Finding Purpose and Meaning in Life: Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Here we are. We are back. The Bible Guys are back in the house. The Bible Guys plus. One minus bar Ba. Chris Sarba is out this week. But you and I are holding down the fort and I have the inimitable Wesley Woods with us. Yes, I am here. That's fantastic. So I'm so glad you're here. It's a day after Christmas and we're all still kind of reeling. Hopefully you got all the wrapping paper out of the place and you haven't eaten all of the bad scene. I think they're still full. Yeah, exactly. Well, so today we have a segment called Guess the Word. Okay, and so if you've ever played like taboo or one of those games, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you clues. Okay, if you can guess the keyword. There's one word I'm trying to get you to get. But I have five words I'm not allowed to say. Okay, that would really make it easy. Okay, all right, here we go. Okay, so the first one is this this time of year has thirty one days and it's the time of the year. We're in the winter. No season, Nope, it's followed by January. February no, followed by January. January comes after. It, December. There you go in December. I wasn't allowed to say cold Christmas, winter month, or November. I'm thinking, like winter, are you yep? Okay, good job. Okay, so you got December there. So the second one would be you build it out in the yard with your kids. So yeah, there you go, snowman, very very good. Okay, oh my goodness. You want Santa to fill it with all kinds of stocking. There you go stocking. I wasn't allowed to say, oh, snowman. I wasn't allowed to say snow, frosty, abominable, carrot, or olaf. Okay, yeah, But as soon as you said build it outside, I'm like, it's got to be a yeah. And then stocking. I wasn't allowed to say fireplace, chimney, hang socks, or feet okay, okay. The next one is the one up front who helped Santa sleigh. Oh I said sligh. I wasn't allowed to say sleigh, but yeah, I read. No, you didn't say slay help Santa. Yeah I know, but I said slagh. So our listeners get fifty thousand points. But when I tell you there, so those of you that have been listening for a while, you should be gaining some big points. I wasn't allowed to say red nose, reindeer, sleigh or bright man. And then uh, it's probably in your living room with lights Christmas tree. Yes, okay, but that's not the word. But now that you've said tree, it's a certain color, and we say it it lasts for a long time. So that's what's the color of your tree? Green? Okay, what's the word that comes before green that references those kind of trees? Oh, it references those kinds of trees, lasts a long time, A real tree, A something green? Oh, something green. Oh you know our listeners are screaming at hollered and throwing stuff. It's evergreen. Yeah, evergreen there during the pine cones and everything. Evergreen is the word we were looking for, so tree, needles, winter, plant, and pine. So once you said tree, I could use tree, but before that I couldn't. So yeah, all right, well, hey, well I guess that mean all our listeners got fifty thousand points for that one too. Yeah, so some of you came away with a one hundred thousand points to day. Congratulations to you. Yeah, we're so proud of you, and I'm feeling particularly generous. Usually zar Ball only wants to give like a thousand points. Oh so this is like extra Christmas. This is day after Christmas. You got to be spreading Christmas cheer, just blowing the points. We got a bunch of extra points. Yeah, because our bus been so greedy with them all year. Yeah, we've got a bunch of them. We got to get rid of them for the end of the year. They's watching right now. He can't even say anything. That's right, that's right. That's tough. Well we are today talking about how there's a season for everything. Yes, and there's a famous song by the Birds called what Wesley. I can sing it? Yeah, go ahead, do everything turn. Yeah, that's all you get. That's it, turn Turn Turned by the Birds. Yeah. Is quoting this passage from the Bible, right, So nineteen sixty five top chart topper, Yeah, was quoting Ecclesiastes chapter three, And that was your Christmas gift to our listener. Yes, it can't give you anything better. You love them so much you sang for them. It's just like zar ball. Yeah, right, So he loves to sing for people. He loves the tap dance and ice skate and all this kind of thing. Do it all he can't. Yeah, he should have been a one of the people on Broadway. He should have been like in a player. Yea a Broadway actor. Yes, that's what he should have been. So anyways, we are in Ecclesiastes chapter three. If you haven't read Ecclesiastes chapter two, you should. He talks about the futility of pleasure. He talks about the fact that being wise you're not going to last any longer than being a fool being. He talks about the futility of work. He's put his hands to work and while it's satisfying, sometimes it doesn't fulfill and so he's struggling with that. But then you finally get to Ecclesiastes chapter three, and he says, for everything there is