God's Perfect Timing

Today's reading is Ecclesiastes 3:1-17. 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. What gain has the worker from his toil? I've seen the business that God has given to the children of men to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

I perceive that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live. Also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever, nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it. God has done it so that people fear before Him.

That which is already has been, that which is to be already has been, and God seeks what has been driven away. Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. Thank you, Josh.

And thank you again, Tony, for your prayers for us this morning. So, church, I wanted to start by asking if anyone has heard the saying hindsight is a wonderful thing. The ability to look back on a situation, event or circumstance and understand why something has happened, to learn from an experience or to make changes to complete the same thing again later. Although this is a useful part of learning, it can sometimes create difficulties since we can only directly control what goes on in the present. We can plan for the future in the present, which provides us with some measurable control.

It is human nature to want to be in control of all of our outcomes and make necessary changes to manipulate situations to ensure that this happens. But this passage clearly shows us that God's divine timing, and in God's divine timing, it encourages us to submit to His will, which is why the title of my sermon this morning is God's Perfect Timing. So my first point this morning is to understand God's grand design. Our text begins with the declaration that God is sovereign over time. There is an appointed time for everything, and there is a time for every event under heaven.

Every event under heaven has an appointed time. This means that every little thing matters. It is all part of God's grand design. The use of the phrase under heaven instead of under the sun is subjective of a divine perspective. Things may appear vaporous to our limited perspective, but they are in perfect order from His.

Imagine you're looking at the underside of a large, beautiful tapestry as it is being woven. From your angle and from our angle, all you can see is loose threads, knots, and a seemingly random mess of colours. Makes absolutely no sense at all. Some parts look dark and chaotic, while others seem bright and disconnected. You wonder what the point of it is and why things go so wrong or painful.

But if you could step back and have a look at the tapestry from above, the way the artist sees it, you would see a stunning, intricate design. Every dark thread adds a contrast to the bright ones. Every knot holds the picture together. What looked like a mess from underneath is actually a great masterpiece. We see life from the underside of the tapestry.

Our perspective is limited by time, emotion, and our finite understanding. We experience suffering, disappointment, and confusion, and often we can't see how it fits together. But God sees the full picture. He knows the full picture.

And in Isaiah 55:8-9, it reminds us of that. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. God is the master weaver, and what looks like a mess to us is part of His perfect plan. In His view, nothing is wasted.

These cycles of life are going to happen and they won't wait on us. It is for us to accept or deny. And part of our opportunity is to recognise that many things we don't control are appointed to by God. In verse 11 of the passage, it outlines that He has made everything beautiful in its time. Now if we go all the way back to Genesis 1 when we look at creation, in Genesis 1, it says, and God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.

God has ordained a time for everything. And this doesn't mean things happen randomly. No. It means there is order in the universe, a divine order. And this is where our reformed faith anchors us, that God is sovereign, not only over our salvation, but over all of history and all of time.

Further in verse 11 in Ecclesiastes, God has also put eternity into man's heart, yet he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to the end. This highlights our desire to know all and to be in control of all situations. However, in our human state, we have a limitation to fully understand all of life, which brings me to our second point: God's sovereign control of our lives. The following verses then go on to describe a beautiful poem in all the areas of life that God is in control of. The poem begins by drawing the outside boundaries of man's life in the world.

There is a time to give birth and a time to die. We all know that. We are reminded of that each and every day when a new baby is born and every time a person dies. And again, I remember the birth of my son Luke in October. Again, it will always go down as one of the best days of my life.

And we all remember as parents the time that our children were born as well. We all remember that day. That is a day that's been appointed and gifted by God. There then follows a description of a whole range of different other events in human life, all the activities that we engage in. For there is a time for everything, and God is in control of those times.

These cycles are appointed by God, and God set it up this way because our purpose is embedded within His purpose. God has appointed these cycles of life. They have rhythm, a place. But here, the preacher in Ecclesiastes celebrates the order and certainty of these cycles. They are appointed by God.

This means He gives them purpose and meaning. There is a stark contrast to observing the cycles from a perspective of human reason and experience versus God's perspective. It just looks like a person running on a treadmill from our point of view. It's a mystery to our reason, but it is a beautiful paradox in God's eternal kingdom. Trust in Him just transcends our uncertainty.

So within Ecclesiastes, there are 14 contrasts within verses 2 to 8, and they are: 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, and a time for war and a time for peace. All 14 pairings here are seemingly opposites. We tear down, we build up, we mourn, we dance, we keep and throw away, etcetera, and so on. But they are all appointed parts under God's order.

