Redeem The Time

Make sure that the video and the info for the Air Soft Ministry is given.

Today is Sierra Wyatt’s birthday!

There is sign up sheet in the front foyer for the women’s Christmas dinner, Tueday December 17th at 7:00, at Mauricio’s in Cookeville.

I truly hope that each and every one of you had a most blessed and happy Thanksgiving this past Thursday! As for me and my household, I can say that we were truly blessed with our family sharing together and giving thanks to the Father for ALL that He has done and continues to do for us! AMEN?!

And whether you had to work on Thanksgiving Day, as some people most definitely did, or maybe you were off work, but still had to be on the road and travel to another location to participate in the day of Thanksgiving, the main thing is that you took the TIME on that day, to give thanks to God for all of the many blessings that are in your life!

You see, giving thanks to God requires that very act; TAKING THE TIME OUT OF YOUR DAY TO STOP EVERYTHING ELSE AND GIVE THANKS TO HIM FOR EVERY SINGLE BLESSING THAT HE HAS PUT INTO YOUR LIFE!

And I would submit to you this morning, that one of the hallmarks of a true believer in Jesus the Christ, is that we take the TIME, each and every day, to do this very thing; give thanks to our great God and Savior!

The Bible tells us, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

And the Apostle Paul said that we are to, “pray without ceasing.”

So, combine these two commandments and you can see that we are to pray all of the time, each and every day. And when we enter into that time of prayer, you begin it (entering into the gaits of His presence), with thanks coming out of your mouth to Him!

That is, as you and I begin our prayer to the Father, we do so by giving Him, true and heartfelt thanks for ALL that He has done, all that He is doing and all that He has yet to do for us!

And then as you move into closer proximity of the Father, that is, coming boldly before the throne of our gracious God as the author of Hebrews tells us, and we do so with the continual PRAISE to Him and for Him, coming out of our mouths!

This holiday that we call Thanksgiving, is a man made day set aside for celebrating and giving thanks corporately to God, but to the believer, this is to be an every day occurrence.

And as a member of the body of Christ, this also happens every time we assemble together. We come together and begin our meetings with thanksgiving to Him and for Him, and then we enter into His holy presence, through our Savior, Jesus Christ.

And this is accomplished only by our offering up a sacrifice of praise to God, which is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name!! Hallelujah!!!

So, technically, every time that we assemble together, we are celebrating Thanksgiving Day, amen?!

And the key thing that I want to point out here, in saying this about our giving thanks to God, is that this sacrifice of our thanksgiving and praise, is a volitional act of our will that comes from our using the TIME that we have been given!

In other words, you and I have to stop whatever is going on in our daily lives and use some of the TIME that we have been given, to give God the thanks and the praise that is due Him!

And in saying this about using our TIME to come before God in prayer and worship, I want to really drive home a very solemn point with you this morning.

Every minute of each and every day that we live, we are getting so much closer to the glorious return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.

And as great of a thought as that is for many of us, it is also a very sobering and scary thought in the hearts and minds of others, who are professing Christians and yet, who are no where near ready for His return, because of how they are living their lives and using the time that God has given to them!

And so, as we know that His return is drawing near, as indicated by the converging of all the signs that were prophetically given to us within the Bible, as has never before been witnessed in the history of the church age, since the church was first born and up till now; we should all take a very sobering look at the time that actually remains, before the Christ returns!

There are two aspects to this issue of our TIME here on this earth. There is the aspect of the actual amount of time that we each one individually have, (that is, from our birth until our death, our length of days), how ever long that is, but then beyond the issue of the longevity of life here on earth, there is also the issue of how we are really using that appropriated TIME that we have. What we might call, TIME MANAGEMENT.

So then, there are those two thoughts that we consider about our lives and the TIME that we have here: 1) How much TIME has God given me? 2) How am I using the TIME that He has given to me?

