The Trouble with Time

Today we're reading from Ecclesiastes chapter 3.

Ecclesiastes 3 · chapter mention

Starting in verse 1, we read,

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted.

A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to break 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 cast away stones and a time to gather stones together.

A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.

A time to seek and a time to lose.

A time to keep and a time to cast away.

A time to tear and a time to sew.

A time to keep silence and a time to speak.

A time to love and a time to hate.

A time for war and a time for peace.

What gain has the worker from his toil?

I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Also, he has put eternity into man's heart.

Yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

I perceive that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live.

Also, that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil.

This is God's gift to man.

I perceive that whatever God does endures forever.

Nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it.

God has done it so that people fear before him.

That which is already has been.

That which is to be already has been.

And God seeks what has been driven away.

Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness.

And in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness.

I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked.

For there is a time for every matter and for every work.

I said in my heart, with regard to the children of man, that God is testing them.

That they may see that they themselves are but beasts.

For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same.

As one dies, so dies the other.

They all have the same breath.

And man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity.

All go to one place.

All are from the dust.

And to dust all return.

Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward,

and the spirit of the beasts goes down into the earth.

So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work,

for that is his lot.

Who can bring him to see what will be after him?

This is the word of God.

Great.

Thank you, Karen.

Let's pray together as we come and look at this passage.

Heavenly Father, Sovereign God, Merciful Lord,

we come before your word this morning because, as we've said many times before,

we want to hear you speak.

That's why we gather to encounter you, the living God, through your word,

to be encouraged by the gospel, to worship you this morning.

God, I pray that you know where each one of our hearts are at.

You know those of us that are encouraged and those of us that are discouraged.

Those of us that are laughing, those of us that are mourning,

those of us that are rejoicing, those of us that are weeping.

God, won't you come and meet with each one of us this morning and speak to us from your word.

Humble us, challenge us, but also encourage us.

We pray these things in your wonderful name.

Amen.

I want to encourage you, if you've got a Bible,

to keep it open to Ecclesiastes 3 or otherwise grab the bulletin.

We're going to be looking at this text a fair bit.

But time, this passage is all about time and the seasons of our life.

Time is the one resource that, my guess is,

most of us feel like we don't have enough of it.

When you are young, like the children that have run out,

you feel like time is your friend.

You've got all the time in the world.

But age quickly dispels that.

One person said that time is like a river that only runs in one direction.

And there's coming a time when time will run out.

Unlike money, you can save all the time in the world,

but you can never leave it to your children.

You can't bequeath it in your will and have a building named after you.

So-and-so left this amount of time to this foundation.

No matter how much time you save,

all of us will come to a point where the sand in the hourglass of our lives

eventually runs out.

But time is not only a limited and finite resource,

it's also meant to be a source of wisdom.

How we view time and how we steward our time and the seasons of our lives

shape our lives profoundly.

Now, we're looking at this book, Ecclesiastes,

and Nielsen, the last two weeks, has opened that up looking at chapter one or two.

And I wanted just to remind us of the framework,

in case you weren't here the last few weeks or maybe you missed it.

Ecclesiastes is actually written, there's two authors,

there's two voices in the book.

Most of the book is the words of this guy called the teacher or the preacher.

In Hebrew, the word is kohelet, which means one who gathers people together.

And most of the book is the words of kohelet, the teacher or the preacher.

But the book itself is actually written by another author, another wise man.

And he employs the words or uses the words of kohelet

to show us what life looks like if all you see is the world around you.

Kohelet is aware of God.

He knows God is there, but it's almost like God is in the distance.

He's not aware of God involved in his life and breaking into his life

and the mercy and the grace of God.

He's aware that there is a God, but his life is consumed with what he can see.

I don't know if you actually see throughout this passage,

look at how many times he says,

I saw, I perceived, I see.

He's describing the world as he sees it in front of him.

And the author is using the words of this teacher to say,

if you see life like that, all that's in front of you,

it's going to end in a dead end.

What is the teacher's favorite phrase?

His conclusion, his assessment?

Meaningless.

Vanity.

The Hebrew is the word hevel, which means a vapor or a mist.

It's like trying to grab some smoke with your hand,

and you open up and you see it's disappeared.

Meaningless vanity.

And the point of Ecclesiastes is to help us lift our eyes off of just the here and now

and to see there is more to life than what we can just see.

And so the author is using the words of the teacher, Kohelet, to help us do that.

