Times And Seasons part 1
One of the questions I get most often is,
Why can’t I understand
what God is doing in my life?
It seemed like God was blessing me before,
but now he isn't.
It seems like my prayers were being answered before,
now they aren't.
Things used to be easy, now its hard.
Why is this happening,
and what is God doing?
And people want to know
is there's some kind of secret
to understanding what God is doing in my life?
Well, if there is any secret to all this,
it can be captured in one word...
Seasons. Seasons.
All of us in this room are in different seasons of our lives.
Some of us are new parents,
others have become empty nesters,
some of you have just started a new job,
others are getting ready to retire,
some of you are dating, some of you are newly married,
some of you are divorced,
some are working on 40 years of marriage.
Some of you are new followers of Christ,
some of you aren't sure if you're a Christian,
some of you are back in church after a long time away,
some are leaders in our church.
We're in different seasons.
In fact,
Has anyone ever told you,
just enjoy the season you're in?
Usually its someone older or farther along than you,
and they've already been through that season,
Like maybe their kids are grown,
and yours are still rugrats,
so they tell you,
hey, while you're in that season, enjoy it.
And of course you want to respond,
That's easy for you to say.
You're not living with a couple little terrorists at home,
constantly cleaning messes,
changing diapers,
exhausted all the time,
haven't been on a date with your spouse in 3 years.
How am I supposed to enjoy it
when I'm tired all the time?
We're entering the Christmas season,
and I want to talk about seasons today,
in fact over the next 3 weeks,
we're going to try to discover
some secrets about our seasons.
If you have your bible turn to Ecclesiastes 3
because Solomon is talking about seasons.
If you haven't read it,
Ecclesiastes is an interesting book,
Scholars would say that it is observational in nature,
in other words its making observations about how life is,
but not necessarily about how it should be.
So Solomon, who some say is the wisest man to ever live,
is writing, not about how things ought to be,
but how they are.
Therefore, Solomon writes about seasons,
because the way we experience life
is in seasons.
Eccl 3:1
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
Then it lists a lot of different seasons,
some that seem good to us,
and others that don't seem too good.
And it implies that
God brings different seasons into our lives,
some that we wish we could stay in forever,
and others that we wish we could skip completely,
and he says
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
I'm not going to read through all the seasons…
Lets skip down to verse 11.
After listing all these seasons, Solomon says…
Eccl 3:11-12
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
[Notice the words, in its time]
He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Now we may not be as smart as Solomon was,
but we do have an advantage over him,
because we have some of God's word
that he didn’t have.
And if you look at the NT, Eph 1:9-10,
Paul says this…
…he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
Paul is describing God's ultimate purpose…
To bring everything in heaven and earth,
under the rule of Christ.
So Ecclesiastes is about how
its often difficult to figure out the purpose
in the seasons of our lives,
but Paul comes along a little later and says that,
now that Christ has been born and died for us
and raised from the dead,
we can now know the purpose of God in every season,
the ultimate purpose is
to bring everything under the rule of Christ,
in heaven and on earth.
That means the seasons of your life are not an accident,
there is a divine timing to all of life,
And if we can understand it
it helps us to live it a lot better.
Because there are times and seasons to our life.
Look at Daniel 2:20,
Daniel prayed
"Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. 21 He changes times and seasons;
God changes the times and seasons of your life.
Whether you realize it or not,
God schedules every season of your life…
but… he doesn’t post the schedule for you to see.
And that's what makes living so difficult.
That’s why Solomon says…
yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
No one can really see the big picture, except God,
No one can understand all the seasons you go through,
except God.
Paul says, that from eternity,
God has had a purpose,
that’s been working in your life.
Your destiny was created in eternity,
and God has a plan for it all,
but your life is experienced in seasons.
Everything that God wanted to do through your life,
was decided before your life ever began.
But you don’t experience everything
that God intends for your life, all at once,
you experience it in phases and seasons,
Now here's my problem.
I always want to skip to the next season.
I struggle, because whatever season I'm in,
doesn’t seem like the season I want to be in,
it doesn’t seem like I'm where I want to be yet,
so I can't wait to get to the next season.
And I've been doing this my whole life.
