SUNDAY (LIVE) - April 12, 2026 | The Grind: Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 - Your Time Is Going To Come

God has a goal with the ebb and flow, and it's to make things beautiful in his time. You ever do a remodel on your house? Little cramp, you need more room. Kitchen's dated. Bathroom's dated. So you begin the remodel. What is phase one of a remodel? Tear it out. You tear it out. It gets ugly. Your house becomes the projects, literally the projects. But if you have the right contractor, you know something. What's ugly and broken and and destructive, what's really nasty right now, what's uncomfortable right now, it will be made beautiful in its time. [00:50:15] (48 seconds)  #BeautyInHisTime

Even the stuff that is wrong, even the vandalize vandalizing we do of our own lives or other people's lives or of God's good creation, God is able, the bible says, to take what the enemy wants to use for evil and turn it for good. For we know that all things, not some things, not most things, all things work together for those that love God and are called according to his purpose. So if it's not good, God's not done. If it's not beautiful, God's still at work. [00:52:24] (30 seconds)  #AllThingsForGood

When Solomon says, enjoy yourself, he's saying, choose it. Choose to be joyful. Choose to smile. You can do that. That's why the bible says, rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say, rejoice, your choice. Be joyful. Do good. Love your neighbor as yourself. Give a child a cup of cold water. Compliment somebody. Help somebody. Serve somebody. Go do some good. Be an instrument of good in this world. Let your light so shine that men will see your good works, and it'll bring glory to your heavenly father. Do good. [01:01:15] (45 seconds)  #ChooseJoyServeOthers

We marvel at creation. We have all kinds of arguments about creation, because you look at it his glory, and you're like, wow. How much of the bible is given to creation? About one chapter. How much of the bible is given to God seeking what's been driven away? Redemption. The rest of the bible. God's greatest work is the redemption of those that have been driven away. That he goes after us, and seeks us, and finds us, and brings us back to himself. [01:10:24] (30 seconds)  #GodSeeksTheLost

Why do you wanna be prepared for the storm? Because you have no idea how many people are looking at your life and what your life protects them from. Your kids, your family, your neighbors, coworkers, they're watching you. Be prepared. Life brings with it seasons. And there's no accident when a family, when a man, when a woman survives the seasons. It's preparation. [00:48:08] (28 seconds)  #BePreparedForSeasons

What Solomon says about time is this. He says, it's like the tide. It comes in, brings whatever it's gonna bring in, and you will not stop the tide. It is an uncontrollable, unalterable force that is gonna bring in whatever season it's gonna bring in, and then it's gonna ebb and flow. That life has a tide to it, an ebb and flow to it that you and I don't pilot, we're not in control of it. Doesn't matter how powerful you are, you could be a pharaoh or a peasant, prince or a pauper, and you will not change the tide of time and what it brings into your life, what it sweeps in and then sweeps away. [00:41:19] (45 seconds)  #TideOfTime

Verse one's the key in this poem. For everything, there's a season. No matter what's happening in your life right now, it might be sorrowful, it might be hard, it might be difficult, Solomon would say, it's a season. It will change. It will not last forever. Just like the tide is gonna go out, and a different season will start. Just like winter goes into spring, and spring goes into summer, and summer goes into fall. That's what life does. It's a season. It's not gonna last forever. [00:44:48] (34 seconds)  #ThisTooShallPass

I perceived that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it nor taken from it. God has done it so that people fear before him. That which already has been, that which is to be, already has been, and God seeks what has been driven away. God's work. Number one, Solomon says, god's work lasts. It endures forever. Does your work? Does my work last? Does it endure forever? You work hard. You fix the dishwasher. Is that it? Sixty years, you're gonna get nope. It's gonna break again. [01:06:07] (45 seconds)  #GodsWorkEndures

The second thing that lasts forever is the person sitting right next to you right now. That when the sun has burned out all of its fuel, and the solar system has gone to negative 273.15 degrees Celsius, the person sitting next to you will still last. Any kind of investment that you make into people, partnering with God in that work, lasts forever. That's what we're gonna do. You invest in things that last for eternity. [01:07:37] (31 seconds)  #InvestInPeople

And we trust the chef that he knows just the right amount of baking soda for us, just the right amount of sugar for us, just the right amount. He knows the perfect temperature for us to put be put in. His eye is on the thermostat. His hand is on the timer. He knows exactly the right recipe to make you and me beautiful in our time. It'll complete the good work, and we trust him in that. [01:13:58] (30 seconds)  #GodsPerfectRecipe