That's important to understand when we read Ecclesiastes.

And so far, the author or the teacher has explored the kind of circular nature of life.

He says in chapter 1,

What has been will be again.

And what has been will be done.

Nothing is new under the sun.

In chapter 2, he explored pleasure and hedonism.

Education and wisdom.

Toil and work.

And what is his assessment?

Vanity.

Hevel.

Hevel.

Hevel.

Striving after the wind.

Well, today we come to chapter 3.

And the teacher, Kohelet, wants to explore the idea of time and the seasons of our lives.

And what the author is going to say to us in this chapter is that in order to live well,

we need to understand two things.

Firstly, our lives are enclosed within time's bounds.

Our lives are enclosed within time's bounds.

But secondly, God is not.

Okay?

That's the big idea.

And we're going to look at this in four sections.

And so look at the first section with me.

Verses 1 to 8.

The tapestry of life.

The tapestry of life.

Let's read this famous poem again.

The author writes,

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

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

A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.

A time to kill, and a time to heal.

A time to break 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 cast away stones, and a time to gather stones.

A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.

A time to seek, and a time to lose.

A time to keep, and a time to cast away.

A time to tear, and a time to sow.

A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.

A time for love, and a time for hate.

A time for war, and a time for peace.

This poem, the author beautifully explores that life is like a tapestry.

Do you know what a tapestry is?

Tapestry is one of those beautifully embroidered pictures

that is made up of hundreds or even millions of strands of material.

Sometimes silk, sometimes other material.

And the embroiderers will sew it together,

and make a beautiful picture out of it.

And the author is saying that life is like this.

It consists of hundreds, thousands of moments of times,

and seasons of our lives that make up the tapestry of our lives.

If you live long enough,

your life will experience the full spectrum

of the experiences of what it means to be human.

Joys and challenges, delights and disappointments,

sunny days and autumn nights.

A time of sowing and reaping,

of building up and breaking down.

And the teacher is not arguing

that this is how life ought to be.

There's no moral injunction here.

He's not saying there is a time where you should love your kids,

and you should hate your kids,

or love people, or hate people.

This is not an ought to be.

He's describing how life is as he sees it,

as he perceives it.

He is saying that life is not just sunny days,

and drinking pina coladas,

and filled with laughter and embracing.

Life is complex.

It's messy.

There's hard times.

There's good times.

There's in-between times.

Someone said,

In prosperity, prepare for suffering.

In suffering, know that it won't always be so.

Life is complex.

It's full of the vast spectrum.

In everything, there is a season,

a time for every matter under heaven.

Life, says the teacher, is a tapestry,

and the wise person knows how to respond

in the different seasons of life appropriately.

There's this very confusing two verses

in the book of Proverbs, in chapter 26.

It says this,

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,

lest you be like him yourself.

And then the next line says,

Answer a fool according to his folly,

lest he be wise in his own eyes.

And think what's going on here.

So I've got this fool in front of me.

Do I speak to him or do I not speak to him?

What do I do?

Well, different situations will require

a different response.

Sometimes the best thing to do is just to walk away.

But sometimes you've got to engage

and don't leave him in his folly.

The wise person knows that life is not linear.

It's not simplistic.

It's not just simply axiomatic.

You read a verse like this and you say,

Okay, I know how life works.

Life is complex.

It's full of these complexities in life.

It is a tapestry, a patchwork of joy and grief,

rejoicing and mourning.

Life is like a song that has major notes

and minor notes as well.

It is a tapestry that has reds and blues and greens,

but it also has blacks and browns and grays.

Life sometimes has beginner doctors

that poke you in the wrong place.

And sometimes it has experienced doctors

that know exactly what you need.

Thank you, Alan, for that piece of insight.

Life consists of seasons of diapers and pacifiers,

sleepless nights,

but also seasons of getting old

and false teeth and dentures

and losing your memory.

Life is like a tapestry.

But notice how most of these things

are beyond your control

or your ability to influence.

Many of these things that are described in this poem

sometimes come crashing into your life unannounced.

But all of these things are really beyond

our ability to control them.

And actually one of the marks of foolishness

is to think that we have complete control

over our lives.

Anybody here plan your birth?

Anybody know exactly how or when you will die?

The author is telling us

that life is sometimes beyond our control.

The author, David Gibson,

wrote a fascinating book called

Living Life Backwards

on the book of Ecclesiastes.

I encourage you to read it

if you can order it.

And look at what he says.

