Introduction:
LOOK CAREFULLY – How is YOUR Walk?
- Is my walk Working? (Eph 2:10)
- Is my walk Worthy? (Eph 5:2, 4:1-2)
- Is my walk Wise? (Eph 4:17, 5:8, 5:15-16)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:32-00:35
Open up your Bibles with me to the book of Ephesians.
00:36-00:39
We are going to be in Ephesians chapter 5.
00:40-01:03
Now typically at Harvest Bible Chapel we are walking through a book of the Bible a chunk at a time, a verse at a time, but we had a couple of flex weeks built into the schedule and I went to our elders and I said, "What would you say this congregation needs to hear?" and we get some great feedback on that.
01:03-01:04
And this message comes from that.
01:04-01:26
One of our elders said, "This congregation needs to hear, 'You need to redeem the time.'" So today we're going to be talking about the title of the message is "Walking Wisely." We're going to talk about time and your personal walk with Jesus Christ.
01:26-01:30
So let's talk about time while you're turning to Ephesians 5.
01:30-01:37
Nothing on the earth is more valuable than time.
01:39-01:42
You realize you only get so much time.
01:44-01:46
And you don't even know how much time you get.
01:48-01:50
And it's not like you can go get any more, right?
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They don't have a factory in Dayton, Ohio that's making more time.
01:56-02:06
And hey, honey, let's get in the car and take a road trip pick up some more time. You get what you get and that's it. Once it's over, it is over.
02:08-02:30
Because it's so valuable and so precious and it's just so funny how we view time. Because an hour watching a television program seems so short, but an hour at church? Oh, oh. You're which was only an hour.
02:32-02:33
We're praying for you.
02:34-02:38
But it's the same amount of ticks on the clock.
02:38-02:42
But the perception seems so widely different.
02:43-02:46
Or watching a two-minute YouTube video is nothing.
02:47-02:52
But standing in line at the post office for two minutes, we lose our minds.
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Or how about this?
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We're going to get really radical.
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praying for two minutes.
03:00-03:02
You're like, "What am I, a Byzantine monk?
03:03-03:12
Two whole minutes?" Another not-so-funny thing I guess you could say about time is you don't know the value of it until it's gone.
03:14-03:15
Think of your kids growing up.
03:17-03:19
Think of the stage of life for those of you that have children.
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Where they are right now, I'm never going to be able to recapture those days again.
03:29-03:31
It kind of makes time seem more valuable all of a sudden, doesn't it?
03:32-03:45
You know, I think of our father, I spent almost 14 years since he passed away, and I think back to those times with him, and oh, the further I go, the more valuable that time seemed, right?
03:45-03:50
I think of my friend Mike, who around this time, three years ago, was killed in a motorcycle wreck.
03:52-03:54
I think back to the times that we spent together.
03:55-04:02
I know how valuable that time was, and I didn't even realize at the time how valuable that time was.
04:05-04:09
But for being so valuable, we sure treat time badly, don't we?
04:10-04:13
It's so valuable, but we treat it so horribly.
04:14-04:15
Like, what do you mean?
04:15-04:17
Think of the things we do to time.
04:17-04:18
We lose track of it.
04:19-04:21
I'm sorry I'm late, I lost track of time.
04:23-04:25
We waste time, or here's the worst.
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You know what the worst is.
04:27-04:28
We kill time.
04:30-04:30
We kill time.
04:31-05:49
And if you want to kill some time and experience irony, go on Google and type in "best apps to kill time." There are dozens and dozens, probably hundreds, I stopped looking after a while because I would be hypocrite, but I just was scrolling through and you know applications for your phone there were countless lists online that people put together these are the best apps that you can purchase to kill time. Like there are people, it just blew my mind, there's people out there that are like I just have so much time I don't know what to do with it I better find a way to to kill it? I mean think about that. Let's put that into perspective for a second. Let's think about something else that we deem valuable, which is money, right? Could you imagine if somebody came out with a product and said, "Here's something that will help you kill your money." We would go, "That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life. Something Yet you have people all over the place. Oh this app will help me kill my time I better download three of these like what?
05:52-06:03
Ephesians 5 Verses 15 through 16 all of that light. Let's look at what God's Word has to say in the subject where Paul writes look carefully Then how you walk?
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Not as unwise but as wise Here it is over 16 Making the best use of the time.
