Time is for the Byrds

I just want to tell you a story quickly about this tent.

We bought a tent while we're building this building and we

have some friends down in in the tail who have now bought a piece

of land and they need a tent. And so we decided that we would

donate. We're going to sell the tent and

but actually God has been good to us.

So we didn't need to sell the tent.

And somehow Eugene, through a set of relationships, realize we

can actually sow the tent to them.

But it's quite a thing to take your tent down and transport.

It costs a lot of money. Time you can imagine, goes into

containers, goes by truck. And there's a man in this

church, many of you will never, ever meet him, but he is in this

church. He said, I don't want to be a

lead in this church. I don't want to be a worship

leader. I want to be a Home group

leader. But he's a practical man.

And we, when we originally had our tent, we had a a generator

from China, which we thought was like a good idea to buy.

But the generators from China don't last that long.

It's just like era one O 1. Don't buy a generator from

China, China, but we bought a generator from China.

You're the most amazing thing. Our generator never broke down.

It just kept working and working.

And every time we looked at the generator was like in peak

working condition. It was like unbelievers, like

God thought, I will look after your generator.

But God doesn't do it. He works through people.

And one day Eugene arrived here and he found this foreign guy

who's not a worship leader working on a generator.

He said, what you doing? He said, well, the only thing I

can do in the church is look after generators.

So what I did is I imported all the parts from China and every

month I service your generator, which we were completely

oblivious. We just thought we had this

unbelievable Chinese, this unbelievable Chinese generator.

It was like absolutely unbelievable.

And then we had to phone this guy because the crane broke down

to say, hey, listen, the crane is broken down.

He said, how are you getting the tent down to Natal?

He said, well, we, we, we have to hire it.

He said, no, no, I will take the tent down to Natal because I've

got a flatbed that can load the container to take.

The church is built in very amazing and beautiful ways.

So there are heroes in this church that we'll never know.

And so the heroes are not the guys who fool the pulpit or the

guys who lead the band. The heroes are people who fix

generators. Yeah, and and the heroes are

Barry and Liesel and Ella. Because last week Barry got onto

the stage and by the end of Sunday his ex-wife had SMS me to

say thank you for honoring my ex-husband.

That's how the church works. And then three days later we got

a message from Australia, from his daughter-in-law to my wife

saying thanks for honoring my father-in-law.

That's how the church works. It works in funny and amazing

ways. This beautiful young lady here,

I dedicated her as a child in their home.

They were the first people who taught me about biblical

generosity. This couple, I dedicated this

little girl and then I did her wedding to this beautiful man.

I did her wedding. And 15 minutes before the

wedding, which was meant to be on the Leisure Isle beach, this

massive storm came through and literally blew everything.

And we sat there and thought, I remember walking into their

house and one of the bridesmaids looking at me at like, you're

thinking what now? And I thought this is God, This

is God because they were all in the upper room, They were in the

upper room, she was in her parents bedroom waiting to walk

down the aisle on this beach. And this wind came and destroyed

the place I went to me and God completely redesigned the

wedding and her mum, who is this absolute hosting queen, had put

together these floral arrangements in her home.

And so her daughter and said again made on the beach, got

married amongst these flowers in their home.

And God took that which could have been an absolute disaster

and turned it into something absolutely beautiful in the most

amazing way. And so I get to do church with

these people. And then I went and had

breakfast with some people from the church afterwards down in in

in George and they said, how did the wedding Guy said the wedding

went amazingly. It was a fun Rensburg who

married an English girl and and and I said, but actually his his

maiden name was base And the guy said, but my wife's maiden name

was base and we realized that they were cousins.

They would just like to know why they weren't invited to the

wedding. But, but, but, but be that

anyway, be that as it may, I have a young black friend in

this church, a lady, She's 30 years old.

She's one of my very dear friends.

And I got invited to a 30th birthday party.

And it was on a Sunday, which is not always nice for me because I

preach on a Sunday morning. I'm up early normally at 5:00.

And I saw my neighbors. Yes, I see you here today.

And I saw you were running at 5:00.

I saw them go out and they came back at about 6:45.

The wife was in front of the husband.

But anyway, so, so nice to have you.

So nice to have you. And she had finished stretching

before he made it up the hill. But you know, it's so nice to

have you. And so I don't like to have

functions on on Sundays because it's busy.

I get up at normally 4:30 five. I prepare, I come and preach, I

go home, have something to eat, have a sleep and then come and

preach in the evening. But now I had this 30 year

function of a black girl. So I arrived there on time, or

my time, my time and African time, not the same time.

