Ephesians 5:16-17

that I can do, hopefully I can do this better

than I can sing.

These we're going to start with our verse from

last time, which is 15.

We looked exclusively at verse 15 last time,

but I want to include that in our reading.

We're just going to read verse 15 through 17.

The apostle Paul says, "Therefore be careful

how you walk,

not as unwise men, but as wise,

making the most of your time,

because the days are evil.

So then do not be foolish,

but understand what the will of the Lord is."

Now,

how often is it

that people

don't finish what they start?

Do you ever do that?

Start something and then you don't finish it?

Christy's shooting them daggers at me.

She's like, "Mm-hmm."

I don't have to tell you what she's thinking,

right, as she looks at me in that particular

way.

But think about it. All through history, there

's unfinished books.

I mean, you know, we think about Ed Lacey's

book. He didn't get to finish it.

Now, I did get finished by Miss Diane, but the

Lord took him home. Unfinished paintings,

unfinished

symphonies, all kinds of things

that never get done. And if you look here at

the start of verse 16,

look at that phrase,

"Making the most of your time."

So if we're ever going to finish anything that

we start,

it's only going to be

when we make the most of our time.

When we understand, biblically, the

sovereignty of God,

it's really amazing to sit back and think

about the reality that the eternal

God

has prescribed

before we were ever born,

the precise

exact time period

that we are to live in.

And it's only as we maximize this time that he

gives us

that we can finish what we start and live the

kind of life that most brings him glory.

So this is an important phrase here in verse

16,

"Making the most of your time." And I want you

to notice

it's not a time.

It's not any time.

It's the definite article.

Your time.

The King James is better here in my opinion

with this phrasing. It says

redeeming

the time.

And that's still

the definite article.

Redeeming the time.

God has given all of us

definite

time. Look at 1 Peter 1 verse 17.

If you address as Father, the one who impart

ially judges according to each one's work,

conduct yourselves in fear

during the time of your stay on earth.

What a phrase.

The time of your stay

on earth. Peter is saying we have a definite

set time

ordained by God's

sovereign choice. A definite set time period

in human history and

an exact number of days within that time

period in human history. In Acts chapter 20

verse 24

Paul says,

"But I do not consider my life with any

account as dear to myself." In other words, I

'm I'm not out for

self-preservation here with the rest of my

life. He says, "Next, so that I may finish my

course and the ministry which I receive from

the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly of the

gospel

of the grace of God." That phrase

finish my course.

In the Greek, it's literally

finish the course of me.

To what it really is saying. In other words,

it's the course for his life or your life or

my life

that God has ordained. It's clear that God has

given us

a time boundary.

And within that time boundary that he's given

each one of us,

he has defined for us a course

of our life. As Paul says, "I want to finish

the course and the ministry given to me." It's

a specific course

with a specific ministry. Hebrews chapter 12

verse number one. Look at that last phrase.

"And let us run with endurance the race

that is set before us." Literally in the Greek

, the set before us race.

Christian, it is set before you. The race has

a beginning and it has an ending

that we can see and there's a there's a

boundary to it. And 2 Timothy 4-7.

Paul says this,

"I have fought the good fight.

I have finished the

force.

I have kept the faith."

It's definite.

The course. God has determined the

course in a specific period of time for every

believer in Psalm 89

verses 46 to 47.

David shows us a great sense of time

and the urgency

that time places upon us. When he said this

in verse 46, "How long, O Lord, will you hide

yourself forever?" And then he said in verse

47,

"Remember what my span of life is."

And what he's getting at

is that in the midst of pain and stress,

he felt distracted from what he felt he ought

to be doing. So he's basically saying, "God,

how

long do I have to be off-center here with what

I'm doing? I only have so much time left."

And David again in Psalm 39

verses 4 to 5, "Lord, make me to know my end.

And what is the extent of my days?"

Look at this phrase. "Let me know how

transient I am.

Behold, you have made my days as hand breaths,

and my lifetime is nothing in your sight.

Surely every man at his best is a mirror."

What words? And you know James,

James 4 verses 13 to 4, 3, "Come now.

You who say tomorrow we will go to such and

such a city and spend a year there

and engage in business and make a profit, yet

you do not know what your life will be like

tomorrow.

You are just a vapor that appears for a little

while and then vanishes away."

Now let's go back to our text with those

thoughts in my Paul's thinking.

The whole aspect of life is built around time.

Look at verse 15. We see wisdom walking wise.

