May 3, 2026 | Breathe

Breathe | Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

Ecclesiastes 3:1–15

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 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 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.

I perceived 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; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away. (ESV)

In this sermon, Jed Gillis teaches from Ecclesiastes 3:1–15 that life under the sun is filled with changing seasons of joy, grief, building, loss, laughter, mourning, work, and waiting. Solomon does not call us to control these seasons or detach from them. He calls us to receive life as a gift from God. Because God has put eternity in our hearts, we long for something lasting that this life cannot fully give. That longing should drive us to trust the Creator, not our own ability to manage every outcome. Followers of Jesus can mourn what is sad, enjoy what is good, do good with what God gives, and rest in the truth that God makes all things fitting in his time. Life is fleeting, but God’s work endures forever

Transcript of Breathe | Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

Life Full of Both Joy and Sorrow

Jed Gillis: Often the way sermons end up being structured, you start with, a, a quick, catchy introduction. You make some points, you ask people to think at the end, and then you go home and hopefully remember a few things.

This morning I wanna flip that. I wanna ask you to think about your life to start with, and I want you to do this for me in your mind. Think of something. Maybe it's from this week. Maybe it's from last month. Maybe it's from last year. It could be a wide range. Think of something that's just sad enough you can't forget it. Think of something that was hard. Maybe it's something inside you. I'm sad because I acted this way and I know I shouldn't have. Maybe it's something where life just didn't work out the way you wanted it to. It was unexpected, it was bad, it was evil, it was unjust. Maybe it's just that you can think of some good things that you wish you still had and you don't.

Now I want you to do the same thing on the other side. Think of something happy. Think of something joyful, that excited you. Think of something good.

And the interesting thing is I could say that to a whole room of people, and I have absolutely no doubt that every one of you could not only make a quick list of something on either side, you could make a long list of both things that are sad that you deeply felt, and you say, how on earth am I supposed to work through that? And things that are so full of joy and you say, I wish it could always feel like that.

The Book of Ecclesiastes doesn't let you sit with pat, easy answers for a life that we know we don't live. What Solomon does is push us to think carefully about a life that is full of both joys, some of which you expected, some of which you didn't, and sadness.

Solomon says, your life on this earth is full of both things. It's full of things that seem like improvement and things that seem like things are getting worse. It's full of joys and sadnesses. He says, that's the world you live in. And so Solomon is going to drive us to say, so how should followers of God think about life when we're faced with that?

Reading Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

Jed Gillis: I wanna read what he says beginning in verse one.

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, 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 sow.

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 his toil? I have seen the busyness 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 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.

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 that which is to be already has been, and God seeks what has been driven away.

What Do You Do When Life Doesn't Turn Out Like You Expected?

Jed Gillis: This is Solomon starting to answer the question, what do you do when life doesn't turn out like you expected it? What do you do when you have the sadness that you just thought of a minute ago? The grief that you say, I want to deal with this in a healthy, good way, and I feel swamped by it. Or when it's hard to even enjoy the good things because you know they don't last forever.

How do you handle life the way Solomon's already set up for two chapters? If you go back, if you weren't with us for, for several weeks here we've been in Ecclesiastes one and two, and Solomon has banged on this drum repeatedly. Life is fleeting. It's short. You can't hold onto it and, and keep it. So his question has been, does any of this really matter?

My control is an illusion. He describes it as chasing after wind trying to grab it. I try to control what's gonna happen next month or next year, or next decade, and I often find that it's nowhere near what I thought would happen despite my best efforts to control it. Solomon has said even the good things like knowledge, joy, achievement, even the good things, don't guarantee good outcomes.

We've all felt that, haven't we?

I worked hard. I thought the outcome was going to look like this and it doesn't, and I tried to keep myself healthy and I thought the outcome was gonna look like this, and I find chronic health problems. I tried to raise my kids according to biblical principles and according to what God had shown me, and that relationship's not what I want it to be.

When You True to Control Your Life, What is the Result?

Jed Gillis: We know in our this world, in this fallen world, good things don't always guarantee good outcomes. Solomon knew that, and so he, he has asked us this question, when you try to use things like that to control your life, what is the result?

One you find they're all frustrating. I don't know about you, but when I'm frustrated, I get irritable at everything around me. So the harder I try to control, the more irritable I get.