06:17-06:20
Because the days are evil.
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I want to talk about your walk here for a second, and then we'll see how he ties that into time.
06:29-06:34
At Harvest Bible Chapel, our mission is to make disciples.
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That's our mission, because that was the mission that Jesus gave us.
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We didn't make that up.
06:37-06:50
"What do you want to do at the church?" "Let's think about it." Jesus said, "Go make disciples." We're like, "Okay, that's what we do." You're like, "Well, how do you know you've made one?" Well, we believe a disciple of Jesus Christ does three things.
06:50-06:52
I'll begin with W. How's that for alliteration?
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We believe a disciple, first of all, worships Christ.
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Jesus said God is looking for worshippers.
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A disciple worships Christ.
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Secondly, we believe a disciple walks with Christ.
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And we're going to talk all about that this morning.
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That's the whole message.
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But the third part is that the disciple works for Christ.
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"Walk" is the word that the Bible uses to describe your life in Christ on the earth.
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It's your journey, it's you living out your years, it's God taking you through each chapter of your life.
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The Bible calls that a "walk." Why?
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Why is it called a walk?
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I'll jot these things down.
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The reason the Bible calls your journey on earth with Christ, the reason it's called a walk, first of all, walking is intentional.
07:47-07:49
Walking is intentional, right?
07:50-07:51
That's a no-brainer.
07:53-07:56
Walking is intentional. You don't walk by accident.
07:57-08:10
If you're sitting on the couch, and you need to move, If you have to make the decision, the intentional decision, "I'm going to get up and I'm going to walk." It's intentional. So is your walk with Christ.
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It is to be an intentional thing, not accidental.
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You don't roll around in bed every morning and say, "Gee, I hope I follow Jesus today.
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I hope I make choices that honor Christ today." It has to be intentional.
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And secondly, walk has to do with perseverance.
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You keep moving.
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You keep moving.
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Okay, well, I walked this far and I have the rest of the way to go.
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I have to keep walking.
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But I think one of the biggest reasons, and we're going to see this here in just a second, one of the biggest reasons the Bible calls it a walk is walking also denotes progress, doesn't it?
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If I was going for a walk today, right here, I'm moving, it's intentional.
09:00-09:04
I'm persevering, but I see the progress.
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I was there, and now I'm here.
09:10-09:11
That's progress.
09:14-09:17
And if you're a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, you should see that in your own life.
09:18-09:31
You should be able to look back at your life a year ago from today, and say, "Wow, I see how the Lord has grown me." You should be able to look back on this day last month, I've seen some ways that the Lord has really matured me.
09:31-09:35
It's a constant growth. It's a constant maturing.
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It is constant progress.
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That's a great sign that you're in Jesus Christ, and He's working in you when you see that maturity over time.
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If you say, "Well, I gave my life to Christ like 17 years ago, but I don't really see any change." I say this to you lovingly, maybe you didn't really give your life to Christ, if you're not seeing that maturity, because living things grow.
09:58-10:00
Right? And the walk is the progress.
10:02-10:14
But in the text here, the apostle Paul says in verse 15, he says, "Look carefully. Look carefully at your walk." And in the Greek, this is in the present imperative.
10:15-10:15
What does that mean?
10:16-10:19
That means I should have spent more time paying attention in English class.
10:19-10:22
Present imperative means continual.
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constantly being on guard.
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It has the idea of surveying the scene.
10:29-10:33
How about, was it King James that says to walk circumspectly?
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Right? How many people have heard that? Walk circumspectly?
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Some of you guys have heard that? You know what that fancy word means?
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Circumspectly just means look around. That's really all that means.
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You're looking around.
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And that's what the Greek is communicating here.
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It's looking around. When I was studying this, I was thinking about looking around.
10:52-10:55
when we lived in Prospect, we had a running gag.
10:55-10:56
It wasn't funny at the time.
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It's kind of funny now.
10:57-11:01
But every time we would go for a walk, what would happen, Aaron?
11:01-11:04
We would get attacked by pit bulls, yeah.
11:05-11:07
Or sometimes other dogs, but mostly pit bulls.
11:08-11:10
But it was just a funny thing.
11:10-11:16
Don't go for walks in Prospect, Pennsylvania, because we would get attacked by dogs all the time, all the time, all the time.
11:16-11:17
Sometimes it was pit bulls.
