God’s Word speaks to people who just never seem to have quite enough to make life work...not enough time, energy, or money. If life seems to you like a picture of a man driving a compact car down a mountain road with a big truck two inches off his back bumper, barreling down upon him, then God’s has something to say to you.
Is your life such that the alarm goes off before you’ve had time to get your sleep and you wake up a little tired? Do you have to get up and get children up and clothed and fed and off to school? Then you have to prepare your own clothes and eat and get to work. When you get to work, there’s more work than you can do already waiting for you. The phone is ringing; people are coming by; the day is filled with meetings, even lunch is a meeting; and you get to the end of the day and you haven’t done all the work you feel like you should. You either have to take some home or you feel guilty about not getting it all done. Maybe on the way home, you have to pick up children and take them to lessons or games or some kind of workout or practice; and when you get home to that place that should be a place of refuge, it has its demands that it makes (there are chores to be done, meals to be prepared and cleaned up after, lawn to be taken care of, bills to be paid an you have more month than you have money) ... if yours is the kind of life that squeezes you in where there’s never quite enough.
Listen to this wisdom from God’s Word, for I think this is for us. READ 5:15-17
The Days Are Evil
Why is life so hectic for so many? Why is it, some people never have quite enough...not enough time, energy or money? You always need just a little bit more. Why is life hectic like that? Verse 16 has the answer: "...the days are evil..." It’s saying that we’re living under social, political, and economic systems that are evil. They are not under God’s control. It is under another control altogether, and we are under evil systems as we live in this world.
That’s why the song says, "This world is not my home. I’m just passing through."
I remember how our leaders used to tell us how evil the communist government system was, and that’s right. But our system is evil, too. All systems in this world have evil in them. Now let me say that I believe in free enterprise. I thank God for it. I believe in the republican form of government. I believe these systems are the very best in our world today, and that is unarguably true.
They work better than any other systems have ever worked in this world.
Do you know why? It is because our political and economic system has a true picture of people. We know that people are inherently selfish, and free enterprise takes care of that inherent need to get for self. That makes it work because we recognize that people are selfish.
Our government works because it has a system of checks and balances that say,
"We know that people cannot be trusted with power." So I think we have the very best system on the face of this earth because we understand the days are evil.
This system isn’t perfect. You see this when you talk with a forty-eight-year-old woman who gave several years of her life to her company. Because of a thing called downsizing (doesn’t that sound innocent) they told her, "You no longer have a job. We can’t be concerned about how you’ll take care of yourself or your family for the last seventeen years of your working life. We don’t know what you’re going to do, but that’s the way it is. By the way, you didn’t quite make it to your pension."
The days are evil that allows a thing like that to happen. Something is out of sync. Then later on, when a twenty-two-year-old is hired because she costs half as much, the days are evil.
When leaders are enticed by the easy money of gambling without giving concern to what gambling is going to do to the people they serve, the days are evil.
When there is a system that does not protect a baby in its mothers womb from being killed, and yet the same system gives full protection of the law to a fertilized egg in an egg bank, the days are evil.
When there are neighborhoods of every kind and civilized people who are more concerned about the neighbor’s lawn than they are about the neighbor’s life, the days are evil.
We can’t expect this world to be fair.
One thing we’ve all learned that have lived a little bit is that we just cannot expect this world to be fair. This world is unfair, and one of the great jobs that parents have is to teach their children that the world is not fair. You cannot expect this world to give you all the time, energy, and money you need if you just try to be good. It’s not going to do that for you. It will never be fair until Jesus comes again and changes it.
Mark Twain used to say to graduating students, "The world does not owe you a living. It was here first." The world is not fair. The days are evil.
But I’m not here to hang black crepe over economic and political systems. We all know and are very much aware of these facts, and I don’t want to get into the trap of so many people who have nothing to say except doom and gloom. So many people today consider that kind of information to be prophetic.
How To Live In An Evil World
That’s not what the first century Christians did. They lived in an evil world just like we do. Our world’s becoming more and more like theirs. It was an evil world, and they lived in it. They didn’t go around saying, "Look what the world has come to." And God is saying to His people, "There is a way to function in an evil world, and I want to tell you what it is."
That’s what this Scripture is about. Look at verse 15: "Be very careful, then, how you live ... not as unwise, but as wise..." God’s Word says to you and me as Christians, "Be careful how you live. Take care about what decisions you make. Think prayerfully and carefully about everything you do."
Now it doesn’t say, "Be cautious." I think many people agree with what I’ve said. We’re living in an evil world. This world is not fair. So they’re saying, "I’m going to be cautious. I’m going to be a cocooning American."
Cocooning was a new word added to our dictionary just a couple of years ago. It’s a new way of life. The futurists are saying that soon people will not be going to malls. They’re going to be hiding in their homes. They’ll make all their purchases from television. They’re going to hide in their high tech caves, draw the shades, fluff up the pillows, and grab the remote. That’s going to be the lifestyle of so many people who are living cautiously.
