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.