Redeeming the Time, Part 1

Lord, thank you for tonight. Thank you for a chance to be together. Thank you for your word.

Thank you for the opportunity to study it together because, Lord, everything about life and godliness is in the Word of God. So, Lord, go before us tonight that we might truly grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen.

A number of years ago, I did a series called The Resolve of the Redeemed. The Resolve of the Redeemed.

What is it that the redeemed resolved to do every day? And so, we went through that and explained it in great detail so that you would understand, as a child of the King, what it is you are going to do every single day. One of those points was learning to redeem the time. How to truly buy back every moment of your day for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

The psalmist said, or Moses said in Psalm 90, teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts into wisdom. There's something about numbering your days. Now, none of us knows the number of days in which we have.

I mean, this might be your last day. I don't know that, and you don't know that. Tomorrow might be your last day.

You might live for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. Nobody knows. But Moses understood that each day was essential, and the moments in those days were important.

And so, he asked the Lord to help him number his days so that he could apply his heart unto wisdom. Paul would say it this way in Ephesians chapter 5, verse number 15. Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most or redeeming your time because the days are evil.

Paul, in the context of helping you understand how to match your life with your lips, talks about walking worthy. That's what Ephesians chapter four begins with. He begins in chapter 4 of Ephesians with these words.

It's very familiar words to us. Therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called. To walk worthy means simply to walk equally.

Walk in line with your calling. You've been called into God's kingdom. Therefore, walk as a child of the king.

Walk equally with who you are in Christ. In other words, may your life truly match your lips. It's a matter of integrity.

So he says, these words, with all humility, you're to walk humbly. With gentleness, you're to walk gently. With patience, you're to walk patiently.

Showing tolerance for one another. In other words, you walk enduringly. And then he says, being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, you walk diligently.

And then he says in verse 17, so this I say and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart. In other words, you are to walk distinctly. You are to walk separately.

You are to walk uniquely because you're not of the world. So you walk no longer as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, in the hardness of heart, because you've been born again. And then he says over in chapter 5, verse number one, these words, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love.

So now you walk lovingly. That's how Christ walked. And then in verse 8, he says these words, for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.

Walk as children walk brightly. And then he says, I need you to walk wisely. Verse 15 of chapter 5. And the way you walk wisely is by purchasing, buying back every single moment of your day.

In other words, maximize each moment for the master. The question is, do you do that? Are you maximizing the moments of your day? Are you redeeming the time? Are you taking back that which God has given you and using it for his glory? That becomes the question each of us must answer.

In fact, the Bible says in Psalm 39, these words, verse number 4, the psalmist made it very clear when he said, Lord, make me to know my end. And what is the extent of my days? Let me know how transient I am. Behold, you have made my days as hand breaths and my lifetime as nothing in your sight. Surely every man at his best is a mere breath.

Isn't that great to know? Talk about destroying your self-image. You're nothing but a mere breath. That's all you are.

Here today, gone tomorrow. So the psalmist says, Lord, I want a number of my days. I want to know my days.

Why? Because there's something about understanding each moment of each day so that I could use it to serve my Lord and honor my King. So important to understand.

In fact, the reason we do this is because, listen, there are only 24 hours in a day. There are only 86,400 seconds in a day. You can't get them back. You can't store them up and then use them the next day, right? For once the sun sets and rises the next day, it's a new day with brand new hours, brand new minutes, brand new seconds.

And so once one day is gone, it's gone forever. And so in each and every moment of your life, you're going to make a decision. For instance, you made a decision tonight to be here, right? You made a decision to maximize this moment to learn more about the Lord.

Those who aren't here decided not to maximize this moment to know the Lord, but to do something else. Now, they could be at home in Bible study. They could be at another church.

They could be doing something else. They chose differently than you chose. It doesn't mean that they didn't maximize their moment.

It doesn't mean that they didn't buy it back for eternity's sake, because we don't know what they're doing. But we know what you're doing. You are here to maximize this moment, this hour that you might learn about your Lord.

That's important because you've decided to buy it back and use it for eternity's sake. You know, every decision you make in every moment of every day is going to somehow affect the next moment or the rest of your day or the rest of your life. You've heard me say it many times over, the decisions you make today determine your destiny tomorrow.

