Would you turn with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 3? You can kind of see why Psalm 90 fits so well with our Scripture reading from Ecclesiastes 3 as we read this reading. This portion of Ecclesiastes turns our attention to God, to the work of God, to the orderly rule of God, to the timely work and rule of God in all of life. And as Psalm 90 reminds us, that takes into both the times that are good and the times that are hard. All of our times. All of our times. are in God's hands. He is our help in ages past. He is our hope for years to come. This is the faith we're called to. So let's listen to Ecclesiastes 3 and let's learn how God speaks of these things to us here. To everything there is a season. A time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant. and a time to pluck what is planted, a time to kill, and a time to heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up, a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones, a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to gain, and a time to lose, a time to keep, and a time to throw away, a time to tear, a time to sow, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. Time to love, time to hate, time of war, time of peace. What profit has the worker from that in which he labors? I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he's put eternity in their hearts. except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor. It is the gift of God. I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it. Nothing taken from it. God does it that men should fear before Him. That which is has already been, and what is to be has already been. And God requires an account of what is past. So far the reading of God's holy word. Well, brothers and sisters in Christ, notice the title of our message, What is the Purpose of Your Life? Why are you here? Why do you exist? Do you know? Do you think about these things? Why do I live? Why am I here? Can I make any sense out of life in this world? Does life have any meaning to it at all? Is this just a bunch of random events that happen and then you die and who cares? What is life about? What is its central issues? Why are we here? You see, that's a question that Solomon, that the preacher in Ecclesiastes, presses us to ask and to work through and to learn the answer to. An unexamined life is not worth very much. And you can try to ignore it. You can try to drown your mind in alcohol or drugs or numb yourself. to things by pursuing pleasure, or you can immerse yourself in work and become a workaholic. You can do all those things. Solomon said, I tried that too. Solomon, we went through those the last few weeks. I tried everything. I tried everything you can imagine. I had enough money to do anything I wanted to do. and I tried it all and I tried to figure out and make sense of life in this world apart from God. Remember his phrase, his phrase is under the sun and that phrase under the sun meant in a life, I tried to figure from how to use the things, the stuff of this world, I tried to engage the stuff of this world, and I tried from it to find satisfaction or to find happiness or to find a purpose and meaning in life. And he said, you know what it was like? It was like trying to grasp the wind. You ever try to go out and the wind's blowing, try to grab the wind? Where's the wind? How do I get it? How would I get a handle on it? Can you harness the wind? No, you can't grab the wind. This is like trying to find meaning in a world apart from God. He said it's vanity. Vanity of vanity. All is vanity. So if you try to find the purpose of your life apart from God, apart from eternity or His eternity, you're going to be frustrated. You're going to be confused. You're going to ultimately come to despair. It will just be meaninglessness. So here's the point then. If you want to understand the purpose of life, if you want to understand why you live and why you exist and what the purpose of your own personal existence is, you have to start with God. That's what Solomon tells us in this passage in a very striking and memorable way. You start with God. You have to know God. And not just any God, but the God of the Bible, the God who has revealed Himself in His Word, the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the God who is the Creator of all things, the God who is the Ruler of all things, the God who is the Savior who sent His Son to recreate us after the image of Christ and renew us and restore us. You have to start with God. If you're going to know your purpose in life and the meaning of life, in a right way, you have to come to revere. You have to come to fear God. God does all these things, he says in verse 14, that men should fear before him. Love him, worship him, honor him, trust in that. That's his conclusion. But before he takes us, before we get to the conclusion, the preacher walks us through a series of statements and thoughts and ideas that first of all show us the God that we're meant to fear. We need to know that God we're meant to fear, something about Him, so that now we come to Him and He says, now fear God. You say, OK, now that's the God I'm to trust. That's the God I'm to worship. That's the God I'm to honor. OK. That's how I can relate the events of my life and see how my purpose