Sermon Tone Analysis
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Happy New Year!
New Years Day 2006
Ecclesiastes 3:1-14
*/Focus:/*/ Happiness comes from knowing that God works through every moment of life./
*I.
Defining Happiness*
Have you ever thought how many seconds in this year you’ll be unhappy?
Have you ever thought how much can happen in a second?
When you say, “Happy New Year!” you’re saying a remarkable thing.
It only takes a second for your life to be totally changed or totally ended.
In a year full of seconds, anything can happen at any second.
If we’re going to talk about having a happy new year, there are some things to bear in mind.
We’re not always sure what happiness is.
For a lot of people, happiness depends on their happenings.
If their happenings don’t happen to happen the way they happen to want their happenings to happen, they’re unhappy!
Some people spend their time organizing their happenings to make sure everything happens the way they want it to happen.
The assumption is this: if they can make everything happen the way they want their happenings to happen, they’ll be happy.
There are two problems with that: you can’t do it, and even if you could, you’d probably be bored.
Do you remember Alexander the Great?
It is said that he got everything happening his way.
He conquered everything and then sat down to cry, because he was so young and there was nothing else to conquer.
For people who get everything they want, life is good.
They have everything, and they don’t know what to do with it.
The Greeks had a word for happiness: /makarios/.
This word describes what they perceived as being the experience of the gods.
The Greeks had lots of gods, and the gods were sort of magnified human beings.
They had all the failings of human beings and all the strengths.
For Greeks, the idea of the gods was that they had everything made.
The word /makarios/ found its way into the New Testament, and it’s translated “blessed” or “happy.”
Jesus picked up on this word, and said some stuff that will absolutely blow you away.
Listen to what he said:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are those who mourn.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are the pure in heart.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.”
Jesus is saying that happiness, or fulfillment, or /makarios/—having everything just wonderful—comes not from having everything.
It can come through being poor, through mourning, through hungering, through thirsting.
It can come through being persecuted for righteousness’ sake.
That’s exactly the opposite of what we think is the road to happiness.
So Happy New Year!
But remember two things.
Define happiness correctly.
Happiness is not just getting all your happenings to happen the way you happen to want your happenings to happen.
Secondly, make certain you’re thinking through all the possibilities of this year.
You’ve got to reckon that you may not always be able to control them.
*II.
Realizing There’s a Time for Everything*
With that in mind, let’s read today’s passage from Ecclesiastes.
Turn with me to chapter 3 and follow along as I begin reading at verse1: /“There’s a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven:/
/a time to be born 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,/
/a time to weep and a time to laugh, /
/a time to mourn and a time to dance, /
/a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, /
/a time to embrace and a time to refrain, /
/a time to search and a time to give up, /
/a time to keep and a time to throw away, /
/a time to tear and a time to mend, /
/a time to be silent and a time to speak, /
/a time to love and a time to hate, /
/a time for war and a time for peace.”/
/ /
In the Hebrew, this is poetry.
Translators picked up on this repetition of the word time.
There’s a rhythm to it that’s not accidental.
It gives the reader a feeling of time going on relentlessly.
The poet says there is a year full of seconds stretching ahead of us.
When we begin to think of being happy in this new year, we’ve got to reckon with two things.
This year will be full of 1. inevitable events and 2. irresistible events.
One of the great myths about humanity is that we are in charge.
It is a most pernicious myth, because nothing could be further from the truth.
I can prove it to you very simply.
The second verse of this passage says, “There’s a time to be born and a time to die.”
Those are the two biggest events of your experience, and both of them are totally outside our control.
We are not masters of our own destiny.
You were initiated by birth, and you had nothing to do with it.
You’ll be terminated by death, and probably you’ll have nothing to do with it.
In between initiation and termination is perpetuation, and there’s very little you can do about that either.
There’s a wonderful segment in Scripture describing God.
It says, /“God, in whose hand your breath is.”/
It gives me the shivers.
I have all kinds of pictures of God, but now I have a picture of God just gently massaging windpipes.
My breath is in his hands.
Just think of it.
All he needs to do is say, “Okay, Dave, time’s up.”
He just gently applies pressure, and I’m through.
That keeps me in perspective.
Every single moment I am perpetuated because God graciously doesn’t apply the pressure on my windpipe, and he continues to graciously give me life.
All life’s experiences are inevitable and irresistible, coming one second at a time.
You are caught in the middle.
Let’s look at one or two of these ideas in Scripture.
Scripture says there’s a time to be born, a time to die.
In verse 3 there’s mentioned a time to kill and a time to heal.
You have this monotonous regularity of life, but you’ve got these anomalies in life.
Birth and death couldn’t be further apart, yet they’re part and parcel of life.
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