The sermon text this morning comes from Ecclesiastes chapter 3. If you're wondering where that is, if you find the book of Psalms, take heart, you're nearby. The book after that is the book of Proverbs and then the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Ecclesiastes chapter 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. A time to plant and a time to pluck up 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 together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to seek and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to tear and a time to sew. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. what gain has a worker from his toil. 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. 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. I perceive 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. I perceive 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. Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. I said in my heart, with regard to the children of man, that God is testing them, that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts for all this vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beasts goes down into the earth? So I saw that there was nothing better. than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot, who can bring him to see what will be after him. Let us pray. Our gracious God and our Father, we desire in this hour to draw near to Christ, and so we pray that you would pour out your Holy Spirit and your truth, that these would draw us into your holy presence. And even so, that you would send out the light of your grace and your truth, and send them deep within our hearts, in order that we would truly draw closer to you in faith, trusting you in all things and for every season of our lives. And Father, you alone can see these seasons, and you alone can see those peculiar needs and those desires of our heart that we feel at this time. And so we ask that you would come and minister to us, even as you've promised to do. And do this all for the praise and the glory of Christ in whose strong and beautiful name we pray. Amen. So let me begin with a question. What season is it? depending upon who you are, what you're interested in. That will determine your answer. Some of you would say, well, it's obvious it's fall. Look at all the leaf peepers we have about causing all the traffic jams, et cetera. But we shouldn't dwell on bitterness. Let's move on. Some of you are sports fans, so you're thinking, well, it's football season, obviously. Baseball season's not over yet. Where I'm from, it's right in the middle of pheasant season in Nebraska. It's harvest season somewhere for corn in the Midwest. Maybe apples here, I don't know. I live in Southern California. It is always tourist season. And my wife and I moved there from Chicago. And there they say we only have two seasons. There's winter season, and then there's construction season. But that's not what this poem is about at all. When I ask what season is it, it's asking about what season of life are you in. And there's a season to rejoice, and there are seasons when we cry. Some of you are in a very busy season of life. Some of you perhaps have just entered into a season of retiring. Some of you are beginning a brand new season, and some of you are in a season that seems like it will never end. And some of us have dear friends who are literally in their final season of life. That's what this poem is getting at. It's getting at the patterns in our life, the way that we experience time, the way in which we experience these seasons that God has placed us in. And this chapter is here for our help. And it talks about time in the first nine verses, and then he turns his attention in verses 10 through 15 to time eternal, and then finally in verses 16 through 22, when time runs out. So time, verses one through nine, Verses 10 through 15, time eternal, then verses 16 through 22 when time runs out. And some of you over a certain age wonder when I'm going to refer to the birdsong turn. I just did. So what is time? Augustine said, I know what time is until somebody asks me to explain it. But he also said time is about how we experience it. And experience tells us that time is relative. that Einstein is right. It seems to run at different speeds as we experience it. Anybody who has raised children understands this perfectly well. When that child is taking that coveted nap, we want time to slow down as much as possible. But it seems to speed up. But when that same child is crying in the middle of the aisle in the grocery store, time slows down terribly when we wish it would speed up. It's experienced differently by just sitting in a chair. When you're sitting in the chair in the dentist's office, time really slows down. But you sit in a chair in the movie theater while you're watching Top Gun Maverick, you're wondering, where did those three hours go? It just speeds along. And it kind of gets at what we experience in terms of time. There's a time for everything. And he's saying human life is seasonal. Some of these seasons are long, some are short, but you experience most of these things. It's about how we experience time and events in time. And he says there's a time to begin, there's a time to finish, there's a time to plant and a time to reap, a time to gather, a time to spread. A time where we're encouraged, a time when we're discouraged, a time when we laugh or when we cry. A time to build things up or to tear them down. There's a time for hugging and there's a time for hostility. But all these represent polar ends. And everything in between is meant to point to the completeness of life that we experience laughing and crying. But