Wisdom for the Wartime Calendar

Big Idea: Apply Christ’s Wisdom and you will make the most of the time in an evil age

1. Seek the best use of the time
    
   
2. Review your priorities
 



3. Rely on Christ

Women’s Prayer Ministry

Men’s "GrayBeard" Prayer Ministry

• Automated Transcription

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  This mini series on stewardship isn't really because we're behind in the budget. We're doing great in the budget. Thank you for that. But God has called us to care for what is his? What he has given us time, resources are his. He's called us to care for them, and we're in a glorious mission. The mission of bringing Christ's righteous rule, His saving rule, to the world is a glorious thing, and we want to use our resources well. In doing that today, we're going to be looking at stewarding time. So stand with me. Turn to Ephesians 515, through 21 about Redeeming the time. That's how it was in the first version that I memorized, Redeeming the time here, it's making the most of the time. And I want you to notice how we're to steward our time and why we are to steward our time. Just keep that in mind as I read and we will explore what the Apostle Paul tells us, look carefully then how you walk not as unwise, but as wise. This is 516, 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. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, Giving thanks always and for everything to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. This is the word of the Lord our God and Father. We thank you and praise you this morning for sending the Lord Jesus, Father. You are good. And this letter opens with a praise to You. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we bless you and we praise You. We praise you, Lord Jesus, for being our Redeemer by giving your life rising from the dead and empowering us with a resurrection power, ruling over all things, we're very aware that the days around us, the things going on around us are are evil, and you have sent us on a rescue mission. We want to use our time on your mission. Give us wisdom to do that we pray that You would help us think not only about the big principles, like we are today, but when we step into our groups and we get individual discipleship from wise mentors that we would think about, how to put it in practice, how to be productive, how to use the days, the moments, the seasons. Well, for Your glory, grant us this grace in your name. Amen, you may be seated.
  
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  As I said, we're in a stewardship series, because we're on a mission given to us by Jesus, King Jesus, if it is as if we were on boats in the open ocean. Satan's schemes swept, swept out to sea his victims and we're we're out, as it were, on these rescue boats, seeking the victims before they drown. You notice the phrase here making most of the time because the days are evil in 516 and there's some brackets that help us understand this and help us understand this picture King Jesus has come to destroy the works of the devil, to rescue and redeem, and he is the Admiral of the Fleet, sending out rescue boats, and his flag has a cross and a crown that it bears. But we're still in a war. We're still in a sea battle. There's some brackets that help us turn back to Ephesians. Two, two. What does it mean that the days are evil? The first bracket in Ephesians two, one starts like this, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, that's where you were. It was an ocean filled of people in rebellion to God, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body, of the body and. The mind and were by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind, the days are evil, because the spirit, Satan of this world, the prince of this world, dominates it. You're rescued out, and yet he is still sending waves and storms. So we have a work to do, but we have to be wary in the work. Here's the other bracket. Turn to Ephesians six, verse 10. This is talking about life as spiritual warfare. