Please turn with me to Ephesians 5 - starting at verse 15.  This morning we want to talk about time.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re in a hurry you usually end up following the slowest driver in the known universe - and you have to stop at every single red light.  And when you have time to burn every light is green?  Have you ever noticed that the last week waiting for a vacation is  infinitely longer than the actual vacation?

Benjamin Franklin said that time, “...is the stuff life is made of.”

Time is important to us because it’s so rare - precious - especially as we get older.  We can never repeat time - or relive it.  There’s no instant replay.  The philosopher William James said, “The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”   

Last Sunday we looked at finances - using God’s stuff God’s way.  God blesses us materially.  There’s a reason for that.  God desires for us to use what He gives us wisely - according to the reasons He’s given it to us. 

The same is true with time.  Time is a gift of God.  Something He blesses us with.  He gives us exactly the amount of time - to use the abilities and gifts He gives us - to serve Him.

Our focus this morning is understanding how to use time wisely.  Not to waste this incredible gift of God.

If you’re with me at Ephesians 5:15 - or you have your sermon notes - let’s read verses 15-21 out loud together and then we’ll come back and make some observations.

“Therefore”  Wait.  Everyone say  “Wherefore.”

Up until verse 15 - reading through chapter 5 - Paul has been writing about what it means to live Godly lives in an anti-God world.  Verse 15 continues that teaching.  “Therefore” - because we’re to live our lives following after God and doing what pleases Him...

Going on together, “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but a wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.  So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

There are three main truths here for us to focus on - thinking about how we can use time wisely.  First in verse 15, Paul writes, BE CAREFUL.

Say that with me, “Be careful” - don’t waste God’s gift of time.

According to U.S. News and World Report, in a lifetime, the average American spends 6 months sitting at stoplights, 1 year looking for misplaced objects - anyone relate to that?  2 years unsuccessfully returning phone calls, 4 years doing housework, 8 years watching T.V., 5 years waiting in line, and my favorite - 6 years eating. (1)

By the way - if we were to take 20 minutes to travel roundtrip from down Olive from G Street to 59 and back to G Street - if we did that 5 days a week - in 30 years we’d spend 108 days traveling back and forth on Olive. 

It has been said that, “More time is wasted not in hours but in minutes. A bucket with a small hole in the bottom gets just as empty as a bucket that is deliberately kicked over.”

We’re born and we grow up.  Someplace along the line we get our first job and gain a certain amount of independence.  We finally get our first car.

And then there’s college - and we move out from home.   Perhaps we earn a BA or Masters - maybe even become a doctor of something.

We start our career.  We work from 9 to 5... or 6... or 7.  Over 30 years - given 2 weeks off - working 5 days a week - that comes to roughly 7,500 days.

And then there’s marriage.  There are certain expectations:  1) Get an education; 2) Get a job; 3) Get a house; 4) Get a wife; 5) Make us grandparents.

Our average 2.37 kids are born and grow up.  There are times as a family - vacations and gatherings.  And someplace - when we weren’t watching our kids grow up - go off to school - get married - and have kids of their own.

We retire - which is a hard adjustment.  We travel and spend time with the grandkids.  Good years - but passing years.  We’re getting older.  We can see the end coming closer.

Our spouse dies.  We move in with the kids - or find ourselves in a rest home.  The time has come to die.

Time passes and really quickly there comes a day - when a question that has been hanging in the back of our mind surfaces - and can no longer be ignored.  “What purpose was there to my life?  Was there a significance?”

Remember Star Trek Generations?  “Did we make a difference?”

Paul says - verse 15:  “Be careful how you walk...”  Walking is easy.  Where we walk is laid out for us - life happens.  But, how we walk through life needs our constant attention.  Watch a man walking on a tightrope and he knows where he suppose to walk.  The rope is there.  But how to walk - that’s the problem.

Paul goes on with this thought in verse 16.  Paul writes, “making the most of your time, because the days are evil.”

Paul’s second truth about time is this:  BE WISE.  Try that with me, “Be wise.”  We have choices in how we use God’s gift of time.  Choose wisely.

Have you ever done this - gone into the store for one thing and come out with several things you never intended to buy?  Stores are not just laid out by random choice.  There’s a strategy that’s used to get us to buy the most amount of things before we leave. 

Grocery stores put the stuff we need in the back so we have to pass by everything else to get there.  Along the way they have all these displays of “special” and “discounted” items that we’d be “foolish” to pass up.  Now they have those coupon machines that blink at you.  Then at the Check-Out there are all these “little” inexpensive items - candy - magazines - batteries.