a season, a time for every activity under the sun under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to harvest, a time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones, a time to embrace and time to turn away. A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, A time for war and a time for peace. What do people really get for all their hard work? I've seen the burden God is placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart. But even so people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end. So I conclude that there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of the labor, for these are gifts from God. And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God's purposes that people should fear him. What is happening now has happened before. It will happen in the future as it has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again. Yeah that's good. Okay. It's kind of similar to what we talked about in previous days in terms of there being nothing new under the sun. Yeah. So as you would read the Book of Proverbs and go, hey, these are all good things, I should apply my life the Book of Ecclesiastes. Until you get to the very end, I would say, there's interesting thoughts there, but you wouldn't want to build your life around the Book of Ecclesiastes because you've got this guy who's kind of spiraling. Yeah, he has good moments and bad moments, and good moments and bad moments through the whole book. So he has moments where he's like, man, God is good. We should enjoy life, and everything He's given to us is a blessing. And then I'm miserable and God just keeps doing stuff over and over again, and there's no hope, and he flips back and forth, back and forth. So I would say, you don't take the Book of Ecclesiastes as advice for life. Always like you would the Book of Proverbs, you take it rather as an understanding of the futility of a life that winds up being wasted, right, And so you see him kind of spiraling here. But he has some really great phrases in chapter three, in particularly a time for everything. Yeah yeah, I like verse three, especially as we're moving into a brand new year, A time to kill and a time to heal. When I read that, I immediately thought of, what are some things that we need to kill in our own lives? Oh yeah, and not carry into twenty twenty five. So there are some probably some habits, There are probably some thing there could even be jeff, some bad relationships, right, we need to sever So don't kill the person. I'm not advocating that, but I'm saying. Necessarily yeah, no, I'm joking, that's not. But there's some relationships where God has kind of been nudging us that this relationship isn't and he's healthy, it needs to come to an end, but we keep kind of dragging it along like a dead mule, and God is saying it's time to cut the cord on that one. So yeah, I just kind of think about that as in January. A lot of times people think of new things, new goals, new habits. What are some things that we need to leave in twenty twenty four, Yes, and not carry into twenty five. That's right. So it's interesting each of these seem to have most of them have a negative and a positive. Yeah, there's a time to be born. There's a time to die. None of us want to die, yeah, you know, but. We want to prolong the living part as long as we can. Life has there's a cycle right to life in general. There's a time to cry, a time to laugh. We don't want to cry, we want to laugh. Yeah, there's a time to embrace and a time to turn away. None of us want to leave, you know, the people we love. But there's times when you have to. And so, you know, I think of this passage a lot. Chris makes fun of me sometimes, My wife makes fun of me all the time time about this phrase that I really believe, duties never conflict. I've mentioned this on the podcast before. Duties never conflict. And this is one of those passages. There is a time when I have to turn away. I don't want to leave, I want to keep embracing. But I do have to because the duty that's pulling me away is greater than this desire to stay in the moment. I have to go do this thing. And so, you know, Solomon is kind of saying that there's a priority to life. There's a rhythm to life. There are things sometimes you have to do, the things that are hard, or the things you don't want to do. It's not always pleasure. It goes back and forth. You know, you plan your harvest and that so again life application study Bible. You should grab one Ecclesiasts, chapter three, verse one through eight. The notes say timing is important. I love that. That's really a great lesson where timing is important. It's possible to do the right thing at the wrong time and wind up getting the wrong results. Yeah that's true. Right, So you can do the right thing the wrong way and get the wrong results. You can do the right thing with the wrong attitude and get the wrong results. So timing and doing things the right way at the right time with the right attitude are incredibly important. So when God says do it, then yeah, yeah, So all the experiences listed in these