Redeeming The Time, Part 2

So hopefully you have your outline from last week. If not, we have a new one for you. It's in the back.

An usher will get it for you so you can follow along with us. This is what we call a mini-series. But instead of calling it a mini-series, we should call it a monumental series because it affects everything you do.

All right. We all have the same 24-hour day. We all have the same 1,440 minutes in that day. We all have the same 86,400 seconds of those minutes of that day. So let me ask you a question. What did you do with your 86,400 seconds in the last 24 hours? How did you redeem the time?

In fact, let me ask you this question. What did you change from last week to this week in terms of buying back each moment for the sake of the Master? What did you do this week that changed the way you redeemed the time? Let me give you this little hint, okay? If you were here last week and you heard the sermon on redeeming the time and you didn't change anything from last week to this week, you didn't redeem last week's hour, right? If you were here on Sunday and you heard the message and you didn't respond to that in any kind of way, you didn't redeem that hour. It does you no good to sit and listen and do nothing. You don't audit church.

People like to audit church. That is where you come and you listen, but you don't do any of the work, right? You audit classes in college and in seminary, and so you just go and you sit and listen to the professor. But you don't do any of the work, you're just auditing the class.

You can't audit church. You can't go to church and just sit there and say, I'm just going to listen to what's going on, but I'm not going to do anything. No, you've got to put it into action. You've got to do something. You've got to move along, right?

So you've got to ask yourself, what did I do last week? Let me ask you this question. What did you do to train your children from last week to this week to redeem the time? Anybody? What did you do to train your children that they might maximize each moment for the sake of the master over the last seven days? Anybody? You didn't do anything with your kids? You just sit them down and say, hey, listen, you have to listen to what Lance said on last Wednesday night, because we're going to go over this together.

You didn't at least do that? You didn't take their phones away and say, hey, you're not using your phone tonight because we're going to spend time in the word. You didn't do that? Did you do anything? What did you do from last week to this week? You see, we have to realize that when we hear the word of the Lord and we understand the conviction that's there, it should move us to action. There's something that should be happening in our lives all the time that moves us toward maturity in Christ.

Because when you hear the word of God, it's convicting. It's compelling. It moves me.

It moves you. You know, we waste our time. We waste our time in bitterness, anger, vengeance.

We sit stewing for hours on end on how to get back at somebody or how to deal with somebody who's mistreated me. That's not redeeming the time. That's not buying back that moment for the sake of the master, right? But we can do that.

We drive in our cars. We live in California, right? Everything is determined not by distance, but by time, right? So it takes me on a normal day, 40 minutes to get to work, right? Because I live way out in Fontucky. So it's a long drive.

Now, when there's traffic, it's going to take me longer, right? It could take me an hour. Going home, it could take me an hour and a half to two hours. So what do I do with those hours? How do I redeem the time in my car? I can listen to sports talk radio.

I can do that. I can listen to music. I can do that.

I can listen to a podcast. I can pray. I can talk to the Lord.

There's a myriad of things I can do to redeem back those moments as I'm driving. So think of the drive as an opportunity to buy back a moment for kingdom's purposes. How do you do that? I'll listen to old preachers preach, hear what they have to say, just to get an idea of how it was said 20 years ago or 30 years ago, and why they said the way they said it.

But I want to buy back those moments. I don't want to waste them. I can listen to music, all kinds of music, but I'm not a music guy.

So that would be a waste of my time. But I do love to hear the word, whether someone's reading the word, whether someone's preaching the word, whether someone's speaking about the word. I love those kinds of things.

So I'll buy up that moment to listen to those things. So what I'm saying is that the 86,400 seconds you have every day are not going to come back to you. You can't put toothpaste back in a tube.

You can't redeem the seconds. You got to redeem them in the moment. And every second that passes is another moment to buy back for the sake of Christ's kingdom.

And you need to be conscious of that. We're children of the king. So we need to live as children of the king, honoring and glorifying the name of our master.

Listen to what James says. You know these verses. James chapter 4, verse number 13.

