"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is"Ephesians 5:15-17 ESV
There are three things that always make me think about the preciousness of time: death, illness or injury, and the New Year. I lost three friends this year to death. All three loses have reminded me that someday I too would have my day of my death.
Life is short and so very fragile isn’t it? Death,loss, and illness remind us of that fact. Changing the calendar to a New Year also has a way of reminding me of how short life is. The clock of life never stops to give you a time out and stay 21 or 39 (as much as we’d like it to!); it just keeps ticking toward the final buzzer.
TIME IS VERY PRECIOUS! Time is a taker. Once past, it never returns. How it’s spent determines the satisfaction and significance of a life. Time is precious. We are fragile. Life is short. Eternity is long. Every morning God makes deposits into your bank of time-of 86,400 seconds which represent 1,440 minutes which, of course, equal 24 hours each day. How do you use the time that God deposits? In a lifetime (72 years) we spend on the average 21 years sleeping, 14 years working, 7 years in the bathroom (I’m not sure if this is averaging men, women, or both because I would double that if its gals!), 6 years eating, 6 years traveling, 5 years waiting in line, 4 years learning, 3 years in meetings, 2 years on the phone, 1 year searching for things lost, 8 months opening up junk mail, 6 months waiting on red lights, and couples talk 4 minutes per day.
Now listen to this, if a person went to church every Sunday, but also went to morning class before church and 1 midweek bible study per week, and devoted 5 minutes a day to prayer and bible reading, he would only have spent 1.9 years of his life for his soul! (Ouch!) When we think of time and how we use it in this way, it doesn’t amount to much. And seen in the light of eternity it is but a fleeting moment. Surely God means for our minutes on earth to count for something significant.
WHY IS TIME SO PRECIOUS?
Do you understand the preciousness of your time? The importance of time has been summarized poetically: Time is so precious. I have only just a minute. Just a tiny little minute only sixty seconds in it. Forced upon me. Can't refuse it. Didn't seek it, didn't choose it, I must suffer if I loose it, Give account if I abuse it. Just a tiny little minute, But eternity is in it. Time is precious because:
1. Time is very short
“What is your life? “For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14). A little time, says James-just a little time. Your time is short. And keep in mind that you will disappear. You will be gone and life will go on without you. It is but as a moment to eternity. You and I will exist forever-either as friends of God on His terms, or enemies-on our own terms-which will be proven in this life. And life is short, it is a vapor. Two seconds and we will be gone. Time is so short, and the work which we have to do in it is so great, that we have none of it to spare.
2. We are uncertain of how much time remains for us.
We know that it is very short, but we know not how short. We do not know not how much of it remains, whether a year, or several years, or only a month, a week, or a day. We are every day uncertain whether that day will not be the last, or whether we are even to have the whole day. The only sure time we have is this moment. You don’t know whether you will be alive at this time tomorrow, let alone on next New Year’s Day.
3. When it is past, time cannot be recovered.
There are many things which men possess which if they part with, they can obtain them again. If a man have parted with something which he had, not knowing the worth of it, or the need he should have of it; he often can regain it. But it is not so with respect to time. When once that is gone, it is gone forever; impossible to recover.
4. Because God values time
There are two Greek words for “time” that are relevant to this passage. One is “chronos” from which we get our word chronology, chronicles, and chronic among others. We might define it as clock or calendar time, the continuous time that is measured in years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. That is mans view of time. But then there is God’s view of time. The Greek word used in our text is “kairos” which can be translated as “time” or “opportunity”, means an allocated, fixed, measured, and distributed time. It literally can be translated “the time”. It means that time is a gift from God. From God’s perspective your time isn’t “chronos”, it is “kairos”. It is not simply a commodity at our disposal but rather than a daily gift of grace dispensed from God.
The giver of time is God Himself and that places a far greater value on time. It means that we are not to let time rule us, nor see ourselves as rulers over our time; but instead, to see that we are the given time to be responsible stewards over. “My times are in Your hand" (Psalm 31:15). “Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.” (1 Cor. 4:2) Time is a talent given us by God. Our life is appointed for purpose; therefore he will, at the end, call us to an account. Oh, to be a faithful steward of the breath God has given me! “Only one life will soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last”. Surely God means for our minutes on earth to count for something significant.
