Time
Ecclesiastes: The Search For Meaning • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 41:29
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Time
Time
Time is a funny thing isn’t it.
We all have the same amount of hours in a day.
We all are afforded the same segments of time on a day to day basis.
But the effects of time are different for each one of us.
I remember when I was in middle school and high school how quickly the summer went by while the school year seemed to drag on forever.
I also remember how quickly school ran past me when I was in college and seminary.
All of a sudden the semester’s end was here and hopefully I accomplished all my requirements to pass.
In fact, I remember telling someone when I was in seminary, that I no longer looked at time as a day in and day out thing.
Rather, I viewed time in semester blocks.
When school started and when it ended and when I was going back again.
We use phrases like, it feels like it was just yesterday... when our kids were born.
Time is one of the few things in life that humans haven’t learn to conquer.
We can’t stop it.
We can’t slow it down.
We can’t add to it, we can’t take away from it.
So in all reality time is an uncontrollable constant that we have to learn to endure as we live this life.
If you hadn’t guessed yet, this morning’s subject is going to be Time.
Part of the passage we are going to look at this morning is probably the most well known passages in all of Ecclesiastes.
It’s read at funerals, both religious and secular.
In fact this passage was turned into a popular song back in 1965
American folk singer, songwriter, and political activist Pete Singer was writing a lot of anti war, anti government songs.
His record label approached him and demanded that he write a new song that wasn’t about protesting the government.
What he then did was look for inspiration for this new song.
And he turned to Ecclesiastes chapter 3.
With the exception of 6 added words, Ecc. 3:1-8 were turned into a huge success.
The song was recorded and made popular by a band called The Byrds and the title of the Song was “Turn, Turn, Turn.”
This song and the scripture that inspired it resonated with the nation b/c we are all affected by time.
We are all frustrated by time.
For the older time flies by so fast we can’t seem to keep up.
For the younger, time creeps by until adulthood.
And again in all the frustration of time and our inability to stop its progress, what do we do. How do we deal with this uncontrollable constant in our life?
Like much of what we have learned in Ecc. its all about perspective. The way that we look at and view time is going to have an impact on us either negatively or positively.
I’m going to give you the solution b4 we even look at the problem.
We need to trust God.
We need to know that he is in control
The big theological word that is used to talk about God’s oversight of the universe is Sovereignty.
God’s divine rule and reign is covered in this one word Sovereignty.
It means that he has all authority.
All influence and all direction of what happens with in his creation.
And his Sovereignty means that he is working everything out for his good and his glory.
So let’s keep that in mind as we read these scriptures.
1 There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot;
3 a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build;
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance;
5 a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing;
6 a time to search and a time to count as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away;
7 a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak;
8 a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.
A Time For Everything
A Time For Everything
This is a beautiful list of the reality of life.
There is a time for everything.
A season for everything.
In this list one of the things that is interesting is there are 14 pairs of opposites.
7 positive and 7 negative.
And all these pairs encompass the entirety of human life.
Now, one of the things that I find interesting in this poem is that Solomon has a shift in perspective.
I don’t know if you noticed it. I certainly didn’t the first time I read through it.
But for the whole of Ecc. his focus has been about everything under the sun.
But here there is a shift.
He doesn’t say that there is an occasion for everything under the sun.
He says there is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven.
So at this point he is recognizing the reality of life being under the eye of God.
That God is overseeing and aware of every season that we come across.
These seasons are as much a reality for God as they are for us, but God isn’t bound by the time and seasons as we are.
heaven is outside the bounds of time.
Meanwhile everything under the sun is bound by time and seasons.
And as I said earlier, God is the overseer of these times, these seasons of life.
And it all begins with birth and death.
If there is one thing to be sure, you aren’t in control of your birth.
You cannot dictate when you are going to be born, and in most circumstances you aren’t in charge of when you die.
So right off the bat, Solomon is pointing us to the reality that there is someone outside of ourselves that has oversight.
And he sees the beauty in that truth.
Notice, that Solomon doesn’t resent or make judgments on the seasons of life in this poem.
Rather, he simply states that they exist.
Notice that one of the things that Solomon is communicating here is that there is an order to even the seasons of life.
Even the word he uses for occasion or season in v.1, means an appointed time.
The things that happen in the world and in our lives are not chaotic from God’s standpoint.
He is not caught off guard by our circumstances.
He is not confused or overwhelmed.
Rather these times.
These seasons are arranged in such away that they have been appointed by God.
