Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Imagine waking up every morning with $86,400 deposited into your account. But by midnight, whatever you haven't spent is erased. Time works the same way. Every second is a gift, an investment opportunity in eternity. The question is, how are you spending it?
Welcome to Roots of Faith, where we journey together from spiritual infancy to maturity in Christ. Join Pastor Gimme today as we turn to Ephesians 5, 15, 17 to uncover a powerful truth. As believers, we are called to redeem the time, to walk wisely, and to invest our days in what truly matters, God's will.
Are you spending your moments wisely, or could they be slipping away? Let's dive deep into the Word and discover how we can live intentionally for the Lord. Stay with us. This is Roots of Faith.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: We as Christians must watch and weigh and walk wisely, spending time like gold to firmly grasp and do what the Lord wants in my life and in yours.
Can you imagine waking up every morning and finding $86,400 in your bank account?
The only problem is that what you don't use by midnight, it's gone, you're back to zero.
You wake up the next morning, there is $86,400 in your bank account.
Time works the same way.
In a day, you have 86,400 minutes to live for Christ.
But it's gone forever if it's wasted.
So the question is, how are you investing what God has given to you?
In Ephesians chapter 5 and we go to verses 15 to 17, and those verses are very clear.
It says, be very careful then how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.
Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.
Very short part of the paragraph, but has so much depth to it.
Because in those three verses, Paul is urging you and I as Christians to watch, to weigh, to walk wisely, spending time like gold, to firmly grasp what the Lord wants in your Life.
So if $86,400 is the value of a day, and that's at a dollar a, then every golden minute, if we take a 16 hour day, work a double shift, every minute is worth $90.
Now, if you're normal and you only work one shift, that's eight hours.
That takes the value of that minute up to $180aminute.
I went to a great authority, Forbes magazine, and Forbes had a statement about 2025, and it said that the average hourly wage in the United States is $28.34.
I know what we employ our.
Well, where I used to work, what we paid for, our operators and the different people that work for the company.
And that's about average.
That's an average.
So every day of your life is worth six more times than what an employer places on your hours.
Because $180aminute or $180 an hour.
Is that right?
Yeah. $180 an hour is six times greater than 34. Or $24.38. 4 cents. $28.34.
So when you're out working, the Lord has a higher price on you.
I hate to take things down to dollars and cents, but it's the way we think.
It's how we pay the bills.
It's always helpful at the end of the month when you go to pay all the bills.
But the other thing is that Christ pays eternal dividends.
That $180 an hour is repeated over and over and over.
What do you get for 50 years of service to a company? A gold watch.
Here. Thank you.
Go, take your 401k and leave.
You see, that's the priorities of the two worlds.
And Christ wants from us because he's giving to us.
And you are that valuable in serving the Lord.
So that when you evaluate how I'm doing, you know, at work, there is a thing that they. They used to do. It was called 360 reviews.
I didn't mean 360 days.
It meant that the people below you in the food chain, the people that are at the same level of the food chain as you are, and the people above you in the food chain evaluate you.
So you get a performance review 360 degrees around.
I have a Savior who wants us to serve Him.
And the best part is he supplies everything and he pays the dividends for eternity.
Isn't your life worth $180 an hour for someone who died in your place?
You see, that's where this whole text is going.
And it matters because if I don't redeem my time, then I am robbing God.
Because Scripture says, he is my Lord, he's my Master. That's what the word means. And when it says Kos, he means he's Lord. He has the full right of ownership. He has purchased me with his own blood.
So what do we do in these three short verses? I want to show you three things.
The first is found in verse 15.
And it's a constant comparison as you go through these three verses between the words wise and foolish.
You can either do things wisely or you can be foolish.
It says, be very careful. Then how you live.
Not as unwise, but as wise.
How many times do we put ourselves before the Lord like King David did?
David was wise, and he cried out to the Lord. In Psalm 139, verses 23 and 24 in the New King James Version, it says, search me, O God, and know my heart. And I love this, because this is the change from the old King James. It says, try me and know my anxieties.