What does that lead the apostle to think of?

Well, look next in verse 16, "Making the most

of your time."

Wisdom leads him to thinking about time. And

the reason for that is the greatest

squandering of wisdom happens in the use of

time or the lack of it.

As you know, we've been learning since chapter

4 here in Ephesians about how we are to live

as Christians. The worthy walk, remember? Walk

worthy of the calling with which you have been

called lifestyle, pattern of living. That's

what he means by walk. And we've learned so

far so much

about walking in humility and unity that we're

to walk uniquely in this world, different from

the

rest of the world. Walking in love, walking in

light, we've learned all of that so far.

And now we're learning to walk in wisdom. And

if we're going to do that, it's critical.

We are going to have to make the most of our

time. Remember from last time in verse 15,

Paul says,

"Therefore be careful how you walk." Not as un

wise men, but as wise. And we talked about how

immediately upon exercising repentance and

faith, the person in work of Christ, we all

get what I

called, remember, a certain measure of

beginning wisdom immediately. We know who we

are as sinners.

We know who Christ is. We know what Christ

accomplished on the cross. We know the gospel.

We understand it. You can't believe in it if

you don't understand it, right?

And then we grow in wisdom as God takes us

through this process in our Christian life

of conforming us to the image of Christ in

sanctification. That's a lifelong process.

And then Paul adds in verse 15, "Be careful

how you walk." Remember, we talked about that.

You walk with exactness. You walk accurately.

You walk carefully. He says, "Not as unwise

men,

but as wise." So we are to walk in wisdom. And

remember, wisdom is a synonym for living by

divine

principles. And as we discussed, it sure is

interesting to look out and observe the world

and how the world and worldly people outside

of Christ, they think that they are wise.

And they look at us as the batwoods, hillbilly

fools that are clinging to our guns and our

Bibles. We're not very sophisticated and we're

not very intellectual, not very wise.

But in reality, it's just the opposite. Now,

we may not be the smartest people,

intellectually speaking. We may not be the

most noble or the mightiest, as Paul says,

not many mighty, not many noble, but make no

mistake about it.

Christians are the wisest people in the world,

not because we're so wise in and of ourselves,

but because God in his sovereign grace has

given us wisdom in Christ, Colossians 2-3,

in whom in Christ are hidden all the treasures

of wisdom and knowledge.

That's why we're wise. And we spend our whole

lives mining those treasures of wisdom and

knowledge

out of the Word of God. And that's why Paul is

exhorting us here in verse 15. Look at it.

"Therefore be careful how you walk, not as un

wise men, but as wise." In other words,

since you are wise, live that way. That's all

he's saying. How dumb is it to live like a

fool

when you possess true, godly wisdom? Now, let

's move forward in this 16th verse.

Keep these great realities, these great

principles in your mind about walking wisely

as we move

forward. Because next, I want you to see that

we also have these privileges that are limited

.

And what I mean by that is our privileges in

this life as Christians are limited by time,

time on this earth. Look at verse 16 again. "M

aking the most of your time,

because the days are evil." We have

limitations with this because if we don't walk

wisely now,

guess what? We don't have any other time.

There's no other lifetime on earth to live.

We are human beings existing right now in time

and it's moving. Look at your clock.

Look at your watch. If you got a second hand,

it's moving. And all that we have, folks,

is right now. That's it. If I lose this moment

, right here, I'll never get it back.

I tell Jordan when one of the kids has a

birthday, Levi just made six.

You're never going to see five-year-old Levi

again. He doesn't exist anymore.

He's gone. Now he's six and he's moving

forward. You'll never get him back at that age

.

In verse 16 here, when it's talking about

making the most of your time, what it's really

talking

about is opportunity. We're to make the most

of, redeem our opportunity, the moments in

time

that can be grasped by us for God and for his

glory. The believer who is walking in wisdom

knows how to make the most of his

opportunities. Paul here, as I said earlier,

connects walking

wisely in verse 15 with making the most of our

time and opportunity in verse 16 because we

actually

play the fool with time and opportunity more

than we play the fool with anything else.

The greatest categories of foolishness are the

misuses of time and opportunity.

And as you know here in this epistle in Ephes

ians, Paul is speaking directly to the

Christians here in this text in the Church of

Ephesus. And by that, the Church for all time,

I'll often read in Funeral Psalm 90, verse 12,

"So teach us to number our days that we may

present

to you a heart of wisdom." It's wisdom that

numbers our days. It's wisdom that takes an

accounting of our limited time. Wisdom walking

down the narrow path sees an opportunity for

evil

and does not engage with it because that's a

fool's act. Wisdom sees an opportunity for

good

as defined by God and takes hold of it. Why?

