TEXT: Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

SUBJECT: Family Life #34: Fun Time

How much fun time do you spend with your family? Some believers agree that fun time is good, but because they’re so busy with work, church, and other activities, they’ve got no time for it. Others may have the time for it, but feel guilty about using it for something as inefficient—and maybe sinful—as fun.

What I hope to do this afternoon is to convince you of two things: (1) fun time is good, and (2) you and your family need a lot of it.

Everyone here knows what fun time is. It’s time spent not working, not sleeping, not worshiping, and not doing other things you have to do. These other things are good, useful, and often enjoyable. But they’re not fun. They weren’t meant to be.

Solomon spent a lot of time studying life under the Sun. In it, he found a rhythm, times and seasons imposed on man by his Creator.

Some of life is deadly serious—hard work and poverty, war and peace, sickness and death.

But there’s another side to life, and it’s wonderfully unserious. What’s the use of laughing? There is none. What do you get out of dancing? Nothing. Yet, these too, are gifts of God.

Writers have applied different terms to these things such as leisure, festivity, recreation, play, celebration, la dolce vita. But I lump them all together as fun time—the things you do without higher motives, for the sheer fun of it.

Some people ride a book to get somewhere; others ride a bike to lose weight. But the best reason to ride a bike is because it’s fun to ride a bike!

Some people think fun time is downright wicked. My grandmother felt this way. She was a fine Christian, but not the funnest lady you ever met. She hated laziness with a passion. She was so strict, about it, in fact, that she thought it was wrong to read the Bible on any day but Sunday!

Hardly anyone is as opposed to fun time as she was, but many people lean that way. Some dislike fun time because there’s no money in it. Others don’t like it because it seems to waste the time God says to redeem.

If you fall into the first category, let me remind you that

Materialism is a cancer on the soul. And not just the soul of the one who’s guilty of it,

You already know this. Even if you don’t live up to it, you know it’s true. There’s more to life than money. But what about the other position? Is fun time a waste of time?

No it isn’t. I know that because of the work of God, the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Sabbath Laws of Israel.

The Work of God.

In the first two chapters of Genesis, you find God creating the world in six days and then resting. Now, why did the Lord rest? It wasn’t because He was tired, of course. He rested to admire His work—not to do more work, but to enjoy the wonders of creation.

If productivity is the only thing that matters in life, how do you explain the First Sabbath? On that day, the God who could have done a lot more work, chose not to work! Whatever the Sabbath became in history, the first one was not a day of worship; it was a fun time.

From the beginning, therefore, God blessed both times of work and times of fun.

Early in the Lord’s public career, He graced a wedding with His presence. Our weddings are fairly short; including the reception, they rarely last more than a few hours. But Jewish weddings? They lasted seven days.

Jesus Christ went to one. And during those days He didn’t teach the Word or heal the sick or save the lost. No, what He did was enjoy the wedding--without committing a sin or feeling guilty about it! His critics were strict. Seeing Him at social functions, they called Him "A glutton and a winebibber". But He—the busiest of men—saw nothing wrong with having a good time now and then.

If the Lord can take a break for the fun times of life, so can you.

When you say "Sabbath", you usually mean "The Sabbath Day". But that’s not the only way the word is used in the Bible. Under the Old Covenant, the Sabbath stood for all the major holidays of Israel—the weekly Sabbath, of course, the Passover, Festival of Booths, and Day of Atonement as well, and also the Holidays that occurred every seventh year and forty-ninth year.

God told His people to farm their land for six years in a row. But after that, they must let the land lay fallow for a year. That year was a time of Sacred Rest for Israel, but oddly enough, no worship services were added to the calendar. The usual ones remained, but they only made up a few days. What would the People do for the rest of the year?

Have fun times, that’s what.

Social scientists would have said this slowed down their economic development. But God said, "That’s all right. I was doing it for their spiritual development".

Fun times are good for you—good for your body, good for your mind, good for your soul, and good for your family.

Fun times are not only good, they’re also important. A lot could be said on other things, but let me limit myself to their family importance.

You’ve heard the old saying, "The family that prays together stays together". I think that’s true, most of the time. And so is this:

Fun times build unity in the family. If you don’t believe me, visit a happy family and see how many fun times they have. Or, visit an unhappy family, and see who few and far between their fun times are.

What do fun times do for the family?