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Sometimes it was labs.
11:18-12:18
I get attacked by a flock of wiener dogs one time and that was really weird, but we were always getting attacked by dogs Now when you're walking with these children That you're also keeping in mind You know They can't be running out into the road and there's traffic and all these other things are going on now all of a sudden you're worried About the dogs so you know people must have thought I was like too much coffee man when I was going on these blocks because I'm just like looking around always surveying the scene are there dogs is there traffic you know constantly looking around one time when we were walking this enormous brown dog came after it was just Owen and I on this particular walk and also in this walk we took our dog with us if you know our dog he's not exactly he's not exactly a fight let's just put it that way he's a boxer but that's purely a name only he's not exactly a fighter so We're walking with Owen, and we have our dog Gordy, and he's just happy-go-lucky.
12:18-12:24
He's just like, "Every day's the best day of my life." And we're walking, and this dog comes across the field just...
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(growling)
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I'm like, "Oh." And of course your mind's racing a thousand miles an hour.
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And so the genius thing that I did was I grabbed Owen, I tucked him under my arm, and I turned him like this, so towards the dog, and I don't know what I was thinking.
12:43-12:51
was I'm hoping that as this dog eats me, he'll be full by the time he gets to my son, and he'll leave us alone.
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That's the only thing I can think that I was thinking.
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Okay, so I grab Owen, I tuck him under my arm, and I'm like, okay, that's the end of my plan.
12:59-13:02
And here's Gordy, but then I'm like, oh, Gordy will protect us.
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(imitates dog growling)
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This dog comes around.
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You know what Gordy starts doing?
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He starts like, the only way I can describe it is he starts dancing.
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He's like prancing around, he's wagging his butt, and he's like, and I kid you not, this dog stopped dead in his tracks and just stared at Gordy.
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And Gordy's just like, "How are ya?
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How are ya?
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You wanna play?
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You wanna play?
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You got a ball?
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You wanna play?" And this dog just, he was staring at us.
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So here's this scene, I got this dog dancing on my arm, I got my kid under my arm, and there's this dumbfounded dog, and he literally just turned and walked away.
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He's like, "I don't know." He's like, "Apparently they're just letting anybody move into this neighborhood." But my point of that story is, because of the dog attacks, I learned to constantly be looking, constantly be looking.
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The Bible says you need to do that in regards to your walk with Christ.
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Constantly evaluating, "Am I honoring Christ in every area?
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Am I honoring Christ in my home?
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Am I honoring Christ in my workplace?
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What about the way I'm interacting in small group?
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Am I honoring Christ in all of my relationships?
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In every way, am I honoring Christ, constantly looking around?
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So let's do that biblically.
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Jot these down. Look carefully.
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We're going to do a little checklist today, three points of evaluation.
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But I want to ask you, how was your walk?
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Okay, this is your time to have your head on a swivel.
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How was your walk?
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And these all come from the book of Ephesians.
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Honestly, before this week, I didn't realize how much this walking concept was just in Ephesians.
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I didn't realize that, and I did some studying this week, and there's so much more even than I have time to get into today.
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But this is like one of the major themes of Ephesians is your walk, so let's fly through some of these.
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I want you to evaluate yourself.
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First question you need to ask is you're looking carefully at your walk, is my walk working?
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as my walk working.
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This comes from Ephesians 2.10 where the Apostle Paul writes, "For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works." Notice that. I think "good works" has gotten a bad name in the church.
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As soon as you say "works," "Oh, we're not saved by works!" How dare you talk about that!
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You're not saved by works.
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You can't do a thing to save yourself.
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But here's the biblical truth.
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You're saved for good works.
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Not by, you're saved for.
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I love this, it says, "Which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." God has a glorious purpose for your life that's going to glorify Him, that's going to bless others, and it's going to give you joy unlike anything you know on this earth.
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But don't you notice the Bible says that God prepared them beforehand.
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What does that mean?
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God prepared these works beforehand?
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think of to compare it those of you with kids again we're not trying to single out just you people but I was trying to put this in a context that made the made sense how many people have ever gone to Lowe's on Saturday morning and did the little craft project with your kids anybody done that some of you have okay a few of us you know so some of you know what I'm talking about if you don't like okay on Lowe's on Saturday morning like in the lumber aisle they have like these craft projects for kids and I use the word craft loosely but when you go they have like everything's laid out everything's already cut and sanded and there's stickers and there's little nails and the nail holes are sort of already pre-drilled so basically you know you go there with your kid and you know he puts the pieces together and he takes his teeny tiny hammer and ting ting ting ting and he's like look what I made and so proud of himself. Great. Great.
