Redeeming the Time

Thank you, Luke and Melody, for the beautiful special music. By way of an update, she had stopped breathing and was foaming at the mouth and having some difficulties with some things. She's breathing at this time, she's crying, things seem to be good. They're going to transport out of an abundance of caution, so ambulances en route. So, just kind of an FYI in that regard. But she seems to be okay at this time from a standpoint of that-ish. But they're going to be heading here, and ambulance should be here shortly. We'll try to update you as we have updates. Rachel, feel free to text as you have updates. All right. So, I'd like to start today by having you envision a scenario.

So, I'd like you to have a scenario in your head here for just a moment. And in this particular scenario, you have a personal bank account. You might be saying, that's not much different than reality. I already have a personal bank account, thank you very much. But this is a little bit different, because every night at midnight, a sum in the amount of $86,400 is deposited into your account.

Every night at midnight, without fail, you receive $86,400. You wake up in the morning, you check your phone. Sure enough, you've got the little green checkmark that says, yeah, your money is there, it is waiting to be spent. It's instantly accessible, you can spend it on whatever you would like to spend it on. There are no conditions, there's no rules, no obligations, no stipulations. How would you use it? How would you use that money? Would you purchase a new car? Would you put a large sum of money down on a house? Would you spend it on fine food and drink and things?

Would you give it all away? I once thought it would be really fun to be able to go to the top of a building with just briefcases full of cash, and just open the briefcase. I mean, it would probably cause a riot, that would be the downside. I always thought, man, it would just be so cool to be able to have that kind of money and just be able to give it away as we still want it. In this scenario, again, the way that you spend it, man, the sky is the limit. You could spend it however you wanted to spend it. However, with most things that are too good to be true, there's a catch.

There's always a catch, right? There's always a catch. The catch is, the remaining funds that you don't spend that day do not carry over to the next day. At midnight, right before they deposit your next $86,400, they clear your account. Anything left over at the end of the day is gone, and then they put the $86,400 back in at midnight for the following day.

So basically what that means is that anything you did not spend by the time your eyes closed when you went to sleep that night is gone. You don't get it. It doesn't roll over.

This is not Verizon or Cricket. No rollover minutes, right? So it doesn't roll over. You can't pass it on. It's not inherited. On and on and on it goes. Every day of your life, $86,400 deposited each and every day. Again, when your life ends, the account closes. There's no inheritance. There's no passing it on. How would you spend it? Would you leave any behind? You know, I've got to think, if this scenario were... I would find a way to spend every single cent of that $86,400. If I knew that at the end of the day that was gone, I would find a way to spend it all.

I would make sure that I maximized that opportunity, right? And I'm sure most of you would say the same thing. I doubt any of you would be like, well, I don't know, there's only $86,000 if they're just going to go get a cup of coffee, and I don't know, what's that? $86,398? Nah, somebody else can have it. No way! You're going to spend every cent of it! You're going to spend every cent of it. I would venture a guess, again, that most of us with this scenario would find a way to make sure that we took care of all of it.

Now, as you probably guessed already, based on this scenario, the number 86,400 was not chosen arbitrarily. It's not just a random choice of numbers. It's representative of the number of seconds we're given each day by our Almighty God. 86,400 seconds, midnight to midnight, we've got 24 hours, 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours in a day equals 86,400. But, you know, that doesn't tell the whole story, because all of us realized that there are certain points in our day we don't have control over what we do.

Most of you likely work, which means you're going to be given eight hours to somebody else. That's not your eight hours to spend. You don't get to go to work and go, I'm just going to do something else. I don't like this. You're not going to get to do it for very long, right? So that doesn't quite tell the whole story. And then there's another thing that doesn't quite tell. You have to sleep.

Now, I know that we can cheat that sometimes and can try to avoid sleeping for quite a while, but the reality is, long enough, you end up paying the piper at some point because you run out of—you're just exhausted. So, when we take a look at that, average suggestion is eight hours for sleep. Eight hours. That's 28,800 seconds gone of your 64,000—or 86,000, sorry, 400 seconds.

Another eight hours spent at work. Again, you don't have control over that. That's another 28,800 seconds, which leaves you with eight hours that are under your direct control.

It's kind of sad when you think about it. It's like you've got a 24-hour day, and you're going, well, I've got to give eight of it to my boss. I've got to give eight of it to sleep. I don't like it. Eight of it for the stuff I want to do? But it is what it is.

