Sermon Transcript April 30, Ecclesiastes: Getting the Most Out of Life. God Sets the Times Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

Transcription

1 Sermon Transcript April 30, 2017 Ecclesiastes: Getting the Most Out of Life God Sets the Times Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 This message from the Bible was addressed originally to the people of Wethersfield Evangelical Free Church on April 30, 2017 at 511 Maple Street, Wethersfield, CT, by Dr. Scott W. Solberg. This is a transcription that bears the strength and weaknesses of oral delivery. It is not meant to be a polished essay. An audio copy of the sermon on CD is available by request at (860) An audio version of this sermon may also be found on the church website at 1

2 Sermon Text Ecclesiastes 3: For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. 9 What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil this is God's gift to man. 14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away. 2

3 Introduction This familiar poem in Ecclesiastes 3, For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die... really helps to put things in perspective for us as we navigate our way through Ecclesiastes. Actually, do you know what this poem really puts in perspective for us? It puts in perspective for us the distinction there is between the Creator and the creature. We are not the Creator. Rather, we are the creature. The key to life is learning how to live as the creature. Hevel, hevel, says the Preacher, hevel, Hevel! All is hevel. This is the opening assessment of life found in the book of Ecclesiastes. We saw last week that this word hevel is often translated as meaningless or vanity. But literally, the word hevel means vapor or breath. So what he is saying here is that life is like a vapor. Life is short and it is also somewhat of an enigma. Grabbing ahold of life is like trying to grab a puff of smoke. You can t hold it. You can t control it. So how do you receive a word like this? Some of you may have come out of the conversation last Sunday and found this to be a rather depressing thought. When Qohelet, that is The Preacher asks the rhetorical question in Ecclesiastes 1:3, What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? - the answer is, Nothing. At the end of the day, we really can t change anything. This thought becomes depressing if you have blurred the line between the Creator and the creature. In fact, blurring this line is the root of our rebellion against God. Going all the way back to Genesis 3 and the fall of man, what you find is man saying to God, I pronounce my own good, thank you very much, and I do not need you to tell me what I may or may not do. 1 D. A Carson sums up man s rebellion against God by calling it the de-god-ing of God so that I can be my own God. 2 We have blurred the line between the Creator and the creature. Do you know where this leads us to? It leads to nihilism. Nihilism is the view that life has no intrinsic or objective meaning. This is where you end up when the creature tries to assume the role of the Creator. Ecclesiastes becomes a depressing book if God remains outside of the picture of your life and man is the reference point for life. Carson says, if we compare ourselves with ourselves, we have no external standard by which anything should be judged, we cannot find an anchor for our being anywhere. So we drown ourselves in temporary pleasures or pursuit of money or self-promotion, but we have no anchoring that gives us a meaning beyond ourselves. 3 That is when life becomes depressing. In fact, I would say that if you find Ecclesiastes to be a depressing book, it is because you are blurring the line between the Creator and the creature. 3

4 That is the corrective Ecclesiastes 3 brings to our perspective on life. It is a chapter that reminds us that God is God, and we are not. In this chapter you will discover that God is in control of time and that God knows the beginning from the end. If there is anything this book will tell you is that you are not in control. But that is okay! You are the creature and you were created to live in dependence upon God. God is our reference point. In fact, what you are going to discover in this chapter is that our lack of control is what causes us to seek God. And when we find God, we can actually find pleasure in the hevel and the toil of life. This is why Ecclesiastes ends with this summary of life in Ecclesiastes 12:13, The end of the matter; all have been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. God Controls Time We begin in this chapter with a fairly familiar poem. To be honest, I have often found this poem read in a context where someone wants to use Scripture but they don t want to sound overtly religious. And so they read, For everything there is a season, and time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted... a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance... a time to love and time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace. It fact, it is the 1960 s music group The Byrds who sang that famous song Turn! Turn! Turn! taken from this passage. And so they sing, To everything, Turn! Turn! Turn! There is a season, Turn! Turn! Turn! And then they rehearse much of this poem. As this poem is read and sung, I have often wondered, what does that mean? What I have discovered is that this nice sounding poem has a very religious message. The message of this poem is not necessarily found in the individual statements, but rather in the collective whole of the poem. In this poem you have fourteen statements and in each statement opposites are pitted against each other. There is a time to be born and a time to die... a time to love and time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace. This is a literary device where polar extremes are used as a way of embracing everything that lies between them. 4 In fact, I believe that the opening statement, a time to be born and a time to die serves as a heading, and the other statements are used to fill in what happens in the span of life, between birth and death. There are fourteen of these statements in all and if you take into account that the number seven is the number of completion you have this multiple of seven that suggests that the totality of the common human experience from birth to death is in view here. So what is this poem observing about life? It is observing that there is a certain 4