Come now you who say today or tomorrow or we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Come now. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Last week when you came, we told you you were just a breath. This week we're going to tell you you're just a vapor.

It's all you are is a vapor. Here today, gone tomorrow. He's talking about those who arrogantly say, you know what? We're going to make plans.

Well, we love to make plans. And I'm all for making plans. I'm all for that, but not without the will of the Lord involved.

He goes on to say these words. He says, instead, you want to say if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil. Do you know it's evil to say I'm going to do this tomorrow without saying if the Lord wills. If God is allowing me to do this, I'm going to do this.

I'm making plans for next month or for next year. That's what I'm going to do. People make decisions all the time.

People left California because of COVID. Remember that? Oh man, we got to go to another state. And then the rules and the laws were too difficult and we didn't want to abide by them.

So we just left and we're going to move to another state. We're going to move to a red state because California is a blue state. All such boasting is arrogance.

And James says it's evil to make a decision to move on without trusting the Lord, without knowing that this is the Lord's will, without making sure that God's moving me and God's instrumental in the moving from one state to the next state, that God has moved me because of my job. God has moved me because of my family. God is actually doing this in my life.

But we make plans without ever considering God. When you do that, James says that's evil. He goes on to say in verse 17, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth not, to him that is sin.

He's talking in the context that you know what to do. You need to trust the Lord. I love that verse.

Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. That's just something we don't do. But we lean on our own understanding all the time because we think we're smart.

We think we know what to do. We acknowledge Him. That's Solomon's way of saying redeem the time.

Buy back that moment in all your ways. Acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. So in each moment of each day, acknowledge Him.

Trust in Him. Don't lean on your own understanding. Look to Him.

Why? Because we are to walk in wisdom. That's what Paul says in Ephesians 5. Be wise. Be not unwise, but wise.

How do you do that? By making the most of every opportunity. Walk wisely. Walking is just our conduct, our daily conduct, right? And when you walk, you walk in the Spirit.

How do you do that? How do you walk in the Spirit? Well, how do you walk physically? One step at a time, right? How do you walk in the Spirit? One moment at a time. Always depending upon the Spirit as you walk through the course of life. Every moment of every day.

That's your responsibility. So, what does Moses say? Teach us to number our days, that we might apply our hearts unto wisdom. I love what one author said about this.

He said, we can never do that except we number every day as our last day. That's a good point. You cannot do that, unless you number every day as your last day.

But we don't look at life that way. We look at life as if we have next month, we have next year, we can plan down the road to our 50th anniversary or 60th anniversary as if we're going to live all, we have no idea how long we're going to live. If the Lord wills, we live till tomorrow.

If the Lord wills, I'll see you on Sunday. If the Lord wills it not, I won't see you on Sunday. But God's in charge.

And so, we are looking at what it means to buy back every moment for the sake of the kingdom. Number one was commit your life to Christ. That's number one, right? Because if you don't know the Lord, you're not going to walk in wisdom because He's the God of wisdom.

So, you must commit your life to Christ. Today is a day of salvation, not tomorrow, today. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts in the day of provocation of the wilderness.

Don't do that. Today is the day of salvation. So, make sure you give your life to Christ today.

Commit your life to Christ now. Now, you know and I know that just because you come to Christ Community Church doesn't mean you're a Christian. We have people that come every Sunday that do not know the Lord, but they're here every week.

They're called pretenders in the pew. And so, they hear the gospel, but they've postponed the decision to follow the Lord. They've put it off.

And the writer of Hebrews says, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? So, the question for you and me is, have you committed your life to Christ? Because if you're going to buy back every moment for the sake of the master, you got to know the master. That's number one. Number two was what? Commune with the Lord in study and in prayer.

Commune with the Lord in study and in prayer. Now, the Bible says that we're to pray without ceasing, right? The Bible says we are to devote ourselves to prayer, Colossians 4:2. Ephesians 6 says we're to pray always. So, part of redeeming the time is understand what it means to pray without ceasing, to pray incessantly, to pray continuously, to pray as you go through life.