I read an article this past week from the Washington Post, which stated that a recent study showed that the overall life expectancy of an individual living within the United States, has been on the DECREASE, for the past three years in a row!

This trend is very much on the rise within the age brackets of people 25-64 years of age.

There are different contributing factors that feed into this new find, such as the rise in opioid addictions, poor self esteem and thus poor care of our bodies and our health, leading to weight issues and cardiac and stroke issues, cancer levels and in more recent years, the rise in deaths due to people being too distracted while driving, due to the use of cell phones!

The latter issue is most definitely an example of poor TIME MANAGEMENT!

All this said and done, it just exaggerates what the apostle James said to us in his epistle, where he wrote, “Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.”

Life as we know it, is not even worth our consideration, when placed alongside that of eternity!

And I think that as people, because we are sooooooo finite in our thinking, we struggle with the concept of eternity, if we even truly ever consider it at all.

I read this explanation once about eternity and of how to begin to measure it, (although truly, it’s NOT measurable, because it’s, well eternal!)

Many of you have a parakeet or you’ve seen one in the stores. Picture a parakeet in your backyard next to a sandbox. You take a pail, fill it full of sand, and then let some of the grains of sand fall through your hands. One bucket of sand has thousands of grains of sand. Let’s imagine that you could instruct that parakeet to pick up one of the grains of sand in its beak, fly to another planet and drop it off. Let’s say it takes one million years for the parakeet to get to that planet. He puts the grain of sand down and flies back to earth. It takes a million years for him to get back. He then picks up the next grain of sand and flies back to the that same planet. He drops off that grain and flies back to earth—a million years there, a million years back. One by one the parakeet takes each grain of sand in your sandbox to this planet. When he is finished, you take him down to Key West, Florida and there you show him the Atlantic Ocean and the beach which runs along the coast. You tell him, “I want you to start clearing off the sand on this beach one grain at a time.” He starts there, then works his way up to Miami, then to Jacksonville, Hilton Head, Charleston, New York City, Boston, and up to­ward Maine. He takes each grain of sand to the planet one at a time, a million years there, a million years back. When he’s done with all of that, you take him out to the West Coast and from Mexico all the way up to California and Oregon, you tell him to take one grain of sand at a time and fly it to the planet. When the parakeet finishes with all of that, you say, I’ve got this other little spot called the Sahara Desert. I want you to clear the sand off of that place one at a time.” When he finishes that, you say, “Three-fourths of the surface of the earth is water. Let me drain the oceans dry. At the bottom of the oceans you have a lot of sand. Take all of that sand to the same planet, one grain of sand at a time, a million years there, and a million years back.” When he finishes, if you could add up all of the millions of years it had taken to remove all of the sand from all of those places, eternity would just be beginning.

Use the example of the rope from Francis Chan and as to how eternity looks!

So, suffice it to say, that it’s FOOLISH for us to live our lives for the here and now, when our TIME here on earth is not even a flicker, compared to the magnitude of our TIME that will be spent in eternity!

And even more important than the magnitude of eternity itself, is the issue of where you and will spend our eternity!

So, that being said, let me read to you a passage that Paul wrote to the church of Ephesus, in the book of ,

Ephesians 5:15–16 NKJV

15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Other versions of the Bible translate these two verses as the following, “So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.”

Redeeming the time and making the most of the time, hold the same basic meaning for us.

To redeem is to buy back. The understanding of this word in the Greek is that you are doing something with urgency and intensity.

You are buying up the time from being used for foolish means (i.e evil) and you are using it for God’s will and His perfect plan, (i.e wise usage).

If we are being told to make the best use of our time, because of the evil that inhabits our days, then, for the believer, this means that we are to diligently work to spread the gospel message, while we stay close to Jesus, so as to not succumb to the evil all around us!

As reminds us, we are in fact flesh and spirit and the flesh is always waging war against us and against our spirit and trying to entice us back into sin.