So, make wise decisions today. Make the right decision today so that you have a bright tomorrow. The question is, what kind of decisions have you made today? It's already almost 7:30 at night.

And so, you go back throughout your day and you ask yourself, what kind of decisions did I make today that have been beneficial for my tomorrow? That's why I say that you've made a wise choice to be here this evening, because it will benefit you tomorrow. That's important. And so, you ask yourself this question, how is it I buy back each moment? Better yet, how do you teach your children to buy back every moment of the day? How do you teach your children to maximize each and every day? Have you ever noticed that we spend so much of our day doing nothing? Nothing that is of any value.

We can waste a lot of our time. And we can waste it in a variety of ways. But we are our masters of wasting our time.

And then all of a sudden, the day goes by, it's over. You've done nothing for the sake of eternity. You've done nothing to buy something back that would affect your tomorrow, because you just kind of frivolously wasted your day away.

That happens all the time. All of us are guilty of this. All of us fall prey to this.

So, Paul would say, listen, I want you to walk wisely. How do you do that? By making the most of every opportunity. Moses would say, Lord, teach me the number of my days that I might apply my heart unto wisdom.

But think about the moments you waste. Every American, by average, will spend four and a half to five and a half hours a day on some kind of mobile device. Four and a half to five and a half hours a day.

That's the average time we, as Americans, spend on our mobile devices. You will check your device somewhere between 95 and 205 times each day. You get those notifications, bing, bing.

Maybe yours does a little, mmm. I don't know what yours does, but it does make some kind of sound that goes off that you are, you know, always looking for. Somewhere between 95 and 205 times every single day.

88% of us will check our phones within the first 10 minutes of waking. 88% of Americans, within the first 10 minutes of waking up, will check their phone to see if there's anything there worth reading or looking at. But that's how we, as Americans, are.

So, in other words, you will spend 1,400 hours a year, or two and a half months, on your mobile device. On average. Now, if you're a millennial, that is, you were born between the years of 1981 and 1996.

I'm not going to ask you if that was your birthday or not, but you will spend somewhere between three hours and three and a half hours on your mobile device. But, if you're part of the Gen Z generation, that means you were born between the years 1997 and 2012. It doubles to seven hours and 18 minutes a day.

That's a lot of time on a mobile device. My wife and I just came back from our vacation in Hawaii, and you know what the most disturbing thing about our vacation was? Is that you have all these children there, around the pool, on the beach, at a restaurant, in a store, on a mobile device. And my wife says, hey, you can go home and do that for free.

Why spend all your money to come here and do what you're doing? You could have done that at home for free. But there they are, all these children, not experiencing the beauty of the islands, but doing the same thing there that they did and do at home. After Generation Z comes Generation Alpha.

Generation Alpha, that means you were born between the years 2013 and 2026. And the statistics on Generation Alpha are astronomical. Just think about this.

Forty percent of children by the age of two have a mobile device. Forty percent. Fifty-eight percent have a tablet or some kind of device by the age of four.

By the age of four. One in four kids have a cell phone by the age of eight. That is, they've already been engaging in social media by the time they are eight years of age.

Kids 12, excuse me, kids 11 to 12, 68% have TikTok. Even though legally you can't be on TikTok unless you're 13. But because they're so well-versed in technology, they have found a way around that so that they can be on TikTok at age 10 or 11 or 12.

The oldest Generation Alpha will reach the age of 13 sometime this year in 2026. And the statistics are incredible. More than 36 million ages 0 to 11 were regularly on the internet compared to 11.6 million of those of the age of 12 to 17.

That's incredible. And so we're raising a bunch of children who are masters at technology. They can probably teach their grandparents what to do, their parents what to do at age seven, eight, nine, ten.

It's quite amazing. Two-thirds of the Alpha generation 8 to 10 spend on average four hours a day on social media. 64% of those ages 8 to 12 will use YouTube or TikTok or some other means of social media.

One in five children will use their mobile device for falling asleep, mealtime, or handling their emotional distress. Why would they be emotionally distressed? They're only 8, 9 or 10, right? But that's the world we live in. That's where we're at.