And that's a very good translation for those words in Hebrew and says, and see if there's any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
That was David's heart. Cry. David had failed. David had returned to the Lord. David was one who Scripture says was one who found favor with the Lord.
He was a man after God's own heart.
When Paul was writing, the first thing he's doing here is actually, it is a command.
And English fails us in so many ways to understand what this conveys, because what Paul was saying, he's saying, be very watchful.
The word actually means to see. The base word means to see, to look at.
He says, I want you to be looking very carefully at how accurately you are walking.
How accurate is my life to the what the Lord wants of me.
So he says, and it's. It's in the word be careful. It means watch out. That's way another translator put it. It's kind of like that sign, you know, when you go through the store and you can't read it because it's in Spanish.
It says, I don't know how to say it.
Something like that means, watch out, the floor is wet.
That's what the Lord's saying, watch out how accurately I am living according to the word of God.
And it's a command.
Now understand, a command just simply means that he's tugging at your heart. He's tugging at you and saying, please, please deal with me.
Not only does it mean to watch out, to see, to observe.
What it does is it urgently demands that you must direct your thinking and your consideration to carefully see your life is being accurate to what God wants.
It says in there that do not be as unwise, but wise.
And it's the same word flipped back and forth. Unwise means you're not wise at all, you're not following, you're not doing compared to wisely, which means you do it with wisdom.
You understand the word of God and you take the wisdom of God's word as you meditate on it. And you think about it and you say, okay, Lord, search me.
Know my anxieties. Try my anxieties.
He isn't talking about, you know, did you do this today?
No. Come on, you got to do better. No. He's even saying those little things that cause us anxious moments.
David said, lord, try me.
See? See what the anxious times are.
And it says that you're to not be unwise or you're not to be foolish unwise in your walk of life. And that's what the word means, the way you live, but rather you are to be wise.
And wise in this case has a number of different shades of meaning because it means not only with wisdom, but it's biblical wisdom.
It says in Timothy that the word of God is profitable for what?
For doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be thoroughly furnished, equipped unto every good work.
The word of God is not there to tell you thou shalt and thou shalt not.
It's God's word that he's communicating to us, to make us evaluate, to look.
It also means to be skilled in understanding an application.
But you know what?
It does not mean that you have to become biblical scholar.
When Mike asked this morning in Sunday School about why the the end was left off, I still will go back and disagree with some of my profs who were on the NIV committee.
Why they chose that.
That was in their integrity. They felt they were doing the best by leaving those verses out. They couldn't find it in the oldest transcripts, but it is in other transcripts.
And what he was saying is that the word of God is what we need to look at, to synthesize, to make it fit so that we understand God's will, rather than us doing the reverse. Making God's word fit the way we want it.
That's exactly what the world is doing.
You look at what the world does with the word of God and they totally turn it upside down.
They want it to fit their lifestyle. They want it to fit their way of thinking.
Instead, I want to fit my life to the way the Word of God says. It ought to be something that's been wandering in my head. And it's terrible because when things wander in my head.
But I keep thinking about the fact, as you look, the Old Testament is profitable as well as the New Testament.
And when you look at how Israel was chosen, how God delivered them, and the very first thing they did when they got out of Egypt and were wandering on the other side is what did they do?
They messed up.
When Israel finally was taken across the Jordan and started to go into the promised land, God said, you to remove the people, you're to remove those influences.
And yet when you look throughout the pages of the Old Testament, what Israel did was, well, they're nice people that I'm living with.
Isn't that what Lot did in Sodom?
Because we want to synchronize our beliefs with, you know, we don't want to be totally outlandish.
No, we have to look at the word of God and ask God, how do you want me to live my life? I need to look carefully.
I need to dig deep.
It's also looking at the things that Jesus rebuked the pharisees in Matthew 23, because what they were doing is they were making ritual replace the word of God.
And that is exactly what happens in churches.
If we are not looking at God's word and making God's word mold us and make us, we fall into rituals.
I want you to see the next thing that it says, because in the next verse, it says, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.
