Just a Matter of Time
Message Transcription
What is good to be with you this morning. Church We continue on our Lenten series called Lament, Repent and Anticipate. Together, we've been thinking about the significance of Jesus going into the wilderness right after his baptism and that opportunity in those 40 days to confront the realities, the challenges that he was facing, that we too, if we're willing, can take this season of Lent, a season of the year that the church for thousands of years has been practicing to prepare ourselves for next Sunday, for Easter Sunday, and as Good Church of Christ as we celebrate Easter every Sunday, don't we? Brooks Every Sunday. But this next Sunday, the world joins us in that. Isn't it ironic? I'm in a world that lives so often far from God. They they recognize there is something more. In fact, we're going to dive a little deeper into that today as we look at the words that Susanna read for us just a moment ago in Ecclesiastes three. But again, I want to reiterate, maybe not quite so silly way to invite your peeps next week to join us. It's a day perhaps that and Christmas are the two days people are most at least willing to consider open to this idea. Perhaps there is something more. I think this passage gives us an opportunity to jump into that this week, but we'll have a service next week designed around helping people encounter the living Christ, the resurrected Jesus. So we do want to invite you to invite your friends to be with you. We spent the last few weeks journeying together through the Lenten wilderness, thinking about the different ways that that our world and our own lives can get in the way of us understanding and hearing God's call for us.
We spend some time reflecting and lamenting on our personal lives, inviting God as as the Psalmist does in Psalm 139 to search us, God, search our lives, our hearts, our minds. If there's any offensive way, God, would you lead us in a different path? We lamented some about our world that it didn't take very long. Just open up your favorite news outlet to see there is so much wrong with the world. Many of us have felt that wrongness in our own lives. We've experienced and encountered the brokenness and fallenness of the world. But we're anticipating that Jesus has set a new course for us as his people, that he's bringing about reconciliation, not just of all people, but all creation and inviting us to partner with him. We spent some time thinking about the church and lamenting. Sometimes the church has not fulfilled that role. That partnership with Christ and reconciliation work in the ways that it should have. And so how can we learn to take our cup of cold water or our burning passion and use it on behalf of Christ and His kingdom? Last week we spent some time thinking more personally about our desires and the ways that somehow our mismanaged desires get in the way of us living into the Kingdom of God. Today I want us to look at time and we're going to take a look.
Using a book that is often confusing at best and maybe depressing at worst, The Book of Ecclesiastes. It's a challenging book. I invite you to jump in and read it this week if you have a chance. It's only 12 chapters. It won't take you very long. I'm indebted to the work of a guy named Tremper Longman, who's a scholar. Many of you got a chance to hear him out at L.s.u. A couple of years ago. But he's written several books and commentaries, and I'm indebted to the work that he has done, helping us understand this often all too confusing book. You see, it's written by someone just known as the teacher. Some attribute it to Solomon and the wisdom that he had. Perhaps it is, perhaps it's not. But it's a book set about a man who journeyed all through life trying to find the meaning and the purpose of life. And he tried it all. He tried everything. And his constant refrain after indulging himself in whatever arena it was, was meaningless. Everything is meaningless. Now, if you're a movie buff like me, my mind immediately goes to the not too terribly theological movie. What about Bob? Perhaps you remember this story of Dr. Leo Marvin, played by Richard Dreyfuss, who encounters an eccentric, neurotic patient named Bob Wiley, played by Bill Murray. There's a scene in which Dr. Marvin and his family have gone on vacation, and Bob has somehow figured out how to find him because their session isn't going to be until his doctor returns and he just doesn't know if he can go that long without meeting with the doctor.
So he squirrels his way in, somehow gets an invitation to stay with them and in fact gets to spend the night with the youngest child, Dr. Marvin's son, Siggy Sigmund, 12 years old. And there's this wonderful scene when they're lying in bed and Siggy looks over at Bob and says, Bob, are you afraid of death? And Bob, who's afraid of everything? His eyes widen and he says yes. And Siggy says, Good. Me, too. But you know what? We're all going to die. I'm going to die. You're going to die and there's nothing we can do about it. It may be tomorrow. It may be in 80 years, much sooner in your case. But we're all going to die, right? That makes me think of the teacher in Ecclesiastes. We're all going to die. Life happens, and then you die. It can be this incredibly depressing book, but Longman pointed me to something I had forgotten or maybe had missed throughout my studies of this book. But it's an amazing thing. Like like Siggy, the teacher of Ecclesiastes, seems to be stuck on this reality that that life is meaningless. He sees the death and injustice of the world. And in fact, by the time we get to Ecclesiastes, chapter nine, he tells us this. He says, I've seen something else under the sun. The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth, to the brilliant or favor, to the learned.
