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December 14, 2020 7:00 am
Today on fellowship and the word pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ always has an acute neglected area of your life you always. It was a weeping sewing principal cannot escape that's physically, relationally, spiritually, professionally, emotionally and financially.
You neglect something over a long period of time in your life will suffer major joining us today on this additional Fellowship in the Word pastor Bill Gebhardt Fellowship in the Words the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible church located in Metairie, Louisiana going faster now is once again he shows us how god's word meets our world as someone died in the first minute they died to see they died too early they died too soon.
i mean, lord, if you were looking for people to take off this planet. i could give you a list of people that i'm not sure who would miss them.
you see that's hard for us.
when i went to dallas seminary. i was in the very first chapel that we had and it was wonderful here thousand men singing in all that i was sitting on the end of an aisle by myself and i we were singing along and then i looked across the town there was a guy sitting right on the end of the other and ass are denied certain nodded and we kept singing and when chapel landed that we started talking so you want to go to lunch and we did and that his name was jim and he and i became a best friends from seminary. he was the guy that you know we shared a lot. i mean we both staggered through baby hebrew together and now i both about showing tremendous interest, but almost no ability when it came to understanding basic hebrew grammar, but we made it and we both felt the same way we both felt that that god had brought us that school to train us that we were called by god. we both should go window church ministry pulpit and pastor congregations we went with tremendous you know conviction about that.
we are so happy for each other and so the lord led jim to vermont and he led me to louisiana.
jim was originally from missouri and i was in pennsylvania and then and then the lord gave jim a few years in vermont and then he got cancer and then he went home to be with jesus and i got decades in louisiana and i don't know why you see i don't see how i would have merited more time and jim see you never understand that it's okay, see i can't possibly understand that the god hasn't asked me to do that when he is asked me to do is to make the most of the allotted time that i have that's what is ask you to do and he's asked me to do exactly the same thing. the time that i can make the most of it is now time. that's what james tells me you want to make the most of sometime make the most of now time because i'm all i really know i have.
you see, that's what james is saying ben franklin said lost time is never found again was exactly right. once you lose it, you've lost it. now you might be thinking about this time i find unknown this this is one of those make me feel guilty kind of sermons you know that i've got a boy i waste so much time aiming, you know this is really going to be bad and you know what i meant and i won't have to get into the bible more than i've ever done before.
and then i probably get a minute have to get out of the mission more than i did have to witness the people were. i probably have to go to for mission trip sometime name and that i know this kind, and i don't have to give up my hobbies. no more naps. i met have to give all this i meant to give us all up because i make the most of my time. you can be further from the truth that is not making the most of your time. not at all true with me now to ecclesiastes chapter 3, a very famous chapter. ecclesiastes chapter 3, right after the book of proverbs, ecclesiastes 3. solomon writes this he says there is an appointed time for everything. now he's going to give examples. but don't miss this. there is an appointed time for every thing now. the last i looked even in english it's the same.
everything is everything is an appointed time for everything and there's time, and there is a time for every event under heaven there is a time to give birth and a time to die.
a time to plan a time to uproot what is planted a time to kill and a time to heal. what time to tear down a time to build up a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn her time to dance.
a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones. a time to embrace and a time to shun embracing a time to search and a time to give up us lost the time to keep and a time to throw away.
a time to tear apart a time to sew together and a time to be side at a time to speak in a time to love and a time to hate and a time for war and a time for peace. now, without looking at individual things because are only examples. the thing that i get when i look at that passage is this. you always have enough time for everything you have enough time. you see, that's what he saying there's a time for everything, any advantage that we have that moses had the david had that paul has shows up in verse 11. he said he has made everything appropriate in its time and he is also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which god is done in the beginning, even to the end. the big advantage we have over every other created animal in existence as a human being. we have eternity in our i know the time has a perspective to hear this time will and there's a time when all step from this time into eternity he's put that in my heart that, by the way, makes me able to understand and appreciate this time in a very very different way. there's a time for everything in your life and a lot of times, as christians, i don't think necessarily we think that for really serving the lord that that's what the bible means it's exactly what it means again. i remember when i was a seminary. they were in a class and they were talking about how dedicated you needed to be to be a pastor and they were talking about this pastor a very famous one. i won't mention his name and he was so dedicated to only and constantly serving the lord, that in the morning when the morning paper came he would only read the morning paper standing up, and only the appropriate articles so that he wouldn't waste any time as he served jesus on centenary thinking while i read the cartoons in a chaise lounge you know sports page.