Eight hours of time that's not otherwise spoken for. 28,800 seconds. And in that time comes breakfast, comes lunch, comes dinner, comes friends and family, and travel to and from work, showers, restroom breaks, prayer, Bible study, leisure activities, television, internet. And it also comes with an extremely important question. How do we spend our 28,800 seconds? Knowing once again that the scenario that we began with, at the end of the day, those seconds don't carry over until tomorrow. They don't. They are gone. They are absolutely gone. Use it or lose it. So how do we spend our time? I'd like to start today by having you do just a quick little exercise in your notebook. So if you've got a notebook or a phone or something you can jot something down on, please take out a notebook, piece of paper, or something. What I'd like you to do is this. I would like you to write down on your notebook the top five things inside of that remaining 28,800 seconds, those eight hours that you have control over, the top five things that eat up your time. What takes up the most time in that eight hours? Where is it spent? How and on what? So starting with the thing that takes the most time, working your way down to the fifth thing that does not eat as much time as the first. So one through five. It's going to take about 30 seconds, and I'm going to actually give you 30 seconds. Teachers are notorious for saying, take 30 seconds and then give you 10.

Okay, you've got about five seconds left. Kind of put a finishing touches on your list. Okay, so you should have on your paper or on your phone somewhere the top five things, number one to five, that take up the most of that eight hours of time. Okay? By hours, minutes, however you want to classify that. But now what I'd like you to do underneath that. So underneath those things, make a second list. And what I'd like you to do on that second list is identify your priorities. Identify the things that are most important to you. Again, one through five. Don't cheat and look at your spouse's list. Just use your own list. We're not going to share these. But write down one to five the things that are most important to you, your priorities. Okay, I'll give you another 30 seconds to do that. Okay, take a look at your priorities. Again, one to five.

All right, there's 30 seconds. So you might not quite be done. That's fine. But take a look at your two lists. Look at your two lists and compare them. Do they match? Do the things that you identify as being most important take up the most time in your day, or are your list inverted? Or you have things that aren't as important and aren't you might even have I don't know when I've done this in the past, there are things that weren't even on my priority lists that were up in the taking up more time things. That might be your list as well. Again, we're not going to ask you to share it with anybody per se, but time itself is interesting. It's a lot like money. If we don't analyze how we spend our time, if we don't take a look at where we spend it, sometimes we don't even realize that it's gone. We just look up and go, where did all the time go? You ever have a situation like that where you look up and think to yourself, where did the last hour of my life go? My wife and I, when we signed up to do Dave Ramsey the first time through, were asked to do a budget. And we had a loose budget, sort of, kind of. And what I mean by that is we'd spend our money, and then at the end of the month when we got our statement, we'd go, hey, there's where it went. And that was our budget at the time when we signed up for the first round through Dave Ramsey. And he asked us, the very first thing we did was to sit down and say, where's your money going? And so we kept track of our spending, and it's eye-opening when you look at, what am I spending my dollars on? And likewise, it's eye-opening when you take a look at, what am I spending my time on? We talk about the currency of life. The currency of life is time. That's what we have. That's the extent of our life. So the title of the message today is Redeeming the Time. And with the time that we have left today, we're going to take a look at this topic more in depth in conjunction with the theme of our Bible studies that we've been going through in this concept of becoming a disciple. And so we're going to ask the question, does God expect that we spend the remaining eight hours of our day? So we're sleeping for eight, we're working for eight. Does God expect that the next eight hours of our life is spent solely in prayer and meditation and fasting and study and all of those things? Does God expect that we're going to live like a monk, essentially? I think we recognize the answer to that as no. The answer to that is no. God allows for entertainment. He allows for relaxation. He allows for fun. However, we all know too well, and I'm guilty of this myself, appropriate balance is easier said than done. And I think more often than not, we err on the side of less God than erring on the side of more God. I think if we're honest with ourselves, we err on the side of less God and not as much on the side of more God. Let's go ahead and turn over to Ephesians 5 today. Turn over to Ephesians 5. We'll go ahead and pick up the account that has the mention of this concept of redeeming the time. Ephesians 5, we'll go ahead and pick up the passage for context.

So in Ephesians 5, Apostle Paul's writing to the church in Ephesus, and he's admonishing them to walk in three things. And throughout this passage, he says they should walk in love, they should walk in light, and ultimately they should walk in wisdom. So three ways that they should be walking and living their life, in love, in light, and then in wisdom. Really taking care in their pursuits.

And in this passage, he's putting together this series of things that the believers must be watching out for, because in his own phrasing, the days are evil. He said that things are difficult. There's stuff out there that is designed to pull you away from God. The days themselves are evil, Satan is the God of this age, as it says. Ephesians 5, we'll pick it up in verse 1, says, And we've mentioned this before, he takes these five or six things here and essentially juxtaposes those with giving of thanks, being thankful.

Looking at all of these other things and offsets it with the one. But he's encouraging the church in Ephesus to walk in love, to be followers of God, as children would follow their father. I don't know if you've ever noticed or remember this from when you had your own children. How often do our kids want to be like dad? Especially when they're younger. That changes sometimes as they get a little bit older. But when they're young especially, they want to be like dad.

