Christ, The Lord Of Our Time – Part 1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. In the race of life, the clock never stops. Once gone, time cannot be reclaimed. The Bible teaches believers to redeem the time, for the days are evil. Time must be used wisely, because one day, for each of us, time will be no more.

Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, I'm not sure why, but it seems time is passing ever faster the older I get.

Well Dave, I have a similar experience. As a matter of fact, I always knew that I would eventually get old, but I always thought it would take longer. You know, when the Bible tells us that we should redeem the time, the word redeem actually means to buy out.

I love to think of it buying out of the marketplace. Here we have a number of hours every single day, a number of hours every month. If we want to use them wisely, we have to buy them out, so to speak, over all of the distractions that we confront every single day. That's why I think this series of messages, entitled Crowning Christ Lord, that speaks about our time, our talent and our treasure and our affections, is so absolutely critical, because you're absolutely right, the days are very evil. So let's now think about time, because today will be gone forever. Let's listen carefully.

It's great to be back here again. As you know, we were gone last week. My wife and I were in a place called Chattanooga, Tennessee, and you've probably heard of that place and Precept Ministries.

And just so that you remember that your pastor is subject to the same pushes and pulls and vicissitudes of circumstances, I want to tell you how we got there. We left here at noon on Friday, intending to fly down American Airlines to Nashville, from Nashville catch a plane to Chattanooga, which was to arrive at 5.15, and I was to preach at 7.30 that night. When we got on the plane here at O'Hare, Americans said that there was a problem with their plane. It had mechanical difficulties and would not be leaving for at least an hour. We were on the plane and then we were told that. And then they said that the plane would not be going to Nashville because there was too much fog. It would be landing in Birmingham anyway once it did get off the ground. We thought, well, you know, we're smart. I mean, we're intelligent people.

We'll get off American. We'll try to find if there's another flight that will make it down. Sure enough, you could have suspected it. United had a flight leaving in 15 minutes that would go to Atlanta. We could catch a plane from Atlanta and we could make it to Chattanooga in time. So we ran over to United because they said, run, you've only got 15 minutes if you know what the distance is between American and United. And so we ran. We ran. And we found out later we could have walked very slowly.

But nevertheless, nevertheless, we ran. We were told that United American didn't really check to know whether there was room and technically there wasn't, but the guy was nice. And so he decided to put us on the flight anyway. The first thing we did when we were on the United flight is wait on the airstrip for an hour before takeoff. And then we flew to Atlanta, circled Atlanta for 40 minutes before we landed. By now, of course, there was no way for me to keep my speaking engagements, so the next flight out was at 8.30 from Atlanta to Chattanooga.

And so we phoned ahead and said, you know, I won't be there, but we are going to be on this flight. And Delta has a flight. Well, Delta, we were ready.

Delta wasn't. But nevertheless, 8.30 came, 9.30 came, flight hadn't left. 10.30 came. 11.30 in the evening, they said, now it's time to get on this flight. We got on the plane, all sitting there ready to fly.

I said to my wife, well, at least we'll get there. We didn't have to spend the night in the airport. As soon as we get on the plane, the pilot says, we hate to tell you, but this flight is canceled because, first of all, the airport is closing in Chattanooga at midnight, and it's 20 to 12, and it's almost going to close.

And secondly, fog is beginning to settle in. But if you go to the main desk, they'll put you up for the night, and maybe you can get a flight tomorrow. So we went to the main desk.

That's a long way to go, you know, just with our hand luggage. We went to the main desk, got there, and they said, yes, we can put you up for the night, but we can't guarantee that the plane will fly in the morning because there's going to be fog in the morning. But if you go back to the gate where you were, we will have a bus there that will take you to Chattanooga.

So we went back to the gate where we were. The bus wasn't there at 12.30 as indicated, but it did show up just before 1, 4 o'clock in the morning. We're in Chattanooga precisely where we're supposed to be, and of course our baggage was somewhere on that American flight. But my wife, who is very persistent, said, she said, it's probably here at the airport somewhere.

