WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 We've come, I think, to probably what is the most famous section of the book of Ecclesiastes. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:16.000 This section is often read as a poem at funerals by Christians and non-Christians alike. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:19.000 I'm sure you've heard it read. 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:25.000 As you read it though, I think that poem at the beginning doesn't really make a whole lot of sense without the bit that follows it. 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:31.000 In lots of ways, I think that first section in the poem is quite hopeless without what follows. 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:35.000 So my plan is just to try and walk through the passage with you this evening, 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:42.000 and we've got some chance for questions and chance to discuss it in groups, and we'll finish by 7.30. 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:45.000 So let's think about A Time for Everything. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:50.000 The more you look at that poem, the less sense it makes in some ways. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:54.000 You would expect a poem like that to make some kind of progress, wouldn't you? A Time for Everything. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:01:04.000 A Time to be born, what comes next, a Time to grow up, maybe a Time to get a job, a Time to work that job, and then Death at the end. 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:06.000 But it doesn't make any progress at all. 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:13.000 And I think that's deliberate. I think it's the circularity of life that is being pointed out over and over again in Ecclesiastes. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:17.000 That's where the book starts, isn't it? That everything goes round, nothing makes any progress. 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:21.000 And so this poem flits around making no progress at all. 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:29.000 It's made up of 14 pairs, two lots of seven, which is perhaps significant as the number of perfection in the Bible. 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:37.000 But whatever it is, it seems, doesn't it, that the main point is that life is made up of seasons of time, blocks of time. 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:41.000 Some of those blocks of time are happy times. 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:45.000 Birth, love, laughter, building. 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:48.000 Some of those times are sad times. 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:53.000 Weeping, mourning, war, hate, death. 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:58.000 And some of them seem in some senses just slightly ambivalent, don't they? 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:00.000 Neither happy nor sad. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:03.000 You know it's where the scattering stones is happier than gathering stones. 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:06.000 Do you know? I'm unsure. 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:09.000 Searching or giving up. Silence or speaking. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:18.000 And so it is with our lives, as the writer of Ecclesiastes says, your life, my life, is made up of blocks of time. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:21.000 Some of those blocks of time will be very happy. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:26.000 Births, weddings, graduations, new jobs, new friendships. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:34.000 Some of those blocks of time will be sad, death, redundancy, breakup, sickness, loss. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:39.000 There will be wins and losses. There will be tragedies and triumphs. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:45.000 And some blocks of time will be just events which are neither happy nor sad, but are just kind of there. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:47.000 You know, this job rather than that job. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.000 This meal rather than that meal. 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.000 This car rather than that car. 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:53.000 This train rather than that train. 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:58.000 And so we kind of just work our way through these events, these blocks of time, these seasons, 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:03.000 lived in particular places with particular people at a particular point in history. 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:08.000 Nathan and I were talking in the office this week about it. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:19.000 And we were saying just the season of time for people who live in London, especially young people, is often a very short time. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:23.000 You know, there's a time for London, right? 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:26.000 In the life of lots of young people, which is often short. 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:28.000 You're here for a time. You're not sure how long it is. 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:30.000 You're planning what's next. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.000 And so it is often, isn't it, at the beginning of life. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:39.000 You don't imagine at the beginning of life that it will be made up of many sad blocks as well as happy blocks. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:47.000 You imagine, don't you, that you can build your life with these blocks because you think you're planning them and you're putting them into place. 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:51.000 But actually there will be other kinds of blocks coming your way. 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:53.000 You might not be able to find a job. 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:55.000 You may or may not get married. 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:57.000 Your marriage may or may not be happy and easy. 00:03:57.000 --> 00:03:59.000 It might be difficult. 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:02.000 You might face sickness. 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:04.000 You will face grief. 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:08.000 And moving from place to place doesn't actually change that much. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:11.000 We still work our way through these different seasons. 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:15.000 A time to live and a time to die. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:17.000 A time to plant and a time to uproot. 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:21.000 And like I said at the start, I don't think there's much hope in the list in one sense. