In this week’s sermon passage, Solomon wrestles with the unjust state of the world. Everywhere he looked, he found wickedness and oppression. We too have reason to lament when we see “evil […] prosper in the land” (Fret Not Yourself—Psalm 37), when we encounter “change and decay” (Abide With Me), when we must confront the sin we find in…
Much like today’s sermon text from Ecclesiastes 3, many of the hymns we sing this morning mention aspects of God’s sovereignty over time. His truth has “at all times firmly stood, and shall from age to age endure” (All People That On Earth Do Dwell—Psalm 100). We are not to “fear the trying hour” (Incarnate God!—Psalm 91), but instead wait…
Today, we observe Ascension Sunday, perhaps the most neglected of the “five evangelical feasts” which are celebrated in most Christian traditions (along with Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, and Pentecost). This day marks the commemoration of the events of Acts 1:6-11 when Jesus completed His earthly ministry by ascending into Heaven and sitting down at the right hand of the Father.…
When writing Hear Me, All You People Hear—Psalm 49 back in the summer of last year, I made an off-hand comment to Mirandi and Elizabeth that, because the music was so dark, we could probably only ever use it in Lent— unless we had a sermon series on something really unusual, something like … Ecclesiastes. Well, providentially, that series is…
This week, Pastor Grant begins a new sermon series working through the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, with its troubling refrain of “all is vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14, 1:17, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 4:4, 4:6, 4:16, 6:9). Paired with this meditation on the folly of human striving apart from the grace of God, we’ll read scriptures from…