i mean i'm just wow. i must not be dedicated. see, that's the wrong approach. fatigue is not godliness. you see, fatigue is not godliness when it comes a wise use of time. chuck swindoll was only chuck can do says this strangely, the one thing we need is the last thing we consider we been programmed to think that fatigue is the next to godliness that the more exhausted we are and look the more spiritual we are and the more we earn god smile when approval we bury all of our thoughts of enjoying life. for we all know that if we going to be committed truly committed christians, we have to be those who work work work. preferably, he says, with great intensity. as a result, he said, we have become a generation of people who worship their work and work at their play and play at their worship.
he says hold it.
whoever wrote that rule. why have we brought that philosophy.
what gave someone the right to declare such a statement. i challenge you to support from scriptures or to go back into the life and lifestyle of jesus christ and find a trace of corroborating evidence that he embraced such a theory. some will be surprised to learn that there is not one reference in the new testament, saying or even implying that jesus intensely worked and labored in an occupation to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion know that there are several that were told that he deliberately took a break. he got away from the demands of public ministry and enjoyed periods of relaxation with his disciples. i'm not saying that he rambled through his ministry and an aimless halfhearted fashion. not at all, but neither did he come anywhere near having an officer.
never once did we find jesus ever in a frenzy or in a hurry. his was a life of beautiful balance he accomplished everything the father sent him to do everything and he did it without ignoring the essential times of leisure. if that is the way he lived, then it makes good sense for you and me to live that way to you see, that's for talking about we talk about the wise use of our time were not talking about everything's gotta be under the back burner longer to do is dedicate myself to one aspect of ministry. i do give you a few guidelines.
just maybe 45 guidelines here that i think are very helpful when it comes the wise use of time. the first one is this there is an accumulative value of investing small amounts of time in certain activities over a long period of time. there's a cumulative value of investing small amounts of time in certain activities over a long period of time, but let me illustrate your so why this makes sense.
what i said to you. okay i'm going to get in shape tomorrow i'm i'm getting in shape tomorrow to get in shape like that about this one. i'm going to know the word of god, i'm gonna know the word of god from genesis to revelation.
tomorrow will you know i'm going to make a lifelong friend tomorrow small increments of time over a long period of time gives us almost all of the great things in life that we want.
she small increments over a long period of time. secondly, yes second guideline.
there are rarely immediate consequences for neglecting single installments of time in any area of life.
this is problematic. there are rarely immediate consequences when you ignore the things the small things that you should be doing with your life. you see, a marriage doesn't begin to fall apart in an hour or day or week or month. you see, it takes time it takes ignoring each other over a period of time. it retakes less than being what you should be over period of time.
hey, you can ignore your kids for periods of time.
it doesn't look like there's anything to pay for that at all that there is you see it first 2000.
greg is any consequences to this. hey, i'm busy. i'm sorry. i like to do more with you, but i don't have the time, it doesn't work like that. it's the same thing with our walk with the lord is exactly the same. you see, i can neglect that time i can neglect my time with the lord and doesn't look like it affects me in all enjoy do it tomorrow the next day the next day in the next week and next month and then eventually you know what it affects me and the key is because if you do things on a steady basis.
small things over a long period of time in the writers of your life. it's the best thing for you. thirdly, neglect always has an accumulative effect when you neglect an area of your life that you shouldn't be in always have an accumulative effect. there is a reaping and sowing principle that you cannot escape that's physically, relationally, spiritually, professionally, emotionally and financially. you neglect something over a long period of time in your life and you will suffer major consequences. you have kids or don't know you or don't like you. you have a spouse that doesn't know you are like you say you'll never cultivate the friendships that you really need to have as you go through this life you never really walk and be as close to the lord in your prayer life and your time is unless you do this it always is going to pay for christianity is not a matter what we try to make it the date and event faith. if i can just simply get to an event, then my i'm walking with jesus. it doesn't work like that. that's not what christianity is it staying in its day out. it's all of the normal and mundane aspects of life.
fourthly, don't let the urgent things squeeze out the important things in your life. this is what were more guilty of is americans and almost anything else.