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:24.000 There's nothing here that a secular humanist would not affirm. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.000 Which is why it gets read at loads of people's funerals, right? 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:31.000 But the writer has more to say and he will come on and say it. 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:35.000 But it is worth noting, isn't it, that this is in the Bible, right? 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:46.000 So you need to know, I need to understand that being a Christian does not inoculate me from the seasons of life and the passing of time in the ordinary way that it affects everybody around me. 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:53.000 It's not like time for the non-Christian is made up of random disconnected blocks of happiness and sadness and everything in between. 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:58.000 But for the Christian, time is a meaningful progression to a goal that we are achieving in our strength. 00:04:58.000 --> 00:04:59.000 No, right? 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:06.000 Redemption does not make you superhuman or kind of transhuman. 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:07.000 That's a bad word, isn't it? 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:08.000 Because it means something else. 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:09.000 But you know what I mean. 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:11.000 It doesn't make you kind of above humanity. 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:17.000 You are still a person, a human, living in this world. 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:21.000 Redemption does not change the environment in which we live. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:36.000 Salvation for us is experienced by us as humans in a real world where there is the passing of time and where we face happiness and sadness and everything in between. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:40.000 God works, doesn't he, in the mundaneness of our lives. 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:45.000 I was thinking about this with someone this week, that God works in the mundane things. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:49.000 Actually, our lives are not made up of lots of really, really significant things. 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:52.000 Actually, our lives are made up of lots of mundane things. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:57.000 And God is at work in the mundane, which is brilliant because we live in the mundane. 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:02.000 That is our address in the seasons that come and go. 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:07.000 So perhaps you're in a time of grief and sadness. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:09.000 Well, those come and they go. 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:10.000 They will pass. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:12.000 Not because you will get over it. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:14.000 It will become part of your story. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:17.000 But you will face happier times. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:20.000 You know, are you in a time of joy? 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:21.000 Well, that too will pass. 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:22.000 Enjoy it. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:26.000 But don't hold on to it as if it is the only thing that's coming to you. 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:29.000 Because there is a time for everything. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:31.000 A time for everything. 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:33.000 Then comes verse 9. 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:34.000 Okay. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:39.000 And what follows really is an explanation of life in the seasons from verse 9. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:42.000 Life in the seasons. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:49.000 In verses 9 to 11, we see something of the existential crisis of the poem. 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:57.000 If life is really just a collection of all these different seasons, then it is actually kind of really dissatisfying. 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:01.000 The idea is that we're not really gaining from our toil in verse 9. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:03.000 It is a great burden. 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:07.000 What do workers gain from their toil if they are just given all these blocks? 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:10.000 Happy blocks, sad blocks, random blocks. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:13.000 What is there to gain from all of that? 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:17.000 I have seen the burden that God has laid on the human race. 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:19.000 It's a heavy burden to carry. 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:24.000 If you get out your phone and look back over your camera roll, 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:26.000 I don't know how far back you can scroll. 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:29.000 It depends how long you've had the same brand of phone, right? 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:31.000 And you can go back as far as you can go. 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:33.000 Maybe as many as 10 years. 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:36.000 And you will see a snapshot of time. 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:37.000 A moment captured. 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:39.000 And it will evoke all kinds of memories. 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:41.000 And such is life. 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:44.000 A collection of memories that seem to go nowhere ultimately. 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:47.000 And verse 11 tells you that everything is beautiful in its time. 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:50.000 That actually there is beauty and wonder in it. 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:54.000 But the pain is, end of verse 11, 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:58.000 He has also set eternity in the human heart. 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:02.000 Yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:04.000 Eternity is in our hearts. 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:07.000 So we're given these blocks of time and we long for more. 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:09.000 Is this all there is? 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:12.000 I feel like I was made for more. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:19.000 Earlier this year, I preached at the funeral of a good friend who died in his 50s from a heart attack. 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:25.000 And his four children were there and they all spoke at his funeral. 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:28.000 And they spoke of how much they missed him. 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:33.000 And one of the refrains that came through in their speeches and in the speeches of others was, 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:35.000 He was taken too soon. 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:37.000 That was the thing they kept saying. 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:38.000 It was too soon. 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:40.000 Which of course is true, right? 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:43.000 Dying in your 50s from a heart attack is very young. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:45.000 It is too soon in one sense. 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:53.000 But the misunderstanding is that it would not be about right if he died in his 90s. 00:08:53.000 --> 00:09:00.000 Because actually the fact is, verse 11, God has set eternity in our hearts. 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:02.000 Eternity is in our hearts. 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:07.000 We long for more, but our bodies are unable to keep going. 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:12.000 Our desire for life exceeds the strength of our bodies to keep living. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:15.000 And that is a burden to carry. 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:21.000 The building blocks of your life are not only too random for you to fathom or to build anything. 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:24.000 There are also too few of them to build what you want. 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:26.000 You will not get enough of them. 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:29.000 A time for this, a time for that. 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:31.000 But certainly not enough. 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:37.000 Eternity is in your hearts and you do not have enough building blocks to build what you want. 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:42.000 And so in verse 12, the writer returns to his big message, which he also repeats in verse 22. 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:44.000 Look down at verse 12. 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:50.000 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live, 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:55.000 that each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all their toil. 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:56.000 This is the gift of God. 00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:57.000 Verse 22. 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:04.000 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:08.000 For who can bring them to see what will happen after them? 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:10.000 Now, as you saw last week, it's not... 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:15.000 The writer of Ecclesiastes is not saying, listen, just eat, drink and be merry, because that's all there is. 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:18.000 You know, I think we talked a bit about that, didn't we, about different cultures that say, 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:22.000 well, listen, this is what life is, this is all you've got, so just eat, drink and be merry, 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:24.000 because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:25.000 It's not that, is it? 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:29.000 It's rather that in this short life, where nothing that we do lasts 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:32.000 and where we don't have enough building blocks to build what we want, 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:36.000 eating, drinking and working is what God has given to us to enjoy. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:41.000 And we should enjoy those things as gifts to us from him. 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:43.000 That's what verse 18 is saying. 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:45.000 When the writer says that we are like the animals, 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:50.000 he does not mean that we have no greater moral significance or spiritual significance than a beast. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:53.000 Rather, his point is that like the animals, you die. 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:57.000 So as he puts it in verse 19, the same fate awaits them both. 00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:01.000 Everything is meaningless, vaporous, because it doesn't last for long. 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:05.000 And we, like animals, are not building things that last. 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:07.000 We are dust and we return to dust. 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:10.000 In a few short years, nobody will remember us. 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:14.000 And even those who do get remembered, they don't always get remembered accurately. 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:18.000 And they, you know, they might tear down their statue in years to come. 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:23.000 And I don't think it's any great advantage to Nelson that he's standing on the top of a column in Trafalgar Square. 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:26.000 He knows nothing about it. It's of no benefit to him. 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:29.000 Verse 21 sums it up like this. 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:35.000 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth? 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:38.000 Now, the translation of that is difficult. 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:42.000 It could be a question, like the NIV puts it, or it could be a statement. 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:46.000 The human spirit rises upwards, the animal goes down. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:50.000 Which I think is more consistent with the rest of the chapter, as we'll see in a moment. 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:52.000 But the point is that people don't know that. 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:56.000 It doesn't actually make a difference to the stuff that you get now. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:03.000 Not because we're ignorant of it, but because our activity doesn't actually seem to achieve that much more than the animal. 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:08.000 The beaver might make a dam that lasts longer than they do, right? 