Just Counting Time or Making Time Count?

When you're young, you think you have time that will just go on and on.

You have oodles of it. You get a few years under your belt and you realize time moves quickly. It is thought by most Bible commentators that Peter has his own lifetime in mind as he writes these words, that he believes his martyrdom is right around the corner.

And feeling that, he mentions in this paragraph time twice because we're to be aware of it. Have you heard the saying time is more valuable than money? You can accumulate money, but we're only given so much time. Today on Connect with Skip Heiseck, Skip asks a crucial question.

What will you do with the time you have left? Now we want to tell you about an encouraging resource that inspires you to live with unyielding confidence in God. You know Proverbs 31, the go-to passage that describes the ideal Christian woman and wife.

But let's be honest, that ideal can be as intimidating as it is inspiring. Here's Skip Heiseck with more. Can I just tell you it's exhausting to just read that, let alone how on earth women could you ever do that?

Well, let me say, first of all, you can't do that in a day. He's not giving the 24-hour description of the virtuous wife. This is a woman over time. Get to know some of the most incredible women in the Bible and in history with two inspiring resources, a six-message CD collection from Pastor Skip on prominent women in scripture, plus the book Seven Women by best-selling author Eric Metaxas. This bundle is our thanks when you give $35 or more to help expand the Bible teaching outreach of Skip Heiseck.

Charm is deceitful, beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Call now to request these captivating resources as our thanks for your generous gift, 800-922-1888, or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, we're in 1 Peter Chapter 4 as Skip Heiseck starts today's study. Time. Time is something we are aware of. It is something we count. We have little devices on our wrists so that we can be on time. People appreciate it when the pastor ends on time.

We mark it. We have increments of time, seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months, all combined to make a year. In our Western civilization, we follow a solar calendar. There's 365 days in a year. Or to be more precise, 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds. Or if you prefer, 8,766 hours. Or if you prefer, 525,949 minutes, don't ask me about seconds. That's a year. You will have 79 of those in your lifetime. That is the average lifespan of the American.

79 years of time. I bring that up because one of the key thoughts of Peter in this paragraph of Chapter 4 of his book is about time. Because time is a gift. It's a gift, but it's an elusive gift. When you're young, you think you have time that will just go on and on.

You have oodles of it. And you get a few years under your belt, and you realize time moves quickly. It is thought by most Bible commentators that Peter has his own lifetime in mind as he writes these words. That he believes his martyrdom is right around the corner. And feeling that, he mentions in this paragraph, time twice.

Because we're to be aware of it. Like Moses, who wrote in Psalm 90, teach us to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom. Think of time like a coin. I found a coin.

I found a large one just for the sake of illustration. Your life is like this coin. That's time. It's the only one you got. You decide where you're going to spend this. Don't let anybody spend it for you. This is your life, your time for you to spend as you wish.

But here's my admonition to you. Don't just spend time. Invest your time. Certainly don't waste time. And don't even spend time, but learn to invest your time.

We even have a common phrase in our vernacular. We call it killing time. What'd you do yesterday? Nothing. I'm just killing time.

What we mean by that, it was just sort of hanging out, doing nothing helpful or beneficial. But as Henry David Thoreau once said, you can't kill time without injuring eternity. Time matters. So in 1 Peter chapter 4, time is one of the key thoughts of Peter. Here's another key thought before we even read the text. The will of God.

He also mentions that twice. So here's the overarching theme of this paragraph which we're about to read. In whatever time you have left, use it to do the will of God. Let's look at 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 1 down to verse 6. Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind. For he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. That he should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past lifetime, some translations simply say, we've spent enough time doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it's strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

For this reason, the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. I titled this message with a question. Are you just counting time or are you making time count? Using what we just read, I want to suggest four ways of really making time count.

Whatever time you have left, there's four ways to make your time count. Number one, resist sin. It sounds like something a preacher would say, resist sin.

But look at what Peter says. Verse one, therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, he had just talked about the sufferings of Jesus. Arm yourselves also with the same mind for he is the one who is the one who same mind for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. That little phrase, arm yourself, is a military phrase. It's a military phrase of being prepared.

Picture, if you will, a soldier putting on his gear and getting ready to go into battle. That's the idea of the phrase, arm yourself. However, our preparation is to take place not outwardly as much as inwardly. Notice what it says, arm yourself with the same mind. We would say get your head in the game, get your mind in the battle, get mentally prepared for the fight you're about to get into.

That's the idea. For the believer, the battle always, always begins in the realm of the mind. Before it goes anywhere else, it's in our thought life. That's why in chapter one, if you recall, Peter in verse 13 said, gird up the loins of your mind. Be prepared mentally. Behavioral scientists for decades have told us that human behavior is determined by the subconscious mind. The writer of Proverbs agrees in Proverbs 23 verse 7, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. So what kind of a mind do we need?