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might, Put on the whole armor of God. We're in a war that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, there is an evil day going to come upon you, thrown your way by the prince of the power of the air. We need to make the most of the time. We need to redeem the time, because the days are evil. Christ. Is the captain at the head of the fleet sending out rescuers, and he has been rescuing, but there's still an act of war. I want to talk about how to rescue your calendar. How to rescue your calendar in the sea of spiritual warfare, how do you rescue your calendar? And what the Apostle Paul tells us is to apply Christ's wisdom, apply Christ's wisdom, and you're going to make the most of your time. Apply Christ's wisdom, and you will make the most of your time. And we all know the war very well. Jesus Christ has been rescuing the victims of Satan's tyranny. The first temptation from the beginning of Genesis, Genesis three was to treat God as if saying to God, no, thank you. I know best. That's what it meant to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You know what? I know how to run my own life. Thank you. I'll take it from here. I know best. I know what's best about money. I know what's best about sex. I know what's best about power. I know what's best about marriage. I know what's best about relationships. And in recent history, like recent history, remember, this has always been going on. This is not new, but there's just new versions of it, public school, most entertainment feeds a lie about sexual experimentation, gender fluidity and the like, and it's leaving victims the trauma on the body due to abortion, STDs, transition surgery, the necessary D transition surgery to overcome it, addiction, these have produced enormous suffering, shattered relationships, overwhelming guilt. You end up addicted, abused or abuser and guilty. The days are evil. The greed machine churns. Commercials, selling stuff is a major part of big game entertainment. What's one of the entertainment factors in this afternoon's game are the Commercials Funny? Please sell us stuff so we can laugh. Buy more, drink more, eat more, store more, all the while ignoring true needs, all around racking up massive debt. It's an evil age. It's an evil age. Always has been. The average Disney storyline sells a kids know best narrative. I mean, ask a kid, they're the ones who are going to know what to do. And almost everybody from 14 to 24 approaches, work, pleasure, marriage, kind of with this I am Moana. They have this confidence like but they don't have grandma swimming in the ocean. To put her back on the raft when you fall. It's a age of fools, in some ways, before long, drowning in anxiety and depression. I mean, the days have always been evil. So there's an urgency, isn't there in this but with this urgency, there's a hope. Christ, the captain, is the head of the fleet, and he's rescuing victims, and they become the sailors in his fleet. For us at Faith, Bible Church. This is a moment. This is a moment to recommit, recommit to the movement Christ started back in the Garden of Eden that Christ won at the cross and the resurrection. And it's a moment to recalibrate to the movement, and our calendars should show it. It should show up in our calendars. It should show up how we use time. We could ask the question, how do you make the best use of the time when you're in a war? That's why I titled it wisdom for a wartime calendar. Think of stewardship like the map app on your phone. You set the address in your map app and it gives you the location, and then it gives you different routes. Gives you different routes. Love picks the destination. Wisdom picks the best route. Last week, we said that the main idea, if you choose love, Nothing you do will be wasted. It's going to set your direction. But that brings into play, and assumes this, you will use wisdom so that you can love best. So how do we do this? How do we do this? I'm going to give you three principles in how to manage, how to use effectively your wartime calendar. How do we do this? Number one, seek the best use of time. Seek the best use of time. How are we going to do that? Let's unpack it. A wartime calendar demands that you may take real time to think through how you spend time. If I could say it this way, a little bit of time used thoughtfully at your use of time will pay off huge rewards. A little bit of time, thinking about how you use the rest of your time is going to pay off with great rewards.
  