verses are appropriate at certain times. The secret to peace with God is to discover, accept, and appreciate God's perfect timing. The danger is to doubt or resent God's timing. This can lead to despair, rebellion, or moving ahead without his advice. So I recently had a conversation with somebody who was pretty angry at God, saying, I've done these things, and I don't feel like God's keeping his end of the bargain. And I said, I think that you know you have a right to say, God, I've done all these things. I'm looking forward to you keeping under the bargain. But getting resentful at him or being mad at him, I said, he has not yet done what you believe he should do. But timing is important. So trusting God's timing is as much about your faith as the fact that you've chosen to do the right thing. So the one area of your faith, even though you've done the right thing in all these areas, the area you're being tested in is in the very area that is most important, That is learning to trust God and his timing. So it's not that it's never going and I was trying to encourage this person, It's not that it's never going to happen has not yet happened. So it's fair to say, God, I want to please you, show me what you're teaching me. Right, that's it. You've pleased him in all these other areas, and now this one hang up getting you're getting bitter towards God. And I can understand that. I've had times in my life where I felt like I waited too long, and then when God shows up, it was exactly right. It was perfect. His timing was perfect. I was frustrated for a while, but his timing was perfect. The more you see God do that in your life, the more confidence you get that, Okay, I'm going to go ahead, and this is a tough time, but he's making me stronger. I'm becoming better. I'm more dependent on him. When I am weak, he is strong. And then God shows up up and does exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, and you go, whow, I'm glad there was no other answers. Yeah one right. Well, here's a funny thing, Jeff. Sometimes we will get angry at God for not giving us something, and we don't even have the capacity to handle the thing that we're asking God for. We think we are right we think, oh, God, give me this, give me the I can handle it, and God is saying you can't. There's some maturity that needs to take place before you receive that. So yeah, I think there's a little component of that where God the delay isn't due to God's inability. Oftentimes the delay has to do with us, right, It's not God has the issue. So then he goes on and he talks about, you know, what do people really get for all their hard work? And he's kind of grumbling about, man, I've just been busting my tail and I just I don't know. Your ability to find satisfaction in your work depends on to a large extent, upon your attitude. You will become dissatisfied if you lose the sense of purpose God intended for your work. We can enjoy our work if we remember that God has given us work to do, and to realize that the fruit of our labor is a gift from Him. Right, So you have to see your work as a way to serve God. So we have a musician that is a volunteer. He's a successful jeweler and has a good partnership, a good business, all those kinds of things. So we're coming into this Christmas season. We were going to host what twenty two services at Heritage Church, our Sterling Heights campus was going to host fourteen. Originally we were only going to do twelve, but then we had so many tickets disappearing. We have to do tickets. They're free. We have to do tickets in order to know how many people are going to show up because it's just we don't enough seats, and so we only have seven, nine and fifty seats, and you know, we have thousands, about thousands, about thousands people come at Christmas, so we use the ticket things. Well, then we realize we need to add two more services. So our worship pastor goes to some of the volunteer musicians and he says to this one musician specifically, hey, listen, we had to add two more and I know it's a really busy season for you too, so I'll go find another person to take your place. I don't want you to feel obligated. And this guy turned to him like kind of shocked and frustrating. He said, I think you think that my whole life mission is to be a jeweler. And he said, being a jeweler is what funds my ministry? Whow right? Not everybody can get paid for ministry, he said, me being able to serve God and God's people with the gifts He's given me is the most important thing. Being a jeweler is satisfying in that it helps me be able to pay for the bills so that I can do ministry right. And what a great way to view it. If you begin to realize that the work God gave you, you might feel like, you know what, I'm a shoe salesman, What good does it do shoes wear out? Right? But if you could see it instead to say, God gave me this ability to make money with selling shoes. I'm going to do the best I can so that I can have the most impactful ministry right because and then go find your purpose in ministry. Go find the thing that God would have you do serving