I'm going to mention something about Matt that always just makes me laugh so hard. Whenever we're working on a project, Charlotte is out there with a hammer if she can get a hold of it, pounding on something, because she wants to be like dad. She wants to imitate and be just like dad. She wants to help, she wants to work, she wants to do these things. And so, you know, we look at children follow their father in that way.

They follow the example. They follow what they see. And so he gives them the admonition to walk in love with the recognition of what Christ's sacrifice was. What it meant, what it entailed, and what it ultimately means for us as believers. And in the process of that, he said, look, put out things like fornication, like uncleanness, like covetousness. So much so, don't even let it be named among you. No filthiness, no foolish talking, no coarse jesting, dirty jokes. Put them out, right?

And then he sets up again that juxtaposition between all of these things and giving of thanks, really expressing gratitude to God. He goes on in verse 5, it says, And so we look at all of those things that are listed, those are things that would prevent someone from inheriting the kingdom of God. Now, we live our life, in a way, to inherit the kingdom of God. That's our goal, right? It says, these are the things that must be put out of our lives. It says, Do not be partakers with them. Again, outlining for us the characteristics, the lifestyles of things that we're to avoid.

You know, there's mentors and there's anti-mentors in life, right? You have mentors who show you the good things, and you look at them and you go, I want my life to be like that. That person is my mentor. You know, that person is somebody that can show me the right way to live. Then there are anti-mentors, and the anti-mentor is the exact opposite of that. It's the person you look at and go, I don't want to be like that person. I don't want to live my life like that person lives their life, because they've shown you the way not to be.

Paul's giving him the anti-mentor characteristics here, the things to avoid, the things not to partake in. He goes on in verse 8, For you were once darkness. One point in time, you were like this. This was your life. This is the way you lived at one point in time. But now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Now he's laying out those mentor characteristics, goodness and righteousness and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.

Verse 11, And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it's shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light. For whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore, he says, Awake you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. So therefore, again, as a result of these things, we get to verse 15. So as the culmination of all of these things, here we are.

It says, See then, based on all of this, that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. Verse 16, Redeeming the time. Redeeming the time because the days are evil. In the ASV, that translation says, the congregation should look carefully at how they walk. And if you've ever been on an uneven path before, you don't look straight ahead when you're walking on an uneven path. You're going to trip over rocks that are going to jump up there and get you.

You watch your feet when you walk on uneven paths. Saying circumspectly, walk circumspectly. Watch your feet. Watch where you walk. Watch the things that you do. Do wise things. Taking care, again, of how we do what we do. But we're also given the instruction here to redeem the time. And the redeem is the Greek word exagerazo.

It's G1805, and it means to buy up, to rescue from loss, or to redeem. So to buy it back, to buy it up, to redeem it from loss. So we're looking to buy up our time, to rescue it from loss, to purchase it with something more important. Redeeming the time looks a lot like living a circumspect life, being wise and avoiding the evils of society today. Jamison Fawcett in Brown Commentary has the following to say about this passage. It says, watch the time and make it your own so as to control it.

As merchants look out for opportunities and accurately choose out the best goods, serve not the time, but command it, and it shall do what you approve. So I don't know if you know anybody who owns businesses or people who are entrepreneurial in their spirit.

They look for deals. They look for things that they can buy and they can turn around and resell. We should be doing the same with our time. How can we use our time wisely so as to kick in a massive investment in the long run, that the payoff is greater than what we're investing in at the time? It says, Pindar said, the time followed him as his servant and was not a runaway slave. Does our time follow us, or do we follow our time? How do we spend it? There's exactly 24 hours in every day, 86,400 seconds, and during 28,800 of that time, it's under our direct control.

It's our decision as to how we're going to spend it. And ultimately, it's our answering for how we're going to spend it.

He goes on in Ephesians 5, verse 17, So he links this redemption of time with wisdom. And he says that if we understand what the will of the Lord is, then we will redeem the time, we'll buy it back from loss, we'll make certain that it's used wisely.

Now, he also admonishes them here to avoid drunkenness because it's in dissipation, an unwise use of time. Instead, he says, be filled with the Spirit. So what is dissipation? As I was digging into this and looking at it, I went to Webster's to try to find a definition of dissipation, and here's what I got. The action or process of dissipating.