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  Paul says it this way. Look carefully how you walk. Pay attention. Notice how you walk. And walk is one of the Apostle Paul's favorite terms in Ephesians and his other letters, and it has to do with your way of life, your lifestyle, peripatet Oh, means your lifestyle, your habits, the sum of your choices. I like the word lifestyle. Think about lifestyle. What kind of lifestyle are you pursuing? Because lifestyle choices shape moment by moment, day by day and season by season, commitments, your lifestyle is going to shape the decision. Decisions in the minute, and what we want to do is live a lifestyle characterized by loving God, loving others according to the way he has built us and set us in the world. This is going to require wisdom. I've often quoted Augustine love God and do whatever you want. And that works when love includes getting wisdom. Don't be foolish, be wise. So look what he says. Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. Wisdom is the thoughtful application of God's word to our choices and our pursuits. Wisdom is the thoughtful application of God's word to our choices and our pursuits. Fools rush into pleasure. Fools seek self gratification first. Fools seek self glory. Fools are wise in their own eyes. Fools are self righteous. Wisdom seekers don't trust their own insights alone. They don't trust their perspective alone. And we ask this question. I asked this question says, Why would you think you're an expert? It as something you've never done before, like many of the big decisions we make, are crossing into new seasons of life. And why would you think you're an expert if you've never done it before, or even if you've started something, why wouldn't you workshop what you have done so that you could do it better. Well, we all know why Pride. Pride. I'd like to keep control of my time and my my lifestyle. I think there should be a dad sign. I think we show some dad signs made hanging in every shop or every man cave. And I know if you're like, newly married, you don't get a man cave because you're living in an apartment, you got a man wall. It should be on every man wall. Men who really love Jesus have done some really stupid things. I think that should be in every shop. My wife says it to me like this, okay, you're going out into the shop. Please keep all your fingers this time. People who really love Jesus have done some really stupid things. I know I'm so positive. Love alone won't solve the problem and won't get us where we need to go. You need wisdom. You need wisdom. I know it's kind of popular to say, you know, if they really love Jesus, everything will be okay. Yeah, I don't know if that's after the ER or before the ER. If you want to get really good at using your time, spend a little time getting wisdom, I think, in a really practical sense, if you're newer to the Bible, the Book of Proverbs and the book of Ecclesiastes, just a few minutes a week will pay huge rewards. It's all about getting wisdom. Or in the New Testament, you could pick any of the letters that's we call these like we're in a letter Ephesians, because these are how to apply the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we get what Jesus did in the gospels, we get wisdom to apply it in the letters, and then spend a little bit of time picking someone's brain who's done it decades ahead of you. Do it for those who've done it ahead of you, because we're to make the best use of the time. I love talking to the young guys thinking about getting married, you know, somewhere between 18 and 24 or maybe, maybe later. And I in the conversations is they talk about, hey, I've met this girl, or I've started this relationship, I'm thinking about marriage. And says, So, who are you doing your pre engagement counsel with who you're doing your premarital counseling with. Well, I mean, you know, we'll be fine. We'll be fine. And I want to ask every guy who is doing that, and I could ask every parent who is marrying off their first kid the same question, Have you have you ever married off a kid before? No, I haven't. So what do you think about getting some wisdom about that? To the young man? It's like, you know we're we're good. We know what we're doing. So let me ask in your years of marital wisdom, your years of marital experience, how are you going to handle when she's depressed. I've never been married, huh? So in your years of marital experience, you know what to do. I've never been married. So why would you think you're going to know what to do when you've never done it? That's what wisdom is for. And you're surrounded by 100 couples who've been married for decades that can tell you their mistakes, they can tell you their successes, and they can help you making, help you make the best use of the time. Get wisdom here this, this phrase, making the best use of the time is really motivating. It's very powerful. I I first memorized it in the New American Standard, and it was translated as Redeeming the time, which is a better word. It's buying it back. Imagine time as a slave, and you're buying its freedom. The days are evil. Satan dominates it. What you're doing is you're looking at your life, and you're looking at the myriad of the ways that the devil is going to throw something at you to. Steal that time away from you, serving the Lord, honoring the Lord, walking with the Lord. The word time isn't clock time or calendar time, it's more about seasons and set times. So think junior high, or think high school or internships. How do I rescue and redeem junior high, high school, college or my internship, I want to tell you, Satan has a way to ruin it. He's got plans. How do I rescue singleness? How do I rescue marriage? How do I rescue each phase of parenting, empty nest or grandparenting, I want to tell you, Satan has a design to bring a storm, a difficulty, a temptation, to throw you off. The days are evil. The days are evil. If you don't think about it, the devil will buy it up for you. Jesus is retaking his planet and his people, and he is retaking his time. There are seasons that ambush you for Paul, it meant prison. He wrote Ephesians from prison. How do I make the most of prison? Lord was Paul's prayer. It's part of his prayer request at the end of this book. But you could think about cancer. You could think about a season of life where you're the butt end of jokes by teachers or family for your faith and your biblical ethics. You could think about the constant propaganda put out by Hollywood. You could think about how powerful the temptations are that you didn't choose you're just minding your own business, and a powerful temptation was thrown your way by the devil, and you're in a season of resistance.
  
