The Myth of Time Management

Transcript

Good morning, family. If you’d please turn with me and your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 3. I’m going to read and then we’ll dive into our text. 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 all his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man 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 perceive 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 and that which is to be already has been and God seeks what has been driven away. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, as we open up your word, we do pray that you would give us the help of the Holy Spirit. We pray that you would instruct us this morning and through your divinely inspired word, correct our thinking and align our hearts to our great God and King who exercises all authority in heaven and on earth. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen. Well, last week, we looked at a pretty big portion of text. I promise our text is smaller today. What we saw from the middle of chapter one all the way to the end of chapter two was the Kohelet’s exploration of experience. In that section, the Kohelet was aiming to show us

The Myth of Time Management

that meaning and satisfaction can’t be found in our pursuits of pleasure, projects, possessions, nor can they be found in wisdom, work, and wealth. And the reason why is because although those things are good gifts from God and designed for our enjoyment, they can’t ultimately satisfy our deepest longing for meaning because they’re hevel, meaning they’re momentary. And recognizing the transient nature of these pursuits, the Kohelet now turns his attention to the very thing that makes those things momentary. Time. The Kohelet is incredibly perceptive. He understands the human heart and knows that if we can’t find meaning in momentary things, we’ll just try to control the moments themselves to create meaning. And that’s what we’ll see in our text this morning through this section that many of you will recognize for its poetic nature concerning time. Now you might be wondering, if Ecclesiastes aims to show us our quests for meaning to be, you know, futile under the sun, why does the Kohelet explore time?

What does time have to do with living under the sun? Furthermore, what does time have to do with meaning or purpose? Well, family, it has everything to do with it because you see one of the ways humans pursue meaning under the sun is through our management of time. And of course, what’s underneath the management of time is the attempt to create or control our destinies. In other words, if we can better manage our time, we believe we can better control our future, which ultimately gives us a sense of control over meaning and purpose. And this idea is incredibly relevant today because we’re constantly being told through podcasts and social media, even through memes, that time is the ultimate tool for achieving our goals. We’re bombarded with life hacks about how to get the most out of life through our time management. We’re persuaded to become more organized to eliminate meaningless things of life, which

then allows for us to focus on the more meaningful aspects of life. All of these things, whether we know it or not, are attempts to create or control our destiny. And as a culture, we have completely bought into the myth of finding meaning through time management or time efficiency. So what do we do? Well, we purchase more robust calendars, we download productivity apps, and we begin to meticulously attempt to determine our days. We even go so far as to spend an excessive amount of time learning through books and podcasts and other resources how to spend our time more effectively. And ironically, in our attempts to control time through better scheduling, because we think that’s control, we end up over-scheduling our lives, cramming every minute into our calendars, only making us completely enslaved to our schedules. And this struggle isn’t a modern phenomenon. It’s been this way since the beginning of time. The Kohelet understands our struggles and our

constant attempts to control time. So now he begins to expose the futility or the hevel in trying to meticulously master every moment. So all throughout this poem, he’s forcing us to grapple with the intricate relationship between time, destiny, and divine sovereignty. And this is what our text is driving at this morning, the myth of finding meaning through our time management. Now, just to be clear, I know we have a lot of project managers in our church, and many of you are very, very effective with your time management. I want you to know the Kohelet is not saying that management of time is inherently foolish or evil. In fact, the scriptures teach us, as Greg just alluded to, that we are to number our days. That means to manage our time. So he doesn’t immediately declare on the front end, like he did last week,

that time itself is hevel, but it’s more our attempts to control it. And he does this by using this poem to showcase the polarities of God’s providence and the orderliness of time that God has allotted as humans. And so he’s taking a different approach this week than he did last week. Rather than conducting an experiment, he’s offering us a demonstration of God’s providence through poetry. Now, what is providence anyway? We say that a lot in church circles, but what do we mean when we say God’s providence? Well, again, for the third week, the Westminster Shorter Catechism answers this question. This catechism asks, what are God’s works of providence? And the answer is, God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing of all his creatures and all their actions. So that’s what we mean when we say God’s providence. And this poem here, and this concept of God’s providence, is what we’ll be