Awesome. Thanks. It helps a lot. But, as I dug a little deeper, dissipation is essentially dispersion or diffusion. And so if you think about it, smoke dissipates. See, smoke dissipate in a room. It disperses. Think about it like sand through your fingertips. So it's warning us about time in some ways in this regard, slipping through our fingertips. But he connects it very specifically here with intemperate living. So, you look at this section, yes, Paul is definitely giving an instruction against drunkenness. But I also think that he is connecting the act of drunkenness with dissipation. I think he's also giving an admonition against dissipation itself. Wasting time. Wasting life. Letting it slip through your fingers without a care for how it's being spent is dissipation. And while drunkenness is connected to this as well, I would say the admonition is against dissipation in general. Not just drunkenness. Drunkenness is one form of it. But there's a lot of other ways to live a life of dissipation. Self-indulgent behaviors, wasteful expenditures of time, laziness. The point he makes is to be fruitful with our time, to be wise, and to understand what God's will is for us. And once we understand that, to then spend our time accordingly with what we understand God's will to be. Which begs a very big question. What is God's will for us? What is God's will for us? Let's turn over to 1 Thessalonians 4. There are a few places in Scripture where it very specifically states, For this is the will of God... I love those places because it's a guarantee that is, in fact, the will of God. However, we also know that there are times in our life where God's will can be difficult to discern. It can be tough to understand exactly what it is He has planned in a specific situation. That is sometimes tough too, because what we think we would like the solution to be, may not be what God has in mind and what God has planned. And sometimes that can be very, very difficult to deal with as well. But 1 Thessalonians 4... Let's go ahead and turn there. We'll go ahead and look at 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 3. 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 3 says, For this is the will of God... Again, one of those places where it lists it specifically. 1 Your sanctification. The will of God is your sanctification. 2 You, being set apart, being holy, being sanctified. 3 For that you should abstain... In this case, he gives a specific example, abstain from sexual immorality. 4 That each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and in honor. 5 Not in the passions of lust, like the Gentiles, who don't know God. 6 That no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this manner. 7 Because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. 8 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. How is something holy? Can we make something holy? Can I declare something to be holy as a human? No. God sets what is holy. 9 And the reason that it is holy is because God's presence is in it. 10 Keeping the Sabbath holy is keeping God's presence in it. 11 The temple was holy because God's presence was in it. 12 So we talk about sanctification and us being set apart and us being holy, that it is God's will that we be holy. 13 That means we are maintaining His presence in us, and not driving Him away with uncleanness and this and this whole laundry list of things that we see here.

14 And so Paul's point to the church in Thessalonica was, look, you are to be changing who you are. 15 No more like the rest of the Gentiles, no more promiscuity, no more fornication. 16 Instead, God's desire was, His will for them was, that they would be holy, they would be sanctified. 17 They would respond to that calling and live accordingly. 18 Not just when it was convenient, not just when it suited them, but 24-7. 19 It was a change of lifestyle, not just putting this on whenever somebody was around. 20 Let's go on in verse 8 of 1 Thessalonians 4. 21 It says, therefore, he who rejects this, what he's saying right here, this plea for purity, 22 therefore he who rejects this does not reject man but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit. 23 He's given that to us, dwelling within us. 24 But concerning brotherly love, verse 9, you have no need that I should write to you. 25 For you yourselves, again the people in Thessalonica, are taught by God to love one another, 26 and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. 27 But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more. 28 So he says, look, you guys, you're doing great on this front, on the Thessalonica, brethren, living with brotherly love, doing great. But he says, there's always room for improvement. 29 There's always something more that can be done. He goes on in 11, says that you should also aspire to lead a quiet life, 30 to mind your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you, 31 that you may walk properly toward those who are outside and that you may lack nothing. 32 Living a quiet life, minding our own business, working with our hands, 33 essentially living a good Christian life, is a life that can lead in the direction of sanctification. 34 That's part of God's will, again, a life that is freely given to Him, a life that's properly humbled and yielded. 35 Now God communicates His will for us through His Spirit, through His presence in our life, dwelling in us, 36 and transforming our mind to be able to prove God's will. 37 Let's go over to Romans 12. Romans 12, another of those statements that we see where it talks about God's will, 38 that we have the ability to prove it and to understand it. 39 Romans 12, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. Romans 12 and verse 1 says, 40 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body as a living sacrifice, 41 holy, once again sanctified, set apart, with God's presence in it, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 42 Do not be conformed to this world. Don't be shaped by the world around us. 43 Don't allow it to form us like you would sculpt a sculpture. 44 Don't allow it to be conformed to this world, but instead be transformed by the renewing of your mind. 45 That renewing of our mind comes through God's presence in our life, 46 that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 47 We've talked about this before, but the concept of a living sacrifice is an interesting one. 48 The whole point of a sacrifice is that a sacrifice didn't get out alive. 49 A sacrifice was killed in the process. One-time payment done and done. But a living sacrifice is different.

50 Again, we have a lifetime of 86,400 second days. 51 And God expects that we are going to pay that sacrifice a little here, a little there for a lifetime. 52 Or maybe a lot here, a lot there for a lifetime. 53 It's not just a single one-time payment. 54 End result's the same. You still get the whole life. 55 The difference is one is paid up front and never paid again.

