Redeeming Time

REDEEMING TIME

By pastor Jim May

Ephesians 5:15-17 & Colossians 4:5-6

Today marks the first day of the latest time change as we went from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time once again. Twice each year, we get the wonderful opportunity to either sleep an hour longer, or get up an hour earlier, depending upon which way we go.

I don’t know about you, but I just wish that congress would do away with all this time changing altogether. What difference does an hour make, one way or another today? There may have been a time, years ago, when an hour would matter in the amount of work you could do in the daylight, or how much more energy resources would be used if people had an extra hour of light to run around town. But those days are long gone now.

There was a time when our little town would “roll up the sidewalks” and turn out the lights at an early hour, but that time is no more. Right now there are stores that are open 24/7 except for a few holidays. I don’t care what time of day or night you have to get out; traffic is always on the move. Our society has developed into a non-stop society.

I can’t see where moving the clock forward or backward one hour makes much difference anymore. It seems to be much more of a nuisance than it is help.

I supervise a shop where we are required twice a year to go about 95 schools and change the clock and bell schedules. I can tell you that for at least 2 days we are tied up with nothing but changing those clocks. It’s a real pain, and a real inconvenience for those whose clocks are changed before the time change really happens. Many of the office personnel at the schools aren’t very happy when their clocks are suddenly an hour off and it throws the whole schedule off.

But regardless of whether you consider the time changes necessary or not, or whether they are a nuisance, or a welcomed change, there is something to be said about changing the time that I think might teach us all something from the Word of God today.

Time, we must remember, is something that none of us can escape from as long as we live upon this earth. I know that many retired people aren’t as driven by the time clocks as those who are still on the job, but we are all still driven by time limitations.

When we consider that most of us have to punch the clock, literally or figuratively, on the job every day, we must certainly confess that time drives us. Even in working for the Lord, time drives us, or controls us. There must be time to pray, to study, to prepare messages, to visit the sick and to do the work of the Lord. It must all be scheduled, planned and executed at the right time, or it won’t happen at all.

Time is a fact of life and one that we cannot escape. Even the “time of our life” has been established by God because of the effects of sin upon this body of flesh.

Way back, in the Book of Genesis, God had to set limits upon man’s time upon the earth.

Genesis 6:3, "And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years."

It is interesting to note that prior to this verse, people lived to be much older. Adam, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, Jared and others lived over 900 years. None quite made it to 1000, but Methuselah came close. After that, life spans began to decrease rapidly and after Moses died, being 120 years old, there is no other person in the Bible who lives to be that age. Today the average life span is about 72 to 79 years in American and it’s different for men and women.

With all this emphasis on time, I think that Paul had it right in Ephesians 5:15-17 when he said, "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is."

Time is marching on, waiting for no man. It won’t be long until 2005 is gone, and we usher in a new year. Every day we wake up is one less day that we have in this life. Each night when we lay our heads down to sleep, we are one day closer to that time when we will lay down for the last time.

What I want us to ask ourselves this morning is this, “What are we doing with the time we have right now?” “Are we redeeming the time as Paul said we should do? Are we allowing time to slip by unnoticed, wasted, used and abused? When we come to the end of this journey through time, will we look back with regret or will we feel that we have lived life to its fullest and done all that we could do?”