He says that while we may be tempted

to look at this list in the poem

like a food panda menu

and think I will order three hours of joy today,

four hours of rest,

and 25 minutes of suffering next week,

and then I will have two and a half years

of fulfilling wonderful work

before I go on to the next season.

Life doesn't always work out like that.

We may think we are the captains of our fate,

the masters of our destiny,

but really step back a little

and you'll see the tapestry of your life

is largely out of your hands,

beyond your control to influence or ability.

And so wisdom is not measured

by the success of your life,

but whether we know how to turn to God

in each and every season of life.

For every season,

for everything there is a season,

a time under heaven,

the tapestry of lives.

But notice, secondly,

the tyranny of our lives.

This poem in Ecclesiastes 3

is very famous.

It's often read at weddings and funerals,

even funerals of those

that are secular or humanistic.

It's a very famous poem

because it's written so beautifully.

If you happen to be of a certain age

and you happen to listen to pop music

in the 1970s,

there was a band called The Birds.

Does anybody know what I'm referring to?

Okay, Oscar.

Wow.

Great.

Thank you for that confession.

They wrote a very famous song.

There is a season,

turn,

turn,

turn.

Does anyone know that?

Okay, Colin,

I see that little nod.

This song,

this poem,

is beautiful.

It captures the experience,

the spectrum of our lives.

And the way that it's written,

it kind of lilts,

right?

It sings.

It's got this melody to it.

For everything,

there is a season.

A season to plant,

and a season to pluck up.

A season to gather,

and a season to cast away.

It's just written so beautifully,

you can't help but want to sing it.

But the author is not singing this

because he's celebrating the tapestry of life.

If anything,

the teacher is frustrated

by the tapestry of life.

For the teacher,

he's saying that life with all its dimensions

is a mystery.

It's an enigma.

Sometimes there's joy,

and dancing,

and laughter,

but oftentimes there's pain,

there's tears,

there's mourning,

there's heartache.

As reciprocal,

and as melodic as the poem is,

that's not how life always works.

It's not simply this linear,

this simplistic.

Life is sometimes nonsensical.

It's a tapestry, sure,

but he's saying,

all I can see is the back of the tapestry,

and I can see just messy strands.

There's a whole lot of material

that just looks like it's all over the place.

Sometimes it seems like the tapestry of life

is coming apart at the seams.

Have you ever heard that phrase,

whenever God closes a door,

he opens a window?

Sometimes he doesn't.

Sometimes he just smashes the door in your face

and expects you to wait.

And waiting is good,

but waiting is hard, right?

Look at verse 9 with me.

Verse 9 to 15.

Look at what he says.

He says,

he writes about this beautiful poem,

there's a time for love,

and for peace,

and hate,

and war, etc.

Verse 9,

That's a familiar phrase in Ecclesiastes, right?

What gain is there from all the seasons of life?

Maybe you're in a season of toil,

and you work,

and you work,

and you work,

but it's a season of loss for you.

It all comes to nothing.

Maybe you work,

and you work,

and you work,

and you achieve something beautiful,

but who knows whether the season to follow

is a season of loss,

and it all just falls apart.

Even the joys in this life are stamped with time,

are bound by time,

and will eventually vanish with time.

What's the point, he asks.

Look at verse 10.

He says,

I have seen the business,

that means the cares and the concerns,

that God has given to the children of man

to be busy with.

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Okay, well that sounds positive.

Verse 11,

He has put eternity into man's heart.

Well that sounds wonderful.

But man cannot find out what God has done

from the beginning to the end.

The teacher is saying,

these seasons are frustrating,

because they are frustratingly mysterious.

The teacher says,

sometimes life is like a 10,000 piece puzzle,

and God has hidden the box from you.

And all you've got is your puzzle piece,

and you don't know where it goes.

And what comes next?

Sure, from a perspective of eternity,

the puzzle piece looks beautiful.

God has made everything beautiful in its time.

But the problem is,

I'm not God.

I can't see from the perspective of eternity.

Daniel Estes says,

humans are bound by time,

but we are wired for eternity.

But we are wired for eternity.

We intuitively know there must be meaning somewhere.

And we are made for more than vain toil.

And this is the wrestle that the teacher,

Kohelet,

is wrestling with.

He's saying,

I know there's something more than this.

I know that there's a God out there.

Surely life is more than just the sum of my years,

and then I die.

There is a consciousness that He's put in my mind.

There's a consciousness in my heart.