A Fixed Life

looking at most specifically this morning. Again, to help us along, I’ve broken up our text into two easy sections. A fixed life in verses 1 through 9, and a beautiful life in verses 10 through 15. So let’s begin with the fixed life in verses 1 through 8. I’m not going to read this again because we just went over this poem, but really here in this poem, we encounter perhaps the most popular poem in all of scripture, and maybe even the most popular portion of scripture as a whole, because of how much the world loves this poem. And it makes sense why people love it, given the symmetry of the lines, the poem’s meter, its back and forth rhythmic pattern, and most importantly, the beauty of its contrasting content. This poem is so beautiful and relevant that its content is repurposed in countless songs, not just the one bird’s song, but countless songs, and it’s recited

millions of funerals. What’s fascinating, though, is that most people resonate with this poem because they assume that it’s all about humanity’s relationship with time. But in reality, this poem is more about God’s relationship with humanity, and the time that he gives us. This is why the Kohelet starts the poem with this introduction, for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Now when we read this in our modern translations, it kind of makes sense why people assume that this poem is all about man’s relationship with time. But in the original language, the word season is literally translated appointed time, and the word matter is translated purpose or event. So what the Kohelet is driving at in this poem is that every major event and activity in our human experience is under the sovereign control of God. God has divinely appointed the time and purpose for every moment in our world. And did you notice that the Kohelet’s

shift in language from last week? He moves from saying under the sun to under heaven, and this subtle shift in perspective is massive. Its intention is to lift our perspective above the sun, which is different than what he’s been doing. But now he’s pushing us to see the world directly under heaven, because it’s from that vantage point that we realize time is not governed by humans under the sun looking up, but by someone above the sun looking down directly under the heavens. Now as Christians, we know that this someone is the God of heaven, who holds everything together by the power of his words. The Kohelet, though, he still wants us to look at our world below the horizon, so he doesn’t explicitly tell us that the vantage point is from God’s perspective. But when he says under heaven, he’s essentially winking at us, okay? And that’s the perspective

that sets the stage of this poem. From this introduction, the Kohelet begins to flesh out the particulars of his perspective, which is primarily God’s providence. And so this poem offers us 15 pairs of contrast, each couplet on the polar opposite spectrum. It’s written this way not just for its beauty, but with the intention of drawing us into everything in between the contrast, okay? So just think about Genesis 1-1 for a second, where it says, God created the heavens and the earth. That extreme polarity or contrast is meant to express that God has created not just heavens and the earth, but that he’s created everything in between. So the Kohelet, through this poem of polarity, is doing the same thing. He’s stressing God’s comprehensive control of time, not just with the major events of life, but with every single thing in between. In other words, God’s world, created in space and time, is completely fixed by God. He’s in control of it

all, and nothing is out of order. But this isn’t just a statement about how everything is fixed. It’s also a guide to help us understand how we, as humans, should interact and respond with the events that God has given us. Now, we know intuitively that life moves in times and seasons, and that there’s a certain orderliness of life. We understand the shifts of season. Greg just mentioned this. But what we often fail to grasp is that these times and seasons are not determined by us. We simply respond to them. So when the weather changes, we have to decide, or at least I decide, is this a good day for me to wear my hoodie, or is this not a good day to wear my hoodie? That’s how I determine all seasons. But in other words, time doesn’t move because humans move and make decisions. Rather, humans move because time moves us along and forces us to make decisions,

like whether or not we should wear a hoodie. And that is the essence of this poem. So let’s just take a look at a few of these couplets to get a better perspective on what the Kohelet is doing here. It’s really fascinating. Take the first couple, which really sets the whole context of the poem. A time to be born and a time to die. This couplet is emphasizing that there is a beginning and an end to time. And more importantly, that we don’t decide when these moments occur. We don’t get to choose when we’re born, and we don’t get to choose when we die. These events are completely out of our control. They happen to us by divine appointment. The Bible tells us in Psalm 139, verse 16, your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

