Time: A Time for Everything

When you move, you make my heart pound When you fill the room, you're here, and I know you're moving I'm here, and I know you'll fill me

Heavenly Father, we are very grateful to be here today

Very grateful to be able to call on the name of Jesus, but more importantly, to be filled with you

And God, it's not just enough to cry out for forgiveness of sins and to just desire to have eternal life

But Lord, there is a calling for each and every one of us to be filled with your Holy Spirit

And that's a scary thing because we may not understand theology and we may not be able to speak these big words and speak the language

But God, we know that in order for you to come in, there's so much of us that has to die for that to happen

And God, many times we just don't want that

But Lord, I pray that this morning, every person in this room would be able to feel your spirit in such a powerful way

That they would be willing to even consider the aspect of just dying to ourself

And allowing the things in our lives that just don't need to be there to die off in order to make room for you

Even though it's scary, Lord, there's something within us this morning that knows that it's the right thing

Because you've put it there, you've put that desire and that wonder and that hunger inside of each and every one of us

And I just pray this morning that you would help us to respond to that in the way that each individual needs to respond to it

Because it's going to be a little different for everybody

Father, as we continue to talk to your word, I pray that you would, Lord, that you would touch us

That you would reveal truth to us

Lord, that you would use it to change us

As we gather right now, we know that we have brothers and sisters who aren't able to be here today

And God, whether they're sick and homebound or traveling on vacation or wherever they are, God, that you would be with them today

Just as you're here with us now

Father, we're so thankful that we serve a God who is real

And you may not be tangible from a physical perspective

We may not be able to reach out and touch you, but Lord, we feel you touching us

And God, we thank you for that

So, Lord, this morning we give ourselves to you

We give this time to you

Lord, we are yours, this is yours

And we just ask that you would help us to be pleasing and honoring to you in it

Jesus, we love you today and we thank you

And we ask all this in your precious and holy name

All God's people said

Amen

Amen

Father David, I'd like to lower praise this morning

The last two weeks have been tough

But not very much before some people told me to be

And I know it's only kind of God having a stand-up

I'd like to thank the church for every prayer

That's been up for me for the last few weeks

But most of all, thank God for what he's done

Amen

Holy Spirit, let's start moving in our Sunday school class

I want to thank him for letting me go today

We cry during the singing

I just, the worship team just hits it every week for me

The Psalms just open things up for me

Yes

And I think what was done across is complete

I've accepted him

And I have applied his snow

To all the rest of you

Amen

I just wanted to share just a testament

Lord has been on my heart

He's actually started before worship this morning

I started writing my journal

So it felt like

Now we weren't here last week

We were at a church in Charleston

Visiting my family

And I lost time with my family

And it was really good

It was bittersweet time together

But the testament, the message was all about testimony

Share testimony

And I wasn't planning to share today

But I felt like just in the Psalm time

I needed to share this with the Lord

So that mind from that Psalm

I wasn't made to be tender and grave

I was born and raised back to life

It's just, I'm going to have to rung in my heart all week long

And I was thinking about

When I hear testimony, sometimes

I can hear testimony of God's goodness all day long

I see his goodness in my life every single day

And it's beautiful

I see that everything he touches

Is brought to life

It's brought to goodness

It's brought to beauty

And sometimes when I'm sharing my testimony

It's hard

It's not hard to share my testimony

But I was raised in church

And I got saved at a very young age

And then I was at the bounce of my faith walk for sure

But sometimes

It's easy to see

In a dramatic testimony

A turn from

Baby, baby sins in people's lives

The man turned around

Like the work of Jesus

Those testimonies are exciting

Sometimes it can be hard to share

Just the simple, quiet testimony of a life that really has been lived

I'm so, so thankful for the joy of getting to have walked with the Lord most of my life