Now listen to this. We need a militant attitude towards him. We need an aggressive stand towards him. We can never get used to it.

We can never grow comfortable with it. We need a militant attitude towards him or as Paul put it in Romans six, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies that you should obey its desires. Hey, if you don't make time to battle sin, sin will take time away from your life. We should resist sin not only because of what it does to us. We should hate sin and resist it because of what it did to him.

It killed him. Notice what it says, therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh. When I look at the cross, I am looking at what my sin did to my Savior.

I need to arm myself with the same mind that Jesus had. What mind did Jesus have when he came here? When Jesus came to earth, he had a militant attitude towards sin. As proven by his steadfast movement toward the cross, he came to deal with sin. He came to deal with sin. He came to die on a cross. No wonder it says in the gospel of Luke, Jesus set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem.

Like a soldier marching into battle. That's where he was going to deal with the problem of sin. So we have a relationship with sin.

We all know it. We all struggle with it. In that relationship, what should be our goal? What is the ultimate aim? It's in the text.

The answer that I'm asking this question about is right in the text. But let me ask you, what is our ultimate aim and goal when it comes to sin? It's to stop doing it. It's to cease from it.

Look what it says, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. That is my ultimate goal. News flash, ain't going to happen on this earth. Not going to be fully done conquering that problem till you and I get into glory. However, if ever there was a battle worth fighting, it's this battle. If ever there was a fight that you need to be engaged in, it's this fight. You've heard it said before, choose your battles carefully. Well here's a battle you need to fight and you need to win. You need to win more of these battles than lose them. As God spoke to Cain, he said, sin is crouching at your door.

It desires to have you, but you must master it. James in the New Testament said, resist the devil. Jesus to the 12 apostles, pray that you enter not into temptation. And then he taught us to pray, deliver us from the evil one. All of that is resistance talk.

It's military language. Fight it, resist it, push it away, win the battle. Now just a quick note before we move on. Suffering will help you do that. If there's another benefit to throw out and say suffering is good for this, this is it. Because suffering, you know this to be true, gets your attention like nothing else. And when it has your attention, it cuts away things that are worthless, things that are superfluous. Certain activities you got engaged in, suddenly when there's a huge amount of suffering, that stuff just doesn't mean that much to you.

It tends to get cut away. We all have rough edges and God used his suffering to transform and smooth and temper our lives. So resist sin. You want to make time count? Put that on the pallet, resist sin. Here's a second.

Here's a second. Relish God's will. If the first was negative, this is positive. Resist sin, that's negative. Relish or enjoy God's will, that's positive.

Verse two, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lust of men, but for the will of God. Now he gets right to the heart of what you and I will do with the rest of your time. How will you spend the rest of your time?

Let me put it to you this way. The best of your time is when you use the rest of your time to invest your time in doing the will of God. Again, the best of your time is when you use the rest of your time to invest your time in doing the will of God. Let God's will be your lifelong pursuit. You want an adventurous journey?

You want a satisfying journey? Make sure the will of God is number one in your pursuit. To quote what Jesus himself said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you. Did you know that the will of God for your life is the most important and exciting thing about your life? You might be good at a lot of things, but the most exciting thing about your life is when you discover what God wants from it. Somebody once said there are two most important days in a person's life.

The day he is born, number one, and number two, the day he finds out what he's born for. What does God want out of my life? Discover that. Make that your pursuit, your ambition.

Now let me just throw out a warning here. A lot of times when you say these words, find the will of God for your life, people, Christians especially, like to mysticize that. They think that you discover God's will by sort of sitting in the corner and just humming and getting an impression. Maybe God's going to speak a voice to me or believe it or not, some have tried. I'm going to open my Bible that day and I'm just going to go like this and go like this. Just going to point to some random verse, trusting the Holy Spirit will guide my finger.

That becomes God's will. Be very careful. There's some strange texts in this book. And Judas went out and hung himself. Oops!

Don't play roulette with this book. Hey, I love this story. I've told it to you before about a farmer who thought he should be an evangelist. He was working his field one day. He plopped down by the side of a train. He's looking up at the clouds and he looked and he saw the clouds form what looked to him like two letters, a large P and a large C. And he thought, P, C, P, P C, preach Christ. That's it.

It's a sign. He sold his farm, became an evangelist. The problem is, is he was just a horrible speaker. So he's preaching one day and his town is there to hear him.

And it was pretty sad. Afterwards, one of his buddies came up to him, put his arm around him and said, dude, do you think that perhaps God wasn't just using P, C to tell you to plant corn? Plant corn. Be careful that you don't make the will of God so mystical because you might be doing that.

