Title: Doing Time
Text: Ephesians 5:8-17
Thesis: The Christian life is about seizing every opportunity to do what pleases God and brings others to Christ.
Introduction
A man had been driving all night and by morning was still far from his destination. He decided to stop at the next city he came to and park somewhere quiet so he could get an hour or two of sleep. As luck would have it, the quiet street he chose happened to be one of the city’s most popular jogging routes. No sooner had he settled back to snooze when someone knocked on his window. He looked out and saw a jogger running in place.
“Yes?”
“Excuse me, sir,” the jogger said, “do you have the time?” The man looked at the car clock and answered, “7:15.”
The jogger said thanks and left. The man settled back again and was just dozing off when there was another knock on the window and another jogger.
“Excuse me, sir, do you have the time?”
“7:25!”
The jogger said thanks and left.
Now the man could see other joggers passing by, and he knew it was only a matter of time before another one disturbed him. To avoid the problem, he got out a pen and paper and put a sign in his window saying, “I do not know the time!”
Once again he settled back to sleep. He was just dozing off when there was another knock on the window.
“Sir, sir? It’s 7:45!”
Most of us are keenly aware of the time… the question is, “How are we doing our time?” Perhaps a more direct question would be: How are you living your life or what are you doing with the time of your life?
I. The Christian life is not just something to be known… it is to be done.
Though your hearts were once full of darkness, now you are full of light from the Lord, and your behavior should show it. For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Ephesians 5:8-9
Note how the text unfolds the contrast between the old or former way of life as an unbeliever and the new way of life as a follower of Christ. The contrast is illustrated by the terms “darkness” and “light.” Darkness describes how we lived before we became Christians and light describes the life lived in Christ.
In the second chapter of Ephesians Paul described the contrast like this: Once you were dead, doomed forever because of you many sins. You used to live just like the rest of the world, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way… But God is so rich in mercy, and he loves us so very much, that even while we were dead because of our sin, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. For he raised us along with Christ… God saved you by his special favor when you believed. Ephesians 2:1-8
Life is always lived… we will either live it in darkness or in the light. Life is always lived either in obedience to God or in disobedience to God. When we live in obedience to God we are living in the light.
A. The Christian life is to be “lived” in the light.
And what we “do” in life reflects whether our lives are lived in darkness or the light.
B. The Christian life is to be “done” doing what is good, right and true.
One way to think about living in the light and doing what is right is to think in terms of consistency in character or integrity. When we live in the light there is nothing furtive or stealth-like about our lives. There is nothing hidden. We live fully exposed all the time.
Abe Lincoln once said, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
Recently Senator John Ensign of Nevada and Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, both professing Christians, have confessed to marital infidelity. Both found that privilege and power can test one’s character. And we, along with them and many others, have taken hits to our character that have humbled us and brought us to the foot of the cross seeking God’s mercy, grace and forgiveness.
But our lives are not intended to be lived like the shifty character that walks down the sidewalk of a city street, ducking in and out of alleys. One minute you see them walking in the light of day and the next they have stepped into the shadows and out of sight up a dark alley. The challenge is to obey God at all times so that we are who we are in Christ wherever we are and with whomever we are. Walking in the light means we are not different people in different places.
Dave Barry makes the point in his “Things It Took Me 50 Years to Learn:”
1. Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If there is one word that identifies why the human race has not and will never achieve its full potential, that word is “meetings.”
3. There is a fine line between a “hobby” and “mental illness.”
4. Never lick a steak knife.
5. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (Dave Barry, “Things It Took Me 50 Years to Learn,” http://www.robinsweb.com/inspiration/dave_barry.html)
The question then becomes, how do we know what is to be done? The first thing we can do is determine what pleases God.
II. We determine what is pleasing to God and what is not.
Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness. Instead rebuke and expose them… when the light shines on them, it becomes clear how evil these things are. Ephesians 5:10-14
A. We know what displeases God.
If you were to do a biblical cross reference search of the word “conscience” you would meet with an interesting study… particularly when you unpack and distinguish between a strong conscience and a weak conscience. The inference is that not everything is black and white and consciences and convictions may vary within the Christian community.