And to my absolute horror, I noticed that the father of the

girl who's having her 30th never had a watch on.

So I thought, Oh my hat, he's going to run this whole

proceedings. And then the mother didn't have

a watch on either. And I saw there was an auntie

who was quite instrumental. She looked sort of matriarchal

in the whole process. She never had a watch on either

and nor did the sister and the brother.

And I thought, Oh my head, this is going to be a long afternoon.

So I'm just looking at my because we all live by time,

don't we? We all woke up today by time.

I never woke up on purpose at 5:00.

I woke up on purpose because of an alarm clock.

We all work with time, don't we? Time completely and utterly

dictates our lives. Yes or no completely.

I mean, psychologists charge per hour, yes or no.

Doctors charge per appointment. It's amazing how many

appointments they can fit in an hour.

Advocates charge per second. It's, it's just the whole, the,

the whole thing is, I mean, the whole thing works.

The whole thing works on the clock, doesn't it?

All works on time. And now I'm, I'm looking at this

event and I'm thinking it's 40 minutes late according to me.

But they're not worried about time, they're worried about

their daughter. This is not a time event.

This is an honouring event. So we're not on the watch.

We're here to experience something different.

We are here to experience 30 years of a beautiful, gifted,

wonderful, creative geniuses life and it's not going to be

rushed by the clock. So the dad got 7 minutes and he

spoke for 20. But I sat back and I thought,

no, I'm going to put my watch away and I'm going to enjoy what

God is doing here because this is tov.

This is good. To eat and drink together is

good. So what we do is we just shorten

all these things because we've got time issues already.

You're worrying and thinking what time I'm going to get out

here because I've got to rush to my booking, which is at

Voivatello because that's what I do every Sunday on my clock

according to time. And we have become slaves to

time and lost the value of relationship.

Yes or no. And so we're going to look at

the next little verse of Ecclesiastes, which is all about

time. And I can tell you, when I left

that lunch, I got into my car hours after I thought I would

leave. And in my heart I felt this

unbelievable satisfaction. I thought I saw a girl honored

today, freed up from the tyranny of the clock.

Freed from the tyranny of the clock.

And just when I thought it was all coming to an end, her dad

stood up again. He had seven.

He took 20. Then he stood up again because

he's her dad. And I want to tell you, there

are thousands of people in this auditorium that wish their dad

would stand up again. That just wish that maybe their

dad would stand up and say, I want to say one more thing.

I just want to say one more thing about you.

And then the aunt stood up and she started to sing.

It wasn't her turn. It wasn't according to the

order. And then she stood up and she

started to sing. And the presence of God came

down. And then I think I almost had to

leave, but she's my friend. And then she looked at me.

She said, you're not leaving until you've spoken, I think,

but I'm running out of time. Said no, but you're going to

speak because you're now friends and I want to hear what you have

to say over me. That's the next part of

Ecclesiastes. And so, friends, maybe some of

you will not remember this song, but most of you, you will.

There's a guy who made millions of dollars from adding three

words to a scripture, and the three words are the same words,

just turn, turn, turn. And the rest of it is the Bible.

We're going to listen to the song.

Some of you remember it, the rest of you just get stuck by

it, and then we're going to read the scripture.

There is a season, time to turn to and play, a time to every

purpose under heaven, a time to be born, a time to die, a time

to bed, a time to be, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to

have. A time to be to everything.

Turn, turn, turn. There is a season, turn, turn.

And there time to every purpose unto heaven.

A time to build. A time to bring out.

A time to dance, A time to buy. One time to castaway stones, one

time to gather stones together to everything.

Turn. Turn.

Turn there is a season, turn, turn, turn and there time to

every purpose of our time of love, our time of hate, our time

of war, our time of peace, our time you may embrace our time to

you pray that embracing. They feed the Bible, so that is

the number one song that hit the American charts in 1962.

So let's read it straight from the Bible.

There is a time for everything. Say that with me.

There's a time for everything and a season for every activity

under heaven. A time to be born and a time to

die. A time to plant and a time to

have root. A time to kill and a time to

heal. A time to tear down and a time

to build scripture that we always read at funerals.

Isn't it Funerals of Christians and non Christians?

Funerals of statesman and paupers?

Time to tear down and a time to build.

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.

A time to embrace and a time to refrain.

I've not understood that just yet.

I just think we shouldn't hug, would have prevented COVID and

most people can say no you don't like to hug but it's a time to

refrain and all your dealings with me refrain and I'm a pastor

to refrain. There's a time to search and a

time to give up. I'll never forget as I was

reading this, we had a very dear friend, Elliott Sangeka, Zulu

man used to be on our team and he adopted a little boy, Elijah.