I was made for more than this.

But I can't figure it out.

God has put a veil over my eyes,

and hidden from me,

the seasons,

and the times.

Sometimes it seems like it's the season to mourn,

followed by the season of weeping,

followed by the season of breaking down,

and the season of burying.

And unlike the four seasons of the weather,

they are not always as predictable.

And so what does Kohelet, the teacher,

tell us to do?

Well, look at verse 12.

He comes back to his Carpe Diem passage.

He says,

I perceive,

now look around me,

I perceive there's nothing better

than for mankind to be joyful

and to do good as long as he lives.

Also, that everyone should eat and drink

and take pleasure in his toil.

This is God's gift to man.

He's saying,

when you can't see what's going on,

the best thing you can do is work hard,

enjoy life,

do as much good as you can to those around you.

Don't waste your life.

But enjoy what you've got now.

That's where he lands.

The tyranny,

the frustration of this life.

But the teacher isn't finished there.

There's actually another element

that is frustrating to him.

Because this frustration is compounded further

when he experiences the injustice of life.

There is a season for everything under the sun,

says the teacher.

But he's struggling because it seems to him

that more often than not,

it's the season for injustice rather than justice.

Life is like a set of scales, he says.

And it seems like somebody is pressing down

on the scale of injustice.

Look at verse 16 to 22.

He says,

I saw under the sun

that in the place of justice,

even there was wickedness.

And in the place of righteousness,

even there was wickedness.

Now he doesn't say it,

but he's talking about the law courts.

This is not a commentary on contemporary times.

He's saying in ancient Israel.

The one place in ancient Israel

you expected there to be justice and righteousness

was to go to the courts.

At least there they would uphold things.

But even there I saw injustice.

Verse 17.

In my heart I said,

God will judge the righteous and the wicked,

for there is a time for every matter

and for every work.

He's saying,

surely if life works out the way it's meant to be,

God will put all things in order.

But I perceived that that was not the case.

As he looks around,

all he can see is the brokenness

and the injustice of the world.

He's saying,

where is the time for justice?

I know there's a time for everything,

but I can't see it.

God, we've had this season of injustice long enough.

When will the right time come?

Friends, maybe you feel like that.

You read the news.

You read what's happening in Ukraine.

You read other bits of news.

You see politicians just using and abusing

their citizens for themselves.

Nations languishing in poverty

while the kings and royalty and politicians

get richer and richer.

Maybe you read the news

and your heart stirs

and you get angry.

You think,

God, where is the justice?

When is anything going to get put right?

Where is the season for justice?

Look at verse 18.

He says,

He's talking about jungle justice.

Do you know that phrase?

I don't know if that is a familiar phrase.

Jungle justice?

How is justice in the jungle lived out?

How do things operate in the jungle?

The strong eat the weak.

The powerful trample the feeble.

Right?

Eat or be eaten.

That's the way it works in the jungle.

And he's saying,

God, it seems like jungle justice

is at work in Israel.

The powerful just eat the feeble.

The strong are consuming the weak.

He's saying,

God, where is it?

It seems like there's no difference

between us and the animals.

God has put eternity in our hearts.

There's a longing for more.

We know this isn't how the world should be.

But unless God somehow reveals himself to us,

unless God comes and shows us

that there's another way,

unless God comes and removes the veil

from our hearts and reveals to us eternity,

unless God gives us a glimpse of eternity,

all we're going to have is left to ourselves.

And left to ourselves,

are we any better than the beasts?

All we have is a striving.

There's a longing for more,

but all that ends in vanity.

Maybe we're no better than the beasts, he says.

God, unless you come and show us

there must be more,

what's the difference between us and the animals?

All are from dust and to dust return.

Who knows, he says,

whether the spirit of man goes up

and the spirit of beasts goes down.

I saw that there's nothing better

than a man should rejoice in his work,

for this is his lot.

Who can bring him to see

what will be after him?

The teacher is grappling with,

as he looks at the world around him,

a life is a tapestry.

It's full of lots of seasons.

But the seasons don't always make sense.

Sometimes it seems like

there's more the season of brokenness

than the season of healing.

The season of destroying

than the season of wholeness.

And so really, this is the question.

Who can bring to mankind

to see what will be after this life?

The teacher says that for many of us,

sometimes the story of life is,

life is hard and then you die.

Okay, that's God's words.

We'll see you next week.

Well, is there any hope?

Does Ecclesiastes offer us any hope?