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  With that said, Paul isn't despairing. He is not even demonizing unbelievers. The war is against Satan and his angels. What he is saying is we need to pay attention. Satan is active and working, and we need to be thoughtful. He's actually saying something more like this. In Satan's relentless war, he leaves casualties. They're floating in the water. The casualties come to their senses with the preaching of the gospel, and these very seasons of difficulty of evil become the opportunities for rescue we want to think about them. This last week, we finished the Christmas season. Christmas cards. The we is the royal we, my wife finished it, and we go from putting the cards up on ribbons, down a door until they're full, getting the Christmas letters, praying for all the letters that come through, and then cutting up all the pictures, so it's just the faces of y'all, and then that's that's taped to the side of the refrigerator. We love getting the life updates. We want more life updates. I think, yes, we want more life updates. Gary Morgan tells the story of a time while he and Connie were missionaries in Kenya, and they got their Christmas letters, their seasonal Christmas letters, from two supporters who had just retired that year. One couple went to the Congo to help a missionary who had been a roommate of their son in Bible school. This roommate of their son worked among the pygmies in the rain forest at the retirement she was a nurse, and so she served as a nurse. The husband skilled mechanic, and they filled their year of service in the Congo. The other couple, the other couple, the other couple moved to a golf community in Arizona so they could play golf every day. In their Christmas letter, the one couple shared about all that they had learned living in the rain forest and the work they did to keep the missionary ministry going. The biggest news of the year for the other couple, the husband had hit his first hole in one, hole in one's great. That's a miracle. It's a miracle. I guess we still celebrate miracles. And I don't know the golfing couple's motives, but you just lay those letters side by side and you ask. Right? What was trivial and what was consequential? Is it difficult to figure it out. You want to use your seasons well. You want to use your seasons well? Somebody asked me in between, what about sports? What about those other things? You know, we're going to talk about rest and rhythm. For some people, golf is rest. For me, it's times of failure and sin. And I limit my times of failure and sin because I want to be godly. You get the point, though, you need to seek the best use of time. The days are evil. There's an urgency. How do we do this? Well, one was practical. You're just going to always be getting wisdom. Second one is consequential. It's reviewing our priorities for So first, we seek the best use of time, remembering the days are evil. We're going to have to make choices about the consequential and the inconsequential. We're going to we're gonna have to take on the difficulties. The second is reviewing our priorities. A wartime calendar demands you align your time with God given priorities. And in one sense, we help all have the same one sense, we all have different ones, because we have a same big picture. We're all on the boat. But we're gifted differently. Man different oars. We do different things. Let me tell you, God's priority for the whole of human history. It's in this book. Back up to Ephesians, chapter one, verses nine and 10. This is a praise and honor to God. Paul says he's making known to us the mystery of his will according to His purpose, which he set forth in Christ. What's God's purpose? What's God's plan for all of history. Verse 10 as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven, things on earth. You could think of it like Christ is the crown sovereign. He is the head. Literally, it's that he might be the head of all things, that all things are brought under the loving, holy authority of Jesus Christ. That's what God's doing in the world. He is taking all things that have a mind of their own and bringing them under the headship of Christ, the loving head, the holy head of the world and the church that's your mission, to join or serve Christ in bringing all things under His headship. This leads to thinking about how we live. So chapters one through three, we're going to be preaching Ephesians this summer. So this a little overview of that. Chapters one through three talk about all these blessings of being in Christ. Chapter Four begins with this, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord Paul is in prison wanting to make the most of the time. Urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, if you have repented of sin, trusted in Christ, if you are the drowning victim in the ocean of Satan's deception and destruction, and you saw him and pled for rescue, and he plucked you out. You now have a new place, you have a new ship to be on. You have a new place. You have a new way of life. And this is what he's talking walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. Write down these four things, because there's two ways that you can really help you use your time. One is in its sense of relationships, internal, relational action and role. You can't miss the pattern. The first thing Paul says, After unpacking the realities of the gospel is to deal with the internal realities in your relationships with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another, in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, there is a priority, and you could, you could look at all of these things as Ephesians unfolds. How are you dealing with the old habits and patterns that still carry sin with them. How you deal with your relationships? This is the subject of chapter four. Chapter Five. Walk in humility, speak in love. Take a little bit of time and a regular basis thinking about the internal relational your actions and your role. We're going to get to the role. Now, a number of years ago, after preaching through Ephesians, I had been thinking through a way to manage life, my life, helping other people think about their lives. And I thought about this concept of the balanced Christian life. So we put it in your notes. If you have your notes. There are priorities that are overlapping. You could write these in devotion. That's that's your relationship with the Lord, church, family, work and rest these. These are five. There will be others, depending on your season and how big they are. And these are not equal. They take different times at different amounts, at different times, but you can tell that they all relate to each other. They all relate to each other. How you live with the Lord in communion with the Lord and devotion to the Lord is going to affect your church, your work, your family, your rest, depending on your season, your season might be singleness, or it might be empty nest. It might be retirement, and so that might be something you put in, like this. This is a major thing in my life that I have to think about,
  