Look with me real quickly at the opening of this 5th chapter in Ephesians, says,

Ephesians 5:1–5 NLT

1 Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. 2 Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. 3 Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. 4 Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. 5 You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.

When we use our TIME to partake in the things and the desires of this world,as the foolish do, then we are not redeeming the time for the Lord, but rather, we are giving our time to the enemy!

Paul closes this passage with the warning about being an idolater and of how they worship the things of this world.

I just read in the news yesterday, that we broke yet another record for Black Friday, internet sales, as Black Friday saw some $7.4 billion online and Thanksgiving Day internet sales saw another $4.2 billion, for a two day combined total of $11.6 billion, just in online purchases!

Between Thanksgiving Day and tomorrow, Cyber Monday, economists are predicting that total sales for these 5 days will hit some $29 billion!

People are never satisfied, we want more and more and more of whatever the world is selling us.

I am not knocking buying people presents, that’s not what I am talking about, as I enjoy gift giving with others. But when the hype and the progression and the frenzy of these sales looks like this, we have a problem!

Show clip from people busting into store! (Make the comment that I have never seen people that excited to come into the church buildings and worship the Lord before!)

People have become so material, that they literally lose what little moral fiber they have, and go completely hostile, if someone challenges their buying pattern, or tries to get ahead of them for one of the last sale items! (MENTION OF LISA WORKING RETAIL AND OF WHEN I WORKED IN IT!)

That’s not making the most of our TIME as the wise and to the glory of God, when we stand and yell at other people and fight for a toy and knock others down as we trample over them to get to a “deal”!

That is idolatry and greed and that is one of the things that Paul warned us to have nothing to do with!

And redeeming the TIME, or making the most of our TIME here on earth, does not mean making the most money that we can amass and accumulate while we are here.

There is nothing wrong with having money and being blessed with it in your life, as long as money and the love for it, does not control you and your thoughts and your actions!

We came into this world with nothing, and we leave the same way. And when someone uses their TIME to amass things for this life, they are being foolish with their TIME.

Just as Jesus said in , about the rich man who aspired to gain more and more in his life, “But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’

This reminds me of a story that I heard Chuck Swindoll tell one time, where he said,

We entered life empty-handed; we leave it the same way.

The truth of all this was brought home forcefully to me when a minister friend of mine told of an experience he had several years ago. He was in need of a dark suit to wear at a funeral he had been asked to conduct. He had very little money, so he went to a local pawn shop in search of a good buy. To his surprise, they had just the right size, solid black, and very inexpensive. As he forked over the money, he asked how they could afford to sell the suit so cheaply. With a wry grin the pawnbroker admitted that all their suits had once been owned by a local mortuary, which they used on the deceased, then removed before burial.

My friend felt a little strange wearing a suit that had once been on a dead man, but everything was fine until in the middle of his sermon he casually started to stick his hand into the pocket of the pants . . . only to find there were no pockets!

Talk about an unforgettable object lesson! There he stood, preaching to all those people about the importance of living in light of eternity today, as he himself wore a pair of trousers without pockets that had been on a corpse.

How are you using the TIME that God has given you in your life?

In Matthew’s gospel, chapters 24 and 25, we read of the account in the life of Yeshua that is called the Olivet Discourse, which is where Jesus and His disciples are on the Mount of Olives and they ask Him to tell them about the things that were to come in the future and of how they would recognize when these things where going to take place and also be able to recognize His return.

At the end of chapter 24, Jesus makes this statement, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”

In other words, Jesus is stressing the point that in the last days, before His glorious return, people will be so involved with their own daily lives and using their TIME for their own agendas, that they will not be looking for His return and they will not be redeeming the TIME and using it for the kingdom of God!

He stressed, “Stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”

And then he told a series of parables that ran from the end of chapter 24 and into chapter 25.

The first of these parables, is found in and it is that of the master who sets the servant over his household and then leaves for an undisclosed period of time.

The master left the servant in charge of taking care of the other household servants, while he was away.