The advice I’ve heard is this:  1) Never shop hungry - because you’ll buy more food than you need; and 2) Make a list of what you really need and stick to it.  Have you heard that?

The same is true in life.  Paul says,  “The days are evil.”

When we think of “evil” usually we think of what?  Some kind of sin or something immoral - violence and crime - tensions and fears.  All that is a symptom of a deeper - darker - evil.

It seems like every morning there’s this insane pressure to get up - get dressed - cram down food - get out the door - get to school - get to work.  Raising kids is a full time - with guaranteed over time - experience.  Then there are community commitments - extended families.  I’m told retirement is even busier.  Which is something to look forward to.

Have you said this lately?  “I can’t do anything more.  I’m gonna loose it if I have to add one more thing.  I don’t have time to do what I have to do and what I want to do isn’t even in the picture.”  Sound familiar? 

We all struggle with this.  Given 24 hours - we need 25.  If we had 25 we’d need 26.

Where in all this do we find time for God?  Reading and meditating on the Bible.  Time in prayer.  Sunday - rather than time with God - Sunday becomes a time to desperately fit in the things we couldn’t get to during the week.

This is an amazing truth about our society - the days we live in.  We have so many things and our days are so full - and yet we find so many who are empty inside - hollow - looking for significance and purpose - to know that their lives actually count for something.  This feeling - like the time they had was wasted - empty.

The society we live in is constantly trying to tempt us to buy what we really don’t want or need - to purchase with our time activities and things which draw us farther from God and what really matters in life.  To fill our lives with what cannot satisfy the emptiness within - to give our lives to the pursuit of what leads only to defeat - and depression - and our own self-destruction.

When Paul says, “Make the most of the time...”  The word used in the Greek for “make the most of” is “exagorazdo.”  Literally it means to “to redeem” -  “to buy.”  Paul says - shop wisely with your time - don’t get taken.  Choose wisely.

In Psalm 90 - Moses says,  “As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years, and even the best of these years are often filled with labor and sorrow; for soon life disappears and we are gone...So teach us to number our days, that we may acquire discerning minds.” - number our days to gain the wisdom to spend them profitably.  (Psalm 90:10,12)

One man actually did this.  He subtracted from his present age the number of days left until he would be seventy.  Maybe you’d like to live longer.  You could figure this out through your 100th birthday.  But on his daily calendar he wrote in the number of days left from a given date until his seventieth birthday.  Each calendar day presented him with a number - one number less than the day before.  Daily that reminded him that God had called him to number his days and use them wisely. (2)  To choose to use time not just let it slip by.

Paul writes - what was it?  First, “Be careful.”  Second, “Be wise.”  Third:  BE GODLY.  Try that with me, “Be Godly.”

Verse 17:  “So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”

Have you ever said to God?  “God - I’m falling behind here and I don’t know what to keep or cut out.  How do you want me to use the time you’ve given me?  God, teach me to prioritize - to plan - to use your time for those things of the greatest value.”

Usually when talk to God about how we’re getting overwhelmed by things we’re hoping God will come up with a “to do” list.  When we hear the phrase, “the will of the Lord,” most people think in terms of guidance - what we ought to do next - where we should live - what job we should have - who we should marry - or how to decide something.

But a “to do” list is not the bottom line issue in understanding the will of the Lord.  What we do is a pretty simple matter once we get the bottom line issue straightened out.

Bottom line:  God is not so much interested in what we do as who we are.  Try this with me, “Its who we are.”

Who we are - our Godly character - that’s the real issue - who we are in every situation.  That’s what Paul is writing about.  (3)

Starting in verse 18, is Paul’s explanation of what he means.  Verse 18:  “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation...”  Getting drunk with wine is buying into the useless empty stuff the world is selling.  Its using our time to pursue our physical appetites - empty destructive time wasting - pursuits.

Instead - verse 18 - “Be filled with the Spirit.”  Not spirits.  But Spirit - God the Holy Spirit.

Do remember the women at the well?  Jesus - on His way to Galilee - stops off in Samaria - the town of Sychar - at the well for a drink.  A Samaritan woman comes to the well.  Jesus asks her for water.  He’s a man and a Jew.  She’s a woman and a Samaritan.  The whole thing goes against the custom of the day.  But Jesus is setting her up for the kind of “Jesus teaching” that rattles the cages of status quo faith.