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anything to get them away from the time-wasting apps, right?
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But that stuff was already prepared beforehand, right?
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I didn't let my kids do it.
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I'm like, you want to make a wood project, you go cut the tree down, you go sand it.
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No, I didn't do that.
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But you understand the point.
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All that stuff was prepared.
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So it was like, look what I made.
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It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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We're all very impressed.
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But it's already prepared.
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And all you have to do is what?
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Show up, right?
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And I think about that in terms, God's prepared good works.
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That's not like I need to try to put all this thought and creative energy and effort into making something great happen for God.
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That's not what the Bible says.
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The Bible says, He already has something prepared for you to do.
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He just needs you to show up.
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He's like, "Look, I already cut the wood, it's already sanded, holes are pre-drilled, grab your little hammer, tink, tink, tink, let's get this done." But He's the one that's prepared the good works for us.
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So you're going after that.
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What are you doing in your life right now?
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Right now, what are you doing in your life that you can point to and say, God called me to serve Him by doing this.
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Ask yourself, is my walk working?
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God prepared stuff for you to do.
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What are you doing?
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Secondly, is my walk worthy?
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Is my walk worthy?
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Ephesians 5.2 says, "And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
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A worthy walk is sacrificial.
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Laying down my life every day for God, every day for others, laying down my life.
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Can you be more specific about what that means?
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Yeah, actually, the Bible is.
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Ephesians 4, verses 1-2.
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Again, see, "Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called." Here's the specifics.
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humility and gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love.
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Is your walk worthy? Is Christ honored by your conduct?
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You see, we all have that in us still, to some degree, that we want to make much of ourselves, and that's pride, and I have to be boisterous, and I'm intolerant of other people, and those characteristics are completely opposite of what the Scripture says it says, "Be humble, be gentle, and have patience." See, we talk about humility.
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People think that humility means I get to walk around and think that I'm dirt, and I'm no good, and I have to talk poorly about myself.
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And that's not humility at all.
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Humility is not thinking less of yourself.
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It's thinking of yourself less.
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You see, the person that's constantly walking around, like I'm such a loser, I'm no good.
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That's not humility because they're still so focused on themselves, that's all they can think about is me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
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That's pride.
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The guy walking around constantly self-avoidant, I'm just such a terrible person.
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That's actually pride.
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Humility says I'm not going to think about myself.
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I'm going to put the mission of Christ and the needs of others ahead of myself.
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That's humility.
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That's humility.
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Notice Paul says, "You bear the name of Christ.
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Act like it.
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Walk in a manner worthy of the calling which you've been called." So is my walk worthy?
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Thirdly, is my walk wise?
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Is my walk wise?
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Ephesians 5:8 says, "For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord." Walk, there it is again, walk as children of light.
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That's the glorious truth about the gospel.
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The gospel is not about adopting a religious philosophy.
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The gospel is not about just getting a ticket to heaven.
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The gospel is about inward transformation.
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Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for your sin.
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rose from the dead to give you eternal life and so much more, but one of the "so much more"s that Jesus Christ provided for you is a new identity.
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You see that in the text. He says, "You were darkness." Operative word there is "were." You're not like that anymore, but now you are light in the Lord.
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Paul says, "Look, act like it.
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Stop identifying yourself as 'I'm just this lowly, no-good sinner.
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That's who I was, but I've been redeemed and I have a new purpose now.
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And I need to walk according to who Christ says I am today, not who I think that I was yesterday.'" Walk as children of light.
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That brings us back to where we started.
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Look carefully, then, how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.
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He says that you need to walk wise.
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What is wisdom?
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Well, understand there's a huge difference between knowledge and wisdom.
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Knowledge is just facts, right?
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It's, "I'm ready for jeopardy. I know all the facts. I can list them for you." That's knowledge.
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Wisdom is knowing how to apply biblical knowledge.
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That's why he says, "Don't walk as unwise." See, unwise people, they have knowledge of the Bible, but they don't know how to apply it.
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Like, "I know the Bible says this," but they have no clue what that looks like in their daily interactions.