So, when you begin to commune with God in study and in prayer, your life becomes a prayer offering. Your life is that which is always supplicating with the Lord. You want to know Him, so you pray.

And at the same time, you study. You want to learn to study more, learn about the Lord, grow when you walk with Him. So, let me ask you this question.

Psalm 127 says, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it, right? Who's building your house? Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. So many of us as men think that we can build our homes with our ingenuity, our education, our finances, our expertise. But that's not what the Bible is talking about.

It's talking about the investment of your life in the lives of your family. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. The Bible tells you, Proverbs chapter 24, verse number 3, by wisdom, a house is built.

By understanding, it is established. And by knowledge, all the rooms are filled with precious and pleasant riches. You want to know how to build a house? You cannot do it without wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, without applying truth, without verifying truth, and without demonstrating truth.

You can't build a house without the truth of the living God, right? And so, as a man, as a father, as a grandfather, as one who wants to one day be a husband, you got to recognize that your leadership is about wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. In fact, in that verse in the book of Proverbs, the 24th chapter, it says this in verse number 5, a wise man is strong, okay? By wisdom, a house is built. A wise man is strong, and a man of knowledge increases power.

So, by wisdom, a house is built, and by knowledge, all the rooms are filled with precious and pleasant riches. It doesn't mean your room is going to be filled with $100 bills or gold rings. It means there's going to be character that permeates your home that's God-honoring, that there's going to be the kind of attitude that lifts up the Lord.

There's going to be that kind of communion and fellowship within your family that brings you together, that makes you tight-knit because God has brought you together through the knowledge of His Word, and your rooms are filled with that which matters versus that which doesn't matter. Interesting, it says in verse 10 of Proverbs 24, if you are slack in the day of distress, your strength is limited. It just says that a man of knowledge increases power, but if you are slack in the day of distress, ah, your strength is limited.

You don't really know the Lord as you should because you cannot let the distresses of life ruin your family atmosphere, your home. As a man who leads his home, he's got to lead it with strength and power. He's got to be able to say, you know what, we're going to trust the Lord here.

We're going to depend upon the Lord here. This happens because I am communing with the Lord in study and in prayer, and I'm learning to know the Lord, to understand the Lord, to recognize that He is sovereignly in control of every event and every situation, so I can tell my son or my daughter when they go through disappointing times, God's in charge of this, and we're going to trust the Lord through this together. We're going to make it through this because God has ordained this day for you and me to trust Him all the more.

Every family needs that kind of man leading it. Every family needs the kind of man who has wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. Solomon goes on to say this. I mean, this is not even in my notes. It's just here in the Bible.

Know that wisdom is thus for your soul. If you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off. Your future depends on wisdom. Wisdom comes from the God of wisdom, from the Word of wisdom, from the Spirit of wisdom.

It comes from the truth of the living God. By wisdom, a house is built. By understanding, it is established.

And by knowledge, all the rooms are filled with precious and pleasant riches. You know, if you're a father today and you don't have this book, The Fear of God, you need to get it. You need to get it because you can read this book and teach your children how to fear God.

It teaches you what is the fear of the Lord, how do I fear the Lord, and what are the results of fearing God. As a father, you should be able to teach your children the fear of the Lord because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And so you want to teach them.

So we put all this in the print for you so that you could understand it. If you don't have a copy of this, I'll give you one for free. I won't even make you buy it.

I'll give it to you because I want you to help your wife fear the Lord. I want you to help your children fear the Lord because if they fear the Lord, they don't fear anybody else. They don't fear what's going to happen to them.

They don't fear negative reports. They don't fear anything because they just fear the Lord. So if you don't have this, I'll give it to you.

You have all of September, all of October, and all of November to prepare your family for this. If you're a father, you can take your family through 25 promises foretold and fulfilled beginning December 1. But you're going to have to do some homework. You have to work at it.

You got to read and understand it. So on day one, you can say, here's the prophecy foretold about the promised seed. And it was fulfilled in the book of Galatians chapter 3, verse number 16 with the coming of the Messiah.