Because that brings glory to God.

And added to this next in Ephesians 5/16, Paul

says next because the days are evil.

The days were evil then and they're still evil

now. And what he's getting at is that living

in this fallen world that is saturated with

evil, the opportunities for goodness and

righteousness

are relatively few. So when they come, grab

them, he's saying. When God is giving you an

opportunity

to bring him glory, which in turn will only

bring blessing to you, take hold of that

opportunity

in the midst of an evil day, living life in

this fallen world. Grab it when it comes along

.

God gives us these great times and

opportunities to make things happen in this

world that truly

matter. Whether it's the moment of a day or an

hour or a whole day, don't pass up an

opportunity

to do something with your day, your moment,

your minute to bring God glory. These days are

so

evil that we live in. The internet has just

ramped that up for us to see in ways that we

've

never seen before in human history. The only

true lights that exist in this evil world are

us,

God's people. And Paul is exhorting us to make

the most of our limited time and opportunities

that come our way and enable us to let our

light shine. I'm telling you that there's an

urgency

in these words, because especially as we've

experienced in the last few years,

we don't know what's next on the timeline,

right? I mean, I'm starting to get used to the

continual breaking news of things that make us

shake our head and bewilderment. I can't

believe this is happening. If my grandfather

were alive today, he'd probably die again

pretty quickly

of a heart attack seeing all this stuff just

playing out before us on our television sets.

We never know what this evil day is going to

bring. And what really makes for an evil day,

big picture, is the day when everything is so

easy for us in our lives that we lose scope

of our real true priorities. And what I mean

by that is that actually church history is

clear.

The church thrives far more under persecution

than it does under ease and affluence.

We often repeat the quote, "The blood of the

martyrs becomes the seed of the church."

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for

persecution. I'm not asking for it. But what

I am saying is that sometimes we don't,

because of our comfort, we don't understand

the urgency

of limited time. We don't even clearly see the

evil. Excuse me. We don't even clearly see the

evil day as we should because we get so sucked

up into the world system with everybody else.

And what happens? We get way too comfortable.

We get way too comfortable with it. We have

houses

and cars and foods and vacations and you don't

even have to go to the video store to get a

movie

anymore. It's just streaming. You just click a

button on your TV and see any movie that you

want

to see. I mean, I tell you this all the time.

I can't emphasize it enough compared to most

of the world. Man, we live on Enky Street. I

don't care what problems you have going on in

your life

right this minute and we all got them. I

guarantee you, you would not want me to drop

you in the

middle of a Uganda right now and say, "Live

there." You'd be begging for your problems

that you got

back here. I'm trying to tell you that the

time is short. In the big picture, really,

really,

none of us has a whole lot of time left. Let

me give you an example.

If the Lord is pleased to let me live to be

the age of 90 years old, if he's pleased to do

that,

do you know that if I live to be 90, I will

have lived exactly 32,850 days on the earth?

Now, December the 6th of this year, I will

turn 57. On that day, I will have already

lived 20,805

of those days equaling 90 years, which means

if I live to be 90, come December 6th, I will

only have

12,045 days left. Perspective. That's a gnarly

eye opener, isn't it? You only got so many

days, Jack.

So, more and more, I have a sense of urgency

in serving the Lord because added to that

reality,

I don't know how many more days God is going

to give me. Could have ended Friday on that

lawnmower

when the limb came out the tree. So, he may

take me and you long before 90. So, what I'm

saying to you is,

we should, as Christians, want to strive to

make the most of our time that we have before

us every

single day. Consider what God has done for us.

Sheer gratitude for his grace to you should

drive

you, should motivate you to make the most of

your time for his glory. Now, look, the end

times,

the second coming of Jesus. That's a very

interesting topic to study, but you want to

know what the

truth is? Jesus may come for you before the

sun goes down today. He may come for you today

,

long before the second coming ever happens.

And the world is not getting any better. In

fact,

2 Timothy 3, 13 says this, "But evil men will

proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being

deceived." And boy, don't we see that. And

that's why, as Christians, we need to be

making the most

of our time redeeming the time. Because when

we do, not only are we making an impact on the

world

for God's glory, not only are we advancing the

kingdom, but we benefit when we redeem the

time

because God blesses us when we redeem the time

. So, in that way, we're also making the most

time

for ourselves as well as bringing him glory.