Or we feel this crushing, paralyzing, anxiety, worry. How do I know how it will all turn out? And the answer is, you don't know exactly what will be in 10 years or 20 years under the sun in this life. You don't. So we feel this anxiety because we say I need to be in control and I'm not.

That's what happens when we take things like knowledge or joy or productivity or morality. All things Solomon has talked about in chapters one and two, and we try to use them to control, to make sure my life turns out exactly like I want it to turn out.

But as he said at the end of chapter two, there's something beyond this life. There is the God who gives those things.

So perhaps you got to the end of our sermon last time in Ecclesiastes two, and you say, I can understand how knowledge can be used to try to replace God to put me in control, and I can understand how God can give knowledge. Now, how do I wrestle with that in real life? Like how do I know if I'm using knowledge in a good way or a bad way?

And because Solomon doesn't like giving you quick, easy answers, we still have, you know. A lot of chapters left, but he starts down that here in chapter three.

Life is Full of Diverse Seasons

Jed Gillis: He says, think about life. Life is full of diverse, varied, different seasons, some of which feel very good, some of which feel bad. That's what he describes.

Now, to understand what Paul, uh, Solomon is doing here with this poem, he's using a phrase like, if I told you I looked high and low. I don't actually mean that I didn't look in the middle, right? I'm using the extremes to say the whole, or if I say, you know, that store has everything from A to Z, I mean, the extremes tell us they have everything.

That's what Solomon is doing with these figures of speech. He's saying, look at these different seasons of life, and he uses extremes to say life is full of this whole range.

A Comprehensive Statement for Everything

Jed Gillis: We can think of them in categories. The first is just the comprehensive statement for everything. Verse one. There is a season and a time for every matter.

He uses these two words, which are roughly synonymous season here as the idea of an appointed time. It's like there's an opportune moment for it, if you will, whereas time just says throughout time there's a a place where this happens. So he says these kinds of experiences are what we have, and he starts with the most comprehensive, a time to be born and a time to die.

When if you meet somebody in this room, none of you has to ask, Hey, were you born? We all know that, and none of us has to ask. If Jesus doesn't come back, will you one day physically die? We all know that too. So he starts with a comprehensive. He says There's a time for birth and death. There's a time for new life and a time when life here on this earth ends.

This also tells us something from the beginning. Solomon isn't trying to give you commands throughout this text. Sometimes we can read it that way. We can think that what he's saying is go plant and go pluck up what is planted. Try to figure out which one's the right one. Or he is saying Go tear and go so, and hope you can figure it out like he's not giving commands. How do you know that?

Well, because it wouldn't make any sense to command someone to be born, right? That has nothing to do with you. That's not your knowledge, your, your productivity. You don't go, I have this great achievement. I was born. Like, no. It just, it happens.

So he's describing, not telling you what to do. He's saying this is just descriptive of what life is. Life includes times of birth, times of death. And as he's going to go through, he could spread that out, say times of celebration and times of mourning. Times of killing and times of healing.

He's saying, this is what life on this world before heaven, this is what life is full of. A wide range of different things, and we can consider these things not only literally because Solomon is writing a poem. Some of you probably love poetry, some of you probably hate poetry, but what we probably all know about poetry is. There's often multiple layers of, of meaning being described.

So to say there's a time to be born and a time to die is true just in the sense of we all are born and we all will one day die if Christ doesn't return. But also to say metaphorically, there's a time for the birth of an idea, if you will, and a time for the death of an idea. There's a time for the birth of a dream for what your life is gonna be like, and a time to say no. It's not going to be like that.

Solomon's saying all of our lives include all these different things.

Productivity and Action

Jed Gillis: So look at the next picture he uses, and with that in mind, this is what he's saying. Your life is full of things like this. He says there's a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. He goes to agriculture, something they would be really familiar with, and he says there's an appropriate time.

Some of you are gardeners. You know this, I've heard you tell other people, give them advice. Here's when you should plant in Knoxville, and you know when that is. You know, if you lived three hours north that time to plant looks different. If you live where we used to live down in, in Winter Garden, Florida, it was called Winter Garden because you grew gardens in the winter. By the time you get to this year, your garden's pretty much dying.