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:13.000 But we too, we don't necessarily achieve anything or build anything that lasts. 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:15.000 We return to dust. 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:22.000 And so, verse 22, you might as well enjoy your work because this is the time to enjoy it. 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:26.000 Now, there is more to say, and we will say more in a moment. 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:30.000 But I want you with the people next to you, or person next to you, to ask this. 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:32.000 Which time are you in now? 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:36.000 Don't necessarily go into too much detail about that if you don't want to. 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:38.000 But what are the blessings of this time? 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:39.000 How is it beautiful? 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:42.000 Everything is beautiful in its time, so there's something beautiful at the time that you're in. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:45.000 And what is frustrating and a burden? 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:50.000 In what way is it wise or unwise to hope for progress in the time that you're in? 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:53.000 What are you trying to build in the time that you're in? 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:57.000 Talk to the person next to you about it, and then we'll come back and feed back. 00:12:57.000 --> 00:12:59.000 Go for it. 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:05.000 Great. Sorry to interrupt your conversations. 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:09.000 Those are like pretty deep questions to throw out and give you like two minutes to talk about. 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:13.000 Especially if you're sat next to someone you've never spoken to before as well. 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:14.000 So, well done. 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:22.000 Let me keep going, because I think we can unpick some of this in the last session. 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:25.000 So we'll not, in the last feedback bit. 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:27.000 So we'll not unpick all that at the moment. 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:33.000 But I'm hoping that you're beginning to see, to think about, God has put me in this particular time. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:37.000 There are good things about it for which I should rejoice and I should enjoy. 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:41.000 There are difficult things which I must carry as a burden. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:49.000 And also, it is in some sense foolish to try and build too much. 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:52.000 Right? It's not about what I am doing and what I am achieving. 00:13:52.000 --> 00:14:00.000 So although there is progress and I am, in one sense, hopefully laying the foundations of things that I might reap later on in life. 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:08.000 Actually, to think that I am achieving something that means that I am less than a creature of dust is a myth. 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:09.000 Okay. 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:13.000 So here's the writer's point so far that we've got to. 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:15.000 You and I live in seasons of time. 00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:18.000 Seasons, that's quite difficult to say. 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:22.000 Seasons that come and go and bring very different kinds of events. 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:26.000 They don't last long, don't last as long as we might like because eternity is in our hearts. 00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:29.000 We don't get as many as we want. 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:32.000 Our desire for eternity is frustrated by the limits of our bodies. 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:34.000 And our spirits do go up, right? 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:38.000 But like the animals, we don't take anything else with us. 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:41.000 Yeah, what we have done here, we leave behind. 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:53.000 And so the key to enjoying life is not ignoring those realities, but embracing those realities and living within them, enjoying what God has given us now as gifts from him. 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:57.000 But there's something else, I think, to see in this passage. 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:01.000 So look down at verse 14 to 17. 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:05.000 Because while we don't build, God is building. 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:07.000 I think that's the point here. 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:08.000 Verse 14. 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:13.000 I know that everything God does will endure forever. 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:18.000 Nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:22.000 God does it so that people will fear him. 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:25.000 Whatever is has already been. 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:27.000 And what will be has been before. 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:30.000 And God will call the past to account. 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:33.000 And I saw something else under the sun. 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:36.000 In the place of judgment, wickedness was there. 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:39.000 In the place of justice, wickedness was there. 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:44.000 I said to myself, God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked. 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:51.000 For there will be a time for every activity, a time to judge every deed. 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:53.000 This is part two then, really. 00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:55.000 We are given lots of blocks of time. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:58.000 Out of which we're not able to build anything that lasts. 00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:00.000 Nothing of eternal significance. 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:06.000 But God is building with those blocks something of eternal significance. 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:15.000 God is taking us with our limits and our frustrations and is building his designs in this world with people like us. 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:21.000 And that's incredible because God, in the process of doing that, will right all wrongs. 