A Time For Everything Series

A Time for Everything

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Rev. Brian Bill

August 3-4, 2024

I’ve had some wedding bloopers over the years. One time, I called the groom by the wrong name. The bride’s name was Jennifer, and during the most reverent part of the ceremony I called the husband-to-be Bennifer. Everyone busted up but me. I became very embarrassed, turned red, and lost my place. It’s the only wedding I’ve done where the bride had to calm me down.

The biggest wedding blooper I experienced goes back many years. The couple really liked boating, so instead of walking down an aisle, they decided to have the bride ride on a pontoon boat from one side of the lake to the other. As I waited on the pier with the groomsmen, the wind started blowing and the temperature dropped. When the boat finally came into view, the bride had a scowl on her face to match the summer squall that was causing the train of her dress to flap in the wind, and threatened to tear off her veil.

When they finally docked, the bride didn’t look very happy. As the groomsmen tried to help her get off the boat, a big wave hit, and she fell into the water! A holy hush came over the crowd and then I started laughing and couldn’t stop. Has that ever happened to you? It’s really hard to stop laughing when you’re at a serious service isn’t it? I’ll never forget the icy stare I received from the bride as she climbed out of the water. I don’t remember much more about the service except that I think I raced through the ceremony and got out of there as soon as I could. For some reason I never saw them at church again either.

There’s a time to laugh and a time to refrain from laughing, which I’m still trying to figure out. Our topic today is there is a time for everything. Let’s read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 together: “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.”

The sermon today will be shorter…no, really it will. I want to leave time for you to get to know Daniel Barrett, our Administrative Pastor candidate, and his wife Dee Dee. We’ll also end our service by celebrating communion. Our approach will be to unpack the first verse, make some general observations about the next seven verses, and conclude with several applications. We’ll circle back to this text next weekend.

Let’s consider verse 1: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” The word “for” links us back to the end of chapter 2 where we learned that the person who is not looking for ultimate meaning in their job is the one who will be given the capacity to find enjoyment in it. We summarized the passage this way: We can’t find our worth in our work, but we can worship God by how we work.

The phrase “under heaven” speaks of God’s control over creation and contrasts the repeated phrase, “under the sun” found 29 times throughout Ecclesiastes, which refers to life on the horizontal level. As Ecclesiastes 5:2 says, “…for God is in heaven and you are on earth...” The words “everything” and “every” refer to “all, entire, the whole.”

This is God’s world, and He rules and reigns over everything, including the function of time, order, cause, effect, and consequence. Everything in this time-bound universe is under the authority of our holy God in Heaven. This is stated clearly in Isaiah 45:7: “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord who does all these things.”

This reminds me of what J. Vernon McGee once said, “This is God’s universe, and God does things His way. You may have a better way, but you don’t have a universe.” The sooner we settle this, the sooner we’ll be at peace in the midst of our problems and the quicker we’ll accept adversity as part of His plan.