When I was in fifth grade
I couldn't wait to get to middle school,
because those kids seemed cool.
When I was in 8th grade I couldn't wait to get to high school,
so I could play sports there.
Then I couldn’t wait to get my drivers license.
I couldn’t wait to go to college,
I couldn’t wait to finish college.
I couldn’t wait to finish flight school in the Navy,
Everything I was doing,
I couldn’t wait for it to be over
so I could get to the next thing.
And I'm still doing it today.
I couldn't wait till my kids all finished college,
because I was paying some hefty college bills,
well, now they're all done with college,
now I can’t wait to get some grandkids.
We're always waiting to get to the next season,
because the next season always looks better,
than the one I'm in.
Now here's the lesson from all this.
Every season has struggles,
that you can’t see from the outside looking in.
And what God wants to do today,
is to set us free
from trying to live in somebody else's season.
Now maybe you wouldn’t admit this,
but there is a part of you that looks at other people,
and the season they're in,
the success that they enjoy,
the place in life that they've arrived,
and you're thinking,
if I could just get there,
then I'd be content.
But let me tell you a spiritual secret about seasons,
Every season has a struggle,
that you can’t see or know, until you're in it.
And if you get this truth deep down,
it'll set you free from envy,
it'll set you free from always wanting to
copy someone else's circumstances.
There's a struggle in every season.
The problem is, when we look at other people's lives,
we only see how high the tree goes,
we don’t see how deep the roots are planted.
You only see the fruit of what someone has,
you don’t see the fight they went through to have it.
You observe somebody else's season as a visitor,
and it looks nice,
but its different when you live there.
Have you ever been to a place you love to visit,
but you wouldn’t want to live there?
Kathy and I have an island in the Caribbean
that we love to visit,
its called Bonaire,
and it has some great scuba diving,
and its a beautiful island,
but isn't as crowded with tourists
as some of the other places.
In fact it seems like a perfect place to retire,
if you had the money.
But last time we were there,
we were talking to one of the taxi drivers,
and he's telling us that a lot of the people
that live there year round
are unhappy with the direction things are going,
In fact, while we were there,
there was a strike going on against the political leaders,
with picket signs,
and the driver told us that gas costs $12/gallon,
and everything else is expensive too.
It looks great if you're a visitor,
but its different if you live there.
And that's how it is with the seasons of our lives.
We see people in different seasons than us,
and it looks great,
but we don’t see the struggles going on.
There's a struggle in every season.
And the sooner we realize it,
the sooner we're set free
to enjoy the season that we're in.
Every season has a struggle,
even when we can’t see it from the outside.
One of the most struggle-free periods of my life,
at least to outside observers,
was the first 10 years after we planted this church.
It was growing 10-20% every year,
we we're doing tons of ministry
and making a huge impact,
we started Serve City and the homeless shelter in Hamilton,
and had all kinds of success with that.
I was president of the ministers association in Hamilton,
and I sat on a bunch of non-profit boards,
I was president of 3 of them.
I became the area pastor
overseeing about 15 other Vineyard churches,
my pastor friends would call me for advice
on how to do what we were doing in this church.
In fact I was doing seminars for other Vineyard churches in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Kentucky, on how to grow a healthy church.
Even in the non-church stuff,
I was a little league coach for 7 years for my boys,
and I never had a losing season,
in fact my last season of coaching my team went undefeated.
Its like everything I did went well, during that season.
But then one summer, in the middle of it,
I burned out, got depressed and angry,
and it took me several months to recover from it.
And I couldn’t understand why,
because I'd never been depressed a day in my life,
and everything I was doing was succeeding.
Why in the world would I get burned out and depressed.
I hadn't realized the pressure
that can come with success,
Everybody wants a piece of your time,
everybody wants your help when they have a problem,
and in a church with hundreds of people
there's hundreds of problems,
and I just took on more and more pressure and stress
till I burned out.
That's why now, I delegate a lot more,
and I quit a couple non-profit boards,
and take regular vacations now,
so I don’t burn out again.
But its easy to look at somebody,
who on the surface seems to have everything going great,
but if you only lived in their situation,
you might find out they're on the edge of burnout.
Every season has a struggle.