But time and chance happen to them all. Life happens and then you die. The teacher's encouragement then becomes this version of Carpe diem, then then seize the day, if you will, whatever enjoyment you can take while you're still able do so. In fact, six different times he returns to this or a version of this premise, a person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. Now, Longman reminds us that there's actually a second voice in the book of Ecclesiastes, and if you're not paying attention, you're going to read right past it because it's only heard two times. The first is the first 11 verses of chapter one, and the second time is the last seven verses of Chapter 12 kind of bookends this entire teaching time. But it's another what the scholars call the frame. Narrator He's the one who kind of sets up the conversation that's about to unfold. But he's also a father. And we'll learn in Chapter 12. He's talking to his son, trying to help his son understand and deal with all of the information and the wisdom that has come through this. Teacher, What do you do? How do you respond? To see. The teacher has searched and encountered all areas of life. He searched wisdom and power and wealth and work and pleasure trying to find a source of meaning. Something that could take him further beyond.
And all of it, he concludes, is meaningless. So what is the young man to do with this kind of wisdom? Is he like Siggi, just to adopt this fascination with death? We're all going to die. So what does it matter if it's today or 80 years from now? The father explains it to him like this in Chapter 12, Not only was the teacher wise, but he also imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. The teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true. The words of the wise are like goads. Their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails given by one shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books. There is no end and much study wearies the body. Now all has been heard. Here is the conclusion of the matter. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. And to borrow the words of perhaps someone you might recognize, a more modern day poet, The Mandalorian. This is the way. The father sums up all the work of the teacher. He says he searched high and low all over the world, and every type of pleasure or work or power or wealth encounter he could have. And he has found it meaningless. He's investigated and put in order in good order. All of these proverbs from which we can learn something.
He's helped unlock these deep truths and insights that have been found in all corners of the globe. And as counsel to his son, this father's counsel is listen to the wisdom. Pay attention. The teacher is speaking truth. He says he's put it all down in good order, especially given the parameters of his search. The teacher tells us at the beginning all that I have seen and experienced I have reflected on. All that he has seen and experienced. He's taken a hard look at a fallen world and he's put together what he can make of it. After the summary, the father ends with this charge. Fear. God. And keep his commandments for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is evil or good. So although he's brief, the father brings this lesson. That the teacher has actually been sewing all throughout the book of Ecclesiastes. If you're reading, you'll you'll see it because at different times, after a long, deep dive into some arena of life, he comes up for a breath of air and he says, Fear God. Keep his commandments. The father reminds the son, Make sure you keep your relationship with God first and foremost in your life. That's going to impact and set into the right order. Maintain this relationship because in the midst of really hard and challenging seasons, son, when life to seems meaningless to you because it will. This is the way.
This is the way.
The farther along one shows us is teaching his son about the meaning and the purpose of life. Ecclesiastes serves as this idol breaker, doesn't it? It somehow exposes all of the things that we're tempted to believe will make us matter, will make us important, will bring meaning to our lives, only to find they leave us empty and hollow and disappointed and wondering, as the teacher did. Meaningless. Is it all meaningless? You know, most of us, if we're honest, struggle to really learn that lesson. We understand intuitively that money does not make us happy. And I could point to you. Study after study, not just in a Christian university, but a secular university. Over and over again, we've learned, in fact, take lottery winners. They have found time and again the vast majority, over 90% of lottery winners returned to their previous winning level of happiness before they won. Happiness Before they won happiness. Perfect. Before they won the lottery, they returned to that same level of happiness. I've been me. Yeah, but it'd be different with me, right? Because I'd know how to use the money. The truth is no.
No, it's meaningless.
If you don't have your priorities straight, if God is not first in your life, it's going to end up being meaningless because money can't buy you happiness. It can't buy you the things that are of ultimate value.
Meaningless. Meaningless, the teacher tells us.
So the father tells his son, Place your relationship with God first and foremost. Fear him. Meaning honor him. Keep his commandments. Obey him.
The teacher tells us it will shape everything.
Rather, the father tells us it will. It will put everything in its proper place, including our time, how we use our time, which the teacher tells us there's a time for everything. And a season for everything. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to uproot. Time to kill. And a time to heal, A time to tear 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 scatter stones and a time to gather them. To embrace. To refrain from embracing. There's a time to search and a time to give up. A time to keep what? To throw away. A time to tear. To mend. A time to be silent or to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. Teacher says, I've searched all over the world and I've found there's a time for everything. There's an order in things and I don't often understand it. In fact, he doesn't stop there.