In Chattanooga, the whole airport basically locked up at this time of the day, or night, I should say. And so we finally find someone who has a uniform and he convinces a janitor to open this room with American Airlines, and guess what? Our suitcases were there.

Now just think about this, folks. If we had stayed on the original flight, we'd have arrived there earlier, assuming that we'd have arrived when our suitcases arrived. We don't know when our suitcases arrived, but we know it must have been before midnight because the airport closes at midnight, so we'd have been better off to stay with American.

We went with United and ended up getting on at 4 in the morning. My wife said to me, she said, are you upset because we made that decision? I said, no, I'm not upset. And then I told her something that she knows altogether too well already. I said, honey, remember, I'm not God. You know, I've often thought to myself, I've often thought to myself, you know, if I were only God, I wouldn't make such foolish decisions. Have you ever thought of that? If you knew all the contingencies, if you had all knowledge of things both actual and possible, you wouldn't have to stand up and tell stories like the one that I'm telling you today.

But you see, we acted on the basis of the best information we had, and we decided that that's what we were going to do. Had an opportunity to read two books, one that I'll tell you about sometime, and one other, I hope that you catch the humor in the title. The other was entitled A Brief History of Eternity, and a very interesting book about the fact that the universe is actually finite and not infinite, and that is also true of American and United Airlines. Today I'm beginning a series of messages on stewardship, particularly on time today. We'll be discussing a number of different areas, and I want you to take your bulletin because in the bulletin there is an outline of the message. How many of you have this outline?

Can I see your hands, please? Now that it's firmly in your hand, I want you to forget about it because the message I'm going to preach is actually based on an outline that was made up at 9.30 last evening rather than this one that was made up earlier in the week. So what you can do is to take this sheet of paper, some of it will be similar, but use the back of it for the outline that you're going to be getting today. Is that clear? We just want to be clear in what we say.

Sometimes those of us who preach, we come up with one outline early in the week, and Saturday evening things begin to change when you're under the gun, and that's what happens at least two times a year. After the message, you can come up again and tell me whether or not you think I made a wise decision in switching to the outline you're going to get rather than the one that you thought you were going to get, which is listed here. I do want you to imagine, however, that every single day you are given $1,440, you need to spend it because at the end of the day it automatically disappears. If you don't spend it, it's gone. You can't save it.

You can't keep it from one day to another. How would you spend $1,440? Well, you have several options. You may not spend it at all.

You may simply say that you're going to just let it disappear. You could spend it on worthless things. You could just impulse buying. Buy anything that you see and buy it as quickly as you possibly can so that you can get your money spent before it disappears.

That's another possibility. The third option, of course, is to say in light of the fact that I'm given this much money, I can't keep it until tomorrow, I'm going to budget it and I'm going to use it for items that are most important and I'm going to spend it very wisely. I'm sure you've already guessed, but every one of us is given 1,440 minutes every single day. And yet we cannot keep these minutes. We can't put them together and hold onto them because at the end of the day those minutes are gone forever and not even God who can do all things has promised to ever resurrect them for us. There is nothing that you can possibly do to repeat yesterday. If you did not spend time in prayer this morning before you came to church, you will never have another opportunity to do so on this particular day.

It is gone. Now there are some people who are very disorganized in life. They are lazy disorganized. I won't discuss them because clearly none of them are present this morning. There are others who are frantically disorganized, frantically disorganized.

They're doing all kinds of things but they are not necessarily always doing the right and the most helpful things. One morning a farmer told his wife he was going to plow the South 40. The tractor needed oil so he went to the shop to get some. On the way he noticed the pigs weren't fed so he proceeded to the corn crib. The feed sacks in the corn crib reminded him that his potatoes were sprouting. On the way to the potato pit he passed the woodpile remembered that his wife wanted firewood. By the time he had picked up a few sticks an ailing chicken passed by. He dropped the wood, reached for the chicken.