So this couplet simply explains that we’re bound by God’s timeline when it comes to birth and death. Well, then consider the couplet, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. This is really driving at the fact that we may plant seeds and plow fields, but if we intend to produce any fruit, we must align ourselves with the appropriate seasons that God has ordained or fixed for growth. We are bound to the season that God has set for planting and for reaping. Now, you could choose to plant or pluck whenever you want. You have that freedom. I’ve learned by experience, planting in certain seasons that are not the right time to do it will not yield any fruit. So a wise person will recognize when God has ordained the best time to do so and then align himself with God’s predetermined timeline so that we won’t get

frustrated when we plant something and it doesn’t grow according to our timeline. So while humans work in agriculture, we must do so according to the time that God has allotted. And then finally, consider the couplets, and we’ll take these together. A time to kill and a time to heal and a time to weep and a time to laugh. Now, just for clarity’s sake, the word killing here is not a reference to murder, okay? That’s a different word. It means when someone dies because of sickness, when sickness kills someone. And then you have the opposite, when someone is healed of sickness. You don’t get to choose if and when you get sick or die, nor can you choose if and when you’ll be healed. That’s determined by God’s timing and providence. And the weeping and laughing, though these emotions are emotions, they’re things that we don’t conjure up on our

own. We are responding to things that happen to us which make us have those emotions. We’re triggered by life events that cause those things. We weep in response to something going wrong in life, and we laugh in response to something that brings us joy in life. Nobody just weeps or laughs out of nowhere unless you’re a clown, but that’s what makes clowns awkward.

So this popular poem, often used in songs and in funerals, has little to do with what humans do with time, but instead highlights how humans respond with the limited freedom we have in God’s fixed timeline. The whole poem is about being wise enough to recognize our basic human experiences that cause some of our deepest human emotions have been set in time by God’s sovereign decree. Now, some people, when they realize what this poem is actually about, they might feel a sense of fatalism. They might think, well, if everything is fixed and ordained by God, then what’s the point of anything that we do? But to see that this way is to miss the point. It’s a failure to appreciate both the human joys and activities we get to experience in God’s allotted time. The poem is simply stressing that while human activities do happen in this world, they are responsive to divine

actions. So this is the point. This is the whole point here. When we aim to control or create our destinies through the illusion of time management, we fail to recognize our limited freedom. Not only in what we do, but also most specifically in this text, when we do it. And as we discussed last week, we have no control over the outcomes in our life. So after the poem of Providence, the Kohelet poses this reasonable question. Verse 9, what gain has the worker from his toil? In other words, what is the point? Is there nothing to be gained in all of our dealings with time if life itself is fixed? Now, our assumption might be absolutely nothing. There is no value in it, especially given the Kohelet’s tend and trend towards depression. But that’s not entirely true. In fact, that’s the fatalist’s view. The Kohelet, again, he gives us a very honest assessment.

And his assessment is, it really depends on what you mean. So if you mean, is there any profit in trying to create and control your destiny? Well, the answer is no. Because time is not ours to control, nor is our destiny. In fact, Proverbs 16.9 tells us, the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. And that is the whole point of the poem. This is why striving to find meaning and purpose through trying to control our time is futile. So in that regard, there is no profit. But there is great profit in terms of what we get to experience within a world governed by God. So while it’s true that this is God’s world, and everything in it is bound by his sovereign providence, we still benefit from being bound in it. Okay? In the same way that Kohelet said

last week, what is crooked cannot be made straight. In this poem, he’s essentially saying here, what is fixed cannot be made flexible. But that doesn’t mean what is fixed can’t be enjoyable. Time, although controlled by the sovereign hand of God, is a good gift from God and designed for our enjoyment. It’s the same thing we saw last week with pleasure. They’re good. Pleasures are good. They just can’t produce what they promise. The same thing goes with our time management. So his sovereign control over time, it doesn’t make us robots, incapable of feeling emotions, or making choices, or even enjoying life. In fact, the poem explicitly shows those things. We love, we mourn, we dance, we laugh, we weep, we speak, we embrace. We live in this world conscious and experiencing every minute of it. But God is in complete control of every minute of it.

