I would ask, would you pray those things with David? Now realize that there's gonna be a temptation for a lot of us here to, you know, we hear these words and we're like, alright. I've gotta do better, you know, carpe diem, get out there, seize the day, you know. I'm I'm now gonna be wholehearted.
Joel Brooks:
I'm now gonna follow the Lord, you know, and and that's great. I encourage you. Get out there. You go for it. You're gonna fail, but go for it.
Joel Brooks:
Alright? The reason you're gonna fail is because you can't create in yourself the heart needed for this. This doesn't come from just like, you know, pulling up your your bootstraps and saying, I'm gonna do this. This wholehearted devotion comes from the Lord who gives you a new heart. That's why David last week in repentance said, Lord, create in me a clean heart.
Joel Brooks:
Give me a new heart, and now David here is praying, now that I have this clean heart, can you move it into a wholehearted devotion towards you? God is the one who does these things in our in our hearts. It's beyond our abilities. If right now you were to leave this place and you were to give me your absolute best, it would fall far short of what God requires. Your absolute best.
Joel Brooks:
You cannot live the life you were meant to live, but the good news of the gospel is this, Jesus has lived that life for you. The perfect life that you were supposed to live, Jesus has lived on your behalf. And Jesus, he died on the cross paying for your sins. At the cross, he has forgiven every sin that you have committed in the past and every sin you will commit in the future. And in his resurrection, he has now given you new life.
Joel Brooks:
He has given you a new heart, A heart that can love him with all of your heart, soul, and strength and be wholehearted. That's our hope. Our hope is in Jesus and what he has done and not in what we do. So would you trust wholly in him? Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:
Lord Jesus, I ask that through your Spirit, you would give us whole hearts. May we realize that everything we have comes from you. We are who we are by your grace and your grace alone, That our lives are a fleeting shadow. That all that matters is wholehearted devotion to you and that we would live out your calling upon us. And we thank you that through Jesus Christ, that is possible.