Pastor Aaron Cordeiro
April 12, 2015 - W1515

No matter where we are in our walk with God, there is one thing we all have in common, and that is change. And the question isn’t “Will there be change?”, because there will always be change but the question really is, “When there is change how will we respond to it?” If you’re like me you don’t like change, right? But life is all about change.

Did you know that just today 50-70 Billion of your cells will die today? Or did you know that today 150-200 strands of hair just fell off of your head? There are always changes in life. In fact changes are reminders of the progressions of life.

Our children grow up fast before us as time passes quickly, and things like accidents can change happy moments to sad moments in a blink, or our job situations can change rapidly with downsizing or restructuring. Change is a mirror or an example of the fact that there really is a progression in life or a growth like a moving forward that needs to take place. Change is inevitable, and can go from laughter to sorrow, joy to pain, and happiness to sadness. It reminds us of seasons, whether we are going from summer and fall to winter or spring. The toughest moments we find, however, is not when we are in those seasons, but when we are going from one season to the next. It’s those transitions of going, for example, from a hot summer to a cold winter or going from a great relationship to a broken one or a fabulous life to a challenging one due to unexpected circumstances. So the question presented today is not will change happen, but, how will we respond to it when it does.

So often our faith will falter and go down and down and down until there is no more left of it, but can I challenge you today that when change happens that you run as fast as you can into the arms of our Savior, because His grace is sufficient for us?

We are going to look into the book of Ecclesiastes, because the author of this book was the wisest and richest man on earth at that time. It was King Solomon. Through his writings he helps us to know that God’s grace is all we ever need. He reminds us to rely on the peace of God to reign in our hearts forever.

"For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born

 and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. A 

time to teardown and a time to build up. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance... God has made everything beautiful for its own time." (Eccles. 3:1-­4, 11)

What Solomon is reminding us of is that God has laid out a progression of seasons for all of us. The main problem is that although changes are inevitable, we may not have control over those changes or storms in our life because like the weather, the rise of the hot or cold temperatures are colliding with each other causing havoc in those storms of our lives. Here are some principles to help us through these storms, teaching us how to build our faith every time we go through those changes in life.

1. Change should be MANAGED, but not MANIPULATED.

God loves us so much that He allows change to happen because He doesn’t want us to always stay the same. He doesn’t want us to settle into a stagnant faith or a dead end relationship, or the same routines with our children and family. During these unchallenged moments there is no depth or meaning and definitely no life to it. It’s during these moments that God wants to take us to a whole different level in our faith or a whole new experience in our relationships with each other or with our family or even with our job ethics. It may be painful, or difficult, but it may just be God wanting to see growth in our progressions in life. Read now what it says in Ecclesiastes:

"Accept the way God does things, for who can straighten what He has made crooked? Enjoy 

prosperity while you can, but when hard times strike, realize that both come from God.” (Eccles. 7:13­-14)

What Solomon is saying here, is that through those moments of change, that instead of crying out to God saying, “WHY God?” we should say, “What, God, can we do?” God loves us so much that He wants to take us to new heights. We can choose to be obedient to God’s plans or we could be dissonant with what God has for us. We could be like a fine tuned engine with God or be in perfect harmony with Him like an orchestra or we could be an instrument being off key.

Solomon was probably saying here that he has experienced all that life offered, that he tried to manipulate things, tried to get everything he could for himself, but, towards the end of his life, though he had it all, he was never totally satisfied. Basically be encouraged today to just “go with God” just as it says here in Proverbs:

 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not to your own understanding. In all your 

ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” (Prov. 3:5­-6)

Don’t deny change. I know many of us, fear change and turn away from change because we are taught that change is bad. But instead we should think of change like it is a classroom where it is the only place we can learn about something. We can learn things like humility, character, forgiveness, or commitment or kindness. But if we skip class we become a lesser person for not attending to these lessons we can learn in that classroom of change. God wants to equip us, train us and prepare us for things not only in this lifetime but in things of eternity. God doesn’t want us to fight it or manipulate what He has for us but He wants us to manage or learn from what He has to develop us. When we learn to just trust God, then the peace of God will fill us like never before.