But what the Lord has really put in my heart today

Was that our testimony is not in isolation

My testimony is part of the testimony in my family

That God has done

And it goes back to two generations back

Where the strongholds and the family

Were alcoholism, adultery, living with their friends, living there with

My great-grandpa was a mess

It was a wild mess

Abuse

That's what my grandpa was born into

And I was just thinking today of how

What a work that God has done in my family

Because testimony at the end of the day, guys

It's the glory

It's getting glory to God for what He has done

When He touches and intervenes in a situation

When He touches a life

When He touches a family

And I just wanted

I wanted to give praise that

That grave that blessed my family

Two generations ago

That Jesus stepped in

That He intervenes

That my grandmother was saved

As a teenager

As a older teenager

And a picture that can't be something like that

But she at that moment surrendered her life to the Lord

And committed to a life of faithfulness

Faithfulness to Jesus

Faithfulness to her husband who wasn't even saved yet

Lived several years before she saw that miracle happen in his life

Faithfulness to raise my mom in a Christian household

Hearing the word of God

And my grandma's so faithful in prayer

And faith

And she stands today

And she doesn't see the work of her ministry very much

But alone

Not alone

She's got family around and stuff like that

But she can't, you know, serve in the church the way she used to

And things like that

But

Jesus didn't work in it for her

That is impacted me entirely

And I just want to

I want to give praise and testimony to God

Because my grandfather did that

Part of that

That's the legacy that was brought down to me

I just want to share what Jesus had done

Through His family to bring

Turn that grave into a miracle

Okay

So we have all I wanted to say is

Jesus when He touches something

He brings the life again

So if you've got death in your life

Let Him touch it

Let Him

Let Him thank it

Let Him loss

And then turn into something beautiful

Because He can do it all

Yeah

I got something

I just want to give

the Lord's truth

He's been working in my life's life

This week we just celebrated six months of marriage together

I just want to praise the Lord for that

He's worthy

Yes He is

One of them we're given credit for

I just want to thank God for everything

You know

Not nothing specific but

Just everything throughout my life

Because He's never waited for them to fail

And He's consistent throughout my whole life

He's a burden

And I just want to praise Him

For being able to recognize

Something that I can be in there

And for Him in my life

I just want to praise God

For everything He's done for me

And working in His church

And not only for people who've been to Him

I just want to thank God

For being worthy

And praying to Him for being there

Amen

Anybody else?

Yes

We're in our second week talking about time

And last week

Everyone here who's in the service raised their hand

And they

You admitted, if you were here, that

Your life, the unguaranteed time that you have beyond this next year

Is worth more to each of you than ten million dollars

You know, like we said, raise your hand if you'd like ten million dollars

Everybody raised their hand

We said, keep your hand raised if ten million dollars would be worth

You coming back next year, you get to ten million dollars

But a year from now, you have to die

You don't have a choice

And everybody lowered their hand except for one weirdo

Who's my family member?

But for the most part, we all

We have this incredible gift of God

That has been given to us

That is so incredibly valuable

And if you were to sit here this morning and say

Okay, if someone handed you a check for ten million dollars

Some of you may already know, like, I know exactly what I'm going to buy

Like, I've been dreaming about this since I was a kid

Others of you might be like, I have no idea

I don't know what I would buy

And I think it's a very valid question

That if you received ten million dollars a day

That you would ask the question

What would I use it for?

Because that is an incredible thing

An incredible responsibility

That you have access to now

That it comes with a huge responsibility of

What do I do with this?

And the time that God has given you

Which every one of you valued more than ten million dollars

I think it's very plausible to sit here today and say

Okay, now I know I have this wonderful thing

That's more valuable than millions and millions of dollars

But what am I going to do with it?

And probably even more importantly is

Is what does God want me to do with it?

Because He's the one who gives it

It is His gift to you

And what does He want you to do with the time that you have left?