And you can sit your children down, sit them around your Christmas tree because hopefully by December 1, you got your Christmas tree up. If not, I'm not sure you're going to heaven. But you should have that tree up and sit your kids down and say, we're going to look at the promised seed.

And then you're going to begin to move through all the 25 different prophecies that all begin with the letter S and will help you understand how they were foretold and fulfilled. Your children need to know that. If you're a father, I'll give you this book for free so you can do that.

Here's another book. I'm just trying to help you out here. I know my time's gone, but I'm not going anywhere.

The Psalms. The Psalms with Spurgeon. Read a Psalm a day. And Spurgeon has written something about that Psalm. And so you can read that Psalm, Psalm 1, and then you read what Spurgeon says about that Psalm. And so you as a father now are leading your children through the Psalms.

What better way to do that? How practical is this? This is so simple, but there are a myriad of things that you can do by communing with God and studying in prayer that will help you redeem the time. Buy back your evenings. Yeah, you can watch the ballgame.

You can watch Netflix. You can watch Apple TV. You can watch Hulu.

You can watch YouTube. Whatever it is you're watching. I don't know what you're watching.

You can watch all those things. But you know what? Are you buying back those moments for the sake of the master? Or are you sitting your family down and saying, hey, look, what does God have to say to us as a family today? This is a great way to do that. You can buy this on Amazon because I don't have enough of these to give you free.

Sorry. But anyway, those are just some ideas, you know, ideas that are right here that are available to you right now that you can use, that you can learn to commune with God and study and in prayer and lead your family because you want to, unless the Lord builds the house, you labor in vain to build it. It's built by wisdom, understanding, and knowledge.

And if I had the time, I would take you through each of those words, explain to you how they're used in the book of Proverbs, explain to you how they are exemplified throughout the scriptures to show you what wisdom, understanding, and knowledge is all about. But let's say your house is built. How are you doing at building your house? Your house crumbling? Is it falling down? Is your family flailing? Are they floundering? Or is there a firm foundation that's being built because you as a dad have said, it's time to lead my family.

It's time to move them on to maturity in Christ. It's time for me to redeem the time, buy back the moment for the sake of eternity. Now, point number three, that's just review.

That is just review. So point number three is this. Having committed your life to Christ, you want to learn to know the Christ, so you commune with Him in study and prayer.

As you begin to commune with Him, you see Him for who He is. As you see Him for who He is, you see yourself for who you are. We'll see the point number three.

Confess all your iniquity. Confess your sins. Now, for some of us, we can buy back most of the day by confessing our sins because there's so much sin that's prevalent in our lives, right? If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Excuse me, the word confess means to say the same thing. You want to say the same thing about your sin that God says about your sin. That's what you need to do.

As you do that, what you're doing is you're recognizing the intensity of your sin. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me, Psalm 66:18. If I conceal a transgression, Proverbs 28, verse 13, all right, I will not prosper. He who confesses and forsakes his sin prospers, but he who conceals a transgression will not. So to conceal your transgression is not redeeming the time, right? It's not buying it back for the moment for the master. So you want to be able to redeem the time.

You can do that by confessing your sins, by saying the same thing about your sin that God says about your sin. This is very, very important. It's not a waste of time to confess your sins.

It's probably the best use of your time because if you conceal a transgression, you're not going to prosper. Listen to what it says in Psalm 30:38. Sorry. Psalm 38, 38. Verse number 18, for I confess my iniquity. I am full of anxiety because of my sin.

Now just think about that for a minute. I am full of anxiety because of my sin. Why are people filled with anxious thoughts? Why do people live worrisome lives? Why do people have anxiety attacks? Why is that? It stems from a lack of trust in the true and living God, the recognition of his sovereign control over your life.

But look what he says, for I confess my iniquity to the Lord. I am full of anxiety because of my sin. Do you ever think of the fact that you are an anxious person because of all of your sin? That if you were to confess your sin before the Lord and release that to him, that he might forgive you of your sin and the guilt of your sin, like he did David, it frees you from that anxiety.

