Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Birthday’s are wonderful ways to celebrate the life God has given to us and also a time to reflect on God’s goodness to us throughout the years.

Our pastor used to say that don’t complain about how old you are turning, because at least you have a birthday to celebrate!

And that’s true because he no longer gets to celebrate his birthday on earth since he is with our Lord in glory.

As we celebrate Tita Peth’s birthday, I would just like to reflect on the importance of time.

Time is a precious gift God has given us and as God’s people, we must learn to use our every minute of our time to bring glory to our God.

Some of you may say, “That’s easy for you to say Pastor Alex because you are young”, but I want to say to you who are older, including Tita Peth, that some of your most fruitful years of serving the Lord can be in your aging years.

Think about it.

You don’t have to raise young children.

You may have a house paid off.

You may be retired.

So you may have more time and resources to give to the Lord.

In fact, in John Piper’s book, Rethinking Retirement: Finishing Life for the Glory of God, he says

Finishing life to the glory of Christ means resolutely resisting the typical American dream of retirement.

It means being so satisfied with all that God promises to be for us in Christ that we are set free from the cravings that create so much emptiness and uselessness in retirement.

Instead, knowing that we have an infinitely satisfying and everlasting inheritance in God just over the horizon of life makes us zealous in our few remaining years here to spend ourselves in the sacrifices of love, not the accumulation of comforts.

In the 2016 Presidential elections, the three main political candidates were above 70 years old.

The current President is 72 years old.

At 70 years old, Benjamin Franklin help draft the Declaration of Indpedence.

Five of the eight supreme court justices are over 65 and three are over 75.

Winston Churchill was 66 and help lead the fight against the Nazis.

John Piper is 72 years old and still travels around the world to preach about the supremacy of God and the joys of all peoples.

John MacArthur still preaches at three services Sunday morning and still travels to preach at conferences while being the President of a Seminary and College at 79 years old.

What I am trying to say is that you can still make the best use of the time and be fruitful for the Lord in old age.

I pray what Moses prays:

And

The Psalmist asks God not only to proclaim his greatness in his youth, but even in his old age.

So today, I want to reflect on the importance of time and how to use every waking minute so that we would continue to be useful to the Lord and serve God with great passion.

Here Paul says that wise people know how to walk, which is another way of saying that wise people know how to live.

And one of the ways you display wise living is making the best use of the time.

Making the best use of the time is a commercial term which means redeem or purchase, or we can say squeeze every penny out of that dollar or maximize the use of your time.

We are to squeeze every waking minute that God has given us.

In fact, one of America’s greatest theologians preached a whole sermon on this one verse.

Four reasons why we need to maximize our time:

I. Time is Short

Our lives are like the grass of the field or the flowers of the field.

We may blossom in our youth, but as we age we draw nearer to our Maker as we decay and slow down.

As summer flowers we fade and die

Fame, youth and beauty hurry by

But life eternal calls to us

At the cross

We live in a fallen world where we are affected by the curse of the fall and part of the curse is decay and death.

So we are to use every minute of the day to bring glory to God.

Jonathan Edwards wrote some resolutions:

5. Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.

17.

Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

He was only 19 years old when he wrote this.

Throughout his life he pastored a local church, raised a family, he preached and taught sermons, he published books reflecting on some of the most profound theology, he was involved with missionary work to the Indians, inspired other missionaries, was a president of a Princeton, and had left a legacy to his family.

The point is that you can still make an impact with your life if you use every minute of it and understand that time is short and the days are evil.

II.

Time is Not Guaranteed

Edwards also said that time is not guaranteed.

In God’s providence, we do not know if we will live a full life or if our life can be taken from us unexpectedly.

Time is not guaranteed.

The world is world by a timeless God, but we as finite creatures are bound by space and time.

We have an expiration date.

We have a date where we will meet our maker.

And the Bible says,

That is why in the book of James, James rebukes those who boast as if they can live another day.

It is only if the Lord wills, we will live another day.

And it is by God’s will, we must live for His glory.

James 4:13-1

III.

Time Cannot Be Recovered

We can either use our time wisely, or waste or time foolishly.

It is a tragedy for Christians to spend their time doing nothing, when there is a world ravished by the Fall, a broken world where people die of hunger and thirst, and where people have not heart that there is a God who saves.

How many people have on their deathbed regretted the would have maximize their time.

If they had only spent more time with their family, or loving their wives, or their children, yet they squandered their time on chasing things that have no eternal value.

They would give all the money in the world to get back more time, yet they wasted it and could recover it.

If only I had more time, I would serve the Lord.

If only I had more time, I would tell my friends about Jesus.

If I only have more time, I would do more for the kingdom.

The question is: what are you doing now with your time?

IV.

Time is Urgent

Edwards says that a happy or miserable eternity depends on how we used our time.

Because the Bible says,

We will all stand before our maker and give an account of how we used our time.

So we need to maximize our time because

Time is short

Time is not guaranteed

Time cannot be recovered

Time is urgent

How do we redeem the time?

The Bible tells us that that the way to redeem the time and live as wise people is to understand what the will of the Lord is.

A fool is a person who is reckless with his time and reckless with his life.

A fool is one does not acknowledge that there is a God and will be held accountable with his life.

When we think about the will of God, it often refers to either the mysterious and eternal will of God by which he makes plans and decisions in eternity, and the revealed will of God by which he speaks to us clearly in Scripture.

In this context, it is referring to the latter.

What is will of the Lord?

I. To Be Saved

The Bible tells us for the most urgent and important need of humanity is to be made right with God.

The Bible tells us that there is a holy God who made the world we live in.

And he has made us to love and serve Him.

But all of us have rejected his gracious and loving rule over our lives, and therefore man was cursed because he turned his back on God.

Therefore, death and decay entered into the world as a result of sin.

Yet God, not only be a holy God, but a loving and merciful God sent His Only Son into the World, being born of a virgin, lived the perfect life you and I were supposed to live, and died on a shameful cross for the death you and I deserved as substitute on our behalf.

And three days later, he rose physically and bodily from the grave.

And he ascended to heaven and is coming back again to deliver his people and recreate the world where there is no more curse.