Now, Paul hangs this right on that word that says, you know, look carefully. And while you're looking carefully, he says, by the way, redeem the days, redeem your time.
And it means literally, it's a. It's a commercial term that means to go to the marketplace and buy it out, pay it honestly, actually carries the idea of paying a high price for it. You're paying premium when you buy out your time.
And when you look at this, it's like saying, go and take the golden coins of the hours that you have, the minutes that you have, the $8,86,400 worth of time.
And with that gold coin of time, purchase out, redeem.
And it says, redeem the time.
Now, that does not talk about the clock ticking.
It actually means to buy up the opportunities.
So not only do I have to be watching and being careful, weighing carefully, but I also have to be in the process of taking those opportunities that God presents to me. I have to be alert so that I know to buy them out.
Because that gives me an opportunity to testify about Jesus Christ. It gives me the opportunity to speak into someone's life, the word of God, so that they hear, they may not accept, but they hear.
It's actually also translated in other places as the appointed time, the seasons.
So it's precious time.
When I go to buy something, I want to look at the warranty.
And I'm one of Those crazy people that when somebody says, well, we can give you a protection plan for $24 more and the warranty will last for another three years.
I'm one of those guys that says, yes, okay, I'll take it.
Mainly because I don't like messing with stuff.
I want somebody else to handle my problem.
Now, what this is doing, it's saying that you're buying up the opportune times.
You're taking out the extended Warranty for those $180.
Do you realize if you were paid $180 an hour, you would be getting an annual income exceeding $340,000 a year?
I mean, I'm sorry.
Yeah, $340,000 a year.
Can you imagine salary like that?
Can imagine what the taxes would look like.
But you see, that's. That's the preciousness of that time.
So when you are looking at that, it says you're to buy it up because the days are evil.
Someone gave. The illustration of a life of a Christian is like a rubber band.
And when you stretch that rubber band, that's what the world does to us.
We go out in the world and it stretches us. It pushes against us, and it's like extending that rubber band. What happens with the rubber band when you let go?
It draws back in.
That's what the word of God is to do for us. Because the days are evil. And the world wants to take our focus off of the Lord.
And so we need that alone time with the Lord. We need to buy up that precious time so that we're coming back to the Lord.
And finally, I want you to see this, because in the last verse of what we're looking at in verse 17, in verse 17, it says, Therefore, do not be foolish. Now, that's another word.
And it's different than the words that were up in verse 15, but it's also looking back at verse 15 and 16. And it says, therefore, because the world wants to stretch you and you need to come back to the Lord, you need to be redeeming that time.
It says, therefore, do not be foolish.
And the word carries with it the sense of senselessness, lacking reason, ignoring God's truth.
You see, it's all well and good for us to sit there and read our Bible and say, yes, I heard the Bible today, thank you, and I'll see you next Sunday.
No, what he's saying is you take the word of God and you know it, so that you are not being ignorant of God's word, you're not being senseless.
Because it says in verse 17, therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And I love the way he put it, didn't say the word of God, what the will of God is.
He says, so that you understand the will of the Lord your master. That's another translation for the word kuriots. It means master.
Do you know that only 7 out of 10 practicing Christians.
Sorry, I'm quoting my statistics again. But 7 out of 10, only 7 out of 10 Christians would agree that Jesus Christ has first place in their life.
Does the Lord have first place in your life?
Does he really occupy the idea in your thinking and your mind that Jesus Christ is first?
He's the first one I go to.
He is the first one I think of.
And I can tell you that working in a work a day world, it's very easy to forget and to lose sight that Jesus Christ is first.
A whole other sermon in that.
But look at what it says. That you'd be understanding, comprehending the word means to put it together like a puzzle. I understand what the Lord says here. I understand what the Lord says here. I understand what the Lord's doing here. I see this and I'm putting it together like a puzzle so that I understand, understand what God's will is in my life.
He says literally that you know or understand, you comprehend what the will of the Lord the Master is.
It's not just his commands.