Jesus said that the if the master returns and finds the servant faithfully doing what he entrusted him to do, then he will be blessed and the master will reward him for using the TIME wisely.

BUT, if, while the master is away, the servant thinks to himself, “My master won’t be back for a while,” and then he begins to use the time given to frivolity and he mistreats the other servants and parties and gets drunk and completely and utterly wastes the TIME given to him and then the master suddenly returns at a TIME that the servant doesn’t expect, it will not be good!

Jesus said that the servant will be punished SEVERELY and cast into the place with the other hypocrites, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth!

THe servant thought that he had all of TIME in the world and that he would be able to straighten things up before the master returned.

Jesus’ point is that the master WILL RETURN, at a TIME that will completely catch His servants off guard and the way and the state that they are living in, upon His return, and how they are using their TIME, is what they will be held accountable for!

The second of the parables, that Jesus gave about His return, is found in and it is the very familiar parable of the Ten Virgins.

There has been much debate and discussion about this parable throughout the centuries, as to who and what eveything and everyone represents within the parable.

Debate about who are the virgins; are they truly all believers, or are half of them false converts.

What does the oil in the lamps represent? Is the oil definitely analagous to that of the Holy Spirit?

Where is the bride in this parable and are the virgins really referrring to the Jews, since that is who Jesus was addressing?

Despite the various stances that people take about this parable, we can all agree about one thing that falls directly in line with these three parables as a whole, and that is this: Jesus is stressing that we are to redeeming the TIME wisely and always being prepared for His return!

In this parable, the 10 virgins are awaiting the bridegroom to come and receive the bride to himself and start the wedding ceremonies and celebration. (Explain if time permits.)

They all have lamps that are burning, that means that they all started off with some oil in their repspective lamps, but that is where the line is drawn.

The 5 foolish virgins do not have enough oil to sustain and make it up to the time of the bridegroom’s return for the bride and the wedding ceremony.

If we use the oil as analogous to that of Holy Spirit in this parable, which is very likely, then what we see is this.

The burning lamps are our professions of faith, that is, our public display of salvation.

The burning lamp is what people can see about us, but it does not reveal what is truly inside of us, which is why it is so easy to profess Christ with your lips, but inside, you may truly have no real relationship with Him!

A person who is truly saved and using their TIME wisely, will listen to and yield to Holy Spirit in their life and thus they will begin to develop a deposit, or reserve of His presence and power and endurance.

And in this parable, as is this case in all three, the timing of the return of the bridegroom, is unknown and thus, as people become wearied in their lives and waiting, they will need Holy Spirit active inside of them, to sustain them and give them endurance and thus keep the light burning brightly before men at all times!

As Jesus said, we are to “let our lights so shine before men, so that they may see our goof works and glorify our Father who is in heaven!”

The oil that is always used for the lamps in the BIble, is olive oil. And how do you get olive oil?

You have to squeeze and press the olives to get the oil out, right?

Well, in our lives, it is the same way. We are pressed and squeezed on all sides by this life and this world, but we are never crushed, or destroyed as we go through the trials and struggles of our lives, just as II Corinthiands 4:8 tell us, “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.”

And as we allow this pressing of the trials and tribulations to squeeze us and we do no turn away from the Lord, but pull closer to Him, then more oil is placed inside of our vessels, as Holy Spirit becomes more mnaifest in our lives!

So, when Jesus, the bridegroom returns and finds us full of His Spirit and burning brightly, a.k.a. using our TIME wisely in serving Him, then He will gladly take us with Him in the wedding procession!

But to those who are found wanting and without the sustaining presence of Holy Spirit in their lives and who desire to enter into the presence of the bridegroom when He returns, the bridegroom says from behind a locked door, “ ‘Believe me, I don’t know you!”

The 5 foolish virgins wanted to get in on the procession, by sharing some of the oil of the 5 wise virgins.

But, you cannot use someone elses’ relationship with Holy Spirit to prosper and grow your spiritual walk with the Lord.