Let me tell you something. I'll tell you this

before.

Try me and see. You will never, ever as a

Christian have a greater feeling than right

after

you have completed giving somebody the gospel

message that has never heard before. When you

walk away from that interaction, you will

never feel better than you've ever felt in

your whole

life. And when you do that, I promise you that

. How often, I can't even count how many times

people

have said or told me, "I've never heard it

that way before." You know why? It's because

they never

heard it. That's why. Because there's only one

way to tell it. Now, think about this.

Father Christian, every moment, every second

of every day, you can choose to either walk in

the flesh

or walk in the spirit. We talked about that

before. That's a big part of making the most

of your time. Some folks get stuck in this

kind of reality. I'm going to start praying

more consistently.

I'm going to get down to business and start

studying my Bible more diligently.

I'm going to witness to that neighbor or that

co-worker, but they never get around to those

things. And the clock is ticking. The sand is

cascading out of the top of the hourglass,

lightning speed to the bottom, continually at

a rapid rate. We talked about last time the

difference between foolishness and wisdom. The

greatest foolishness in the world is wasting

time on foolish things. Relation 6-10. So then

, while we have opportunity,

let us do good to all people, especially to

those who are the household of faith. Opportun

ities are

always right in front of us, spending time in

prayer, spending quality time with your spouse

.

How about opportunities with your kids and

your grandkids? They grow up out of those most

formative

years into adults at the speed of light, don't

they? What have you done with the time that

you have

to pour into them the most important spiritual

realities of life? What about ministry?

As I showed you earlier in Ephesians, all

Christians have been given spiritual gifts.

What about that thing that you were going to

do for the Lord, excuse me, for the Lord,

but you just haven't found the time yet? I'm

preaching to myself here.

I'm thinking of many examples right now where

we really are just wasting time. Numero uno,

place today where we all waste time is right

here. This is the number one time

waster. Can I get a witness? As Vody Bacchum

says, if you can't say amen, you ought to say

ouch.

And don't get mad. This is what preaching is

for, to point these kinds of things out.

So that we can be convicted and that

conviction can be used to motivate us to grab

hold of our

much more of our opportunities and make much

better use of our time every day.

Remember, all that we ever have is right now.

You can't live in the past.

The psychotherapists want to drag you back to

your past and get you to commiserate on all

the

stuff that happened to you when you were a kid

and just make you feel more miserable.

Don't listen to that. You can't live back

there. Move forward with your life. You can't

live in

the future. It hadn't happened yet. All we

have is right now. That's how God has designed

life to be.

Napoleon Bonaparte once said this, and this is

a good football quote too.

"There is in the midst of every great battle a

10 to 15 minute time period that is the

crucial

point. Take that period and you win the battle

. Lose it and you will be defeated."

That's a great quote. There are so many

biblical texts that warn us about the misuse

of time

and the loss of opportunity. Think about old

Noah. It had never rained on the earth,

and there's old Noah out there preaching his

guts out and building that art for 120 years.

But then one day it started thundering,

and the door shut, and it was too late for

everybody else. Opportunity

gone. Jesus' words echo all down through

church history. "The night is coming when no

man can

work. The work while it is still day." We

talked last week about Judas. Is there

possibly a greater

case of lost opportunity in the history of the

world than Judas? He spent up close and

personal

three straight years with the king of glory,

the judge of all the earth, God in human flesh

,

and he walked away and he wound up hanging

himself, and his body burst open on all the

rocks below

where he hung himself. What a colossal waste

of the greatest opportunity ever. Three years

with

Jesus when he was here, only 12 men in the

history of mankind had that opportunity, and

he wasted it.

Now, let's finish this up. Verse 17.

Starts out with "so then," and of course that

's directly from the previous verses, right? "

So then,

since you have to make the most of your time,

since you have to walk wisely, since the days

are

evil look less, do not be foolish." You know

what that is in the Greek? Don't be stupid,

because a wise person gets what it says next,

but understand what the will of the Lord is.

In other words, in walking wise, in making the

most of your time, in realizing the urgency,

don't be foolish with what you're doing.

Understand what the will of the Lord is

in what you're doing. It is the fool that

functions apart from God's will. A fool just

runs off in all directions at one time. This

is calling us to discern the will of the Lord

in what we are doing. Now, that's maybe the

most often question that preachers get asked.