And time is so

It is such an odd thing because we see it as so valuable

But it's this resource that we've been given

And we don't know how much of it we have left

And you can't keep it

You can't store it up

Like it is just constantly leaking out

Like I don't know if you thought about this

But let me depress you a little bit

When you wake up tomorrow

You'll be one closer to the day of your death than you were today

Like we can say

And the church has said for centuries

That and for two thousand years

You know

Jesus is coming

And yes, I believe He's coming

Like each day we're one day closer to Him coming

You're also one day closer to your physical death

It's like time is running out

It is a valuable resource that you cannot keep

It will be spent on something

And even if you said

Even if you wanted it to just stand still

Just enough time to have thought of what you're going to spend it on

It is running out while you're thinking about it

It is constantly moving

Constantly turning

And it is a great question to ask

Of what do we do with this wonderful gift that God has given us

Do we spend it on ourselves

Do we gratify ourselves

Do we build our kingdoms

Or do we spend it on the Lord

Do we build His kingdom

Do we focus internally

Or do we focus on others

How do we use the most valuable thing that has been given to us

And we're going to talk a little bit about this today

In this really odd book called Ecclesiastes

If you've got your Bibles you can turn there

It's going to be on the screen

Solomon writes this book

And this is a really odd book because there's some of this book that he writes

As Solomon is really having a crisis in his own spiritual life

His relationship with the Lord is not what it should be in some of this

And he's writing

And he's trying to figure out a lot of things

As he is pinning these things down

And there's a lot of wisdom in this

There's been some things revealed to him through this journey

That I think all of us can learn from

In Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verses 1-8

Ecclesiastes 3:1–8

It says, For everything there is a season

A time for every activity under the heavens

A time to be born and a time to die

A time to plant and a time to harvest

A time to kill, a time to heal

A time to tear down and a time to build up

A time to cry, a time to laugh

A time to grieve, a time to dance

A time to scatter stones, a time to gather them

A time to embrace and a time to turn away

A time to search and a time to quit searching

A time to keep, a time to throw away

A time to tear and a time to mend

A time to be quiet and a time to speak

A time to love, a time to hate

A time for war and a time for peace

And we're going to stop right there

Point number one is that there are seasons to our life

I think as we read this passage

It's really important for us to understand

That there are seasons, there are time periods

In our life that we need to be aware of

And it's a really easy analogy to look at our world

And look at the seasons that we go through in our world

And how we move about during those seasons

And enjoying those seasons

But also prepping for the seasons to come

And like we do this with the kids

You know, it's like we're constantly like rotating clothes in and out

Like moving from cold weather clothes to summer clothes

And trying to cool those out because they're growing right now

And that's a, thank God Hannah does that

Because our kids would probably run around naked if it wasn't for her

I would not do that at all

But there are seasons

And there are things that we do in certain seasons

That are absolutely acceptable

That would be absolutely foolish to do in another season

For instance, if you were to go out today

With it being the middle of July

And you put on your snow bibs and your toboggans

And your gloves and your boots

And you got out of snow sled

And you went out and you found the best hill you could possibly find

And you tried to sled

You're probably not going to get a whole lot done

You'll probably die from the dehydration

Long before you ever move more than a few feet

It'd be foolish

And likewise it would be foolish to go out during the winter time

And begin to plant seeds for most of everything in the winter

Expecting it to actually grow, it's not going to happen

There are some things that in certain seasons of life

They're perfectly acceptable

And then in other seasons of life they're perfectly foolish

And we have to be aware of that

And in your life you are going to have seasons

But the difficult part of this

Is that whenever we're going through a season right now

We're all experiencing July

We're all experiencing the heat

And most of us are sitting here saying

I cannot wait till October

Right?

Like I can't wait till it breaks

It starts to cool down

We can wear like some long sleeve t-shirts

And enjoy it and go to the mountain to do whatever

Like we all experience that season at the same time

But in your life

Chances are you're all in different seasons

What some of you are going through is going to be very different

From what another person is going through

Some of you are having a great season of life right now

You are happy

God is working and moving

You can feel Him

You can see His work

Like you're doing great financially

Job is going well

Family is going well

And then there's probably somebody in this room

It's like my life stinks right now

And I don't feel God

I can't feel His presence

I don't understand what's going on in my family

I don't understand why my job stinks

I don't understand why we're broke

I don't understand like all these things that are happening

And not only do we have different seasons of life

But you know there's different parts of the season

So I don't know if you know this or not

But the actual season of summer

Doesn't technically start until the end of June

Most people go through school thinking like as soon as school lets out

And it's May

And school ends

It's summer time

It's not

It's still spring time

Summer doesn't officially start until the end of June

And so you have different months that feel very differently

June feels very different than July

Feels very different than August right?