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  and these five just unfold from the rest of Chapter Five to the end of the book. Specifically your devotion. So how do I live wisely? Well I seek what the will of the Lord is well, will of the Lord number one. Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit, singing songs, hymns, spiritual songs. This is about both personal worship and gathered worship, spiritual songs to one another. It's about taking the truths of God, setting them to music, and singing them. Or if we were to do the parallel with Colossians, 316, you can write that note. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. It's about hearing from God and putting God's Word in your heart, thinking about it, remembering it, talking back to him about what you hear and what's in the world. Just about devotion, a little bit of time every day, devoted to hearing from the Lord and talking to the Lord, shapes your whole day, gathering for a short time on a Lord's day, singing and hearing from God and praying together with the saints, shapes your whole Week little bit of time shapes all of your time. And it's really specific, thanking God, praising God. Life is war. As John Piper would say, that's not all it is. That's not all it is, but it's never less. See, we can be drunk, not just with substances like alcohol or drugs. We can be drunk with ambition, competition, gaming, working, you name it, you name it. It's a call to be wise, and having God's Word and God's praises dominate our thinking. You notice, starting in verse 22 you've got this broad section of family, Husbands are to sacrificially love their wives, and just you see how shaping this is. Wives are to submit to their husbands, follow their lead. Husbands are to lead their wives. Husbands love your wives as Christ left the church, gave himself up for her, 99% of marriage difficulties would be solved briefly, quickly, if a husband was filling his heart with God's Word, confessing his sin, praying for his wife and her spiritual needs, thinking about scripture that brought comfort and proper correction to where she's at. Imagine the change, and yet it's the number one difficulty guys admit to having a little bit of time could change everything in your marriage. Notice it continues. There's husband and wife relationships. This isn't a marriage or parenting conference. We'll save that for another time. There's here's here's parenting, parenting. What are parents to do? Well, parents are to fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the disciplined instruction of the Lord. Here we have the same thing. Being a reader and a hearer of God from His word and a prayer to God for the things that are going on in your life and the life around you. You bring now to your children a little bit of time. A little bit of time and devotion can set the whole direction for the ship of your life. There's work. Think about how this changes things. This is verse eight, knowing that whatever good anyone does this, he will receive back from the Lord. If you serve the Lord Christ, doing verse six, doing, got the will of God from the heart. If you serve the Lord Christ, you will receive back from the Lord. Workers are to seek, to do their best for the Lord with joy, to please Him, not their boss. If you notice that one of the things that's not in this section for Paul, it's in first Corinthian seven, is singles. So singles, I would say this to you, and this is the my team members who are singles. They would tell me, a struggle is having all this freedom of time and no accountability, like you get to do everything you want with your life. I mean, doesn't feel like that, but you get to choose. If you're married, you wake up and you see your spouse, and the spouse has expectations for your life that you are right to fulfill. You look at your kids, and your kids have expectations like your time is kind of bought up and your accountability is kind of bought up. So I would encourage this. We have many godly singles, men, women who if you're a young single, would would be a huge fountain of wisdom for you. How do I navigate this? And I would encourage everybody to have somebody, especially if you're single, who could help you be accountable with your time, like, Who do you process what you're going to do with? It would be wise to find a mentor, give you feedback, seeking to use the best user of time. So see these, see these priorities, the circle all around it. We could just title your witness, because you're going to witness and have opportunity for Jesus Christ. If you're connected to Jesus Christ, you're going to have opportunity to witness at work, at rest, at church, in the community, all of that is going to shape your time. You're going to be able to launch into talking about how Jesus has rescued you and how he is transforming you. In all kinds of places your priorities are going to set it then you can look at your calendar. The tool I probably use most is a big sheet of white paper. I have a to do. I've used to do list. I've used to do just to do. Microsoft has a to do thing. I share that with Mark Frankian for our weekly projects. But I usually find the to do apps and the list apps and the reminder apps. Stressful, so let's make it worse. I take that big sheet, I draw it up into six quadrants, and at the beginning of the week, I write down everything that I think I should do and I would like to do, and then I look at that, yeah. Let's make it easy, one little, tiny list that's really long. Let's just make it big and overwhelming. But I look at that and I say, so what do I have to do this week? What do I have to do? I have to get this done. What would I like to do? And each day, I kind of do the same thing. What do I have to do? What I like to do? There's a couple of great reads. Reagan Rose's redeeming productivity is an excellent read, really helpful. Reagan is a TMS grad, and he's written a really helpful book. His website is filled with all kinds of practical tools to use. The other one that we do have in the bookstore, Destiny wanted you to know we have do more better. Great, great sound, do more better, by Tim challies. And so there's a youth version, there's another version, and he's going to walk you through, First, set your priorities, and then now figure out how to manage your your calendar, daily, weekly, make the best use of time, review your priorities, and then use tools to help you do it. Well, okay, we have this sounds like a lot of work, and it is. The days are evil. So first, we need to seek the best use of time. Second, we need to review our priorities. And third, you have to rely on Christ. You have to rely on Christ. A wartime calendar relies on relies on Christ's word, Christ's spirit, within the body of Christ's Church, even if you have a wartime calendar, you're not going to be able to be. Self disciplined to victory, you're not going to self discipline your way to victory. And God never intended to send you out on those open waters alone. He didn't intend that Christ, through His Spirit, goes with you the people of a local church share with you? I think there's a couple of really important things about this time, where those of you who are feeling like you're constantly wasting time need some help. Let's start with the victory proclaimed through the gospel. If you want to make it practical, like Paul does, turn with me to 611 and he talks about the whole armor of God. You're in a war. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. The days are evil. Let's start with the helmet of salvation. The helmet of salvation is what protects your mind about the saving truths of Jesus Christ, the victory that he's won.
  