And I know that it can be hard to wrestle with and even resent God’s sovereignty.
We look at the events in our lives and in our world and question why God’ has allowed these things to happen.
Why are Christians in China and the Middle East being captured, imprisoned, and in some instances beheaded for their faith?
Why are friends and family members that we love and care about being ravaged with illness, cancer, and other diseases?
How can a good God allow all these bad things to happen?
How can a God that is in control of the universe let me slip through the cracks?
If life is orderly b/c God designed it that way, why does my life feel chaotic and crazy?
Here’s the truth that we have to hold fast to.
Our God is working his purposes out.
And whether we want to acknowledge it or not, his purposes are always perfect, holy, and just.
Not only that, but God doesn’t leave us alone in our seasons of life.
He is there in the pain.
He is there in the joy.
He is there in the birth.
He is there in death.
He is there in war.
He is there in peace.
Here’s one of the big things that we have to combat in our society and culture.
There are many who don’t actually believe that God is in control and present in our situations.
These are what we would call deists.
They aren’t agnostic or atheist.
They believe in God, but they see God as distant and unconcerned with our lives.
They see God as a Divine Watchmaker who set everything in motion and then sits back and watches creation move without any involvement in that creation.
This is an affront to God and his character.
If God was simply a divine watchmaker, then Jesus wouldn’t have entered into history to die for our sins and offer us restoration through his sacrifice and resurrection.
But as it is, God has set forth seasons and occasions for his purposes.
God has his plans and purposes in these seasons and occasions.
Listen to what Paul wrote in
4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”
7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.
Or John
23 Jesus replied to them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
God Almighty may be outside of times constraints, but that doesn’t mean that God is unconcerned with time.
He does things that he means to do when he means to do them.
“God does everything decently and in order.”
You may question God’s timing.
You may wonder where he is and why is he taking so long to do what you want him to do.
You may through criticisms at God, but know this.
He knows better than you.
And he is working things out for his glory.
His plan and his purposes are always better, even if we don’t like them.
You aren’t the ruler of the universe so you don’t have the perspective that God has, trust him.
The reality is that knowing God is in control doesn’t mean that we will always understand or appreciate his timing.
I know that.
You have experience that.
But that’s where our faith and trust in his goodness and mercy stems from.
We have to be willing to trust him and in trusting him, we will see him working.
We will see him moving.
We will see him accomplishing what he set out to do.
We will laugh, we will cry.
We will build, we will tear down.
We will plant, we will weed.
We will mourn, we will dance.
We will embrace, we will push away.
We will be silent, we will speak.
We will live, we will die.
All these times are set by the Lord.
So this beautiful poem should give us hope that our life is lived in seasons.
I heard someone say one time that we should live our lives in balance, but the reality is balance isn’t always available to us.
Sometimes there are hard seasons.
Where there is no balance.
There is simply endurance.
Here’s a quick example from my life.
When I was in Seminary, I had no time for balance during the Semester.
I was working full time.
I was in school full time.
We had 2 kids and life was crazy.
There was no balance.
M-F 11-9 I was at work.
Saturday and Sunday I was hustling to get most of my school work done for the week.
Meanwhile attending church and small group.
There was no margin.
There was no balance.
It was a rough season for 3 years.
And when I would get discouraged or overwhelmed.
I would start complaining and think about giving up.
Corrie would always remind me that this is just a season.
This is such a short time in the grand scheme of things.
Maybe that’s what you have to hear this morning.
The time that you are going through right now.
It is just a season.
Whether things are good or bad.
This is just a season.
That doesn’t mean that the hard isn’t difficult.
That doesn’t mean that the good isn’t good.
It just means that the time you are in right now, will not be the time you are going to be in in the future.
You see problems arise when we try to live in a season that we’re not in right now.
Don’t try to ignore the problems that you are facing.
Don’t try to curb the happiness that you are feeling.
And don’t drag that mindset into the next season you are entering.
If it’s a time to dance, stop mourning.
If it’s a time to weep, stop laughing.
If it’s a time to love, stop hating.
If it’s a time to build, stop tearing down.
If it’s a time to embrace, stop pushing away.
If it’s a time to speak, stop being silent.
Whatever season you are in embrace it and know that there is a new one coming around the corner.
...
Solomon doesn’t really give us any perspective on these seasons until the next few verses.
9 What does the worker gain from his struggles?
10 I have seen the task that God has given the children of Adam to keep them occupied.
11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end.
