Old Testament & Epistle Readings by Pastor Mark Lund
“From the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness.”
-Ecclesiastes 1: 2, 12-14; 2: 18-26
Old Testament Reading by Pastor Mark Lund
-Ecclesiastes 1 & 2
Old Testament Reading by Pastor Mark Lund
Everything Is Meaningless
“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless!”
Wisdom is Meaningless
I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
Toil is Meaningless
I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.
A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is fro the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up earth to hand it over to the one who please God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
-Ecclesiastes 1: 2, 12-14; 2: 18-26
Epistle Reading by Pastor Mark Lund
-Colossians 3: 1-11
Epistle Reading by Pastor Mark Lund
Living as Those Made Alive in Christ
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you dead, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in Glory.
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in the ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which its being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is not Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
