Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
February 8, 2015 - W1506

I want to talk today about seasons.  Seasons are not as distinct in Hawaii as it is on the mainland where the winters can be very severe—the days are short and the season is dark.  In fact, it gets dark about 4 p.m. and daylight comes about 9 a.m.  In other words, you drive to work in the dark and you get home in the dark—this goes on for several months.  I don’t know about you but I don’t like working in the dark.

 There’s a purpose for seasons.   Let’s read together from Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4, “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven…A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”  Would you circle the word “purpose?”

 Winters are very real to some people.  Seasons differ—they may be short, or long, or severe, or mild.  Let’s say your company downsized and you didn’t make the cut and now it’s winter—a dark season has begun.  A relationship didn’t pan out, or a loved one died and you just don’t bounce back as quickly as you thought you would, or your prodigal child is wrenching your heart out, or you are stuck in the ashes of the bad choices you made, or someone broke your heart into a thousand pieces.  You drive to work in the dark and you come home and it’s dark—its wintertime.    

 One of the most important life lessons that we can learn is to be able to handle and navigate the dark winter seasons that come to all of us.  If you are going through one now, know that you are not alone.

 In fact, every man and woman that God used significantly in the Bible went through dark seasons.  There’s a reason and a greater purpose than what meets the eye.  Moses was disowned by his family, ostracized, and excommunicated because of what he had done.  He was pushed into the desert and never reconciled with his family but he had to get past that.  When he reconciled in his heart and learned the lessons of that dark season, God was able to use him to lead over a million people out of bondage.

 The life lesson is this:  You must get past your past.   Sometimes you can’t resolve your past because you can’t turn back the clock or the calendar.  Yet, you must still get past your past, even if the season is dark and its wintertime.

 Joseph had a dark season in prison and he learned the phrase, “Except God.”  He was forgotten and left to rot alone in a dark damp cell in Egypt and there was no one to talk to except God, no one to encourage him except God, no one for him to cry out to except God.  You don’t realize that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have and you learn, “except God.”  These lessons are learned in the winters and dark seasons in the valleys, not on easy street in the sunshine and mountaintop.  In the good times you don't have to cry out to God.  You don't have to fall on your face.  You don't have to seek God.

 David had an affair with Bathsheba and he tried to cover his tracks by having her husband killed.  When this affair came to the surface, he took full responsibility for it.  However, now he lived under the shadow of his shame.  He could have made an excuse, after all, he was king.  Instead, he cried out to God and God gave him mercy.  We don’t cry and plead with God except during extended winters and we learn how desperately we need Him.

 God knew that one day David would become the most powerful man of the known world and people’s lives would be at his beck and call.  He could get someone killed or he could let someone live.  God knew David would not be able to survive absolute power without humility.  Not many people can survive great success—it goes to their heads and they think they are invincible.  Without humility, success can destroy a person so God built humility in David—humility is built during the dark and barren seasons of life.

 A man once said to me, “Wayne, don’t wish for easier times; wish to be better.  Don’t wish for fewer problems, wish for greater skills.  Don’t wish for fewer challenges, wish for greater strength.”

 If you learn to handle the dark seasons, you’ll be fruitful in harvest.  Spring always follows winter, but just because spring comes, it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be fruitful—it’s what you do in the winter that makes the difference.

 Life Lesson: Why does God allow winters to come?

1. Certain areas of growth can only happen during the dark seasons.  The dark seasons cause you to slow down, listen more, and seek God.  When God takes you through a tough time, you take stock of yourself, and your level of appreciation goes vertical.  The dark seasons cause you plead and cry out to God.  They are not done on “easy” street when you don’t need to slow down, when you rely on excuses and try to exonerate yourself.  But it’s in the tough times - in the dark seasons - that God speaks and says, “Stop making excuses.  It’s time to prune.  Don’t put off what I’ve been telling you to do.”  You can’t take shortcuts in the dark.  God makes us honest in those times.