God, serving his people, And then understand that the job that you have through the week might be simply to pay the bills so that you have a roof over your head, food in your belly, a vehicle that can move you around, some clothes on your body, so that you can go and do the ministry that He has designed for you, and what a great perspective. And this is kind of the frustration he has, is he is struggling understanding what is the purpose of my work? Yeah, and you know, my friend who's this musician, says, the purpose of my work is to be able to fund the fact that I get to do ministry. Now, Jeff, what would you say to the person who says, you know, I love that story, but I don't know where I fit in. I don't know what Should they just dive in somewhere serve for a while, see, Like, what advice would you give that? Yes, first of all, you know, I would recommend understanding that God has given you. He shaped you for ministry. Rick Warren kind of famous for that statement. Right shape shape, He gave you spiritual gifts. Discover what your spiritual gifts are. Talk to your pastor, talk to a faith leader, talk to somebody and say, help me discover my spiritual gifts. And then he gave you a specific heart. There are things that you love that other people don't love as much as you. Right, Maybe you love serving orphans, or maybe you love helping start new churches, or maybe you love hospitality, or maybe you love caring for people who are struggling in the moment. Right, God has given you a heart that he hasn't given everybody else, and so that's unique. He's given you certain abilities in your life. You know, for you, you've got this great radio voice. You've got this great ability to communicates. It may not be the thing you love all the time, but you do such a good job presenting and communicating. Matter of fact, a lot of times you wind up being a spokesperson for here to church. You've been on all the TV channels that they haven't you recently, Yeah, the mall across the streets closing and they gave us a bunch of stuff equipment out of the mall, and so you wind up being kind of the spokesperson. You kind of have this great presence that way. God gives you. That's an ability he gave you as opposed to me. A lot of times, I want to know in front of the camera, it's just not my gift. So He's given you abilities like that. Other people. It might be the ability, you know, for me working in the nursery or whatever. My grandkids are over and all of a sudden, I realize the diaper needs to be changed and I'm like, oh, no, I know, I know technically how to do it functionally, it's just it's a mess. Next thing, you know, I'm tangled up cover and tape powders all over the room and it's. Just just a full on disaster. Right, That ability is not great. But there's others change diapers. Are not even thinking about it, right, it's just my mom. Just I have friends that are so amazing with power tools and constructing a thing. I just had a friend walk through our house and I'm needing to build a shower and he goes, oh, this is all you have to. Do blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, all you have to do that sounds like building the pyramids, But to him it just makes sense. He just does stuff all time that way. So you have abilities, So you have spiritual gifts. Discover what they are. You have a specific heart that there's things that you love or care about more than others. God's given you certain abilities that you can do that are just natural to you. You don't think they're a big deal because you're good at them. And I look at those same abilities good point and I'm like that's amazing. I see somebody here a ticket an engine, go, oh, I know what that is. Take it apart. Rebuilding is done in an afternoon. I'm telling you, if I took that engine apart, it would never get put back together. Never. Never. But for me to get up and speak in front of ten thousand people on a weekend, no big deal. Right, Whereas you would die, you know not you You are also great speaking of other people would die if they had to get up in front of a crowd. Right, It's just we have and so it's just natural. It's a natural thing. So abilities personality, your personality maybe is extroverted or introverted. You tend to be a positive thinker or a negative thinker. Maybe you see the potential in things or the potential dangers. You have a unique personality, right, And they've identified somewhere between sixteen and thirty two different kinds of nuanced personality types. And it's unique to you. And then your experiences, your experiences, the things that you've done. My daughter the other day was talking, she was chit chatting with some friends and she was talking about a flight. They were talking about turbulence while they were flying, and my daughter goes, oh, yeah, one time my dad and I we were flying to a meeting at the White House and we had horrible turbulence whatever whatever, whatever in what you went to a meeting at the White House. Yeah, And so that experience for my daughter is unique. How many of her friends have been at a briefing at the White House? Right, that's