The Wise Use Of Time, Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Neglect always has an accumulative effect. When you neglect an area of your life that you shouldn't be, it will always have an accumulative effect. There is a reaping and sowing principle that you cannot escape. That's physically, relationally, spiritually, professionally, emotionally, financially.

You neglect something over a long period of time in your life and you'll suffer major consequences. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. How many times has someone died who you loved and knew and the first thought you had in your mind is, they died too early. You see, they died too early. They died too soon.

I mean, Lord, if you were looking for people to take off this planet, I could give you a list of people that I'm not sure who would miss them. You see, that's hard for us. When I went to Dallas Seminary, I was in the very first chapel that we had and it was wonderful to hear a thousand men singing and all that. I was sitting on the end of an aisle by myself and we were singing along and then I looked across the aisle and there was a guy sitting right on the end of the other aisle. I sort of nodded. He sort of nodded and we kept singing. When chapel ended, we started talking.

He said, do you want to go to lunch? We did. His name was Jim. He and I became best friends through seminary. He was the guy that we shared a lot. I mean, we both staggered through baby Hebrew together. Both of us showing tremendous interest but almost no ability when it came to understanding basic Hebrew grammar, but we made it. We both felt the same way. We both felt that God had brought us to that school to train us, that we were called by God. We both should go into church ministry, a pulpit, and pastor congregations. We had tremendous conviction about that.

We were so happy for each other. The Lord led Jim to Vermont and he led me to Louisiana. Jim was originally from Missouri and I was in Pennsylvania. Then the Lord gave Jim a few years in Vermont.

Then he got cancer and then he went home to be with Jesus. I got decades in Louisiana and I don't know why. You see, I don't see how I would have merited more time than Jim. You see, you never understand that.

It's okay. See, I can't possibly understand it. God hasn't asked me to do that. What he has asked me to do is to make the most of the allotted time that I have.

That's what he's asked you to do and he's asked me to do exactly the same thing. The time that I can make the most of is now time. That's what James tells me. You want to make the most of some time?

Make the most of now time because that's all I really know I have. You see, that's what James is saying. Ben Franklin said, lost time is never found again.

He's exactly right. Once you lose it, you've lost it. Now, you might be thinking about this time. If I had known this, this is one of those make me feel guilty kind of sermons. I've got to, boy, I waste so much time and this is really going to be bad. You know what I'm going to end up, I'm going to have to get into the Bible more than I've ever done before. Then I'm probably going to have to go down to the mission more than I did. I'm going to have to witness to people at work. I probably have to go on a foreign mission trip sometime.

I know this kind. I don't have to give up my hobbies. No more naps. I'm going to have to give all this. I'm going to have to give this all up because I have to make the most of my time. You couldn't be further from the truth. That is not making the most of your time.

Not at all. Turn with me now to Ecclesiastes chapter 3, a very famous chapter. Ecclesiastes chapter 3, right after the book of Proverbs. Ecclesiastes 3 and Solomon writes this. He says, there is an appointed time for everything. Now he's going to give examples but don't miss this. There is an appointed time for everything.

Now the last I looked, even in English it's the same. Everything is everything. There's an appointed time for everything and there's time and there is a time for every event under heaven. There's a time to give birth and a time to die, a time to plan, a time to uproot what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down, a time to build up, a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing, a time to search and a time to give us loss, the time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear apart and a time to sew together, and a time to be silent and a time to speak, and a time to love and a time to hate, and a time for war and a time for peace.

Now, without looking at the individual things, because they're only examples, the thing that I get when I look at that passage is this. You always have enough time for everything. You have enough time.

You see, that's what he's saying. There's a time for everything. The advantage that we have, that Moses had, that David had, that Paul has, shows up in verse 11. He said, he has made everything appropriate in its time, and he has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.

The big advantage that we have over every other created animal in existence, as a human being, we have eternity in our heart. I know that time has a perspective to it here. This time will end. There's a time when I'll step from this time into eternity. He's put that in my heart. That, by the way, it makes me able to understand and appreciate this time in a very, very different way.

There's a time for everything in your life. A lot of times as Christians, I don't think necessarily, we think that if we're really serving the Lord, that that's what the Bible means, but it's exactly what it means. Again, I remember when I was a seminary, they were in a class and they were talking about how dedicated you needed to be to be a pastor. They were talking about this pastor, a very famous one, I won't mention his name. He was so dedicated to only and constantly serving the Lord, that when the morning paper came, he would only read the morning paper standing up, and only the appropriate articles, so that he wouldn't waste any time as he served Jesus.