Maybe you'd say,
Ken I can’t relate to that, because I'm not a pastor.
Let me tell you about,
the person you want to be,
the person that you look at,
that you'd love to be in their shoes.
There's some stuff you can’t see
that makes them who you want to be,
there's struggles in their season,
just like you have struggles in yours.
I'll prove it to you married folks.
Because there was a day when you thought,
if you could just get married…
But you're married now,
and still struggling,
its still not perfect,
life still gets lonely,
because there's a struggle in every season.
That’s what Solomon talks about
all through the book of Ecclesiastes.
He says, I wasn’t content in my season,
so I tried piling up wealth,
but then I just had to worry about
protecting and caring for the wealth I created.
He says, I tried pleasure, but guess what,
there was a hangover every next morning.
I tried wisdom, but there are so many books,
you could wear yourself out just reading them.
Can you believe that even Solomon had struggles,
in the seasons of his life?
The wealthiest guy around,
any beautiful woman he wanted, he could have,
unlimited power, yet he struggled.
It's like, no matter how great the success,
there's always an asterisk.
You sports fans know what I'm talking about.
Like with Babe Ruth's home run record.
Babe Ruth held the record of 60 home runs in a season, for decades,
till Roger Maris broke it with 61.
but Roger Maris was playing in a season
with 8 more games than Babe Ruth,
and if he hadn't had those extra 8 games,
he wouldn’t have broke the record.
So a lot of people put an asterisk by that record.
And then Mark Mcguire broke the record,
but he admitted to using steroids,
then Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds broke it,
but they were suspected of using steroids too.
So there's all kinds of asterisks around that record.
The point is, there's an asterisk
because there's always circumstances
that aren't apparent,
and you need to realize
when you look at other people's lives,
and you see what other people have,
or see what they've accomplished that you haven't,
there's always an asterisk,
You look at them and compare yourself with them,
and it can make you feel worthless,
it can make you feel like you don’t measure up,
and make you feel like,
I thought I'd be farther along by now,
but what you don’t realize is that
the person who may seem to be
ahead of you in the race
might have lost their wife and kids and their health
in the process of trying to get there,
because there's always an asterisk.
So we need to understand and find happiness
in the purpose of your season,
because your season does have a purpose,
even though there's a struggle in it.
Before time even began
God made plans and purposes for your life,
and if you understand the season you're in
there is a satisfaction and contentment that knows,
I might not have what they have,
but that’s all right
because I'm not called to do what they're called to do.
And I'm not trying to be who they are,
so I'm gonna stand for God in my season,
I'm gonna glorify God in my season,
and use the time I have left
and the gifts God has given me,
and I'm going to rejoice in my season
and yield fruit in my season.
So the first truth about seasons
is that every season has a struggle
that you can’t see till you're in it.
The second thing to learn about seasons is…
Every season is shaped by what you say.
Every season is shaped by what you say.
We're gonna talk later in this series about how
you can prolong a miserable season
by your disobedience.
The classic example from the Bible is
the people of Israel leaving Egypt,
and they turned what should have been
a couple week journey
into a forty year desert experience.
Sometimes you can leave your season
simply by deciding to do
what God told you to do in the first place.
But there are some seasons where
you're waiting on God to change the season,
but its not the right time yet for your next season,
so you simply have to trust God and endure.
But even though you can’t control
the season that you're going through,
you can control what you say about your season.
Let me show you what I mean.
In Eccl 3:11 Solomon says that
God has made everything beautiful in its time.
What separates out those who walk by faith,
from those who kind of just wander through life aimlessly,
is what they choose to call a season that they're in.
Do they call it based on faith and trust in God?
Do they believe God can make something beautiful of it?
Or do they call their season
based on doubt and cynicism.
Let me ask you a question…
What are you saying about your current season?
What are you calling your current season?
Because the truth is,
what you say about your season
determines how you will experience that season.
In fact, your season will take on the characteristics
of your description of that season.
So if you choose to call your season beautiful,
it will become beautiful in your eyes,
because you're able to recognize that
it's in Gods time,
and God makes everything beautiful in its time.
I'll give you an example.