We had a home for abandoned babies and he adopted this

little boy, Elijah, whose name was Tulani, the quiet one who

never ever spoke because he was abandoned on the side of the

road. And Elijah grew up into this

magnificent young man, broad shouldered, good looking, looked

just like his dad. And in COVID, his dad died.

The time to be born and the time to die.

I remember his friends, one of our friends who owns Thirsty

Water, sent his airplane up to Joburg to pick up Elijah to fly

him down so he could be with his mum.

And then he was with his mum and the family mourned the loss of

their dad. And then a group of friends went

down to the coastline to go and recover from his dad's loss.

And in one freak wave, Elijah got sucked out to the sea.

And for 10 days I watched that family searched the coastline

and my friend who owns Thirsty sent his aeroplanes down and the

aeroplanes were going up and down the coastline.

There's a time to search. And then after 10 days I

remember Dolly, his mum, saying to everybody and it's now a time

to give up searching. And I remember that absolute

brokenness in her voice, but she resigned herself to the

sovereignty of God, knowing that they'll never find her son.

And somewhere out there, we don't know what happened to him.

But in that absolute question mark, she never questioned the

goodness of God. She just put that understanding

of that season into the nature of God.

And friends, this is what happens.

This is five and a half thousand pieces.

This took five people 10 hours to build.

And you cannot build this without a plan because if you

get 5 1/2 thousand pieces put into your lap and you get told

to build this thing, you'll build something that looks

absolutely grotesque. It doesn't matter how much this

thing is built according to a plan.

And that plan has got place. That plan has got relationships.

That plan has got time. That plan has got processes and

in those processes the time to search and it's time to give up.

And sitting in this auditorium today, because we're here

together, we are on the journey together.

Theology has worked out together.

We are individualistic, but theology has worked out

together. Sitting in this auditorium is a

woman who has lost a very loved one to suicide recently and is

sitting here wrestling with the goodness of God and battling to

see the end product of what God is doing.

And the only way, the only way that we can put those five and a

half thousand pieces together is by going back to the plan.

It's going to take time, it's going to take energy, it's going

to take effort, It's going to take perseverance.

The people who built it are already crossed with me.

But many of your lives are sitting like this and we're

looking at it and thinking, God, where are you?

And you say, I am in with you in my time.

You say, but God, how, how are we going to put this all back

together? So I've got a plan for you.

I've got a plan for you, sick. But she left.

She walked out. She left him with the kids.

He walked out, said Rory. You don't know.

You don't know what my son is going through.

You've got no idea as you preach this perfect picture of a space

shop. You've got no idea.

I have every idea, friends. I'm just a earthly pastor.

Can you imagine my heavenly pastor looking down at this and

saying, Hey guys, I'm perfectly in control?

There is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to kill and

a time to heal these unbelievable extremes.

You know when you do weddings, you stand in front of people and

you say, say your vows for better, for worse.

We say that in front of everybody.

But when worse happens, we think your better is better, worse not

so Lacquer for richer for poorer.

Rich is better. I mean, Dolly Parton said I've

been rich and I've been poor. She's rich is better.

But we get married for richer for parents.

And when we go through stuff, we think, well, now I'm going to,

I'm going to swap him out for another one because actually the

reason I married him was for for what?

To become this perfect thing that God wants to design with

time and experience and intervention and relationships.

And yes, we can't fix that. It might not be this week, but

it'll be fixed In sickness and in health.

In sickness and in health. Married, 42 years, healthy,

running, successful operator, doyen of the insurance industry,

self-made man in a 1300 Corolla, travelling all over the country,

building a building and in one moment of putting a heart stent,

there's a stroke that takes place that incapacitates him and

absolutely wrestles his way through health.

In and out of hospital, blood transfusions, in sickness and in

health. It's much better when he's

healthy. But I've watched your tests and

I'm proud of you. You should wrestle this thing

through. And then I'm about to marry

them, about to marry this little girl, and the beach has been

blown away. The beach venue has been blown

away. And we never knew if he would

make the wedding. He was in hospital just a few

weeks before. Touch and go, touch and go,

touch and go. And then as the marriage

officer, I watched him walking this beautiful girl down the

stairs of his house. And I think, my God, you've just

invaded time. Guys, this is Ecclesiastes is is

this just put your watch away and, and let, let her dad speak

again. Let her dad stand up again, let

her dad stand up again and enjoy the company of the people that

used to take her to school when she was at Junior School.

And the and the young lady who came and sat next to me.

I grew up with her in the old church in Durban.

