Knowing Your Seasons and Its Fruit Part 2
Scriptures: Ecclesiastes 3:1-11; Romans 6:1-2; 8:5-6; 12:2; 1 Peter 2:9
Introduction:
In part one of this series that I delivered last week, I used as an illustration 3 bananas to demonstrate three different seasons that a person could be in while growing in their relationship with God. The first banana was still green and was in need of more time to ripen. This banana represented a Christian who has accepted Christ and started on their Christian walk. However, because they are so new, they have not gone through all of their seasons that God will walk them through during their time of preparation. The second banana was fully ripe and ready to eat. It represented a Christian who understood what God was directing them to do and they had taken the time to get prepared to do it. These Christians understand that seasons will come and it is their responsibility to respond to the seasons not the other way around. The third banana was over-ripe, brown and mushy. When I offered you the opportunity to handle it, no one wanted to touch it. I shared with you how this banana came to be in the condition that it was in. When it was purchased 4 days earlier, it was still green. I took the banana on a Friday morning and placed it in the refrigerator. On Saturday morning, I took the banana out of the refrigerator and placed in on the seat of my van and left it there in the heat all day. The two extreme temperatures had the desired effect on the banana and it aged quickly. This banana represented a Christian who had gone through their season and experienced some tough times. Although God was still with them, they never made it out of one season. Even though they tried, they just could not break free of their situation and stopped growing spiritually. My final question to you last week was “Which banana represents you as a Christian?”
This morning we will continue with the series by examining some of the different seasons we experience. Next week I will conclude the series by focusing on the seeds that are sown and fruit that come up during these seasons. So let’s return to where we were last week, Ecclesiastes 3:1-11.
I. Seasons
As we read last week, Solomon starts by saying “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” (Eccles. 3:1) After making this statement he begins with examples. We will start with verse two. As we go through these verses, we will examine the natural and the spiritual aspects of each.
“A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted.” (vs. 2) We celebrate when a child is born and we mourn the loss of someone when they die. Birth and death are the beginning and the ending of seasons. Spiritually we go through times of births and times of death. There are areas in our individual lives where we birth something and there are areas where we must let something die. When God told me to start this Church, the organizational of this ministry was a birthing moment even though I had been pregnant with this dream since the mid 1980s. This ministry developed within me for almost twenty years before it was birthed. The fact that most of you were members of another Church before you came here, you have experienced death. Whenever you make that type of a transition you experience the death of one thing for the life or birth of another. The same happens with your individual ministries. Maybe you have never worked in a ministry and you are now feeling the desire. That desire is the beginning of a birthing moment. If you have spent time in an area of ministry and it is time for you to move on, then you experiencing a death moment – but other birthing moments will continue to come forth. Birth and death are part of a continuous circle in our spiritual growth.
Solomon also mentions the time for planting and the time for harvesting what was planted in this verse. All of us are familiar with farmers. We know about planting seeds and that once planted the seeds will grow into something. This is what Solomon was referencing in this verse. There is one point that I want you to consider. In order for the seed to bring forth fruit, the seed itself must die. Do you understand this? The seed can only produce fruit if it dies. This is why the Bible speaks of us dying to self so that we can be reborn, live and produce fruit. In our individual ministries, there is a time for us to sow seeds and there is a time for us to harvest the fruit from those seeds that were sown. I believe this building that we purchased, even with all of the work that is required for us to enter it, is part of our fruit from the seeds we have sown for eight years and this is just the beginning. Let us continue on – look down at verse four.
“A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” (vs. 4) We have all experienced times where we have cried and times where we have laughed so I do not want to spend a lot of time here. But I want to point out one thing that I have learned later in life. As a man I thought tears were a sign of weakness. I have been around men who cried, some more freely than others, but that was not something that I felt comfortable doing. For me it was acceptable to cry at funerals and occasions such as that. However, as I have gotten older, I have found that tears are a release. There really is such a thing as tears of joy. It is okay to sheds tears while you are praising God. Truly there is a time for weeping and there is a time for laughing. Spiritually you can do both while you are praising God. Praising God is so much more than just singing songs and saying a prayer. When you really enter into His presence, you will find tears and laughter going hand in hand.
In the second part of this verse he talks about a time for mourning and a time for dancing. I am very good at mourning and lousy at dancing. I think I have rhythm hidden somewhere within me and one day it may come out. I thought about taking lessons to learn to tango but then I would not have anywhere to go to actually do the dance. Spiritually we help people mourn, especially when they are going through a difficult time or experiencing a death. But we do not feel as free when it comes to dancing. Part of the reason for this is that although it is okay to dance before the Lord in praise, there is a difference between praise dancing and shaking and grinding your rear to the music. For some there is no difference and this is where the problem comes in. They start out praise dancing and forget that they are in Church and the next thing you know they have crossed over. This is why in our more traditional Churches praise dancing is looked upon very skeptically. As a Church we should get to the point of birthing in dance with our praise without anyone being offended or worrying about if the dance is something they would see in a club (if you went to a club that is). Let move down to verse six.