If life is a 10,000 piece puzzle,

sometimes it seems like God

has hidden the picture.

If life is a tapestry,

sometimes it seems like

the threads are coming apart.

If life is like a set of scales,

sometimes it seems

the scales are stacked against us.

So is there any hope?

Well, remember,

the book of Ecclesiastes

has these two authors,

the voice of Koheleth

and the voice of the author.

And if you go to the very end

of Ecclesiastes chapter 12,

Ecclesiastes 12 · chapter mention

the author steps back onto the scene

and he says,

you've heard the words of Koheleth.

And he says this in verse 11,

the words of the wise man

are like goads.

Do you know what a goad is?

A goad is a short stick

that a farmer or a shepherd uses.

It's got a point on the end

and he uses it to coroll

or to provoke the animals

to go where he wants them to go.

He says the words of the wise man

or the teacher are like goads.

He's using them to provoke us,

to get us to think.

And what is the author

wanting us to see?

What's his provocation to us?

Well, the author of Ecclesiastes

wants us to see

that God has put eternity in our hearts.

He's put a longing in our hearts

for more than just this world.

For a world

where there will be justice.

A world where there will be

no more tears,

no more death,

no more war,

no more agony.

But unlike the beasts,

he hasn't left us to ourselves

to figure it out.

Because God has revealed himself.

God has come and shown us

that there's a different way.

God hasn't left us to ourselves

but has come to remove the veil

from our hearts

to give us a glimpse of eternity.

How has God done this?

By sending the eternal one,

the one who is not bound by time,

who is not limited by time,

who has stepped into our time-bound world,

and our world frustrated

by the brokenness of this world,

he has come to us.

Do you remember one of the teacher's favorite phrases

to describe the world around us?

He says,

life under the sun,

or life under heaven.

We said in verse 16,

he says,

I saw that life under the sun.

But friends,

what happens if somebody comes to us

from beyond the sun

and steps into our broken world?

One who will bring us life,

one who is not bound by time,

stamped by time,

corroded by time,

or vanished by time.

What happens if one will come to us

from beyond the sun,

who will help us,

one who sees the tapestry

and will give wisdom

because he sees the bigger picture

and he knows the beginning

from the end.

What happens if one steps to us,

comes to us from beyond the sun,

one who will weep with those who weep,

and mourn with those who mourn,

and rejoice with those who rejoice,

one who promises resurrection life

to those who weep and mourn in this life?

Friends,

what happens if one comes to us

from beyond the sun

and steps into our time-bound,

frustrated world,

and who will rule with justice

and righteousness

and bring peace

to our frustrated world?

See,

look at the very last sentence

of chapter 3.

I don't know if you picked it up.

He says,

who can bring to him

to see what will be

after this life?

That's a great question.

Who can tell us

what will happen

beyond the grave?

The teacher says,

maybe life is hard

and then you die.

That's probably not the case

for many of us.

Most of us here

live very privileged lives.

But for most of the world,

that's life.

Life sucks

and then you die.

who can bring to man

to see

what will be

after him?

Where will we find

one who perfectly

knows all things

and is wise enough

to see the bigger picture

and to know how it ends?

Where will we find

one who is wise enough

and yet gentle enough

and humble enough

to weep with those who weep

and mourn with those who mourn?

And yet at the same time,

is sovereign enough

and powerful enough

and glorious enough

to overturn

the brokenness

of this world

and bring righteousness

and justice

into our hearts

and into this world

and hope for all eternity?

Where will we find

one like that?

Well, if you've been

coming to this church

for any length of time,

you'll know

his name is Jesus.

Jesus Christ

who existed

for all eternity past

and who spoke time

and space

and matter

into existence,

climbed into our

time-bound world,

inhabited the brokenness

of this world,

frustrated by the injustice

and the sin of this world,

in order to liberate us

from the tyranny

of this time-bound world

and bring us

into an eternal world,

a world that is not

bound by time

or frustrated by time

or wrecked

by the ravages

of time

into a world

that will never

perish

or spoil

or fade.

That phrase

comes from 1 Peter

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1

where he says,

We have been born again

into a living hope.

We have been promised

an inheritance

that will never

perish

or spoil

or fade.

Friends,

even the very best things

in this life

are subject

to decay

and to vanish

with time.

But Jesus promises us

a hope,

a treasure,

an inheritance

that is beyond

the corrosion

of time,

that will never

vanish with time,

that cannot perish,

spoil or fade.