Another point here as we learn to manage change in our lives is to remember:

Don't make PERMANENT decisions based on TEMPORARY conditions.

So often we make a permanent judgment based on a temporary feeling. Like when someone tells us, “You always do that! You’ll never change!”  We tend to get shoved into a corner. We should never express a negative absolute in a passing situation because then we are manipulating that temporary situation into an absolute and this will cause us to paint ourselves into a dark corner. And our reaction to God is “Oh no, I will never allow change in my life”. But all the while God is saying to us, “I love you too much to allow you to stay the same. I’m taking you to a place that will develop you greatly.” He is, through it all, encouraging us to grow. Galatians 6:9 says it like this:

“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good, for at the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up” (Galatians 6:9)

The Bible always reminds us that there is a harvest of blessings for us if we just promise to not give up. Sometimes I wonder how many of us have lost out on those blessings just because we gave up too soon. We might have been right on the verge of receiving His blessings when we gave it all up. So this is the next point:

2. Focus on your FAITH not your FRUSTRATIONS.

Have you ever lost anything of importance and got frustrated because you couldn’t find it? We have just lost connection with our faith. Did you know that it says the only way to develop our faith is through suffering? It is in those toughest moments that we probably learn the most. When we are at the top of the world everything comes too easily, but when we are challenged with the things we don’t understand, don’t like or are confused about, that is when our faith can grow stronger as long as we don’t try to manipulate it. Just remember that what we are most frustrated about right now may just be the breakthrough that we are praying for. God wants to perfect our faith by taking us to a whole new place. During these times of frustrations we need to ask ourselves, “Do we really trust God?” and if our answer is “Yes!” Then just focus on Him and He will see us through it. Here is what Psalms says:

"I know that everything God does will endure forever? nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere Him." (Ps. 33:11)

Solomon, through his writings, didn’t only say “Fear God” like a religious fanatic, but he realized that though he had everything, that it was all gotten or done in vain, so he wrote this in one of the final verses of Ecclesiastes:

“…The purpose of mankind, is to fear God and obey His commands” (Eccles.12:13) 

Most of us, when we come to the end of the day or week, we just want to rest. We want leisure, we want to release all the stress and just enjoy ourselves and unwind. But God’s goal for us is learning to become more like Him. Like it says here in Romans:

"And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love 

God and are called according to His purpose for them."  (Rom 8:28)

So the underlying question is “Do we love God?” If we do, then can we allow Him to make changes in our lives to help us to grow our faith in Him? This brings us to our last point:

3. Be GRATEFUL rather than GRUMBLE.

As we went through the Easter Season, we are reminded of what Jesus did for us. It is so important to be more grateful for all that He gave up for us instead of grumbling when things or changes go wrong. Solomon put it this way for us:

"I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil – this is the gift of God."  (Eccles. 3:12-­13)

God does want us to be happy, but, He wants to move us from the point of frustration to a place of being grateful so that we can be happy in the peace that God has in store for us and to be thankful for all that He has given and done for us at the cross. We are reminded of this in Colossians:

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts ...And be thankful...And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father 

through Him."  (Col. 3:15­, 17)

When we can come to a place of realization of just how much God loves us and to know how much Jesus suffered for us, then we can be truly grateful. So let us heed the teachings of God through Solomon. Instead of trying to manipulate things or get frustrated to the point of complaining about them that we just be totally grateful for all that God has done and continues to do for us. Then let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts forever.

1) What kind of changes has occurred in your life?

2) What did you learn from these experiences?

3) What frustrations, complaints or resistance did you encounter during these changes?

4) What growth do you think God developed in you?

5) What can you be most grateful for that God provided during this time of change?