“A time to gain, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away.” (Vs. 6) We have been taught in the natural that we should always be gaining and keeping “something” with the exception of gaining and keeping excess weight. We should gain and keep assets; experiences; money; wins; etc. We are not always focusing on losing or throwing away anything – except again, excess weight; bad habits and bad relationships. In this verse Solomon makes it clear that there is a season for gaining and keeping something and there is a season for losing and/or throwing something away. We do this all the time with food. We purchase food; we eat what we want of it; and then we throw the left-over food away. We also do this all the time with other things in our lives, but there are those who cannot do this effectively. There are people with a condition that causes them to keep and or collect anything they can get. They are called hoarders and they cannot bring themselves to get rid of anything. Sometimes when this conditions gets really out of hand it causes great problems for the person physically and for their family. But consider this condition spiritually. As a Christian, we go through seasons where we grow and learn and move from season to season. During these transitions between seasons there are things that we remember that help us with the new season and there are many things that we lose or throw away as we move on. For example, our past sins and failures are things we throw away as we continue to grow in Christ. We know that we are forgiven when we repent, so we take those sins and throw them away. Now what Satan does is try to get us to keep those sins so that they will hold us back. He wants us to remain in bondage to our former selves so that we never move forward in our relationship with Christ. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 12:1 that we should “……lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” In the season that you are in right now, are you keeping what you should be throwing away or throwing away what you should be keeping. This is why knowing our season is so critical. There is one final verse I want to cover before we examine our popcorn. Look down at verse seven.
“A time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” (Vs. 7) I want to focus on the last part of this verse – “a time to keep silent, and a time to speak.” Most of us have time times in our lives when we had to make a decision about whether to speak up about a situation or to keep quiet. Sometimes we weigh the benefit versus the threat of speaking up. When we witness something that is wrong, even though we may know that a wrong was committed, we still weigh whether or not we should get involved based on the potential impact on our lives. In this verse Solomon states the fact that there is a time when we should be speaking out and there is a time where we should be silent. I will be the first to tell you that I have not always made the best choice based on my situations, but I have learned that speaking at the right time can be critical to the outcome of a situation. As it relates to Church / spiritual matters we must know when we need to speak and when we need to keep silent. We have all read about tragic things that have taken place within the Church that people witnessed but chose to keep silent about. There have been situations where decisions have been made that were wrong because someone who had the facts did not speak up. There have been teachings from the pulpit that were wrong and yet because it came from the pastor no one felt that they had the right to say anything about it. I am not saying that we should always speak out on any and every thing that we think is wrong, but there is a season when we should speak out and a season when we should be silent. Keep this in mind when God is leading you to speak to someone about your faith. There is a time to speak and there is a time to be silent – we have been silent too long about our faith, now it is time to start speaking out.
To close this segment of the series out I want to summarize what I have shared with you about the seasons with these three bags of popcorn. My goal with this presentation is to allow you to walk out of here with a picture. Last week you left with the picture of three bananas, this week it is popcorn. From this day forward, when you pop popcorn or eat it at the movies, you can think about the season you are in spiritually. All three bags of popcorn are from the same manufacturer; has the same ingredients; and will be cooked in the same microwave. The only difference is that I will only follow the directions with one of the bags. I want to illustrate what can happen when we come to God on our own terms (our directions) versus interacting with Him by following “His” directions. As I go through this part of the message I ask that you consider which bag of popcorn represents you.
II. Popcorn
The Closed Bag: Romans 8:5-6; 12:2 says “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace…..And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” This first bag of popcorn represents a person who has accepted Christ but refuses to go through the “mandatory” season of renewing their minds. They believe in Christ; go to Church; but they like themselves just the way they are. In their minds, because they faithfully attend Church, that is all that matters. The Spirit of God is trying to have a relationship with them and to bring them into the real knowledge of God that comes with a renewed mind, but they remain closed to the thought. They like the idea of salvation, but it must come packaged the way they want it and it must not require too many changes on their parts. They want to continue in the life that they are accustomed to and then die and go to heaven. Have you ever wondered what happens when the Spirit of God interacts with a closed mind? Let’s find out shall we? What happened with the popcorn as a result of me cooking it without taking the plastic off? The plastic melted to the bag and eventually separated so that the bag could expand. However, because the bag was restricted for too long, it could not expand as it should and therefore part of the oil leaked out and the popcorn inside is very dry because there was not enough oil for it to be popped correctly. How does this appear spiritually? When we refuse to renew our minds, we remain in a state of knowledge about God (that He exists and salvation comes through His Son) but we never get to the understanding of proving and subsequently walking in the acceptable and perfect will of God. In order to walk in God’s will our minds must be open to receive of Him and that cannot happen when our minds are closed. Have you ever tried to explain something to a person who had a closed mind because they had already made up their mind about a situation and they were not willing to receive any additional information that conflicted with what they already believed? This person is the sealed popcorn bag trying to have a relationship with God on their terms.
