Inventory

Ecclesiastes 3:1–14 NIV

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Sometimes kids imagine this. But you can only choose one superpower. Maybe you would want to fly, or have super strength, or teleport. Perhaps it sounds like a silly question. After all, this is a game for children who have vivid imaginations. But generations of people throughout many cultures have stories of heroes with superhuman abilities. Something about it resonates with people all over the world. So, let’s play with the idea for just a few minutes today. Pick one superhero power. Now, the next question goes one step further. Choose one thing you would do with your superpower. Don’t choose something generic like, help other people. Think of something specific; one particular activity that you would do using the superpower you choose. Like this, I would use my laser vision to bake chocolate chip cookies. Or I would use my power of invisibility to sneak into the teachers’ lounge and see what really goes on in there.

Alright, what’s the point here to all this wondering and imagination. When you think about it, our thoughts of a superpower and what we might do with it all comes down to control. If we could, in fact, possess some superhuman ability, we would use it to attempt gain control over some aspect of our lives or of our world over which we cannot control otherwise. After all, that’s what power is; it is control. In our moments of being and feeling the most helpless, what we feel is that there is some part of our lives or some part of our world which we cannot control.

This is sort of what the wisdom teacher in Ecclesiastes is getting at in the passage today. he is not talking about superpowers or heroes. But he is talking about the way in which he sees the world around him as a place in which we may all desire some sort of power over circumstances that are simply beyond our control.

Working with Wish Lists

list of times is description of the world, not prescription for the world

What is the wisdom teacher in Ecclesiastes talking about in this list of times that we read today? A time to gather stones, a time to scatter them? A time to search and a time to give up? What is this about? It is important that we first of all remember that Ecclesiastes is about observation. It is a writing about a description of the world the way he sees it, not necessarily a prescription for what ought to be. Those are two different things, description and prescription. Describing an event is simply stating what we might observe—good, bad, right, or wrong. Prescribing an event is scripting what we think ought to happen; what we should do. Much of what is listed in Ecclesiastes is a description.

Paul & slavery | time to hate, kill, war?

It is good that we stop to note that. Because so often we make a mistake in reading the Bible that anything and everything must necessarily be the mandatory will of God just because it shows up in writing in the Bible. Of course, there are parts of the Bible that are mandatory prescriptions for the people of God. Jesus summarizes the law to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to also love others as ourselves. Jesus is prescribing a principle of God’s law that is meant to universally apply to all of God’s people at all times and in all places. But when the apostle Paul writes about how masters should treat their slaves, he is not prescribing the institution of slavery as being God’s will in all times and for all places. Rather, he is describing an aspect of the world in which he lives, and applying a biblical principle into that description—that observation.

Maybe this all goes without saying. Maybe it is already obvious that these items in Ecclesiastes 3 is not necessarily listing a mandate of God’s will. After all, that would raise some questions. What do you mean it is God’s prescribed will that there ought to be a time to hate? That there ought to be a time for war? That there ought to be a time to kill? That simply doesn’t make any sense because it would contradict what God has said elsewhere in scripture. But this list is not a prescription of God’s mandated will for all times and places. It is much more simply a description of the kind of world that the teacher sees around him.

This is a world that includes both birth and death. In this world we see examples of love and examples of hate. There are those in this world who build up and there are those who tear down. It is not the Bible’s way of telling us that we necessarily ought to do all these things. It is more simply the Bible’s way of telling us that this is what all is included as part of this world—a world created good by a good God, and then broken by evil through the sinful natures we carry. Times and events and circumstances will continually fall on either end of the spectrum—as good or bad—and there seems to be nothing the wisdom teacher can do about it to make our world any other way.

what parts of my world do I wish I could change?

if only statements

But we all wish we could. We all have moments of wishing we could control certain aspects of the world around us. If only I could make that winning play and be the star of the team. If only I could stay healthy and not deal with chronic pain all the time. If only I could have landed that big account at work and got the promotion. If only I hadn’t said those mean words and ruined a friendship. If only I had superpowers and could go back and control these parts of my world.

I bet we all have wish lists filled with ‘if only’ statements. But as life keeps going on there are things that come along which are simply beyond our control. That seems to be what the teacher is writing about here in Ecclesiastes.