The Psalmist said that, Psalm 94:19, when my anxious thoughts overwhelm me, thy consolations comfort my soul. When my anxious thoughts overwhelm me, you ever had that? The overwhelming anxious thoughts that consume you, it's the consolations of God that comfort the soul. It's the truth of God's word that does.

That's why Proverbs 12:25 says, anxiety in the heart of a man weighs it down. You know that, right? Anxiety in the heart of a man weighs it down. It causes depression. It causes heartache. It causes pain. Ah, but he says, but a good word makes it glad.

What's the good word? Ah, scriptures. That's a good word. See? We live in the realm of anxiety.

And a lot of that anxiety is because of our sin. Confess your sins. Give them to the Lord.

He's a forgiving God. He's a God filled with loving kindness and compassion. He's a merciful God.

He longs to forgive. So he does. He's the best at it, right? And he holds no grudges.

He doesn't keep account of all your wrongdoings. Throw it back up in your face again. No, he throws them into the depths of the sea, separates them as far as the east and from the west, right? That's what God does.

And so there's this confession that releases the anxiety that weighs my soul down. And it's a good word that makes it glad. And God's word is the good word.

And I'm just going to keep driving you back to the truth, driving you back to the word of God, because this book is everything. It's the only book you need in your library. And I got a library filled with hundreds of books, but they don't need them.

I just need this book. This is what I need, the scriptures, the authority of God's word in my life. Confess your sins one to another.

Okay, that's number three. Number four. Number four is so good.

Cultivate spiritual disciplines. Cultivate the spiritual disciplines. I have tonight to give you 21 different spiritual disciplines that you can study on your own that will help you.

But in order to redeem the time, to master each moment, you must cultivate the spiritual disciplines in your life. First Timothy 4, verse number 7. You know the verse, right? Bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable for all things.

So discipline yourself unto godliness. Discipline yourself unto godliness. It doesn't say have someone else help discipline yourself unto godliness.

It doesn't say that. Paul's talking to Timothy. He said, Timothy, you need to discipline yourself.

We need to stop depending upon other people when it comes to discipline. Why? Because God has given you a spirit of discipline. Second Timothy 1:7. Spirit of power, spirit of love, and a spirit of self-control. God's given you that. So stop being so weak.

Live in the light of the truth. Be strong. Discipline yourself unto godliness.

Paul tells Timothy, this is what you got to do. Timothy's like, wow, who's going to help hold me accountable? Who's going to help me out here? No. He's the pastor of a church.

He's going to learn to discipline himself, and so do you. And you can because God's given you a spirit of self-discipline. Second Timothy 1:7.

So God says, look, this is what you need to do. I'm going to make sure you have all the tools you need to make it happen. I'm going to give you everything you need.

You got me, and you got my spirit, and that spirit's a spirit of self-discipline. Now go do it. It's that simple.

But we make it so hard. So let me give you a couple of them, okay? It begins here. The discipline of silence.

That's number one. That's number one on the list. There are 21 of them there.

The discipline of silence. Habakkuk 2, verse number 20. The Lord is in this holy temple.

Let all the earth be silent. But we're not. We're so busy.

You ever walk down? You're in the mall. You're on the beach. You're wherever you're going.

People got headphones on. Headphones, earbuds, right? No one likes silence. We always got to have noise going all the time because we don't like to be thinking on our own.

But silence is a great discipline, but we don't practice silence. Psalm 46 says, be still and know that I am God. Be quiet and know that I am God.

You want to know me? Zephaniah, Zachariah, both speak of God saying, you've talked enough. Be quiet. Listen.

The reason we have a hard time understanding what God wants for us is because we are too busy doing something else and not listening to what He has to say. God speaks to you through His word. If you commune with Him and study in prayer, listen to what He says. But it must be silence.

The second discipline is solitude. Solitude.

Solitude is the number one discipline practiced by Jesus. Did you know that? Jesus was a master of solitude. Listen to what the Bible says in Mark's Gospel.