He presses on. He recognizing that in this reality, there is a time for everything. There's also he found a longing for something more. And he says, What do workers gain from their toil? I've 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. And yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Have you ever felt that longing in your heart? Like there's got to be more. There's got to be more than what I can just see or experience. You know, sometimes we catch a little glimpse of it, a little moment where where the heavens are are torn back. And we we see deeper, right. And in a relationship that really matters to us. And then at the same time, there are these moments in our lives where we wonder, does anything matter? Is this just meaningless? Have you ever noticed that sometimes it's the same moment? In the midst of the same moment. You can experience this window into this reality that's just beyond us.
And you at the same time.
The struggle to.
Understand How does this make sense?
I appreciate y'all's grace and letting me kind of work through the passing of my mom, but that was a moment for me, right?
Knows what I'm talking about, right where.
My mom lived.
Her whole life for.
That moment. She lived her whole life.
For that moment.
And in her passing in the peace and the love that she shared with us, the blessing over us, where we see this window into a reality that we know there's something more. And yet the same time.
We're going, Why? Why does this happen? Why did it have to go this way? The the Ecclesiastes teacher is showing us. He's introducing us. He's reminding us of this reality. There's something.
More. There's a time for everything. And yet God has has set eternity in our hearts. And so so something of this earth. It's not going to sustain us. It's not going to going to keep us going. Even a relationship that means so.
Much to.
Us.
We recognize. No, there comes a time when that relationship is going to end. For a while.
And if that's what we placed all of our life in, if that's what our whole world is about.
Then we come.
Crashing into reality of some of the meaningless of a broken and fallen world.
And so the father is teaching and reminding his son.
You see, we have a knowledge today that the teacher and the father didn't have in their day when these words were written. They understood there was more to the world than what they could see and experience. And they they catch glimpses of it in moments. And they tried to to set the son up to to live in that kind of reality. But they couldn't fully comprehend it. And so the teacher says, 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. Nothing can be taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. Whatever is has already been.
And what will be has been before and God will call the past into account. And you hear these glimpses of.
The teacher awakening to this reality that there is something.
More. Something deeper, something more significant. But that.
Doesn't mean our time on the.
Earth is.
Doesn't matter.
He says. What I've discovered is to learn to live in light of this longer.
Reality, this truer reality. And so how I live my day to day it actually there is some some mattering there.
We have these moments, these glimpses where we see it and we understand it. But then we also have these moments that leave us wondering.
That each of us have to face this question, don't we? How will we spend our time? How will you spend your time?
We know it's important.
Because we don't know how much time we have, Right? Time is our most precious resource. We can't buy it. You can't steal it. You can't give it away.
Oh, it's limited.
It's finite. We don't have know how much we have. All we know is.
What we have today.
In this moment. How will you spend your time? It's a question that humanity has longed to answer that we hear the teacher in Ecclesiastes, in the father in Ecclesiastes, wrestling with trying to help give some voice to how will we live with this time? That's a question that's been sought after by by.
Humanity since the.
Beginning of time. In fact, we hear echoes of it in the Psalms where David would write and Moses would write. In fact, Psalm 90th May maybe one of the more familiar psalms to us. He writes the questioning this way. He says, Our days may have come to 70, may come to 70 years or 80 if our strength endures. Amen.
Yet the best of them are but trouble.
And sorrow, for they pass.
Quickly.
And we fly away.
If only we knew the power of your anger. Your wrath is as.
Great as the fear that is your due.
Teach us to number our days that we.
May gain a heart of wisdom.
Teach us to number our days.
A more modern day psalmist named Chris Rice, one of my favorite artists, has has taken a run at trying to identify and put a name and words to this wrestling with how will we spend our days? I ask Gary if he would to put a video together for us to just listen to the words that Chris writes as he recognizes and notices that longing. But how will we live with our time? Let's take a listen.
Every day is a journal page.
Every man holds a quill and ink. And there's plenty of room for riding in all we do. Believe and anything. So will you compose a curse or will today bring the blessings? Fill the page with a rhyming verse or some random sketches?
Teach us to carry the. Jesus teach us to make our days count. It's. To me so much. Every day is a bank account and time is our currency.
So no one's rich, nobody's poor.
We get 24 hours each.
So how are you going to spend?
Or squander. Try to.
Get.
It'll help someone who's under. So you just took. Teach us to make the days count. Somehow our souls for God. Life means so much. How you love a lie. And don't you think giving is all what prove the word? Ain't you just a. Souls for God. It takes a long time. Deals. All the time. Everything in your living. Make the most of the time. Everything in your living every day is a gift. Best to make the most. Time and time. Everything. And join. Make the most of the time. Will make the most of the time.
