Beautiful In His Time
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Turn to Ecclesiastes 3:1-11
This past week, my wife commented at how quickly autumn is going by. Some of these wind storms have really started to take the leaves off some species of the trees and I dislike that because I want the leaves to brighten to their full color before we lose them! I love the fall colors.
Whether it is fall or winter, spring or summer, every season has its own beauty.
You may not like the cold of winter, but you can still enjoy the beauty of the falling snow.
You may not like the frequent rain of spring time, but you can still enjoy the beauty of the flowers.
You may not like the heat of summer, but you can still enjoy the flashing lights of lightning bugs at night time.
God has made every season with its own beauty, and that is true of the seasons of life as well.
As we progress through the seasons of life, each season comes with its own joys and its own trials. We must choose to find the beauty of every one. We must choose God’s perspective on the seasons of life. In so doing, we will age wisely in an anti-aging world.
Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-11
One author began their book by writing,
From the moment you are born until the moment you die, you are aging. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every month of every year, your life counts up to midlife and down to end of life.
How does that make you feel?
Does your chest tighten with anxiety?
Maybe you feel pressure to accomplish something more or different with the time you have left. Or maybe you feel very little at all about the ticking away of your life’s time clock.
Perhaps more importantly, how should thinking about the countdown of your life make you feel? - Jen Wilkin, Dust To Dust, page 3
I echo that author by saying this: my objective for this series is not just to focus morbidly on death, but rather to cause you to think about this life and “the unexpected path to living it to the full.” - ibid.
In Ecclesiastes chapter three, Solomon’s wisdom forces us to pause and to view life on this earth as a whole - from beginning to end, from birth unto death, with all of the seasons in between. Even more, Solomon grabs our attention when he summarizes the entirety of life and says that God has “made every thing beautiful in his time.” This is profound because it flies in direct opposition to American conventional wisdom.
Next slide here:
We live in an anti-aging world.
Women are marketed all kinds of products from skin serums to medical procedures - all to reverse the inevitable.
Men are marketed protein shakes, weighted vests, and so much more to fight their biological age.
One man has even made national headlines on several occasions because he has made it his life’s pursuit to defy aging. He is spending millions of dollar on cutting edge and sometimes bizarre medical procedures to reverse his biological clock. I think I read he hopes to live to a minimum of 150.
For men, aging is presented as a game to win. But for women, its a hazard to be avoided. - Jen Wilkin, Dust To Dust, page 9
Our culture does not see beauty in every season of life. It teaches the false story that aging is a curse and that the aged are an inconvenience.
Canada has taken this to an extreme with its assisted suicide and euthanasia programs.
Though the practices of our northern neighbors may shock our American senses, they have only taken our culture’s thinking to its logical conclusion.
We inhabit a world that is dead set on living in a false story of aging - one that values, at most, only the first half of life but does not value its second half of bodily decline.- Jen Wilkin, Dust To Dust, page 8
We must reject our culture’s false story of aging and instead embrace God’s story, seeing the beauty in every season of life.
Next slide here:
The true story of aging is that life is a gift from God in all its stages.
In the womb.
In infancy and childhood years.
In the teenage years.
In adulthood and midlife.
In retirement and declining strength.
And in one’s final days of dependence on others.
Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-2a
He hath made every thing beautiful in His time.
Football games are won or lost in the fourth quarter. I have seen a number of times where a team played horrible in the first half, but then during halftime a coach whipped them into shape and they managed to pull off a dramatic comeback victory in the fourth quarter. They started horribly, but they finished well.
One author likened the retirement years of life to the fourth quarter of a football game.
It’s not a time to quit.
It’s not a time to hang up the cleats.
It’s a time to rely on God’s grace even more so that you finish your course with joy.
That’s what Paul did. He saw that even during the twilight years of his ministry, when he was under house arrest, no longer able to cris-cross the Roman Empire planting churches, maybe tempted to feel like a has-been, but still he could witness to all that came to his house.
Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
My desire is that every single person in this church family will be like Paul and finish their course with joy. My desire is that we will learn both to value and to make the most of every season of life - to redeem the time, because the days are evil.
As I close in prayer tonight, ask God to use this series to show you where you’ve believed the world’s false story of aging. Change your thinking and embrace God’s perspective of life, that every season thereof is beautiful in his time.