So we have agency, but we have limited freedom in terms of time. So no matter how much we try to create or control our destiny or find meaning with excessive control of time, we’re bound by a God who is in control of everything, everyone, and every moment. So the whole point that Kohelet is making here, it’s better to accept God’s fixed decrees than to fight against his defined timeline. Now, you might be hearing this morning and thinking to yourself, well, that doesn’t sound like living at all. That feels like we don’t have control over anything in our lives, and this feels way too constraining. Well, family, I get it. I have wrestled with those questions and thoughts many times. But it’s important for you to understand God’s providence and sovereign control over everything in this world is less like a straitjacket and more like a security blanket.

I mean, imagine trusting in a God who had no control over the affairs of your life. A God who could not intervene in any way as to protect your free agency. How could he honestly protect you? How could he comfort you? How could he keep you or bless you or love you? I mean, the Bible tells us that we love God because he first loved us. He intervened. And the bigger point here is God would fail to be God if we were limited by our self-sovereignty and unlimited freedom. I mean, just think about this fallen world, which, by the way, was an attempt to control destiny. We see the impact of our fallenness everywhere and every day. What happened in the Garden of Eden has affected not just all humans, but every facet of humanity. Our decisions, our motives, our responses, our understanding of this world, our limited

knowledge, all those things would radically impact our management of time. I mean, there are so many things that seem completely out of control and not just with, you know, those crazy people out there, but with our own crazy hearts. Doesn’t it bring you comfort to know that God is making sense of every single circumstance that seems out of control? And isn’t it better for you to trust your affairs and events to God’s perfect and providential, powerful hands than to trust our affairs into our own fallen and powerless hands? I mean, truth be told, I can’t even get recycling right. I can’t even get to Vancouver without using Apple Maps.

How am I going to manage every moment, every important detail, every challenging circumstance that orbits around my life? Family, it is good that God is in control of our world, because if we had control over our world, we would just mess it up, just like Adam and Eve.

Trusting God’s Perfect Timing

So family, let me just ask you this. How does it make you feel to know that your time is not ultimately your own? That your days and life are fixed by God? That you don’t have the freedom you think you have to secure your destiny or control the time that you’ve been given? More importantly, how do you respond when your plans don’t go according to plan?

When you’ve worked so hard at something and given all of your time and your energy, and for whatever reason, it doesn’t work out the way you wanted? It feels like God has providentially closed the door on your plans? What does that do to you? Your reaction to an interruption of your plans reveals much about your heart, whether it’s a heart of trust or a heart of autonomy. Now, I want to be clear here. It is perfectly okay to experience disappointment and discouragement when your plans don’t go as expected. It’s natural and it’s normal to get excited about something that you’ve been building and working on, and then only to have the door shut on you. And it’s okay for you to bring those feelings of discouragement to God and ask him why. You can bring your tears to God and ask why. I don’t understand. God is capable of hearing your frustration, but to experience

bitterness, resentment, rage, deep depression, despair, hopelessness. Well, those feelings reveal that you have some major control issues. I mean, if your response is just straight-up anger and that anger gets pushed into every single person around you, and you begin to grind them down because things aren’t going the way that you planned. Well, if that’s your response, control might very well be an idol in your life. It shows that you trust more in yourself and your plans than God’s perfect plans for you, which just ultimately reveals your lack of trust in God’s care and love for you. Friends, trying to meticulously manage your world, it’s only going to frustrate you because you won’t be able to do it. No matter how good you are with planning or project managing calendars, and that is the Kohelet’s whole point. You can work and you can work and you can try to make time move in your favor, but it’s ultimately out of

your control because your steps are established by the Lord. And listen, this is ultimately what we want. We might not think it’s what we want, but it’s actually what we want because His plans are far better for our lives than our own plans for our lives. I mean, how many times have we experienced the frustration because something didn’t plan out the way that you were intending it to, only to find out later, sometimes years later, that how it unfolded was far better for you. Than you imagined. I have seen that so many times in my life. Last week, my son’s memory verse for school was Jeremiah 29 11. Okay. My family, we were reading it every day. Okay. At the dinner table, trying to help Kuyper memorize it for school. And so all last week, what’s been ringing in my ear and in my heart is this most glorious truth.

For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. Kuyper plans for welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. Amen. This family is the security blanket of God’s sovereign control over every single moment in your life. It’s the peace we need, the truth we need when our plans completely fall apart. Dear Christian, do you believe God’s word is true?