Preaching when you ought to be planting or planting when you ought to be preaching. Simply put, just pursue his will over against your will. Make it your ambition to discover what that is and let that happen naturally. It'll happen supernaturally naturally. You don't have to force it. There was a guy who was on a diet and he told his office, I'm on a diet.

You guys got to hold me accountable. So he comes to work one day with this huge, massive, huge, huge, huge, huge humongous coffee cake. He walks into the office with and they scold and they go, wait, wait, wait, you're on a diet. He goes, no, no, no, no, no.

This is the will of God. And so he tells him the story. He had changed his route to work so that he wouldn't go by the bakery.

He went the long way around on his diet. But that day he happened to forget and drove right past the bakery. He said, I'm driving past the bakery and I looked in the window and this thing was sitting right in the front window. I knew it can't be an accident.

It's providence. So I prayed. I said, Lord, if it's your will for me to get that cake, may there be a parking space right in front, in front of that window. And he said, wouldn't you know it?

The eighth time around the block there was a parking space. Will of God. I do want to say, however, the will of God is never a burden.

It's a blessing. I know that when people hear the term will of God, some go, oh, it's got to be hard. Jesus said, my yoke is easy. My burden is light. John said, we obey his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. So the will of God is not an encumbrance. It's an enablement that makes burdens light. You won't always know what he's up to.

You'll want to, he won't always reveal it, but you can rest that he knows best. So resist sin, relish God's will. Here's a third, renounce your past.

In other words, come up to a point in your life, and maybe today will be the point where you look back and you say, enough is enough. That stuff's gone. That's the old me. That's the old lifestyle.

I got something new going on. Verse three, for we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness, lust, drunkenness, revelry, and drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it's strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.

What a list. Now last week I spoke about baptism, and did you know that in some denominations when you go to get baptized, there's a formality and you answer questions. If you want to get baptized into that church, the clergy wants to ask you some questions, and they want to hear your answer. And here's the first question. Do you renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of this world, with all the covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of the flesh, so that you will not follow nor be led by them?

That's the question, and they expect this answer. I renounce them, I renounce them all. That's the thought of this passage. Renounce all of these things on this list. They're not good for you, they're not the will of God for you, they're not what's best for you. Remember the best of your time is when you use the rest of your time to invest your time in doing the will of God.

I went through that list, and I could uncover the meaning of every single word, but I think it's pretty straightforward. He's simply saying we all wasted enough time doing bad stuff. I looked at that list and I thought, you know, I knew people who did those things for a living.

That was their nine to five, and after work that's when the party really started for them. They were radical in their sin. But I also know some of those radical sinners were interrupted by radical salvation, and when they were they all said the same thing, enough. I'm done. Enough.

Turning point time. I've had enough of the past. Some of you look at that list in verse three, lewdness, lust, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, abominable idolatries. Some of you here can relate to one, some of you can relate to all, while others of you read that list and you cannot relate to a single one. You grew up in a Christian family. You look at that, those overt kind of obvious, gross sins, you never did those. Outwardly. You did them inwardly. There's still sin going on. Nobody saw it.

It was just as evil. Now I want to say something to you. I remember when I was growing up, I would think I was around 18, 19. I knew a kid who was around 16.

His name was Johnny. He was raised in a Christian home. Good parents. Great kid. All of his life.

Going to church, loving the Lord. But he heard all of our testimonies. He heard people saying, yeah, I used to be a drug addict when I came to Christ. I used to be a mass murderer and I got turned around. All of these dramatic, gnarly testimonies. I remember talking to him one day and he said, you know what?

I never had those experiences. Maybe I need to go out and sin a little bit and get myself a dramatic testimony. I said, Johnny, you have the most dramatic testimony that God can keep a person from young age through a lifetime. Your testimony will encourage every parent raising any son or daughter. If God can do that, that's dramatic. Even I'm thankful, but we parade often ex-cons and ex-drug addicts and famous musicians who turned to Christ. Great.

It's all good. But the keeping power to keep a life through a life, that's powerful. Basically, no matter how much time you spend for the flesh, no matter how much time you spent for the devil, it's enough time. Whether it was 20 years or one day, it's enough. Enough.

That's Skip Hyten with a message from the series Rock Solid. Now we want to share about an exciting opportunity you have to take your knowledge of God's Word even deeper. Going to church is a great way to learn about God, but what if you want to learn more?

What if you want to go deeper? Calvary College offers classes in Biblical studies, classes like Theopoetics, the life and lessons of C.S. Lewis. Learn more about God and the Bible on your schedule. Take evening classes on campus or online. An education from Calvary College will impact your spiritual life for the rest of your life. Apply now at calvaryabq.college.

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Thank you. Tune in again tomorrow as Skip Hyten shares how deep, sacrificial love can make you stronger as you wait for Jesus' return. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast all burdens on His hand. Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Hyten is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.