works together in the events of this life. I can relate them to God, the God who is revealed here in chapter 3 of Ecclesiastics. So there are two affirmations and two applications. The affirmation, the affirm. When you're affirming something, you're being led to, or you are stating a truth about something. You're expressing your confident certainty in and agreement with certain things. Well, the first affirmation, that Solomon, that the preacher leads us to affirm, is the orderly rule of God over everything. The orderly rule of God over everything. That's a mouthful. But think about it. What is he saying? That's what's said in verses 1 through 8. And that's beautiful poetry, isn't it? We recognize it. If you've never heard the passage before, then you have to be struck by it. Most of you probably heard it in the form of words put to a tune. sung by the birds, turn, turn, turn. I won't sing it for you. You can imagine it. But Solomon, Solomon is pressing us in this poetry to look at the ways that the seasons and the cycles of life are experienced. And he's saying to you, think about this. Look at these things. Consider these things. They tell you something about God. They tell you about the rule of God in this world in an orderly way. God rules time. Time doesn't exist in and of itself or apart from God. God exists in and of Himself eternally and nothing else does. God created time as we experience it anyway. Now, God isn't mentioned yet. I realize that. If you start in verse 1, God isn't mentioned. To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. There's where you get your clue that this is about God, though. Under heaven. Remember earlier in the book, he talks a lot about under the sun. Now he throws in a phrase, under heaven. That's not accidental. He's really talking about all things happening, all things being appointed, every time, every season, every purpose under heaven. He's saying everything happens under the authority of God who is in heaven. In chapter 5, in chapter 5 verse 2, he does affirm that there is a God who is in heaven. and we're on the earth. And so, this is the same ideas in mind, and it's a shorthand for him to say everything under heaven is something that happens under the authority and power of God. Before, he was saying, you know what, you're trying to find the meaning of life from under the sun, on your own, apart from God, apart from consideration of God. He says, well, now let me tell you, I want you to take a look at life under heaven, under and through the perspective of God who rules all things from heaven. There's a God who sits in heaven, and he rules everything. Everything that happens in time and space, God rules and He's appointed a season for everything. Notice the comprehensive word, everything. A time for every purpose under heaven. He goes on then to give us 14 pairs of opposites and each one is a summary Comprehensive summary of life or our experiences in life. What do I mean by that? Well, he says there's a time to be born and time to die. That is a summary of the days of our life and your life Everything from the beginning of your life to the end of your life and everything in between is Comprehended under there's a time to born and time to die All right, everything in between it's a summary of life. I Weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing. This is a comprehensive summary of all the emotions that human beings experience and everything in between. We're not always laughing and we're not always weeping. Sometimes we're just kind of even keeled. Whatever. Sometimes we're angry. Sometimes we're benevolent. There's all these different emotions, all these different reactions, but they're all summarized here. That's the point. These 14 pairs, taken together, summarize virtually every experience that a human being can experience in life. At any time in history, they're universal, so to speak, then. At any time in history, people are born and people die. There's a time to plant, there's a time to harvest. There's a time to love and there's a time to hate. There's a time of war, there's a time of peace, and so on. In every time of history, these are seasons, cycles. And there's an orderliness There's a purposefulness to the way God makes things and rules things, he says. Seasons. These are cycles of time, set times. Summer gives way to fall. We're experiencing that now. Fall gives way to winter, and winter to spring, and then spring goes back to summer. There's a purpose for every one of those seasons. Right? There's a purpose. We're not sure what the purpose of winter is yet for some people to go to Florida, but There's a purpose for every season, right? And we're called to do certain things in each of those seasons. There's a harmony, there's a fitness, there's a balance, right? You plant in the spring, you harvest in the fall. Woe to the person who thinks they can do it differently than that. We don't mourn at a birth, and we don't cheer and clap at a death. That's not the way God made it. It's not the way it's supposed to be. It's not the way things work out. It's not appropriate. Right? As we said. So sometimes, there's a time to marry. There's a time for adults to marry, but children don't marry. There's time to love some people, and there's a time not to love some people. There's