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  Paul opens his letter talking about Jesus having died for our sin, being raised and the resurrection power that Jesus has that raised Jesus from the dead is poured out toward his people. You might be a casualty of Satan's devices. You might have an STD. You might have a broken marriage. You might have really powerful temptations, called addictions in our in our vocabulary. You might be an adopted child. Your mother might have been on drugs. Was immoral. She gave you up for adoption. You might be divorced or abused or neglected. You might have done jail time. But you need to understand the victory of the Gospel, the victory of the gospel, Jesus' death and resurrection is God's plan to retake the world offer forgiveness, and if you call out to Him, if you recognize you're drowning in destruction and sin, and you call out to Him to forgive you, it's Jesus' death and resurrection that pays the price for your forgiveness, that pulls you up on the boat and gives you a new life so your identity isn't in the addiction the problem, the consequence of the old life, your identity is in the victor, Jesus Christ. The Helmet of Salvation means you are securely his and you remember it.
  
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  You're a new creation made for new works, because Jesus, when he pulls you out of the water, transforms you. So as you plan your time, you are planning your opportunities and strategies to speak of Christ, represent Christ, advance Christ's gospel. And as you do that, you can get tired, you can get tempted, you can get sick, you can die. But if you're in Christ, you cannot lose you cannot lose I mean, you could say to Jesus, I feel dead. I heard a stat. Tomorrow is the day more people call in sick than any other day of the year. I'm sick, oh yeah, with a headache, dehydrated. You could say, I feel dead, but Jesus, you are risen from the dead. Please give me your power. Thinking about your identity is crucial. His gospel. If you think about this, this, these gospel realities, the helmet of salvation. Now that I'm saved, what protects my thinking is my identity as the father's child. When you TRUST JESUS, Christ, God is your Father. God is your Father. Jesus is your older brother, the Holy Spirit makes his home in you. I mean being in Christ means everything for stewardship, because he has not only saved you, he has empowered you, and he does continue to the Blessed plate of righteousness is the protection. Of the fact that when God sees you, he sees Christ's righteousness, not your unrighteousness. He sees Christ's fulfillment and all obedience, and he doesn't see the long list of your failures. He sees Christ when I stand in Christ's righteousness, then I seek to imitate him. The shield of faith means that you trust Christ, not yourself, not anyone else. The waves are going to come, the storm is going to come, the temptations are going to come, and you have that shield of faith, that knowledge that Christ that Christ is more than sufficient to aid me, help me. Is there anyone more proven to love you than the one who gave you what is best, than the one who laid down his life for you. I mean, is there anyone more proven to trust when sudden attacks come? You have this sword of the spirit. It's the short sword. It's the dagger, nice and close the Word of God to thrust into the temptation and slay it. You're on a boat. Boats are slippery. Your feet, your feet are shod with the gospel of peace, they're firm. It's the picture of the Roman guard who's got the spikes driven through the sandals, so when the onslaught comes, he has grip. What is the grip? The gospel of peace. I am not in Christ, because I have performed really well. I got my to do list. I got everything done. Wow. No matter of fact, you're going to write a to do list and you're going to get to the end going, I don't get very much done. Do I? I didn't get the things that were most important done. Your peace is not based on your performance, but what Jesus Christ has provided through His death and resurrection. This is where your peace lies. This is your footing in the war against Satan and sin. You're at peace with God. He gives us His Spirit. He gives us His Spirit. The walk in wisdom section finishes with a call to pray. The Apostle Paul says, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication to that end, keep alert with all perseverance making supplication for all the saints. Why do I need to be supplication? Just a big word for needed prayer requests, like people need things I'm going to pray. I mean, we've got to be on alert. Satan is always looking for something to throw a wave overboard and knock us back into sea. Walking in the Spirit all times in the spirit is a conscious dependence on God, who's living in you, who dwells in you. This is how you rely on him. For the last month, I've been taking that that morning where I review my categories, and I write what I think are the most important ones of the day, and I just say, Lord, I'm going to need your help in every one of these. These are all the things I think I need to get to today. Now, at the end of the day, the Lord says, Well, you had some of that right. I had the right intention, but you have to be dependent on him. I want to say this then the last two things on the list, you can see how prayer is really important. And I've given you some tips, some hacks to try to improve how you use your time. But we're really called to pray. We have a women's prayer ministry. So if you're not aware of that, like this, paying attention for all the saints, there's a women's prayer ministry. You could go to the contact form and you could just send an email and say, I want to get signed up for the women's prayer ministry. Hundreds of you are already on it, and my wife gets the emails on her email account, which we share. Sometimes I sneak and I look at the women's prayer requests and I pray for the women there you. I sneak prayer through the women's prayer ministry, there's an elder prayer ministry, we love to pray for you too. I said to Lana, we don't have a prayer a men's prayer ministry. She says, Oh yeah, we do. We have a men's prayer ministry. Lana, I work here. I have never gotten a request from the men's prayer ministry. Well, I have, I have a set. Obviously, men don't send in prayer requests. I've been thinking about this a bit, and I maybe because I have gray in my beard, and I realize that I've lived more life than I have still to go, and I want to finish my time doing things that outlive me.
  