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:23.000 He will hold to account. 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:25.000 So you get in those middle verses, don't you? 00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:27.000 In the place of judgment, wickedness was there. 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.000 In the place of justice, wickedness was there. 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:34.000 The writer goes to look for justice in this world, in the places that you should find it. 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:38.000 And instead he found corruption and wickedness and evil. 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:43.000 But, he says, God will actually bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked. 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:47.000 And there will be a time for every activity and a time to judge every deed. 00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:49.000 Every wrong will be put right. 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:51.000 Every deed will be judged. 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:54.000 And what God does lasts forever. 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:55.000 We cannot add to it. 00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:57.000 We cannot take away from it. 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:00.000 And so we should fear him. 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:01.000 God does it. 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:03.000 End of verse 14. 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:08.000 God does it so that people will fear him. 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:09.000 Will fear him. 00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:10.000 It's interesting. 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:16.000 I think the idea of fearing the Lord is a bit of a theme within Ecclesiastes. 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:23.000 It seems that the key to life is to recognize the smallness of what we are doing and the bigness of what God is doing. 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:36.000 Ecclesiastes is not only trying to get you to know your frailty and the fact that you're going to die and to keep remembering that, but also remembering that God does not die. 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:38.000 And God is forever. 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:42.000 We are building with sand castles that will get washed away. 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:45.000 And he is building a kingdom that will persevere. 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:53.000 So with the person next to you, let's just finish off this and then we'll come to our closing conclusion. 00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:58.000 How does knowing God's work endure help us live in our time? 00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:00.000 Well, so go back to the time that you said you were living in. 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:03.000 How does knowing that what God is doing is going to endure? 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:06.000 How does that help you in the time that you're in? 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:10.000 And how does remembering your mortality help you live well now? 00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:12.000 So it's those two things, yeah? 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:17.000 Your mortality and God's enduring immortality of his works. 00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:20.000 How does that help you in the moment you're in? 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:22.000 Go for it just for a minute or two. 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:29.000 Okay, I'm on a promise to finish by half past seven. 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:31.000 So let's have some feedback from you. 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:37.000 Oh, that clock's a minute fast, so I've gained a minute. 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:38.000 Okay. 00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:41.000 Any thoughts? 00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:46.000 How does knowing God's works endure help you live in your time well? 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:49.000 That's a really badly phrased question, isn't it? 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:51.000 The grammar of that is poor, sorry. 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:58.000 Anybody, did anybody talk about anything helpful? 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:02.000 Which one? 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:03.000 Yes! 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:09.000 Of the 15 things I said, Jamal, which was... 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:11.000 One thing I said. 00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:13.000 I don't know, I've got one. 00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:14.000 About the... 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:20.000 I think I just said something about like actually everything 00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:22.000 what we're going to do with all the moments of my day. 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:26.000 Because I'm not going to do with that, but actually what we're going to do with all that. 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:27.000 Yeah. 00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:30.000 Where can you spend, and that will be the same thing? 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:31.000 Yes. 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:33.000 That's really helpful, isn't it? 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:41.000 I'm going to say, I'm going to say this, that it helps me deal not just with my successes and seeing them in the limited way that they are. 00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:43.000 It also helps me deal with my weakness. 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:49.000 Because my weakness is not the defining thing either, because it doesn't last, is it? 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:50.000 Yeah, that's really helpful. 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:51.000 Yeah. 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:52.000 Yeah. 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:53.000 Yeah. 00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:58.000 We just really greatly said about living in the light of the judgment to come. 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:08.000 And also the phrase came up, like, if everything's in God's hands, then we can trust Him, and we can work everything for our good. 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:09.000 Yeah. 00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:10.000 Yeah. 