Eternal Longing
Eternal Longing
After Solomon presents us with this poem, he returns to the question that he asked in 1:3
Ecc 1:3 “3 What does a person gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun?”
So he’s looking at the nature of time.
He’s looking at the reality of an occasion for every season.
And he’s asking the only question that comes to mind.
If there is a season or an occasion for everything, what gain is there in toil.
Why don’t we just wait until the good season.
Why don’t we just sit still and wait for God to show up and make our lives better.
And that may be a good question.
Why don’t we just sit around and wait.
And no sooner does he ask that question than he answers it in v.10-11.
Ecc 3:10-11 “10 I have seen the task that God has given the children of Adam to keep them occupied. 11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end.”
God has given us the task of working.
He has meant to keep us occupied.
This is what we talked about last week.
We were created to work.
We were created to be creative.
We weren’t created to be bumps on a log waiting for the next thing to happen.
Rather we were created to imitate our working God.
And at the same time, we have a longing within ourselves for something more.
Eternity is in our hearts.
We are hardwired to for transcendence.
So in this construct of life, bound by time, bound by material, bound by the cycles of life, we long for something more.
Something bigger, grander, and everlasting.
Outside of western philosophy and the infiltration of the enlightenment, for most of human history, people have thought about eternal destiny.
This eternal thinking spans all continents.
It spans all races, ethnicity, all regions. To the uttermost parts of the earth.
Humans are longing for the eternal.
And Solomon here tells us why.
B/c God has placed eternity in our hearts.
And part of the Christian life that can be frustrating is that we are caught in the gap.
There is a huge gap between our present reality and our future destiny.
And this gap makes us want to know and see God’s work from beginning to end.
This is why we struggle and toil with the things of God.
How God is working out his purposes in the world.
B/c we are caught in the reality of the already/not yet.
We are unable to know the mind of God.
We can’t search the depths of God’s mind.
This is how Paul quantifies this reality.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways!
34 For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?
35 And who has ever given to God, that he should be repaid?
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
And although this can be frustrating to not know the mind and search the purposes of God, it should drive us to the heart of God.
And we should lean on him and trust him.
Knowing that he is at work and he will receive all the glory forever and ever.
C.S. Lewis said this
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthy pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”
So we have this Longing in our bones and in our bellies for eternity.
We have this frustration that we can’t know fully the plans and purposes of the Lord.
We know that we are created to work and to create.
So what are we supposed to do?
What do we do with these realities?
12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good life.
13 It is also the gift of God whenever anyone eats, drinks, and enjoys all his efforts.
Enjoy Life
Enjoy Life
In these few verses, we see two times in both v. 12 and v.14 that Solomon knows something.
Here he is going to give us the answers to the problems of time and not knowing God’s plan from beginning to end.
So what does he know?
In v.12 he tells us that there is nothing better than to rejoice and enjoy the good life.
he tells us here that we are to enjoy life.
Not in the selfish pursuit of pleasure.
We are not to recreate his experiment from chapter two.
No we enjoy life, b/c God has given us good gifts.
He has made life to be enjoyed.
In v. 13, Solomon tells us that it is the gift of God to enjoy food, drink, and all our efforts.
WE are to be joyful.
You are to enjoy the life that has been granted to you by God.
Notice what he doesn’t say.
He doesn’t say enjoy the life you wish you had.
He doesn’t say enjoy someone else’s life.
He tell us to enjoy our life.
God has given you good things in your life.
Everything good comes from God.
So even if you feel like there’s nothing worth being joyful about, God’s gift of life is something to be celebrated.
You should rejoice in the life that you have been given.
I’m not a big fan of how the CSB translates the end of v.12.
I think they are missing something that other translations get right.
Instead of “enjoy the good life”, the phrase is better translated, “to do good as long as they live.”
So Solomon is saying that there is nothing better than to enjoy the good things of your life and to do good as long as you live.
As a follower of Jesus, you are chosen and called to do good works.
You are saved to do good.
And in doing good you demonstrating the salvation that has been given to you.
So let me ask you:
Do you rejoice in the good the things of life?
Do you find joy and gratitude in food and drink?
Do you find joy and gratitude in doing good?
So what does Solomon mean when he tells us to do good?
Well it’s a call back to Ecc 2:24-25 “24 There is nothing better for a person than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. I have seen that even this is from God’s hand, 25 because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from him?”
Doing good is doing what you were created to do by God.
Being joyful.
Working hard.
Doing good work for his kingdom, in preaching the gospel, raising a family around the good news of Jesus.