The Correctly Cooked Bag: This next bag of popcorn represents a person who has accepted Christ and has made the decision to open themselves up to Him. When they accepted Christ, they came to Him with open arms. They believed Peter’s report when he wrote “….You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) This person is not ashamed to be called a Christian. This person is not ashamed to raise their hands in praise to God. Let me illustrate something. The directions on this bag of popcorn say I am to lay this bag down with the ends doing what? They are reaching up. If you use your imagination, imagine this bag reaching up to God with outstretched arms. When you start the microwave that bag starts responding to the waves that you cannot see. This is symbolic of how we interact with the Holy Spirit. We have our arms outstretched to God and then something starts to happen on the inside. When God’s Spirit gets on the inside of us and begin to interact with us – we go from having arms reaching upward to arms reaching outward. Do you understand this? Look at the bag? The flaps are no longer reaching upwards, they are straight out to receive what is being placed within them. The same happens spiritually with us – we go from arms up to arms out.
The Over-Cooked Popcorn: I shared with you last week the over-ripen banana which exemplified a Christian who had gone through some tough seasons and could not get through. They remained in the season and began to rot. This morning I want to give you a similar example. This bag of popcorn will represent a Christian who is in a season and has no intention of ever coming out. Unlike the over-ripen banana where the person went through some hard times and just could not get out of their season, this person is enjoying the season they are in so much that they refuse to move forward. Now you may be asking why this is a problem. It is a problem because of what Paul wrote in Romans 12:2. When we have renewed our minds, we begin to understand and appreciate God’s will in our life. But there are many who do not wish to renew their minds but defer to grace instead. Because our sins are forgiven through the grace of God, they choose to stay in the mindset of asking for forgiveness versus ceasing from the sin. Paul writes in Romans 6:1-2 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” I want to read something to you so that you will understand this. 2 Corinthians 2:14-15 says “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” As Christians, we are a sweet aroma to God for we carry the fragrance of Christ upon us. Let me illustrate this. How many of you have ever gotten close to someone who put cologne on to over shadow their musk from being outside and sweating? Not a great smell is it? What if sin had an odor? What if your body odor changed when you chose to stay in sin because of “grace”? If you love the smell of fresh popped popcorn, let this smell be that of sin. You see, even though to God we carry the fragrance of Christ upon us, sometimes our habitual sin over shadows that fragrance with an odor all of its own. Consider the smell of fresh popped popcorn as the fragrance of Christ and the smell of burnt popcorn that of sin. The popcorn is the same – but the odors are definitely different.
Conclusion
I popped three different bags of popcorn this morning. Each represented our response to a different season that we all go through. Even though the popcorn was made by the same manufacturer; held the same ingredients; and was packaged the same way; and was popped in the same microwave; the outcome was not the same because the directions I used was not the same. Many of us believe that we can come to God any old way and get the same results and response from Him – that is not the case. We all go through similar seasons, but it is not the seasons that determine the outcome, it is our response to the seasons. It is how we follow God’s directions as we walk through each season. You and I can walk through the exact same season together holding hands and when we come to the other side we will be different depending on how we followed the directions. This is due to our internal responses. When you looked at the bags of popped corn, you could not see that much difference in the bags on the outside, the difference was on the inside. It is the same way with us. We hide what is on the inside with an acceptable outer appearance and we fool each other but we cannot fool God.
Whether you recognize it or not, you are in a season and God is giving you directions on how to successfully come through it. Maybe it is time for you to birth something in your life or maybe it is time to allow something to die. Maybe it is time to plant or maybe it is time for you to harvest what you had planted. Maybe you’re in a time of crying or a time of joyous laughter. Whatever your season, you must come to grips with it so that your responses will allow you to walk through it gaining the most out of it. As you envision where you are spiritually, which bag of popcorn defines where you are spiritually? Are you closed; fresh and ready; or burnt and smelly?
I have spent two weeks talking about our seasons. I will conclude this series next week by talking about the seeds and subsequent fruit that goes with our season. May God bless and keep you is my prayer
