Eccl 3:1-8
1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather
them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace. NIV
INTRO In the months following my mother’s
commencement into glory, my sisters and I have
found it necessary to begin to sort through things
in her house. On one visit to Syracuse, I took two
carloads of stuff to the Rescue Mission, mostly old
pieces of luggage that had served their purpose
and were no longer needed by members of our
family. My sister found an entire drawer full of
nothing but shoelaces. We have made a list of
orange chairs and other odd pieces of furniture
that had accumulated for use in the furnished
rooms and apartments my parents rented to
students and low-income laborers. Since we no
longer own those apartment buildings, we plan to
put the furniture we no longer need on the first
floor so the Rescue Mission can come pick it up.
To everything there is a season. A time to gather.
A time to scatter. A time to collect. A time to
donate. A time to accumulate. A time to let go.
A time to keep. A time to throw away.
It is the better part of wisdom to know when is
the right time for each activity. To know which
things are worth preserving, and which are not.
At the end of the musical Fiddler on the Roof,
Tevye’s family is packing up a wagon to leave
their village Anatevka, when the Russian pogroms
force the Jews to leave their ancestral homes and
flee as refugees. After the agonizing struggle of
sorting through family treasures, Tevye says to
his eldest daughter, “Tzeitel, don’t forget the
baby!” He knows that life sometimes forces us to
relinquish many things we value, but that even
when we experience loss, we must not lose sight
of what is most important in life. When we throw
out the bathwater, we must not throw out the
baby!
So how do we know when it is time to hang on
and when it is time to let go? And how do we tell
the difference between trash and treasure? How
do we know what is junk and what are jewels?
Well, this is not the Antique Road Show, and I am
not qualified to assess the value of your
household goods. But we do have a guidebook to
help us discern what in our spiritual life is worth
keeping and what needs to be ditched – the book
is the Bible, of course.
So I want to look briefly at a couple of passages
that will help us decide what to preserve and what
to pitch in our spiritual lives.
When the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt for
430 years, God sent Moses to lead the people out
of captivity to serve the Lord. As I read the story
of what happened as recorded in Exodus 12, listen
for what the Lord told the people to get rid of:
Ex 12:1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in
Egypt, ... 3 ... each man is to take a lamb for his
family ... 5 The animals you choose must be
year-old males without defect, ... 7 Then they are
to take some of the blood and put it on the sides
and tops of the doorframes of the houses where
they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to
eat the meat ... along with ... bread made without
yeast. ... 11 This is how you are to eat it: with
your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on
your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in
haste; it is the LORD’s Passover. 12 On that same
night I will pass through Egypt and strike down
every firstborn--both men and animals--and I will
bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the
LORD. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the
houses where you are; and when I see the blood,
I will pass over you. No destructive plague will
touch you when I strike Egypt. 14 This is a day
you are to commemorate; for the generations to
come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the
LORD--a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you
are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first
day remove the yeast from your houses, for
whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the
first day through the seventh must be cut off from
Israel. ... 17 "Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened
Bread, because it was on this very day that I
brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this
day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to
come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread
made without yeast, from the evening of the
fourteenth day until the evening of the
twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to
be found in your houses. And whoever eats
anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the
community of Israel, whether he is an alien or
native-born. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast.
Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened
bread." ... 29 At midnight the LORD struck down
all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of
Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of
the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the
firstborn of all the livestock as well. ... 33 The
Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the
country. "For otherwise," they said, "we will all
die!" 34 So the people took their dough before the
yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders
in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. ... 39
With the dough they had brought from Egypt, they
baked cakes of unleavened bread. The dough was
without yeast because they had been driven out of
Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for
themselves. NIV
Did you notice what the people were to eliminate
from their houses and their diet? Yeast. What
was so important about that? Well, the Lord knew
that if they made bread with yeast and then
waited for the yeast to rise, their enemies would
overtake them and they would either be
slaughtered or returned to captivity. Anyone who
loved yeast so much that he couldn’t do without it
didn’t belong with the people of God, for it meant
he preferred captivity to freedom.
