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We thank you for your presence, for being with us, Lord. We're so honored, Lord, that you would come and be with us to give us strength to restore us in our weak. God, we're grateful for every blessing that you've given us, Lord.

I pray that you fill our hearts with gratitude, Lord, right now. Fill our hearts with gratitude, Lord, and appreciation for all the things that you have given us, Lord. All the things that we have deserved to receive that you have not given us, Lord.

Thank you for your precious blood. And thank you, Lord, for your presence. [music] In your presence, there is life.

There's joy. There's satisfaction. [music] Lord, I'm grateful for this body of believers, Lord, coming together on this Wednesday night.

Lord, we're just your people, Lord. That's all we are. We're your people, but we're just here to be with you.

Here to worship your great name, oh God. Minister to us tonight, Lord, like only you can. We trust you and we love you, Lord.

And you deserve all of our praise, all the glory for our lives. [music] Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen. So good to be [music] in the Lord's presence with God's people. I just I need this on Wednesday nights.

I need to be able to come together and be with the Lord's people. And there's just there is a sweet presence. There is when you're just with God's people.

There there's our own personal prayer time and we got to have that. Uh but there is something very unique and special about corporately being together and just agreeing that we're going to touch the Lord and he's going to he's going to give us what we need. Um I'm going to go ahead if it's okay jump right into uh the the scripture for this evening.

Um if you can turn with me to Ephesians chapter 5. just gonna read you relatively short text and we uh we might have um I know I've been preaching 40 minutes. I know that very aware if I were like watching the clock every time I preach.

I know you know but we're uh we're probably gonna get out a little earlier than that tonight. Visions 5 and14 it says um wherefore he saith awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise redeeming the time because the days are evil.

Wherefore be ye not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And I want to speak to you just from those uh verse 16, redeeming the time is is my topic tonight.

Uh let's just ask the Lord to to bless this word and of course to bless our church and all of our needs in this house. God, thank you for this privilege to be together. Thank you for your word.

We put our trust and our confidence not in man's wisdom, Lord, but we put our trust and our confidence in your word. I pray Jesus that I will present it as you would like it to be presented in this place. Let your spirit govern exactly what is happening in this house.

Lord, we're under your authority and we're asking that you work and that you do the work in this place. We trust you and we love you and we're just grateful for the blessings, Lord, to to believe your word. I pray we look at it, Lord, with an imagination, the kind of imagination that that really just believes what can happen in our lives if we will receive it.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. You may be seated.

So, what does your day look like today? Hot. Yeah.

What was it like getting here on a Wednesday night? What's your average day look like? Not on a Saturday.

You know, your Monday to Friday routine. You know, the usual work week begins on Monday. Uh, if you're like me, you're rushing out of the bed to get showered and dressed and maybe perhaps you eat breakfast, fix a little something to eat, and get your kids ready and you head out the door.

Maybe you have to take your kids to school, drop them off on your way there, run some errands, go get clocked in, work out your workday, spend some time at the water cooler talking. But for the most part, even at your workday, you're probably just kind of continually moving, moving, moving, moving. You leave the job and you rush home for dinner.

You get home. And depending on whether or not you're by yourself or you're married with the spouse, and if you both work, you're probably throwing some food in the microwave. And you rush to church, rush to prayer meeting, rush to some school related function.

Some nights you might work late. you didn't get all of your work done in a normal eight hours. Some night you have to pay the bills.

Um have to do your just general uh logistical items, balance your checkbooks, maybe you're helping with homework. Uh maybe you do community involvement in some capacity. Hopefully at some point in time you're able to practice some sort of hobby to have some downtime for yourself.

do something that you enjoy. And then finally, you come to uh a Wednesday night service like this and I tell you that you should pray more, volunteer more, fast more, invest more into your spirituality, give more of yourself to others, and you're just thinking to yourself, "I ain't got it. Where is the time?

You ever feel like that? That you're you're just like you can't wait for that moment in your life where you can really get spiritual, you know, when when time just kind of starts to slow down a little bit. Maybe you retire uh and you're just you're ready because that's the point in time in your life where you'll say, "Okay, I've now got it.

I can invest in it. And perhaps there is some truth to that. That's one of the reasons why we honor our elders because maybe they are retired and maybe they spend more time from many reasons we honor our elders.

But maybe they do have more time for a deeper uh uh prayer time, commitment to God, all of that. But I read a a quote by a gentleman called Donald Whitney. He wrote a book on spiritual disciplines.

He says, "I've come to the conclusion that with rare exceptions, the godly person is a busy person. I've come to the conclusion that with rare exceptions, the godly person is a busy person." Did you expect that? When I read those words, I was relieved.