56 The other is paid piece by piece by piece by piece by piece until our last breath.

57 We consider God, and when we think about our worship of Him and what that looks like... 58 ...and we talk about this when we give tithes on the Holy Days... 59 ...what can we possibly give God? 59 He owns it all. The fullness of the earth is His. 60 We've been given dominion over the earth and over what He's provided for us, but it's His.

61 The one thing that He does not have is our time, because that is a choice that comes from free moral agency. 62 He's given us the ability to make choices. He's given us the ability to decide what we do with that. 63 That is the only thing that is not His directly, and it turns out that's the thing that He wants from us.

64 He wants us to spend time with Him in prayer, in study, in meditation, in fasting. 65 He wants us to give that time freely to Him, to buy it back from waste, from dissipation, and to give it to Him freely.

66 He wants us, as a living sacrifice, presenting ourselves yielded and humbled at His feet.

67 We are here on this planet to establish a relationship with God. 68 That is why we're here. We are here to learn in an imperfect carnal body with a mind that is enmity to God, using the down payment of His Spirit that He's given us at baptism, how to live this way of life, how to navigate the waters of life as things get difficult, as situations happen, how do we navigate those things?

69 He wants us to show Him that we're serious about our calling, and that we're willing to yield ourselves to it.

Everything that we do on this earth has parallels, spiritually.

Our marriages are parallels of a marriage relationship that Christ has with His church.

So when we're having difficulties with our spouse, it's an opportunity to learn. It's an opportunity to yield. It's an opportunity to submit. It's an opportunity to live God's way and to show that it works.

Our children help us to understand the relationship that God has with us.

You ever have a moment where you've told your kid the same thing fifteen times and you go, why won't you just listen? And then you have a moment where you go, all right, God, touche.

All right. Yeah, I'm picking up what you're putting down. Fair enough.

Our relationship with our boss ultimately illustrates our submission to authority. Brethren, this life is a proving ground for us to put into play what we see illustrated in Scripture.

We are ultimately here because God the Father desires His creation to become His children, to join our elder brother, Jesus Christ, in His family.

Let's go to Romans 8, just a few pages back from where we are right now. Romans 8, verse 12.

Romans 8 and verse 12, and we'll read through verse 17.

Again, just to illustrate this family relationship that God desires.

Romans 8, verse 12 says, Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

So if we are allowing God's Spirit to change us, you know that we look at situations and we have a moment where we don't respond immediately like we're human, have a second to step back and go, no, wait, that's not the right response in this situation.

To be able to allow God's Spirit to change how we correspond and how we interact says you will live, putting to death the deeds of the body. 14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, again, led by the Spirit of God, not just have it, but are led by it, are allowing it to lead them and to change them. These are the sons of God. For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, enjoin heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. From the very beginning of this process, Adam and Eve were to be the children of God. He made them, gave them a mission to fill the earth with children, and we know they strayed.

We're designed as part of God's plan to be His children, to bring us back and to redeem us. Again, we're here because God desires a family. He wants children.

So as children, what is our purpose? What is our time here supposed to entail? As children, what are we supposed to be doing with those eight hours that we have each day to make some decisions as to what we do? Let's go over to Ecclesiastes 12. Ecclesiastes 12.

And once again, as we look at this particular point, it's going to sound very much like the argument is, become a monk. It's not the argument. Balance is still essential. But again, erring on the side of more God than less God. Ecclesiastes is an interesting book. Well, they're all interesting books, but Ecclesiastes in particular. I love, you know, we have several books that Solomon wrote throughout Scripture. We have the Song of Songs. We have bits and pieces of Proverbs. And then we have Ecclesiastes.

And Song of Songs is kind of young Solomon, kind of as a younger man, perhaps. And it could be older man reflecting back with wisdom, you know, on things. But you have kind of younger man, you have kind of middle-aged man in the Proverbs, kind of passing on this fatherly wisdom in some ways. And then you get to Ecclesiastes and you have older Solomon.

You have a man who has lived his life in a variety of different ways, has attempted to find happiness and merriment in a number of different things, and ultimately comes to a pretty solid conclusion at the end of this book. He has examined all the things that are out there. He has looked at and tried to find happiness in so many different things. And his ultimate conclusion is this. Ecclesiastes 12, verses, well, let's do 13.

Nope, let's do 11. Sorry, I changed my mind. I'm allowed to do that now and again. Ecclesiastes 12, verse 11 says, The words of the wise are like goads, and the words of scholars are like well-driven nails given by one shepherd. What's a goad? Anybody ever got goaded into something? I've been goaded into something before. A goad is like a prod, essentially, that shepherds used to use. And they would kind of go, and it would encourage the animal to get moving if it didn't want to move. Certain animals don't require goads. Other animals need goads, very much so to move. You know, you kind of give a little jab to the side, and they go, I don't like that, and then they start moving. That's a goad. It says the words of the wise are like goads.