Remember what this woman asks Jesus?  “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”

Jesus tells her, “If you knew who it was who was asking you’d be asking me for living water.”

She says to Jesus, “You have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep.  Where do you get that living water?”  Is that a set-up or what?

Here’s the teaching.  Jesus tells her.  “If you drink the water from this well you’ll thirst again and have to come back.  But drink the water I give you and you’ll never thirst again.  It will become in you a spring that will provide you with life-giving water and give you eternal life.”  (John 4:1-42)

Those words are significant: “in you.”  It will become “in you.”  Its what’s going on inside us that enables us to live according to the will of God.

So many Christians miss that.  Like the woman at the well thinking that to live wisely means doing a list of religious demands.  We’re going to church.  We’re getting blessed by the worship.  We’re reading our Bibles.  We’re spending time in fellowship with God’s people.  All good things.  We’re going down the list of all this good stuff.  Do these things and we’re using our time wisely. 

But we have to keep coming back because ultimately it doesn’t fulfill our need.  Its not the bottom line of what Jesus is talking about.  Jesus is talking about something deeper.  God’s life in us.  The Spirit at work in us.  “Be filled with the Spirit.”

Jesus said - John 7:38 - “He who believes in Me...from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”  The next verse - John 7:39 - explains that Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit in us.  The well is inside.  Not the outside things we do.  It’s the Holy Spirit within.

I start off my day with a list of things I’m going to do and rarely does my day go the way I planned.  Ever have that happen?  The phone rings - someone stops by - an emergency comes up - the computer rebels - the car breaks down.  Been there?

I get to the end of the day and I’m feeling frustrated and empty because I haven’t been able to get my list done. 

Life isn’t a “to do” list.

Hear this:  Life is about living in the Spirit.  When we come to trust in Jesus as our Savior and give our lives to Him - the Bible tells us that the Spirit enters into us - comes and lives within us.  What we need to learn to do is to drink of Him - to let the river of living water flow.

When we get knocked off our “to do” list we learn to live life in the Spirit - relying on Him - knowing His sufficiency - hearing His voice - exhibiting His gifts - following His prompting.  That’s how we learn to live Godly and to use God’s given time wisely.

Paul tells us, that to use our time wisely means that we must be focused on being Godly men and women - to live in a growing intimate relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  Who we are in Christ will determine how we live in the situations of life - the priorities we have and the decisions we make - how we choose to use our time.

In verse 19 to 21 - Paul goes on to illustrate this kind of Godly - Spirit led - life that he’s writing about.  Four illustrations.  First - verse 19:  “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.”

So often - having to do worship and having to do Bible study and having to do prayer - can be a real pain.  An obligation on a list to fulfill.  When we learn to live by the relying on the strength of the Spirit within and our lives get turned upside down.  To worship - to share from the Word - to encourage - to join in prayer - is life.  Our desire is to share together the things of God.

Second - verse 19:  “Singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord”  You know what this means.  A life of praise.  No matter how bad things may be on the outside - how confused or depressing - what’s inside - the Spirit at work - flows out - bursts out.  God is in control.  Rejoice!  Trust Him!  Praise Him!

Third - verse 20:  “Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.”  In everything.  Because in all things we have the opportunity to show Jesus to the world - to live lives that glorify Him.

Fourth characteristic of a Godly - Spirit led - life - verse 21:  “Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

Jesus put it this way, “Seek first God’s Kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  What things?  The things we need to live life.  (Matthew 6:33)

When we stop seeking to climb over others - or to go through them - because of our own selfish desires - when we learn to live trusting God - we learn to live subjecting ourselves mutually to God.  There’s no more fellowship destroying - marriage ending - conflict.

The bottom line of what Paul is writing about here comes down to this - as we often come up short in our use of time - Paul writes - choose God first and then everything else will receive the right priority in your life.

When we learn to so rely on the Spirit - instead of wasting our time pursuing the world - we find His strength in every circumstance - we begin to spend the time of our lives in the mutual joy of sharing life in Jesus together.  We live fulfilling lives that that testify of Him in all circumstances and experiences.

Be careful - don’t waste the gift of time.

Be wise - we have a choice in how we use God’s gift.

Be Godly - life is about living in the Spirit.

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1. U.S. News and World Report 01.30.89, page 81
2. Dr. Joe Aldrich, from the pamphlet, “Redeeming the Time”
3. See the sermon by Ray Stedman, “Watch How You Walk”