God is the ultimate one. The ebb and flow of life, the way things are, God's able to make things beautiful in his time. But it's even more than that. It's even more than the remodel, because it says this. I love the word everything. I have it circled in my bibles. Not just the good things, not just the hard things. Everything means what? Everything. [00:51:03] (21 seconds)  #EverythingMattersToGod

Our work does not endure like God's work. Since God's work is gonna endure, guess what that means for me? If I want my work to endure, I should partner with him. When I seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and I'm partnering in God's work, then my work also endures forever. And the bible makes this clear, there are two things that last forever. Scripture, the word of the lord endures forever. Whatever investment I put into god's word, the return on investment is eternity. [01:07:02] (34 seconds)  #WorkThatEndures

I'm becoming convinced that the world that we inhabit, the tide of bringing everything that we see in this poem, the world that we inhabit is required to produce the kind of people that God wants to spend eternity with. That there are produced we're the the the kind of people that God wants to spend eternity with cannot be produced any other way. That we have this recipe of joy and sorrow, good and easy, and hard and difficult, ashes and beauty, all of them together, the perfect recipe to produce you and me, to make us beautiful in our time, for all of eternity. And it requires this kind of world. [01:13:14] (44 seconds)  #MadeBeautifulByStruggle

Google is trying. They have poured billions and billions of dollars into solving death, but they won't. Because just like the tide, it brings in what it brings in, and leaves with what it leaves. A time of killing. A time of healing. Which one do you prefer? Healing for me. A time of weeping. A time of laughing. Which you prefer? I prefer to laugh. And I think I'm in the majority because there are comedy clubs across America where people pay money to go and have somebody make them laugh. [00:42:28] (43 seconds)  #ChooseHealingAndLaughter

How brilliant is this? Go and eat really good food. Enjoy a good meal. What's saddened our, I think, America today, most of our food is enjoyed in a car, advertised by a clown, and cooked by a 16 year old. Not good food. Go buy some really good food today. A rib eye steak or tofu steak, whatever your choice is. Cook it up. Have some friends over. Laugh. Tell stories. Nothing better. It's a command. [01:02:41] (34 seconds)  #GoodFoodGoodFriends

I think doing good and happiness are tied together. Serving and happiness are tied together. Jesus in John thirteen seventeen, he strips himself, he washes his disciples' feet, the the worst, lowest service you could ever do. And then he says in verse 17, you've seen me do this? Happy are you if you do the same thing. Think in your life, moments of great joy, great happiness. I bet you a lot of them involve serving other people. [01:02:00] (31 seconds)  #JoyInServing

You have to find a reason why you're spending forty or fifty hours a week on this thing. I work hard so my wife can stay home and raise our children and invest in them. That's a good reason. I work hard because Lamentations three twenty seven says this, it is good for a man to bear the yoke of work in his youth. I don't wanna be doing this when I'm 90, so I'm gonna work hard now. I work hard because it sanctifies my soul. It's one of the tools that king Jesus is using to change me for eternity. Good reason. [01:04:12] (35 seconds)  #WorkWithPurpose

And the second part of that, I think that is just as important as this. It's if you know life is gonna have all these seasons, and it will, what can you do? You can be prepared for the next season. Like, the worst thing to do is to go out in a blizzard in shorts because you're gonna make that season much worse. You can prepare for whatever season is gonna come for you, whatever life is gonna bring you. You can actually be prepared. [00:45:22] (30 seconds)  #PlanForTheStorm

So what we cannot understand, we have to trust. We have to trust the promise that Solomon is telling us in Ecclesiastes. He will make everything beautiful in his time. What we can understand, we must trust. And now Solomon goes, and he'll do this from the time that I'm in Ecclesiastes, he just says, let me apply this now. Because of the ebb and flow of life, because of the way things are, because we're limited in so many ways, here's what you're to do. He applies it. [00:56:31] (31 seconds)  #TrustTheUnknown

Solomon says, stop philosophying and start enjoying. You can wrap yourself up in a theological pretzel very easily, or you can go get one and dip it in some cheap cheese and enjoy it. It's your choice. So he says, four things is how you're to live. Number one, be joyful. I say this at least once a year or once every two years. You are as happy as you want to be. That's the truth. Scientists found about 50% of a person's happiness is inherited from their parents. [00:57:38] (39 seconds)  #BeJoyfulNow