Those months feel different

The days of those months

And according to the day

This morning was pretty nice going outside

A lot cooler than it has been lately

Even those days can feel different within the season

And in our physical lives

As we walk through this world

We're all going to be going through different seasons

And you might be in a similar season as somebody else

But you might be in a totally different month

It may not be quite as heavy for you as it is for somebody

It may not be quite as joyful for you as it is for somebody else

And that's okay

And in Psalm chapter 139 verses 15-17

Psalms 139:15–17

David wrote

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion

As I was woven together in the dark of the womb

You saw me before I was born

Every day of my life was recorded in your book

Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed

How precious are your thoughts about me O God

They cannot be numbered

And I think it's so important as we sit here today

And we look at our relationship with God

And we look at where we are in the season, the month, the day of our life

To understand that God sees you

God knows you

God thinks about you

He has not forgotten about you

He cares deeply about you

And the days of our lives are numbered

And recorded in his book long before we were ever born

Into this physical world

I don't know about you

That gives me great comfort

Now if you're an extreme pessimist

Which I can be sometimes

You may fall into the temptation of thinking

Well if he numbered them

Why in the world would he write this story

So long ago about my life

And make it so hard on me right now in this moment

And a lot of times we cannot understand that

We'll talk a little bit more about that here in a second

We can't sit here and say

Like

God why are you doing this to me, this is unfair

There are certain things about God and his timing

And what he brings in our life and how he uses that

That we cannot understand and comprehend until later

But the thing that we have to understand is

Is that there are different seasons

And if we fail to prepare for certain seasons in our life

We can make the next season coming very miserable

You ever think about that?