Do you believe God’s word is true for you? Amen. As Christians, we need to be reminded that our world is not spinning out of control with no one at the helm. Our world is ordered and governed by a good and faithful God who delights in loving and protecting his children and giving us what’s best for us in every single moment. Do you believe that?

If we really believe that, we wouldn’t work so hard to take control of the reins. If we really believe that, we would work less on trying to manage every single detail in our life. If we really believe that, we would not blow up when our plans do. Managing this world, friends, is a weight that we were never meant to carry. This is why so many people in this life are depressed because of our major control issues and our inability to create the world we want with our excessive time management. And family, this whole week I’ve been preaching this to myself.

This is true for me. These truths need to ping in my heart. These truths need to ping in my heart. God’s governing is always best for us. And listen, even if what’s best for us is exceedingly painful. A.B. Simpson said that out of the presses of pain comes the soul’s best wine, and the eyes that have shed no rain can shed but little shine.

I have come to see this as profoundly true. So much of my life has been marked by deep pain, and not just in that one season of life. Pain for me has been a reoccurring passenger, as it has been for so many of you, because I know you. But I have seen the goodness of God, and the faithfulness of God, and the closeness of God that I would have never experienced apart from those seasons, because those seasons were ordained by God, even though they were exceedingly painful. And on this side of it, if I were given the choice to change my course, knowing what the providence of pain produced in me, I would not change anything. What I perceived in those painful moments, to be completely out of control and ugly, out of control and ugly, proved to be so incredibly beautiful.

The lack of freedom to create a world that we think is best for us is God’s grace to us, because we would choose a thousand times over comfort over pain any day. And our response, friend, is that we need to see God’s sovereign control over our lives as something good for us. And we need to humbly submit to God’s perfect timing, because only when we align our lives with God’s good and perfect timing, only when we align ourselves with the God who establishes our steps and ordains our future, will we experience the life we were made to experience, the beautiful life. And this is exactly what we see in verses 10 through 15. I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has put

A Beautiful Life

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 to do than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live, all so that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God’s gift to man. This passage paints a beautiful picture of the beautiful life. It illustrates not only the beauty of God’s sovereignty, but also his intentions for us to find enjoyment in his perfect providence. The Qohelet essentially is saying, I’ve observed the business of all of human’s busyness, essentially all the things that are happening around them in time, and my assessment is that God has made everything beautiful in its time. And what an interesting phrase to use. He doesn’t give us the kind of unemotional and cerebral typical kind of

reformed response. God is controlling everything by his sovereign decree to bring about his predetermined will. Though that is true, he is doing that. But the Qohelet asserts that God’s time and sovereign decree is beautiful. It’s beautiful. This emphasizes not just the symmetry and perfection of his sovereign plans, but also that life under his authority is meant to be experienced and enjoyed. We were created to delight in the divine plans he has for us.

So we shouldn’t see God’s control over time and events as something constraining, but something completely beautiful. Let me ask you, how many of you actually view God’s sovereignty over your life as beautiful? When was the last time you perceived God’s sovereignty as beautiful? I would guess that many of us see sovereignty as merely a theological concept, something to be scrutinized or even debated. But family, God’s sovereignty is not a data point. It is a delightful reality. Everything is beautiful in its time. Let me ask you, does the Qohelet, when he says everything, mean everything?

I mean, surely he’s not talking about the hardships or the inconveniences or the pain we experience. We’ll know the Qohelet means everything. He means everything is beautiful. Now, it might not feel beautiful in the moment, especially during those incredibly dark times. Those unimaginable times. But that’s the point. God is at work making beautiful things out of every single dark moment. Romans 8.28 says, and we know that for those who love God, does he say some things? Does he say only the good things? Only the things that advance us and propel us forward in life? No, he says all things. All things work together for good. For those who are called according to God, good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Do you see God’s sovereign ordaining of all things, the good and the bad? How all those things work together for our good?