My hope is that, like me, that song gets stuck in your head, especially that last little chorus. Every day is a gift that you've been given. Make the most of your time Every minute. You're giving. Teach us to count the ways the days, rather.
And teach us to make.
Those days count.
Lead us in better ways, because sometimes it's somehow our souls for God. We get reminded every now and again, don't we?
You get this glimpse into the reality.
Jesus taught his disciples this all the time. This is one of the main messages he taught over and over again. He said, Church, you're going to be tempted to chase after questions like, What should I eat?
Or What should I drink or What should I wear?
Maybe in our day it might be How many likes can I get? What kind of car can I drive? How much money will I make?
Where would I live? Jesus says you're going to be tempted.
To chase after those questions. And the writer of Ecclesiastes has already answered that one for us.
It's meaningless. It's going to be meaningless. It won't matter.
Another time, Jesus said, What does it profit a person, a man or a woman to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul? Forfeit her soul?
What What is your soul worth? Teach us to count the days. Somehow my soul forgot. And life means so much. It means so much. Church What are you tempted to waste your time on this week too? What relationship are you tempted to just want to walk right past? What opportunity is God presenting to you to say, Would you. Would you put me first in your life so that we can reorder your structure, your day.
To help you take advantage of the opportunity that you have because.
You don't know how much.
More, how many more you'll have. And I promise you this. I've stood next to a lot of folks who are taking their last breath, and no one's ever said, Oh.
If I just earned that extra $1,000.
But I can't tell you how many times. If I could just.
Have one more conversation, if I could just let them know. And see somehow my soul forgot. Gab, would you teach us to count the days? So it's just a matter of time. Oh, God. Would you help us? We pray.
To count our days and to make our days count.
God to hear the wisdom that comes from so many years ago.
That reminds us pursuing these questions that Jesus.
Said, people who don't even.
Know God chase after these things and they too find the same answer that we will find. It's all.
Meaningless. Meaningless. Oh, God. Thank you. That at just.
The right time.
Jesus was willing to come for us. At just the right time. And oh, God, our lives have never been the same. Lord may that. May that message walk with us this week as we anticipate the Easter Sunday that is coming.
The resurrection, the empty tomb.
God. As we get our eyes lost. God, as we start to focus on.
The things of this world, we encounter the meaningless.
Of it.
But yet, God, you give us.
Glimpses in the.
Relationships that we have with the people who mean so much.
To you and they mean so much to us. That causes us to anticipate this isn't all there is.
Even the pain and the.
Suffering that we go through in this world because it's broken and it's fallen. And God, we feel it every day. It's not the end of the story. And so, God, this season of Lent is the time to anticipate. Anticipate those little windows one day, not just being a window, but just being everyday reality. Or we will know and be known love and be loved. We'll find renewed relationships and opportunities to live in a new kingdom. And so, God, you've asked us to.
Partner with you and to bring about that reconciliation to the world, not just waiting until we die, but God, that we would be about that work even this day.
In this moment. They got some how you might use us.
A relationship, an opportunity at work, at school to live in such a way that. That someone else gets a glimpse.
Of that true reality of that kingdom breaking through and God, that it might be enough to draw him closer to you. To want to know more. So, God, wherever we are.
This day.
Whether it's a conviction, we need to sense from you, Holy Spirit, would you convict us? Would you show us the ways that we need to.
Reorder our priorities?
To put God back in first place, to quit seeking after the things of this world.
And the ways that we have in the past. Or God. Perhaps you're inviting us to be a part of your reconciliation work this week in a relationship at the office or in our neighborhood or at the lunch table?
Or do you want us to live differently.
To not engage in the gossip and the slander that goes on so.
Easily? It doesn't tempt you to.
Power up on people instead to be humble. Put others before us.
Yeah. Would you give us the courage to.
To not manage the impression, but instead to just be our authentic, real self? Knowing, trusting, believing. You're faithful.
That you love us.
That at just the right time, as Paul reminds us, Jesus came while we were still in our sin, while we were still struggling and finding ourselves caught up in the brokenness of the world at the perfect time, Jesus showed up.
Oh, God. Would you help us to live into.
That reality.
This week? And show us where we need to lament and repent.
Of ways that have not been.
Reflective of you and your kingdom. You give us the courage to make.
A turn, make a change, to rethink our thinking and to instead pursue a life. To pursue you.
To partner with you in reconciling the world back to yourself. Oh, God. Thank you. Thank you for the work that you're.
Doing in Broadway.
Right now. Thank you for the work that you will do. Thank you, Jesus.
And at the right time, you did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves.
Oh, Lord, would you.
Continue to transform our city and our world? And God, would you use us, Broadway, your church, your people as your hands and feet? Oh, may it be so In Jesus name.
Amen.