Looking Back and Looking Ahead

worship is a reaction

Let’s loop this back to what our series has been about. We have been talking the last few weeks about worship. And we have been noting the ways in which worship is a series of habits that we go back and repeat over and over again. Last time we began looking for places in our weekly schedule where those habits might find a place to exist. Today we confront an obstacle that gets in the way as we take an inventory of our weekly activities of worship.

So often for us, worship is a reaction.

Our approach to worship is very often an approach that is a response; we are responding to God in worship. Now, on the one hand, that is exactly right. We always begin our worship service here on Sunday with a piece of scripture that is our call to worship. God calls us into worship, and we respond. So, while we might like to think that we are the ones who come before God and get this whole worship thing going, in reality it is God who sets it within our hearts to come before him in worship.

what happens when I don’t feel like worshipping?

But who has ever had a day when maybe you thought to yourself, I am not quite sure I feel like worshipping today? I just don’t feel it right now. What does a statement like that really say about us? It says to God that I am only going to respond in worship if and when he provides the right conditions for that response of worship to occur.

And so, we examine all the ‘if only’ moments of our lives and take inventory of all the times in our world which we cannot control and do not always go the way we want. And we base our response of worship on the outcome of those moments. It can be pretty easy to get hung up on the parts of my world that I cannot control to go the way I want. And it can be pretty easy to attach my response of worship to those parts of my world I want to control, but cannot.

do I look back to a golden era I want to get back again?

do I look ahead for a moment when life will be different?

Maybe we look back in our lives at some golden era in which we thought everything was perfect, and we just wish we could somehow get that back again. Maybe we look ahead at a time we anticipate coming somewhere in the future, and think, God I will worship when I get to that moment. After all, I cheer for my favorite team when they win; and when they don’t win I walk away and think to myself, tough loss; maybe next time.

do I tie worship to events that are beyond my control?

Maybe we don’t mean to do it, but so often we tie our acts of worship to events and times that really—when it comes right down to it—are completely out of our control.

What I Have Right Now

We have said in this series that worship is a habit. It is a routine that we repeat. And we have said that habits and routines have their greatest impact when we consistently repeat them. Going for jog once a year does not make me physically fit. But regularly exercising every week is a habit that makes a difference.

habits impact us because they are repeated routines

There are days when I love getting out to do my exercise. It is a good part of my day and I look forward to it. But let’s be honest; there are also days when I don’t feel like getting out and exercising. But I do it anyways because I know that the repeated habit is still good for me, on days when I feel like it and on days when I don’t feel like it. There are days when it might be tough to fit that exercise routine in around the rest of the activities of my day. So, I might not go out as long or as far as I normally would, but I still make a space to get out and exercise. It is not about whether I feel like it or not. It is about working with whatever I have right now on this day to make my habit and my routine of exercise work.

can I repeat a routine of worship even when I do not feel like it?

Can worship work like that too? I can make excuses all day long about what in my life should be different so that I have a more genuine and authentic reason to praise God. We can all get stuck in those wish lists and the ‘if only’ moments that we use as reasons to pull away from a regular habit of worship. But what would it look like to stay with a habit of worship anyway, even when I don’t always feel like it?

start with an inventory; what has God given me right now?

Start with an inventory. What do I have right now? What has God given to me right now? Don’t let yourself get hung up and sidetracked by the things that you wish could be different and that you cannot control. Simply look at what it is you have been given by God right now at this time and on this day. And let that be the foundation of your regular habit of worship to God.

The teacher in Ecclesiastes summarizes it this way in verse 12 that we read today.

Ecclesiastes 3:12 NIV

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.

“I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.”

This verse is the theme of the entire book of Ecclesiastes. We may all have a list of more that we want from God. But he reminds us that he has already given us enough for today. What does that inventory list look like in your life? What gifts has God placed in your life right now today?

The author of Psalm 42 is one of the sons of Korah who lives in exile to the north away from Jerusalem. He has been taken away from the home that he loves and the priestly worship that had been a regular habit of his for so many years. Yet even there in exile he is able to write these words of Psalm 42

Psalm 42:5 (NIV)

5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

For I will yet praise him,

My Savior and my God.

No matter where you are today. No matter what circumstances are going on in your life right now. There is a savior who is still always near. Our response of worship is to say, God take whatever it is I have to offer right now today, and use it for your good purposes right now and right here.