those aren't the only things that we experience. It's the stuff that's in between those moments when we have those seasons experiencing these things. It's pointing to the completeness of life and all these things. These times come and they go. And we're caught in these seasons and everything in between. And you and I can't do anything about it. We're not in control. We're not the author of time. We can't anticipate these seasons. About 10 years ago, every high school prom ended with a song by Green Day. It went like this, time grabs you by the wrist. It directs you where to go. So make the best of this test and don't ask why. I hope you have the time of your life. And it kind of gets at what the Ecclesiastes author is saying, what the preacher is saying here, that time kind of gets hold of you. And you don't really have control of time. Time has control of you. You can't resist these seasons. The only thing you can do is live in denial and pretend this doesn't happen. And this was written well by a song by a group, a much better group than Green Day, Hootie and the Blowfish. And they said, can you teach me about tomorrow and all the pain and sorrow I'm running from? Because tomorrow is just another day. And I don't believe in time. It doesn't matter. Time believes in you. And in scripture, the farmer is always a hero. And one of the reasons he's a hero is he's content with life. He knows that there's a season for planting. There is a season for for plowing, there's a season for cultivating and fertilizing, there's a season for harvesting, that his life is composed of these seasons. And they come and go. And perhaps there's order in the life of a farmer. But if you look at this poem, it has no order whatsoever. He doesn't line up all the bad things and follow up with all the good things. There's no discernible pattern in this poem. There's no sequence. There's no pattern to it. We would say it is random. That you can't predict these things. Here comes this season. There comes that season. You can't predict those seasons. You can't control time. There is no wrinkle in time, is what this poem is saying. Years ago, Jim Croce sang this beautiful song, If I Could Save Time in a Bottle. But you can't. There's something humbling about this poem that way. And furthermore, who could say whether these times are good or those times are bad? Who can say that gathering stones is always a good thing, and that casting away stones is a bad thing? It depends upon whether you're picking up those stones to clear a field for planting, or whether you're scattering them in the field of your enemy so he can't plant, or gathering them for stoning someone. Who's to say whether some of these seasons are good or bad? But we're caught in them. And as the preacher in Ecclesiastes likes to do often in this book, the first question he asks in light of what he's understood is, how does this affect my job? How does it affect my work and my labor? That's what he asks in verse 9. Since I'm caught up in these endless seasons, what is there to gain then from my work? It seems kind of purposeless and without meaning. But it's simply trying to make the point that as we go about our work, we do so knowing that you can't control everything that comes. You can't control how everything goes. It's like the stock market and everything else that's caught up in time. And everything is. You can't control it. It's like Dooley Wilson sings in Casablanca. The fundamental things apply as time passes by. This is fundamental to human life. It's seasonal. This is about how we experience it. Well, the preacher says, now this creates a dilemma for us in verses 10 through 15. That God has placed us within this created order of time. This creates a problem. And the first half of the problem he talks about in verses 10 and 11. And it's this, that you and I are busy within time. We're caught up with it. We're obsessed with it. And we're constantly thinking about Eternity, that God has placed us within these seasons of time. We're concerned about time. Everybody wears a watch. Everybody watches Christopher Nolan movies, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Tenet. We can throw Inception in there as well. This man is obsessed with time, the chronology of time. And it's true, we're interested in it, we're intrigued by it. None of our teenagers can sleep because nobody knows where the time infinity stone is. Don't look at me, I have no idea. We're concerned about time. We think about it. And even our neighbors who don't know Christ in those most honest moments are asking themselves, so what happens after death when time runs out? We're concerned about these things. But here's the problem. He says we're caught up in time. Eternity burns in our hearts but it's hidden from our eyes. We can't see it. We can't see what God has designed. We can't see what God is trying to accomplish. We can't see from beginning to end. That's something that belongs to him. That's why he says to the prophet Isaiah, says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts and my ways than your ways. And this passage is making that emphatically clear. This thing that burns in our hearts is something we can't understand. We can't get underneath it. We can't get in front of it. We can't see behind it. We don't have the master plan. We can't see anything from its beginning to its end. And yet it says in verse 11, God has made everything beautiful, literally proper in its time. Every season, beautiful in its time. And as you look at this poem and you hear this word beautiful, you say, really? A time to kill? A time to break down, a time for casting stones, a time to hate, a time for war, beautiful. According to whom? According to God. According