Now, I'm sitting there thinking, wow, I read the cartoons, in a chase lounge, sports page. I mean, I'm just, wow, I must not be dedicated. You see, that's the wrong approach. Fatigue is not godliness. You see, fatigue is not godliness when it comes to a wise use of time. Chuck Swindoll is only Chuck can do says this, strangely, the one thing we need is the last thing we consider. We've been programmed to think that fatigue is the next to godliness, that the more exhausted we are and look, the more spiritual we are and the more we earn God's smile and approval.

We bury all of our thoughts of enjoying life. For we all know that if we're going to be committed, truly committed Christians, we have to be those who work, work, work. Preferably, he says, with great intensity. As a result, he said, we have become a generation of people who worship their work and work at their play and play at their worship. He says, hold it, whoever wrote that rule, why have we bought that philosophy?

What gave someone the right to declare such a statement? I challenge you to support it from scriptures or to go back into the life and lifestyle of Jesus Christ and find a trace of corroborating evidence that he embraced such a theory. Some will be surprised to learn that there is not one reference in the New Testament saying, or even implying that Jesus intensely worked and labored in an occupation to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion. No, but there are several that we're told that he deliberately took a break. He got away from the demands of public ministry and enjoyed periods of relaxation with his disciples. I'm not saying that he rambled through his ministry in an aimless, half-hearted fashion, not at all.

But neither did he come anywhere near having an ulcer. Never once did we find Jesus ever in a frenzy or in a hurry. His was a life of beautiful balance. He accomplished everything the Father sent him to do everything, and he did it without ignoring the essential times of leisure.

If that is the way he lived, then it makes good sense for you and me to live that way too. You see, that's what we're talking about when we talk about the wise use of our time. We're not talking about everything's got to be under the back burner and all I'm going to do is dedicate myself to one aspect of ministry. I'm going to give you a few guidelines, just maybe four or five guidelines here, that I think are very helpful when it comes to the wise use of time.

The first one is this. There is an accumulative value of investing small amounts of time in certain activities over a long period of time. There's a cumulative value of investing small amounts of time in certain activities over a long period of time.

Now, let me illustrate you so why this makes sense. What if I said to you, okay, I'm going to get in shape tomorrow. I'm getting in shape tomorrow.

Do you get in shape like that? How about this one? I'm going to know the Word of God. I'm going to know the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation tomorrow. Will you?

No. I'm going to make a lifelong friend tomorrow. Small increments of time over a long period of time. Gives us almost all of the great things in life that we want. See, small increments over a long period of time.

Secondly, a second guideline. There are rarely immediate consequences for neglecting single installments of time in any area of life. This is problematic. There are rarely immediate consequences when you ignore the small things that you should be doing with your life. You see, a marriage doesn't begin to fall apart in an hour or a day or a week or a month. You see, it takes time. It takes ignoring each other over a period of time.

It takes less than being what you should be over a period of time. Hey, you can ignore your kids for periods of time and it doesn't look like there's anything to pay for that at all, but there is. You see, at first, it doesn't look like there's any consequences to this. Hey, I'm busy. I'm sorry.

I'd like to do more with you, but I don't have the time. It doesn't work like that. It's the same thing with our walk with the Lord.

It's exactly the same. You see, I can neglect that time. I can neglect my time with the Lord and it doesn't look like it affects me at all. Until I do it tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next week, and the next month, and then eventually, you know what?

It affects me. The key is because if you do things on a steady basis, small things over a long period of time, in the right areas of your life, it's the best thing for you. Thirdly, neglect always has an accumulative effect. When you neglect an area of your life that you shouldn't be, it'll always have an accumulative effect.

There is a reaping and sowing principle that you cannot escape. That's physically, relationally, spiritually, professionally, emotionally, financially. You neglect something over a long period of time in your life and you'll suffer major consequences. You have kids that don't know you or don't like you.

You'll have a spouse that doesn't know you or like you. You see, you'll never cultivate the friendships that you really need to have as you go through this life. You'll never really walk and be as close to the Lord in your prayer life and in your time in His, unless you do this.

It always is going to pay for it. Christianity is not, no matter what we try to make of the day, an event faith. If I can just simply get to an event, then I'm walking with Jesus.

It doesn't work like that. That's not what Christianity is. It's day in, it's day out. It's through all of the normal and mundane aspects of life. Fourthly, don't let the urgent things squeeze out the important things in your life. This is what we're more guilty of as Americans than almost anything else. Don't let the urgent things squeeze out the important things in your life.