Mark's chapter 1 records the busiest day in the life of Christ. And he records it by saying that on the Sabbath, he's in Capernaum, and he's teaching and he casts out a demon, right? Now, that's not a problem for the Lord. He just says the word and the demon's gone.

It's just that simple, okay? He immediately leaves and goes to Peter's mother-in-law's house, and she's ill, and he heals her, right? And so he takes care of her. And then it says in verse number 32, when evening came after the sun had set, they began bringing to him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed. And the whole city had gathered at the door.

You ever had the whole city gather at your door? Anybody ever had that? The whole city gathered at his door. And he healed many who were ill with various diseases, cast out many demons. And he was not permitting the demons to speak because he knew who he was.

Now, next verse. In the early morning, while it was still dark, which tells you if you want to be like Jesus, you got to get up while it's still dark. Stop sleeping in until the sun comes up.

In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place. He was always doing this. Solitude, a place of seclusion, to discipline, to get up.

Go to a secluded place in your home. Go to a place where you're not disturbed. Go there because silence is a rest for my lips, and solitude is a rest for my life.

And both your lips and your life need to be engaged in silence and solitude. That's where spiritual disciplines begin. Very, very important.

And so when Paul says, Timothy, discipline yourself unto godliness. Why? Bodily exercise does profit. It does.

But it only profits for this life. Only for a little bit in this life. Listen, you're working out today in the gym.

It's great when you're 20 and 30 and maybe 40, but when you get 50, 60, and 70, you're still going to be shabby and flabby. That's what happens. I'm sorry.

It happens that way. And so it's profitable for a little while, but not for eternity. Godliness is profitable, not just in this life, but in the life to come.

So discipline yourself unto godliness. Begin with silence. Move to solitude.

Later in Mark, listen to this. Mark chapter 6. Mark chapter 6. The apostles gathered together with Jesus, and they reported to him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.

For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. They went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves. Jesus had to teach his men that the place of seclusion, the place of solitude is absolutely necessary in the face of overwhelming ministry and all that's there.

Listen. Most of us live too busy of a life. We're doing too many things, trying to accomplish too many things.

Instead of looking and realizing that I can accomplish more if I live a life of silence and solitude, trusting and dependent upon the Lord, resting my lips and resting my life so I can re-energize my spirits through the community with God, through study and prayer, that I might be able to be used by God throughout the day so I can redeem each moment of that day. Buy it back for the sake of eternity. Because I'm energized.

I've heard from the Lord what he says in his Word in the realm of silence and solitude. Scripture's another one. Supplication's another one.

Self-scrutiny, that's another one. That's a discipline. Self-scrutiny.

Self-scrutiny. Examining your life. Self-examination.

That's a discipline. 2 Corinthians 13:5. Let a man examine himself, right, to see if Jesus is in him. Paul was saying about the communion table.

Before you eat or drink, examine your life. Self-scrutiny, self-examination is a discipline of the soul that needs to happen. Am I walking with the Lord? Am I loving the Lord as I ought to? Am I loving my wife as I should? We wrote a whole booklet on self-examination, a whole booklet on it, to help you expand self-examination, to help you through the process of looking.

Are these things, am I walking the way God wants me to walk? And measuring my life against the Word of God, self-scrutiny, self-denial is another one. If any man cometh to me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Self-denial is a big one.

We're going to deny myself in a world that wants to build up yourself. That's a discipline. That's hard to do, right? Because everybody wants a piece of notoriety.

They want to be seen. They want to be known. And yet, Christianity is about self-denial.

Denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following the Lord. So, when our time is over, you can come up here and pick up one of these. And I've counted them, so I know who's going to get them and who's not going to get them, right? This is very, very important.

You can take it and put it in your Bible and say, and there's three Scripture references that go with each discipline that says, okay, how do I begin to practice these disciplines in my own personal life? If I'm to discipline myself unto godliness, this is how you do it. It's all written in Scripture. We're trying to be as practical as we possibly can.

Give you all the tools you need to do what that you might master the moment for the sake of the glory of the kingdom of God. So, commit your life to Christ. Commune with God and study in prayer.