to the only one who can see it, who sees the overall pattern, the one who sees the sequence of these things, how they'll turn out, what they will bring about, how everything works. It's this God who, when he makes something, he says, it is good. When he makes creation, he says, it is good. When he makes men and women in his image, he says, it's very good. And when he makes these seasons, he says, it is good. It is beautiful. That's the conclusion. But there are two more conclusions to come here. In verses 12 to 13 is the first, and verses 14 to 15 is the second. Here's the first conclusion. And it's something we see often in this book. He says, be happy. and take pleasure as long as you live. That's what you didn't expect the preacher of Ecclesiastes to say. But he says it in chapter one, in chapter two, in chapter three, in chapter five, in chapter eight. It's said in this book more frequently than the end of the book in the Bible, to enjoy your life. It surprises us. It says it's okay to enjoy the fruit of your hands. You have a team at work and you put together a plan and it actually turns out well, even better than you thought. You can rejoice in that. You're managing some fun. You're overseeing some project. You create something with your hands because you're a carpenter or you're a sculptor, artist, and it comes about and saying, you should enjoy that, that's okay. And you should enjoy the simple things of life. You should enjoy what you eat and savor it, what you drink, relish in it. When you do good and it turns out to benefit somebody else, you should savor in these things. These are wonderful things that happen in these moments in time, enjoy that. When Oliver Wendell Holmes turned 93, he began to learn Greek. And somebody said, why in the world would anybody begin to learn Greek at the age of 93? And he said, well, it's now or never. That's what this book is saying. So if you're in your 80s, you still have time. Quit sloughing off. Enjoy this moment. Enjoy every single day of it. This is a gift. It's a gift that comes out of heaven to you for your life. But there's a second conclusion. It's a humbling one in verses 14 to 15. When we understand time in this way, when we see it from God's perspective, it teaches us again that you and I are so limited in what we see, but we serve a God who is unlimited. The nature of God's works, these are the things that endure forever. There's a completeness to them. You can't add to them. You can't take away from them. They're beautiful. This is why people worship God. This is why they fear him. and the very nature of life from our perspective. Look what it says. That which is, it already has been. What is to be, already has been. That's the way it looks to us, that nothing can break this loop that life seems to be upon. The more things change, the more they stay the same, somebody has said. Beautiful song by Carly Simon in the 70s. Nothing stays the same, but it's coming back again. It's coming around again. And that's the way we experience life from our perspective. But God sees it in a different way. And he does what we cannot do. Look what it says. He seeks what has been driven away. And seeks is a word that means to go searching after something. It means to go get it and gather it in like a shepherd does with lost sheep. And they're saying this is what God can do. The point is that there's so much in life that you and I cannot remember. These moments that fall away, those details that just get lost in our memories and things that we assume are insignificant. I don't need to know that any longer. But they are significant. And they're not lost. And God goes and he fetches every single one of these and he brings them in. And someday God will corral them all together. And just perhaps you and I will see the meaning of all these things that were lost, that we thought were so tiny and insignificant, and we'll see that they were magical, they were significant, they were important, they were everything. Just maybe in this life, hopefully in the life to come. It's humbling to be reminded again, isn't it, just how limited we are. I can only see this moment. But I worship this magnificent God who has no limits in what he understands, what he can do. Well, time eventually runs out and he turns his attention to that in the last section of our passage in verses 16 to 22. But before he gets to that, he said, there are those moments though, those moments when especially you're looking for the right thing to take place. People say that justice delayed is justice denied. There are those times when we really want the righteous thing to happen and we need it to happen immediately when we especially are needing justice to take place and to be timely. And yet, what does he say in verse 16, just at the moment when you expected the righteous thing to happen, you're confronted again by that ugly face of wickedness. There's been a lengthy trial, but the evidence is so clear. Everybody can see it, but the jury comes back with not guilty. Or some judge gives such a lenient sentence and all of us are shocked by what is taking place or this is not right, we say. And the preacher is saying, life is filled with these moments. This is how we experience time. This is how we experience life. He says, but there's hope, verse 17, that God will address this wrong. There's going to be that moment when he's going to judge the righteous and the wicked. He says, because there is a time for every matter and for every work, including judgment. And that brings us hope. We're looking to God to right these wrongs, those details that juries and judges missed, that information that they forgot or lost or they ignored or seemed so important. God did not miss