Believe. Connect. Share.

Believe. Connect. Share.

Believe. Connect. Share.

Believe. Connect. Share.

Transcript:Good morning church.For those of you who may not know me my name is Ryan Ferguson. I'm one of the elders here and my role is primarily over at the Northwest campus who are in the middle or near the end of their gathering across town, so I am glad to be over here. I haven't been over since December. So, it's always good to come back and open God's word with you.As Dwight Schrute would say, “Question: What is the connection between Ecclesiastics 3 and 4 and American Ninja Warrior?” Before we answer that question let's make sure we all know what American Ninja Warrior is. So, watch this for about one minute."It's a place no American has ever been at. The top of Mount Midoriyama. The world's toughest obstacle course. This is about as big a competition as there is anywhere. There is no greater obstacle course challenge.Once again hundreds of hopefuls are going to give it their best shot. I will be I will be. I'm going to be the first the first American Ninja Warrior. They'll travel from across the country I'm from Brooklyn New York Arkansas Orlando Florida Seattle Washington. Incredible athletes. I played for Seattle Seahawks hub and I've been to the last two Super Bowls. I am a member of Team USA. An everyday hero. I'm an ensign in the United States Navy. I'm a special education teacher. I'm an ER physician. They'll do anything for a chance. I've been in line for a little over 4 days. I've been in line for 5 days. All hoping to do the impossible. Conquer the course. I want to prove everyone wrong. I know what I'm capable of and I know that I could surprise people with what I'll do. It's become more than just a hobby it's really now like a way of life.So American Ninja Warrior is a sports competition program. It's been on TV for about ten seasons since 2009. As you can tell it is a whole bunch of contestants trying to make their way through really difficult obstacle courses and they have to qualify in a regional city to go to Las Vegas to challenge the great big course. Of the thousands who have tried to get on TV of the hundreds who have, and of those who have actually made it to Las Vegas only two individuals have ever been able to finish mount Midoriyama. And as the one guy said it's really interesting that it is no longer just a hobby. It's become a way of life. Moving through obstacles to a goal is a way of life. In Ecclesiastes 3 and 4 the preacher the author he gives us a goal and it's to believe this from Ecclesiastes is 3:11. He has made, God has made everything beautiful in its time and Peter's been walking us through that for a couple of weeks. This big declaration no matter what we see God has made everything beautiful in its time. And if that's true, the author concludes in chapter 3:12 and 13, I perceived that there is nothing better for them.(the worker or mankind) 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. If God is making everything beautiful in its time, he's saying there's nothing better for us than to actually live our lives and enjoy them. He says it again Ecclesiastes 3:22.So, I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work for that is his lot who can bring him to see what will happen after him. So, the connection between Ecclesiastes 3 and 4 an American Ninja Warrior is this. Both have goals, and both have admitted obstacles to those goals.They want to get to the end of a big obstacle course. Good for them. They have to get through obstacles. We want to get to the point of believing God has made everything beautiful in its time. That is a filter that will change the way we look at the world.And the author as Peter said raises objections to his own conclusion. He gives us several and in chapter four over the next two weeks we're going to look at several of these objections. And maybe you already have objections as to why it is hard to believe that are ha...

TranscriptWell good morning. beautiful day today! If you need an outline, the men will get you one if you raise your hand. We are back in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, the passage Mariam just read to us. And if we could, let's ask the Lord for help again as we open his word. 