They get us moving. They get us realizing what's important in life.

It says the words of scholars are like well-driven nails given by one shepherd. It says, and further my son, be admonished by these of making many books, there is no end, and much study is weirsome to the flesh. Let us hear, then, the conclusion of the whole matter. In other words, my entire life, all of the things I've tried, all this stuff, all the women and the drinks and the food and all this stuff, the Solomon tried to make himself happy with. He says it all comes down to this. Fear God, keep His commandments, for that's man's all. It says that is man's purpose. That is why we're here. Fear God, hold Him in awe and respect, and keep His commandments. It says, for God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

And we're also here because we're to be a physical proof to a world that is operating under Satan's influences that God's way works. He desires us to fear Him and to keep His commandments so that our life can be an example to those in the world around us who maybe have never opened a Bible. You know, we've said it before and continue to say it, your life may be the only Bible somebody else reads.

And when they can see that your life works, that you can be happy in spite of difficult times, that you can have joy despite trials in your life, they look at you differently. How can you be happy in the middle of all of this? And our response is, well, because I know this isn't all there is. I know that there's more. I know that I'm being called for something else.

Fearing God and keeping His commandments is the whole duty of man, man's entire purpose. And, brethren, we've been given three score and ten years to make it happen. By reason of strength, it says 80. And some of you have got more than that. You've got real strong. Right?

But by reason of strength, 80, it says. Our life is limited. We're a finite lifespan. We have 70 to 80 years, roughly, to learn the way of God, to establish a relationship with Him, to marry, to have children, to teach them God's ways, to go through life as we know life to be.

But there's a finite period of time in which we have to complete that task.

86,400 seconds a day, and again, 28,800 after you take out work and sleep. It's not a lot of time. Let's go to Psalm 90, where we see this particular time span recorded here.

Psalm 90. We'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 10.

This is a prayer of Moses, kind of reflecting on man's life, and recognizing again that it is limited, that we do have a finite amount of time to make things happen.

Prior to this, there were longer life spans, as we see recorded, but by the time Moses comes around, God had kind of limited it.

He said, no. Roughly 80 years, 90 years.

Psalm 90, verse 10, says, The days of our lives are seventy years, or some say three score and ten, and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, their boast is only labor and sorrow.

It says, look, this physical life is tough. I was talking to somebody about this before services today.

If this life were perfect and great, why would we want the other one?

It's a juxtaposition! It's looking at, this is not great sometimes. This life is hard sometimes.

What we experience here is not even worthy of being compared to the glory that is to come, as Paul says.

But they are boast of only labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away.

Who knows the power of your anger, for as the fear of you so is your wrath.

Verse 12, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

You know, as a result of that finite time that we have, of that three score and ten, or by reason of strength, eighty, eighty-five, ninety, we have to number our days. We have to reflect on the finite time that we have and ensure that we apply our hearts to wisdom in order to know what's valuable and in order to know what we need to do to live accordingly.

So as a result of that, it's really important that when we look at things, we analyze them with a long-term outlook.

Ask ourselves the question, what will the benefit of this activity be in five years, in ten years, in eternity?

If the answer is not much or the answer is negative, well, then that's a prime candidate for us to go, well, is this really not worthwhile? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

Again, in balance. In balance. It's always fascinating to me how when we're confronted with death and when we're confronted with our own mortality, you know, often I go through this whenever we have a memorial service or we have a funeral of some variety.

You become very cognizant of the breaths you take and you become very cognizant of the life in which you live and you start to ask yourself questions around, you know, what am I doing with life?

You know, am I living it the way that I should be? Am I doing this or that or whatever else? We become really cognizant of it in times like that. But it's also fascinating to me how quickly it seems that understanding slips away again as we get back into life.