Without a doubt the most difficult and miserable year
I ever had in my life,
was as a freshman at the Naval Academy.
Of course you weren't called a freshman,
you were called a Plebe.
From the moment you showed up in early July,
through the following June,
the goal of the Naval Academy
was to put you under such great pressure and stress,
that it would either change your whole life,
or you would quit.
It was designed to be the most miserable year of your life,
and for me it definitely was.
Out of the 30 plebes in my company that started with me,
half quit… But I didn’t.
And though I didn’t see it at the time,
I look back now and recognize that,
that season was beautiful in its time.
Why? Because I was being shaped in ways,
and growing in ways,
and God was doing things in me,
that would help me the rest of my life.
That was a beautiful - miserable season for me.
Now I wouldn’t want to do it a second time,
because I'm not in that season now,
God makes everything beautiful in its time,
and its not time for me to do that anymore,
but it was then.
And if you can just begin to recognize
what God is doing in you,
during this season you're in,
you can start to recognize the beauty in it.
And recognize that,
even though its sometimes painful,
even though its sometimes miserable,
even though its sometimes discouraging,
God is using it in a way
that will end up beautiful.
But here's the thing.
If you speak about your season like its overwhelming,
it becomes overwhelming,
because the way you speak about your season
shapes the way you experience your season.
Or if you speak about your season like its devastating,
it becomes devastating,
because the way you speak about your season
shapes the way you experience your season.
The people of Israel left Egypt,
and immediately started complaining and whining,
and saying this stinks, we want to go back to Egypt,
and it shaped their next 40 years,
of one bad attitude after another,
and one bad experience after another.
I remember when I was in my Plebe year,
and all of us plebes were miserable,
we all hated it,
but I realized that many of the other guys
talked about it way different from me.
I can’t repeat some of the things they used to say,
but it basically had to do with,
this place sucks,
we're getting a bad deal,
we hate it here.
And I remember that,
even as an 18 year old, without much wisdom
I still refused to join in with that.
I'd say, Hey, you chose to come here.
In fact you had to get a congressional appointment to even get in.
There's thousands of other guys who wanted to be here in your place,
And you knew it was gonna be tough,
before you ever arrived,
so get over it. Quit complaining, quit whining.
If you hate it so bad, you can always quit…
And half of them did.
The way you speak about your season
shapes the way you experience your season.
I was miserable, just like they were,
but I knew that misery was going to pay off,
if I was able to endure.
God makes everything beautiful, in its time.
So even if you're in a miserable season,
if you speak about your season
like it’s a time of growth,
it opens your eyes to see the way God is growing you,
thereby shaping the way
you experience your season.
Even if you're in a miserable season,
if you speak about your season
like it’s an opportunity to build into other people,
and help other people,
then it opens your eyes to see the people
God had placed around you,
that are influenced by you,
thereby shaping the way
you experience your season.
So the question is,
what will you choose to say about this season you're in?
Will you speak about all the negative things,
or will you stand with God
and call it beautiful, like God does,
because if you'll call it beautiful,
then instead of only seeing the burden,
you'll also see the beauty,
and it will change the way
you experience the season.
Every season is shaped by
the way you talk about it.
and your attitude starts to align with
the words you use.
So if you're in an extremely busy season right now,
and all the responsibilities start to feel overwhelming,
you can’t control that season,
you can’t always make it less busy,
but you can change the way you talk about it.
Instead of saying, I'm so maxed out,
I can say, guess what, my life is full.
Instead of saying, my ToDo list never gets done,
I can say, I have a reason to get up tomorrow morning.
Instead of saying,
I'm overwhelmed dealing with my aging parents,
I can say, I'm so glad my mother or father is still alive,
so I can have a relationship with them,
even though its difficult.
What you say about your season
will shape the way you experience your season.
If you speak God's promises over your season,
and speak about God's faithfulness in your season,
then He will open your eyes to see the beauty in it,
because God makes everything beautiful in its time.
Psalm 1:1-3
Blessed are those who do not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, 2 but who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on his law day and night.
3 They are like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season
They're like a tree that yields its fruit in season, Why?
Because its planted by streams of water.
You know how you go to a restaurant,
and they give you a pager,
and as soon as your pager buzzes, your table is ready.