5. Because the days are evil
Paul doesn’t call us to action because the days are short, but because the days are evil. I fear that the American church is blissfully drifting downstream with many evil currents in our day. As God chided Israel through the prophet Hosea, “Strangers devour his strength, yet he does not know it; gray hairs also are sprinkled on him, yet he does not know it” (Hosea 7:9). The times are evil times and there is the devil is at work robbing us of our time. He is called by Jesus in John 10:10 the thief, the liar, and the destroyer. The devil according to Jesus is a thief of time, a liar about time, and a destroyer of time. He has switched the price tags on the things of value and made them worthless and has made the things of little or no value valuable. He would have us invest our time in worthless things of no eternal value. He would have us to waste our lives. A wasted life is a life spent on the unimportant, short term fixes, the convenient, easy, shallow, and superficial, the tyranny of the urgent, trivial diversions, living for comfort, ease, health, wealth, prosperity, and security. A wasted life is spending time only in busy worldly pursuits, neglecting their souls.
The days are evil. Time is too precious for you to allow it to be robbed and killed. You can't allow your time to be killed without hurting yourselves because your time is your life. The way you spend your time is the way you spend your life. If time is so precious, how are we to look at time?
BE WISE, UNDERSTANDING, AND THOUGHTFUL ABOUT HOW YOU SPEND YOUR TIME
Paul speaks about time by first connecting us with his previous thoughts with the word “then” or some translations say “therefore”. Paul has made a tremendous statements in the preceding verses about our identity- as “ dearly loved children” (v.1-2), “light in the Lord” (v.8a) and “children of the light” (v.8b) and how we are to live in the light of that identity with purpose- “be imitators of Christ” (v.1), “walking as children of the light”, “trying to discern what is pleasing to the Lord”, and “taking no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but expose them” (v.8b, 10-11). So since God has enlightened us and given us identity as His children and given us purpose as His lights in the world, in verse 15 he exhorts us to conduct ourselves with thoughtfulness, foresight, and care rather than living thoughtless, aimlessly, and carelessly- walking wisely instead of foolishly. Than in verse 17 he admonishes again to “not be foolish, but understanding the will of the Lord”. A fool is someone who is careless and pays no heed to his life. He is one without reason, stubborn, reckless and careless with his thinking. The way that we live in wisdom here is by having God’s view of time - “understanding the will of the Lord” and living our lives thoughtfully and wisely in light of that view- “making the best use of our time.”
HOW DO THE WISE USE THEIR TIME?-THEY MAKE THE MOST OF IT! "making the best use of the time"(verse 16)
The wise and discerning Christian life is meant to be an exciting adventure of expecting great things from God because God is daily opening up the circumstances and the opportunity before us to do great things for God. This is the time for it. The decisive time, the determinative time, the appropriate time. God gives us opportunity and time with a purpose. Do you recognize this? Do you realize that the Lord gives you time and opportunity with an aim, with a purpose? Our responsibility is to make the most of the opportunities that God gives us and attempt great things for God: to see these opportunities then to seize them. The phrase making the most of can also be translated as “buying back, buying out, or buying up.” It conveys the idea of, an almost greedy attitude toward making the best of time -perhaps in a figure of a collector who buys, say, every antique clock he can get his hands on.
"Buy up the time" for it is a most precious commodity, We are called to buy up and buy back what the thief would take. Just as Christ redeemed us from a futile existence and gave us a new life, so now we have been rescued from the meaninglessness and the futility of the clock and calendar and have the privilege of using our time for the Lord’s purposes. The world ticks to the rhythm of sin, but God wants us to reclaim time for Him and His glory. See the very hours of our earthly lives as a precious commodity, a resource that has eternal potential. Christians can buy back time that otherwise would be wasted in such selfish living and use it for eternity.
We all have enough time to do what God wants us to do. Nothing is worth more than this day. If you could go back and change the past, how would you change how you have used your time? The things you regret not giving more time to are precisely the things that you should begin giving more time to. Opportunities may have passed you by which will never be recovered. But do not let the opportunities of today pass you by. Do not wait for tomorrow. Begin today to seize the opportunities. Let us, spend our TIME about the things of God. Let us spend our TIME with those who are about the things of God. Let us gather together every TIME the saints gather. Let us spend less TIME doing unprofitable things and more TIME in things that edify. Let us not waste our TIME in pursuit of material nor temporal things, but use our TIME pursuing things eternal. Let us take more TIME to read, study, pray, worship, fellowship; Yes, LET US REDEEM THE TIME!
The apostle said in another place, "And that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed" (Romans 13:11). So, beloved brethren and sisters "LET US REDEEM THE TIME!" Time is important, not because time is money, but because time is life. Let us walk in the wisdom and spirit of David Brainerd, “Oh, that I might not loiter on my heavenly journey… O I longed to fill the remaining moments all for God! …I want to do something for God. ..Oh, how sweet it is to be spent and worn out for God!"
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