In Knoxville, you just planted it. But depending on where you are, there's, there's an appropriate time. And they knew that. They knew there were appropriate times to plant. There's other times to say, this plant is done. I need to uproot it so that I can plant something else.

Now one of those feels more productive. I'm planting this and it's gonna grow. The other feels more destructive. I'm taking this out. But for the garden to do well, we need both.

Then he says There's a time to kill and a time to heal. Again so there's, there's a couple things here. Notes this, probably this one and the last one where he says, there's a time for war and a time for peace. That probably strikes us as a little bit odd one. Remember, he's not commanding you. He's not saying go kill. He's saying there are appropriate seasons for it.

Two, it doesn't say even this is not the word used in the 10 Commandments when it says, thou shall not kill or thou shall not commit murder. It's not the same word. He's really saying. There's a time for aggressive action, which can be at times toward others, and there's a time for healing. There's a time to act like a soldier and a time to act like a doctor, and none of us would deny that both of those are appropriate in the fallen world at different times.

So there are times for both of these different things, there's a time to break something down and a time to build it up. Life's just like that.

Now, Solomon, we've said this before, he sounds kind of depressing sometimes, but let's stick with him all the way through. He's not saying you should be depressed about it. He's just saying be honest. Honesty says life is not always sunshine and roses on this world under the sun.

Human Emotional Responses

Jed Gillis: So then he goes to human emotional responses. There's a time to weep and a time to laugh. You've been in both, you've probably been around people who sometimes got the wrong one at the wrong time. And a moment when you think this is time to mourn and they're, they're joking, or you think this is time to celebrate, and they're all just down in the dumps.

We know what that's like. There's seasons of life where there it is. Right? For us as humans in a fallen world, to have the range of emotions, to laugh and dance and to weep and mourn, that's part of what this world is like.

Wealth and Possessions

Jed Gillis: The next section includes some obscure references, uh, probably to wealth and possessions.

When he says there's a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, he could be going back to a building metaphor. You're gonna gather stones by building something and you're gonna tear it down. He could be doing that, but this word for stones is also used for, for precious gems. And the word that he uses for cast and gather, he uses in other places in the book to talk about casting wealth or gathering wealth. In other words, I, I think the best way to understand him here in verse five is he's saying there's a time to spend money and a time to accumulate it. Life's full of those.

Do you feel like sometimes you go through a season where it feels like the money just keeps going out and going out and going out and going out? Probably. Most of us think that's more often than the seasons where the money comes in, but you might find that it goes up and down that for a few years it seems like your savings account gets bigger, and then for a few years it seems like your saving account gets smaller.

Solomon says there are seasons like this, and if that's what he's talking about there, then probably verse five, a time to embrace saying the same thing. There's a time to embrace possessions, to pull them in and enjoy them. There's a time to give them away to refrain from embracing. There's a time to seek something and a time to lose.

Are there times you're, you're cleaning out your house? You know there's something somewhere tucked away in the attic or in the garage and you say, it's time to go find it, 'cause I'll actually use it. If you're like me, at some point you realize, you decide it's just not even worth finding it anymore. Just throw it away. Go get something better, go replace it.

There's a season for that in life, literally, but also metaphorically. You have seasons that go both directions over and over in your lives.

Relationships

Jed Gillis: There's a time to tear and a time to sow, which could be literally talking about clothing. These words are also used of relationships in the Old Testament. There's a time to knit a relationship together to help it grow to be stronger and stronger and stronger. And there's a time to say this relationship isn't gonna continue right now.

Life is full of those things, and I don't have to tell you that really. You could think of them and they're not always bad. I, I remember when we moved from Pennsylvania down to Florida, I remember there were a couple reasons that it felt difficult to go to Florida. One of them was just that it's really hot in Florida and we weren't all that interested in the weather, but part of it was friends that we had in Pennsylvania, relationships we had built. And it felt like, oh, I don't wanna leave them.

But that was God's time, and it was, while it was hard, while it was tearing, while it was breaking down, it was good in what God did in our lives. It was the right thing in this world under the sun for us to move. And that was good for us. But the tearing of that relationships didn't feel good.

If life is full of a range of different experiences, some of which feel really good and happy and joyful, and some of which feel sad.

There's a time to keep silence and a time to speak. Life's full of those. There's times you say, I don't even know what to say, and there's times you feel I have to say something.