And so as they begin to get older, their whole lives are centered around modern-day technology. And so the question comes, how will you as a parent, how will you as a grandparent teach your children and grandchildren to redeem the time? To buy back those hours, those minutes in those hours, those seconds in those minutes. Buy them back for the sake of eternity.

How will you teach them to do that? How will that happen? That is so important. So what I'm going to ask you to do in just a minute is I'm going to ask you to gather around in groups of four or five or six or seven. And I want you to come up with a plan that will help you redeem the time, to use tomorrow to buy back each moment for the sake of eternity.

Which plan or which principles will you come up with that will help you do that? I'm going to give you 13 of them. But I did not hand this out to you because I don't want to give off any hints as to what I'm going to say. Now you're going to probably say some of the same things I'm going to say.

But I want you to think, okay, how is it we as a church are going to maximize each moment for the Master? How are we as a church going to teach our children how to maximize each moment? When I first did this, I only gave you seven. It's been added two over the years. But they're very, very important as you think about maximizing each moment for the sake of your Master.

How do you best do this? Okay. Here's principle number one. And you'll understand why it's principle number one.

And that simply is this. If you want to maximize this moment, commit your life to the Lord. Commit your life to the Lord.

Give your life to Christ. Today is a day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6, verse number 2.

Today is the day. Not tomorrow. Not next week.

Today. And so as you preach the gospel, as you hear the gospel, you want to remind people that this is the hour. This is the day.

There is no guarantee of tomorrow. So maximize this moment right now. And maybe here tonight you don't know the Lord.

Well, the best way to redeem the time, the best way to make the most of your opportunity, the best way to master the moment is to give your life to Christ. Confess your sins. Recognize that Jesus is Lord and give your life to Christ.

Commit your life to Christ. You got to be ready. Listen to what the Bible says over in Matthew chapter 23, verse number 37.

Christ said this upon entering into Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her? How often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Christ comes into Jerusalem and He laments over Jerusalem.

He weeps over the city. Oh, I wanted to gather you together as a mother hen gathers her chicks. I wanted you to be a part of my kingdom.

I wanted you to be a part of my life, but you didn't want to do that. You were unwilling to come to me that you might have life. You didn't maximize the moment.

It was only a brief moment. It was a three-year time element, right, in which Christ ministered in Jerusalem. That's it.

But they were unwilling in those three years to maximize that moment by giving their lives to the Lord. Over in John's gospel in the ninth chapter, or excuse me, the 12th chapter, John chapter 12, Christ says these words. John chapter 12, verse 36, while you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become sons of the light.

Christ is saying, you know, the time is short. The light is here. The light is shining brightly.

While you have the light, come to the light. Don't wait. Don't postpone it.

Don't put it off. That's why the writer of Hebrews in that epistle five different times gives five different warnings. Why? Because the people, they weren't responding to the fact that Jesus was their Messiah.

He says in Hebrews chapter 2, verse number 1, for this reason, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. In other words, don't just pass by the opportunity. Pay close attention to what you've heard about who the Messiah is.

For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? How are you going to escape? You can't neglect it. And so many people, they come to church, they hear the gospel, or they are being talked to from family members about the gospel, and they let the moments just pass them by without ever maximizing that moment and saying, I need to give my life to Christ. That's why it goes on in Hebrews chapter 3, today, verse 7, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me as in the day of trial in the wilderness.

Today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts. And he goes on in Hebrews chapter 5 and 6 and chapter 10 and chapter 12, giving these warnings, don't neglect the opportunity, don't waste the opportunity. Christ gives a parable about the 10 virgins, Matthew chapter 25, five were equipped with oil, five were not, right? And when the king, the bridegroom came, the 10 virgins who had the oil, they were ready to go.

But those who didn't say, hey, let me borrow some of yours. They said, nope, can't do that. You got to get your own.

So they go back and they try to purchase the oil and come back, the door shut, they can't get in. Why? Because they wasted the opportunity that was before them. And they were not allowed to enter the kingdom of heaven.

