Under the Sun / Week 3

Everything is Beautiful in its Time

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

July 17, 2022

I.Introduction:

A. I had a very unusual experience with the passage we will

look at today in Ecclesiastes 3. Please turn. For three days God

kept drawing me back and opening new things to me. On the third

day, he kept showing me more and more to the point where I said

something I never said to God before. “God could you please stop,

I really need to get some work done!”

1. I feel a deep sense of inadequacy with my finite mind to

try to package into a sermon a passage that is loaded with

infinite truths and some of the biggest questions that many

of us ask ourselves along the way of life.

2. I may raise more questions than I answer but I trust I will

be sending you down the right path to think about them.

B. We are going to see three major things all intersect in this

passage – God and His sovereignty, time and eternity, and man’s

activities here on earth. As Solomon wrestled with these three, he

is going to ask a question that many of us have asked before.

C. Let me do a quick side bar on God’s sovereignty, as it is key

in this passage and throughout the book!

1. Sovereignty –it simply means that God has the right and

power to do whatever He pleases and He orders

everything, controls everything, rules over everything

according to His will in both heaven and here on earth!

a. When you balance that out with Scripture we see two

tensions to this truth

1. One God does not do or tempt anyone to evil –

therefore God is not the cause or responsible for

evil.

2. Romans 9-11 teaches us that while God is fully

sovereign in His choices man is fully responsible

for his choices.

2. When you ask me how do I fit together all the pieces of

God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility and

accountability for his choices I respond like Paul did after

three chapters of talking about this very thing.

. Read Romans 11:33-36

a. This infinite truth should lead our finite minds and

hearts to worship God rather than figure Him out and

put Him in a box!

• So, in light of these balancing truths, we are going to learn some

key truths about God’s sovereignty this morning. Let’s jump

right in the text …

II. Ecclesiastes 3:1-9

A. The structure of this passage is simple

1. V1 he states the truth

2. V2-8 he illustrates the truth

3. V9 he asks the big question that comes out of this truth

B. Read v1

1. By the way, in these few verses we are going to see the

word “time” 30 times. Gives us a little hint about what

this passage is about

2. Two different Hebrew words for time in v1 – the first has

to do with a specific appointed time, the second has to do

with time in general.

3. In the context of this chapter, we will see that God is the

one who puts all these times on His master calendar in

heaven. He has set up specific appointed times for

everything here on earth long before they ever happen.

4. Verse 1 covers from the universal whole – everything in

life to the specific parts – each individual event that

happens on earth.

C. V2-8 is reinforcing and illustrating the truth, we learned

v1.

1. These fourteen sets of opposites are called a merism. A

merism is a figure of speech that is used of polar opposites

to suggest the totality of everything in between them.

a. V2 simply that means he starts us off by showing

us that God appoints everything from birth till

death. Read 2a.

b. The rest of the verses just flesh it out for us

further. Read 2b-8

D. Now we come to the big question that Solomon asked and we

often ask when we are faced with this truth, that God arranges the

events of our life.

1. Read v9

2. We need to keep this question in the context of what came

before it in V1-8.

3. So what he is asking is this “what value does anything I do

have if God is sovereign, in control over everything?”

4. We should not take this as a cry of futility but an honest

question in light of God’s sovereignty.

• The answer to this question is in

III. Ecclesiastes 3:9-15

A. Read v10.

1. Now the answer I would have expected in light of the

repeated phrase of the rest of this book is this “all man’s

works is vanity, like chasing after the wind.”

2. But he does not answer it that way – instead he says this -

read v10-11

B. We see three major things in this verse.

1. God has made everything, yes, even all the things in V2-8

beautiful and appropriate in God’s appointed time. Reread

11a

2. Secondly, God has set eternity within our heart (that is the

deep-down yearning within us that wants to understand all

the big questions of life), but the problem is that we cannot

discover what God is doing

3. Note what he cannot discover what God is doing from the

beginning even to the end. That is the big plan of God that

expands beyond my life, my time and this world into

eternity

C. Let me try to illustrate this. We see and know only a

very, very small, small piece of the tapestry that we

experience and we only see the back side so things just do not

make sense to us! Especially some of the hard and ugly

things in our lives and this world!