And not only has God made everything beautiful in its time, but he’s also placed in us a desire for something beyond the temporal, a longing for eternity. He’s deposited in our hearts this pursuit of transcendence. This family is what makes the dark moments beautiful, because it’s only when we experience the hardships of this world that our appetites for a new and better world are aroused. We were made with this longing for eternity. God put it in our hearts, and if this life was only and always good, we would never yearn for something better or beyond it. That’s why attempts to make our world, you know, our personal utopia through management or through life hacks, doesn’t make sense. We have eternity in our hearts, a future reality in our sights, and a destination set for a better world, one without time. This is why, friends, every moment is beautiful. This is why we can call even the bitter providences

of God beautiful, because every dark providence and every good providence directs our eyes towards eternity. And not only that, but we can’t fully comprehend what God has done from the beginning to the end. In other words, we rarely understand what God is accomplishing through time in human history, even when time in history feels so completely dark. We don’t know from this vantage point in the trenches of pain what God is doing, but we know from his word that everything he is doing is beautiful in its time. We know this to be true because God’s word confirms it, so take that to heart even when we don’t understand it, and rest in the fact that one day it will all make sense. All the hardships, all of the pain, all of the confusion will one day make sense. A couple of weeks ago, my wife and kids were driving the van to take one of Tobin’s friends

home from a play date. His friend lives in kind of Oregon City, so it’s kind of far out there. As they were driving, the check engine light came on, the van started shaking, and so Heather, in her great wisdom, pulled over because she didn’t know what to do. She immediately, like, texted me. I was in the middle of a meeting, which normally wouldn’t be a big deal, except that meeting was in Chicago some 2,000 miles away from here, so there wasn’t much I could do. So we did what we always do in these random predicaments. We called Sam Nagel.

Why call Sam, you ask? Well, I’m glad to ask. I’m glad you asked because Sam Nagel is the most reliable, most responsible, and most helpful person I know in this world. It’s true. So Sam, being the responsible, reliable person, he told Heather, hey, stay where you are. I’m going to get my family in our van, and we’ll come and get you and your family. Also, I’ve called a tow truck, and the tow truck’s going to meet you there right away, okay? So Heather had to call Tobin’s friend’s mom and say, hey, you know, the car broke down, and can you come pick up your son at a parking lot in Happy Valley? And so she did that, and soon after her child was picked up, Sam and his family arrived on the scene of this broken down van, and there they waited in the parking lot for the tow truck, which seemed to be taking forever.

This happened to be one of those Portland days where it’s hot, and now you have four kids and three adults in Sam’s van, and so you know how that goes down. The kids were starting to get hungry. Attitudes were starting to get a little turned up. So Sam had Rachel drive my family home, and then Rachel was going to go to her home, okay, while Sam stayed for this tow truck. So Heather’s texting me the whole time while I’m in this meeting, and we’re both texting back and forth. I can’t believe this happened when I’m in Chicago. You know, how horrible. What a waste of a day. We had so much plans for the day. Both felt bad because Sam’s day off with his family. We’ve interrupted their schedule and dragged them into our van chaos. So we’re just super frustrated, you know. I can imagine what Heather was thinking when she had to call this mom to come pick up this

child, you know. But finally, the tow truck arrives, and Sam jumps in the truck with the driver, and they head towards the mechanic. During the drive, Sam starts talking to the tow truck driver, and the conversation eventually turned to Christianity. Sam, seeing this as providential, seized the moment and began sharing the gospel with this tow truck driver. The driver, at least from Sam’s perspective, seemed a bit open,

maybe a little receptive to what Sam was saying. Now, from our vantage point, that might not seem like a big deal, especially comparatively speaking, considering the corporate inconvenience of everyone involved, cost of the van, crazy cost of the van, you know. The tow truck driver, as far as we know, didn’t make a profession of faith, at least in that moment. So the whole situation, from our vantage point, could easily be perceived as a complete waste of time. But from the perspective of a sovereign God who orchestrates the world’s entire timeline, this was monumental. God orchestrated every meticulous detail of our corporate inconvenience so that Sam would be placed in the seat of this tow truck with this man so that Sam could offer this man the most important news this man will ever hear in his life, that God saves sinners in Jesus Christ. The words that Sam spoke sitting in that seat in the tow

truck had cosmic significance, regardless of the outcome, only if you see it for what it is. I wonder where were you when God made his gospel known to you? What moments were meticulously moved so that you might hear about Jesus and his offer of eternal life? Was it through something as seemingly insignificant as a ride in the tow truck because your car broke down? Or an unexpected plane ride that happened because your first flight was canceled and moved all of your schedule? Or dinner with someone at work because the both of you had the inconvenient task of having to work late? Or maybe it was at home around the dinner table after a long and frustrating day of failed expectations. However insignificant it appeared in the moment, it was divinely orchestrated by God who used his sovereign control over time and events to lead your heart to find eternity in Christ Jesus.