Confess your iniquity. Confess your sins. And then, you need to make sure that you cultivate the spiritual disciplines.

When you buy back each moment, you do it by discipline. Making sure that each of the 86,400 seconds are used to the best they possibly can be used. You don't think of life that way, but that's how life is.

Life is relegated by time, clocks and calendars. And that's how it works. In heaven, there are no clocks.

There are no calendars. But while you're here on earth, they relegate each and every day. Buy back every moment for the sake of eternity.

Number five, clothe yourself with the armor of God. Clothe yourself with the armor of God. I have in my pocket this little coin.

It's not really a coin. It's just a thing about the armor of God. And my father gave this to me years and years and years ago.

My father used to carry this with him every single day. When he died, this coinage was all rusted. And all the color was moved from it because he carried it in his pocket for years, every day, just like you put a watch on, just like you put chapstick in your pocket or your phone in your pocket.

He put this in his pocket every single day. And he carried it with him because he knew that every day he was going to war. My dad recognized that every day was a battle.

There were no off days in the Christian realm. No good soldier, 2 Timothy 2:4, involves himself, entangles himself in the affairs of this world so that he can please the commanding officer, right? No good soldier of Jesus Christ is ever going to be so entangled in the affairs of the world that he can't please the Lord. My father was a good soldier.

He was a warrior. And so every day he carried this coinage that talked about the armor of God, about the breastplate of righteousness, about the belt of truth, the helm of salvation, the sword of the spirit. And he would just rub it as he went to work, sat at his desk.

He rubbed it pretty much smooth by the time he died. But he knew he was of integrity, never compromised his marriage, never compromised his integrity. He lived for the honor and glory of God.

That's my dad's legacy left to me, his son. But he knew that every day was a battle. Do you know that? When you wake up every morning, you're going to war.

You say, yeah, man, if you knew who I was married to, you knew I was in a battle. No, your wife is not your enemy, okay, or your husband, right? They're not the enemy. Your boss at work is not your enemy.

You're not going to war with your boss. You're going to war with the principalities and powers of the air, the spiritual warfare. There are only four chapters in the Bible that don't involve Satan.

Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, Revelation 21 and Revelation 22. Every other chapter of the Bible involves Satan because he's the prince of the power of the air. So when you come to Genesis chapter 3, you got the fall of man.

And all through the book of Genesis, you have murder, you have incest, you have immorality, you have death, you have all these things. It just multiplies over and over and over again. Why? Because there's a battle going on.

There's a battle. And guess where the battlefield is? Right here. There's a battlefield.

And you're it. You're it. And if you're not prepared, if you don't redeem the time by clothing yourself with the armor of God, you're going to go down to defeat.

You're going to fall by the wayside, and you're going to be like many soldiers thrown all across the battlefield of life because they forgot to put on the armor of God. So you can withstand the wiles of the devil. You got to clothe yourself in the armor of God.

So important to realize this. So incredibly important. Christ's ministry began with Satanic warfare.

Well, at his birth, after he was born, Herod wanted to kill all the babies two years younger, right? That was instigated by Satan. And so all throughout his life, God protected him. And so when he began there, there's a 40 days of temptation after he's baptized.

Remember that? He was driven into the wilderness by the spirit of God to be tempted by the devil for 40 days. He's going to war, right? At the end of his ministry, he's sweating great drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. The war is still going on until he bruises and crushes Satan's head at the cross.

But all throughout his life, they wanted to kill him. They wanted to kill him in Nazareth, but he escaped, disappeared. Where did he go? They wanted to throw him off the cliff, but all of a sudden, he was gone.

Where'd he go? He couldn't kill him. It wasn't his time yet. Satan wanted him dead.

Christ was in a warfare all throughout his ministry. There was more demon possession during Christ's ministry on the planet than at any other time in the world's history, because Christ was here. And he was able to deal with all of that.

And he became the quintessential example on how to deal with spiritual warfare. But he was the Son of God. He gave us what we needed to withstand temptation, told his men to pray, watch and pray, be alert, pray, lest you enter into temptation.