You know, I remember when I went to Nigeria, I came home and I said, I am never, ever going to complain about U.S. traffic ever again. After experiencing 23 million people on the roads of Lagos, never again. Three weeks. Maybe. Maybe three weeks before I'm going, hey! Oh, don't you just cut me off? What was that? Right? So it is incredible to me, though, how quickly our, I don't know, our institutional amnesia, so to speak, kicks in and you go, well, well, anyway, here we go. It's so important that we have that time. I'm one in, you know, this slight confession time here. I am incredibly good at wasting time. I really wish it wasn't the case. And it's something truly that I need to work on and am. But if there were a professional lead for wasting time, I could have gone pro years ago. I mean, years ago. Potentially, I could be in the Hall of Fame, actually. And part of the problem in that is the way that I think. I'm a free associative thinker. I don't know how many of you understand free association or know what that is. But when I'm thinking about something, that brings to mind something else. And then I think about that thing, and I want to read everything I can about that thing. And then I pick up on some other little thing in there, and I want to go, oh, that reminds me of this. I'm really interested in learning. And before I know it, I'm nowhere near where I started. I'm off somewhere entirely different location, but I've read like, you know, seven, eight, nine, ten different things in the process. But my original topic's here, and I'm somewhere off over here in the weeds somewhere. The Internet, for me, is dangerous. And the reason that it's dangerous is because, as I'm reading things, there's links to read other things. And all it takes is to click up a button, and you can read this other thing. And before you know it, you're watching dogs barking jingle bells, and you go, how did I get here? And you have that moment where you go, wait a minute, how did I get here? And for me, it's a time I have to really be very cognizant of things and go, no, no, no, this is what you're doing. But realistically, the difference between wasting time and utilizing it appropriately is based on outcomes. It's based on outcomes. And I want to be very clear, you know, as we've talked about this, everybody has to have time to unwind and relax. You know, we are living in a time that Daniel saw given to him by God to see where people would go to and fro, and knowledge would increase. And if there's any perfect description of the world around us, of people going to and fro and knowledge increasing, not wisdom per se, but knowledge increasing, it's our time that we're living in now. Life is busier than it's ever been. People are bouncing from place to place to place and doing this and that and all these things. And it is. It's stressful. There has to be time to unwind. There has to be time to relax. Times where you can, you know, turn your mind off for a time. But we have to be intentional about those times. We have to analyze those times and be able to kind of take a look at that.

So if we take a look at how we spend our time and we find that, for example, let's say we get home from work, first thing we do is kick the shoes off, you know, kick the feet up, turn the TV on, and we start to watch whatever show we're watching. And then later on we look up and it's three and a half, four hours later. Well, is that a wise use of our time for three and a half to four hours? Or, you know, is it better maybe a half hour to an hour to kind of just unwind a little bit before jumping into something else?

We have to be so intentional about these things. You know, if we end up getting into these situations with internet or phone or television or whatever it might be at the expense of our relationships with our family, with God, at the expense of our relationships in other ways, we're in need of a course correct. You know, we're in need of redeeming the time. There was a new story that broke. It's been a few weeks back now that dealt with an aspect of this. And it was heartbreaking. It was a heartbreaking news story. A teacher down in Louisiana had her students write a prompt about inventions that they didn't like. Fun prompt. The second graders, this has got to be hilarious. I mean, there's got to be some really good ones. But she said that one of her students, and actually not just one of her students, a few of them in the class wrote about the same thing. But this was one student's response. And the response, she took a picture of it, put it online, and as things do, they go viral and, you know, everybody sees it. And that's how I found out about it. But it says, if I had to tell you what invention I don't like, I would say, I don't like the phone. I don't like the phone because my parents are on it every day. A phone is sometimes a really bad habit. I hate my mom's phone, and I wish she never had it. That's an invention I don't like. The teacher stated, out of 21 students in that class, four of them, one seventh, or three of them, I'm sorry, one seventh of the class, wrote about how much they didn't like their parents' cell phones for the exact same reasons. And you can imagine, we have kids going home. They get home from school, they've been to school all day. And then now we're in a situation where, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop 76 in kids left to fend for themselves. If we are in that position, at the expense of the relationships with our family, we are in need of a course correct. We're in need of a course correct. Whether it's television, whether it's phone, whether it's Internet, whatever it might be. Sometimes you could be reading books. We're in need of a course correct. We have reached a point in society that is kind of a tipping point where our technology saturation is so high that I think this is going to become more and more and more common as time goes on. We're having a hard time understanding how best to regulate ourselves with the level of technology that we have. But it's a sign of a life that's out of balance. In this situation, again, this situation, a person is choosing something that doesn't have a five-year or a kingdom-level value and placing it in a higher priority over something that does.

Now, full disclosure, I've been guilty of this. I've been guilty of this. I'm sure we all have, at one time or another, been guilty of putting something that doesn't have that kind of priority in our place. But living a life that puts God first, that places Him foremost in our lives, and puts His presence within us throughout our activities requires an examination which is circumspect and wisdom in the decision-making process. I used to do a demo with my avid kids, and I think I've mentioned this to you before, where you look at the importance of prioritization. It's the classic example. You've got a big glass cylinder, you've got big rocks, small rocks, smaller rocks, sand, water, and you've got a mile out on a table. You basically say, look, are all these things going to fit in the jar? And of course, your kids go, no, no! Until one kid goes, yeah! I mean, yeah! Yeah, I will! Right? And so you start by asking, well, how do we do it? Well, put the water in first. Okay? So I put the water in first. What happens if I put the rocks in? The water comes out. Okay, well, we can't start with the water, right? Put in the sand first! So put the sand in, right? Dump the rocks, well, it won't all fit now. How does it all fit? And after a while, the kids start to realize, wait a minute, maybe you put them in by bigger order. So you start with the big stuff, and then put the smaller stuff in, and that fills a little spaces, and then you put the smaller things in, and that fills more spaces. And then eventually, you put the water in, and it fills it to the top of the brim, and everything fits. Right? And the discussion revolves around prioritization. You can't fit it all in the jar if you don't put the big rocks in first. Period. It won't fit. Unless you get a bigger jar, but none of us are getting bigger jars. So it won't fit. So when we start talking about that with the kids, we start talking about prioritization, okay?