And she told me her one brother's in Los Angeles, her

other brother's in New York, her other brother who sister's in

Sweden. And we had a chance to talk.

We never we just greet each other at church.

We don't have a chance to just sit.

And he says this time thing. You see what happens friends in

Ecclesiastes, is it 2 times? There's this time which we get

trapped in and there's the eternal time of God and we get

trapped here and we think what happens when it doesn't go well

here, we start to blame God. He says, but you're trapped by

time. I'm not trapped by time.

One of the commentators said. It's like watching a rag parade.

You can only see the float that is in front of you.

And he says, when the rag queen comes, you sort of follow that

one, he says, but actually God's perspective is he comes out of

the parade and he watches the whole thing, all 50 floats on

the top. And the Bible says he sees the

end from the beginning. He sees the end from the

beginning. And so I want to just share 3 or

4 things with you today because I see, oh sheepish creepers, A

time to embrace and a time to refrain.

A time to search and a time to give up.

Can you give up some things today and give them to God?

Time to keep and a time to throw away my dad's jerseys.

My dad's smell was caught in the fragrance of a Pringle jersey.

I remember getting invited by Jag to go to that uphill race in

Nazna. All happens in Nazna.

I just want to thank the Clack family for giving me all their

Pansy shells in an amstel. Yeah, in an Amstel thing.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Have time to all happens.

All happens in Nazna. Please collect the Pansy shell.

And I remember, I remember so, so it's a it's a Jag function

and I've got my dad's Jeep jacket on because it smells like

my dad and and I just wasn't aware.

I know it's not right to wear Jeep to a Jag function, but I

walked in there and the dealer principle, he said, why do you

wear Jeep flipping jacket to a Jag function?

And I thought because it reminds me of my dad and relationships

are more important to me than brands, and actually the smell

of my dad right now is what I need.

It's a time to keep and then it's a time to give away.

And some of you have to clear out your cupboards now.

You've got too much stuff in your cupboards, you've got too

many old clothes, you've got too many old memories, you've got

too many old things that you've got to give them away.

And I remember the last jersey I gave him, my dad was a Pringle

jersey which which which smelt like him.

And on the anniversary of my dad's death, my mum put some

money in each of the children's accounts.

I think my son was 12 or 13/12/13.

My mum just put some money. He said just just a blessing.

Buy something that will remind you of Pops and this little 12

year old 13. I said to Mel, can you just drop

me at Woodlands? He said, but what are you going

to do? He said no, just drop me at

Woodlands. Dropped her at Woodlands and he

came back and he had bought a Pringle jersey.

Said what boy? He said said, hey dad, this

reminds me of pops now when I see him wear that jersey.

Doesn't smell like my dad anymore, smells like my son.

Because the season has changed. The season has changed, season

has changed and the Bible says God makes everything beautiful

and it's time. Everything.

I haven't even touched my notes and I'm not going to get there.

I don't know how I'm going to build this for tonight to break

it again. When your engine feels like it's

been disconnected from everything else, I just want to

tell you, Solomon is wrestling with all this stuff.

Wrestling, but he's saying God's going to put this all back

together again. I want to show you a painting

that looks like a potato. It's a cross painter.

Then I'm going to pray and we're going to be finished.

So what is your talent? What will you be performing

today? I'm a speed painter and I'm

going to do a painting in a minute and 1/2 or less, all

right. Here we go.

Let's hear for D Westream have. You had about two.

All right. Do you have one minute left?

Here we go. What?

Do you think it is? I don't know. 45 seconds Ding

and. Not even a tree, I've never got

some color going on. OK, 30 seconds.

Ding, you've seen something. Before Come on guys, we can

figure this out. I don't think he has too much.

Time. No, it looks like a pair.

OK, A. Potato.

All right, it's coming down to the wire. 15 seconds D.

Come on. Give us 232 one.

Let's see. It looks like a potato.

That's what they said. It looks like a potato.

But the Bible says God makes everything beautiful in its

time. You say, Rory, my stuff.

Yep. Everything beautiful in its

time. Ben, bring your daughter up

here. Please.

Let the microphone, Clint. Let me sit with him here.

This is the man who services Chinese generators, and he calls

this church home. And we love having you in this

church and the way you look after your family and treat your

children. It's phenom, you know.

Pray for us. Once we all mark the Hohotin's

father here was donkey here that he can deal with was a good

familiar donkey for our work here that Ian from Dwarin unos

layers and recurse for this he met Elkin and he has no more

men. God's busy with you.

He's in your time. He's in your time, giving away

dying time, suicide. God's with you.

He's busy with you. He's working with you.

God bless you. Amen.