I want to maximize a moment. You talk to your children, talk to your grandchildren, set them down and talk to them about Christ, the gospel, the truth, redeeming the time, buying it back for the sake of eternity. You want to buy it back? Here's where you begin, committing your life to Christ. That's important.

There's so much more I could say about that, but time does not permit me.

Number two, if you want to maximize your moments, commune with God and study in prayer.

Commune with God and study and in prayer. If I was to tell you that there was a person who comes to our church and they try to, they come every Wednesday, and yet they work until 6:15, or 6:20, or 6:30 every Wednesday. Yet they get off work, they go home, they get changed, and they drive like a madman to get to church because they want to be here.

They're tired, they've worked all day, but yet they want to be here because they want to hear the Word. They want to study the Word and grow in their walk with the Lord. Versus the same person or another person who has the same kind of hours and works at their job, and they get off at maybe 5:30 or 5:45, and yet they don't want to take the effort, make the effort to get here to commune with God in study and in prayer to learn about the Lord because there's something easier to do.

Watch the Dodger game. Watch something on TV. Watch Survivor. Season 51. It's right around the corner. You know? And so they're just going to stay home and relax.

Which one redeemed the time? Which one maximized the moment? Now, I don't want to begrudge you of working all day and being tired. I mean, that happens to everybody, right? Sometimes you just get worn out. But what about the person who, like everyone else, works, you know, all day, and yet on Wednesday night Bible study, they're going to make every effort to be here, and they're going to get in their car and after they get home and get changed from work and rush off to Bible study to hear what the Lord has to say to them versus the guy who says, I'm tired.

I'm worn out. Do I have time to do that tonight? There's a big difference in someone's attitude. When you want to redeem the time, you want to look at every opportunity to commune with God in study and in prayer, personally as well as corporately.

You're looking at every opportunity, whether it's a men's Bible study, a woman's Bible study, whether it's a small group study. Maybe it's a part of youth ministry. Maybe it's a part of some other ministry in the church where you are growing.

Maybe you want to get together on Tuesday nights and pray, and the opportunity, of course, is there for you to do so, right? There's always an opportunity to be involved in the ministry of the church to commune with the Lord in prayer and in study, whether personally or corporately. But it does begin personally where to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord, right? And that's why the Lord says, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. They don't know who I am.

That's why my people are destroyed. They don't know me. If they knew me, they would follow me. If they knew me, they would serve me, but they don't know me.

That's why the prophet Jeremiah said, you want to boast of something? Boast in that you know the Lord who exercises loving kindness and justice and mercy on the face of the earth. Don't be like the guy who wants to boast in his might or his riches, but boast in knowing the Lord.

You want to teach your children to redeem the time? You teach your children how to commune with the living God, both personally and corporately. Are you doing that? Are you holding your children accountable to doing those kinds of things? Are you saying to your kids, you know what? You need to be in church. What are you doing? How are you wasting your time? Why aren't you here? And holding them accountable to being with the body of Christ and hearing the word and studying the word and learning about the Lord.

I mean, if you're part of the women's Bible study, it's all about beholding your God. If you're part of a youth ministry, they're doing the same study. Behold your God.

Don't you want to behold your God? Don't you want to learn about your God? And so you want to buy back the opportunity you say to your children, look guys, this is what we're going to do. We're going to be in church. We're going to study God's word together.

On the outset, study is not enough. You got to be doing this every day. You got to be in the word.

You got to be under the word. You got to be over the word. You got to be all immersed with the word.

You got the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Let it be at home in your heart. And that's how you maximize the moment.

Because you see that moment there will dictate every other moment of the day, right? That moment with the Lord in the morning will dictate how you handle each moment throughout the day. Why? Because you have a biblical perspective. You have a clear view.

A clear view is a Christ view, right? Clear views are Christ views. That is you see things through Christ's point of view. You see it through his lenses.

You're able to see things through the eyes of Christ because you've been in the word of the Lord, right? So you spend time in the word. You study the word of God so that when you are off to work and you're off to school, I mean, think about it. The fall is upon us.

Kids are already back in school. I mean, the traffic around my house is a madhouse because there's so many kids going to school, right? So kids are back in school. Mom and dad are still going to work.