Admittedly, it is possible for someone to impose their conscience on you so that you are made to feel the guilt of their conscience rather than the genuine conviction of God’s Holy Spirit. Of course there are some exceptions but most of the time we know if what we are thinking or doing or saying is pleasing to God or is not.
First of all, if there is a clear teaching in scripture and we find ourselves at odds with that teaching, we are living in disobedience to God.
The Psalmist spoke of hiding the Word of God in his heart in order that he would not sin against God. His knowledge of the Word of God is what gave him insight into the will of God. And in I John the bible says that it is by our actions that we know we are living in the truth, so that we will be confident when we stand before God…if our consciences are clear; we can come to God with bold confidence. I John 3:20-21
In other words, when the Spirit of God convicts us that we are living contrary to the Word and will of God, we sense it in our conscience.
A two-and-a-half-year-old little girl discovered the secret of making mud one day while playing in her backyard. She called it “warm chocolate.” Her grandmother was in the yard with her, sitting in a lawn chair facing away from her, reading a book. When grandma discovered what was going on, she cleaned it up the mess and told little Larissa not to make any more chocolate and returned to her chair – but this time she turned the chair to face her granddaughter.
Little Larissa resumed her “warm chocolate” routine with one request posed as sweetly as a little granddaughter can make it: “Don’t look at me Nana. Okay? She continued to make her “warm chocolate” and as she worked she repeated the request, “Don’t look at me Nana. Okay?” “Don’t look at me Nana. Okay?”
Even a toddler knows the necessity of being unobserved when doing wrong. Anytime we choose to do wrong or withhold doing right, we choose hiddenness as well as if to say, “Don’t look at me God. Okay?” (John Ortberg, God Is Closer Than You Think (Zondervan, 2005), pp. 40-41)
However it is not just a matter of knowing what displeases God, it is also a matter of knowing what pleases God.
B. We may also know what pleases God.
In my mind the easiest test in determining if something is pleasing to God or not is to ask one simple question: Does this honor God? Paul wrote in I Corinthians 10:31, “Whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, you must do all for the glory of God.” And in Colossians 3:17, “And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus.” In other words, does this glorify God and reflect what Christ would do or say or think?
Among the many helpful texts is the one in Philippians where we may determine what pleases God by asking if our thoughts and actions are true and honorable and right. Paul instructs, “Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8-9
Tim Sanders—former chief solutions officer at Yahoo! and author of Love Is the Killer App—shares the following thought about establishing priorities that may help us determine how we need to live and what we need to do. He says we might place everything in our lives in one of three categories. These three categories are represented by rubber, metal and glass.
The things that are made of rubber, when you drop them, will bounce back. Nothing really happens when these kinds of things get dropped. So, for instance (and I enjoy sporting events, so don’t take me wrong here), if I miss a Seahawks’ game, my life will bounce along real fine. It doesn’t change anything and nothing is lost—my missing a game or a season of football will not alter my marriage or my spiritual life. I can take ’em or leave ’em.
Things that are made of metal, when they get dropped, create a lot of noise. But you can recover from the drop. You miss a meeting at work, you can get the cliff notes. Or if you forget to balance your checkbook and lose track of how much you have in your account, and the bank notifies you that you have been spending more than you have—that’s going to create a little bit of noise in your life, but you can recover from it.
Then there are things made of glass. And when you drop one of these, it will shatter into pieces and never be the same. Even though you can piece it back together, it will still be missing some pieces. It certainly won’t look the same, and I doubt that you could actually fill it up with water, because the consequences of it being broken will forever affect how it’s used.
The thing is, you’re the only person who knows what those things are that you can’t afford to drop. These are the things that either please God or displease God. These are the things that either bless others or hurt others. These are the things that will either reflect Christ like living or will not reflect Christ like living. (Tim Sanders, www.sanderssays.typepad.com (8-25-06); submitted by Gino Grunberg, Gig Harbor, Washington to Preaching Today.com)
In addition to knowing what pleases God is the biblical instruction to seize every opportunity to do what pleases God.
