#6 Skinny Jeans on the Beach (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)
Notes
This sermon unpacks Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, the famous “a time for everything” passage, showing how constant change marks life under the sun in a fallen but sovereignly governed world. Phil Brown helps listeners recognise the extent of change—reversible and irreversible, predictable and unpredictable, good and bad—while urging them to know their current season, do what it requires, enjoy its perks, and face its challenges with joyful grit. Rejecting both arrogant denial of change and excessive nostalgia, the message calls God’s people to live wisely in the present without gripping temporal blessings too tightly. It culminates in gospel hope: while everything under heaven shifts, God and his promises remain unchanging, leading naturally into the Lord’s Supper as a seal of that stability in Christ.
"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" (Ec 3:1–8).
