Times and Seasons
PPT 1 Series Title
Text Ecc. 3:1-11
Today we are beginning a new series on Times and Seasons. in todays message we will look at 3 important truths about "seasons," in your life.
1. In order to enter a new season we must often be stripped of the last season.
2. Comparison of your season with someone else's can kill contentment in your life.
3. The future is clear to God and fuzzy to us, so lets trust the one who knows
I want to start with some brief introductory thoughts.
There are so many lessons we can get from seasons and nature. For example: When seasons change many times the changes are abrupt and accompanied by storms, I think life is often also like that. Storms often signal a change in season, and not necessarily a bad change. Storms come before warmer weather just as much as they do before colder.
PPT 2 Pruning trees pic
Another example is in the area of pruning. Pruning often takes place just before winter. Taking that example and applying it to us we see we are cut and then left to convalesce in a time of little fruit, and we have to deal with the normal trials that a winter season brings. That is a whole lot of life summed up in that one sentence! I chose the picture because of the happy faces on the tree hackers. Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit. (John 15:2) We feel the pain of the pruning shears, the vineyard sees the multiplied fruit down the road.
We need to take advantage of every season.
PPT 3 Carpe Diem - seize the day
That phrase is from the Latin poet Horace, who lived and died just before Jesus was born.
Latin scholars point out that the translation of the word 'carpe' (which comes from the verb which described the picking of fruit) is to 'pluck'. So the idiom 'carpe diem' is, literally translated:
'enjoy the day, pluck the day when it is ripe',
So to help with plucking the day while it is ripe for the next several weeks I will be doing a series on Times and Season, this is an excellent series to end one year and to begin another.
The best way to seize the day at the end of a year, is to close the door on the past, and the best way to seize the day at the beginning of the year is to start it with prayer for God's blessings in the year ahead.
I have a video I want you to see of a song written by Pete Seeger and is taken word for word from Eccelsiastes 3, the version we are going to watch is by the group the Byrds:
PPT 4 video Turn turn turn
I am only going to cover a few thoughts on seasons this week and will flesh it out more in weeks to come.
Here is our first point for you to consider:
PPT 5 Catcher in uniform behind the plate
Before the catcher can take his turn at bat, he must take off his catchers uniform.
1. To enter a new season you must often be stripped of the last one.
You don't go to bat with the catchers uniform on!
It is interesting that in Ecc 3:3 and 3:5, we read of stripping away before we read of adding on, I think there is some significance in the way the text is ordered:
A time to break down, a time to build up.
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones.
Later the text talks about getting before losing, both are true. Sometimes in life you must subtract before adding, sometimes you add before subtracting. Today we are talking about the first example.
Paul and Elaine are getting married next week, and if their marriage is to thrive, both of them are going to have to let go of some of the ways that singles do things. Amen.
To enter a new season you must often be stripped of the last.
A major reason for that is very simple, you cannot safely drive forward looking in the rearview mirror.
PPT 6 Woman focused on what she see in her rearview mirror
I saw a lot of pictures on the Internet of looking in the rearview mirror, I chose this one because it shows the totality of where the woman's focus was - the past. You will crash your present and hinder your future if your focus is too much rearward.
When we drive a car our attention has to be where we are now, and where we are going to be shortly. To focus on where we have been will cause us to crash and burn. In life we are to glance back, but focus forward. Too many have let what happened in 2012 mess us 2013, or what happened in 2000 mess up 2013, or 1985 mess up 2013.
Some people carry the past around and all it is a sack full of rocks that are slowing you down.
The past is like a file folder in it is:
What actually happened, all the thoughts you have had about what happened, what others have said about what happened, the spin the devil has tried to put on it, what God has said about it. The file gets so full who can really tell what happened?!! That is the truth expressed in the Barbara Striesand song, the way we were : "...Can it be that it was all so simple then or has time rewritten every line?" Why let imperfect memory drag down your today and tomorrow?
Those who live in ruts have this outlook on life:
They assume the course already laid is going to be the course life is going to continue to follow.
If you are in a season you don't like, take encouragement:
The prophet Daniel said by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:
"He changeth the times and the seasons." Daniel 2:21
The principle that we ought to be forward looking is found in numerous passages in the bible:
PPT 7 Scriptures - see highlights
Isa 43:18 "Do not call to mind the former things, Or ponder things of the past.
Isa 43:19 "Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will
even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.
Php 3:13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of [it] yet; but one thing [I do]: forgetting what [lies] behind and reaching forward to what [lies] ahead,
What about those things in our past that are good? Glance back, focus forward.
So as we end 2013 it is a good time to mentally and prayerfully let go of some things, in order that we can grasp what God has for us in the year ahead. Let go of hurts, let go of failures, let go of let downs.