III. We seize every opportunity to do what pleases God.
So be careful how you live, not as fools but as those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity (or redeeming the time) for doing good in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but try to understand what the Lord wants you to do. Ephesians 5:15-17
We may understand time in a couple of ways. In the language of the bible there is the Greek word “chronos” which is translated time and there is the Greek word “karios” which may also be translated as time.
A. Chronos time has to do with the clock or the calendar or a time line.
The “time” or “chronos” of our lives stretches out over the years and it is important that we not squander the “chronos” God gives us. But out text is not speaking of chronological time. It is all about “karios” time.
B. Karios time has to do with a moment in time or an event in time… an opportunity.
The biblical instruction is that we seize every opportunity for doing good for God and others. Yes, we do live our lives to the glory of God but in the context of daily “chronos” living we are to grab the “karios” or momentary opportunities to do good. And to redeem the time means that we, as Christians, pull time that would have been evil time and convert it into good time.
Bear Bryant, Alabama’s famous football coach, told of a time in his early days at Kentucky when his team fumbled the ball in front of the bench and in the scramble, someone kicked over a box containing eight more footballs. When it was over Tennessee had recovered five footballs and Kentucky had recovered four footballs. The officials gave Tennessee possession of the football.
The moral of the story is this: When the ball comes bouncing your way, grab it! Seize every opportunity God gives you to do good.
When the tide is out sand sculptors seize their opportunity to create something beautiful. For the sand sculptor every moment counts because eventually the tide will come in and that opportunity will be gone. The idea of redeeming is to reclaim a moment that would otherwise have been just another sandscape by converting that otherwise non-descript beach into a work of art.
It isn’t all that hard to do if you are paying attention.
On Wednesday I drove by Sports Clips to see if they were busy. I saw no one waiting so I stopped. After going in I noticed that I was not alone… someone who was getting his hair cut had left his little boy in the waiting area. He was stretched out over two or three seats and making all kinds of attention getting noises thinking it might hurry his father along. It was not helping. I could see the father and he was enjoying his haircut, shampoo and hot towel facial and scalp massages.
It became apparent that I could I was going to be in the waiting area with the little boy for some “chronos” time. I could either spend that “chronos” hiding behind the sports page trying to ignore the antics of the little boy or I could seize the “karios” moment to change an unpleasant experience for both the boy and me into a pleasant one.
No. No one came to Christ. No one made any life-changing spiritual decisions. No one was healed. Nothing miraculous or earth-shattering transpired. A homeless person was not fed. No one’s life was saved. But however small and insignificant it was, it was an opportunity to do a nice thing and make a little difference.
Of course, in these days that are as evil as any time in history, it is important that we interrupt the status quo at every opportune moment to make Christ known in word and deed.
Conclusion
Ted Engstrom wrote in Leaderhip Magazine, “We terribly overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can do in five.” He was saying that we need to approach our “karios” opportunities with “chronos” in mind. We seize the opportunities of the moment, thinking of the long-term good that will eventually come of it all. Most of us expect to get it all done in one year but in fact the Christian life has a cumulative effect for good and for God overt time. The Christian life is not a step or even a day trip… it is a life-long journey.
In his autobiography, Ben Franklin told of wanting the citizens of Philadelphia to light the streets at night for protection and for more convenient movement about the city after dark. But his idea was met with resistance. So since they would not listen to his words, Franklin bought a nice lantern and placed it on a long rack that extended from the front of his house. Each evening at dusk, he lit the lantern.
His neighbors noticed the warm glow and passersby appreciated having the way lit over the rough cobblestone streets. Soon others began to place lanterns in front of their homes to and eventually the city became a city of well-lit streets.
We too, like Ben Franklin, may seize those difference making moments in our lives. May we light our lanterns and do our time making Christ known in word and deed at every opportunity.
Live wisely among those who are not Christians and make the most of every opportunity. Let you conversations be gracious and effective so you will have the right answer for everyone. Colossians 4:5-6