We don't understand this today

I was having a conversation with someone

I'm not going to say who it is or how old they are

They would be offended if I did that

But they were talking about how whenever they first got married

You couldn't just go out and buy like certain types of meat

Like you literally like if you wanted chicken

You had to buy like the whole chicken

And then you had to cut the chicken up

And to get the pieces of meat from it that you wanted

You couldn't just go buy chicken breasts

Or chicken wings or chicken legs

Like you had to buy the chicken

And then you had to cut it up the way that you wanted it

Fifty, seventy-five, a hundred years ago

We lived in a time where if you didn't prepare

The way that you were supposed to

During the planting and harvesting seasons

That you would not be able to survive throughout the winter

It wasn't that long ago

We forget that

Some of us have never experienced that

But if we fail to prepare for certain seasons

We're going to make life a lot harder on us later on

And so understanding that there are seasons in your life

And if you're sitting here today

And you're in a good season

And you feel great about life

Buckle up and be praying

We talk about this in staff meeting all the time

When things are going really well at the church

When they're going good

And people are getting saved

And you're having baptisms and stuff just is going smooth

We'll say it in staff meetings

Just be praying and know that hard times are coming

Because that's typically the way it goes

And when hard times are here

You just dig in

You just put your nose to the ground stone

And you just keep going

And you tough it out

Knowing that there's going to be a light at the end of the tunnel

And there's going to be a hill to the other side

The valley that you're treading through right now

Because there's just different seasons

Spiritually, physically, in every aspect of life

And if we fail to understand those seasons

And if we fail to prepare for the seasons that are coming

We can make life a lot harder for ourselves

Point number two

We must know what time it is

As we said, within the seasons

There are times within those seasons

And Solomon wrote and said

There is a time for everything

But if you don't know what time it is

And if you don't act accordingly to the moment in time

You're going to make life much more difficult

Than it actually has to be

And it's going to be tempting for all of us here this morning

So we read Ecclesiastes

And I'm going to ask Matthew if he'll put verses one through eight

From chapter three back up in that first passage

So that you can see this

It's going to be really tempting for us this morning

As Christians, as people

Because we have sinful natures

I have a sinful nature

And whenever we look at this passage

It's going to be really easy to say

Oh, it says in the Bible

There's a time to die

There's a time to kill

There's a time to tear

There's a time to scatter stones

There's a time to speak

There's a time to hate

There's a time for war

And it can be really tempting for us as people

To be in a season of our life

When things aren't going the way that we would like for it to

When we are having something going on in a relationship

Or maybe at work or even within the church

Because that's a huge possibility

When things aren't what they need to be

And we say, oh, well this is giving us permission

To say and do things

And to blow something up

And just like act according to

What we want to do during that moment in time

And I share that with you today because

If I'm honest, that's a little bit of my natural tendency

My sinful nature

Like my desire is to say

A lot of times things that I probably don't need to say

To fight about things I don't really need to fight about

Like I'm not a passive person

And so the desire to speak, to say, to go to war

To start stuff, to tear things apart

That's my natural inclination

And I have to work really hard as a pastor, as an individual

To make sure that I don't just act on what I want to do in a moment

But to understand when Solomon writes this

He's saying, look, there is a time for everything

There is a time for war

There is a time to speak

There is a time to tear apart

There is a time to scatter the stones

But we have to be really careful as believers

To understand who we are

And what's within the depths of our heart

Because out of the depths of our heart

Is where our temptations come from

Things that lurk from deep and dark within

And those are the things that tempt us

And draw us away from the Lord

And we have to be honest with ourselves

And know that whenever we are sitting here

And we're facing seasons and circumstances

And times in our life

Where we want to speak or we want to tear something up

Or we want to go to war over something

To really sit down in humbly prayer and say,

God, is this you?

Are you affirming this?

Or Lord, is this me?

And is this what I want?

Because most of the time

It's going to be what we want and we desire

Because when you look at scripture as a whole

And this is what I always encourage people to do

This passage that we read from verses 1 through 8

Very applicable

Absolutely applicable in our life

In many ways

But we have to look at scripture as a whole

And what God has called us to as believers

Across the board throughout all of scripture

And so there's a time for war

And there's a time for peace

And this is an easy one to pick on

And like I said, my instinct is to go to war

But in Proverbs chapter 20 verse 3

Proverbs 20:3

Solomon, who also wrote Ecclesiastes 3 verses 1 through 8

Ecclesiastes 3:1–8

Writes Proverbs 23

Avoiding a fight is a mark of honor

Only fools insist on quarreling

James 3, 18 says

And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace

And reap a harvest of righteousness

Hebrews 12, 14 says

Work at living in peace with everyone

And work at living a holy life

For those who are not holy will not see the Lord

And in Matthew 5 verse 9

Matthew 5:9

Jesus said God blesses those who work for peace

For they will be called the children of God

And so yes, there is a time for war

But understand when you read God's word

The majority of scripture speaking to God's children

And his followers are encouraging us for peace

Encouraging us to work for peace

To maintain peace as much as we possibly can

And yes, one day there may be a time to go to war

Over something

But for the most part

The majority of scripture is calling us to peace

And so we have to be really careful in this

As we talk about these different times of our life

That we understand what time it actually is

And not the time that we think it is

But the time that God says that it is

Because our desire will be to do what we want to do

The calling on our lives to be living sacrifices

Puts us in the position

To where sometimes we may have to die

To the things that we want to do

And the things that we want to say

In order to see that God's will is done above and beyond ourselves

That's really hard

That might mean that we have to suffer a little longer

Than what we may would if we just went in and blew it up tomorrow

In whatever situation or circumstance that you're in

You may have to suffer a little longer

But I believe from my experience in life

When I've acted in my own accord

I've caused myself more damage

Than what would have happened if I'd have done it the way the Lord wanted me to

And I've seen where I've been patient

And I have done it the way God wanted me to

That it turns out much better

And God handles it so much better than I ever could

He really does

And you can only experience that if you trust in His word

And obey the way that you've been called to

There's a time for everything

And I'm not telling you this morning

And I want to be really careful about this

It's not about being cowards

It's not about being scared to speak up and say your peace

It's not about being scared to push back against something that's not right

It's simply saying you really need to know and understand

When it's time to stand up and fight for something

Because a lot of times we can make things worse

And God calls us to peace

Same thing of understanding the time in Proverbs 20 verse 4

Proverbs 20:4

Says those too lazy to plow in the right season

Will have no food at the harvest

There's a big difference between being lazy

And being scared

You with me today?