You need your own oil and your own salvation and your own relationship with the Master!

Standing in the church and feeling good in front of others and riding on their coat tail and their salvation experiences may feel fine now and seem to work in the present, but the TIME is coming , if that is you, where you will here the Lord say, “Depart from me, I never knew you!”

And Jesus concludes this parable by saying, “So you, too, must keep watch! For you do not know the day or hour of my return.”

Keeping watch, is a direct reference to our redeeming our TIME WISELY!

The last parable is also a very familiar one to most Christians, as found in , and it is the parable of the Talents.

In this parable, the master is going away and so he calls his servants to him and gives them his wealth (the talents: a talent was a monetary unit worth about 20 years’ wages for a laborer) to manage and oversee, until he returns.

To the 1st servant, he gives 5 talents, to the second servant he gives 2 talents and to the last servant he gives one talent.

The amounts differ, based upon the abilities of the individual servants, but the expectation and the reward for using their TIME wisely with the talents, is the same!

It is important to note the wording that Jesus uses in this parable, where he says that master went away and “at once” the servants that received the 5 and the 2 talents went and began developing and increasing the measure of the talents, or what we would call, BEARING FRUIT, as they were doing the will of the master and thus, continaully staying attached to the true vine!

The 3rd servant who had only received the one took his measure and dug a hole in the ground and hid it.

The emphasis that I will place on this parable, is what happens to the servants upon the master’s return, over a prolonged and undisclosed period of time.

Each servant, regardess of the original amount that they were given, were to receive the exact same reward and praise by the master, where the master responds to the 1st and the 2nd servants who had each one increased his kingdom, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”

And the third servant, who had been given the least amount, the smallest talent, would have received the same reward and praise as the others, if he would have only used what he had been given and redeedmed the TIME wisely!

Instead, listen to what his reward was, for being sloughful and lazy with his talent, as the master said to him, “ ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

So, between these 3 parables we see can find three levels of responsibility that each one of us are to care for:

In the 1st parable and that of the wicked servant, we find our “communal” responsibility, which is our responsibility to help look after one another and to serve one another, while the master is away.

The 2nd parable shows us the responsibility we have of our own, individual life and walk with the Lord and that of maintaining a close walk with Holy Spirit.

The last parable shows us our sovereign responsibility, in that we are to use whatever measure of gifts and talents and TIME, our Master has deemed us worthy of having, in serving Him faiththfully and increasing His kingdom, until His return!

It was the Scottish minister and orator, Ebenezer Erskine who wrote in the summer of 1708, he “got his head out of time into eternity.” That was the hour that he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. We need to develop a similar mindset today, as we are drawing very close to the return of the Master, the Bridegroom, our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ!

The Apostle Paul tells us in , “Behold, now is the favorable TIME; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Not tommorrow, not next week, but NOW, we must be as children of the light and REDEEM our TIME wisely, while we have it!

Let me close by saying that the Bible tells us in , that grace of God has been given to us, to enable us to live godly lives in this PRESENT age, right here, right now, in this TIME!

says, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the TIME.”

And tells us, “This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; TIME is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.”

Your TIME and my TIME is rapidly coming to a close and regardless of who you are and what meaure of His grace and talents that God has given to each of us, we carry the exact same responsibility: to make the best use of our TIME with what He has givent to, to expand His kingdom, before He returns for us!

What are you doing with the measure of TIME that you have been given? Will you be found acting sloughfully and wonton and not helping others, will you be found sleeping and never allowing Holy Spirit to fill you and devlelop you into a wise steward of His kingdom and hiding what He has given to you, so that you can act like anyone else in the world?

Or will you be found by Lord to be prudent and trustworthy, using your TIME faithfully in service to Him by serving others and sharing His gospel with the world around you?

Now is the TIME, right here, right where you are in your life. There are no exceptions for anyone, as to not using what God has given to you for His glory and for His kingdom!