Living a Good Life: Making Sense of the Journey, Part 2

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Ecclesiastes 3, 1-15 makes it clear who orders our lives. God is master of life and gives life to us as a gift to be well stewarded.

So how do I turn control of my life over to the master of my life? This message continues the series on Ecclesiastes titled, Living a Good Life, Making Sense of the Journey. It was first preached on March 18th, 2018 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Listen in with us as Pastor Rich describes the master's purpose in life and our beautiful role within that purpose. Today's segment is the second part of the message.

To hear part one, you can go to delightinggrace.com. And the various threads and colors that go into this tapestry, each life a series of threads and each event of life a specific strand in a thread, all together forming the finished portrait of time and space under the sun. Various shapes, various colors, all of them form life that Solomon perceived and God declares beautiful, fitting, appropriate. As David Gibson says, I can experience several different times of my life knowing that they are part of a bigger picture that I cannot see but which is visible to a good and wise God who sees the whole as beautiful. The point is that we are not built to understand the big picture precisely because we live in time and God does not. If we could see the end from the beginning and understand how a billion lives and a thousand generations and unspeakable sorrows and untold joys are all woven into a tapestry of perfect beauty, then we would be God.

Here's the point. We are not God. You can't be God.

So you have to trust. We don't orchestrate the times and the seasons of life. Yes, there are certain things that we can control and we can plan, but we do not orchestrate the times and seasons of life. Let's see, this week I will be happy for four days and then I will mourn for three. And you look at a family and next week you will die.

And then after that, you're going to give birth. We don't orchestrate the times and seasons of life. It's like the story of Sven and Helga. They couldn't get along in their marriage. They just couldn't. They tried and tried. They just couldn't. So one day Helga comes to Sven and she says, Sven, I've been thinking.

Why don't we just pray that the Lord would take one of us to home to be with him and then I can go live with my mother? We don't orchestrate the times and seasons of life. God is the conductor of the grand symphony. The grand symphony orchestra of life. You, you are but one instrument and members of that symphony come and go. But the music continues until the symphony is complete.

And only the conductor knows the entire musical score from start to finish. When he says he has placed eternity in their hearts, what he is saying is we don't see how all the dots are connected. You can't see how all the dots are connected.

But we can perceive that someone is connecting the dots. Because he has placed eternity in our hearts. You see, that's why he says he has made everything beautiful in its time. God's purpose is beautiful.

It is fitting. In our limited perspective under the sun, we need to look beyond the sun to recognize that God has a purpose and it's beautiful. Even with all the stuff that goes into making life, all the hard things, all the difficult things, all the sorrowful things, all the good, joyful, beautiful things, delightful things, all of it goes into molding and shaping us in God's beautiful purpose. Secondly, first of all, God's purpose is beautiful. Secondly, God's purpose is pleasurable. Verses 12 to 13, I perceived 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. Those are lovely verses, aren't they?

And those verses are not saying, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die. What it is saying is that there is an infinite God behind it all with clear purpose. His purpose is beautiful and this is good. His purpose is pleasurable. God created things for our pleasure. All creation, all creation was made for man's benefit. Humanity is the height of God's creation. And this is the way it is presented in Genesis, by the way, so all of creation is created for man's benefit. Listen to me, all of creation, including every bit of the universe, was created for our benefit. Industry, pleasure, beauty, seasons, material things, relationships, all of it is created for our benefit. And we can understand then that life, because there is purpose in it all, life is moving in a particular direction. And the Lord reveals that through the apostle Paul specifically in Ephesians 1, 10.

And who is our objective? Christ. But life is moving in a particular direction and God's good gifts were made to enjoy. So yes, there's going to be good things and there's going to be hard things in life. But the point of verses 12 and 13 is this, that God made things, He made the issues of life for you to enjoy.

So chill and enjoy them. Aren't you glad that's in the Bible? You see, long faced religion is very anti-biblical. God's purpose is, listen, God's purpose is in the good and the bad. And what I want to challenge you with this morning, just kind of as a side, is we need to rethink how we perceive and engage the good and the bad. We need to rethink that.

Let's chew on that for just a moment here. We recognize that all good gifts come from God. Scriptures say that very clearly. What is also clear is that which is evil, what we would call bad. Evil, the sin, the wickedness of humanity originates from the sinful creature. It originates from the sinful creature. But to God, the bad things are tools to shape us. Isaiah 45, 7, the Lord says, I make well-being and I create calamity. That doesn't mean He's the author of wickedness because wickedness originates in the heart and mind of the creature. But He says, I make well-being and I create calamity, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes. For what purpose?

To shape man. Here's what I want you to think about. If we resolve, if you resolve to avoid or escape all unpleasant things, and people do, you know, and it's particularly tempting for us in our very prosperous, advanced culture. We think we're advanced anyway. We think we have control. We think we can do everything possible to avoid risk, to avoid pain, to do away with it.

Let's just do away with everything that is distasteful, unpleasurable. Don't want to do hard things. And if I resolve and I invest myself and I become preoccupied with avoiding and escaping what is unpleasant, then you will miss what God has for you through them.

Hear this. We are shaped by pain. You are shaped by pain.

Without friction, the diamond is not polished. Think of the discipline of an athlete or anybody who is learning any craft or skill and mastering it. It takes discipline.

And the discipline of an athlete, think about it. Can the marathoner learn to run without burning legs, burning lungs? You ever run a marathon?

I get this after 50 yards, right? My lungs are burning, and my legs are just wobbly weak. Learn to play the guitar. Those strings are made of steel, and when you're first learning the guitar, you play until your fingers hurt. My brother learned to play the trumpet, and for a while he looked like this.

His lips hurt because he was mastering a skill, but he was developing this discipline. You are shaped by pain. Behind all of life, there is purpose. And this is why the Apostle Paul says, 1 Corinthians 9, run to obtain the prize.

Run to obtain the prize, meaning this, endure the discipline for the pleasure of the prize. And that is God's gift for you. And the various threads and colors that go into this tapestry, each life a series of threads, in each event of life a specific strand in a thread, all together forming the finished portrait of time and space under the sun.

Various shapes, various colors, all of them form life that Solomon perceived and God declares beautiful, fitting, appropriate. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website, www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, 7 Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's Word the very purpose for which you were designed. 7 Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace, weekdays at 10 a.m.