And they couldn't stay awake. They weren't alert. They fell asleep on the most important night of our Lord's life.

They couldn't stay awake. They were so overcome with anxiety, fear, and pressure. They couldn't pray.

Christ went back to him again. Hey, guys, wake up, man. Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.

He knew. He's sweating great drops of blood, man. He's praying, you know, Lord, if it be your will, take this from me.

Nevertheless, not your will, but mine be done, yours be done. That was his prayer. It was all said and done.

He met the enemy at the gate, went to the cross, conquered sin, conquered Satan, provided a way for you and me to be saved, because that was the plan. But if you don't clothe yourself with the armor of God, if you don't gird everything with the truth of God's Word, if you don't take the shield of faith, shield of faith is that big four-and-a-half by two-foot shield in which a man would stand behind and sit behind and crouch behind, the shield of faith, okay, which is the basic trust in what God has already said, right? To have the helmet of salvation, which is the hope of our salvation, as 1 Thessalonians 5 tells us. If you don't take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and the Word of God is not logos, it's rhema.

In other words, it's a specific Word of God. It's not the general word logos, it's rhema, the sword of the Spirit, which is the rhema of God. It's a specific Word to deal with a specific battle, a specific temptation.

God's very precise on what to do. All that equips you to go to war. You can't buy back the moment if you're going down to defeat.

You can't master each moment for the sake of the kingdom of God if you're getting beat up because you're not able to withstand temptation. You're able to fall to all the delusions. Satan is the prince of power of the air.

He goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, 1 Peter 5:8. See? And Job becomes a classic example of how God just said, if you consider my servant Job. Why? Because the closer you walk with God and the longer you walk with God, the stronger the enemy comes, the stronger the adversary comes. And there was no more righteous man on the planet than Job, blameless, upright, fearing God.

And God says, hey, if you consider my servant Job, try him. Satan did. And Job withstood all the fiery darts of the evil one.

How about you? How are you doing at that? I mean, every day is a battle. I want you to go home tonight recognizing you're going to bed on the battlefield. You're in a cot, on a tent.

Your fatigues are there. And when you get up, your feet are shod with the gospel of peace. In other words, that means that your feet are prepared because you're on God's side.

You're at peace with God. The gospel of peace is not about evangelism because it's warfare. It's not evangelism.

It's spiritual warfare. And the very fact that you're on God's side allows you to be prepared for battle. Your shoes are the gospel of peace.

The fact that you're on God's side. In other words, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Let it be the governing umpire in every decision that you make.

You gird up your loins with the belt of truth. You tie everything together with truth. And you take up the shield of faith.

And you take up the sword of the Spirit. And you take up that breastplate of righteousness. Why? Because you've got to protect your emotions, your intestines, and your heart.

Your heart is the center of learning and understanding. So you've got to guard your heart. You've got to protect your emotions.

So you take up the breastplate of righteousness because you're going to war. You're going to war. And you recognize that every day is a war.

You're going to redeem the time. You're going to buy it back. You're going to know, man, this is dangerous.

I'm going to war today. That should be your attitude. It's battle day.

We're going to war. I'm ready, Lord. I'm going to war for the sake of the kingdom of God.

So, you know, your war's not with your boss at work or with a guy in your class or in the other side of the locker room. That's not your battle. Those are just instruments used by the evil one.

No, you're fighting a spiritual battle. And you can sum up the armor of God in one word, obedience. That's it.

Obedience. Obeying what God has said. And so we've covered how many of the 13 I've given you? Five.

Wow. Well, we're not done yet of this little mini monumental series that we will continue not next week because we have the interview with Alan and his wife, but we'll pick it up the following week. All right, let me pray with you.

Lord God, thank you for today. Thank you for tonight. Thank you for those who are here.

Bless them immensely because they've taken the time to buy it back for the sake of the kingdom of God. Use them for your glory. And may they see the work of the spirit of God moving in and among them for your name’s sake.

In Jesus' name. Amen.