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They know the Bible says that we should love our neighbor as ourselves, or we should love others the way Christ loved us.
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They know the Bible says that, but they have no wisdom on how to apply that.
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They know the Bible says that we should forgive from the heart, 70 times 7.
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They know the Bible says that, but they have no idea how to apply that when it's actually their turn to forgive somebody.
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They know the Bible says that we should be a witness for Christ, that we should take every opportunity to share the good news of Jesus with boldness.
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They know the Bible says that we should share Christ with others, but when the opportunity comes, they have no wisdom in how to apply that.
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So do you understand there's a huge difference between knowledge and wisdom?
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Wisdom says, "Yes, the Bible says this, therefore I know how that's going to apply in my life." He says, "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise." All that stuff was introduction, because here's what I wanted us to land on here today.
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Making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.
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I'm going to do something I don't like to do, but I'm going to preach to you about what the Bible doesn't say.
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The reason I'm doing that is because Mark and I were talking this morning before we prayed.
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People get this verse wrong all the time.
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They misquote it.
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And I want you to see what the Bible actually says, not what you think it says, or not what you heard somebody misquote.
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First of all, it doesn't say don't waste time.
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God says make the best use out of it.
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or redeem, maybe your Bible says that.
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Make the best use of...
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Do you know that's one word in the Greek?
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And it is such an interesting word.
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It is not at all what I was expecting when I was studying this.
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And I don't usually stand up and share, well, here's what the original language says, but when it's relevant, I think I need to share that.
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And it really was here because when I looked this up and was studying this, I was like, I was not expecting that.
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The word for redeem or make the best use of or however it's translated, it's one word in the Greek literally translates to "out of market" or "buy out of the marketplace." What is that all about?
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Understand in this day when Paul was writing this, there were certain merchants that would only pass through town on one day a week.
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They'd come through town, they'd set up, they're available to sell things to you for a while, and then they tear down and they're gone, and we'll see you next week." So this idea was, when the merchant was coming in town, you better be ready, because you need to take that opportunity to buy up what he has, because he's not going to be around in a little bit.
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Okay? You can't say, "Well, I'm going to take a nap, and then I'm going to go down. He's not going to be there." Or, "You know what, I'm not feeling so good today, I'll check back tomorrow." He ain't going to be there tomorrow.
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He's passing through just once this week, and if you miss this opportunity to buy up what he has, you're out of luck.
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You're out of luck.
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We have something like that in more modern times.
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Well, when I say modern times, I'm showing my age.
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So here's one just for the more mature among us.
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How many people by show of hands remember the Blue Light Special at Kmart?
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Just come on, just satisfy my curiosity.
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How many people have no idea what the Blue Light Special is?
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Okay, a bunch of you do.
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That's okay, we're not judging.
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You're just showing your age.
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Okay, how does the Blue Light Special work?
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Come on, shout it out.
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How does the Blue Light Special work?
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They make the announcement over the thing, attention Kmart shoppers, and then they're like, "We're having a Blue Light Special on Sony Walkman." Like, that's really showing your age.
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on sundials. We're having a blue light special on sundials.
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Get them while they're hot. And what that meant was you had an hour to get to the sundial department and save, you know, 20 percent or whatever on a sundial. But you only had an hour. That was the Kmart blue light special. Believe it or not, this is the same kind of thing that he's talking about here. Redeeming the time is buying up opportunity. That's what he's saying.
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You only have a limited opportunity, so make sure you rush and get after it and be urgent and buy every opportunity that the Lord provides to you.
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So he doesn't say don't waste time, which is good advice.
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More specifically, he says make the best use of it.
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But also, I want you to notice, he doesn't say make the best use of time because the days are short.
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That's true, but that's not what he says.
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Look, he says, "Because the days are," say it, "evil." "Make the best use of time because the days are evil." What in the world does that mean?
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Listen really closely.
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I won't misquote it on this, but this is the key to this text, so I want you to hear it.
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There is one good thing about evil, and that is this.
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It gives us the opportunity to show the love of Christ.
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I'm not saying evil and calamity and hardship, I'm not saying those are good things in and of themselves, but there's something good that happens when evil shows up, as it provides the opportunity to run in there, to show the love of Christ.
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In other words, days of evil are days of opportunity.
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Can you elaborate? Absolutely.
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For example, children without a stable home environment, for whatever reason, children who are abused, neglected.