In Japan they have a custom that at the beginning of the year, they will open the front door and sweep out, symbolically they are sweeping out the bad spirits of the previous year and opening the door for the good spirits of the new year. The only spirit I want to open the door to is the Holy Spirit, but I like the idea of symbolically sweeping out the bad. Some of you may want to literally do that on New Years, we will also close the service this morning by doing that in prayer.
Sweep out hurts, sweep out failures, sweep out ill will towards others. Don't let 2013 ruin 2014 because you spend too much time looking in the rear view mirror of hurt, mistakes, rejections, painful circumstances.
PPT 8 River in the desert.
Isa 43:19 "Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will
even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.
Where ever a river is life and greenery will flourish. God has something new for you.
PPT 9 Tulip fields, compare that landscape with Michigan in the winter
2. Comparison of your season with someone else's can kill contentment in your life.
Those are tulip fields from the Netherlands. The weather in the Netherlands in the winter is very similar to ours, however in July and August their average high is only 71 degrees. Try going to the beach in that!
Usually when we compare we only see the things we like, but every place of comparison has its issues.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife? Another way of seeing that is don't compare your spouse to someone else, it will lead to adulterous thoughts. The truth is when you compare, you can only compare part of the package. Everybody has issues. Comparison kills contentment!
How many of you have gone driving in someone else's neighborhood to look at the nice houses. Comparison kills contentment.
Or read a magazine about dream kitchens, or dream log homes.
If you build your dream kitchen today, next week you will see some one else with a feature of their kitchen you will wish you had. It is the same way with seasons of life. You will always see someone in a different season that the one you are in, and it will make you envious if you are not careful.
I don't know what season you are in, but most likely their are people you know that you wish you could be in their season. Most of us wish we could do life like a buffet, we would only take what we wanted. I'll take some of that season that pastor has, and some of that my cousin George has. All that serves to do is make you discontent with your own season.
Let's look at the Wattle Cup Caterpillar.
PPT 10 Wattle Cup Caterpillar
Now that is one snazzy caterpillar. I suppose if you were a plain Jane caterpillar, you might not be happy with who you are, and might want to be a Wattle Cup Caterpillar. Let's see how that beauty metamorphosizes:
PPT 11 Hairy Brown moth
It becomes a hairy brown moth! Ewww! The point is that those with better yards than yours may turn into hairy brown moths. Be content with your season, comparison kills contentment. The reason that is a dangerous thing is because you cannot pray away a season!
You can't pray away being a child, or a teenager, or a senior citizen, or the reality that goes along with those seasons of life. When you get up in comparing seasons, you may get very discontent with the season you are in, and try to pray away what can't be prayed away. That makes for a very sad camper! God makes all things beautiful in their time. Each seasons has a reason and a beauty about it. Discontentment may get you to try and force yourself out of a season that you really need.
We must often do two things at once in life: submit to the sovereignty of God, and fight the good fight of faith. It is a very hard juggling act at times. What I mean by that is should we submit to what is going on in life, or fight it in prayer. Knowing what to do isn't always easy.
Some seasons God won't make easier, and He won't explain why, because you don't have a big enough understanding to grasp it. Which takes us to my third and final point for today:
PPT 12 fuzzy picture
3. The future is clear to God, and fuzzy to us. So it's best to trust the One Who knows.
PPT 13 Scripture
Ec 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (NIV)
Ec 3:11 True, God made everything beautiful in itself and in its time—but he's left us in the dark, so we can never know what God is up to, whether he's coming or going. (MSG)
Ec 7:13 Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked?
Ec 7:14 When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.
Weather forecasting has taught us a lot about the complexity of life. Weather anywhere affects weather everywhere.
On July 25th of this year (2013) the national weather service shifted its operational weather models onto a new super computer, that is capable of 213 trillion calculations per second. With all that processing power they still can't tell what is going to happen a month from now.
Human life is infinitely more complicated than weather patterns, and Ecclesiastes simply teaches that though we have an inkling of whats going on, we are not capable of grasping the totality all that is happening, only God can do that.
You can ask why if you want to, or if you must, but the truth is many answers are beyond 213 trillion calculations per second, and only God has the kind of computational power to figure it all out.
We have to become as little children more than we sometimes care to admit.
But since we know we have a kind and loving Father, we can simply take His hand where ever He leads us.
I saw a picture of two men looking into a baby's crib, one was the new dad, the other was his father (the newborns grandfather) The grandfather turns to his adult son, and says, "now you are just beginning to understand how much I love you." Kids can never fully understand how much a parent loves a child, until they become a parent themselves. With that thought in mind, I remind you that when your heavenly father is leading you into an unpleasant or difficult season, try to remember He loves you more than any father on earth ever loved their child.
Recap:
To enter a new season we must often be stripped of the last. A time to hold on, and a time to let go.
Comparison Kills Contentment.
You cant go forward looking backwards
Even when we can't understand what God is doing, we can still hold His Hand and trust Him.
Close:
I want to embrace tomorrow, and I got some things from last year I want swept out.