Was really relieved because I was trying to figure out how to just declutter my life. get rid of some things so I could finally, you know, really truly have some peace and some, you know, some some bandwidth and, you know, I got to get rid of all these other things so I can finally become spiritual. Have you ever been trying to make have you ever tried to make sense of the busyiness of your life?

See, a godly person is a busy person because a godly person is devoted to God and people. And if you're devoted to God and you're devoted to people, your life will be full. Trust me, you will find no shortage of people that want a piece of you.

You'll have no you there. This world is full of people who are living for self. All the people figure out, "Oh, there's somebody in the room that's not living for themselves." They might actually given themselves to me.

You You will have no problem finding friends. You'll have no f uh problem finding people who want to again take part of your schedule. A while back, Alish and I were talking about um friends of ours who had this get together and nobody showed up for their get together.

And the truth of the matter is the these friends of ours, they were soft friends uh in our social circle, but uh they didn't have anybody in their social circle. So, we were just trying to figure out how did anybody show up? Turns out they didn't have anybody that they're actually connected to.

And we just started to think about how connected we are to so many people because of this body of Christ. When you become a part of the body, your social circle becomes giant. You know, you know, we we use these terms loosely, brothers and sisters.

And I hope we I hope we live up to those words. If we're going to use familial terms, I hope we live up to them. But but it but it's true.

You know, we start to care for people that we we wouldn't care less about had it not been for this right here, right now, what we're doing. So, in church, we have the opposite problem that that that individual had, which nobody's in their social social circle, nobody shows up. We actually need more time, most of us, because our social circle is big.

Something is going on all the time, is it not? Constantly church on your calendar, prayer, fellowship, personal devotion, parties, social gatherings. For some of you, school, then work, then family, ministering to others, and somewhere you need sleep, somewhere you need to eat.

So, you might find a little bit of comfort in those words that a godly person is a busy person. We don't read read much about the life of Jesus for the first 30 years. Not a whole lot that's said.

But when you you get to those final three and a half years of his life, it kicks into gear. He has a full plate. Jesus was never frantic in his pace.

He never appeared rattled. He wasn't stressed. He wasn't wasteful with his time, but he was busy.

The next time you read the Gospel of Mark, and this has been pointed out by many, but pay attention to the word immediately, it's in there over and over and over again. Notice how often it it describes his transition from one event to the next. If you just just read just just take a look at Mark chapter one.

I just kind of like looked at the at the the chapter here. I'll just read to you a couple of verses again. He he entered into compernum or I'm sorry uh chapter 1 verse 9.

And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized of John and Jordan. So here in the chapter one, we're immediately getting the baptism of Jesus and you have this whole voice coming from heaven and then immediately you go to to verse 12 that transitions from his baptism. It tells this afterwards, "And immediately the spirit drove him into the wilderness." He was baptized immediately the spirit drove him into the wilderness.

He was in the wilderness for 40 days, tempted to Satan, and he was with wild beasts. And then you kind of have a little bit of a break there where it doesn't re connect it completely to the next portion of scripture. But then it then it takes us to where the there's the call of his disciples after he's attempted.

So he's tempted. Then immediately he's going down to the Sea of Galilee and he calls Simon and Andrew and sees them casting their nets and he says, "Come on after me and walk after me and I will make thee fishers of men." And uh then he goes and he calls James and John and they're mending their nets and there's just this traveling along. He's just picking up these groups of people along the way.

And finally, he's got this crew of people with him. And verse 21 says, "And they went into Compernum and straightway on the Sabbath day, he entered to the synagogue and taught." So, he's gathering his disciples. He goes straight into the synagogue and he begins to teach.

And they're astonished at his doctrine. And uh then he heals somebody uh with an unclean spirit in there. And then his fame starts to spread abroad.

And immediately after that in verse 29 it says forth with when they were come out of the synagogue. So all these things are happening just in the synagogue. When he's walking out of the synagogue they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew and James and John.

And there's uh Simon's mom. She's sick of the fever and he heals her. And everybody's kind of watching this in amazement trying to figure out like, wow, this is this is amazing who Jesus is.

And then verse 32 says this, "And at the evening, so finally we're at the end of this day when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were distressed and then that were possessed of the devil." So now it's getting crowded and people are starting to catch wind for them. again, selfless people. You will find no shortage of people coming and trying to take a piece of you.

They're all coming for healing. Verse 35, and this is after like an entire night of healing. And in the morning, in the morning, rising up a great while before.