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I think we'd all agree that's an evil thing, right?
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But that gives us opportunity, right?
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And our small group goes to the Mars Home for Youth to show the love of Christ, play with these kids, leave them with a Bible.
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So do you see how something evil turned into an opportunity for us?
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That's why I get so fired up about outreach.
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Like, do you mean to tell me there's nothing in this community that you see that you're like, "Man, we need to run in there and take advantage of an opportunity to share the love of Christ?" Yeah, it's a horrible thing when children are not treated the way they should.
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Therefore, we see that as opportunity.
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Let's go in there and love them. Let's go in there and tell them about Jesus.
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Another example is, think of the hurricane relief.
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Again, horrible, but it's also opportunity.
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To give, to go, to pray, to help.
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Days of evil are days of opportunity.
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Domestic abuse, always evil, always wicked, always wrong, but also always an opportunity.
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jump in there with the love of Christ. Say, "Look, you are love." So you see, the days of evil are days of opportunity.
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And I think if you meditate on this, you can understand what a glorious thing this was.
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Hypothetically, if the world was perfect and optimal, and everything was always running the way it should, and everybody was honoring Christ as they should, we'd never have opportunity to to show grace and forgiveness and mercy.
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We never have the opportunity to go the extra mile.
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Paul's saying because the days are evil, if we're smart, or if we're wise specifically, we're going to take up every opportunity that we can get and let the light of Christ shine through us.
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That's wisdom.
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That's wisdom.
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I'm going to buy up every opportunity I can in every stage of life that I'm in.
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Let me ask you, what life circumstance are you in right now that you won't always be in?
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What life circumstance, what stage of life are you in right now that you won't always be in?
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And when you answer that question, whether you're a teenager or an empty nester or wherever you are in between, I'm a single person, I'm married, I have like seven kids under the age of five, and that applies to most of us in here.
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And whatever stage of life you're in shows you your opportunity.
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God's provided for you, because we always think, I've been guilty of this church, let's repent of this.
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We always think this, it's going to be easier at the next stage of life.
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I'm going to get serious about serving Christ when...
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And it's easy to sort of do that all through life, right?
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Like when you're in high school, you can say, "You know what?
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I'll serve Christ when I'm done with high school." But then when you're done with high school, you think, "Well, I wanna, you know, I gotta get in the workforce, or maybe I'm thinking about going to college or whatever.
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Once I get that stuff figured out, then I'm gonna get real serious about serving Christ then." And then once you're in college, if that's the choice you make, then you're studying, and you're working eight jobs, and doing all this other stuff, and you're like, "I can't really serve Christ now, but you know what?
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When I'm done with college, that's going to free up my schedule.
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I'll be serving Christ." And then you're done with college, and you're looking to get married.
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It's just hard as a single person to do it, but I think it'll be a lot easier once I'm married, And now you're waiting until that point, but then once you're married, you realize, "Now I have less time than I did when I was single and more responsibility." But you know what? When we have kids, that's when I'm going to get serious about serving Christ, because we're going to want them to grow up in the church, and then we have all these kids, and you're like, "Well, obviously they're too little now. I can't really serve Christ now because they're so little.
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and they get a little older, we'll be able to serve Christ better.
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And they get a little older, and you say, well, maybe when the kids get a little older, and that turns into, you know, when the kids are out of the house.
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When the kids are out of the house, that'll be really the time to serve Christ then, because I won't have the...
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But then, oh, the kids are getting married now, I'm helping get them started with their life.
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And after I help them get settled, now all of a sudden, you know what?
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They need help with the grandkids now.
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So it's hard for me to really get involved in serving Christ because I got to help them with the grandkids and then it's over.
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And foolishness looks back on that and says, well, I guess I never had the opportunity to serve Christ.
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When the reality is this, you had many different opportunities.
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Many different opportunities you just weren't wise enough to take.
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You get one trip through life. What are you doing with it?
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Next week kicks off our new ministry year, as Corinne said.
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We're going to be back in verse-by-verse study through the book of Acts.
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And I'm so excited for this.
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We're going to go through shipwrecks and snake bites.
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And we're going to see the apostle Paul continuing his journey to spread the gospel as we go through Acts chapter 21 through 28.
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And I was reading and preparing the preaching calendar.
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And when you see all of these things, I just kept asking myself, what keeps him going?