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:11.000 Yeah. 00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:13.000 Living in the light of judgment to come. 00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:16.000 We can trust the God who's working all things for our good. 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:17.000 Yeah. 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:21.000 It's massively liberating, isn't it? 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:31.000 Like, I don't, maybe, maybe you don't find it liberating, but I just think to think that God has put me in the place that He's put me for the time that He's put me there to live for His glory as best as I'm able. 00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:40.000 Knowing that I'm not actually able to do my best all the time because I, you know, I'm not capable of, you know, of doing that all the time. 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:45.000 But that it doesn't matter because I'm not actually building anything. 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:47.000 I'm trusting the God who is building something. 00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:53.000 That's massively liberating, particularly in a, you know, where everybody is trying to build something, aren't they? 00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:56.000 And they're trying to put together the blocks of their career in order to do what? 00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:05.000 You know, actually, you know, if the Lord blesses you with a career that you seem to climb up, praise the Lord, enjoy it, right? 00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:10.000 But whatever you do, make sure that you're knowing the Lord through it. 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:17.000 Because actually knowing God, fearing God, that's actually the key to enjoying life, isn't it? 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:21.000 You will not enjoy the progression of your career unless you know God in the midst of it. 00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:25.000 And fearing God in the midst of it is really, really important. 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:27.000 Anybody else? 00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:36.000 So, I don't know what Grace was saying about that, being like the prior, you know, that thinking that was simple to be able to be like our small world. 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:50.000 So, in knowing that actually, it doesn't really matter what we do as long as people can see the Lord through us and come to see him, yeah. 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:52.000 We're building with sandcastles, aren't we? 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:54.000 You know, they're going to get washed away. 00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:55.000 Yeah. 00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:56.000 Yeah. 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:59.000 Let me finish with an illustration. 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:01.000 I'm going to tell you a little story. 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:07.000 So, CT Studd, if you've never heard of him, I've put his picture on the back of your handout. 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:11.000 I couldn't help but edit it with chat to you, PT. 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:16.000 So, I put a copy of Ecclesiastes in his hand and made him have a confused look on his face. 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:20.000 Anyway, CT Studd was one of the original Cambridge Seven. 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.000 The Cambridge Seven were seven young men with Cambridge connections. 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:27.000 They weren't all at the university, but they were in the town. 00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:34.000 Who, in the 1880s, went to China to join Hudson Taylor's China Inland Mission. 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:37.000 And Studd was probably the most famous among them. 00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:42.000 Not least because, at the time, he was one of England's best cricket players. 00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:47.000 He famously played in the team that lost to the Aussies at the Oval in 1882. 00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:54.000 And they then came up with the Ashes because the Aussies wrote in the newspaper that it was the death of English cricket 00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:56.000 because they were so good and England was so rubbish. 00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:59.000 And so, then they've played for the Ashes ever since. 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:05.000 And like most sportsmen, CT Studd was massively driven. 00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.000 One biography I have which touches on him is of the Cambridge movement, 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:12.000 which is really about the student Christian movement. 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:14.000 It says this of CT Studd. 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:19.000 Studd's chief natural characteristic was thoroughness. 00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:25.000 He had become an outstanding cricketer more by thoroughness than by native genius. 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:30.000 And the devotedness which had kept him, hours before the mirror practising, a straight bat, 00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:33.000 was transferred to his spiritual ambitions. 00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:35.000 Half measures were repugnant to him. 00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:43.000 His mind worked in a broad, simple sweeps, making him, at whatever he set his hand, utterly single-minded. 00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:48.000 And so, that sort of sporting attitude he applied to his missionary work. 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:56.000 And he started by giving away, I think at least most of his inheritance as he set out on this new venture to China. 00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:01.000 Sadly, his missionary endeavours were not as straightforward as batting for England. 00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:04.000 And ill health forced him to return from China. 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:07.000 And then he went instead to India. 00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:11.000 And then ill health forced him back to England from India. 00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:17.000 He then went to Africa, specifically the Belgian Congo, where he spent the last 20 years of his life. 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:22.000 The Biographical Dictionary of Christian Mission says this about those years. 