A Time for Everything.
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Trust Yahweh in his work in his time.
Ecclesiastes 3 .
1 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.
16 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.
17 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.
18 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.
19 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 is vanity.
20 All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.
21 Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?
22 So I saw that there is 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?
The New Year is a good reminder that we all exist in time. In fact, its is difficult to think of a world without time. Time is a reality of our creatureliness.
We have no control of the flow of time, and very little control of the seasons of time we find ourselves in.
Where do we have control?
We have control in our response to the season we are journeying through.
In this New Year, no matter what season we find ourselves in, we need to choose to trust Yahweh, who makes all things beautiful in its time.
To exist outside of time is a characteristic of God. He is the only timeless one for he is Yahweh, the eternal one, without beginning or end, the first cause of all created things. In Exodus 3:14 he said
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
The Hebrew word הָיָה (hayah) means “to be” a verb that communicates existence and also causality. This is Yahweh, who is mystery, who is the Lord of time, the Lord of seasons.
Yahweh chose, through the Messiah and the Spirit, to reveal himself. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9-12
9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
We know our timeless God, for his Spirit dwells in us, making himself known in our lives.
Yahweh’s spirit dwells in us because he entered time and space as Jesus the Messiah to reconcile all things to himself, to make all things beautiful in their time as so clearly laid out in Colossians 1:15-20.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
He came into time and space to save us sinners. He is working right now to make the season you are in beautiful in its time.
We then, in the New Year, need to concern ourselves with trusting him in each season of life we find ourselves in, finding joy and pleasure in doing life with Yahweh who has made himself known and saved us.
Our longing to know and experience him fully will not be differed forever. For we know, in his time, he is coming again to judge the living and the dead, to make all things beautiful in their time.
Come, Lord Jesus, come!
