Sermon Central
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Redeem The Time Series
Contributed by Steve Malone on Feb 19, 2019 (message contributor)
Summary: In this final message of our series 'This Year can Be Different' we are going to talk what we need to do in order to redeem the time - 'trust in God's timing, and keep doing good.'
Redeem The Time
Good morning MGCC!
Welcome to His Church!
I want to start off our time with some words from a prayer that Moses prayed over 3,400 years ago…
Would you stand and pray it with me.
We will take turns I’ll go first.
Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.
Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.
Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death— they are like the new grass of the morning:
In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered…
Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away…
Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom…
May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands.
Psalm 90:1-6,10,12,17
PRAY
MGCC… ‘This Year Can Be Different’ (do you actually believe that?). YES – it can be different
• If you grow like Jesus
• If you embrace and keep striving to live out these 3 things
• If you adopt the philosophy of what does it matter
“What does it matter, what happens to me – I have chosen my calling over my comfort…”
“What does it matter, what people say about me – I am living for God’s approval, not man’s approval…”
NOW – that is all I can say about where we have been the last 4 weeks…
BUT UNDERSTAND – everything we have talked about is 100% Biblical and if you and I really strive to live it out
This year will be – different, better, brighter, bolder…etc
IF – you missed a message check it out online, listen to them again… I plan on doing just that.
OKAY – let’s do this… week 5 ‘This Year Can Be Different’
IF YOU – “Redeem The Time”
UNDERSTAND – time is the great equalizer.
We all get the same amount.
There is no upper class, middle class or lower class when it comes to time.
I MEAN – this year everyone of us will get…
• 365 days
• 8,760 hours
• 525,600 minutes
• 31,536,000 seconds
Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom… - Psalm 90:12
Now Paul wrote these words to the church in Ephesus…
Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
The word redeem comes from the Greek word
Redeem exagorazo (xa gor azo)… to rescue from loss.
Which may be way the NIV translates it, “make the most of every opportunity.”
NOW – there are 2 words for time ‘Chronos’ and ‘Karios.’
The first word is Chronos and the second word is Karios
Chronos is where we get our word chronology.
It’s calendar time…. It’s clock time.
Chronos is sequential… past – present – future.
AND - it is linear it moves in one direction.
NOW - according to Greek Mythology Chronos was a short god with muscular legs and winged heels.
AND - he was like really fast, so fast that once he passed you, he was impossible to catch.
AND SO - to symbolize the transient nature of time Chronos had a full head of hair in front – but he was bald in back.
In other words you cannot grasp the present. once it is past.
One last observation… Chronos if a human construct.
IT’S HOW - we humans measure time…
BUT LISTEN – our God does not exist within the space time dimensions that he created.
A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. – Psalm 90:4
SO – we need to be very careful not to put God on our clock, on our timeline.
BY THE WAY – it was not until the 14th century that man invited what we know as the mechanical clock..
HOWEVER - that clock still had no minute hand.
In the 1500’s the clock at Wells Cathedral in England began to chime every quarter hour… so time was kind of spending up.
THEN - around 1670 the minute hand finally became common place… BUT – it was until the 18th century that portable time keeping devices were invented