Now of course yeast is not the point. Whether or
not we bake our bread with baking powder, baking
soda or yeast is not the issue. But yeast is a
metaphor for the pleasures of sin that can
tantalize our senses so thoroughly that we forget
that those pleasures are the bait that will catch us
in the snares of death if we reach out to take hold
of them.
The Israelites were instructed to leave the land
where they had been enslaved in haste. They
weren’t to waste any time. There was no time to
lose, for after the Egyptians mourned their dead,
anger would replace their sorrow and they would
come fast on the heels of God’s people to destroy
them, as became clear at the Red Sea.
Even so, when we hear God calling us to a new
life in service to him, we dare not dawdle, we
must not linger in the land of slavery to sin, or we
will die in that land.
Paul refers to the metaphor of yeast in I
Corinthians 5, when he addresses a problem of
immorality in the church. There he says, “Don’t
you know that a little yeast works through the
whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast
that you may be a new batch without yeast – as
you really are. For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has
been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the
Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of
malice and wickedness, but with bread without
yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.”
What is Paul saying? That by tolerating the least
speck of sin in our own lives, it infects the entire
community. After the Monica Lewinsky scandal
broke, polls showed that the attitudes of American
youth regarding the importance of sexual purity
declined significantly. Think your actions don’t
affect others? Think again.
Anyone who has had children knows that if one
child gets a cold, it doesn’t end until every
member of the family has caught it, by which time
the first child has caught a new disease and the
process starts all over again. Doctors know that
in dealing with infectious diseases, those who are
ill must be quarantined so that others will not
catch the disease.
Sin, like yeast or an infectious germ, corrupts
everything it touches. Just as leaven changes the
entire bowl of dough, sin affects every aspect of
our life and all our relationships. If we tolerate or
excuse our own sin, it is the same as lingering in
the land of captivity.
When Floyd was due to be released from prison a
year and a half ago, I can tell you that we didn’t
have to go search through the cells to try to
persuade him to come out. He was ready and
waiting at the door and never looked back.
That’s what our attitude should be about the sin
that so easily has enslaved us in the past. We
should be ready and waiting for our release and
never look back in longing for what we are leaving
behind.
1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or anything in
the world. NIV
When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he
called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" 44
The dead man came out of the tomb, his hands
and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth
around his face. Jesus said to those around him,
"Take off the grave clothes and let him go." John
11:43-44 NIV
Now don’t you think Lazarus was in a hurry to
leave those graveclothes behind? Or do you
suppose he got to liking the smell and the
darkness so much that he decided to go back into
the grave for a nap?
But some of us are still clinging to our old
graveclothes of sin and death, whatever they are.
Maybe we prefer our old habits of lying to telling
the truth. Or we are used to responding to others
in anger instead of kindness. Or we think we
can’t make it through the day without that
cigarette or beer or piece of candy and put our
trust in those things instead of trusting in God to
help us. Or we rely on our bank account for
security, or think we can’t make it in life without
some so-called friends who keep trying to lead us
down the paths of sin. Or we go back to our old
haunts and hide-outs because they are familiar
and comfortable, even thought the very things we
crave are the things that we know can kill us.
It’s important that we do our part to rid our lives
of the yeast of sin – to remove anything from our
lives that we know is likely to tempt us to sin.
But in our own strength, left to our own devices,
we find evil so pervasive that we can’t overcome
our own inclinations to sin. As the scripture says,
the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Sin is
like a magnet: it has an attractive quality that
seems to mesmerize and hypnotize us, holding us
in its power.
But that’s why Jesus came, as the Passover Lamb
of God to take away the sin of the world – to
remove the penalty for sin, but also to destroy the
power of sin to control and influence us. As the
hymnwriter expressed it, “He breaks the power of
cancelled sin, he sets the prisoner free; his blood
can make the foulest clean; his blood availed for
me.”