So we have to know what season is

We have to know what time it is

We have to understand what it is that God wants us to do

And not be focused on what we want to do

Or how impatient we are

Point number three

All of these things are spiritual

You know one of our greatest temptations as believers

Is to look at scripture

And look at it from the perspective and application

Of only from a physical worldly perspective

Like we're going to look at this and we're automatically

Like we're thinking about situations and circumstances in life

And job and family and spouse and relationship and kids

And like whatever else like we have going on

That are problems and issues

We need to solve some of this stuff

How can I do that?

What time?

What does God want me to do right now?

That's immediately where we go

But when we read scripture it should be our first

I'm not going to say instinct

But it should be our first effort

Like we have to remind ourselves of this

When we read scripture our first thought should be

How does this apply from a spiritual perspective?

How does this apply from an eternal perspective?

And when you begin to go down this list

And you look at all of the things

That Solomon lists in this thing

You can very much kind of like just change

The way you look at it just a little bit

To a spiritual perspective

And it means something absolutely different

So I'm going to ask Matthew to put our focus verse back up again

Chapter 3 verses 1 through 8 of Ecclesiastes

And we're just going to go through them

The first thing is is it says there's a time to be born

And a time to die

And when you look at it from a spiritual perspective

Let's think about it's like

There's a time where each of us as believers

We must be reborn

Yes, we have a physical birth

But if you want to know God and have eternal life

You have to be reborn through a spiritual birth

So there's a time to be born

And then there's a time to die

So while you have to be born spiritually

Reborn from a spiritual perspective

You also have to die to many many things

From a spiritual perspective

In order to truly follow

And walk with God

And spend eternity with Him

So there's a time to be born

To be reborn

There's a time to die

We will spend more time dying

From a spiritual perspective

Than we will be being reborn

We're reborn once through salvation

And then we're dying constantly

In our walk with Christ

Very spiritual

Totally different

Totally different from how we perceive it so many times

There's a time to plant seeds of salvation

And a time to reap harvest

You know when you talk about

We immediately begin to think about seeds and plants and stuff

But to look at it from a

From just tweaking it

Looking at it from a spiritual perspective

There's a time to plant seeds

We should be planting seeds

For God through His Word

Like trying to see people get saved

Constantly

The awesome thing

About looking at this from a spiritual perspective

Is it's always planting season

I don't know if you ever thought about that

It's always planting season

There's never a bad time to plant a seed

To sow a seed of salvation

And the Word of God in someone's life

There's never a bad time for that

Like it's always planting season

And if you don't plant

There's never going to be a time for harvest

And it's a funny thing because you could plant for years

You could just be planting for years

And like we get frustrated because we don't see a harvest a lot of times

I can remember when I first got saved

It's like you just

You're talking to your friends

You're witnessing to them

You're trying to tell them about what God's done in your life

What God can do in their life

And they're just all running off

And they're abandoning you

And they just don't want anything to do with you

Because you're talking about Jesus

And there's no harvest

And it's frustrating

And sometimes it takes a long time for the harvest to actually come in

And then when it does, it's amazing

And what's even cooler is

I told the first service about this

We were having Wednesday night Bible study one night

Okay

We circle up on Wednesday nights

Before we ever start, we take up prayer requests

And then we just take turns and allow people to pray

As they feel led to pray

And this guy comes in

Hadn't been coming very long to the church

Just visited a few times

Comes in, sits down over here

About where Timmy's sitting in the circle

He begins to pray

Praise the prayer of salvation

Receives Christ as Lord and Savior in that moment

And the Bible study, unprompted

Nobody's like, hey man, you need to get saved now

He just did it on his own

That's awesome

And I don't think we planted not one single seed

For him to do that

Other than he just showed up in the right place

At the right time and God had been working on him

And chances are

There was probably a hundred other people somewhere else