We can get a bit of perspective about how God might look at deciding these times or these seasons while having a look at how a garden is tended to. The gardener decides the best time to plant as well as the best time to uproot what is planted. When the harvest is over and all the fruit is picked, it is a time to uproot what is planted, plough it under to fertilise the ground and get it ready for the next planting season. Perhaps God decides the time of our seasons based on when we've exhausted all the benefits we can gain from living life on this earth.

In any event, our seasons are based on the work that God has predestined for us since the beginning. And it's interesting to look at what goes on in our head when all of these different contrasts occur. When things are going really well for us, when we have good health, prosperity, a time of laughter and dancing, our prayers and our approach to God is one of thankfulness and adoration for the good things in our lives. We rejoice in the goodness of God, and it's easy to give God the glory in these seasons.

But when things aren't going well, when there is death, mourning, breaking down, war, etcetera, how does our approach to God look in those seasons? Do we share the same enthusiasm for rejoicing? Are we thankful and give adoration for God in these times? It's actually good I can mention a bit of Tony's sermon from last week when he looked at Habakkuk 3:17-19, and it says, though the fig tree should not blossom nor the fruit on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herds in the stalls.

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take the joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like the deer's. He makes me tread on my high places.

Despite these trials and tribulations that come into our lives, we are to understand that God has predestined them and has planned them for our lives. Though we don't rejoice because these things happen, we can rejoice while these things happen. Now it brings me to my final point, church, is our place in God's plan. The foundation for enjoyment of life is faith in God's goodness. When we treat opportunities of life as a gift from God, we can enjoy all things we do.

Without faith, life is nothing but frustrations. When we accept the mystery of reality, we are free to trust God and enjoy life. We are again encouraged in this passage to be submissive to God's will and to trust that He will use us in a small part of His grand design. And if God's design is so thoroughly thought out, it is so meticulous, it is so well planned, then the purpose of our lives has to be as well. Now we know that God's timing for things is perfect, and God has called all things, created all things, and knows all things.

What do we do? What's our role in God's plan? Well, if we think about our lives like a boat floating in the water, and God is changing the direction of the boat in accordance to His will, can a boat change direction when it is not moving? We can change the direction, but we can't go anywhere.

We're not gonna go in that trajectory. No. It says we stay in the same place. We can't go anywhere. And we are called to do His work and to go and do His will on earth.

Verse 10 outlines, I've seen the business that God has given to His children of men to be busy with. So God has appointed us work to do on earth, and it's for His glory that we do this work. This work is predestined work for us and that it isn't merely a job or a career, but it's rather a calling to do God's work. Ephesians 2:10 says, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. We are created in the image of Jesus to do His work that is predestined for us.

And not only are we created in God's image, but the purpose of our lives is laid out in accordance with how we have been created. One Corinthians 12:12-20 says, for just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit, we were all baptised into one body, Greeks or Jews, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. For the body does not consist of one member, but many.

If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less part of the body. And if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would this sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God has arranged the members in the body, each one of them as He chose.

If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. For those that don't know a bit of my history, I used to do athletics back in the day, and most recently, I ran the Gold Coast half marathon. So again, I've always been in love with my sport. But also when I went to university, I graduated with a bachelor of exercise science along with my teaching degree.

So for me, I've always been fascinated by the human body and how the human body integrates together. The anatomy and physiology of the human body can be summed up as structure and function. How something looks should reflect what it's supposed to do. In Corinthians here, it illustrates that every individual part of the body has a small function to play in the grand scheme of allowing the human body to survive. If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

Same goes for us in our lives. He created us in His image and has equipped us for His work to be done. If we all had the same gifts and talents and we were all called to do the same work, we wouldn't be able to accomplish all the work that God has set out for us. And I think about our church. Let's say, for argument's sake, our church is full of Jordan Vincennes.

Firstly, I'd feel pretty sorry for that church. Thanks, mum, for your support. But if we think about it, we would miss Rob's gifts and talents of leading music ministry each and every week. We'd miss Tony's wisdom of being the chairman of our church council. We'd miss Dion's insight and intellect being the chairman of our board of management.

We'd miss Arnold's ability to work with the AV team in giving us great AV each and every week. We'd miss the ministry that goes on in the crèche by our parents administering to our young kids. We'd miss the ministry of our morning teas because you don't want to eat my cooking. We'd miss the welcoming from our ministry team each and every morning. As a church, we are many parts, but we are one body, all contributing our little structure and function to glorify our God.

And so we're also tasked to do the work that we've been assigned and that God's called us to do with joy and adoration for God. Verses 12 and 13 of Ecclesiastes 3 say, I perceived that there is nothing better for them to be joyful and to do good as long as they live, that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man. So rather than becoming embittered by what God has not granted us, we should enjoy the gifts that God has given. When we do good in our work, it brings profit.