• Develops an unshakable faith—a greater faith.

In Psalm 4:1, David says, “Thou (God) has enlarged me in my times of distress.”  Faith won’t be enlarged in times of comfort when the days are bright on the mountaintop.  Faith will be enlarged in the furnace of afflictions.

Col. 2:7 says, “Let your roots grow down deep into him and draw up nourishment from him.”  You see, roots don’t grow in the bright sunshine; they grow in the dark.  Roots push down and grow deep; seeds germinate in the dark.  New life starts in the roots.

The farmer’s name was A.B. Campbell and his orange trees were nice and green in the midst of an extended drought.  All the neighbors’ orange groves were turning brown and the trees were stressing.  The farmers gathered around him and asked, “Why are ours trees withering and yours are green?”  None of the farmers had water because they all depended on rainwater for their groves.  He said, “When my trees were young and sapling, I constantly withheld water from them, which forced their roots to press down deeper to get water.  Now in the midst of drought, my trees are drinking from a far deeper depth than yours are.”  The dark season is when we must force our roots to go deep, not when things are comfortable and convenient.  Roots only grow during the dark seasons when they are pressed.

Remember, God will never give you more than you can handle.  Let’s read 2 Cor. 12:9, 10 NIV, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness…for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

The unshakable durable type of faith is found in Hebrews 12:27, “Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken…that those things which cannot be shaken will remain.”  So where do you get that type of root system for your marriage when it gets shaken?  Your faith when it gets shaken?  Your morality when it is being shaken and tested by everyone around you?  Where do you get that root depth?  You get it in the wintertime, in the dark season.

2. Leads to God’s ultimate purpose.  I’m reminded of two men:  Joseph, after years of being in prison and disowned by his family (a dark season), his brothers come to him for food in Egypt.  Joseph is now a ruler in Egypt next to Pharaoh.  He recognized his brothers who had sold him into slavery for profit, but they don’t recognize him.  Joseph could have had them killed.  Instead, when he finally disclosed himself to his brothers, they were in fear and trepidation for their lives because all of a sudden everything they had done to him came to light and they asked for mercy.  I love Joseph’s response because he did not see things from a temporal viewpoint but saw things from God’s divine viewpoint.  He said in Gen 45:5 NET, “Now, do not be upset, and do not be angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.”  In other words he was saying, “It was God who sent me here, not you!”

Understand, God has his hands in everything.  God is a God who can take a mistake and turn it into a miracle.  He can take your dead end and start a new beginning.  He can take you from what seems like a sunset and make it into a sunrise.  God understands what’s going on and He has an ultimate purpose for your life—just so you don’t shortcut the ways of God.  Let God be God—especially in the winter.

David was a fugitive and it was a very dark season in his life.  It’s no coincidence that as he pens the 23^rd Psalm, he is recalling that dark season of his life.  “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside still waters.  He restoreth my soul.  He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake; yea, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy (I love this part) shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of my Lord forever.”

I love that part, but let me remind you what came just before that: “Yea, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”  The route to the anointing of oil and the new beginning where your cup runs over and the route to springtime will take you through the valley.  Many times we have to go through the desert to get to the table.  We have to go through the barren times when nothing really makes sense in order to get to the throne.

The same God that led David beside the still waters is the same God that led him through the valley of the shadow of death.  Not a different God.  It wasn’t a mistake.  That’s the route that makes your roots to grow deep. 

Remember, the same God that leads you to springtime is the same God who is next to you in the winter.  The same God that was at the sunrise of your life is the same God that will stand next to you at sunset.

There’s an ultimate purpose for everything you go through in life.

How you go through winter will determine how you enter springtime.

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. Name one of the important life lessons you can learn during your dark season.
2. What was Moses able to do after he reconciled in his heart about the lesson of his dark season?
3. What does Pastor Wayne mean when he says, “You must get past your past even if it is wintertime”?
4. Why does God allow winters to come into our lives?
5. What develops unshakable faith?