For one thing, they relieve the stresses of life. I don’t know about you, but when I’m under pressure, I become short-tempered. But fun times are also no pressure times, and allow stressed-out moms, dads, and kids to be at their best.

For another thing, fun times allow the kids to see the relaxed and playful side of their parents. Parenting is not a one-dimensional activity. Your kids need, not part of you, but the whole you, including the parts that are not lecturing and spanking.

Finally, fun times at your home show your kids how to have fun times at their homes in the future. Some people know they should relax, but don’t know how. They work at relaxing! They turn fun times into a grim and demanding business. Do you want that for your kids? And grandkids? If you don’t want that, don’t tell them what to do, show them.

Fun times—like everything else—are under the Lordship of Christ. This means, if you don’t have them His way, you won’t have them at all.

Fun times require self-denial. A family cannot have fun times together if everyone is going his own way. Now, there may be other things you’d rather be doing, but, for the sake of your family, you must deny yourself, and put their interests above your own.

Practically, this means: (1) Dad has to turn off the TV, (2) Mom has to let the laundry go sometimes, (3) Kids have to stay home and stay off the phone. I know you have things to do, things you want to do, things you need to do, even. But don’t allow them to crowd out the fun times in the family.

Fun times require kindness. What’s fun for one person may well be mean to another. Let me tell you a story: Several years ago, a relative came over who really liked my kids. He got one of them down on the floor, and tickled him until he cried. The man had lots of fun, but my little boys sure didn’t. I don’t think the man was trying to be cruel, but he was also making no special effort to be kind.

This means think of the effect your fun times are having on the rest of your family. Rowdy, wild fun times, for example, may be very fun. But what does the house look like afterward? If you’d all pitch in and help clean up, those times would be a lot more fun for Mom!

The same thing is true with playing games that some kids aren’t old enough for. Playing chess with your fourteen year-old may be great fun, but what’s the five year-old doing? She feels left out and hurt. Think about her fun times too.

Fun times require holiness. Bad things can be fun for a while, but before long, the fun drains out of them. For example, watching bad movies together—bad in the sense of violent or vulgar, or full of profanity—smothers the good in your family and stirs up the bad. You may be able to get away with it now and then, but if it’s what you do, you won’t have any fun. At best, you’ll be bored to tears. If you stay at it, you’ll be debased by it.

"Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good morals". And take all the fun out of fun times

Fun times require moderation. If there’s a time for fun, there’s also a time for serious work and sober worship. It their place, fun times are good. But when they take over our lives they become sinful. We have a name for that condition: laziness.

Fun times require prayer. "Everything is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer". If your family has no fun times together, start praying. Ask the Lord to give you the love and the wisdom and the desire to have them. Who knows? Maybe

I’ll close today with a couple of hints for having fun times in the family. Doing these things may not ensure fun times for all, but they’ll certainly help.

Think indirectly.

Have you ever found that, when you have to get up early in the morning, you can’t go to sleep at night? That happens to me almost every time. The reason is very simple: I’m trying to go to sleep. And nothing will keep you up longer than that!

The same thing is true about fun times. You cannot force them on your family. If you want to start having fun times in the family, you’ll never get it by issuing orders or meting out punishment to those who don’t have the requisite amount of fun!

What you do is go at it indirectly. Create an atmosphere in which fun times might occur. Start with yourself: Relax a little. For a few hours, don’t worry too much about the house (nothing is less fun that having a vacuum nipping at your heels!). Buy a watermelon! Make ice-cream sundaes! Turn off the TV. If things don’t instantly turn into the Mardi Gras, don’t push it and don’t bawl them out for being party-poopers.

It doesn’t have to work every time, no less the first time. But stay at it, and more likely than now, you start having the fun times you need.

Think cheaply.

Don’t equate fun times with expensive times. Going to Hawaii may be fun, but how often can you do it? Fun times are perfectly consistent with simple things. Once in a while, my family has candle-light night. We turn off all the lights, light candles, and talk. A lot of fun! Wrestling kids is loads of fun. Going for a walk or a bike ride can be fun. Watching a movie and eating popcorn is fun.

If you want to have lots of fun, think cheaply. It’s usually more fun anyway.

Isn’t the Lord good? He could have made us humorless creatures, content to work like the ants. But He didn’t. He gave us the capacity to have fun. One writer defined man is the laughing biped.

He wants us to have fun times and to thank Him for them all.

The love of God be with you.