Hope at 7 - Change is OK

Hope at 7

Good evening everyone!

It’s Germiko again here tonight. If you’re checking out Hope at 7 for the first time. I work with Bob here in Sicamous at Shuswap Community Church. I’ve been here for a year and 11 months exactly. In just a month my wife Bethany and I would have been in Sicamous for 2 years. In some ways the 2 years have felt like a life time, I feel like I’ve known many of the people around here for a long time, and in other ways the time has just flown by.

Looking back over the last 2 years one thing that has been a regular occurrence throughout the entire time has been change. There’s a common saying, and one that we are especially hearing more during this time is “the only constant is change”.

Moving from Bermuda to a place that I could hardly pronounce, Sicamous, was quite the change. Moving from a job in the corporate world to working in a church was quite the change. Moving churches was another really big change. And then getting to know people and ministries. All those moving to a new place, changes that we experience.

I know for me I love change. I love the newness of things, I love the challenges that come with change; trying out new things, learning about new people, whatever it is.

But I know not everyone is built that way. I know for a lot of people change is tough to go through. Not having the regular and constant things go on in life is hard. It creates anxiety, fear, uncertainty. And with this virus that we have and the outlook for the future, I’m hearing from our country leaders that we will have to get use to things changing all the time in the future.

I don’t know about you. But even for someone who love change, hearing that makes me fearful. It makes me fearful because 1. I’m not in as much control of my future as I thought I was or I would be. And 2 a lot of the things that I place a lot of value on have stopped or they are much different that it was just a little bit ago. For example, I love spending time with people, that’s a lot of what my job is, and I’ve not been able to do that in the same way as just a few months ago. So I have this fear that as things progress they will again change and so I’m learning about myself is that maybe I’m that much into change as I thought I was.

But I’m grateful that the bible speaks to this. That it speaks to how we are to approach life and to intertwine that with our faith.

In Ecclesiastes, which is a book in the bible that really talks about all our work here on earth being meaningless. It’s a pretty harsh idea but what the author is pointing to is eternal thinking, Godly thinking is the way to go. And so what I have for us is Ecclesiastes 3:1-12 which says, “

1 For everything there is a season,

a time for every activity under heaven.

2 A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to plant and a time to harvest.

3 A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to tear down and a time to build up.

4 A time to cry and a time to laugh.

A time to grieve and a time to dance.

5 A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.

A time to embrace and a time to turn away.

6 A time to search and a time to quit searching.

A time to keep and a time to throw away.

7 A time to tear and a time to mend.

A time to be quiet 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 do people really get for all their hard work? 10 I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. 11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. 12 So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can.”

This passage as I read it gives me hope. The gist is that there is a season, there is a time for everything. There are times in our life where we will have amazing opportunities and moments and others which will be tough and burden-filled. And we get that right, that makes sense right. Life isn’t always a picnic, and there are great times. But what I love about this passage is that there are a reminder imbedded in it.

1. That God has made everything beautiful in its own time. One of the things that I love about living in BC is the seasons changing. Because we can see each of winter, spring, summer and fall. And we can see the beauty that is contained in each of these seasons and there are parts of them which we aren’t so fond of.

As I look back on my life so far, even in the midst of the most difficult moments, I can now see God was working in those moments to refine me, to make me stronger, more patient, and in every case to know that he’s working in an around me for his glory in my life. That’s not always easy to realize, especially when you are in the middle of enduring these moments. There are times in this COVID thing where I’m like is this things ever going to end. Watching and reading the news will bring you to the point of thinking it’s all over.

But I think it’s important to look for and to see the beautiful moments in this season that God has made for this time. Like more time to slow down and to be around family, nature and to catch up on things we’ve been putting off. I know over the last few weeks we’ve been able to walk and see parts of this awesome town that we hadn’t before because of the pressure of work and other things.

In light of all of this I love what Paul writes about in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”

This season will pass. This time of isolation for some people, this season of fear and uncertainty about the future. It. will. pass. In the grand scheme of our lives it won’t last long. But we should want and desire for this season to produce for us a glory that will last forever. And that glory is wrapped up in Jesus folks. The 2 Corinthians passage here is another reminder that what we are facing now is temporary and we should use this time to prepare ourselves for our future with Jesus, to work on our lives in light of what he would want it to look like.

2. Which brings us into the second reminder in this passage. We cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. Life sometimes hits us in waves in the ocean doesn’t it. Like we’ll be hit by a wave then we’ll have a break, then we get hit by another wave.

What we do know, what we do understand, as we’ve mentioned before that things in our life will change. We will experience this as long as we live, we will be surprised by what life throws at us. I don’t know about you but I was surprised by this virus and its impact on us here in BC and around the world. But what this passage in Ecclesiastes tells me is that it wasn’t a surprise to God. He knows what will happen from the beginning to the end.

And to face this he put something in our heart. He puts eternity. As believers we place this hope and trust for eternity in Jesus, because of his death and resurrection. And I love that even in the midst of all of this change we’re reminded in Hebrews 13:8, “8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Jesus is and will be our constant when everything around us goes haywire and even when everything is great. He will be there with us and for us in every moment. All he’s looking for us is to accept him into our hearts and lives. When we do that, when we say yes to Jesus, which is a thing we need to do all the time. He will continually show up in our hearts and lives in incredible ways. I know in this season when I’ve spent time with God that that has been the best times in reducing my stress about the future because God reminds me that he has it all under control.

I love James 1:17-18, and we’ll end with this thought when it says, “17 Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. 18 He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.”

Guys even in the tough moments God is preparing us and working in us and through us, because we are his prized possessions. He loves us and is calling us. And we need to remind ourselves of that. That that God is with us. And in the midst of all of this he has given us his word to remind us of this.

Bob’s mentioned it before if you need a bible there are some great apps that you can download, the Bible app is incredible. If you need a bible let us know, drop us a message and we will get you one. It’s important because this is the true word that we’re reminded of.

Let’s pray.

Before I log out tonight I’m going to post 2 songs for us. The first is Together by for King and Country. A reminder that we are in this together with each other and God. And the other is Run to the Father by Cody Carnes. Let’s run to Jesus whenever we feel like we need to.

Have a great night and we will see you soon!