5 regularity to life. As life unfolds from person to person and from generation to generation, this pretty much sums up the common human experience no matter when or where you live. Twenty-eight times in this passage, the word time is used. There is a time for this and a time for that. One commentator says of this repetition of time, It sounds like a clock that, inexorably and independent of the wishes of people, keeps ticking and striking. Whatever happens happens, and there is nothing you can do about it. 5 This poem is descriptive and it describes what makes up the human experience. In the course of life there is a regularity to it and there is an appropriate season for everything. The point that is made with this poem is that you are not in control. You don t control when you are born and when you die. And much that happens in between is out of your control. And so once again, we hear Qohelet ask the question that was asked in Ecclesiastes 1:3, What gain has the worker from his toil? Do you notice how in these polar opposites, one cancels out the other? A time to be born and a time to die. In other words, there is nothing left. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. In the end, there is nothing gained. But this is not a statement of futility. Nor is this intended to be a statement that leads to nihilism causing one to conclude that nothing matters. Rather, this is a poem to underscore with the regular unfolding of life, you are not in control. That is what makes life hevel. You can not grab life and control it. Like clockwork, it unfolds from season to season and you can t stop it. Jason Kidd, former NBA player looked back on his career and said this. I just tried to play the game the right way. As you get older, Father Time is undefeated. There is a season for everything and as life unfolds, you can t control it. That is the point of the poem. God Knows the Beginning and the End Up to this point, Qohelet has just observed what is. This is life. It unfolds and you can t control it. And so it raises the question whether or not there is someone at the controls of life. Clearly, we are not in control as these seasons of life unfold with a measure of regularity. It is at this point that Qohelet introduces God. In verse 10 he says, I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. I like the way Iain Provan puts it. He says, The problem facing the human actor is that there is another Actor whose actions are decisive ones. 6 In other words, unlike us, the Creator God, is in control of these unfolding seasons of life. It says of God, He has made everything beautiful in its time. That word everything takes us back to the first verse of the chapter where read, For everything there is a season. By using the word beautiful he means that everything is fitting and suitable. In other words, God is the one who is in control of time. 5

6 This is the realm of the Creator. After all, God is the one who caused all things to be. It is only natural, then, that he would be in control of time. In Isaiah 46:9-10 we hear God say, I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me. So what is it that distinguishes the Creator from the creature? He goes on to say, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose. In short, by virtue of being God, God is in control of time. Do we not hear in reference to Jesus, that when the fullness of time had come God sent his Son, Jesus to redeem us of our sins? In reference to the coming of the kingdom of God through the person of Jesus, Jesus was often heard saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news. And so Qohelet says that God has put eternity into man s heart. What he means here is that God has given us a desire to know the past and to anticipate the future. We contemplate things beyond the present. We study history and we ponder the future. And yet, in spite of our inquisitive curiosity, we are limited in our ability to comprehend such things. So he says in verse 11, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. In our quest for knowledge of the past and in our desire to ponder the future, we can only go so far in our understanding. We are mere creatures and we are finite in our understanding. Do you know what Job s problem was in his complaint against God? He blurred the line between Creator and creature. And so when God came to him, he said to Job, Who is it that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?... Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Job could not comprehend that things that belong to God. And so Job says in Job 40:4, Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you. In other words, Job was reminded that he us but a creature who is called to live in dependence upon God. That is the message of Ecclesiastes 3. When we are confronted with the reality that we are not in control and that we cannot fathom the things of God, we are reminded that we are creatures and we are to live in dependence upon God. Again, this reality doesn t lead to futility. Rather, it leads to a measure of security. In Psalm 139, you have this great psalm that acknowledges how God knows everything about me, including my future. David writes, Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet they were none of them. In other words, God knows my birthdate and he knows when my days will come to an end. He knows every day in between. It is a thought like this that brings security to us and it leads David to say, How precious to me are your thoughts. 6