a time to hate people, or things, or something. He says, time to love, time to hate. Sometimes it's time to go to war sometimes there's a time For peace to make peace see Sometimes you have to just shut up and sometimes you have to speak up Both right So God sovereignly rules over all the events all the seasons of our lives He made them this way and he made life to work in a certain way. I The events of our lives, though, if you read them carefully here, the events of our lives are outside of our control. The events of your life are outside of your direct power, authority, and control. See, we don't control the time we weep and the time we laugh. Who in his right mind would choose the time to weep and mourn and die? Who in his right mind would choose the time to experience pain and suffering? You never say, well, you know, I've got it on my calendar. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I choose to have pain and suffering. And then every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I choose laughter, dancing, and happiness. How's that working out for you? You don't do that, right? You can't do that. You don't have that authority. So he's pointing to the fact that These great events, these huge events of your life, characterizing the times you live in, they're not in your control. Think about it. Most of the most important things that ever happened to you, you had absolutely no control over. You had no control over who your parents are. You didn't choose them. You have no control over whether your parents are rich or poor, where your parents live. You have no control over what your body type is. You can deal with certain things about your body type, but you have no control about your genetic makeup. You have no control over your abilities or your disabilities, whatever the case may be. You have no control over how smart you are or how dumb you are, so to speak. And I don't mean that flippantly. I mean, some people are just brighter than others. Don't get cocky about that. You didn't make yourself. You didn't choose your mental capacities and abilities. You have a responsibility to use them the best you can. But if you're a genius, you didn't make yourself that way. There's nothing to be cocky about. If you're a great athlete, you didn't make yourself that way. Nothing to be cocky about. And you're not to sit around and dump on yourself if you're not the best of this and that and whatever, you see. You didn't choose these things. You didn't choose what era of life you're going to live in. Some people would like to live in the Middle Ages. That's why there's a Renaissance Festival. Some people would like to be able to have lived on the frontier. You didn't choose if you were born in a time of war. People during the Vietnam era, their time was up, or the World War II era. They had to go to war. They didn't like it, many of them. But that was the time they lived in. Time of peace. See, that's what he's trying to tease out here. These things aren't just bad luck or good luck, as the case may be. This isn't just simply a chance. You're not a victim of chance. of meaninglessness. You don't live in a world that is just chaos, meaninglessness, and forces of nature that somehow just exist and go about their thing. Solomon is affirming and leading you to affirm a truth revealed in the Word of God. This is God's world. God created this world. And He rules this world according to His purpose. To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. Every event is ruled by our Father in heaven. And that's what Solomon says. We're called to affirm. We're called to see that and recognize that's the God that we live before and to whom we give an account. So you've got two choices, okay? You've got two choices. You can fight against this, you can reject this, and you can rebel against this, and you can beat your head against this truth, and you can claim it isn't so. And you can say, I think the world is filled with chance, chaos, and meaninglessness. You can do that. And that's what Solomon did for a while. And he became miserable. And that's where you will be too. Or, we don't like either ors. But in the Bible, sometimes we're forced to see the either or very starkly. And here it says, you can either reject this or you can believe that God in heaven is ruling all things according to the purpose and the counsel of His will. And He is ordering all things according to His purpose and His glory. And that calls us to a reverent submission to Him. He does rule all things, whether you acknowledge it or not. He calls you to acknowledge His rule and fear Him. All the seasons of your life, all the times you are now living in, in this world, are the result of a plan of a good and wise and loving and merciful and gracious and purposeful sovereign God. That's where the preacher's pointing is in the second place. The second affirmation. The second affirmation is found in verse 11. