New Beginnings ~ Embracing God’s Plan (December 29, 2024)
Sermon Outline for Sunday, December 29, 2024
PASSAGES: Ecclesiastes 3:1–14
What a year 2024 has been. Good times, bad times, births, funerals and everything in between – it has been a long and short run year – and it is NOT over yet!
Did you ever stop and think about how many seconds during the course of this year you would be unhappy? Have you ever thought how much can happen in a second? (and I am NOT referring to any football game that may or may not have happened) In a few days, we are going to say Happy New Year and we need to realize that in a year full of seconds, anything can happen at any second. We need to make use of every second we have and if we are going to talk about having a Happy New Year, there are somethings we need to keep in mind.
We think that being HAPPY is getting everything we want when we want it OR making sure everything happens the way we want it to happen. The problem with this thought process is IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!
Ecclesiastes 3:1–14 ~ “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.”
Everything happens for a reason and we can’t stop those things from happening, as long as we are trusting in God’s Will and God’s Plan for our lives. Sure we can speed things up or slow things down when we are trying to “help” God out!
We must also realize that during each of the seconds during 2025, we need to stop trying to fight against God’s plan and EMBRACE GOD’S PLAN. Do you realize that in 2025 there will be:
- 365 days
- 52 Sundays
- 8,760 hours
- 525,600 minutes
- 31,536,000 seconds (thirty-on million, five hundred, thirty-six thousand)
We must use each and every second we have to EMBRACE GOD’S PLAN for our lives and know that happiness is not about getting our way, doing what we want to do, we can’t organize our happenings to make sure we are happy, and everything is not going to happen the way we think it should. We need to step into God’s Plan for our lives and trust our happiness and every second of our lives to God!
In the Greek, the word happiness found it’s way into the New Testament and Jesus picked up on this word and said some stuff about happiness that will blow your mind. Jesus 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, fulfillment, having everything just wonderful comes not from having everything just like you want it to be. It can come through being poor, through mourning, through hungering, through thirsting. It can come through being persecuted for righteousness’ sake. This is exactly the opposite of what we think this should be.
With this in mind, we need to look back at Ecclesiastes and know that there is a time for everything to take place …
- 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.
As we take a peek into the next year, we need to stop and realize that this next year will be full of inevitable and irresistible events; it will be full of good and bad events; it will be full of 31,536,000 seconds that we need to use to EMBRACE GOD’S PLAN for our lives. Every second is an opportunity to grab a hold of God’s plan OR it is a time to push God’s plan to the side. Which way are you going to use your seconds that God is giving to us in 2025?
When people recognize the frailty of their humanity and the limitations of their own ingenuity, when men and women recognize they cannot regulate or escape the irresistible, inevitable factors of life, God is waiting. He says, “Hey, look this way a minute. How about me? How about recognizing that if there’s any sense, if there’s any rhyme, if there’s any reason to life, it’s because there is a transcendent God who is working in these circumstances so that the greater good might be resolved.”
If nothing transcends the circumstances of life, if this life is all we’ve got, and if we can only find happiness in manipulating and escaping the irresistible, inevitable events that only take a second to come into our lives, we’ll wear ourselves out. That’s the tragedy of our society today. We are becoming blatant secularists in outlook. We have forgotten that we can turn to a God and learn to revere him. We can’t handle ourselves in the immensity and the awesomeness of life. This burden we cannot escape or regulate. The reason for the burden is that we might learn to revere him.
I am going to use my last few days of 2024 to prepare myself to step into 2025 with my eyes WIDE OPEN. I want God to use all of my 31,536,000 seconds that He will be giving to me to EMBRACE GOD’S PLAN for my life. I want 2025 to be the year of New Beginnings were we look at the past events and activities and say “I must learn from this and move forward.” I want to use all my seconds to dig deeper into God’s Word and allow His Word to change my outlook on happiness and life. I want His Word to change the way I look at the very next second and show me how to help someone along the way. I want God to purge things out of my life that tries to drain my happiness, my joy and replace those areas with morning over the fact that the world is lost – after which I do something about that! What am I going to do? I am going to use my seconds to tell someone about the man named Jesus!!!
Are you going to join with me in 2025 to Embrace God’s Plan? Are you going to use your seconds in 2025 and take back your happiness? Take back your joy? Are you going to tell someone about Jesus?
Pastor Andy Lambert
Call/Text: 205.642.8744 ext 101