Your conversion experience was not coincidence. It was not by accident, but by sovereign decree from the God who controls every single moment in human history for his beautiful purposes. And listen, he doesn’t just control time to show us what to do with our longing for eternity. Though that is significant, he invites us to participate in the joys and events of time to give us glimpses into eternity. God ordains every aspect of our lives and tells us that there’s nothing better than to be joyful, to do good, to eat and drink and take pleasure in all the things we’re doing in our life. In other words, delight in God’s decrees and find enjoyment in the space between. The joys that come from this space in between fuel our hearts in our longing for eternity because in eternity we will be with God. And what is it, brothers and sisters, that we will be doing for all of eternity with God?

God’s Perfect Providence

Experiencing unceasing joy, reveling in perfect goodness, eating and drinking and working in a renovated world with no more sin and no more chasing time. This is what we will be doing. Verses 14 and 15 say, I perceive 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 and that which is to be already has been and God seeks what has been driven away. Family, why does God so meticulously govern time? Have you not figured it out yet? God governs time because he loves us and wants to redeem us. And we see this played out most profoundly in the sending of Jesus Christ, who is the beginning and the end. He came from eternity and entered into human history, into the world under

the sun, and he sovereignly controls time to bring redemption to his people through his life, death, and resurrection. All acts, I might add, that are couched in time. Every meticulous detail is divinely orchestrated and perfectly timed. This is why Galatians 4 verses 4 through 5 tells us, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. This is why Romans 5, 6 tells us for while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. And this is why Hosea 6, 2, long before Jesus enters human history, says after two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up that we may live before him. You see how perfect and meticulous God’s timing is. He governs the world with sovereign control to bring

us the gospel, to usher us who are bound by this world’s time and space and push us into another world, one with eternal life where time will have no end. This is the point of God’s meticulous providence and his divinely orchestrated timeline. And family, again, the words of the Kohelet and the words of Jesus are completely compatible. This is why Jesus in his Great Commission says, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded. This authority includes time and events. That’s what all authority means, supreme sovereignty. He’s managing all time to draw people to himself and he invites us into that to push forward his eternity. And our response as those

who have been saved by Jesus is to humbly submit to his governing of all things while enjoying every good and perfect gift he’s given us in his allotted time and to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to this broken world to help them see what God has placed in their heart. This drive, this longing, this curiosity for eternity. Brothers and sisters, listen. Our destiny is eternity and God controls every aspect of time to secure it through his life, death, and resurrection so that those who fear God, in other words those who love God, who have eternity in our hearts, we might find the Son who sits above the heavens and in him find purpose and meaning, the very thing we’ve been longing for. Amen? If you’re here this morning and you do not know this God who sovereignly controls all things, I want to encourage you come and talk to one of us. We would love to talk to you

about this Jesus, the one who has worked all things in his meticulous providence to bring you here this morning so that we might help you to know and delight in the King of eternity. So come and see us after the service. We’d love to talk to you about that. Amen? Let’s pray, family.

Our Father and our God, for the thousands of ways in which we’ve tried to control our destiny, forgive us. For the thousands of ways we sought to control time with such a tight grip that we have been angry with you, forgive us. For the thousands of ways in which we’ve not seen your providence as beautiful, forgive us. Would you help lift our gaze to eternity? Help us to know the truth that you have made all things beautiful in its time from the extreme joys to the bitter providences. Help us to recognize that you are making all things beautiful. You are working all things for the good of those who love you. Help us to know that not just as a theological concept but as an anchor that keeps us tethered to you. We pray all these things in Christ’s name. Amen.