Friends,

if all you have

is reincarnation,

then you're stuck

in the cycle

of life,

the cycle

of futility,

the cycle

of meaninglessness.

For the teacher,

all he has

is verse 2.

There is a time

to be born

and a time

to die.

But Jesus Christ

comes and promises

that if you know him,

if you are found

in him,

if you will come

to him

and have your life

found in him,

there is a time

to be born

and there is a time

to die,

but there is also

a time to rise

again in glory

and to never die.

Friends,

Jesus Christ

solves time's riddle.

He dismantles

time's limitations.

He enters

into the frustration

of this time-bound world

and he achieves

a salvation for us

that will last

long beyond

the ravages

of time.

But how did

Jesus do that?

Well, look again

at our poem

in verses 1 to 8.

Jesus took upon himself

the very worst parts

of this broken world,

the very worst parts

of human nature,

in order to secure

for us

a perfect world

to come.

Jesus Christ died

so that we can live.

Friends,

Jesus Christ wept

so that one day

our tears

will be wiped away.

Jesus Christ

was shunned

so that we

can be embraced.

Jesus Christ

lost all

so that we

can gain all.

Jesus was forsaken

so that we

can be chosen.

Jesus was hated

so that we

can be loved.

Jesus was judged

so that we

can be vindicated.

Friends,

at his trial

Jesus Christ

kept silent

so that we

can rejoice

and sing.

Jesus was killed

on Calvary

on that cross

so that we

can have peace

with God

in this life

and for all

eternity.

Jesus Christ

rose again

so that those

who are in Christ

can rise with him

and be seated

with him

in glory

for all eternity.

Friends,

life is made up

of seasons

diverse

and unpredictable

some of them

wonderful

many of them

bewildering

and frustrating.

So how will we

respond?

Christ came to us

from outside of time

and into our world

and invites us

now to invite him

into our lives

and to respond.

Only in Christ

can we have

the consistent hope

that is not bound

by this world

that will free us

in this lifetime

and will last

for all eternity.

A hope which promises

us life

in this world

and forever.

Friends,

this week

as you go to work,

as you go to university,

as you go to high school,

as you look after

your children,

as you do your taxes

and as you look

after your parents,

don't set your hope

on a perfectly ordered world.

In this life

it may not come.

Set your hope

on Jesus

who will perfectly

guide you

through the complexities

of this life

and will ultimately

lead you home.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus Christ,

this,

your word is

a rich treasure

and you remind us

God this morning

that life is complex,

it's diverse,

it's wonderful,

it's sometimes frustrating.

But God,

only in you

can we find

the consistent hope

that is not bound

by the fallenness

of this world.

A hope that

will enter into our lives

now and last

for all eternity.

Jesus,

I pray,

won't you help

all of us here

this morning

to set our hope

on you.

For those of us

that are not Christians,

God,

won't you

remove the veil

from our eyes.

May we see you

and freshly

find our hope

in you.

For those of us

Christ that are Christians,

we pray that you

will help us

this week,

tomorrow,

and Wednesday,

and Thursday,

and Friday,

this week God,

that we will set

our hope on you.

That in the seasons

that are bewildering

and frustrating,

when life seems

like you've hidden

the box from us,

God,

may we set our hope

on you.

Jesus,

we pray,

come and help us

by your spirit

and by your grace.

Friends,

maybe you,

I want to give you

just a chance

to respond.

I want to ask you,

why don't you

take a time

just to freshly

invite Christ

to come and be

the center of your life?

If you're a Christian,

you've done this

many times in your life,

why don't you

freshly today

come and invite

Christ to be

the center of your life

and to lead you

through the complexities

and the challenges

and the seasons of life?

Maybe you're here

this morning

and you're not

a Christian.

Jesus doesn't promise

to solve everything

in life.

He doesn't take away

all the difficulties,

but He does promise

to come and enter

into your life

and to be

that consistent hope.

Why don't you

this morning

invite Him

to come and be

your Lord

and your King

and your Master?

Why don't you

freshly hand over

your life to Him

as well?

Christ,

come and have

your way

in our lives,

we pray.

In our joys

and in our struggles,

in our fears

and our anxieties,

in our celebrations,

in our laughter

and our mourning,

Christ,

come and be central.

Come and be our Lord.

Come and be our King.

Come and be our Master.

Come and help us

to follow You

and trust You,

we pray.

Amen.

Amen.