"How do I know what the will of the Lord is

for my life?" Or I get a, "I can do this,

I can get this job." How do I know what the

will of the Lord is? Well, John MacArthur has

a sermon

series about this that I highly commend to you

. It helped me years and years ago. It's a

whole

series about knowing the will of the Lord, and

what I'm going to close out with today is a

very,

very, very condensed listing of those points,

and you're going to get the gist of it.

What's God's will for your life as a Christian

? Now, I'm talking

the Christians here. Number one, most

important, this is always first on this. God's

will is for

you to come to saving faith and Bible

repentance in Christ on His terms. That's

number one. You

got to get that straight first. The Bible says

in Acts that God commands all men everywhere

to

repent. That's a command. Secondly, God's will

for you is found in the very next verse that

we're going to study next time in Ephesians.

Ephesians 5, 18, "And do not get drunk with

wine,"

for that is dissipation, "but be filled with

the Spirit." So God's will for you, Christian,

is that you be saved and Spirit filled. Number

three, 1 Thessalonians 4, 3, "For this is the

will

of God." You ready? Your sanctification. Okay?

So now we got three things. Save, Spirit,

filled, sanctified. That's the process of

sanctification that all Christians on earth

are going through right this moment. Number

four, 1 Peter 4, 19, "Therefore, those also

who suffer

according to the will of God shall enter their

souls and trust their souls to a faithful

creator

in doing what is right." Boy, that's fly over

country for many American preachers. But here

's

the truth. We are called Christians to suffer

according to the will of God. And that's

different

for everybody, different levels, some more

than others. Then lastly, just quickly, 1 Th

essalonians

5, 18, "In everything, give thanks." Why? Or

this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus,

Jesus, living life thankful. Do you know if

you go around thanking the Lord all the time,

every day,

for all the way more good stuff that happens

to you than the bad? If you get down a piece

of paper,

I promise you, the thankful things are way

more than the things that you're not thankful

for.

You can't live better than that. Now, that's a

very condensed list. He has a whole sermon

series on

that's really good. What's the will of God?

Saved, spirit filled, sanctified, suffering,

saying thanks. Now, you might be thinking, "

Okay, I see those verses. Okay, I understand

what you're

saying, but how does those things help me in

like deciding what job I should take or who I

should

marry and very particular issues like that?"

Well, let me get you to consider this.

If you could say yes to being saved, spirit

filled, sanctified, suffering, and saying

thanks,

then the next thing for you to do is whatever

you want to do. Think about it. If you got

those

things in order, you will be delighting in the

Lord and the Bible says delight in the Lord

and

He'll give you the desires of your heart. Exam

ple, why did I decide to participate

in the planting of this church in 2010? Well,

I can tell you this. I didn't flip open my

Bible and

closed my eyes and point to a verse and

whatever my finger landed based my decision on

that.

That's using the Bible like tarot cards. The

opportunity in time presented itself.

And I was operating, not perfectly, none of us

are, but I was operating as a saved, spirit

filled,

sanctified, suffering, saying thanks Christian

, opportunity came and I said yes to this

opportunity

to serve the Lord as the pastor and the new

plant in 2010, the Providence Baptist Church,

and lo and behold 15 years later, I'm still

here doing it. I hadn't stopped, but I did it.

You know

why? Because I wanted to. That's it. I had my

priorities in line and that's what I wanted to

do

when the opportunity presented itself. And

where did I get the desire? With all those

things in

line, I believe God put the desire in my heart

. Why? Because he's in charge. He's in control

of the course of my life, as we saw earlier.

And when you are functioning within the will

of God

in the way that I just outlined, you are going

to find that in whatever you decide to do in

your

life, it's going to make a difference in the

world at whatever capacity that he wants it to

make

a difference for his glory, whether you have a

worldwide ministry or a little bit of small

one

like this, he makes that call. But you have to

have those things in line first, saved, spirit

filled, sanctified, suffering, saying things

again, not in the perfection of your life,

but in the direction of your life. That is how

you walk wise and make the most of your time,

understanding what the will of the Lord is in

your life and acting upon it. And Christian,

if you are convicted by this subject matter

that I've given you here today, you live again

moment

by moment, right? And all you got is this

moment that you got right in front of you

right now.

So if you're convicted that maybe you haven't

been using your time in the best way possible,

I'm telling you Christian, ask God to forgive

you and plant your flag today and say, I'm

going to

start making the most of my time this day so

that I can live in such a way that brings him

maximum

glory. Best prayer.