We've got our schedules. We're back into our routines. But you can't miss the opportunity to commune with Christ in study and in prayer.

Missing that opportunity, that moment that's not maximized is going to bring such great heartache throughout your day because you don't have a perspective when it comes to relationships. You don't have a perspective when it comes to conflict. You don't have a perspective on the providence and sovereignty of God when things happen that are negative throughout the day because you didn't spend time with your God in the morning.

You could have, but you chose not to. Peter said it this way in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse number 1. 1 Peter 2, verse number 1. Therefore, putting aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander, like newborn babes long for the pure milk of the words that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. If you've tasted the kindness of the Lord, you're going to put these things off.

And in fact, part of maximizing the moment is putting aside all malice, all envy, all slander, so that you can receive the pure milk of the Word that you may grow thereby. See, the reason we don't receive the pure milk of the Word is because we would rather be involved in deceit and lying and malice and hypocrisy and envy and slander. We'd rather do those kind of things.

So they take up our time, see? And so, therefore, those become the topic of conversation. Those become the motives for my life instead of the pure milk of the Word that I may grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord. This is so important.

Why? Because as we go home tonight, we're going to go to bed. At least, most of us are going to go to bed, hopefully, unless you've got to go to work tonight. Maybe you've got to go to work.

Maybe you work nights. I don't know. But for the most part, we're going to go home, and we're going to go to bed, and you're going to wake up tomorrow.

When you wake up tomorrow and that alarm goes off, whatever time you get up, if you love the Lord, you're up at five. If you don't, you're up at six. No, that's not true. Sorry.

No, you're up at five, six, seven, eight, whenever you get up, right? You know? Start your day off right. Start off right.

Make sure you know the Lord. Do you know the Lord? Have you committed your life to Christ? Are you born again? Do you know if you die tonight, you spend eternity with Christ? Do you know that for certain? Do you know you're truly born again? You know, we just came back from an island that serves thousands of gods. There's a God in everything.

There's so many gods that the farmer can't worship the same God as the carpenter because he had different gods. But we have the one true God, the living God, Jesus Christ our Lord. And I wonder if you know Him, if you've come to know Him in a way that saves your soul.

If you know Him, don't you want to commune with Him? Don't you want to spend time with Him? Don't you want to read about Him? Don't you want to pray to Him and commune with Him and talk with Him?

I mean, that would be like saying, I'm getting married, but I'm never going to talk to my wife. I'm never going to spend time with my wife. I'm just going to be with her on the weekends. But throughout the week, I'm not going to spend any time with my wife. What kind of marriage would that be? That'd be a horrible marriage, right?

But you want to spend every day with your wife, every day with your husband, cultivating the relationship, growing in your walk with the Lord, growing closer to the Lord or to one another so that you might grow closer to the Lord. And so when you're saved, you want to grow close to the Lord because you love Him so.

That's just so important. So this is where it begins. It begins by committing your life to Christ. You must be born again. You must be a Christian.

And once you commit your life to Christ, then you commune with the Lord in Bible study and in prayer.

And then, well, that's going to be next Wednesday night. So you keep your outline with you and you bring it back. And those who come next week and don't have an outline, you know they weren't here tonight.

Let me pray with you. Lord, thank you for today and the opportunity we have to spend a brief moment in your Word. We are grateful, grateful for the Scriptures.

Realize, Lord, that your Bible tells us what it is we are to be doing, buying back each moment for the sake of eternity. Our prayer, Father, is that we would do that. All of us, Lord, are guilty of wasting our time.

All of us are guilty of living in the realm of frivolity, vanity. We just don't maximize the moments. But we can.

We've just chosen not to. But yet, Lord, we want to honor you. So our prayer, Lord, tonight is that you would work in all of our hearts.

Help us to see, Lord, that each moment that passes cannot be redeemed. It's gone. But the moment right now, this very moment of existence can be purchased for eternity's sake, allowing me to purchase the next moment and the next after that for your glory.

So, Father, we ask that you go before us, give us wisdom. May we walk wisely by making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. They're filled with all kinds of wretchedness.

And if someone's going to live a righteous life, it's your children. Help us, Lord, by your grace to live that way. We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.