So, so Jesus has just like in a day experienced a lifetime, a lifetime of life-changing events. A lifetime. And in the morning, rising up a great while before the day, he went out and he departed into a solitary place.

So finally, oh, I finally get to wait, just get away for just a few minutes to go out somewhere and pray. And Simon and they that were with him followed after him. And then when they found him, they said unto him, "Everybody's seeking you.

Everybody wants a piece of you." And he said unto them, "All right, let's go to the next towns that I may preach there also. For therefore came I forth." That's why I'm here. Over and over.

You can read through the whole book. Would minister all day until dark, get up before dawn and pray. There were nights that he didn't sleep at all.

They tell us he was tired. He was sitting exhausted. Remember he was exhausted waiting for that woman of Samaria.

Must needs go through Samaria. Let me just go sit on this well and just take a rest. He was so tired that in the middle of a storm and and by the way, this storm was so bad that it had his disciples who were experienced fishermen, it had them scared to death.

That's how bad this storm was. And Jesus was so tired that he was asleep. Now, this wasn't some gag for them for an object lesson.

He was sleeping in the middle of a storm. That's tired. That's exhaustion.

You You That's exhaustion. That's the only way you can possibly sleep like that. Almost daily crowds were pressing towards him, wanting some sort of piece of him.

Everyone wanted his time. Everyone wanted his attention. And none of us in this place have experienced jobrelated stress like Jesus has.

None of us. And if Jesus was doing this today, we would accuse him of being out of balance. We might accuse him of idolizing ministry and neglecting a healthy life.

We would But the life of Jesus confirms what most of us can perceive if we'll be honest. That laziness doesn't lead to godliness. And more often than not, you show me a godly person and I'll show you a busy person.

More often than not, do you think prayer is only for the person who's sitting around twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do? Bible study, evangelism, ministering to others, worship, fellowship. Do you think those are just for people that don't have anything else better to do?

If so, where are those people? The ones with nothing to do? Where are they?

I can't find them. They aren't too common in America. See, the truth is the practice of prayer, Bible study, fasting, fellowship, worship, serving, and evangelism.

Those are the means through which we become more like Christ. We just don't accidentally do it. You just don't say, "I believe, therefore, suddenly I'm becoming like Christ." No, it's the practicing.

Now, you're you're covered by the blood. You can be buried in baptism. You can be filled with the spirit and not done one thing for God.

And you're justified because of the blood of Jesus Christ. But sanctification is is that process through which we become like him. And the means through which we become like him are those disciplines are those practices.

You practice your faith to become like Jesus. We practice our faith to become like him. And it's by practicing these types of activities that we walk like him.

We talk like him. We live like him. And that kind of transformational power, the power to become like Jesus is not just for some.

It's not just for the retirees. Suddenly we all just chaotically live our lives and then we get to retirement age and now we've got time. It's for the errand running moms and the hardworking dads.

It's for the homework heavy students. It's for the singles who everybody assumes has a lot of time so they have no time because everybody knows they have no time so they have no time. It's for the overwhelmed single parent.

So, so if you're going to practice the disciplines, if you're going to do these things, accept it that you're going to be busy. Just accept it. Just be sure though when you're cutting corners, what you'll learn how to how to do, you learn have to do that.

We all have. We're learning how to cut corners, what things we can, what things we have room for in our lives, what things that we don't. Just make sure you don't cut out the spiritual disciplines.

Don't don't cut out the things for your with in your life where you're going to find peace, where you're going to find satisfaction, where you're going to find joy in the Lord, where you're going to find safety, where you're going to find sanctuary, because you're going to be busy no matter what. The question is whether or not you're going to be busy and at peace with Jesus Christ, or you're going to be busy with a life of chaos. That's our two options in America.

And I want to be at peace with him. I want to be connected to him. I don't want to cut away the vine and cut myself away from the vine.

And because I'm away from the vine, I'm dying. I don't want to do that. I want to be connected to the vine.

And I think that's what the apostle Paul meant when he said, "We are redeeming the time to not pray waste this precious commodity that we have. But to know that if we are, it is almost always going to be our spiritual investment that gets neglected. Paul knew that.

Don't be like the unwise who neglect the most important things. I like the way Sto says it. John Stodd in his commentary on Ephesians.

He says, "Certainly wise people know that time is a precious commodity. All of us have the same amount of time at our depo disposal with 60 minutes in every hour and 24 hours in every day. None of us can stretch time.

But wise people use it to the fullest possible advantage. They know that time is passing and also that the days are evil. So they seize each fleeting opportunity while it is there.

for once it is passed even the wisest people cannot recover it. I mentioned it a little while back that uh or recently I should say I mentioned the book the tyranny of the urgent. I've had it just on my mind recently.