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Because we live in a day, it's just so easy to quit.
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And yes, following Christ is hard and ministry is hard.
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And I just want to quit.
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Not Paul, he was like the Energizer Bunny.
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He just kept going and going and going.
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I saw the theme at least twice in that chunk of Scripture.
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The answer is right there in the Bible.
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Paul found his courage and his strength in the Lord.
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That's why if we have that slide, this is our theme for the next year.
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I will not fear.
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I will not fear.
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This is going to be the message next week that's going to kick us off.
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Because you might not want to admit it, but every single person in this room is afraid of something.
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I'm not afraid of anything. Yes, you are.
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There is something deep down that maybe you don't want to talk about.
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There's something lingering over you that brings you into the temptation to fear.
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How do we get from being overwhelmed with the anxiety and fears that life brings to being like this guy here?
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Well, the reason we picked that image is because our theme verse for the year is going to be Proverbs 28.1. It says, "The righteous are bold as a lion." The righteous are bold as a lion.
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And when you know the Lord, and you are walking with the Lord, you will get the fearlessness of the Lord, knowing, "How's that go, Darren Keller?
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There's the two things, God has a plan, and God's in control." When you know that, you are this guy.
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So as I close, you know, church, there's lots to be done.
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There's lots of leadership that's needed, and there's lots of work that's needed.
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We have a lot of opportunities ahead of us right here in this church.
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With our facilities ministry.
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You know, the Lord blessed us to be able to move into this place that requires a special stewardship.
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We're going to need help in that area.
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We're going to need help with the AV team.
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If you're a technical savvy person, you like video and production and all those kinds of things that I know nothing about. We have a great team that's looking to grow and produce videos to be used in church and to use them as a tool in making disciples.
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We need help with the web podcast.
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It's ridiculous how many downloads we get of that podcast every week.
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What's the average, Mark, would you say? 350?
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Yeah, we get about 350 downloads of the sermon every week.
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And it's not like my grandma's on there like 350 times.
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Download, download, download, download, download, download, download, download.
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This will make Jeff feel so good about himself.
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My grandma doesn't even know how to do that.
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It's coming from all over like Ghana and Japan and like what?
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But we need help in that particular ministry.
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Communications, advertising.
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We need small group leaders to raise up.
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We need Bible study leaders.
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We need help with children as we continue to grow.
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The nursery, the Harvest Kids, the Harvest Academy, Youth Group, Arrow, as we continue to grow.
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And more people are coming and seeking to be growing as a disciple and making disciples.
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We're going to need help.
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Hospitality.
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Making sure that every single person that comes through these doors knows the reality that they are loved.
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If you go to our website, there's a page that says "Opportunities." You can see some of the opportunities posted now, and more are coming.
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I like that word "opportunity" because that's exactly what the Bible says here.
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Right now, we have opportunity.
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The Lord put many opportunities for you.
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right here, for us, in this place, right here, right now, the question we have to wrestle with is this, will we be wise enough to take the opportunity?
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, that's not the motivation to get busy serving Christ.
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That's not the motivation to get busy in evaluating our personal walk, Our motivation is because the days are evil.
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God, You have provided us so many opportunities to serve You.
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There are so many people in this church that have been tirelessly, long hours and putting in the extra effort to do ministry with excellence, Father.
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I thank You so much for every single one of them.
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Father, I pray as Jesus told us to pray in Matthew 9.
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He said, "Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into the field." And that's what I'm praying for, Father.
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That from this group, you would raise up more ministers, more disciple makers, whether it's people that are looking to lead, or whether it's people that want to serve behind the scenes, Whether it's people that want to work on the technical end of things, or it's people that want to really interact with others in a very relational way.
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Father, give us the discernment to evaluate every opportunity that you put before us.
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Give us the wisdom to take these opportunities.
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It's to your glory and honor, it's for the advancement of your kingdom.
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Father, I thank you for the unspeakable joy that you give us when we serve you.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Ephesians 5:15-16
Honestly, what ways do you personally waste too much time?
From Ephesians 2:10, how do we know what works God prepared for us beforehand? How can we discover them?
Ephesians 5:8 says walk as children of light; what does that mean, exactly? How does a person obey this? What effect will this have?
Breakout Questions:
What circumstance of life has put you in a unique opportunity to serve Christ? How are you doing with "making the best use of the time"?