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. Okay. The beauty of God's rule. It's one thing to affirm and to be able to say, okay, I could buy it. There's a God and God rules everything. You're not yet saying anything about God at that point other than his sovereignty and maybe his orderliness. But you're not yet saying that it's good. The preacher says, you need to see that what God does is beautiful, and it's time. Now, he doesn't explain this. He doesn't spend 15 verses telling you about all the good ways that God does everything, although he has pointed you back to verses 1 through 8 and says, hey, there's laughter. There's sadness. There's dancing. There's not dancing. There's bad dancing. He's saying, you know, that there's a time where you get a good harvest, and there's a time when you don't. And there's a time to build things up, and there's a time to tear them down. He's saying there's a certain beauty to that, yeah. But he doesn't yet speak of that here. He says there's a beauty. Everything is beautiful in its time. Now, the word beautiful has a wide range of meaning. It can mean good. It can mean that it's right, it's pleasing, it's pleasant, it's appropriate. I think beauty is a perfectly fine translation of the word, but just understand it's nuance. You see, we can look at this and suddenly we'll have an objection immediately. I'm sure many of us will. You mean to tell me, preacher, that God rules over everything that happens in this world, bad and good? And that that's beautiful? Yes, that's what the preacher is saying. That's exactly what he's saying. Many people want a one-dimensional God. Many people are very content to think of a God that lives up in heaven somewhere, and He's a kind God. He's a wonderful, thoughtful God. And He does wonderful, good, thoughtful things. And so many people want to be able to affirm that God will heal me from time to time, and that God will give me success, or that God might give me a child, or a crop, or a job, or a paycheck, or a time of peace, and of love, and life, love, and laughter, and health, and good times. And we're happy to have that God, right? But do we want a God who tests us? Not so much. Do we want a God who can kill us with cancer? No, we don't. We're not so quick to affirm those things. When our house is destroyed by a storm or our job is terminated, when our back gets injured or where a concussion sidelines us, when our house is attacked by evil people who beat us up and rob us, when a drought destroys your crops, a loved one dies, War comes to your land? Does God have anything to do with that? Well, wait a minute. We don't want that God. If He had anything to do with that, that would be bad. We don't want that kind of a God. But to know God. Solomon says, and to understand your place in this world and how to react and respond and live in this world under the authority and rule and power of God. He says you have to have both of those pairs together, right? Both part of the pair together. A time to live, a time to die, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to mourn, a time to dance. a time of war, a time of peace, a time of love. You've got to have both sides of that together here. You can't have a one-dimensional God. That's a God after your own making, and that's an idol. We looked at it this morning about what an idol is. God is God, and you are not. You don't get the chance, and I don't get the chance, to define God. We are, by faith, we are to embrace the beauty of God and His tiny for the events of our lives. That's not easy. And Solomon doesn't say it is. I'm very glad, in fact, about what he goes on to say in verse 11. It helps a lot. God has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. See, the problem is, knowing God doesn't mean we always understand or even like His timing. We can hear that God has timing. We can hear His good timing, but that doesn't mean we often like it. Right? Now, the preacher says we can't often. In fact, we can't understand the events and ways of God because God is God and we're not. We can't find out the work that God does from the beginning to the end. We don't know it. We're not God. God is infinite. God knows the end from the beginning, but we don't. But it says, God has put eternity in our hearts. And I think that means at least this. There's a lot of debate and a lot of discussion and a lot of inks filled about what this is. But I think in the context, if you put it together, he's really talking about one basic idea. That God put eternity in the hearts of every human being. So you have eternity in your heart. What does that mean? It means that deep down inside where it really counts, every human being aches and longs for wholeness. Every human being aches and longs for peace. And you ache and long for love and joy. And you ache and long for a world without pain, and a world without death, and a world without sorrow, and a world without loneliness, and a world without hunger. You long for that. Every human being does. Believer, unbeliever, whatever culture, whatever group of people you go to, Everybody has eternity in their hearts in that sense. They long for a world that's like paradise. Don't we? That's what paradise would be. We long for a world like paradise. No more death, no more pain, no more sadness, no more sin. We long for that. That's what eternity is in your heart. That's the idea. We can't accept evil easily. We can't accept pain and suffering easily. We shouldn't! We shouldn't accept them easily. So eternity in our hearts. One commentator says eternity in our hearts is a desperate thirst without water. A desperate thirst without water. If you've ever been