So they take a little calendar home, and they start keeping track of what they do when they get home from school. And some of the amounts of time some of our kids are spending with television and screens and other things is unreal. I had sixth graders telling me they weren't going to bed until two in the morning, because they weren't playing video games. Am I two parents and all that? No.

Two a.m. is a sixth grader. It's unreal. But anyway, without those priorities, without that big rocks being put in first, it's not all going to fit. And so the big rocks really represent what's important to us. It represents the things that we find that are priorities. Things that in wisdom and understanding we identify as being kingdom-focused things. Things that are going to have a payoff in an eternal standpoint as opposed to something that's going to have a short-term payoff.

So we look at our lives, we look at those priorities, you wrote down on your paper five of them. Those are your big rocks. Those are the things that you got to put in the jar first in order to make it all fit. Let's go ahead and turn over to Matthew 25 as we start to close here. Matthew 25. Matthew 25, we see a couple of parables here. I personally feel like they're related. I feel like there's a reason why one follows the other here. But we're going to pick up the second one. We're going to start it in 25 verse 14. 25 and verse 14. And we want to try to make a connection here between what we're talking about and ultimately what this parable gives us.

Matthew 25, and we'll pick it up in verse 14, says, So it's kind of an interesting thing to look at. They didn't all get the same amount of talents to start with. There was a degree of looking at ability levels and saying, okay, this one's, we're going to give five to you, this one, two, this one, one. And then he says, You were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord.

Message was the same. He didn't give five talents. He only got two.

But the point was, he gained what he was given. He gained what he was given. The gentleman who got five returned five. The gentleman who got two returned two. And then we get to the last individual. He would receive the one talent, came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, Reaping where you've not sown, and gathering where you've not scattered seed. And I was afraid. And I went and I hid your talent in the ground. Look, there, you have what is yours. In other words, I buried it, but I'm giving it back to you. You gave this to me. I kept it safe for you by burying it in the ground and doing absolutely nothing with it. And his response said, the Lord answered and said to him, You wicked and lazy servant, You knew that I reap where I've not sown and gather where I've not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, And in my coming I would have received back my own with interest. Therefore take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten. For everyone who has more will be given. He will have abundance. And from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. Cask the unprofitable servant into outer darkness that will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The expectation was growth, that something would be done with what they were left with. The expectation was increase, that what he put in would grow and produce results. And again, while this particular parable deals very specifically with money, I think it can be reasonably extended to time. One of the most precious things that we are given by God is time. He talks about it in 2 Peter 3 verse 9, we won't turn there. He says he is long suffering towards us. Desires that all come to repentance, and he gives us time to make those changes in our life. Every day we get 86,400 seconds deposited into our personal accounts. And brethren, we are expected to be wise stewards of what we have been given.

We have to operate wisely with the time that we have been provided. We are admonished in Scripture to redeem the time, to buy it back from loss, to restore the value of the time that is spent, to invest it appropriately into things that are going to provide spiritual returns. It doesn't mean that we spend the eight hours a day that are under our control with a nose and a Bible and on our knees in prayer. But it means that we need to ensure that we are able to get the time that we have and ensure that we are spending time and significant time with God as our day goes on, inviting Him into our lives and maintaining Him in our lives as the day goes on. It does mean that our family relationships have to take precedence over frivolous things. It means we have to strive to keep God's presence again in our life throughout the day, living again in accordance with His way of life and practicing what we affirm to lead. And ultimately, that comes from what we've been looking at in our Bible studies over the last almost six months. We've been looking at how to become disciples of Jesus Christ and of God the Father, yielding our lives to them and looking at the kind of changes that we have to make in our lives, maintaining the Rabbi's presence in our life all day as we go forward, really connecting Him into every aspect of our lives, allowing His presence to be there and not to be pushed away. So, take another look at the list that we started with. Take a look at the list of things that you spend your time on and the list of your priority and compare the two. Do they match? Do the things that we say are most important to us take the most time in our day? Or are our lists inverted? Are there things that are not even on the list that are taking up valuable time in our day? Again, we have to redeem the time.