I don't know of anything so common to all of us as that. One of the bill-isms we've used around the office here for years, and said it over and over again, but I think the truth of it when I first heard it is something that we all need to hear. You cannot overestimate the unimportance of almost everything.

You have to live by that. You cannot overestimate the unimportance of almost everything. But we don't, it's urgent, it's urgent, this is urgent. There are some things in our life that are urgent, something that require our full attention at that moment. But be really careful and apply wisdom as to what you think is urgent when it's taking away from what you know to be important in your life.

Howard Hendricks, as I've said, my mentor at Dallas Seminary said this, he said, if you are too busy in the ministry for your family, you are way busier than God ever intended you to be. You see, you need to be reminded of that. Oh no, the ministry needs me.

Listen, one thing I know about Jesus, he doesn't need anything. He can do this with me and he can do this without me, but he can do it. You see, you have to be really careful as you balance this in your life. Don't let the urgent things of your life squeeze out the important things of your life.

And the last guideline I'd like to make is this one. In critical areas of your life, you cannot make up for lost time. Some of you know that. You can't, you see, you can't have that 18-year-old that you don't have a relationship with that has gone through a lot of stress and you can't understand, you know, I can't make up for this. I can be sorry for it, but I can't make up for it. When you're in college, one of the things you can do is abuse time because nobody's around to hold you accountable to it.

I wouldn't say I was the king of the abusers, but I was on the court the first time I went to college. And what you could do is you could not go to class, not listen at the lectures, and if you were smart enough, you could pull what they say in college is an all-nighter. An all-nighter. Now, all-nighter, by implication, by the way, simply means this, people who don't know how to manage their time at all. When you say the word all-nighter, that means you don't know how to manage your time at all.

But now I'm forced to. And if you're smart enough, you could do an all-nighter and you could still get a B. I mean, if you were really a genius, you might even get an A, but you can get a B pulling an all-nighter. Now, you had a whole semester of work. You didn't do any of it. But when that midterm and final came, you pulled an all-nighter.

Now, let me say something. When it comes to something like your marriage, that won't work. You can't say, hey hon, I know we've had a lousy 15 years, but let's stay up all night and we'll make this a great marriage by morning. You see, you can't. You can't make up for lost time about the things in life that are really important.

You can't make up for it. You can't instantly become a spiritually-minded Christian. You can't say to the Lord, Lord, tomorrow I'm gonna pray for 16 hours. Because, well, I haven't prayed in months, but if I do 16 hours in one day, everything will be good.

It won't. You see, you can't make, with the important things in life, you can't make up for them for lost time. Just some guidelines. One other thing to remember when it comes to time, time is not your sovereign. Christ is your sovereign. Time is your slave. You understand that time is your slave. You can do with your time what you wanna do. Time is not the master.

You're the master. One other reminder is this. Sometime in the near future, time will vanish for some of you or some of us. And we'll move from this life into the eternal state. Time will be no more. That's eternity in our heart. That's one of the great things about being a believer. Outer man is decaying, but the inner man being renewed day by day.

Absent from the body is present with the Lord. Eternity, not a long time. The absence of time.

Time will be irrelevant. But while I'm here, I have to believe Job and Paul are right that each of us are allocated a certain amount of time. Each of us has to ask ourselves a question based on the time that's been allocated to us. In light of my past experiences, in light of my present circumstances, in light of my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do with my time? After all, in a certain way, your time is your life. Let's pray.

Father, my prayer this morning is relatively simple. I think so often we consider ourselves to be victims of time instead of masters of it. We consider that time dictates to us everything we have to do and that we have no free will in it at all.

But Father, the word of God says it to the contrary. We need to redeem our time. We need to make the most of our time. Father, I pray that each of us examine our lives and to just think or write down what's the most important things in our life, our relationship with you, our understanding of your will through your word, our relationship with our family, our spouse, our children, our brothers and sisters in Christ, our neighbors, the colleagues we work with, the kinds of things that are important to us, and on the basis of that, we make choices. Father, thank you, Father, that you have designed us in such a way that you have given us plenty of a time to accomplish your will. We don't have to feel guilty about leisure.

We don't have to feel guilty about downtime, quiet time, our time. But Father, we need to make the most because you have allocated to each and every one of us a prescribed amount of time. May we be found faithful, in Christ's name, amen.

Amen. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org. That's F-B-C-N-O-L-A dot O-R-G. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. We'll see you next time.