really thirsty, all you can think about is getting that thirst taken care of in a desperate thirst without water. There's no water around. There's no water to be found. There's no water to be touched. You're in the middle of the desert. There's no water. A desperate thirst, no water. That's what eternity is in your heart. A desperate desire for God and His blessing and His goodness and a life of blessedness and goodness. And yet it's not there. God made us to want these things, to enjoy these things, to have these things. He made us for Himself. He made us for a life of fellowship with Himself. And we ache for that. See, but we're not God. We don't understand all the things He's doing in this world. We don't understand why He's doing all the things He's doing. We're limited. We can't understand why we have to suffer. Why do I have to suffer? Why do I have to endure pain and heartache? Why do I have to endure joblessness? Why do I have to endure these sufferings and losses? Why? You ask that question, we all ask that question. We're desperate to understand these questions, but only God knows. The question is, here's the question. Are you willing to affirm and trust the beauty and goodness of God's rule in your life, even though you don't understand it? Are you willing to affirm the beauty and goodness of God's rule in this life and in this world, even though you don't understand it all? That's what Solomon is calling you to affirm. You see, our response to things that we can't understand, our response to grief or loss, our response is an indication as to whether we trust God, who has a purposeful personal good plan and is at work in this world carrying them out. Do you trust God and do you trust that that God is good and that His works are good and His plan is perfect and He is going somewhere good for His glory and your good? Do you trust that? That's the God we're called to embrace. takes the grace of God to be able to do that. But that's the God we're called to embrace. And so then he lays down two applications, okay? So what does all this have to do with the meaning and purpose of my life? Well, here it is. Here's the God who exists, who rules, and does all things. Here's that God. Now the application. First application, fear Him. Love and embrace and revere and worship and trust and honor him. That's what fear means. Look at verse 14. I'll start with the first I know. There are two I knows in this text that are the application of everything he says through verse 11. There's two I knows. The first one is found in verse 12. The other for 14. I want to start with verse 14. I know. Whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it. That man should fear before Him. This really is the real priority. All this is leading us to the fear of God. We are to reverently place our trust and our hope in a God, our Savior. That's what all things are leading to. That's what God and what Solomon wants you to begin to affirm. You cannot find the meaning of life under the sun under the sun, apart from God. But if you come to God, if you come to God in faith, and you put your faith and trust and reverence and fear in Him, then you begin to find the meaning and purpose of your life. This is what you were made for. You were made to worship and honor and serve and love God. You remember Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4? And John chapter 4, a woman from Samaria came to him in this little town, and she came out to a well, and she was coming to draw water. And Jesus said to her, hey, would you like to have some water? I'll give you some water. And she said, you can't do that. Now, who is this woman? This woman had had five husbands and divorced them all. And she was now living with a man. Maybe she'd given up on marriage. I don't know. She was one of those people that people in the village are going to whisper about, talk about, yeah, oh, she's a tragedy, oh, she's a terrible, oh, she's a bad woman, whatever. She's the kind of person that people whisper about. She's not that person you want to be. In fact, she's miserable. Eternity in her heart was like an unquenchable thirst. A thirst without water. She had no hope. She was miserable. And Jesus says, I have water, I'll give you. And if you will drink this water, you will never thirst again. Pretty striking language, isn't it? The eternity in her heart. He says, I can fix that. I can fix your thirst so that you will never thirst again. He said, come to me and drink. I will give you eternal life." And he says, not only that, if you come to me and drink and you have eternal life, and he says, let me tell you something, the Father in heaven is seeking people to worship Him and you come and you worship Him in spirit and in truth and you will know the purpose for your life. This is what you're created for, to worship and honor and fear and love God. to cast your cares on this God, to live with that God who cares for you, to rest your life in His sovereign rule and hand as good and right and a blessing. And He's leading you to a purpose of ultimate glory. But in this life, your purpose is to glorify Him by bowing down and worshiping Him. You've come to that point. where you've committed your heart and your life and your mind and your thoughts and your will to the worship and honor and obedience