Who had been planting seeds for him to be saved

All along

And the harvest got reaped by us that night

And they didn't get to experience that harvest

You never know where the seeds are going to grow

There's a time to plant seeds

And there's a time to harvest

But I promise you one thing

If you don't plant seeds

The Lord's never going to allow you to harvest

But if you faithfully plant seeds

I truly believe the Lord will allow you to harvest

Even some that you didn't plant

But you'll never get to harvest if you don't plant

But there's a time

There's a time to kill

And a time to heal

Sometimes we need to kill off things in our life

So that we can grow closer to the Lord

And be the men and women of God that he's called us to be

It's not about killing somebody else

I know that disappoints many of you

You already had somebody in mind

There's some things in our life

That we just need to kill off

In order to be who God has called us to be

Sometimes we're in a season of life

Where there's not really anything that we need to kill off

We don't need to cut anything out

We just have some deep wounds that just need to heal

So we can grow in our relationship with God

And that's okay

You keep going

Sometimes we need to tear down

Sometimes the things that have been built up in your life

Are so messed up

And the foundation is so rickety

That it would be foolish to continue to build on top of it

And you just need to tear it down and start over

So that you can be the man or woman that God's created you to be

And other times the foundation that is there

And what's been built has been done really well

And it just needs to be built on top of

To continue to go

Sometimes we need to cry

Sometimes we just need to be vulnerable enough

To be emotional enough to let God work and move in our lives

Both in sorrow and in tears of joy

And sometimes laughter is exactly the medicine that we need

To grow closer with one another and grow closer with the Lord

Plenty of things to grieve over looking at this world

There's a time to grieve

But it's not always the time to grieve

Yes, the world is sinful, the world's broken

God's known that from the beginning

He's already destroyed it once, He's going to do it again

There's a time to grieve

But there's also a time to dance over what God has done

There's a time to scatter stones

And a time to remember them

You know, I don't know if you know this or not, but in Scripture

Whenever the people of God gathered stones

They would gather stones, they would pile them up

In order to remember certain things that God has done

And there's absolutely a time to gather stones

And to set up this monument and to remember what God has done

But there's also a time to scatter stones

There's a time to just take what's been piled up as this monument

And to scatter it out and say, look, we're not going to remember that anymore

We're moving on

It doesn't mean that it was terrible or sinful or bad or not worthy of being remembered

But sometimes things that we pile up and memorialize can become idols

And we just need to scatter that out and move forward

Other times we need to remember what God has done

There's a time for both

There's a time to embrace

And there's a time to turn away

We can embrace the things that God brings into our life

A lot of the times what God brings into our life we may not be very keen on

And we may not understand in the beginning

But we need to embrace those things

And in other times there are things that are brought into our life that are not of God

And we need to turn those things away

And turn them loose

There's a time to search for God's will

Many of you are in a stage of life right now where you want to know God's will

Some of you need to stop searching because you already know God's will

His word is very clear about what you need to do and what you're supposed to be doing

You don't have to go searching for it

There's a time to keep things and there's a time to throw things away

You know, one of my favorite stories in the Bible is Samson

Whenever God, he's filled with the Spirit

He picks up the jawbone of a donkey, like a bone on the ground

He picks it up, he kills a thousand men with it

And then he throws it away

That's what Scripture says, he threw it away

He didn't keep it, it wasn't memorialized, it wasn't put in a museum somewhere

He discarded the thing that he used in that moment

And then he threw it away

There are some things that are great and wonderful

And they have a purpose and a use in a moment of time

And then it can be discarded

Some things should be kept

Some things should be done away with

There's a time to tear something up

And there's a time to mend something that's been damaged

You know this, we play this game a lot in our homes

Do we throw this away, do we keep it?

Do we throw it away, do we keep it?