Even though our work will be worrisome, it's not gonna be easy. The key though is to rejoice, to live life in gratitude, seeking purpose and understanding with the foundation of faith. And the preacher in this passage seems to suggest that God, the one who understands eternity, has given us glimpses of purpose, joy, and meaning. These are God's gifts to us. This guidance to rejoice and to enjoy life is a good gift from God and is repeated all throughout Ecclesiastes if you continue to go through the chapters.

And there is nothing better than to live this way. So church, I wanna leave you with a question as we go into our final sort of section. How can our lives be lived with a positive, joyful disposition? How can we live our lives with a positive joyful disposition? We can do that by truly understanding how good our God is.

We've been singing it all throughout our service this morning. When we speak of the goodness of God, we must begin with who God is. God is not simply one who does good. He is good. His very nature is good, perfect, righteous, and holy.

Psalm 119:68 declares, you are good and do good. But nowhere is God's goodness more fully and gloriously displayed than in sending His son, Jesus Christ, to die for sinners. According to our reformed theology, we understand that humanity was not simply in need of help, but we were actually dead in our sins. Ephesians 2:1 says, for you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked. We were reminded that we were rebels, enemies of God, and deserved nothing but His wrath.

And yet God in His goodness didn't leave us there. In the covenant of grace, God purposed from eternity past to redeem a people for Himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ. It's nothing we did. As Romans 5:8 describes, but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The cross is not only a demonstration of God's love, but it's also a demonstration of His goodness.

Because at the cross, God does what is both merciful and just. The goodness of God is not sentimental. It's holy. He cannot simply ignore sin. To be good, He also must be just, and justice needs to be served.

And so in God's perfect wisdom, He satisfies that justice by providing a substitute, Jesus Christ. Two Corinthians 5:21 declares, for our sake, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. The good God provides what He demands. He gives His son to bear our punishment and to give us His righteousness. This is what we call penal substitutionary atonement, a core truth in reformed theology.

God didn't merely forgive us by overlooking sin. He didn't forget the things we did. He knows, and we'll be called at the day of judgment to remind us of that. But He forgave us by punishing our sin in Christ. That is the goodness of God.

He gives His son to die the death we deserved so that we might live the life He earned. And it doesn't stop there. In His goodness, God raises Christ from the dead and seats Him at His right hand. And through the union with Christ, we too are now raised to new life. All of this is grace.

It's not earned. It's not merit. We have done absolutely nothing to justify this grace, but it is God's goodness poured out on the unworthy. So when we look at the cross, we don't just see, and we shouldn't just see, a tragic death. We should see the glorious goodness of our triune God.

The Father sends, the Son obeys, and the Spirit applies, and all of it is good. So let us never grow numb to this. The cross is not only a means of our salvation, but also a window into the very heart of God, a heart full of justice, mercy, and goodness. Romans 8:32 beautifully reminds us of this. He who did not spare His own son, but gave Him up for us all, He will not also with Him graciously give us all things.

That church is the goodness of God made visible in the crucified and risen Christ. This is a perspective we can choose. If we begin with faith, we can live a life with gratitude. And this gratitude comes from the one who saves us and knows all things. And we're reminded that He calls all things for good according to His will and His purpose.

Let's pray. Father, we just thank you so much, Lord, that you sent your son, Jesus, Father, not only to die the death that we deserved, but also to raise Him again so we may truly understand the goodness of you, God. Father, we thank you that you reveal yourself to us each and every day. And, Father, we thank you that we are reminded of your goodness in all things that we do. Father, we just pray that you anoint and equip us, Father, to go out into our workplaces, to our families and our friends, Father.

Anoint and equip us to go and do your work, to live a life of joy and gratitude, not in the works that we have done, but in the work that you have done, Father. Lord, we thank you that you have appointed all things within your time, Father. But, Lord, as we know, even in those times of suffering and sorrow, that you've called all those things for good according to your will and your purpose. Father, we just pray that each and every day we are submissive to what you have called within our lives, Father. And, Lord, when things are going well, Father, we just pray that we continue to rejoice and give thanks to you because we know you provide all good things.

And, Father, we pray as when we go through our trials and tribulations, Father, that we draw near to you further, that we are reminded that you are our rock of our salvation. You are the cornerstone of our lives. And, Father, we pray and we that we understand that you've called all of these seasons for your will and your purpose. So, Father, we just thank you for that, and we lift all of our prayers to you now in Jesus' name. Amen.