And there are times of conflict and times of peace.

Life is Not All Sunshine and Rses, But It's Not All Funerals Either

Jed Gillis: Solomon goes through this entire poem, seven verses to get you to the end to realize life is not all sunshine and roses, and it's not all funerals. You have a mix of good things and difficult things. Life is give and take. It seems like things are improving and it seems like they're getting worse, and most of the time if you're really honest about your life, it seems like one part of your life is getting better while another part gets worse. Some of you have reflected that as you go through life. You say, my financial situation gets better, but my physical situation gets worse. It happens. That's what life is like.

What Gain Is There in a Life of Ups and Downs?

Jed Gillis: So if that's the case, then Solomon says verse nine, the question he raises after seeing this is what Gain has the worker from his toil. If I'm going through life full of all these seasons of ups and downs and I can't seem to control and make sure they end up where I want them to, well then is there any lasting profit? 

I want you to turn to chapter one and look at something in verse three. This is almost the same question. I think it's really instructive that it's not exactly the same question and chapter one verse three, he asks, what does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? It's like looking under the sun. What gain, what profit do I get from this work?

But when we get to chapter three, verse nine, he's gonna lead you to a different answer. He's not just repeating himself. He's saying, all right, what if we don't just think about what's under the sun? What's under the sun is a lot of give and take, good and bad, difficult. Okay. Let's assume we're not just looking at what's under the sun. What gain has the worker from his toil. Remember this picture of under the sun, if you step outside right now, it's really bright. If you look up, you will see sunlight, maybe clouds, blue skies.

What you won't see, although you know it's there, are galaxies, comets, constellations. You won't see any of that. Why? Because the un, the sun shines so brightly and he's giving this picture again to say you live in a life that's got all these seasons and that looks so bright, like you can't see anything past it. But he says no, the message of scripture, what God, who gives you these things has told you is there is something over the sun.

So what gain is there?

And I want you to think about. If there's nothing other than this life, how do you handle the ups and downs? And I don't mean the little ups and downs like, oh my, my ball team lost this week, though. Those might feel big. I mean, the really, really hard ups and downs. The downs when it feels like this is never gonna get any better.

If you don't have life beyond this one that you see if, if under the sun is everything, then I think the best you can do is probably the stoic answer, which says life is full of good and bad. So just endure it and don't feel it too deeply because you can't avoid all the bad anyway.

Or we could go with the Buddhist answer and say that that suffering really comes because we're attached to things. So if you can just detach yourself, then you won't feel the bad.

That's a way of trying to cope with the fact that life under the sun is full of both good and bad. You can try to control it. We've already seen that doesn't work. It's frustrating. So we have to ask ourselves like Solomon. How do we deal with this? What gain, what profit? What lasting meaning can we find in a life full of ups and downs?

Everything is Beautiful in Its Time

Jed Gillis: So he asked this question, but the implied answer here is different from chapter one. Chapter one, it was under the sun. There is no gain. Here he says, no, there is because the give and take, the diverse seasons, the way this is translated here says that God has made everything beautiful in its time.

In other words, the message here is not endure the bad things because you can't avoid them. It is both laugh and mourn, dance and weep. Enjoy the good in this life and really mourn the bad in this life.

Solomon says that's the way we ought to live because God has made it. Now, this word beautiful can confuse us a little bit. Um, it doesn't necessarily mean aesthetically beautiful in the sense that if I were to go look at one single brush stroke of a painting. Especially if it happens to be a shadow somewhere in the painting. Would I say that in itself? By itself, it's aesthetically beautiful. No, I, it's probably just a line of color. He doesn't mean beautiful like that.

It's fitting or appropriate would work, so that you say, when I pull back and I look at the entire painting, that shadow, which in itself may not be beautiful. It is beautiful or fitting or appropriate in the painting.

In other words, he's looking at God and saying, God is a masterful artist who gives life under the sun, that has these ups and downs, these sad things and these good things, but he gives it in such a way that it is when you see the big picture fitting, beautiful, appropriate.

Now that probably for at least a few people in this room would result in a very strong emotional reaction that says, there's some horrendous things you're telling me that's fitting?