of the one true God. Is that where you are yet? Jesus said, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That's where you go. Fear God. And then the second thing he says is in verse 12, the second I know. First thing you need to do with the God who rules all things and the God who does all things beautifully in His time is come and fear Him, come and bow down, come and worship Him. And now he says also live for Him. I know, verse 12, that nothing is better for them than to rejoice and do good in their lives and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor. It is the gift of God. What is he saying here? Very briefly. He's saying live by faith in God in all the circumstances of your life. Receive everything that you have as a gift of God. Good times? Yep. Bad times? Yes. Receive it all. Live under the wise and good rule of God. He gives you clothes. He gives you food. He leads you in the course of your life. And by faith, we submit ourselves to those times that He has given you. And he says, what do you do in those times? He says, you do good. You do good in those times. You obey God. You honor God. You love God. You serve God. Your attitude, your thoughts, your ways of response are to be good. That's hard, isn't it? Huh? You're working in a different work environment. I hate this work environment. I can't stand it. He says, well, look. You don't sit here to be a pleaser of men. You work here to please the Lord Jesus Christ. So you may live in a tough work environment, but if you are laboring to please the Lord Jesus Christ in it, then you can receive this and you can rejoice in this. Not saying it's always going to make you happy, but he's saying you can rejoice in what God has given you to do, that in this time and in this place, I am called to love him and serve him and honor him and obey him. And he's given me that gift. The gift God gave me was that I, through an obedient, godly life, can glorify him in this world in the circumstance in which I live. That's what he's calling me to. Now that sounds like, that sounds hard. And I think Solomon would be the first to tell you it is hard. It takes the grace of God. God has said to you, like Jesus says, you deny yourself, you take up your cross, and you follow me. But as you deny yourself and take up your cross and you follow me, and as you find that that's hard, you also find that God is the one who gives you grace and strength every day, day upon day, to give you grace and strength to receive these things as the gift of God, to receive and eat and drink and enjoy those things that God gives you. and to know there's nothing better for your life right now than to honor God in the circumstance you're in. We always want to say, you know what? If God gives me good circumstances, then it'll be good and I'll be able to honor Him in that situation. But I'm in bad circumstances, so this is going to have to be put on hold. He says, you know what? In every time, in every season, in every purpose, there's nothing better for you than to rejoice and do good in your life. That's big. That's an amazing call to faith. And that's what we're called to. That's what we're called to. So, brothers and sisters, these can be hard words. They are a call to faith in God and in His sovereign, wise rule. And He's saying, don't miss the purpose and the meaning of your life. You were created for this. You were created to know God, fear God, love God, serve God, honor God, worship God, trust and be saved and renewed by the grace of God so that your life would glorify Him. You were made for this. And you miss your purpose in life when you reject this God and when you refuse Him. So he says, don't do that. But he says, if you will come to me and if you will trust in me, he says, you will have life. And I want to end with just these readings, too, of Revelation 21, because this is a wonderful ending or balance to what we read in Ecclesiastes. You know, in Ecclesiastes, there was a good and a bad of all these things. But I want you to go to Revelation 21, and I want you to look at what John saw there. He says, I, John, saw, verse 2, I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. This new Jerusalem, this holy city, is prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And you notice, I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men. He will dwell with them. They will be his God. And God himself will be with them and be their God. Now he says, I will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There will be no more pain for the four things that have passed away. This is paradise. And in paradise, those negative things of the pairs, they're all gone. No more war. No more tearing down. No more death. No more hate. See that? It's all paradise. It's all blessing. And this is what God is leading you to through faith in Him. This is your reward. This is what He will give you. If you come to Him, fear Him, trust Him, and serve Him. And so, it is right, as we hear these words, and as we grasp them by faith, it is right, brothers and sisters, that we sing. We sing these words. You fearful saints, fresh courage take. The clouds you so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head. Because God's rule is beautiful in its time. May God give us ears to hear and hearts to believe. Amen.