1. But God’s purposes expand beyond my life, my

experience, my time, this world’s history into eternity past

and future.

2. Our little finite minds cannot understand our specific

events in light of God’s big plan

3. Try to illustrate this with the stage and to infinity on both

sides. God’s time and mind and our finite time and minds

at one small point.

a. To properly understand what God is doing we

need to be able to understand what He is doing from

eternity past and future

D. Let me add one more thought about God’s sovereign working

in our lives and this world!

1. Read v14

2. Simply what he is saying that in light of this big sovereign

plan of God, everything He does is permanent (everything

God does will remain forever) and perfect (nothing to add

to it and there is nothing to take from it)

E. Now summarize the three everythings of Ecclesiastes 3

1. V1 - everything is according to God’s appointed time

2. V11 everything is beautiful in that appointed time

3. V14 everything God does is permanent and perfect!

4. So that ……. fear Him

. Sounds like the same conclusion that Paul came to

in Romans 11 after three chapters of wrestling with

these same truths!

a. Do not try to figure out God or what He is doing

just worship Him! –

1. A bit later in the series, I will show how fear and

worship are connected!

• There are a few

IV. Take aways for us

A. First, your activities/work/efforts here on earth are not futile

but rather they are God instruments for accomplishing His eternal

beautiful plan

1. Tie v1-8 to v10 – the task God has given …

2. Verse 12-13 see good in his work

3. Part of the good that man can see in his work is that God is

using what he does to accomplish His big eternal and

beautiful plan!

B. When we allow the truths of Ecclesiastes 3 to become the

northern point on the compass by which we navigate the activities

and events of our lives, we regain our bearings and it gives a

completely new perspective and attitude to our lives.

1. In many ways, this verse seems to me to be the Old

Testament equivalent to the New Testament passage many

of us claim repeatedly. Romans 8:28-29

C. Once in a while God gives us a small window into what He is

doing. I was impressed with this truth on Mother’s Day when

Cathy Clarke was sharing with us about the loss of their son Kevin

in the war

1. Hearing the amazing timing of the morning Kevin went

out to his last battle before he went out he turning in an

assignment where he recorded a very strong and clear

testimony of his faith in Jesus Christ as his savior

2. Then for Phil and Cathy to receive word from one Kevin’s

superiors that the testimony was read to the company and

eventually spread through the United States Marines

websites.

3. We have no idea how many seeds were planted by that

…how many lives have been touched – how many

marriages, how many families, children. And how many

of those who have been impacted by it have impacted

others.

4. We can add to that how I have heard from some after that

message how God used Cathy’s message and sharing the

process she went through in being radically honest with

God has helped free them up from things they were

struggling with.

V. Prayerful reflection question for us

. Think for a moment of one very difficult event in your life,

one that caused you great pain or you just cannot understand why

or what that was all about.

1. Consider when you tell others about that event or when

you think about it; what does the way you tell it or think

about it say about the way you interpret that event?

a. Example: “the day God ripped me off?” “an unfair event”

“betrayal by a friend”

b. Take a moment to consider and title it from your perspective.

2. When you consider the title, you gave that event; on a

scale of 1-10 how in line would your title be to the truths,

we learned today in Ecclesiastes 3 and Romans

8:28. Give yourself a score 1-10

3. If you were to put a new title on that chapter of your life,

even though the original title may be true, this one tells the

larger story in light of the truths we learned today in

Ecclesiastes 3 and Romans 8:28.

. I want to encourage/challenge you that when you think or

talk about that event in your life to begin to tell it from the

perspective of the larger story title!

a. Take a moment give that new title.

A. Josh ….