One time they gave us the pager,
told us it was gonna be about 40 minutes,
and I hate to wait so we started walking around to some different shops.
We came back after about 25 minutes, and they said,
oh, we already gave your table away.
We buzzed your pager but you didn’t come.
I said, the pager never went off,
they said you must have been out of range,
you must have been too far away.
That’s what happens when you get discontent in your season.
You start wandering away from God's will
because you think the season you're in is unbearable,
And God says, I was calling for you,
I prepared a table for you,
I had some blessings for you,
but when the right time came,
you didn’t hear me when I called,
you wandered too far away.
God is saying to some of you this morning,
Don't wander away,
stay close to me,
because when its your time,
you don’t want to miss your turn.
When your turn comes, you want to be ready for it.
Don’t miss your turn.
Don’t miss your turn.
One more point this morning.
Every season has a struggle,
Every season is shaped by what you say.
3rd, Every season has strengths you can seize.
This is kind of the opposite of the first point.
We said every season has struggles you can’t see.
But every season also has strengths you can seize.
If I think about another really difficult season in my life,
there was a time when I was still working in Corporate Marketing,
and General Electric transferred me to Cincinnati,
but a few years later I took a different job in Chicago,
so Kathy and I put our house on the market,
and agreed that as soon as it sold
we'd buy a house in Chicago
and she and the kids would move up,
but in the meantime I was commuting.
I'd drive to Chicago on Sunday evenings
and drive home on Friday evenings.
Well, our plan was that this would only last a few weeks,
but the house didn’t sell,
and didn’t sell, and didn’t sell.
6 months later the house still hasn’t sold,
I'm still commuting,
so I'm away from Kathy and our 3 young kids
for 5 out every 7 days,
that was a difficult time.
But then it got worse,
because the job in Chicago
didn’t turn out like I thought it would,
it wasn’t a good fit for me,
so after about 6 months there
I decided, I don’t want to stay in this job,
so I started looking for another job,
back in the Cincinnati area.
So for 6 more months I did a job search
while I'm still commuting to Chicago every week.
So I'm in a job I don't like,
separated from my wife and kids most of the week,
that was a miserable year,
it was a miserable season.
But in every season there is a strength you can seize.
You see when I was living at home
with 3 little kids around,
my time with God was limited.
But during that year of commuting
I suddenly had way more time.
And in particular,
I had about 10 hours of time every week,
while I was driving to and from Chicago,
5 hours each way.
And I decided not to waste that time.
So I did 3 things
with those 5 hour chunks of time every week.
I had the bible on cassette tape,
so I'd listen to that for a couple hours.
Then I had worship music tapes,
and I'd start singing along and praising God for an hour or so.
And then I'd turn the music off
and I'd pray to God and listen to God for the rest of the time.
And when I heard God speak something to me,
I had a pocket tape recorder
and I'd just speak into it and record it while I'm driving.
So I had 10 hours of bible, worship, and prayer every weekend,
and that doesn’t include church
or my regular times with God each day.
Let me tell you,
I grew more in my relationship with God during that year
then I ever have in my life.
You see, God was preparing me,
I had no clue at the time,
but it was only a couple years after that,
that I was to became pastor of this church.
That year of commuting was a difficult painful season,
but in every season there's a strength you can seize.
And God makes everything beautiful in its time.
I can imagine God talking with his angels,
and he's telling them,
You see Ken there, he's pretty busy,
and he hasn’t been spending a whole lot of time with me,
but I really need to prepare him for something bigger,
I wonder how I can do that?
Then he says, Hey, I've got an idea.
I know how to get him to spend 10 hours with me every weekend,
and its gonna be beautiful.
Because God makes everything beautiful in its time.
And if you will take the time and make the effort,
you will be able to see the beautiful thing
that God is doing in your season.
You can’t live in the season that was,
and you can't make the next season come right now,
but there is a strength in this season
that you can seize.
You can’t live in someone else's season,
so you’ve gotta seize the strength of this season
You might not have what you used to have,
you might not get what you want to get,
but if you'll plant your roots down deep
in God's purpose for you,
God makes everything beautiful in its time.
Lets stand for prayer.