Solomon doesn't hide from that. Solomon also doesn't fully answer it in this section. I want you just to look down the next section beginning in verse 16. Notice that he says, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice even there was wickedness. Like he's, he's going straight to the problem of evil after this. He knows that question's there. We can't do all of that this morning. So if it raises that reaction for you, I invite you one, keep reading in Ecclesiastes and keep coming back 'cause we'll talk about it more.

But what he does do here is say God has made all of these different seasons so that under the sun considered in light of eternity, it's fitting, it's appropriate. It is beautiful in a sense.

In many ways, this would be like saying, if you remember the story of Joseph and the evil and hatred and jealousy that came from his brothers, well, we wouldn't say that's aesthetically beautiful.

That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. No, we would never say it that way, but we would say in God's hand, even the loss of freedom, the slavery, the false accusations, they were fitting within this life because this life isn't all that there is.

Or we could look at the crucifixion. There was nothing aesthetically beautiful about the crucifixion. Jesus died bloodied and battered. It wasn't beautiful to see, but we sing Jesus, thank you, because in God's hand that ugly was actually beautiful in this life under the sun because there's a life beyond this.

So Solomon drives them to say God has given these different seasons.

Eternity in Man's Heart

Jed Gillis: Now, maybe you think if life's just like that, ups and downs, difficulties, joys, if that's what life is, then, then why do I even have this desperate desire for meaning in my life at all? Why do I have a desire for control at all? Some very smart people have tried to live this way. They say there's no meaning, so just make peace with that and do whatever you want.

People try to do that. I would ask you, can you really do that? 'cause I don't think you can. And I think that's what Solomon tells us in the end of verse 11. God has put eternity into man's heart yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. God has put this longing in us for something permanent, for something meaningful, and that's not an accident. That's what God put in us. He put eternity in our hearts so that we are sitting here going, life is full of sad and good and joys, and building and tearing down all these different seasons, and we're supposed to say, I want it to not be like that forever. He's put eternity in our hearts.

CS Lewis famously said this, if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy. The most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If I could phrase that in terms of Ecclesiastes, he says, if I find eternity written on my heart and the ache for it, the most probable explanation is that somebody put it there.

Solomon is driving us at the most, possibly the most fundamental truth about being human. We live as limited people who cannot control every piece of our life, but we long for something lasting. We long for something that's not fleeting. We know you can't really control and you can't grab the wind, but we keep trying 'cause we really want to. God designed humans that way.

If you stop and think about it, you know, you can't guarantee your own safety. You can't even guarantee that you get outta the building safely. And I'm not saying that to be mean. We just need to be honest.

We know people who thought they were in great health, who collapsed and passed away. We know people who are safe, drivers who get hit by someone else who's not doing what they're supposed to do, and they don't make it.

That's not meant to make us live in fear. It's meant to make us say, I can't guarantee my own safety. My best attempts can't do it. So my worst attempts definitely won't. We need to know we are limited like that we know in our inside ourselves, if we stop and think we know it's true. We know we might prolong our life, but we know we won't keep it forever.

We know the best knowledge I have won't last. The best achievement I have, it's not gonna guarantee that it's meaningful in a hundred years or 300 years. We know that. We know it's fleeting, but we long for something better. And God has done this. God has put eternity in our hearts, why?

You get down really to verse 14. God has done it so that people fear before him to show us that the glory that he has given us in his word doesn't belong to us. Second Corinthians four says, we have this treasure in, in a fragile pot, a little jar of clay that could break. Why are we reminded we're so limited? To remember how great God is, that he's not limited. To show us the surpassing riches of his grace in Jesus. That's the way Ephesians describes it. God has given us both the knowledge that we are limited and the deep desire for something enduring to drive us to the only thing that's really enduring. To God.

Battle Against Control and Anxiety

Jed Gillis: So what do we do with that?

What do you do with it? Do you just check the box? Oh, that's some great philosophical sounding stuff. Okay, good. Let's move on. I wanna encourage you a couple different things drawn from what Solomon says here.

First. Do battle in your soul against control and anxiety. We all tend to be worried because we try to have control and be safe. You say, well, how can I battle against that?

Well, let me ask you this question. Would you still pursue good things like knowledge, relationships, and productivity if they didn't make you feel safe, valuable, and in control? Would you pursue them just because they're good? Or do we pursue them because we wanna be in control?