7 Receive Today as a Gift Ecclesiastes is considered wisdom literature. That means it sheds light and wisdom on how to live. And so from this reminder that we are creatures and not the Creator, Qohelet ponders this truth and he says two times, I perceived. What he means by that is that there are two lessons in this truth for how we ought to live. First of all, we ought to receive each day as a gift from God and we ought to enjoy it. Starting in verse 12 he says, I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil this is God's gift to man. Since you can t control the future, let alone understand the times that God has set, as creatures, our job is to live in the present and to receive each day as a gift from God. Jesus says something similar to that in Matthew 6 when he instructs us not to be anxious about our lives. He says, And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? It is in this context that God assures us that he will take care of us. Notice how Qohelet concludes from this truth that man ought to eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. You might have left last week wondering what value there is in work and your job if at the end of the day, it is all vanity. Again, that is the conclusion you come to if God is not in the picture because at the of end of it all, you gain nothing. But when your perspective is that you are a creature and you are here to serve the Creator God, then your job has incredible meaning. In fact, your job is sacred. It is a way in which you partner with what God is doing in this world. Carson says of work, because this is God s universe and we are created in his image, then as we work, our work too reflects him and is offered back to him with integrity and gratitude. Work is significant because we are made in the image of God. Work carried out in this way changes our perspective of who we are. 7 So receive your Monday with gratitude. Live fully in it. Don t be anxious about tomorrow. Embrace the day that God has given you and serve God by serving the people God has put in your life that day. Love God and love the people God has brought into your life. There is nothing better for you to do than to be joyful and to do good with the day that God has granted to you. Be in Awe of God The second thing that Qohelet discerns in all of this is that this limitation we have as 7

8 Conclusion creatures is not designed to lead us to despair. Rather, it is designed to cause us to seek after God. He says in verse 14, I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away. What he is saying here is that not only do we not control the times, nor do we even know the times. He is presenting a picture here where our limitations are quite obvious. But these limitations have a purpose. They are to remind us that we are not the Creator and they move us to worship God. God has done it, so that people fear before him. This makes us aware of our helplessness and our complete dependence upon God for everything. In other words, this lack of control and this limited knowledge forces me to not blur the line between the Creator and the creature and it leads me to worship God. Here is the irony in all of this. When I gain the perspective that God is in control, I gain incredible peace and rest. I don t claim to have the answers to everything, but I trust the one who does. I don t claim to know what will happen tomorrow, but I trust the one who does. I don t have the foggiest idea how close my last breath happens to be, but I trust the one who does. I don t know why certain things happen in life, but I trust the one who does. I don t claim to know how God is using my life and my limited contribution to my family and my job, but I trust the one who does. In doing so, I find meaning and purpose and joy in life. You are not in control of time. God is in control and he know the beginning from the end. So enjoy the day that God gives you and do good. Worship God. This is your duty as one created by God. This is a good transition towards baptism. Today five people stand before us to identify themselves with Christ and his church. They have confessed their sin and turned in faith to Jesus, who died for their sin and rose again from the dead. It is their desire to turn away from darkness and to walk in the newness of life that is found in Jesus. As you will hear in their testimonies, they want to live out their days in service to God and in obedience to Jesus Christ, their Savior and Lord. Paul writes in Galatians 4:4-5, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so 8

9 that we might receive adoption as children. And so Jesus died on the cross at the appointed time and he rose from the dead. When asked about his return, he said to his disciples, It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But while we wait, as followers of Jesus, we give ourselves to the service of Jesus as long as God gives us time. That is what these candidates are confessing to be true of their hearts and that is the message of Ecclesiastes 3. With this perspective, we find great meaning and purpose and joy in life. It is found in serving God. 1 D. A. Carson The God Who Is There (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2010) 33 2 Ibid., 33 3 Ibid., 23 4 Iain Provan Ecclesiastes/Song of Solomon: The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001) 87 5 J. A. Loader quoted in Sidney Greidanus Preaching Christ from Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010) 80 6 Provan, 90 7 Carson, 22 9

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11 by Dr. Scott Solberg - All rights reserved 11

12 Sermon Title: God Sets the Times Sermon Text: Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 Sermon Date: April 30, 2017 Getting To Know Me Questions 1. Would you rather live forever as a 13 year old or a 65 year old? Why? 2. Looking towards the week ahead, what is one thing you anticipate and how would you like others to pray for you regarding this issue. 3. What insight did you gain from the sermon this past week that you found helpful? Diving Into The Word 4. Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-9. What do you find to be comforting about the regularity of life? Does the feeling of not being in control comfort you or frustrate you? Why? 5. Read Ecclesiastes 3: What does this passage say about God and how is this a source of comfort to us? Read Psalm 139 and discuss why God s control over our lives brings us comfort and peace. 6. Read Ecclesiastes 3: What are the two lessons we learn from not being in control and recognizing that God is in control of all things? 7. Read Acts 17:26-28 and share what God used in your life to cause you to seek him. Taking It Home 8. What do you need to do to put into practice the words of Ecclesiastes 3:12-13? 9. From your study, what to you want to thank God for and what to you want to ask God to help you do. As a group, have each person offer a prayer of thanks and a prayer for help. 12