Jesus didn’t live like that. He lived in an evil world. He understood that more than anyone, but he didn’t live like that. Jesus lived carefully within the will of God, but He got out into the world. He mixed with people and went to where the people were. He gave himself for the sake of the people.
Also, we’re not to live impulsively. Too many people live impulsively. We just don’t take care about decisions about life. If somebody says, "Do this, this is the way," they say, "Sure I’ll do it." So they do it. If somebody says, "Buy this, this is it," they say, "Sure I’ll buy it." We can be impulsive in spending our money, time, and energy. And when we do, there’s not enough of those things that make up life left for us. It does not say to live cautiously or impulsively. It says to live carefully.
You see so many people who do not take care about the big decisions of life, like getting married. You should be very careful in your decision about getting married. You should not let your heart drag you into a marriage.
Now if you were like geese, that would be all right. God made geese so their first love is their last. One gander loves one goose and vice versa for as long as they live.
But people are not like that. Very seldom do you see someone marrying the first girl or the first boy they ever fell in love with. You need to take care. What’s this person going to be like thirty years down the road? What’s he like now? Take care, he’s not likely to get any better later on.
In counseling with people who are breaking up their marriage, you hear some interesting things. Someone says, "I married her because she was so beautiful.
I am sick of her because all she ever thinks about now is how she looks, and she is so vain."
Another says, "I married him because he was such a good provider. He is so boring to me now because all he thinks about is work."
Think. Take care in how you make decisions. The Word says you can’t make your decisions cautiously or impulsively but make them carefully. Take care how you live in this world.
Also, it says to live wisely in this world: "Be very careful, then, how you live ...not as unwise but as wise..." The word wisdom here means "knowledge based on experience." We need to live wisely, gaining knowledge based on experience.
There are three sources of this experience. We need to learn from our own experience. Have you ever met anybody who couldn’t learn a lesson from their own experience? They keep making the same mistakes over and over and over. Why in the world can’t we learn from our own experience? Most of us, when we’re young, learn that you can’t touch fire and you can’t call your big brother a jerk. You learn that pretty quick because of the experiences they lead to.
We need to learn from other’s experiences. Why can’t we learn from other people’s experiences? Why is it that every generation has to go all the way back to the garden of Eden and learn all over again the mistakes that Adam and Eve and everybody else made ever since then?
I watched a lot of people die from lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease because of smoking cigarettes, but did that deter me? No, I spent twenty years sucking death into my body and have been guaranteed that I have shortened my life because of those years of addiction. People just can’t seem to learn from the experiences of others.
Then we need to learn from God’s Word. The Bible is filled with experiences. Why is the Bible so filled with both mistakes and successes? Well, because it’s God’s Word, and God is honest. God tells the whole truth about everybody, warts and all. That’s one of the ways we know it’s God’s Word. People don’t write like that, but God does. We can learn so much from what we read there about the experiences of people in God’s Word and learning what God has to say about living wisely.
Do you know what it takes to live wisely? I think it takes someone who is a praying person and not just someone who prays. I think it takes someone who wants to learn the Word of God and not just someone who reads the Bible. I think it’s someone who needs to be flexible, adjustable.
One man offered this proverb: "He who is flexible doesn’t get all bent out of shape." Every day when you get up, it’s going to be a different day. It may be the best day of your life, or it may be the worst day of your life. Both of those days are a threat to the rest of your life. Be flexible. It’s really not what happens to you but how you handle it that makes a difference. So be adjustable. Get counsel. Gather around you people that you trust and love. Talk to them. Learn from them. Proverbs says there is wisdom in many counselors.
Get good counsel.
How To Live In The Will Of God
The Word says if you’re going to live in this world, you need to live carefully, wisely, and in the will of God. "Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is." That’s part of living carefully and wisely. It’s understanding what the will of the Lord is.
How do you do that? You find His will in His Word. The Bible is the Word of God.
You find His will as the Holy Spirit leads you as you really learn to pray and agonize before God about everything you do. You find His will from your own conscience. As you let your conscience be dedicated to the Lord, your conscience will lead you into the will of God.
There are two ways to live. You can live selfishly, or you can live in the will of God. Realistically, most of us live in-between those somewhere. You will either hoard your life (that means your time, energy, and money) and have it all for yourself, or else you will impulsively waste it. You will not give careful thought, and you will just let it go. You’ll blow it all off and let other people lead you by the nose. Soon, your time, energy, and money are gone. Both of those are involved in living selfishly.
Some people say to me, "I know how to have all the time I need. I won’t give my time to anything except supporting myself and being with the people close to me." Someone else will say, "I know how to have all the energy I need and not be tired. I won’t work at anything except supporting myself and being with the people close to me." Then someone will say, "I know how to have all the money I need. I won’t give money to anything except supporting myself and being with those who are close to me."