Would you parent your kids according to scriptural principles because they're good not knowing the outcomes? Or do we pursue them because we want to control the outcome?

Would you pursue good business practices because you say they're good and they honor my father? Or do you do it because you want to control and make sure I know we end up here? Do we pursue good things? Would you pursue those good things if they didn't make you feel valuable and in control?

I wanna ask you to take a few moments this week and do a little bit of an audit of yourself. Write down three things, five things, some small number that you say, I'm a little worried about that. I'm concerned. I'm anxious. I feel this anxiety around this issue. Write down those things and then ask God to reveal to you what you're trying to control that you can't. Ask him to reveal to you how you're trying to control it and then take that truth.

So it might be, God, I feel worried about, uh, my job situation. I'm anxious. I don't know how to really move forward in it. 'cause I don't know what will result in the promotion I want. I'm trying to control, so I'm doing it by, you know, the way that I talk to the boss, the way that I'm proud and point to all my achievements, the way I do all those things. I'm trying to control it.

So if you recognize that, then what you do is turn that into prayer. Say, God, I can't control that. I might not get the good grade. I might not get the degree. I might not get the promotion. I might not, but God, you are in control of that. It's literally what Peter says. He says, casting your cares on him because he cares for you. That's hard for us. 'cause you have to also humble yourself in order to do it.

Examine, what am I anxious about? And then say, God, show me. How am I trying to control something that I can't control that's producing this response in me? Turn it into prayer.

Take one relationship where you're trying to control the outcome and say, God, I can't control the outcome. You have to work. Pray, ask him to. Anxiety is like our soul trying to grab as tight as we can. Prayer is like saying, God, here it is.

So do battle against control and anxiety.

Breathe and Live LIfe

Jed Gillis: Here's a second thing. If life is breath, vanity given by God, then breathe, live life. Think about when you breathe. Right now you're all doing it. You haven't been thinking about it, but you breathe in and out. Air goes both directions.

It's almost like what Solomon's been saying. Sometimes you build, sometimes you tear down, sometimes you laugh, sometimes you weep. Breath is not a bad thing. Unless you get worried that there's not going to be any more of it, then it's kind of hard to deal with.

So live the life God has given you. Trust God enough to use his gift of life. Don't freeze it and try to grab it and control it.

When something is sad and difficult, mourn it. Grieve it. Whether that's something inside you and you say, I have sinned in this way, and feel, say, God, help me feel the depth of how bad that is. Or if it's a loved one who maybe has gone on to be with God and you miss them.

I remember standing by my mom's bed singing a couple songs with our family as she passed away. God doesn't want us to view that without grief. He doesn't want us to stoically go, I can handle it. He wants us to feel the grief in light of eternity. We grieve, but we don't grieve as those who have no hope.

Thankfully, God's given you the Psalms which are full of grieving and joy. He's given you examples like Psalm 22, Psalm 42, Psalm 88, where you can go see someone just pouring his heart out in deep, dark, difficult grief. That's not something for us to be embarrassed about as Christians. We live in a fallen world where the right response to some things is grief that's felt deeply, but it's not grief without considering God who gives without considering the God of eternity. God really wants you to feel the joys and the griefs now, looking forward to the day when there'll be no more tears, when life won't be like it is under the sun, but there'll be nothing but joy.

So use the gift of life that God has given. Weep, mourn, laugh, dance.

Be Joyful and Do Good

Jed Gillis: Take the seasons that God has given you and use this gift he describes. Then verse 12. To be joyful and to do good. Use what he's given you to find good. Use it to find joy in. He describes eating and drinking.

You think every time you eat, you're reminded, you're limited, right? You have to come back and eat more food because you can't go forever without food. He points to two things that should remind us over and over. I am limited. I have to eat. Maybe not every day, but fairly often. I have to drink. So he says, find joy in those things because God gives food and God gives drink.

So use the gift of life to find joy. Use it to do good. That's a very different motive than using the gift of life to get gain for myself.

I could ask it this way. Do you pursue knowledge in order to guarantee profit in your life or to enjoy God and do good? Do you pursue achievement in your life to make sure your life is valuable and it's not wasted? Or do you pursue achievement to enjoy God and do good?

