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. 13 And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.
[PASTOR] Sermon
We gave our kids a Wii for Christmas. (Actually, friends of ours had recently gotten a WiiU and so had given us their Wii that we in turn gave to our kids.) We’ve been playing it a good bit since Christmas, especially MarioKart and bowling & boxing and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed!
Computer-gaming is a lot like life, if you think about it that way: That is, there are difficulties that need to be overcome, opponents to defeat, and there always seems to be some kind of a “boss” at the end of each “level of difficulty” that needs to be overcome in order for us to advance to the next level. Of course, in life sometimes the hardships, trials, or opponents we face are of our own making: Ungodly choices or too hasty decisions we’ve made, prejudices or bad attitudes we’ve gone along with, people we’ve hurt or enemies we’ve left behind in our wakes, destructive habits we’ve refused to break, to name just a few… And all of our interactions with these difficulties, trials, and opponents seem to eventually lead us up to some kind of “turning point” or another – a “point of no return”, a “moment of decision”, a “crisis”, a “crossroads” – and what we do and how we handle that “boss” (to use the computer term) determines whether we “level up” to the next level or have to start all over again.
In Ecclesiastes the “preacher” – the “gatherer-together of wisdom” – tells us that there are God-appointed times not only for the good and pleasant things in life, but also for death and for killing and for tearing things down and for crying; God-appointed times for grieving and for scattering and for turning away from those around us and for quitting our searches and for throwing away; God-appointed times for tearing apart and for hating and for war…
As much as we may not like to face it, the truth is that bad things happen. Sometimes God ordains unpleasant things to happen, things that challenge our comfort and convenience and ease; other times the Lord simply permits them to happen. After all, our Father’s goal is not our comfort, convenience, and ease but is our well-being, our wholeness, and our Christ-likeness. So, things we consider bad do happen and our Father has told us they will happen and that they will keep on happening because we live in a world that loves darkness more than light. (John 3:19) And because they are times that are promised and appointed by God, they should not be times to fight against or to ignore or to pretend aren’t happening or going to happen. They are times for us to exercise our faith, trusting in the God Who lives outside of such times in eternity; the God Who is absolutely sovereign over all.
The Gatherer writes that God has placed eternity in our hearts. That is, God has put a “restless yearning for the kind of perfect world that can only be found in His perfect rule” into the hearts of all people, believers and unbelievers alike. And, yes, He does give us glimpses of that perfection in creation and our relationships and across the blessings of this life, but they are only glimpses. And we ought not expect their fullness in this life or before Jesus returns. Bad things happen and are going to happen, and Jesus shows us the way to truly find meaning in life: By cheerfully accepting life and all it’s made of as coming from the hand of our loving Father.
When we’ve been playing the Wii together these past days (especially when we’ve been watching each other play, as opposed to playing against one another) we do a lot of cheering each other on: “You can do it, Caleb!” or, “Watch out behind you, Noah!” “Don’t give up, you guys. Keep at it! Come on, you’ve almost made it!” Etc…
Now did you notice as I was rooting for them that I never once cheered for the game to get easier? I never cheer for the different opponents or trials to disappear from the level. I mean, where would all the fun and challenge and adventure and satisfaction-in-victory be if everything just got easy? Jesus cheers for us the same way.
In John 17, after the Lord had washed the disciples’ feet, shared the Passover meal with them, and talked with them for some time about things to come, He prayed for them. But He didn’t ask His Father to make their lives easy or to keep them from hardship or harm. He prayed for the Father to protect them through all such things so that they might be united. As He prayed He didn’t ask that the Father would take them out of the world but that while going through the trials of the world that He would save them from giving in to the evil one. He prayed that God the Father would make them holy by His truth, teaching them His Word which is truth.
The apostle Paul prays for and cheers on the congregations he writes to at the beginning of most of his letters, as well. Across 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians Paul prays that the saints would be “kept strong to the end so that they would be blameless on the day Christ returns”; that they would “receive spiritual insight and wisdom so they might grow in the knowledge of God”, that their “hearts would be filled with God’s light so they might understand God’s hope and understand God’s great power available to believers”; that God would “finish the good work He began in them, with their love overflowing more and more, continuing to grow in knowledge and understanding to live pure and blameless lives until Christ returns, filled with the fruit of their salvation”; and, He prays they would “have all the endurance and patience they would need, being always filled with joy, and always thanking the Father”; and that the Lord would “enable them to live a life worthy of their calling, confident in His power to accomplish all the good things their faith might prompt them to do”; and more…
That’s the kind of cheering the Lord seems to think we need to keep “leveling up”, cheering that recognizes that the hardships and trials we face in this life are a part of God’s plan to shape the fullness of His likeness back into us again; the cheering we need to overcome the difficulties and beat the bosses this life will send our way.
F. B. Meyer, an English devotional writer and advocate for social causes during the mid-18- and early-1900’s, once wrote: “God’s dealings with us are on an ascending scale. The steps that slope away through darkness to God will always be beckoning to greater and yet greater things.
“Have you known Christ as the Word?” he writes. “He is more – both Spirit and Life. Has He become flesh? You shall behold Him glorified with the glory He had before the world began. Have you known Him as Alpha? He is also Omega.
“Have you beheld the Lamb on the cross? You shall behold Him in the midst of the throne. Have you seen the Spirit descend like a dove on one head? You shall see Him come as a fire upon an unnumbered multitude.
“Do you acknowledge Him as King of Israel? You shall hear the acclamations that salute Him as King of the world.
“Live up to all you know, and you shall know more. Be all you can, and you shall become more. Do all that your two talents permit, and you will find yourself ruler over four cities.”
It’s such a great feeling of accomplishment when we finally get that lay-up down or master the take-down we’ve been practicing, when we’ve memorized our lines or finally gotten that difficult harmony, when we’ve finished that paper, and when our diet has finally become our typical way of eating, etc… Likewise it’s such a great feeling of accomplishment when we haven’t had a cigarette all day; and when we haven’t worried about that worrisome thing all morning; when we were so tempted to rage but somehow found the grace to be gentle, instead; when we realize that although we used to lust after him or her, that we don’t anymore; such a great feeling of accomplishment to see ourselves in big and little ways becoming more and more like Christ!
So let’s expect troubles and trials, and expecting them let us pray that God would grant us and those around us going through them the graces and empowerment we and they really need to persevere, to be brave, to overcome, to grow in faith, hope, and love despite it all, so that the Lord might be made much of here in Milford and the Tri-States area and to the ends of the Earth. And so our neighbors and co-workers and friends and loved ones around us might be saved.