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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Do It Now |
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Ecclesiastes
9:7-10 Twentieth
Sunday after Trinity October
25, 2009
The church calendar emphasizes different things in different
seasons. It is essentially
divided into two parts; the first half emphasizes the major doctrines of
the Bible; the second half emphasizes the Christian life.
Thus, each year we are reminded again of what Christians believe
and how Christians live. So,
preaching on the Christian life during Trinity, I have spoken about things
like prayer and faith and taking up your cross and following Christ.
I have also attempted to talk about our personal responsibility for
our own faith and life. I
have said that no matter how much we may want to, we cannot impart faith
to another person. Each
person has to find faith and live the Christian life for himself or
herself. This is as true of
us as it is of others. No one
can do your praying for you, your worshiping for you, or your believing
for you. You, too, must live,
or not live, the Christian life for yourself.
My point in these sermons has been to encourage each of us to work
at growing in Biblical faith and devotion, and to excel in the Christian
life still more and more. In other words, I have been trying to encourage
you, and myself, to put more effort
into our faith and obedience. Today
I want to talk to you about something equally important about the
Christian life, urgency. Let
me say this another way; do it now.
I know you want to be closer to God, know the Bible better, be more
successful at resisting temptation, and be more faithful and obedient to
what you know God wants. But, in this busy world, it is amazing how often the really
important things get relegated to the attics and basements of life. And we
are the poorer for it. Solomon
came to this realization late in life, after decades of grief and wasted
time. He shares the results of his experience with us in Ecclesiastes 9,
our First Lesson for this morning. I
can imagine the mixture of joy and sorrow in Solomon's mind as he wrote
this book. Joy, because, by
the grace of God he has at last been brought to know and love God as his
God. Joy because he has learned to understand the meaning of
family, though by this time his children are grown and he has missed many
of life's most precious moments. Joy because he still has some time left
in this life to try to make things right as God gives him light. But sorrow too. Sorrow
for all the missed opportunities to do good.
Sorrow for all the grief he has caused in his own life, in the
lives of women he called his wives but were really only trophies, and in
the lives of their children, and in the lives of his fellow Hebrews he was
supposed to serve and bless, but to whom he was instead a burden and a
curse. Sorrow because he went
for so long in the pursuit of sin and knew not the pleasures of God. And
sorrow that he has so little time left to do what is right.
And so Solomon wants to encourage us to stop putting off the
important things. Stop
putting off the things of God. He
wants us to devote ourselves to what we would call, "growing in
grace" and he wants us to do it now.
Life is incredibly short and we will not always have
"tomorrow." Do it
now.
Solomon also wants us to enjoy life now.
An uncle used to tell me to enjoy what I have while I can, because
it could all be gone tomorrow. This
is a good summary of what Solomon is telling us in this passage.
He is not telling us to give ourselves to the pursuit of pleasure.
Solomon has already tried that, and found it vain and unfulfilling.
What Solomon is saying here is very similar to what his father,
David, said in Psalm 118:24; "This
is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in
it." Enjoy the good things of God in a way that pleases God.
This is brought out in Ecclesiastes 9:7, "For
God now accepteth thy works."
What "works" does he mean?
He means enjoying God's blessings in a Godly fashion.
The Bible is telling us this is acceptable unto God.
God takes pleasure in it. This
is part of His reason for creating us in the first place, and in the
Garden it pleased God to give things to us that please us.
So enjoy them. Enjoy
your family. Enjoy your home. Dress up. Enjoy your blessings with a merry heart.
And now is the time, for we never know what tomorrow will bring.
Do it in a godly
way, and do it now.
Solomon wants us to concentrate on what is important.
I know every good thing is important in its time and place.
As Solomon himself wrote; "To everything
there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecc.
3:1). There is a time to
gather stones, that is, to work. And
there is a time to play. There is a time to embrace, meaning a time to
enjoy our family and friends. And
there is a time to refrain from embracing, a time to do things apart from
our family and friends, like working and earning a living and going to
school. The trick is to know the times and seasons and to do each
thing in its time. In other
words, when it is time to gather stones, gather stones.
When it is time to embrace, embrace.
When it is time to rest, rest.
When it is time to worship, worship.
It is good, for example, for a person to enjoy his car, and to take
care of it as a duty of stewardship unto God.
That is doing a good thing in its season.
But to spend his evenings polishing his car while his family
disintegrates for lack of fatherly guidance; or to spend his sabbaths at
car shows while his soul, and those of his family, wither and die within
them is idolatry. We must do
everything in its season and according to its priority.
I know the conventional "wisdom of our time says, "life
is short, play hard" but I want to counter that with what I think is
a legitimate paraphrase of Biblical
teaching; "life is short, do something important."
Finally, Solomon wants us to seek God.
Solomon has written this entire book of Ecclesiastes to bring us to
one point; "Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the
whole duty of man" (Ecc.12:13).
This is the meaning of life. This
is what we have been searching for all of our lives and throughout the
long and torturous history of the human race since we threw God out of
Paradise. And Solomon wants
us to know that we need to seek and honor God as the priority of our
existence and we need to do it now. Say
not, "Someday I will make time for God.
Some day I will devote myself to learning His Word, doing His will,
serving His Church, repenting of sin, and changing ungodly habits and
attitudes in my life. Right
now I don't have time. Right
now I have other obligations (and other interests). But some day I will
have time (or interest). Then I'll really get down to business with
God." Listen.
What if "someday" never comes?
Who among us is guaranteed another decade, or even another
heartbeat? What if it never
comes? What if we are called
to stand before God before then? What
will we say when God points out our missed opportunities, and the
countless chances we had to be better and do better that we let slip
through our fingers. What
will we say then? Psalm 90:12
is often read at funerals, but maybe we ought to read it every day; "So
teach us to number our days, that we may apply ourselves to wisdom." It
means to apply ourselves to the things that matter most, and the thing
that matters most of all is God. Jesus
said of Himself that He had to work the works of the One who sent Him
while it was day; for the "night cometh when no man can work" (Jn. 9:4).
Paul said "Today is the day of salvation. "There is a time
to every purpose under the heaven," and the time to seek God is
now.
Holy God, give us the wisdom to seek You now.
In the name of Christ. Amen.
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