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:23.000 It says, 00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:35.000 Another biographer in the Evangelical Times wrote this. 00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:45.000 His wife, who remained in England throughout his tenure in Africa, except for a loan visit in 1928, died in 1929. 00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:47.000 Another biographer in the Evangelical Times wrote this. 00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:57.000 His wife, suffering with asthma and a heart condition, pleaded with him not to go, that is to the Belgian Congo, as had his mother earlier in his life. 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:01.000 But neither this nor the opinion of his daughters weakened his resolve. 00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:08.000 If they had known the separation would be for two years, and then for eleven more, their distress would have been even greater. 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:12.000 Now, listen, I don't know C.T. Studd's story well enough to comment on all of that. 00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:15.000 But I think very few people today would recommend his lifestyle. 00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:17.000 I don't think many do. 00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:20.000 But C.T. Studd captured his attitude in a poem. 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:21.000 It's very long. 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:22.000 I'm not going to read it all. 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:23.000 But it has this bit in it. 00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:25.000 I think it's on your handout. 00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:33.000 Two little lines I heard one day, traveling along life's busy way, bringing conviction to my heart, and from my mind would not depart. 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:35.000 And then it has this refrain, which goes throughout the poem. 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:37.000 Only one life will soon be passed. 00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:39.000 Only what's done for Christ will last. 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:47.000 Now, I was thinking this week, I wonder the sort of ecclesiastes-ness of that verse. 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:48.000 Right? 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:50.000 So, I think in one sense he's right, isn't he? 00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:52.000 Only one life will soon be passed. 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:54.000 That's the poem, isn't it? 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:55.000 Life and death. 00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:57.000 We don't last for very long. 00:25:57.000 --> 00:25:59.000 It is soon gone. 00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:01.000 Only what's done for Christ will last. 00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:05.000 Well, I think he's trying to capture this idea that actually it is God who is building stuff. 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:08.000 God does stuff which endures forever. 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:11.000 But I'm not quite sure that he captures it quite right. 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:16.000 I think Ecclesiastes 3 would write that chorus like this. 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:18.000 Only one life will soon be passed. 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:22.000 Only what Christ does will truly last. 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:33.000 This is, I think, the point with some of the sort of our overzealous, or the overzealousness of CT Studd maybe if I could put it like that. 00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:42.000 It's because we just sort of baptize a worldly ambition and think if we put Christian over it, it's somehow okay. 00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:55.000 But actually what we need to understand, even in Christian ministry, even in our work for the Lord, even in church ministry, actually it's what God is doing through us that lasts. 00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:58.000 Not what we are building that will last. 00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:00.000 And that is wonderfully liberating. 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:08.000 Because if you read Ecclesiastes 3 and go, okay, that means that God's not really interested in my nine to five. 00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:12.000 He's really interested in the work I do in church because that's where I'm building something that will last. 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:18.000 Then you'll end up with an exhausting version of the Christian life, which is not what Ecclesiastes is trying to aim for. 00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:23.000 Ecclesiastes is saying, listen, you live in a world where God is building and he's given you everything to enjoy. 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:25.000 Enjoy it. 00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:26.000 Fear him. 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:27.000 Trust him. 00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:32.000 Live your life knowing him and he will build his kingdom. 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:35.000 Let me pray. 00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:36.000 So close. 00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:45.000 Heavenly Father, how we thank you that you know what you're doing, because honestly we don't. 00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:50.000 And Lord, we feel the frailty of the work of our own hands. 00:27:50.000 --> 00:28:00.000 And we feel how unable we are to understand everything or to concentrate properly on anything or to achieve the things that we want to achieve. 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:05.000 And tomorrow morning we'll have a job list and we'll have the same job list at the end of the day. 00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.000 And Lord, thank you that that's not you, but that's us. 00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:16.000 And so help us to embrace our humanity the way that you've made us and to keep our eyes on you and what you're achieving. 00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:19.000 That we would enjoy what you've given us now. 00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:22.000 That we'd live lives to your praise and your glory. 00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:30.000 And that we would love you because we know that we have a part in what you're doing by your grace and your mercy in Jesus. 00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:31.000 As we pray in his name. 00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:32.000 Amen. 00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:33.000 Amen. 00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:34.000 Amen. 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:35.000 Amen.