don't let the urgent things squeeze out the important things in your life. i don't know of anything so common to all of us is that one of the bill was as we've use them on the office here for years said it over and over again, but i think the truth of the when i first heard it is something we all need to hear.
you cannot overestimate the unimportance of almost everything you have to live by that you cannot overestimate the unimportance of almost everything, but we don't. it's urgent, it's urgent. this is urgent. there are some things are like the urgent something that require our full attention at that moment, but be really careful and apply wisdom is the what you think is urgent when it's taking away from what you know to be important in your life howard hendricks.
as i said, my mentor at dallas seminary said this, he said if you are too busy in the ministry for your family. you are way busier than god ever intended you to be. see, you need to be reminded of that all know the ministry needs me. listen. one thing i know about jesus. he doesn't need anything you can do this with me and he can do this without anybody can do it. you see gas to be really careful as you balances in your life. don't let the urgent things of your life. squeeze out the important things in the last guideline i like to make is this one in critical areas of your life. you cannot make up for lost time. some of you know that you can't see. you can have that 18-year-old that you don't have a relationship with that is going through a lot of stress and you can understand you. you know i can't make up for this.
i'm sorry for but i can't make up for it when you're in college one of the things you can do is abuse time, because nobody's around the hold you accountable to. i would say i was the king of the abusers. but i was on the court. the first time i went to college and what you could do is you could not go to class not listen at the lectures and if you were smart enough, you could pull what they say in college is an all-nighter all-nighter now all-nighter. by implication, by the way something means this people to know how to manage her time at all.
when you say the word all-nighter. that means you didn't get to know how to manage her time at all, but now i'm forced to interview smart enough you could do it all-nighter and you could still get a b. if you really change my name gedney but you get to be pulling all-nighter night had a whole semester.
you do any of it but not midterm and final can be pulling all-nighter elements say something when it comes to something like a marriage that will work. you can see, and i know we've had a lousy 15 years, but stay up all night and will make this a great marriage by morning. you see, you can't. you can't make up for lost time about that with the things in life that are really important. you can't make up for. you can instantly become a spiritually minded christian, you can't say to the lord, lord, tomorrow i'm gonna pray for 16 hours because i why haven't prayed in months but if i do 16 hours one day everything will be good. it won't you see you can't make with the important things in life you can't make up for them for lost time for some guidelines.
one other thing to remember when it comes to time.
time is not your sovereign crisis or sovereign time is your slave interest in a time is your slave, you can do your time what you want to do. time is not the master you're the master one other reminder. is this sometime in the near future time will vanish for some of you are. some of us and will move from this life into the eternal state. time will be no more that's eternity in our heart. that's one of the great things about being a believer outer man is decaying, but the inner man being renewed day by day absent from the body is present with the lord.
eternity not a long time. the absence of time, time to be irrelevant. but while i'm here. i have to believe job and paul are right that each of us are allocated a certain amount of time each of us has to ask ourselves the question based on the time it's been allocated to us in light of my past experiences in light of my present circumstances. in light of my future hopes and dreams. what is the wise thing for me to do with my time. after all, in a certain way, your time is your life spray father my prayer this morning is relatively simple, i think. so often we consider ourselves to be victims of time instead of masters of we consider the time dictates to us everything we have to do, and that we have no free will and is overall before the word of god says it to the contrary, we need the redeemer time. we need to make the most of our time. father i pray that each of us examine our lives and to just think or write down what's the most important things in our life.
our relationship with you our understanding of your will through your word.
our relationship with our family, our spouse, our children are brothers and sisters in christ, our neighbors, the callings we work with the kinds of things that are important to us and on the basis of that we make choices.
thank you father that you have designed us in such a way that you have given us plenty of time to accomplish your will. we don't have to feel guilty about leisure.
we don't have to feel guilty about downtime, quiet time.
our time, but father, we need to make the most because you have allocated to each and every one of us prescribed. we passed through Gebhardt on the radio ministry of fellowship. lord, if you ever miss one of our broadcast or maybe you dislike listen to the message one more time. remember the good a great website called one place.com that's one place.com and you can listen the Fellowship in the Word online event website you will find on with today's broadcast but also many of her previous audio programs as well at Fellowship in the Word. we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. we ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help his radio ministry continuous broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly with just the 100th support for ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word.
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