Same thing from a spiritual perspective

There's some things in our life we just need to tear up to move on

Get rid of it so we can seek God more

There's other things that we mend and we heal because

It may be damaged, but it doesn't mean that God's done using it yet

When you look at all this stuff

To be quiet and to speak

There's some of us who need to be quiet

I have to be quiet

I always want to say something

I need to be quiet

Some of you, your natural instinct is to be quiet

And you need to say something because God wants you to

There's a time and a season

A time to love as many people need love

And a time to hate

As there's many things in this world that

Has no part in our lives

And in the kingdom of God

A time for war and a time of peace

There's a time to fight against things

And there's a time to work for peace

We read those passages earlier

We have to be so careful

Not to just associate everything that we look at in Scripture

With this physical application

Because Scripture has physical applications

And it has spiritual applications

And as Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4-8

He says, physical training is good

But training for godliness is much better

Promising benefits in this life and in the life to come

So yes, there are physical applications from God's word

But applying it in a spiritual perspective

Is so much more beneficial to your life

And everyone around you

Because it doesn't just give you benefits in this life

It gives you benefits in the life to come

In closing out today in Ecclesiastes 3

Just a little further down in verse 11

From our focus passage

He writes, yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time

He has planted eternity into the human heart

But even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end

I guarantee there's people in this room

That's going through some really hard seasons

Multiple people

In various different ways

And I know that in these moments

You cannot see the scope of what God's doing in your life

And it feels like and you question and you think, God, are you even here?

Where are you in this moment?

Like, what are you trying to do?

You're searching for reason and meaning in this

And chances are, you're not going to find it in the moment

And from my experience and my testimonies that I have

The difficult seasons of my life that God has ordained

For me to move through in life

Have been so frustrating

And you look for reason and purpose and answers in the midst of it

And you don't have them

But years and months down the road

As you continue to follow the Lord

And you do it as faithfully as you can in those tough seasons

It's amazing the way that God begins to reveal exactly how

He's using that moment of your life

To not only benefit you, but to benefit other people

And we can't get the whole scope of what God's doing in our life

We don't know

But in time He reveals things to us

If we stay faithful to Him

And we continue to believe in His work

And trust that He has good things for us into the future

It may not feel like it right now, but He very much does

And He's planted eternity in every single one of our hearts

Because He wants us to understand that there's more to life than this world

There's more to life than this season

There's more to life than this circumstance

There's more to life than whatever it is that you're going through

And there is a time for everything

But you need to make sure that you know what time God is saying that it is

I'm going to ask you as we pray this morning

We're going to close out our service in prayer

But we have a young man, Jared Bishop, who's going off to the military

And he leaves tomorrow

Tomorrow

We're going to ask him to come forward

And we're going to pray for him today

I'm going to let Pastor Timmy pray over him

And we'll end our service in prayer

If you are family, friends, you'd like to come down and pray over him

We'll invite you to do this at this time

All right, let's pray together

God, we thank you so much for today

And God, we thank you for the time that you've given each one of us

God, we thank you for the time and seasons that you've given

Just Jared to grow up at this church

To be a blessing to this church, to the community

To so many people that he's come into contact with

God, I just thank you so much for that

And God, as this season is coming to end

And another season is starting tomorrow

God, I pray that this will be just as fruitful, impactful, and even more so

God, that you'll continue to develop and grow

Jared, to be the young man that you've called him to be

The young man that you need him to be in this world

To be an example of what it means to love God and to love your neighbor

And so we pray for that

God, we pray for protection of him as he travels, as he goes about

All the different trainings that he's got to go through

As he's got to go through boot camp

God, protect him through all of that

Physically, emotionally, spiritually

God, may it be a time of thriving

God, I pray that you will just give him the opportunity

To scatter some seeds of the gospel as he goes

There's going to be so many people around him that need that

That need to hear about your goodness and love

That need to hear about your light in the midst of the darkness that are going to be faced

And so we pray for that

God, we pray for our world as a whole

Just as he's going to serve our country

God, to try to make this world a better place

The world as a whole will just get a sense and knowledge of who you are most importantly

God, as there are wars, as there are things that are going on that are not as they should be

We pray that you, yourself, can bring an end to this time of war and bring a time of peace

God, that can be through your gospel, through missionaries

And through people like Jared willing to go and serve in the armed forces

And so we're thankful for that

And God, we just most importantly just pray that we can be a support system here for him as he goes

God, that we can continue to pray for him, that we can continue to encourage him

We can continue to send him letters and pieces of encouragement

And God, that this is not the end of the time of his connection with Graham Chapel

But this is the time that we can support him more than ever

And so God, bless him in ways that he can't anticipate

Bless him in ways that he can't even imagine

And bless him to be a blessing to those around him

And to be a blessing to the nations through his service for our country

And so God, we pray this in your name, Amen