But earlier in chapter five there we came across the place where it says that we're to understand what pleases God, what pleases the Lord.
I'm going to be living to please the Lord and sometimes it's very difficult to please the Lord with some people.
Matter of fact, a lot of times I fight with myself. I'm not pleased with me.
So how do you do this?
Second Peter, chapter one and verses five to nine. Read this. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness.
And to goodness knowledge.
And to knowledge self control.
And to self control, perseverance.
And to perseverance godliness.
And to godliness mutual affection. In other words, it gets right back to the congregation and it says, and to that mutual affection add love.
Not the 70s love child or the 60s love child, but the love that is spoken of where we talk about agape, a love of doing.
It says, for if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But whoever does not have them is near sighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.
Go back and chew on that sometime. Second Peter, Chapter one.
So what do I do?
One of the first and simplest things is to start and just say, okay, Lord, I'm going to give you 20 minutes.
Not the quite full $180, but I have a lot of things pressing on my times. But I'm going to sit there and carve out 20 minutes and I'm going to read a portion of Scripture.
But then what you do with it, I find myself doing this. You take something, you start thinking about it, and you're like the cow, you're ruminating.
And as I'm going throughout the day, it's like that song has been ruminating in my mind for almost three weeks.
That song keeps coming back to me and back to me and back to me.
Only one life to offer.
What do I need to change? Now, I'm not asking you to become a Bible scholar. I'm just saying look at the word.
Look at as many different translations and paraphrases as you want.
And they're easy and they're free on the Internet for the most part.
But as you look at it, you just start thinking about it and you say, okay, Lord, I'm going to give you 20 minutes.
And with understanding, how are you supposed to live?
Just ask yourself, how am I supposed to live? Because of those verses. What does it tell me? What does it tell me that somebody did wrong? What does it do to tell me something somebody did right? What does it tell me about how my heart should be?
What does it tell me about how I should pray?
Go back to the model prayer.
You just think about it. Let it ruminate in your mind. And you know what happens when you go through that?
Sometimes it starts to convict you.
And when it convicts you, don't bury it.
Just go to the Lord in prayer and confess it. Lord, I missed the mark.
Help me.
If you want to know about missing the mark, go look in the Psalms. Look at David in Psalm 51.
Sometimes when you're sitting there and thinking about convinces you of something you ought to do.
So what do you do to me?
I would suggest sitting there and then taking that conviction and saying, lord, I'm going to obey this in prayer.
The Lord's putting something on my mind. I'm going to sit there and say, lord, I'll pray about it.
My mother used to tell me about a foolproof method about deciding what the Lord wanted me to do.
She called it her slam bang method.
The Lord shuts some doors and he opens others.
When you pray about it, then you're seeking what the Lord is doing to open up doors and to close other doors.
Give that passage a couple of days in your ruminating, in your meditation.
It might be something that's useful for teaching you.
Maybe it's rebuking you.
Maybe it's correcting. Maybe it's teaching you training and how to live according to what the Lord's will is.
Does it matter?
Well, if you don't, you will let the world around you dictate your life and the way you walk.
But if you do, you'll find out what pleases and what is the will of your Master.
If you claim Christ as your Savior, you have 86,400 minutes today.
You've already lost quite a few, but there's still a bunch left.
As a Christian, you are to watch way and walk carefully, wisely, spending time like gold to firmly grasp and do what the Lord wants in your life.
What will you invest for your master today?
Your master who paid for your life with his because he first loved you?
What are you going to invest today?
[00:40:21] Speaker A: Thank you for tuning into this episode of Roots of Faith, a ministry of Lawn Evangelical Congregational Church in Lawn, Pennsylvania. We hope today's message has uplifted you and deepened your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, whether you're new in the faith or have walked with him for years, God's Word is always fresh and powerful to transform. If you were blessed by this episode, please share it with friends. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an update. We would love for you to join us on Sunday at 10:30am at 5566 Elizabethtown Road, Route 241 in Lawn, Pennsylvania. As always, stay rooted in the Word, stand firm in faith and keep growing in Christ.