those things. He does not forget those things. They're not lost on him and the significance of them are not lost upon him and he'll bring these things about in perfect equity and do it only the way that God can because he does not miss these things. But until then, these seasons, how do they function? They're a test of our faith. Are we trusting him for this? Despite all that we see with our eyes, are we a people that walk by faith or by sight? Even if all this stuff seems so absurd, vanity, that favorite word in this book, are we going to trust him, the God who is good, and who is wise, and who is just, and who sees? Well, then comes death, the great silencer. This is when time runs out. And if you've read this book at all, you know this is one of the most important sub-themes of this book. It runs through it like a leitmotif. It comes up again and again and again. And it's telling you, you're not living properly if you've not factored in death. Until you understand the reality of death, you cannot see your life in the way that you ought to see it. It reminds us here again, here comes death. and it comes not discriminating against species, that everything it says that has breath eventually dies. As one dies, so dies the other. There is no advantage to us in being a human being, he's saying. Dust returns to dust, at least that's how it seems. That's how we experience it. A man dies, a dog dies. What's the difference, the preacher is saying, judging by appearance? Who knows where a life goes after? Do animals have souls? Where do people go? Another test of faith. Is this the case? Is there only death? Is it true all we are is dust in the wind? So look what he says, most surprising thing again. Enjoy the time that you have. Enjoy the work that you have. Rejoice in it. This is our portion because you do not know. You do not know what follows. You cannot see from the beginning, you cannot see from the end. That is your lot as a creature. You do not know. It brings us back to this question in the beginning, what season is it? Do you know? Do I know? And the point of this whole chapter of the poem is that God sees. God sees what you cannot see, he sees what I cannot see, and he knows better than we do what is best. The season that you're in that I don't know, I can't see, it's not random. The season that you're experiencing, it is not arbitrary. And in fact, scripture teaches us That nothing just happens to us, even though that's the way we experience these seasons. Instead, what does scripture tell us? That everything is directed to us for our good. And Paul assures us of this in Romans eight. He says, for those who love God, all things work together for our good, according to his purpose, according to his purpose. According to his purpose, everything is consecrated in order to bring about that plan that God had for you from the beginning, which you could not see, but he sees. And it comes in just the right way, in just the right measure, at just the right time. And so as we experience these seasons, the preacher is saying to you from this book, do not be frustrated in this season. It may be really hard. But do not be frustrated. It's your God who sees everything from its beginning to its end and everything in between. He sees all of it. This is a God who created every season beautiful for its time. And James 1 says if you're in the middle of a trial, what does he say in that trial? He says as those trials come, he says, let steadfastness have its full effect. Hang in there. Stay in there. Don't try to cut this short. Don't pray to God. Make it stop. Hang in there. Because steadfastness has special fruit that comes on the end of it. It's creating something in you. God is equipping you with something. This is the thing that makes you complete so that you lack nothing. There's a perfect work he's doing in this season. Hang in there. You're tempted to think in this season, God is breaking me down. Perhaps. But it's to build you up. You might be saying, I'm finished. No, he's just beginning. This is humbling. Yes, but he exalts those he humbles. This might truly be a season of great temptation, but God is using it to make you wiser. It may be a season of terrible affliction, but perhaps what it's doing is it's driving you to him to be more dependent upon him, to seek his face more often. Perhaps it's a season of tremendous suffering. But look what he's doing to your faith. He's making you stronger. perhaps even as your body is weaker. All these things I'm saying, this is the perspective of faith. It's the right perspective of time that the New Testament tells us again and again, that you have to see your present suffering. You have to see all these seasons in the light of eternity, that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory to be revealed in, as Paul says. Or he says, this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen and the things unseen are the things eternal. We can't see it, but we trust God for it. And that's why scripture tells us again and again, especially in the Psalms, the songs of the pilgrim, and they're telling us to wait upon the Lord, wait upon the Lord in that expectation of faith of this great helper who comes to your side. But the Bible is not saying to be passive in this. It's telling us to get in there and be active. And how does Hebrews tell us we should do this? It says, draw near, draw near and do so with confidence. And what are you going to receive? You're going to receive mercy and find grace to help you in what? In your time of need. If you're in a season, you're in a season of need. And go to him and find that help that he promises to pour into your heart by the Holy Spirit. Go to him. But you see, all of this speaks