When Jesus lives within us, he can do what we in
our own power can not do. As Martin Luther
wrote, “Did we in our own strength confide, our
striving would be losing, were not the right man
on our side, the man of God’s own choosing. Dost
ask who that may be? Lord Jesus, it is he! Lord
Sabaoth his name, from age to age the same, and
he must win the battle!”
Paul knew that the secret to overcoming sin lay
not in his own strength, but in the power of Christ
active within us. So he said, I can do everything
through him who gives me strength. Phil 4:13 NIV
So how can we get rid of the sin that threatens to
undo us?
Here are a couple of practical suggestions:
First, obey God. Do what God says. When spam
shows up in your inbox, hit the delete button as
fast as you can. Throw out the yeast, and don’t
wait for the bread to rise. Abandon sin as fast as
you can, with all the force you can muster.
Commit to follow God no matter what the cost,
knowing that the benefits will far outweigh
anything you are giving up. The benefit to the
children of Israel they gained by giving up yeast
was their freedom from slavery and a brand new
life. The benefit you will gain by giving up the
minuscule pleasures of sin will be spiritual
liberation here on earth and eternal life in heaven.
I’d say that was more than a fair exchange – it’s
an incredible investment opportunity!
Second, let the people of God help you. Lazarus
couldn’t remove all the graveclothes that bound
him all by himself. Jesus told those around him to
loose him and let him go. Ask the people of God
to help you. Don’t be so proud you think you
have to do it all by yourself. We’re in this
together. Find someone you know loves you who
will hold you accountable about that sin that you
are struggling with, who will not let you slide, but
who will also love you and hurt with you when you
blow it.
Eccl 4:9 Two are better than one, because they
have a good return for their work: 10 If one falls
down, his friend can help him up. But pity the
man who falls and has no one to help him up! 11
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep
warm. But how can one keep warm alone? 12
Though one may be overpowered, two can defend
themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly
broken. NIV
Let the people of God help you. They can serve to
help filter out the stuff you don’t need in your life.
I see Crystal do this for her husband Bill when we sit down for refreshments. She gently asks how a particular food fits into his fitness goals. I need to be more open to let my husband Bill do that for me. If I let him, he can help me say no to things that are not good for me and to say yes to things that will enhance my physical and spiritual health.
Find a believer who will pray for you about the sin that is hardest for you to resist, and who is not afraid to hold you accountable. The hardest thing about fighting sin is thinking we have to do it alone. We don’t. That’s why God gave us each other.
Third, search the Scriptures. Hebrews 11 lists
scores of God’s people who also struggled, who
can serve as helpful examples in your own
struggle against sin. So another way you can let
the people of God help you is by studying the
scripture to see how God worked in the lives of
other believers to give them victory.
Rom 15:4 For everything that was written in the
past was written to teach us, so that through
endurance and the encouragement of the
Scriptures we might have hope. NIV
So search the Scriptures for instruction and
encouragement.
And finally, keep your eyes on Jesus. He has
opened the path to victory, as we follow him we
will cross the finish line triumphant.
Heb 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by
such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off
everything that hinders and the sin that so easily
entangles, and let us run with perseverance the
race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on
Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who
for the joy set before him endured the cross,
scorning its shame, and sat down at the right
hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who
endured such opposition from sinful men, so that
you will not grow weary and lose heart. NIV
So in your struggle against sin, remember to obey
God. Commit to follow God no matter what the
cost. Choose to flee from sin without hesitation,
as fast as you are aware of its threat. Remember
to let the people of God help you. Search the
Scriptures for instruction and encouragement.
And keep looking at Jesus, the Passover Lamb
who died to remove the penalty of your sin and
was raised to life to remove the power of your sin.
He’s your pacesetter. He’s already crossed the
finish line, as have millions of other believers who
are cheering you on in the grandstand. He has
proven and they have shown that you too can
finish the race victorious. So keep your eyes fixed
on him, your coach. You’re a winner as long as
you focus your attention on Jesus, the author and
perfecter of our faith. I’m cheering for you! And
so is he!
© Joanna R. Loucky-Ramsey. All Rights Reserved.
Permission granted for use in sermon preparation only. For other purposes, please contact the author.