When evening arrived the frustrated farmer had not even oiled the tractor let alone plowed the field. There are some people who are frantically disorganized. Then of course there are those who are very, very carefully organized and structured. There are some people who become neurotic if they miss one turn in a revolving door. Their life is so energized and all of us I think have within ourselves that kind of anxiety complex. I don't know if you do this but I do frequently. You're standing at an elevator you notice that the that the button has been pushed because it is lit and yet you go and you push it anyway.

You push it anyway. There's something within you that says things need to be speeded up and we live in this revved up society. And the problem is there are some people who are climbing that ladder of success.

They are highly organized but doing essentially things that will not last for eternity and consequently climbing that ladder only to discover someday that it has been leaning against the wrong wall. What I'd like to do today is to give you three commands about time. Three commands about time. Would you take your Bibles and turn please to Ephesians chapter 5 where the Apostle Paul links the right use of time with spirituality.

And I might say today if you are a time waster you have a spiritual problem because it is God who has given us the time to live upon the earth. Now you know that when I preach I use the New American Standard translation but I prefer the King James here. I didn't look up the King James but because I memorized the entire book of Ephesians in the King James many many years ago I remember how the King James reads and I prefer that translation. Chapter 5 verse 15. Walk circumspectly not as unwise but as wise redeeming the time because the days are evil.

The reason I like the King James is because number one I like the word circumspectly and number two because it says redeem the time and that is the first command that I want to give you today and I want you to know that that is exactly the Greek word that is used. It is the word redemption. My translation says make most of your time.

Well of course if you redeem the time you do make the most of it but I like the word redeem. Agorazzo has to do with buying something. Ex agorazzo means to buy it out of the marketplace.

To take something home with you. To purchase something. Redeem the time because the days are evil. Time must be seized.

It must be bought out of that 24 hour period. Let me answer a couple of questions. What do we buy the time out of?

Well I've already hinted all the other demands that are put upon us and we live in a society where never before have we had so many options. Never before have there been so many opportunities to waste time. They're all around us. There's television. There's videos.

Some good friends of ours from Moody Church lent to my children over the Christmas holidays a game called Nintendo. Have you ever heard of that? And I played it a couple of times and I thought you know a guy could actually get hooked on this nonsense. There are all kinds of things that there are in existence today that can waste our time. Even things that aren't bad but they just do not have any long term eternal consequences. And I want you to know today that all of these demands that we so easily say yes to can squeeze out of us every drop of spiritual life. Until our entire life is being taken up by other demands which we are constantly saying yes to. And when Paul wrote this passage of scripture he says buy the time out of all of these things it will not last forever.

Seize the time. You say well how much does it cost? If the word redeem means that a price needs to be paid how much does it cost to redeem the time? Well it costs plenty because every time you say yes to something good you are saying no to something that really is second rate. Every time you say yes to one half hour of Bible reading you are saying no to a hundred different options that could press upon your soul. Every time you are saying yes to the Lord and say God I am going to pray and commit myself to you and I am going to let my heart be refreshed in your presence you need to say no to all those other demands and to all those other options. You see that is why the Bible says redeem the time, take the time, make the time. Beneath my very calm exterior sometimes I have within myself a restlessness, a sense of anxiety.

I think probably all pastors do maybe that is just the way God wired us. But when I am here at the office and by the way some of you think possibly that I spend my whole week studying. I want you to know that that is one of the lesser things that is actually scheduled into my regular program simply because of the counseling and the letters and the administration and I am not complaining that is my responsibility and I enjoy what I am doing. But Friday afternoon I knew that the whole afternoon was going to be just taken up with a lot of little things that need to be done for the weekend. And one of the members of the staff said to me, said let us just get out of here for an hour. So we left and we took some books with us and we went across the street to the Historical Society, went up to the library there and spent an hour and fifteen minutes just reading. I am reading a book on the Puritans, incredibly interesting book.

And what a delight it was to just leave everything behind for an hour and fifteen minutes and go to read. And I thought to myself you know that is what the text is talking about when it says redeem the time. There are times when you just got to say no to it all and say I have got to do what really really matters and just do it. And I say to you today pursue God. Just do it.