to the completeness of our salvation from beginning to end and everything in between. It's not just justification and glorification. There's all this messy stuff. The swamp is sanctification. When he's doing really important things in your heart, that those whom he foreknew are those he predestined and those he predestined are those he is conforming to the images of his son. Those he predestined, those he called. And those he called are those he has justified. And those he has justified are those he will glorify. It's all his work in you from beginning to end. And you have to trust Christ for it, because he's not just the forerunner. He's not just the finisher. He is the sustainer through all of it. He is the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, and the beginning and the end. And he is the author of your salvation. He is the one. who will see it through to the end. He is the one who is Lord over everything and all of it, all of it is beautiful. It's because He loves you. It's His work. And He never abandons His work. Perhaps you're not convinced of His love for you. But the most amazing thing that your Lord has done is that the Lord himself has condescended to us and tried to grasp, if you can, the eternal Son of God, for whom there is no beginning. The eternal Son of God entered into time. Galatians 4 tells us, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son. And you see, we see that even in the gospel, everything comes in its right season. And for even the eternal son of God, there was a time to be born. There was a time to come and to seek and to save the lost. There was a time to heal and a time to love. And throughout his earthly ministry, we hear him saying this repeatedly, that he knows exactly every season. He knows the right moment for everything he does. In fact, we hear him saying often, my time has not yet come. He's at the wedding in Cana and his mother comes to him and says, you're out of wine. He says, why are you involving me? He says, my time has not yet come. There's a time when the crowd came, they wanted to stone him to death, but scripture tells us it was not going to happen. Why? Because his time had not yet come. His brothers see what's happening in his life. They say, go up to the feast, make a name for yourself. That's what you ought to do. And what does Christ say? He says, any time is good in your eyes, but my hour has not come. But then we come to the eve of his passion. And he speaks to his disciples about the incredible distress upon his soul. He's being squeezed. And what does he say then, finally? He says, my time has come. And he knows what awaits him in Jerusalem. He knows that this is the time for him to suffer, to be under tremendous agonizing death upon the cross, that that time has come. And he says in John 12, now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose, I have come to this hour. And he understands that even for the son of God, this one who is sovereign over all things, all space and time, there is a time for every season. That even for him, there is a time not just to be born, but a time to die. There's a time to bless, but now it's a time for him to be cursed. There's a time to heal, but now it is a time to be afflicted. There was a time to rejoice, but now it's a time to weep. There was a time to comfort, but now it is time for him to be condemned. But he says this is the reason why he came. This is the whole purpose. of his life, that this is the right season. Christ is not a helpless victim. He's not a nice guy who's in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's not what's happening. This is exactly why he came. In fact, we could say this, that all of the ages turn upon this one moment in time. He says, this is now the hour of darkness. But that hour of darkness becomes consecrated to become the hour of redemption. The cross was a time to die, but it was also a time to defeat sin. It was also a time to set sinners like you and me free. And just as there's a time to die, there's a time to rise. There's a time to gain victory over death and to win eternal life. There was a season for humiliation and death, but now it is a season for exaltation and for life and for blessings and pouring out blessings upon his people. And it's Christ who holds in His hands the keys of death and Hades and time. This is the one who gets the last word. He is the beginning and the end. He is the one who holds the reins of all these things. And time now comes and it bows before Him. It is subordinate to Him. It does His will. Time is now the servant of Christ. It's one who began a good work in you that will bring it to its full completion. What season is it? Christ has made everything beautiful in its time. He truly has. And perhaps we do not always experience it that way. But persevere and be steadfast by faith. And you will experience it. Just wait and see. Let's pray. Gracious God and Father, you see your people. You see our needs. You hear the cries of our hearts. You see the weight that we carry, the burdens. You see our regrets. You see our longings. And you have seen to our need because we need this book, we need this poem, we need this chapter, we need this faith that it calls us to as we look around and many times are distracted by what we see. But we pray, Father, that you'd help each and every one of us who genuinely looks to Christ for help, who's genuinely looking to him by faith, that you'd come near us and you'd help us and sustain us in this season of life. And we rejoice, Father, that you have brought us thus far with your help. May all praise and glory go to Christ, who alone is the forerunner and the finisher of our faith. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.