an experience that's unique. Or when she went to Togo with me or whatever. She's had all these really unique experiences that are only for her only. She's had her combination of experiences, and so it's built her up to this point in her life. And you too, you've had unique experiences that are unique to you. And so the positive experiences you can learn from, but the negative experiences really form us and shape us. And so God will never waste your hurts. He never will. And so when you take those things, your spiritual gifts, your heart, your abilities that are unique to you, your personality that's unique to you, and your experiences, your good ones and the bad ones. Those shape you to do certain things in the Kingdom of God that are unique to you. That's how you begin to find your purpose. And so for me, my spiritual gifts tend to be have an apostolic gift. I start new ministries and new things and plow into unengaged places or unreached places and people. That's one of them. I also have wisdom and discernment show up often in any of the spiritual gifts tests that I take, and leadership evangelism would be the fifth one. Those ones always show up in there, and so it's not a surprise to me that I'm the chairman of the board of the organization one of the largest church planning movements in the world. It's not the only, but it's one of them in the world. That I pastor church spend a lot of time on stage teaching the Bible and counseling people with what wisdom those things make sense to me. Then my heart is I really care that people know God and know God's word and benefit in this life a better life by applying His words and having assurance of salvation and eternity through Jesus Christ. Right, So this. Evangelism thing, these abilities is really important to me. My personality is on stage, I'm more of an extrovert, but maybe personally I'm a little bit more of an extrovert. I'm more of a thinker, that kind of thing. Intro strategy, introvert, I'm sorry, introvert, more of a strategist. I would rather have a intimate friendship conversation with you know, two or three couples with my wife than to be walking through massive crowds all the time, you know, the kind of thing. And so I wind up doing better in smaller groups than in larger groups, except when I'm teaching. And then my experiences have been I've been a part of some very very small churches. I've been a part of one of the largest churches in America. I've seen, you know, thousands and thousands of people come to faith in Christ in other ministries, and I've been a part of it in our ministry. And those experiences, along with all of the intercultural stuff working in the Muslim majority world, those things, those have all shaped kind of the direction of my life. And then I just looked for ministry opportunities in those areas. And I think that's the key point, Jeff, because I think that's where people get hung up sometimes in that because they don't necessarily know which direction to go, they do nothing. So I would say experience the adventures in life happen with yes, Yeah, they never happen with no. So when you have an opportunity and you think you know what my heart is. I really care about moms and I care about young children, and my spiritual gift seems to be this mercy serving kind of a gift. And my abilities are that I've got some background and raising kids and do those things. And my personality is that I love being serving other people and out in front, or maybe I love being behind the scenes and just make sure details get done. My experiences are that I already have some skills in this thing. Hey, I see at Heritage Church, for instance, there's an opportunity in the nurseries. I'd love to jump in and just serve moms who are struggling that week and serve their little babies and their little kids or whatever. Maybe and then you test drive it and then you go ooh, that's not my deal. What I see instead is the administrative side of serving families. I'd like to get over in the minute and test drive, test drive things. When an opportunity comes up, say yes, test drive it for a while, see if it works. Do you have the skill set? Are there skills you need? To develop and then go try another thing, and try another thing, but don't give up. What Solomon is saying is my work was only for me, and it feels like it's no purpose. And I'm telling you, when you find purpose in the work you're doing, it's almost always because you're making a difference in other people's lives and you're fulfilling God's purposes in the world around you. Yeah, no, that's awesome. Well, good Wesley, thank you for joining us today. And I hope as people are heading towards the new year, that this would be an inspiration that you would do the work. Sit down with a piece of paper, write out your shape in those five areas. It begins searching, God, what is it that you want me to do different or more or new in twenty twenty five that I haven't been doing in twenty twenty five? That's good? All right? Well, God bless you, and thank you for joining us today. We'll see you tomorrow on the Bible. Guys,