Read full transcript

Father, we thank you that you are our light and our salvation. Whom shall we fear? You are the strong hold of our lives. Of whom shall we be afraid? When evil doers assail us to eat up our flesh our adversaries and our foes, it’s they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against us, my heart shall not fear. Though war rise against us, yet we will be confident. One thing we ask of you Lord, that we will seek after and dwell in your house all the days of our lives, to gaze upon your beauty, to inquire in your temple. So we ask, Lord, as we just sang “Glorious and mighty, you’re awesome in beauty, greatly to be praised,” we ask that the beauty of your word would come forth this morning, that the deceptions in our mind would bow before the beauty of your truth, that you would save people this morning, that you would show us the significance of our daily calling. We ask that you would please strengthen Allan in Ethiopia and continue to use him and do mighty things in that nation. And Lord we thank you for the privilege of gathering together as your people, remembering your death, your resurrection, and we trust you to meet with us and to do your good work in our hearts now in Jesus name. So, Keller writes of a time when J.R.R. Tolkien had been working on the stories and languages behind the Lord of the Rings for decades. Now imagine that. You spend decades writing the histories and inventing the languages upon which you will build a story which came to be known as The Lord of the Rings. There was a time when Tolkien became convinced that he would not be able to finish this monumental work. He feared that he would die before he was done. World War II was raging. Now Tolkien was 50 at the time, so he was not serving in the military, but he had seen the carnage of World War 1. So, the weight of the war was crushing to him. There was a tree not far from his home that a neighbor had tried to trim and ended up mangling it. And he saw that tree and became convinced that that tree was a picture of his life. That kind of cut back, unfinished, tad mangled. But one day he woke up and he had a story in his mind. And as all of us do, if you wake up with a story you write it, right? And then it gets published. That’s what he did. And he wrote it and it was published and it was called Leaf by Niggle. And it was a story about a painter whose name was Niggle. And to niggle is to work in a fiddling or ineffective way, to spend time unnecessarily on petty details. Niggle was Tolkien, a discouraged, distracted perfectionist. And in this story Niggle was painting a tree on a canvas but could not get past the details of the tree. He was far better at painting the minutiae on the of the leaves than he was of painting the tree as a whole. He spent countless hours getting the shade and the sheen on a particular leaf just right. He wanted the edges of the leaf to glisten with the moisture of the dew. The end he spent endless amounts of time on particular leaves, and he was often distracted. There were neighbors. One in particular – he had extended neighbors – but one who lived closer to him named Mr. Parish. Mr. Parish had a lame leg and would often come knocking at Niggle’s door needing help with things. And that was frustrating to Niggle because he felt like he couldn’t work on his project. But he was too kind a person to say no. But inside he wanted to. One evening he was painting away on a particular leaf, and Mr. Parish came knocking at his door and said that his wife was ill, and since Niggle had a bicycle and two good legs and Mr. Parish did not have a bicycle and one lame leg,

Transcript:“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 silent, 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 in a 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 and 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 the 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.”

Read more…

Recently I googled time travel movies, and I was surprised at how many there are. So just to edify all of us, let me show you a few examples of some of your favorites like the 1954 movie “Brigadoon.” I’m sure many of you loved that one with Gene Kelly. In 1960 there was “The Time Machine.” That is one very cool time machine. In 1980 “Somewhere In Time,” and 1989 a rich intellectually stimulating movie called “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure in Time Travel.” 1991 brought “Terminator 2 Judgment Day.” We also have in 1993 “Groundhog Day,” in 2001 “Kate and Leopold,” in 2006 “Déjà vu” and in 2009 “The Time Traveler’s Wife.” I have not seen that movie, but I’m assuming it is a precarious thing to be married to a time traveler if you want any kind of predictable date night. In 2014 there was “Edge of Tomorrow,” “Interstellar,” and “X-Men Days of Future Past.” These are movies about trying to save humanity without getting lost in time. And yes in 1985, 1989, and 1993 we had “Back to the Future 1,” “Back to the Future 2,” and “Back to the Future 3.” They got more painful as they went along.So why are there so many time travel movies? You say well, they sell well. Why? I’m going to suggest two things. One is, and I may be wrong here, but it seems to be that we have a yearning to be free from the bondage of time. Could you just imagine being able to go anywhere in the past and visit events that have occurred or fast-forward to events in the future? So there is this built-in yearning to be above time. Secondly, I think there is a fear of being caught in the wrong time, or bound in another time, which most of these movies build their tension off of. That fear of getting to go to another time. But then who’s going to get stuck in that. The Bible reveals where this yearning comes from. If we are created by a God and made in His image, who is both above and in time, it should not surprise us that this is somewhat of a perpetual yearning.Let’s talk about our God. He is eternal, we are not. We can by His grace enter into through Jesus some eternal kind of life, but God is timeless in His being as Grudem points out. He’s timeless in his being, he has no beginning and no end. He created time. He is not subject to it or bound by it. For example, Revelation 1:8, “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord,’ who is and who was and who is to com, the Almighty.’”Psalm 90 says, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

Believe. Connect. Share.

Believe. Connect. Share.

Believe. Connect. Share.