If you want to learn from experiences, look around at some people who live like that and see what their life is like. Have you ever heard: "What kind of world would my world be if everybody lived exactly like me?" Can you imagine what would not be yours? There would not be a school to attend if everybody lived like that. There would not be a church. A lot of things would not have happened if people lived selfishly like that and said, "I’m just living for me and mine."
"Lord bless me and my wife, our son John and his wife...us four and no more. Amen." To live like that is to live disastrously. As you live in the will of God, you learn to overcome that.
One young pastor in his first church was preaching on tithing. He said, "When I spoke on tithing, I started loud and got louder. When the service was over, a thirty-five-year-old attorney came walking down the aisle, and he was serious.
You could see the distress in his face. He said, ’Preacher, I need to talk to you about this tithing thing.’" So the pastor said, "Fine, When?" He said, "This afternoon."
So they got together that afternoon and began to talk. The attorney said to him,
"I went shopping this week to buy two new suits. As I purchased the suits, I gave my credit card to the clerk. After awhile, he came back and said, ’Can’t use this card. It’s over the limit.’ I was embarrassed, but I got another card out and gave it to him. He came back and said, ’Can’t use this card. It’s over the limit.’ I gave him two other credit cards. He brought them both back and said, "They’re both over the limit." Preacher, I make six times what you make.
I own three luxury automobiles and make maximum payments on those. I own a beautiful home and a lot of other things. I’m making maximum payments on all of that. I’m making all of this money, and I can’t afford anything. I can’t afford to tithe. I know this is God’s will, but I can’t afford to do it."
In wisdom far beyond his years, this young pastor replied, "My friend, you can’t afford not to tithe. You’re going to be living and spending impulsively and not have anything all the rest of your life if you don’t come under God’s discipline in managing your money. You’re thirty-five years old. You didn’t get this way overnight. Take some time, but make it your goal to become a tither."
Two weeks later, the young lawyer walked down the aisle and said "My wife and I have decided that somehow right now we’re going to begin to tithe to our Lord through His church."
They did that, and it’s been many years. This attorney said, "For the first time in my life, I learned how to be in control of my money and not impulsively caught up in spending. As I had to discipline myself to make sure the Lord had his ten percent of my income, I learned how to control the rest of my money."
What’s involved in living in God’s will? Discipline and self-control are involved. That means you will say "no" to a lot of things that people will ask you to do or support. You will not live impulsively. You’ll not say "yes" to everything that comes along. You will say "no" to some things because it’s God’s will. That’s what it means to live wisely and carefully.
And to live in God’s will means you’ll not only live in discipline and self-control, but you will live surrendered and sacrificially. You say, "That sounds different." No, when it’s God’s will, you will sacrifice. You will be surrendered to whatever God wants, and He will not want more than you’re able to do. He never does. I’ve talked to people who have said, "I’m tired all the time.
I’m just beaten down all the time." What did they do? They decided to get up an hour earlier each day and pray and have fellowship with God and plug into the will of God as best they could through devotional and quiet time and prayer.
Then they began to learn there were some things they could say "no" to within the will of God. They began to learn that His will didn’t mean to impulsively let everybody else tell them everything to do. Now they have more energy than they need while they’re sacrificially doing what God would have them do.
Someone said, "I don’t have enough time to do everything I need to do in my life." What did they do? Someone came with a challenging ministry in the church, and they felt it was God’s will to do that. So they added that ministry to their life. But in doing it, they learned also to live carefully and wisely. Living in the will of God meant some other things were cleaned out of their life. Now they have plenty of time.
People have come to me and said, "I don’t have enough money. My money is gone, and I’m making payments on payments. My credit card is to the limit, and I’m paying so much interest on that." They began to tithe to the Lord’s church, and as they began to manage their money to do that, they learned they could manage their spending. Now they have more than enough money to meet all their needs.
I believe if you want to learn to live well in this world, you must live carefully, wisely, and in the will of God. He will bless you for that.
Matthew 6 tells of Jesus talking to some people who are facing tough times.
He said, "I know you’re concerned about what you’re going to eat and how you’re going to live. But do you see those little, brown birds out there? They’re not worth five for two pennies. They can’t even sing. But My father takes care of those birds. Don’t you think He can take care of you?" "Do you see those wild flowers growing on the hills of Palestine? Solomon was never dressed as beautifully as those flowers. If God can dress a weed, a flower growing wild, don’t you think He can dress you?"
Then in Matthew 6:33, He said, "But seek ye first, His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."
Listen, when I was in debt to the max, and there was absolutely no way that I could tithe, I took God up on that promise, and it’s true. I can tell you from experience. It’s absolutely true.
Some of you have been coming to God’s house for years, and you sit in a service like this, and you really want to be obedient to God’s Word. But every time you decide to do it, the world tells you, there’s no way. There is a way. God does not lie. Take Him at His word. It will give you freedom like you’ve never experienced before.