Charles Hmel wrote wrote it and he points out that in our lives most of us struggle with the battle between what is important and what is urgent. Most of us struggle with the battle between what is important and what is urgent. So let me ask you a question.

What is more important? Prayer time or the plumbing in your house? Prayer time, right?

It's not a trick question. One thing has eternal value, the other thing has temporal earthly value. By the way, it's not the temporal earthly value is easy.

It's just like which is more important? The eternal things are more important. But if right now you're pipes bus one is more urgent.

It's not more important. It's become more urgent. So there is a difference between what is urgent and what is important.

And it's often the urgent the urgent that crowds out the important. So, the urgent needs to really, really be urgent. Plumbing, of course, plumbing in your house, you better go fix it.

You need to get all that fixed. But there can be things that sneak into our lives that we count as urgent and we've crowded out the important. We have to ask ourselves the hard question, is it really that urgent?

Because I know it's not more important. I I'm just I'm I'm completely convinced I have complete faith in the heart of a Christian who has to sit down and actually think about things and give it thought. The biggest concern is that we don't give things much thought.

And that suddenly we allow our lives to just slowly become just managed and drifted towards a somewhat meaningless existence because we weren't intentional about thinking deeply about what is important in our lives. So we have to occasionally take some inventory say okay it's it's reevaluate every one of us there's not one person in America who hasn't allowed urgent things to shove out what's important and when the urgent leaves we forgot to put back what was important there's not a person in this place that hasn't done that let's level the playing field not super concerned about where everybody's done yesterday. The question is, what are we going to do today?

Paul wants us to redeem the time. Make sure that those things that were urgent that crowded out, they suddenly disappeared. Let's put let's put the important things back in place.

So, I'm not going to tell you today not to be busy because that's a naive statement. Of course, you're going to be busy. I'm just going to ask whether or not you've considered whether you're the right kind of busy.

The kind of busy that knows the difference between the urgent and the important. The kind of busy that produces a godly life. The kind of busy that knows exactly how important time is and says, "I'm not going to waste it.

It's too precious. It's too little in our lives anyways. So, I'm going to take every ounce that I can and make sure that I'm analyzing is this wasted?

And am I prioritizing my commitment to the Lord so I can have peace in this chaotic life? As one person says, people tell you that you're too busy to pray. The response to that is always, you're too busy not to pray.

If your life is hyper busy, you're going to be anxious like everybody else in this world. You can believe in Jesus till you're blue in the face. If if you've if you have built a life that is causing anxiety and there's no room for your connection to the vine in that life, you're going to look and be like, man, what's broken with Christianity?

Nothing's broken. The practices practicing Christianity is what has become broken. And we got to do just a good job as a church of evaluating everything we do and saying, "Okay, we're not wasting time." Like, how what are the things that we absolutely have to be doing?

And how do we need to structure our lives in a way to where we're not shoving out those very, very important things that we're all aching for? Most of us ache to be close to the Lord. We ache.

We long for it. We wish that we could just get in God's presence. We're just singing where's the time?

Let's redeem it. Let's commit to one another that we're we're going to redeem it. Let's pray and ask the Lord.

I've got a quick announcement after this, but let's pray and ask the Lord to help us. God, thank you for your word. Thank you for the Apostle Paul's wisdom, Lord, and teaching us to be uh very, very intentional of what we do.

God, forgive us. Forgive us, Lord, of times when we have neglected our relationship with you, neglected our investment in you. Lord, we can't help anybody else.

We can't help anybody else if we're not connected to you and if we're not connected uh really to the oil. Lord, I pray that you would help us. Help us help us, Jesus, every single day uh to just find time with you.

Find any any place with you to just say, "Lord, I'm gonna I'm gonna stay connected to the one. I'm gonna I'm gonna read your word. I'm going to absorb truth.

I'm going to find time for truth in my life, Lord. I'm going to find time for meditation and thinking on you. I'm going to have time, Lord, to think about things that are eternal, not temporal.

And I'm going to consider those things, Lord. And and I'm going to think on those things. I'm going to let my heart worship uh those eternal things.

Oh, God. I help us. Help us.

Help us, Lord, to consider all that. We trust you. We love you, Lord.

And we're so grateful that your that your grace calls us towards truth. It calls us towards a better life. Lord, help us to receive that, to believe it, to position ourselves for it.

Lord, we trust you and we love you and we're grateful for all you do in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

Thank you so much. Um, we didn't uh we didn't part early to shake hands