The Truth About Time Under the Sun Kile Baker January 26th, 2025 Series Tagline: Discovering what is meaningful, by determining what is meaningless. Our Theme Verse: "There is nothing better for a person than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. I have seen that even this is from God’s hand, because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from him?" — Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 The Challenge of Time: God is outside of time, He’s eternal. We’re inside of time, we’re temporal. God has made a way for us to live forever, and we’re supposed to live from this fact now. “If we were somehow to take the seasons of life out of the web of relationships in which we are enmeshed, our lives would become flat and monotonous. We check our calendars every day, but we don’t set the seasons of life just by the patterns of the sun and the moon. Rather, our times are marked by being a daughter and a sister, becoming a wife and a lover, then a mother and grandmother, and a widow. These are the seasons God gives. The times he grants are bound to the presence or absence of relationship. ” – Living Life Backward: How ecclesiastes teaches us to live in light of the end, David Gibson, pg. 54 Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven: a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build;4 a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; 5 a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing; 6 a time to search and a time to count as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away; 7 a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak; 8 a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace. There is a time for extremes and everything in between. 9 What does the worker gain from his struggles? 10 I have seen the task that God has given the children of Adam to keep them occupied. 11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good life. 13 It is also the gift of God whenever anyone eats, drinks, and enjoys all his efforts. 14 I know that everything God does will last forever; there is no adding to it or taking from it. God works so that people will be in awe of him. 15 Whatever is, has already been, and whatever will be, already is. The Truth About Time We must release our need to control our time, and instead learn to wisely navigate the time God has given us. Next Step: If time is one of your most precious commodities, block off some time to create the “ideal” week. Your life is divided into seasons, so live in the one you're in, not the one you’d like to be in. Next Step: Be present and active in your current season by moving other pursuits into a later season. Develop an eternal perspective in your temporal pursuits. Next Step: Invest in people, activities, and causes that can have an eternal impact. Next week: The Wise and the Foolish