This work is good b/c he has given it to us.
Do good for the Lord.
Enjoy food, enjoy drink, and enjoy your work.
B/c as v. 13 says this is all a gift from God.
Your life is meant to be enjoyed if you are in Christ.
And part of enjoying Jesus and life is doing the good that he has called you to.
One of my favorite verses that surrounds this doing good work conversation is Eph 2:10 “10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.”
“We do not work b/c we have nothing better to do, but because God has called us to work for him. Every believer should do good work at home…on the job…in the church…[and] in society.”
And we should do this as long as we live.
Which inherently means that there is going to be a time when we will die.
We only have the opportunity to do the good works we have bee called to as long as we live.
Doing good work knowing that we are going to die helps us to see and do what’s important right now.
Giving us vision to do what matters now. Making our life count now.
Working good and working hard for the glory of God.
And as we do this good work in the savior it gives us the permission to enjoy the good things of this world.
Good Food, Friends, Family, and work.
We work and live with gladness and gratitude.
And when we receive the good things of life with gladness and gratitude we fight against our fleshly desires to turn them into idols.
The good is good, but God is great.
We have to fight against making the good things God things.
We don’t want to be users and takers; we want to be receivers and thankers.
Being a good receiver and a good thanker stems from seeing God for who he is.
14 I know that everything God does will last forever; there is no adding to it or taking from it. God works so that people will be in awe of him.
15 Whatever is, has already been, and whatever will be, already is. However, God seeks justice for the persecuted.
Goodness of God
Goodness of God
What God does lasts forever.
Whatever time that he does it it will endure forever.
And everything that God does drives at people standing in awe of him.
That’s the purpose for the goodness that he gives to us.
That the purpose for the grace that we receive.
That we will stand in awe of him.
That word Awe there in the text is better translated fear God.
This doesn’t mean to be afraid of God or to tremble before him.
Rather it is to see him as he his.
And really when we actually take a moment and think about the power, might, and vastness of God.
We should be taken aback.
B/c regardless of our time on earth. The legacy we leave it is miniscule compared to God’s goodness and his influence over his creation.
We should have a rightful respect and reverence for God as the creator and sustainer of the world.
And fearing God is the point of Ecc.
Remember Ecc 12:13 “13 When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity.”
The works of God are so good.
they are so wonderful.
they are so perfect that we should just stand back overwhelmed by what he has done and what he is doing.
And on top of that, we should be in awe of the fact that he has invited us into this same work.
That’s what it means to do good in v. 13.
We are invited to partake in the work that God is doing.
The lasting and enduring work.
We can’t add to it or take away from it, but we can participate in it.
And that should cause us to stand in awe of God.
To fear him.
When it comes to fearing God Martin Luther said
“This is what it means to fear God: to have God in view, to know that He looks at all our works, and to acknowledge Him as the Author of all things.”
And the reasons that we fear him.
The reason we stand in awe of him is b/c of his Sovereignty over the world.
His rule and his reign.
Knowing that he is in control.
And believing that “the things outside of our control should not cause us to despair, but to hope in God, who is sovereign over all that happens.
V.15 is an interesting verse that kinda wraps up all that Solomon has been saying when it comes to time and God’s Sovereignty.
Ecc 3:15 “15 Whatever is, has already been, and whatever will be, already is. However, God seeks justice for the persecuted.”
As creatures bound inside time we tend to think of it as linear b/c for us it is.
Time appears to move in a straight line.
But here, with the eternal and transcendent perspective that along belongs to God, Solomon tells us that everything that has happened has happened and the things to come have already happened.
It tends to melt our brains just a little bit to think about, but God has seen all that is in our past and what has come before us, and he has seen all that is a head of us for all eternity.
And all of history is pointing to God seeking justice for the wrongs done.
Meaning that our lives have meaning b/c there is going to be judgement.
God is going to judge the people of the earth.
He is seeking after redemption.
And we see that in it’s fullness at the Cross of Christ.
The Goodness of God was on full display when Jesus took the wrath we deserved.
And when all is said and done, all will be set right by our Holy, just, and righteous God.
Those who love him and seek after him will find rest, peace, and eternal fellowship with him.
Those who oppose him will receive separation from him for all eternity.
Where do you land?
Do you love Jesus?
Are you seeking him and is he changing your life?
Or are you still living in sin and selfishness?
Repent. Turn to Jesus and find salvation, redemption, and meaning.
Let’s Pray.