Do it. You see we have this idea somehow that if we are going to be godly there is going to be time to be godly. And after we have done everything else then God gets the end of the bargain and that is sufficient for the almighty we think to ourselves that somehow our disciplines of godliness are going to fall in line all by themselves.

What a foolish notion. We organize to be successful. We organize to get things done. We need to organize if we want to know God because it takes time.

It takes time. Well my friend this is Pastor Lutzer. I don't know about you but I feel very convicted when I hear about the need that there is to redeem the time and to always make sure that our commitment and time with God comes first. It is an admonition we all have to hear.

I am thinking for example of Mary who sat at the feet of Jesus and Jesus told her sister that Mary has chosen the good part. We are living in a day when there is so much competition for our time. Now I have written a book entitled Your Eternal Reward. Triumph and tears at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ and how we will be rewarded to some extent of course is dependent on how we use our time. And what we need to do is to understand that time with God personally and corporately is very important.

This happens to be Friday. I trust that you will take the time to go to church this weekend to meet with the people of God so that together you might worship and give God time. Well for a gift of any amount this book Your Eternal Reward is available. Here is what you can do.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. I am going to be giving you that contact info again but first of all I want to emphasize one more time that we only live once. Today is going to be gone. Tomorrow will be here and pretty soon tomorrow will be yesterday. Redeem the time and that of course takes effort and that takes a commitment personally to our families and to our church.

Once again go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Ask for the book Your Eternal Reward. Triumph and tears at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. What you will discover is that I take the judgment seat of Christ very seriously and I believe that you should too. Your Eternal Reward.

It's time again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life. Recently Tommy emailed us these questions about fasting. Over the years I've heard so many different ways of fasting. Some say you can't eat or drink anything during your fast.

Others say you should drink water. And how long should a fast be? What are the technicalities of fasting?

What does it look like? And what is the biblical way to fast? Well Tommy I want to thank you for your question because there are many Christians today who never fast. And some of us fast only very rarely but we should.

Jesus assumed that we should. He said when you fast. He assumed that believers would fast.

Couple of things. First of all, fasting has physical benefits. No question about it that if you were to fast for example for a week or longer, 21 days, there would be pain in your body. And the reason is because the body would be in effect healing itself. Believe it or not, there's physical value in fasting. But the real reason for fasting spiritually, the spiritual reason is that as we are hungry, we begin to think of our need to be hungry for God. And what happens is the flesh, the power of the flesh is broken during the time when we're fasting and so forth.

Now a couple of practical details. First, absolutely you should drink water. Maybe Jesus was able to do without water but you're not Jesus and neither am I. Drink lots of water. Also, the day before you begin a fast in the evening, do not eat steak. Don't eat a heavy meal. Eat something very light. Have some cereal.

Let that be your dinner. Because then you'll wake up in the morning and you won't be very hungry. If not, you are going to wake up very very hungry and your first day is going to be very difficult. Well, lastly, how long shall you fast? Well, if you've never done it before, try it for 36 hours, which is what I do from time to time. But maybe you'd like to go several days. The first few days, I can tell by experience, are very very difficult. Afterwards, it becomes easier and easier.

But begin gradually, do it a few times, and then increase the length of time that you fast. Hope that these ideas have helped you, Tommy, and I hope that what I've been saying, I hope it inspires others to do the same. Thank you, Pastor Lutzer. If you as a listener would like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer. Or, call us at 1-888-218-9337.

You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. We hear a lot about limited natural resources. One thing's for sure, time is the really limited commodity. At the racetrack, time is how victory is measured. The same is true for Christians in life's race. How we use our time determines our effectiveness for God.

At the end of our lives, we'll be judged on how we used our minutes, days, and years. Next time on Running to Win, Erwin Lutzer continues this message, giving us more insights on how to make the most of the scarce resource of time. Plan to listen. Thanks for tuning in. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.