That motive is different, and I'd invite you, I, I wrote down this for myself, a, a simple prayer to start with when I know I'm about to start into a task. Maybe it's a task that feels like work. Maybe it's relaxing, whatever, just to pray. God, I want to do this, to enjoy you and to do good. That's why.

Why do I want to enjoy dinner lunch in a few minutes? Because I want to enjoy God and I want to use the strength of that food to do good. Everything drives around. Am I enjoying God and doing good?

So trust God enough to use the gift of life in all its emotions. Not to guarantee my prophet or my lasting meaning, but instead use it to enjoy God and do good.

Trust God and Embrace Your Limits

Jed Gillis: Here's another one. Trust God enough to embrace your limits in light of his infinity. When he describes here, whatever God does endures forever.

I'm reminded of Psalms when it says, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it. We are all actors. We all do things, but it doesn't guarantee control 'cause you're not the only actor in the universe. 'cause God acts, God accomplishes. So do things, put things in your life to remind you that you are fleeting. You're limited.

Two suggestions. You could come up with more. One would be to spend time with people who aren't in your generation. It's one reason we do that here at Bean. Spend time with people who are a generation or two older, or a generation or two younger. Why? 'cause it reminds you that the story of the world is bigger than yours. It reminds you that your life and even your generation, it'll go past and there'll be another one and another one.

That's freeing. Because it reminds you there's a bigger story, something that's over the sun, not just this life that you see. So practice interacting.

One of the things I love Wednesday nights, if you don't come here on Wednesday nights, you really should just to see it. One of the things I love is that we have Awana kids who have their own, um, grandmas and grandpas who are listening to Bible verses with them. That's beautiful. It's beautiful 'cause it reminds the kids I'm gonna be like them one day. And it's beautiful 'cause it reminds the older adults that my life isn't all there is God's raising up another generation of people. It reminds us that we're fleeting.

Here's another one. Write down a list of things you can't control about the future. That's a really long list. Write down specifics and put it somewhere where you can see it, and then thank God for it. I can't control that. Thank you, God, that I don't have to. You do. Just reminding ourselves that we are fleeting, we're passing trust God enough to embrace the fact that you are limited, but that he endures forever.

Trust God for Justice

Jed Gillis: And then the last thing, trust God enough to bring justice when the world seems unjust, we get this last phrase. God seeks what has been driven away that Hebrew's really hard to translate. It's hard to know exactly what he's referring to here. Throughout Ecclesiastes, I think the strongest argument leads us into what he says in verse 16 talking about justice, and the idea would be that when it feels like nobody sees the injustice, when it feels like this moment is lost, it's worthless, it's pointless, God seeks all of those things that have been lost. None of it's lost for God.

Now that's true biblically, whether or not it's what Solomon is saying right here, but I think that's the best way to understand that last phrase is to say, you need to trust a God who doesn't forget anything. Trust a God who knows where the one lost lamb is and goes and gets it.

Trust a God who knows when it feels like this whole section of your life was lost and wasted. He knows how to find it and make it fitting and good in his big picture. Trust that God.

Don't Be Detached. Attach Yourself to the Creator

Jed Gillis: Some might hear this section of Ecclesiastes and think the stoics said something like this. The Buddhist did. We mentioned that earlier. Life's full of hard. Life's full of good. Don't feel it too much and then you won't feel the bad. Even if you don't feel the joys as much, but that's not the Christian answer.

The Christian answer is not to steal yourself against emotions in a fallen world, but to feel them in light of a creator. It's not to be detached. It's to be the most joyful and the most mournful. It's to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. The Christian answer is to feel deeply both.

Because if God is the giver who's behind all of these seasons, and he knows how to put together your life and my life in light of eternity, then your longing for justice. You're longing for the lost moments to matter. For the suffering to not be wasted. That longing isn't delusional. It's aimed at a real God.

So enjoy his gift now, knowing that there's life beyond this one, knowing that there will be a day when this first section won't be true anymore. Because there won't be a time to weep and there won't be a time to die. That's life over the sun.

I invite you. Take a moment, respond in prayer to God. Ask God to battle in your soul against control and anxiety. Ask him to fill you with trust. To embrace your limits, to use the life he gives for good and for joy. So invite you to respond in prayer and then we'll sing.