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  So I've been thinking about this. I would love the mature men in our church to be praying for things that outlive them, for God's glory, for the good of the next generation. So I set up, let's call it gray beards. Doug stuffle. Who is he helps run our sound some Sunday mornings. He's an aspiring man. He's a retired guy, and he's like, I want to be trained to be effective in my retirement, military retirement. I want to, I want to be effective. And I asked, Doug, can you help me? Because I'm good with ideas, not great with with implementation. I can come up with all kinds of things for you to do. I'm gifted at that. I said, I want to, I want to get our mature men praying for things that outlive them. So we're starting it today. You could take your phone, either with the picture or the tap tag, and you could open that up and you could see gray beards. I'd love 100 men. Here's how you qualify, if you grew a beard and it had gray in it, any amount you're qualified, and like Gimli said, The dwarf women, they have beards. If you're a dwarf woman and you had gray in your beard, you could also, you could all you could sneak into the men's prayer ministry,
  
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  starting tomorrow, five days next week, five days and the rest of the year, just one text a week, praying for things that outlive us, starting with our own walks with the Lord and being an example and discipling, and then the various things that outlive us. Oh, that God would use the mature men in our church, just like Titus one, Titus two tells the older men. Older men raise up younger men. Older men need to be praying about the younger men and so older men, I think Ian would love 100 gray beards praying for camp on Friday, wouldn't you?
  
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  I mean, what a good use of two to five minutes of your time in a week. What a good use of that we want to use our time well, then we should pray well, and that will change the direction of our life. Let's pray, Father, thank you for what you have given us in Christ, this precious thing called time. We don't get any more of it than anybody else, and it all just goes. It can't be banked. On top of that, our enemy, the devil, is trying to buy up that time instead of us. So give us wisdom, strength, power to use our time for the glory of Christ. Now, as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, help us again. Tie up the boot laces of the gospel of peace. Stand firm on that in Christ's name.

Dan Jarms

Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.

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